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.
Really, they should have un-banned something.
They're scared to. Standard is in a seriously bad place, and they think banning will put it in an even worse place. What used to be the largest Standard FNM in the world, 200+ players routinely now gets 30. Our local shop has fallen from 20 for Standard to 4. Modern is the only thing people are playing locally.
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.
Except many of the "true powerful cards" were the result of them taking risks and going overboard.
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."
It is extremely likely that the reason for the extra banned list announcements was they wanted the opportunity to ban cards between sets again. Banning cards with the release of a set was done because they figured "well, that's a time when the card pool changes anyway" may have made a little sense but it took away something the previous banning schedule did: The ability to see how a set affected the format before deciding on a ban. At first this didn't really matter that much because all of the bans were in non-Standard formats where new cards weren't necessarily that likely to fix anything due to their size, but Standard is another matter. When they found themselves having to ban a card in Standard again, they likely realized they had totally goofed up with removing the ability to ban cards between sets and then reinstated it.
Yeah, the Standard metagame is lame. But we've also got a new set coming out. That could potentially change things. It makes a lot more sense to see what happens before deciding whether to ban. Which is, as I said, almost certainly why they put the banned list announcements between sets. Personally I think it would have been better to only have the announcements be between sets to make it so players aren't wondering what might happen twice as often, but I suppose they'd rather keep their options as open as possible.
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 find it implausible to claim they "don't actually care" about format health after they finally actually did a ban to make Legacy more healthy. While I'm seeing some people say a different card should have been banned, I'm seeing almost no one say that no banning was warranted for Miracles.
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.
Which is why I thought it was ironic that the two formats with the absolute vast majority of ban discussion get "No Changes" twice in a row after this decision, and two other formats that have essentially no real support and just want to be left alone get hit with big bans. It's fascinating to see where their priorities are.
if you add up all the different control decks, control is doing very well right now, it doesn't really need jace and stoneforge and all that other stuff.
That's not really true at all. You have one at about 3% that only has a good matchup against a handful of decks (mostly Death's Shadow), and then the rest are extremely weak (with <1% shares to match). You're telling me "control decks" are doing ok? What source of data agrees with that?
What reasoning do you have for thinking that in non-rotating formats T1 Control decks are normal?
Legacy didn't have one for the longest time until Top came along and it proved to be to good at what it does and was oppressive.
If a actual control deck was to sustain T1 status in Modern it would be because it was oppressive. Control is only good when its great, it doesn't have the flexible nature of a aggro deck that can just draw the nutz and kill you out of no where. Control decks in order to be good have to have a positive match up against all known entities this is why it is generally only ever been a flash in the pan in modern because the format shifts to much for a single list to maintain its T1 status.
Just look at Standards of the past, When has Control ever been good from day one of a format? I can't think of a Standard in which it was Control day one to the next format. This is because Control has to wait for the best aggro deck to rise, the best combo if any and then it compile the perfect deck to control those entities and you will see it on top for long periods until the next release and the format is again unsettled. In Modern the Format is rarely if ever settled but when it has gotten to a point in which the viable number of Aggro/Mid-range/Combo is small enough to focus on Control does well. In the past when Modern was a format dominated by Combo, Pod, Twin and had only one real viable fair deck BGx we used to see UWR as a consistent element of the top tiers but that stability is gone and wider more competitively open meta-game is why that T1 consistent status is gone a 75 card deck really just can't be built that can control 20 something decks.
Twin was fairly clearly a combo-control deck. Classifying it with Gifts Storm and Ad nauseam is not more correct than classifying it with the control decks (although including Delver as control is dubious). It was a deck that played both games just well enough for plan A or plan B to work. Calling it a combo deck is just as erroneous as calling it a control deck - it was obviously a combo-control deck.
If you compare it on a card-for-card basis, it is obviously much closer to a control deck (blue moon) than to a combo deck (storm). If you had to say it was closer to one or the other, there is no way to argue it is closer to pure combo than pure control.
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Modern Decks
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
you pretty much summed up why Twin was the best combo, it had far less deck building constraints to reliably combo and got to play a instant win combo that could hide inside a deck that just kill you while you hold back trying to not get combed to death. Twin is a far better combo deck than Ad Naus and the comparison is only a categorical one both are combo decks but one Twin is far superior.
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
Rending volley came in against other decks (like merfolk), and could've been ok against SFM. And I said the same thing you did at the time twin was banned, it forced other decks to not tap out. Ok, how did that work out? The format just got even faster when all of the decks twin policed took over. Twin isn't even the card I am most upset they don't unban since I understand it would make them look bad. But SFM hasn't even been allowed in the format. I mean hire a few people and actually test the format out for a few weeks. It really isn't that hard. Hell, tons of us would do it for free if they would say it would help. "But it costs money". Yeah, it does. And if they want to continue to take my money that is what it is going to take.
We got great info at Aaron's Forsythe Twitter guys.
User asks:
Modern Mishra's Bauble and Street Wraith are Free Draw Spells. Why weren't they added for Modern?
Aaron answers:
Gitaxian Probe isn't just a 0-mana draw. It creates an information imbalance that crushes certain strategies. Wraith/Bauble aren't that.
This probably means those aren't two cards that Wizards has in their Modern's watchlist(if there is one)
That means nothing other than they are safe until they aren't. They already put a target on DS' head in the article, why would they need to further target it here?
I think as a modern community we really need to demand they hire people to actually playtest the format. It really would not take a big team when combined with actual data numbers. We all know they need standard to thrive, but I don't think that has to be at the expense of modern. They also need modern to thrive to give the long term prospects of the company some stability and perspective in the case of a bad standard.
you pretty much summed up why Twin was the best combo, it had far less deck building constraints to reliably combo and got to play a instant win combo that could hide inside a deck that just kill you while you hold back trying to not get combed to death.
Yeah, it only had to run 10 cards that are fairlyunplayableon their own, and a bunch of mediocre spells that are overcosted or underpowered in order to help draw into it, and it definitely didn't struggle to kill anything with more than 3 toughness. It also didn't run a tightly packed list with almost no flex slots and it's a combo you could just jam into any deck. Yeah, that's how it was.
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.
but you don't understand Twin was non-combo combo don't you see. We just really liked the name of the combo so we kept it but it was never the intent of the deck to combo opponents out.
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?
the problem is that Rending Volley wasn't good enough because it wasn't main deck worthy and the with the twin combo having so little commitment in deck design to the combo it was super easy to board out the combo and leave rending volley worthless.
I mean WotC printed about 3 direct hate cards against it and because they are all sideboard cards they never did much.
People need to stop trying to compare Twin to DSx decks one existed for years and stifled the format the entire time, the other is less than a half year in the format its like comparing the life experiences of a child to 100 year old person.
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.
but you don't understand Twin was non-combo combo don't you see. We just really liked the name of the combo so we kept it but it was never the intent of the deck to combo opponents out.
Said the guy who can`t tell that Twin was closer to Blue Moon than it was Ad Nauseam. Wait - decks don`t just fit neatly in 3 categories?
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
WotC said that rending volley didn't have the affect desired on twin since it was a sideboard card and Twin could just fudge your entire SB plan by boarding out the super easy to accommodate Twin combo.
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.
but you don't understand Twin was non-combo combo don't you see. We just really liked the name of the combo so we kept it but it was never the intent of the deck to combo opponents out.
Said the guy who can`t tell that Twin was closer to Blue Moon than it was Ad Nauseam. Wait you mean decks don`t just fit neatly in 3 categories?
Yeah if blue moon could run a 2 card combo that instantly won them the game it would oh wait it did and it was called splinter twin. Blue moon wasn't even a deck before Twin went away it only arose from the vacuum left after Twins justifiable banning.
Literally the satire I put is the kind of things people say about Twin. Don't get me wrong I actually like Twin, UR is my favorite color combo and I can 100% ensure you that if you run into me on MTGO I will be on a UR build. The fact that I liked a deck doesn't blind me to the reality it was a dedicated combo deck that simply took very little devotion, and it was bad for the format in the same way that Copy-Cat is bad for standard. If you swap out the phase Copy-Cat with Splinter Twin and Standard with Modern the exact same issues revolve around the decks.
and don't try to act like I labeled twin a pure combo deck I in a earlier post said it was tempo-combo which kind of makes your dig a bit childish and ignorant of reality...kinda like claiming that Twin wasn't a Combo deck. Most combo decks are hybrid the issue is that Twin took very little commitment 7 cards on average. The combo like copy-cat in standard could actually be easily hated on, its the fact that the combo takes such little commitment from the combo player and demands full commitment against it by the opponent. Copy-cat plays out in very similar fashion to Twin, I can combo kill you on 4 but if I feel like your holding back to answer the combo I'll just kill you with the other 98% of my deck because the combo is very low commitment so I get to run fair deck beats, planswalkers, burn, etc... because unlike other more manageable combo's that have to commit the majority of the content of their deck to achieving a instant win; mine only takes the space of the average amount of flex spot cards in a deck. This is not healthy, Twin is banned for fundamentally the same reason Channel has remained banned pretty much since 1995 two card combo's that have such low deck building demands are unhealthy for formats.
Yeah if blue moon could run a 2 card combo that instantly won them the game it would oh wait it did and it was called splinter twin. Blue moon wasn't even a deck before Twin went away it only arose from the vacuum left after Twins justifiable banning.
Blue moon was 1.5% of the meta in the first meta update I pulled up while twin was still around from 2015. Swing and a miss? Revisionist history is fun, but not useful.
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Modern Decks
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
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.
but you don't understand Twin was non-combo combo don't you see. We just really liked the name of the combo so we kept it but it was never the intent of the deck to combo opponents out.
Said the guy who can`t tell that Twin was closer to Blue Moon than it was Ad Nauseam. Wait you mean decks don`t just fit neatly in 3 categories?
Yeah if blue moon could run a 2 card combo that instantly won them the game it would oh wait it did and it was called splinter twin. Blue moon wasn't even a deck before Twin went away it only arose from the vacuum left after Twins justifiable banning.
Multiple Blue Moon lists running Vedalken Shackles and Batterskull were around for years before Twin was banned. It actually became mostly unplayable after Kolaghan's Command, but it has been around for quite a while. If basic truths are going to continue to be a problem, conversation is mostly pointless.
I know this is off-topic, but it's nice to see the destruction of a whole archetype in Magic with the Legacy banning of Sensei's Divining Top. Legacy was the only format in which you could run Control and be very successful. Now it's Combo, Tempo, and Prison in Legacy and what...Aggro and Midrange in Modern. Terrible.
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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)
Yeah if blue moon could run a 2 card combo that instantly won them the game it would oh wait it did and it was called splinter twin. Blue moon wasn't even a deck before Twin went away it only arose from the vacuum left after Twins justifiable banning.
Blue moon was 1.5% of the meta in the first meta update I pulled up while twin was still around from 2015. Swing and a miss? Revisionist history is fun, but not useful.
This is a straw man, you know I meant it was a deck that wasn't really a viable option which it wasn't. Kinda like you know DSjund wasn't a deck until probe got banned but it was actually a deck before that that no one played. Essentially most all the decks running around right now except for DS, Dredge and Eldrazi builds existed then but Twin invalidated them all from being actual competitive decks.
You make no comments on my claims of why Twin was toxic for the format. It was banned for being to similar to Channel which was a two card combo enabler that took very little deck building commitment even worse than twin to be honest. Twin being banned fits in with a long history of WotC not liking "oopps I win" combos they have for the most part tried to leave combo's in which the player had to commit a critical amount of resources to the Game winning combination but will even nerf those if they prove to good for to long. So you could say it speaks to the testament of how truly powerful Splinter Twin was in Modern that the closest parallel to it IMO is a card that has been to good for nearly all of my magic playing life.
So I take the notion that Twin was some how a unique and unprecedented event that no one could ever see coming as it certainly has precedence against it and that type of interaction has time and time again proven bad for MTG.
To claim that I am trying to be revisionist is the height of comical as it is all of these people like yourself who are understandably mad Twin got banned, it was a good deck and it was a fun deck to play and I wasn't happy that I suddenly had a play set of cards that went from like $60 dollars to about $0.20 overnight. But if not play the deck for the combo then why have we not seen a consistent UR tempo deck as by all accounts from people like your self the combo was a incidental aspect of it, it should be easily replaces with some other threat then right? Well no because it was a Combo deck that had a incidental fair deck shell. WotC needs to print stronger U cards, unleashing a noxious two card combo back into the format isn't going to fix anything its just going to modern again a format dominated by combo's.
http://modernnexus.com/metagame-breakdown-feb-17/ the most recent shows the T1 deck list expanding this showcased the overall expansion of the T1/T2 meta-game since its banning and that is actually a little more contracted from the previous. This is a a goal as stated by WotC to have a very inclusive and as open as possible format and with Twin like with Copy-cat you will see a contraction in the number of viable decks.
I know this is off-topic, but it's nice to see the destruction of a whole archetype in Magic with the Legacy banning of Sensei's Divining Top. Legacy was the only format in which you could run Control and be very successful. Now it's Combo, Tempo, and Prison in Legacy and what...Aggro and Midrange in Modern. Terrible.
Well they destroyed Twin in Modern, so I guess it makes sense.
A different interpretation of his quote could be some colors are too good. Would anyone be completely shocked to see Thoughtseize banned? I wouldn't.
It would never happen. Discard is the only thing policing the format since we don't have counterspells. The format would literally die overnight due to degeneracy if discard were removed. Thoughtseize, being the only discard spell that can hit anything is at the top of the list in terms of important cards to the format.
I know this is off-topic, but it's nice to see the destruction of a whole archetype in Magic with the Legacy banning of Sensei's Divining Top. Legacy was the only format in which you could run Control and be very successful. Now it's Combo, Tempo, and Prison in Legacy and what...Aggro and Midrange in Modern. Terrible.
They've been looking for an excuse for years to get rid of SDT. Judges hate that card during tournaments. I'm not convinced Miracles is totally dead, either.
Is there something I'm missing when people say Control is dead in Legacy now? Even if you don't count Delver decks, according to MTGGoldfish, Sultai Control and Four-Color Control are both sitting at about 5% each, and as far as I can tell based on what I've seen in SCG Legacy match replays, both are perfectly solid deck choices to take into large open Legacy tournaments.
Unless there's something about those numbers that I'm not aware of (someone correct me if there is), it seems like a huge exaggeration to state that banning a card from a deck that was taking up 15% of the meta that simultaneously caused non-negligible logistical issues is killing an entire archetype, especially when there are still options.
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Decks
Modern: UWUW Control UBRGrixis Shadow URIzzet Phoenix
Can we all just come to an agreement that Twin is the cause of cancer, killed my grandfather, and kicked all our dogs so that bizzycola doesn't feel the need to keep making up ***** about the deck and the rest of us don't have to keep expending our energy refuting his statements that he repeats every other week? You're right bizzy, Twin was the reason there's instability in the Middle East, and we're one step closer to world peace with it banned.
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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
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.
but you don't understand Twin was non-combo combo don't you see. We just really liked the name of the combo so we kept it but it was never the intent of the deck to combo opponents out.
Said the guy who can`t tell that Twin was closer to Blue Moon than it was Ad Nauseam. Wait you mean decks don`t just fit neatly in 3 categories?
Yeah if blue moon could run a 2 card combo that instantly won them the game it would oh wait it did and it was called splinter twin. Blue moon wasn't even a deck before Twin went away it only arose from the vacuum left after Twins justifiable banning.
Multiple Blue Moon lists running Vedalken Shackles and Batterskull were around for years before Twin was banned. It actually became mostly unplayable after Kolaghan's Command, but it has been around for quite a while. If basic truths are going to continue to be a problem, conversation is mostly pointless.
Is no one capable of understanding common speech? I obviously was saying that in the same way you could say Amulet Bloom wasn't really a deck as in no one played it and it wasn't expected to be seen, until it had its breakout moment and became a real deck one that must be considered for deck construction etc.. Kinda like if they printed a card in the next set that suddenly made UB infinite mill combo a T1 deck no one would say that it was a real deck in the competitive sense prior to the printing of x.
Honestly am I going to get a bunch of semantic arguments from people? You do know that this type of sohpism in no way invildates any of the statements I've made for why twin was bad. It is really one of the lowest forms of rhetoric the informal referential fallacy.
I would argue that Twin was in respects of how it played out and the affect it had on games most similar to Channel before and I suppose that copy-cat is a even more modern example(note I mean modern in the literal sense, i don't want a bunch of replies saying that it isn't even a modern viable deck etc.... learn to read people). These types of low risk combo's have a history of being banned beginning with Channel and Twin was a very similar card in terms of how it functioned, in fact it was probably more versatile in Modern than Channel was when it was legal since channel really only offered a very low demand on deck design but offered a instant opps i win combo, Twin does that and also goes well with creatures making the combo pieces never truly dead. So I would argue that WotC has often times removed such low demand high reward two card combo's and that Twin for modern was what Channel was in 95'.
I know this is off-topic, but it's nice to see the destruction of a whole archetype in Magic with the Legacy banning of Sensei's Divining Top. Legacy was the only format in which you could run Control and be very successful. Now it's Combo, Tempo, and Prison in Legacy and what...Aggro and Midrange in Modern. Terrible.
I would argue that Miracles in Legacy was prison too. That was the whole point of the Top/CB lock. The deck did very little as far as traditional control goes.
Legacy will be in flux for awhile, combo is coming back in a major way. But things will eventually settle.
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 don't know how you come to those conclusions about WOTC and "risk taking." I mean, first off, they're under absolutely no obligation to do whatever it is you personally define as a risk. But more to the point, they recently printed DTT and TC ON PURPOSE, knowing that the delve mechanic was strong in eternal formats. They overshot but they took the risk. They also printed Fatal Push with Modern and other non rotating formats in mind. And they unbanned GGT, which was a huge risk that had to be rebanned. They even mentioned it in the unbanning announcement. You and I are looking at vastly different card games, apparently.
They're scared to. Standard is in a seriously bad place, and they think banning will put it in an even worse place. What used to be the largest Standard FNM in the world, 200+ players routinely now gets 30. Our local shop has fallen from 20 for Standard to 4. Modern is the only thing people are playing locally.
It is extremely likely that the reason for the extra banned list announcements was they wanted the opportunity to ban cards between sets again. Banning cards with the release of a set was done because they figured "well, that's a time when the card pool changes anyway" may have made a little sense but it took away something the previous banning schedule did: The ability to see how a set affected the format before deciding on a ban. At first this didn't really matter that much because all of the bans were in non-Standard formats where new cards weren't necessarily that likely to fix anything due to their size, but Standard is another matter. When they found themselves having to ban a card in Standard again, they likely realized they had totally goofed up with removing the ability to ban cards between sets and then reinstated it.
Yeah, the Standard metagame is lame. But we've also got a new set coming out. That could potentially change things. It makes a lot more sense to see what happens before deciding whether to ban. Which is, as I said, almost certainly why they put the banned list announcements between sets. Personally I think it would have been better to only have the announcements be between sets to make it so players aren't wondering what might happen twice as often, but I suppose they'd rather keep their options as open as possible.
I find it implausible to claim they "don't actually care" about format health after they finally actually did a ban to make Legacy more healthy. While I'm seeing some people say a different card should have been banned, I'm seeing almost no one say that no banning was warranted for Miracles.
Which is why I thought it was ironic that the two formats with the absolute vast majority of ban discussion get "No Changes" twice in a row after this decision, and two other formats that have essentially no real support and just want to be left alone get hit with big bans. It's fascinating to see where their priorities are.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
What reasoning do you have for thinking that in non-rotating formats T1 Control decks are normal?
Legacy didn't have one for the longest time until Top came along and it proved to be to good at what it does and was oppressive.
If a actual control deck was to sustain T1 status in Modern it would be because it was oppressive. Control is only good when its great, it doesn't have the flexible nature of a aggro deck that can just draw the nutz and kill you out of no where. Control decks in order to be good have to have a positive match up against all known entities this is why it is generally only ever been a flash in the pan in modern because the format shifts to much for a single list to maintain its T1 status.
Just look at Standards of the past, When has Control ever been good from day one of a format? I can't think of a Standard in which it was Control day one to the next format. This is because Control has to wait for the best aggro deck to rise, the best combo if any and then it compile the perfect deck to control those entities and you will see it on top for long periods until the next release and the format is again unsettled. In Modern the Format is rarely if ever settled but when it has gotten to a point in which the viable number of Aggro/Mid-range/Combo is small enough to focus on Control does well. In the past when Modern was a format dominated by Combo, Pod, Twin and had only one real viable fair deck BGx we used to see UWR as a consistent element of the top tiers but that stability is gone and wider more competitively open meta-game is why that T1 consistent status is gone a 75 card deck really just can't be built that can control 20 something decks.
If you compare it on a card-for-card basis, it is obviously much closer to a control deck (blue moon) than to a combo deck (storm). If you had to say it was closer to one or the other, there is no way to argue it is closer to pure combo than pure control.
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
you pretty much summed up why Twin was the best combo, it had far less deck building constraints to reliably combo and got to play a instant win combo that could hide inside a deck that just kill you while you hold back trying to not get combed to death. Twin is a far better combo deck than Ad Naus and the comparison is only a categorical one both are combo decks but one Twin is far superior.
Rending volley came in against other decks (like merfolk), and could've been ok against SFM. And I said the same thing you did at the time twin was banned, it forced other decks to not tap out. Ok, how did that work out? The format just got even faster when all of the decks twin policed took over. Twin isn't even the card I am most upset they don't unban since I understand it would make them look bad. But SFM hasn't even been allowed in the format. I mean hire a few people and actually test the format out for a few weeks. It really isn't that hard. Hell, tons of us would do it for free if they would say it would help. "But it costs money". Yeah, it does. And if they want to continue to take my money that is what it is going to take.
That means nothing other than they are safe until they aren't. They already put a target on DS' head in the article, why would they need to further target it here?
I think as a modern community we really need to demand they hire people to actually playtest the format. It really would not take a big team when combined with actual data numbers. We all know they need standard to thrive, but I don't think that has to be at the expense of modern. They also need modern to thrive to give the long term prospects of the company some stability and perspective in the case of a bad standard.
Yeah, it only had to run 10 cards that are fairly unplayable on their own, and a bunch of mediocre spells that are overcosted or underpowered in order to help draw into it, and it definitely didn't struggle to kill anything with more than 3 toughness. It also didn't run a tightly packed list with almost no flex slots and it's a combo you could just jam into any deck. Yeah, that's how it was.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
but you don't understand Twin was non-combo combo don't you see. We just really liked the name of the combo so we kept it but it was never the intent of the deck to combo opponents out.
the problem is that Rending Volley wasn't good enough because it wasn't main deck worthy and the with the twin combo having so little commitment in deck design to the combo it was super easy to board out the combo and leave rending volley worthless.
I mean WotC printed about 3 direct hate cards against it and because they are all sideboard cards they never did much.
People need to stop trying to compare Twin to DSx decks one existed for years and stifled the format the entire time, the other is less than a half year in the format its like comparing the life experiences of a child to 100 year old person.
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
WotC said that rending volley didn't have the affect desired on twin since it was a sideboard card and Twin could just fudge your entire SB plan by boarding out the super easy to accommodate Twin combo.
Yeah if blue moon could run a 2 card combo that instantly won them the game it would oh wait it did and it was called splinter twin. Blue moon wasn't even a deck before Twin went away it only arose from the vacuum left after Twins justifiable banning.
Literally the satire I put is the kind of things people say about Twin. Don't get me wrong I actually like Twin, UR is my favorite color combo and I can 100% ensure you that if you run into me on MTGO I will be on a UR build. The fact that I liked a deck doesn't blind me to the reality it was a dedicated combo deck that simply took very little devotion, and it was bad for the format in the same way that Copy-Cat is bad for standard. If you swap out the phase Copy-Cat with Splinter Twin and Standard with Modern the exact same issues revolve around the decks.
and don't try to act like I labeled twin a pure combo deck I in a earlier post said it was tempo-combo which kind of makes your dig a bit childish and ignorant of reality...kinda like claiming that Twin wasn't a Combo deck. Most combo decks are hybrid the issue is that Twin took very little commitment 7 cards on average. The combo like copy-cat in standard could actually be easily hated on, its the fact that the combo takes such little commitment from the combo player and demands full commitment against it by the opponent. Copy-cat plays out in very similar fashion to Twin, I can combo kill you on 4 but if I feel like your holding back to answer the combo I'll just kill you with the other 98% of my deck because the combo is very low commitment so I get to run fair deck beats, planswalkers, burn, etc... because unlike other more manageable combo's that have to commit the majority of the content of their deck to achieving a instant win; mine only takes the space of the average amount of flex spot cards in a deck. This is not healthy, Twin is banned for fundamentally the same reason Channel has remained banned pretty much since 1995 two card combo's that have such low deck building demands are unhealthy for formats.
http://modernnexus.com/modern-metagame-breakdown-31-41/
Blue moon was 1.5% of the meta in the first meta update I pulled up while twin was still around from 2015. Swing and a miss? Revisionist history is fun, but not useful.
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
Multiple Blue Moon lists running Vedalken Shackles and Batterskull were around for years before Twin was banned. It actually became mostly unplayable after Kolaghan's Command, but it has been around for quite a while. If basic truths are going to continue to be a problem, conversation is mostly pointless.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
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)This is a straw man, you know I meant it was a deck that wasn't really a viable option which it wasn't. Kinda like you know DSjund wasn't a deck until probe got banned but it was actually a deck before that that no one played. Essentially most all the decks running around right now except for DS, Dredge and Eldrazi builds existed then but Twin invalidated them all from being actual competitive decks.
You make no comments on my claims of why Twin was toxic for the format. It was banned for being to similar to Channel which was a two card combo enabler that took very little deck building commitment even worse than twin to be honest. Twin being banned fits in with a long history of WotC not liking "oopps I win" combos they have for the most part tried to leave combo's in which the player had to commit a critical amount of resources to the Game winning combination but will even nerf those if they prove to good for to long. So you could say it speaks to the testament of how truly powerful Splinter Twin was in Modern that the closest parallel to it IMO is a card that has been to good for nearly all of my magic playing life.
So I take the notion that Twin was some how a unique and unprecedented event that no one could ever see coming as it certainly has precedence against it and that type of interaction has time and time again proven bad for MTG.
To claim that I am trying to be revisionist is the height of comical as it is all of these people like yourself who are understandably mad Twin got banned, it was a good deck and it was a fun deck to play and I wasn't happy that I suddenly had a play set of cards that went from like $60 dollars to about $0.20 overnight. But if not play the deck for the combo then why have we not seen a consistent UR tempo deck as by all accounts from people like your self the combo was a incidental aspect of it, it should be easily replaces with some other threat then right? Well no because it was a Combo deck that had a incidental fair deck shell. WotC needs to print stronger U cards, unleashing a noxious two card combo back into the format isn't going to fix anything its just going to modern again a format dominated by combo's.
http://modernnexus.com/metagame-breakdown-feb-17/ the most recent shows the T1 deck list expanding this showcased the overall expansion of the T1/T2 meta-game since its banning and that is actually a little more contracted from the previous. This is a a goal as stated by WotC to have a very inclusive and as open as possible format and with Twin like with Copy-cat you will see a contraction in the number of viable decks.
Well they destroyed Twin in Modern, so I guess it makes sense.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
It would never happen. Discard is the only thing policing the format since we don't have counterspells. The format would literally die overnight due to degeneracy if discard were removed. Thoughtseize, being the only discard spell that can hit anything is at the top of the list in terms of important cards to the format.
They've been looking for an excuse for years to get rid of SDT. Judges hate that card during tournaments. I'm not convinced Miracles is totally dead, either.
Unless there's something about those numbers that I'm not aware of (someone correct me if there is), it seems like a huge exaggeration to state that banning a card from a deck that was taking up 15% of the meta that simultaneously caused non-negligible logistical issues is killing an entire archetype, especially when there are still options.
Modern:
UWUW Control
UBRGrixis Shadow
URIzzet Phoenix
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
Is no one capable of understanding common speech? I obviously was saying that in the same way you could say Amulet Bloom wasn't really a deck as in no one played it and it wasn't expected to be seen, until it had its breakout moment and became a real deck one that must be considered for deck construction etc.. Kinda like if they printed a card in the next set that suddenly made UB infinite mill combo a T1 deck no one would say that it was a real deck in the competitive sense prior to the printing of x.
Honestly am I going to get a bunch of semantic arguments from people? You do know that this type of sohpism in no way invildates any of the statements I've made for why twin was bad. It is really one of the lowest forms of rhetoric the informal referential fallacy.
I would argue that Twin was in respects of how it played out and the affect it had on games most similar to Channel before and I suppose that copy-cat is a even more modern example(note I mean modern in the literal sense, i don't want a bunch of replies saying that it isn't even a modern viable deck etc.... learn to read people). These types of low risk combo's have a history of being banned beginning with Channel and Twin was a very similar card in terms of how it functioned, in fact it was probably more versatile in Modern than Channel was when it was legal since channel really only offered a very low demand on deck design but offered a instant opps i win combo, Twin does that and also goes well with creatures making the combo pieces never truly dead. So I would argue that WotC has often times removed such low demand high reward two card combo's and that Twin for modern was what Channel was in 95'.
I would argue that Miracles in Legacy was prison too. That was the whole point of the Top/CB lock. The deck did very little as far as traditional control goes.
Legacy will be in flux for awhile, combo is coming back in a major way. But things will eventually settle.
Standard: lol no
Modern: BG/x, UR/x, Burn, Merfolk, Zoo, Storm
Legacy: Shardless BUG, Delver (BUG, RUG, Grixis), Landstill, Depths Combo, Merfolk
Vintage: Dark Times, BUG Fish, Merfolk
EDH: Teysa, Orzhov Scion / Krenko, Mob Boss / Stonebrow, Krosan Hero