My singular complaint with edh is that a select few get to control the rules and banlist without exception. So cards are banned for little reason(protean hulk) or monatary value(library of alexandria) while more bust(tooth and nail) and valuable cards(mishra's workshop) are allowed. While I agree with most of the rules, some make no sense.
So I propose a community based committee, once or twice a year through an online forum, users can submit a card they think should be banned or unbanned, each user can only submit a particular card once. After a week or two or submiting candidates, the cards with the largest amount of votes for banworthy gets put to a vote. Each card gets its own vote, or say the top five cards that get submitted, one will get banned. Same goes for unbanning.
This is the truest way to make EDH a community based format where the overall worldwide community gets to have input in the format they enjoy.
If thousands of people think a card should be banned because its unfun, but a select group thinks its fine, thats a problem called americanized democracy. Id rather have a true democracy.
A website could be created where users make an account. they can submit cards. then at the end we can see a list of the cards and how many people submitted them. then voting takes place.
sorry for the long post.
potato
Public Mod Note
(cryogen):
Moved to Commander Rules Discussion subforum
The average magic player has no business being involved in any sort of balance changes. This is doubly true for EDH players.
EDH is already a community based format. The banlist has little to do with the social nature of why it's so successful.
when potentially thousand vote, a trend will show up with what cards are unbalanced. Most of the banlist is a joke, wen other cards fit the excact reason why a card is banned yet they arent. Like my two examples. EDH may be a community format, but the comunity has little to no say in the format as a whole. sure the RC may take into account what people are saying, but for the most part they only go by the games they play with their playgroups. there are thousands of playgroups who think differently. Every playgroup has that one guy who plays consecrated sphinx, vorinclex, iona, teeg or other generally unfun cards, while most of those are answerable, they are back breaking. Sphinx fits the primeval titan and trade secrets ban reason, everyone tries to steal/copy/reanimate it. if its copied two players draw there whole deck. Its not right to ban a card for a reason, and not ban another card even tho it fits the EXACT reason. Its discriminatory banning, and makes no sense.
EDH is played by the community so why not let the community dictate its banlist
Incorrect. The ban list is inconsistent. These are very different things. It is also completely irrelevant as the RC in no way desires (or is even able) to make it consistent without having it be 300 cards long.
It is further irrelevant as the intent of well designed, coherent, and consistent banlists is to keep competitive environments able to have a stable tournament structure. As EDH is neither competitive nor a tournament structured format the banlist has no purpose being consistent.
The EDH banlist serves a very specific purpose:
1) To foster ideals by showing in broad strokes what may or may not be acceptable to 'most' players of the format.
2) To remove format breaking cards.
Anything else is a pipe dream by a negligible fraction of the EDH community).
Incorrect. The ban list is inconsistent. These are very different things. It is also completely irrelevant as the RC in no way desires (or is even able) to make it consistent without having it be 300 cards long.
It is further irrelevant as the intent of well designed, coherent, and consistent banlists is to keep competitive environments able to have a stable tournament structure. As EDH is neither competitive nor a tournament structured format the banlist has no purpose being consistent.
The EDH banlist serves a very specific purpose:
1) To foster ideals by showing in broad strokes what may or may not be acceptable to 'most' players of the format.
2) To remove format breaking cards.
Anything else is a pipe dream by a negligible fraction of the EDH community).
Then why have a ban list at all?
too remove one format breaking card and keep its cousin(prophet vs seedborne/hulk vs Tooth and nail) doesnt make sense.
Just becuase you ban a card, doesnt mean people will stop playing cards that do the same thing. Despite what we hope, edh has become a competitive format in most areas. having a full banlist will fix this.
Or even more deck restrictions. Me and my play group build what we call "budget" decks, like the entire deck minus lands cant exceed X dollars based on tcgplayer.
I agree that there should be more consistency here. That said, which cards should specifically be banned for this reason is very debatable. Because, honestly, the lines are not clear. Moxen and Black Lotus are also banned for ubiquity and money reasons. Tolarian Academy is banned for format skew reasons, as is Channel. Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary is an interesting one, as it is mostly banned because of its use as a general.
Library of Alexandria is many times more ubiquitous than any of those other cards and slots in well to the large majority of decks in the format. There's a huge ubiquity problem with Library of Alexandria.
Mana Drain is not nearly as ubiquitous as any of the other mentioned cards. Sol Ring and Mana Crypt? You got me for the most part. That's an inconsistency that I suppose reflects the RC's idea of the format.
Necropotence does not draw you cards immediately. Ad Nauseum requires you to build around it (accounted for by the banlist philosophy) or to lose a metric ton of life.
Incorrect. The ban list is inconsistent. These are very different things. It is also completely irrelevant as the RC in no way desires (or is even able) to make it consistent without having it be 300 cards long.
It is further irrelevant as the intent of well designed, coherent, and consistent banlists is to keep competitive environments able to have a stable tournament structure. As EDH is neither competitive nor a tournament structured format the banlist has no purpose being consistent.
The EDH banlist serves a very specific purpose:
1) To foster ideals by showing in broad strokes what may or may not be acceptable to 'most' players of the format.
2) To remove format breaking cards.
Anything else is a pipe dream by a negligible fraction of the EDH community.
EDH is not a 'competitive' format in most areas. People should be careful about confusing their opinions and what is actually the case. A small vocal community in EDH plays in a more 'competitive' way, but just as most players are casual in magic at large most EDH players are as well. If anything they are more casual.
I have already explained the intent of the banlist.
Threads like this come up semi-regularly, and they are generally the same. Even if somehow you could get a community consensus on a new banlist it would still be worse. The RC is qualified, the average player is not and will never be.
I could see this as a different format, because I think this would vastly alter the ban list. However, I greatly dislike how this could severely neuter some strategies simply because a larger number of people may hate particular strategies more than others (e.g. stax, land destruction and countermagic). Commander would be completely different if this were implemented.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern:UB Taking Turns Modern:URW Madcap Experiment Pauper: MonoU Tempo Delver
Seeing how often people clamor for the banning of a card just because they can't deal with it makes this seem like a very bad idea. Since power level varies from group to group, what is considered normal in one group is considered overpowered by another.
A small banlist maintained by the RC to ban the cards that break the format is fine, everything else should just be resolved in your playgroup. If you get your playgroup to agree to not use Tooth and Nail anymore, then you have effectively banned it from your group. Why keep the rest from the world form playing with it as well?
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():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
The secret to enjoyable Commander games is not winning first, but losing last.
If my post has no tags, then i posted from my phone.
This site has done two polls to let the community vote on how the ban list should look. With very small exceptions, the community list mirrored the official list. We can logically conclude that either the RC has a good grasp on what people want or that people agree with the RC and don't want change.
This site has done two polls to let the community vote on how the ban list should look. With very small exceptions, the community list mirrored the official list. We can logically conclude that either the RC has a good grasp on what people want or that people agree with the RC and don't want change.
Just don't forget, popular opinion often follows the status quo. If different cards had been banned in the first place, the poll results would likely reflect such.
Example: Sylvan Primordial was freshly banned when the first poll opened. The poll closed with 39.8% of voters believing it needed a ban. Fast forward one year, and the second poll closed with 53.8% of voters believing it should be banned.
Just don't forget, popular opinion often follows the status quo. If different cards had been banned in the first place, the poll results would likely reflect such.
Example: Sylvan Primordial was freshly banned when the first poll opened. The poll closed with 39.8% of voters believing it needed a ban. Fast forward one year, and the second poll closed with 53.8% of voters believing it should be banned.
Which is likely one of many reasons that the RC has taken our polls with a grain of salt.
Gross misunderstanding of the 'Perceived barrier to entry' criteria means. Even disregarding that banning criteria, every card banned because of it needs to stay banned for other reasons.
Failure to take into account scale of the effect, and to fully understand why these cards are banned. The unbanned cards you list are nowhere even remotely close to the effectivness of those that are banned.
Yet again, a gross failure to understand scale, or limiting factors. There are very good reasons why Yawgmoth's Bargain is banned, while Necropotence is not. The cards are not comparable.
Yet again, failure to understand differences in scale. Oh, and I have never seen Victimize used to assemble a game-ending combo, yet have seen it played numerous times as an effective reanimation spell.
Yes, the banned list is inconsistent.
Yes, there are changes that should be made. I even agree with some of the cards mentioned.
Yet, this post is an excellent example of why this thread's proposal is an awful idea. The vast majority of people playing this format have no idea how to accurately assess a card, in regards to a ban list.
Setting up a centralized, singular ban list (which is needed), by way of votes, essentially turns it into a popularity contest and will destroy the format. There would be dozens (conservatively) of cards banned for the singular reason of 'unpopular'.
I agree with Jivan here. To think that some of the individuals that post on this website (myself included, at times) could have any concept of balancing or maintaining format health is scary. To give some of them a voice to actually ban things and shape the format? Awful idea. I understand that the list isn't perfect, but I trust a group that is comprised of high level judges and competitive players who created the format and have been with Magic since it was created far more than some random 14-year-old who has internet access. I feel like, in practice, this venture would make the Modern ban list look like the Sistine Chapel.
First, most people are stupid and most people dislike change. Banlist by vote sounds great in theory, but that's assuming everyone is smart, informed, and experienced. Definitely not the case.
Second, most of us agree that the banlist is inconsistent and is a mess in terms of fairness/balance. But unfortunately that's the direction of the format because it's catered towards casual. I say unfortunately because EDH killed casual 60 card which DIDN'T have a banlist, and thus relied on a "don't be a dick or play vintage restricted cards" policy and it worked well. Because EDH has this policy but also has a banlist that allowsdickish plays and vintage restricted cards leaves playgroups divided and is the cause of pretty much all of the disagreement players have. If you're a casual, EDH is a fantastic format for you, and there are lots of casuals so that's probably why it's so popular. If you liked 60 card tabletop Magic for friendly competition, you're SOL now. I've learned there is nothing you can do about it, so don't hold your breath for a regime change.
You have 3 options:
1. Deal with it.
2. Try another format. Duel Commander is really balanced and fun! The people in that subforum are friendly and will be glad to help get you into it if you're interested.
3. Quit playing Magic like myself, then hopelessly check in every few months to look at the new cards and see if the EDH scene has improved. You'll certainly save money this way! ;D
Which is it? Because it sounds like you just dont understand the known ban list criteria, and think some random group of a few thousand would be better than Top level judges and WotC employees on whats good for a format.
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.
Which is it? Because it sounds like you just dont understand the known ban list criteria, and think some random group of a few thousand would be better than Top level judges and WotC employees on whats good for a format.
The ban list is inconsistent in regard to the reasons why cards are banned. The banlist needs to be more consistent. If your going to ban a card for being too expensive and creating a barrier against players(library, mox, ect.) then have a rule that says something like. Any card that does not have a printing that can be purchased for under X value is banned. Or to stop busted combos, put horsemen limiters. Like any abilities than can be activated or triggered inifite times may only be done x amount of times per turn. Like I absolutly hate a game ending out of nowhere because someone drew or tutored for their combo and goes OOPS I guess i win. its unfun for everyone but them. House rules are pointless if you play with different groups frequently.
The format is incredibly unbalanced at the moment and I dont see that ever changing, but having a consistent banlist would be a step in the right direction
The ban list is inconsistent in regard to the reasons why cards are banned.
True, there are some inconsistent cards to me and others. But...
The banlist needs to be more consistent.
No it does not. Similar and exactly the same are not equivalent.
If your going to ban a card for being too expensive and creating a barrier against players(library, mox, ect.) then have a rule that says something like. Any card that does not have a printing that can be purchased for under X value is banned.
Thats not what the rule is about, but I think you know that. You want a different, worse, rule. You don't make any good argument for that here.
Or to stop busted combos, put horsemen limiters. Like any abilities than can be activated or triggered inifite times may only be done x amount of times per turn. Like I absolutly hate a game ending out of nowhere because someone drew or tutored for their combo and goes OOPS I guess i win.
Lots of people like playing against combo, you do not. Thats easy, dont play against it. You don't like it does not mean it should be banned. Banning combo would have massive collateral damage. Not a good trade off
its unfun for everyone but them.
Demonstrable false, and the real point here: Lots of people like the rules, and no one makes you play by them. If you are not having fun, don't do it.
House rules are pointless if you play with different groups frequently.
Agreed, but why is it on someone else for you to get a group you like? Shouldn't that be your responsibility?
The format is incredibly unbalanced at the moment and I dont see that ever changing, but having a consistent banlist would be a step in the right direction
No it would not. This format didnt get popular because it had that, then lost it. Lots of people like this stuff, sure you get a gripe here or there, but overall people enjoy it. If they don't whats the point? I don't care for pool, hence I don't play it. 9 ball, thats a different animal and I can waste a whole evening. Find something you like, but don't try and tear down what other like because you don't.
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.
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So I propose a community based committee, once or twice a year through an online forum, users can submit a card they think should be banned or unbanned, each user can only submit a particular card once. After a week or two or submiting candidates, the cards with the largest amount of votes for banworthy gets put to a vote. Each card gets its own vote, or say the top five cards that get submitted, one will get banned. Same goes for unbanning.
This is the truest way to make EDH a community based format where the overall worldwide community gets to have input in the format they enjoy.
If thousands of people think a card should be banned because its unfun, but a select group thinks its fine, thats a problem called americanized democracy. Id rather have a true democracy.
A website could be created where users make an account. they can submit cards. then at the end we can see a list of the cards and how many people submitted them. then voting takes place.
sorry for the long post.
potato
EDH is already a community based format. The banlist has little to do with the social nature of why it's so successful.
when potentially thousand vote, a trend will show up with what cards are unbalanced. Most of the banlist is a joke, wen other cards fit the excact reason why a card is banned yet they arent. Like my two examples. EDH may be a community format, but the comunity has little to no say in the format as a whole. sure the RC may take into account what people are saying, but for the most part they only go by the games they play with their playgroups. there are thousands of playgroups who think differently. Every playgroup has that one guy who plays consecrated sphinx, vorinclex, iona, teeg or other generally unfun cards, while most of those are answerable, they are back breaking. Sphinx fits the primeval titan and trade secrets ban reason, everyone tries to steal/copy/reanimate it. if its copied two players draw there whole deck. Its not right to ban a card for a reason, and not ban another card even tho it fits the EXACT reason. Its discriminatory banning, and makes no sense.
EDH is played by the community so why not let the community dictate its banlist
TLDR: Ban list makes no sense.
Incorrect. The ban list is inconsistent. These are very different things. It is also completely irrelevant as the RC in no way desires (or is even able) to make it consistent without having it be 300 cards long.
It is further irrelevant as the intent of well designed, coherent, and consistent banlists is to keep competitive environments able to have a stable tournament structure. As EDH is neither competitive nor a tournament structured format the banlist has no purpose being consistent.
The EDH banlist serves a very specific purpose:
1) To foster ideals by showing in broad strokes what may or may not be acceptable to 'most' players of the format.
2) To remove format breaking cards.
Anything else is a pipe dream by a negligible fraction of the EDH community).
Then why have a ban list at all?
too remove one format breaking card and keep its cousin(prophet vs seedborne/hulk vs Tooth and nail) doesnt make sense.
Just becuase you ban a card, doesnt mean people will stop playing cards that do the same thing. Despite what we hope, edh has become a competitive format in most areas. having a full banlist will fix this.
Or even more deck restrictions. Me and my play group build what we call "budget" decks, like the entire deck minus lands cant exceed X dollars based on tcgplayer.
That won't be true for a voting-based system either.
I agree that there should be more consistency here. That said, which cards should specifically be banned for this reason is very debatable. Because, honestly, the lines are not clear. Moxen and Black Lotus are also banned for ubiquity and money reasons. Tolarian Academy is banned for format skew reasons, as is Channel. Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary is an interesting one, as it is mostly banned because of its use as a general.
Library of Alexandria is many times more ubiquitous than any of those other cards and slots in well to the large majority of decks in the format. There's a huge ubiquity problem with Library of Alexandria.
Shaman of Forgotten Ways is much less abusable than Biorhythm. Decree of Annihilation is just a board wipe; it doesn't set life totals like Worldfire or Sway of the Stars. Cyclonic Rift is a sad joke compared to the effectiveness of Upheaval to "upheave" games.
Mana Drain is not nearly as ubiquitous as any of the other mentioned cards. Sol Ring and Mana Crypt? You got me for the most part. That's an inconsistency that I suppose reflects the RC's idea of the format.
Necropotence does not draw you cards immediately. Ad Nauseum requires you to build around it (accounted for by the banlist philosophy) or to lose a metric ton of life.
All four of the banned cards listed are many levels more efficient (and ubiquitous when unbanned) than the three unbanned cards listed.
Oh, and this is an important point too:
I have already explained the intent of the banlist.
Threads like this come up semi-regularly, and they are generally the same. Even if somehow you could get a community consensus on a new banlist it would still be worse. The RC is qualified, the average player is not and will never be.
Modern: URW Madcap Experiment
Pauper: MonoU Tempo Delver
My EDH Commanders:
Aminatou, The Fateshifter UBW
Azami, Lady of Scrolls U
Mikaeus, the Unhallowed B
Edric, Spymaster of Trest UG
Glissa, the Traitor BG
Arcum Dagsson U
A small banlist maintained by the RC to ban the cards that break the format is fine, everything else should just be resolved in your playgroup. If you get your playgroup to agree to not use Tooth and Nail anymore, then you have effectively banned it from your group. Why keep the rest from the world form playing with it as well?
If my post has no tags, then i posted from my phone.
Misc. EDH Stuff: Commander Cube | Zombies (Horde)
Resources:Commander Rulings FAQ | Commander Deckbuilding Guide
Follow me on Twitter! @cryogen_mtg
Example: Sylvan Primordial was freshly banned when the first poll opened. The poll closed with 39.8% of voters believing it needed a ban. Fast forward one year, and the second poll closed with 53.8% of voters believing it should be banned.
Draft my Mono-Blue Cube!
lichess.org | chess.com
Which is likely one of many reasons that the RC has taken our polls with a grain of salt.
Misc. EDH Stuff: Commander Cube | Zombies (Horde)
Resources:Commander Rulings FAQ | Commander Deckbuilding Guide
Follow me on Twitter! @cryogen_mtg
Gaea's Cradle is not fast mana, and nowhere even remotely close to as problematic as the other listed cards.
Gross misunderstanding of the 'Perceived barrier to entry' criteria means. Even disregarding that banning criteria, every card banned because of it needs to stay banned for other reasons.
Failure to take into account scale of the effect, and to fully understand why these cards are banned. The unbanned cards you list are nowhere even remotely close to the effectivness of those that are banned.
The closest you have come to a reasonable statement, except Mana Drain is nowhere even close to oppressive or centralizing
Yet again, a gross failure to understand scale, or limiting factors. There are very good reasons why Yawgmoth's Bargain is banned, while Necropotence is not. The cards are not comparable.
Yet again, failure to understand differences in scale. Oh, and I have never seen Victimize used to assemble a game-ending combo, yet have seen it played numerous times as an effective reanimation spell.
Yes, the banned list is inconsistent.
Yes, there are changes that should be made. I even agree with some of the cards mentioned.
Yet, this post is an excellent example of why this thread's proposal is an awful idea. The vast majority of people playing this format have no idea how to accurately assess a card, in regards to a ban list.
Setting up a centralized, singular ban list (which is needed), by way of votes, essentially turns it into a popularity contest and will destroy the format. There would be dozens (conservatively) of cards banned for the singular reason of 'unpopular'.
Regarding the proposal, to summarize: **** no
A Dying Wish
To Rise Again
Chainer, Dementia Master
Muldrotha, the Gravetide
Atraxa, Praetors' Voice
EDH:
G[cEDH] Selvala, Heart of the StormG
URW[cEDH] Narset, the Last AirmericanURW
GWUSt. Jenara, the ArchangelGWU
UBGrimgrin, Chaos MarineUB
GOmnath, Mana BaronG
URWNarset, Justice League AmericaURW
GWUBAtraxa, Countess of CountersGWUB
GWUEstrid, Enbantress PrimeGWU
First, most people are stupid and most people dislike change. Banlist by vote sounds great in theory, but that's assuming everyone is smart, informed, and experienced. Definitely not the case.
Second, most of us agree that the banlist is inconsistent and is a mess in terms of fairness/balance. But unfortunately that's the direction of the format because it's catered towards casual. I say unfortunately because EDH killed casual 60 card which DIDN'T have a banlist, and thus relied on a "don't be a dick or play vintage restricted cards" policy and it worked well. Because EDH has this policy but also has a banlist that allows dickish plays and vintage restricted cards leaves playgroups divided and is the cause of pretty much all of the disagreement players have. If you're a casual, EDH is a fantastic format for you, and there are lots of casuals so that's probably why it's so popular. If you liked 60 card tabletop Magic for friendly competition, you're SOL now. I've learned there is nothing you can do about it, so don't hold your breath for a regime change.
You have 3 options:
1. Deal with it.
2. Try another format. Duel Commander is really balanced and fun! The people in that subforum are friendly and will be glad to help get you into it if you're interested.
3. Quit playing Magic like myself, then hopelessly check in every few months to look at the new cards and see if the EDH scene has improved. You'll certainly save money this way! ;D
cEDH: [G(U/R) Animar] - [(U/B)(G/W) Redless Wheels] - [(G/U)(W/B) Redless Pod] - [(B/G)W Ghave Metapod]
Which is it? Because it sounds like you just dont understand the known ban list criteria, and think some random group of a few thousand would be better than Top level judges and WotC employees on whats good for a format.
The ban list is inconsistent in regard to the reasons why cards are banned. The banlist needs to be more consistent. If your going to ban a card for being too expensive and creating a barrier against players(library, mox, ect.) then have a rule that says something like. Any card that does not have a printing that can be purchased for under X value is banned. Or to stop busted combos, put horsemen limiters. Like any abilities than can be activated or triggered inifite times may only be done x amount of times per turn. Like I absolutly hate a game ending out of nowhere because someone drew or tutored for their combo and goes OOPS I guess i win. its unfun for everyone but them. House rules are pointless if you play with different groups frequently.
The format is incredibly unbalanced at the moment and I dont see that ever changing, but having a consistent banlist would be a step in the right direction
No it would not. This format didnt get popular because it had that, then lost it. Lots of people like this stuff, sure you get a gripe here or there, but overall people enjoy it. If they don't whats the point? I don't care for pool, hence I don't play it. 9 ball, thats a different animal and I can waste a whole evening. Find something you like, but don't try and tear down what other like because you don't.