My opinion is that it's time to massively expand the RC. Give seats to Josh, Jimmy, DJ, the Prof, etc. and let a larger group of folks weigh in and make the call together. Maybe even include a few folks from Wizards, like Gavin Verhey.
Ignoring the fact that plenty of people already think the Wizards' banlists are a mess, even with their data, this comment has already happened. They *did* expand things and have somewhere around 11 other people on their Commander Advisory Group. With Josh from the Command Zone already being one of them. And they expanded it once after creating it initially. And that group helped achieve the Flash ban and likely weighed in on these two changes as well.
Also, 25% of the current RC (the 4 people you mentioned) does work for Wizards and another is the main Policy "guy" for whenever the IPG is updated. Maybe not as many as you would like, but they already have a Wizards employee on their roster. I don't think adding more people changes their philosophy.
yes but josh in particularly mentioned he was 0% for the golos ban (then again it could be because he had a “good stuff” deck
claiming that their recent bans / unbans as of late proves that they're completely out of touch with the format.
They are the ones out of touch with the format. Golos should have been banned day 1. He is a complete perversion of what EDH should be. He is the ultimate goodstuff general, that completely destroy any niche deck or build-around-me general because you can just play your strategy in 5c Golos and be fine. People who don't understand this should really double check why they are playing this format.
i agree with your completely on this one.
i went to an event for the first time in a year last night and someone was super salty about the ban because he played a "fair" golos build. kept going on about how its not played in cedh and therefore isn't a problem. he'd then go on to tell stories and use examples of his own deck oopsing into wins all the time.
...thus proving everyone elses point that it was a little too powerful in environments not designed to deal with it.
they also argued that its not even a highly played commander... but didn't seem to understand that cards don't have to be highly played to be oppressive or unfun. later they also said he's clearly the best 5 color commander and the RC is biased against that. which honestly, i think also goes a long way toward justifying a ban. when the choice for your 5c commander is so obvious that no other ones are even considered - thats a big problem.
i feel its a systemic problem with modern card design and the desire to push edh as a format. we're just going to see more and more of these cards, and they'll continue to be slow to act on them as they're a primary driver for sales. i think delayed bans of problematic new cards will continue to be the norm, and that is also an inherent problem with the RC.
My opinion is that it's time to massively expand the RC. Give seats to Josh, Jimmy, DJ, the Prof, etc. and let a larger group of folks weigh in and make the call together. Maybe even include a few folks from Wizards, like Gavin Verhey.
Ignoring the fact that plenty of people already think the Wizards' banlists are a mess, even with their data, this comment has already happened. They *did* expand things and have somewhere around 11 other people on their Commander Advisory Group. With Josh from the Command Zone already being one of them. And they expanded it once after creating it initially. And that group helped achieve the Flash ban and likely weighed in on these two changes as well.
Also, 25% of the current RC (the 4 people you mentioned) does work for Wizards and another is the main Policy "guy" for whenever the IPG is updated. Maybe not as many as you would like, but they already have a Wizards employee on their roster. I don't think adding more people changes their philosophy.
yes but josh in particularly mentioned he was 0% for the golos ban (then again it could be because he had a “good stuff” deck
And that's fine; there is no way anyone could expect to expand things *and* expect things to be unanimous. Now, if everyone but Sheldon was against it, I could see some outrage but one person being against it doesn't really mean much if the other 14 people are for it (I don't know the actual numbers of course but if 4-3 is good enough for the Supreme Court, 14-1 is sure as hell good enough for a card game).
In any case, my comment was simply that the previous poster's request has already been granted. And if they think that adding in someone like Josh is going to eliminate these bans, that is obviously a poor expectation. No one person is ever going to drive decisions which means that adding specific people isn't going to prevent changes like this either (which is obviously proven if Josh couldn't stop this ban). 15 people working together means some one is going to be on the losing side of an argument. It sounds like it was at least Josh this time around.
If they suddenly would ban all fetchlands out of nowhere, people would be MASSIVELY pissed and lose tons of money.
And I wouldn't feel bad for those people at all. Bans happen; it's an understood part of the format.
I have many powerful and expensive cards in my 27 commander decks. When a ban happens and I have to remove that card, I don't gnash my teeth and rage against the RC; I simply replace it, and accept that for every one card that loses value when it's banned, I've bought 100 or more cards for much cheaper than I can sell them for now (in other words, I'm still ahead overall, despite that one minor setback).
Yes, the EDHREC salty list is made of over 3,471,000 votes do give the cards in question a salt-score. Its WAY more comprehensive than the limited banned list.
That sounds like a great list for people who use EDHRec. What about the majority of commander players who don't use it? Not to mention that there are some silly cards on there that would be really dumb to ban.
And I wouldn't feel bad for those people at all. Bans happen; it's an understood part of the format.
Yea thats a problem.
If you value the financial commitment of people that low (or not at all) you would be surprised how many people get such a hit that they quit the game.
Banning cards should be for MISTAKES that never should exist in a format and for a CASUAL format thats basically never the case, as the people in question have the goal to have fun, not necessarily win a game.
Thats the argument to not have a Banned List at all, but replace it with a list of cards that are "potentially" problematic for the fun of a casual group, or at least very likely (as different people have different opinions, theres still no space to argue that mass land destruction is just flat out bad for a casual table).
So if someone has a bunch of Moxes and Black Lotus and they want to play their casual whatever deck with them ... why not ? Whats the problem with that ?
Yea, exactly nothing.
So the salt-score for power 9 is actually quite low, the problem just arises if people want to play competitive and all the others want to play casual (and theres the issue of having mega expensive cards that people cannot buy, but making that an argument for a ban ends up just silly).
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A banned list should not be in flux, if the rules are strong banning a card needs to have a very high barrier, and if the problem just tickles the barrier you dont ban it.
That said, replace the banned list with a salt-score for a bunch of cards and people can browse that list if they want to check their deck against what other people might consider un-fun cards ... then they choose to replace them, or not, its up to them.
If someone wants to play Golos and is happy with that in a casual inspired deck , people should not use the banned list to tell that person to go away, its actively anti-social.
If a card has a massive salt score chances are that its even unfun if people try to not abuse it in a combo or just accidentally play them, as the effect is oppressive for a game and does so regularly.
You can collect these datas with sites like edhrec , which is much much better than a selected few that make the decision for everyone else.
If your selected few are supposed to look at some data anyway, and make their decision based on that data they collect on their own by asking communities, you get the same result as you would just remove these selected few and use the data directly.
So it comes down to not having a committee for the banned list, and instead use a properly named "Salty-Card list" that people can still use, but might think about before or after they are aware of it.
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And for a competitive mindset there needs to be a banned list not on whats "fun" , but whats actually too strong, thats the only proper argument for any competitive environment and shouldnt be mixed.
That sounds like a great list for people who use EDHRec. What about the majority of commander players who don't use it?
The numbers are so big, that they very much reflect a substantial group of Commander players.
You can totally have some special groups somewhere that think fundamentally different, but then you run into the same issue of a banned-list that never ever reflects the entirety, so thats unsolvable.
But i trust a site that collects that much data WAY more than a bunch of people in a group that make the picks (especially if they work for WotC , thats super biased and shouldnt exist, and a bunch of them are arguably just "yes-men" and checkbox people, i much rather see what the players think in a collective as thats the reality of games).
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Not to mention that there are some silly cards on there that would be really dumb to ban.
Theres a video linked on the salty list page , which gives explainations for basically all the cards.
Theres plenty reasons why every card is on the list, as most can be summed up in groups (mostly mass land destruction, never untap ever again and anything that makes players unable to cast spells namely unable to play the game).
That said, its totally possible to use any of these cards in a "ethical" way, but that requires some thought to ensure they are still fun for the most part (so if you have lots of tutors to always find them, its not fun, thats just super annoying).
I mean really? Golos ban is crazy? upside-down world?
RC has stated its reasons. They are all valid. Maybe you think that the only criteria for a ban should be pure power level. Maybe you are salty because now you can't play your Golos deck anymore. But saying the ban is crazy, insular or has no reasons is just being intellectually dishonest. Golos is THE TOP goodstuff commander and it's not even close. EVERY DECK can be turned into a 5c golos deck and still be playable. Everyone can see that. not everyone want the future of commander meta be 5c golos decks.
1. Yes, lots and lots of people think the Golos ban is crazy. The fact that you don't is exactly my point. There is a ton of disagreement here, including, as I said, from lots of people who are smarter and more dedicated to this format than I am. Go watch the Command Zone video on the topic and come back if you haven't. I'm not being rude, I think your opinion is valid, but objectively this ban is very divisive and there's a ton of disagreement. So please don't call me "intellectually dishonest," because I'm not. My point was actually NOT to debate this specific ban too much, but to point out that it's so divided that it illustrates a problem with the process.
2. To address Golos specifically, there's nothing wrong with having a top good stuff Commander. I think it's boring and not very creative, but it's also a great gateway commander for new players with budget mana bases, and some people believe there's room in the format for a few "easy mode" decks. I've played since Revised and have all of the format staples including reserved list stuff. If a new player wants to hang with my more powerful decks, they'll need something like Golos to make an even match.
3. Everyone keeps saying stuff like, "Golos would be a better Commander for any deck," but LOTS of people choose and build less competitive commanders all the time, so I don't really get this point. No one was doing that. In my experience, playing with my group and in stores, and at Magic Fests before covid, people were still running a huge diversity of commanders and building creative decks around them. So the fact that some decks could be powered up with Golos only seems relevant in hypothetical world to me.
My opinion is that it's time to massively expand the RC. Give seats to Josh, Jimmy, DJ, the Prof, etc. and let a larger group of folks weigh in and make the call together. Maybe even include a few folks from Wizards, like Gavin Verhey.
Ignoring the fact that plenty of people already think the Wizards' banlists are a mess, even with their data, this comment has already happened. They *did* expand things and have somewhere around 11 other people on their Commander Advisory Group. With Josh from the Command Zone already being one of them. And they expanded it once after creating it initially. And that group helped achieve the Flash ban and likely weighed in on these two changes as well.
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That's not correct. They added the "Commander Advisory Group" where they get advice from others, but only four people make the final call. Speaking of Josh, he's been against every recent ban they did, and even after all of his conversations with them, he thinks the Golos ban "makes no sense," in his words. So they seem to pick and choose what advice they listen to. It's one thing to say "we're listening" and another thing to give people a vote of their own.
And yes, WotC banlists can be messy too, which is why I did not say that WotC should manage this. I just think having more people from more perspectives would make for a better and more credible process.
Thanks in advance for being respectful and polite
TL;DR: Whatever you personally feel about this specific ban, I believe we need a larger governing body for the format that includes a broader range of thinkers.
The fact that anyone thinks Golos is banworthy really makes me feel like we're playing completely different games.
Is he strong? Eh. He's just a ramp/value engine for a durdly deck. Which is what average players always profess to want out of a game of EDH. I played him for a while and he was fun but not broken.
If he were broken I could see some validity to the argument that he smothers diversity (ie: if he were the best option for 5c commander) but since he's just a solid catch-all commander that doesn't do any one thing particularly well there's TONS of more effective options for almost every conceivable strategy.
If you want to be competitive you play Kenrith or Najeela.
If you want to play tribal you play Morophon.
If you want to be aggressive you play Scion or maybe Slivers.
If you want to play dragons you play Ur Dragon or Tiamat.
If you want to ramp and durdle, yeah I guess you play Golos.
Golos is never about doing the most broken thing, that's not what he does. So I don't see him being the most popular commander as a result of his power level, I see it as a result of casual EDH players just loving ramp and durdle strategies. And there's nothing wrong with that, so why take away casual players' toys? The ban just seems gratuitous, and as much as I hate 'spirit of the format' arguments, removing Golos looks an awful lot like a dagger aimed directly at the 'spirit of the format' and any other explanation feels disingenuous.
To indulge in some conspiracy theory:
Coupled with a Worldfire unban, which is definitely against the 'spirit of the format' as the RC lays it out (regardless of the fact that the card is bad), I'm curious as to whether this announcement is setting the stage for something greater. The ban/unban both coming out of left field with no valid explanation for either, and the way both seem almost specifically designed to piss off the playerbase makes me think maybe this is the first salvo in the RC sabotaging its own reputation so that WotC can finally swoop in and fix the format without enraging the more petulant and vocal members of their consumer base.
The fact that anyone thinks Golos is banworthy really makes me feel like we're playing completely different games.
I agree 100%, and I'm a casual player, not a cEDH player (ok I own one optimized cEDH deck that I built to play at Magic Fests before covid, and 40+ casual builds of all power levels). I just think that whether you're talking about casual or competitive, the idea that Golos was ever a problem is ludicrous.
(but I respect people who feel otherwise, thus my desire for a larger and more diverse RC.)
Coupled with a Worldfire unban, which is definitely against the 'spirit of the format' as the RC lays it out (regardless of the fact that the card is bad), I'm curious as to whether this announcement is setting the stage for something greater. The ban/unban both coming out of left field with no valid explanation for either, and the way both seem almost specifically designed to piss off the playerbase makes me think maybe this is the first salvo in the RC sabotaging its own reputation so that WotC can finally swoop in and fix the format without enraging the more petulant and vocal members of their consumer base.
Now everything else in your post made sense, but this point doesn't. WotC does massively unpopular things all the time in order to make money. If they thought that taking control of Commander would help them make money, they wouldn't start by somehow infiltrating, bribing, or coercing the RC into banning the most popular commander in the format. They'd just take it over and be done with it. At least, that's what seems most likely to me.
Now everything else in your post made sense, but this point doesn't. WotC does massively unpopular things all the time in order to make money. If they thought that taking control of Commander would help them make money, they wouldn't start by somehow infiltrating, bribing, or coercing the RC into banning the most popular commander in the format. They'd just take it over and be done with it. At least, that's what seems most likely to me.
I know this is the prevailing thought, but its tragically untrue. The folks at WotC really do care, much more than the RC does at least, they just don't always hit the mark. Discussions with multiple members of R&D and playtesting have yielded the same impression (thinly veiled by NDA-safe equivocating): They dearly want to take over the format, but they're petrified that there will be an enormous backlash from a small but vocal section of the playerbase. At the end of the day they can tell Sheldon to do whatever they want (and have, look at the Unstable amnesty) but they refuse to take that last big step until its obvious that they'll not get torched on social media for it.
And they're not wrong in this thinking, remember how childish and stupid Mitch got after UB, and how he and other influencers tried to rip the format in half in their froth?
The folks at WotC really do care, much more than the RC does at least, they just don't always hit the mark.
Careful, your bias is showing. How would you even attempt to backup a statement like this? How do you measure how much one group cares over how much another does?
The answer is "you can't" - this is simply a partisan statement dismissing the party you dislike and favoring the party you do. I mean, you're even willing to openly excuse WOTC with "they just don't always hit the mark," yet in the same breath you extend no such mercy toward the RC.
Personally, I think there are people on both sides who care, but if I had to ask which one cares more, who does the evidence support? There are two choices:
- The RC, who runs the format for no pay or financial incentive, who subjects themselves to online abuse from every keyboard warrior willing to make derogatory statements they would be too scared to say in person, and who is constantly second-guessed and insulted despite managing to run the format from an unknown entity all the way to the most popular format in the game?
- WOTC, who despite the best of intentions, has to answer to a corporation who has repeatedly placed short-term profit over the interest of the game and the players, who constantly makes mistakes and bad judgements leading to record number of bans for cards being played in the format they were designed for, and who only jumped fully on the Commander train after the popularity of the first precons caught them off guard and showed them could literally print more money by tapping into something built up by others.
These are intentionally biased representations, by the way, to make a point. Everything I just said has an element of truth, but it is slanted to make one side look better and the other look worse. And yet you can't honestly say the misrepresentations are factually false.
So, taking the partisan blinders off, who cares more? Nobody can answer that.
The real question is "who would manage it better?" - and that is still a matter of opinion. I look at the track record for the past 12+ years I've been playing EDH/Commander, and I have to side with the RC, as they have made less mistakes than WOTC in that time. I look at failed formats like Brawl, which was merely an attempt to repackage Commander but sell more cards by forcing rotation, and again, I have to side with the RC. I look at the number of broken promises from each side, and again, I have to side with the RC. And finally, I have to ask "If WOTC would be better, then why is Commander healthier than any format they manage?" - and I have to side with the RC. Of course, that's just me and my bias. But I'm not the only one who feels that way.
They dearly want to take over the format, but they're petrified that there will be an enormous backlash from a small but vocal section of the playerbase.
I think the bigger fear is backlash from a very large and vocal majority. Commander is their cash cow right now. Not only are they pumping out record number of products directly marketed for it, but they have had to rethink how they design normal sets and legendaries in particular. Not a single black-border product gets released without consideration for Commander these days. If they took over, it might be fine. Or it might blow up in their face. The fable of the goose that lays the golden eggs comes to mind - in the owner's haste to access more than a steady stream of golden eggs, they cut the bird open to find ...nothing at all. They sacrificed a reliable long-term revenue stream in a short-sighted greedy maneuver that lost them everything. And that should terrify WOTC. Any move to take over, which I don't doubt will eventually happen, needs to be handled delicately. Yes, there will be backlash no matter what, but if they handle it wrong, and especially if they screw up shortly after taking control, it won't just be a small minority.
If you value the financial commitment of people that low (or not at all) you would be surprised how many people get such a hit that they quit the game.
Yep, happens in Standard all the time. if it isn't record number of banning of cards they just bought, it also happens on rotation, when they find that their deck no longer functions. In fact, those who don't quit sometimes migrate to an eternal format like Commander because they want their cards to remain viable after they bought them. And considering commander band less than a quarter of a percent of the cards available for it, it is rare when a banning makes a deck nonviable. Even banning Golos won't invalidate that many decks. All of the mono-color Golos decks that just wanted ramp in the command zone can pick a commander in their color that actually fits their theme. All of the goodstuff Golos decks can pick a different goodstuff commander, like Kenrith, Jodah, or Esika; it may require a few other cards to balance things out, but it's not the end of the world. And all of the decks truly built around Golos, well, it sucks, but they do have 99 still viable cards and can either rebuild or build something new. Decks changing and rotating isn't exclusive to Commander, and if anything, Commander is the most stable format with the least amount of decks being knocked out, all the while with the largest influx of new cards and new deck strategies.
Banning cards should be for MISTAKES that never should exist in a format and for a CASUAL format thats basically never the case, as the people in question have the goal to have fun, not necessarily win a game.
Hard disagree. For a casual format, that's basically every card that runs the risk of appearing to be casual but creating games that aren't. The problem is that the "goal to have fun" is nebulous and cannot be defined. What you find fun, other may hate. One person may think it's hilarious to lock out his opponents from playing spells while he himself lacks a wincon. But his three opponents may think it's fun to be able to play their decks. Another person may think it's fun to include over 20 tutors and always tutor the same three cards, while his opponents may think the fun of 100 card singleton is to play different games each time.
Of course, a tiny banlist that bans less than a quarter of a percent of the available cards isn't going to police everyone's fun. No banlist can, nor should it attempt to. But mistakes happen, even in casual, that can skew how the game is played.
That said, replace the banned list with a salt-score for a bunch of cards and people can browse that list if they want to check their deck against what other people might consider un-fun cards ... then they choose to replace them, or not, its up to them....If a card has a massive salt score chances are that its even unfun if people try to not abuse it in a combo or just accidentally play them, as the effect is oppressive for a game and does so regularly....So it comes down to not having a committee for the banned list, and instead use a properly named "Salty-Card list" that people can still use, but might think about before or after they are aware of it.
Again, some people don't care how their opponents feel. They aren't looking for the same gameplay and will prioritize winning over delivering a game in which everyone can have fun. And a salty card list evaluating 20,000+ cards is a lot harder to keep up on and reference than a clear banlist that you can lookup and see what cannot be played, regardless of your feeling for the card.
You can collect these datas with sites like edhrec , which is much much better than a selected few that make the decision for everyone else.
Yes, the chaos of mob rule and every man for himself sounds so much better than a clear and succinct list of what cannot be run in your deck. It's especially good when you show up to a new LGS and don't know anyone or their preferred playstyle or what may or may not be acceptable in their meta. Granted, this last point is a problem either way, but at least a banlist that can be read in a couple minutes starts everyone off with some small measure of common ground, while the salty list has no starting standard at all.
The folks at WotC really do care, much more than the RC does at least
Ahahahahah. If playing too much Golos makes you believe things like that, we are lucky it was banned.
Wotc just sees EDH as a big cash cow, many lead designer didn't even ever bothered playing and understanding the format.
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How i feel about competitive players and casual players in EDH: The competitive are german tourists, the casual are italian tourists, both in a italian beach. The italians asking themselves "why are the germans here?" make a legitimate question, the answer is because the beach is beautiful, no matter the country you came from. The italians wanting to ban the germans are dumb, because if the germans pay for their stay and follow the rules like everyone else, they have the right to be in the beach. Hovewer, if the germans started to ask themselves "why are the italians here?"... they would be dumb as hell.
Any casual group should absolutely not give a damn about the Commander banned list, the suggestions from them reflect their idea, like a local playgroup of them, others might completely disagree.
Ironically the only place where the list is really relevant is in tournaments for cEDH that use the banned list as an actual banned list, and you cant play if your deck is illegal.
In any casual world, its irrelevant, so the entire point of the banned list is pretty damn pointless in the first place.
Commander was born as a casual format. The RC plays casual. They try to have the format appeal to everyone but they have no interest into turning the format competitive.
Why you want to take that from the casual player? Why you want to take the only format that is not 100% catered to competitive players into a format exactly like the other ones?
If competitive players are so needy, they can form their own RC and make their own banlist. 1vs1 commander players did that multiple time.
But cEDH don't want to do that. They want to take away other people's stuff. They want to dictate how RC should play.
The big issue with that is NO ONE who plays cEDH wants to form their own Rules Committee because those players are complete elitists who do NOT get along well. There's a reason why you only see these types of players in pods of their own personal friends and Discord servers. Perhaps the cEDH community have already taken matters into their own hands except it isn't as mainstream as the Casual EDH / Commander community when it comes to Social Media presence. They seem more private rather than open.
There's also the possibility that the Rules Committee's favoritism toward Casual EDH players has pushed most cEDH players into Flesh and Blood TCG in order to get their "tournament grinding" fix that they're unable to get from cEDH and Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro's neglect of Standard, Modern, and other competitive formats In-Person in favor of selling products for Casual EDH / Commander and Arena. Then again that wasn't entirely Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro's fault since Local Game Store (LGS) Event Organizers were taking extra precautions to avoid the risk of infection due to the pandemic.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
I seriously don't understand all the noise about an announcement for a *checks notes* casual, unsanctioned format. Why would Commander of all formats need a banlist? If somebody lames your playgroup to death with Golos, just tell the person to stop running that deck. Bans make sense in sanctioned, competitive formats where asking people to pretty please stop playing 4x Oko,Thief of Crowns is obviously not gonna work if there are prizes on the line. I think Commander should have a let's say, advisory list of potentially troublesome cards, but leave the decision up to individual playgroups.
The big issue with that is NO ONE who plays cEDH wants to form their own Rules Committee because those players are complete elitists who do NOT get along well. There's a reason why you only see these types of players in pods of their own personal friends and Discord servers. Perhaps the cEDH community have already taken matters into their own hands except it isn't as mainstream as the Casual EDH / Commander community when it comes to Social Media presence. They seem more private rather than open.
There's also the possibility that the Rules Committee's favoritism toward Casual EDH players has pushed most cEDH players into Flesh and Blood TCG in order to get their "tournament grinding" fix that they're unable to get from cEDH and Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro's neglect of Standard, Modern, and other competitive formats In-Person in favor of selling products for Casual EDH / Commander and Arena. Then again that wasn't entirely Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro's fault since Local Game Store (LGS) Event Organizers were taking extra precautions to avoid the risk of infection due to the pandemic.
And perhaps there is a magical unicorn printing black lotuses and handing them to pauper player. Really your post quickly got for sensible to conspirationist bull*****.
We should manage EDH based on the supposition that maybe some competitive players have made their own RC and banlist and it works? Or the supposed fact that many players left mtg for Flesh and Blood because of the RC?
If the cEDH players have really made something, they should come out and submit it to the public.
If mtg is really losing so many competitive players, maybe it's because wotc is handling all the competitive formats terribly in the last years? The ban of Golos is nothing compared to all the bans that happened recently in standard, modern and other competitive formats. I don't get why the main source of "tournament grinding" should be commander while there at least other 5 competitive formats that exists only to be competitive.
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How i feel about competitive players and casual players in EDH: The competitive are german tourists, the casual are italian tourists, both in a italian beach. The italians asking themselves "why are the germans here?" make a legitimate question, the answer is because the beach is beautiful, no matter the country you came from. The italians wanting to ban the germans are dumb, because if the germans pay for their stay and follow the rules like everyone else, they have the right to be in the beach. Hovewer, if the germans started to ask themselves "why are the italians here?"... they would be dumb as hell.
Last time I played against Worldfire, the person who played it had no follow up plan. It just became a game of "who will be able to cast something first". I finally won by drawing, casting and attacking with a Reassembling Skeleton of all things. Was it exciting? I guess? Do I ever want to do it again? Absolutely not.
I seriously don't understand all the noise about an announcement for a *checks notes* casual, unsanctioned format. Why would Commander of all formats need a banlist? If somebody lames your playgroup to death with Golos, just tell the person to stop running that deck. Bans make sense in sanctioned, competitive formats where asking people to pretty please stop playing 4x Oko,Thief of Crowns is obviously not gonna work if there are prizes on the line. I think Commander should have a let's say, advisory list of potentially troublesome cards, but leave the decision up to individual playgroups.
Youre aware there are commander events and its played in environments where consistency needs to be a thing right?
Imagine for a moment you roll up and find out the store has banned xyz and now you have to cut all those cards without a backup plan.
It also works the same if they allow xyz and youre ill equipped to deal with it.
Some things are also incredibly toxic to the format. Without a banned list you can turn your game night into a hellscape and it makes new players not want to come back.
One personal example is when my local group was doing 2v2 a lot on edh night. We had to house rule time warps didnt effect both players because thats all that was dominating the meta. This caused several people to not come back as they felt their deck concept was wrecked and they had no replacements.
Rule 0 is not a magical catch all.
No banned list works fine at home, but not in public
Youre aware there are commander events and its played in environments where consistency needs to be a thing right?
Imagine for a moment you roll up and find out the store has banned xyz and now you have to cut all those cards without a backup plan.
It also works the same if they allow xyz and youre ill equipped to deal with it.
Some things are also incredibly toxic to the format. Without a banned list you can turn your game night into a hellscape and it makes new players not want to come back.
One personal example is when my local group was doing 2v2 a lot on edh night. We had to house rule time warps didnt effect both players because thats all that was dominating the meta. This caused several people to not come back as they felt their deck concept was wrecked and they had no replacements.
Rule 0 is not a magical catch all.
No banned list works fine at home, but not in public
The entire argument falls flat on its face, as the banned list does not accomplish that at all.
There are a lot of cards totally legal that are completely cancer to play against.
Winter Orb anyone ? Yea, its so amazing fun ... (if your deck is competitive, but its a complete trainwreck for casual decks that will cast 1 spell after like 4 turns each, and thats when the card is not abused in any way to just lock anyone out entirely to never get any lands anymore)
Food Chain, does anybody seriously play this card without going infinite with their Commander ? Like anybody ? Never seen these people.
The list of absolute cancerous cards is huge, and they are arguably way more oppressive cards than any other card on the banned list.
The banned list "somewhat" works for cEDH as the majority of the cards are completely irrelevant for competitive decks, only in latest times, actual strong cEDH cards got banned in Commander (Flash, Hullbreacher, the big boys.
As a "casual" banned list the power 9 are mostly banned, while Timetwister is legal, if its all about having some fun, there are a bunch of Moxes legal and Mana Crypt, Sol Ring, the big boy Moxes wouldnt really be far off (you would just play all of them, but people would proxy them, or who exactly puts 5 Moxes in their deck and their Black Lotus and plays with them in a "casual" format ? Having them on the banned list is completely pointless)
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In a world in which you want to build some cheesy casual deck and just play a bit with it, the opponent will durdle around with you and see some wacky cards, have some interactions and the game ends at some point, nobody needs a banned list at all to accomplish that.
And as said, the list of "salty" cards is much bigger than the banned list, so the intention of the deck builder is way more important, if they include cards that people dislike to play against they dont need a list to tell them they cant even try them, and if they use them in an ethical way, why smoother that creativity (if someone wins with Coalition Victory by assembling the Legendary creatures in the art and put effort into it, thats exactly the same kind of win like someone putting a lot of creatures in play and Craterhoof Behemoth everyone to death, the same crap gets old regardless, if they just keep doing the same thing every game or rush it with tutors).
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To ask players to have a 30 Minute discussion before each game is silly.
If anything people just make a broad claim "Casual ? or competitive ?", already fixes basically the biggest gaps.
If anything a "after" game short exchange is much more realistic to give feedback for a deck on what you liked, what surprised you, a card you might never have seen before, praise a deck for some creativity, or tell them what cards are just flat out annoying.
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At some point you either play enough to make your own "salty card list" or you find some community feedback on especially bad cards, and that way players make their decks more enjoyable for anybody involved.
The banned list is overall more of an issue, as its not comprehensive enough and at the same time, includes some cards that could be no issue at all for a lot of groups.
There are a lot of cards totally legal that are completely cancer to play against.
I'm shocked nobody ever mention (not even the EDHrec 100 saltiest card) stuff like Land Equilibrium which can play effectively or even be more oppressive than Limited Resources which is a banned card. With all 0-1 cost mana dorks and mana rocks it's so easy to totally break the simmetry of the card. Same is true for Ward of Bones
And perhaps there is a magical unicorn printing black lotuses and handing them to pauper player. Really your post quickly got for sensible to conspirationist bull*****.
We should manage EDH based on the supposition that maybe some competitive players have made their own RC and banlist and it works? Or the supposed fact that many players left mtg for Flesh and Blood because of the RC?
If the cEDH players have really made something, they should come out and submit it to the public.
If mtg is really losing so many competitive players, maybe it's because wotc is handling all the competitive formats terribly in the last years? The ban of Golos is nothing compared to all the bans that happened recently in standard, modern and other competitive formats. I don't get why the main source of "tournament grinding" should be commander while there at least other 5 competitive formats that exists only to be competitive.
The problem is that most of these competitive In-Person Paper formats with Standard, Modern, Pioneer, and Legacy aren't as appealing as EDH / Commander and it's very difficult to sanction competitive events and tournaments for a 100 card Singleton format that would take hours on end to resolve between rounds with 4 player Pods per table unless it's setup 1 v. 1 per table Best of 1 Single Elimination since Swiss Best 2 out of 3 would take too long. The best you're going to get that comes close to officially sanctioned EDH / Commander tournaments is If you have an Achievement System similar to what Triple A Video Games use where players get rewarded for unlocking certain achievements during a game once certain conditions are met and I felt as though the Dungeon cards from the recent Dungeons & Dragons Crossover set was a great example of this that's tied to the "venture into the dungeon" mechanic except this Achievement System would be something that's unlocked spontaneously amongst ALL players kinda like in Planechase.
Perhaps the best solution for these competitive In-Person Paper formats is by making these formats Singleton so that players aren't needing to spend more on playsets of cards than they have to while also mitigating the financial cost of specific cards getting emergency banned to where it's not as harmful on players' wallets with so many products getting printed to where it seems like it's hard to keep up with and it is. Only problem is that with set rotation as unforgiving as it is, it makes these competitive formats Brawl-lite to where the amount of time it can take to brew a 40 to 60 Singleton card deck would result in these cards possibly no longer being legal in their respective formats anymore and with a very limited card pool to work off of leads to demand for cards that aren't legal in said formats because players are needing the consistency to run "playsets" of cards with different names but are functionally identical even in terms of mana value. There's only so many card functions that a format can contain within itself unless it's an Eternal format like EDH.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
For me, the Golos ban was a nuisance as I had/have him in the 99 of some decks, but it wasn't too much. Mostly felt bad that my friend's Golos deck that he had spent time and money on got banned.
I kinda hope that they also do something about Commanders who tutor, on Wizards' end. While Tiamat and others will probably do fine and won't be a problem, I'm just tired of seeing them. I have a Sisay, Weatherlight Captain deck and it plays the same way every time, and don't know why they couldn't think of something cooler to give her other than repeatable tutors.
Youre aware there are commander events and its played in environments where consistency needs to be a thing right?
Do people really bring casual decks to events with any kind of prizes being handed to winners? I cannot imagine that anyone thinks that their casual deck (that is optimized not to win efficiently but rather do certain stuff in the game) is a suitable choice for that kind of event. I mean you can either try to win or not try to win, you cannot do both.
Youre aware there are commander events and its played in environments where consistency needs to be a thing right?
Do people really bring casual decks to events with any kind of prizes being handed to winners? I cannot imagine that anyone thinks that their casual deck (that is optimized not to win efficiently but rather do certain stuff in the game) is a suitable choice for that kind of event. I mean you can either try to win or not try to win, you cannot do both.
Yes, they do. For a lot of people it's just a way to play their deck against more people. If they win a prize, sweet. If they don't, they still had fun.
The last big tournament in my city had several commander pods fire, and the vast majority (possibly all) of them were players playing non-cEDH decks.
yes but josh in particularly mentioned he was 0% for the golos ban (then again it could be because he had a “good stuff” deck
i agree with your completely on this one.
i went to an event for the first time in a year last night and someone was super salty about the ban because he played a "fair" golos build. kept going on about how its not played in cedh and therefore isn't a problem. he'd then go on to tell stories and use examples of his own deck oopsing into wins all the time.
...thus proving everyone elses point that it was a little too powerful in environments not designed to deal with it.
they also argued that its not even a highly played commander... but didn't seem to understand that cards don't have to be highly played to be oppressive or unfun. later they also said he's clearly the best 5 color commander and the RC is biased against that. which honestly, i think also goes a long way toward justifying a ban. when the choice for your 5c commander is so obvious that no other ones are even considered - thats a big problem.
i feel its a systemic problem with modern card design and the desire to push edh as a format. we're just going to see more and more of these cards, and they'll continue to be slow to act on them as they're a primary driver for sales. i think delayed bans of problematic new cards will continue to be the norm, and that is also an inherent problem with the RC.
In any case, my comment was simply that the previous poster's request has already been granted. And if they think that adding in someone like Josh is going to eliminate these bans, that is obviously a poor expectation. No one person is ever going to drive decisions which means that adding specific people isn't going to prevent changes like this either (which is obviously proven if Josh couldn't stop this ban). 15 people working together means some one is going to be on the losing side of an argument. It sounds like it was at least Josh this time around.
And I wouldn't feel bad for those people at all. Bans happen; it's an understood part of the format.
I have many powerful and expensive cards in my 27 commander decks. When a ban happens and I have to remove that card, I don't gnash my teeth and rage against the RC; I simply replace it, and accept that for every one card that loses value when it's banned, I've bought 100 or more cards for much cheaper than I can sell them for now (in other words, I'm still ahead overall, despite that one minor setback).
That sounds like a great list for people who use EDHRec. What about the majority of commander players who don't use it? Not to mention that there are some silly cards on there that would be really dumb to ban.
Yea thats a problem.
If you value the financial commitment of people that low (or not at all) you would be surprised how many people get such a hit that they quit the game.
Banning cards should be for MISTAKES that never should exist in a format and for a CASUAL format thats basically never the case, as the people in question have the goal to have fun, not necessarily win a game.
Thats the argument to not have a Banned List at all, but replace it with a list of cards that are "potentially" problematic for the fun of a casual group, or at least very likely (as different people have different opinions, theres still no space to argue that mass land destruction is just flat out bad for a casual table).
So if someone has a bunch of Moxes and Black Lotus and they want to play their casual whatever deck with them ... why not ? Whats the problem with that ?
Yea, exactly nothing.
So the salt-score for power 9 is actually quite low, the problem just arises if people want to play competitive and all the others want to play casual (and theres the issue of having mega expensive cards that people cannot buy, but making that an argument for a ban ends up just silly).
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A banned list should not be in flux, if the rules are strong banning a card needs to have a very high barrier, and if the problem just tickles the barrier you dont ban it.
That said, replace the banned list with a salt-score for a bunch of cards and people can browse that list if they want to check their deck against what other people might consider un-fun cards ... then they choose to replace them, or not, its up to them.
If someone wants to play Golos and is happy with that in a casual inspired deck , people should not use the banned list to tell that person to go away, its actively anti-social.
If a card has a massive salt score chances are that its even unfun if people try to not abuse it in a combo or just accidentally play them, as the effect is oppressive for a game and does so regularly.
You can collect these datas with sites like edhrec , which is much much better than a selected few that make the decision for everyone else.
If your selected few are supposed to look at some data anyway, and make their decision based on that data they collect on their own by asking communities, you get the same result as you would just remove these selected few and use the data directly.
So it comes down to not having a committee for the banned list, and instead use a properly named "Salty-Card list" that people can still use, but might think about before or after they are aware of it.
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And for a competitive mindset there needs to be a banned list not on whats "fun" , but whats actually too strong, thats the only proper argument for any competitive environment and shouldnt be mixed.
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮
The numbers are so big, that they very much reflect a substantial group of Commander players.
You can totally have some special groups somewhere that think fundamentally different, but then you run into the same issue of a banned-list that never ever reflects the entirety, so thats unsolvable.
But i trust a site that collects that much data WAY more than a bunch of people in a group that make the picks (especially if they work for WotC , thats super biased and shouldnt exist, and a bunch of them are arguably just "yes-men" and checkbox people, i much rather see what the players think in a collective as thats the reality of games).
Theres a video linked on the salty list page , which gives explainations for basically all the cards.
Theres plenty reasons why every card is on the list, as most can be summed up in groups (mostly mass land destruction, never untap ever again and anything that makes players unable to cast spells namely unable to play the game).
That said, its totally possible to use any of these cards in a "ethical" way, but that requires some thought to ensure they are still fun for the most part (so if you have lots of tutors to always find them, its not fun, thats just super annoying).
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮
1. Yes, lots and lots of people think the Golos ban is crazy. The fact that you don't is exactly my point. There is a ton of disagreement here, including, as I said, from lots of people who are smarter and more dedicated to this format than I am. Go watch the Command Zone video on the topic and come back if you haven't. I'm not being rude, I think your opinion is valid, but objectively this ban is very divisive and there's a ton of disagreement. So please don't call me "intellectually dishonest," because I'm not. My point was actually NOT to debate this specific ban too much, but to point out that it's so divided that it illustrates a problem with the process.
2. To address Golos specifically, there's nothing wrong with having a top good stuff Commander. I think it's boring and not very creative, but it's also a great gateway commander for new players with budget mana bases, and some people believe there's room in the format for a few "easy mode" decks. I've played since Revised and have all of the format staples including reserved list stuff. If a new player wants to hang with my more powerful decks, they'll need something like Golos to make an even match.
3. Everyone keeps saying stuff like, "Golos would be a better Commander for any deck," but LOTS of people choose and build less competitive commanders all the time, so I don't really get this point. No one was doing that. In my experience, playing with my group and in stores, and at Magic Fests before covid, people were still running a huge diversity of commanders and building creative decks around them. So the fact that some decks could be powered up with Golos only seems relevant in hypothetical world to me.
[/quote]
That's not correct. They added the "Commander Advisory Group" where they get advice from others, but only four people make the final call. Speaking of Josh, he's been against every recent ban they did, and even after all of his conversations with them, he thinks the Golos ban "makes no sense," in his words. So they seem to pick and choose what advice they listen to. It's one thing to say "we're listening" and another thing to give people a vote of their own.
And yes, WotC banlists can be messy too, which is why I did not say that WotC should manage this. I just think having more people from more perspectives would make for a better and more credible process.
Thanks in advance for being respectful and polite
TL;DR: Whatever you personally feel about this specific ban, I believe we need a larger governing body for the format that includes a broader range of thinkers.
Is he strong? Eh. He's just a ramp/value engine for a durdly deck. Which is what average players always profess to want out of a game of EDH. I played him for a while and he was fun but not broken.
If he were broken I could see some validity to the argument that he smothers diversity (ie: if he were the best option for 5c commander) but since he's just a solid catch-all commander that doesn't do any one thing particularly well there's TONS of more effective options for almost every conceivable strategy.
If you want to be competitive you play Kenrith or Najeela.
If you want to play tribal you play Morophon.
If you want to be aggressive you play Scion or maybe Slivers.
If you want to play dragons you play Ur Dragon or Tiamat.
If you want to ramp and durdle, yeah I guess you play Golos.
Golos is never about doing the most broken thing, that's not what he does. So I don't see him being the most popular commander as a result of his power level, I see it as a result of casual EDH players just loving ramp and durdle strategies. And there's nothing wrong with that, so why take away casual players' toys? The ban just seems gratuitous, and as much as I hate 'spirit of the format' arguments, removing Golos looks an awful lot like a dagger aimed directly at the 'spirit of the format' and any other explanation feels disingenuous.
To indulge in some conspiracy theory:
Coupled with a Worldfire unban, which is definitely against the 'spirit of the format' as the RC lays it out (regardless of the fact that the card is bad), I'm curious as to whether this announcement is setting the stage for something greater. The ban/unban both coming out of left field with no valid explanation for either, and the way both seem almost specifically designed to piss off the playerbase makes me think maybe this is the first salvo in the RC sabotaging its own reputation so that WotC can finally swoop in and fix the format without enraging the more petulant and vocal members of their consumer base.
I agree 100%, and I'm a casual player, not a cEDH player (ok I own one optimized cEDH deck that I built to play at Magic Fests before covid, and 40+ casual builds of all power levels). I just think that whether you're talking about casual or competitive, the idea that Golos was ever a problem is ludicrous.
(but I respect people who feel otherwise, thus my desire for a larger and more diverse RC.)
Now everything else in your post made sense, but this point doesn't. WotC does massively unpopular things all the time in order to make money. If they thought that taking control of Commander would help them make money, they wouldn't start by somehow infiltrating, bribing, or coercing the RC into banning the most popular commander in the format. They'd just take it over and be done with it. At least, that's what seems most likely to me.
I know this is the prevailing thought, but its tragically untrue. The folks at WotC really do care, much more than the RC does at least, they just don't always hit the mark. Discussions with multiple members of R&D and playtesting have yielded the same impression (thinly veiled by NDA-safe equivocating): They dearly want to take over the format, but they're petrified that there will be an enormous backlash from a small but vocal section of the playerbase. At the end of the day they can tell Sheldon to do whatever they want (and have, look at the Unstable amnesty) but they refuse to take that last big step until its obvious that they'll not get torched on social media for it.
And they're not wrong in this thinking, remember how childish and stupid Mitch got after UB, and how he and other influencers tried to rip the format in half in their froth?
The answer is "you can't" - this is simply a partisan statement dismissing the party you dislike and favoring the party you do. I mean, you're even willing to openly excuse WOTC with "they just don't always hit the mark," yet in the same breath you extend no such mercy toward the RC.
Personally, I think there are people on both sides who care, but if I had to ask which one cares more, who does the evidence support? There are two choices:
- The RC, who runs the format for no pay or financial incentive, who subjects themselves to online abuse from every keyboard warrior willing to make derogatory statements they would be too scared to say in person, and who is constantly second-guessed and insulted despite managing to run the format from an unknown entity all the way to the most popular format in the game?
- WOTC, who despite the best of intentions, has to answer to a corporation who has repeatedly placed short-term profit over the interest of the game and the players, who constantly makes mistakes and bad judgements leading to record number of bans for cards being played in the format they were designed for, and who only jumped fully on the Commander train after the popularity of the first precons caught them off guard and showed them could literally print more money by tapping into something built up by others.
These are intentionally biased representations, by the way, to make a point. Everything I just said has an element of truth, but it is slanted to make one side look better and the other look worse. And yet you can't honestly say the misrepresentations are factually false.
So, taking the partisan blinders off, who cares more? Nobody can answer that.
The real question is "who would manage it better?" - and that is still a matter of opinion. I look at the track record for the past 12+ years I've been playing EDH/Commander, and I have to side with the RC, as they have made less mistakes than WOTC in that time. I look at failed formats like Brawl, which was merely an attempt to repackage Commander but sell more cards by forcing rotation, and again, I have to side with the RC. I look at the number of broken promises from each side, and again, I have to side with the RC. And finally, I have to ask "If WOTC would be better, then why is Commander healthier than any format they manage?" - and I have to side with the RC. Of course, that's just me and my bias. But I'm not the only one who feels that way. I think the bigger fear is backlash from a very large and vocal majority. Commander is their cash cow right now. Not only are they pumping out record number of products directly marketed for it, but they have had to rethink how they design normal sets and legendaries in particular. Not a single black-border product gets released without consideration for Commander these days. If they took over, it might be fine. Or it might blow up in their face. The fable of the goose that lays the golden eggs comes to mind - in the owner's haste to access more than a steady stream of golden eggs, they cut the bird open to find ...nothing at all. They sacrificed a reliable long-term revenue stream in a short-sighted greedy maneuver that lost them everything. And that should terrify WOTC. Any move to take over, which I don't doubt will eventually happen, needs to be handled delicately. Yes, there will be backlash no matter what, but if they handle it wrong, and especially if they screw up shortly after taking control, it won't just be a small minority. Yep, happens in Standard all the time. if it isn't record number of banning of cards they just bought, it also happens on rotation, when they find that their deck no longer functions. In fact, those who don't quit sometimes migrate to an eternal format like Commander because they want their cards to remain viable after they bought them. And considering commander band less than a quarter of a percent of the cards available for it, it is rare when a banning makes a deck nonviable. Even banning Golos won't invalidate that many decks. All of the mono-color Golos decks that just wanted ramp in the command zone can pick a commander in their color that actually fits their theme. All of the goodstuff Golos decks can pick a different goodstuff commander, like Kenrith, Jodah, or Esika; it may require a few other cards to balance things out, but it's not the end of the world. And all of the decks truly built around Golos, well, it sucks, but they do have 99 still viable cards and can either rebuild or build something new. Decks changing and rotating isn't exclusive to Commander, and if anything, Commander is the most stable format with the least amount of decks being knocked out, all the while with the largest influx of new cards and new deck strategies. Hard disagree. For a casual format, that's basically every card that runs the risk of appearing to be casual but creating games that aren't. The problem is that the "goal to have fun" is nebulous and cannot be defined. What you find fun, other may hate. One person may think it's hilarious to lock out his opponents from playing spells while he himself lacks a wincon. But his three opponents may think it's fun to be able to play their decks. Another person may think it's fun to include over 20 tutors and always tutor the same three cards, while his opponents may think the fun of 100 card singleton is to play different games each time.
Of course, a tiny banlist that bans less than a quarter of a percent of the available cards isn't going to police everyone's fun. No banlist can, nor should it attempt to. But mistakes happen, even in casual, that can skew how the game is played. Again, some people don't care how their opponents feel. They aren't looking for the same gameplay and will prioritize winning over delivering a game in which everyone can have fun. And a salty card list evaluating 20,000+ cards is a lot harder to keep up on and reference than a clear banlist that you can lookup and see what cannot be played, regardless of your feeling for the card. Yes, the chaos of mob rule and every man for himself sounds so much better than a clear and succinct list of what cannot be run in your deck. It's especially good when you show up to a new LGS and don't know anyone or their preferred playstyle or what may or may not be acceptable in their meta. Granted, this last point is a problem either way, but at least a banlist that can be read in a couple minutes starts everyone off with some small measure of common ground, while the salty list has no starting standard at all.
2023 Average Peasant Cube|and Discussion
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Ahahahahah. If playing too much Golos makes you believe things like that, we are lucky it was banned.
Wotc just sees EDH as a big cash cow, many lead designer didn't even ever bothered playing and understanding the format.
There's also the possibility that the Rules Committee's favoritism toward Casual EDH players has pushed most cEDH players into Flesh and Blood TCG in order to get their "tournament grinding" fix that they're unable to get from cEDH and Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro's neglect of Standard, Modern, and other competitive formats In-Person in favor of selling products for Casual EDH / Commander and Arena. Then again that wasn't entirely Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro's fault since Local Game Store (LGS) Event Organizers were taking extra precautions to avoid the risk of infection due to the pandemic.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
And perhaps there is a magical unicorn printing black lotuses and handing them to pauper player. Really your post quickly got for sensible to conspirationist bull*****.
We should manage EDH based on the supposition that maybe some competitive players have made their own RC and banlist and it works? Or the supposed fact that many players left mtg for Flesh and Blood because of the RC?
If the cEDH players have really made something, they should come out and submit it to the public.
If mtg is really losing so many competitive players, maybe it's because wotc is handling all the competitive formats terribly in the last years? The ban of Golos is nothing compared to all the bans that happened recently in standard, modern and other competitive formats. I don't get why the main source of "tournament grinding" should be commander while there at least other 5 competitive formats that exists only to be competitive.
Youre aware there are commander events and its played in environments where consistency needs to be a thing right?
Imagine for a moment you roll up and find out the store has banned xyz and now you have to cut all those cards without a backup plan.
It also works the same if they allow xyz and youre ill equipped to deal with it.
Some things are also incredibly toxic to the format. Without a banned list you can turn your game night into a hellscape and it makes new players not want to come back.
One personal example is when my local group was doing 2v2 a lot on edh night. We had to house rule time warps didnt effect both players because thats all that was dominating the meta. This caused several people to not come back as they felt their deck concept was wrecked and they had no replacements.
Rule 0 is not a magical catch all.
No banned list works fine at home, but not in public
The entire argument falls flat on its face, as the banned list does not accomplish that at all.
There are a lot of cards totally legal that are completely cancer to play against.
Winter Orb anyone ? Yea, its so amazing fun ... (if your deck is competitive, but its a complete trainwreck for casual decks that will cast 1 spell after like 4 turns each, and thats when the card is not abused in any way to just lock anyone out entirely to never get any lands anymore)
Stasis , Static Orb, basically the same boat.
Blood Moon , Back to Basics , contamination, completely destroy decks, they make a game unplayable miserable.
Food Chain, does anybody seriously play this card without going infinite with their Commander ? Like anybody ? Never seen these people.
The list of absolute cancerous cards is huge, and they are arguably way more oppressive cards than any other card on the banned list.
The banned list "somewhat" works for cEDH as the majority of the cards are completely irrelevant for competitive decks, only in latest times, actual strong cEDH cards got banned in Commander (Flash, Hullbreacher, the big boys.
As a "casual" banned list the power 9 are mostly banned, while Timetwister is legal, if its all about having some fun, there are a bunch of Moxes legal and Mana Crypt, Sol Ring, the big boy Moxes wouldnt really be far off (you would just play all of them, but people would proxy them, or who exactly puts 5 Moxes in their deck and their Black Lotus and plays with them in a "casual" format ? Having them on the banned list is completely pointless)
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In a world in which you want to build some cheesy casual deck and just play a bit with it, the opponent will durdle around with you and see some wacky cards, have some interactions and the game ends at some point, nobody needs a banned list at all to accomplish that.
And as said, the list of "salty" cards is much bigger than the banned list, so the intention of the deck builder is way more important, if they include cards that people dislike to play against they dont need a list to tell them they cant even try them, and if they use them in an ethical way, why smoother that creativity (if someone wins with Coalition Victory by assembling the Legendary creatures in the art and put effort into it, thats exactly the same kind of win like someone putting a lot of creatures in play and Craterhoof Behemoth everyone to death, the same crap gets old regardless, if they just keep doing the same thing every game or rush it with tutors).
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To ask players to have a 30 Minute discussion before each game is silly.
If anything people just make a broad claim "Casual ? or competitive ?", already fixes basically the biggest gaps.
If anything a "after" game short exchange is much more realistic to give feedback for a deck on what you liked, what surprised you, a card you might never have seen before, praise a deck for some creativity, or tell them what cards are just flat out annoying.
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At some point you either play enough to make your own "salty card list" or you find some community feedback on especially bad cards, and that way players make their decks more enjoyable for anybody involved.
The banned list is overall more of an issue, as its not comprehensive enough and at the same time, includes some cards that could be no issue at all for a lot of groups.
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮
I'm shocked nobody ever mention (not even the EDHrec 100 saltiest card) stuff like Land Equilibrium which can play effectively or even be more oppressive than Limited Resources which is a banned card. With all 0-1 cost mana dorks and mana rocks it's so easy to totally break the simmetry of the card. Same is true for Ward of Bones
Perhaps the best solution for these competitive In-Person Paper formats is by making these formats Singleton so that players aren't needing to spend more on playsets of cards than they have to while also mitigating the financial cost of specific cards getting emergency banned to where it's not as harmful on players' wallets with so many products getting printed to where it seems like it's hard to keep up with and it is. Only problem is that with set rotation as unforgiving as it is, it makes these competitive formats Brawl-lite to where the amount of time it can take to brew a 40 to 60 Singleton card deck would result in these cards possibly no longer being legal in their respective formats anymore and with a very limited card pool to work off of leads to demand for cards that aren't legal in said formats because players are needing the consistency to run "playsets" of cards with different names but are functionally identical even in terms of mana value. There's only so many card functions that a format can contain within itself unless it's an Eternal format like EDH.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
I kinda hope that they also do something about Commanders who tutor, on Wizards' end. While Tiamat and others will probably do fine and won't be a problem, I'm just tired of seeing them. I have a Sisay, Weatherlight Captain deck and it plays the same way every time, and don't know why they couldn't think of something cooler to give her other than repeatable tutors.
I used to be a demigod, but now I'm an omnimage
Yes, they do. For a lot of people it's just a way to play their deck against more people. If they win a prize, sweet. If they don't, they still had fun.
The last big tournament in my city had several commander pods fire, and the vast majority (possibly all) of them were players playing non-cEDH decks.
Because the RC governs the rules for EDH/Commander. Brawl is a WotC-governed format. Consistency is not guaranteed.
Finally a good white villain quote: "So, do I ever re-evaluate my life choices? Never, because I know what I'm doing is a righteous cause."
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