"Diversity"
Modern forum
Posted on Feb. 7, 2016, 3:26 a.m. by Murpy
"Oh Man, thanks Mr. R&D for banning twin. Now I can kill everyone with my big hedron guys."
Wizards, you messed up. For those of you who don't know, recently, Splinter Twin was banned in modern for being too oppressive, constricting how powerful blue in modern could be, and pushing out other control decks in general, or at least that's what WOtC says the idea was. The issue in this reasoning is twofold: blue in modern isn't very good and control decks needed twin in the format to do well. First, blue doesn't have very many powerful cards in modern. Snapcaster, Remand, cryptic, and serum visions are basically the only reason it was played at all pre-bannings. It works well as a splash to compliment other colors, but blue is pretty bad by itself. With regards to the state of control, there is yet again a pair of inconsistencies: twin is a control deck, and non-twin control needed twin in the format. Twin was a powerful strategy against uninteractive decks because it has interaction and a very fast clock. However, it's way worse against control because it has a similar gameplan to a deck like grixis or UWR control while also having 4 dead splinter twins and some pretty useless exarchs and pestermites, meaning they lose in attrition battles. In addition, twin suppressed a lot of control's traditionally bad matchups, including tron and, you guessed it, eldrazi. Which brings us to the reason the modern community is scared: you have both shown that you are willing to ban cards to "spice" up the metagame without even beginning to evaluate the consequences and shown us that you are either trying to milk modern for everything it has or just unable to properly balance cards, with the former being more likely. Look at this "diversity" you've created. Wow, 6 of the same archetype in the top 8 of a pro tour, with only 8% of the the field playing it, 2 different decks in the top 8, 50% linear aggro strategies, 3% control. And you're acting like you didn't know this was going to happen. Is it really a coincidence that the eldrazi lands are both reprinted despite one seeing zero competitive play and the other a much less deserving spot than inkmoth nexus, then the fastest (good) modern deck and the deck most punishing of linear aggro strategies are both banned, then directly after you release a new set with very pushed linear aggro creatures? Honestly, if it is actually a coincidence, the situation might be even worse. And finally, with regards to the way Wizards has behaved when discussing the backlash surrounding the twin ban, don't play dumb with us. Quoting Aaron Forsythe's Twitter:16 Jan Nate Walker @thenatewalker@mtgaaron If the cost of Modern PTs is random banings to shake up the PT meta, I think the public would rather not have Modern PTs.
Aaron Forsythe @mtgaaron@thenatewalker I thought so too, but that wasn't the reaction when we tried removing it before. Maybe opinions are different now.
is this a joke? When we asked for the modern pro tour, we were not aware that it was going to become a format where a deck is randomly banned each year. "Maybe opinions are different now". Of course they're going to be different, because you're not giving us what we awere promised. When people make a contract, you have created an agreement between two+ parties where you exchange the things (for lack of a better word) specified in the contract. We wanted a modern pro tour, not super standard where each year you print broken new cards and ban the old ones preventing the new broken ones from making ou more money.
Now, I realize I sound extremely angry in this post, but just so you know I never like playing against twin, never owned it, have never been hit by a banning, and play zooicide and crappy combo decks in modern. I love this format, but wizards is ruining it, and we need a fix. What do you is propose?
FAMOUSWATERMELON - You can neither outrun not out attrition. You cant beat their explosive openings. You cant 1-for-1 Reality Smasher and Goyf cant attack into it either.
February 9, 2016 11:53 a.m.
Also like mainboard chalice stops your discard and path and bolt etc.
Ive played multiple games against eldrazi now where a T1 chalice on game 1 has resulted in about 12 cards in my deck being dead.
Murpy says... #1
DrFunk27 these aren't mainboard answers to just eldrazi. 4 slow, sideboarded cards, where 2 don't even do all you want, is definitely not where you want to be against eldrazi. Since something like 60% of the format is aggro, I wouldn't consider mainboard boardwipes as anything more unrealistic than mainboard chalice. It's just what the format is right now.
February 9, 2016 11:25 a.m.