MTG Salvation

It's that time again for us to do a mega-poll of what you all think should and shouldn't be on the ban list. Like last year, we'll be doing a variety of polls along with simply the ban list, so please take the time to scroll through and participate in all of the polls. Feel free to talk about what you voted for and why, but please keep actual discussion/debate in the Rules subforum.

UPDATE: Since you can't actually view the results of a poll without voting in it, I've added a "I don't want any of these cards banned" option for the second poll.

This should be fun. I can't wait to see how this ends up having zero impact on anything other than a bickering war./sarcasm.

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?

Quote from Buffsam89 »

This should be fun. I can't wait to see how this ends up having zero impact on anything other than a bickering war./sarcasm.

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.

Quote from cryogen »

Quote from Buffsam89 »

This should be fun. I can't wait to see how this ends up having zero impact on anything other than a bickering war./sarcasm.

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.

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.

I'm really interested to see what people want to stay banned and get banned with the new and old cards that break things and get stupid. Personally I love Emmie and would love to she her unbanned as well as sundering titan, and just get rid of more of the bounce mechanics in the game, they seem to run a little rampant in my playgroup.

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.

How about painter's servant comes out of the jailhouse and we throw Iona in there forever

are we voting to unban cards or keep them there?

edit: in the first question

Thanks for doing this again cryo. I enjoy seeing the historic data and how perceptions and polling varies from year to year.

Quote from bfrie »

are we voting to unban cards or keep them there?

edit: in the first question

First two polls are cards you would ban if it were up to you.

interesting how disproportionately in favor of banning iona the poll is so far

Quote from bfrie »

interesting how disproportionately in favor of banning iona the poll is so far

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.

Just noticed this, Avenger of Zendikar didn't make its way onto the list, but Boundless Realms did? Not that I'd vote for either to be banned, just thought it was strange considering both have SCD about them, and AoZ was actually discussed quite a bit(although, it was mainly just to say how ridiculous it was to even be brought up for a ban). No real surprises so far.

Cyclonic Rift is a way too powerful. I typically don't comment on banlist policy, but after playing edh for such a long time, and with and against cyclonic rift, I do think it is too powerful and should be banned with good reason.

Oftentimes Cyclonic is a Rout that bounces instead of destroys and doesn't touch lands. While it leaves the caster's board, I have more often seen it as a defensive spell to prevent someone from losing the game. You can argue that it is undercosted, but 7 mana to hold up for its "instant" effect is a pretty big ask. You could argue that it being asymmetrical makes it OP, which I can sort of understand, but for the asymmetrical bounce to result in someone actually winning the game, that person already needed to have the board to kill off the whole table, otherwise players can just rebuild their next turn if they didn't die. If the caster of CR already had a dominant board and you didn't answer it, you deserve to lose.

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.

Quote from Buffsam89 »

Just noticed this, Avenger of Zendikar didn't make its way onto the list, but Boundless Realms did? Not that I'd vote for either to be banned, just thought it was strange considering both have SCD about them, and AoZ was actually discussed quite a bit(although, it was mainly just to say how ridiculous it was to even be brought up for a ban). No real surprises so far.

It's sometimes easy to miss stuff in the Rulings forum when converting those threads into a poll. We could technically edit it into the poll now, but the votes would already be skewed.

Starting life total should be 20

Unban Braids, Recurring Nightmare and Yawgmoth's Bargain. There I said it.
No need to ban anything else in a singleton format.

Obligatory #FreeRofellos

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.

Quote from cryogen »

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.

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).

One week in, here is a summary of the results so far:

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.

Ugh.

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.

Yeah, it did that to me too. Super annoying.

I'll talk to our tech guys and see if there is something that can eventually get done about it.

With mulligans I think you should be allowed one full mull with no penalty for all/no lands but beyond that continue as normal.