All B/R update speculation.

[menace13]

And Lava Spike is a skill tester? Delver? Show and Tell? GTFO with these stupid skill arguments.

Yeah, because I said those were? Or are you not okay? Clearly, every card in the format is skill testing(sarcasm). Even if there are cards currently that are not, why would I want to add more? Derp all around.

[iamajellydonut]

I'm so glad it took us fourteen pages of bickering like idiots to establish that Mind Twist is an enormous piece of shit that would either fail to improve or have no use in Legacy. Now, as a community, and without mincing words, can we finally just admit that we want Mind Twist and Black Vice unbanned solely on principle of unbanning as many things as possible rather than stubbornly and belligerently continuing to purport the notion that their unbannings would personally do the format good?

[maharis]

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.?

Well, you didn't originally say that we're talking about a sideboard card. I thought you meant Elves would run it MB and I made the point about CC because like Twist it isn't a creature but unlike twist it does put more elves on the field which is literally what every other card in the deck does.

That being said I don't think "It's a blowout from the sideboard for Elves against Storm, S&T and Miracles!" is a reason to keep a card banned. If anything it's a reason to ban Gaea's Cradle or Natural Order since we are keeping cards hostage on the banlist because Elves is too powerful.

Also you know you'd bring in Twist vs Miracles and they'd go T1 top and just draw the best card to blow you out every turn anyway.

Talking about other ramp decks...

-I don't think Tezz wants this effect MB, and keeping a SB card banned is really weak as I already stated. I guess it would replace Chalice, but then you're taking an artifact out of the deck

-Post, post, urborg, twist you is well within acceptable Legacy parameters. Especially for a deck that doesn't currently play black and needs to find its Posts to even make this a blowout play. And it will do so while not advancing the board at all other than maybe playing a Top or Expedition Map. If this resolves, agaisnt most decks you end up tapped out with no board presence and they still have 1-3 cards plus stuff on board. And while it might bite S&T and Storm and Miracles again, two of those decks can win a turn earlier and the other has Top and an abundance of countermagic. What's fair is fair.

-Nic Fit mmmmaybe wants this card but I doubt it. I can't see a reason to play it over Hymn, since getting BB is really no problem and Hymn isn't dependent on ramp. And Nic Fit doesn't always play him. Like other decks it might be SB against Miracles but it wouldn't do anything to help its Storm or S&T matchup as the ramp isn't as fast as other decks.

There is also no chance any other Bx midrange deck plays this, there's no advantage over Hymn or targeted discard, especially with SDT and DTT in the format. Also no reason to tap out and not affect the board. Doesn't cascade well.

The best we could hope for is a new deck that makes Twist a threat. That would be amazing. Twist hate is already present in most sideboards between extra counters like Envelop or Swan Song, Guerilla Tactics effects (well, maybe they should just be called Obstinate Baloth effects now), and cards like Gaddock Teeg and Thalia. Some sort of Dark Tide deck, maybe?

TL;DR; Mind Twist is safe, Elves is obnoxious, ban Gaea's Cradle.

[Lemnear]

I'm so glad it took us fourteen pages of bickering like idiots to establish that Mind Twist is an enormous piece of shit that would either fail to improve or have no use in Legacy.

There is a third option which was discussed, which you choose to ignore: make the players experience worse by creating blowouts.

Now, as a community, and without mincing words, can we finally just admit that we want Mind Twist and Black Vice unbanned...

So YOU speak for the whole Legacy community! Had anyone informed be before we chewed through 14 pages...

...solely on principle of unbanning as many things as possible rather than stubbornly and belligerently continuing to purport the notion that their unbannings would personally do the format good?

WotC gives a fuck about YOUR principles of decisionmaking if you keep those to a random forum. Write them a letter to get their shit together, especiallyfor Modern. thx

[Lemnear]

Well, you didn't originally say that we're talking about a sideboard card. I thought you meant Elves would run it MB and I made the point about CC because like Twist it isn't a creature but unlike twist it does put more elves on the field which is literally what every other card in the deck does.

I did. Pretty clearly imo. Look here:

Collected company is unimpressive in Elves because of the density of non-creature cards, the actual impact of the creatures put into play with Company, the presence of Glimpse as a CA engine and the manacost being a problem against sweepers harming your manadevelopment.

This is totally different to Mindtwist which would serve as a SB card against combo/control for Elves which already run Thoughtseize/Cabal Therapy for those.

It's not my fault if no one bothers to read, but rather argues about me being wrong on things I never said, like running Mindtwist in Elves MB ;)

[JACO]

I understand the threat of Mind Twist out of Elves, Tezzeret, etc., and understand that it can be another attractive option. I'm not saying it sucks - I just don't think it's broken enough to warrant being on the Legacy Banned List, nor do I think it would be unhealthy for the format (both also apply to Black Vise). Elves already has Cabal Therapy and Thoughtseize to rip an opponent's hand apart, and get the actual cards they want for 1 mana, while still being able to cast something else large the same turn. Is the format in great danger or peril because Elves is already a Tier 1 strategy? Is Mind Twist suddenly going to push it over the top even though they already have a million discard spells and Flusterstorm to combat other combo decks? Does Mind Twist suddenly help Elves consistently beat Miracles because it can somehow now deal with Terminus off the top of their deck?

If you are comparing Mind Twist to Treasure Cruise please stop embarrassing yourself. Treasure Cruise was exceptional at 1 mana, not 4 at mana. This is why nobody plays Concentrate (at 4 mana) or Jace's Ingenuity (at 5 mana), but everybody wanted to play Treasure Cruise, for the exact same effect, at an exceptionally low mana rate. Everything in Magic is about cost to power (= value) ratio.

[Lemnear]

I understand the threat of Mind Twist out of Elves, Tezzeret, etc., and understand that it can be another attractive option. I'm not saying it sucks - I just don't think it's broken enough to warrant being on the Legacy Banned List, nor do I think it would be unhealthy for the format (both also apply to Black Vise). Elves already has Cabal Therapy and Thoughtseize to rip an opponent's hand apart, and get the actual cards they want for 1 mana, while still being able to cast something else large the same turn. Is the format in great danger or peril because Elves is already a Tier 1 strategy? Is Mind Twist suddenly going to push it over the top even though they already have a million discard spells and Flusterstorm to combat other combo decks? Does Mind Twist suddenly help Elves consistently beat Miracles because it can somehow now deal with Terminus off the top of their deck?

If you are comparing Mind Twist to Treasure Cruise please stop embarrassing yourself. Treasure Cruise was exceptional at 1 mana, not 4 at mana. This is why nobody plays Concentrate (at 4 mana) or Jace's Ingenuity (at 5 mana), but everybody wanted to play Treasure Cruise, for the exact same effect, at an exceptionally low mana rate. Everything in Magic is about cost to power (= value) ratio.

the point is: WotC has no interrest in finding out if Mindtwist would create issues or not. If it would, you can bet people would call out WotC immediately for being dumb and Co. potentially having to ban it again and look like fools. Just remember the reactions to their on/off with Gush in Vintage.

[nedleeds]

I understand the threat of Mind Twist out of Elves, Tezzeret, etc., and understand that it can be another attractive option. I'm not saying it sucks - I just don't think it's broken enough to warrant being on the Legacy Banned List, nor do I think it would be unhealthy for the format (both also apply to Black Vise). Elves already has Cabal Therapy and Thoughtseize to rip an opponent's hand apart, and get the actual cards they want for 1 mana, while still being able to cast something else large the same turn. Is the format in great danger or peril because Elves is already a Tier 1 strategy? Is Mind Twist suddenly going to push it over the top even though they already have a million discard spells and Flusterstorm to combat other combo decks? Does Mind Twist suddenly help Elves consistently beat Miracles because it can somehow now deal with Terminus off the top of their deck?

If you are comparing Mind Twist to Treasure Cruise please stop embarrassing yourself. Treasure Cruise was exceptional at 1 mana, not 4 at mana. This is why nobody plays Concentrate (at 4 mana) or Jace's Ingenuity (at 5 mana), but everybody wanted to play Treasure Cruise, for the exact same effect, at an exceptionally low mana rate. Everything in Magic is about cost to power (= value) ratio.

+1 ... I'm too old to argue with people. If your goal is to protect you broken Elf sorcery or raw dogged Hoof just Thoughtseize, Cabal Therapy, or play City of Solitude for gods sake. The stupid hoof makes turn 2-3 kills a fairly normal occurrence anyway why Mind Twist for 4 (potentially while some Miracles shill floats Terminus) when you can just point discard, and derp hoof and win?

Mind Twist, Earthcraft, and Black Vise coming off the banned list would do nothing to shake up the dominance of Brainstorm decks and Elves. They would be played but they wouldn't come within a fucking mile of the 80% saturation of Brainstorm, 60% saturation of Force and Ponder. They shouldn't be banned with respect to what is legal, it's an awful cruel joke on the part of Wizards. Or they are just lazy. Or there are some filthy closet casuals there who have child hood memories of being Mind Twisted or triple Vised on the draw back when you drew on the play and the Paris mulligan hadn't been invented yet.

[JACO]

the point is: WotC has no interrest in finding out if Mindtwist would create issues or not. If it would, you can bet people would call out WotC immediately for being dumb and Co. potentially having to ban it again and look like fools. Just remember the reactions to their on/off with Gush in Vintage.

I'm not sure that's very accurate. They've said in the recent past (2-3 years) when taking cards off of the Vintage Restricted List that they weren't sure about them, but they'd like to give them a test in the current environment, and I believe they said the same thing about Land Tax. If that's the case, then there's little reason not to give Black Vise and Mind Twist a shot (and Earthcraft or Frantic Search if you're feeling more dangerous).

[death]

Every once in a while when a format becomes stale, a card gets unbanned. Expect Mind Twist, Earthcraft and Hermit Druid to come off the list. Mind Twist is ridiculously safe. I don't understand all the anxiety.

[maharis]

The Hermit Druid deck is just oops all spells with lands and cantrips, right? Not sure if that's more or less broken.

[Barook]

The Hermit Druid deck is just oops all spells with lands and cantrips, right? Not sure if that's more or less broken.

Oops might be faster, but it's all-in, while Hermit doesn't require further investment other than being able to tap it for profit. The shell could include alot more (cantrip) digging and probably even a full countermagic suit. That should be more broken than Oops (take that as you will) since you don't fold to countermagic that easily and you run a more stable deck in general.

[FoolofaTook]

In some regards I can see a point for Mind Twist. However, I can't quite grasp how a card that punishes you just for having more than four cards in hand is fair and dose not warp at all the format.

You would think Black Vise is fair if you were looking at in a vacuum and had never actually played against it in constructed play. In a format that had many cards that just flew out of player's hands vise was borderline broken but sat on things like Library of Alexandria as a counterweight.

If you let me play Stax with City of Traitors and Ancient Tomb into double-vise on turn 1 I certainly will do that.

Anybody arguing for Balance to come off the list just doesn't know what they are talking about.

[phonics]

I don't see why r&d would be afraid of making unhealthy metas by unbanning when they routinely print new cards that do it already.

[FoolofaTook]

I don't want to get in the middle of this.

But Treasure Cruise did not cost 5 mana. The two are as similar as a clover leaf and a bar of soap.

Elves is a deck that is designed from the ground up to generate mana fast. It's design space is occupied by cards that do this instead of counters and removal. So it is perfectly within its range to do broken things on turn 3 (like win, for example). Unless you are talking about Ancestral Recall, don't bother comparing anything to Treasure Cruise which required little design space to do its thing.

Hell, I would go so far as to say that for 5 mana, discarding four cards at random from my opponent's hand is not even a strong play.

WotC is afraid that somebody will come up with a shell with Thoughtseize, Hymn to Tourach and Mind Twist that actually works. They hate black with a passion and always have.

I'm not worried about that at all. I'm worried about how Mind Twist will fold into the blue shell. That's a door better left shut.

[FoolofaTook]

I don't see why r&d would be afraid of making unhealthy metas by unbanning when they routinely print new cards that do it already.

WotC makes money off of the new unhealthy cards they print. They don't make much (if anything) off of the out of print cards that are banned. That explains the R&D issues.

[tescrin]

What kind of nonsense is this? Of course didn't Elves play an off-color, 7 mana spell which you can't feed with your graveyard simply because your deck is permanent-based! It's like making a point with NicFit not running TC either

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.

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.

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?"


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.

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.
-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.
-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.
-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.

The fact that Mind Twist is actively mediocre against Delver, Combo (by comparison to Hymn, which is often too slow anyway), and becomes worse in the mid-late game means that it's application is small enough that it should not come to shift the meta drastically. It's merely a 3 CMC Hymn most of the time, and wouldn't you rather fight that than a Lily anyway?

[Squirrel]

Ok, i'm sorry i started this, another post i want to keep short and simple:

1. Everybody here agrees that Treasure Cruise is miles better than Mind Twist. That was never mine or Lemnears argument.

2. JACO said: "I'm all for allowing somebody to make me discard a few cards, rather than losing on the spot to a more broken spell." I used TC as an Example to show him that discarding a few cards (example: 4 cards turn 3 vs elves) is enormous card disadvantage(in a similar way as Treasure Cruise was card advantage) thus, in a Deck where the Manacost isn't a problem, while he is not loosing on the spot, he will almost surely later.

3. 4 Natural Order = 4 Counter or you die
X Mindtwist = Discard your hand-> No counter in hand. You STILL HAVE Natural Order-> 4+X. THIS IS NOT WHY MINDTWIST IF YOU CAN ORDER; IT'S MINDTWIST; THEN ORDER SAFELY!

4. All of this , by my part, has nothing to do with the debatte if it's too powerful. It's just about the concept of having multiple mustcounter threats and about the concept of card advantage.

5. I'm out here. Nice to meet you.

[LeoCop 90]

3. 4 Natural Order = 4 Counter or you die
X Mindtwist = Discard your hand-> No counter in hand. You STILL HAVE Natural Order-> 4+X. THIS IS NOT WHY MINDTWIST IF YOU CAN ORDER; IT'S MINDTWIST; THEN ORDER SAFELY!

You can't just jam a lot of random 4 mana spells in a deck and hope to get away with it because they all end the game immediately. A lot of elves players just play 3 natural order main deck because it is a clunky spell. The other "must counter" threat of elves is glimpse, and that's fine because it costs 1 mana and at worst it cycles. Playing 4 orders and 4 mind twist is out of the equation, would make the deck worse, and could at best be a sideboard plan against decks with little interaction that let you develop board/mana safely.

[FoolofaTook]

Mind Twist as a 4-of isn't the problem. No Legacy list is going to be able to play 4 Mind Twist and profit from that. Mind Twist as a 2-of is the problem. It's another bomb that non-blue lists would have no hope of recovering from if somebody played it at the right time. It's another bomb that blue lists would have available to swing the game state and throw the other guy out of the Sumo ring.

4 Jace the Mind Sculptor? No problem. 2 Jace the Mind Sculptor? Big problem for a lot of lists.