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There are two core archetypes
The beatdown
the control
There are 4 primary archetypes
Aggro (beatdown)
Midrange (control)
Control (control)
Combo (beatdown
There are six intermediate deck types that fuses the primary ones
Aggro Midrange - hyper aggressive beef decks like Fires of Yavimaya decks
Aggro Control - well known
Aggro Combo - infect
Control Midrange - spell heavy midrange like Thragtusk reanimator
Combo Midrange - Survival of the Fittest decks, Pod decks
Combo Control - Splinter Twin
Combo control gets on people's nerves because they believe control decks should be slow and lumbering. When it isn't they feel cheated since they still think control is the smart man's deck.
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On April 03 2015 04:26 MaGic~PhiL wrote:u cant judge a decks performance by looking at the top8 let alone the winning deck lol.. its about several things: what % did the deck make? what % did make day2? what percentage did make top 64, 32.. Talk to Frank Karsten about this  Imho with the banning of cruise and dig .. twin is not a unfair/problematic deck..
Yes, but no access to data is sad. I do things similar to what Frank does, close, but no PhD.
On April 02 2015 22:58 deth2munkies wrote:Show nested quote +On April 02 2015 22:19 Judicator wrote:On April 02 2015 11:15 deth2munkies wrote:On April 02 2015 10:41 Judicator wrote:On April 02 2015 09:50 deth2munkies wrote:On April 02 2015 08:42 Judicator wrote:
That would make it Extended...you're just going to play the rehashed slightly more powerful versions of the deck you saw in Standard.
It's still not a good combo, I still don't see how a 4 mana non Storm sorcery is back breaking in any regards. I have a feeling more people lose their shit over the creature when they should be interacting when ST goes for the enchantment...alot of people think that the combo is the deck when....it really isn't. If you aren't going to read, don't bother talking. If you aren't going to address the fact that the combo requires 4 mana to start for them, then don't bother whining which is all you have done here. Other people have addressed your and other people's points regarding the supposed strengths of Splinter Twin while all you and others literally have said is THE COMBO IS ALWAYS THERE AND THEY MIGHT HAVE COUNTER MAGIC!!!111!!!111. You guys still maintain that the combo is overpowered, but have yet to address my point is that if the combo is allegedly this good at 4 mana sorcery, then why haven't every single Twin player jammed 4 Pacts into their deck to give them another fuck you spell to consistently let themselves win on turn 4? You guys lose your shit over a creature based combo when the many times I have seen the deck and played the deck in testing, nobody actually gave a shit about the Exarch and Pestermite on EOT turn 3. Nor has any of us testing agreed that Splinter Twin is an actually good card to have unless you have perfect information and the pieces. You have also failed to address why Twin players wanted to play a Goyf and have looked for ways to make their mana worse so they can fit Goyfs. You guys still maintain that its the herpderp super deck but 2 out of top 16 decks were Twin at the modern PT...and only 8 Twin decks posted a record of 6-4 and better...yet in the last 2 months Twin's performance is on par with "fair" decks...so again why do you still maintain the fact the deck is somehow unfair? The threat of the combo means you aren't reading the game at all...or rather you caught up on the threat rather than your own options...or you are so stuck in the mentality that they might have it that you refuse to give them an "opening"...rather than what people have said earlier that hey, maybe I shouldn't be so deathly afraid of a pretty risky combo and work to end the game 2 or 3 turns from now rather than sit in a standstill against a CONTROL player accumulating more resources...you know how you beat every control deck ever in modern Magic...but its cool, play like the Twin player always got it and hold those cards close and lands untapped. Also people love to misinterpret the power of Twin to the combo...except it isn't...UWR was T1.5 for so long too guess what it has in common with Twin? U and R are just full of good cards period it has nothing to do with Splinter Twin or Exarch/Pestermite. Look, I've gone over this shit 5 or 6 times now, but you're being willfully blind and talking right past me instead of addressing anything I have to say. The problem with Twin is that they can win in entirely one turn from an empty board. I don't give a fuck that twin itself is a 4 mana sorcery, it doesn't matter if you tapped out on your turn and they EoT'd a creature. That means you either leave up a removal/counter spell or you die. If you play like they don't have it, you may kill them before they assemble the combo, but that's highly unlikely because they're still a control deck, and those excel at not dying. You can read the game all you want, but unless you see their hand every couple of turns, it's literally impossible to know if they're holding up countermagic or just have the combo to kill you. Control decks are fair because in order to win, they have to establish a boardstate where they have a lot more resources than the opponent and the ability to acquire more consistently. What they finish with then is arbitrary. Twin is a control deck that can do that, or it can just randomly kill you at any point past turn 3. That's why it's broken. Control decks are the same way.....just because you haven't actually lost the game doesn't mean you haven't lost already, its like saying JaceTMS hasn't killed me yet by +2-ing. You aren't paying attention to the important things on what actually makes Twin a good deck, and completely missing the opportunity cost (I suspect is because you haven't done extensive deck building/tuning, just speculating of course no insult intended). This is important, because for a control player (that's still what Twin is) it often does boil down to a turn in non-attrition based match ups. Twin as iterated by so many players is a control deck under the auspice of a combo deck why? Because the combo itself is bad. You all decry a turn 4 kill when in fact no decent Twin player would ever attempt to go off on turn 4 unless perfect knowledge, perfect hand, and opposing deck plays no interaction. So get that idea out of your heads. You all are ignoring that Twin players play a tax of playing 3 to 4 useless Splinter Twins which is god awful. 3 to 4 card slots in eternal formats is hugeeeeeeeee. The questions you are asking as a player is all wrong because you are playing scared rather than logically, respect the combo but don't fear it. You have willfully ignored the simple fact someone said earlier that if you can't interact, find a way to further your deck's goals. Jace, this card that is allegedly good, is just a 4 mana sorcery. See what I did there? If your opponent is completely tapped out on T3 (or even tapped down to 1 because you can tap their last land and force them to use whatever it is then), why would you NOT go for it unless you know for a fact they're playing and have exactly Slaughter Pact? Here's the point: you cannot kill Twin just by playing creatures out and beating their face in unless they get extremely unlucky. They can buy turns by bolting your creatures, tapping them down, or just walling with Deceiver Exarchs. If they're RUG they've got Goyfs and if they're UWR they've got Colonnades and/or Resto Angels to boot. That's not even considering that they play some number of remands and mana leaks. Look, the only possible way to know whether or not they have the combo is to look at their hand. Then you have to determine whether or not they're likely to take part of the combo off of a Sleight of Hand or leave it on top with a Serum Visions. That's pretty much all you can do if they're leaving up at least 3 mana on your turn. The fact that they can even bluff the combo and just leave 3 mana up to force you to leave up a removal spell is insane for a control deck that operates largely at instant speed against most decks that don't. Sure, you can call their bluff and sometimes you may be right, but the times you aren't you lose the game immediately with no hope of recovery. That's the part that is insane to me and that no other deck in the format can do because, as mentioned before, all of them have to have something in play on their turn before they can combo off and kill you.
Please tell me why would want to jam a turn 4 Twin against 5 cards or more. You keep making the argument about the combo, combo this, combo that, when everyone in this thread has told you that the combo matters very little...I and others have told you straight up that the combo is shit, MoonBear has hinted at it, the problem isn't with Twin, it's your approach. The situation where you describe there's no hope for recovery, that happens for a lot of decks, don't let the illusion of getting extra turns actually trick you into thinking that you have extra turns. The whole I-get-to-play argument is not there in this situation.
Like you so blinded by your own hatred of Twin that you even fell into the very very very obvious fallacy of a comparison of 4 mana sorcery speed cards, you actually think Splinter Twin is on the power level of JaceTMS. Don't even bother trying to deny it at this point, you would have never even made that statement because you would have realized how bad of a comparison it was even in jest.
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Judicator, we all know Splinter Twin is the best card in the deck and that's exactly why it gets sided out in nearly 50% of match ups. /sarcasm
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On April 03 2015 07:02 Judicator wrote:Show nested quote +On April 03 2015 04:26 MaGic~PhiL wrote:u cant judge a decks performance by looking at the top8 let alone the winning deck lol.. its about several things: what % did the deck make? what % did make day2? what percentage did make top 64, 32.. Talk to Frank Karsten about this Imho with the banning of cruise and dig .. twin is not a unfair/problematic deck.. Yes, but no access to data is sad. I do things similar to what Frank does, close, but no PhD. Show nested quote +On April 02 2015 22:58 deth2munkies wrote:On April 02 2015 22:19 Judicator wrote:On April 02 2015 11:15 deth2munkies wrote:On April 02 2015 10:41 Judicator wrote:On April 02 2015 09:50 deth2munkies wrote:On April 02 2015 08:42 Judicator wrote:
That would make it Extended...you're just going to play the rehashed slightly more powerful versions of the deck you saw in Standard.
It's still not a good combo, I still don't see how a 4 mana non Storm sorcery is back breaking in any regards. I have a feeling more people lose their shit over the creature when they should be interacting when ST goes for the enchantment...alot of people think that the combo is the deck when....it really isn't. If you aren't going to read, don't bother talking. If you aren't going to address the fact that the combo requires 4 mana to start for them, then don't bother whining which is all you have done here. Other people have addressed your and other people's points regarding the supposed strengths of Splinter Twin while all you and others literally have said is THE COMBO IS ALWAYS THERE AND THEY MIGHT HAVE COUNTER MAGIC!!!111!!!111. You guys still maintain that the combo is overpowered, but have yet to address my point is that if the combo is allegedly this good at 4 mana sorcery, then why haven't every single Twin player jammed 4 Pacts into their deck to give them another fuck you spell to consistently let themselves win on turn 4? You guys lose your shit over a creature based combo when the many times I have seen the deck and played the deck in testing, nobody actually gave a shit about the Exarch and Pestermite on EOT turn 3. Nor has any of us testing agreed that Splinter Twin is an actually good card to have unless you have perfect information and the pieces. You have also failed to address why Twin players wanted to play a Goyf and have looked for ways to make their mana worse so they can fit Goyfs. You guys still maintain that its the herpderp super deck but 2 out of top 16 decks were Twin at the modern PT...and only 8 Twin decks posted a record of 6-4 and better...yet in the last 2 months Twin's performance is on par with "fair" decks...so again why do you still maintain the fact the deck is somehow unfair? The threat of the combo means you aren't reading the game at all...or rather you caught up on the threat rather than your own options...or you are so stuck in the mentality that they might have it that you refuse to give them an "opening"...rather than what people have said earlier that hey, maybe I shouldn't be so deathly afraid of a pretty risky combo and work to end the game 2 or 3 turns from now rather than sit in a standstill against a CONTROL player accumulating more resources...you know how you beat every control deck ever in modern Magic...but its cool, play like the Twin player always got it and hold those cards close and lands untapped. Also people love to misinterpret the power of Twin to the combo...except it isn't...UWR was T1.5 for so long too guess what it has in common with Twin? U and R are just full of good cards period it has nothing to do with Splinter Twin or Exarch/Pestermite. Look, I've gone over this shit 5 or 6 times now, but you're being willfully blind and talking right past me instead of addressing anything I have to say. The problem with Twin is that they can win in entirely one turn from an empty board. I don't give a fuck that twin itself is a 4 mana sorcery, it doesn't matter if you tapped out on your turn and they EoT'd a creature. That means you either leave up a removal/counter spell or you die. If you play like they don't have it, you may kill them before they assemble the combo, but that's highly unlikely because they're still a control deck, and those excel at not dying. You can read the game all you want, but unless you see their hand every couple of turns, it's literally impossible to know if they're holding up countermagic or just have the combo to kill you. Control decks are fair because in order to win, they have to establish a boardstate where they have a lot more resources than the opponent and the ability to acquire more consistently. What they finish with then is arbitrary. Twin is a control deck that can do that, or it can just randomly kill you at any point past turn 3. That's why it's broken. Control decks are the same way.....just because you haven't actually lost the game doesn't mean you haven't lost already, its like saying JaceTMS hasn't killed me yet by +2-ing. You aren't paying attention to the important things on what actually makes Twin a good deck, and completely missing the opportunity cost (I suspect is because you haven't done extensive deck building/tuning, just speculating of course no insult intended). This is important, because for a control player (that's still what Twin is) it often does boil down to a turn in non-attrition based match ups. Twin as iterated by so many players is a control deck under the auspice of a combo deck why? Because the combo itself is bad. You all decry a turn 4 kill when in fact no decent Twin player would ever attempt to go off on turn 4 unless perfect knowledge, perfect hand, and opposing deck plays no interaction. So get that idea out of your heads. You all are ignoring that Twin players play a tax of playing 3 to 4 useless Splinter Twins which is god awful. 3 to 4 card slots in eternal formats is hugeeeeeeeee. The questions you are asking as a player is all wrong because you are playing scared rather than logically, respect the combo but don't fear it. You have willfully ignored the simple fact someone said earlier that if you can't interact, find a way to further your deck's goals. Jace, this card that is allegedly good, is just a 4 mana sorcery. See what I did there? If your opponent is completely tapped out on T3 (or even tapped down to 1 because you can tap their last land and force them to use whatever it is then), why would you NOT go for it unless you know for a fact they're playing and have exactly Slaughter Pact? Here's the point: you cannot kill Twin just by playing creatures out and beating their face in unless they get extremely unlucky. They can buy turns by bolting your creatures, tapping them down, or just walling with Deceiver Exarchs. If they're RUG they've got Goyfs and if they're UWR they've got Colonnades and/or Resto Angels to boot. That's not even considering that they play some number of remands and mana leaks. Look, the only possible way to know whether or not they have the combo is to look at their hand. Then you have to determine whether or not they're likely to take part of the combo off of a Sleight of Hand or leave it on top with a Serum Visions. That's pretty much all you can do if they're leaving up at least 3 mana on your turn. The fact that they can even bluff the combo and just leave 3 mana up to force you to leave up a removal spell is insane for a control deck that operates largely at instant speed against most decks that don't. Sure, you can call their bluff and sometimes you may be right, but the times you aren't you lose the game immediately with no hope of recovery. That's the part that is insane to me and that no other deck in the format can do because, as mentioned before, all of them have to have something in play on their turn before they can combo off and kill you. Please tell me why would want to jam a turn 4 Twin against 5 cards or more. You keep making the argument about the combo, combo this, combo that, when everyone in this thread has told you that the combo matters very little...I and others have told you straight up that the combo is shit, MoonBear has hinted at it, the problem isn't with Twin, it's your approach. The situation where you describe there's no hope for recovery, that happens for a lot of decks, don't let the illusion of getting extra turns actually trick you into thinking that you have extra turns. The whole I-get-to-play argument is not there in this situation. Like you so blinded by your own hatred of Twin that you even fell into the very very very obvious fallacy of a comparison of 4 mana sorcery speed cards, you actually think Splinter Twin is on the power level of JaceTMS. Don't even bother trying to deny it at this point, you would have never even made that statement because you would have realized how bad of a comparison it was even in jest.
Actually I'm joking about how you seem to think 4 mana sorcery speed cards can't win the game. JTMS will win any game where you're even slightly ahead if you drop him, Twin combo will win even if you're behind so long as you can make it stick, and it's not hard against the majority of decks.
It's kind of obvious that you're nothing but pretentious at this point. T4 Twin against a tapped out (or even tapped low if you know the decklist or used your exarch/mite to tap his land) opponent even with 7 cards in hand (somehow) is safe 99.9% of the time because there's literally 1 out: Slaughter Pact. You're just being needlessly obtuse.
I also never said that Twin was independently the best card in the deck. None of the cards are really the best card, they're all mediocre at best when taken alone (except Bolt and Cryptic if they run it). The problem is the strategy and the deck as a whole. Siding out the combo against an opponent who's bringing in 6 cards from the sideboard to stop it is (or is otherwise transforming his deck) probably wise. The fact that the combo caused that sideboarding plan and gave you a free G1 still makes it overpowered for the meta. Just because the combo is no longer there doesn't mean the opponent necessarily can stop playing around it, and the difficulty in playing around it is, yet again, what makes the deck so good.
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How can you argue that Twin is overpowered in the current meta when it gets crushed by the most fair and most represented deck in the format(See GBx)? I think you're overhyping the power level of the combo in a deck that is represented just as much as every non burn non GBx deck.
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Why are you tapping low or tapping out though? If you simply don't tap low against twin, it becomes very hard to lose to the combo if you're playing a reasonable amount of interaction.
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Okay, as someone who's not played in a while and so is therefore unfamiliar with the details of the current meta but having a good appreciation for how these things go, I will speak with an outsider's perspective about this argument: Flip it around and ask what the Twin player is scared of. (This is why testing is important so you see how it loses, especially in the driver seat.) Make plays accordingly.
Having played both sides of that kind of matchup, being scared of losing when you're the beatdown is pretty silly.
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So I'm planning to compete in a Modern tournament next Wed. First event I've been to since Shadowmoor Standard, but I've slowly been getting back into Modern (mainly since I have a ton of the older cards I can reuse), and this is the maindeck I plan to use going in.
Keep in mind, that my 4 Color Gifts deck isn't the most optimized, and there's still a few cards I really need to complete it, but this is it so far:
+ Show Spoiler +25 Lands:
5x Fetches (all I could trade for/get for now)
5x Basics
2x Overgrown/ Godless Shrine/ Woodland Cemetary
1x Temple Garden/ Breeding Pool/ Hallowed Fountain/ Watery Grave
1x Edge
1x Academy Ruins
1x Vault of the Archangel
1 Colonnade
1x Razerverge Thicket
10 Creatures:
1x Iona/ Elesh/ Sun Titan
2x Kitchen Finks/ Knight of Reliquarys/ Snapcasters
1x Eternal Witness
22 Instants/Sorcs:
3x Abrupt Decays
3x Lingering Souls
4x Gifts Ungiven
4x Inquisitions
2x Path to Exile
1x Wrath of God
1x Damnation
1x Life from Loam
1x Unburial Rites
1x Maelstrom Pulse
1x Raven's Crime
3 other spells:
1x Engineered Explosives
2x Lilliana
Things to mention: + Show Spoiler +The landbase is bad. I know everybody says 8 Fetches is the norm, but 5 is all I have.
The Knights of Reliquary seem out of place, since they are more common in the BoP/Noble Hierach+Seige Rhino midrange versions, but I quite like them here.
Singleton Witness I like because of her ability to not exile replayed instant/sorcerys, but getting back a Lilianna or creature can sometimes outshine Snaps.
I'm not willing to pay for Goyfs/Thoughtseizes. I REALLY want a 3rd Lilianna here, but 2 is all I have, and my friends who do have her are also using her at this same event.
I love Kitchen Finks, all I can say about them. Maybe those two should be Knights??? EE+Academy Ruins does a TON of work for me.
The sideboard itself I'm still trying to work out, maybe I'll post it up later.
My shop I've been going to recently play a lot of UWR Control/Infect/Ascendancy storm/ Burn/Abzan Aggroe if it means anything. The event itself is in an area outside of Philadelphia, but the shop itself is quite popular I hear. I'm walking blindly into whatever they may be running there.
Anyway, just thought I'd introduce myself to this thread (I've lurked here sporadically when I am randomly off/on again with the Limited formats). Really glad I can play a deck I used to play awhile ago (also 4 Color Gifts, but with the Genesis engine in old Extended), and I truly enjoy piloting.
Feel free to comment/ trash/ dissect/ ignore this post! Cheers!
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Hey I'm participating to my first booster draft with a few mates tomorrow. None of us have really played since the Alara Block but we only really mucked around with Extended back then. We'll be using the Dragons of Tarkir boosters.
Any tips?
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On April 03 2015 15:49 GreenAndOrangeTurtle wrote:
Hey I'm participating to my first booster draft with a few mates tomorrow. None of us have really played since the Alara Block but we only really mucked around with Extended back then. We'll be using the Dragons of Tarkir boosters.
Any tips?
It is recommended to draft Dragons - Dragons - Fate Reforged. But drafting 3x Dragons isn't the end of the world. I haven't drafted it too much, but don't try going all in on the clan mechanics (exploit, rebound & triggers, bolster, dash, and formidable). There is a lot of removal in the set, so going too deep in a synergy or mechanic can lead to blow outs. So just draft a solid deck while trying to pick up incidental synergies along the way.
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I'd rather try to beat twin than storm any day. Sure their combo is easy to assemble and cheap to cast, but instant speed interaction is all you need to beat it. I run affinity in modern mainly and something as simple as galvanic blast makes the matchup favorable for me.
Twin is the most represented combo deck because it's the most straightforward combo deck to play. So of course it will be the most successful. As long as you have a path and they don't have dispel you'll be buying turns. The only time it feels a little imbalanced is if you're playing a fair deck that has to grind, but fuck fair decks. This is modern 
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Why wouldn't you do khans-fate-dragons? why the weird exclusion of the first set in the block?
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On April 05 2015 06:38 RoieTRS wrote:
Why wouldn't you do khans-fate-dragons? why the weird exclusion of the first set in the block?
khans wedge colour set design works out very poorly with a full block, thats just the way they set up the block, they designed the sets with the idea in mind that you would draft fate khans khans and in a alternate timeline dragons dragons fate reforged, especially dragons has insufficient mana fixing, but fate is already light, khans also offers little support for dragons mechanics and vise versa.
but i'd rather draft triple dragons then dragons-dragons-fate because i dont think fate is a good limit set, mostly because the depth of quality commons is both low and poorly distributed among colours, and 3x dragons looks like something that would draft well on its own(though i have not played triple dragons yet).
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On April 03 2015 15:08 EatThePath wrote:
Okay, as someone who's not played in a while and so is therefore unfamiliar with the details of the current meta but having a good appreciation for how these things go, I will speak with an outsider's perspective about this argument: Flip it around and ask what the Twin player is scared of. (This is why testing is important so you see how it loses, especially in the driver seat.) Make plays accordingly.
Having played both sides of that kind of matchup, being scared of losing when you're the beatdown is pretty silly.
Ding ding ding, thanks for summarizing it. This is true of any match up. Not just twin.
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United Kingdom10443 Posts
Going to have the pro tour in the background whilst I work today.
It looks so much fun. I know Grand Prix events are like 1000's of players but what is the player size for a pro tour event?
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Straight outta Johto18973 Posts
On April 10 2015 17:38 KelsierSC wrote:
Going to have the pro tour in the background whilst I work today.
It looks so much fun. I know Grand Prix events are like 1000's of players but what is the player size for a pro tour event?
List of all players invited
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United Kingdom10443 Posts
On April 10 2015 18:42 MoonBear wrote:Show nested quote +On April 10 2015 17:38 KelsierSC wrote:
Going to have the pro tour in the background whilst I work today.
It looks so much fun. I know Grand Prix events are like 1000's of players but what is the player size for a pro tour event? List of all players invited
do they all show up though?
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On April 10 2015 21:01 KelsierSC wrote:Show nested quote +On April 10 2015 18:42 MoonBear wrote:On April 10 2015 17:38 KelsierSC wrote:
Going to have the pro tour in the background whilst I work today.
It looks so much fun. I know Grand Prix events are like 1000's of players but what is the player size for a pro tour event? List of all players invited do they all show up though?
I think most of them usually do, should atleast give a good order of magnitude estimate
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dayum that day 1 to day 2 conversion rate for various control variants is pretty insane for a deck type that is played by a significant portion of the field
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Straight outta Johto18973 Posts
On April 11 2015 21:52 annedeman wrote:
dayum that day 1 to day 2 conversion rate for various control variants is pretty insane for a deck type that is played by a significant portion of the field
Do be aware that some of this is going to be self-selecting. For example, Craig Wescoe mentioned during his interview that they felt UB Control was the best deck. But only Adrian Sullivan on the team was actually comfortable playing and winning with the deck so everyone on the team else played something else.
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EPT
