Hi, I just coming out of lurk mode to see what other multi player groups have come up with as far as cards to ban.
We recently had a heated discussion, under the cover of proxying, about which cards are too powerful, or make the game un-fun for everyone else.
Prison things like, Seedborne Muse/Opposition or Winter Orb, or cards that just prolong them game like Congregate, &etc.
Two of the seven of us have come up with lists, but most people will admit there's a problem, but seem to be too lazy to think about it and come up with some kind of initial list for discussion purposes.
I was wondering if anyone else has come across this and if so what solutions worded for them.
Have each player come up with their own list of things they don't like to see, uninfluenced by anyone else. Say, a list of 10 cards per person.
Any card that comes up on anyones list more than once is banned, no questions asked. No deliberation. No deals. No whining. Lets say two people include "congregate" in their list, that spell is banned, no matter what anyone else says.
Otherwise you will never reach a consensus. What is "unfun" for one person may not be true for another.
Where I play, there used to be massive multiplayer games. After a while, people started decks that took advantage of multiple players (such as "all opponents lose 2 life" sort of spells, or congregate). However, people soon complained that these spells were "unfair"/"unfun", and they started banning cards, which included the spells I mentioned, earthquake, hurricane, any form of mass lifegain (like wellwisher), wrath of god, nev's disk, pyroclasm, etc. Pretty soon they stopped playing, because someone, somewhere, will cry "foul" whenever someone comes up a new strategy that trumps everyone else.
My group has never, nor would they ever, ban any cards for multiplayer games. Syphon Soul is supposed to be better in multiplayer games than normal ones. Lock decks are so much harder to use because they can be disrupted by any of the players instead of just having to worry about one. If nobody in your group plays naturalize/disenchants, perhaps they should start.
the few cards banned in the group games played at the shop i go to are stasis and Ensnaring Bridge and Shahrazad
they just stop the game so thier just no fun. also i find that anyone who plays a really annoying deck they get targeted in every game the rest of the night.lol
Yeah, we don't ban cards. If Anyone plays an "annoying" card there is ALWAYS a way to get rid of it. Plus in our group whoever has the best board position usually gets the crap beat out of them until they don't lol..So we all play "fair" decks as a result of it
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Honestly, I see no reason to ban cards specifically for multiplayer. For every tactic, there is a counter that generally works. Yes, some cards are very good in multiplayer. However, instead of banning them, I'd suggest you start playing them yourself.
Infinite combos are simply discouraged in our playgroup, not banned. The solution is simply "Hey, he's playing an infinite combo deck" "Let's wreck him out of the game". If he goes off, he wins. If we crush him, he's out of the game, and he'll probably play a different deck next game.
Banning cards in multiplayer tends to lead to the mentality that "if you can't deal with his strategy, ban it", and that's just not fun for anyone. However, I do suggest applying the tournament banned and restricted list by saying that a deck must be at least tournament legal in one format. You can go ahead and play, say, 4 Regrowth, but your deck had better be Legacy legal otherwise.
If something in particular is bothering you, start playing a way to deal with it. I personally always run Disenchant/Naturalize/Swords to Plowshares/Counterspell/Diabolic Edict/Removal of choice here in any deck that can play them because it just helps to be able to deal with the stuff that is an issue to my deck. Holding two Naturalizes in hand against a combo deck is worth the 1-2 times that you draw them useless against a creature deck to me.
Ban: Shahrazad, Divine Intervention, Chaos Orb. Dexterity cards, subgame cards, and artificial game enders aren't fun. Who the hell wants to spend two hours playing a multiplayer game to have it end in an 8-way draw?
Debatable: Congregate. I remember casting a Congregate in a 20 player chaos game, gaining about 4000 life, then getting teamed up on and eventually killed by all the other players. I'd prefer to see this get dealt with through more players running False Cure and other anti-life-gain cards, but a ban or restriction may be better for groups that have no faith in a self-sustaining metagame. If you're going to allow Congregate, you absolutely have to ban Test of Endurance to avoid an easy 2 card instawin combo.
Not a Problem: Coalition Victory and Battle of Wits. These instawins are easily disrupted and should be allowed if only to give the playgroup a common enemy.
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Hey all... I'm retired, not dead. Check out what I'm doing these days (and beg me to come back if you want):
Where I play, there used to be massive multiplayer games. After a while, people started decks that took advantage of multiple players (such as "all opponents lose 2 life" sort of spells, or congregate). However, people soon complained that these spells were "unfair"/"unfun", and they started banning cards, which included the spells I mentioned, earthquake, hurricane, any form of mass lifegain (like wellwisher), wrath of god, nev's disk, pyroclasm, etc. Pretty soon they stopped playing, because someone, somewhere, will cry "foul" whenever someone comes up a new strategy that trumps everyone else.
That's entirely uncalled for, especially on grounds of Syphon Soul. That's what Black does! Takes a little bit from everyone gains life for itself. Of course it's unfair, that's what Black is all about! Geez, I wonder what they thought of Kokusho, the Evening Star! And then Wrath of God, Nev's Disk, Clasm?? Mass removal is NECESSARY! How often do you see one player mass an army and the players right next to him get really nervous. Everyone wants that army taken down, and how are you gonna do it? Spot removal? NO! You're gonna nuke the board. It's the only way.
My group has never, nor would they ever, ban any cards for multiplayer games. Syphon Soul is supposed to be better in multiplayer games than normal ones. Lock decks are so much harder to use because they can be disrupted by any of the players instead of just having to worry about one. If nobody in your group plays naturalize/disenchants, perhaps they should start.
Exactly. Multiplayer is a different format and in ways a different game, and you have to be suited for such. Syphon Soul is tech. Lava Spike is weak. Cards like Kokusho the Evening Star and Wrath of God are X times better, where X is the number of opponents you have. Counterspells are inherently weaker and everyone likes it that way! That's just how it is!
Cards that draw the game are understandable, or cards that draw the game far too long are also understandable, but really, it's not uncalled for.
Also, T2 (competitive decks) shouldn't be banned because they're only powerful enough to kill one player, and then they run out of steam.
Edit: Also, there's the rule that Wizards proposed- Spell range. You can only target or attack people next to you. Anything you have in play (Rule of Law), anything you play (Wrath of God) and basically everything that happens to or around you only affects the people next to you. The rule can be adjusted from 1 seat-range (the people next to you) to 2-seat range or more depending on how many players. This should help balance cards.
I got my "Grip of Confusion" Deck banned. I'm not allowed to play my deck which includes 4 confusion in the Ranks and 4 Grip of Chaos in games with 10 or more people, lol. Includes Firecat Blitz, the viashino's and glitterfang. It's fun
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Also, T2 (competitive decks) shouldn't be banned because they're only powerful enough to kill one player, and then they run out of steam.
Exactly. I don't see why standard decks would be too much of a problem unless you don't run cards to disrupt stuff, which is stupid.
Also, I don't see how land destruction should be too much of a problem ulness you run stuff that blows up everything. It's really annoying, yeah. But you should be able to get around it because it's a multiplayer game.
Zyrakris: I know, but I figured it was their problem so I just left them alone to their games. Syphon soul was the first card I heard they banned. Oh, they also banned grab the reigns, control magic, and other similar spells, on the grounds that they were unfair considering the wealth of creatures to steal or borrow. Yes, Kokusho is also not allowed, as was wildfire and armageddon. I also think they banned browbeat, on the grounds that it ws an automatic draw as no one was willing to take the damage, bu I'm not sure about that.
Like I said, they ended up not playing at all. When someone tries to introduce their own banned/restricted list outside what DCI already does, it rapidly degenerates to "any card I don't like".
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"Sometimes, the situation is outracing a threat, sometimes it's ignoring it, and sometimes it involves sideboarding in 4x Hope//Pray." --Doug Linn
Ever hear the saying "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."?
It's the same thing for multiplayer. If people are running mad reanimation, start using some of the common hosers for reanimation. Withered Wretch, Tormod's Crypt, etc. And, hey, those two were even reprinted in TS.
Also, T2 (competitive decks) shouldn't be banned because they're only powerful enough to kill one player, and then they run out of steam.
Yeah, everyone I play with realized that very quickly. In fact, most of the Legacy decks I put together aren't that hot in multiplayer at all. The aggro decks run out of steam and about half of the control decks just can't keep up with everything. I've had problems with most of my combo decks lately, since they pull some serious hate. It's possible to outrace aggro with combo, but your chances rapidly dwindle when three players focus disruption and fast damage at your dome.
My group does hate it when I bring Wildfire Stax to the table, though. I wonder why
Do one of 2 things:
a) Make banned lists. 5 to 10 cards per person, anything showing up twice gets banned, nothing else. Do this once a month or so.
Do NOT just ban things at random - for the longest time the only banned card in my playgroup was wash out. We got along just fine with everything else, but wash out really annoyed some people. Yes, someone did play congregate for a lot of life once. Then someone else did: remove counter from White Myojin, Biorhythm. There are answers to everything.
b) Play a specific format instead of no-rule chaos. Spell range is good. It makes it more interesting and prevents mass effects from having a game-breaking outcome.
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Locally, a lot of players don't or won't run any sort of disenchant effect in their decks. Most of them tend to delight in critter decks without utility.
This makes playing Moat, Balance, Humility, Wrath of God, & Swords to Plowshears so much fun at a critical time...for me that is! Followed up with a Delaying Shield and Eon Hub is also a blast. When they start to whine pop a few Beacon of Immortality's to gain some life. This helps take their minds off of the shield/hub combo and gives them something new to whine about. If they whine too much the Humility goes down. After a few turns of that drop Test of Endurance with a disenchant in hand for the win.
Usually, the first time around the more casual players can't decide what to complain about the most, the ***'s, StP's, Moat, Humility, Balance, Hub Shield combo, Beacons of Immortality or Test of Endurance. Then I point out all it would have took to wreck me was a single well placed disenchant. Several will whine they shouldn't have to change their decks at all and they don't want to run disenchant effects.
I change decks after that and sometimes get hated on for a few games but it's well worth it. It's so much fun to hear the stereotypical green players cry when the deck with the blue sleeves comes out. Being a White player at heart, Wrathing a Board full of creatures say 30 or so is just too much fun to resist. Getting a good Wrath in is well worth the consequences of losing!
BTW - we don't ban cards but we do switch out deck when someone gets tired of seeing the same thing. I think thats the key to avoid repeative play.
In my core play group its often my turn to whine and cry when one my friends whips out his Geddon deck just for multiplayer or another whips out Wake of Destruction/Magnivore. There are several Statis decks floating around that see multiplayer action. Likewise, 4 strip mine, 4 demonic tutor, & 4 Crucible of the Worlds, 4 Sol Rings decks pop up too. Another personal favorite is a white deck I nicknamed "Sweeper" 4 ***, 4 Final Judgement, 4 Akroma's Vengence, 4 Nev's Disk or Oblivion Stones. Sixteen board sweepers is a good start for multiplayer.
My core group tend to play some very nasty stuff in casual.
Disenchant is your friend in Casual...main deck it or it's Green cousin Naturalize.
On serious note, encouraging people to play with decks that are legal in a format is a good way to balance things out. We also sometimes play and say T2 decks only or Extended legal only. In a group of friends there aren't any cards that should be banned. If one of my friends ask me to change decks because he/she is tired of it or doesn't want to play it, then of course I will. Likewise, if I say I really don't want to play against LD, they will show the same consideration. By mixing things up and talking with your group, it's possible to avoid banning cards. Diversity is what makes multiplayer fun.
This is weird. Peope ban cards for being too good? So if I only made mono-black decks could I ban White Knight? I can't kill it, or block it and so its not fair. Oh how about Counterspell? I am fresh out of Scragnoths. Playing Syphon Soul in a multi-player game is smart and apparently intelligence is a punishable offense.
The only card my old play group ever banned was Mind Twist. Everyone agreed it was just too damn efficient. I disagreed, they said they wouldn't let me use a deck with Mind Twist in it, I told them I would just find opponents who were good enough to play with cards like Mind Twist. Amazing what a childish taunt does to high school kids.
Don't band earthquake, people who cannot survive it, should just get better. It'll create an endless cycle of people loosing and adding another card to the list.
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We recently had a heated discussion, under the cover of proxying, about which cards are too powerful, or make the game un-fun for everyone else.
Prison things like, Seedborne Muse/Opposition or Winter Orb, or cards that just prolong them game like Congregate, &etc.
Two of the seven of us have come up with lists, but most people will admit there's a problem, but seem to be too lazy to think about it and come up with some kind of initial list for discussion purposes.
I was wondering if anyone else has come across this and if so what solutions worded for them.
Thanks for your time.
Any card that comes up on anyones list more than once is banned, no questions asked. No deliberation. No deals. No whining. Lets say two people include "congregate" in their list, that spell is banned, no matter what anyone else says.
Otherwise you will never reach a consensus. What is "unfun" for one person may not be true for another.
Where I play, there used to be massive multiplayer games. After a while, people started decks that took advantage of multiple players (such as "all opponents lose 2 life" sort of spells, or congregate). However, people soon complained that these spells were "unfair"/"unfun", and they started banning cards, which included the spells I mentioned, earthquake, hurricane, any form of mass lifegain (like wellwisher), wrath of god, nev's disk, pyroclasm, etc. Pretty soon they stopped playing, because someone, somewhere, will cry "foul" whenever someone comes up a new strategy that trumps everyone else.
"Sometimes, the situation is outracing a threat, sometimes it's ignoring it, and sometimes it involves sideboarding in 4x Hope//Pray." --Doug Linn
stasis and
Ensnaring Bridge and
Shahrazad
they just stop the game so thier just no fun. also i find that anyone who plays a really annoying deck they get targeted in every game the rest of the night.lol
:symch:Finkle tastes like cardboard.:chaos:
Armageddon
Infi-combo's
Type 2 decks. ( competitive decks )
Acid Rain
Land Destruction
Chill
Flashfires
Channel
That's all the really comes to mind basiclly decks and cards that ruin the fun of the game.
thanks Spiral
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Infinite combos are simply discouraged in our playgroup, not banned. The solution is simply "Hey, he's playing an infinite combo deck" "Let's wreck him out of the game". If he goes off, he wins. If we crush him, he's out of the game, and he'll probably play a different deck next game.
Banning cards in multiplayer tends to lead to the mentality that "if you can't deal with his strategy, ban it", and that's just not fun for anyone. However, I do suggest applying the tournament banned and restricted list by saying that a deck must be at least tournament legal in one format. You can go ahead and play, say, 4 Regrowth, but your deck had better be Legacy legal otherwise.
If something in particular is bothering you, start playing a way to deal with it. I personally always run Disenchant/Naturalize/Swords to Plowshares/Counterspell/Diabolic Edict/Removal of choice here in any deck that can play them because it just helps to be able to deal with the stuff that is an issue to my deck. Holding two Naturalizes in hand against a combo deck is worth the 1-2 times that you draw them useless against a creature deck to me.
Debatable: Congregate. I remember casting a Congregate in a 20 player chaos game, gaining about 4000 life, then getting teamed up on and eventually killed by all the other players. I'd prefer to see this get dealt with through more players running False Cure and other anti-life-gain cards, but a ban or restriction may be better for groups that have no faith in a self-sustaining metagame. If you're going to allow Congregate, you absolutely have to ban Test of Endurance to avoid an easy 2 card instawin combo.
Not a Problem: Coalition Victory and Battle of Wits. These instawins are easily disrupted and should be allowed if only to give the playgroup a common enemy.
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That's entirely uncalled for, especially on grounds of Syphon Soul. That's what Black does! Takes a little bit from everyone gains life for itself. Of course it's unfair, that's what Black is all about! Geez, I wonder what they thought of Kokusho, the Evening Star! And then Wrath of God, Nev's Disk, Clasm?? Mass removal is NECESSARY! How often do you see one player mass an army and the players right next to him get really nervous. Everyone wants that army taken down, and how are you gonna do it? Spot removal? NO! You're gonna nuke the board. It's the only way.
Exactly. Multiplayer is a different format and in ways a different game, and you have to be suited for such. Syphon Soul is tech. Lava Spike is weak. Cards like Kokusho the Evening Star and Wrath of God are X times better, where X is the number of opponents you have. Counterspells are inherently weaker and everyone likes it that way! That's just how it is!
Cards that draw the game are understandable, or cards that draw the game far too long are also understandable, but really, it's not uncalled for.
Also, T2 (competitive decks) shouldn't be banned because they're only powerful enough to kill one player, and then they run out of steam.
Edit: Also, there's the rule that Wizards proposed- Spell range. You can only target or attack people next to you. Anything you have in play (Rule of Law), anything you play (Wrath of God) and basically everything that happens to or around you only affects the people next to you. The rule can be adjusted from 1 seat-range (the people next to you) to 2-seat range or more depending on how many players. This should help balance cards.
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Also, I don't see how land destruction should be too much of a problem ulness you run stuff that blows up everything. It's really annoying, yeah. But you should be able to get around it because it's a multiplayer game.
Exactly. I don't see why standard decks would be too much of a problem unless you don't run cards to disrupt stuff, which is stupid.
Like I said, they ended up not playing at all. When someone tries to introduce their own banned/restricted list outside what DCI already does, it rapidly degenerates to "any card I don't like".
"Sometimes, the situation is outracing a threat, sometimes it's ignoring it, and sometimes it involves sideboarding in 4x Hope//Pray." --Doug Linn
Ever hear the saying "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."?
It's the same thing for multiplayer. If people are running mad reanimation, start using some of the common hosers for reanimation. Withered Wretch, Tormod's Crypt, etc. And, hey, those two were even reprinted in TS.
Yeah, everyone I play with realized that very quickly. In fact, most of the Legacy decks I put together aren't that hot in multiplayer at all. The aggro decks run out of steam and about half of the control decks just can't keep up with everything. I've had problems with most of my combo decks lately, since they pull some serious hate. It's possible to outrace aggro with combo, but your chances rapidly dwindle when three players focus disruption and fast damage at your dome.
My group does hate it when I bring Wildfire Stax to the table, though. I wonder why
a) Make banned lists. 5 to 10 cards per person, anything showing up twice gets banned, nothing else. Do this once a month or so.
Do NOT just ban things at random - for the longest time the only banned card in my playgroup was wash out. We got along just fine with everything else, but wash out really annoyed some people. Yes, someone did play congregate for a lot of life once. Then someone else did: remove counter from White Myojin, Biorhythm. There are answers to everything.
b) Play a specific format instead of no-rule chaos. Spell range is good. It makes it more interesting and prevents mass effects from having a game-breaking outcome.
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Locally, a lot of players don't or won't run any sort of disenchant effect in their decks. Most of them tend to delight in critter decks without utility.
This makes playing Moat, Balance, Humility, Wrath of God, & Swords to Plowshears so much fun at a critical time...for me that is! Followed up with a Delaying Shield and Eon Hub is also a blast. When they start to whine pop a few Beacon of Immortality's to gain some life. This helps take their minds off of the shield/hub combo and gives them something new to whine about. If they whine too much the Humility goes down. After a few turns of that drop Test of Endurance with a disenchant in hand for the win.
Usually, the first time around the more casual players can't decide what to complain about the most, the ***'s, StP's, Moat, Humility, Balance, Hub Shield combo, Beacons of Immortality or Test of Endurance. Then I point out all it would have took to wreck me was a single well placed disenchant. Several will whine they shouldn't have to change their decks at all and they don't want to run disenchant effects.
I change decks after that and sometimes get hated on for a few games but it's well worth it. It's so much fun to hear the stereotypical green players cry when the deck with the blue sleeves comes out. Being a White player at heart, Wrathing a Board full of creatures say 30 or so is just too much fun to resist. Getting a good Wrath in is well worth the consequences of losing!
BTW - we don't ban cards but we do switch out deck when someone gets tired of seeing the same thing. I think thats the key to avoid repeative play.
In my core play group its often my turn to whine and cry when one my friends whips out his Geddon deck just for multiplayer or another whips out Wake of Destruction/Magnivore. There are several Statis decks floating around that see multiplayer action. Likewise, 4 strip mine, 4 demonic tutor, & 4 Crucible of the Worlds, 4 Sol Rings decks pop up too. Another personal favorite is a white deck I nicknamed "Sweeper" 4 ***, 4 Final Judgement, 4 Akroma's Vengence, 4 Nev's Disk or Oblivion Stones. Sixteen board sweepers is a good start for multiplayer.
My core group tend to play some very nasty stuff in casual.
Disenchant is your friend in Casual...main deck it or it's Green cousin Naturalize.
On serious note, encouraging people to play with decks that are legal in a format is a good way to balance things out. We also sometimes play and say T2 decks only or Extended legal only. In a group of friends there aren't any cards that should be banned. If one of my friends ask me to change decks because he/she is tired of it or doesn't want to play it, then of course I will. Likewise, if I say I really don't want to play against LD, they will show the same consideration. By mixing things up and talking with your group, it's possible to avoid banning cards. Diversity is what makes multiplayer fun.
Communicaitons and Consideration go a long way.
V
The only card my old play group ever banned was Mind Twist. Everyone agreed it was just too damn efficient. I disagreed, they said they wouldn't let me use a deck with Mind Twist in it, I told them I would just find opponents who were good enough to play with cards like Mind Twist. Amazing what a childish taunt does to high school kids.
Don't band earthquake, people who cannot survive it, should just get better. It'll create an endless cycle of people loosing and adding another card to the list.
Control is the ultimate expression of power.