Would it have been better if they had banned Deceiver Exarch instead of Splinter Twin?
Modern forum
Posted on Feb. 2, 2016, 8:21 a.m. by Mahna
The Splinter Twin ban is still a topic of much debate and having talked about it to a few people. And while I think the twin deck was moving towards the more OP end of the scale I am still sad to see it go. So I have come to wonder if it would have been a better ban if they had chosen Deceiver Exarch?
The deck would loose its primary go to dude but would still be left with Pestermite and Village Bell-Ringer, the deck would not be as fast and would have to go more Jeskai but we would still retain that archetype everyone loves (and hates)
Would it still have killed the deck out of modern?, Would it still remain as OP as before? or would it have brought the deck back down to more "fair" levels?
They should have done that.
It forces the deck to either splash another colour which costs them life and makes them lose harder to aggro or they have to lose a lot of consistency and play a combo piece that literally dies to every removal spell in the game.
February 2, 2016 8:35 a.m.
The issue was 2RR. So many URX decks were just better with twin in as an ooops I win element. A 1/4 blocks pretty well and a 2/1 attacks pretty well and even twin on snapcaster could be back breaking.
I think twin will get unbanned in a few years once a more diverse meta is stable.
February 2, 2016 9:03 a.m.
lemmingllama says... #5
Deceiver Exarch wasn't the problem card. Look at all the problem cards currently on the banned list. Either they are a card that allows a overpowered deck (Hypergenesis), they are a powerful enabler that overpowered an archetype (Summer Bloom or Blazing Shoal) that are still viable by themselves, or cards that would see play in all decks that are powerful by themselves (Mental Misstep).
Deceiver Exarch by itself isn't a Modern playable card, it is only playable due to it's interaction with Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker or Splinter Twin. It doesn't have the same power level as something like Bloodbraid Elf, and it does next to nothing on it's own. Just like with Birthing Pod, you ban the card that makes other cards overpowered, not the cards that by themselves are just a part of the entire deck. (I know this is phrased poorly, but I hope you get the gist of what I am trying to say)
Banning it would weaken the deck, but it would still be able to play unperturbed and it would force all Twin players into Tarmo-Twin or Jeskai Twin. The turn 4 combos with control would still exist, and many players would still complain. They would have a worse Burn matchup and Affinity matchup, but the deck itself would be just as fast and efficient. Banning Splinter Twin slows down the combo by a whole turn, which is a much better way to check the deck's power level.
February 2, 2016 9:06 a.m.
What lemmingllama said is probably the best way to understand why they banned Splinter Twin and not some other card in the deck. While everyone is crying that twin is dead and wizards is killing the format, all that really happened is Wizards took the deck that was warping the format and made it slower. Everyone is crying twin is dead, but in namesake only. The archetype is still possible and anyone who wants to play it still can, however it's more likely a tier 1.5 or tier 2 deck, instead of being a premier tier 1 deck.
It was obvious that wizards was going to do something about the deck that's why I find it funny that so many people are acting as though they were shocked by the banning. I've seen a lot of people complaining because they had just put their decks together, and my thought was, well you were only building the deck because it was so oppressive to literally everything else in the format. That alone should have been an obvious sign to those people that something would be done about the deck, just like when Pod had reached the level of oppression that Twin was at. When Pod was at this level of oppression it was somehow apparent to everyone that something would happen, but somehow they didn't see this one? I think that's just denial and them not wanting to accept that the only reason everyone (including themselves) was playing the deck was because it was so oppressive to everything else. Once modern season starts up most of these people will find a new bandwagon to jump on and they'll forget about twin, cause lets be honest, while some people may have actually enjoyed the deck the majority were only playing it because it was the best. If there would have been a better more consistent deck than twin, then that's what they played over the last year.
February 2, 2016 10:23 a.m.
@Gepetto The precedent was set when they banned pod. If a deck is winning or placing in the top 8 of every local and major event over the course of a year and the format gets to a place where you either play that deck or lose to that deck then they're going to do something about it. Think about why so many people were switching over to U/R twin and other variants. It's not like it's a new deck and just gaining popularity because is tons of fun to play, people were switching over because if they didn't the guy who did was going to beat them. This is oppressive to the other deck archetypes in the format that get hated out of any competitive scene either because people switched from them to twin or they knew it couldn't beat twin so they played something else instead. It's never a good thing when the entire format is revolving around just one specific deck ( i.e. either you play it or play hate against it), non-rotating format or not, so when that happens people should be more than expecting something to happen to prevent it from warping things for an another entire year.
Also, I just wanna say that in general if your scared about the deck your playing becoming banned then odds are your only playing that deck because everyone else is and you switched because you were sick of losing to it. I guess there could be the rare occasion that your the first to play the deck and then the rest of the magic community starts playing it after you. But, seeing how unlikely it is for a local homebrew to gain mainstream attention without placing top 8 at some major event I feel like that rare occasion is something the average magic player won't have to worry about. So this doesn't mean that suddenly all cards are banable and nothing is safe. But you better damn well believe that if the format is revolving around one deck, like it did with Pod and with Twin, then something will happen to a vital part of that decks consistency. So if that's the deck your playing take precautions like you would around rotation in standard. Don't wait till ban time comes around and pretend your shocked, be proactive, start working on another deck before that so you don't lose all of the value you have when everyone floods the market with pieces from that deck. Just because modern is a non-rotating format doesn't mean people shouldn't use common sense. You know when the deck your playing is the one that everyone is either switching to or the one that everyone is losing to, warping the format.
February 2, 2016 11:46 a.m.
Twin would have went jeskai for Midnight Guard & Village Bell-Ringer instead. It wouldn't reduce twins power level one bit, but it would raise the price for Sacred Foundry and Hallowed Fountain
February 2, 2016 12:03 p.m.
"force all Twin players into Tarmo-Twin or Jeskai Twin" - both slower decks with more finicky mana bases and more susceptible to inconsistency. There is a reason those two decks have fallen from grace.
"If a deck is winning or placing in the top 8 of every local and major event over the course of a year and the format gets to a place where you either play that deck or lose to that deck then they're going to do something about it" - that's not Twin.
"It's never a good thing when the entire format is revolving around just one specific deck ( i.e. either you play it or play hate against it)" - this wasn't happening.
"Twin would have went jeskai for Midnight Guard & Village Bell-Ringer instead. It wouldn't reduce twins power level one bit" - This is just objectively wrong.
Also proof of the pudding is in the eating. Since Twin left the format the meta has become the least diverse it has been since Dig Through Time, Treasure Cruise, Birthing Pod were banned: Ie. roughly 2 decks taking up more than 20% of the meta. Prior to the banning this was NOT the case. Prior to the twin ban we had affinity sub 10% and Twin at arguably 10%. A whole host of other decks made up 3-5%. (sources mtgtop8 and mtggolfish). Our top 33% of the meta was pretty diverse. We now have both Burn and Affinity at over 10% EACH and a host of other non-interactive, linear aggro decks dominating recent events (sources: MTGTop8 and MTGGoldfish).
Modern nexus also recently published an article telling everyone not to panic about the new meta but revealing that affinity from a numerical perspective is HUGELY problematic right now.
Also some statistics I hand produced by going through all the large modern events showed that prior to the banning Affinity was more represented and more format warping than Twin. I can provide these on request.
Tl;dr: no-one here knows what they're talking about because they apparently a) don't consistently analyze top level events, b) don't bother running statistics on said events to compare decks to each other over time, c) don't follow the metagame enough to realise when a decision has had troublesome consequences, d) don't know how high level magic works. I say this because it is just patently a LIE that everyone sideboarded against Twin, that Twin top 8d EVERY SINGLE top 8, and that forcing Twin to splash another colour would do literally NOTHING to hinder the deck, and that the meta is now more diverse because of the decision.
February 2, 2016 12:34 p.m.
There are two statistics you need to pay attention to in high level modern:
Meta share
Conversion from entry to top8
Twin at a lot of points in history has neither had top meta share and it frequently lacks the best conversion rate (ie. you won't see 10% of the meta being twin at the start of a tournament and then suddenly 20% of the top 8 is Twin). The top meta share obviously changes and twin is frequently a top player but not so stifling that other decks arent doing A LOT BETTER THAN IT. And secondly, as I said, IT DOESNT CONVERT TO TOP8 AS WELL AS OTHER DECKS like Merfolk or Affinity.
February 2, 2016 12:39 p.m.
lemmingllama says... #11
I never said Splinter Twin was banworthy. I only stated that I was the correct card to ban to reduce the strength of the archetype. Twin should never have been banned, and it likely will be unbanned or replaced by a new control card to fill the void left by it.
Going Jeskai or Temur do reduce the consistency of Twin, but they also increase other aspects of the deck. White adds Path to Exile, green adds Tarmogoyf and Ancient Grudge. Plus both get a worse version of Deceiver Exarch that still have flash and still are decent when on the value plan. Banning exarch would simply decrease the diversity of Twin and wouldn't significantly affect it's meta share.
February 2, 2016 1:06 p.m.
Eh. Debatable. I think the deck being hit by blood moon is a severe drawback to the third colour. They'd no longer be able to run Desolate Lighthouse easily. If they run path and stuff then they don't run counters, or draw spells. If they stick to the same deck and just tweak lands and add bell ringer then you have a deck that takes more damage from shocklands and is far more susceptible to the humble ghost quarter. There are lots of ins and outs there. But of course it's speculation. Splashing another colour isn't trivial though.
February 2, 2016 1:34 p.m.
UpperDeckerTaco says... #13
No! There would still be other combo pieces for the deck that would still enable it to win turn 4. Which would make the deck still playable and which would defeat the purpose of their attempt of making modern more diverse.
February 2, 2016 2:50 p.m.
Wizard_of_the_Broke says... #14
Now that the dust has settled a bit, I agree with the following:
The Twin ban wasn't truly needed in any way. Banning Exarch instead might have been a fairer way to get the desired effect of nerfing the deck a bit (this presumes WotC's motives, but I think it's reasonable). To date, the ban hasn't increased diversity (the rise of Bx Eldrazi is noteworthy, but may have happened without the ban anyway).
But...
I still think the ban was interesting. I'm entirely speculating here, but regardless of WotC's stated reasons for banning, I think they just wanted to open up room to print more interesting UR stuff, while not making Twin a monster, and I think there's some evidence for this in the form of Wandering Fumarole and other cards. I also think/hope they intend to broaden support for UR Tempo or even URx midrange, the former evidenced by Stormchaser Mage and Slip Through Space, the latter possibly evidenced by Goblin Dark-Dwellers. In any case, I hope they follow through with support and Modern-playable UR cards. I'll be happy to see something emerge that's slightly more interesting than a 2-card insta-win, and makes good use of some elements of the otherwise interesting Twin UR control shell.
February 2, 2016 5:13 p.m.
Neither. They should have banned Storm Crow. No I'm kidding.
But seriously, they should have banned Remand or Path to Exile, for the same reason they banned Cloud of Faeries in Pauper; popularity.
February 2, 2016 7:59 p.m.
If you want popularity bans, RIP Lightning Bolt and Ghost Quarter. All hail our new tron overlords!
February 3, 2016 9:27 p.m.
I agree that Twin was the wrong card to ban in the deck. Exarch was the actual problem, any Twin player worth his salt could tell you this. The other options for the combo will be slow and open for sorcery speed removal or die to a fart in their general direction. But most importantly, exarch was tapping down/un-tapping lands while having a 1/4 body. Any other combo creature tha might have taken it's place would have made the deck a lot softer when trying to combo and a lot, a lot!, worse when trying to tempo the game out.
February 6, 2016 5:39 a.m.
@ alanwescoat - go ahead and try playing twin with just Pestermite. Seriously, see how far you get.
As a (former) twin player, Pestermite was the only card in the deck I truly disliked. It dies to everything. Any twin player can tell you how important Exarch is.
And to all the people saying "but they still have kiki!" I would say the same thing as I said above - go ahead and try swapping twin with kiki. Seriously, see how far you get. Being one more mana is significant, requiring RRR is significant and this is a case where having a body (a flimsy 2/2 body) is a liability not an asset.
February 7, 2016 3:56 p.m.
alanwescoat says... #20
EvenDryke, that was the point. The deck was dominating, and while Wizards is unlikely to print any new cards with the Splinter Twin ability, Deceiver Exarch and Pestermite have an ability which should see occasional printings in new cards. Remember that the game is not static. It needs to keep moving forward. Banning Deceiver Exarch would prevent Wizards from offering any new creature with that particular trigger, a trigger which is fun in limited and can be useful in Standard.
One thing that is very sad is that, with the ludicrous prices of Modern staples and the incessant price gouging from re-sellers, along with Wizards choosing to help the price gougers by restricting reprints, many Modern players can only afford one deck. In my meta, the banning of Splinter Twin means that one player can no longer play Modern at all. It was the only deck he had.
I had just acquired the 2x Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and 3x Remand I needed to finish the shell of the deck a week before the banning was announced. I bought 4x Splinter Twin back when they were three dollars each, thinking that I would eventually find a use for them. I was all set with the key cards but needed the support cards, finally got them, and the card was banned. So it goes!
All formats need to remain dynamic. Restricting the Splinter Twin/Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker ability rather than the Deceiver Exarch/Pestermite ability makes more sense at all levels of the game. We would not want either Standard or our Eternal formats to get stagnant.
February 7, 2016 7:01 p.m.
They could print cards with that ability without flash. They could print them to only affect the opponents permanents. They could print them at high mana costs. They could print them to not affect themselves. They could print them in different colours.
February 7, 2016 7:14 p.m.
alanwescoat says... #22
ChiefBell, yes, but banning Splinter Twin means that they do not have to limit themselves with those particular restrictions. The rare ability gets restricted instead of the common/uncommon ability. That is better for the health of the game and its development. Beyond that, there may be some other ability either in development or to be conceived which could be abused with Splinter Twin.
February 7, 2016 7:20 p.m.
CanadianShinobi says... #23
abenz419 "The deck was dominating"
Once again, this is false. Did you not read Chief's posts?
Twin and Affinity had roughly an even share of the meta game at 9-10%, with other decks taking up 3-5% and there were several of these. So, why are you claiming otherwise? Do you have significant proof to contradict the facts presented to you?
February 7, 2016 8:54 p.m.
alanwescoat says... #24
CanadianShinobi, I did not actually read the entire thread before posting. I thought that the question posed was whether the right card was banned, not whether Twin as a deck should have been defanged.
Wizards has given an official explanation, mostly based on diversity and the success of Twin as a deck. The page can be found here.
We also look for decks that hold a large enough percentage of the competitive field to reduce the diversity of the format.
Antonio Del Moral Len won Pro Tour Fate Reforged playing Splinter Twin, and Jelger Wiegersma finished third; Splinter Twin has won two of the four Modern Pro Tours. Splinter Twin reached the Top 8 of the last six Modern Grand Prix. The last Modern Grand Prix in Pittsburgh had three Splinter Twin decks in the Top 8, including Alex Bianchi's winning deck.
Decks that are this strong can hurt diversity by pushing the decks that it defeats out of competition. They can also reduce diversity by supplanting similar decks. For instance, Shaun McLaren won Pro Tour Born of the Gods playing this Jeskai control deck. Alex Bianchi won our most recent Modern Grand Prix playing a similar deck but adding the Splinter Twin combination. Similarly, Temur Tempo used to see play at high-level events but has been supplanted by Temur Twin.
We considered what one would do with the cards from a Splinter Twin deck with Splinter Twin banned. In the case of some Jeskai or Temur, there are very similar decks to build. In other cases, there is Kiki-Jiki as a replacement.
In the interest of competitive diversity, Splinter Twin is banned from Modern.
Likewise, we can expect Wizards to try to first print solutions to the current Eldrazi problem, as they tried to provide Phyrexian Revoker to address the problem of Jace, the Mind Sculptor and Rending Volley as a red sideboard option against Twin, neither of which seemed to have worked.
February 7, 2016 11:38 p.m.
CanadianShinobi says... #25
alanwescoat I didn't address anything that you posted, so I'm not quite sure why you're addressing me. For the record I have read the official statement several times. The official statement, is complete and utter bullshit. Chief has outlined this extensively through statistical data. I would further like to add that Twin was not dominating or putting up nearly the numbers that in the past.
Wizards has shown extensive mismanagement of Modern as the format. Twin was not the juggernaut you seem to think it was. To quote ChiefBell:
"Twin at a lot of points in history has neither had top meta share and it frequently lacks the best conversion rate (ie. you won't see 10% of the meta being twin at the start of a tournament and then suddenly 20% of the top 8 is Twin). The top meta share obviously changes and twin is frequently a top player but not so stifling that other decks arent doing A LOT BETTER THAN IT. And secondly, as I said, IT DOESNT CONVERT TO TOP8 AS WELL AS OTHER DECKS like Merfolk or Affinity."
So, given the data at hand and the consequences of this ban; it is perfectly logical to conclude that the banning Twin was not the right card to ban.
As for the Eldrazi, I am of the mind that we must wait and see just how things play out. But, my hopes are not high.
February 8, 2016 12:09 a.m.
alanwescoat says... #26
[user:CanadianShinobi], you had quoted "The deck was dominating". While I see now that your post was addressed to [user:abenz419], you might note that I posted those precise words in post #23 above, first line.
I had not taken this thread to be about whether or not a key card in Twin should have been banned. Rather, I thought it was about which card should have been banned and thus think that Splinter Twin was the correct decision, assuming that any card in the deck warranted banning.
There may be some merit regarding the idea that nothing in Twin should have been banned at all, though I am not qualified to debate that particular topic, being the kind of player who tends to (perhaps navely) take Wizards's official word on bannings for granted in general.
Banning cards for the sake of diversity can be a good thing. On that note, Affinity and Burn could each be taken down a peg. Banning Cranial Plating and Lightning Bolt, respectively, would get those jobs done without eviscerating the decks, though we seem to have a Rising Eldrazi problem...L.O.L.
February 8, 2016 1:09 a.m.
alanwescoat says... #27
CanadianShinobi, you had quoted "The deck was dominating". While I see now that your post was addressed to abenz419, you might note that I posted those precise words in post #23 above, first line.
I had not taken this thread to be about whether or not a key card in Twin should have been banned. Rather, I thought it was about which card should have been banned and thus think that Splinter Twin was the correct decision, assuming that any card in the deck warranted banning.
There may be some merit regarding the idea that nothing in Twin should have been banned at all, though I am not qualified to debate that particular topic, being the kind of player who tends to (perhaps navely) take Wizards's official word on bannings for granted in general.
Banning cards for the sake of diversity can be a good thing. On that note, Affinity and Burn could each be taken down a peg. Banning Cranial Plating and Lightning Bolt, respectively, would get those jobs done without eviscerating the decks, though we seem to have a Rising Eldrazi problem...L.O.L.
February 8, 2016 1:10 a.m.
alanwescoat says... #28
*naively
Sheesh! I went to the trouble of finding the 'i' with the elesion mark so that it would be spelled correctly, and I see that the editor has simply deleted the character.
February 8, 2016 1:12 a.m.
CanadianShinobi says... #29
alanwescoat "There may be some merit regarding the idea that nothing in Twin should have been banned at all, though I am not qualified to debate that particular topic, being the kind of player who tends to (perhaps navely) take Wizards's official word on bannings for granted in general."
Why even bring this up? Why even further commit to a conversation when you realize you haven't any idea what you're talking about?
February 8, 2016 8:11 a.m.
alanwescoat says... #30
CanadianShinobi, I am not sure why it is difficult for you to understand that I was engaging the O.P.'s original question. Here, I will quote it for you:
...I have come to wonder if it would have been a better ban if they had chosen Deceiver Exarch?
There. That is the question I was answering. That is what drew me into the discussion, whether it was proper to ban Splinter Twin rather than Deceiver Exarch. I think, given the banning of one or the other, the correct decision was made. That is my opinion. I have expressed my reasons for it above. I did not participate in this thread for the purpose of discussing whether or not banning any card from Twin was appropriate. I feel qualified to say that banning Splinter Twin is a better decision than banning Deceiver Exarch. I do not feel qualified to contend that it was right or wrong to ban Splinter Twin or any card which wold weaken the deck. That is a different question, one which I did not see posted by the O.P.
I hope that I have made myself clear. I do not believe that I am capable of explaining myself any more clearly than that.
mathimus55 says... #2
Wizards over time has shown that they don't like taking decks completely out of the format, they take out the pieces that put them over the top. The Kiki-Jiki version of twin is still around and might be weaker than the old UR Twin, but it still will be around. Bloom will still be around in essence, just much slower with Azusa, Lost but Seeking instead of Summer Bloom. Still a deck, just not potentially oppressive. Same thing with Pod, Jund, Eggs, Delver w/ Treasure Cruise etc etc. The majority of the decks are still there and playable, just not the overwhelmingly powerful/time consuming decks like before.
February 2, 2016 8:35 a.m.