I do agree that random artificial constraints are stupid, a.k.a. banning decks because they can consistently win before turn 4 (but after that it is fine). That makes no sense. I do agree with bannings that regulate the health of a game, in the sense that you ban a card to take care of a real problematic deck (as they will likely do with eldrazi). Bloom never was a problem in my opinion, it could win on turn 2... so what? It wasn't even big on the metagame. It shouldn't have been banned. From a deckbuilding standpoint, I agree with the banning of Splinter Twin. I think it was just too unimaginative of a combo that was making its place in every deck and deck combination in a disgusting way. As a problem for the metagame I think it didn't deserve a banning.
Yep, Twin was making its place in every deck and deck combination. That's why we were seeing Tron decks running Twin, and Infect decks running Twin, and... oh, wait, none of that happened.
I've seen this claim made before, but it doesn't make sense. Even accepting some level of hyperbole, what decks were it inserted into that had legitimate success with it? (going 4-0 once on MTGO a few years ago is not legitimate success) There was Living End, and... that's kind of it. And note that Twinning End is generally regarded as a weaker version of Living End anyway. It's true there were different varieties of Twin, like UR Twin, Grixis Twin, and RUG Twin, but that's not Twin getting put into different decks, that's just Twin splashing for different colors. So I have no idea where this argument is coming from.
I will just give you a quick answer: for starters, if you were playing UR in modern, you probably should be playing twin. You could go without it, like america or grixis control, but everyone would know you're playing weaker versions of your deck, since you lack the 'turn 4 combo' potential. Twin showed up in different flavors: temur, jeskai, grixis, etc.
This is a dramatically different argument than the one you actually made. You said that Twin was put into all these different decks. But that's not what you described, you just described why Twin was allegedly the best URx deck. That's a very different matter.
Now, the argument that Twin was just better than everything else than URx does make more sense in that it's at least not obviously false like your original claim was. But it's still not very good. For starters, that's the same argument as used for Wild Nacatl, that it was so good it was forcing other aggro decks out. What happened after the ban? New aggro decks didn't leap up. It turned out that the reason s those decks weren't seeing play wasn't because Zoo was so overbearing, but because they just weren't good enough. That is essentially the same thing that's going on here.
The problem for URx is that it lacks any good catch-all answers. The only such card in the format is really Thoughtseize. It's why the nonlinear fair decks in the format are overwhelmingly Black, because they get that card. But if you're not in Grixis, then you lack that, and there's a lot of different decks you could potentially be facing that require different answers. If you don't want to play Sideboard Roulette and just hope you pack the answers for the right deck, then your best option is the Twin combo because that sort of is a catch-all answer in that an infinite combo can beat just about anyone. The problem is not Twin, it's the lack of good catch-all answers that force people to play Twin. Banning Splinter Twin does not solve this problem and just leaves the other URx decks unviable because they lack the answer. Again, it's the faulty Wild Nacatl logic.
The funny thing is, the other URx decks basically always had a good matchup against Twin. Because while the combo cards together are powerful, apart they're pretty mediocre. A three-mana 1/4? Looks a lot worse than a 1-mana 3/2. And since the other URx decks are hard to combo off against, the combo isn't very good so the Twin player is using much less efficient cards than the opponents. One can see this by how far Twin fell when Grixis "Control" or Delver were the decks to beat. Those decks were great against Twin, so Twin wasn't that competitive anymore. Banning Splinter Twin actually took out a positive matchup for the decks that supposedly were being held down by Twin. They actually seem worse off right now than they were with it, though we'll have to wait until the Eldrazi get banned to be sure.
If Twin being better than the other decks was a problem, you don't solve it by just banning Splinter Twin (which is again Wild Nacatl logic), you do it by empowering those other decks. A good catch-all answer like Counterspell would actually do a lot to empower those decks and shrink Twin's power. That may seem counterinuitive as there's strong possibility Twin would play Counterspell itself, but even if Twin did (which I do wonder about, considering the cantrip on Remand is very valuable to the deck), Counterspell does two major things that hurt it:
1) It solves the problem those other URx decks have in giving them a good catch-all answer, thereby making the combo less required.
2) It powers up a lot of decks that are good against Twin, weakening it.
Ultimately, banning Splinter Twin is not actually addressing the problem of the other URx decks not being that great. It's just getting rid of a one of the actually good URx decks and leaving nothing in its stead. Again, it's the same "logic" that went into the Wild Nacatl ban.
It mixed with other decks: Living end + Twin, Scapeshift + Twin, Faerie + Twin, come on!!
And those are your citations? Living End+Twin is a deck, but as noted it's generally not considered as good as regular Living End. But let's concede that it is a thing that's actually okay. The other two? Have put up results about as strong as Owling Mine. They're not relevant.
The combo was everywhere. Combos that slot in (almost) every place are bad for the game (a reason why painter's servant + grindstone is a banned combo in commander), they are uninmaginative and restrain deckbuilding. If you can't see that, I am deeply sorry.
Because Painter's Servant+Grindstone literally can go in every single deck as it's colorless, not to mention it takes up a much smaller percentage of your deck? Whereas Twin requires a hefty amount of your deck and is significantly limited in what decks it can go into (a minority of decks were playing the combo). You claim you are "deeply sorry" if I can't see how combos that slot everywhere are bad for the game, but I am deeply sorry if you can't see the gigantic differences between Twin and the combo you just cited.
it kills the deck. Tron is 50 lands and 10 spells that matter. When you cant have a land to find your spells, the deck fizzles and relies hard on Ancient Stirrings to survive past the midgame. Assuming the game reaches that.
Eye of Ugin ban won't kill Tron. I don't know why people are complaining about this so much, it will still work without it and will actually be very viable deck. That said it's nothing bad if it loses that land-it will give fair decks better chances against it at least.
I agree with this. It just takes some late game inevitability from Tron and I personally believe that it's a "good" thing. Tron is not doing well while the format is Aggro-oriented, but if it gets more midrangey or (GASP) controlling (for once), Eye gives Tron an unfair advantage. I doubt the meta will get like that, but Tron is fine without Eye.
That being said, as someone who has played Eldrazi to 24-5-6 (ID) the past 3 weeks, Eye is what should get banned. I have changed my stance on what I think will get banned however - I think Eldrazi Temple is going to eat the ban in my opinion. If they do this, we should fully expect Eldrazi to still be damn good. Temple really helps for casting the big guys, but the deck can absolutely crush just with undercosted small guys. (I personally haven't even drawn the big guys as often as the 0-3 drops.)
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Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
Just watched Gerry Thompson's colorless eldrazi win a match in 10 minutes inclusive of sideboard time against tin fins(?) in the SCG legacy open. Granted he did get an insane hand but it does show off the power of the eldrazi shell.
Guys please opinions on japanese cards. Lost a 3/3 creature against Japan celestial colonade. This guy played all creatures and spells in english cards, but some cards in his manabase was japanese. I dont registrated this really ( my brain say its all fine and all english to me lets attack his empty board)...and i am sure it is a Kind of legal cheating. It is not ok, but i know legal. I Hate such people. I never forget colonade normally, but with this Tricks it can happen one time in 3 years and such people take advantage of this
If I am a customer spending premium amount of dollars, I expect a premium service. Jund falls into the category of a premium deck costing more dollars than a majority of the rest of the format. I'm not getting the desired performance ratio per dollars spent out of the Jund deck because WOTC decided to make the format more diverse.
Just watched Gerry Thompson's colorless eldrazi win a match in 10 minutes inclusive of sideboard time against tin fins(?) in the SCG legacy open. Granted he did get an insane hand but it does show off the power of the eldrazi shell.
Just watched Gerry Thompson's colorless eldrazi win a match in 10 minutes inclusive of sideboard time against tin fins(?) in the SCG legacy open. Granted he did get an insane hand but it does show off the power of the eldrazi shell.
Turn 1 Chalice of 1 in Game 1, Turn 1 Chalice of 1 + Pithing needle on turn 1 in Game 2 ... Eldrazis has nothing in that game ...
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Modern: RW R/W Burn WB B/W TokensXU MonuU Tron // UWX UW Tron R GoblinsW Soul SistersRWG Small ZooWUR WUR Geist/Control/Kiki-Resto Combo/NahiriUR Splinter Twin (90% Japanese)/ Grixis TwinRUB UR Delver / Grixis Delver UR Blue MoonBWU Ad NauseamWDeath and TaxesRUB Grixis ControlUMerfolksX Affinity RGB Living End UR Storm/PiF Combo RGX R/G TRON GWU Bant Eldrazi BW Eldrazi and Taxes RUBGoryos Vengeance UB Faeries Legacy:BRx Renimator Playing right now:Standard: Jeskai Control Modern; GoryosVengeance/UBFaeries/Affinity Legacy: BRx Reanimator Pauper: UR Drake (banned) Commander: Merieke Ri Berit Esper
Just watched Gerry Thompson's colorless eldrazi win a match in 10 minutes inclusive of sideboard time against tin fins(?) in the SCG legacy open. Granted he did get an insane hand but it does show off the power of the eldrazi shell.
Turn 1 Chalice of 1 in Game 1, Turn 1 Chalice of 1 + Pithing needle on turn 1 in Game 2 ... Eldrazis has nothing in that game ...
Don't get me wrong though I'm not saying Eldrazi is broken even in legacy. But I do think the power level of the eldrazi shell as it is without any cards banned out of it fits just right into that format.
Guys please opinions on japanese cards. Lost a 3/3 creature against Japan celestial colonade. This guy played all creatures and spells in english cards, but some cards in his manabase was japanese. I dont registrated this really ( my brain say its all fine and all english to me lets attack his empty board)...and i am sure it is a Kind of legal cheating. It is not ok, but i know legal. I Hate such people. I never forget colonade normally, but with this Tricks it can happen one time in 3 years and such people take advantage of this
If I am a customer spending premium amount of dollars, I expect a premium service. Jund falls into the category of a premium deck costing more dollars than a majority of the rest of the format. I'm not getting the desired performance ratio per dollars spent out of the Jund deck because WOTC decided to make the format more diverse.
Legacy will always be a different discussion because of arbiters like Force of Will and Wasteland that keep even the most broken stuff relatively honest.
Idk that being playable in legacy necessarily means too good in Modern. Things should be taken on a case by case basis. There's been plenty of cards that were op in legacy and/or modern and junk in standard.
How would turbofog line up vs Eldrazi out of interest?
Probably fine (except for turn 1-2 Chalice at X=1), but it would lose to too many other decks in the field, and therefore still not represent a viable answer to Eldrazi.
splinter twin was not a catch all answer; it is a game ending nuclear assault which leaves the non twin player with two options 1- intercept the missle and prevent your assault or 2- annihilation.
Counterspell would be an actual example of a actual catch all answer stopping anything that doesn't contain the text "cannot be countered"
Your constant comparison to wild Nacatl seems like a straw man argument as Nacatl and twin serve 2 completely divergent functions. It was banned because it would push all weenie rush aggro into naya colors which it has; it was unbanned because without it winnie rush just wasn't able to produce a competative deck. But wild Nacatl does not demand a instant answer or you lose; twin does.
Twin was a problem not a solution. The only problem it answered was the question of how do i instantly win the game. Printing a true Counterspell while it is legal would have simply given them a catch all answer to the answers other decks ran to deal with the problem of a incoming ballistic twin missle.
It does showcase the fact that the deck operates on a axis explicitly denoted as counter to the format designs expressed by wizards. Its doing very well in a t2 format; modern is a t4 format and lacks the tools needed to handle a t2 format deck.
Idk that being playable in legacy necessarily means too good in Modern. Things should be taken on a case by case basis. There's been plenty of cards that were op in legacy and/or modern and junk in standard.
Well the fact is that Legacy has higher level in terms of power due to the wider range of cards. This means more options, more answers to deal with any deck and Eldrazi is no exception. This doesn't mean that deck is worse but just that there are more ways to beat it which makes it easier to handle. Modern on the other has more narrow pool of cards which gives you less ways to beat it making it bigger problem. It's true Modern and Legacy are different formats with different decks, different strategies making them harder to compare but still I think that based on what I said and that Eldrazi does fairly decent in Legacy this is one more (out of plenty) reason and example why Eldrazi is too good for Modern since it can't handle it. This last thing is evident by looking at all data we have since Eldrazi menace.
Yeah, the Eldrazi deck might be too good in modern. (although I'd wait a few more days for the gps) The whole ban artifact lands/ancestral vision because they were part of decks that were good in legacy was dumb, though. Now, full power affinity may well be too good in modern or the lands might contribute too much to some combo deck, but the reasoning was dumb, especially considering I don't remember affinity making as much showing toward the end of its extended time. Of course, I also wonder about similar logic people spout for a lot of potential standard reprints that either show a total lack of understanding of why card X is good or are just blatently lying to protect their investment in card X. I actually think it is a huge deal with Ancestral Vision which I question whether it's even modern playable considering legacy can shuffle it away with Jace/Brainstorm + fetch or pitch to Force.
I have to say this, and I hate to say it. If you ban Eye of Ugin because of what is happening to eldrazi, then you need to ban Darksteel Citadel. All of the other artifact lands are gone already, and citadel may actually be better in modern as it stands because it cannot be ghost quartered. It has much more synergy than eye for affinity. Here are all the things it does.
- Can reduce the cost of multiple card a turn much like eye
- Can tap for mana unlike eye
- Pumping cranial plating
- Feeding ravager
- Enabling first turn metalcraft with Mox opal
- Cannot be countered
I mean, isn't this card doing even more than Eye is? Is it unreasonable for me to think this?
splinter twin was not a catch all answer; it is a game ending nuclear assault which leaves the non twin player with two options 1- intercept the missle and prevent your assault or 2- annihilation.
First, if you're going to respond to a post, it helps a lot if you quote it, considering the only reason I even knew this was in reference to mine was because I got my alert. Anyone else would have no idea what this was about; you're not even on the same page. I have the same problem with the post you made immediately after this one I'm responding to, because you leave no context whatsoever as to what you're replying to due to the lack of quotes.
And you misunderstand my point. The thing about Modern is there's a lot of different linear/uninteractive decks and a lot of them require completely different answers. Because there's such a lack of good catch-all answers besides Thoughtseize, if you try to go nonlinear and aren't able to make usage of Thoughtseize, then you have to hope the answers you did choose happen to match up against the decks you play against. Since that's basically playing roulette, usually your best bet is to play an linear deck yourself because of the lack of such answer cards, thus creating a metagame high on linearity and low on interaction. You do have Jund/Junk, but that's mostly because they can actually make good usage of Thoughtseize.
However, Splinter Twin+Deceiver Exarch functions as a catch-all answer because whether your opponent is trying to roll you over with infect creatures, throw a bunch of counters onto an Inkmoth Nexus, reanimate a Griselbrand, burn you down to 0, assemble Urzatron, or anything else uninteractive, it can beat them all through the combo because uninteractive decks tend to not be very good at, erm, interacting with it. So in lieu of an actual good answer card like Counterspell to handle the myriad of different linear decks, URx gets forced to play Twin because that's its best approximation of such a thing.
Your constant comparison to wild Nacatl seems like a straw man argument as Nacatl and twin serve 2 completely divergent functions. It was banned because it would push all weenie rush aggro into naya colors which it has; it was unbanned because without it winnie rush just wasn't able to produce a competative deck. But wild Nacatl does not demand a instant answer or you lose; twin does.
How the heck is it a strawman? The argument used against Wild Nacatl was that it suppressed non-Zoo aggro decks. The argument used against Splinter Twin is that it suppressed non-Twin URx decks. Pointing out it's the same basic argument is not a strawman.
Deciding to ban Splinter Twin to try to diversify the URx decks doesn't diversify them because it doesn't solve the problem that caused most of them to be adopting the Twin combo to begin with. All it does is knock out what actually was a decent URx deck while leaving the others no better than they were.
Twin was a problem not a solution. The only problem it answered was the question of how do i instantly win the game. Printing a true Counterspell while it is legal would have simply given them a catch all answer to the answers other decks ran to deal with the problem of a incoming ballistic twin missle.
Except Twin already does have that: Remand. Heck, Remand is probably better in the deck than Counterspell because it cantrips and doesn't require UU (relevant when a Blood Moon is in play). The problem with Remand is that you can really only make usage of it in a combo deck like Twin, as it's pretty bad in control and midrange decks.
So no, Counterspell would not have really given Twin an answer to the answers other decks ran because it already has that. What it would do is give to non-Twin decks a good catch-all answer because they can't make as much usage of Remand like Twin can.
Even if Counterspell did benefit Twin a little, it hurts it more than it helps it. As noted, Counterspell has two key effects that weaken Twin. First, it benefits decks that are good against it. Non-Twin URx decks have good matchups against Twin decks. Counterspell benefits those decks (more than it benefits Twin), so that hurts Twin by making decks that beat it better. Second, as noted, a big reason you would be playing Twin rather than those decks was because they lacked a good catch-all answer, which Twin provided (plus the fact Twin worked well with the temporary catch-all answer that was Remand). Counterspell solves that problem for them. So you have a better reason to play non-Twin decks, plus you make the Twin deck worse by making decks good against it better.
splinter twin was not a catch all answer; it is a game ending nuclear assault which leaves the non twin player with two options 1- intercept the missle and prevent your assault or 2- annihilation.
First, if you're going to respond to a post, it helps a lot if you quote it, considering the only reason I even knew this was in reference to mine was because I got my alert. Anyone else would have no idea what this was about; you're not even on the same page. I have the same problem with the post you made immediately after this one I'm responding to, because you leave no context whatsoever as to what you're replying to due to the lack of quotes.
And you misunderstand my point. The thing about Modern is there's a lot of different linear/uninteractive decks and a lot of them require completely different answers. Because there's such a lack of good catch-all answers besides Thoughtseize, if you try to go nonlinear and aren't able to make usage of Thoughtseize, then you have to hope the answers you did choose happen to match up against the decks you play against. Since that's basically playing roulette, usually your best bet is to play an linear deck yourself because of the lack of such answer cards, thus creating a metagame high on linearity and low on interaction. You do have Jund/Junk, but that's mostly because they can actually make good usage of Thoughtseize.
However, Splinter Twin+Deceiver Exarch functions as a catch-all answer because whether your opponent is trying to roll you over with infect creatures, throw a bunch of counters onto an Inkmoth Nexus, reanimate a Griselbrand, burn you down to 0, assemble Urzatron, or anything else uninteractive, it can beat them all through the combo because uninteractive decks tend to not be very good at, erm, interacting with it. So in lieu of an actual good answer card like Counterspell to handle the myriad of different linear decks, URx gets forced to play Twin because that's its best approximation of such a thing.
Your constant comparison to wild Nacatl seems like a straw man argument as Nacatl and twin serve 2 completely divergent functions. It was banned because it would push all weenie rush aggro into naya colors which it has; it was unbanned because without it winnie rush just wasn't able to produce a competative deck. But wild Nacatl does not demand a instant answer or you lose; twin does.
How the heck is it a strawman? The argument used against Wild Nacatl was that it suppressed non-Zoo aggro decks. The argument used against Splinter Twin is that it suppressed non-Twin URx decks. Pointing out it's the same basic argument is not a strawman.
Deciding to ban Splinter Twin to try to diversify the URx decks doesn't diversify them because it doesn't solve the problem that caused most of them to be adopting the Twin combo to begin with. All it does is knock out what actually was a decent URx deck while leaving the others no better than they were.
Twin was a problem not a solution. The only problem it answered was the question of how do i instantly win the game. Printing a true Counterspell while it is legal would have simply given them a catch all answer to the answers other decks ran to deal with the problem of a incoming ballistic twin missle.
Except Twin already does have that: Remand. Heck, Remand is probably better in the deck than Counterspell because it cantrips and doesn't require UU (relevant when a Blood Moon is in play). The problem with Remand is that you can really only make usage of it in a combo deck like Twin, as it's pretty bad in control and midrange decks.
So no, Counterspell would not have really given Twin an answer to the answers other decks ran because it already has that. What it would do is give to non-Twin decks a good catch-all answer because they can't make as much usage of Remand like Twin can.
Even if Counterspell did benefit Twin a little, it hurts it more than it helps it. As noted, Counterspell has two key effects that weaken Twin. First, it benefits decks that are good against it. Non-Twin URx decks have good matchups against Twin decks. Counterspell benefits those decks (more than it benefits Twin), so that hurts Twin by making decks that beat it better. Second, as noted, a big reason you would be playing Twin rather than those decks was because they lacked a good catch-all answer, which Twin provided (plus the fact Twin worked well with the temporary catch-all answer that was Remand). Counterspell solves that problem for them. So you have a better reason to play non-Twin decks, plus you make the Twin deck worse by making decks good against it better.
It seems a fantasy to believe the best counterspell deck wouldn't run the best version of the effect available. Given that the majority of twin builds already would run much narrower options in tandem with remand it would be more likely that they would run both and drop mana leak or spell snar or spell pierce etc....
Twin itself was a very linear deck masked with more pure control sideboard. The main goal of the deck was simply to disrupt enough till you find your combo and win instantly. Was it capable of winning through other means yes but so can burn grislebrand etc... Essentially all the liener decks have multiple paths to victory.
The comparison to WN is a straw man because in fact wizards was correct in assuming its legality would facilitate its status as a auto inclusion winnie aggro. They simply correctly assessed that without it winnie aggro lacked enough tools to put any of the archetype into contention and prefered to allow it back in so the archetype could exist as a competitive option. Before the eldrazi invasion grixis jeski and temur were all finding a place in the meta preying on jund/junk tron and other combo decks but did poorly against burn etc..
I actually played non twin URx decks since the creation of modern and just before the banning bought into the twin stuff simply because why not play the oppressive broken combo; was I upset with wizards having essentially cost me a chunk of money ... No not really I only bought in because the oops I win quality of twin combo was just to potent for me to justify not playing any longer. Why keep playing a crappier version of a deck when you can play the instant win variations.
I have to say this, and I hate to say it. If you ban Eye of Ugin because of what is happening to eldrazi, then you need to ban Darksteel Citadel. All of the other artifact lands are gone already, and citadel may actually be better in modern as it stands because it cannot be ghost quartered. It has much more synergy than eye for affinity. Here are all the things it does.
- Can reduce the cost of multiple card a turn much like eye
- Can tap for mana unlike eye
- Pumping cranial plating
- Feeding ravager
- Enabling first turn metalcraft with Mox opal
- Cannot be countered
I mean, isn't this card doing even more than Eye is? Is it unreasonable for me to think this?
Yes, it's completely unreasonable. You continue to fail to understand that it's not the number of things done but the quality of those things. Nothing Affinity does can on a 1 for 1 basis match up with what Eldrazi does on a 1 for 1 basis. By that I mean that a 0/2 flyer for 0 is much much weaker than a 2/1 mimic for 0 or 1 (Temple tapping for 2 is 1 land), and on and on up the chain.
Guys please opinions on japanese cards. Lost a 3/3 creature against Japan celestial colonade. This guy played all creatures and spells in english cards, but some cards in his manabase was japanese. I dont registrated this really ( my brain say its all fine and all english to me lets attack his empty board)...and i am sure it is a Kind of legal cheating. It is not ok, but i know legal. I Hate such people. I never forget colonade normally, but with this Tricks it can happen one time in 3 years and such people take advantage of this
If I am a customer spending premium amount of dollars, I expect a premium service. Jund falls into the category of a premium deck costing more dollars than a majority of the rest of the format. I'm not getting the desired performance ratio per dollars spent out of the Jund deck because WOTC decided to make the format more diverse.
It seems a fantasy to believe the best counterspell deck wouldn't run the best version of the effect available. Given that the majority of twin builds already would run much narrower options in tandem with remand it would be more likely that they would run both and drop mana leak or spell snar or spell pierce etc....
Because, for their purposes, it isn't necessarily the best one. Remand's ability to cantrip is huge in Twin.
And as I noted, even if Twin does adopt it, it still benefits the other URx decks more. I went into some considerable detail on this, and it's a bit frustrating to see you dismiss it without actually rebutting any point I made.
The comparison to WN is a straw man because in fact wizards was correct in assuming its legality would facilitate its status as a auto inclusion winnie aggro. They simply correctly assessed that without it winnie aggro lacked enough tools to put any of the archetype into contention and prefered to allow it back in so the archetype could exist as a competitive option. Before the eldrazi invasion grixis jeski and temur were all finding a place in the meta preying on jund/junk tron and other combo decks but did poorly against burn etc..
You keep insisting it's not a strawman, but then seem unable to argue why. The argument for Wild Nacatl's banning was that it reduced variety in aggro decks because it was so darn good you didn't want to play any other aggro deck. This turned out to be false, and that the reason those other aggro decks weren't seeing play was because they weren't that good to begin with. Aggro actually became less diverse after the Wild Nacatl ban. Before you had Zoo and Affinity as the main aggro decks, and afterwards, you had just Affinity. Merfolk was sort of around but not big, but it was still around before the Wild Nacatl ban. Merfolk is good now, but that's because it got some better cards in its arsenal, not because Wild Nacatl was limiting it (easily demonstratable by the fact Wild Nacatl is now legal again and aggro decks are actually more diverse than back when it was banned).
We're going to see the same thing happen with URx decks. All those URx decks supposedly kept down by Splinter Twin aren't going to rise up, they're going to stay down because the Twin ban doesn't make them better. They still have the same problems they did before, and if anything are worse off (even once the Eldrazi are gone) because they lost a positive matchup.
So no, it is not a strawman to point out that they used bad reasoning for the Wild Nacatl ban, and then used the same reasoning for the Splinter Twin ban.
The Grixis Delver player in the finals just showed how important cards like Daze and FoW are in dealing with Eldrazi threats. Highlights how woefully inadequate Modern is at dealing with the barrage of threats.
Guys please opinions on japanese cards. Lost a 3/3 creature against Japan celestial colonade. This guy played all creatures and spells in english cards, but some cards in his manabase was japanese. I dont registrated this really ( my brain say its all fine and all english to me lets attack his empty board)...and i am sure it is a Kind of legal cheating. It is not ok, but i know legal. I Hate such people. I never forget colonade normally, but with this Tricks it can happen one time in 3 years and such people take advantage of this
If I am a customer spending premium amount of dollars, I expect a premium service. Jund falls into the category of a premium deck costing more dollars than a majority of the rest of the format. I'm not getting the desired performance ratio per dollars spent out of the Jund deck because WOTC decided to make the format more diverse.
Now, the argument that Twin was just better than everything else than URx does make more sense in that it's at least not obviously false like your original claim was. But it's still not very good. For starters, that's the same argument as used for Wild Nacatl, that it was so good it was forcing other aggro decks out. What happened after the ban? New aggro decks didn't leap up. It turned out that the reason s those decks weren't seeing play wasn't because Zoo was so overbearing, but because they just weren't good enough. That is essentially the same thing that's going on here.
The problem for URx is that it lacks any good catch-all answers. The only such card in the format is really Thoughtseize. It's why the nonlinear fair decks in the format are overwhelmingly Black, because they get that card. But if you're not in Grixis, then you lack that, and there's a lot of different decks you could potentially be facing that require different answers. If you don't want to play Sideboard Roulette and just hope you pack the answers for the right deck, then your best option is the Twin combo because that sort of is a catch-all answer in that an infinite combo can beat just about anyone. The problem is not Twin, it's the lack of good catch-all answers that force people to play Twin. Banning Splinter Twin does not solve this problem and just leaves the other URx decks unviable because they lack the answer. Again, it's the faulty Wild Nacatl logic.
The funny thing is, the other URx decks basically always had a good matchup against Twin. Because while the combo cards together are powerful, apart they're pretty mediocre. A three-mana 1/4? Looks a lot worse than a 1-mana 3/2. And since the other URx decks are hard to combo off against, the combo isn't very good so the Twin player is using much less efficient cards than the opponents. One can see this by how far Twin fell when Grixis "Control" or Delver were the decks to beat. Those decks were great against Twin, so Twin wasn't that competitive anymore. Banning Splinter Twin actually took out a positive matchup for the decks that supposedly were being held down by Twin. They actually seem worse off right now than they were with it, though we'll have to wait until the Eldrazi get banned to be sure.
If Twin being better than the other decks was a problem, you don't solve it by just banning Splinter Twin (which is again Wild Nacatl logic), you do it by empowering those other decks. A good catch-all answer like Counterspell would actually do a lot to empower those decks and shrink Twin's power. That may seem counterinuitive as there's strong possibility Twin would play Counterspell itself, but even if Twin did (which I do wonder about, considering the cantrip on Remand is very valuable to the deck), Counterspell does two major things that hurt it:
1) It solves the problem those other URx decks have in giving them a good catch-all answer, thereby making the combo less required.
2) It powers up a lot of decks that are good against Twin, weakening it.
Ultimately, banning Splinter Twin is not actually addressing the problem of the other URx decks not being that great. It's just getting rid of a one of the actually good URx decks and leaving nothing in its stead. Again, it's the same "logic" that went into the Wild Nacatl ban.
And those are your citations? Living End+Twin is a deck, but as noted it's generally not considered as good as regular Living End. But let's concede that it is a thing that's actually okay. The other two? Have put up results about as strong as Owling Mine. They're not relevant.
Because Painter's Servant+Grindstone literally can go in every single deck as it's colorless, not to mention it takes up a much smaller percentage of your deck? Whereas Twin requires a hefty amount of your deck and is significantly limited in what decks it can go into (a minority of decks were playing the combo). You claim you are "deeply sorry" if I can't see how combos that slot everywhere are bad for the game, but I am deeply sorry if you can't see the gigantic differences between Twin and the combo you just cited.
I agree with this. It just takes some late game inevitability from Tron and I personally believe that it's a "good" thing. Tron is not doing well while the format is Aggro-oriented, but if it gets more midrangey or (GASP) controlling (for once), Eye gives Tron an unfair advantage. I doubt the meta will get like that, but Tron is fine without Eye.
That being said, as someone who has played Eldrazi to 24-5-6 (ID) the past 3 weeks, Eye is what should get banned. I have changed my stance on what I think will get banned however - I think Eldrazi Temple is going to eat the ban in my opinion. If they do this, we should fully expect Eldrazi to still be damn good. Temple really helps for casting the big guys, but the deck can absolutely crush just with undercosted small guys. (I personally haven't even drawn the big guys as often as the 0-3 drops.)
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)well it is legacy so fair enought
URW PillowFort Stasis (costruction)
modern:
U Taking Turns combo
pauper:
UB Servitor Control
xenob8 : you know you are going to have a bad time when opponent starts with snow covered island
Turn 1 Chalice of 1 in Game 1, Turn 1 Chalice of 1 + Pithing needle on turn 1 in Game 2 ... Eldrazis has nothing in that game ...
RW R/W Burn WB B/W TokensXU MonuU Tron // UWX UW Tron
R GoblinsW Soul SistersRWG Small ZooWUR WUR Geist/Control/Kiki-Resto Combo/NahiriUR Splinter Twin (90% Japanese)/ Grixis TwinRUB UR Delver / Grixis Delver UR Blue MoonBWU Ad NauseamWDeath and TaxesRUB Grixis ControlUMerfolksX Affinity RGB Living End UR Storm/PiF Combo RGX R/G TRON GWU Bant Eldrazi BW Eldrazi and Taxes RUBGoryos Vengeance UB Faeries
Legacy:BRx Renimator
Playing right now: Standard: Jeskai Control Modern; GoryosVengeance/UBFaeries/Affinity Legacy: BRx Reanimator Pauper: UR Drake (banned) Commander: Merieke Ri Berit Esper
Don't get me wrong though I'm not saying Eldrazi is broken even in legacy. But I do think the power level of the eldrazi shell as it is without any cards banned out of it fits just right into that format.
Probably fine (except for turn 1-2 Chalice at X=1), but it would lose to too many other decks in the field, and therefore still not represent a viable answer to Eldrazi.
Counterspell would be an actual example of a actual catch all answer stopping anything that doesn't contain the text "cannot be countered"
Your constant comparison to wild Nacatl seems like a straw man argument as Nacatl and twin serve 2 completely divergent functions. It was banned because it would push all weenie rush aggro into naya colors which it has; it was unbanned because without it winnie rush just wasn't able to produce a competative deck. But wild Nacatl does not demand a instant answer or you lose; twin does.
Twin was a problem not a solution. The only problem it answered was the question of how do i instantly win the game. Printing a true Counterspell while it is legal would have simply given them a catch all answer to the answers other decks ran to deal with the problem of a incoming ballistic twin missle.
- Can reduce the cost of multiple card a turn much like eye
- Can tap for mana unlike eye
- Pumping cranial plating
- Feeding ravager
- Enabling first turn metalcraft with Mox opal
- Cannot be countered
I mean, isn't this card doing even more than Eye is? Is it unreasonable for me to think this?
Http://www.fantasticneighborhood.com/
Comedy gaming podcast. Listening to it makes you cool.
And you misunderstand my point. The thing about Modern is there's a lot of different linear/uninteractive decks and a lot of them require completely different answers. Because there's such a lack of good catch-all answers besides Thoughtseize, if you try to go nonlinear and aren't able to make usage of Thoughtseize, then you have to hope the answers you did choose happen to match up against the decks you play against. Since that's basically playing roulette, usually your best bet is to play an linear deck yourself because of the lack of such answer cards, thus creating a metagame high on linearity and low on interaction. You do have Jund/Junk, but that's mostly because they can actually make good usage of Thoughtseize.
However, Splinter Twin+Deceiver Exarch functions as a catch-all answer because whether your opponent is trying to roll you over with infect creatures, throw a bunch of counters onto an Inkmoth Nexus, reanimate a Griselbrand, burn you down to 0, assemble Urzatron, or anything else uninteractive, it can beat them all through the combo because uninteractive decks tend to not be very good at, erm, interacting with it. So in lieu of an actual good answer card like Counterspell to handle the myriad of different linear decks, URx gets forced to play Twin because that's its best approximation of such a thing.
How the heck is it a strawman? The argument used against Wild Nacatl was that it suppressed non-Zoo aggro decks. The argument used against Splinter Twin is that it suppressed non-Twin URx decks. Pointing out it's the same basic argument is not a strawman.
Deciding to ban Splinter Twin to try to diversify the URx decks doesn't diversify them because it doesn't solve the problem that caused most of them to be adopting the Twin combo to begin with. All it does is knock out what actually was a decent URx deck while leaving the others no better than they were.
Except Twin already does have that: Remand. Heck, Remand is probably better in the deck than Counterspell because it cantrips and doesn't require UU (relevant when a Blood Moon is in play). The problem with Remand is that you can really only make usage of it in a combo deck like Twin, as it's pretty bad in control and midrange decks.
So no, Counterspell would not have really given Twin an answer to the answers other decks ran because it already has that. What it would do is give to non-Twin decks a good catch-all answer because they can't make as much usage of Remand like Twin can.
Even if Counterspell did benefit Twin a little, it hurts it more than it helps it. As noted, Counterspell has two key effects that weaken Twin. First, it benefits decks that are good against it. Non-Twin URx decks have good matchups against Twin decks. Counterspell benefits those decks (more than it benefits Twin), so that hurts Twin by making decks that beat it better. Second, as noted, a big reason you would be playing Twin rather than those decks was because they lacked a good catch-all answer, which Twin provided (plus the fact Twin worked well with the temporary catch-all answer that was Remand). Counterspell solves that problem for them. So you have a better reason to play non-Twin decks, plus you make the Twin deck worse by making decks good against it better.
It seems a fantasy to believe the best counterspell deck wouldn't run the best version of the effect available. Given that the majority of twin builds already would run much narrower options in tandem with remand it would be more likely that they would run both and drop mana leak or spell snar or spell pierce etc....
Twin itself was a very linear deck masked with more pure control sideboard. The main goal of the deck was simply to disrupt enough till you find your combo and win instantly. Was it capable of winning through other means yes but so can burn grislebrand etc... Essentially all the liener decks have multiple paths to victory.
The comparison to WN is a straw man because in fact wizards was correct in assuming its legality would facilitate its status as a auto inclusion winnie aggro. They simply correctly assessed that without it winnie aggro lacked enough tools to put any of the archetype into contention and prefered to allow it back in so the archetype could exist as a competitive option. Before the eldrazi invasion grixis jeski and temur were all finding a place in the meta preying on jund/junk tron and other combo decks but did poorly against burn etc..
I actually played non twin URx decks since the creation of modern and just before the banning bought into the twin stuff simply because why not play the oppressive broken combo; was I upset with wizards having essentially cost me a chunk of money ... No not really I only bought in because the oops I win quality of twin combo was just to potent for me to justify not playing any longer. Why keep playing a crappier version of a deck when you can play the instant win variations.
Standard: lol no
Modern: BG/x, UR/x, Burn, Merfolk, Zoo, Storm
Legacy: Shardless BUG, Delver (BUG, RUG, Grixis), Landstill, Depths Combo, Merfolk
Vintage: Dark Times, BUG Fish, Merfolk
EDH: Teysa, Orzhov Scion / Krenko, Mob Boss / Stonebrow, Krosan Hero
http://www.starcitygames.com/events/coverage/3715_day_2_metagame_breakdown_.html
2 eldrazi decks in top 8.
UWRUWR Delver/Lynx TempoUWR-------UWRUWR Midrange GeistUWR-------UWRUWR Nahiri ControlUWR-------UWRUWR SaheeliUWR
BGRJund / Jund ShadowBGR-------BGWAbzan / Abzan ShadowBGW
Commander (Leviathan/MTGO): UWGeist of Saint TraftUW
All modern players that fearing a ban Switched to Legacy
URW PillowFort Stasis (costruction)
modern:
U Taking Turns combo
pauper:
UB Servitor Control
xenob8 : you know you are going to have a bad time when opponent starts with snow covered island
And as I noted, even if Twin does adopt it, it still benefits the other URx decks more. I went into some considerable detail on this, and it's a bit frustrating to see you dismiss it without actually rebutting any point I made.
You keep insisting it's not a strawman, but then seem unable to argue why. The argument for Wild Nacatl's banning was that it reduced variety in aggro decks because it was so darn good you didn't want to play any other aggro deck. This turned out to be false, and that the reason those other aggro decks weren't seeing play was because they weren't that good to begin with. Aggro actually became less diverse after the Wild Nacatl ban. Before you had Zoo and Affinity as the main aggro decks, and afterwards, you had just Affinity. Merfolk was sort of around but not big, but it was still around before the Wild Nacatl ban. Merfolk is good now, but that's because it got some better cards in its arsenal, not because Wild Nacatl was limiting it (easily demonstratable by the fact Wild Nacatl is now legal again and aggro decks are actually more diverse than back when it was banned).
We're going to see the same thing happen with URx decks. All those URx decks supposedly kept down by Splinter Twin aren't going to rise up, they're going to stay down because the Twin ban doesn't make them better. They still have the same problems they did before, and if anything are worse off (even once the Eldrazi are gone) because they lost a positive matchup.
So no, it is not a strawman to point out that they used bad reasoning for the Wild Nacatl ban, and then used the same reasoning for the Splinter Twin ban.
I find it funny that Enchantress made it to day 2 with 3 pilots. And Grixis delver beat Eldrazi pretty handily.
Modern Tallowisp Spirits - A Modern Tallowisp Deck UW
Eldrazi Ninjas - Summoning Octopus Jutsu YYYYAAAHHHH!
STANDARD
Naban Wizards
The Grixis Delver player in the finals just showed how important cards like Daze and FoW are in dealing with Eldrazi threats. Highlights how woefully inadequate Modern is at dealing with the barrage of threats.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
G1 was especially filthy with the double wasteland, triple pyromancer and daze at exactly the right times.
Modern Tallowisp Spirits - A Modern Tallowisp Deck UW
Eldrazi Ninjas - Summoning Octopus Jutsu YYYYAAAHHHH!
STANDARD
Naban Wizards
The former has way more powerful versions of every deck modern has