Discard effects in the current meta

[serracollector]

It has just recently been brought to my attention that Mind Twist was unrestricted.  This came even more as a surprise to me since, well, no one uses even a singelton of it anymore, except maybe a Keeper-esque "the deck" or whatnot, and I was wondering why not?

Why couldn't a solitary discard idea based on 4 mind twists, 4 rits, 4 cabal rits, 5 moxen, vault, ring, crypt, loti etc etc work?

We got leyline to negate y will.
We got scepter of fugue to lock them after a twist. Cheap and efficient.
We got null rod and chalice to stop moxen.
Kill choices are abundant from there, the question is more about the shell

8 rits, power mana artifacts, and 4 mind twist, why is it not used?

[Cyberpunker]

My meta has a lot of very innovative decks. There is one guy who has been playing Suicide Black for every Vintage tournament he attends and has actually garnered some success too. He actually was the one who helped us win the Team Vintage tournament, going 4-0.

His wins involve early discard effects like Duress and then the Hymn to Tourach. Hymn to Tourach has to hit the important spells though, like Oath. Then Confidant comes out and beats. He has Diabolic Edicts and Powder Kegs and Null Rods to deal with the meta.

Here is his list that he ran 5 months ago.

4 Phyrexian Negator
4 Dark Confidant
4 Nantuko Shade
3 Null Rod
4 Thoughtseize
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Powder Keg
1 Diabolic Edict
4 Dark Ritual
1 Mind Twist
1 Necropotence
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric tutor
3 Hymn to Tourach
3 Darkblast
2 Extirpate
1 Tendrils of Agony

1 Lotus Petal
1 Mox Jet
1 Black Lotus
3 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
14 Swamp

4 Planar Void
3 Tormod's Crypt
1 Extirpate
1 Pithing Needle
2 Diabolic Edict
1 Darkblast
2 Powder Keg
1 Cabal Therapy

[Delha]

Consider that you're facing lists with 4xFoW, and probably 3xPierce. Commiting half your hand to a single spell that doesn't have storm becomes a scary proposition when you've got to worry about running it into counters. This goes double once they get Drain mana up, since a big Twist is a fat target.

Also note when you're burning Rits, the +CA is severely impacted. Rit-Rit-Twist takes 3 cards from you and 4 from them. Accelerating into Twist is a high-risk-high-reward situation, and when you start shaving down the payout, that risk becomes increasingly worrisome. Nobody would want to play the lotto if the jackpot was $1000.

Lastly, Misdirection is a bitch. If a deck built around 4x Twist gets big, I promise you that people will start including MD in theirs again.

[TheBrassMan]

Obviously Twist (like all cards) is contextual, but in my experiences I've been disappointed with it over and over.  It serves a function, but the proportional amount of times I've drawn it and thought "I wish this was a Duress" have been staggering.  Losing Brainstorm made discard in general a little better, but planeswalkers on the rise have made it worse, Jace in particular.  While Misdirection is underplayed, it makes Mind Twist a huge liability.  Just the possibility of MisD means you cant fire-and-forget a Twist, and if you need to back up your Twist with a Duress or Force, it kind of defeats the purpose of Twist in the first place/you might as well just run a bigger threat there.