[Deck] Twist strikes back

[beder]

Hi all,

Those last weeks, I have been testing a new build which allows me to use one of the forgotten treasure of vintage, the one card that was so degenerate that it even got banned, the card that I feared the most when I started magic back in 1994…

Yep, you got it: the one and only “Mind Twist”.

For several years, it has not been used mainly for several reasons :
-   Mind twisting into a drain is definitely not good,
-   Investing a ritual in order to get a sufficiently big mind twist is a shame when this one is countered,
-   Mind twist is pretty bad at dealing with threat on board, which can make it a very bad top deck
-   Opponent’s Top decks may be so strong in vintage that one can win the game just drawing the right tutor (and sometimes using the discarded cards through yawgmoth’s will).

But today, I feel like some things have changed:
-   Drain is less played,
-   We have some new vintage tools to produce mana, without having to go “all in”,
-   We have some new tool to deal with “scary top decks”,
-   We have some new tool to deal with “card on board”

Maybe it is time for Mind Twist to try a come-back.


[Deck] Twist strikes back – V1.0

// Lands
    4 Misty Rainforest
    3 Polluted Delta
    3 Tropical Island
    3 Underground Sea
    2 Island

// Creatures
    4 Lotus Cobra
    1 Myr Battlesphere

// Spells
    1 Black Lotus
    1 Mox Sapphire
    1 Mox Emerald
    1 Mox Jet
    1 Mox Ruby
    1 Mox Pearl
    1 Mana Crypt
    1 Sol Ring

    1 Voltaic Key
    1 Time Vault

    4 Force of Will
    4 Gush
    4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

    4 Mind Twist

    2 Repeal
    1 Rebuild

    1 Ancestral Recall
    1 Brainstorm
    1 Ponder
    1 Mystical Tutor
    1 Merchant Scroll
    1 Time Walk
    1 Tinker
    
    1 Vampiric Tutor
    1 Demonic Tutor
    1 Yawgmoth's Will

    1 Fastbond

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

A very solid draw engine, based on 4xGush, 4xJace and even 4xMind twist (which may be seen as card advantage).
A strong mana producing capability, with a Solid mana base, 4xCobra and the full package of mana artifact accelerators.
A very classical win condition package (tinker=>bot and key/vault).
An original disruption package : 4 fow and 4 Mind Twist.

Some synergies :
-Gush + Cobra => no need to explain.
-Cobra + Jace or Cobra + Twist => cobra produces huge amount of mana enabling early jace or big twist,
-Jace + Twist => there is a double synergy there.  
              1 - Bounce a creature and then twist it, in order to be able to then use our jace for real added value.
              2 – Even better, after a significant Mind twist, the fatesticher ability of jace becomes just insane, almost hard locking opponent given that he has no more cards in hand.
-Bounces + Twist => see above

In the end, this is an efficient and brutal deck, which plays Mind twist very aggressively (do not wait for a huge mind twist, just take what you can, as soon as you can). Mind twist provides at the same time card advantage and disruption.

The test results are damn promising, it definitely may be viable!

Feel free to react,

Cheers,

Nicolas

[Commandant]

But today, I feel like some things have changed:
-   Drain is less played,

Eh?

I'd have to disagree, Demars wrote a decent article a few weeks ago pushing Drain as an excellent choice in the current metagame.

The last major NA tournament had this many;

Mana Drains

Tyrant Oath: 2
Preordain Jace: 6
Gush Jace: 1
Gush Storm: 2
Jace Control: 4
Snake City Vault: 2
Elephant Oath: 5
Keeper: 2
Painter/Grindstone: 1
4C Slaver: 1
Landstill: 1  
Peanut Oath: 2
Trygon/Battlesphere Oath: 1
Bomberman: 1
Magus Tezz: 1
Emrakul Oath: 1
TurboVault: 1
Rector/Flash: 1
Land Control: 1
BBS: 1

Including 9 in the top 8 over 3 different decks.

[voltron00x]

Mana drains in that heading does not literally mean decks with drain in them.

[Commandant]

Mana drains in that heading does not literally mean decks with drain in them.

So blue based control?

I assumed as the other break downs included the archetype which included said card.

Do you feel Mana Drain is is at a low Matt? You seemed to be pushing it in the Brightsteel Oath thread.

[Eastman]

Have to disagre with you Commandant, there is no question that drain is less played now than it used to be. Whether or not drain is still a good play or seeing a resurgence, it has definitely become much less common as a 4 of than it was for most of the last decade.  The fact that the three decks you mentioned only had 9 between them demonstrates that.  In 2007 3 blue decks would run 12 drains.  Drain used to be one of the top 10 played cards in vintage and it just isn't right now.

[voltron00x]

Yes, blue-based control is a more accurate heading.

I wanted to test a few in BSC Oath, but ultimately I ended up cutting a mana source and not playing Drains.  I think there's no doubt that current Shop builds, combined with the printing of Spell Pierce and its strength against Shops, have pushed Drain counts down considerably.  Even the decks that play Drains often play 2-3 instead of 4.  In a format with Thoughtseize, Force of Will, Gush, Spell Pierce, Nature's Claim, and (soon) Steel Sabotage, you can get a lot out of 0-1 mana these days.

[DubDub]

Have to disagre with you Commandant, there is no question that drain is less played now than it used to be. Whether or not drain is still a good play or seeing a resurgence, it has definitely become much less common as a 4 of than it was for most of the last decade.  The fact that the three decks you mentioned only had 9 between them demonstrates that.  In 2007 3 blue decks would run 12 drains.  Drain used to be one of the top 10 played cards in vintage and it just isn't right now.

To a great degree the 'missing' copies of Drain are now Spell Pierce.  If three blue decks in 2007 contained 12 copies of Mana Drain, three blue decks now may contain anywhere from 10-15 copies of Mana Drain and Spell Pierce combined.

Getting a large Mind Twist Drained may be less of a worry now, but getting it Pierced is still a huge tempo-loss, and really no less of a problem.

As far as countermagic is concerned, I think the absence that most benefits Mind Twist is how little play Misdirection is seeing.  Not that Mis-d was ever more than a two-of, but with the current metagame dominance of Workshops Mis-d has almost completely disappeared.

[Eastman]

Have to disagre with you Commandant, there is no question that drain is less played now than it used to be. Whether or not drain is still a good play or seeing a resurgence, it has definitely become much less common as a 4 of than it was for most of the last decade.  The fact that the three decks you mentioned only had 9 between them demonstrates that.  In 2007 3 blue decks would run 12 drains.  Drain used to be one of the top 10 played cards in vintage and it just isn't right now.

To a great degree the 'missing' copies of Drain are now Spell Pierce.  If three blue decks in 2007 contained 12 copies of Mana Drain, three blue decks now may contain anywhere from 10-15 copies of Mana Drain and Spell Pierce combined.

Getting a large Mind Twist Drained may be less of a worry now, but getting it Pierced is still a huge tempo-loss, and really no less of a problem.

As far as countermagic is concerned, I think the absence that most benefits Mind Twist is how little play Misdirection is seeing.  Not that Mis-d was ever more than a two-of, but with the current metagame dominance of Workshops Mis-d has almost completely disappeared.

No doubt that the drains have been replaced with pierces.  I remember well when drain first fell below pierce in the card pool, something discussed at length in this thread.

And I agree that countermagic is still a problem for mind twist.  I wasn't commenting on the strength of mind twist, just trying to make clear that drains are played more rarely than they used to be. 

The prevalence of drains aside, I have my doubts about 4X mind twist.  It is just such a poor late game top-deck, and who ever wants two in their hand?  I can see an argument to start putting one into lists as a tutor target, which is something that used to be done with a lot of success.

One thought about this deck, have you thought about running a skeletal scrying as an additional means of leveraging the additional mana it generates into card advantage?  Scrying compares pretty favorably with twist in a lot of situations I think. 

[Daenyth]

I've played with 1x Twist in my Keeper list, and it's nice as a tutor target, but it's not something that I'd want in such high numbers. I can't see ever going higher than 2, and then only against certain decks. I'd want Duress/Seize first.

[beder]

I've played with 1x Twist in my Keeper list, and it's nice as a tutor target, but it's not something that I'd want in such high numbers. I can't see ever going higher than 2, and then only against certain decks. I'd want Duress/Seize first.

In a keeper list, this is perfectly logical, cause as you said, this is a tutor target.
In this list, it replaces duress/seize as disruption.

As far as countermagic is concerned, I think the absence that most benefits Mind Twist is how little play Misdirection is seeing.  Not that Mis-d was ever more than a two-of, but with the current metagame dominance of Workshops Mis-d has almost completely disappeared.

100% right about misdirection. This is one change that I forgot to highlight in my original post, another change which is really important when it comes to making twist interesting today.

The prevalence of drains aside, I have my doubts about 4X mind twist.  It is just such a poor late game top-deck, and who ever wants two in their hand?  I can see an argument to start putting one into lists as a tutor target, which is something that used to be done with a lot of success.

Having 2 in hand would definitely be pretty bad if the primary objective was to play mind twist for a full discard of opponent's hand in once. Here, I play it aggressively, not waiting for the maximum mana. If I can play a twist for 2 cards turn 2, I do it. I do not wait for more. And if I have a second twist in hand, I will play a twist for 3 next turn.
This usage makes mind twist pretty flexible, from small disruption/card advantage to game winning spell, depending on the mana you want/can invest in it.  

When it comes to the "late game issue", for this build this is not as true as in other decks. The bounce package (4 Jace +  2 Repeal +  Rebuild) increases its usage late game. I frequently use the bounce ability of jace to get rid of a threatening creature and then twist the whole hand. Even if opponent only has the bounced creature in hand, it is sometimes the right play.

One thought about this deck, have you thought about running a skeletal scrying as an additional means of leveraging the additional mana it generates into card advantage?  Scrying compares pretty favorably with twist in a lot of situations I think.  

Righ, Skeletal Scyring may be compared to Mind Twist in a sense. Except that using Skeletal - in place of twist for instance-  would require to have some more "disuptions spells" to draw in, in this build. Here, I already use gush and jace as draw engine, so Mind twist is my regular disruption (which has the additionnal benefit of providing card advantage at the same time).
Then, there is also a tempo difference. Skeletal makes you wait for a sufficent number of cards in yard when Mind Twist just needs mana. This makes a huge difference in this build, especially because you want to play mind twist as soon as you can, for instance turn 2 for 2 cards.

[beder]

After some more testings during the last weeks, I made some significant changes based on the following observations : Gush is nice, really, but with today's meta, I feel like its place is in a build that is "combo oriented". Even with cobra, gushing is really painfull against shop. Then, I feel like gush does not work so well with all those Jaces... In the end, I decided to remove them.

So I replaced them with the other "preferred draw engine" => dark conf. To go with this choice, I moved to a more "Control oriented" build, adding the spellpierce that are necessary in first turns.

I also reinforced the mana base in order to be able to get a better matchup against shop, where mind twist doesn't shine.

In the end, the build seems more solid, still able to benefit from Cobra's ability to power out big spells and from Mind Twist to hurt a significant part of the metagame.

So here is the latest evolution of this build :

// Lands  (x16)
    3 Polluted Delta
    3 Misty Rainforest
    1 Flooded Strand
    3 Underground Sea
    2 Tropical Island
    2 Island
    1 Swamp
    1 Tolarian Academy

// Creatures
    4 Dark Confidant
    3 Lotus Cobra
    1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind

// Spells
    1 Black Lotus
    1 Mox Emerald
    1 Mox Jet
    1 Mox Sapphire
    1 Mox Ruby
    1 Mox Pearl
    1 Mana Crypt
    1 Sol Ring

    1 Sensei's Divining Top
    1 Voltaic Key
    1 Time Vault

    4 Force of Will
    3 Spell Pierce
    3 Mind Twist

    2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
    1 Tezzeret the seeker

    1 Ancestral Recall
    1 Brainstorm
    1 Mystical Tutor
    1 Ponder
    1 Preordain
    1 Hurkyl's Recall
    1 Time Walk
    1 Tinker
    1 Gifts Ungiven
    1 Vampiric Tutor
    1 Demonic Tutor
    1 Yawgmoth's Will

Remark : The choice of Sphynx can clearly be discussed. This may be the new colossus. But with this "Control oriented" build - mind twist being a huge componant of this strategy - the Lifelink ability of Sphynx is really significant (dark conf hurts). Then, the fact that Sphynx is blue is also important for this deck that has quite a "low number" of blue cards for a control oriented build (only 20 blue cards with sphynx).

Remark 2 : the new jace may perhaps find a room in this build... I could try a configuration with one new Jace.

Remark 3 : I chose not to play merchant scroll. Not sure this is the right choice, but I felt like apart from Ancestral, there isn't so many targets for it... But if I can find a room for it, it can be added.

[2nd_lawl]

I feel Like Card Advantage for the sake of card advantage is pretty terrible in vintage.  Most times you only really care about one or 2 cards in your opponent's hand.   The only thing mind twist does that targeted discard cards dont do better is occasionally lucksack you into free wins by making them discard all their mana sources.

[Daenyth]

I think a split of 2 duress/seize, 1 twist would be better if you're going to run that many discard effects.

[beder]

I feel Like Card Advantage for the sake of card advantage is pretty terrible in vintage.  Most times you only really care about one or 2 cards in your opponent's hand.   The only thing mind twist does that targeted discard cards dont do better is occasionally lucksack you into free wins by making them discard all their mana sources.

I agree with that assertion "card advantage for advantage" is terrible.
But I disagree with it being applied to Mind Twist.

I copy/paste one explanation I wrote about it in another thread, trying to explain why I like it.

"Mind Twist is at the same time card advantage and disruption.
It is excellent in most of the matchup (except shop). This is an aggressive play which is versatile : depending on the game state, it can be used for a mid size twist or a big one. The value of the option is significant imo.
Then, having access to MindTwist turn 2-4 is not about pure card advantage. This is also about card quality. The cards which you are going to discard mid game with Mind Twist are often big bombs, which have not been played early game - because of mana - and so the quality of what is discarded is often better than the quality of what you could have drawn"

Then I also disagree with the following sentence "Most times you only really care about one or 2 cards in your opponent's hand".
This sentence could be true if you are the aggressor. In that case, you only care about 1 or 2 cards in your opponent's hand, which can :
- either prevent you from winning,
- or enables opponent to win before you.
If you play a build which is more controllish, then you may definitely care about more cards and may be very happy with a bigger discard effect, especially if you have a continuous way to refill your hand faster than opponent.

Example :
- if I play TPS, i don't care if opponent has in hand Jace, Dark Conf or even tinker. I just care about extremely boken (ancestral for instance), disruption (fow, spellpierce, duress effect for instance) or some combo which could lead opponent to a faster win than my turn 2-5 win (a vault key in blue, ad nauseam in Nauseam spell, an oath if I can't combo in the very next turn, ...).
- if I play a control oriented deck, i care about a lot more cards in opponent's hand. A dark confidant can clearly be a card I am worry about, a Jace also, even some mana accelerator sometimes.

[nineisnoone]

I like Pierce. Pierce tightens up the early game, while Mind Twist is stronger in the mid-game.  Gush didn't really make sense to me since, you are spending a lot of deck space just to establish relative card advantage. 

Confidant... I am not so sure about.  It's just too slow.  Spending the resources to Twist them with this as your draw engine just seems like taking the extremely long view of the game. I would want to be able to tighten control on them in combination with Twist, but Confidant is a bit too loose and gives them time to recover.  I'm not sure what I would replace it with though. 

I am not intimately familiar with Remora, but that seems like it might be a good card as well.  It drops early either draws you cards or keeps their hand loaded for a Twist.  Seems like it has good synergy with Cobra as well (once they both hit the board at least).

I'm not big on Scroll either (I think). 

I'm also not sure Ponder and Preordain are correct here.  They aren't bad really, but I think the slots are fairly open.

I still kind of question Twist.  The less the deck is a dedicated Twist deck the less it makes sense to play it at all.  You could play Persecute at 4 mana, call blue, and probably hit 2 blue cards.  To me that is better than, Twisting for 3 and hitting 3 random cards.  Assuming you still want to go the discard route.