Yeah... He was banned in standard but not legacy. Which is more akin to Duel Commander. Just a guess but he in a singleton 100 card deck is just not consistent or strong enough to be game breaking.
There's no real definitive outline of the "rules" by which things are banned or not banned in the duelcommander.com rules. I mean... it appears you can't play a game-altering enchantment on turn 2 if you're playing black (Bitterblossom), but you can play a game-altering enchantment on turn 2 if you're green (Oath of Druids). Likewise, some 2-card combos are banned (Staff of Domination) but the majority are not. I think this lack of consistent vision is frustrating.
That said... Jace still costs 4 mana, and there are probably better ways to win games for 4 mana. I'd guess more games are won by a turn 4 Natural Order than are won by a turn 4 Jace. By the time the game gets to turn 4, players have had some time to be reasonably prepared and start executing their gameplan. Jace generally dies if an opponent has 2+ creatures when it's played.
With regards to Sol Ring, I don't see how you *can't* see why it's so much better. But IMO it comes down to the simple luck of happening to have it in your opening hand. When I played under the official commander rules, I found I was winning 85-95% of the games I had Sol Ring in my opening hand, versus perhaps 70% of the games I didn't. That's an astounding impact based on the simple 7/99 chance of happening to luck into it for turn 1, and I don't think any single other card available to be used in official Commander (besides Mana Crypt) gives you such a boost like that.
lol what the hell are you talking about? Getting a turn 3 Jace out is not hard at all, especially if you have a G splash
Here's one of my commentaries from the Duel Commander tournament talking all about Jace. I think it needs to be banned personally and I talk about it in my video here. Turn 3 Jace usually goes like this.... Bounce/Brainstorm -> Brainstorm -> Brainstorm -> Bounce a threat that finally makes it on the board. Then they have the option of starving you out, by letting you see what cards you get to draw. He's just so strong from so many different angles.
French EDH BRGW Saskia the Unyielding BRGW GUWB Thrasios, Triton Hero // Tymna the Weaver GUWB B Braids, Cabal Minion B G Titania, Protector of Argoth G R Zurgo Bellstriker R
Founding Father of [Team Stepfathers]: We beat you and you hate us My Street Art
lol what the hell are you talking about? Getting a turn 3 Jace out is not hard at all, especially if you have a G splash
Here's one of my commentaries from the Duel Commander tournament talking all about Jace. I think it needs to be banned personally and I talk about it in my video here. Turn 3 Jace usually goes like this.... Bounce/Brainstorm -> Brainstorm -> Brainstorm -> Bounce a threat that finally makes it on the board. Then they have the option of starving you out, by letting you see what cards you get to draw. He's just so strong from so many different angles.
To be fair, you did nothing the whole game so at that point any card could have taken over.
You had no disruption and no game acceleration, all he did with jace was bounce one of your creatures, brainstorm for a gitaxian probe, spied your hand and saw you had no disruption, cast Rafiq and berserked for the win.
Not really a convincing video to argue a cards power.
To be fair, you did nothing the whole game so at that point any card could have taken over.
You had no disruption and no game acceleration, all he did with jace was bounce one of your creatures, brainstorm for a gitaxian probe, spied your hand and saw you had no disruption, cast Rafiq and berserked for the win.
Not really a convincing video to argue a cards power.
So you're gonna argue that he mulled to 6, he was on the go and that he would have won that game easily if he didn't have Jace on the field? Also, let me know how I could have done more to stop that. I had a creature out on the field that he immediately bounced and then he landed a creature to protect it. All off a turn three play.
That entire game revolved around his Jace. It bounced my acceleration (and I'm pretty sure an elf counts as 'game acceleration', but apparently not according to you). He then cycled his hand and drew all the answers he needed. That card is an overpowered swiss army knife and locks games down so fast. Every Blue deck should be playing it without question and that exactly points out why it should be banned. If it's good in ever deck that can run it and it doesn't have drawbacks, there's something wrong with that card.
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French EDH BRGW Saskia the Unyielding BRGW GUWB Thrasios, Triton Hero // Tymna the Weaver GUWB B Braids, Cabal Minion B G Titania, Protector of Argoth G R Zurgo Bellstriker R
Founding Father of [Team Stepfathers]: We beat you and you hate us My Street Art
So you're gonna argue that he mulled to 6, he was on the go and that he would have won that game easily if he didn't have Jace on the field? Also, let me know how I could have done more to stop that. I had a creature out on the field that he immediately bounced and then he landed a creature to protect it. All off a turn three play.
That entire game revolved around his Jace. It bounced my acceleration (and I'm pretty sure an elf counts as 'game acceleration', but apparently not according to you). He then cycled his hand and drew all the answers he needed. That card is an overpowered swiss army knife and locks games down so fast. Every Blue deck should be playing it without question and that exactly points out why it should be banned. If it's good in ever deck that can run it and it doesn't have drawbacks, there's something wrong with that card.
If he had played Rafiq instead of Jace, he still would have won. Ultimately, you got greedy not playing around Daze/Spike and got punished for it.
Also, "the entire game revolves around [insert powerful card here]" is a dumb argument. Every game always revolves around the most powerful card on the board. It's tautological. If you removed Jace, some other card would become the most powerful, the game would revolve around it, etc.
My .02 is that it's really rare to ban a card that costs 4 mana. I mean, look at the current banlist. The only cards that cost more than 3 mana are cards that are not typically hardcast (Protean Hulk) or grossly, unquestionably, ridiculously overpowered (Yawgmoth's Bargain). There is not a single other card on there for 4+ mana.
I think Jace is fragile enough, and comes down late enough even if it's in your opening hand, that it's quite reasonable for most decks to have an answer for it by the time it hits the board. The "if you don't have an answer for it fast, you lose" aspect of Jace is not unique to it, but rather a general feature of planeswalkers in general.
It's completely bad faith to compare Jace with Dark Ritual, blood moon and swords to plowshares and maybe also FoW in EDH.
No other planeswalkers requires as an urgent answer as Jace excepting for Liliana and Karn. This last one is very hard to cast.
The other great planeswalkers like Elspeth or Tezzeret for example are good in specific builds while Jace is almost auto-include.
If you know so many great replacers for Jace. i would love to know them because I would certainly run them.
I was gonna write a response, but what Anthares said is pretty much what I wanted too.
I do have a few things to add
I'd also like to point out that Jace is a Planeswalkers (=permanent) while every other card you just mentioned there was a either an Instant or a Enchantment. So while Force of Will and Swords to Plowshares are staple cards in almost all decks, they are one cast and done (FoW even gives you discard advantage, but we all know how strong it's effect is that its negligible). Staple cards are great, but alone they don't win games. Jace by himself, can win games. Jace sticks around, and around, and around. It has a way to protect itself (bounce), and gives you incredible card advantage not only brainstorming, but denying your opponent cards.
Also, there's probably a reason Wizards smarted up and stopped giving Planeswalkers 4 abilities and started giving them 3. Just look at Jace. He probably would be more balanced if he didn't have his Brainstrom ability along with the other 3. I personally think that Wizards screwed up hard and unfortunately was slow to fix it. It took so long for him to get banned in other formats, but overtime he did.
As for the enchantments you stated
I wouldn't group Blood Moon in as a staple either. The only deck that it shines in are Mono-Red. You can't play it in 2-3 color generals because then you screw up your own mana base. It's absolutely amazing in Mono-Red but with how bad that color is in French, it balances out.
I've also been a vocal about banning Library but that's a different story. That card falls in the same boat as Jace in that if you get it out early, you get serious card advantage which can crush games very quickly
I think Jace is fragile enough, and comes down late enough even if it's in your opening hand, that it's quite reasonable for most decks to have an answer for it by the time it hits the board. The "if you don't have an answer for it fast, you lose" aspect of Jace is not unique to it, but rather a general feature of planeswalkers in general.
I do agree with most of this, except the 'quite reasonable'. I understand that blue decks will have an answer to Jace (bounce), but what about aggro decks that get a slow start or combo decks that are fast, but instantly denied? If you aren't constantly beating on Jace early, you're going to have a bad time :\
If he had played Rafiq instead of Jace, he still would have won. Ultimately, you got greedy not playing around Daze/Spike and got punished for it.
This makes no sense to me. How did I get greedy? I played a T2 Lotus Cobra. In fact that's like anti-greedy. I'm a ramp deck, I'm just trying to ramp...
French EDH BRGW Saskia the Unyielding BRGW GUWB Thrasios, Triton Hero // Tymna the Weaver GUWB B Braids, Cabal Minion B G Titania, Protector of Argoth G R Zurgo Bellstriker R
Founding Father of [Team Stepfathers]: We beat you and you hate us My Street Art
@anthares and perfekt
You completely missed mikel123's argument. He simply argues that swords to plowshares sylvan library dark ritual and blood moon are staples in decks of those colors, not that they are comparable to jace in any other way.
I don't see what the big complaint is about jace. If anything it kills blue decks more than any other color. Once resolved opposing blue players just die. Black has discard, red burn, white and green dudes as well as o rings and beast withins to remove him. Blue is the color that rolls over the most and they also get to play jace. It's powerful but not tutorable and requires setup to really stick and win with.
It's completely bad faith to compare Jace with Dark Ritual, blood moon and swords to plowshares and maybe also FoW in EDH.
No other planeswalkers requires as an urgent answer as Jace excepting for Liliana and Karn. This last one is very hard to cast.
The other great planeswalkers like Elspeth or Tezzeret for example are good in specific builds while Jace is almost auto-include.
If you know so many great replacers for Jace. i would love to know them because I would certainly run them.
Please don't accuse me of arguing "in bad faith", especially if you're not actually explaining why. All you did was just repeat what I said.
As for whether other planeswalkers "require an urgent answer", that's entirely subjective. If Tamiyo survives its first opponent's turn unmolested, it's every bit as dangerous as Jace and then some. As a control deck, once you untap with a planeswalker in play, you are in a dominant position, because you can use its +1/+2 ability to impact the board, plus you have mana available and spells in hand to keep it around and keep getting that effect from the planeswalker every turn until you ultimate. Jace Architect, Tamiyo, Ajani Vengeant, Elspeth Knight, Venser, are all incredibly dangerous if they survive their first turn unscathed. If you told me I could have a planeswalker not take damage in its first turn on the board, I would much rather have that planeswalker be Tamiyo than Jace TMS.
Finally, I will gladly offer you replacements for Jace, if you would kindly first show me where I said there were replacements for Jace. Thanks.
I'd also like to point out that Jace is a Planeswalkers (=permanent) while every other card you just mentioned there was a either an Instant or a Enchantment. So while Force of Will and Swords to Plowshares are staple cards in almost all decks, they are one cast and done (FoW even gives you discard advantage, but we all know how strong it's effect is that its negligible). Staple cards are great, but alone they don't win games. Jace by himself, can win games. Jace sticks around, and around, and around. It has a way to protect itself (bounce), and gives you incredible card advantage not only brainstorming, but denying your opponent cards.
Permanents aren't the only things that have permanent effects on a game. If my Force of Will allows me to tap out for a Tamiyo and saves it by countering a Fireball aimed at it while I'm tapped out, Force of Will surely had a permanent impact on the board by allowing Tamiyo to persist. If STP removes the only blocker in the way of my creature that's now the biggest on the board, and my creature then attacks freely the next 5 turns, STP surely had a permanent effect on the board.
I understand that blue decks will have an answer to Jace (bounce), but what about aggro decks that get a slow start or combo decks that are fast, but instantly denied?
If you've ended your turn 3 or turn 4 and don't have two creatures in play, I wouldn't consider you an aggro deck. If you "get a slow start" as an aggro deck, aren't you going to lose most of those games anyways, Jace or otherwise? Doesn't an aggro imply that a fast start is, like, the whole point of the deck?
Likewise, a combo deck either (a) has protection, in the form of counters and hand disruption, or (b) has protection, in the form of being fast as heck. A turn 4 main phase spell shouldn't be what derails a combo deck.
Going back to what I actually said in my prior post, I made two basic points which I want to reiterate since they seem to have been missed, or ignored.
1) the idea that a card should be banned because it's an auto-include in its color is bunk. (this was to refute when Perfekt said precisely that)
2) as mana costs increase, the power level required of a card to make it ban-worthy increases as well. This is why there's only one card on the banlist that typically costs 4+ mana (Yawgmoth's Bargain).
Yea, Jace is certainly decent and all, but it doesn't at all instantly deny combo decks. There's really only two completely combo oriented decks in the format atm: animar and iname; both of which are capable. It's really only a complete blowout when you're incapable of putting on adequate pressure early game.
Considering how fierce the early game is in dual commander, if you can't do something relavent in the first 3 turns well, then you have other issues.
By the way. If you're going to discuss banlists and banning cards... come up with a framework, apply the framework, and follow the results of it. Randomly talking about subjective experiences with a given card and making subjective determinations with it is a complete waste of time.
My criteria for evaluation, since I suppose I should follow my own rules:
1) is there some external factor outside a game of Magic that warrants banning? This could be cost reasons if you feel that's a valid reason, or it could be time constraints (Sensei's Divining Top, Shahrazad), or Chaos Orb.
2) does the card provide an unfair boost to one's winning percentage simply by virtue of being in a player's opening hand? (i.e. the Moxes, Sol Ring, etc.). And I realize that "unfair" is subjective, but it certainly could be quantified, or at the very least you could make some attempt at ordering cards in terms of this aspect of power.
3) does the card provide an unfair boost to one's winning percentage simply by virtue of being in that player's deck? Can the card be accessed frequently enough that it impacts a significant portion of games? (i.e. is a card simply "too powerful", like Yawgmoth's Bargain)
4) does the card dominate games and reduce player interaction and/or the ability for a player to compete in the game? Can the deck strategies it harms be expected to be reasonably prepared for it? (anything from The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale to Oath of Druids to Humility to Shared Fate warrants consideration under this metric, although most of them would IMO fall under the heading of "the opponent can be expected to be reasonably prepared for it).
So, given that criteria, my banlist would be:
Ancestral Recall
Ancient Tomb
Balance
Back to Basics
Black Lotus
Channel
Crucible of Worlds Dark Ritual
Gifts Ungiven
Grindstone
Hermit Druid
Imperial Seal
Karakas
Library of Alexandria
Mana Crypt
Mana Drain
Mana Vault
Mishra’s Workshop
Mox Emerald
Mox Jet
Mox Pearl
Mox Ruby
Mox Sapphire
Necropotence Oath of Druids
Protean Hulk
Sensei’s Divining Top
Serra Ascendant
Shahrazad
Sol Ring
Strip Mine Sylvan Library
Time Vault
Time Walk
Tinker
Tolarian Academy
Yawgmoth’s Bargain
...and I'd probably put the black 1-mana tutors on the watchlist. (I've never seen their impact in 1v1 EDH, so I can't really assess their impact on winning games simply by being in one's opening hand). Mind Twist would also be on the watchlist, as I'm not sure how opening-hand-dominant it is without cards like Dark Ritual, Sol Ring, and Ancient Tomb. You still have Grim Monolith and City of Traitors to power out an early Mind Twist, but not much else.
And finally, yes I realize these changes would hurt green disproportionately more than other colors, and yes I agree that's a bummer, but objectivity requires sticking to one's framework. One could easily add a #5 to my framework that says "Also, put higher emphasis on banning blue cards and cards that hurt red decks and aggro decks", if you really want to help "balance" the format along those lines, but I don't believe in legislating that, so it's not in my framework.
I am not saying staples should be banned, but c'mon Jace is simply an over powered card in an already over powered color. I realize you U fanboys are trying to say Oath or Sylvan are broken, but nowhere near as broken as Jace.
I am not saying staples should be banned, but c'mon Jace is simply an over powered card in an already over powered color. I realize you U fanboys are trying to say Oath or Sylvan are broken, but nowhere near as broken as Jace.
They ban anything else that is even remotely over the top, yet Jace, the Mind Scuptorwho was even banned in standard, sails on untouched.
I do not understand how someone can say Sol Ring is too powerful and then look at Jace and say its not.
..
Azusa - Derevi - Glissa - Mizzix - Sharuum - Wanderer - Wort
That said... Jace still costs 4 mana, and there are probably better ways to win games for 4 mana. I'd guess more games are won by a turn 4 Natural Order than are won by a turn 4 Jace. By the time the game gets to turn 4, players have had some time to be reasonably prepared and start executing their gameplan. Jace generally dies if an opponent has 2+ creatures when it's played.
With regards to Sol Ring, I don't see how you *can't* see why it's so much better. But IMO it comes down to the simple luck of happening to have it in your opening hand. When I played under the official commander rules, I found I was winning 85-95% of the games I had Sol Ring in my opening hand, versus perhaps 70% of the games I didn't. That's an astounding impact based on the simple 7/99 chance of happening to luck into it for turn 1, and I don't think any single other card available to be used in official Commander (besides Mana Crypt) gives you such a boost like that.
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Sliver Overlord (MP, Retired)
Talrand, Sky Summoner (1v1, Budget)
Sygg, River Cutthroat (1v1, Competitive)
lol what the hell are you talking about? Getting a turn 3 Jace out is not hard at all, especially if you have a G splash
Here's one of my commentaries from the Duel Commander tournament talking all about Jace. I think it needs to be banned personally and I talk about it in my video here. Turn 3 Jace usually goes like this.... Bounce/Brainstorm -> Brainstorm -> Brainstorm -> Bounce a threat that finally makes it on the board. Then they have the option of starving you out, by letting you see what cards you get to draw. He's just so strong from so many different angles.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmHs0-AUqqo
BRGW Saskia the Unyielding BRGW
GUWB Thrasios, Triton Hero // Tymna the Weaver GUWB
B Braids, Cabal Minion B
G Titania, Protector of Argoth G
R Zurgo Bellstriker R
Founding Father of [Team Stepfathers]: We beat you and you hate us
My Street Art
To be fair, you did nothing the whole game so at that point any card could have taken over.
You had no disruption and no game acceleration, all he did with jace was bounce one of your creatures, brainstorm for a gitaxian probe, spied your hand and saw you had no disruption, cast Rafiq and berserked for the win.
Not really a convincing video to argue a cards power.
So you're gonna argue that he mulled to 6, he was on the go and that he would have won that game easily if he didn't have Jace on the field? Also, let me know how I could have done more to stop that. I had a creature out on the field that he immediately bounced and then he landed a creature to protect it. All off a turn three play.
That entire game revolved around his Jace. It bounced my acceleration (and I'm pretty sure an elf counts as 'game acceleration', but apparently not according to you). He then cycled his hand and drew all the answers he needed. That card is an overpowered swiss army knife and locks games down so fast. Every Blue deck should be playing it without question and that exactly points out why it should be banned. If it's good in ever deck that can run it and it doesn't have drawbacks, there's something wrong with that card.
BRGW Saskia the Unyielding BRGW
GUWB Thrasios, Triton Hero // Tymna the Weaver GUWB
B Braids, Cabal Minion B
G Titania, Protector of Argoth G
R Zurgo Bellstriker R
Founding Father of [Team Stepfathers]: We beat you and you hate us
My Street Art
If he had played Rafiq instead of Jace, he still would have won. Ultimately, you got greedy not playing around Daze/Spike and got punished for it.
Shall we ban Force of Will too? Sylvan Library? Dark Ritual? Blood Moon? Swords to Plowshares? You're basically arguing that all staples should be banned.
Also, "the entire game revolves around [insert powerful card here]" is a dumb argument. Every game always revolves around the most powerful card on the board. It's tautological. If you removed Jace, some other card would become the most powerful, the game would revolve around it, etc.
My .02 is that it's really rare to ban a card that costs 4 mana. I mean, look at the current banlist. The only cards that cost more than 3 mana are cards that are not typically hardcast (Protean Hulk) or grossly, unquestionably, ridiculously overpowered (Yawgmoth's Bargain). There is not a single other card on there for 4+ mana.
I think Jace is fragile enough, and comes down late enough even if it's in your opening hand, that it's quite reasonable for most decks to have an answer for it by the time it hits the board. The "if you don't have an answer for it fast, you lose" aspect of Jace is not unique to it, but rather a general feature of planeswalkers in general.
I was gonna write a response, but what Anthares said is pretty much what I wanted too.
I do have a few things to add
I'd also like to point out that Jace is a Planeswalkers (=permanent) while every other card you just mentioned there was a either an Instant or a Enchantment. So while Force of Will and Swords to Plowshares are staple cards in almost all decks, they are one cast and done (FoW even gives you discard advantage, but we all know how strong it's effect is that its negligible). Staple cards are great, but alone they don't win games. Jace by himself, can win games. Jace sticks around, and around, and around. It has a way to protect itself (bounce), and gives you incredible card advantage not only brainstorming, but denying your opponent cards.
Also, there's probably a reason Wizards smarted up and stopped giving Planeswalkers 4 abilities and started giving them 3. Just look at Jace. He probably would be more balanced if he didn't have his Brainstrom ability along with the other 3. I personally think that Wizards screwed up hard and unfortunately was slow to fix it. It took so long for him to get banned in other formats, but overtime he did.
As for the enchantments you stated
I wouldn't group Blood Moon in as a staple either. The only deck that it shines in are Mono-Red. You can't play it in 2-3 color generals because then you screw up your own mana base. It's absolutely amazing in Mono-Red but with how bad that color is in French, it balances out.
I've also been a vocal about banning Library but that's a different story. That card falls in the same boat as Jace in that if you get it out early, you get serious card advantage which can crush games very quickly
I do agree with most of this, except the 'quite reasonable'. I understand that blue decks will have an answer to Jace (bounce), but what about aggro decks that get a slow start or combo decks that are fast, but instantly denied? If you aren't constantly beating on Jace early, you're going to have a bad time :\
This makes no sense to me. How did I get greedy? I played a T2 Lotus Cobra. In fact that's like anti-greedy. I'm a ramp deck, I'm just trying to ramp...
BRGW Saskia the Unyielding BRGW
GUWB Thrasios, Triton Hero // Tymna the Weaver GUWB
B Braids, Cabal Minion B
G Titania, Protector of Argoth G
R Zurgo Bellstriker R
Founding Father of [Team Stepfathers]: We beat you and you hate us
My Street Art
You completely missed mikel123's argument. He simply argues that swords to plowshares sylvan library dark ritual and blood moon are staples in decks of those colors, not that they are comparable to jace in any other way.
I don't see what the big complaint is about jace. If anything it kills blue decks more than any other color. Once resolved opposing blue players just die. Black has discard, red burn, white and green dudes as well as o rings and beast withins to remove him. Blue is the color that rolls over the most and they also get to play jace. It's powerful but not tutorable and requires setup to really stick and win with.
Please don't accuse me of arguing "in bad faith", especially if you're not actually explaining why. All you did was just repeat what I said.
As for whether other planeswalkers "require an urgent answer", that's entirely subjective. If Tamiyo survives its first opponent's turn unmolested, it's every bit as dangerous as Jace and then some. As a control deck, once you untap with a planeswalker in play, you are in a dominant position, because you can use its +1/+2 ability to impact the board, plus you have mana available and spells in hand to keep it around and keep getting that effect from the planeswalker every turn until you ultimate. Jace Architect, Tamiyo, Ajani Vengeant, Elspeth Knight, Venser, are all incredibly dangerous if they survive their first turn unscathed. If you told me I could have a planeswalker not take damage in its first turn on the board, I would much rather have that planeswalker be Tamiyo than Jace TMS.
Finally, I will gladly offer you replacements for Jace, if you would kindly first show me where I said there were replacements for Jace. Thanks.
Permanents aren't the only things that have permanent effects on a game. If my Force of Will allows me to tap out for a Tamiyo and saves it by countering a Fireball aimed at it while I'm tapped out, Force of Will surely had a permanent impact on the board by allowing Tamiyo to persist. If STP removes the only blocker in the way of my creature that's now the biggest on the board, and my creature then attacks freely the next 5 turns, STP surely had a permanent effect on the board.
If you've ended your turn 3 or turn 4 and don't have two creatures in play, I wouldn't consider you an aggro deck. If you "get a slow start" as an aggro deck, aren't you going to lose most of those games anyways, Jace or otherwise? Doesn't an aggro imply that a fast start is, like, the whole point of the deck?
Likewise, a combo deck either (a) has protection, in the form of counters and hand disruption, or (b) has protection, in the form of being fast as heck. A turn 4 main phase spell shouldn't be what derails a combo deck.
Going back to what I actually said in my prior post, I made two basic points which I want to reiterate since they seem to have been missed, or ignored.
1) the idea that a card should be banned because it's an auto-include in its color is bunk. (this was to refute when Perfekt said precisely that)
2) as mana costs increase, the power level required of a card to make it ban-worthy increases as well. This is why there's only one card on the banlist that typically costs 4+ mana (Yawgmoth's Bargain).
Considering how fierce the early game is in dual commander, if you can't do something relavent in the first 3 turns well, then you have other issues.
My criteria for evaluation, since I suppose I should follow my own rules:
1) is there some external factor outside a game of Magic that warrants banning? This could be cost reasons if you feel that's a valid reason, or it could be time constraints (Sensei's Divining Top, Shahrazad), or Chaos Orb.
2) does the card provide an unfair boost to one's winning percentage simply by virtue of being in a player's opening hand? (i.e. the Moxes, Sol Ring, etc.). And I realize that "unfair" is subjective, but it certainly could be quantified, or at the very least you could make some attempt at ordering cards in terms of this aspect of power.
3) does the card provide an unfair boost to one's winning percentage simply by virtue of being in that player's deck? Can the card be accessed frequently enough that it impacts a significant portion of games? (i.e. is a card simply "too powerful", like Yawgmoth's Bargain)
4) does the card dominate games and reduce player interaction and/or the ability for a player to compete in the game? Can the deck strategies it harms be expected to be reasonably prepared for it? (anything from The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale to Oath of Druids to Humility to Shared Fate warrants consideration under this metric, although most of them would IMO fall under the heading of "the opponent can be expected to be reasonably prepared for it).
So, given that criteria, my banlist would be:
Ancestral Recall
Ancient Tomb
Balance
Back to Basics
Black Lotus
Channel
Crucible of Worlds
Dark Ritual
Gifts Ungiven
Grindstone
Hermit Druid
Imperial Seal
Karakas
Library of Alexandria
Mana Crypt
Mana Drain
Mana Vault
Mishra’s Workshop
Mox Emerald
Mox Jet
Mox Pearl
Mox Ruby
Mox Sapphire
Necropotence
Oath of Druids
Protean Hulk
Sensei’s Divining Top
Serra Ascendant
Shahrazad
Sol Ring
Strip Mine
Sylvan Library
Time Vault
Time Walk
Tinker
Tolarian Academy
Yawgmoth’s Bargain
...and I'd probably put the black 1-mana tutors on the watchlist. (I've never seen their impact in 1v1 EDH, so I can't really assess their impact on winning games simply by being in one's opening hand). Mind Twist would also be on the watchlist, as I'm not sure how opening-hand-dominant it is without cards like Dark Ritual, Sol Ring, and Ancient Tomb. You still have Grim Monolith and City of Traitors to power out an early Mind Twist, but not much else.
And finally, yes I realize these changes would hurt green disproportionately more than other colors, and yes I agree that's a bummer, but objectivity requires sticking to one's framework. One could easily add a #5 to my framework that says "Also, put higher emphasis on banning blue cards and cards that hurt red decks and aggro decks", if you really want to help "balance" the format along those lines, but I don't believe in legislating that, so it's not in my framework.
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Azusa - Derevi - Glissa - Mizzix - Sharuum - Wanderer - Wort
I honestly don't know if you're trolling or not.
You have got to be trolling.
My work is done here.