Am I an idiot for thinking that SFM is not ok in Modern? It costs 2 mana, slots into almost every white deck, is a good threat. Even when he gets removed, it's not like your deck falls apart. You are up a card.
I was in the SFM believer camp for a long time but then I read articles and talked to much better players than myself and they all had a few things in common:
.) they said for ages that JTMS and BBE is fine for Modern
.) they think SFM is too good for Modern
First of all, I trust the opinions of other Modern aficionados way more than the pros when it comes to this format. Most pros only play Modern when they have a tournament coming up. These are all the same people who said that Ancestral Vision, Thopter Sword, and Jace were too powerful for Modern.
Here are a couple points to think about with SFM:
1. She goes into fair grindy midrange decks. These decks need help in Modern.
2. The best thing she does is a turn 3 4/4 vigilance life linker that's somewhat resilient to creature removal. That's really far down the list of most busted things you can do in Modern. Turn 3 Batterskull is not better than turn 3 Wurmcoil or Karn, turn 3 flip a TitI and put 2 Arclights in play, turn 2 reanimate Griselbrand and kill you, turn 3 Grapeshot for 20, turn 1 put two 4/4s into play, turn 3 loop my Pyrite Spellbomb and kill you, turn 3 attack with a 10/10 Death's Shadow and Temur Battle Rage it, turn 2 dredge 15 cards and puke 12 power into play, turn 3 make a hasted double striking Primeval Titan, etc. I think you get the picture here...
3. There is a lot more interaction for SFM in Modern than there is in Legacy. Legacy decks historically have not run artifact hate in their sideboards (although I see people are playing Abrade now). Modern has always been heavy on answers to artifacts in sideboards because of Affinity, and now because of Hardened Scales and KCI. Everyone is already running answers to Batterskull.
4. Batterskull and the Swords cycle don't see any play on their own. If these cards were already being played even without SFM I would be more concerned, but they're not. That implies that Batterskull for 5 mana is just not good enough for Modern. If your SFM gets killed before you get to untap with her, that's what you have in your hand: a card that isn't good enough to see regular Modern play anymore.
5. She does not "limit future equipment design space." WotC does not print equipment anywhere near the power level of the Swords anymore, let alone Batterskull. Equipment these days is printed for limited play only. They haven't printed anything at Standard power level in like a decade. The limitations that SFM would put on equipment power level are way outside of the space that WotC is already working in when it comes to equipment.
That's all sideboard cards right there. K Command is not a card Burn can facilitate. Or else, they will take your answer on Turn 1 mate! The only real answer is an early searing blaze(if they don't take it).
Or any one of the 20 or so Bolts in their deck, lol. I don't think Burn would have any problem with SFM. Trying to get up to 5 mana to cast a Batterskull is not a winning strategy against Burn (believe me, I've tried it before), and there's a roughly 0% chance your SFM survives to untap.
My personal biggest argument against SFM unban is:
.) Wotc stated in the past that they don't want to unban cards that slot into Tier 1 strategies.
.) Wotc could think that it would slot into Humans, Spirits.
I'm personally not sure if Humans and Spirits would even play it. Humans could rebuild the manabase if it really wanted SFM (Mana Confluence etc.).
Over the years I have seen several disappointed people that are sad that SFM is still not unbanned. And I don't think it is reasonable to expect SFM to get unbanned.
Edit: Another argument against SFM is that it would reduce the impact of future cards. Maybe that is another reason why Wotc does not want SFM.
She doesn't really fit into any current tier 1 decks. Like you said, she doesn't fit into Humans. Her and the Batterskull don't have any synergies with the rest of the deck. As for Spirits, you start getting into the territory where you're making your CoCos worse when you're adding more non-creatures to the deck. I'm not sure it would be worth it. She doesn't fit into UW Miracles or the current Jeskai Control deck. I'm sure there would be some kind of UWx Stoneblade deck that would be built around her, but who knows if that would actually be better than the current UWx decks? And finally, I don't think "impact of future cards" thought is a good reason to keep her banned. I mean, Jace absolutely impacts the chances of future Jaces or 4 mana control walkers making their way into Modern, and WotC still unbanned him. If something is strong enough for Modern, it'll see play, whether SFM is around or not.
To be real, WotC can always ban whatever they want and just come up with an excuse afterwards. Like with the Dredge ban, we all knew that Dredge was a problem, but it couldn't kill before turn 4, and it was only like 6 to 8% of the meta. It was having a bad effect on the format, though, because the slower fair decks didn't have the tools to fight it. That made it the best choice to instead just play something that beat Dredge, which were the super fast turn 2/3 aggro/combo decks like Infect, Suicide Zoo, and Bloo. So WotC probably knew something in Dredge had to go before they even knew what their justification for the ban would be, lol
Maybe drs is something we need. Help vs gy decks, help vs aggro, and make some midrange decks have a little more chance. I realize how toxic it could be but modern imo is already there.
A fixed version of DRS would be a good addition to Modern. What if DRS could only be cast for G, was a 1/1, and the abilities only dealt or healed 1 damage instead of 2? Is that still broken?
I like his mix of main deck spells, but I don't really like the main deck Spellskites. It's not good against enough of the top decks to warrant the main deck spots. I don't really love the Forked Bolt either
For example, saying Jace, the mind sculptor is whatever in the Twin deck is a remarkably, exceptionally weird and wrong statement to make.
It's not that Jace isn't a strong card, he is, but we're talking about an upgrade of 1 or 2 slots, where he's replacing AoT (which wasn't a bad card itself) or a Keranos, who is one of the stickiest finishers in Modern. Whether you're playing 1 or 2 copies, he's an upgrade, but it's not like you're playing Jace where you were playing nothing before. He makes the sideboard a little better against the fair decks, that's all.
No one has said Opt is bad, I said I would play it, but you also have to be aware of the downsides of Opt vs. Serum Visions. Opt only digs 2 cards deep, SV digs 3. That's important for a 2 card combo deck. So while I do think the instant speed of Opt makes it worth it, I also don't think it's a strict upgrade. It's a sidegrade, really. And if you're running it alongside SV, it means you're cutting some of your interaction for it. It's probably a good change to make, but let's not act like adding 2 or 3 Opt to Twin's main deck suddenly busts it open.
I actually wasn't playing any LD in Twin before the ban, I was on BBD's 2 Loothouses and a Cavern build. Only about half of Twin players played a single GQ or Tec Edge. So we're talking an average of .5 copies of Field of Ruin upgrading on Tec Edge. This is a tiny upgrade.
I like the idea of Ral, I would probably give him a shot, but can you honestly tell me for sure that he's an upgrade over Keranos? It's not clear to me that he is. It would be fun to see, but there's a chance that Keranos is just better and Ral doesn't even get played in the deck.
Disdainful Stroke was legal alongside Twin for over a year, and we didn't play it. Rejection is a very nice sideboard card, I might play a copy or two of that, but one thing to think about is that it's only good against things that Twin was already good against, namely Affinity and Tron. I wouldn't be surprised if Rejection saw no sideboard play in Twin because we decided our colorless matchups were already good enough, and decided to use those slots for something like graveyard hate.
Abrade would also be a great inclusion but you guys know that.
One thing to think about in this case is that while Abrade has applications against both artifact decks and against small creature strategies, it is worse at killing artifacts than Ancient Grudge is. Eli Kassis was actually playing Grudge in his board instead of Abrade in his GP winning Phoenix deck, and it worked out well for him, as he ran into a lot of KCI. I think I personally would go with Abrade, but again, we're talking like 2 sideboard slots.
The final straw is not thinking about Grixis Twin.
Because we all think you're wrong that Grixis Twin would be better than Izzet, especially in this current meta. Grixis Twin was better against grindy fair decks, Izzet was better against linear aggro/combo decks. Which of those two things are defining Modern right now? And I think you're vastly overestimating the impact Push would have on that shell. First of all, how many copies are you even running? Old Grixis Twin typically ran 4 Bolts and 2 Terminates. Assuming you still want 1 Terminate for big stuff, that's 5 slots you're splitting between Bolt and Push. I assume they would go 3 Push and 2 Bolt like GDS is doing. So we're talking replacing a Terminate and 2 Bolts for 3 Push. I'm willing to say the Terminate is an upgrade, but losing Bolts makes me wince. It is probably better overall, but we can't act like Push is just free in the deck, you're making some concessions for it.
So, the general consensus @cfusionpm, is that Twin would get huge upgrade in many cards and Jace could break the archetype wide open.
It's a few small upgrades. Half a copy of Field, on average, replacing Tec Edge. ~3 copies of Opt that you had to cut some interaction for. Maybe you play Abrade over Ancient Grudge, maybe you don't, but it's a decision to make. 1 or 2 copies of JTMS over AoT, which is better overall, but AoT also had applications against aggro decks and in the mirror that Mind Sculptor doesn't have. Maybe a copy of Ral, but maybe Keranos is still just better and you don't play him. Maybe you play Ceremonious Rejection, but maybe you use those slots for something else, like graveyard hate.
So when I look at it, I see a few small upgrades that do make the deck better than it was in 2015, but is it better at the same rate that Modern as a whole has gotten more powerful in that time? Absolutely not, and I don't think it's close.
@KTK, from a data based perspective is the whole UR Phoenix deck totally safe for now? Should people that want to play the deck invest into it with no fear?
My opinion is that Modern moves in circles. The Phoenix deck has a positive matchup vs Spirits(gut shot the Noble Hierarch, fliers that are blockers for other flying spirits that come back, fast clock, lots of bolts) and that's why it made 4 copies into the top 16 and took the latest GP down.
There was an interesting article on CFB yesterday with the matchup data from GP Portland , and apparently Izzet Phoenix had the highest MWP at 57.1%, which he said was a record high in his data. He said it has two implications: that Phoenix' meta share would rise, and that its win rate would lower.
Looking at the bans, Twin was the first and only one which got banned with this thought in mind (in addition to the other criteria). BBE was a try to get DRS Jund down, but keep things like BG, BUG and other fringe decks (Elves e.g.) alive. Didn't work out in the end, ate the ban afterwards. Summer Bloom violated the Turn 4 rule (in combination with the relevant metagame share), Eye of Ugin was Eye of Ugin. Pod, TC and DTT got explained really well in that update (hint: Angel Pod was broken), Second Sunrise got axed cause of time, Seething Song cause of Mancer and PiF, and that's basically it.
So no, the notion of "banning the best deck each year for power level/PT reason" is wrong, close to all of them were justified.
I didn't say that every ban was related to this. First of all, in the initial banlist they basically banned all the best decks from Extended. After the first Modern Pro Tour, they banned a bunch of cards from all the best performing decks. About a year later, the two best decks were Jund and Storm, so BBE and Seething Song got banned. A year after that, Jund was still the best deck, so DRS got banned. A year after that, putting aside the obviously broken Treasure Cruise, the best deck was Pod, so that got banned. The next year, Twin was the best deck, so it was banned. I'm not saying that all of these bans weren't justified, but WotC was obviously actively pruning the power of the format to keep it more modest. It wasn't really until Pod when people were grumbling about this, and until Twin when there was a sizeable backlash. The backlash of the Twin ban caused them to back off being so aggressive with their bans, and I would say that everything that's been banned since has been justified.
Like what? This was discussed previously several times and the general consensus is any upgrade was either fairly minimal, or a sidestep rather than a strict upgrade. Also, those proposing "but those upgrades!" haven't produced any hypothetical lists, showing what they would cut/change in order to make room for those "upgrades."
The price for banning Twin was very high. It nuked an entire deck and lots of people lost their petdeck. So from Wotc point of view is it really worth it to unban Twin?
What if Twin is rly too good? They would have to ban it again. Now imagine that outrage, because unlike GGT an entire deck lives and dies with 1 ban/ unban.
If they unban Twin and it's still too good, you ban Deceiver Exarch. That's what they should have banned in the first place. The deck is still playable without Exarch, but it pushes you off the Izzet build, which was the best shell, and into a 3 color build. That's makes your Blood Moon sideboard plan much worse.
i actually believe that twin was banned precisely because it had TOO MUCH play to it while also having the aspect of nutting all over your opponent even if they were trying to interact with you. the combo was as simple as it can get (play A+B), half of it was instant speed, and you won on the spot. those qualities, coupled with its power level, are going to win games or matches for a player that they had no right winning. so if you of cfp think that is insulting then im sorry, but for all those positive things twin had going on or was doing it still had that low effort 'free wins' aspect. if you cant see that then your perspective is skewed.
Except Twin did that for 4+ years, and it had never been a problem before.
Let's not kid ourselves here, Twin got banned because WotC was in the habit of banning the best deck every year to keep Modern's power level in check, and Twin just happened to be the best deck of 2015. The community outrage over the Twin banning is precisely why WotC has let up on their bans. I have no doubt that GDS would have been banned last year, and probably Humans and KCI this year, under their old way of doing things. And under their current more conservative approach, Twin probably wouldn't have been banned.
I don't see why any UW player would want to switch back to verdict. Terminus is just a much cleaner answer. If the format slows down, removal won't be as taxed, I don't see how that prevents UW to easily digging to a terminus. Maybe only if GDS is super prevalent. You could even play a 3/2 terminus/verdict split to really hate on creature decks since you don't need to warp your deck with main deck RiP anymore.
My testing partner definitely wouldn't swap. Anybody else want to weigh in on this?
There are still some UW players who play more Verdicts than Terminus, but they're a dying breed these days. The bottom line is that Terminus is clunky and very high variance, and it has real deck building costs. You can't really play Serum Visions in a Terminus build because you don't want the sorcery speed cantrips, even though SV is a better cantrip than Opt. That's why UW plays Opt and stuff like Hieroglyphic Illuminations. But the trade off on power for the chance of a turn 2 or 3 sweeper is worth it in a meta dominated by fast aggro/combo decks that can flood the board on the first couple turns of the game. If the meta slows down to where 4 mana wraths are viable again, don't be surprised to see a lot of UW players go back to Verdict builds. Especially if GDS becomes really popular again.
At this point, I'd like to emphasize for context that this series of terminus 'rants' started off by idSurge suggesting that in a hypothetical scenario where Stirrings, Looting etc take bans to slow down the format, Terminus might have to go along with them because hyper aggro and 1 mana sweeper are foils to each other. I agree with him and offered the viewpoint that in a hypothetical slowed down format, there is little incentive to play interactive midrange decks because without hyper-streamlined linear decks keeping Terminus in check, UW control would dominate any other archetype attempting to play 'fair'. Therefore, in a scenario where Looting and Stirrings go, Terminus would probably need to go too. Neither of us actually think this will happen or are calling for a Terminus ban in the context of the current modern format. We've also repeated a few times at least that Terminus is NECESSARY right now because of those decks.
Control doesn't just play Terminus for the heck of it. If Modern slowed down and Terminus was no longer necessary for control to keep up with the broken aggro/combo decks that flood the board on turns 1 and 2, they would just go back to playing Verdict. Verdict is the more consistent card without the deck building constraints Terminus has, but we often weren't surviving to cast it, even with our other early interaction.
And like I've said, give control Terminus or Verdict, your slower midrange decks are still losing to them because that's just how matchups work. The problem is that you don't beat the aggro decks anymore, so what are your good matchups then?
Yeah, the Bogles and Infect numbers surprised me too, but I thought back on the Bogles player from my LGS, and I could see it. If I had the combo ready on turn 4 and he tapped out or didn't have the Path, I won, but in the 4/5ths of games where I didn't have the combo ready on turn 4, or he played more conservatively and kept up Path, I would often lose. As for Infect, one of my friends plays it and I beat him more often than not, but I'm a better player than him (not bragging, he just doesn't play much).
I think part of the Twin vs. Jund perception for us ex-Twin players is how bad game 1 was for us. We were almost never going into sideboard games up a game. It got much better for us post-board, though, and I wouldn't be surprised if we were decent favorites in post-board games. We brought in more answers to Tarmogoyf, more card advantage, and a finisher that they had no way to deal with outside of hitting it with a Thoughtseize (Keranos).
And yea, your point about what the pros play is spot on. I've said for a long time that Twin was actually overplayed, and especially by very good pros like BBD, Dickmann, Anderson, PVDDR, Maynard, Cheon, and Pardee. The bottom line is that the deck was fun to play, it was the only competitive choice if you wanted a reactive blue deck, and it was a deck with a high skill ceiling, where pros could leverage their superior skill to get more out of it. All of that led to it probably being more popular than its actual strength was.
I went to the wayback machine and found the old Modern matchup analysis MTGGoldfish used to post before WotC gave them a cease and desist. Here were the matchups for Twin they had:
I believe the Tron number is from before Ulamog, though. These numbers mostly line up with my anecdotal feelings. I could see Jund and Abzan being closer to 50% than people think, but there's no way Twin was actually favored. However, I could see Grixis Twin possibly being favored there. Grixis Control was definitely miserable, that deck came into existence because it beat Twin. UR Twin's overall MWP was 53.6%.
Just another piece of evidence for people as to why Twin shouldn't have been banned in the first place: it wasn't the deck with the highest win percentage. It only had the 11th highest win rate. The decks with the highest win rate were the early builds of Bant Company (with an N of 584), and the early builds of Suicide Zoo (with an N of 538). Both of them had MWPs over 57%.
And to further comment on the builds of Twin, Grixis Twin's MWP was 50.6%, they don't have TarmoTwin listed, but Temur Delver was 46.46%, and finally Jeskai Twin was 38.65% with an N of 564 matches, LOL.
Nope, it does not. Fatal push and the 4 mana push snap push play, it's huge. For the record, I used to play UR Twin vs Jund. i know the matchup inside out. Recently, I played again the matchup, with me replacing terminates with pushes. Let me tell you, that the matchup has become so much better.
Sure, Push is great against Tarmogoyf, but why is that your concern right now in Modern? Tarmogoyf would be the least of my worries when building the deck.
I think I agree, Grixis Twin would be where it's at.
You also have to look at how other decks would adjust. Grixis Shadow is adjusted to THIS meta. Grixis Shadow could grind like crazy in it's old build as long as you weren't UWx.
With Shadow around, I don't feel like UR Twin would be the way to go anymore.
Grixis could afford to maybe play---2 field of ruins?
I doubt AV would be played. Jace, however, would be pretty sweet. Would you guys really play the new Ral over Keranos or Jace, though?
Wraith, a turn 2 Goyf used to be disastrous for Twin with a turn 1 to turn 3 discard. I can't imagine UR Twin being happy at the sight of Shadow.
Again, I admit that Grixis Twin would be better against stuff like GDS and Jund, but are those decks what Modern is centered around right now? No, they are not. Modern is centered around the fast linear aggro/combo decks, and the UR build is far superior against those strategies because it's much more consistent at the combo aspect of Twin. If the format began to slow down with Twin in it, and it became about grindy midrange decks again, then Grixis would probably be the way to go.
As for your second point, I might play a copy of Ral. You have 3 or 4 sideboard slots for some combination of Keranos, Jace, Ral, or AV. I would absolutely play at least 1 Keranos because he's the most resilient of those. I would almost definitely play at least 1 Jace. The 3rd or 4th would probably be a second Jace first, then either a second Keranos or a Ral. And this is why I tell people Twin wouldn't play AV, I don't want the first AV before any of those other options. Keranos, Jace, and Ral are all win conditions in addition to giving you card advantage. AV isn't.
I don't know the exact number, but I just presented a used who nearly top 8 ed the last MODO PTQ. In that list, he used 2 Field of ruin. If we want to base our saying instead of theorycrafting, that's where we should stand on.
I've gotta be honest with you, George, that dude's list is super dubious, especially his mana. He only has 14 red sources and 5(!) basic islands in a deck that wants to hit RRR on turn 5. Even with an ideal sequence on the play, with a 7 card hand, of T1: Opt, T2: Remand, T3: Snap Opt, T4: Exarch, T5: Kiki, he only has an 80% chance of seeing three red sources on 5. When you combine that with your odds of having 5 lands on 5, he only has a 66% chance of having 5 lands and triple red by turn 5 even if he digs 5 extra cards deep with cantrips. Obviously, with less ideal sequences his odds drop even further. To put that in perspective, both UR and Grixis Twin with a 7 card hand on the play and a sequence of T1: Opt, T2: Remand, T3: Exarch, T3: Twin would have a 77% chance of RR and 4 lands by turn 4, and with the same sequence as the Kiki deck I listed above, they would both have a 92% chance to have RR and 4 lands by turn 5. This dude needs to add a land to his deck and 3 red sources just to get his odds of having RRR and 5 lands on turn 5 up to 80% with that ideal sequence.
I think you guys downplay the impact of going into 3 mana, and what benefits are gained in staying in pure UR. UR was still the better Twin.
Not only does it have more consistent mana that you take less damage from, but you played more combo pieces, so you were better at the combo plan, and you were a better Blood Moon deck post-board.
Am I giving Terminus too much credit? Perhaps, but I highly doubt so. My playgroup has a very dedicated UW control player. UW control is also the archetype I have the most testing reps again. He's been playing different iterations of UW against me for close to 3 years now.
You're right that UW has been getting steady upgrades over time (Teferi, Azcanta etc that you mentioned), but Terminus is really the straw that broke the camel's back. I will stress that this is against midrange specifically. Terminus is a necessary evil to fight decks that don't pay mana to cast their creatures.
The fact that it often costs a single white mana means that counterplay options are very limited, as are the timing window for those counterplay options.
Your last statement actually agrees with me though. I can fight through the slow incremental effect of Search, I can bolt or use creature combat to take down planeswalkers. It's possible to grind through all those vs Verdict/Wrath with resilient creatures like Voice or Finks, and in the absence of those, it at least gives me a free turn to rebuild.
Terminus negates all of that, leaves nothing behind, and can be cast on my turn for a measly 2 mana, likely able to remove or counter my follow up play with open mana still on my turn. That's the difference. That's why I don't think I'm laying too much at the feet of Terminus. And the rest is exactly as you say it, untap, slam the teferi and tick up against an empty board. Game over.
If you ban Terminus, you kill UW control as an archetype. It wouldn't be able to keep up with the fast aggro/combo decks without it. If you want to beat Terminus, play counterspells. One of the side-effects of moving to Terminus is that we hurt our GDS matchup, because Verdict was a problem for them. Terminus is just a symptom of the problem with Modern, it's not the problem itself. If the format slowed down to where 4 mana wraths were viable again, and you cared about permission, UW would go back to Verdict.
I like how we went from "terminus invalidates fair midrange" to "salty jund players wanting their deck to be the best again".
Newsflash: Wanting Midrange to be able to compete in Modern does not equate to wanting Midrange to be the best archetype.
Midrange's problem isn't the Terminus decks. They're supposed to lose to those decks anyway. The problem is they don't beat the decks they're supposed to beat anymore, which are the linear aggro/combo decks. Those decks have become too brutally fast and focused for attrition and value decks to keep up with. There needs to be something that punishes those decks for choosing to ignore their opponent.
Again, I'm all for measured Twin unban arguments. But please stop stating/suggesting that TS/Decay was a significant issue for Twin. Twin was 50/50 against both Jund and Abzan in 2015.
You know I'm a big data guy, but when the data contradicts common sense like that stat you keep bringing up, it really makes me question if there are flaws in the data. Like, is this all builds of Twin, or just a specific one, because they didn't all have the same Jund matchup. Grixis was markedly better in that matchup than UR was. And yes, TS/Decay were problem cards for Twin, you can't with a straight face tell me that discard spells and uncounterable creature removal weren't good against a creature combo/control deck.
Also, as ktk is saying, Jund and Abzan were totally even, after the Keranos print. Just go Grixis and wreck that BGx's
You're definitely putting too much stock in that guy's opinion. Everyone always thinks their matchups are better than they really are. As Sheridan likes to say, subtract like 5% from whatever a person tells you their matchups are, lol.
Another thing twin defenders continue to ignore (or not care about) is that outside of the Eldrazi debacle, no other deck since twin's banning has reached the T8 prevalence that Twin achieved in 2015.
And nothing has reached the T8 prevalence that GBx Midrange had in 2015. Or that Affinity had in 2015. The underlying truth here is that the power in Modern was much more narrowly concentrated into like 5 archetypes in 2015. In 2019, with the possible exception of KCI, the power in the format is much flatter at the top. There are like 20 decks that are all close to each other in power at the top of the format. And you'll notice that the GBx decks and Affinity are still around, but no longer dominate the format like they used to, alongside Twin. I posit that it would be the same for Twin. The major reason I feel that way is that all these other archetypes that have risen in power have not done so simply because of Twin's absence, it's because they've been empowered by new cards. If you go to mtggoldfish and look at the top page of the Modern meta, every single one of the decks that are new within the last 3 years are because of cards they got that enabled their rise to power. Even some of the old guard, like Tron, Storm, and GBx have gotten new toys that have helped them stay relevant.
In other news, you guys really gotta stop posting so fast, I can't come home from work to find 6 pages I have to read through, lol
I'll sleeve up a Grixis Twin list and play some games with my buddy who plays Rock and Dredge and let you know. I'm pretty sure UR would be the better shell, though. I think you're overestimating what Push does to the shell. Grixis had access to all the cards you're talking about with it before, and it wasn't as good as UR then. The deck's problem was not killing creatures, so I don't see how Push bumps it above UR.
I don't think you could afford to play 8 cantrips, it would probably be a 4-2 split. And yeah, I would maybe play 1 Field of Ruin, I would probably play one or two Abrade, two of Ral and Jace in some combination, and probably 1 Ceremonious Rejection. So we're talking like 7 cards different out of 75, which are just incremental improvements. There hasn't been anything released or printed that just busts the old Twin shell open.
And of course it would have weaknesses, it would have the same weaknesses it always had: decks that are interactive and have a fast clock, and decks that are really interactive with slower clocks.
Well, I didn't say it would get no new cards, but I don't think the additions to Twin in the last three years have kept pace with Modern's overall power level. Just going for me personally, the only maindeck changes I would make would be swapping SV for Opt, which is really a sidegrade, and I might play a single copy of Field of Ruin. UR Twin could only afford to play 2 colorless utility lands because you needed RR and UUU by turn 4, and at least one of those is still going to be Loothouse. Ral is a really interesting suggestion for the board, but I don't think you're playing both him and Jace. It's probably one or the other. I think Ral might actually be better since he can kill big creatures, which was always a big weakness of Twin. It's something I would have to test.
Here's the problem with a lot of the sideboard ideas people have about what Twin would play: the old Twin sideboard had a specific number of slots for very specific purposes, and there's another big problem today that I'll get to in a second. I went back and looked at my old list, and some old lists of Twin players I respected, and here's how the sideboards (mostly) lined up:
2 or 3 pieces of artifact hate
2 sweepers
2 resilient finishers (Keranos)
2 Blood Moon
1 card advantage engine
0 or 1 mirror card (usually Rending Volley)
0 or 1 anti-control cards
1 or 2 ways to deal with big creatures
2 counterspells
0 or 1 small creature hate (Lavamancer or Staticaster)
0 or 1 Spellskite
So you had 12 slots pretty firm and 3 flex slots where you had to decide between an extra piece of artifact hate, a mirror card, an anti-control card (Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir), another way to deal with Tarmogoyf, a Lavamancer or Staticaster, and a Spellskite. And now here's the problem I mentioned earlier: graveyard decks weren't really a thing back in 2015. You would need slots for graveyard hate today. I would probably play a couple Surgical Extractions in Twin today. I probably do want an anti-control card, since control is so much better today than it was in 2015. That would leave me with like 1 or no flex slots.
So when people say things like (and I'm not picking on you Gkourou, it's something pretty commonly said), "Twin would play some AVs, JTMS, and Azcanta in their board today," I just say to them: look at that list and tell me where there's room for all that. There was room for 1 maybe 2 card advantage engines for the fair matchups. If you want to jam more you're taking away from cards for other matchups. Now, maybe you can combine some of those categories with new cards. Like, Abrade can be both artifact hate and small creature removal. JTMS can be both card advantage and a finisher (although he's not nearly as resilient as Keranos). Ral could be card advantage, a finisher, AND a way to deal with big creatures (I like him even more the more I think about it). There's basically no way I'm playing AV over either Jace or Ral, so that's not even worth thinking about in my opinion. So the sideboard could have some more flexibility these days, but you also have more demands on it. This is why I say that Twin is better than it was in 2015 overall, but not at the same pace that Modern as a whole has grown in power. So contextually I don't think Twin would be as good in Modern in 2019 as it was in 2015.
And honestly, I don't think Grixis Twin would be better than UR, even in 2019. Grixis Twin was better against Jund and in the mirror, but UR was way better against the linear aggro/combo decks because it had a more consistent combo plan. Modern isn't about grinding, so I don't see how the Grixis build would be better than the Izzet build, at least not immediately. Maybe if Twin is able to team up with Humans/Spirits and GDS to pull the reins on the format and slow it down, then Grixis might become better. Push isn't really that huge of an upgrade, though. Grixis Twin had access to Terminate already, so they didn't really have trouble killing big creatures like UR did. I'm not sure you want to cut Bolts for Push, so maybe you cut a couple Terminates, but I don't think you'd want to cut all of them, or else you'd make yourself cold to 5+ cmc creatures with toughness over 3.
Here are a couple points to think about with SFM:
1. She goes into fair grindy midrange decks. These decks need help in Modern.
2. The best thing she does is a turn 3 4/4 vigilance life linker that's somewhat resilient to creature removal. That's really far down the list of most busted things you can do in Modern. Turn 3 Batterskull is not better than turn 3 Wurmcoil or Karn, turn 3 flip a TitI and put 2 Arclights in play, turn 2 reanimate Griselbrand and kill you, turn 3 Grapeshot for 20, turn 1 put two 4/4s into play, turn 3 loop my Pyrite Spellbomb and kill you, turn 3 attack with a 10/10 Death's Shadow and Temur Battle Rage it, turn 2 dredge 15 cards and puke 12 power into play, turn 3 make a hasted double striking Primeval Titan, etc. I think you get the picture here...
3. There is a lot more interaction for SFM in Modern than there is in Legacy. Legacy decks historically have not run artifact hate in their sideboards (although I see people are playing Abrade now). Modern has always been heavy on answers to artifacts in sideboards because of Affinity, and now because of Hardened Scales and KCI. Everyone is already running answers to Batterskull.
4. Batterskull and the Swords cycle don't see any play on their own. If these cards were already being played even without SFM I would be more concerned, but they're not. That implies that Batterskull for 5 mana is just not good enough for Modern. If your SFM gets killed before you get to untap with her, that's what you have in your hand: a card that isn't good enough to see regular Modern play anymore.
5. She does not "limit future equipment design space." WotC does not print equipment anywhere near the power level of the Swords anymore, let alone Batterskull. Equipment these days is printed for limited play only. They haven't printed anything at Standard power level in like a decade. The limitations that SFM would put on equipment power level are way outside of the space that WotC is already working in when it comes to equipment.
Or any one of the 20 or so Bolts in their deck, lol. I don't think Burn would have any problem with SFM. Trying to get up to 5 mana to cast a Batterskull is not a winning strategy against Burn (believe me, I've tried it before), and there's a roughly 0% chance your SFM survives to untap.
She doesn't really fit into any current tier 1 decks. Like you said, she doesn't fit into Humans. Her and the Batterskull don't have any synergies with the rest of the deck. As for Spirits, you start getting into the territory where you're making your CoCos worse when you're adding more non-creatures to the deck. I'm not sure it would be worth it. She doesn't fit into UW Miracles or the current Jeskai Control deck. I'm sure there would be some kind of UWx Stoneblade deck that would be built around her, but who knows if that would actually be better than the current UWx decks? And finally, I don't think "impact of future cards" thought is a good reason to keep her banned. I mean, Jace absolutely impacts the chances of future Jaces or 4 mana control walkers making their way into Modern, and WotC still unbanned him. If something is strong enough for Modern, it'll see play, whether SFM is around or not.
No one has said Opt is bad, I said I would play it, but you also have to be aware of the downsides of Opt vs. Serum Visions. Opt only digs 2 cards deep, SV digs 3. That's important for a 2 card combo deck. So while I do think the instant speed of Opt makes it worth it, I also don't think it's a strict upgrade. It's a sidegrade, really. And if you're running it alongside SV, it means you're cutting some of your interaction for it. It's probably a good change to make, but let's not act like adding 2 or 3 Opt to Twin's main deck suddenly busts it open.
I actually wasn't playing any LD in Twin before the ban, I was on BBD's 2 Loothouses and a Cavern build. Only about half of Twin players played a single GQ or Tec Edge. So we're talking an average of .5 copies of Field of Ruin upgrading on Tec Edge. This is a tiny upgrade.
I like the idea of Ral, I would probably give him a shot, but can you honestly tell me for sure that he's an upgrade over Keranos? It's not clear to me that he is. It would be fun to see, but there's a chance that Keranos is just better and Ral doesn't even get played in the deck.
Disdainful Stroke was legal alongside Twin for over a year, and we didn't play it. Rejection is a very nice sideboard card, I might play a copy or two of that, but one thing to think about is that it's only good against things that Twin was already good against, namely Affinity and Tron. I wouldn't be surprised if Rejection saw no sideboard play in Twin because we decided our colorless matchups were already good enough, and decided to use those slots for something like graveyard hate.
One thing to think about in this case is that while Abrade has applications against both artifact decks and against small creature strategies, it is worse at killing artifacts than Ancient Grudge is. Eli Kassis was actually playing Grudge in his board instead of Abrade in his GP winning Phoenix deck, and it worked out well for him, as he ran into a lot of KCI. I think I personally would go with Abrade, but again, we're talking like 2 sideboard slots.
Because we all think you're wrong that Grixis Twin would be better than Izzet, especially in this current meta. Grixis Twin was better against grindy fair decks, Izzet was better against linear aggro/combo decks. Which of those two things are defining Modern right now? And I think you're vastly overestimating the impact Push would have on that shell. First of all, how many copies are you even running? Old Grixis Twin typically ran 4 Bolts and 2 Terminates. Assuming you still want 1 Terminate for big stuff, that's 5 slots you're splitting between Bolt and Push. I assume they would go 3 Push and 2 Bolt like GDS is doing. So we're talking replacing a Terminate and 2 Bolts for 3 Push. I'm willing to say the Terminate is an upgrade, but losing Bolts makes me wince. It is probably better overall, but we can't act like Push is just free in the deck, you're making some concessions for it.
It's a few small upgrades. Half a copy of Field, on average, replacing Tec Edge. ~3 copies of Opt that you had to cut some interaction for. Maybe you play Abrade over Ancient Grudge, maybe you don't, but it's a decision to make. 1 or 2 copies of JTMS over AoT, which is better overall, but AoT also had applications against aggro decks and in the mirror that Mind Sculptor doesn't have. Maybe a copy of Ral, but maybe Keranos is still just better and you don't play him. Maybe you play Ceremonious Rejection, but maybe you use those slots for something else, like graveyard hate.
So when I look at it, I see a few small upgrades that do make the deck better than it was in 2015, but is it better at the same rate that Modern as a whole has gotten more powerful in that time? Absolutely not, and I don't think it's close.
There was an interesting article on CFB yesterday with the matchup data from GP Portland
, and apparently Izzet Phoenix had the highest MWP at 57.1%, which he said was a record high in his data. He said it has two implications: that Phoenix' meta share would rise, and that its win rate would lower.
I didn't say that every ban was related to this. First of all, in the initial banlist they basically banned all the best decks from Extended. After the first Modern Pro Tour, they banned a bunch of cards from all the best performing decks. About a year later, the two best decks were Jund and Storm, so BBE and Seething Song got banned. A year after that, Jund was still the best deck, so DRS got banned. A year after that, putting aside the obviously broken Treasure Cruise, the best deck was Pod, so that got banned. The next year, Twin was the best deck, so it was banned. I'm not saying that all of these bans weren't justified, but WotC was obviously actively pruning the power of the format to keep it more modest. It wasn't really until Pod when people were grumbling about this, and until Twin when there was a sizeable backlash. The backlash of the Twin ban caused them to back off being so aggressive with their bans, and I would say that everything that's been banned since has been justified.
You need more red sources! Old UR Twin ran 16 red sources, and you've only got 14. I would cut two basic islands, maybe for 2 Spirebluff Canals.
If they unban Twin and it's still too good, you ban Deceiver Exarch. That's what they should have banned in the first place. The deck is still playable without Exarch, but it pushes you off the Izzet build, which was the best shell, and into a 3 color build. That's makes your Blood Moon sideboard plan much worse.
Let's not kid ourselves here, Twin got banned because WotC was in the habit of banning the best deck every year to keep Modern's power level in check, and Twin just happened to be the best deck of 2015. The community outrage over the Twin banning is precisely why WotC has let up on their bans. I have no doubt that GDS would have been banned last year, and probably Humans and KCI this year, under their old way of doing things. And under their current more conservative approach, Twin probably wouldn't have been banned.
And like I've said, give control Terminus or Verdict, your slower midrange decks are still losing to them because that's just how matchups work. The problem is that you don't beat the aggro decks anymore, so what are your good matchups then?
I think part of the Twin vs. Jund perception for us ex-Twin players is how bad game 1 was for us. We were almost never going into sideboard games up a game. It got much better for us post-board, though, and I wouldn't be surprised if we were decent favorites in post-board games. We brought in more answers to Tarmogoyf, more card advantage, and a finisher that they had no way to deal with outside of hitting it with a Thoughtseize (Keranos).
And yea, your point about what the pros play is spot on. I've said for a long time that Twin was actually overplayed, and especially by very good pros like BBD, Dickmann, Anderson, PVDDR, Maynard, Cheon, and Pardee. The bottom line is that the deck was fun to play, it was the only competitive choice if you wanted a reactive blue deck, and it was a deck with a high skill ceiling, where pros could leverage their superior skill to get more out of it. All of that led to it probably being more popular than its actual strength was.
Affinity - 63.16%
Amulet Bloom - 60%
GR Tron - 56.76%
RUG Scapeshift - 52.17%
Abzan - 49.23%
Jund - 48.28%
Merfolk - 45.95%
Bogles - 45.71%
Infect - 43.59%
Grixis Control - 41%
I believe the Tron number is from before Ulamog, though. These numbers mostly line up with my anecdotal feelings. I could see Jund and Abzan being closer to 50% than people think, but there's no way Twin was actually favored. However, I could see Grixis Twin possibly being favored there. Grixis Control was definitely miserable, that deck came into existence because it beat Twin. UR Twin's overall MWP was 53.6%.
Just another piece of evidence for people as to why Twin shouldn't have been banned in the first place: it wasn't the deck with the highest win percentage. It only had the 11th highest win rate. The decks with the highest win rate were the early builds of Bant Company (with an N of 584), and the early builds of Suicide Zoo (with an N of 538). Both of them had MWPs over 57%.
And to further comment on the builds of Twin, Grixis Twin's MWP was 50.6%, they don't have TarmoTwin listed, but Temur Delver was 46.46%, and finally Jeskai Twin was 38.65% with an N of 564 matches, LOL.
Again, I admit that Grixis Twin would be better against stuff like GDS and Jund, but are those decks what Modern is centered around right now? No, they are not. Modern is centered around the fast linear aggro/combo decks, and the UR build is far superior against those strategies because it's much more consistent at the combo aspect of Twin. If the format began to slow down with Twin in it, and it became about grindy midrange decks again, then Grixis would probably be the way to go.
As for your second point, I might play a copy of Ral. You have 3 or 4 sideboard slots for some combination of Keranos, Jace, Ral, or AV. I would absolutely play at least 1 Keranos because he's the most resilient of those. I would almost definitely play at least 1 Jace. The 3rd or 4th would probably be a second Jace first, then either a second Keranos or a Ral. And this is why I tell people Twin wouldn't play AV, I don't want the first AV before any of those other options. Keranos, Jace, and Ral are all win conditions in addition to giving you card advantage. AV isn't.
I've gotta be honest with you, George, that dude's list is super dubious, especially his mana. He only has 14 red sources and 5(!) basic islands in a deck that wants to hit RRR on turn 5. Even with an ideal sequence on the play, with a 7 card hand, of T1: Opt, T2: Remand, T3: Snap Opt, T4: Exarch, T5: Kiki, he only has an 80% chance of seeing three red sources on 5. When you combine that with your odds of having 5 lands on 5, he only has a 66% chance of having 5 lands and triple red by turn 5 even if he digs 5 extra cards deep with cantrips. Obviously, with less ideal sequences his odds drop even further. To put that in perspective, both UR and Grixis Twin with a 7 card hand on the play and a sequence of T1: Opt, T2: Remand, T3: Exarch, T3: Twin would have a 77% chance of RR and 4 lands by turn 4, and with the same sequence as the Kiki deck I listed above, they would both have a 92% chance to have RR and 4 lands by turn 5. This dude needs to add a land to his deck and 3 red sources just to get his odds of having RRR and 5 lands on turn 5 up to 80% with that ideal sequence.
Not only does it have more consistent mana that you take less damage from, but you played more combo pieces, so you were better at the combo plan, and you were a better Blood Moon deck post-board.
If you ban Terminus, you kill UW control as an archetype. It wouldn't be able to keep up with the fast aggro/combo decks without it. If you want to beat Terminus, play counterspells. One of the side-effects of moving to Terminus is that we hurt our GDS matchup, because Verdict was a problem for them. Terminus is just a symptom of the problem with Modern, it's not the problem itself. If the format slowed down to where 4 mana wraths were viable again, and you cared about permission, UW would go back to Verdict.
Midrange's problem isn't the Terminus decks. They're supposed to lose to those decks anyway. The problem is they don't beat the decks they're supposed to beat anymore, which are the linear aggro/combo decks. Those decks have become too brutally fast and focused for attrition and value decks to keep up with. There needs to be something that punishes those decks for choosing to ignore their opponent.
You know I'm a big data guy, but when the data contradicts common sense like that stat you keep bringing up, it really makes me question if there are flaws in the data. Like, is this all builds of Twin, or just a specific one, because they didn't all have the same Jund matchup. Grixis was markedly better in that matchup than UR was. And yes, TS/Decay were problem cards for Twin, you can't with a straight face tell me that discard spells and uncounterable creature removal weren't good against a creature combo/control deck.
You're definitely putting too much stock in that guy's opinion. Everyone always thinks their matchups are better than they really are. As Sheridan likes to say, subtract like 5% from whatever a person tells you their matchups are, lol.
We wouldn't play AV for reasons I've outlined above.
And nothing has reached the T8 prevalence that GBx Midrange had in 2015. Or that Affinity had in 2015. The underlying truth here is that the power in Modern was much more narrowly concentrated into like 5 archetypes in 2015. In 2019, with the possible exception of KCI, the power in the format is much flatter at the top. There are like 20 decks that are all close to each other in power at the top of the format. And you'll notice that the GBx decks and Affinity are still around, but no longer dominate the format like they used to, alongside Twin. I posit that it would be the same for Twin. The major reason I feel that way is that all these other archetypes that have risen in power have not done so simply because of Twin's absence, it's because they've been empowered by new cards. If you go to mtggoldfish and look at the top page of the Modern meta, every single one of the decks that are new within the last 3 years are because of cards they got that enabled their rise to power. Even some of the old guard, like Tron, Storm, and GBx have gotten new toys that have helped them stay relevant.
In other news, you guys really gotta stop posting so fast, I can't come home from work to find 6 pages I have to read through, lol
And of course it would have weaknesses, it would have the same weaknesses it always had: decks that are interactive and have a fast clock, and decks that are really interactive with slower clocks.
Here's the problem with a lot of the sideboard ideas people have about what Twin would play: the old Twin sideboard had a specific number of slots for very specific purposes, and there's another big problem today that I'll get to in a second. I went back and looked at my old list, and some old lists of Twin players I respected, and here's how the sideboards (mostly) lined up:
2 or 3 pieces of artifact hate
2 sweepers
2 resilient finishers (Keranos)
2 Blood Moon
1 card advantage engine
0 or 1 mirror card (usually Rending Volley)
0 or 1 anti-control cards
1 or 2 ways to deal with big creatures
2 counterspells
0 or 1 small creature hate (Lavamancer or Staticaster)
0 or 1 Spellskite
So you had 12 slots pretty firm and 3 flex slots where you had to decide between an extra piece of artifact hate, a mirror card, an anti-control card (Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir), another way to deal with Tarmogoyf, a Lavamancer or Staticaster, and a Spellskite. And now here's the problem I mentioned earlier: graveyard decks weren't really a thing back in 2015. You would need slots for graveyard hate today. I would probably play a couple Surgical Extractions in Twin today. I probably do want an anti-control card, since control is so much better today than it was in 2015. That would leave me with like 1 or no flex slots.
So when people say things like (and I'm not picking on you Gkourou, it's something pretty commonly said), "Twin would play some AVs, JTMS, and Azcanta in their board today," I just say to them: look at that list and tell me where there's room for all that. There was room for 1 maybe 2 card advantage engines for the fair matchups. If you want to jam more you're taking away from cards for other matchups. Now, maybe you can combine some of those categories with new cards. Like, Abrade can be both artifact hate and small creature removal. JTMS can be both card advantage and a finisher (although he's not nearly as resilient as Keranos). Ral could be card advantage, a finisher, AND a way to deal with big creatures (I like him even more the more I think about it). There's basically no way I'm playing AV over either Jace or Ral, so that's not even worth thinking about in my opinion. So the sideboard could have some more flexibility these days, but you also have more demands on it. This is why I say that Twin is better than it was in 2015 overall, but not at the same pace that Modern as a whole has grown in power. So contextually I don't think Twin would be as good in Modern in 2019 as it was in 2015.
And honestly, I don't think Grixis Twin would be better than UR, even in 2019. Grixis Twin was better against Jund and in the mirror, but UR was way better against the linear aggro/combo decks because it had a more consistent combo plan. Modern isn't about grinding, so I don't see how the Grixis build would be better than the Izzet build, at least not immediately. Maybe if Twin is able to team up with Humans/Spirits and GDS to pull the reins on the format and slow it down, then Grixis might become better. Push isn't really that huge of an upgrade, though. Grixis Twin had access to Terminate already, so they didn't really have trouble killing big creatures like UR did. I'm not sure you want to cut Bolts for Push, so maybe you cut a couple Terminates, but I don't think you'd want to cut all of them, or else you'd make yourself cold to 5+ cmc creatures with toughness over 3.