I may be biased here as I've only played Abzan Company Combo in Modern prior to the Twin ban, but you (and by extension PVDDR) are severely undervaluing the ability to go from all-in combo to tempo with a combo backup. Winning from nowhere is one thing that a lot of strategies already encourage to some extent (my deck for instance, Twin's "successor" in Kikki-Chord, even Infect), but being able to do that or counterburn your way to victory off the back of a Pestermite or Snapcaster Mage and Lightning Bolt is what caused most of my losses.
Sometimes that worked, sometimes it didn't. If it worked as much as people say it should, then I'd guess more than 10-12% of people would play it, especially considering the deck has been around forever. If Twin was actually broken, everyone would know about it and everyone would be playing it (like every other banned deck). The myths and legends about Twin seem to vastly outweigh the realities of the deck.
Do they usually ban/unban stuff in january or does stuff ever happen in the summer months?
Bans used to "conveniently" line up with January, right before the Modern PT, often serving as a "shake up" to the format in order to make the PTs feel fresh and new. With the Modern PT no longer a factor, it's anybody's guess how they will move forward. Announcements are made a week before the release of each major set (4 times a year), and most announcements are "No Changes" unless Wizards feels something needs to be addressed.
Sometimes that worked, sometimes it didn't. If it worked as much as people say it should, then I'd guess more than 10-12% of people would play it, especially considering the deck has been around forever. If Twin was actually broken, everyone would know about it and everyone would be playing it (like every other banned deck). The myths and legends about Twin seem to vastly outweigh the realities of the deck.
I just would like to point out before ktkenshinx gets to it that not every deck gets banned for metagame share. Storm had Seething Song banned when it was 4.5% on paper and Bloom Titan had Summer Bloom banned when it was never over 7.5% at the most and that was right near the end. I guess you could say that no "non turn 3 offender" deck was banned for a smaller percentage than Twin. Twin was the precedent and a very scary one at the time. But I agree with the fact that signs point to its banning now encouraging non-interaction. Before, you couldn't do that without having something Remanded into Exarch/Twin.
@ed - it happens the Monday after the new set releases. (Kaladesh)
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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)
Sometimes that worked, sometimes it didn't. If it worked as much as people say it should, then I'd guess more than 10-12% of people would play it, especially considering the deck has been around forever. If Twin was actually broken, everyone would know about it and everyone would be playing it (like every other banned deck). The myths and legends about Twin seem to vastly outweigh the realities of the deck.
I just would like to point out before ktkenshinx gets to it that not every deck gets banned for metagame share. Storm had Seething Song banned when it was 4.5% on paper and Bloom Titan had Summer Bloom banned when it was never over 7.5% at the most and that was right near the end. I guess you could say that no "non turn 3 offender" deck was banned for a smaller percentage than Twin. Twin was the precedent and a very scary one at the time. But I agree with the fact that signs point to its banning now encouraging non-interaction. Before, you couldn't do that without having something Remanded into Exarch/Twin.
@ed - it happens the Monday after the new set releases. (Kaladesh)
Turn 4 bans are held to a different criteria than diversity bans. By diversity ban standards, Twin's ban was at best a joke, and at worst (as you said) very scary precedent.
I bought a playset of BBE just in case, since they were only like $3/ea, but I don't have my hopes set too high. I do still have my fingers crossed for a Splinter Twin unban, though. Still salty.
I get the feeling many people who are upset about the Twin ban are just mad that they no longer have a deck that has zero opportunity cost attached to it.
0 Opportunity cost. Right. Because Splinter Twin is never a bad draw and the combo is great against every single deck. That statement alone makes me believe you've never actually played with or against the deck.
If you want to play a combo deck, you have to accept the fact that you will have a shaky contingency plan if your plan A fails. If you're a control deck, you have to accept the fact you can't just win games out of nowhere and that you need to grind someone out of the game. Twin erased both of these weaknesses by combining both the strengths of combo and control into a single deck.
Uh. Why do you think the GBx G1 matchup was so hard? Twin was at it's worst against fair decks, as having your creature removed in response to the twin was a HUGE blowout, and extremely hard to come back from. Game 1 against fair decks (Jund, UWR, Grixis, Junk, etc..) meant you often had 6+ dead cards in your deck game one (Twin is almost 100% a dead draw against anything with abrupt decay, pestermite dies to a wayward sneeze).
I could spend the next hour writing a response about why Twin was what kept the format healthy and would improve the format tenfold if unbanned, but PVDDR did that for me back in January so I'll just link his article here instead. http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/why-the-twin-ban-was-a-mistake/
I may be biased here as I've only played Abzan Company Combo in Modern prior to the Twin ban, but you (and by extension PVDDR) are severely undervaluing the ability to go from all-in combo to tempo with a combo backup. Winning from nowhere is one thing that a lot of strategies already encourage to some extent (my deck for instance, Twin's "successor" in Kikki-Chord, even Infect), but being able to do that or counterburn your way to victory off the back of a Pestermite or Snapcaster Mage and Lightning Bolt is what caused most of my losses.
As far as being a format-police, the same could have been said about LOR-ALA UB/x Faeries, as in both Twin and Faeries polarized the format into a Rock-Paper-Scissors of Faeries/Twin, Five Color Control (or just Midrange/Control in the case of Twin), and whatever aggro deck that could easily challenge 5CC but still lost to Faeries (aka the Aggro/pure-Combo of Modern now). That's a lot of pressure on just one archetype to hold the format together.
Anyhow, my predictions for Modern: no bans, no unbans, no changes.
I'm going to basically mirror cfusionpm's post, in that if it was as strong an archetype as you make it out to be, it would've been played by a larger share of the meta. I can't really be accused of undervaluing the deck's abilities when we have metagame analyses that prove the archetype was not only not oppressive, it was on the downswing, and wasn't even the largest metagame share at the time(BGx had the top spot right before the banning). Here's the last modernnexus Metagame Breakdown before Twin was banned: http://modernnexus.com/modern-metagame-breakdown-121-1231/. That is the metagame I miss.
Do they usually ban/unban stuff in january or does stuff ever happen in the summer months?
Well they used to wait until the PT in January to make banlist changes (in an effort to shakeup the metagame, *cough*Twin*cough*), but with modern being removed from the PT all bets are off.
Look at the card. Now back to Jace. Now back to that card, now back to Jace! Sadly, it isn't Jace, but if it stopped being a junk rare and became relevant, it could act like it's Jace. Crack some Worldwake. What do you have? You have a Jace, the card you wish this card could be like. Look again. THE CARD IS NOW A $75 BILL. Anything possible when you play Magic with Jace and not junk rares. This is probably spam.
Twin's finishes far outstripped its metagame percentages and I think that was another big issue. I can recall several top 8s with 2-3 twin decks which is absurd for a "12.5%" of the meta deck to be putting up the numbers it did.
My recollection is that when the numbers were run, Twin performed about as well as Pod in terms of top finish dominance (within a close percentage).
Twin's finishes far outstripped its metagame percentages and I think that was another big issue. I can recall several top 8s with 2-3 twin decks which is absurd for a "12.5%" of the meta deck to be putting up the numbers it did.
My recollection is that when the numbers were run, Twin performed about as well as Pod in terms of top finish dominance (within a close percentage).
In 2015, there was 1 GP that had 3 copies (2 UR, 1 Jeskai), 1 GP that had 2 copies, and the remaining 5 GPs had only 1 copy each. Additionally, 60% of Twin Top 8 copies across all events were knocked out in the first quarterfinal round. Out of its 2 wins all year, both were different builds, with the Jeskai version running Kiki/Resto, Colonnades, and Elspeth. What a dominating deck.
Maybe it did so well in the top tables at GPs because pros (guys and gals who are ridiculously good at the game) don't want have to learn the intricacies of Modern since they spend so much time mastering Standard and Limited. Maybe instead of studying the metagame and making a precise call for any given weekend, it serves their best interests to play a familiar deck that deals well with random degeneracy and rewards skillful play against interactive decks. For a pro, that makes sense why they would pick such a deck. As far as raw power, if it really were as unbeatable as many would like to believe, you can bet your bottom dollar more people would be playing it (kind of like they did for every other diversity ban Modern has ever had...)
No matter what happens tomorrow, may this format survive and move well. Players who lose something, I'm truly sorry because I've seen how difficult and absolutely crushing it is to lose anything. I've seen friends lose Eggs, UR delver, POD, Amulet Bloom, Eldrazi, twin. I have one friend who sold his collection for a splinter twin deck. I've had friends leave Magic because of Modern bannings. But no matter what happens, I hope your hearts remain strong and endure. And if a banning does happen, I hope a new altered version can be created. Eldrazi became bant and death & taxes, amulet became azsuza titan, etc.
I believe nothing will be changed. I really do. But that being said, and like so many, I feel anxious and possibly sick to my stomach that something damaging happens to any of my decks. It is not fun getting near B&R announcements. But I have faith in Wizards and truly believe they wouldn't take these decisions lightly when they feel something is wrong.
Twin's finishes far outstripped its metagame percentages and I think that was another big issue. I can recall several top 8s with 2-3 twin decks which is absurd for a "12.5%" of the meta deck to be putting up the numbers it did.
My recollection is that when the numbers were run, Twin performed about as well as Pod in terms of top finish dominance (within a close percentage).
This is correct, twin mirrored the top 8 results of all of the other metagame share bans. You can either assume that wizards based their bans off the number of people playing the deck, and then spend a year accusing them of being "out of line" banning twin, or you can accept that you werent looking at the right numbers, and a deck that takes up 20% of the top 8's in an entire year is not acceptable in the format, whether or not it has the number of players to back it up
I agree with you that twin wasn't really oppressive...however, it had some other issues:
- it was by default the best deck in modern; not by a large margin, but still, most pro's gravitated towards twin because it was the best choice against an open field: Favored against linear aggro and ramp, a good winning chance against midrange (pre-board slightly negative, but post-board at least even with Keranos etc.), and your bad control matchups ware basically non-existent or mostly just mirror matches.
- it did stifle archetype-diversity...playing blue-based control without twin was just worse than with twin. Unfortunately, blue-based control is still to weak right now, but as soon as it get's an additional good card, I expect several different control decks to emerge (Jeskai Nahiri, Grixis, maybe Esper/UW)
They could have solved that by banning the exarch... the other creatures with the same effect are either not bolt proof or are of a third color. THat might have been enough to tone down the deck a bit.
I would like to see a large amount of cards unbanned !
Splinter Twin, Umezawa's Jitte, Deathrite Shaman, Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Tree of Tales.
Dont feel like any of these cards would be any more oppressive than infect or affinity.
I have a good feeling you could attempt to back this claims up with more data like David Ernenwein did. If you don't know how to do it, he explains it here.
Stay tuned for the results coming in today I guess.
Unbanning Artifact Lands is just a bad idea. Even Tree of Tales would be played in affinity just because it is an artifact that enables turn 1 Metalcraft more consistently. I am pretty sure about that.
Jitte would put Creaturebased decks over the top imo. 1-2 Attacks with a jitte equipped and your opponent will not win combat anymore.
DRS is a one mana Planeswalker that ramps, blocks well, gains life and provides a clock. While i can understand that all BGx players would go nuts over this it wouldn't bode well for the meta.
Agree with Twin and JTMS though. JTMS, while being a really really good card, is just slow as hell and in the current meta he would be between "okay" and "good" but out "Outstanding". For Twin we have even more hate now with the W Enchantment from Kaladesh, Rending Volley, Rakdos Charm and the like.
Jace is too slow to be a major threat, but I have tested with Jitte even just in my Stompy deck, and that card is 100% bonkers broken. Too versatile powerful at each thing. I have no idea what Wizards could have been thinking. It's not a combo piece, there are no hidden applications or synergies. They didn't put the power level just barely on the wrong side like with DRS, the card is like Emrakul, 'how much power can we pack in it?' And then they forgot to give it a crazy casting cost
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Stoneforge should be unbanned as it will make decks work that will not warp the format in any way. As long as jitte remains banned the deck is not that strong and it will get people playign big fun flashy cards like the swords. Jace is also good but not overpowered in modern and will help control decks a bit more.
Legacy:B The Gate // B Pox Modern:RGB Dredge // RBG Goblins // B The Gate // UBR Tezz AoB Control // RBG Prison Pox EDH:RBU Thraximundar // R Norin the Wary // RWB Kaalia of the Vast // BUR Grixis Combos // BU Gisa and Geralf Tribal Tiny Leaders:BUW Sydri, Galvanic Genius // R Feldon of the Third Path
I want to see BBE unbanned, followed by how long it would take those "Jund would not play BBE" people to do a 180.
I think it's more along the lines of "Jund won't automatically play BBE" rather than "Jund won't play BBE". I think I fall into the aforementioned category. A BBE unban would likely split Jund builds just as Grim flayer has. Kalitas is the literal nuts against a lot of matchups and would be competing for the 4 drop spot as well as "nonbo" with BBE. Jund w/BBE would likely be leaner, more low to the ground builds, while Kalitas, Tasigur, Chandra (new or old) would likely be more controlly versions. Would one be better than the rest? Hard to say, but I don't think BBE is a slam dunk or "not played at all."
Regardless, I think your comment was more in jest and I would like to see people do a 180 as well, but I do think there is more to it than that.
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EDH:ShatterStax, Only The Strong Survive
Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir Mono-U Control
Ob Nixilis of the Black Oath
Sen Triplets
Mizzix of the Izmagnus
Derevi Stax
VolThrun
Marchesa, The Black Rose
Olivia Voldaren, Vampire Tribal
I am expecting no changes. I will be very very surprised if there are any bans.
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SonofaBith - Wizards was so excited about making the packaging for Modern Masters 2 recyclable, they decided to make most of the rares and all but 1 of the UC's recycle-bin ready too. Convenient!
Sometimes that worked, sometimes it didn't. If it worked as much as people say it should, then I'd guess more than 10-12% of people would play it, especially considering the deck has been around forever. If Twin was actually broken, everyone would know about it and everyone would be playing it (like every other banned deck). The myths and legends about Twin seem to vastly outweigh the realities of the deck.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Bans used to "conveniently" line up with January, right before the Modern PT, often serving as a "shake up" to the format in order to make the PTs feel fresh and new. With the Modern PT no longer a factor, it's anybody's guess how they will move forward. Announcements are made a week before the release of each major set (4 times a year), and most announcements are "No Changes" unless Wizards feels something needs to be addressed.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
I just would like to point out before ktkenshinx gets to it that not every deck gets banned for metagame share. Storm had Seething Song banned when it was 4.5% on paper and Bloom Titan had Summer Bloom banned when it was never over 7.5% at the most and that was right near the end. I guess you could say that no "non turn 3 offender" deck was banned for a smaller percentage than Twin. Twin was the precedent and a very scary one at the time. But I agree with the fact that signs point to its banning now encouraging non-interaction. Before, you couldn't do that without having something Remanded into Exarch/Twin.
@ed - it happens the Monday after the new set releases. (Kaladesh)
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)Turn 4 bans are held to a different criteria than diversity bans. By diversity ban standards, Twin's ban was at best a joke, and at worst (as you said) very scary precedent.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
I'm going to basically mirror cfusionpm's post, in that if it was as strong an archetype as you make it out to be, it would've been played by a larger share of the meta. I can't really be accused of undervaluing the deck's abilities when we have metagame analyses that prove the archetype was not only not oppressive, it was on the downswing, and wasn't even the largest metagame share at the time(BGx had the top spot right before the banning). Here's the last modernnexus Metagame Breakdown before Twin was banned: http://modernnexus.com/modern-metagame-breakdown-121-1231/. That is the metagame I miss.
Well they used to wait until the PT in January to make banlist changes (in an effort to shakeup the metagame, *cough*Twin*cough*), but with modern being removed from the PT all bets are off.
URURxUR
UWUWxUW
My recollection is that when the numbers were run, Twin performed about as well as Pod in terms of top finish dominance (within a close percentage).
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
In 2015, there was 1 GP that had 3 copies (2 UR, 1 Jeskai), 1 GP that had 2 copies, and the remaining 5 GPs had only 1 copy each. Additionally, 60% of Twin Top 8 copies across all events were knocked out in the first quarterfinal round. Out of its 2 wins all year, both were different builds, with the Jeskai version running Kiki/Resto, Colonnades, and Elspeth. What a dominating deck.
Maybe it did so well in the top tables at GPs because pros (guys and gals who are ridiculously good at the game) don't want have to learn the intricacies of Modern since they spend so much time mastering Standard and Limited. Maybe instead of studying the metagame and making a precise call for any given weekend, it serves their best interests to play a familiar deck that deals well with random degeneracy and rewards skillful play against interactive decks. For a pro, that makes sense why they would pick such a deck. As far as raw power, if it really were as unbeatable as many would like to believe, you can bet your bottom dollar more people would be playing it (kind of like they did for every other diversity ban Modern has ever had...)
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
I believe nothing will be changed. I really do. But that being said, and like so many, I feel anxious and possibly sick to my stomach that something damaging happens to any of my decks. It is not fun getting near B&R announcements. But I have faith in Wizards and truly believe they wouldn't take these decisions lightly when they feel something is wrong.
This is correct, twin mirrored the top 8 results of all of the other metagame share bans. You can either assume that wizards based their bans off the number of people playing the deck, and then spend a year accusing them of being "out of line" banning twin, or you can accept that you werent looking at the right numbers, and a deck that takes up 20% of the top 8's in an entire year is not acceptable in the format, whether or not it has the number of players to back it up
UWRjeskai nahiri UWR
UBRgrixis titi UBR
UBRgrixis delverUBR
UR ur kikimite UR
EDH
RUG Riku of Two Reflections RUG
UBR Marchesa, the Black Rose UBR
UBRGYidris, Maelstrom Wielder UBRG
UBRJeleva, Nephalia's ScourgeUBR
Stay reasonable, be mindful of your expectations and don't feed the trolls.
Doomsdayin'
Stay reasonable, be mindful of your expectations and don't feed the trolls.
Doomsdayin'
They could have solved that by banning the exarch... the other creatures with the same effect are either not bolt proof or are of a third color. THat might have been enough to tone down the deck a bit.
I have a good feeling you could attempt to back this claims up with more data like David Ernenwein did. If you don't know how to do it, he explains it here.
Stay tuned for the results coming in today I guess.
Greetings
King
UWRWorking on: Pyromancer AscensionUR
Jitte would put Creaturebased decks over the top imo. 1-2 Attacks with a jitte equipped and your opponent will not win combat anymore.
DRS is a one mana Planeswalker that ramps, blocks well, gains life and provides a clock. While i can understand that all BGx players would go nuts over this it wouldn't bode well for the meta.
Agree with Twin and JTMS though. JTMS, while being a really really good card, is just slow as hell and in the current meta he would be between "okay" and "good" but out "Outstanding". For Twin we have even more hate now with the W Enchantment from Kaladesh, Rending Volley, Rakdos Charm and the like.
BRGJundGRB
GCTronCG
WBRMardu PyromancerRBW
Legacy:
GElvesG
2 hours from now.
WBG Elves WBG
Cheeri0s
EDH:
RG Omnath, Locus of Rage RG || GWUB Atraxa, Praetors' Voice GWUB
R Zo-Zu the Punisher R || WU Brago, King Eternal WU
UB Gisa and Geralf UB || BGW Ghave, Guru of Spores BGW
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|
Big Johnny.
UB Faeries (15-6-0)
UWR Control (10-5-1)/Kiki Control/Midrange/Harbinger
UBR Cruel Control (6-4-0)/Grixis Control/Delver/Blue Jund
UWB Control/Mentor
UW Miracles/Control (currently active, 14-2-0)
BW Eldrazi & Taxes
RW Burn (9-1-0)
I do (academic) research on video games and archaeology! You can check out my open access book here: https://www.sidestone.com/books/the-interactive-past
"No changes" I'm guessing.
Modern: RGB Dredge // RBG Goblins // B The Gate // UBR Tezz AoB Control // RBG Prison Pox
EDH: RBU Thraximundar // R Norin the Wary // RWB Kaalia of the Vast // BUR Grixis Combos // BU Gisa and Geralf Tribal
Tiny Leaders: BUW Sydri, Galvanic Genius // R Feldon of the Third Path
Projects:
Gisa and Geralf Extreme-Tribal EDH
Esper Eldrazi Processor Control
Brewing with Kuldotha Forgemaster
Primer: "The Gate" - Mono Black in Modern
Modern Prison Pox - building a better plague
I think it's more along the lines of "Jund won't automatically play BBE" rather than "Jund won't play BBE". I think I fall into the aforementioned category. A BBE unban would likely split Jund builds just as Grim flayer has. Kalitas is the literal nuts against a lot of matchups and would be competing for the 4 drop spot as well as "nonbo" with BBE. Jund w/BBE would likely be leaner, more low to the ground builds, while Kalitas, Tasigur, Chandra (new or old) would likely be more controlly versions. Would one be better than the rest? Hard to say, but I don't think BBE is a slam dunk or "not played at all."
Regardless, I think your comment was more in jest and I would like to see people do a 180 as well, but I do think there is more to it than that.
Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir Mono-U Control
Ob Nixilis of the Black Oath
Sen Triplets
Mizzix of the Izmagnus
Derevi Stax
VolThrun
Marchesa, The Black Rose
Olivia Voldaren, Vampire Tribal
Modern: Fish, JUND/Junk
--------
RIP Twin
GW Rhys the Redeemed EDH
RUGAnimar, Soul of Elements EDH
WBRAlesha, Who Smiles at Death EDH
decks playing:
none