New Sideboard Hate for Twin?
Modern forum
Posted on June 15, 2015, 2:04 p.m. by supermill
I've been looking for a while and I think that I've finally found another one. A great twin hate card that is hard to remove and viable in modern. What is this card you ask? Illness in the Ranks. Completely wrecks the combo aspect of twin for only a single black mana. Also, not many decks run enchantment hate. What do you guys think? Is it viable?
JDMCRIP the copies made by Splinter Twin will be tokens. They also disappear at the end of the turn. Because of the -1/-1 they will have 0 power and be harmless besides making chump blockers on your turn
June 15, 2015 2:08 p.m.
GlistenerAgent says... #4
People know about this card already. Only Affinity really considers playing it, as other decks have better options.
Token Exarchs attack for 0 with Illness in play.
June 15, 2015 2:10 p.m.
It "works", but Twin can just kill you other ways. Similarly you could run cards like Night of Souls' Betrayal or Curse of Death's Hold to get a similar effect. But it's just not worth it against Twin.
June 15, 2015 2:13 p.m.
FAMOUSWATERMELON says... #6
Illness also only covers two decks in the meta, whereas other SB cards cover multiple archetypes.
June 15, 2015 2:22 p.m.
GlistenerAgent says... #8
Night of Souls Betrayal actually wins the game. They can't do shit.
June 15, 2015 2:31 p.m.
So why dont people play illness more? It seems great to me.
June 15, 2015 2:51 p.m.
GlistenerAgent says... #10
Because it only stops the combo. They normally win w/o the combo.
June 15, 2015 2:54 p.m.
It's not new per say, it's just that everyone isn't running it because it's not very good.
When considering a sideboard card, it should be lining up against their expected sideboard as well, not just their maindeck. The Twin decks these days are much less reliant on the combo, especially after board, and they look to leverage the advantage of folks needing to play around the combo into letting a more controlling build post-board punish you with dead cards. Stuff like Keranos, God of Storms makes that Illness in the Ranks on the field look pretty laughable.
The biggest death knell for Illness in the Ranks is that it's much too narrow. Whereas a card like Spellskite or Rending Volley has applications in other match-ups Illness in the Ranks is only every going to be brought in against Twin and an every diminishing number of Tokens list. While it certainly has some established lists, Modern is still a pretty diverse format. So having flexible sideboard cards is important.
June 15, 2015 3:43 p.m.
KillDatBUG says... #13
Torpor Orb is so much better than that card, though. It has applications against Twin, Abzan Company, AND Amulet.
June 15, 2015 4:21 p.m. Edited.
Illness in the ranks is already a thing, but Spellskite and Rending Volley are better.
June 15, 2015 4:24 p.m.
I'd prefer Bile Blight or Virulent Plague to be more confident of getting rid of copies, no matter from what they were made. Or Echoing Truth. But Spellskite seems much more usefull and flexible, cause it can find it's place in almost each single type of modern deck.
JDMCRIB says... #2
Deceiver Exarch?
June 15, 2015 2:06 p.m.