Full Mind Twist

[Malhavoc]

With all the people getting mad for all the gush splashing around, seems like few have really noticed the possibility to play a full set of Mind Twist now.

Surely, the card has good and bad sides, let's take a quick look at it:

- with B available, you can't do anything, while you could normally duress
- with 1B available, duress remains better, unless you are so lucky to discard mono lands
- with 2B available, it a bit worse than Hymn to Tourach, double black aside
- from 3B up it's definitely becoming hot

In a metagame getting faster and faster, such things does not seem too much good really, unless you build a sort of tempo deck able to slow things down a bit and give good sinergies with Twist.

So fare I've come out with this list:



// Lands 15 + 9
    4  Polluted Delta
    2  Flooded Strand
    3  Underground Sea
    2  Volcanic Island
    2  Island
    1  Swamp
    1  Tolarian Academy

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

// Creaturs 4
    4  Dark Confidant

// Draw 5
    1  Ancestral Recall
    4  Brainstorm

//Protection 12
    4  Mana Drain
    4  Force of Will
    4  Remand

// Discard 4
    4  Mind Twist

// Bounce 5
    1  Rebuild
    4  Repeal

// Tutors 2
    1  Demonic Tutor
    1  Mystical Tutor

// Broken 2
    1  Time Walk
    1  Yawgmoth's Will

// Win 2
    1  Empty the Warrens
    1  Tendrils of Agony

SB: 4  Leyline of the Void
SB: 3  Duress
SB: 3  Pyroblast
SB: 3  Rack and Ruin
SB: 1  Empty the Warrens
SB: 1  Massacre



Cards like Repeal and Remand have the ability to slow down the game, making drain and powerful fat Twists get active.

Of course Twist is clearly good with the full acceleration, drain, and Remand/Repeal. These two in particular with the help of Twist becomoe real removers for permanents and spells.

The deck isn't easy to hate since it's not particularly vulnerable to grave hate or nasty permanents like chalice of the void (it could even opt to run some chalices in side, but duress and Pyro should be better). So far the main problem has been a fast Tinker colossus, but apart from that the deck seems to be quite able to play his game with nice mathcups.

The draw engine isn't stellar, but you have to count Twist almost as a inverse draw engine, stealing card advantage from your opponent. However, if you really want more draw power, a couple of skeletal scryings shoud be the best choice.

If I come up with new impressions this weekend I'll let you know.. in the meantime, any suggestion is well appreciated, as always.

[BeatDominator]

I foresee a fundamental flaw with the idea of sinking mana into a mind twist second or third turn when you could just sink mana into other outlets and just win with tendrils combo. 

Given a Mana drain on something with cc  (which isn't uncommon):

Wouldn't you rather cunning wish with or intuition? or tap  for FoF?

i guess you could twist for 2.   Just seems rather against the overall flow of the deck you have it in.

And isn't confidant a little slow for what you're trying to do?

[Sarah Angel]

Just seems to me like you've got to have dark rituals and mana vault in here.  You really need to give yourself every chance of getting a big first or second turn twist, otherwise what's the point of having it in there.

[zulander]

I'd add in a tinker yourself as an extra win condition. You are running a full set of moxen, sol/crypt so you'd be able to easily accommodate it.

[Purple Hat]

if you sink all your mana into Twist don't you just open yourself up to get misdirected for the loss?  also doesn't ichroid just own your face?  post board, even with the leylines, you're still playing like 12 dead cards minimum against them and they have all the time in the world to find answers because you don't really have a clock.  you could theoretically tendrils/empty them, since you don't have to drop your mana early for twist, but it seems like that plan is gonna be rough on this deck since it essentially plays the gifts storm shell without the power of gifts to set up the win.  that's just my quick hit on this deck.  it could totally be wrong and I wouldn't be surprised at all.

[Methuselahn]

Nobody is playing or winning with Ichorid though.  But you're right.



This is an interesting Yawgmoth's Will deck.

I like the deck but I wonder how effective it is at setting up Will with Mind Twist.   Twist well net you card advantage, yes, but it doesn't chain into more draw, which seems like the biggest drawback to me.

I'm glad to see that you're trying Mind Twist with counters and bounce rather than sui/ritual shell.  It seems like it has a better home there.

[wette]

why no mana vault? it looks hot getting 5 mana 2nd turn for twist.

[zeus-online]

Duress would probably be good, to clear the way for mind twist. I really don't like the storm cards in this deck..and i think the confidants should go for some instant card-drawers instead...
But i must agree with purplehat, why not just win with ToA instead?
The only advantage i see is that your plan dosn't involve playing 9+ spells in a single turn....But since you run Storm kill cards you're going to do that sooner or later anyways, which means that you still have to get rid of hate cards such as spheres.

/Zeus

[Grand Inquisitor]

I'm sorry, but this is the top forum on this site, and this deck is no where near good enough to be discussed here.  Some of the reasons for this have been brought up previously, but I'll put them all together for you:

1) The graveyard is one of the most common resource pools in this format.  Putting cards there is often counterproductive.
2) Misdirections are being played in great numbers.  Additionally, you don't have duress or misd's of your own to protect yourself against them.
3) The mana intensity of the card is high given the effect of the card, which is...
4) Random effects tend to be poor in T1
5) Given that this basically falls into the mana drain archetype, there are much better things to spend your mana on.
6)

The draw engine isn't stellar, but you have to count Twist almost as a inverse draw engine

This type of tactical thinking lost credibility a long time ago.  In t1, keeping your opponent from winning isn't good enough unless your playing workshops.  You have no proactive hate to follow up mind twist,  making you completely vulnerable to topdecks... in a format full of great topdecks.


*Caveat ~ I didn't test this.  There's a possibility I could be completely off base, and that the interesting synergies of remand and repeal actually make mind twist playable in a framework like this.  However, I highly doubt it, and from what I understand, the onus of proof for new decks is on the creator, not the community.  You haven't given us any real testing results or specific arguments for why this should be taken seriously.

Again, sorry to hammer on this, but I think TMD is looking for better.

[Malhavoc]

@grand inquisitor: yes, I should have probably posted this in the Improvement forum after all, so @moderators: feel free to move it there.

@everyone: In order to explain some of my choices: this is in the end an attempt at seeing how good a full set of Mind Twist is. Ages have passed since it was legal to run as a four of, and what I'm trying now is finding a shell able to get the better out of a full set of Mind Twists. In the end, I could just end up seeing that Mind Twist simply isn't so good in T1 anymore, proving that R&D was right removing it from the restricted list. I'm not here to advocate this as a tier1 deck, just asking suggestion to try and use Mind Twist as better as possible.

So, in the end, yes, this is more viable for the improvement forum.

[The Atog Lord]

I'm not going to move this to the improvement forum, because you're doing several interesting things with your build. Mindtwist has been a much-feared card for the majority of Magic's history, and as has been said before this build seems an improvement over the Suicide Black application of the card. Repeal and Remand are both synergistic with the card. While the discussion of a Mindtwist deck may in the end prove that Mindtwist is just not good enough to compete, it is an interesting enough prospect that I'll leave it here.

The matter of Misdirection could, I think, be to some degree countered by Red Elemental Blasts. Throwing a blind Mind Twist is a scary prospect against a number of decks. Duress, Misdirection, Force of Will, and REB can all mitigate that spell. However, Duress isn't synergistic with the discard aspect of your deck, and Force of Will is already included. Aside from the idea of Maindecking Misdirection, you do already have Remand. Remand is a great spell to use on your own spells, such as Mindtwist. If you Twist and the opponent Misdirects, you can return your own spell to your hand to keep yourself where you started and put your opponet down two cards.

[pyr0ma5ta]

I'm pretty sure you never want to cast Mind twist for anything less than tap-out, because you're 1) not getting full mileage, and 2) giving a dead tell.  Mind twist for 2 with U1 up is unimpressive. 

And without a strong tutor engine I question your ability to actually finish a game, assuming you come up with your Twists and get them to resolve.  The lack of Rituals all but insures that you can't get there with your storm cards.

[zeus-online]

Maybe something like this:

Black Bombs:
Mana: (25)
4 Underground sea
4 Polluted delta
2 Flooded strand (Feel Free to cut 1 for an additional Island)
1 Swamp
2 Island
1 LoA (Might not be good enough, with the weak draw engine)
1 Tolarian academy
7 Solomoxen
1 Lotus petal
1 Mana crypt
1 Mana vault

Disruption: (12)
4 Force of will
4 Mana drain
4 Duress

Draw/Search: (9)
4 Brainstorm
1 Ancestral recall
1 Fact or fiction
1 Skeletal scrying (1-2 more would probably be good)
1 Mystical tutor
1 Demonic tutor

Bombs: (7)
1 Yawgmoth's will
1 Time walk
1 Tinker
4 Mind twist

Utility: (5)
2 Cunning wish
3 Repeal

Win: (2)
1 Platinum angel
1 Sundering titan/DSC - Depends on meta, titan would probably just end everything after a twist...leaving your opponent with nothing.

This allows the deck to go, land, duress...land with drain up, turn 3 twist for everything....Needs more card-draw to work, i'm pretty sure straight UB is enough with no splash colours...The fish match-up is probably horrible though, and obviously ichorid..Although tinker -> platz might steal a game or two.

/Zeus

[ErkBek]

The storm kill just doesn't seem right in here. Why not cut Warrens, Tendrils, 1 Repeal, and Will to run 4 Dimir Cutpurse? Or how about a Tinker -> XXXXX kill?

I also think that this deck needs to be running 4 Duress because Duress is amazing at the moment.

[Implacable]

Everyone here agrees that Mind Twist is a very powerful card indeed.  However, should a deck really be built around it?  I'm not sure that it's strong enough and resilient enough to hate (read: Misdirection) to be the basis for a deck in this format.  That being said, there are some compelling potential uses for Mind Twist.  Back in March, I was running a Probasco-based Repeal Gifts list that ran Mind Twist as a 1-of.  It was awesome.  I won many games on the back of a Mind Twist backed up with either Duress or a pitch counter.  Can a deck like this still compete in today's metagame?  So long as cheap disruption and game-ending bombs haven't gone out of style, I think so:

6/20 Bomb.dec

4 Street Wraith

1 Empty the Warrens
1 Tendrils of Agony

4 Duress
4 Force of Will
2 Mind Twist
2 Misdirection
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Pyroblast
1 Repeal
1 Red Elemental Blast

4 Brainstorm
3 Merchant Scroll
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Gifts Ungiven
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Time Walk
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Will

1 Black Lotus
1 Dark Ritual
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring

4 Polluted Delta
3 Underground Sea
2 Island
2 Volcanic Island
1 Flooded Strand
1 Tolarian Academy

[zeus-online]

Maybe night's whisper should be used? I'm pretty sure its better then confidant, and i'm also fairly sure that tinker/somethingverymeanandbrown is the best win condition. Land, mox, NW is a pretty good play for a drain deck, and you really DO need card-draw for the deck to work.

/Zeus

[DuKeLiO]

I'm also testing a 4-Twist deck of my own. This is my list:

4 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will
2 Misdirection
2 Nix//Disrupt
4 Brainstorm
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Tinker
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Echoing Truth

4 Mind Twist
4 Dark Confidant
1 Imperial Seal
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Will

1 Platinum Angel

1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Vault
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
1 Lotus Petal
5 Moxes
1 Strip Mine
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Tolarian Academy
2 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
3 Island
4 Underground Sea

I have some doubtly slots:
I'm not sure about what is better in the Nix vs. Disrupt slots. Both are very effective protecting my Mind Twists against all kind of 0 casting costs counters, both are also good against all the Ichorid spells and against all the Gush.dec. Disrupt is totally unuseful against MWS.dec and with Nix I can at least counter some jewelry or Chalices for 0.
LoA is a pretty good card on any kind of control mirror, but with only Dark Confidant as draw engine I will never recover the LoA ability if I'm forced to go under five cards.
I believe that the only way to go with this deck against Ichorid is going for a fast tinker-platinum. Platinum is also good in the non-Tyrant Oath matchup and I believe it is also better than colossus against combo, specially in a 12 counterspells+4Mind Twists deck.
The high tutor count it is there beacuse the Tinker->platinum issue. Maybe the Imperial can be drop for a Sundering Titan or so, and have another tinker target, but I'm not very happy with it beacuse all the Gushes around.
Also, I'm thinking about splashing a third color, maybe red to have a better sideboard against artifact-decks, that it is the other hard matchup of this kind of decks.
I believe that I must use the full artifact acceleration to go for an earliest Mind Twist and the oponent has not the time to play some painful permanents.
I also tested a draw engine with a mix of thist for Knoledge and Skeleteal Scrying and it proves to tb awful. I have a conflict to spend my mana on draw cards with these spells with twist my opponent. I feel the land-mox, bob; land and maybe some acceleration more, mind twist, or sitting on my counters is the way to go with this deck.

[Mon, Goblin Chief]

Some thoughts:I really wonder why people don't want to run Duress alongside Mind Twist. Everybody argues that it's useless with Mind Twist taking care of the opponents hand. To me it rather seems like Duress is the perfect set-up card for next turn Mind Twist. It reduces their handsize already so you'll be able to dump there whole hand earlier in the game and solves the MisD-issue quite well. To me, Mind Twist + mana is a combo you want to force through. We know how good Duress is for doing that (not to mention how good Duress is in todays metagame anyway).
Confidant seems like the right carddraw effect for the deck, because of the mentioned cheap manacost, it's synergie with Mind Twist (destroying their hand should make the game go somewhat longer ) and providing some basic protection vs having your Twist aimed back at you. It still sucks, but at least you recover twice as fast.
Dimir Cutpurse might be interesting as it affects the game similar to Bob and is the perfect way to completely lock the opponent out for good once Mind Twist has actually resolved - a single counter is pretty much GG.

[BeatDominator]

While yes I admit that Mind Twist can be a potential bomb if dropped within the first couple of turns for more than 2 cards, I wonder about its use in a day and age when Miss-d's run rampant.

With the coming increase in GAT decks, Fish-esque decks and other decks that run pitch counters, I'm thinking the game destroying potential of mind twist isn't worth the risk.  Wouldn't you be better off running duress and 4 other cards that are a must counter threat rather than leaving yourself open to having your own hand destroyed?

[wette]

This is what played this weekend in a 159 players tournament in madrid, reaching top 10 in the final standings after 8 rounds:

1 swamp
3 island
5 fetch
3 underground
2 volcanic
1 library
1 tolarian
8 solomoxencrypt

4 fow
4 drain
4 duress
4 brainstorm
4 confidant
3 mind twist
3 repeal
1 ancestral
1 walk
1 yawgmoth's will
1 tinker
1 platinum
1 vampiric
1 demonic
1 mystical
1 rebuild
1 Empty the Warrens

side:

2 rack and ruin
3 black knight
2 energy flux
2 pyro
1 REB
1 darkblast
4 Leyline of the void


I played against 1 flash 2 TPS 3 MUD 1 5c stax and 1 tog decks... losing against 2 MUD. I felt like combo and control matches are quite favorable, specially combo where my opponents didn't have the cance to do nothing... I lost only one match due to mulligan to 5 against tog and one of the TPS.

I think i could have won at least one of the MUD pairings I lost if I'd mulliganed properly. Twists shined all the day... I finally decided to play only 3 to add vampiric because I felt i had to play duress vs Misdis and flash and the 4th twist was overkill...

here you have a report for those who can read spanish: http://www.perracomics.com/perrera/viewtopic.php?p=55632#55632


The deck is very controlish... maybe twist is just even not needed but it brakes the control/combo match, and is great against MUD even played for 2 cause they don't have welder... against 5c stax its not very broken if you're not playing it in your first turn on the play...

I just felt that sometimes you twist your oponent and you don't have confidant you start a topdecking war... i don't know if the draw engine should change or what ... ideas?

[Mon, Goblin Chief]

Nice record for a new deck. I do only get parts of your report (nope, I don't speak Spanish), but it looked like Confidant was a powerhouse all day (as well as your main wincondition...). Empty on the other hand seems to have only gotten played in a game already locked up by double E.Flux. Should this maybe become something else?
The deck seems to play a lot like the really old the deck where you would just dance till one player got Mind Twisted an than would be drawn into the card-advantage lock to get crushed by Disrupting Scepter + Jayemdae Tome. Oh, and then get killed by whatever, kind of incidentely.
The perfect thing would be to include the second part of the card-advantage lock from old The Deck (Disrupting Scepter) to turn the situation into a kind of hardlock once you have even a single counter in hand. Mind Twist was Keeper's game-ending bomb before Yawgmoth's Will got printed. This deck might finally be able to use Mind Twist in exactly the same way again, simply due to the fact that it has access to it early enough again to impact modern vintage games. This is so fun...
You also mentioned that the draw-engine might be a bit off and a lot of matches turn into topdecking wars. With Bob out topdecking wars should be great for you, more Bobs would probably be nice, or something as close to Bob as you can find. I really think Dimir Cutpurse might fit the bill. It's a bit harder to drop than Bob but it enables the Scepter-style lockdown in addition to playing Ophidian. Oh yeah, plus more incidental kills. I might want to try replacing the Empty and possibly a repeal with Cutpurses.

[Petro_Nor]

Hi to all, I'm new in this forum, I have read it a litle before but because I'm not so confortable with my english I hadn't write first. I will try it first time .
I have just this weck strat testing a timetwist based deck after seening DukeLio's list in elsantuario (an spanish Vintage forum) and wette's results in UAL P9 at madrid. And I like this list most of them for the control play and the use of manadrain and the Confidants. My meta is know very rich but usually there are 5-6 MWS decks, some TPS combo decks, fish variants, bomberman,Tyrant oath and 1-2 angel oath and 3 Ichorid (25-35 players tournament) and this saturday I spect 3-4 flash hulk or rector decks. Because the MWS decks I am thinking that 2 colour mana base could be better, we lose some good cards like EtW and rack and ruin side, but we win a more stable mana base. this is the list I have build:

Mana Sources 24

2 Swamp
3Island
3 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded strand
3 Underground Sea
1Tolarian academy
1 Library Of Alexandria
9 Solopemoxencrypt

Creatures 7
4 Dark confidant
2 Dimir Cutpurse
1 Platinum Angel

Disruption 15
4Force of Will
4 Manadrain
4 Duress
3 Mind Twist

Draw, bussines and answers 14
4 Brainstorm
1 Ancestrall Recall
1Time walk
2 Repeal
1 Rebuil
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Tinker

Sideboard (not tested)
4 Leyline of the Void
2-3 Extirpate
2-3 Nix/disrupt/SpellSnare
2 Energy Flux
1 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Trickbind
2-3 Black Knight (wettes tech against Fish )

Somethings I am nt totatally sure of including are the dimir, they are great after a twist , and are pitchable for force, but sometimes I think taht It will be better 2 more disruption or bounce cards (maybe Echoining Truth or the third repeal. I have think about the 2 Merchant Scroll inclusion, but not sure) other black spells like skeletal scriing are not totally possible because of Force of will pitching. I have only 2 days testing time and I will like earing ideas about it.

Other part is the side. 2 more disruptiong cards for Combo and control much up, 4 leyline for flash and Ichorid, the 2 extirpate (i was thinking about  driving they main for their sinergy with duress and twsit but I think that there is no more place for black cards). the trickbind I'm not so sure that is totally neccesary, we are armed agaisnt combo main very hard. And for MWS decks 2 flux and a hurkyl or a rebuid (not sure becouse of chalice of 2). The Black knight I think that is great tech against fish(UW) because massacre dont run very well with confidants. I will like some deas too about this Side.

So thanks for your answers, and sorry for my bad english

[MirariKnight]

I like the idea of the last deck, and minor things aside I'll just comment on my major question. How do you win? If they have one creature, thats it. One tinker is kinda eh on the reliability. I'm saying this with experience from SS running a similar creature base, but you run less. However, the shell you have seems like it could work with a Storm kill (Tendrils?) without too much modification. I'm not suggesting go for combo but just be control with a combo finish.

[Petro_Nor]

I have only test in a few matches agaist combo and MUD, and your better win condition is the tinker platinum or hard casted platinum (is very easy to play 7 manas for platinum). agaist not fish decks if you play dimir you will win too very easy, and I think that fish will be the worst match. If you control the mach and cast a confidant with the platinum will be enough for winning and the overdraw of confidant  (they normally don't play flying creatures, now there are the avens but you are supposed to be controlling and they will be countered, if they are in play you have the bouncers). Now a days there are not to much wipe away so this platinum will be our first win condition. I was thinking about including tendrils, but you will need too a dark ritual for asure the 2 black mana. i think that this controlling dek is better focused to only one win plan (or 2 if we can go on with dimirs).

[MaxxMatt]

Dimirs and MIndtwists concurr, functionally speaking, to the same role.

Without needing broken examples, just to simplify, after a first turn Duress or BS, a second turn Drain or Confidant, you have both Mindtwist and Dimirs that try to do their best during your 3rd, 4th turn.

On the other hands, they both are your plague against SoR and Wires, because they force you to play during mainphases, leaving your game plan completely clear for anyone and difficult to setup because of SoR and Wires.
The bad news from Dimirs are: while MIndtwist will kick opponents with some effect soon after his resolution, Dimirs are going to wait at least one turn to do something.

In a metagame filled with quick threats, quick combo and strong and solid denial deck, you are going to tap you out during your mainphase as few times as possible.
When you are going to tap you out, is in order to produce STRONG and game breaking effects and nothing more.

This is the list that I proposed and tested with my teammates.
It is really strong, streamlined and seems a bridge among the ones written and played until now.
This deck have to play the control role as frequently as he can.
Don't tap you out, slow down games and optimize threats.
Your protections package is enough to protect Platz from anything else and you are going to win with Confidants frequently enough to use Platz almost for extreme defences from aggro, aggrocontrol and speedy combo decks.

I'll link the discussion for the ones who know Italian

This is the list.



(20) - Protections
4 Force of Will
3/4 Mana Drain
3 Remand
3 Duress
3 Mind Twist
3 Repeal
0/1 Misdirection

(9) - Drawers
4 Brainstorm
3 Dark COnfidant
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk

(5) - Tutors
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Tinker
1 Cunning Wish

(2) - Winner
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Platinum Angel

(24) - Mana
4 Polluted Delta
3 Island
3 Undeground Sea
2 Flooded Strand
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Stripmine
1 Swamp
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt

(15) - Sideboard
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Crucible of the World
1 Sundering Titan
1 Skeletal Scrying
1 Chain of Vapors
1 Echoing Decay
1 Rebuild
1 Rushing River
1 Echoing Truth
1 Darkblast
1 Hurkyll's Recall
1 Duress


Enjoy!.
MaxxMatt