Haven't seen anyone talk about this, but memory jar is insanely powerful with Tergrid, as you basically get any permanents your opponents discard when everyone is forced to discard their hands
Back in the day, people would tinker into memory jar turn 1 or 2. Drop dark rituals, lotus petals, and then yawgmoth's will to play it all again. Only needed 1 megrim (now liliana's caress) with 2 jars to kill.
The funny thing about Mana Crypt is that sometimes the laughably nothing "Downside" is actually just upside in certain decks that are either trying to self-burn or trying to flip coins. Who thought Mana Crypt was a balanced card 🤣
I played EDH once, where one opponent played mana crypt, and died to it after failing every flip until it dealt lethal. It was sad, that the other 3 players just decided not to interfere with his board until he won a flip. But it never came to be.
Hymn to Tourach with Mind Twist and Animate Dead. Get your dark rituals and steal opponent creatures. In the old days, enchantments were hard to get rid of.
Haha Mind Twist is the most broken card? It doesn't do anything to actually win games. You MT dredge and you're furthering their plans. Ancestral is much more powerful.
Ah yes turn 3 discard: the terror of the Legacy format. The control decks will counter, the aggro decks will laugh and punch you for game, and the combo decks will have already killed you.
I think you're getting caught up on using temporary mana for Mind Twist. If you ramp up any sort of permanent mana sources the way Elves do, by turn 3 Mind Twist could leave the opponent topdecking. You mention it can be counterspelled, but there are plenty of 3+ cost cards banned in Legacy despite them all having that same vulnerability.
IMO the real reason its banned in legacy is just because its on the restricted list for Vintage and with the amount of broken mana sources in Vintage its a lot more dangerous in there.
I think the MAIN issue with Mana Drain is that it does the exact same as the spell "Counterspell" for the same cost... but then gets an ADDITIONAL thing on top of that without restricting it in some way (like it can only counter non-creature or single color cards or something) which is bullocks... It powercreeps a card that in general already was already pretty good...
Atraxa is absolutely replacing Griselbrand in Oath/Show and Tell/Reanimator. Atraxa can pitch to both FoW and FoV in Oath decks and Endurance/Grief in the others. Multicolor is actually easier to hardcast than all that black in dual/Mox decks. "Putting into hand" instead of drawing avoids Narset/Hullbreacher/Sheoldred problems. Better keywords on the body helps in races. ETB instead of activated avoids Pithing Needle and can still be blinked. No life cost is super relevant in the lategame. That's a lot of upside for the tradeoff of getting 4-6 cards instead of 7 or 14 as one of these other qualities is likely to be relevant if you're already drawing that many cards.
i feel like mana drain is situationally broken. it's useful but doesn't break things until karn or some thing huge gets played and suddenly you're popping off your own big card if you build for it. it's not always gonna happen and just slighty boosts you ahead in majority of situations.
In 94, when normal constructed had legal Moxen, Mox Pearl was virtually unplayed except in some mono white decks and a few people playing UW control. Many decks were three and four color, and Pearl was virtually unplayed. All of the good white cards had big drawbacks where new Magic players of that time avoided. ie Swords gave the opponent life, Wrath hit your own creatures, etc.
would you rather choose which card you throw away to the graveyard or have the cards selected randomly ? you are undervaluing the potency of the randomness
Mind twist is banned because it can make you discard lands, end of story. Also this is the kind of deck that gets insanely annoying in a world with Uber fast mana.
Necropotence in storm would be like Galvanic Relay, but requires no storm count to pull off and gives you cards every turn. Downside is the life loss and your opponent can Thoughtseize the cards. Could be relevant if they have a very fast clock. But otherwise Necro wins every time. It’s the best topdeck you can have after lots of disruption.
Mana vault is busted in affinity, i know i used to play casually with friends and we allowed everything(but didn't have any power 9's or duals or nothing) I did have tutors, sol ring, mana vault and a tolarian academy. Mana vault was sick and gave some reason to even throw in voltaic key.
Commander players know how broken certain cards are. There’s endless debate within the Commander community about banning Sol Ring and Mana Crypt. Many players feel though that there needs to be another format for these cards outside Vintage.
Oh man if you want to see what Memory Jar can do, take a look at the old Megrim deck, especially if you are going to allow some of that mana ramp. The old Megrim deck would win consistently on turn three and led to the only emergency banning of a card.
If MTG had a movie, would tutors be something like, Wizard1: "Damn.. where did I put that spell to defeat my opponent, Tutor! Fetch for me my X, because I can't find it myself!." Like players are super demented mages who have powerful stuff, they just can't remember where they put it so that having more than however many the planeswalker with most things has messes your brain in that way since planeswalkers can actually choose what to do
Memory jar Is low key busted in certain edh decks. I use it in my mono green landfall deck. Just set up ur library with something like top and just play all the lands
Atraxa is better late game in a race against creature decks. It lifelinks both in attack and defense (and is a blocker too). And draws cards without life cost. Griselbrand can still lose the race, Atraxa can’t. Atraxa can also protect itself in these cases, since it draws you likely force + blue card. You can’t activate Griselbrand or you die. Griselbrand is much stronger early game. And stronger is pure combo, but can be win-more.
Edh players know that the early ramp cards they have (Sol Ring, Mana Vault, etc.) are busted. It’s also a casual singleton 100 card format. Early mana, although strong, is truly busted when you can guarantee some tools to use, which barring your commander, Edh players can never do. In other words, a deck of 100 unique cards isn’t going to break the game as quickly as a deck of 15 unique cards.
As some one who only plays comander and has all these cards I can say of course I know there broken that’s why I play comander so more people can watch my solitaire in awe
if we're listing the moxes as pokemon games it's, either Emerald at the top, then Sapphire, Ruby, Pearl, jet (since it's not real), or if Jet is Pokemon Black, than it's Emerald, Jet, Sapphire, Ruby, Pearl
Personally in favor of the Mind Twist ban, but making arguments in the defense of banned cards like that should happen more often. A lot of older banned cards aren't as bad as they used to be nowadays.
I am surprised emerakul was unbanned. I mean I love it, it was always my favorite long term fight build. but man, if that card shows up. it's a pure nightmare to attempt to fight.
New Atraxa is so hot right now. Pitches to Force of Will/Neg. Even Elementals play at least 1 to pitch to one of the Evoke Elementals. Went from like $8 to $25 almost overnight
Idk why this just popped in my mind, but I remember the livestreams back in the day pre-pandemic (I think) when they changed cmc to mama value. I remember you (and me) saying we would probably just keep saying cmc. But now “mana value” is the norm lol. Just funny to think about
Mox Sapphire, Mox Ruby, Mox Jet, Mox Pearl, Mox Emerald in that order. Just swap Jet and Ruby around. Black already has some accel but can use it more effectively then white can pearl. Green has way too much accel to begin with. In red green burn you need two green 1 red for the win combo. Also Mystical Tutor is fine in legacy. I didn't play it but it was fine. Never once lost to Entomb decks or storm. Ad Nauseum was super weak to quick damage and counters, Entomb got ruined by Tormod's Crypt, Leyline, and Extirpate. I use Personal tutor in omni tell. Easy to go grab Show and Tell. Intuition though is straight better though then Personal Tutor. Survival of the Fittest can come off the ban list too. That deck is just super fun with its interactions, its not strong.
As an owner of multiple Mana Vaults, we need to have a place to play them; and noone plays Legacy or Vintage. (Same with our Sensei's Divining Tops, our Deathrite Shamans, our Dark Rituals, our Sol Rings, our Yawgmoth's Wills, our Timetwisters...)
you are clearly a very intuitive and talented player, but i have no idea how you cant see how busted mind twist is in legacy or any other format. id go so far as to extend a challenge to play you in legacy where i can legally play mind twist and you couldnt, and i would overwhelmingly dominate our game play. depending on the X cost paid, it is an absolute must counter card. if played correctly, mind twist resolving is GG. i think players that werent around in the very beginning dont relize how completely busted hymn to tourach and mind twist are.
I hear a lot of cards that are banned because it interacts with one other card. Makes me feel that sometimes we should just ban having the combo but keep the cards individually legal
Oath could probably be unbanned, all that would happen is show and tell would die but that deck is already dead, and I don't know a creature deck that can't have good enchantment removal
Mind twist is brutal BECAUSE its random. The average legacy starting hand will have 2 lands. If you hit even one with mind twist its game over. Worst case scenario its a hymn to torach for 1 more mana but with the benefit of being color splashable. Hitting an x=4 on turn 1 would disrupt the hand so badly and you just fill your deck with Goyf or Delve beaters like tasigur and gurmag angler. If my opponent dumped 5 mana to discard half of both of our hands then still managed to play a turn 2 tasigur i wouldnt be very happy
Now I want to play you with a legacy mind twist deck. Turn three after thoughtseize, hymn, mindtwist, have fun. You force I'll still get two cards, you'll be down 6 cards at least.
@@NikachuMTGLive Sure if you do it turn 1. Don’t do it turn 1. Make some land drops, play a cheep threat, and they play some cards. Then you only need one piece of ramp to hit all of their hand. I will acknowledge twist got a lot worse once Force of Negation was printed.
But if you wait too long the opponent will just play out their hand and you'll only hit 1-2 cards which defeats the purpose. If an opponent knows Mind Twist is in the meta vs the black deck, they will work to empty their hand of relevant cards.
@@NikachuMTGLive I don’t play much constructed so I’m not a great authority on what would happen in legacy, but I do know this card wins games in cube.
Mana Drain just got way better because of the Atraxa which is breaking Legacy at the moment. If you could Mana Drain a Turn 2 Atraxa then it would balance the format
@ackauff I'll have to go back and watch the video again, but I think they were casting it. They were playing every 0 cost mana rock and then casting it, I think
what if mental mistep cost 3 phyrexian? that at least might be more of a risk. casting it for health would at least take more consideration but then again it would probabaly be run by aggro spell slinger decks so idk. i guess its unworkable.
Mind Twist + Dark ritual back in the days can destroy your starting hand taking forcing you to discard the lands. Inthe '90 the tutors were limited and also the mechanics to recover from loss of lands. Moreover after this the black can go with sinkholes and strips and keeping you constantly at 0 lands for several turns.
I agree that broken cards from EDH are really really broken. But, u know, all cards being limited brings it to a broken "fair" state... I mean, Demonic Consultation + Thassa's Oracle is a thing that should be banned for it's powerlevel. But idk
all people claiming mind twist should be unbanned have never been mind twisted .. on the play you fight turn 1 and 2 for board with moxen, rings and othe permanents than turn 3 you mindwist for 3 when most interaction is gone and your opponent is in top deck mode against your 1-2 remaining win condition cards .. on the draw you try to establish a board and interact turn 1 and mind twist for 2 turn 2 with force backup discarding the opponents wincon and land in hand ... leaving them again in top deck mode with maybe some manarock on the field ... it's not a card that wins you right there and then, but every land/mana card and every card costing more than 2 or maybe 3 will be a dead draw and the mind-twisting player still has at least 1 card in hand that is an answer or win-con .. so at least half of the opponents turns are skips and the first thing he does gets destroyed .. so pretty much only you get to play turns 3-5 or even 6 ..and if you cant win from that.. you need to build a better deck ^^ ... and hymn is not the same because you can't scale it up so they might keep their 3rd land or that wincon they kept the hand for
We all played mind twist when it was in standard. It's really hard to win after getting mind twisted early, but later in the game you played your cards already anyway. It's best on turn one with dark rituals and such
Ah yes, Mind Twist, the game's first and most potent "I win" card. Not necessarily the most powerful card though, as there are conditions that need to be met.
I was thinking, if storm received an errata (like they did with companion) and the effect was not on casting, but was "when resolving this spell, if it is was cast, copy it once for each spell that was cast this turn".
I’ve never seen someone win ultimately via Turn 1 Sol Ring. I don’t even run it in 2 of my 3 commander decks. I won’t deny it gives an advantage, but not enough to win the game just due to 2 extra mana. Especially since Turn 1 Sol Ring is a good way to get ganged up on, or having it being blown up in an early round.
Restricting Mishra's Workshop would just throw the Vintage format into chaos. Having viable Shops decks keeps other things balanced. Of course things would resettle eventually, but it would be hell for awhile.
30:13 "People just attach too much emotion to this card', he says after a 10-minute rant about how much he hates said card. Seriously, Nikachu, do you even play MTG? Because a lot of your takes are the hottest of hot garbage. Do you really think people are out there trying to cast Mind Twist on turn 1? Only novices would try to over-extend like that. Mind Twist comes out on average on Turn 3, an extremely important turn in Legacy and Vintage, as this is typically the turn where most decks are setting up to win the game. And typically you hold your win con in your hand until you're going off to circumvent removal. If someone hits you with Mind Twist for 2 or 3 on Turn 3 when you almost always have 3 cards or less in hand, one of them being your win condition (that you possibly had to dig/tutor to find to begin with), Mind Twist might as well read 'target player loses the game' because there is no recovering from that. If a card is banned in Legacy, there's usually a very good reason for it, even if that reason isn't immediately apparent. You need to learn to step back when analyzing a card's power and ask yourself 'what is the most efficient and effective way to utilize this card. How quickly it can be played is largely irrelevant, especially with a control card like Mind Twist. For any control card timing is infinitely more important than speed. If timed properly, Mind Twist is a game winner. And that's why they felt it needed to be banned.
As a competitive player that has multiple competitive top 8s to my name, yes I play this game :P Fact of the matter is that hand discard is a pretty weak strategy because it doesn't influence the board which is way more important. If the fear of Mind Twist is that they'll discard your lands, that's not a fear if you get mind twisted on turn 3 because you'll get at least 2-3 lands in play by then and play off the top of your deck. Cards like Mind Twist are also really bad topdecks later in the game so it's closer to all or nothing early, similar to Hymn to Tourach which sees no play now.
nothing better then watching someone be so very very WRONG in their takes. Twist is broken, straight up. Any card that basically reads "you (essentially) win the game" on turn 1, is far to strong. Sure you COULD miss. Sure you COULD get force of will'd. I'd love to see the data on how that exact opening plays out. Land --> ritual --> ritual --> twist. How many games does the player "miss"? How many is the twist countered? How many does the player hit their opponents starting lands/ their key cards (basically winning on turn 1)
@@NikachuMTGLive it kind of does. not always, but players rarely win games when their turn one is simply draw a card, play no land, pass the turn. If you start the game in top deck mode, especially in a format that generally runs as few "answers" (in this case lands) as Legacy does, you generally have already lost before you even got to make a single move. Sure its a big risk, you could wiff... your twist could get forced... your opponent could get super lucky on top decking... etc/ect/etc... But the very real chance to lose the game on turn 0, 100% justifies this being on the ban list. I mean lets be real, needing a grand total of 3 specific cards and one land in your starting 7, is by no means a tall ask. again, it won't always happen, but it will likely happen more often then people want to admit.
@@mishratheforsakenI agree and disagree. You could still just lose with an almost empty hand after twisting the opponent, but on the other hand, I understand why it’s banned because it’s more frustrating to play against than it is an auto win card. It essentially makes the match an anti-game
@@diabeticmonkey The way i like to put it is, "What % of games are you willing to lose on your turn 0?" Like lets say the card resulted in you losing (due to mana screw after it stripped your lands) 10-15% of the time. Are you willing to lose 1 out of every 9 or 10 games, on your turn zero? Or i suppose another angle, what is the "counter" to problem scenario? Please provide an answer that works on turn 0-1 AND doesn't require you to be playing blue.
