All B/R update speculation.

[Lemnear]

I really hate the way you "argue." You took a 5 paragraph post of perfect counters to your argument, cherry pick a phrase you disagree with and write off everything that was in the vicinity.

Isn't that cute? It would have helped if you would have adressed my actual argument, which was "cardadvantage turn 2/3 leading to victory" which TC, Hymn, Mindtwist and even SFM provide, but you choose to make a discussion with yourself of how TC is better than Mindtwist and point out obvious things no one ever cared for. This is the second time within 24 hours people put words in my mouth. *slowclap*

I established that Non-Elves Combo can easily counter Mind Twist at 1CC in a color they already run and countered your actual Elves argument (that casting Mind Twist for 3-4 cards is a problem) by pointing out that they could've either WON or they're on T3, so you could've WON and that on top of this they have to dilute their deck to use it. Further, several in the thread have shown that the TC = MT comparison is fatally flawed.

It's about increasing the must-counters in Elves for the eaely turns against Control/Combo, so you can follow up with NO or another actual bomb as you don't have time to establish your own draw engines andjust dropping Elves isn't scary for most Control/Combo decks at all. Playing NO right into a counter is also carddisadvantage unlike Twist if the purpose is simply to draw out counters which most decks can reserve for NO(/Glimpse/GSZ) against Elves.

I said this now for the third time in like 2 days. Stick the "TC = MT" to yourself if you keep comparing the cards themselves in a vacuum, which no one aside you was doing.

Now your argument is "well you said something that isn't quite true so POST INVALIDATED LOL!" and "well WotC wouldn't unban it so why discuss it?"

We're back to you calling me out on things I never said, hu? I make it now very easy for you.

1) You came up with "TC>MT and TC wasn't run in Elves!" which I consider "off" at best and you obsess over the topic "TC & MT" afterwards with the help of Captain Obvious, bringing counterarguments to arguments no one made. Do I consider those arguments "invalid"? No ... just plain poinless for the topic I brought upwhich was not "Is MT better than TC?" but "How good is MT as a CA/CD tool from the SB to support your natural gameplan of dropping manadorks and Cradles given that decks like Team America were able to run away with games for years with the CA/CD Hymn provides? How good is this as another must-counter to force NO through against decks with counters? How good is MT if you are able to force both players into the topdeck mode by turn 3? Is the more suitable manacost of 2B to strip 2 cards (with scaling potential) not better for Elves than Hymns BB?"

2) I never said "well WotC wouldn't unban it so why discuss it?". I said that there is the possibility that it's either harmful for the format or does nothing at all in Legacy. I limit the possibilites to these two options because of three factors:

1) I don't consider "MT your whole hand by turn 3 unless you play counter" a fun concept IF Mindtwist would find a home in Legacy
2) Hymn exists and provides better mana/effect ratios for non-manaburst-decks
3) We have immediate ideas about decks which would break the scaling problem by naturally burst-expanding their permanent manasources to

Both of these "arguments" are false and self defeating, but in the cruel twist of fate of the internet your post taken by itself makes me foolish. Your arguments have been shown to be false; please dispute that (so we can agree to disagree) or come up with a new/better argument.

Here we are again! You bring up up two arguments I never said and call me out on these. This starts to get annoying.

The arguments against your position are:
-Elves could've already won by the time they cast Mind Twist for anything better than Hymn. Thusly, they're diluting their deck.

You should start playing the deck to understand that it not always wins in turn 3 and how well positioned you are if both players go into the topdeck mode in a game in which you pilot Elves. You are not diluting your deck, because you won't cut business to bring in the Twists, but increase the number of bombs which would put your opponent into an unfavorable position (dead or no hand).

-The multitude of effects that can counter or effectively counter Mind Twist that are maindecked are vastly greater and easier to use than the effects of TC.

I still don't care for TC. Softcounters can hit your MT. Fine. So they are gone once you cast NO and make the bigger commitment by sacrificing a creature as well, no?

-Mind Twist is safe because the decks that can effectively utilize it are T2 or worse while being assured that Blue can control it. Further, it's non-blue so it can't be reactively stuffed into the majority of decks.

Elves is tier 2? *LookAtDecksToBeatSectionShakingHead*. No, seriously, what has the color to do with being played in a deck? The whole Esper Deathblade concept is a prime example of what you can stuff together in one deck, but I'm not here to talk about deckbuilding. I was just pointing a decks with explosive manadevelopment to be the first candidates to try out MT for forcing both players into an uneven topdeck-war.

-The types of decks that would suffer from Mind Twist the most (Mid-Range Fair Decks, non Grave control) are grindy games, of which Shardless, Miracles, D&T, and Jund are often hellbent and spewing card advantage/dudes anyway from the top deck; of which Mind Twist does not prevent or equalize against.

Drawing Lands at a certain point of saturation or Hymns once your opponent is already hellbent is lackluster. We all know. The difference is if your opponent is hellbent turn 2/3 or turn 5/6. As mentioned, deckbuilding isn't my current topic

[Dice_Box]

I walk away from this thread two days ago thinking "Hey we finally have real discussion going". I come back and this is the shit I see. Fucking hell guys, go back to being productive, that was much cooler to see happening.

[Finn]

Mind Shatter is a card, yes? I gather that this is not the same card. Got that.

The hardest part about gauging if a card is too powerful for Legacy is the fact that the game (and especially Legacy) has crept in power over the last 16 years or so. We have not seen Mind Twist outside of Vintage in quite some time, so we are stuck guessing at this issue. The last time this card was legal outside of Vintage there was no such thing as Standard (or Type 2). There was not even a Vintage, actually. It has never been legal in Legacy, so we are really in the dark. Speaking of which, it went on the restricted list just before The Dark was printed - about a million expansions ago.

But Mind Shatter has been around for years now with several printings. Forget Legacy for a moment. Modern and even Standard has never found this card to be broken or even valuable. It is a junk rare. Considering how much longer games go and how much more common high mana spells are in Standard, there should be some evidence on this even with the extra black. It is not as splashable, but has there really been not a single tournament deck since Morningtide that can use a slightly reduced version of a super card? The only deck discussion I found was for a deck that was named for the card, and they took the card out.

How often does anyone tap four mana on their main phase for a spell these days? Four mana spells in Legacy are game breakers. The bar is so high that they have to be. If my opponent is going to tap 4 mana on their main phase to cast a spell, I kinda expect it to wreck me. (It had better because if I Daze it, that player is screwed.) I think I am pretty relieved if that spell is Mind Twist though. It could have been Jace, Natural Order, or Entreat the Angels. At four mana, this is what you are comparing it to. These are all superior effects, great topdecks, and already in use. Mind Twist is better than all of these? Really?

Even in Vintage, Mind Twist is really only scary when it follows Mana Drain.

The card is tame, folks. I challenge anyone here to break it.

[Lemnear]

Mind Shatter is a card, yes? I gather that this is not the same card. Got that.

The hardest part about gauging if a card is too powerful for Legacy is the fact that the game (and especially Legacy) has crept in power over the last 16 years or so. We have not seen Mind Twist outside of Vintage in quite some time, so we are stuck guessing at this issue. The last time this card was legal outside of Vintage there was no such thing as Standard (or Type 2). There was not even a Vintage, actually. It has never been legal in Legacy, so we are really in the dark. Speaking of which, it went on the restricted list just before The Dark was printed - about a million expansions ago.

But Mind Shatter has been around for years now with several printings. Forget Legacy for a moment. Modern and even Standard has never found this card to be broken or even valuable. It is a junk rare. Considering how much longer games go and how much more common high mana spells are in Standard, there should be some evidence on this even with the extra black. It is not as splashable, but has there really been not a single tournament deck since Morningtide that can use a slightly reduced version of a super card? The only deck discussion I found was for a deck that was named for the card, and they took the card out.

How often does anyone tap four mana on their main phase for a spell these days? Four mana spells in Legacy are game breakers. The bar is so high that they have to be. If my opponent is going to tap 4 mana on their main phase to cast a spell, I kinda expect it to wreck me. (It had better because if I Daze it, that player is screwed.) I think I am pretty relieved if that spell is Mind Twist though. It could have been Jace, Natural Order, or Entreat the Angels. At four mana, this is what you are comparing it to. These are all superior effects, great topdecks, and already in use. Mind Twist is better than all of these? Really?

Even in Vintage, Mind Twist is really only scary when it follows Mana Drain.

The card is tame, folks. I challenge anyone here to break it.

Mind Shatter is double black AND one mana more expensive than Twist; somewhat to comparing Demonic Tutor to Grim Tutor.

I disagree about Vintage resp. Type 1. Before it was BANNED in Vintage 1996 the format was a dice-roll format of bursting manaartifacts into Twist and it was unbanned aka resticted in 2000 (Given that Drain was popular and FoW not even invented)

[Zombie]

re: Mind Shatter:

Two cards for two mana is amazing (Hymn)
Two cards for four mana is pretty horrible (Mind Shatter)
Two cards for three mana has seen play, and these are random.

Moreover, making someone discard 3 cards at random is a strong effect, and it's much easier to get to 4 mana quickly than 5.

Shatter only even equals Hymn in cards discarded when it costs 4. The 1 mana difference is huge.

[dte]

I do not think the discussion is totally unproductive. Squirrel & Lemnear explained well, with an actual exemple (elf) that Mind Twist cannot be unbanned without being broken.
As an elf player, I cannot agree more: a 3B sorcery : target player discard 3 cards at random would not be played, but Mind Twist would be an automatic 3-4-of in the SB. I think I would even try to put 1-2 MD if it was unbanned. The ability to have either an hymn or an improved hymn T2, and then a discard your hand T3 is broken by all standards.
And if the answer is "ban cradle then", I do not see the point of the ban/unbans.

On the other discussed cards, black vise in a deck with Daze, Stifle and waste is broken. And would be really unfun. It would increase the number of prison decks, trinispheres & co which are not the decks most players like to play against.
Earthcraft is totally broken, try the card if you do not believe me. It would make so easy to have a huge mana acceleration, while GSZ allow you to do crazy think with a lot of mana without putting many dead cards in your deck.

The only cards on the banlist that I think can maybe be unbanned (and I'm not sure) are goblin recruiter (I do not think Food chain Gob would be really threatening) and Memory Jar. Both could be useful and the basis of new decks, and I do not think that these would be broken.

[menace13]

[cards] It could have been Jace, Natural Order, or Entreat the Angels. At four mana, this is what you are comparing it to. These are all superior effects, great topdecks, and already in use. Mind Twist is better than all of these? Really?

Better? No, not really. But not much worse. I can attack jace. I may be able to remove angel token. Probably just die to NO. And If I dont counter Twist I lost my entire hand of 4~ cards. I would play it in stoneblade decks wher I could find my one of. I cast jaces and batterskulls regularly. I sometimes hardcast force. Please, the it costs 5 is utter BS. 5s get cast all the fucking time. I guess no one here plays against decks where anyone has 5 lands on board

[Bobmans]

I cast jaces and batterskulls regularly. I sometimes hardcast force. Please, the it costs 5 is utter BS. 5s get cast all the fucking time. I guess no one here plays against decks where anyone has 5 lands on board

true, when i read the discussion (which is made more difficult then it is) it feels like people havent actually played the game.

[Finn]

ok. sure.

Better? No, not really. But not much worse. I can attack jace. I may be able to remove angel token. Probably just die to NO. And If I dont counter Twist I lost my entire hand of 4~ cards. I would play it in stoneblade decks wher I could find my one of. I cast jaces and batterskulls regularly. I sometimes hardcast force. Please, the it costs 5 is utter BS. 5s get cast all the fucking time. I guess no one here plays against decks where anyone has 5 lands on board

You are concerned that a 5 mana spell is going to be powerful, even though it compares unfavorably to Jace in terms of its power. {EDIT this aside: Once I am at 5 mana, I don't usually have 4 cards in my hand.}

WTF.

I can not believe I have to explain this, and so I refuse to except to say that there is a very good reason why there are so few expensive spells in this format, and any of them that you must hard cast are absolutely game ending. Two Words: Haunting Echoes

I do not think the discussion is totally unproductive. Squirrel & Lemnear explained well, with an actual exemple (elf) that Mind Twist cannot be unbanned without being broken.
As an elf player, I cannot agree more: a 3B sorcery : target player discard 3 cards at random would not be played, but Mind Twist would be an automatic 3-4-of in the SB. I think I would even try to put 1-2 MD if it was unbanned. The ability to have either an hymn or an improved hymn T2, and then a discard your hand T3 is broken by all standards.
And if the answer is "ban cradle then", I do not see the point of the ban/unbans.

Not broken by Legacy standards. We really are allowed to have good cards in Legacy. You are comparing it unfavorably to Hymn to Tourach, a legal card...Twist is so good that you would relegate it to the sideboard? Really?

re: Mind Shatter:

Two cards for two mana is amazing (Hymn)
Two cards for four mana is pretty horrible (Mind Shatter)
Two cards for three mana has seen play, and these are random.

Moreover, making someone discard 3 cards at random is a strong effect, and it's much easier to get to 4 mana quickly than 5.

Shatter only even equals Hymn in cards discarded when it costs 4. The 1 mana difference is huge.

Yes. Thank you for saying this. The 1 mana difference is huge. Again, Mind Twist compares unfavorably against Hymn to Tourach (because the 1 mana is huge) until you want to spend 4 mana. At four mana, you really are allowed to get extremely good spells in Legacy.

Mind Shatter is double black AND one mana more expensive than Twist; somewhat to comparing Demonic Tutor to Grim Tutor.

I disagree about Vintage resp. Type 1. Before it was BANNED in Vintage 1996 the format was a dice-roll format of bursting manaartifacts into Twist and it was unbanned aka resticted in 2000 (Given that Drain was popular and FoW not even invented)

Demonic Tutor
Grim Tutor
You are right. Grim Tutor is relegated to fringe use, and it is just one extra black. I think I have been converted by your effective comparison. Then again, there is the whole "lose half your life" part, but I am sure that is negligible. EDIT: My bad. different card. 3 life is not as strong a case. Then again, they do cost $200.

TL;DR
You folks are comparing Mind Twist unfavorably against cards that are already legal in the format. That is not an argument. Can anyone make any sort of argument in favor of the ban whatsoever that holds water? There aren't any here so far.

[dunk]

When I found out that Mind Twist was allowed as a 4 of in Vintage I tried a few copies in a deck with Moxen and Deathrite Shaman. It sucked. Even worse than that, it was only useful in borderline situations. Otherwise, the effect either didn't have enough impact (an early Twist kind of costed both players the same number of resources and later Twists either forced some kind of instant response (Tutors to put cards on the top, or just plain counterspells)) or was just the topdeck that I didn't need) or my opponents already had some kind of board presence, be it an Oath, a Jace, or a Pyromancer that I was just skipping my turn and would hope for them to not have a counter or to hit good cards AT RANDOM.

While Legacy is not Vintage, it is still close enough. Unlike Vintage, decks are usually even more board driven. A midgame Twist is closer to a free Time Walk for your opponent than a game ending spell for you. Also unlike Vintage, deck in Legacy tend to me way way more consistent thanks to our awesome 1 mana cantrips. Worried about a Twist? Just add something to the board or look for whatever solution. Twist me? Brainstorm in response, it never gets old. Yeah you hit a good chunk of my hand, but that Jace or Infernal Tutor are on top of my deck anyway. Even against the decks it is supposedly good against it seems quite mediocre. Storm can just drop a bunch of mana and hide Infernal on top unless they go off. Or they just strip it from your hand before it gets devastating. Show and Tell decks? Not only are they faster than your average Twist, they can also just drop a Sneak Attack and draw 7 off Griselbrand. Miracles? Bla bla, Top bla. Hit me with a big Twist, I hit you back with a couple of Angels. Probably nothing that hasn't been said before, but Mind Twist is usually such a laughable card that it just has to be pointed out again. Unless you run some form of ramp the effect is just too expensive, despite being scalable. Elves could play it, but Elves already got a lot of potent sideboard cards anyway. As a blue deck I have more respect of Choke, and the targeted discard to get it through. Twist would allow them to attack from a different angle, but still a very stoppable one. Also, they couldn't run too many copies of it anyway to not delude their own plan. And if a deck like Tezz could run it, wouldn't that just help to make the metagame more diverse by giving it new tools, making it a better deck?

I could see points to argue against Black Vise, but not really against Mind Twist. The game has evolved, creatures are broken these days and Planeswalkers are a thing. Mind Twist is not a universal tool anymore, but rather a narrow option that only goes in a handful of decks. Thad said, I agree with the public opinion of prisoner exchanges and it not coming off until something else already warped the metagame. So... maybe it can come off in 2016 or 2017? Cards in Legacy don't get banned often these days.

[dte]

I believe you do not realize the value of X.
When you argue about 4/5 mana spells blabla...
It's not 5, or 4. It's XB.

I guess if the elves players says the card is broken, it is for a good reason: the best card in their deck has the same casting cost: XG.
And nobody would play a 1G tutor in the deck which fetch a green creature costing 0 or 1, or a 2G tutor that tutor for 2 or below. No. But if I was able to run as many GSZ as I want, I would probably run at least 10 of them.

You can also see this: for a fireball effect to have the same damages as a bolt, it cost 4 mana instead of one. Sure Fireball is plain bad in legacy, while bolt is good. But the difference is huge, 3 manas.

And for the storm player hiding infernal tutor on top with a BS, it is a joke. For a storm player to win from there, he needs to have 7 manas on the board. But still a 4-mana spell is unplayable?

[Dice_Box]

If the only deck that makes people pause is Elves, can someone who has the ability please test the card in Elves? I would but my main testing partner is away right now. Theorycrafting can only do so much, if the argument is "Elves breaks this" then lets see it happen.

[Gheizen64]

In this thread we have people arguing against the unbanning of twist and Survival, but against the banning of Brainstorm. And this was after i posted tons of Survival lists which were good but nowhere as broken, and the rebuttal was "u sucks at this game" , and obviously no one could ever concotion a list that could break the format. But i sucks ok.
Twist in a meta where Brainstorm and Spell pierce are omnipresent will never be good. In magic fantasy land, where on T3-4 you still have a full hand but no answers for a twist from a green deck. The same magic fantasy land where apparently NO is not game-winning enough in elves that it has to play twist in addition to it, fuck deck consistency let's play another win-more card who care about deckbuilding.

But you know the shittiest thing? Twist, and the deck it would go in, elves, are both extremely easy to hate . Misdirection? Hello? Play Obstinate baloths in green lists for free 4/4 in response to twists? Recover with DTT? But apparently, a meta where maindeck choke and blast is a fine and intelligent meta, but a meta where people play 2-3 of misdirections is an abomination. Blue privilege at its best.

[LOLWut]

But losing cards from my hand makes me feel icky! The stuff I like to play with is more powerful and makes you feel icky but there is only one true dimension of fun!

[wonderPreaux]

But you know the shittiest thing? Twist, and the deck it would go in, elves, are both extremely easy to hate . Misdirection? Hello? Play Obstinate baloths in green lists for free 4/4 in response to twists? Recover with DTT? But apparently, a meta where maindeck choke and blast is a fine and intelligent meta, but a meta where people play 2-3 of misdirections is an abomination. Blue privilege at its best.

Do you know how much worse the blue vs. non-blue state of the game would be with Twist? Twist blow-outs driving people towards more FoW and even misdirection just means more blue, so you just go from "blue, non blue and odd hate decks like choke or w/e" to "blue, non blue and mind twists". and the thing there is that choke decks are midrange decks with a few dead cards, when it come to non-blue versus choke decks, so it just shakes out into a midrangey match. but mind twist blow outs are certainly good against non-blue decks too, so now you just have a situation that is even worse for "blue vs. non-blue" because there are more blowouts for non-blue to have to grit their teeth for, and equal or greater numbers of people driven to blue for the sake of protection from turn 1.

This doesn't even address the fundamental issue that having all your cards taken away from you is pretty miserable because not only do you get locked out of the game, you literally don't get a game to play. Why add a card into the format that only has the potential to create a worse state of the game?

[menace13]

ok. sure.


You are concerned that a 5 mana spell is going to be powerful, even though it compares unfavorably to Jace in terms of its power. {EDIT this aside: Once I am at 5 mana, I don't usually have 4 cards in my hand.}

Complete bullshit. Rest was tl;dr more "I never have cards in hand when I have 5 mana". And no one is concerned with how much mana you have when theyre twisting you, so.

[LOLWut]

Do you know how much worse the blue vs. non-blue state of the game would be with Twist? Twist blow-outs driving people towards more FoW and even misdirection just means more blue, so you just go from "blue, non blue and odd hate decks like choke or w/e" to "blue, non blue and mind twists". and the thing there is that choke decks are midrange decks with a few dead cards, when it come to non-blue versus choke decks, so it just shakes out into a midrangey match. but mind twist blow outs are certainly good against non-blue decks too, so now you just have a situation that is even worse for "blue vs. non-blue" because there are more blowouts for non-blue to have to grit their teeth for, and equal or greater numbers of people driven to blue for the sake of protection from turn 1.

This doesn't even address the fundamental issue that having all your cards taken away from you is pretty miserable because not only do you get locked out of the game, you literally don't get a game to play. Why add a card into the format that only has the potential to create a worse state of the game?

Do you think CounterTop, or turn 1 combo, or a 1 mana 3/2 flyer with sufficient soft counters and mana denial to close the game out, should be legal?

[wonderPreaux]

Do you think CounterTop, or turn 1 combo, or a 1 mana 3/2 flyer with sufficient soft counters and mana denial to close the game out, should be legal?

Sure, why shouldn't they be? Combo decks that actually have consistency and resiliency to be good tend to need a very particular nut-draw of cards to go turn off turn 1, whereas "ramp + mind twist" is a helluva a lot more achievable. granted, 2 Dark rits + Twist sounds comparable to 2 Rit + Ad Nauseam, but Twist obviously doesn't punish you for running it in multiples or impose heavy restrictions on your deck building, your ramp wouldn't even necessarily need to be dark rit. If the stars align for a combo player and they get a t1 kill, good for them, it's generally balanced by them having to sweat counters and hate cards all day otherwise. Moreover, using high-variance combo nut draws to justify more variance-based blowouts doesn't really sounds like a great way to develop a meta.

Regarding Delver decks, what about Delver is particularly unfair? The most unfair thing I could point to is blue having a 1-mana 3/2, but thats also subject to, of all things, variance. A lot of the "easy win" games for Delver often involve a fast flip of 1+ Delvers or those "Wasteland a player out of the game" type things. Even then, what is wrong with the person who drew the above average hand winning the game? That... actually makes sense as, outside of the Delver, there's nothing going on in a Delver deck that's very unfair. If the opponent was fortunate enough that many of their cards were better positioned or timed than many of yours, good for them. This is a case of compounded, or even nuanced variance, and isn't really the same as decks packing mind twist on the off-chance they get to disable the opponent all at once in one turn.

Lastly, countertop. There are actually decent arguments out there that these cards are, individually or combined, broken in the metagame. The distinction that I feel keeps a definitive answer from existing is that you DO get to play a game against the Miracles player even with these cards on the board. There are answers like Delve, Decay, Grip, and REB effects that prevent the lock from being unbreakable. Much like Delver, you still have cards and you still get to overcome the obstacle the opponent plays. I feel like powerful cards that encourage interaction are an ok thing. As a Storm player, Storm vs Delver or Storm vs Miracles, for instance, can be very interactive and intriguing games, despite each side having an opportunity to shut the other player out.

A midrange junk/jund w/e deck that packed some twists and rits to occasionally shred opponents hands would carry all sorts of frustration into the meta without being that easy to hate out or punish for doing so. storm or other fast combo can easily be hated out, as can decks like miracles. delver is just pretty fair overall and it's not as though it boasts some sort of crushingly lopsided matchups. The only deck that carries a broken agent that isnt interactive is the very linear storm or combo decks, the rest actually encourage you to carry opposing tools and match them up. Between those 2 criteria of "actually encourages interaction" and "invites punishment for use", mind twist tends to violate both in my eyes.

[sjmcc13]

Do you know how much worse the blue vs. non-blue state of the game would be with Twist? Twist blow-outs driving people towards more FoW and even misdirection just means more blue, ...

Or to decks that do not care because by the time their opponent can play a twist they have already set up a strong board state.

Twist sucks if your opponent already has a developed board state, The only decks that could pull off a large twist before their opponent has one are not likely to play it once they either kill themselves (Storm does not want to waste the rituals on a non-combo turn) or have better things to do with the mana (elves wants NO or GSZ if they have that much mana) making twist a wasted slot in those decks

So it is not coming down early, and the rest of the non-blue decks should be trying to develop a board state (and dropped allot of their hand) in time that make the twist player be on the defensive, since if their play is to twist to kill your options, they are not playing a fast game/clock. because playing slow against a control deck has never being a good strategy.

Plus how many decks are going to naturally look at twist and say "by the time you matter it is to late"? Lands should easily recover, Death and Taxes can slow it down while they build up their board, and has options available that make twist a bad option, as vial-ing out an Aegis of the Gods in response to a Twist is basically "Thanks for the Time Walk", and if twist becomes a problem, then the meta should be after shifting enough to make it worth at least boarding.

Here is the thing, Blue decks can fight twist, White decks have the tools to defend against it, Black have the discard to do the same job to their opponent, and the 1 mana targeted discard + hymn are better options in most match ups, red decks empty their hands to fast to care, and green sell green has elves that can race it, or return the favor first, stompy that drops to many cheap threats before the twist is played to care, Lands whcih will just Loam themselves back into the game, and Sylvan Library which can generate the card selection and advantage to recover from a twist.

Though really Twist will not push the meta that much more towards Blue, since people copying the decks that they see win, Delver being too efficient of a beat stick, as well as fear of the Glass Cannon T1 combo decks have already pushed the format very blue on their own, and there is not much room left to push it to decks that are primarily or splashing blue.

[maharis]

It boils down to this: Even in Elves, it's a Hymn, which is a nice effect but arguably not as useful as just Thoughtseizing, or it's a turn 3 blowout, in a format where turn three wins are commonplace.

Either Mind Twist is fine or Lion's Eye Diamond, Entomb, and Natural Order aren't. Take your pick.

And nobody would play a 1G tutor in the deck which fetch a green creature costing 0 or 1, or a 2G tutor that tutor for 2 or below.

lol yes they would.

Do you think CounterTop, or turn 1 combo, or a 1 mana 3/2 flyer with sufficient soft counters and mana denial to close the game out, should be legal?

Bingo. The thing that offends is that some people do mental contortions to keep Vise and Twist banned while letting cards Counterbalance, Show & Tell, or even things like Dread Return go.

On top of that Mind Twist's continued presence on the banned list just illustrates Wizards' ignorance of the format. The fact that we have to slog through Miracles and S&T while not even being able to test a couple classic cards that haven't had any time in the wild since like 1996 sucks.

Sure, why shouldn't they be? Combo decks that actually have consistency and resiliency to be good tend to need a very particular nut-draw of cards to go turn off turn 1, whereas "ramp + mind twist" is a helluva a lot more achievable. granted, 2 Dark rits + Twist sounds comparable to 2 Rit + Ad Nauseam, but Twist obviously doesn't punish you for running it in multiples or impose heavy restrictions on your deck building, your ramp wouldn't even necessarily need to be dark rit. If the stars align for a combo player and they get a t1 kill, good for them, it's generally balanced by them having to sweat counters and hate cards all day otherwise. Moreover, using high-variance combo nut draws to justify more variance-based blowouts doesn't really sounds like a great way to develop a meta.

The bolded is a terrible play in 2015. Awesome, yes, but terrible.

We know what the playable ramp available in the format is at the moment and none of it gets you to a backbreaking Twist sooner than turn 3, and see above: Turn 3 wins are a cost of doing business in Legacy. If someone wants to play a high-variance deck that does like Tomb, Swamp, Ritual, Twist for 4, that's on them.

Regarding Delver decks, what about Delver is particularly unfair? The most unfair thing I could point to is blue having a 1-mana 3/2, but thats also subject to, of all things, variance. A lot of the "easy win" games for Delver often involve a fast flip of 1+ Delvers or those "Wasteland a player out of the game" type things. Even then, what is wrong with the person who drew the above average hand winning the game? That... actually makes sense as, outside of the Delver, there's nothing going on in a Delver deck that's very unfair. If the opponent was fortunate enough that many of their cards were better positioned or timed than many of yours, good for them. This is a case of compounded, or even nuanced variance, and isn't really the same as decks packing mind twist on the off-chance they get to disable the opponent all at once in one turn.

This just won't happen. When was the last time you saw Iggy Pop?

Lastly, countertop. There are actually decent arguments out there that these cards are, individually or combined, broken in the metagame. The distinction that I feel keeps a definitive answer from existing is that you DO get to play a game against the Miracles player even with these cards on the board. There are answers like Delve, Decay, Grip, and REB effects that prevent the lock from being unbreakable. Much like Delver, you still have cards and you still get to overcome the obstacle the opponent plays. I feel like powerful cards that encourage interaction are an ok thing. As a Storm player, Storm vs Delver or Storm vs Miracles, for instance, can be very interactive and intriguing games, despite each side having an opportunity to shut the other player out.

Oops, I discarded Lingering Souls, Sword of the Meek, and Moment's Peace, sorry elf guy.

A midrange junk/jund w/e deck that packed some twists and rits to occasionally shred opponents hands would carry all sorts of frustration into the meta without being that easy to hate out or punish for doing so. storm or other fast combo can easily be hated out, as can decks like miracles. delver is just pretty fair overall and it's not as though it boasts some sort of crushingly lopsided matchups. The only deck that carries a broken agent that isnt interactive is the very linear storm or combo decks, the rest actually encourage you to carry opposing tools and match them up. Between those 2 criteria of "actually encourages interaction" and "invites punishment for use", mind twist tends to violate both in my eyes.

Bx midrange does not want to run random rituals and mind twists. believe me. Can someone else from The Rock/DGA/Nic Fit threads back me up here? Our lists are already so tight in order to compete with the superior card selection of the blue decks that adding more random terrible topdecks is just a losing proposition. (And in Nic Fit's case, once our ramp is online, there are just better things to be doing with it anyway). Jund and Shardless don't want it because it's a terrible cascade and they don't have a way to make it better than Hymn, which they already run in decreasing numbers. Deathblade doesn't need it when its threats are already impossible to answer if it gets to the point where it has enough mana to cast an impactful twist.

There's just no way to say this card has to stay on the list. The only existing deck that gets minorly scarier because of it has plenty of other ban candidates in it already.