Brainstorm
Force of Will
Lion's Eye Diamond
Counterbalance
Sensei's Divining Top
Tarmogoyf
Phyrexian Dreadnaught
Goblin Lackey
Standstill
Natural Order
I've seen a couple of decks mentioned that might play Mind Twist in some capacity, like U/B Tezz, some weird MUD, I see Elves up there, but I haven't seen Pox mentioned. Think it'd find a home there?
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Mind Twist for 4 on turn 3 is far from busted in a format that has most combo decks winning on turn 3 or before.
Also Mind Twist is a bad top deck in midrange games.
Mind Twist is worse than Hymn to Tourach until you get at least 4 mana. Mind Twist is good , fringe playable and therefor should not be banned. The comparison to Treasure Cruise is non-sense.
Swamp, Ritual, Ritual, MindTwist for 4 is a good turn 1 play but it is only a 3 for 4.
can you guys please stop with the casual Ritual -> Mindtwist bullshit to make a point? Like in Vintage (mana artifacts) the broken part about Mindtwist is dropping PERMANENT mana quickly and then put your opponent into topdeck mode against your mana-advantage on board. A 4-card-swing possible in decks like Elves without a restiction like Hymn to Tourachs double black manacost is insane. People ran away with the +2 cardadvantage of Treasure Cruise and in terms if Mindtwist we don't consider 1-for-3ing or 1-for-4ing your opponent remotely dangerous in the right shell?
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In Elves it is a sideboard play at best.
And the later you draw mind twist the worst it gets. What good is a mind twist in Elves for 8 when your opponent only has 2 cards in hand? Nobody would consider Mind Warp or Rakdos' Return in Elves even with all the mana you can make.
Mind Twist and Treasure Cruise are not comparable. Treasure Cruise is almost always good, Mind Twist is only good when you have lots of mana and your opponent equally as many cards in hand and no way to interact.
You act like a turn 3 Mind Twist for 4 is any good. Turn 3!! In a format with Force of Will and any counterspell. Fact is that Elves would rather cast a Natural Order or a big GSZ to win than casting Mind Twist.
And just assuming that the big Mind Twist on turn 3 works out, that is fine. That is well within the boundaries of the format and not unfair at all. A 4 for 1 on turn 3 is hardly any different than a control deck casting a Terminus, Toxic Deluge or whatever on turn 3.
If you actually read Lemnear's post, he's talking about the card's applications in the combo mirror primarily, where Elves typically suffers because of contradictory requirements of their different engines and disruption. In the context of the combo mirror especially, Mind Twist is Natural Order 5-8 (and NO for Ruric at that, meaning if you get it for 3 on Turn 2, that's actually amazing while NO for Hoof on T2 is usually lackluster), so you can tune your deck so the whole supports a coherent gameplan, so that cards like the same game actions. Meanwhile it also scales to be Hymn for less godlike draws, and Hymn is a good card. 2B is a far preferable cost for Elves (and MUD) than BB ever will.
Moreover, many Legacy decks just don't have much in the way of raw draw, so hitting them for 3 or so can easily give them a ticket to Wontcomebackville.
Originally Posted by Lemnear
I want to say clear some things.
A Comparison to Treasure Cruise is nonsense . I don't want to compare them i just want to say: Turn 3 Treasure Cruise is +2 cards and was very good, and Turn 3 Mindtwist out of Elves for 4 is -3 cards for your opponent (including that you lost the Mind twist), which is similar in terms of power, not the ratio power/mana cost, etc. Both Plays, are probably winning you the game in the long run. Right?
I know Ritual, Ritual, Mind Twist is only a 3 for 4, that's why i talked about elves with their permanent mana sources.
Mind Twist is worse than hymn until you get at least 4 mana. In Elves, you get very fast to the point where you have it.
I'm assuming no Elves Player cuts his NO's for Twist, so they can also bring in another must-counter, and Natural Order Later. Either they counter it (One less counter for NO) or you no for sure they don't have a counter because they don't have a hand.
tl;dr: IF Mind Twist is played as a card vs. Combo and Control in Elves
Decks that want to counter NO:
It's Turn 3.
A:Elves Player plays Mind Twist for 4. Opponent counters. Opponent is now -1 Counter vs. Natural Order, which Elves still has 4 in his hand/deck.
B: Elves player plays Mind Twist for 4. Opponent doesn't counter. Opponent looses his hand, which results into topdeck mode, which results into a clear coast for future NO's or simpy running over with elves (machine gunning etc.)
VS: Decks that have a stronger Gameplan(Combo):
Elves player has 4 No + Ruric, 4 ways to win the game on the spot. In Addition, they have another card, which reads: Opponent discards his hand, which results opponent again topdecking their business etc. while the elves player has their win-on-the-spot-play
I'm not saying the card should stay banned, i just want to say you probably don't want to lose your hand against an aggro-combo deck, which makes Mind Twist another must-counter.
Also, Lemnear said everything i want to say. Thank you.
no, thank you guys for getting the point of my posts
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There are a lot of differences though:
* Mind Twist is Black. It can't be tossed to FoW when it's dead, nor can it be tossed to BS as naturally (as you're now in UB, a smaller subset of decks.)
* Mind Twist is a dead Topdeck, TC gets better as the game goes on.
* Mind Twist is weaker to Thalia, Spell Pierce, Divert, and other cheap spells. TC played through Thalia, couldn't be redirected, nor was it easy to pierce.
* Twist always costs 3+ mana to get any CA, TC could be played at higher costs, but often costs 1-3 mana for *more* CA.
* Twist doesn't actually do anything. TC could draw you out of a bad board position, find you a threat, etc..
I agree with you that Twist could be mildly dangerous, but the cards in legacy already control it plus it makes games that drag on (specifically what CA is for) into worse topdecks rather than better ones.
Literally, the only comparison point here is that it's a spell that has a versatile casting cost that can get CA; but in order to get the same CA as Cruise you have to cast it for 4 mana *while the opponent has three cards in hand*. This is weak to Teeg, Thalia, Wasteland, etc.. while being Dazable.
Mind Twist in Elves would be strictly worse than TC in Elves, and no one played with it. Mind Twist in Shardless would be garbage. Mind Twist in Jund is similarly bad. The only decks that could run Mind Twist are Junk/DGA/Dega and some non-existent black control decks. It's quite safe that if only T2 decks (at best) can bring the card to bare (including things like a MUD variant) or Storm using it as a way to protect itself, then it's fine IMO.
EDIT: If it's really specifically the combo mirror:
* Run Divert. Every other combo deck worth mentioning has access to it. Were Twist a Problem Misdirection, Pierce, Discard, and Divert have it's number.
* If Combo is merely boosting it's game against other combo; that seems like simple evolution. Simply running anti-discard (which is better and more prevalent) is probably doable.
* If Elves is casting this T3, isn't that really just saying that Sneak/Storm had a bad hand? Elves can already *WIN* on T2. If them putting bad topdecks and non-elves in the deck means they go off T3 instead of T2, you're in a much much better position than them just having a consistent T2.5 win.
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Dragon Stompy didn't run Treasure Cruise! It wouldn't want Mind Twist either!
I think I have to go back to not reading this thread... I feel dumb.
And again why on earth would Elves want to play and resolve a big Mind Twist against Combo or Control if they could resolve a Natural Order or big GSZ to simply win on the spot.
If the Mind Twist resolved then the NO or GSZ would have resolved too and won the game.
Also if a combo deck gets stopped by a turn 3 mindtwist that is just fine considering that these decks typically combo before or or before turn 3. Apparently combos to win by turn 3 are fun and fair? Combos to strip your opponents hand on turn 3 without winning are unfair? lol
Because you have only 4 Natural Orders to draw in time to slap Ruric? Because GSZ for Ruric is 7 mana?
Elves is capable to produce 4+ mana turn 2 with ease, so why are you picking on the mentioned turn 3, just because I wanted to avoid hyperboles and excellent draws for my point and mentioned COMBO/CONTROL as the possible candidates to board Mindtwist against? You take things out of context and ignore that it was already mentioned that Twist would act as a pure tool to increase blowout plays for Elves against the mentioned strategies because Twist would act as NO 5-8 in the same manarange like NO unlike GSZ.
I suspect you know all this and just decided to troll here pointing at decks like Belcher which would be indeed too fast to catch with a Twist while we have Storm/S&T/Miracles in mind. Congratulations.
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Also another reason Mind Twist is good: Against combo you need blowout plays, and Glimpse is a good one. Problem is, it wants you to keep stuff in hand. All other things that are good against combo - NO, big GSZ/GSZ(Teeg), Cabal Therapy, just turning Elves sideways - want you to play your stuff out ASAP. With Twist, you can concoct a postboard build that wholly supports the dudes on the field plan instead of having its panties in a bunch over internal conflicts.
Originally Posted by Lemnear
The point about the strategic advantage is that you force both players into the topdeck mode with the difference that you not only have plenty of mana available but also a clock going. It's basically the same strategic angle Balance, Armageddon, Deathcloud and other (not-so-)equalizers serve
Some guys make it sound stricktly bad to drop T1 DRS or GSZ for Arbor to just fuel a Mindtwist for X=2 on turn 2 as a very realistic and common scenario if Mindtwist was unbanned, though Team America/BUG Delver do basically the same successful for years with Hmyn to run away with the game due to the cardadvantage created turn 2. Not even talking about the scaling of the impact in certain scenarios of stripping 3 or 4 cards turn 2 or, god forbid, enter turn 3 for the complete blowout
edit:
The question given for WotC is who would seriously enjoy all those possible blowouts from decks with quick manaextension like Elves, Tezzerator, Cloudpost, NicFit, etc.?
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