I'm gonna post what I think should be the next evolution of Splinter Twin. I'm quite experienced with the deck and played it ever sine that fateful day when Ofelia 4-0 a few Daily Events with a tempo version.
I don't particulary like combo decks buy love any list with Snapcasters, plus I actually LOVE the tempo style while always threatening to win on the spot. Scares the opponents so much
It's obviously inspired by the recent GP winning list, but this one is incredibly more resilient (if you play smart) in the mirror, has a much stronger tempo play style, and is better against decks with lots of disruption and removal which usually give Twin trouble, like Jund or (now quite less) WUR.
RUG has been done before, sure, but with this new disposition of creatures between the main and the SB I think we have game against anyone and anything:
Obviously it's just a refinement of the deck and nothing too revolutionary, but the inmense power that the Goyf gives to the tempo strategy, plus the ability to defend while assembling the combo, while beating with a giant 4/5 while at the same time tapping the opponent with Pestermites and threatening the combo is usually just too much. Try it, really
Commune with the Gods is an awesome new tool too, since it helps you find the piece you want (including the SB creatures like Clique or Lavamancer), fills the yard for Snap and Goyf, and is Snapcasterable itself. I think 1 is enough though, because you lose tempo by casting it.
In the sideboard, the Baloths are RIDICULOUS against Jund and Liliana decks, and can single handedly give you the ggs if discarded :nod::nod:
Casting them against aggresive decks is very feasible too and a huge help, and I've even Splintered Twin a Baloth against a burn deck!! (yep, then it's quite difficult to lose :D)
Looks promising! I'll take it a spin in cockatrice.
Hi I went 3-0-1 in local 10 ppl tournament yesterday so pretty good even thought the deck isnt complete and SB was mostly just random cards I had at home and thought they might be useful:
Magma jets were awesome, instant speed removal which improves draws, its not bad as 2-of
round 1: melira pod
G1 I easily comboed at turn 4, G2 was bit longer. He was atacking me with finks and but I could answer most of his creatures and killed him with kiki and pestermite while he was holding natures claim in hand. He never played pod in those games.
SB: 2 flame slashes for peek and probe
G2: Jund
G1 I mulled to 5 on the play (2 lands, snapcaster, exarch, twin)while he started T2 goyf T3 liliana. But When he tapped for liliana I comboed off because I drew only lands
G2: He was stuck on 2 lands most of the time. I played some card draw and started atacking with clique which was removed. When he got 3 mana and played liliana I comboed and win.
SB: titan and batterskull for I think peek and probe
G3: Junk
G1 I got crushed by lingering souls
G2 He IoKed my pestermite to play extirpate turn 2. Then pithing needle on exarch.I managed to remove all his threats. After that the game went into weird state where I had hand full of cards but nothing relevant same as him until he drew extirpate to remove remand which I had 3 in my hand. Luckily I drew batterskull which he had no answer to.
We didnt play G3 because the turn ended.
SB: dragon, 2 electrolyze, ratchet bomb, out twin, peek, probe, sleight of hand
G4: RDW - standart one with bolts, moons and some stuff
G1 combo off T5 or something
G2: I got under pressure and stabilize at life to get bolt into my head few turns later
G3: I removed his early beaters but I spent most of my cards on this. He got some guys on board, 2 chandras phoenix, and some 2/2s while I was beating him with pestermite and clique. Cryptic comamnd and snapcaster with splinter twin gave me enough time to survive.
SB: batterskull, 2 flame slash, ratchet bomb, 3 electrolyze for 4 remands, peek, probe, and sleight of hand.
I was pretty happy with deck although its not complete and probably made many mistakes while SBing.
What do you use in SB for jund? It seems pretty difficult matchup.
Against jund last night I boarded in 2 threads of disloyalty, 2 Batterskull, 2 Blood moon. I wasn't crazy about blood moon but batterskull is nuts against them. Threads is solid but they can abrupt decay it, still better to have them use their removal on that though so you can hope to combo.
I played the GP Antwerp Tempo Twin list at FNM last night with 2 sleight of hand over 2 peek because I dislike peek. My sideboard was also quite a bit different due to the meta at my store.
Round 1: Kiki Pod
Game 1: He played turn 2 Spellskite into turn 4 thrun into turn 5 Sigarda and tried to aggro me out. After he cast Sigarda I crypticed eot to put spellskite back in his hand and comboed off.
Game 2: He mulled to 6 and kept a 1 lander that had gavony township and 2 birds of paradise, he never drew a forest.
2-0 (1-0)
Round 2: Grixis Splinter Twin
Game 1: Game one we both just sat back and built up our hands for a while, eventually he cast a pestermite and in response I cliqued him and got rid of splinter twin. From there I beat him down with my clique and 2 pestermites while he sat on countermagic waiting for me to try to combo.
Game 2: Game two he played turn 2 and turn 3 spellskites and on turn 4 cast pestermite. I played a deceiver exarch after he attacked with pestermite and on turn 5 I slammed Kiki-Jiki while he had 3 mana up. Turns out he didn;t have the counterspell and instead was hoping to tap my guy with pestermite in hand. That doesn't work with kiki thankfully and I took the win.
2-0 (2-0)
Round 3: JUND
Game 1: Game one I kept a very land heavy hand and he started things off with deathrite which I bolted followed by Bob. While he drew tons of cards and bob chipped away at his life total I just kept casting dudes into his removal. Eventually a lavamancer and a pestermite stuck and I started attacking. I got him to 1 before he killed my creatures AND his bob to stay alive.
Game 2: My opponent kept a hand with 2 thoughtseize and an inquisition but no gas. He stripped my a combo piece, a batterskull, and a lavamancer from my hand but while he was looking for spells that did things I drew another combo piece and got there.
Game 3: Game three was a long one that involved him casting slaughter games naming twin the turn before I was going to go off. As he removed all the twins from my deck he commented on not being able to find kiki jiki. I informed him I had sided it out and he sat back comfortably thinking he had the game under control. A few turns later a resolved batterskull locked up the game for me.
2-1 (3-0)
Round 4: GR Tron
My friend and I were the only two undefeateds so we IDed and went and got food instead of playing.
0-0-1 (3-0-1)
Top 4:
We all decided to spit top 4 for half a box of Theros a piece instead of playing the elimination rounds. Had we played it out I would have been paired against the grixis twin player again. Last week I played all in twin and split top 4 going 3-1 after losing to jund round one and beating the mirror, uwr control, and a grixis tempo deck. This week playing tempo twin felt much better and in particular the jund match up felt much less one sided. For now I'll be sticking with the tempo build as there is a bit too much UWR, Jund, and mirror matches for me to feel comfortable playing all in twin.
I can't remember how I sideboarded all of my matches but against jund I went -2 sleight of hand -1 kiki-jiki -2 cryptic command -1 dispel +2 batterskull +2 threads of disloyalty +2 blood moon. I'm not sure blood moon was good enough, on paper it makes sense but my opp was prepared for it and routinely fetched his basics, I think the threat of having it is good because it makes them fetch suboptimally but actually bringing it in doesn't seem beneficial against opponents who expect it in this match. Cryptic probably would have been better then blood moon but I was worried it cost so much that it would just get taken by thoughtseize or lilianna and I wouldn't get value. Boarding out kiki when I knew he was on slaughter games felt risky but it is so hard to resolve the combo against them anyways that I figured kiki wasn't worth it. Because I had chose to board out kiki and not push the combo as hard the dispel seemed unnecessary so that came out too. Batterskull is amazing for those who haven't cast it against jund or uwr, for as long as those two decks are good I will have 2 in my sb.
I'm interested to hear people's thoughts on my boarding against Jund. Like I said my MD is the same as the Antwerp list except I run 2 basics instead of the tec edges and 2 sleight of hand instead of 2 peek. My sideboard looks like this:
tempo version plays very differently from the all in version. tempo delays itself a turn or more to check if the coast is clear to land both combo pieces. whereas all in typically lands the creature on the turn 3 end step, then checks to see if its okay to slam splinter twin on turn 4 (this is how you should be doing it, if you're not). i've seen way too many players opt to probe on turn 1 or 2 as a cantrip, then get blown out when trying to combo off.
anywho, what was the rationale for running boomerang again? very rarely so i find myself bouncing lands. i'd rather use the easier to cast echoing truth in all in.
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I speak in sarcasm because calling people ******* ******** is not allowed.
tempo version plays very differently from the all in version. tempo delays itself a turn or more to check if the coast is clear to land both combo pieces. whereas all in typically lands the creature on the turn 3 end step, then checks to see if its okay to slam splinter twin on turn 4 (this is how you should be doing it, if you're not). i've seen way too many players opt to probe on turn 1 or 2 as a cantrip, then get blown out when trying to combo off.
anywho, what was the rationale for running boomerang again? very rarely so i find myself bouncing lands. i'd rather use the easier to cast echoing truth in all in.
That's not how I play Tempo Twin vs. All-In Twin. With Tempo Twin (I still like 8+ Exarchs; I'm dabbling with Breaching Hippocamp as Exarchs 9-10), I slam down Exarchs without bothering to protect them. I only put Twins on them when I have protection back-up (or I'm about to die). With All-In Twin, I either assemble the combo the turn I'm about to die or I wait until I can slam down an Exarch with protection, then a Twin. I've had success playing those two decks those ways--I play rather conservatively, and I tend to get blown out more by removal as All-In Twin than as Tempo Twin.
The rationale for running Boomerang is precisely so you can bounce early lands and kick opposing tempo way down. Multiples are slightly Magical Christmas Land but devastating.
That's not how I play Tempo Twin vs. All-In Twin. With Tempo Twin (I still like 8+ Exarchs; I'm dabbling with Breaching Hippocamp as Exarchs 9-10), I slam down Exarchs without bothering to protect them. I only put Twins on them when I have protection back-up (or I'm about to die). With All-In Twin, I either assemble the combo the turn I'm about to die or I wait until I can slam down an Exarch with protection, then a Twin. I've had success playing those two decks those ways--I play rather conservatively, and I tend to get blown out more by removal as All-In Twin than as Tempo Twin.
The rationale for running Boomerang is precisely so you can bounce early lands and kick opposing tempo way down. Multiples are slightly Magical Christmas Land but devastating.
I'm with you, Lectrys. What happens if you cast a T3 Exarch and then Probe to see the coast isn't clear? Now you have to go find another Exarch, or find a protective piece. And this of course assumes that our opponent is going to go for the greedy blowout; what if they just kill the Exarch on endstep anyway? I almost never slam T3 Exarch unless my opponent tapped out, or if I have a second Exarch in hand and I've Boomeranged his land T2, or if I T2'd a Spellskite. Otherwise, I will T4 Exarch with Dispel backup, so that I can T5 Twin with Dispel backup.
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It's your job win every game of Magic where you're not.
I'm with you, Lectrys. What happens if you cast a T3 Exarch and then Probe to see the coast isn't clear? Now you have to go find another Exarch, or find a protective piece. And this of course assumes that our opponent is going to go for the greedy blowout; what if they just kill the Exarch on endstep anyway? I almost never slam T3 Exarch unless my opponent tapped out, or if I have a second Exarch in hand and I've Boomeranged his land T2, or if I T2'd a Spellskite. Otherwise, I will T4 Exarch with Dispel backup, so that I can T5 Twin with Dispel backup.
Yea this is definitely how I play all in twin too. Occasionally you have to just jam it and hope but I see no reason to try to just run the combo out turn 4 every time and get blown out by removal. On the topic of peek/probe if your game plan is already to have back up then finding out what you're dispelling ahead of time really isn't worth it. If you're attentive and familiar with the format/decks you should already have a clear idea of what you have to beat. I'd rather be able to cast a sleight of hand turn 1-3 where peek/probe are just useless. When you're just learning the deck playing peek can be helpful but overall I feel like the card is an unnecessary crutch and even in tempo it being an instant isn't worth the lack of digging.
I'm gonna post what I think should be the next evolution of Splinter Twin. I'm quite experienced with the deck and played it ever sine that fateful day when Ofelia 4-0 a few Daily Events with a tempo version.
I don't particulary like combo decks buy love any list with Snapcasters, plus I actually LOVE the tempo style while always threatening to win on the spot. Scares the opponents so much
It's obviously inspired by the recent GP winning list, but this one is incredibly more resilient (if you play smart) in the mirror, has a much stronger tempo play style, and is better against decks with lots of disruption and removal which usually give Twin trouble, like Jund or (now quite less) WUR.
RUG has been done before, sure, but with this new disposition of creatures between the main and the SB I think we have game against anyone and anything:
Obviously it's just a refinement of the deck and nothing too revolutionary, but the inmense power that the Goyf gives to the tempo strategy, plus the ability to defend while assembling the combo, while beating with a giant 4/5 while at the same time tapping the opponent with Pestermites and threatening the combo is usually just too much. Try it, really
Commune with the Gods is an awesome new tool too, since it helps you find the piece you want (including the SB creatures like Clique or Lavamancer), fills the yard for Snap and Goyf, and is Snapcasterable itself. I think 1 is enough though, because you lose tempo by casting it.
In the sideboard, the Baloths are RIDICULOUS against Jund and Liliana decks, and can single handedly give you the ggs if discarded :nod::nod:
Casting them against aggresive decks is very feasible too and a huge help, and I've even Splintered Twin a Baloth against a burn deck!! (yep, then it's quite difficult to lose :D)
Hmm you consider adding Scavenging ooze to this list? Looks fun
how about thrun, the last troll? I recently came across him vs Jund and was annoyed how difficult it was to deal with.
I know the double green could be a problem, but with 4 mistys, and 2 breeding pools and could work out.
May proxy up 2 and try it out myself
No, you must always think of what this deck is trying to do. A Goyf on turn 2 is always pretty relevant because it provides a huge wall to the opponent's creatures while we assemble our combo, provides a quick clock if we want to go for the tempo kill, or drives away removal from the Pestermites and Exarchs.
A Thrun does absolutely nothing, sure, it's resilient, but what else? Tapping out for him in turn 4 is as improductive as is suicidal. You should be casting Splinter Twin on turn 4 and actually winning the game, or holding off with a Cryptic or Snap + Remand
As for Scavenging Ooze, yeah I tried it as a SB card and it can be good, problem is we do not have that many green sources to take advantage of it. That's also why Goyf is the best "blue" creature ever printed, he can be splashed almost anywhere with no downside whatsoever :nod::p
Just wondering if anyone's tried a URB version of the deck? Seems like having Thoughtseize and Inquisition would be much more useful than peek?
I actually played against URb twin last Friday at FNM, he ran 3 thoughtseize and 3 inquisition. I'm not 100% sure but I believe he cut down on counterspells for the discard with the reason being he'd be making his opp discard whatever it was he wanted to counter. I beat him 2-0 but he didn't draw discard either game and I was on tempo twin which tends to be favored in the match up. We were paired again in top 4 but everyone wanted to split so I didn't get a second chance to play him, I do know I was his only loss though. In a combo heavy meta the splash seems strong but in a jund/uwr heavy meta I don't think the discard is going to help you much, they have too much redundancy.
NullPointerException: And what do you remove from MD to have place for inq/thoughtseize? Peeks are already played at 2 so I can see th/IoK as substitute for them but I think you want 4 of your discard. It makes you more vulnerable to LD and I doubt you can play blood moon with 3 colours.
The idea is to take out Peek/Dispel/Vendillion for the Thoughtseize/Inquisition
This also gives us some cool side board options of:
Rakdos Charm - Good against graveyard decks, artifact decks, and the mirror (b/c of its deal 1 damage to opponent for each creature he/she owns mode. we can use this when our opponent tries to combo off)
Terminate - awesome removal against a lot of matches
Although this deck seems like tempo and more combo, but it does have a batterskill in the side
No, you must always think of what this deck is trying to do. A Goyf on turn 2 is always pretty relevant because it provides a huge wall to the opponent's creatures while we assemble our combo, provides a quick clock if we want to go for the tempo kill, or drives away removal from the Pestermites and Exarchs.
A Thrun does absolutely nothing, sure, it's resilient, but what else? Tapping out for him in turn 4 is as improductive as is suicidal. You should be casting Splinter Twin on turn 4 and actually winning the game, or holding off with a Cryptic or Snap + Remand
As for Scavenging Ooze, yeah I tried it as a SB card and it can be good, problem is we do not have that many green sources to take advantage of it. That's also why Goyf is the best "blue" creature ever printed, he can be splashed almost anywhere with no downside whatsoever :nod::p
Humor me on this: what if you played Mystic Snake instead of Cryptic Command? It would take a little bit of pressure off of the mana base; and maybe I'm just being really greedy here, but Splinter Twin on a Mystic Snake sounds sweet (much like how UWR decks will use Twin on a Wall of Omens). It also makes Commune with the Gods marginally better.
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It's your job win every game of Magic where you're not.
Humor me on this: what if you played Mystic Snake instead of Cryptic Command? It would take a little bit of pressure off of the mana base; and maybe I'm just being really greedy here, but Splinter Twin on a Mystic Snake sounds sweet (much like how UWR decks will use Twin on a Wall of Omens). It also makes Commune with the Gods marginally better.
Haha that sounds amazing, I'm not sure it would really work out (it seems a bit too "cute" since Cryptic has such an unrivaled power level and versatility) but it would certainly be awesome to Splinter Twin a Mystic Snake.
I also like putting the 2/2 body for pressure though. Will test and see
Haha that sounds amazing, I'm not sure it would really work out (it seems a bit too "cute" since Cryptic has such an unrivaled power level and versatility) but it would certainly be awesome to Splinter Twin a Mystic Snake.
I also like putting the 2/2 body for pressure though. Will test and see
The Twin on Snake interaction is certainly "cute," but GUU really is easier to achieve than UUU. And making the Commune with the Gods better is good too. In fact, you could probably cut a couple more spells and Snapcasters, up the overall creature count, and go up to 2 or even three Communes if you wanted.
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It's not your job to win games of Magic where you're mana screwed.
It's your job win every game of Magic where you're not.
The Twin on Snake interaction is certainly "cute," but GUU really is easier to achieve than UUU. And making the Commune with the Gods better is good too. In fact, you could probably cut a couple more spells and Snapcasters, up the overall creature count, and go up to 2 or even three Communes if you wanted.
The versatility of cryptic outweighs the body gained by mystic snake, not even close. I use all four modes of cryptic regularly and the counter is honestly the one I'm least excited about.
Also blue is the primary color the deck needs so triple blue seems significantly easier and more important to achieve then UUG.
Yeah, the trouble with pulling Cryptic is that you can't boot Spellskite/Linvala as often anymore. Since Tempo Twin tends to stick Exarchs without Twins for several turns, Cryptic's EOT bounce mode is actually fairly viable.
Don't get me wrong; I'm well aware of how powerful Cryptic Command is. But very few things in Magic are "strictly better." I'm merely pointing out the small ways in which Mystic Snake provides value to Danteh's deck construction in a way that Cryptic Command doesn't, mostly to justify how much fun it would be to slam a spare Twin on a Snake.
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Looks promising! I'll take it a spin in cockatrice.
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Batterskull
1 Dismember
1 Dispel
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Grim Lavamancer
3 Molten Rain
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Electrolyze
:):):)
Against jund last night I boarded in 2 threads of disloyalty, 2 Batterskull, 2 Blood moon. I wasn't crazy about blood moon but batterskull is nuts against them. Threads is solid but they can abrupt decay it, still better to have them use their removal on that though so you can hope to combo.
I played the GP Antwerp Tempo Twin list at FNM last night with 2 sleight of hand over 2 peek because I dislike peek. My sideboard was also quite a bit different due to the meta at my store.
Round 1: Kiki Pod
Game 1: He played turn 2 Spellskite into turn 4 thrun into turn 5 Sigarda and tried to aggro me out. After he cast Sigarda I crypticed eot to put spellskite back in his hand and comboed off.
Game 2: He mulled to 6 and kept a 1 lander that had gavony township and 2 birds of paradise, he never drew a forest.
2-0 (1-0)
Round 2: Grixis Splinter Twin
Game 1: Game one we both just sat back and built up our hands for a while, eventually he cast a pestermite and in response I cliqued him and got rid of splinter twin. From there I beat him down with my clique and 2 pestermites while he sat on countermagic waiting for me to try to combo.
Game 2: Game two he played turn 2 and turn 3 spellskites and on turn 4 cast pestermite. I played a deceiver exarch after he attacked with pestermite and on turn 5 I slammed Kiki-Jiki while he had 3 mana up. Turns out he didn;t have the counterspell and instead was hoping to tap my guy with pestermite in hand. That doesn't work with kiki thankfully and I took the win.
2-0 (2-0)
Round 3: JUND
Game 1: Game one I kept a very land heavy hand and he started things off with deathrite which I bolted followed by Bob. While he drew tons of cards and bob chipped away at his life total I just kept casting dudes into his removal. Eventually a lavamancer and a pestermite stuck and I started attacking. I got him to 1 before he killed my creatures AND his bob to stay alive.
Game 2: My opponent kept a hand with 2 thoughtseize and an inquisition but no gas. He stripped my a combo piece, a batterskull, and a lavamancer from my hand but while he was looking for spells that did things I drew another combo piece and got there.
Game 3: Game three was a long one that involved him casting slaughter games naming twin the turn before I was going to go off. As he removed all the twins from my deck he commented on not being able to find kiki jiki. I informed him I had sided it out and he sat back comfortably thinking he had the game under control. A few turns later a resolved batterskull locked up the game for me.
2-1 (3-0)
Round 4: GR Tron
My friend and I were the only two undefeateds so we IDed and went and got food instead of playing.
0-0-1 (3-0-1)
Top 4:
We all decided to spit top 4 for half a box of Theros a piece instead of playing the elimination rounds. Had we played it out I would have been paired against the grixis twin player again. Last week I played all in twin and split top 4 going 3-1 after losing to jund round one and beating the mirror, uwr control, and a grixis tempo deck. This week playing tempo twin felt much better and in particular the jund match up felt much less one sided. For now I'll be sticking with the tempo build as there is a bit too much UWR, Jund, and mirror matches for me to feel comfortable playing all in twin.
I can't remember how I sideboarded all of my matches but against jund I went -2 sleight of hand -1 kiki-jiki -2 cryptic command -1 dispel +2 batterskull +2 threads of disloyalty +2 blood moon. I'm not sure blood moon was good enough, on paper it makes sense but my opp was prepared for it and routinely fetched his basics, I think the threat of having it is good because it makes them fetch suboptimally but actually bringing it in doesn't seem beneficial against opponents who expect it in this match. Cryptic probably would have been better then blood moon but I was worried it cost so much that it would just get taken by thoughtseize or lilianna and I wouldn't get value. Boarding out kiki when I knew he was on slaughter games felt risky but it is so hard to resolve the combo against them anyways that I figured kiki wasn't worth it. Because I had chose to board out kiki and not push the combo as hard the dispel seemed unnecessary so that came out too. Batterskull is amazing for those who haven't cast it against jund or uwr, for as long as those two decks are good I will have 2 in my sb.
I'm interested to hear people's thoughts on my boarding against Jund. Like I said my MD is the same as the Antwerp list except I run 2 basics instead of the tec edges and 2 sleight of hand instead of 2 peek. My sideboard looks like this:
2 Blood moon
2 Threads of Disloyalty
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Ancient Grudge
1 Combust
1 Pyroclasm
1 Dismember
1 Dispel
1 Engineered Explosives
The meta is mostly twin, uwr, and jund with some pod, living end, tron, infect, and other random decks thrown in.
anywho, what was the rationale for running boomerang again? very rarely so i find myself bouncing lands. i'd rather use the easier to cast echoing truth in all in.
That's not how I play Tempo Twin vs. All-In Twin. With Tempo Twin (I still like 8+ Exarchs; I'm dabbling with Breaching Hippocamp as Exarchs 9-10), I slam down Exarchs without bothering to protect them. I only put Twins on them when I have protection back-up (or I'm about to die). With All-In Twin, I either assemble the combo the turn I'm about to die or I wait until I can slam down an Exarch with protection, then a Twin. I've had success playing those two decks those ways--I play rather conservatively, and I tend to get blown out more by removal as All-In Twin than as Tempo Twin.
The rationale for running Boomerang is precisely so you can bounce early lands and kick opposing tempo way down. Multiples are slightly Magical Christmas Land but devastating.
I'm with you, Lectrys. What happens if you cast a T3 Exarch and then Probe to see the coast isn't clear? Now you have to go find another Exarch, or find a protective piece. And this of course assumes that our opponent is going to go for the greedy blowout; what if they just kill the Exarch on endstep anyway? I almost never slam T3 Exarch unless my opponent tapped out, or if I have a second Exarch in hand and I've Boomeranged his land T2, or if I T2'd a Spellskite. Otherwise, I will T4 Exarch with Dispel backup, so that I can T5 Twin with Dispel backup.
It's your job win every game of Magic where you're not.
Yea this is definitely how I play all in twin too. Occasionally you have to just jam it and hope but I see no reason to try to just run the combo out turn 4 every time and get blown out by removal. On the topic of peek/probe if your game plan is already to have back up then finding out what you're dispelling ahead of time really isn't worth it. If you're attentive and familiar with the format/decks you should already have a clear idea of what you have to beat. I'd rather be able to cast a sleight of hand turn 1-3 where peek/probe are just useless. When you're just learning the deck playing peek can be helpful but overall I feel like the card is an unnecessary crutch and even in tempo it being an instant isn't worth the lack of digging.
Hmm you consider adding Scavenging ooze to this list? Looks fun
how about thrun, the last troll? I recently came across him vs Jund and was annoyed how difficult it was to deal with.
I know the double green could be a problem, but with 4 mistys, and 2 breeding pools and could work out.
May proxy up 2 and try it out myself
No, you must always think of what this deck is trying to do. A Goyf on turn 2 is always pretty relevant because it provides a huge wall to the opponent's creatures while we assemble our combo, provides a quick clock if we want to go for the tempo kill, or drives away removal from the Pestermites and Exarchs.
A Thrun does absolutely nothing, sure, it's resilient, but what else? Tapping out for him in turn 4 is as improductive as is suicidal. You should be casting Splinter Twin on turn 4 and actually winning the game, or holding off with a Cryptic or Snap + Remand
As for Scavenging Ooze, yeah I tried it as a SB card and it can be good, problem is we do not have that many green sources to take advantage of it. That's also why Goyf is the best "blue" creature ever printed, he can be splashed almost anywhere with no downside whatsoever :nod::p
I actually played against URb twin last Friday at FNM, he ran 3 thoughtseize and 3 inquisition. I'm not 100% sure but I believe he cut down on counterspells for the discard with the reason being he'd be making his opp discard whatever it was he wanted to counter. I beat him 2-0 but he didn't draw discard either game and I was on tempo twin which tends to be favored in the match up. We were paired again in top 4 but everyone wanted to split so I didn't get a second chance to play him, I do know I was his only loss though. In a combo heavy meta the splash seems strong but in a jund/uwr heavy meta I don't think the discard is going to help you much, they have too much redundancy.
I found this really interesting article on URb Twin:
http://blog.mtgmadness.com/index.php/urb-twin-in-modern/alessandro-portaro
The idea is to take out Peek/Dispel/Vendillion for the Thoughtseize/Inquisition
This also gives us some cool side board options of:
Rakdos Charm - Good against graveyard decks, artifact decks, and the mirror (b/c of its deal 1 damage to opponent for each creature he/she owns mode. we can use this when our opponent tries to combo off)
Terminate - awesome removal against a lot of matches
Although this deck seems like tempo and more combo, but it does have a batterskill in the side
Humor me on this: what if you played Mystic Snake instead of Cryptic Command? It would take a little bit of pressure off of the mana base; and maybe I'm just being really greedy here, but Splinter Twin on a Mystic Snake sounds sweet (much like how UWR decks will use Twin on a Wall of Omens). It also makes Commune with the Gods marginally better.
It's your job win every game of Magic where you're not.
Haha that sounds amazing, I'm not sure it would really work out (it seems a bit too "cute" since Cryptic has such an unrivaled power level and versatility) but it would certainly be awesome to Splinter Twin a Mystic Snake.
I also like putting the 2/2 body for pressure though. Will test and see
The Twin on Snake interaction is certainly "cute," but GUU really is easier to achieve than UUU. And making the Commune with the Gods better is good too. In fact, you could probably cut a couple more spells and Snapcasters, up the overall creature count, and go up to 2 or even three Communes if you wanted.
It's your job win every game of Magic where you're not.
The versatility of cryptic outweighs the body gained by mystic snake, not even close. I use all four modes of cryptic regularly and the counter is honestly the one I'm least excited about.
Also blue is the primary color the deck needs so triple blue seems significantly easier and more important to achieve then UUG.
It's your job win every game of Magic where you're not.