Playing vs Pod was feeling fairer and more fun than vs Twin (2 card combo that can be slotted in all-in, tempo or control shell).
Why?
Because Deceiver (4 toughness!) and Pestermite have flash.
The only card that I can see banned from Twin is the Deceiver.
(I would argue that the URG build is CURRENTLY stronger, in any case, just not as explored as the URB version, but that is my opinion - basically, Bounding Krasis gives the deck a better ability to act as an aggro deck while still slotting into the combo perfectly, albeit without the mana denial possibilities of Exarch or Pestermite)
If they ban Deceiver Exarch is not stupid in the terms of Twin pieces because Bounding Krasis is 3/3 while Exarch is 1/4 which is a big difference. Exarch can't be killed with Lightning Boltwhile Krasis can and this makes the latter one easier to kill and furthermoire easier to disrupt the combo. I'm not saying any piece will be banned but if Wizards already took something that thing being Exarch it would make sense based on what I said.
But then combo players not using bolt or very much removal would STILL be incredibly upset by Twin
The decks with a ton of removal and disruption aren't the one's that have trouble with Twin, it's linear decks and combo decks, along with random decks here and there that do.
All I see this doing is making burn a little better. Oh, and RG Tron would get even easier seeing as how the spoiled Return of Koizilek card is an instant 3 proclasm that can be tutored with Stirrings. Do you guys see where I'm going with this? You aren't fixing anything, you're just trading an interactive combo deck for 2 other decks that hardly interact with you get better
Exarch is an absolutely worthless ban consideration
If you're against Lantern control, you're against deckbuilding. The fact that a deck could be assembled of basically do-nothing commons and uncommons to take down the entire format in the hands of an extremely skilled and practiced pilot is what Modern is all about, from a deckbuilder's perspective.
I never said I was against it or wanted it banned? I said I don't like it nor does it make good Magic on streaming to players seeing High level Magic play for the first time
You definitely don't have the right to tell me that just because I don't like the deck that I hate creative deck-building. I don't like RG Tron either, do you see me clammering for a ban or nerf?
I do hate the deck though, seeing a deck deny any form of play, interaction, and response is definitely not fun, but I suppose it's just a slower, longer lasting combo that kill you off morally instead of winning the game
There s a mass difference though that cancels your whole argument.
While it is possible to take it on turns;
If you do take it on turns lantern's turns are quick enough and a single turn itself cannot last 5/10 minutes like eggs used to do.
So there you are.
Yes, it doesn't violate any rules
That being said, Lantern is really an awful deck and definitely only fun for one side
Sure, but being 'fun for one side' doesn't have ban precedence. LOTS of decks in magic are fun for one side. Turn 2 remand, turn 3 exarch, turn 4 twin - SO much fun to be on the receiving end of.
I never advocated for the banning of Lantern, nor said it should be
All I said is that it makes for very bad streaming on tournament play, especially if it's new players watching a Magic game like that
You don't have to buy a modern deck all in one go, you can buy pieces of it while playing standard, or sit out a standard season and see just how much you can buy
I spent half a year collecting pieces for Jund, then bought my playset of Goyfs in one go and denied how much I paid for cardboard
There s a mass difference though that cancels your whole argument.
While it is possible to take it on turns;
If you do take it on turns lantern's turns are quick enough and a single turn itself cannot last 5/10 minutes like eggs used to do.
So there you are.
Yes, it doesn't violate any rules
That being said, Lantern is really an awful deck and definitely only fun for one side
Okay and in that case if you are agreeing with the Twin ban contributing to the format being overrun with combo, then I agree with this as well. Twin is a necessary evil. People are complaining about Bloom and GR Tron. Imagine a world where Twin didn't exist...
People thought POD was a necessary evil to, your point? If we look at Modern historically, all of the major classic pillars of the format have been hit with bans in the past except for twin unless were talking preordain or ponder which I don't necessarily count. Lets be honest here, Twin IS the best deck in modern, and pod was banned almost entirely for the crime of being number 1, regardless of what pod did to design space in Wotc's eyes, if pod wasn't number 1 it wouldn't have been banned.
After the pod and TC bannings, modern players in general learned a very harsh lesson, its very risky to play the "best" deck because Wotc proved that it WILL ban it out for simply being number 1. Luckily for Pod players collected company ended up getting printed which ended up giving them the chance to still play the closest thing to pod without actually playing pod which eventually made the hurt sting a bit less.
My overall predictions for the upcoming ban list update include hive mind being banned, which is probably the safest and most no-brainer ban they could do, it wouldn't even kill amulet as a deck at all since a lot of decks can't beat a T2/T3 titan, I also predict either a Pestermite or Exarch ban, pestermite if they only want to hurt twin a little bit, exarch if they really want to chop its legs off, this of course would not end the deck, RUG twin would stil have access to 8 combo enablers even with the absence of either pestermite or exarch.
As far as unbans its tough to say, Wotc seems to be signalling a stoneforge mystic unban, the problem is that it was just 1 year ago they said SFM and Jace had dug their own graves, could Wotc really have done a 180 in such a short period of time? Hard to say, the real issue for me is that I doubt this SFM reprint is meant to help legacy players since Wotc has long since washed its hands of legacy, at least that was what I thought until the Oath expeditions got spoiled, although they may very well have simply chosen some of those lands for flavor reasons since they fit the theme of lands being destroyed and obliterated by the eldrazi as a cool thematic piece within the set, or I could just be crazy.
You are definitely twisting the truth
Pod wasn't banned for being the number 1 deck, it was banned because it won like 2 out of 3 pro-tours in a row, was placing in the other tournaments CONSTANTLY, winning a bunch of tournaments inbetween, and dominating FNM's. If you weren't playing POD or treasure cruise decks, you were playing a deck that could beat POD. You want to talk about a deck that was destroying the meta, look no further, it was pod.
Didn't POD reach a ludicrous number of the meta at one point, about 20%, maybe even 29%, can anyone back me up on those stats?
All the different forms of Twin are about 11ish percent right now, I believe, with Jund being around 7%, and Junk around 4-5.9%, that means about an even number GBx fair decks as Twin's share to help police Twin. I think Tron and Bloom are 5ish each? That's 10 percent to police the super efficient fair decks that don't care if you put a 4/5 for 2 mana by turn 2 or 3
Twin will not be nerfed or killed unless something is printed by accident that oppresses the rest of the meta, if anything, the fact that Jeskai Twin won was refreshing, since the known tagline of it is known as" if you want to play Jeskai Twin, you play it if you want to lose".
Twin nearly disappeared over the Summer, mainly because Grixis was hot and people wanted to try things a little different; outside of some thoughtscours, some K-Commands, and some Tasigur and fish, it's the same deck, it explains how Twin disappeared and how easy it is to convert to another Blue deck. You're telling me a deck that faded away over the summer with mediocre results, and made a comeback during GP Pittsburgh is now a target for any sort of banning? You guys sound ridiculous, this is becoming less of a discussion on banning and unbanning and more of a topic to whine about the cards and decks you don't like
Lantern is an annoying deck, but it doesn't do what eggs does, it doesn't take a 15 minute turn. You want to know how to push Lantern out of the meta and into fringe play? Refuse to scoope even if it has a lock, and let it go to time, let it get constant draws on it so often that they won't play it competitively. Lantern looks super bad for WOTC, because it shows one player interacting and another player on stream playing with their dice and losing all interest in the game. The meta and it's players can easily adjust and push this out of any sort of meta
Punishing fire won't be banned as long as Grove of the Burnwillows is around
I wouldn't cry about any Goryo piece being banned, but it's a tier 3 deck, isn't it?
Twin keeps decks honest, and it helps the meta become more than just pure linear strategies or unfair combo decks
Let's look at the MTGsalvation tier 1 board: Jund, UR Twin, RG Tron, Bloom, Burn, Affinity, 4 of the 6 tier 1 decks either combo or rarely worry about what you do, they continue with their plan unless they're about to lose. That means 1 deck in the tier 1 list plays a fair game of being efficient and beating your face in, 1 deck that threatens the combo and usually beats your face in with 2 or 3 hits per turn, burn plays a very uninteractive game except for the occasional sideboard of Path and Palm, Affinity runs Galvanic blast almost purely against Twin, and just hopes to hit a cranial plating with lots of creatures, Bloom plays solitaire, and RG Tron plays semi-solitaire with 8 main-deck board wipes
Tier 2 is kinda half and half, lots of fair strategies like zoo, some interactive combo's like Grixis Twin and Scapeshift, linear strategies like Merfolk and Elves
Have you ever played against Tron as a GBx player? If I don't have a curve of discard, 2 drop threat, Lilianna, land destruction, I don't get to play magic, I get to turn 3 after dropping a Tarmogoyf, and lose on the spot to a Karn or Wurmcoil. WOTC doesn't want the average game to be like this, it's bad for the fanbase and it's bad for the game
I love fair play, but it's perfectly ok for people to have the mentality of, "why the hell would I NOT want to do busted things with all these possiblities?" That's ok, as long as there's balance
Are you saying it's bad for the game that GBx doesn't beat Tron, because it sounds like that is what you're saying? Any deck like Twin that has the possibility to win with an infinite combo can (and should in my opinion) be called a "combo" deck. For a Twin player to win by doing Lightning Bolt/Snapcaster Mage/Lightning Bolt in a matchup, it is infinitely easier to jam the combo and many decks are straight up cold to the combo in game 1. Your meta may be only Grixis Control and GBx, so you can never Twin someone in games 2 and 3, but not everyone's meta is only 2 decks. People have Tron in their meta, Bloom - which has only a single Slaughter Pact, and many other decks that are cold to the combo in game 1. Many of these decks stay somewhat cold to it in the sideboarded games as well. You can call it a deck that is not a combo deck all you want, then tap out on turn 3 all the time, and we'll see how many games you win against Twin.
I was going to post Caleb Durward's article, but someone beat me to it, so here's my opinion. The odd part is that I don't know with these articles whether the posts are coming from the heart, coached by someone, or just put out there to be funny. Who really knows anymore, but for argument's sake, I will take it seriously?
1. Baleful Strix - Probably all right for Modern, but I doubt it will be allowed in.
2. Cabal Therapy - I'm sorry and I know I'm not the majority here, but I don't feel like this one belongs. Between possibly nabbing multiples of cards and also being able to flashback the card, it is too good in my non-popular opinion.
3. Misdirection - Probably not a big deal and would be unlikely to see that much more play than Commandeer, despite being much better.
4. Goblin Lackey - This card is okay. What can it do that's worse than Twin, Bloom, Jund, Affinity, etc., etc.? Some people may be annoyed by the increase in Goblin players if this card came in. Then it would probably die down when there are decks that do similar things just better like Burn, Zoo, and Affinity.
5. Quirion Ranger - I personally think that this card is okay, but it's close. Modern doesn't have all of the tools to make this card busted and even untapping Elvish Archdruid multiple times is probably just win-more.
6. Council's Judgment - I think this card is fine, although I will personally be upset when people play it against my Bogles.
7. Innocent Blood - My opinion is unpopular here as well. I think this card is slightly too good for Modern, just because it gives fuel to Geth's Verdict, Smallpox, etc. deck.
8. Toxic Deluge - In my opinion, this card is fine. It comes down much earlier than Damnation and is much more splashable, but paying life vs. a deck that this is tremendous against can be detrimental. The presence of this card makes people play smarter and that is not a minus.
9. Fire Covenant - 100% okay.
10. Grenzo, Dack, Edric - All very fine and playing a RUG Pyromancer list with Edric would bring tears of joy to my eyes.
11. Aluren - As long as there is no infinite combo (I didn't check), this card is fine. What makes this card busted while Collected Company is totally fine?
12. Force of Will - No, just no. I am a UB player. I LOOOOVE the dominance of Blue in Legacy. But, Force of Will in Modern? No, I'd rather have Mox Sapphire. See, I can be ridiculous when someone else is ridiculous, although I'm 99% sure that this is a troll to players that say, "boo hoo, I lost to Grishoalbrand on turn 2." Just Force of Will it Bro.
13. Counterspell - The card is fine to me, although I know that this card will never see the light of day again, outside of minor Legacy play.
What do you think? I know for sure that some of these are unpopular opinions. I can be swayed on Innocent Blood, but I doubt I can on Cabal Therapy. We already have enough good discard.
*I should say that Twin is a Tempo-Combo deck. There are hybrids of decks that play both sides, sort of like some of our companions outside of Magic. I just feel like Twin players like to make their deck look tougher to play by not associating themselves with "combo player, who win so easily by just jamming an easy combo." I should clarify that I am not saying that Twin is a combo-only deck. It is Tempo-Combo and plays the control route as well. Sometimes it plays the "aggro" route by dumping gobs of Snapcaster Mages and his electrical friend from the skies...
God, no, I'm not saying GBx should beat Tron, I'm saying it's all part of the general meta balancing, a rock/paper/scissors scenario. Twin beats Tron, Tron beats GBx, GBx beats Twin. I'm saying that if things like Twin didn't exist and we were left with a bunch of degenerate decks dominating the field and the average game looked like that, it would be an issue
Force of Will would be awesome in modern, but I feel like it could absolutely destroy and unravel the format. Combo decks would be absolutely ruined, Twin would possibly be too good, and then we would need broken things to balance out FOW.
I feel like Cabal Therapy is too good, too. I'll name your Splinter Twin/Keranos, kill your next creature, drop Tarm, your go
SFM will be fine as long as Jitte isn't around, she's not meta warping in legacy
White is weak and has absolutely no bombs, just a top notch removal spell and lingering souls, with some good clumped up sideboard cards
I wonder if counter spell would make control decks not named RG Tron viable, or if it would once again, just make Splinter Twin broken
Banning Twin would absolutely hurt the modern format, combo decks and liner strategies would rule the format, and GBx would have to police the format all by itself with no way of keeping certain combo decks and linear strategies down. GBx and Twin are the two most important pillars in modern, they balance this entire format
Not only that, but I'd be absolutely afraid to invest in any more modern cards knowing they'll continue to ban and ruin decks. I don't play Yugioh, but did you guys hear how recently Konami banned like 75 percent of the top tier meta? That sounds disastrous, and the argument of "oh, standard is more expensive in the long run" would kind of fly out the window
Twin isn't broken good, it has it's weaknesses
So banning a combo deck would create a metagame with more combo decks? This meta game is already littered with linear decks. Idk why any of you fail to realize this.
Twin is a little similar to Infect, in that it can and will trump your linear deck that doesn't want to interact and continue to play unfair magic. What's that? You want to play Titan turn 3? No, remanded. Your deck doesn't really play any removal or creatures? Just solitaire? Ok, Exarch at the end of your turn. Twin at the beginning of my turn 4
The fact you call Twin a combo deck means 2 things, either you're bitter to losing against the deck in the past, or you don't understand how the deck operates. The typical Twin list aims to tempo you out with combo as a backup. In competetive Magic, Twin players win far more from pecking at the opponent with a Twin piece, Cliques, getting beats in from flash effects, and bolt-snap-bolt. I don't know if anyone can back me up, but hasn't the general findings been that UR Twin decks win around 25% percent of their games with the combo? It was something to the effect, right?
Twin is THE most interactive deck in modern as of now, it cannot successfully play the same plan against every deck. It has to sculpt a game plan with remands, visions, hope to have removal against aggro and midrange in it's opening hand, etc--now, I'm not saying other decks don't either, like GBx, but it has to do so even more
If a deck refuses to interact, then being remanded and countered until it's combo'd out is fine, I don't feel sympathetic whatsoever to Tron or Amulet for not being able to win through solitaire.
Decks like Affinity just BARELY cling onto the "fair deck" strategy, but Affinity interacts with you in NOT interacting with you in the form of Ravager, Etched Champion and manlands. I don't know about you, but it's not THAT uncommon for Affinity to dump it's hand with everything plus a Cranial plating on their turn 2 and giving you 2 turns to dig for an answer or lose
Twin stops this nonesense from plaguing the entire format, if Twin is ruined or banned, combo decks like Tron stop fair decks with too much efficiency from dominating the format, but Twin is fine, since it has such an uphill battle against the huge meta shares of GBx, while aggro decks stop some combo decks and slow decks from rolling over the rest of the meta
Like, I don't understand how this is hard for people to understand in the modern format. Not only that, but unlike MANY other combo decks, the Twin combo is very easy to interact with and a lot of decks have an answer to it. Bolt, path, dismember, counters, terminate, Abrupt Decay, spellskite, etc, Twin plays a combo that many decks can interact with, can you say the same thing about Bloom and it's Hivemind, Storm when it was even faster with Seething Song? Tron, while annoying, and a deck I have a deep seated hate for, can be interacted through with land hate. If Tron lands a turn 3 Karn, followed by either Ulamog, Ugin or Wurmcoil, it softlock wins the game, almost no modern deck can come back from that. Tron's only interaction is boardwipes and then deciding on Karn's ability, which can be a soft lock on the spot if they have 1 or 2 threats in their hand to drop into play
I'll take an interactive, backup combo deck than a bunch of decks I can't interact with
Have you ever played against Tron as a GBx player? If I don't have a curve of discard, 2 drop threat, Lilianna, land destruction, I don't get to play magic, I get to turn 3 after dropping a Tarmogoyf, and lose on the spot to a Karn or Wurmcoil. WOTC doesn't want the average game to be like this, it's bad for the fanbase and it's bad for the game
I love fair play, but it's perfectly ok for people to have the mentality of, "why the hell would I NOT want to do busted things with all these possiblities?" That's ok, as long as there's balance
The only gripe I see with sfm coming off the banlist is the warped nature it would cause. For example, in my playgroup, the jund player would switch to junk, I'd have to jam sfm into my zoo list and the UW control player would definitely run the stoneforge package. This is where it hurts the format. Three different decks doing different things but yet all have the potential to revolve around a very powerful value filled creature. She can stay banned.
How in any way is that different from every Blue deck jamming 4 Snapcaster mage's? You mean a tier 1 deck, a tier 2 deck, and a tier 3 deck would jam the SFM package to become more viable fair decks? (not counting Junk), Oh my, how broken
Banning Twin would absolutely hurt the modern format, combo decks and liner strategies would rule the format, and GBx would have to police the format all by itself with no way of keeping certain combo decks and linear strategies down. GBx and Twin are the two most important pillars in modern, they balance this entire format
Not only that, but I'd be absolutely afraid to invest in any more modern cards knowing they'll continue to ban and ruin decks. I don't play Yugioh, but did you guys hear how recently Konami banned like 75 percent of the top tier meta? That sounds disastrous, and the argument of "oh, standard is more expensive in the long run" would kind of fly out the window
Look if we're going to unban powerful creatures why don't we just unban Deathrite Shaman while we're at it in and live in the Ajundi world.
Because Shaman is truly too powerful, he's a 1 mana planeswalker that does TOO many things
-He color fixes
-He hates on graveyards
-He can ping damage
-One mana of either black or green
Shaman would ABSOLUTELY destroy creative deckbuilding
Now---the thought of Cascading into K Command or Abzan playing SFM, that feels like a tough decision. A Bunch of Jeskai, UW, Esper decks would also probably become a thing, and we'd probably get contol decks that lean more to the fair side for once. We'd also get a hate bears deck that isn't has a win con that isn't a 2/1
SFM will not ruin combo decks unless they stumble, and more fair decks will arise
I like interactive magic more, personally. I do not like combo decks, but some people love it, and if too many decks try to go fair, they can prey on them
Sorry, my statement was mostly farcical.
I know, the fanboy in me still had to answer it seriously though
Look if we're going to unban powerful creatures why don't we just unban Deathrite Shaman while we're at it in and live in the Ajundi world.
Because Shaman is truly too powerful, he's a 1 mana planeswalker that does TOO many things
-He color fixes
-He hates on graveyards
-He can ping damage
-One mana of either black or green
Shaman would ABSOLUTELY destroy creative deckbuilding
Now---the thought of Cascading into K Command or Abzan playing SFM, that feels like a tough decision. A Bunch of Jeskai, UW, Esper decks would also probably become a thing, and we'd probably get contol decks that lean more to the fair side for once. We'd also get a hate bears deck that isn't has a win con that isn't a 2/1
SFM will not ruin combo decks unless they stumble, and more fair decks will arise
I like interactive magic more, personally. I do not like combo decks, but some people love it, and if too many decks try to go fair, they can prey on them
I'm sorry, doom, I hope I didn't offend you, I'm just trying to wrap my head around a more airtight, common list that decks like gbx, twin, affinity, etc have
Once I play more with the WUr build I'll try the black splash out
But like, snapcaster is mandatory in blue decks, right? Why not 2 bbe's?
At the end of the day, wotc likes interactive games, not degenerate combo decks, I can't stand rg personally, but I'm grudgingly admitting it's an annoying healthy deck to co exist with fair decks In in the format
But then combo players not using bolt or very much removal would STILL be incredibly upset by Twin
The decks with a ton of removal and disruption aren't the one's that have trouble with Twin, it's linear decks and combo decks, along with random decks here and there that do.
All I see this doing is making burn a little better. Oh, and RG Tron would get even easier seeing as how the spoiled Return of Koizilek card is an instant 3 proclasm that can be tutored with Stirrings. Do you guys see where I'm going with this? You aren't fixing anything, you're just trading an interactive combo deck for 2 other decks that hardly interact with you get better
Exarch is an absolutely worthless ban consideration
I never said I was against it or wanted it banned? I said I don't like it nor does it make good Magic on streaming to players seeing High level Magic play for the first time
You definitely don't have the right to tell me that just because I don't like the deck that I hate creative deck-building. I don't like RG Tron either, do you see me clammering for a ban or nerf?
I do hate the deck though, seeing a deck deny any form of play, interaction, and response is definitely not fun, but I suppose it's just a slower, longer lasting combo that kill you off morally instead of winning the game
I never advocated for the banning of Lantern, nor said it should be
All I said is that it makes for very bad streaming on tournament play, especially if it's new players watching a Magic game like that
I spent half a year collecting pieces for Jund, then bought my playset of Goyfs in one go and denied how much I paid for cardboard
Yes, it doesn't violate any rules
That being said, Lantern is really an awful deck and definitely only fun for one side
You are definitely twisting the truth
Pod wasn't banned for being the number 1 deck, it was banned because it won like 2 out of 3 pro-tours in a row, was placing in the other tournaments CONSTANTLY, winning a bunch of tournaments inbetween, and dominating FNM's. If you weren't playing POD or treasure cruise decks, you were playing a deck that could beat POD. You want to talk about a deck that was destroying the meta, look no further, it was pod.
Didn't POD reach a ludicrous number of the meta at one point, about 20%, maybe even 29%, can anyone back me up on those stats?
All the different forms of Twin are about 11ish percent right now, I believe, with Jund being around 7%, and Junk around 4-5.9%, that means about an even number GBx fair decks as Twin's share to help police Twin. I think Tron and Bloom are 5ish each? That's 10 percent to police the super efficient fair decks that don't care if you put a 4/5 for 2 mana by turn 2 or 3
Twin will not be nerfed or killed unless something is printed by accident that oppresses the rest of the meta, if anything, the fact that Jeskai Twin won was refreshing, since the known tagline of it is known as" if you want to play Jeskai Twin, you play it if you want to lose".
Twin nearly disappeared over the Summer, mainly because Grixis was hot and people wanted to try things a little different; outside of some thoughtscours, some K-Commands, and some Tasigur and fish, it's the same deck, it explains how Twin disappeared and how easy it is to convert to another Blue deck. You're telling me a deck that faded away over the summer with mediocre results, and made a comeback during GP Pittsburgh is now a target for any sort of banning? You guys sound ridiculous, this is becoming less of a discussion on banning and unbanning and more of a topic to whine about the cards and decks you don't like
Lantern is an annoying deck, but it doesn't do what eggs does, it doesn't take a 15 minute turn. You want to know how to push Lantern out of the meta and into fringe play? Refuse to scoope even if it has a lock, and let it go to time, let it get constant draws on it so often that they won't play it competitively. Lantern looks super bad for WOTC, because it shows one player interacting and another player on stream playing with their dice and losing all interest in the game. The meta and it's players can easily adjust and push this out of any sort of meta
Punishing fire won't be banned as long as Grove of the Burnwillows is around
I wouldn't cry about any Goryo piece being banned, but it's a tier 3 deck, isn't it?
Twin keeps decks honest, and it helps the meta become more than just pure linear strategies or unfair combo decks
Let's look at the MTGsalvation tier 1 board: Jund, UR Twin, RG Tron, Bloom, Burn, Affinity, 4 of the 6 tier 1 decks either combo or rarely worry about what you do, they continue with their plan unless they're about to lose. That means 1 deck in the tier 1 list plays a fair game of being efficient and beating your face in, 1 deck that threatens the combo and usually beats your face in with 2 or 3 hits per turn, burn plays a very uninteractive game except for the occasional sideboard of Path and Palm, Affinity runs Galvanic blast almost purely against Twin, and just hopes to hit a cranial plating with lots of creatures, Bloom plays solitaire, and RG Tron plays semi-solitaire with 8 main-deck board wipes
Tier 2 is kinda half and half, lots of fair strategies like zoo, some interactive combo's like Grixis Twin and Scapeshift, linear strategies like Merfolk and Elves
Twin's healthy for the meta
God, no, I'm not saying GBx should beat Tron, I'm saying it's all part of the general meta balancing, a rock/paper/scissors scenario. Twin beats Tron, Tron beats GBx, GBx beats Twin. I'm saying that if things like Twin didn't exist and we were left with a bunch of degenerate decks dominating the field and the average game looked like that, it would be an issue
Force of Will would be awesome in modern, but I feel like it could absolutely destroy and unravel the format. Combo decks would be absolutely ruined, Twin would possibly be too good, and then we would need broken things to balance out FOW.
I feel like Cabal Therapy is too good, too. I'll name your Splinter Twin/Keranos, kill your next creature, drop Tarm, your go
SFM will be fine as long as Jitte isn't around, she's not meta warping in legacy
White is weak and has absolutely no bombs, just a top notch removal spell and lingering souls, with some good clumped up sideboard cards
I wonder if counter spell would make control decks not named RG Tron viable, or if it would once again, just make Splinter Twin broken
Twin is a little similar to Infect, in that it can and will trump your linear deck that doesn't want to interact and continue to play unfair magic. What's that? You want to play Titan turn 3? No, remanded. Your deck doesn't really play any removal or creatures? Just solitaire? Ok, Exarch at the end of your turn. Twin at the beginning of my turn 4
The fact you call Twin a combo deck means 2 things, either you're bitter to losing against the deck in the past, or you don't understand how the deck operates. The typical Twin list aims to tempo you out with combo as a backup. In competetive Magic, Twin players win far more from pecking at the opponent with a Twin piece, Cliques, getting beats in from flash effects, and bolt-snap-bolt. I don't know if anyone can back me up, but hasn't the general findings been that UR Twin decks win around 25% percent of their games with the combo? It was something to the effect, right?
Twin is THE most interactive deck in modern as of now, it cannot successfully play the same plan against every deck. It has to sculpt a game plan with remands, visions, hope to have removal against aggro and midrange in it's opening hand, etc--now, I'm not saying other decks don't either, like GBx, but it has to do so even more
If a deck refuses to interact, then being remanded and countered until it's combo'd out is fine, I don't feel sympathetic whatsoever to Tron or Amulet for not being able to win through solitaire.
Decks like Affinity just BARELY cling onto the "fair deck" strategy, but Affinity interacts with you in NOT interacting with you in the form of Ravager, Etched Champion and manlands. I don't know about you, but it's not THAT uncommon for Affinity to dump it's hand with everything plus a Cranial plating on their turn 2 and giving you 2 turns to dig for an answer or lose
Twin stops this nonesense from plaguing the entire format, if Twin is ruined or banned, combo decks like Tron stop fair decks with too much efficiency from dominating the format, but Twin is fine, since it has such an uphill battle against the huge meta shares of GBx, while aggro decks stop some combo decks and slow decks from rolling over the rest of the meta
Like, I don't understand how this is hard for people to understand in the modern format. Not only that, but unlike MANY other combo decks, the Twin combo is very easy to interact with and a lot of decks have an answer to it. Bolt, path, dismember, counters, terminate, Abrupt Decay, spellskite, etc, Twin plays a combo that many decks can interact with, can you say the same thing about Bloom and it's Hivemind, Storm when it was even faster with Seething Song? Tron, while annoying, and a deck I have a deep seated hate for, can be interacted through with land hate. If Tron lands a turn 3 Karn, followed by either Ulamog, Ugin or Wurmcoil, it softlock wins the game, almost no modern deck can come back from that. Tron's only interaction is boardwipes and then deciding on Karn's ability, which can be a soft lock on the spot if they have 1 or 2 threats in their hand to drop into play
I'll take an interactive, backup combo deck than a bunch of decks I can't interact with
Have you ever played against Tron as a GBx player? If I don't have a curve of discard, 2 drop threat, Lilianna, land destruction, I don't get to play magic, I get to turn 3 after dropping a Tarmogoyf, and lose on the spot to a Karn or Wurmcoil. WOTC doesn't want the average game to be like this, it's bad for the fanbase and it's bad for the game
I love fair play, but it's perfectly ok for people to have the mentality of, "why the hell would I NOT want to do busted things with all these possiblities?" That's ok, as long as there's balance
How in any way is that different from every Blue deck jamming 4 Snapcaster mage's? You mean a tier 1 deck, a tier 2 deck, and a tier 3 deck would jam the SFM package to become more viable fair decks? (not counting Junk), Oh my, how broken
It isn't winning enough, nor taking 10 minute turns that it'll be likely
Not only that, but I'd be absolutely afraid to invest in any more modern cards knowing they'll continue to ban and ruin decks. I don't play Yugioh, but did you guys hear how recently Konami banned like 75 percent of the top tier meta? That sounds disastrous, and the argument of "oh, standard is more expensive in the long run" would kind of fly out the window
Twin isn't broken good, it has it's weaknesses
I know, the fanboy in me still had to answer it seriously though
Because Shaman is truly too powerful, he's a 1 mana planeswalker that does TOO many things
-He color fixes
-He hates on graveyards
-He can ping damage
-One mana of either black or green
Shaman would ABSOLUTELY destroy creative deckbuilding
Now---the thought of Cascading into K Command or Abzan playing SFM, that feels like a tough decision. A Bunch of Jeskai, UW, Esper decks would also probably become a thing, and we'd probably get contol decks that lean more to the fair side for once. We'd also get a hate bears deck that isn't has a win con that isn't a 2/1
SFM will not ruin combo decks unless they stumble, and more fair decks will arise
I like interactive magic more, personally. I do not like combo decks, but some people love it, and if too many decks try to go fair, they can prey on them
Once I play more with the WUr build I'll try the black splash out
But like, snapcaster is mandatory in blue decks, right? Why not 2 bbe's?
At the end of the day, wotc likes interactive games, not degenerate combo decks, I can't stand rg personally, but I'm grudgingly admitting it's an annoying healthy deck to co exist with fair decks In in the format