In all seriousness, blue had its go in Modern, and it got cut. Some agree, some disagree. It'll come back eventually. It is cyclical. Just enjoy the damn game.
In all seriousness, blue had its go in Modern, and it got cut. Some agree, some disagree. It'll come back eventually. It is cyclical. Just enjoy the damn game.
Might as well ban Goyf as well. And Goblin Guide. And Tron lands. And Arcbound Ravager. And... what else? I mean, lineage in a format and balance of archetypes doesn't matter, right? The game is cyclical. Just enjoy it!
I think it's very fair to compare it to other decks. Lots of decks under 7% metagame, so if a deck has a low metagame share, this doesn't mean it's doing bad. If burn had a metagame share of 10% in 2015 and now it's 4.5%, I don't think we should unban stuff to help burn. I don't think we should be looking at old numbers at all. Metagames keep changing.
Control never hit 23% or whatever. I wouldn't lump Twin into those numbers.
In all seriousness, blue had its go in Modern, and it got cut. Some agree, some disagree. It'll come back eventually. It is cyclical. Just enjoy the damn game.
Might as well ban Goyf as well. And Goblin Guide. And Tron lands. And Arcbound Ravager. And... what else? I mean, lineage in a format and balance of archetypes doesn't matter, right? The game is cyclical. Just enjoy it!
When Goyf pushes a deck to Tier 0.5 status, we might have to revisit a Goyf ban (hint: itll never happen). Considering Twin did that, and forced all decks to have a "Twin Counter" check, pushed it onto the ban list. Oh, and WOTC's explanation of Pro Tour diversity. But if it was just that, they would have addressed the Twin ban after dropping Modern from the Pro Tour.
In all seriousness, blue had its go in Modern, and it got cut. Some agree, some disagree. It'll come back eventually. It is cyclical. Just enjoy the damn game.
Might as well ban Goyf as well. And Goblin Guide. And Tron lands. And Arcbound Ravager. And... what else? I mean, lineage in a format and balance of archetypes doesn't matter, right? The game is cyclical. Just enjoy it!
When Goyf pushes a deck to Tier 0.5 status, we might have to revisit a Goyf ban (hint: itll never happen). Considering Twin did that, and forced all decks to have a "Twin Counter" check, pushed it onto the ban list. Oh, and WOTC's explanation of Pro Tour diversity. But if it was just that, they would have addressed the Twin ban after dropping Modern from the Pro Tour.
How awful it must have been to have to do things like run creature removal or hand disruption or counterspells! What an awful and oppressive format!
I understand you have an ax to grind against it from either misinformation or troll posts, but the perception you are exhibiting for the deck never actually existed. Especially saying it's basically Ad Nauseam. This is silly.
The point is banning top decks out of the format every cycle is dangerous and poor form for managing a format, especially when several top decks are extremely close to each other.
For all intents and purposes, Twin was first and foremost, a Combo deck. The fact that it played interactive removal and permission does not take away from the fact that its main game plan was to stop you, and combo off. I dont care how many games you durddled your way to a win with snapcaster attacking every turn.
That being said, Twin absolutely warped the format, as much as you as are in denial of that fact. Im not saying banning the top deck every season is a good thing. But considering it is consistent with WOTCs past actions, I say we live with it.
If your deck is getting large meta game shares, and its hard to beat it, then beware the banhammer. And if you dont like that, dont play Magic competitively.
Look, if Condemn can be considered good enough to not touch DS decks, then Rending Volley should be fine to hold Twin in place. WoTC doesn't know what the **** they're doing. I'm not necessarily saying DS needs a ban (it doesn't), but their tortured logic when making decisions is inconsistent and contradictory. The fact that control as an archetype languishes around 5% and that to them is acceptable tells me all I need to know. They don't want me playing Magic. They killed the only good playable control deck outside of Standard with the top ban. Can we all stop being Charlie Brown here?
What's funny is standard basically has a deck that similar to twin (Both win on turn 4). What makes it worse than dealing with modern twin is the answers in standard suck, and drum roll they didn't ban it in standard. Wizards you make no sense.
Rending Volley was a big card during that time, and it came in exactly for Twin, and Twin only. The minute twin got banned, the card went away.
Recently Dredge started doing the same thing, and it got nerfed (again).
Eldrazi Winter had the same ***** (it was even worse than the first two).
I played non-twin decks during twin's era. Your deck wasn't viable if it didnt:
a) have the ability to not tap-out turn 3
b) have removal for Exarch or permission for twin
Look, if Condemn can be considered good enough to not touch DS decks, then Rending Volley should be fine to hold Twin in place. WoTC doesn't know what the **** they're doing. I'm not necessarily saying DS needs a ban (it doesn't), but their tortured logic when making decisions is inconsistent and contradictory.
Look, if Condemn can be considered good enough to not touch DS decks, then Rending Volley should be fine to hold Twin in place. WoTC doesn't know what the **** they're doing. I'm not necessarily saying DS needs a ban (it doesn't), but their tortured logic when making decisions is inconsistent and contradictory. The fact that control as an archetype languishes around 5% and that to them is acceptable tells me all I need to know. They don't want me playing Magic. They killed the only good playable control deck outside of Standard with the top ban. Can we all stop being Charlie Brown here?
This bolded part has been the reason for much of my frustrations of the past year and a half in Modern.
Rending Volley was a big card during that time, and it came in exactly for Twin, and Twin only. The minute twin got banned, the card went away.
Recently Dredge started doing the same thing, and it got nerfed (again).
Eldrazi Winter had the same ***** (it was even worse than the first two).
I played non-twin decks during twin's era. Your deck wasn't viable if it didnt:
a) have the ability to not tap-out turn 3
b) have removal for Exarch or permission for twin
And what mystery deck doesn't fills these two requirements that is currently viable?
I didnt start this by saying Twin shouldnt come back. It should, and they should ban exarch. My posts discuss why it was banned back then, and why it did make sense.
Whether it still makes sense today, is up for testing. If R&D does not want to deal with a potential bad unban (like GGT), then I understand.
I still have my foil playsets of Twin ready for the future.
Rending Volley was a big card during that time, and it came in exactly for Twin, and Twin only. The minute twin got banned, the card went away.
Recently Dredge started doing the same thing, and it got nerfed (again).
Eldrazi Winter had the same ***** (it was even worse than the first two).
I played non-twin decks during twin's era. Your deck wasn't viable if it didnt:
a) have the ability to not tap-out turn 3
b) have removal for Exarch or permission for twin
And what mystery deck doesn't fills these two requirements that is currently viable?
I didnt start this by saying Twin shouldnt come back. It should, and they should ban exarch. My posts discuss why it was banned back then, and why it did make sense.
Whether it still makes sense today, is up for testing. If R&D does not want to deal with a potential bad unban (like GGT), then I understand.
I still have my foil playsets of Twin ready for the future.
I disagree that GGT was a bad unban. GGT was totally fine until Prized Amalgam and Cathartic Reunion broke the deck. Before that, it was mildly annoying, but firmly Tier 2.
And GGT perfectly exemplifies why Twin should be unbanned. It would be totally safe in today's meta. Then, if something in the future causes the deck to be truly broken, THEN it can be addressed and dealt with accordingly. The fact that it's still banned is likely entirely based on Wizards not wanting to swallow their pride about making the wrong decision with the ban.
Twin won the turn it hit, shadow doesn't. DS decks interact with their opponent beyond "EOT, Tap your open land, untap, twin."
And if you tried to jam the combo into open mana on turn 3/4, you opened yourself up to getting completely blown out. It's a rookie move that looses games much more often than it wins, and the percentage of this happening successfully is wildly blown out of proportion.
Ironically enough, Death's Shadow would give Twin a mountain of headaches between 8 discard spells and giant threats that don't die to bolt.
For all intents and purposes, Twin was first and foremost, a Combo deck. The fact that it played interactive removal and permission does not take away from the fact that its main game plan was to stop you, and combo off. I dont care how many games you durddled your way to a win with snapcaster attacking every turn.
That being said, Twin absolutely warped the format, as much as you as are in denial of that fact. Im not saying banning the top deck every season is a good thing. But considering it is consistent with WOTCs past actions, I say we live with it.
If your deck is getting large meta game shares, and its hard to beat it, then beware the banhammer. And if you dont like that, dont play Magic competitively.
I would say that twin was 60-40 combo-tempo, 50-50 in some matchups. It was not an all in combo deck by any stretch. It punished greedy players who tapped out too liberally, and it rewarded smart playing/bluffing from the pilot. It was a good deck. It was a great deck. But it was not this 0.5 tier monster people seem to remember it as. If that were true, why did it only hit less than 15% meta share (all flavors combined)? If it was this godly deck, it definitely should have seen more play. As for 'warping the format,' I think people fundamentally misrepresent this expression. Having to run interaction to deal with arguably the best deck in the format is not warping. Warping is requiring that you play specific, narrow answers to that boogyman deck in order to beat it. The answers you had to run to deal with twin, were answers that were decent to good against the rest of the field (as someone said earlier, most of those answers are still being played). Twin forced you to consider it when you were building/brewing a new deck, but that isn't warping. That's just met awareness. Does affinity warp the format because you have to make sure you have some artifact hate? Tron with land destruction? Burn with lifegain? These are all decks in the format, and if you build a deck without considering them, you are building it wrong. It's not warping.
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Modern: UWR Breach, UWB Esper control
Legacy: UW RiP/Helm, UR Sneak and Show
It's funny seeing people doom-say over Control being dead in every format with STD being banned yet Legacy players still have SFM and Jace, two cards
a lot of Modern players would love to play with.
Anyhow, I already expressed my opinion on their Twitter page. A good majority of Modern players want unbans while Legacy players wanted to be left alone, so naturally they do the opposite. I'm trying hard to remain positive and give them the benefit of the doubt but it seems they have no idea what they are doing and are absolutely terrified of unbans.
Arguing that AF dies to hand disruption can be applied to almost any combo deck. AF decks are literally just starting out. I think they will have a place in Modern. The tier they will find themselves is still up in the air.
no I'm arguing that Modern has never been a format that is kind to strategies that hinge on a single 3c.c. permanent sticking to the board.
It wasn't just hand disruption its hand disruption and MD non-counterable answers to the card being a feature of the current best deck of the format.
Name me a deck that has any modern success that was so focused on a getting a single sorcery speed permanent into play and having it stick around? I imagine it will be as good as Isochron Scepter.
Enchantment hate for As Foretold is much less common than artifact hate is for Isochron Scepter, so the comparison doesn't really work. As foretold would be much worse as an artifact for that reason. I still can't tell if it is going to be good, but I'll be able to grind out some paper matches with the card before long to find out!
And the answer to your question is Amulet Bloom. It needed an amulet to win, and win it did.
While deck diversity is good, we're keeping an eye on color balance. If there's an easy change to the banned list that could open up more decks in the future, we will examine it when other formats have less pressing needs.
This means AF and WOTC think W and U are the weakest colours in colour pie in Modern.
This also means that they will try to up those colours in Modern IF they feel there is something that is safe and can help them. [...]
Of course, if they feel those cards are super powerful to them, they won't unban them.
The fact that his statement is an "If" is why it's concerning. If they had any awareness of the format at all, it would not be an "if" statement. I think you covered why they phrased it like that well: "they feel those cards are super powerful". They would have unbanned them already if they were at all capable of evaluating card in the modern context. It's not only their intentions I question (seemingly throwing modern under the bus for standard), but also their ability.
I full expect that next announcement they will discuss why SFM and preordain are too powerful, despite there already being clearly superior threats and a contextually much better non-blue cantrip. Heck, I'm getting convinced that they would sooner ban Death's Shadow than release SFM.
What funny is that Deaths Shadow is making UW Control good again.
I think that if this DS continues to simply be the best deck that UW will continue to do better and better as the metagame contracts around it. Control decks need decks like DS to invalidate a lot of other options so that they have a clear and narrow path towards control.
I think if DS keeps doing good the numbers on UW Control will continue to go up and it will signal that UW are fine because they rise up as police decks when singular aggro decks begin to dominate.
UW control needs a narrow metagame to become tier 1 because it's answers are plentiful, but narrow. Your diagnosis that UW's rise is tied to Death's Shadow is correct, but only as a result of narrow answers.
If the answers weren't so narrow, it wouldn't need a narrow metagame to be tier 1. The behaviour is resultant from narrow answers, not an inherent feature of a control deck.
I mean you're not wrong on the correlation, but it's just a feature of the card pool, not the archtype.
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Modern Decks
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
Honestly, my faith in Wizards' ability to successfully manage eternal formats was lost long ago. I expect no less from a company completely incapable of taking risks, and where the only true powerful cards are accidents that they never actually wanted to happen.
I mean, at least another of my decks didn't eat a ban (this time), but I find it very, very odd that they go so far out of their way to introduce EXTRA B&R announcements only to give us back-to-back "No Changes." Between the ridiculous oppression of two decks in Standard and the extreme weakness of reactive decks in Modern, I fully expected something banned from Standard and something unbanned in Modern. But alas, the timid turtle hides again because they don't actually care about format health.
I thought the new B&R announcement structure was because of WotC abandoning the faster standard rotation and had nothing to do with formats other than Standard. I never anticipated that it would mean much for Modern outside of them being able to Ban things if they being oppressive quicker without calling a emergency ban.
We still need some unbans, namely Preordain and/or Stoneforge Mystic and/or Splinter Twin.
Reason? White decks and blue control decks still are a bad choice if you want to win and their metashare is way too decreased.
Total of White based decks:
Death And Taxes(all variations): 3.09%
Some other decks splashing white & untiered decks <1%
Grixis Control: 5.5%
UR Twin: 5.3%
Grixis Twin: 4.8%
Grixis Delver: 3.2%
Temur Twin: 2.4%
RUG Scapeshift: 1.8% Total: 23%
What does it tell us? Modern Blue Control decks were totally nuked out of existence, thus they need help back.
Time to have this conversation, since the Banlist came out.
Twin and Delver are not control decks this is the most see things how you want them.
Twin was a tempo-combo deck it wasn't a control deck this is just a intentional misrepresentation of the entire deck.
Delver is just a aggro-tempo deck again misrepresentation of the entire deck.
So out of your list only about 7% of it was actually control the rest was Combo, and combo is doing fine U based combo is about 6% between Gifts Storm and Ad Naus.
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In all seriousness, blue had its go in Modern, and it got cut. Some agree, some disagree. It'll come back eventually. It is cyclical. Just enjoy the damn game.
RUG Temur Deprive Delver
BUG Sultai Deprive Delver
Might as well ban Goyf as well. And Goblin Guide. And Tron lands. And Arcbound Ravager. And... what else? I mean, lineage in a format and balance of archetypes doesn't matter, right? The game is cyclical. Just enjoy it!
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Control never hit 23% or whatever. I wouldn't lump Twin into those numbers.
When Goyf pushes a deck to Tier 0.5 status, we might have to revisit a Goyf ban (hint: itll never happen). Considering Twin did that, and forced all decks to have a "Twin Counter" check, pushed it onto the ban list. Oh, and WOTC's explanation of Pro Tour diversity. But if it was just that, they would have addressed the Twin ban after dropping Modern from the Pro Tour.
RUG Temur Deprive Delver
BUG Sultai Deprive Delver
I loathe creatures! Praise Prison and Land Destruction!
My Peasant Cube (looking for feedback)
How awful it must have been to have to do things like run creature removal or hand disruption or counterspells! What an awful and oppressive format!
I understand you have an ax to grind against it from either misinformation or troll posts, but the perception you are exhibiting for the deck never actually existed. Especially saying it's basically Ad Nauseam. This is silly.
The point is banning top decks out of the format every cycle is dangerous and poor form for managing a format, especially when several top decks are extremely close to each other.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
That being said, Twin absolutely warped the format, as much as you as are in denial of that fact. Im not saying banning the top deck every season is a good thing. But considering it is consistent with WOTCs past actions, I say we live with it.
If your deck is getting large meta game shares, and its hard to beat it, then beware the banhammer. And if you dont like that, dont play Magic competitively.
RUG Temur Deprive Delver
BUG Sultai Deprive Delver
Really, they should have un-banned something.
I loathe creatures! Praise Prison and Land Destruction!
My Peasant Cube (looking for feedback)
Recently Dredge started doing the same thing, and it got nerfed (again).
Eldrazi Winter had the same ***** (it was even worse than the first two).
I played non-twin decks during twin's era. Your deck wasn't viable if it didnt:
a) have the ability to not tap-out turn 3
b) have removal for Exarch or permission for twin
RUG Temur Deprive Delver
BUG Sultai Deprive Delver
I dont disagree with this.
RUG Temur Deprive Delver
BUG Sultai Deprive Delver
This bolded part has been the reason for much of my frustrations of the past year and a half in Modern.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
I didnt start this by saying Twin shouldnt come back. It should, and they should ban exarch. My posts discuss why it was banned back then, and why it did make sense.
Whether it still makes sense today, is up for testing. If R&D does not want to deal with a potential bad unban (like GGT), then I understand.
I still have my foil playsets of Twin ready for the future.
RUG Temur Deprive Delver
BUG Sultai Deprive Delver
I disagree that GGT was a bad unban. GGT was totally fine until Prized Amalgam and Cathartic Reunion broke the deck. Before that, it was mildly annoying, but firmly Tier 2.
And GGT perfectly exemplifies why Twin should be unbanned. It would be totally safe in today's meta. Then, if something in the future causes the deck to be truly broken, THEN it can be addressed and dealt with accordingly. The fact that it's still banned is likely entirely based on Wizards not wanting to swallow their pride about making the wrong decision with the ban.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Follow the link for nice cheap clothing.
Playing:
Death's Shadow Jund
Played:
Kiki Chord, Zoo variants, Goblins, Burn
And if you tried to jam the combo into open mana on turn 3/4, you opened yourself up to getting completely blown out. It's a rookie move that looses games much more often than it wins, and the percentage of this happening successfully is wildly blown out of proportion.
Ironically enough, Death's Shadow would give Twin a mountain of headaches between 8 discard spells and giant threats that don't die to bolt.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
I would say that twin was 60-40 combo-tempo, 50-50 in some matchups. It was not an all in combo deck by any stretch. It punished greedy players who tapped out too liberally, and it rewarded smart playing/bluffing from the pilot. It was a good deck. It was a great deck. But it was not this 0.5 tier monster people seem to remember it as. If that were true, why did it only hit less than 15% meta share (all flavors combined)? If it was this godly deck, it definitely should have seen more play. As for 'warping the format,' I think people fundamentally misrepresent this expression. Having to run interaction to deal with arguably the best deck in the format is not warping. Warping is requiring that you play specific, narrow answers to that boogyman deck in order to beat it. The answers you had to run to deal with twin, were answers that were decent to good against the rest of the field (as someone said earlier, most of those answers are still being played). Twin forced you to consider it when you were building/brewing a new deck, but that isn't warping. That's just met awareness. Does affinity warp the format because you have to make sure you have some artifact hate? Tron with land destruction? Burn with lifegain? These are all decks in the format, and if you build a deck without considering them, you are building it wrong. It's not warping.
Legacy: UW RiP/Helm, UR Sneak and Show
Combos win when resolved.
News, at 11.
Spirits
a lot of Modern players would love to play with.
Anyhow, I already expressed my opinion on their Twitter page. A good majority of Modern players want unbans while Legacy players wanted to be left alone, so naturally they do the opposite. I'm trying hard to remain positive and give them the benefit of the doubt but it seems they have no idea what they are doing and are absolutely terrified of unbans.
no I'm arguing that Modern has never been a format that is kind to strategies that hinge on a single 3c.c. permanent sticking to the board.
It wasn't just hand disruption its hand disruption and MD non-counterable answers to the card being a feature of the current best deck of the format.
Name me a deck that has any modern success that was so focused on a getting a single sorcery speed permanent into play and having it stick around? I imagine it will be as good as Isochron Scepter.
And the answer to your question is Amulet Bloom. It needed an amulet to win, and win it did.
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
What funny is that Deaths Shadow is making UW Control good again.
I think that if this DS continues to simply be the best deck that UW will continue to do better and better as the metagame contracts around it. Control decks need decks like DS to invalidate a lot of other options so that they have a clear and narrow path towards control.
I think if DS keeps doing good the numbers on UW Control will continue to go up and it will signal that UW are fine because they rise up as police decks when singular aggro decks begin to dominate.
If the answers weren't so narrow, it wouldn't need a narrow metagame to be tier 1. The behaviour is resultant from narrow answers, not an inherent feature of a control deck.
I mean you're not wrong on the correlation, but it's just a feature of the card pool, not the archtype.
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
I thought the new B&R announcement structure was because of WotC abandoning the faster standard rotation and had nothing to do with formats other than Standard. I never anticipated that it would mean much for Modern outside of them being able to Ban things if they being oppressive quicker without calling a emergency ban.
Twin and Delver are not control decks this is the most see things how you want them.
Twin was a tempo-combo deck it wasn't a control deck this is just a intentional misrepresentation of the entire deck.
Delver is just a aggro-tempo deck again misrepresentation of the entire deck.
So out of your list only about 7% of it was actually control the rest was Combo, and combo is doing fine U based combo is about 6% between Gifts Storm and Ad Naus.