The Third Annual MTGSalvation Dream Ban List Poll
Poll: Cards currently on the EDH multiplayer banlist
Ended Oct 31, 2016
Poll: Cards not currently on the ban list
Ended Oct 31, 2016
Poll: I like the removal of the Banned as a Commander list
Ended Oct 31, 2016
Poll: I like the removal of the tuck rule
Ended Oct 31, 2016
Poll: The starting life total in EDH should be:
Ended Oct 31, 2016
Poll: The official mulligan should be:
Ended Oct 31, 2016
Poll: All planeswalkers should be legal as commanders
Ended Oct 31, 2016
Poll: EDH should have more tournament support
Ended Oct 31, 2016
Poll: Death from poison counters should be:
Ended Oct 31, 2016
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Resources:Commander Rulings FAQ | Commander Deckbuilding Guide
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Misc. EDH Stuff: Commander Cube | Zombies (Horde)
Resources:Commander Rulings FAQ | Commander Deckbuilding Guide
Follow me on Twitter! @cryogen_mtg
Honestly, though, I may be "new" to this discussion scene, but there has been tons of discussion that revolves around "the community wants this", and folks just throwing out random experiences or "word of mouth" type arguments. This should go a long way to quell that a bit.
My next question, MTGS is really the only area I visit for my MTG fix, are other sites(like Reddit) doing similar polls?
Dunno. We started doing this two years ago for no reason other than we thought it would be interesting to see what kind of results we would get. There were never any grand ideas of influencing the Rules Committee, and they haven't acknowledged any interest in it beyond that they looked at the polls.
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Resources:Commander Rulings FAQ | Commander Deckbuilding Guide
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Yeah, that was what my jab was in my first line, I'm well aware this has little to no impact on the RC's process. I guess I was just looking to see if this was something done elsewhere, it could give us(the non-RC community) a baseline for cards we find problematic, or want to come off. It's been beaten to death that the RC has no current interest in implementing a "data" gathering aspect to their roles.
I know it's early yet, but it's interesting to see a more balanced take on the cards that are banned, and the dominance of the most discussed cards here in this forum(Iona, Sol Ring, Mana Crypt)in the cards that would like to banned.
Gives me something to watch progress, as my fantasy team is in the pooper for the rest of this weekend.
Edit: Cards like Deadeye Navigator and Conjurer's Closet should be banned as well, especially with how well that can make a thought-knot seer or Sundering Titan super broken.
edit: in the first question
UWRjeskai nahiri UWR
UBRgrixis titi UBR
UBRgrixis delverUBR
UR ur kikimite UR
EDH
RUG Riku of Two Reflections RUG
UBR Marchesa, the Black Rose UBR
UBRGYidris, Maelstrom Wielder UBRG
UBRJeleva, Nephalia's ScourgeUBR
Signature by Inkfox Aesthetics by Xen
[Modern] Allies
First two polls are cards you would ban if it were up to you.
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Resources:Commander Rulings FAQ | Commander Deckbuilding Guide
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UWRjeskai nahiri UWR
UBRgrixis titi UBR
UBRgrixis delverUBR
UR ur kikimite UR
EDH
RUG Riku of Two Reflections RUG
UBR Marchesa, the Black Rose UBR
UBRGYidris, Maelstrom Wielder UBRG
UBRJeleva, Nephalia's ScourgeUBR
Yeah, there has been a lot more support for her ban as compared to previous years. The BaaC list is still very unpopular as well, it seems. Of course, the sample size is pretty small so far, so time will tell.
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Resources:Commander Rulings FAQ | Commander Deckbuilding Guide
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I'd like to keep the ban list as short as possible. Adding Cyclonic Rift to it does nothing for the betterment of the format. It's a very good card, and that is all.
EDH:
G[cEDH] Selvala, Heart of the StormG
URW[cEDH] Narset, the Last AirmericanURW
GWUSt. Jenara, the ArchangelGWU
UBGrimgrin, Chaos MarineUB
GOmnath, Mana BaronG
URWNarset, Justice League AmericaURW
GWUBAtraxa, Countess of CountersGWUB
GWUEstrid, Enbantress PrimeGWU
My Helpdesk
[Pr] Marath | [Pr] Lovisa | Jodah | Saskia | Najeela | Yisan | Lord Windgrace | Atraxa | Meren | Gisa and Geralf
Damia http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=410191
DDFT Legacyhttp://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=505247
Domain Zoo http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?p=10212429#post10212429
No need to ban anything else in a singleton format.
Marath, Will of the Wild
Friendly Kess Twin Combo
Tatyova - Sir Bounce A Lot
Gonti's Luxury Pie
Prime (Eldrazi) Speaker Zegana (Retired)
I know it is never coming back, but BaaC still made a ton of sense and we lost two awesome legends (not Erayo lol) with its removal and didn't really gain anything in return because it simplified something already easily and widely understood. I voted for Rofellos and Braids to both come off the list and for BaaC to be reinstated as they are fine in the 99.
I think the tuck rule is a great change and has created a healthier format as a result. The punishing nature of running any deck that relies on its general in the Tuck Era was awful because of the saturation in the format of tuck effects at the time and put an unnecessary skew towards only doing so in decks that could tutor your general back up in the event it was tucked and the last thing the format needs is more players forced into playing Black or Green if they want to center their build on their general.
I voted for a couple things to be unbanned even though I am not sure it would be the greatest experience (PH and Gifts) and I voted for others to be unbanned that I feel should be just fine (PoK, even though I acknowledge my group is more competent than most, and PS because I doubt the interaction it would have is ever accidental and is no more oppressive than any other two card combo in the format).
I voted for no new bans as I think the format is in a good place. People complaining about losing to a card often so it should be banned is a garbage reason to ban anything. Cards that players consider "toxic" because they can be used in a competitive manner ignore the fair uses of such a card and I don't think that any of the current toxic uses of legal cards outweigh their propensity to be used fairly.
I think life is fine at 40. I don't think reducing it to 30 would legitimize aggro (even though it is probably a fine life total as well) and putting it down to 20 would mean most people get run over because of the multiplayer nature, games would be faster, and that also means that the big splashy spells EDH is known for would be less likely to be played.
I voted for Vancouver Mulligans as I think Partial Paris (and particularly FREE Partial Paris, which many players and groups used and some continue to use even though is was NOT the actual rule) is a totally garbage mulligan that encourages greedy and also poor deckbuilding as a result of its use. It is effectively hand-sculpting and I strongly disagree that a mulligan that decreases variance is a "good" thing. If your deck is inconsistent with the same mulligan that is used in every competitive Magic format and you have a problem with that, make a different deck. Not every deck build or deck idea is entitled to viability. Vancouver mulligans accomplish the goal of getting equitable amounts of land compared to Partials and do it without the potential for abuse and greedy deck building.
I voted for not legalizing PWs as commanders. It was a cute gimmick for the precons, but would be an overall stupid decision if expanded to any PW. Y'all have plenty of legends to choose from, you don't need PWs to be your commander other than to try and do cheesy ***** with it.
EDH shouldn't have more tournament support. I somewhat disagree with the notion that it should. This is, fundamentally, a casual format. I think that current side events at GPs, occasional FNMs at LGSs, and things like weekly EDH leagues are fine. Sanctioning this format as a competitive, tournament format at all, I feel, would push mainstream deck building in a more cutthroat, anti-social, competitive direction, which I do not think would be good for the health of EDH at all. This is a social format and widely encouraging cutthroat decks with greater tournament support moves away from that vision, imo.
Lastly, poison should stay at 10. Infect cards are wildly inefficient in EDH with exception of very, very few that are -decent- at achieving infect kills(and even those often only succeed in eliminating one player). As an infect player, you are likely forced to do all of the infect damage to all players in order to achieve a win and infect is already a "disliked" mechanic, meaning you're likely to be focused down and killed before other players. You are also forced to run sub-optimal pumps spells and infect creatures in order to commit to the strategy, saturating your deck with objectively bad EDH cards in order to try and win via infect. Glistener Elf is pretty bad in EDH even if it is the linchpin of Modern Infect. Increasing it to any more than 10 would make it flat our unplayable. 15, or even 20 like many suggest, becomes an impossibly high number to reach, crippling the deck to killing -maybe- one player in a game and running out of gas. It is already hard enough for an infect deck to deal 10 to each opponent. Increasing that amount by 50-100% would make it an exercise in futility. Some players may feel it is "cheesy" like certain infinite combos. Just because you don't necessarily see it coming does not change the mountain of factual evidence that shows infect as a strategy in multiplayer EDH is challenging at 10 and would be next to impossible at 15 or 20. I'm glad to see roughly 2/3 of this community agrees with this, at present.
EDH:
G[cEDH] Selvala, Heart of the StormG
URW[cEDH] Narset, the Last AirmericanURW
GWUSt. Jenara, the ArchangelGWU
UBGrimgrin, Chaos MarineUB
GOmnath, Mana BaronG
URWNarset, Justice League AmericaURW
GWUBAtraxa, Countess of CountersGWUB
GWUEstrid, Enbantress PrimeGWU
The Banned as a Commander change is also something that was done primarily for cleaning up the rules and simplifying things for new players. Its an entirely negative change for those of us who have been playing for a long time. I understand why its there but the ones who it is going to be helping are also not the ones likely to be voting on a poll like this (newer players).
Signature by Inkfox Aesthetics by Xen
[Modern] Allies
Number of voters: 75 (still pretty low)
Of the cards current banned:
Mean: 38.9
Standard deviation: 8.3
Minimum: 22 (Gifts Ungiven)
Maximum: 51 (Black Lotus)
Of the cards currently UNbanned:
Mean: 6.0
Standard deviation: 6.8
Minimum: 0 (Mystical Tutor, Skullclamp, Sylvan Tutor, Worldly Tutor)
Maximum: 41 (Iona, Shield of Emeria)
Potential outliers (using the interquartile range rule): Iona, Shield of Emeria, Mana Crypt, Sol Ring
Thoughts:
- Voter turnout is still relatively small at this point.
- Gifts Ungiven and Painter's Servant just barely missed the cutoff for outliers by 1 and 2 votes, respectively.
- Iona is the clear elephant in the room, receiving more votes than the majority of cards already on the ban list. AFAIK this is unprecedented in any of our polls.
Draft my Mono-Blue Cube!
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So, a few days ago I began filling out the polls. I had planned to post in great detail exactly what I had voted for and why, but something happened. I was bouncing back and forth, filling out the polls and writing down the explanations for my choices as I went when about half way through I submitted my vote to one of the polls I had completed. The forum decided that submitting a post should refresh the page and gobble up my post. Now I'm salty about the whole ordeal and cannot be bothered to do it again.
The short version is that I voted to ban Iona and unban Gifts Ungiven, Painter's Servant, and Protean Hulk. In all other instances I voted for the status quo.
I'm not particularly fond of the way these polls are set up. Rather than a binary yes/no vote for each card in the polls, I wish every single card was given its own poll. Yes, I understand that the poll is daunting enough as is, but with a binary split there is no "I don't know" or "abstain" option to choose. There were a great number of cards on the banned list that I voted to keep banned not because I felt they deserved it, but because I didn't know whether or not I believed they deserved it. Because voting for such an option does not exist I had to compromise and just decided to vote in line with the status quo. I imagine I'm not the only one who voted in such a way.
EDIT: After reading ISBPathfinder's thread on Erayo, Soratami Ascendant I opted to unban that card as well.
Trap your friends in an endless game with this 23-card combo!
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Misc. EDH Stuff: Commander Cube | Zombies (Horde)
Resources:Commander Rulings FAQ | Commander Deckbuilding Guide
Follow me on Twitter! @cryogen_mtg
BRGKresh the BloodbraidedBRG, A box of lands and ideas.
Modern:
RG Titanshift. A deck made of cards too stupid for EDH.
Retired: Lots. More than I feel you should suffer through or I should type out.