If we want to attribute something to the diversity of blue decks, it's likely the combination of none of them being spectacular (so people frequently shift between multiple builds/wincons) and complete lack of meaningful data (so it's harder to tune or predict with a reactive deck in such a wildly varied meta). It's a shame that R&D likely sees both of these as good things.
Also, the successful builds are successful on the backs of multiple new cards (and sort of Jace, but not really), that have been printed within the past few months. It's otherwise been trash for about 2 years.
I'm not going to say your wrong about some of my motivations but one of the bigger things I hate is to see is u/w against u/w control decks and they take forever going against each other. If the meta gains enough that u/w whatever gets going it really makes the tournaments from a local level on up just become a slogfest. Even with the 5 turn rule in place some folks just cant seem to play the deck with any speed.
Not going to directly debate the merits of a Twin unban, as it tends to torpedo the thread for numerous pages. Rather, I'll simply point to the current diversity of blue decks across MTGO, SCG, the GP circuit, and other tournament settings. Now, let's completely ignore how the Twin ban did or did not enable those decks to succeed. We're just acknowledging that there are more non-Twin blue decks on the GP/PT scene today than in the Twin era (9% then vs. 17.5% now). Given that, let's say we are asking the hyper-conservative Wizards R&D department. Remember that this is the R&D that took years to unban a card (JTMS) that did almost nothing. Same with BB, AV, Nacatl, and others. Given their track record, which is indicative of their hyper-conservative thinking, why on earth are the going to unban a potentially polarizing card like Twin in this diverse blue metagame? Again, for all the Twin supporters, this is not an argument directed at you. I am simply looking at R&D and not envisioning a near future where R&D evaluates Twin as a card that should be unbanned.
I mean... someone can make the same argument of Jace prior to their unbanning of it. Why would the "hyper-conservative" WOTC unban Jace? But they still did.
I know I was surprised. I expected a Stoneforge Mystic or even Splinter Twin unban before they let Jace loose.
I am sure they did diligent testing but really two reasons Jace is the main face of magic so you want his strongest card playable in your second main competitive format and more importantly Jace being legal would push sales for the product that is weighed down by chafe like a certain tree.
Also wow WOTC is bad when it comes to youtube...I just noticed the Professor has more subs then the main MTG youtube page.
EDIT x 2: Its 2 KCI, in the top 16, and that weird Affinity build. If it can power up Affinity and thats not a flash in the pan, THEN I think it gets nuked.
Scales is not a flash in the pan. It's another Matt Nass special. He's been tuning it nearly as long as KCI with his friends which should tell you something.
The fact that people haven't caught on to the deck yet is just insanity to me.
EDIT x 2: Its 2 KCI, in the top 16, and that weird Affinity build. If it can power up Affinity and thats not a flash in the pan, THEN I think it gets nuked.
Scales is not a flash in the pan. It's another Matt Nass special. He's been tuning it nearly as long as KCI with his friends which should tell you something.
The fact that people haven't caught on to the deck yet is just insanity to me.
I have a friend who plays mostly Affinity and he has been playing zyrnak's MTGO list, as well as talking with him on MTGO about game play decisions. My friend has come to the conclusion that regular Affinity is just better, but he said that it's "damn close." He was about 50% to play it at the Grand Prix Las Vegas, but went with Affinity instead, losing the last 2 rounds to finish 5-3 and not qualified for Day 2.
Since I don't know too much about Affinity personally and even sold my Affinity deck a month ago, I'll take him on his word until I hear differently. I am about to buy Affinity from another guy on FB, mostly so I have Mox Opal for KCI, so I'll know a lot more within the next 2 weeks. I don't know if I have the guts to try Hardened Scales Affinity yet...
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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)
EDIT x 2: Its 2 KCI, in the top 16, and that weird Affinity build. If it can power up Affinity and thats not a flash in the pan, THEN I think it gets nuked.
Scales is not a flash in the pan. It's another Matt Nass special. He's been tuning it nearly as long as KCI with his friends which should tell you something.
The fact that people haven't caught on to the deck yet is just insanity to me.
I have a friend who plays mostly Affinity and he has been playing zyrnak's MTGO list, as well as talking with him on MTGO about game play decisions. My friend has come to the conclusion that regular Affinity is just better, but he said that it's "damn close." He was about 50% to play it at the Grand Prix Las Vegas, but went with Affinity instead, losing the last 2 rounds to finish 5-3 and not qualified for Day 2.
Since I don't know too much about Affinity personally and even sold my Affinity deck a month ago, I'll take him on his word until I hear differently. I am about to buy Affinity from another guy on FB, mostly so I have Mox Opal for KCI, so I'll know a lot more within the next 2 weeks. I don't know if I have the guts to try Hardened Scales Affinity yet...
No offense to Zyrnak, as he's definitely a good player in general, but his list is not nearly as tuned as Matt's. Zyrnak is down on Opals, has no Inkmoths for the surprise poison kills, and is trying to grind with baby Karn at times.
Scales is for real. Hopefully it's not banned today
No changes to Modern. Per Wizards, "... we do continue to monitor the health of Modern, Vintage, and Pauper. Across the board, those formats are looking quite healthy right now. We'll be sure to provide future updates as needed." That suggests to me a road to an eventual unban and zero bans on the radar in the foreseeable future. It also suggests all the issues people have identified in this thread, myself included by looking at Stirrings, are probably not issues in Wizards' eyes. I think I disagree with this but respect their hands-off approach. This gives us a 1.5 year period with no bans, and a metagame snapshot that is Wizards' vision of a no-ban world.
No changes in Standard but a fascinating breakdown of MTGO MWPs for major decks. Notably, no MWP is less than 45% or greater than 56%. The "best" decks also normalized to 50/50, probably because they have a greater spectrum of pilot skill. We also learned that Wizards categorizes decks through computer algorithms, not manually, when looking at MWP, and it appears they focus on Competitive Leagues, not Friendly ones.
Legacy gets hammers: Probe and DRS are gone. I'll double down on my theory that a card that gets banned in Legacy that was also banned in Modern will never be unbanned in Modern again, so these are two cards we will probably never see in the future. They even make an explicit callout to Modern in the Probe justification: "We've seen Modern end up in a healthier place without Gitaxian Probe, and it's time to take that step for Legacy." These are obviously extreme Legacy changes that will totally redefine the metagame, but for our format, we'll just assume these cards have tombstones on their name.
I’m curious what about the announcement gives you the impression “suggests to me a road to an eventual unban”? I got the opposite impression from it.
They’ve made previous mentions of color and archetype imbalance before other unbans but they don’t mention it here, nor was there any reason to. My impression from this announcement was that we should not expect unbans simply because a card doesn’t belong on the list; the only time we will see an unban is due to color or archetype imbalance or to shake up an otherwise stagnant meta.
I doubt we see SFM in the next year, no matter what our poll says.
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
They tie blue together providing removal, card draw and win cons.
Also, the successful builds are successful on the backs of multiple new cards (and sort of Jace, but not really), that have been printed within the past few months. It's otherwise been trash for about 2 years.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
I know I was surprised. I expected a Stoneforge Mystic or even Splinter Twin unban before they let Jace loose.
Also wow WOTC is bad when it comes to youtube...I just noticed the Professor has more subs then the main MTG youtube page.
Scales is not a flash in the pan. It's another Matt Nass special. He's been tuning it nearly as long as KCI with his friends which should tell you something.
The fact that people haven't caught on to the deck yet is just insanity to me.
Modern: Storm
Legacy: ANT
I have a friend who plays mostly Affinity and he has been playing zyrnak's MTGO list, as well as talking with him on MTGO about game play decisions. My friend has come to the conclusion that regular Affinity is just better, but he said that it's "damn close." He was about 50% to play it at the Grand Prix Las Vegas, but went with Affinity instead, losing the last 2 rounds to finish 5-3 and not qualified for Day 2.
Since I don't know too much about Affinity personally and even sold my Affinity deck a month ago, I'll take him on his word until I hear differently. I am about to buy Affinity from another guy on FB, mostly so I have Mox Opal for KCI, so I'll know a lot more within the next 2 weeks.
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)No offense to Zyrnak, as he's definitely a good player in general, but his list is not nearly as tuned as Matt's. Zyrnak is down on Opals, has no Inkmoths for the surprise poison kills, and is trying to grind with baby Karn at times.
Scales is for real. Hopefully it's not banned today
So boring. Even if things are good, there are cards to unban.
Spirits
No changes to Modern. Per Wizards, "... we do continue to monitor the health of Modern, Vintage, and Pauper. Across the board, those formats are looking quite healthy right now. We'll be sure to provide future updates as needed." That suggests to me a road to an eventual unban and zero bans on the radar in the foreseeable future. It also suggests all the issues people have identified in this thread, myself included by looking at Stirrings, are probably not issues in Wizards' eyes. I think I disagree with this but respect their hands-off approach. This gives us a 1.5 year period with no bans, and a metagame snapshot that is Wizards' vision of a no-ban world.
No changes in Standard but a fascinating breakdown of MTGO MWPs for major decks. Notably, no MWP is less than 45% or greater than 56%. The "best" decks also normalized to 50/50, probably because they have a greater spectrum of pilot skill. We also learned that Wizards categorizes decks through computer algorithms, not manually, when looking at MWP, and it appears they focus on Competitive Leagues, not Friendly ones.
Legacy gets hammers: Probe and DRS are gone. I'll double down on my theory that a card that gets banned in Legacy that was also banned in Modern will never be unbanned in Modern again, so these are two cards we will probably never see in the future. They even make an explicit callout to Modern in the Probe justification: "We've seen Modern end up in a healthier place without Gitaxian Probe, and it's time to take that step for Legacy." These are obviously extreme Legacy changes that will totally redefine the metagame, but for our format, we'll just assume these cards have tombstones on their name.
Should have sold my SFMs yesterday. She's never coming off at this rate.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
They’ve made previous mentions of color and archetype imbalance before other unbans but they don’t mention it here, nor was there any reason to. My impression from this announcement was that we should not expect unbans simply because a card doesn’t belong on the list; the only time we will see an unban is due to color or archetype imbalance or to shake up an otherwise stagnant meta.
I doubt we see SFM in the next year, no matter what our poll says.
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StaffMTGO/MTGA: Tyclone
My Primers ~ GWx Vizier Company ~ Knightfall ~ RG Eldrazi ~ Green's Sun's Zenith
More Brews ~ Modern Four Horsemen ~ Gitrog Dredge