As you probably have already heard, Spinter Twin got banned in Modern a few weeks back. As a fellow Twin player, I responded to the news in a totally rational manner.
All the Splinter Twin players, myself included, taking the sleeves off the deck tonight. #mtg pic.twitter.com/TyOJJjGVie— Justin Clouse (@Slycne) January 23, 2016
Spinter Twin was a deck that I picked up after becoming frustrated with constantly loosing to a single card. At the time I had been played a bunch of hyper-linear decks, like Affinity and Boggles, which often either run over the opponent or die to a silver bullet. Spinter Twin had evolved from its earlier all-in days to play a dual role of combo and tempo/control. Try to disrupt the combo too much and you died to Snapcaster Mage beats, but fail to respect it enough and you'd find infinite Deceiver Exarch staring you down.
I had a lot of fun playing the deck, Spinter Twin created some exciting topdeck scenarios that could get you out of the worst situations and I was always a little to eager to suit up a Snapcaster Mage with a full graveyard. I don't necessarily agree with the decision to ban it, but this is the world we're stuck with.
So in the interest of healing and moving on, here's a few ideas of what to do with those spare Splinter Twins now sitting around.
1. Break Glass In Case of Unbanning - Denial
We've recently seen WotC be willing to unban cards as the Modern format changes and evolves. Part of the reasoning for banning Spinter Twin was the thought that it was suppressing other Blue decks. A similar reasoning was used for Wild Nacatl, that it invalidated other aggro strategies by being the best aggro card, and that card. Even a boogieman all-star like Bitterblossom has barely made a splash. It's not completely improbable that we'll see a future where Spinter Twin gets unbanned. Please?
2.Set Aside a Copy for Commander - Anger
Fine WotC, I'll Splinter Twin people in formats besides Modern! While Splinter Twin is technically legal in a few other formats, it's too slow and fragile for the likes of Legacy or Vintage. Commander is really the only format that it's still a reasonable card. If you're Commander playgroup isn't utterly adverse to combo, you can even use creatures outside the traditional ones to shore up additional combo sources, like Midnight Guard or Intruder Alarm.
