When I typed that up at first, I had a comment about saying it a different way, and I think my example was "we're confident people are having fun with things as they are, so we're more comfortable leaving things be than changing them" before I deleted that bit because it occurred to me that might not be what healthy means to them. Health in other formats, particularly competitive ones, is pretty well defined as a varied meta, but that doesn't exactly apply here in "everyone play what you feel like first and worry about it actually working second" land. We just have millions of incredibly varied decks at all sorts of power levels anyway. Is that the metric? Cause they could ban 1000 cards or unban them all and I don't think the format would suffer for lack of deck variation. And I like to think of everyone having fun as the ultimate goal here, but it is definitely a "make your own fun" experience, so maybe I'm crazy for thinking of "health" that way since it's not the rules committee's job to make it fun for us.
I just spent a little too much time blipping around the internet in search of people describing the state of EDH as healthy or not, and things are just less clear than ever. Nobody ever says what that means. When people say something like Prophet of Kruphix is unhealthy, it could be about play variety. But when people were arguing that tuck was healthy, it was about game dynamics that had actually concentrated some card choices, and then when the whole format is called healthy, it's often followed by mentions of how many people are playing it as though that's the whole metric, but I'm pretty sure Worldfire wasn't banned assuming it would make people leave the format entirely. The more I ponder, the less I know what "healthy" is even meant to say.
Makes sense. So I suppose you're asking Sheldon to better define what healthy means to him and the rest of the RC?
Makes sense. So I suppose you're asking Sheldon to better define what healthy means to him and the rest of the RC?
I mean, that'd be nice. It might be demanding the impossible though. From what I've seen, Sheldon tends to describe the format being healthy as a declarative statement synonymous with "we don't need to make changes right now" so there might not be an answer beyond "that's just how we use that phrase." It's more the everyone saying it that bothers me. I did a quick search for health in this thread, and there's 9 pages worth of posts on the word, including some weird unicorn saying "A health of the format poll would be the laughing stock of, well everything." The word is used by a lot of different people to mean a lot of different things which means unless you're already acquainted with an individual's opinions, it generally means nothing.
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Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."
I mean, that'd be nice. It might be demanding the impossible though. From what I've seen, Sheldon tends to describe the format being healthy as a declarative statement synonymous with "we don't need to make changes right now" so there might not be an answer beyond "that's just how we use that phrase." It's more the everyone saying it that bothers me. I did a quick search for health in this thread, and there's 9 pages worth of posts on the word, including some weird unicorn saying "A health of the format poll would be the laughing stock of, well everything." The word is used by a lot of different people to mean a lot of different things which means unless you're already acquainted with an individual's opinions, it generally means nothing.
Beyond Sol Ring, what changes do you believe need to be made to the Commander format?
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I mean, that'd be nice. It might be demanding the impossible though. From what I've seen, Sheldon tends to describe the format being healthy as a declarative statement synonymous with "we don't need to make changes right now" so there might not be an answer beyond "that's just how we use that phrase." It's more the everyone saying it that bothers me. I did a quick search for health in this thread, and there's 9 pages worth of posts on the word, including some weird unicorn saying "A health of the format poll would be the laughing stock of, well everything." The word is used by a lot of different people to mean a lot of different things which means unless you're already acquainted with an individual's opinions, it generally means nothing.
Demn those weird unicorns!!!!!!111!11!1!!11!
Sheldon often times asks for users to define what they mean by "balance", so I do not feel that it is unreasonable to ask him to perhaps expand a bit on what "healthy" means, or more precisely their metrics for arriving at that conclusion.
Beyond Sol Ring, what changes do you believe need to be made to the Commander format?
Given free reign, the only things I'm sure I would do are ban sol ring and unban Painter's Servant. The first one is lame, oversaturated poop that condenses games to shorter turn counts that limit interactions. The second one is a really unique, global effect that gives new interaction to dozens of cards. I appreciate arguments against Tooth and Nail or Iona, but I think at this point the stigma against those is recognized by most people. I also find the argument that the life total is too high for aggro to exist interesting, though I think people saying that aren't trying to beat face hard enough.
Nothing really needs to change, per se, but other than wizards printing more mistakes, nothing will ever really need to change, but we can still do better. The format is more fun without Sol Ring at least, I'm very certain of that.
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Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."
Given free reign, the only things I'm sure I would do are ban sol ring and unban Painter's Servant. The first one is lame, oversaturated poop that condenses games to shorter turn counts that limit interactions. The second one is a really unique, global effect that gives new interaction to dozens of cards. I appreciate arguments against Tooth and Nail or Iona, but I think at this point the stigma against those is recognized by most people. I also find the argument that the life total is too high for aggro to exist interesting, though I think people saying that aren't trying to beat face hard enough.
Nothing really needs to change, per se, but other than wizards printing more mistakes, nothing will ever really need to change, but we can still do better. The format is more fun without Sol Ring at least, I'm very certain of that.
Out of curiosity, how do you feel on Sol Ring vs Mana Crypt vs Mana Vault vs Grim Monolith (I think those are the only "produce more mana than they cost" rocks which are considered broken) I have my own personal stance on them and for the most part it sounds like we are more aligned than we used to be.
I also would be interested in hearing how Sheldon or other members of the RC define "healthy" in terms of the format. I agree with that assessment, but it would be interesting to hear how they measure that.
Personally, things which suggest to me that the format is very healthy include the following:
- message boards and online forums for the format (including this one) see a lot of traffic;
- statements from a wide range of players from different places indicate that the format continues to be played on a regular basis in game stores, at conventions and competitive events and at tables in players' homes;
- the Commander products released by WotC/Hasbro continue to sell consistently and well, year after year. In fact, I believe Commander has been the most consistently successful product ever produced specifically for the more "casual" side of the MtG market, achieving much greater success than efforts such as premium decks, Archenemy, Planechase and so forth;
- secondary market prices continue to rise for cards which are played only in Commander, both staples (look at the cost of things like Doubling Season and Kaalia) and older, niche cards, especially those on the reserved list. Some of these are being bought by investors, but presumably at least some - and especially the staple cards - are being bought because people are using them to play Commander.
I do think that for all the complaining we do on these boards, only a few cards keep popping up constantly. This, to me, indicates that there are very few widespread controversial cards, which probably contributes to the health thing. You see the Tooth and Nail debate with or without Protean Hulk, you see Gifts Ungiven get some talk, there's the Iona/Painter's Servant discussion, and the fast mana...and those really are the main big debates that you see popping up. That's not a lot of big ones.
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My Commander decks:
Chandra, Torch of Defiance - Oops! All Chandras. Prime Speaker Zegana - Draw for Power. Pir & Toothy - Counterpalooza. Arcades, the Strategist - Another Brick in the Wall. Zacama, Primal Calamity - Calamity of Double Mana. Edgar Markov - Vampires Don't Die. Child of Alara - Dreamcrusher.
I don’t like the word “healthy” either, for lots of reasons. Its connotation is mostly within the tournament context, which is a subset even of the “competitive” context. It’s defined in the negative rather than the affirmative, e.g. format is 60% Caw Blade, not healthy. On top of that, it’s always relative. Last year’s Modern/Standard/Legacy tournaments had more attendees, etc, not healthy.
Obviously, none of those measuring sticks will apply to EDH. There are games being played, and people having fun. If that is the touchstone for “healthy”, then EDH is going to be healthy all of the time, as a rule, unless Magic itself somehow becomes unpopular.
I find it a lot better to measure net effects, i.e., whether the format is better with such and such change. If games are unambiguously better without Sol Ring, for example, let’s ban it. The “healthy” word is highly euphemistic of the status quo.
Out of curiosity, how do you feel on Sol Ring vs Mana Crypt vs Mana Vault vs Grim Monolith (I think those are the only "produce more mana than they cost" rocks which are considered broken) I have my own personal stance on them and for the most part it sounds like we are more aligned than we used to be.
Sol Ring stands ahead of the rest easily, just cause it's everywhere ruining everything. When people play mana crypt, they know what it's going to do and make the decision. When people play Mana Vault or Grim Monolith and sprint ahead, they planned it that way. When people play Sol Ring it's usually because they thoughtlessly put it in every deck because it makes every thoughtless deck better at winning and nobody complains because they're all playing it too and then the pace of the game is decided entirely by Sol Ring, win or lose, rather than the cards people really care about.
I don't want to pick out fast mana from the format. Ramp is a strategy that deserves its space. But I think games are at their best when people have a thoughtful strategy and decide how strong they want their decks to be rather than going "hey, I drew Sol Ring, guess I'm the archenemy hyper-ramp deck today!"
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Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."
I do think that for all the complaining we do on these boards, only a few cards keep popping up constantly. This, to me, indicates that there are very few widespread controversial cards, which probably contributes to the health thing. You see the Tooth and Nail debate with or without Protean Hulk, you see Gifts Ungiven get some talk, there's the Iona/Painter's Servant discussion, and the fast mana...and those really are the main big debates that you see popping up. That's not a lot of big ones.
I agree. I think this is also a pretty good sign of the format's health.
I'm actually feeling that Sol Ring is a little less ban worthy now then I previously felt it was a few months ago.
It can still do dirty dirty things to end a game before it even begins, but I suspect that has more to do with style of deck then it does with the effect of the actual ring itself.
I'd argue that all EDH fall into two categories, proactive and reactive.
I define those as:
Proactive: The deck sits down with a plan at the very start of the game and tries to execute that plan to achieve victory. This could be a combo deck, voltron, stax, or deck like Yisan or Captain Sisay; I'd also argue that ramp decks are proactive.
Reactive: This deck doesn't sit down with a "plan". Instead of going "Here is how I will win" They are just trying to play the game and will just end up winning with whatever cards they happen to cobble togther this game. I'd argue that pillowfort, group hug, punisher, and most control decks are reactive.
Turn 1 Sol Ring is really good in proactive decks, maybe too good. Yet, Turn 1 Sol Ring out of a reactive deck is still good, but it's not too good; infact it's usually going to ramping into cards that don't end the game and instead make it longer.
This basically encapsulates my feelings regarding Sol Ring. I believe certain decks/players/archetypes aren't using Sol Ring in ways that create poor games of Commander. I can't even remember the last time an early Sol Ring came down, and my table felt as though it caused any damage. An early Ring obviously puts players ahead, but that might not actually mean all that much depending on the circumstances. I think my own deck is a pretty good example of this. My Commander deck is almost entirely proactive in its game plan, but it's also glacially slow. An early Sol Ring doesn't usually shoot me ahead so much as it puts me on par with the rest of the table.
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I witnessed a hilarious example of this sort of game recently.
Turn 1, Mountain, Sol Ring, but no follow up.
Turn 2 = Mountain, Purphuros, God of the Forge. There was much groaning.
Turn 3 = Mountain, Siege Gang Commander. Lots of damage.
Turn 4 = Conjurer's Closet. Flicker Siege Gang Commander. More damage.
Turn 5 = Mountain, Impact Tremors, Krenko, Mob Boss. A couple people groaned, I laughed. Flicker the Commander, more damage. Nobody had a wrath or any other relevant removal, or drew into any, so we scooped before the mono-red player started turn 6.
The funny thing was, this wasn't a Purphuros deck. It was a Krenko deck. There was no tutoring involved at all. Just lucky draws into a solid curve, and nobody among the three other players drew into relevant removal. But the Sol Ring definitely enabled the whole thing.
Healthy in this context means both robust and not sick. "Robust" means that it's experiencing some kind of growth. While we're not tracking numbers like a business might (since we don't have access to such numbers, save for what Scott is allowed to share with us about internals), the evidence that there are new players coming into the format is sufficient. We can point to new folks popping up on forums as an example. While I doubt our growth is what it was a few years ago, you also simply can't sustain such explosive expansion. We can also point to WotC continuing to produce product for it as another. If the brand wasn't projected to grow, then they'd shut it down.
"Not sick" means that there aren't cards doing bad things to the broader format. Sure, there are going to be controversial cards, but in this sense, "not sick" means "nothing needs to be banned." "Not sick" also means that we see a broad array of deck archetypes getting played and talked about. The measure here which resonates most with us is that we see plenty of flavor and theme builds. In no other format is there excitement about Pirate tribal Ramirez DePietro build or a Dune-themed deck. Like competitive formats, we want to see diversity, we just want to see it for different reasons (and, note that competitive constructed formats don't want too much diversity--but that's a different discussion).
Some of you might ask by which objective measures or processes we come to these conclusions. Those of you who have been around a while know that we do things by observation and feel, coupled with our experience. I get that this might be unsatisfying to some of you. I'll ask that you understand that we don't manage Commander the way other formats are managed--because Commander isn't intended to be like other formats. As I've said before, we want it to be the best it can be on its own terms.
My main point is that I'm seeing newer posters (some could be long time lurkers) commenting on this topic. Say what you want or anyone trying to be a technical Nazi, but I do think the fact this thread being shifted to a subforum is bad in terms of traffic. I mentioned it the first time it moved.
I sincerely do feel we'll have newer (from said posters) opinions on the thread now if it was shifted back to the main page. I don't know what's the intention for this move in the first place (I know it's been a while); was it meant to take the heat off this thread with the shift, was it sent here to the graveyard where only (in all honesty) regulars are featured?
I do think this thread is in a very bad place. I hope the mods can discuss this internally and hopefully shift this back to the main CMDR page.
Ah. Yeah I can agree that it doesn't get as much traffic here as it did in the main forum, but at the same time I think the benefits of this dedicated area outweigh the slightly lessened visibility.
Healthy in this context means both robust and not sick. "Robust" means that it's experiencing some kind of growth. While we're not tracking numbers like a business might (since we don't have access to such numbers, save for what Scott is allowed to share with us about internals), the evidence that there are new players coming into the format is sufficient. We can point to new folks popping up on forums as an example. While I doubt our growth is what it was a few years ago, you also simply can't sustain such explosive expansion. We can also point to WotC continuing to produce product for it as another. If the brand wasn't projected to grow, then they'd shut it down.
"Not sick" means that there aren't cards doing bad things to the broader format. Sure, there are going to be controversial cards, but in this sense, "not sick" means "nothing needs to be banned." "Not sick" also means that we see a broad array of deck archetypes getting played and talked about. The measure here which resonates most with us is that we see plenty of flavor and theme builds. In no other format is there excitement about Pirate tribal Ramirez DePietro build or a Dune-themed deck. Like competitive formats, we want to see diversity, we just want to see it for different reasons (and, note that competitive constructed formats don't want too much diversity--but that's a different discussion).
Some of you might ask by which objective measures or processes we come to these conclusions. Those of you who have been around a while know that we do things by observation and feel, coupled with our experience. I get that this might be unsatisfying to some of you. I'll ask that you understand that we don't manage Commander the way other formats are managed--because Commander isn't intended to be like other formats. As I've said before, we want it to be the best it can be on its own terms.
Thank you for this post Sheldon. I appreciate the detail because I can now try to look at cards under this scope and (hopefully) have better discussions on individual cards.
"Not sick" means that there aren't cards doing bad things to the broader format. Sure, there are going to be controversial cards, but in this sense, "not sick" means "nothing needs to be banned." "Not sick" also means that we see a broad array of deck archetypes getting played and talked about. The measure here which resonates most with us is that we see plenty of flavor and theme builds. In no other format is there excitement about Pirate tribal Ramirez DePietro build or a Dune-themed deck. Like competitive formats, we want to see diversity, we just want to see it for different reasons (and, note that competitive constructed formats don't want too much diversity--but that's a different discussion).
I like your explanation, but this somewhat feels like
"It's not sick because there aren't cards being banned and there aren't cards being banned because it's not sick."
If you acknowledged and recognized the decreasing rate of traffic onto this subforum but defending its rightful place, man... I'm loss for words. I'd like to ask what are the benefits?
If you acknowledged and recognized the decreasing rate of traffic onto this subforum but defending its rightful place, man... I'm loss for words. I'd like to ask what are the benefits?
How about better organization of information for starters? Before this subforum existed, all banned list discussion was done in one giant, megathread — this one. That was a huge mess. It made it impossible for anyone to actually follow a conversation about a given card since at any point in time the conversation would just shift to another card, and then anyone else joining in on the conversation would lose all awareness of what was discussed beforehand. Trying to discuss 20 different things in a single thread just spells disaster. That's the point of making separate threads to begin with — to organize information.
I agree with you that traffic is lower here due to being tucked away in a subforum, but I'm not sure that's the whole truth. I think traffic right now is also low because Commander is in really good shape right now, and very few folks actually have qualms with the banned list. Folks can find this place easily enough if they want to. It isn't like banned list discussion threads are popping up in the main Commander forum because folks don't know where to post those things. Conversation just isn't happening because nobody wants to have these conversations. Commander is just in a good spot right now.
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Commander: Hazezon Tamar (GRW), Arjun, the Shifting Flame (UR), [Waiting on Amonkhet]
Tiny Leader: [Waiting on Amonkhet]
Peasant Dragon: [Waiting on Amonkhet]
Modern: Orzhova Spirits (WB)
Legacy: Burn (R)
Vintage: Bazaar Dredge (B)
Makes sense. So I suppose you're asking Sheldon to better define what healthy means to him and the rest of the RC?
Misc. EDH Stuff: Commander Cube | Zombies (Horde)
Resources:Commander Rulings FAQ | Commander Deckbuilding Guide
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I mean, that'd be nice. It might be demanding the impossible though. From what I've seen, Sheldon tends to describe the format being healthy as a declarative statement synonymous with "we don't need to make changes right now" so there might not be an answer beyond "that's just how we use that phrase." It's more the everyone saying it that bothers me. I did a quick search for health in this thread, and there's 9 pages worth of posts on the word, including some weird unicorn saying "A health of the format poll would be the laughing stock of, well everything." The word is used by a lot of different people to mean a lot of different things which means unless you're already acquainted with an individual's opinions, it generally means nothing.
Beyond Sol Ring, what changes do you believe need to be made to the Commander format?
Trap your friends in an endless game with this 23-card combo!
Demn those weird unicorns!!!!!!111!11!1!!11!
Sheldon often times asks for users to define what they mean by "balance", so I do not feel that it is unreasonable to ask him to perhaps expand a bit on what "healthy" means, or more precisely their metrics for arriving at that conclusion.
Misc. EDH Stuff: Commander Cube | Zombies (Horde)
Resources:Commander Rulings FAQ | Commander Deckbuilding Guide
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Given free reign, the only things I'm sure I would do are ban sol ring and unban Painter's Servant. The first one is lame, oversaturated poop that condenses games to shorter turn counts that limit interactions. The second one is a really unique, global effect that gives new interaction to dozens of cards. I appreciate arguments against Tooth and Nail or Iona, but I think at this point the stigma against those is recognized by most people. I also find the argument that the life total is too high for aggro to exist interesting, though I think people saying that aren't trying to beat face hard enough.
Nothing really needs to change, per se, but other than wizards printing more mistakes, nothing will ever really need to change, but we can still do better. The format is more fun without Sol Ring at least, I'm very certain of that.
Out of curiosity, how do you feel on Sol Ring vs Mana Crypt vs Mana Vault vs Grim Monolith (I think those are the only "produce more mana than they cost" rocks which are considered broken) I have my own personal stance on them and for the most part it sounds like we are more aligned than we used to be.
Misc. EDH Stuff: Commander Cube | Zombies (Horde)
Resources:Commander Rulings FAQ | Commander Deckbuilding Guide
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Personally, things which suggest to me that the format is very healthy include the following:
- message boards and online forums for the format (including this one) see a lot of traffic;
- statements from a wide range of players from different places indicate that the format continues to be played on a regular basis in game stores, at conventions and competitive events and at tables in players' homes;
- the Commander products released by WotC/Hasbro continue to sell consistently and well, year after year. In fact, I believe Commander has been the most consistently successful product ever produced specifically for the more "casual" side of the MtG market, achieving much greater success than efforts such as premium decks, Archenemy, Planechase and so forth;
- secondary market prices continue to rise for cards which are played only in Commander, both staples (look at the cost of things like Doubling Season and Kaalia) and older, niche cards, especially those on the reserved list. Some of these are being bought by investors, but presumably at least some - and especially the staple cards - are being bought because people are using them to play Commander.
Obviously, none of those measuring sticks will apply to EDH. There are games being played, and people having fun. If that is the touchstone for “healthy”, then EDH is going to be healthy all of the time, as a rule, unless Magic itself somehow becomes unpopular.
I find it a lot better to measure net effects, i.e., whether the format is better with such and such change. If games are unambiguously better without Sol Ring, for example, let’s ban it. The “healthy” word is highly euphemistic of the status quo.
Sol Ring stands ahead of the rest easily, just cause it's everywhere ruining everything. When people play mana crypt, they know what it's going to do and make the decision. When people play Mana Vault or Grim Monolith and sprint ahead, they planned it that way. When people play Sol Ring it's usually because they thoughtlessly put it in every deck because it makes every thoughtless deck better at winning and nobody complains because they're all playing it too and then the pace of the game is decided entirely by Sol Ring, win or lose, rather than the cards people really care about.
I don't want to pick out fast mana from the format. Ramp is a strategy that deserves its space. But I think games are at their best when people have a thoughtful strategy and decide how strong they want their decks to be rather than going "hey, I drew Sol Ring, guess I'm the archenemy hyper-ramp deck today!"
I agree. I think this is also a pretty good sign of the format's health.
It can still do dirty dirty things to end a game before it even begins, but I suspect that has more to do with style of deck then it does with the effect of the actual ring itself.
I'd argue that all EDH fall into two categories, proactive and reactive.
I define those as:
Proactive: The deck sits down with a plan at the very start of the game and tries to execute that plan to achieve victory. This could be a combo deck, voltron, stax, or deck like Yisan or Captain Sisay; I'd also argue that ramp decks are proactive.
Reactive: This deck doesn't sit down with a "plan". Instead of going "Here is how I will win" They are just trying to play the game and will just end up winning with whatever cards they happen to cobble togther this game. I'd argue that pillowfort, group hug, punisher, and most control decks are reactive.
Turn 1 Sol Ring is really good in proactive decks, maybe too good. Yet, Turn 1 Sol Ring out of a reactive deck is still good, but it's not too good; infact it's usually going to ramping into cards that don't end the game and instead make it longer.
I'd much rather see a player drop a t1 Sol ring and follow it up with a Ghostly Prison next turn then see the plop down a Purpheros, God of the Forge on turn 2.
Trap your friends in an endless game with this 23-card combo!
I witnessed a hilarious example of this sort of game recently.
Turn 1, Mountain, Sol Ring, but no follow up.
Turn 2 = Mountain, Purphuros, God of the Forge. There was much groaning.
Turn 3 = Mountain, Siege Gang Commander. Lots of damage.
Turn 4 = Conjurer's Closet. Flicker Siege Gang Commander. More damage.
Turn 5 = Mountain, Impact Tremors, Krenko, Mob Boss. A couple people groaned, I laughed. Flicker the Commander, more damage. Nobody had a wrath or any other relevant removal, or drew into any, so we scooped before the mono-red player started turn 6.
The funny thing was, this wasn't a Purphuros deck. It was a Krenko deck. There was no tutoring involved at all. Just lucky draws into a solid curve, and nobody among the three other players drew into relevant removal. But the Sol Ring definitely enabled the whole thing.
"Not sick" means that there aren't cards doing bad things to the broader format. Sure, there are going to be controversial cards, but in this sense, "not sick" means "nothing needs to be banned." "Not sick" also means that we see a broad array of deck archetypes getting played and talked about. The measure here which resonates most with us is that we see plenty of flavor and theme builds. In no other format is there excitement about Pirate tribal Ramirez DePietro build or a Dune-themed deck. Like competitive formats, we want to see diversity, we just want to see it for different reasons (and, note that competitive constructed formats don't want too much diversity--but that's a different discussion).
Some of you might ask by which objective measures or processes we come to these conclusions. Those of you who have been around a while know that we do things by observation and feel, coupled with our experience. I get that this might be unsatisfying to some of you. I'll ask that you understand that we don't manage Commander the way other formats are managed--because Commander isn't intended to be like other formats. As I've said before, we want it to be the best it can be on its own terms.
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/commander-edh/768613-what-cards-are-you-tired-of-seeing-in-commander
My main point is that I'm seeing newer posters (some could be long time lurkers) commenting on this topic. Say what you want or anyone trying to be a technical Nazi, but I do think the fact this thread being shifted to a subforum is bad in terms of traffic. I mentioned it the first time it moved.
I sincerely do feel we'll have newer (from said posters) opinions on the thread now if it was shifted back to the main page. I don't know what's the intention for this move in the first place (I know it's been a while); was it meant to take the heat off this thread with the shift, was it sent here to the graveyard where only (in all honesty) regulars are featured?
I do think this thread is in a very bad place. I hope the mods can discuss this internally and hopefully shift this back to the main CMDR page.
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
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Resources:Commander Rulings FAQ | Commander Deckbuilding Guide
Follow me on Twitter! @cryogen_mtg
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I like your explanation, but this somewhat feels like
"It's not sick because there aren't cards being banned and there aren't cards being banned because it's not sick."
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
How about better organization of information for starters? Before this subforum existed, all banned list discussion was done in one giant, megathread — this one. That was a huge mess. It made it impossible for anyone to actually follow a conversation about a given card since at any point in time the conversation would just shift to another card, and then anyone else joining in on the conversation would lose all awareness of what was discussed beforehand. Trying to discuss 20 different things in a single thread just spells disaster. That's the point of making separate threads to begin with — to organize information.
I agree with you that traffic is lower here due to being tucked away in a subforum, but I'm not sure that's the whole truth. I think traffic right now is also low because Commander is in really good shape right now, and very few folks actually have qualms with the banned list. Folks can find this place easily enough if they want to. It isn't like banned list discussion threads are popping up in the main Commander forum because folks don't know where to post those things. Conversation just isn't happening because nobody wants to have these conversations. Commander is just in a good spot right now.
Trap your friends in an endless game with this 23-card combo!