Phil, an objective based opinion does not automatically invalidate an argument as you suggest. It is possible to provide evidence based on objective observation, rather than hard, quantifiable data, or that which is considered an absolute fact.
In the last few posts you've made, you've been quite hypocritical regarding this.
Again. More opinions not facts
Why can no one admit the their personal opinion is the whip driving the horse?
Here are quotes from you trying to reinforce points you are making, by arguments that most definitely are not considered "factual".
I think a lot of the issues with cards like this stem from a false sense of a structural social dichotomy.
opinion
Magic is expensive no matter what avenue you choose to venture down.
opinion, and definitely wrong when you go into things like Budget.dec or pauper
It's blatantly obvious why every event deck and pre con is trash surrounded by 2-3 amazing cards.
opinion
When you play those good cards, you get excited because they win, making you want more cards that do the same. That causes you to buy more, to hopefully get more.
opinion
But if the results do not meet expectations, then the blame is always put on the object of structure they put the effort into and not the individual pushing the effort.
opinion
I like how the "let's ban mana crypt" debate tripled in occurance about the same time it tripled in price.
opinion
I'm guessing this is what really happened;
-"80 bucks? I'll get it later."
-"holy crap! It's 200 now!? Well, I'll never pay that. Dear Sheldon, ban plz."
opinion
These may be things you have observed, but it doesn't make them fact, and it really doesn't look good when you scream at people for voicing their own objective views whether based on observation or actual facts. Given that the process banning cards isn't always cut and dry, it is difficult to assess the affect of a card on a large format using quantifiable values or "facts". I don't necessarily disagree with all of your points either, but I do think you are wrong trying to invalidate an argument based on opinion, when many of your arguments were also based on opinion.
I am not advocating a ban for Mana Crypt, but rather adding my personal experience and point of view to the discussion, which is a completely valid thing to do.
You're completely right. I was injecting my opinion to prove a point.
I still think the point is valid though. These arguments are mostly based on opinions and not fact and I'd rather see a criteria based on the the later.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
The EDH stax primer When you absolutely, positively got to kill every permanent in the room, accept no substitutes.
Why can't every group play with a ban list that is fixed? The casual/social crowd just NEEDS Sol Rings, Vintage tutors, and one-card combos to have a good time?
The obvious counter to this is "Does the competitive/cutthroat crown NEED to have Sol Ring, cheap tutors, and one-card combos BANNED to have a good time?"
One of the secrets to really enjoying this format is understanding that the answer to both questions is No.
The answer to the question, as you put it, is definitely Yes.
Whatever "cutthroat" means, competitive is a term derived from competition, which means to strive against others to obtain a prize, acknowledgment, etc. And within this pool of legal cards, Control is not possible, and so Combo is the game-theory optimal choice, the less interaction the better. So, what you get at the end isn't people striving against one another in pursuit of a goal, it's people striving against the shuffle in order to perform some repetitious spectacle.
So if you try to be "competitive", you find there is no "competition" with this card pool. As you get better at competing, you take the game away from yourself and turn it into roulette. So yes, the legal card pool needs to be changed to have competition. The only current alternative is to not be "competitive" anymore, which would then escape your question on its terms. The best people can do is find a new, subjective, individual approach to how they want to compete, and then cross their fingers that they find people with the same or similar approaches. That seems to be exactly what the RC wants people to do, but that basically gives the finger to anyone whose idea of competition doesn't mesh with theirs, not to mention anyone who wants to play a public game.
I still want to see what a "competitive EDH" banned list would look like. Everyone talks in generalities with statements like "fast mana" or "Vintage tutors". What exactly are we talking about here?
For fast mana are we just talking about Sol Ring and Mana Crypt? What about Mana Vault, Grim Monolith, and Basalt Monolith? I assume we are not talking about Mox Diamond, Chrome Mox, or Lotus Petal, but don't those cards have the potential to supplant the other cards as the fast mana of choice? I'm not trying to invoke the slippery slope issue again, I'm just trying to understand exactly where people think the line should be drawn.
It's comes down to Strategy, a subject of enormous complexity. But essentially, there shouldn't be any "dominant" strategy, in game-theory terms. There should be as much of a balance as possible among strategies. To simplify, 'Combo beats Aggro beats Control beats Combo' seems to be the strategic balance that most people agree on for this game. Currently in EDH, Combo is the clearly dominant strategy, for the simple fact that its natural predator of Control can't stop it. When you look at why, it's clear which type of fast-mana and tutors cause problems.
Combo assembles several pieces to abruptly win the game. Control stops it through the ability to nullify any single play at its choice, with a single card. Where EDH is different is that the singleton structure puts the answer cards at a disadvantage. Counterspell and Mana Drain, the latter being prohibitively expensive, are the only 2 cards I'm aware of at 2cmc that stop both creature-based and spell-based combo. The rest cost 1UU, with the exception of Force of Will, and inferior variants like Foil. But them aside for now, 1UU has the same color weight as 2CC or 3CC mana costs, at which you will find a wide variety of combo finishers and other game-breaking cards. That means that a Turn 1 Sol Ring or a Turn 1 OR Turn 2 Mana Crypt allows a combo player to pay those costs on Turn 2, where the Control player can't pay the average cost of a counter without its own mana accel. Even on Turn 3, any Control player to act behind the Combo player is still on 2 mana, and is likely not to be able to play a counter.
How difficult it is to play a combo versus how difficult it is to assemble a counter is the heart of the issue. It should be easier to get a counter. You shouldn't have to demand Control tutor for a cheap counter, because then it becomes generally unplayable, while Combo always will tutor for pieces because that's what Combo does. The problem with Crypt and Sol Ring specifically then is that them being in a deck with tutors helps Combo much more than Control. Mana Vault is the same, and runs into the same issue of the Control player not being on UU, which is why it's banned in Legacy. Basalt Monolith is too late, and Grim Monolith at 2cmc gives the Control player acting behind time to get UU also. It might be a problem in EDH because the average cost of a counter is closer to 1UU, but Grim is fine in other formats. Chrome Mox, Mox Diamond, etc, are fine because they help Control as much as they do Combo due to providing colored mana. But in any format where there's a high density of any of it, not to mention Moxes, the balancing factor is always Force of Will. With Force legal at 4x in Vintage and these rocks either restricted or banned, the Control player has an appropriately high likelihood of having Force, and can do its strategic duty of stopping Combo. Not so in EDH, where there is 1 Force per deck, and the average cost of a hard counter is close to 1UU.
Note, that doesn't even touch on how Control versus Combo actually plays out in a 4-way multi. It's possible Combo would still have the advantage, because answering things in multi doesn't get you ahead like it does in 1v1. These issues also lead to a lot of Workshop-based Stax decks in Vintage rather than conventional Blue control. But if Control is behind Combo even straight up, you can imagine how loathe players are to try Control in 4-way. You have to ask the Control player to Vampiric/Mystical for Force Turn 1, then pitch a card to Force, going down 3 cards in the process, just to stop one player out of a possible 3 at the table who could be playing Combo. It's just not tenable, and so much should be obvious from every format ever with this deep of a card pool.
What I meant to say with "Vintage tutors" are those legal in Vintage but not Legacy. AKA "heritage bans". If it's legal in Legacy but restricted in Vintage, for example Merchant Scroll, my first guess would be that it's fine for EDH, because the difference is probably the Power-9 or some other difference, like Tinker. Again though, it's the principle of looking at the efficiency of Combo as against Control's ability to access a counter. So yes, 3-mana or more is usually going to be fine as a rule, because players at least have the option of playing Blue-based Control and countering what Combo does on and after Turn 4 more or less reliably. 4cmc or higher, Combo also runs into the issue of being slower than the quickest Aggro draws, which is also a good thing for a format, imo.
One-card combos I assume means cards like Ad Nauseam, Hermit Druid, Norin the Wary (j/k, but not really), etc. You can argue that Protean Hulk is already one the banned list for being a one-card combo. I think others may consider cards like Tooth and Nail, Omniscience, Enter the Infinite, or Primal Surge in the same vein, with the obvious caveat that their respective mana costs are a huge difference. What cards would you want to see banned based on this criteria?
Again on these, Ad Naus at 3BB is playable on Turn 3, so it beats Control consistently, then fishes up the Combo player's own Force. It's more of a problem for this format, because again, Control on 2 Islands struggles here where it's probably fine elsewhere. Tutoring Hermit Druid or Survival definitely always beats Control though, which is why they're banned even in Legacy. The others are not even remotely close, because obviously, any Control deck can be expected to counteract 6+ CMC cards at their convenience.
Of course, this doesn't touch the other major criterion for Vintage Restriction in 'draws to many cards'. Are we revisiting Thirst for Knowledge, Necropotence, Memory Jar, Windfall, Timetwister, and Wheel of Fortune? (Ignoring obvious cards that nobody think are problems in EDH, but are Vintage restricted such as Brainstorm). If we really want the EDH banned list to resemble more of a tournament/competitive banned list, should we not take a big look at the big card advantage engines?
I'm not sure on these, but you won't see me dying on a beach for the idea that they should be allowed. I personally don't play Memory Jar, for one, because it's just silly to me. I also think Necropotence interacts poorly with this format, and whenever I see it I just give up and want that player to win ASAP. Wheel and Windfall are likely only problems in Legacy because you're extremely likely to wheel into a combo piece in 60 card 4-max. They are more symmetrical here because of the singleton nature requires Combo to access a tutor, not just draw volume. And on Brainstorm and Thirst, anything legal in Legacy is probably fine due to the fact that a lot of cards restricted in Vintage such as Tinker are banned here also.
I hope the above discussion reveals why it's silly to consider banning 5-6cmc creatures, at least as they relate to strategic balance. Once you put the burden on players to actually interact with each other, the way the format goals statement claims to advance, you can rightfully expect them to answer high-cost cards. If the answers themselves cause problems, or players just want them out of their games in the interest of fun, then go ahead and ban them. They're just not the reason that this card pool is dysfunctional. That's solely due to early turn game-breakers being pitted against 1UU counterspells, which is a battle the game-breakers will continue to win.
Also it's FFA so even if you succeed in shutting down the combo player every turn unless you follow up with your own combo the other players just ride your control to a free win and you still lose.
I think it's safe to say that from an objective standpoint, Mana Crypt is one of the most powerful cards in the format and makes it increasingly easy to make degenerate plays, like the T2 Jace, Smokestack, Braids, Bribery, etc. Everyone I play with runs a Mana Crypt. Our games end really fast, and many don't like that, but we have to stay relevant and competitive in our group so it's necessary for us to run it. When I go to an event and sit down at a table, someone will be playing Hermit Druid and I have to get ahead and stop that player. That's just the way it is, you play to win because that is the objective of the game.
When someone argues to me that this is a casual format and that I shouldn't be running Mana Crypt and if I do, I shouldn't be doing anything broken with it, take a step back and look at the ban list. From what we know about magic, it is factual that Vintage is faster and more expensive than Legacy, therefore it is a more competitive format. Judging from the difference in banlists, we can use those hard facts to draw the conclusion that the Commander banlist would imply that it is meant to be a competitive format.
If I want to be able to win a game wherever I go, I have to stay relevant and play fast. To do that, I have to run Crypt, Sol Ring, and Vault or I will lose. I don't want to hear opinions and I won't give any of my own. Everything I said is factual. I play like a robot, the social aspect for me is the banter we have outside of the game, not the crazy LULZ in game.
Nothing exists except atoms and empty space. Everything else is opinion.
Ultimately, all we have are opinions when it comes to these things because even when you attempt to quantify how "broken" or "fair" something is with some sort of objective criteria, the validity of the criteria is still a matter of opinion.
In the case of Sol Ring and Mana Crypt (and others), you could apply the criteria that they produce more mana than they cost without loss of card advantage and should therefore be banned per the Legacy banned list criteria. Applying this criteria would also make Mana Crypt and Grim Monolith up for banning as well. I don't think that anyone would argue with this.
BUT... the crux of the argument becomes whether or not the criteria for banning a card in Legacy (or restricting a card in Vintage) should be applied to Commander. I believe that the RC has basically stated that the answer is "No" and that the list of cards banned from the format is a reflection of that. What I am hearing is that there is a vocal group that think this should change and that more of the Legacy ban/Vintage restriction criteria should be used for bannings in Commander. That is a perfectly reasonable stance that I personally feel has implications beyond the small subset of cards that people who use this argument want to have banned.
So far, only one person has given what they would want to ban/unban if given the chance to implement this criteria.
Quote from "Fedders" »
Needs banned: Sol Ring, Mana Crypt, Mana Vault, Vampiric Tutor, Imperial Seal, Demonic Tutor, Lim Dual's Vault, Survival of the Fittest
@Jusstice: You gave me nothing but more generalities, basically stating a bunch of things that I already know. I know how bannings in competitive formats work. My point was that if it was decided to apply those criteria to bannings in EDH, what cards would you ban and/or unban? A specific list. This way, people can see the full effect of what you are actually advocating so we can get to what should be the real argument as to whether applying the Legacy ban criteria to Commander is even appropriate.
If you read this thread you will find that some do and some don't. A lot of the people I know here, and in real life, would be very upset if you took away half their turn 1 and 2 moves.
I think more people are generally happy with where the banlist is or have small gripes with it. There aren't many who would want a large change to the banlist as it stands. Those who would generally want a lot of bans are generally speaking easier off just trying to do a custom banlist for their meta.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
The ban list's perceived function: To keep the game healthy. It works just fine.
The ban list's actual function: To keep the game healthy and get us fighting about stuff. It works just fine.
Cards like Hermit Druid and Deadeye are great for purely academic discussion since they look, smell, act, and feel like they should be banned... but aren't! It's inconsistencies like this that really fuel the fire and our love for the debate.
So if you try to be "competitive", you find there is no "competition" with this card pool. As you get better at competing, you take the game away from yourself and turn it into roulette. So yes, the legal card pool needs to be changed to have competition. The only current alternative is to not be "competitive" anymore, which would then escape your question on its terms. The best people can do is find a new, subjective, individual approach to how they want to compete, and then cross their fingers that they find people with the same or similar approaches. That seems to be exactly what the RC wants people to do, but that basically gives the finger to anyone whose idea of competition doesn't mesh with theirs, not to mention anyone who wants to play a public game.
I think you hit on the crux of the entire thread. Do we satisfy the people who will, regardless of what the banlist is, build the fastest, meanest combo deck or do we satisfy the people who police their metas and tend to play silly timmy or johnny cards? The format was built around the timmy/johnny group. Trying to build a banlist towards the spikey cutthroat crowd will just alienate people who think Sol Ring is a great way to play a big fatty earlier. The RC has done a good job at banning cards that the casual player doesn't realize is degenerate such as Prime Time and SP, which less skilled players think is great but then puts people off from the format (flashing a Sylvan primordial is pretty sad).
Well to hear the RC tell it, basically any attempt to win before Turn 10 is unsporting, whether combo or not. And the last poll that I put up to that effect indicated that only about 5% of responders saw eye to eye with them on that point. Clearly you can have games that violate that Turn 10 criteria that do not involve combo at all, so consider the source when statements are made to the effect that you can't, ever, possibly, in your wildest dreams tailor a card pool for both advanced, intermediate and kitchen table players. To them, Rafiq decks are not fair. So it's only true to that universe that, yes, you can't ever have a card pool that stops all decks they don't like. The question not asked, not answered, is whether in everyone else's universe it's possible to have such a card pool.
And if it is possible to make a ban list to suit everyone, why not do it?
It also does no one any service to use terms like "meanest combo deck". Players trying to win a game are not being "mean" to each other. The idea of improving at a competitive activity is related to one's continuity of experience with a game, something that even Maro has cited as an essential aspect to a good game. So, we can stop drinking the Kool-Aid that what people want from the RC is a non-competitive game. The only truly non-competitive games I can think of are really just activities, such as Cat's Cradle, Three Card Monte, Magic Tricks, etc. With Magic, people don't want an activity, they want a game. Combo could be a part of that game, and people gradually made inroads to accepting that fact and successfully dealing with it. Only currently, delving into the Combo v. Control wars will put people into a no man's land of side by side goldfishing where no interaction or competition is taking place. If Combo were a bit worse in the format and Control could actually defend against it, we might see people playing in that territory. Seeing as how 90%+ of the community is already having the type of games the RC would see as unsporting, why not accomodate that?
@Jusstice: You gave me nothing but more generalities, basically stating a bunch of things that I already know. I know how bannings in competitive formats work. My point was that if it was decided to apply those criteria to bannings in EDH, what cards would you ban and/or unban? A specific list. This way, people can see the full effect of what you are actually advocating so we can get to what should be the real argument as to whether applying the Legacy ban criteria to Commander is even appropriate.
One, I gave you a rundown in my post of all the cards touched by Legacy bans/Vintage restrictions. Two, I've stated in numerous areas at numerous times, including this thread, that I would ban everything currently banned in Legacy.
People seem to think that cards like Frantic Search being ok in this format is a trump card to that idea. That is question of presumptions. If the presumption is that any card anywhere should be legal unless it destroys competition in a format, then sure, the Legacy list is overinclusive. But that presumption is also defeated in several spots already with the current list. What I'm doing is raising the idea of a different presumption, that if a card is banned in Legacy, it should be banned in EDH.
Presumptions of legality/illegality are powerful administrative tools. They can replace the need of sound judgment whenever it's lacking, as seems to be the case with the RC. It would be nice if they gave an honest look at cards that have been considered unwholesome by every competition committee ever, instead of demonizing players who play them. But, they don't. It's unrealistic to assume that they'll gain that ability, or to use it in favor of the majority instead of their own tabletop groups, even if they had it. The next best thing is a nice, overinclusive presumption to do the work of an arbitrating authority that is lacking in either good judgment or in the will to represent this format's player base.
I like how the "let's ban mana crypt" debate tripled in occurance about the same time it tripled in price.
I'm guessing this is what really happened;
-"80 bucks? I'll get it later."
-"holy crap! It's 200 now!? Well, I'll never pay that. Dear Sheldon, ban plz."
The price doesn't affect my own decks, (yay for proxies!) but that is one of the banning criterion laid out by the RC. Your hypothetical situation illustrates exactly how the price increase furthers the perceived barrier to entry, which is a criterion for banning. Seems reasonable to discuss the implications of that.
I very much doubt that they'll ban Mana Crypt if they can avoid it. I was just pointing out similarities with it and Library of Alexandria and how that could lead to complaints about consistency in the ban list criteria.
I'm going to get a bit deep here, just bear with me.
I think a lot of the issues with cards like this stem from a false sense of a structural social dichotomy.
Casual vs competative is the best example. Both sides will argue till they're blue in the face, yet neither side have a strong foundation from what their opinions are based on. It's always just an opinion backing another opinion that was backing another. "This is broken, no it's not, yes it is, NO IT'S NOT!" Is all I ever see when I read arguments here. I never see an actual foundation from what these claims are built on. Barrier to entry is not one either. Magic is expensive no matter what avenue you choose to venture down. It's blatantly obvious why every event deck and pre con is trash surrounded by 2-3 amazing cards. When you play those good cards, you get excited because they win, making you want more cards that do the same. That causes you to buy more, to hopefully get more. This feeds a common and sometimes harmful human need. The more I put into something the more I get out of it. But if the results do not meet expectations, then the blame is always put on the object of structure they put the effort into and not the individual pushing the effort. Edh is a game with a very strong and broad foundation that allowed all kinds of people to build on. Sadly we all just made ***** towers that are so high we can't see the ground any more.
Uh... I feel a little silly pointing this out, but that doesn't actually invalidate my above argument. The fact remains that 'perceived barrier to entry' is one of the banning criteria laid out by the RC, and that one can reasonably argue that Mana Crypt meets that criteria. (Wildfire makes such an argument below)
The price doesn't affect my own decks, (yay for proxies!) but that is one of the banning criterion laid out by the RC. Your hypothetical situation illustrates exactly how the price increase furthers the perceived barrier to entry, which is a criterion for banning. Seems reasonable to discuss the implications of that.
Is cost really a factor in determining whether or not a card should be banned? This may come off as ignorant, but I've been in discussions before in this very thread where it was stated repeatedly that cost was never a consideration - or at least never a primary one - as to whether or not a card should be banned or not. There are plenty of cards out there way more expensive than 200 dollars that aren't banned, so again, a little confused by the statement you made.
The Commander format is governed by a group called the Rules Committee (RC) and the site they use for announcing ban list changes and other things is mtgcommander.net. You can find their 'Official Banned List and Format Philosophy Document' here. I'll also include it in a spoiler below with the relevant portion bolded.
Cost is a factor, but only as a contributing factor for a perceived barrier to entry. Essentially, if a substantial portion of potential players think that a card is important for playing Commander, that card shouldn't be too expensive or else those players may consider it a financial barrier for effectively playing the game. Expensive cards such as Imperial Seal, The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale, or Mishra's Workshop aren't considered to meet this criteria by the RC because they aren't important enough for one reason or another, namely being niche cards or having suitable replacements.
The Banned List for Commander is designed not to balance competitive play, but to help shape in the minds of its fans the vision held by its founders and Rules Committee. That vision is to create variable, interactive, and epic multiplayer games where memories are made, to foster the social nature of the format, and to underscore that competition is not the format’s primary goal. It sets out to define the parameters of Official Commander while recognizing that local groups may wish to modify things to suit their own needs.
The official Banned List is as follows, with further discussion of the ideals and philosophies below.
The Rules Committee's goal for Commander is for it to be different than other Magic games. Where competitive formats seek to balance the playing field for all styles and strategies, we want to encourage a style of game that is more open and directed towards all players having a good time regardless of who wins. This is summarized as “Create games that you’d love to remember, not the ones others would like to forget.”
While the Banned List helps to define what can be played, Commander is unique to Magic formats in that it seeks to shape the mindset of the game before players ever start building decks, pointing them in the direction of thinking socially before they choose their first card. It recognizes that due to the Eternal nature of the format, there are too many cards to try to shape it via only the Banned List, but that infusing the decklist construction approach with these philosophies is important; it is easier to build decks designed to maximize fun than it is to pull punches while playing the game.
This is the direction of the format, with full understanding that it’s not for everyone. We recognize that without drastic measures (like a 200 card Banned List), we can’t actually prevent an individual from breaking the format. What we can do is create a social environment where that individual doesn’t want to, or at the very least, is discouraged from doing so.
The Banned List contains the worst of the offenders for games being played in the spirit described above, those that to us are obvious choices in steering the format towards the general style of games we’d like to promote. While we’ve tried to make it fairly objective, there will always be a measure of subjectivity since different people evaluate cards and their impacts differently. We’d like the Banned List to be as small as possible to make it easily understandable for the players and manageable for us, meaning we’re not going to ban every card that someone finds unpleasant to play against. It is not a problem that some cards are strong.
In creating the Banned List, there are several factors that are only taken into small consideration, if at all:
Competitive balance. There are Commander tournaments, but this philosophy simply doesn’t take them into account. We feel that to do so violates the ideal of the social format.
One on one play. A 1v1 community exists (and the French community has created a Banned List for it), but Commander is designed as a multiplayer format.
While we’d like to maintain a measure of consistency (we wouldn’t for example, ban Grizzly Bears and not Balduvian Bears), we want to avoid the minefield of “cascading” bans (“if this is banned, then that should be banned”) because it inevitably leads to an unmanageable list.
There are several criteria that carry weight in Rules Committee discussions on individual cards. It is sometimes the intersection of these criteria that lead a card to be banned, not a single unified rule. Common criteria include:
Creates Undesirable Games/Game Situations. Some cards produce the kinds of games we’d like to avoid and we see them as creating a negative experience for a majority of the player base. They tend to be anticlimactic wins out of nowhere, unexpected combos that end an otherwise enjoyable game, or creating situations which completely take play of the game away from the other players. This does include some cards that have a casting cost far too low for their effect, or whose abilities simply break the format at any cost.
Warps The Format Strategically. Commander decks are about variety, and if a strategy becomes sufficiently omnipresent that the games become very similar even across different playgroups, we may need to try to rein in the presence of that deck.
Produces Too Much Mana Too Quickly. Commander is a format about epic plays, but the Turn 10 epic play happening on Turn 3 is deflating. Limited acceleration is good, but we don’t want the format to turn into “Who can go off earliest,” so we rein in large quantities of early mana.
Interacts Badly With the Structure of Commander. Magic is not designed with Commander in mind, and the different rules, especially the presence of the Commander in the Command Zone can create degenerate or unfortunate situations. This is also why some cards are acceptable as 1 of the 99, but not as Commanders.
Creates a Perceived High Barrier to Entry. Because it’s a non-competitive format, we don’t want players to feel as though they need to spend a great deal of money to be able to play. It is not sufficient for a card to simply be expensive - expected ubiquity and the availability of suitable replacements are also considered. This rule is mostly invoked for cards fifteen or more years out of print and is unlikely to impact the list further.
Local Groups
We believe that both Official Commander and local variants can successfully co-exist. What works in the broader audience may not resonate around your local game shop or kitchen table. We encourage you to modify both philosophy and Banned List locally to suit your own needs while being aware that when you travel outside your local area, perhaps even on the other side of town, you’ll need to be ready to play with the Official rules, including the appropriate spirit. Likewise, when new players enter your playgroup they may have expectations closer to this Official Philosophy and it will usually help the transition to discuss why they/you do things a particular way.
Phil, can you agree that, objectively, Mana Crypt is extremely close in power to Sol Ring, in the way that no other legal card is?
Can you agree that, objectively, Sol Ring is considered an auto-include for just about every deck?
Can you agree that, objectively, Mana Crypt costs at least $200?
Can you not then see how someone might draw the conclusion, based on these objective facts, that Mana Crypt creates a perceived barrier to entry for the format?
I can and will agree to almost all those, but I will not agree to either the card being a large problem wrecking everything Or that it creates a perceived barrier to entry.
The perceived barrier of entry is dead at his point. Fact: magic is expensive. There's no argument here.
Want to play any format efficiently (besides pauper and limited) and there's at least a $500 commitment.
Edit: you don't need mana crypt to win a game of Edh. It helps, but isn't a necessity.
So, you're saying that it may create a perceived barrier to entry, but that the 'perceived barrier to entry' criterion shouldn't exist?
I can get on board with that. If I didn't use proxies, I'd certainly be priced out of many card options and strategies in Commander - much more than just Mana Crypt and a few others. When imagining a scenario where I'd only be priced out of using Mana Crypt and perhaps ABUR duals and fetches, that's not nearly as restrictive as the former scenario unless I want to compete on an even playing field. Of course, trying to compete on an even playing field is about the only scenario in which a perceived barrier to entry as a banning criterion makes any sense, so if we're not going to consider Mana Crypt to meet that criterion, it really shouldn't be a criterion.
Honestly, what I'd like to see more than anything else is a CONSISTENT banlist.
I'd be super happy if the RC announced tomorrow that Library, Gifts, Metalworker, Painter's Servant, Panoptic Mirror, Recurring Nightmare, and Protean Hulk were legal.
I'd be about as happy if they announced Mana Crypt, Survival, Tooth and Nail, Hermit Druid, Ad Nauseam, and maybe a few others were banned.
It just bothers some OCD part of me that arguments can be used in favor of banning a card, and other arguments can be used in favor of keeping a card unbanned, but both of those arguments could apply to the other just as easily.
Hulk combos off too easily and ends the game as a one-card combo if you build around it?
Hermit Druid is only broken if you build your entire deck around it, under normal usage, it's fine?
Now swap the subjects of those sentences... (Also sub in TnN and Survival here)
Gifts Ungiven is too good because it's a multi-card tutor that also feeds your graveyard, it will only be used to fuel cheap early combos?
Survival of the Fittest is only broken if you use it to tutor multiple cards of a combo and feed your graveyard, used as a value tutor it's fine?
Again, swap
Library is colorless, expensive, ubiquitously powerful, and iconic
Mana Vault is... not those things?
And so on.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
My Moderator Helpdesk
Currently Playing:
Legacy: Something U/W Controlish EDH Cube
Hypercube! A New EDH Deck Every Week(ish)!
okay I hate jumping into these debates But I feel like half of you have lost why the RC bans cards. They do it to kepp a format healthy and further more from that in EDH the RC actually says that the ban list isn't for a competitive format and I quote:
"The Banned List for Commander is designed not to balance competitive play, but to help shape in the minds of its fans the vision held by its founders and Rules Committee. That vision is to create variable, interactive, and epic multiplayer games where memories are made, to foster the social nature of the format, and to underscore that competition is not the format’s primary goal. It sets out to define the parameters of Official Commander while recognizing that local groups may wish to modify things to suit their own needs."
It says it right there in the underlined text( and bolded). They ban for unhealthy social games not to have balanced games. That is what the French Banlist is for. The RC says they want memorable games and what is more memorable than going from sol ring to mana crypt to mana vault to turn 2blightsteel colossus. Balancing the format so no player can be 4 mana ahead on turn 2 is not their priority according to their message statement.
The natural arms race that we as people naturally achieve when competing against each other is what makes these games were someone can pull something amazing off not as cool. The fact that winning became our primary objective is what ruined the ban list for you, not the Rc, not the card that was banned, but your own ego and your necessity to win and make this format become hyper competitive like legacy or modern.
Sorry for any gramatical/spelling mistakes, I just got done with a giant paper for school so my ability to care is out the window.
Honestly, what I'd like to see more than anything else is a CONSISTENT banlist.
I'd be super happy if the RC announced tomorrow that Library, Gifts, Metalworker, Painter's Servant, Panoptic Mirror, Recurring Nightmare, and Protean Hulk were legal.
I'd be about as happy if they announced Mana Crypt, Survival, Tooth and Nail, Hermit Druid, Ad Nauseam, and maybe a few others were banned.
It just bothers some OCD part of me that arguments can be used in favor of banning a card, and other arguments can be used in favor of keeping a card unbanned, but both of those arguments could apply to the other just as easily.
Hulk combos off too easily and ends the game as a one-card combo if you build around it?
Hermit Druid is only broken if you build your entire deck around it, under normal usage, it's fine?
Now swap the subjects of those sentences... (Also sub in TnN and Survival here)
Gifts Ungiven is too good because it's a multi-card tutor that also feeds your graveyard, it will only be used to fuel cheap early combos?
Survival of the Fittest is only broken if you use it to tutor multiple cards of a combo and feed your graveyard, used as a value tutor it's fine?
Again, swap
Library is colorless, expensive, ubiquitously powerful, and iconic
Mana Vault is... not those things?
And so on.
I remember reading a post (by Obsidian Dice, I think) that implied consistency wasn't important at all and that inconsistency in the ban list actually helped show that the format wasn't meant to be competitive while also encouraging playgroups to modify it themselves. I'll see if I can find it again.
People seem to think that cards like Frantic Search being ok in this format is a trump card to that idea. That is question of presumptions. If the presumption is that any card anywhere should be legal unless it destroys competition in a format, then sure, the Legacy list is overinclusive. But that presumption is also defeated in several spots already with the current list. What I'm doing is raising the idea of a different presumption, that if a card is banned in Legacy, it should be banned in EDH.
Considering that you are really only trying to make an argument for banning about 10 of those 32 cards (tutors, fast mana and Hermit), doesn't advocating that the RC adopt the Legacy banned list seem a little more like overkill just for the sake of simplification? I think calling it overinclusive is severely underestimating the differences between the two lists. Do you not see the difference between a 99-card singleton multiplayer format and a 60-card competitive format and how just those functional differences should affect what cards get banned? Couple that with the Commander rule and the different life totals and I don't see how you can possibly say that the two banned lists be the same. Just the fact that you are advocating the banning of Ad Nauseam that isn't banned in Legacy should make you see that there are going to have to be differences no matter what.
I guess that would also mean the unbanning of the following cards:
Again, I don't want to put words in your mouth, so I ask what you would do with these cards?
Quote from "Jusstice" »
Presumptions of legality/illegality are powerful administrative tools. They can replace the need of sound judgment whenever it's lacking, as seems to be the case with the RC. It would be nice if they gave an honest look at cards that have been considered unwholesome by every competition committee ever, instead of demonizing players who play them. But, they don't. It's unrealistic to assume that they'll gain that ability, or to use it in favor of the majority instead of their own tabletop groups, even if they had it. The next best thing is a nice, overinclusive presumption to do the work of an arbitrating authority that is lacking in either good judgment or in the will to represent this format's player base.
So what you are really advocating is that the RC be disbanned and that Commander basically becomes a variant of Legacy by adopting its banned list instead. I don't know many people who play this format who would agree with that on any level just based on the above lists of cards that would be banned and unbanned. Any argument about banning a card in Commander that starts or ends with "but its banned in Legacy" should just stop right there. If you want to play 100-card Legacy Highlander, then be my guest. But advocating that the Commander format's player base wants this and/or that this is somehow good for the format is complete nonsense.
Now if you want to go and talk about banning a select 10 cards and just those 10 cards, then perhaps we might have a conversation about that. But all this talk about how the Legacy banned list is the end-all, be-all Holy Grail of banned lists that would somehow make every EDH player happy is complete rubbish.
Two banlists are the only way to satisfy both groups.
People are always talking about "swapping in cards" to other decks, so if you only play in metas that shun proxies, this shouldn't be a foreign concept to anyone.
Casual Banlist
Casual Banlist + Legacy.
Doesn't seem that hard to implement. If you cream someone with an uber combo list and they complain, ask them to play the current banlist + legacy. It really only makes sense at that point. Why are these cards not banned then? Oh, so I have retool my deck because you don't like me playing legal cards. Oh...I guess I just don't get the format.
Likely, you just don't play that playgroup. This is something I've come to terms with. But then again, I can't play a lot of people unless it's on Cockatrice as I'm not blowing anymore money on this game. That's besides the point.
The fact is, I've been around MTG for over a decade. I know people who really get into this game will eventually want to optimize their decks. Their group might likely want to get better. Then, they reach critical mass and realize things like Mana Crypt and Vampiric Tutor needs to go in order stop the coin-flip aspect their games have become.
Policing others is such a terrible concept and begits all logic when you hold a magnifying glass up to any of the reasons.
But sol ring let's you play your fatty earlier? So do other ramps spells. I mean if Fatties are the only polite way to play then sol ring and crypt are STILL op, and STILL required to stay relevant with the other guy at the table who uses them to play their fatties.
The RC has been proven to be inconsistent with their reasonings for a group of players that will continue to grow. I remember a time around here when it was more taboo to talk about ultra competitiveness. It seems more and more people are starting to speak up though. This group is growing. I just realized Mana Crypt is now $200 overnight (to me) Why did this happen? We all know why.
That's because more people are tuning their decks. They are getting better, and critical mass is being reached. Coin flips are going to become more prevalent. How is this not going to happen. How can anyone who's ever really really been into magic not realize this has happened to yourself once upon a time.
If we are supposed to play competitively, this desire will eventually overcome. There are people who are new to magic and people who've been around the block. This current banlist isn't relvent to me whatsoever.
Two banlists are the only way to satisfy both groups.
People are always talking about "swapping in cards" to other decks, so if you only play in metas that shun proxies, this shouldn't be a foreign concept to anyone.
Casual Banlist
Casual Banlist + Legacy.
Doesn't seem that hard to implement. If you cream someone with an uber combo list and they complain, ask them to play the current banlist + legacy. It really only makes sense at that point. Why are these cards not banned then? Oh, so I have retool my deck because you don't like me playing legal cards. Oh...I guess I just don't get the format.
Likely, you just don't play that playgroup. This is something I've come to terms with. But then again, I can't play a lot of people unless it's on Cockatrice as I'm not blowing anymore money on this game. That's besides the point.
The fact is, I've been around MTG for over a decade. I know people who really get into this game will eventually want to optimize their decks. Their group might likely want to get better. Then, they reach critical mass and realize things like Mana Crypt and Vampiric Tutor needs to go in order stop the coin-flip aspect their games have become.
Policing others is such a terrible concept and begits all logic when you hold a magnifying glass up to any of the reasons.
But sol ring let's you play your fatty earlier? So do other ramps spells. I mean if Fatties are the only polite way to play then sol ring and crypt are STILL op, and STILL required to stay relevant with the other guy at the table who uses them to play their fatties.
The RC has been proven to be inconsistent with their reasonings for a group of players that will continue to grow. I remember a time around here when it was more taboo to talk about ultra competitiveness. It seems more and more people are starting to speak up though. This group is growing. I just realized Mana Crypt is now $200 overnight (to me) Why did this happen? We all know why.
That's because more people are tuning their decks. They are getting better, and critical mass is being reached. Coin flips are going to become more prevalent. How is this not going to happen. How can anyone who's ever really really been into magic not realize this has happened to yourself once upon a time.
If we are supposed to play competitively, this desire will eventually overcome. There are people who are new to magic and people who've been around the block. This current banlist isn't relvent to me whatsoever.
Took a look at various big name decks in the Multiplayer section to see what adding the Legacy ban list would do to them:
I have to get ready for work now, but I'm sure if you keep going through other high traffic decks you'll see an emerging pattern: What you want is what we've been saying for a while now - there's like 5 cards on the Legacy ban list you actually want banned (Ring/Vault, and the cheap tutors). What is becoming apparent to me is that rather than go on a crusade to ban the cards that actually impact the game, you and everyone else who wants to blindly add the Legacy ban list have chosen to take the lazy approach and just cop out.
Two banlists are the only way to satisfy both groups.
People are always talking about "swapping in cards" to other decks, so if you only play in metas that shun proxies, this shouldn't be a foreign concept to anyone.
Casual Banlist
Casual Banlist + Legacy.
Doesn't seem that hard to implement. If you cream someone with an uber combo list and they complain, ask them to play the current banlist + legacy. It really only makes sense at that point.
If you're going for something that's explainable in one sentence, (i.e. using another ban list in addition to the regular one) you'd probably be better off with the Duel Commander ban list rather than Legacy's. That format is much more similar to multiplayer Commander than Legacy is. You can see what the total list would look like here: http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/commander-edh/510543-does-anyone-play-with-both-banlists?page=2#c33
Well, Trade Secrets was banned, despite the fact it was rarely played. It was banned for a specific reason. Well, this reason happens far more often in the form of Consecrated Sphinx plus copy. Following the logic that lead to the initial ban of Trade Secret (which was unnecessary), you would have to ban Consecrated Sphinx as well.
Note that I really don't want to advocate a ban of Consecrated Sphinx. I think that both Trade Secrets and Consecrated Sphinx are perfectly fine.
Fun fact: When Trade Secrets was banned and I told my group about it, half of the people asked "What was that again?".
Yeah, the Trade Secrets ban really baffled me as well. I mean, I know the occasional user here muttered about it, but I very rarely saw it being played, I'd have hardly called it game ruining.
I have a pretty good amount of experience with the nefarious use of Trade Secrets. I was surprised to see it banned, since I didn't think that use was all that common though.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"I think EDH would be more fun for the majority of participants if players just showed eachother their decks rather than actually playing games out."
Multiple banlists is a bad idea.
Just the Legacy banlist is a bad idea, because it allows two of the cards that most belong on the EDH banlist - Karakas and Limited Resources
Current Banlist + Legacy Banlist seems questionable at best. Sure, you axe a lot of powerful tutors, Hermit Druid, and stupid super-ramp, but you're also axing cards like Wheel of Fortune (which is healthy for the format beacuse it's one of Red's only ways to draw cards), as well as a lot of cards which aren't broken in EDH and EDH is one of the few formats you can play them in (Windfall, Necropotence arguably, Skullclamp, Earthcraft, Yawgmoth's Will, etc).
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
My Moderator Helpdesk
Currently Playing:
Legacy: Something U/W Controlish EDH Cube
Hypercube! A New EDH Deck Every Week(ish)!
Commander is a multi-player format and the banned list needs to reflect that, so cards like Limited Resources needs to be banned. Since that means you have to go beyond the actual Legacy list, I don't see any value in saying that the banned list is Legacy + "these cards" when you could just as easily list the cards that are banned. In casual conversation you could explain that the banned list is pretty similar to Legacy but with modifications. That encompasses the few cards that don't need to be banned and the few cards that need to be banned. However, if you were making this format's banned list from scratch, I think the Legacy list would be a good starting point, but we aren't starting from scratch so the value in doing so is greatly diminished.
That said, I have to agree that the current banned list is too inconsistent for my tastes. Most formats only ban cards to increase diversity in the format, to get rid of a too powerful strategy that everyone would gravitate towards if it was legal (as well as those manual dexterity cards and ante cards). But Commander has several very distinct categories of banned cards. Some are banned for price concerns (like the Moxes), some are banned for competition concerns (like Protean Hulk), some are banned because it is a multi-player format (like Limited Resources), others are banned because they just make the game not fun (like Painter's Servant). Unlike the other formats, I think Commander would benefit advertising these categories explicitly in the banned list so that people can easily see them instead of looking at the list as it currently stands and trying to figure it out.
Supposition 1: We want to have the fewest banned cards possible while still enabling a healthy format
Supposition 2: We want to have a single consistent banlist, so that the format is universally accessible, and players don't need to ask each table what personal banlist they are playing by before joining a game
Supposition 3: The banlist should be easily explainable
S1 eliminates the possibility of building from the Legacy list. There's just too many cards on that list that are either irrelevant in EDH (Gush, Black Vise) or totally fine (most of the tutors honestly, Earthcraft, Wheel, Windfall, etc)
S3 eliminates the possibility of really incorporating the Legacy list in a useful fashion. It'd be cool to say "This format uses the Legacy Banlist". It's not helpful at all to say "This format uses the Legacy Banlist, but also these five cards are banned, and these ten cards from that list aren't"
EDH could maybe stand to take some cues from the Legacy Banlist. But I don't think it's strictly necessary. I'd honestly rather see more cards unbanned rather than seeing more cards banned. Do I think Crypt creates a perceived barrier to entry for the format? Sure. Do I think that criterion is a worthwhile one to have for the banlist? Honestly, no. I mostly argue against Crypt to show the problem with that particular criterion.
If I were starting a banlist from scratch, I'd start with Limited Resources and Karakas. Those two cards are the most problematic for the format.
The third card I'd look at is probably Time Vault. Its only purpose is to serve as the cheapest and easiest colorless combo piece ever in the most snore-inducing way possible. There is literally no fun/casual way to play it.
Beyond that, the only thing I'd stress is that it's a casual format. You want to run Moxen if you've got em? Great. You want to use them to power out a Hermit Druid combo on turn two? You should probably just go play Vintage then.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
My Moderator Helpdesk
Currently Playing:
Legacy: Something U/W Controlish EDH Cube
Hypercube! A New EDH Deck Every Week(ish)!
the only thing I'd stress is that it's a casual format. You want to run Moxen if you've got em? Great. You want to use them to power out a Hermit Druid combo on turn two? You should probably just go play Vintage then.
I couldn't agree more with this statement, its a casual format and you should be able to play expensive cool cards but don't try and act like its a vintage tournament, that's not the point of the format, go play 100 card vintage highlander.
I have a pretty good amount of experience with the nefarious use of Trade Secrets. I was surprised to see it banned, since I didn't think that use was all that common though.
It wasn't all that common of a card but it led to collusion where two players would see who could win and the other people at the table couldn't really have much of a say in things other than trying to counter the spell. I myself had only seen it cast once or twice but the times I did see it cast the person it was being cast on almost always wanted to draw their deck for whatever reason and then looses on the spot because its not their turn and they gave the other player all the counters and combo pieces they needed.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
I have a pretty good amount of experience with the nefarious use of Trade Secrets. I was surprised to see it banned, since I didn't think that use was all that common though.
It wasn't all that common of a card but it led to collusion where two players would see who could win and the other people at the table couldn't really have much of a say in things other than trying to counter the spell. I myself had only seen it cast once or twice but the times I did see it cast the person it was being cast on almost always wanted to draw their deck for whatever reason and then looses on the spot because its not their turn and they gave the other player all the counters and combo pieces they needed.
I see this problem a lot whenever there are two copies of Consecrated Sphinx as well.
Fortunately in my playgroup whenever that comes up, we generally take a "gentleman's agreement" not to draw off of C Sphinx draws.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
My Moderator Helpdesk
Currently Playing:
Legacy: Something U/W Controlish EDH Cube
Hypercube! A New EDH Deck Every Week(ish)!
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
You're completely right. I was injecting my opinion to prove a point.
I still think the point is valid though. These arguments are mostly based on opinions and not fact and I'd rather see a criteria based on the the later.
The EDH stax primer
When you absolutely, positively got to kill every permanent in the room, accept no substitutes.
Also it's FFA so even if you succeed in shutting down the combo player every turn unless you follow up with your own combo the other players just ride your control to a free win and you still lose.
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
When someone argues to me that this is a casual format and that I shouldn't be running Mana Crypt and if I do, I shouldn't be doing anything broken with it, take a step back and look at the ban list. From what we know about magic, it is factual that Vintage is faster and more expensive than Legacy, therefore it is a more competitive format. Judging from the difference in banlists, we can use those hard facts to draw the conclusion that the Commander banlist would imply that it is meant to be a competitive format.
If I want to be able to win a game wherever I go, I have to stay relevant and play fast. To do that, I have to run Crypt, Sol Ring, and Vault or I will lose. I don't want to hear opinions and I won't give any of my own. Everything I said is factual. I play like a robot, the social aspect for me is the banter we have outside of the game, not the crazy LULZ in game.
cEDH: [G(U/R) Animar] - [(U/B)(G/W) Redless Wheels] - [(G/U)(W/B) Redless Pod] - [(B/G)W Ghave Metapod]
Ultimately, all we have are opinions when it comes to these things because even when you attempt to quantify how "broken" or "fair" something is with some sort of objective criteria, the validity of the criteria is still a matter of opinion.
In the case of Sol Ring and Mana Crypt (and others), you could apply the criteria that they produce more mana than they cost without loss of card advantage and should therefore be banned per the Legacy banned list criteria. Applying this criteria would also make Mana Crypt and Grim Monolith up for banning as well. I don't think that anyone would argue with this.
BUT... the crux of the argument becomes whether or not the criteria for banning a card in Legacy (or restricting a card in Vintage) should be applied to Commander. I believe that the RC has basically stated that the answer is "No" and that the list of cards banned from the format is a reflection of that. What I am hearing is that there is a vocal group that think this should change and that more of the Legacy ban/Vintage restriction criteria should be used for bannings in Commander. That is a perfectly reasonable stance that I personally feel has implications beyond the small subset of cards that people who use this argument want to have banned.
So far, only one person has given what they would want to ban/unban if given the chance to implement this criteria.
Is this really what people want???
@Jusstice: You gave me nothing but more generalities, basically stating a bunch of things that I already know. I know how bannings in competitive formats work. My point was that if it was decided to apply those criteria to bannings in EDH, what cards would you ban and/or unban? A specific list. This way, people can see the full effect of what you are actually advocating so we can get to what should be the real argument as to whether applying the Legacy ban criteria to Commander is even appropriate.
Jalira, Master Polymorphist | Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder | Bosh, Iron Golem | Ezuri, Renegade Leader
Brago, King Eternal | Oona, Queen of the Fae | Wort, Boggart Auntie | Wort, the Raidmother
Captain Sisay | Rhys, the Redeemed | Trostani, Selesnya's Voice | Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight | Obzedat, Ghost Council | Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind | Vorel of the Hull Clade
Uril, the Miststalker | Prossh, Skyraider of Kher | Nicol Bolas | Progenitus
Ghave, Guru of Spores | Zedruu the Greathearted | Damia, Sage of Stone | Riku of Two Reflections
If you read this thread you will find that some do and some don't. A lot of the people I know here, and in real life, would be very upset if you took away half their turn 1 and 2 moves.
WUBRGPauper Battle BoxWUBRG ... and why I am not a fan of Wayne Reynolds' Illustrations.
Signature by Inkfox Aesthetics by Xen
[Modern] Allies
The ban list's actual function: To keep the game healthy and get us fighting about stuff. It works just fine.
Cards like Hermit Druid and Deadeye are great for purely academic discussion since they look, smell, act, and feel like they should be banned... but aren't! It's inconsistencies like this that really fuel the fire and our love for the debate.
WUBRGPauper Battle BoxWUBRG ... and why I am not a fan of Wayne Reynolds' Illustrations.
Well to hear the RC tell it, basically any attempt to win before Turn 10 is unsporting, whether combo or not. And the last poll that I put up to that effect indicated that only about 5% of responders saw eye to eye with them on that point. Clearly you can have games that violate that Turn 10 criteria that do not involve combo at all, so consider the source when statements are made to the effect that you can't, ever, possibly, in your wildest dreams tailor a card pool for both advanced, intermediate and kitchen table players. To them, Rafiq decks are not fair. So it's only true to that universe that, yes, you can't ever have a card pool that stops all decks they don't like. The question not asked, not answered, is whether in everyone else's universe it's possible to have such a card pool.
And if it is possible to make a ban list to suit everyone, why not do it?
It also does no one any service to use terms like "meanest combo deck". Players trying to win a game are not being "mean" to each other. The idea of improving at a competitive activity is related to one's continuity of experience with a game, something that even Maro has cited as an essential aspect to a good game. So, we can stop drinking the Kool-Aid that what people want from the RC is a non-competitive game. The only truly non-competitive games I can think of are really just activities, such as Cat's Cradle, Three Card Monte, Magic Tricks, etc. With Magic, people don't want an activity, they want a game. Combo could be a part of that game, and people gradually made inroads to accepting that fact and successfully dealing with it. Only currently, delving into the Combo v. Control wars will put people into a no man's land of side by side goldfishing where no interaction or competition is taking place. If Combo were a bit worse in the format and Control could actually defend against it, we might see people playing in that territory. Seeing as how 90%+ of the community is already having the type of games the RC would see as unsporting, why not accomodate that?
One, I gave you a rundown in my post of all the cards touched by Legacy bans/Vintage restrictions. Two, I've stated in numerous areas at numerous times, including this thread, that I would ban everything currently banned in Legacy.
People seem to think that cards like Frantic Search being ok in this format is a trump card to that idea. That is question of presumptions. If the presumption is that any card anywhere should be legal unless it destroys competition in a format, then sure, the Legacy list is overinclusive. But that presumption is also defeated in several spots already with the current list. What I'm doing is raising the idea of a different presumption, that if a card is banned in Legacy, it should be banned in EDH.
Presumptions of legality/illegality are powerful administrative tools. They can replace the need of sound judgment whenever it's lacking, as seems to be the case with the RC. It would be nice if they gave an honest look at cards that have been considered unwholesome by every competition committee ever, instead of demonizing players who play them. But, they don't. It's unrealistic to assume that they'll gain that ability, or to use it in favor of the majority instead of their own tabletop groups, even if they had it. The next best thing is a nice, overinclusive presumption to do the work of an arbitrating authority that is lacking in either good judgment or in the will to represent this format's player base.
Uh... I feel a little silly pointing this out, but that doesn't actually invalidate my above argument. The fact remains that 'perceived barrier to entry' is one of the banning criteria laid out by the RC, and that one can reasonably argue that Mana Crypt meets that criteria. (Wildfire makes such an argument below)
The Commander format is governed by a group called the Rules Committee (RC) and the site they use for announcing ban list changes and other things is mtgcommander.net. You can find their 'Official Banned List and Format Philosophy Document' here. I'll also include it in a spoiler below with the relevant portion bolded.
Cost is a factor, but only as a contributing factor for a perceived barrier to entry. Essentially, if a substantial portion of potential players think that a card is important for playing Commander, that card shouldn't be too expensive or else those players may consider it a financial barrier for effectively playing the game. Expensive cards such as Imperial Seal, The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale, or Mishra's Workshop aren't considered to meet this criteria by the RC because they aren't important enough for one reason or another, namely being niche cards or having suitable replacements.
The Banned List for Commander is designed not to balance competitive play, but to help shape in the minds of its fans the vision held by its founders and Rules Committee. That vision is to create variable, interactive, and epic multiplayer games where memories are made, to foster the social nature of the format, and to underscore that competition is not the format’s primary goal. It sets out to define the parameters of Official Commander while recognizing that local groups may wish to modify things to suit their own needs.
The official Banned List is as follows, with further discussion of the ideals and philosophies below.
Additionally, the following Legendary Creatures are Banned as Commanders:
The Rules Committee's goal for Commander is for it to be different than other Magic games. Where competitive formats seek to balance the playing field for all styles and strategies, we want to encourage a style of game that is more open and directed towards all players having a good time regardless of who wins. This is summarized as “Create games that you’d love to remember, not the ones others would like to forget.”
While the Banned List helps to define what can be played, Commander is unique to Magic formats in that it seeks to shape the mindset of the game before players ever start building decks, pointing them in the direction of thinking socially before they choose their first card. It recognizes that due to the Eternal nature of the format, there are too many cards to try to shape it via only the Banned List, but that infusing the decklist construction approach with these philosophies is important; it is easier to build decks designed to maximize fun than it is to pull punches while playing the game.
This is the direction of the format, with full understanding that it’s not for everyone. We recognize that without drastic measures (like a 200 card Banned List), we can’t actually prevent an individual from breaking the format. What we can do is create a social environment where that individual doesn’t want to, or at the very least, is discouraged from doing so.
The Banned List contains the worst of the offenders for games being played in the spirit described above, those that to us are obvious choices in steering the format towards the general style of games we’d like to promote. While we’ve tried to make it fairly objective, there will always be a measure of subjectivity since different people evaluate cards and their impacts differently. We’d like the Banned List to be as small as possible to make it easily understandable for the players and manageable for us, meaning we’re not going to ban every card that someone finds unpleasant to play against. It is not a problem that some cards are strong.
In creating the Banned List, there are several factors that are only taken into small consideration, if at all:
There are several criteria that carry weight in Rules Committee discussions on individual cards. It is sometimes the intersection of these criteria that lead a card to be banned, not a single unified rule. Common criteria include:
Local Groups
We believe that both Official Commander and local variants can successfully co-exist. What works in the broader audience may not resonate around your local game shop or kitchen table. We encourage you to modify both philosophy and Banned List locally to suit your own needs while being aware that when you travel outside your local area, perhaps even on the other side of town, you’ll need to be ready to play with the Official rules, including the appropriate spirit. Likewise, when new players enter your playgroup they may have expectations closer to this Official Philosophy and it will usually help the transition to discuss why they/you do things a particular way.
So, you're saying that it may create a perceived barrier to entry, but that the 'perceived barrier to entry' criterion shouldn't exist?
I can get on board with that. If I didn't use proxies, I'd certainly be priced out of many card options and strategies in Commander - much more than just Mana Crypt and a few others. When imagining a scenario where I'd only be priced out of using Mana Crypt and perhaps ABUR duals and fetches, that's not nearly as restrictive as the former scenario unless I want to compete on an even playing field. Of course, trying to compete on an even playing field is about the only scenario in which a perceived barrier to entry as a banning criterion makes any sense, so if we're not going to consider Mana Crypt to meet that criterion, it really shouldn't be a criterion.
I'd be super happy if the RC announced tomorrow that Library, Gifts, Metalworker, Painter's Servant, Panoptic Mirror, Recurring Nightmare, and Protean Hulk were legal.
I'd be about as happy if they announced Mana Crypt, Survival, Tooth and Nail, Hermit Druid, Ad Nauseam, and maybe a few others were banned.
It just bothers some OCD part of me that arguments can be used in favor of banning a card, and other arguments can be used in favor of keeping a card unbanned, but both of those arguments could apply to the other just as easily.
Hulk combos off too easily and ends the game as a one-card combo if you build around it?
Hermit Druid is only broken if you build your entire deck around it, under normal usage, it's fine?
Now swap the subjects of those sentences... (Also sub in TnN and Survival here)
Gifts Ungiven is too good because it's a multi-card tutor that also feeds your graveyard, it will only be used to fuel cheap early combos?
Survival of the Fittest is only broken if you use it to tutor multiple cards of a combo and feed your graveyard, used as a value tutor it's fine?
Again, swap
Library is colorless, expensive, ubiquitously powerful, and iconic
Mana Vault is... not those things?
And so on.
Currently Playing:
Legacy: Something U/W Controlish
EDH Cube
Hypercube! A New EDH Deck Every Week(ish)!
"The Banned List for Commander is designed not to balance competitive play, but to help shape in the minds of its fans the vision held by its founders and Rules Committee. That vision is to create variable, interactive, and epic multiplayer games where memories are made, to foster the social nature of the format, and to underscore that competition is not the format’s primary goal. It sets out to define the parameters of Official Commander while recognizing that local groups may wish to modify things to suit their own needs."
It says it right there in the underlined text( and bolded). They ban for unhealthy social games not to have balanced games. That is what the French Banlist is for. The RC says they want memorable games and what is more memorable than going from sol ring to mana crypt to mana vault to turn 2blightsteel colossus. Balancing the format so no player can be 4 mana ahead on turn 2 is not their priority according to their message statement.
The natural arms race that we as people naturally achieve when competing against each other is what makes these games were someone can pull something amazing off not as cool. The fact that winning became our primary objective is what ruined the ban list for you, not the Rc, not the card that was banned, but your own ego and your necessity to win and make this format become hyper competitive like legacy or modern.
Sorry for any gramatical/spelling mistakes, I just got done with a giant paper for school so my ability to care is out the window.
I wasn't 100% sure and I didn't want to put words in your mouth. So that would mean the banning of the following 32 cards:
1 Black Vise
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Earthcraft
1 Flash
1 Frantic Search
1 Goblin Recruiter
1 Gush
1 Hermit Druid
1 Imperial Seal
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Drain
1 Mana Vault
1 Memory Jar
1 Mental Misstep
1 Mind Twist
1 Mind's Desire
1 Mishra's Workshop
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Necropotence
1 Oath of Druids
1 Skullclamp
1 Sol Ring
1 Strip Mine
1 Survival of the Fittest
1 Timetwister
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Windfall
1 Worldgorger Dragon
1 Yawgmoth's Will
Considering that you are really only trying to make an argument for banning about 10 of those 32 cards (tutors, fast mana and Hermit), doesn't advocating that the RC adopt the Legacy banned list seem a little more like overkill just for the sake of simplification? I think calling it overinclusive is severely underestimating the differences between the two lists. Do you not see the difference between a 99-card singleton multiplayer format and a 60-card competitive format and how just those functional differences should affect what cards get banned? Couple that with the Commander rule and the different life totals and I don't see how you can possibly say that the two banned lists be the same. Just the fact that you are advocating the banning of Ad Nauseam that isn't banned in Legacy should make you see that there are going to have to be differences no matter what.
I guess that would also mean the unbanning of the following cards:
1 Coalition Victory
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Gifts Ungiven
1 Griselbrand
1 Karakas
1 Limited Resources
1 Metalworker
1 Painter's Servant
1 Panoptic Mirror
1 Primeval Titan
1 Protean Hulk
1 Recurring Nightmare
1 Sundering Titan
1 Sway of the Stars
1 Sylvan Primordial
1 Trade Secrets
1 Upheaval
1 Worldfire
Again, I don't want to put words in your mouth, so I ask what you would do with these cards?
So what you are really advocating is that the RC be disbanned and that Commander basically becomes a variant of Legacy by adopting its banned list instead. I don't know many people who play this format who would agree with that on any level just based on the above lists of cards that would be banned and unbanned. Any argument about banning a card in Commander that starts or ends with "but its banned in Legacy" should just stop right there. If you want to play 100-card Legacy Highlander, then be my guest. But advocating that the Commander format's player base wants this and/or that this is somehow good for the format is complete nonsense.
Now if you want to go and talk about banning a select 10 cards and just those 10 cards, then perhaps we might have a conversation about that. But all this talk about how the Legacy banned list is the end-all, be-all Holy Grail of banned lists that would somehow make every EDH player happy is complete rubbish.
Jalira, Master Polymorphist | Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder | Bosh, Iron Golem | Ezuri, Renegade Leader
Brago, King Eternal | Oona, Queen of the Fae | Wort, Boggart Auntie | Wort, the Raidmother
Captain Sisay | Rhys, the Redeemed | Trostani, Selesnya's Voice | Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight | Obzedat, Ghost Council | Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind | Vorel of the Hull Clade
Uril, the Miststalker | Prossh, Skyraider of Kher | Nicol Bolas | Progenitus
Ghave, Guru of Spores | Zedruu the Greathearted | Damia, Sage of Stone | Riku of Two Reflections
People are always talking about "swapping in cards" to other decks, so if you only play in metas that shun proxies, this shouldn't be a foreign concept to anyone.
Casual Banlist
Casual Banlist + Legacy.
Doesn't seem that hard to implement. If you cream someone with an uber combo list and they complain, ask them to play the current banlist + legacy. It really only makes sense at that point. Why are these cards not banned then? Oh, so I have retool my deck because you don't like me playing legal cards. Oh...I guess I just don't get the format.
Likely, you just don't play that playgroup. This is something I've come to terms with. But then again, I can't play a lot of people unless it's on Cockatrice as I'm not blowing anymore money on this game. That's besides the point.
The fact is, I've been around MTG for over a decade. I know people who really get into this game will eventually want to optimize their decks. Their group might likely want to get better. Then, they reach critical mass and realize things like Mana Crypt and Vampiric Tutor needs to go in order stop the coin-flip aspect their games have become.
Policing others is such a terrible concept and begits all logic when you hold a magnifying glass up to any of the reasons.
But sol ring let's you play your fatty earlier? So do other ramps spells. I mean if Fatties are the only polite way to play then sol ring and crypt are STILL op, and STILL required to stay relevant with the other guy at the table who uses them to play their fatties.
The RC has been proven to be inconsistent with their reasonings for a group of players that will continue to grow. I remember a time around here when it was more taboo to talk about ultra competitiveness. It seems more and more people are starting to speak up though. This group is growing. I just realized Mana Crypt is now $200 overnight (to me) Why did this happen? We all know why.
That's because more people are tuning their decks. They are getting better, and critical mass is being reached. Coin flips are going to become more prevalent. How is this not going to happen. How can anyone who's ever really really been into magic not realize this has happened to yourself once upon a time.
If we are supposed to play competitively, this desire will eventually overcome. There are people who are new to magic and people who've been around the block. This current banlist isn't relvent to me whatsoever.
If implemented, the next time I pop up at some LGS, imagine I go to each EDH table asking: Casual or Competitive? lol
UR Melek, Izzet ParagonUR, B Shirei, Shizo's CaretakerB, R Jaya Ballard, Task MageR,RW Tajic, Blade of the LegionRW, UB Lazav, Dimir MastermindUB, UB Circu, Dimir LobotomistUB, RWU Zedruu the GreatheartedRWU, GUBThe MimeoplasmGUB, UGExperiment Kraj UG, WDarien, King of KjeldorW, BMarrow-GnawerB, WBGKarador, Ghost ChieftainWBG, UTeferi, Temporal ArchmageU, GWUDerevi, Empyrial TacticianGWU, RDaretti, Scrap SavantR, UTalrand, Sky SummonerU, GEzuri, Renegade LeaderG, WUBRGReaper KingWUBRG, RGXenagos, God of RevelsRG, CKozilek, Butcher of TruthC, WUBRGGeneral TazriWUBRG, GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
Took a look at various big name decks in the Multiplayer section to see what adding the Legacy ban list would do to them:
Bruna (primer) - loses Frantic Search and Windfall
Arcum (primer) - Loses Mana Crypt, Mana Vault, Memory Jar, Sol Ring
Derevi - Mana Crypt, Sol Ring, Timetwister
Mimeoplasm (primer) - Loses Demonic, Mystical, Vampiric Tutor, Frantic Search, Sol Ring, Mana Crypt, Survival of the Fittest
Animar (primer) - Earthcraft
I have to get ready for work now, but I'm sure if you keep going through other high traffic decks you'll see an emerging pattern: What you want is what we've been saying for a while now - there's like 5 cards on the Legacy ban list you actually want banned (Ring/Vault, and the cheap tutors). What is becoming apparent to me is that rather than go on a crusade to ban the cards that actually impact the game, you and everyone else who wants to blindly add the Legacy ban list have chosen to take the lazy approach and just cop out.
Misc. EDH Stuff: Commander Cube | Zombies (Horde)
Resources:Commander Rulings FAQ | Commander Deckbuilding Guide
Follow me on Twitter! @cryogen_mtg
If you're going for something that's explainable in one sentence, (i.e. using another ban list in addition to the regular one) you'd probably be better off with the Duel Commander ban list rather than Legacy's. That format is much more similar to multiplayer Commander than Legacy is. You can see what the total list would look like here: http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/commander-edh/510543-does-anyone-play-with-both-banlists?page=2#c33
I have a pretty good amount of experience with the nefarious use of Trade Secrets. I was surprised to see it banned, since I didn't think that use was all that common though.
Just the Legacy banlist is a bad idea, because it allows two of the cards that most belong on the EDH banlist - Karakas and Limited Resources
Current Banlist + Legacy Banlist seems questionable at best. Sure, you axe a lot of powerful tutors, Hermit Druid, and stupid super-ramp, but you're also axing cards like Wheel of Fortune (which is healthy for the format beacuse it's one of Red's only ways to draw cards), as well as a lot of cards which aren't broken in EDH and EDH is one of the few formats you can play them in (Windfall, Necropotence arguably, Skullclamp, Earthcraft, Yawgmoth's Will, etc).
Currently Playing:
Legacy: Something U/W Controlish
EDH Cube
Hypercube! A New EDH Deck Every Week(ish)!
That said, I have to agree that the current banned list is too inconsistent for my tastes. Most formats only ban cards to increase diversity in the format, to get rid of a too powerful strategy that everyone would gravitate towards if it was legal (as well as those manual dexterity cards and ante cards). But Commander has several very distinct categories of banned cards. Some are banned for price concerns (like the Moxes), some are banned for competition concerns (like Protean Hulk), some are banned because it is a multi-player format (like Limited Resources), others are banned because they just make the game not fun (like Painter's Servant). Unlike the other formats, I think Commander would benefit advertising these categories explicitly in the banned list so that people can easily see them instead of looking at the list as it currently stands and trying to figure it out.
Supposition 2: We want to have a single consistent banlist, so that the format is universally accessible, and players don't need to ask each table what personal banlist they are playing by before joining a game
Supposition 3: The banlist should be easily explainable
S1 eliminates the possibility of building from the Legacy list. There's just too many cards on that list that are either irrelevant in EDH (Gush, Black Vise) or totally fine (most of the tutors honestly, Earthcraft, Wheel, Windfall, etc)
S3 eliminates the possibility of really incorporating the Legacy list in a useful fashion. It'd be cool to say "This format uses the Legacy Banlist". It's not helpful at all to say "This format uses the Legacy Banlist, but also these five cards are banned, and these ten cards from that list aren't"
EDH could maybe stand to take some cues from the Legacy Banlist. But I don't think it's strictly necessary. I'd honestly rather see more cards unbanned rather than seeing more cards banned. Do I think Crypt creates a perceived barrier to entry for the format? Sure. Do I think that criterion is a worthwhile one to have for the banlist? Honestly, no. I mostly argue against Crypt to show the problem with that particular criterion.
If I were starting a banlist from scratch, I'd start with Limited Resources and Karakas. Those two cards are the most problematic for the format.
The third card I'd look at is probably Time Vault. Its only purpose is to serve as the cheapest and easiest colorless combo piece ever in the most snore-inducing way possible. There is literally no fun/casual way to play it.
Beyond that, the only thing I'd stress is that it's a casual format. You want to run Moxen if you've got em? Great. You want to use them to power out a Hermit Druid combo on turn two? You should probably just go play Vintage then.
Currently Playing:
Legacy: Something U/W Controlish
EDH Cube
Hypercube! A New EDH Deck Every Week(ish)!
I couldn't agree more with this statement, its a casual format and you should be able to play expensive cool cards but don't try and act like its a vintage tournament, that's not the point of the format, go play 100 card vintage highlander.
It wasn't all that common of a card but it led to collusion where two players would see who could win and the other people at the table couldn't really have much of a say in things other than trying to counter the spell. I myself had only seen it cast once or twice but the times I did see it cast the person it was being cast on almost always wanted to draw their deck for whatever reason and then looses on the spot because its not their turn and they gave the other player all the counters and combo pieces they needed.
Signature by Inkfox Aesthetics by Xen
[Modern] Allies
I see this problem a lot whenever there are two copies of Consecrated Sphinx as well.
Fortunately in my playgroup whenever that comes up, we generally take a "gentleman's agreement" not to draw off of C Sphinx draws.
Currently Playing:
Legacy: Something U/W Controlish
EDH Cube
Hypercube! A New EDH Deck Every Week(ish)!