My experience on Bogles vs. Twin was mostly from the Bogles side. I would put a clock on Twin to the point where they would be forced to "go for it" or die next turn with it in their hand. Since there were only 3-4 Path to Exile from me, it was quite often when I didn't have it and was just bluffing. It even got to the point where if I could, I would make it look like I don't have lethal next turn. Then I would jam, but that could also backfire. Cryptic Commands into Splinter Twin to win was not uncommon, Path to Exile literally being the only thing they cared about. Dispel also made this very tough, as Twin players mostly DID have it when needed. Also a huge part of Twin winning here was that Bogles didn't have too many lands, so 2 lands on turn 4 were not uncommon. This matchup was one in which I left fetchlands uncracked more than any other matchup I've ever played in Modern. I had to play around tap effects like a mofo.
From the Twin side of things, the Bogles matchup was absolutely miserable. It was one of those "find the combo or die" matchups, and just hope they don't have Path. And from my math a while ago, your chances of a Turn 4 combo range between about 13-33%*, depending on how many additional cards you draw in those turns.
*Took the hypergeometric calculator probabilities of having a combo creature, Twin, 4 lands, and 2 red sources, ranged for seeing between 10 cards (on the play, no extra draw) and 14 cards (on the draw and see 3 additional cards) and combined them for each number of cards drawn.
Edit: this post also makes me whimsical for a time when bluffing and representation used to be a thing.
Instead of *vomit* Here's my stuff! Deal with it or die!
Just putting in my 2 cents worth, but it is quite possible that Wizards would fear an artificial boom of twin decks in the format for if they unbanned it. There would be former players returning, and those who believe it to be an unbeatable monster all playing it, even if it is just a middle- tier 1 deck. That’s why I honestly believe that if it ever came off the list it would be with multiple other cards (sfm, GSZ) or a Deceiver Exarch ban to power it down.
Artificial boon of new players playing twin sounds like an inflated win percentage for a while. Sign me up. Cue the new people playing the deck and saying it's trash because they got blown out going for combo turn 4.
Hey, guys, what about unbanning all cards?
I don't really see any difference from what linear deck to die on t3. I mean, no matter what you ban or unban modern will still be about linear t3 decks, most of them which are interactive.
NBL Modern is more Vintage than Legacy (let alone Standard). Sure, when everybody does broken things, "nothing" is broken (screwed perception), but knowing how the Modern playbase is, doing something like this would be the dumbest thing wizard could do, heck, even banning 6+ cards is a better move for the format than unbanning everything.
Greetings,
Kathal
PS: Though, I would love to play Tezzerator
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What I play or have:
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
Hey, guys, what about unbanning all cards?
I don't really see any difference from what linear deck to die on t3. I mean, no matter what you ban or unban modern will still be about linear t3 decks, most of them which are interactive.
it's been done, and it's not pretty.
it doesn't just settle down into a new, slightly more powerful metagame with tiers 1, 2 and 3. It's an absolute nightmare as proven by the many NBM (no banlist modern) tournaments that we've seen happen globally over the last year or two. Always degenerate, never reasonable. Not worth the mess.
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Modern: G Tron, Vannifar, Jund, Druid/Vizier combo, Humans, Eldrazi Stompy (Serum Powder), Amulet, Grishoalbrand, Breach Titan, Turns, Eternal Command, As Foretold Living End, Elves, Cheerios, RUG Scapeshift
Hey, guys, what about unbanning all cards?
I don't really see any difference from what linear deck to die on t3. I mean, no matter what you ban or unban modern will still be about linear t3 decks, most of them which are interactive.
it's been done, and it's not pretty.
it doesn't just settle down into a new, slightly more powerful metagame with tiers 1, 2 and 3. It's an absolute nightmare as proven by the many NBM (no banlist modern) tournaments that we've seen happen globally over the last year or two. Always degenerate, never reasonable. Not worth the mess.
Exactly. Then everyone just ends up crying about the Eldrazi again.
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Modern: UR Gifts Storm URB Grixis Death's Shadow R12 Bolt
Pauper: UR Puzzle Pieces
EDH: UB Phenax, God of Deception UR The Locust God UR Saheeli the Gifted WBG Anafenza, the Foremost
[quote from="MrTzoulis »" url="/forums/the-game/modern/801804-the-state-of-modern-thread-b-r-26-11-2018?comment=1888"]BGx also has that T1 threat and we know the numbers on that matchup as being even.
Other than that, Twin was hiding Blue's (and the format's as a whole) woes with a mask of "interactivity" that was toxic to better cards entering the format via either unbannings or new printings and you people keep ignoring that.
This was a super important thing to happen from the Twin Ban. Blue just was so bad if you exclude the Twin decks at the time, and removing Twin showed Wotc it needed help. If Twin sacrificed itself for the color BLue, then tbh I'm fine with it being resurrected by Wotc
it doesn't just settle down into a new, slightly more powerful metagame with tiers 1, 2 and 3. It's an absolute nightmare as proven by the many NBM (no banlist modern) tournaments that we've seen happen globally over the last year or two. Always degenerate, never reasonable. Not worth the mess.
"Degenerate" is relative. The "format" is a trap for everyone, who doesn't spend a lot of time with it, assuming things like Hypergenesis, Eldrazies or Storm are THE decks to beat, in the end those are solid decks (but Genesis which just sucks), the real deal are the decks, which abuse the true broken cards, Top (+ Counterbalance, Terminus and co), Depths (both as the control as the all-in version), Chrome Mox + Mox Opal + Artefact lands (turn 1 Bridge, Chalice on 2, Thopter Sword, Whir,...), Clamp (Young Pyro, Elves, "traditional" affinity), DRS (shocking, BGx Midrange is quite good in NBL) and Dredge (Dread Return + full Dredgers can result into a turn 2 kill, especially with the new toys the deck gained over the last few years).
Sure, not many people are playing it and sure, nobody really "broke" it yet, but especially the SCG one from last year is VERY misleading on how the format usually plays out.
Exactly. Then everyone just ends up crying about the Eldrazi again.
Just some nitpicking, Eldrazi isn't even that good of an deck in NBL, Depths, Tezzerator, UW Counter Top and UR Clamp are all way better (and now also Dredge). Who cares if you can cast a Smasher on turn 3 when you need to deal with stuff like Bridge, a 20/20, Terminus or a boatload of Pyro Tokens.
Greetings,
Kathal
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What I play or have:
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
Matt Nass is streaming at twitch right now. He is talking a lot about KCI. I asked him what does he think about a potential banning, and he said that "it's natural that the deck is going to be banned. I am not certain, but I assume that's what's going to happen".
Some folks asked him about Opal or Stirrings and he said "Diversity is why you are playing modern. if you ban one of those cards, you are deleting this aspect of the game."
He also thinks Trawler and Wellspring are interesting bannings and that's the right ban. All in all, he is admitting a ban needs to happen. Given that he is a pro who is earning money from the deck, it takes a lot of courage to admit that on camera.
I like how we went from "midrange creature decks completely suck vs terminus" to "salty jund players wanting their deck to be the best again".
Newsflash: Wanting Midrange to be able to compete in Modern does not equate to wanting Midrange to be the best archetype.
And how would that work?
Modern is a non-rotating format. Have you looked at the other non-rotating formats? There isn't much Midrange around in them. Can you play something like Jund /Naya/Abzan etc. in Legacy? Of course. It is actually a good idea? No, it isn't.
I have made a big post about Midrange in this thread quite a while ago and also made a separate thread about it so I don't want to repeat everything.
In the end Midrange is a jack of all trades, master of none archetype. It trades power for adaptability and versatility. It does multiple things but nothing really well. That's fine in Standard because the power level isn't that high to begin with and it was also fine in Modern when it was younger. But as the format grows older it grows more powerful and that's where the problem lies. Every other archetype absolutely knows what it wants to do and is focused on that and if they get to do it that will always trump everything a Midrange deck is capable of doing.
Yes actually. Midrange is actually doing just fine in legacy compared to modern. Both blue-based and otherwise. Maverick continues to find its way around. Greedy 4 color value machines like Czech pile can carve a niche just fine in legacy. Grixis control, despite its name plays very much like a midrange deck, as does stoneblade.
If anything, legacy lacks in aggro, not midrange.
Not strong enough to be at the top consistently but able to perform decently to carve out a niche for dedicated players. Is that an unreasonable expectation for midrange in modern?
I would say that it already is that way but obviously that requires an exact definition to actually measure things. If we look at tournament results we often see at least some number of Midrange decks in them. Maybe they haven't won, maybe they didn't even make top 8 but they were in the upper echelons of a tournament. There is also the issue of defining the Death's Shadow decks because if you define them as Midrange as it is on this site for example then things look even better.
I assume that is not good enough for you so how much more should it be in your opinion?
Well yes and no. The formats are so radically different that it's difficult to measure. For instance, blue is heads and shoulders above every other colour in Legacy, followed by black. And just by virtue of playing brainstorm, ponder and force you have game vs almost everything. You could bring something whacky like BUG ninjas and not feel bad about it.
Regarding Grixis Death's Shadow. I've already acknowledged in a previous post that the format has evolved for better or worse and that GDS is the new standard for midrange, the natural evolution if you will. BG rock has put up spattering of placings here and there but it's a distant 2nd place. If 'traditional' midrange dying off is the direction that Modern is going then so be it.
As to your last question. A little bit of background about my history in Modern. I've never played tier 1 decks until 2018 when I picked up Humans and Spirits. I've been rocking various flavours of GWx Midrange(Naya Company, Bant Retreat, Domain Zoo etc), decks that are on the more aggressive side of the midrange spectrum. Basically decks that hover around tier 2. And despite playing only Tier 2 or lower decks for a good 2 years, I've always felt like I could enter an event and be relatively competitive.
This changed drastically in the latter half of 2018. Sure if I really wanted to do well at an event, I could bring out spirits or humans. I did well with these decks but it just wasn't fun. So I tried tuning and playing my pet GWx midrange decks and I basically became a walking bye. Weeks worth of tuning and re-tuning with no semblance of results to show for it.
So what I want is for any Modern player, to be able to register any archetype (aggro, midrange, combo, ramp, control, Tier 1, Tier 2, whatever) at a competitive event and not feel like you're doing yourself a disservice. The one thing that drew me and many people to Modern is because we can "play what we know and we can do well".
Can anyone really say that the current Modern format is one where we can compete with any deck as long as we put the time into practicing and mastering it? Modern is so much more than Looting vs Stirrings vs Vial vs Terminus.
At this point, I'd like to emphasize for context that this series of terminus 'rants' started off by idSurge suggesting that in a hypothetical scenario where Stirrings, Looting etc take bans to slow down the format, Terminus might have to go along with them because hyper aggro and 1 mana sweeper are foils to each other. I agree with him and offered the viewpoint that in a hypothetical slowed down format, there is little incentive to play interactive midrange decks because without hyper-streamlined linear decks keeping Terminus in check, UW control would dominate any other archetype attempting to play 'fair'. Therefore, in a scenario where Looting and Stirrings go, Terminus would probably need to go too. Neither of us actually think this will happen or are calling for a Terminus ban in the context of the current modern format. We've also repeated a few times at least that Terminus is NECESSARY right now because of those decks.
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.
Am I giving Terminus too much credit? Perhaps, but I highly doubt so. My playgroup has a very dedicated UW control player. UW control is also the archetype I have the most testing reps again. He's been playing different iterations of UW against me for close to 3 years now.
You're right that UW has been getting steady upgrades over time (Teferi, Azcanta etc that you mentioned), but Terminus is really the straw that broke the camel's back. I will stress that this is against midrange specifically. Terminus is a necessary evil to fight decks that don't pay mana to cast their creatures.
The fact that it often costs a single white mana means that counterplay options are very limited, as are the timing window for those counterplay options.
Your last statement actually agrees with me though. I can fight through the slow incremental effect of Search, I can bolt or use creature combat to take down planeswalkers. It's possible to grind through all those vs Verdict/Wrath with resilient creatures like Voice or Finks, and in the absence of those, it at least gives me a free turn to rebuild.
Terminus negates all of that, leaves nothing behind, and can be cast on my turn for a measly 2 mana, likely able to remove or counter my follow up play with open mana still on my turn. That's the difference. That's why I don't think I'm laying too much at the feet of Terminus. And the rest is exactly as you say it, untap, slam the teferi and tick up against an empty board. Game over.
If you ban Terminus, you kill UW control as an archetype. It wouldn't be able to keep up with the fast aggro/combo decks without it. If you want to beat Terminus, play counterspells. One of the side-effects of moving to Terminus is that we hurt our GDS matchup, because Verdict was a problem for them. Terminus is just a symptom of the problem with Modern, it's not the problem itself. If the format slowed down to where 4 mana wraths were viable again, and you cared about permission, UW would go back to Verdict.
I like how we went from "terminus invalidates fair midrange" to "salty jund players wanting their deck to be the best again".
Newsflash: Wanting Midrange to be able to compete in Modern does not equate to wanting Midrange to be the best archetype.
Midrange's problem isn't the Terminus decks. They're supposed to lose to those decks anyway. The problem is they don't beat the decks they're supposed to beat anymore, which are the linear aggro/combo decks. Those decks have become too brutally fast and focused for attrition and value decks to keep up with. There needs to be something that punishes those decks for choosing to ignore their opponent.
Again, you seem to be under the assumption that I'm calling for a blanket Terminus ban. I'm not. I'll just paste this here:
At this point, I'd like to emphasize for context that this series of terminus 'rants' started off by idSurge suggesting that in a hypothetical scenario where Stirrings, Looting etc take bans to slow down the format, Terminus might have to go along with them because hyper aggro and 1 mana sweeper are foils to each other. I agree with him and offered the viewpoint that in a hypothetical slowed down format, there is little incentive to play interactive midrange decks because without hyper-streamlined linear decks keeping Terminus in check, UW control would dominate any other archetype attempting to play 'fair'. Therefore, in a scenario where Looting and Stirrings go, Terminus would probably need to go too. Neither of us actually think this will happen or are calling for a Terminus ban in the context of the current modern format. We've also repeated a few times at least that Terminus is NECESSARY right now because of those decks.
I've also put forward my view that GDS is now the natural evolution of Midrange in the current Modern format. So I think in essence, we're actually generally in agreement with each other.
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.
At this point, I'd like to emphasize for context that this series of terminus 'rants' started off by idSurge suggesting that in a hypothetical scenario where Stirrings, Looting etc take bans to slow down the format, Terminus might have to go along with them because hyper aggro and 1 mana sweeper are foils to each other. I agree with him and offered the viewpoint that in a hypothetical slowed down format, there is little incentive to play interactive midrange decks because without hyper-streamlined linear decks keeping Terminus in check, UW control would dominate any other archetype attempting to play 'fair'. Therefore, in a scenario where Looting and Stirrings go, Terminus would probably need to go too. Neither of us actually think this will happen or are calling for a Terminus ban in the context of the current modern format. We've also repeated a few times at least that Terminus is NECESSARY right now because of those decks.
Control doesn't just play Terminus for the heck of it. If Modern slowed down and Terminus was no longer necessary for control to keep up with the broken aggro/combo decks that flood the board on turns 1 and 2, they would just go back to playing Verdict. Verdict is the more consistent card without the deck building constraints Terminus has, but we often weren't surviving to cast it, even with our other early interaction.
And like I've said, give control Terminus or Verdict, your slower midrange decks are still losing to them because that's just how matchups work. The problem is that you don't beat the aggro decks anymore, so what are your good matchups then?
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Modern UBR Grixis Shadow UBR UR Izzet Phoenix UR UW UW Control UW GB GB Rock GB
Commander BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
And like I've said, give control Terminus or Verdict, your slower midrange decks are still losing to them because that's just how matchups work. The problem is that you don't beat the aggro decks anymore, so what are your good matchups then?
Thats not remotely true. If the issue was Verdict, it could be reasonably played around by anyone who has played any kind of creature deck.
Regardless, we are all on the same page, Terminus is needed because Aggro is busted and simply too fast for a 4 mana wrath to be acceptable. Comical, but here we are.
I'd still take playing against Verdict any day. Like I've also said, cards like Voice of Resurgence and Kitchen Finks were pretty good sweeper insurance. The completely sorcery speed of Verdict also makes a huge difference in actually letting my slower midrange decks have a turn to rebuild.
I don't see why any UW player would want to switch back to verdict. Terminus is just a much cleaner answer. If the format slows down, removal won't be as taxed, I don't see how that prevents UW to easily digging to a terminus. Maybe only if GDS is super prevalent. You could even play a 3/2 terminus/verdict split to really hate on creature decks since you don't need to warp your deck with main deck RiP anymore.
My testing partner definitely wouldn't swap. Anybody else want to weigh in on this?
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.
I didnt like playing the Terminus lotto. When I'm playing Control, I want to be consistent. Praying to RNGesus that you hit that Terminus when you are dead if they untap on your Turn 3 sucks.
Thats just me though. Going from UWR with Verdict/Settle/Wrath, to UW with Terminus was an eye opener, as its a pretty easy life when you do hit that miracle, and then untap Teferi, and chill.
Can't help but feel that dredge and tron bottleneck sideboards. I can live with one but having both is troublesome.
As does any other "dominant" strategy. When Twin, Pod and Affinity (and the ebb and flow of Tron) where the holy trinity of non Midrange/Control, you had to dedicate usually 9+ cards for those decks in the SB OR already have "pre sideboarded" basically. Same thing with Tron or Dredge, both demand (depending on what deck you are playing, as with the other example) 6+ cards to be able to beat reliable.
The only important question is: How high is the overlap towards other decks where you would want side board cards against them? And currently (at least in my opinion) the overlap of Dredge towards other graveyard based decks is higher, than something like Twin or Affinity hate offered, same story with the Tron hate (generic stuff like Field of Ruin is also good vs Midrange/Control while Damping Sphere also attacks any deck, which want to chain several spells per turn).
Heck, I would say it is currently even EASIER to build a Sideboard, cause of how good and broad the sideboard cards are currently. RIP MD of UW Control was already tested before Dredge became relevant again to different results (it felt nice and was more often than not not a dead card). Nowadays, with Phoenix, Hollow One, GDS, Dredge, KCI and even more decks relying on the graveyard, it makes even MORE sense to play it MD. Sure it sucks vs Humans/Spirits, Tron or the Mirror, but maybe it is just worth it to play it MD? As we have seen from different MODO challenges in the past few months, several players already did this and had good results with this.
Greetings,
Kathal
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What I play or have:
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
I don't see why any UW player would want to switch back to verdict. Terminus is just a much cleaner answer. If the format slows down, removal won't be as taxed, I don't see how that prevents UW to easily digging to a terminus. Maybe only if GDS is super prevalent. You could even play a 3/2 terminus/verdict split to really hate on creature decks since you don't need to warp your deck with main deck RiP anymore.
My testing partner definitely wouldn't swap. Anybody else want to weigh in on this?
There are still some UW players who play more Verdicts than Terminus, but they're a dying breed these days. The bottom line is that Terminus is clunky and very high variance, and it has real deck building costs. You can't really play Serum Visions in a Terminus build because you don't want the sorcery speed cantrips, even though SV is a better cantrip than Opt. That's why UW plays Opt and stuff like Hieroglyphic Illuminations. But the trade off on power for the chance of a turn 2 or 3 sweeper is worth it in a meta dominated by fast aggro/combo decks that can flood the board on the first couple turns of the game. If the meta slows down to where 4 mana wraths are viable again, don't be surprised to see a lot of UW players go back to Verdict builds. Especially if GDS becomes really popular again.
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Modern UBR Grixis Shadow UBR UR Izzet Phoenix UR UW UW Control UW GB GB Rock GB
Commander BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
My friends, the data doesnt lie. Twin was 55/45 vs Jund in the MTGO Data Set. Granted, I'm just a bad player that needs my Twin crutch, but them's the facts.
this is clearly a jab at my post, and im not sure why. i explicitly excluded you and cfp from the criticism. you and cfp stuck around, tried to make different things work, particularly in blue. if all you cared about was winning, or at least if you cared about winning much more than you do, then you would have either sought it out immediately or left the format.
i actually believe that twin was banned precisely because it had TOO MUCH play to it while also having the aspect of nutting all over your opponent even if they were trying to interact with you. the combo was as simple as it can get (play A+B), half of it was instant speed, and you won on the spot. those qualities, coupled with its power level, are going to win games or matches for a player that they had no right winning. so if you of cfp think that is insulting then im sorry, but for all those positive things twin had going on or was doing it still had that low effort 'free wins' aspect. if you cant see that then your perspective is skewed.
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Modern: UWGSnow-Bant Control BURGrixis Death's Shadow GWBCoCo Elves WCDeath and Taxes (sold)
My friends, the data doesnt lie. Twin was 55/45 vs Jund in the MTGO Data Set. Granted, I'm just a bad player that needs my Twin crutch, but them's the facts.
this is clearly a jab at my post, and im not sure why. i explicitly excluded you and cfp from the criticism. you and cfp stuck around, tried to make different things work, particularly in blue. if all you cared about was winning, or at least if you cared about winning much more than you do, then you would have either sought it out immediately or left the format.
i actually believe that twin was banned precisely because it had TOO MUCH play to it while also having the aspect of nutting all over your opponent even if they were trying to interact with you. the combo was as simple as it can get (play A+B), half of it was instant speed, and you won on the spot. those qualities, coupled with its power level, are going to win games or matches for a player that they had no right winning. so if you of cfp think that is insulting then im sorry, but for all those positive things twin had going on or was doing it still had that low effort 'free wins' aspect. if you cant see that then your perspective is skewed.
I also see it close to that, except for the free wins out of nowhere being undeserved. You could say that about storm, copy cat, aetherworks marvel legacy reanimator or any number of combo deck that effectivly wins on the spot, even weaker ones like seismic swan combo, jeskai ascendancy or cheerios. This just how combo decks function and that kind of win is deserved if it survives to sculpt whatever hand/graveyard/board state it needed to go off. I don't feel my view is skewed to badly for thinking that.
Twin was very powerful, had alot of high level wins and has recieved powerful new cards. I concede all those points. For the record I was a twin player because it was powerful and I love combo decks. Combo is part of the game and that includes simple powerful game winning combos. I play other combo decks now and I am really looking forward to the new birthing pod creature. But I really believe twin was, and would be again, on par for the appropriate power level for a teir 1 deck in modern. We didn't call it splinter twin winter.
i actually believe that twin was banned precisely because it had TOO MUCH play to it while also having the aspect of nutting all over your opponent even if they were trying to interact with you. the combo was as simple as it can get (play A+B), half of it was instant speed, and you won on the spot. those qualities, coupled with its power level, are going to win games or matches for a player that they had no right winning. so if you of cfp think that is insulting then im sorry, but for all those positive things twin had going on or was doing it still had that low effort 'free wins' aspect. if you cant see that then your perspective is skewed.
Except Twin did that for 4+ years, and it had never been a problem before.
Let's not kid ourselves here, Twin got banned because WotC was in the habit of banning the best deck every year to keep Modern's power level in check, and Twin just happened to be the best deck of 2015. The community outrage over the Twin banning is precisely why WotC has let up on their bans. I have no doubt that GDS would have been banned last year, and probably Humans and KCI this year, under their old way of doing things. And under their current more conservative approach, Twin probably wouldn't have been banned.
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Like what? This was discussed previously several times and the general consensus is any upgrade was either fairly minimal, or a sidestep rather than a strict upgrade. Also, those proposing "but those upgrades!" haven't produced any hypothetical lists, showing what they would cut/change in order to make room for those "upgrades."
From the Twin side of things, the Bogles matchup was absolutely miserable. It was one of those "find the combo or die" matchups, and just hope they don't have Path. And from my math a while ago, your chances of a Turn 4 combo range between about 13-33%*, depending on how many additional cards you draw in those turns.
*Took the hypergeometric calculator probabilities of having a combo creature, Twin, 4 lands, and 2 red sources, ranged for seeing between 10 cards (on the play, no extra draw) and 14 cards (on the draw and see 3 additional cards) and combined them for each number of cards drawn.
Edit: this post also makes me whimsical for a time when bluffing and representation used to be a thing.
Instead of *vomit* Here's my stuff! Deal with it or die!
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Artificial boon of new players playing twin sounds like an inflated win percentage for a while. Sign me up. Cue the new people playing the deck and saying it's trash because they got blown out going for combo turn 4.
NBL Modern is more Vintage than Legacy (let alone Standard). Sure, when everybody does broken things, "nothing" is broken (screwed perception), but knowing how the Modern playbase is, doing something like this would be the dumbest thing wizard could do, heck, even banning 6+ cards is a better move for the format than unbanning everything.
Greetings,
Kathal
PS: Though, I would love to play Tezzerator
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
it's been done, and it's not pretty.
it doesn't just settle down into a new, slightly more powerful metagame with tiers 1, 2 and 3. It's an absolute nightmare as proven by the many NBM (no banlist modern) tournaments that we've seen happen globally over the last year or two. Always degenerate, never reasonable. Not worth the mess.
Exactly. Then everyone just ends up crying about the Eldrazi again.
Pauper: UR Puzzle Pieces
EDH: UB Phenax, God of Deception UR The Locust God UR Saheeli the Gifted WBG Anafenza, the Foremost
This was a super important thing to happen from the Twin Ban. Blue just was so bad if you exclude the Twin decks at the time, and removing Twin showed Wotc it needed help. If Twin sacrificed itself for the color BLue, then tbh I'm fine with it being resurrected by Wotc
URStormRU
GRTitanshift[mana]RG/mana]
"Degenerate" is relative. The "format" is a trap for everyone, who doesn't spend a lot of time with it, assuming things like Hypergenesis, Eldrazies or Storm are THE decks to beat, in the end those are solid decks (but Genesis which just sucks), the real deal are the decks, which abuse the true broken cards, Top (+ Counterbalance, Terminus and co), Depths (both as the control as the all-in version), Chrome Mox + Mox Opal + Artefact lands (turn 1 Bridge, Chalice on 2, Thopter Sword, Whir,...), Clamp (Young Pyro, Elves, "traditional" affinity), DRS (shocking, BGx Midrange is quite good in NBL) and Dredge (Dread Return + full Dredgers can result into a turn 2 kill, especially with the new toys the deck gained over the last few years).
Sure, not many people are playing it and sure, nobody really "broke" it yet, but especially the SCG one from last year is VERY misleading on how the format usually plays out.
Just some nitpicking, Eldrazi isn't even that good of an deck in NBL, Depths, Tezzerator, UW Counter Top and UR Clamp are all way better (and now also Dredge). Who cares if you can cast a Smasher on turn 3 when you need to deal with stuff like Bridge, a 20/20, Terminus or a boatload of Pyro Tokens.
Greetings,
Kathal
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
Do you have the timestamp when he talks about the potential banning of KCI
URStormRU
GRTitanshift[mana]RG/mana]
Well yes and no. The formats are so radically different that it's difficult to measure. For instance, blue is heads and shoulders above every other colour in Legacy, followed by black. And just by virtue of playing brainstorm, ponder and force you have game vs almost everything. You could bring something whacky like BUG ninjas and not feel bad about it.
Regarding Grixis Death's Shadow. I've already acknowledged in a previous post that the format has evolved for better or worse and that GDS is the new standard for midrange, the natural evolution if you will. BG rock has put up spattering of placings here and there but it's a distant 2nd place. If 'traditional' midrange dying off is the direction that Modern is going then so be it.
As to your last question. A little bit of background about my history in Modern. I've never played tier 1 decks until 2018 when I picked up Humans and Spirits. I've been rocking various flavours of GWx Midrange(Naya Company, Bant Retreat, Domain Zoo etc), decks that are on the more aggressive side of the midrange spectrum. Basically decks that hover around tier 2. And despite playing only Tier 2 or lower decks for a good 2 years, I've always felt like I could enter an event and be relatively competitive.
This changed drastically in the latter half of 2018. Sure if I really wanted to do well at an event, I could bring out spirits or humans. I did well with these decks but it just wasn't fun. So I tried tuning and playing my pet GWx midrange decks and I basically became a walking bye. Weeks worth of tuning and re-tuning with no semblance of results to show for it.
So what I want is for any Modern player, to be able to register any archetype (aggro, midrange, combo, ramp, control, Tier 1, Tier 2, whatever) at a competitive event and not feel like you're doing yourself a disservice. The one thing that drew me and many people to Modern is because we can "play what we know and we can do well".
Can anyone really say that the current Modern format is one where we can compete with any deck as long as we put the time into practicing and mastering it? Modern is so much more than Looting vs Stirrings vs Vial vs Terminus.
At this point, I'd like to emphasize for context that this series of terminus 'rants' started off by idSurge suggesting that in a hypothetical scenario where Stirrings, Looting etc take bans to slow down the format, Terminus might have to go along with them because hyper aggro and 1 mana sweeper are foils to each other. I agree with him and offered the viewpoint that in a hypothetical slowed down format, there is little incentive to play interactive midrange decks because without hyper-streamlined linear decks keeping Terminus in check, UW control would dominate any other archetype attempting to play 'fair'. Therefore, in a scenario where Looting and Stirrings go, Terminus would probably need to go too. Neither of us actually think this will happen or are calling for a Terminus ban in the context of the current modern format. We've also repeated a few times at least that Terminus is NECESSARY right now because of those decks.
Again, you seem to be under the assumption that I'm calling for a blanket Terminus ban. I'm not. I'll just paste this here:
I've also put forward my view that GDS is now the natural evolution of Midrange in the current Modern format. So I think in essence, we're actually generally in agreement with each other.
That's a very playable burn card indeed!
Funny flavor text too.. I guess only people with bodies whose toughness the same as a hooting mandrills can go leave early from Rakdos shows.
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Want to play a UW control deck in modern, but don't have jace or snaps?
Please come visit us at the Emeria Titan control thread
Its a good card though, I'll probably just play burn on Arena once this goes live.
Spirits
And like I've said, give control Terminus or Verdict, your slower midrange decks are still losing to them because that's just how matchups work. The problem is that you don't beat the aggro decks anymore, so what are your good matchups then?
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
Thats not remotely true. If the issue was Verdict, it could be reasonably played around by anyone who has played any kind of creature deck.
Regardless, we are all on the same page, Terminus is needed because Aggro is busted and simply too fast for a 4 mana wrath to be acceptable. Comical, but here we are.
Spirits
I don't see why any UW player would want to switch back to verdict. Terminus is just a much cleaner answer. If the format slows down, removal won't be as taxed, I don't see how that prevents UW to easily digging to a terminus. Maybe only if GDS is super prevalent. You could even play a 3/2 terminus/verdict split to really hate on creature decks since you don't need to warp your deck with main deck RiP anymore.
My testing partner definitely wouldn't swap. Anybody else want to weigh in on this?
Thats just me though. Going from UWR with Verdict/Settle/Wrath, to UW with Terminus was an eye opener, as its a pretty easy life when you do hit that miracle, and then untap Teferi, and chill.
Spirits
The only important question is: How high is the overlap towards other decks where you would want side board cards against them? And currently (at least in my opinion) the overlap of Dredge towards other graveyard based decks is higher, than something like Twin or Affinity hate offered, same story with the Tron hate (generic stuff like Field of Ruin is also good vs Midrange/Control while Damping Sphere also attacks any deck, which want to chain several spells per turn).
Heck, I would say it is currently even EASIER to build a Sideboard, cause of how good and broad the sideboard cards are currently. RIP MD of UW Control was already tested before Dredge became relevant again to different results (it felt nice and was more often than not not a dead card). Nowadays, with Phoenix, Hollow One, GDS, Dredge, KCI and even more decks relying on the graveyard, it makes even MORE sense to play it MD. Sure it sucks vs Humans/Spirits, Tron or the Mirror, but maybe it is just worth it to play it MD? As we have seen from different MODO challenges in the past few months, several players already did this and had good results with this.
Greetings,
Kathal
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
this is clearly a jab at my post, and im not sure why. i explicitly excluded you and cfp from the criticism. you and cfp stuck around, tried to make different things work, particularly in blue. if all you cared about was winning, or at least if you cared about winning much more than you do, then you would have either sought it out immediately or left the format.
i actually believe that twin was banned precisely because it had TOO MUCH play to it while also having the aspect of nutting all over your opponent even if they were trying to interact with you. the combo was as simple as it can get (play A+B), half of it was instant speed, and you won on the spot. those qualities, coupled with its power level, are going to win games or matches for a player that they had no right winning. so if you of cfp think that is insulting then im sorry, but for all those positive things twin had going on or was doing it still had that low effort 'free wins' aspect. if you cant see that then your perspective is skewed.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)Spirits
I also see it close to that, except for the free wins out of nowhere being undeserved. You could say that about storm, copy cat, aetherworks marvel legacy reanimator or any number of combo deck that effectivly wins on the spot, even weaker ones like seismic swan combo, jeskai ascendancy or cheerios. This just how combo decks function and that kind of win is deserved if it survives to sculpt whatever hand/graveyard/board state it needed to go off. I don't feel my view is skewed to badly for thinking that.
Twin was very powerful, had alot of high level wins and has recieved powerful new cards. I concede all those points. For the record I was a twin player because it was powerful and I love combo decks. Combo is part of the game and that includes simple powerful game winning combos. I play other combo decks now and I am really looking forward to the new birthing pod creature. But I really believe twin was, and would be again, on par for the appropriate power level for a teir 1 deck in modern. We didn't call it splinter twin winter.
Let's not kid ourselves here, Twin got banned because WotC was in the habit of banning the best deck every year to keep Modern's power level in check, and Twin just happened to be the best deck of 2015. The community outrage over the Twin banning is precisely why WotC has let up on their bans. I have no doubt that GDS would have been banned last year, and probably Humans and KCI this year, under their old way of doing things. And under their current more conservative approach, Twin probably wouldn't have been banned.
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
Like what? This was discussed previously several times and the general consensus is any upgrade was either fairly minimal, or a sidestep rather than a strict upgrade. Also, those proposing "but those upgrades!" haven't produced any hypothetical lists, showing what they would cut/change in order to make room for those "upgrades."
Edit: for reference, this is my hypothetical list: https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/08-01-19-modern-twin/?cb=1547082199 . I'll start with a Grixis one if I find some time later, but I prefer UR to Grixis.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate