Yeah, that's the nature of pros/cons lists. It's ideal to change the phrasing so that it's stated as a pro vs. a con, e.g. if you're talking about the pace of the game changes you might say:
(pro) * Cause games to be slower by reducing the frequency of broken starts
(con) * Cause games to be slower which many players do not enjoy
Fundamentally it's the same problem with the concept of pros/cons anyway which is that the individual ones are subjective and require analysis/measurement to make them meaningful.
In any case I will leave it to someone who cares about it to actually make the proposal because all I keep hearing is "Ban fast mana" which is not specific enough to think about the impacts.
It is completely absurd that I need to have a five minute conversation with a group of strangers setting up a social contract that could easily be solved by a more comprehensive and logically consistent banlist. I'm not upset that I lost those two games, I'm mildly irritated that none of the three games were particularly fun.
This line of reasoning makes no sense. First, it implies the ban list changed is easy and alleviates this scenario, neither of which is true. Second it implies someone else should make people play cards some people don't care for so they can have a better game instead of taking any personal responsibility.
I think some fast mana should be banned as well, but that's not some magic bullet that makes games like this not happen.
If people are sick of reading about stuff just stop taking part. You have 100% control over what you read. Simic Ascendancy isn't going to get banned just because you didn't tell someone to shut up on the internet.
This line of reasoning makes no sense. First, it implies the ban list changed is easy and alleviates this scenario, neither of which is true.
I mean... banning Sol Ring is a pretty good way to stop Sol Ring from ruining games. Sounds like it solves the scenario pretty efficiently.
What a ridiculous reduction of the conversation being had. There are at least 2 or 3 other cards that easily sub into those scenarios with the same outcome.
If people are sick of reading about stuff just stop taking part. You have 100% control over what you read. Simic Ascendancy isn't going to get banned just because you didn't tell someone to shut up on the internet.
I'm not sure it's worth a separate thread but I've been noodling on it in the other thread about Sheldon being grumpy about combos, and I'd like to have a brief, focused discussion on the cost-benefits of banning a number of the most efficient combo enablers. This would be sort of stemming from the phrase in the current banlist document of:
Creates Undesirable Game States. Losing is not an undesirable game state. However, a game in which one or more players, playing comparable casual decks, have minimal participation in the game is something which players should be steered away from. Warning signs include massive overall resource imbalance, early-game cards that lock players out, and cards with limited function other than to win the game out of nowhere.
This phrase can be broadly or narrowly interpreted of course, but suppose you took a pretty aggressive look at this and some of the proposals people have floated to fix this problem.
* Lower the stating life total to 30 or 20 to create more pressure on combo decks
* Ban all tutors other than those on lands and for basic lands
* Ban all the broken tutors
* Ban all fast mana (at minimum sol ring, mana crypt and mana vault)
All of these approaches present a major change to the format. Deck construction changes mightily, many playstyles and cards are invalidated, most combo decks, black and green take a serious beatin depending on how hard you go at it, cantrips get over-represented potentially encouraging blue. All of the changes fundamentally shift the balance of the game in major ways.
These things also cost people absolutely absurd amounts of money. Tutors are all worth quite a lot, some of the mana rocks are worth hundreds of dollars. People have to take apart entire decks worth thousands.
Assuming that reigning in combo in the format is something you want, wouldn't it be significantly lower risk to ban a few combo cards and see if it makes an impact? Most of these types of cards have reasonable replacements for their fair utility (ex. Ashnod's altar has a number of alternative open sac outlets for most decks; Food Chain has basically no fair uses except in token decks who have Earthcraft and Cryptolith Rite as an alternative).
The people who get upset are CEDH players, whose decks are often close to interchangeable - the decks are so staple driven that your deck is rarely going to suddenly be worthless, other than the combo cards themselves. Gaea's Cradle isn't going to tank if Food Chain gets banned because there's a long line of cradle decks right behind FC.
I'm not going to make a list yet, but I wanted to see what people think? Is that completely ridiculous?
I can't say enough that I don't think we necessarily need to do anything, but I think *if we did* there isn't really another rational thing to do but ban some combo cards. Everything else is just extreme as heck.
Follow me on the hypothetical here and assume that as the format police you actually want to do something about "rampant combo" or whatever. Don't get mired in whether we should or should not care about combo. Assume you run the format and you do want to curtail combo.
Banning for combos in EDH is pretty awkward. Due to the large padding of 40 life there are so many viable combos in regular EDH (as opposed to cEDH) that it would be crazy to even attempt it. You can ask 20 people what they think is degenerate and get a thousand different answers. Ie, I would personally be more bothered to see Earthcraft in a regular game than Food Chain, because turning all of your creatures into better Birds of Paradise to keep chaining casts > losing your creatures permanently for a quick boost in mana.
I would think just lowering the life would be enough to reign in the power of combos in your average EDH game. It could potentially push people into tighter, faster, and more efficient combos, but I would think that most of the people who would be interested in going in that direction are already interested in cEDH anyways.
The bad thing that someone mentioned in the other thread is that it would potentially make the 'ideal' battlecruiser style decks worse.
I honestly do not think that the RCs vision of EDH is something that can really hold up outside of groups of friends who can easily tailor the experience to their tastes, specially not if people are not willing to discuss what they expect of the game as they go into it.
I honestly do not think that the RCs vision of EDH is something that can really hold up outside of groups of friends who can easily tailor the experience to their tastes, specially not if people are not willing to discuss what they expect of the game as they go into it.
Brief weigh in without getting sucked into the discussion hugely....
I actually think that the above is sort of the key to this format, and experiencing it in the best way possible. Some complain about combo, some about battlecruiser jank, it's all subjective. The fact is that most cEDH/combo players would rather play against people with a similar approach, and the same holds true for casual jank - each one sees the other as the devil, without realising there's more than one way to skin a cat. There's been plenty of discussion over 'solving' the issue, but at the end of the day, if your end goal looks different to someone else's there's no way your standards will be confluent with another persons' who doesn't hold the same standards. This is where the quick pre-game chat comes in. It's not a firm solution, in that you won't reach an accord every time. But it is the only way you're going to avoid unpleasant surprises every time. I think expecting a ban list to be able to manage any possible disagreement is a fool's errand. It'll never work, there's just too much subjectivity to it.
I personally don't understand not wanting to have that discussion, but that's me. It's easy enough to pack yourself a couple of decks that encompass different levels of play and scale to the table.
I see there's been some discussion about Panoptic Mirror - apologies if this has been hashed out to death already. But why not unban the Mirror?
It's a 5-mana artifact that essentially wins the game if it resolves. OK, that sucks. But Paradox Engine is the same thing and it's not banned. And the Engine can go off immediately, while the Mirror has to make it around the table without being destroyed.
What a ridiculous reduction of the conversation being had. There are at least 2 or 3 other cards that easily sub into those scenarios with the same outcome.
I was being mildly facetious, but the fact remains if the problem is "Sol Ring is ruining our games" banning Sol Ring is an easy and efficient solution. Will other cards step in to fill the void? Probably. But they won't be Sol Ring. Ergo, Sol Ring won't be ruining any more games. If the other cards are also ruining games, ban them too. Problem solved.
But of course that would require actually doing something. Instead we'll continue talking in circles while nothing changes.
What a ridiculous reduction of the conversation being had. There are at least 2 or 3 other cards that easily sub into those scenarios with the same outcome.
I was being mildly facetious, but the fact remains if the problem is "Sol Ring is ruining our games" banning Sol Ring is an easy and efficient solution. Will other cards step in to fill the void? Probably. But they won't be Sol Ring. Ergo, Sol Ring won't be ruining any more games. If the other cards are also ruining games, ban them too. Problem solved.
The conversation was never"Sol Ring is ruining our games", thats my point. Secondly the determination of IF those cards are ruining a significant number of games is the difficult part. Of course adding 3 cards to the ban list is simple. Your argument was without nuance.
But of course that would require actually doing something. Instead we'll continue talking in circles while nothing changes.
Are you on the RC or CAG? As I assume not, what exactly is your idea about 'doing something'?
If people are sick of reading about stuff just stop taking part. You have 100% control over what you read. Simic Ascendancy isn't going to get banned just because you didn't tell someone to shut up on the internet.
Of course it was. There was no intended nuance. Sol Ring is objectively one of the most powerful cards ever printed, it goes into every deck, and starting on turn 1 can entirely warp what would have been an otherwise fun and engaging game into Archenemy. All of these arguments have been made before. I feel no need to repeat them. It's obvious at this point that Sol Ring has been grandfathered into the format and is never going to be banned, regardless of the merit.
Are you on the RC or CAG? As I assume not, what exactly is your idea about 'doing something'?
It was a collective "we". It doesn't take a deep dive into this forum to see that almost regardless of the topic, the prevailing attitude boils down to maintaining the status quo. Every discussion inevitably ends in "if you don't like it just houserule it" leaving little room for any meaningful conversations.
So my personal idea of "doing something" is quite meaningless, seeing as I have zero power to actually influence any changes. The RC have admitted they don't take forum complaints seriously (I believe the exactly line was something like "nobody arguing on a forum has ever caused us to change our minds", it was from one of Sheldons old SCG articles). So here we are, doing nothing.
It's been over 37 months since I started the SCD for Iona and 34 months since we all basically exhausted every argument regarding the card in one of the longer threads in this subforum. Even before I started the thread I sort of resigned myself to fate that because it wasn't played as much and even when it was played it doesn't always create the feel-bad/inverse archenemy scenario, so I only had the point that the scenario itself was bad enough as an experience that the other scenarios aren't exactly saving graces, especially for a card not really played to be a saving grace anyway.
As someone on the other side of most of those arguments I am happy for you because I never really saw the card so this freeing PS in price of Iona is a win for me.
Xiahou Dun is very pleased.
Also kinda want to make Upheaval Eggs with Wash Out but may let this cool first.
(pro) * Cause games to be slower by reducing the frequency of broken starts
(con) * Cause games to be slower which many players do not enjoy
Fundamentally it's the same problem with the concept of pros/cons anyway which is that the individual ones are subjective and require analysis/measurement to make them meaningful.
In any case I will leave it to someone who cares about it to actually make the proposal because all I keep hearing is "Ban fast mana" which is not specific enough to think about the impacts.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
I think some fast mana should be banned as well, but that's not some magic bullet that makes games like this not happen.
What kinda stuff does that do to the format? Things are far more complicated than they are often made out to be.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
This phrase can be broadly or narrowly interpreted of course, but suppose you took a pretty aggressive look at this and some of the proposals people have floated to fix this problem.
* Lower the stating life total to 30 or 20 to create more pressure on combo decks
* Ban all tutors other than those on lands and for basic lands
* Ban all the broken tutors
* Ban all fast mana (at minimum sol ring, mana crypt and mana vault)
All of these approaches present a major change to the format. Deck construction changes mightily, many playstyles and cards are invalidated, most combo decks, black and green take a serious beatin depending on how hard you go at it, cantrips get over-represented potentially encouraging blue. All of the changes fundamentally shift the balance of the game in major ways.
These things also cost people absolutely absurd amounts of money. Tutors are all worth quite a lot, some of the mana rocks are worth hundreds of dollars. People have to take apart entire decks worth thousands.
Assuming that reigning in combo in the format is something you want, wouldn't it be significantly lower risk to ban a few combo cards and see if it makes an impact? Most of these types of cards have reasonable replacements for their fair utility (ex. Ashnod's altar has a number of alternative open sac outlets for most decks; Food Chain has basically no fair uses except in token decks who have Earthcraft and Cryptolith Rite as an alternative).
The people who get upset are CEDH players, whose decks are often close to interchangeable - the decks are so staple driven that your deck is rarely going to suddenly be worthless, other than the combo cards themselves. Gaea's Cradle isn't going to tank if Food Chain gets banned because there's a long line of cradle decks right behind FC.
I'm not going to make a list yet, but I wanted to see what people think? Is that completely ridiculous?
I can't say enough that I don't think we necessarily need to do anything, but I think *if we did* there isn't really another rational thing to do but ban some combo cards. Everything else is just extreme as heck.
Follow me on the hypothetical here and assume that as the format police you actually want to do something about "rampant combo" or whatever. Don't get mired in whether we should or should not care about combo. Assume you run the format and you do want to curtail combo.
What else would you do?
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
I would think just lowering the life would be enough to reign in the power of combos in your average EDH game. It could potentially push people into tighter, faster, and more efficient combos, but I would think that most of the people who would be interested in going in that direction are already interested in cEDH anyways.
The bad thing that someone mentioned in the other thread is that it would potentially make the 'ideal' battlecruiser style decks worse.
I honestly do not think that the RCs vision of EDH is something that can really hold up outside of groups of friends who can easily tailor the experience to their tastes, specially not if people are not willing to discuss what they expect of the game as they go into it.
Brief weigh in without getting sucked into the discussion hugely....
I actually think that the above is sort of the key to this format, and experiencing it in the best way possible. Some complain about combo, some about battlecruiser jank, it's all subjective. The fact is that most cEDH/combo players would rather play against people with a similar approach, and the same holds true for casual jank - each one sees the other as the devil, without realising there's more than one way to skin a cat. There's been plenty of discussion over 'solving' the issue, but at the end of the day, if your end goal looks different to someone else's there's no way your standards will be confluent with another persons' who doesn't hold the same standards. This is where the quick pre-game chat comes in. It's not a firm solution, in that you won't reach an accord every time. But it is the only way you're going to avoid unpleasant surprises every time. I think expecting a ban list to be able to manage any possible disagreement is a fool's errand. It'll never work, there's just too much subjectivity to it.
I personally don't understand not wanting to have that discussion, but that's me. It's easy enough to pack yourself a couple of decks that encompass different levels of play and scale to the table.
It's a 5-mana artifact that essentially wins the game if it resolves. OK, that sucks. But Paradox Engine is the same thing and it's not banned. And the Engine can go off immediately, while the Mirror has to make it around the table without being destroyed.
But of course that would require actually doing something. Instead we'll continue talking in circles while nothing changes.
Are you on the RC or CAG? As I assume not, what exactly is your idea about 'doing something'?
So my personal idea of "doing something" is quite meaningless, seeing as I have zero power to actually influence any changes. The RC have admitted they don't take forum complaints seriously (I believe the exactly line was something like "nobody arguing on a forum has ever caused us to change our minds", it was from one of Sheldons old SCG articles). So here we are, doing nothing.
Misc. EDH Stuff: Commander Cube | Zombies (Horde)
Resources:Commander Rulings FAQ | Commander Deckbuilding Guide
Follow me on Twitter! @cryogen_mtg
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StaffI personally believe my endless complaining was what did Trade Secrets in.
It had to be. You're literally the only person I know who gave a crap about that card.
Misc. EDH Stuff: Commander Cube | Zombies (Horde)
Resources:Commander Rulings FAQ | Commander Deckbuilding Guide
Follow me on Twitter! @cryogen_mtg
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
You'll need a lot more infractions and [edit] a fanatical devotion to dimir, but I can see it.
Edited because I'm actively not trying to flame people, and my original post was kinda tasteless. Sorry.
Well then.
Misc. EDH Stuff: Commander Cube | Zombies (Horde)
Resources:Commander Rulings FAQ | Commander Deckbuilding Guide
Follow me on Twitter! @cryogen_mtg
Great news on all fronts - painter being banned was pretty silly, iona was only obnoxious, and paradox engine was cancer.
Would have preferred gifts to painter (or both), but I'll take it.
Dropped $10 to emergency-buy a painter on cardmarket. We'll see if that ends up being a smart financial decision.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
It's been over 37 months since I started the SCD for Iona and 34 months since we all basically exhausted every argument regarding the card in one of the longer threads in this subforum. Even before I started the thread I sort of resigned myself to fate that because it wasn't played as much and even when it was played it doesn't always create the feel-bad/inverse archenemy scenario, so I only had the point that the scenario itself was bad enough as an experience that the other scenarios aren't exactly saving graces, especially for a card not really played to be a saving grace anyway.
Xiahou Dun is very pleased.
Also kinda want to make Upheaval Eggs with Wash Out but may let this cool first.