I'm sure this has been mentioned a lot already but:
What the hell is up with no unbans. If they were worried about AV, JtMS or even ponder/preordain finding a home in twin how have they not been able to justify not unbanning even 1 of those now that twin is gone.
Blue needs some serious powerups to compete with what modern is going to be shortly.
UWx has a decent matchup against twin in my opinion. It was also pretty decent against GBx while miserable against tron. If twin goes tron should increase and GBx should decrease therefore making the meta even more hostile to control?
I've asked this a few times, but still haven't gotten a clear answer
I have a friend who plays Azorious Control, not the Titan version, I'm talking about the resto's, walls, sphinx's revelation, blade splicer, colonnades, etc
What's the plan and sideboard plan? Is trying to combo with full dispel counters? Their long game are way better than ours, is Keranos really an option?
I haven't played a version with splicer, resto and walls but I have played a pure control version. Assuming you're facing my list...
Blood moon is pretty bad since I have 6 islands and 3 plains along with 4 fetches. Postboard I take out my cryptics and verdicts so I the deck becomes a lot less colour intensive. Hoping you'll 'get me' on turn 3 is very unlikely. The best it does is stop colonnade from bugging you but we'll be afraid to tap out to attack against twin without at least double counter/removal+counter backup. Assuming we're at on turn 10 I'm likely in control of the game anyway.
Keranos is a strong card but I'm bringing in 2 celestial purge postboard to deal with twin/moon and it also removes Keranos and since we play more leaks than remand it's harder to actually stick in the first place.
I think going aggro is the best plan. Bolt/Snap/Bolt, EoT clique into threat like jace. You don't want to sit back and let me hit land drops with a clear board. Slamming twin on turn 4 is fairly unlikely to resolve but going for it on turn 5-6 with dispel backup should be good enough.
In general I just think it's a hard matchup. I've got a decent amount of counters and spell snare is extremely strong against your snap/remand engine. My removal (assuming I've got it) is very cheap and I have plenty of card draw with think twice if nothing is going on.
On another topic... I've moved away from playing my usual decks (all in combo or pure control) and decided to go with the best of both with twin. Tbh was fed up with having a pretty bad win %. I can't believe how strong twin is. Currently 18-3 in the last few days with my list. I have somehow not played the eldrazi deck once but I'm not afraid of any other deck other than Junk and Grixis twin/control. Can't believe how much value I've wasted over the last years that I resisted playing twin.
The issue with standard right now (at least looking at modo) if you check goldfish which also includes leagues, 34% of the placing decks are playing abzan. Even if we assume that that number is inflated because abzan just wins more that is an unhealthy high number. The top 3 decks make up more than half the field. Compare this with modern where it takes 8 decks, legacy with 7 and even vintage with 6 different decks.
I just can't bring myself to buy into such an expensive standard to play such a narrow field of decks.
I don't think people should be worrying about Griselshoal. Just look at how little it gets played on modo it's at less than 1%.
I've actually built the deck recently because I like degenerate combo decks and I wanted something that could run over tron as I was a control player before but with tron the most played modern deck atm online (by results in dailies) it was impossible to do well.
Anyway I have been goldfishing the deck a fair amount and the numbers are actually far less than people give off.
I've so far done 66 games and my t2 win is 6%, t3 39%, t4 22%, t5 9% and 22% where I failed (no deck would let me live to turn 6+ if was doing absolutely nothing)
Now obviously I'm still learning which hands need to mulligan and which cards I should be pitching to the looting affects but I understand how the deck works.
Just to be clear I considered a breached wurm on turn 2/3 to be a win however didn't go for it on turn 4 or later. Otherwise wins were all comboing off.
So some thoughts on this. Firstly the modo goldish option puts you on the draw which obviously means an extra card. All but 1 of my turn 2 kills were going to discard binning griselbrand then next turn land/guide goryo for the win. Had I been on the play or faced discard this option wouldn't have been available and would have meant a slower kill (also 1 less card for looting in general is a huge difference). All these kills assume no hand disruption and no counter magic as well as having at least 15 life to draw twice with daddy g. If my opponent actually had some interaction at all in the first few turns the combo would not be achievable as fast as it was. Another thing to keep in mind that these are all game 1 where you don't have to worry about graveyard hate and haven't sided in stuff that slows you down.
Given that in game 1 you have no interaction yourself if you're on the draw you can easily lose to other decks on turn 3 like amulet, infect, storm. Then decks like scapeshift and twin can kill you on turn 4. Affinity and burn can also win by turn 3/4 as well as putting huge pressure on your life early making daddy g a harder win. Lastly as you can see a little over 1 in 5 games the deck just loses to itself because it can't find the pieces to win.
So far I've done 2 leagues with the deck and gone 5-5. I did keep a note of my loses:
Affinity (t1 thoughtseize dead by turn 4, t3 spell pierce dead by turn 4 g2/3).
Grixis delver (game 2 leyline, game 3 early tasigur then I inquisitioned a hand of countersquall, snapcaster, 2 dispel)
Scapeshift (t4'ed game 1/2 with counter backup)
Storm (t3 game 1/2)
Mono U tron (infinite counters and a top decked cyclonic rift with spell burst backup for my pact on my lethal attack with wurm tokens)
The point is a fast clock and some disruption/counter magic is enough to beat the deck. I know I've not played the deck for long but I really couldn't see how those loses could have been prevented.
I am glad to see someone at least try out DLOjutai at least. As a 5 drop he has a lot to compete against in Gideon, Batterskull, Baneslayer Angel in UW Control but he can generate some card selection at the least and has hexproof while untapped. The deck seems more like midrange, and I like the little recursion package with SoLaS. SScorn seems like a fun card to try at least with DLOjutai and mutavaults. It seems the more midrange blend type of Control hybrids are doing a bit better overall, with the value creatures as a way to generate advantage.
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There's at least 5 cards on the banned list right now that could come off and help even the format out some more.
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What the hell is up with no unbans. If they were worried about AV, JtMS or even ponder/preordain finding a home in twin how have they not been able to justify not unbanning even 1 of those now that twin is gone.
Blue needs some serious powerups to compete with what modern is going to be shortly.
UWx has a decent matchup against twin in my opinion. It was also pretty decent against GBx while miserable against tron. If twin goes tron should increase and GBx should decrease therefore making the meta even more hostile to control?
Wizards what have you done
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I haven't played a version with splicer, resto and walls but I have played a pure control version. Assuming you're facing my list...
Blood moon is pretty bad since I have 6 islands and 3 plains along with 4 fetches. Postboard I take out my cryptics and verdicts so I the deck becomes a lot less colour intensive. Hoping you'll 'get me' on turn 3 is very unlikely. The best it does is stop colonnade from bugging you but we'll be afraid to tap out to attack against twin without at least double counter/removal+counter backup. Assuming we're at on turn 10 I'm likely in control of the game anyway.
Keranos is a strong card but I'm bringing in 2 celestial purge postboard to deal with twin/moon and it also removes Keranos and since we play more leaks than remand it's harder to actually stick in the first place.
I think going aggro is the best plan. Bolt/Snap/Bolt, EoT clique into threat like jace. You don't want to sit back and let me hit land drops with a clear board. Slamming twin on turn 4 is fairly unlikely to resolve but going for it on turn 5-6 with dispel backup should be good enough.
In general I just think it's a hard matchup. I've got a decent amount of counters and spell snare is extremely strong against your snap/remand engine. My removal (assuming I've got it) is very cheap and I have plenty of card draw with think twice if nothing is going on.
On another topic... I've moved away from playing my usual decks (all in combo or pure control) and decided to go with the best of both with twin. Tbh was fed up with having a pretty bad win %. I can't believe how strong twin is. Currently 18-3 in the last few days with my list. I have somehow not played the eldrazi deck once but I'm not afraid of any other deck other than Junk and Grixis twin/control. Can't believe how much value I've wasted over the last years that I resisted playing twin.
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I just can't bring myself to buy into such an expensive standard to play such a narrow field of decks.
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I've actually built the deck recently because I like degenerate combo decks and I wanted something that could run over tron as I was a control player before but with tron the most played modern deck atm online (by results in dailies) it was impossible to do well.
Anyway I have been goldfishing the deck a fair amount and the numbers are actually far less than people give off.
I've so far done 66 games and my t2 win is 6%, t3 39%, t4 22%, t5 9% and 22% where I failed (no deck would let me live to turn 6+ if was doing absolutely nothing)
Now obviously I'm still learning which hands need to mulligan and which cards I should be pitching to the looting affects but I understand how the deck works.
Just to be clear I considered a breached wurm on turn 2/3 to be a win however didn't go for it on turn 4 or later. Otherwise wins were all comboing off.
So some thoughts on this. Firstly the modo goldish option puts you on the draw which obviously means an extra card. All but 1 of my turn 2 kills were going to discard binning griselbrand then next turn land/guide goryo for the win. Had I been on the play or faced discard this option wouldn't have been available and would have meant a slower kill (also 1 less card for looting in general is a huge difference). All these kills assume no hand disruption and no counter magic as well as having at least 15 life to draw twice with daddy g. If my opponent actually had some interaction at all in the first few turns the combo would not be achievable as fast as it was. Another thing to keep in mind that these are all game 1 where you don't have to worry about graveyard hate and haven't sided in stuff that slows you down.
Given that in game 1 you have no interaction yourself if you're on the draw you can easily lose to other decks on turn 3 like amulet, infect, storm. Then decks like scapeshift and twin can kill you on turn 4. Affinity and burn can also win by turn 3/4 as well as putting huge pressure on your life early making daddy g a harder win. Lastly as you can see a little over 1 in 5 games the deck just loses to itself because it can't find the pieces to win.
So far I've done 2 leagues with the deck and gone 5-5. I did keep a note of my loses:
Affinity (t1 thoughtseize dead by turn 4, t3 spell pierce dead by turn 4 g2/3).
Grixis delver (game 2 leyline, game 3 early tasigur then I inquisitioned a hand of countersquall, snapcaster, 2 dispel)
Scapeshift (t4'ed game 1/2 with counter backup)
Storm (t3 game 1/2)
Mono U tron (infinite counters and a top decked cyclonic rift with spell burst backup for my pact on my lethal attack with wurm tokens)
The point is a fast clock and some disruption/counter magic is enough to beat the deck. I know I've not played the deck for long but I really couldn't see how those loses could have been prevented.
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