This is the story of a brew.

But first, let’s start with me. I’m John Wasson, Ontario PTQ grinder for about 10 years now. I’ve played with pretty much everybody within a 6 hour drive in any direction of Kingston at some tournament or another. I have played one Pro Tour in San Juan in 2010 with expected results. However this deck is the one I expect to get me back. This is a deck I have been working on for about two years.

So the deck in question is UWR Geist Twin. Let’s begin with the deck in its current state.

[deck title=UWR Geist Twin – John Wasson]
[Lands]
4 Celestial Colonnade
4 Arid Mesa
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Steam Vents
2 Hallowed Fountain
1 Sacred Foundry
3 Island
1 Plains
1 Mountain
1 Eiganjo Castle
[/Lands]
[Creatures]
3 Snapcaster Mage
4 Geist of Saint Traft
4 Pestermite
3 Deceiver Exarch
1 Vendilion Clique
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Path to Exile
4 Serum Visions
2 Dispel
3 Remand
4 Splinter Twin
[/Spells]
[Sideboard]
4 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Combust
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Wear // Tear
2 Electrolyze
2 Spellskite
1 Snapcaster Mage
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

Looks like a pile of cards. Well it is. It’s a pile of synergistic tempo cards that perform multiple different tasks given a matchup or board state. I’m sure that sounds like a lot of decks. That’s fine too. This is like a lot of decks. I’m going to put up some comparisons I’ve noticed.

Delver

This is foremost a tempo deck, so similarities to Delver and other Geist decks are a good start. Riding a Geist to victory is one of the main ways this deck wins. Geist is the [card]Delver of Secrets[/card] or [card]Young Pyromancer[/card] of the deck. If it stays in play it tends to dominate. As Delver uses counterspells and removal to keep its plan on track, this deck uses removal and more removal to plow through. The first removal is the obvious Bolt and Path plus Snapcaster plan. It’s similar to Delver but Path just does more against Pod and Jund variants. The other removal is the seven tappers; the value of a free six damage cannot be overstated. Especially since people then have to deal with the blue creatures or fear the Twin. It’s hard to keep adding blockers to a board while fearing combo. This tends to cause problems for opponents that cause them to not put enough out to stop a Geist.

Twin

Obviously this is a Twin deck. It’s not mainly a Twin deck, but it runs the package. With the blue guys performing double duty, the only cards that really play like Twin cards in the deck are the Twins themselves and [card]Serum Visions[/card]. [card]Serum Visions[/card] has always stood out in this deck over other decks that play it because they usually play eight draw spells. This deck cannot afford the slots, so the four I do have better be doing their job. This card does. It dictates the flow of the entire game when I draw one and gives me so many keeps I wouldn’t otherwise be able to make. I love this card. I would never play more draw spells and would never cut any of these.

As for how the deck plays as a Twin deck. Two maindeck Dispels do a good job when drawn but are not really reliable. The good news is how expendable the blue guys are; your backup plan really puts people to the test by tapping down their land end of turn and forcing them to one-for-one with you instead of getting blown out. In Twin you really have to go for it more. This deck allows you to be flexible. Don’t feel like risking it? Don’t. Attack for two, set up the next turn, and if they keep holding back, you have Geists and [card]Celestial Colonnade[/card]s to kill them. They’re not busy killing you if they’re representing removal. If they’re trying to do both, other blue guys to tap their attackers will slow the game enough that your options tend to get better than theirs.

UWR Control

Beating Jund is what we’re here for. I hate trying to Twin against Jund as I’m sure most Twin players are. With [card]Slaughter Pact[/card]s now running rampant, I feel this is even less viable. Fortunately this deck beats its share of Jund variants. It starts on Plan B and falls into Plan A if that doesn’t work out. Plan B is try to stick a Geist with at least one other creature in play to avoid edicts. Often that involves playing Snapcaster on two as an [card]Ambush Viper[/card], untapping, playing Geist, and forcing them to have everything or lose. If they play Ooze or Goyf on two, this plan works every time they don’t have Pact and Liliana on three. Confidant is sometimes too important not to kill first. Their discard spells obviously make this plan dubious, but they also gives players a lot of misinformation if they put you on a particular game plan. We have a lot of topdecks that change our lines for multiple turns. They can’t really see that, and if they expect you to play the cards you have normally, this deck doesn’t use them normally very often. Trading off Exarchs and [card]Pestermite[/card]s one-for-one is not what they expect from Twin decks; trading Geists for anything is not the norm in Geist decks; but our Plan A against Jund is Colonnade and attrition into better man-lands with Snap-Paths to win most wars that don’t have a Confidant on the other side.

Zoo/Aggro

Much less likely but it happens. More often against Pod than anything else, decks that take at least six damage from their own things aren’t big fans of Bolt-Snap-Bolt or [card]Pestermite[/card], tap your Pod, attack, attack etc. These draws tend to be rare but are easy to play if you get them. Do the math, see if this removal is better saved or not, and if you think you can kill them before they can set up, do it.

Other Matchups

Jund was already discussed a bit; I wouldn’t expect to lose to a player who isn’t extremely good with their version of that deck and who knows about this matchup ahead of time.

Two-color Twin is close. They hate Geist; if we stick it, they should never kill it unless we’re okay with that. Good Twin players can always find a way back into a game, but if you don’t get overzealous and don’t fear the combo you should be fine.

Affinity is funny. Everybody thinks affinity is a good matchup for them and most people are wrong or it wouldn’t put up the results it does. Nine sideboard cards however are a serious problem for that deck, and you should never lose the match even if you lose a lot of game ones.

Junk pod (Melira or otherwise) has also been a good matchup in the past. Path is an all-star, and it’s even better when they play the Gavony game. We are as good or better at doing damage to them and we take less damage from our own stuff. Their life combo also doesn’t kill us on the spot. Sometimes you just have to let them go to 1 million and kill their [card]Archangel[/card]. Then twin them for 1 million and 20.

Combo matchups are hard. Four Leylines help, but this is certainly a weak point. Storm, 8 Rack, all of the goldfish decks are not our friends. Boggles also; two [card]Engineered Explosives[/card] just isn’t enough.

Sideboard

4 [card]Leyline of Sanctity[/card]

This is new to my sideboard, and I doubt it’s coming out anytime soon. Burn is popular and Leyline helps so much against decks we need to be better against. Any tournament you have to board it in for half your matchups doesn’t bode well, but when it steals a game for you you’ll love it forever. [card]Counterflux[/card] was previously in a couple of these slots, but that card under performed so much I can’t even express it.

2 [card]Combust[/card]

An obvious all star vs twin. They just can’t play around it much so they don’t and just hope you don’t have it. Go up to three in a Twin-heavy meta if you want.

2 [card]Engineered Explosives[/card]

Boggles, Affinity and Delver to name a few. This isn’t the most important card in the board, but it has been a big help lately so I’m not cutting them.

2 [card]Spellskite[/card]

A good card against Twin, this has been one of my best cards against Affinity lately also. Sometimes you just need an idiot who blocks [card]Etched Champion[/card]. Love this little guy.

2 [card]Wear // Tear[/card]

Up from one, this has been so good in the past few weeks for blowing up [card]Blood Moon[/card]s. We don’t often have our Plains in play so I tend to camp on one white and just pool it in response.

2 [card]Electrolyze[/card]

The removal count is always a point of contention in Modern. I think this is just to help guarantee our decks will hit some against Robots and Delver-type decks. Plus it justifies the Snapcasters more post board when cards like Dispels aren’t good.

1 [card]Snapcaster Mage[/card]

The fourth Little Buddy has been perfect off the bench. Four felt like too many in the main, but when you know cards like [card]Wear // Tear[/card] or removal are 100% the plan, you tend to have to cut a lot of win conditions. Even a 2/1 beatstick hurts after a while.

My record this season for reference is 49-16-1, with three top eights in PTQ-type events or larger. I also want to thank Worlds Collide in Oshawa for the support. These guys have been the best Magic the Gathering store I have dealt with. If you want to find me at a tournament, I will be the guy wearing their shirt.

In conclusion, this is a tempo deck. If you don’t like tempo this isn’t for you. This isn’t a combo deck with a bunch of cards missing. If you want to play Twin, play Twin. You get Kiki-Jiki’s and draw spells and life is great because you get what you need. This has many weird spots and finds its way through a maze it creates for itself, but it gets to the other side. All of the knocks on this deck talk about how confusing it is or how it never knows what it wants to do. Sometimes that’s true, but remember, if your deck doesn’t know what it wants to do, how is your opponent going to know how to stop it? Confusing your opponent, making them mis-sideboard, tricking them with Colonnades and [card]Eiganjo Castle[/card]s, then Twinning them, all of these things happen. Combine confused opponents with good cards and tight play, and I would expect this deck to take you places. Good luck.

John Wasson