Monday, August 26, 2013

MTG: Modern, Splinter Twin Musings and Grand Prix Detroit Prepartion

Grand Prix Detroit is coming up for me, luckily I won a GPT so I'll have at least 2 byes, 100% moar than I had at GP Toronto.  Thanks to Patrick "Ofelia" Dickmann for the list, advice, and constant beratement. Here's the list I went 7-0 with.

Modern: Ofelia Twin
23 Lands
5 Island
1 Mountain
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Steam Vents
1 Stomping Ground
3 Sulfur Falls
1 Desolate Lighthouse (I'd play moar if I could)
2 Tectonic Edge (Extremely ambitious but so much value)

21 Spells
4 Serum Visions (Maybe this should be Sleight of Hand)
2 Peek (Snap + Peek eot after bluffing the combo attempt)
2 Dispel
2 Spell Pierce
2 Remand
2 Cryptic Command (Solves a lot of problems and makes your Snaps absurd, could cut 1)
2 Izzet Charm (I'm biased but it's been pulling it's weight)
3 Lightning Bolt
2 Flame Slash

16 Combo Stuff n Things
3 Snapcaster Mage
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Deceiver Exarch (not a typo)
4 Pestermite
4 Splinter Twin
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker

15 Sideboard
1 Dismember (For Linvala, Spellskite, and random removal, could be a Combust)
2 Ancient Grudge (1st is for random Torpor Orbs, Spellskites, etc, 2nd is for Afffinity)
3 Blood Moon (For UWr, the 3rd is due to Wear/Tear and needing to occasionally cheese out Jund)
2 Batterskull (So hard to kill, occasionally rofl stomps opponents)
2 Engineered Explosives (Never leave home without them)
2 Grim Lavamancer (Some men just want to watch the world burn)
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker (Moar combo for match ups where racing > interaction)
2 Deceiver Exarch

The biggest difference from this list and what I've played in the past is that it focuses a lot more on interacting with your opponents and drawing the game out so you can set up either a combo-kill or tempo them out with blue collar beatz.  I've had a lot of fun with Ofelia's version of Twin, but every once in a while I have awkward games where I feel like I'm playing a bad control/combo or aggro/combo deck.  I guess that's the price you pay for playing a hybrid deck.

The big perks of having snaps and moar interactive spells is . . .
- you can keep a wider range of hands, unlike combo focused builds where it's very hard to keep without at least 1 to 2 combo pieces in hand
- resiliency versus discard since losing a combo piece isn't the end of the world
- another target for Splinter Twin/Kiki-Jiki in Snapcaster Mage
- an alternate game plan by doing damage

Where as what I've missed from the 8 blue / 7 red old versions is
- a much higher ability to top deck when you're empty handed
- able to punish any tap outs from your opponents more consistently
- able to combo kill/race against combo decks more consistently

The biggest reason I've been pondering about this I'm trying to figure out a optimal direction to build Twin for Detroit, I'm sure the metagame will be your standard chili pot of random decks but due to the World Magic Cup and the MOSC I'm expecting more UWR Control and Melira Pod, which is sort of awkward since from what I've seen I prefer playing a slower more measured game against those 2 since they both have ways to slow me down, BUT I'd rather have near max combo pieces against random decks.  Here's a little table showing my thoughts on how the approaches match up against some of the most popular decks.

Force Combo = Near maxed out combo pieces
Passive Combo = Something closer to Ofelia style, 7 blue and 5 red pieces



I'm really happy with having 3 more combo pieces in my sideboard since against decks like Scapeshift, Burn, and Affinity you don't have inevitability with your interaction and just have to try to finish the game as quickly as possible.

Well that's about everything I have in the tank regarding Twin right now.  If you have any questions or comments feel free to post them or email me.  Till next time!


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