What a ridiculous assessment. "Long trend of random bans"? During this ban announcement Iona was banned and she has been "grumbled" about being legal for a long time and the RC finally took action against it. PE hasn't been around as long but has also had its detractors. Prior to this, we had Leovold banned on 04/24/2017 (over 2 years ago) and prior to that, in January 2016, we had Prophet of Kruphix banned. Going back to January of 2015, those have been the only bans in 4.5 years. I am not going to go back any further because these show that your "long trend" is essentially "this most recent announcement" which is dumb.
The RC, for the most part, has been content to let the format live on its own and has repeatedly shown they are avoiding being heavy handed with the format. 4 bans in a 4.5 year period (with 2 being this announcement) is nothing. We also got 2 unbans in that time period. Hell, Standard has had more bans than that.
People are fine to complain about PE (and Iona if they want to, though that seems like the less "controversial" banning) but it does not serve one's cause to make this something it is not. It is the first unbanning in a year and both cards have been discussed by a number of people on both sides. The RC, with the input of the CAG, felt these two cards did not foster the types of games they wanted the format to be about.
And I will say that I think both were absolutely the right bans. You may have a complaint about it, but don't make your voice the voice of everyone at "lower levels" because it is not. As for WotC taking it over, they already tried that online and they failed miserably. They ended up having to back out their banlist for Multiplayer after 3-6 months or so. Wizards does fine with tournament formats (not perfect, but good enough overall) but they have already shown they have no idea how a ban list should look for EDH because they want to handle it like a tournament format.
So, no, dissent over a single ban is not enough to start proclaiming the sky is falling and that the RC is out of touch. It is a severe overreaction to a decision a subset of people find poor. It is nowhere near unanimous that this is a bad decision.
And, for some metrics (using the current data we have):
There is a survey that is going around that currently has 9000+ responses. Within that survey, regarding the 4 most recent bans above, here is where things stand (do note the percentages are a little higher as they don't count people who said "no changes" so I added that percentage in parenthesis):
More people want Coalition Victory unbanned than PE and almost as many people want Gifts Ungiven. And I would wager a lot of those responses for PE are more emotional than logical. Not to say the number will change a lot in the long run but I would expect it would go down once people stop to think about it. And, who knows; maybe it will go up later but what we have is what we have for now.
But, the point is that less than 40% of people want it unbanned. Your dissent over this ban isn't even the majority opinion. Likely there are plenty of people that are indifferent to the ban but this still shows that less than the majority actually want it back.
As for faith in the RC:
38.3% are either Extremely or Moderately Satisfied with the RC. If we add in those that are still satisfied but only "Somewhat" the number goes to 52.3.
Only 35.8 people are dissatisfied (using the same ratings of "Extremely", "Moderately", or "Somewhat").
11.8% are in the middle.
I would be curious to see your data showing this is a lower number than any previous lows in "all time" numbers. But, again, your statements seem a bit hyperbolic and I would wager that at least some of the dissatisfaction comes about directly from PE's banning and these numbers coming so soon after that. Not sure how much this would change in a year or so.
Also worth pointing out is that I realize not everyone everywhere is going to take this survey and there will be people on both sides that are not included in it. But 9,000+ people is a reasonable sample size to discuss the points brought up
This decision is quite clearly something where the new CAG had its hand in. Which is good. But they are new and this is the first Banlist announcement where they were fully engaged (if I understand correctly). I don't believe for a second that PS and Iona were a "swap" ban. Iona was banned because she is obnoxious in this format and the CAG argued as such. And PS, as a ban, didn't really make sense in the context of the rest of the ban list (as JqlGirl has argued in this thread). That they happened to come off at the same time is likely more coincidental than anything. While I could see where not having Iona was certainly a point in PS's favor I don't believe Iona was banned solely because they wanted PS unbanned and the RC has definitely known of Iona for a long time and the feel bad moments she created. The CAG's input simply seems to have moved their thought of her to "over the line".
I do agree about Gifts though. While it would be a powerful card, it would likely just be a powerful card in a sea of other powerful cards. I can see where they want to be cautious, which is fine as papa_funk said they are kind of watching PS too, so letting two questionable cards loose at the same time is probably more than they want. Over time, and perhaps with more CAG and RC deliberation, maybe Gifts will be free at some point.
The RC, for the most part, has been content to let the format live on its own and has repeatedly shown they are avoiding being heavy handed with the format. 4 bans in a 4.5 year period (with 2 being this announcement) is nothing. We also got 2 unbans in that time period. Hell, Standard has had more bans than that.
People are fine to complain about PE (and Iona if they want to, though that seems like the less "controversial" banning) but it does not serve one's cause to make this something it is not. It is the first unbanning in a year and both cards have been discussed by a number of people on both sides. The RC, with the input of the CAG, felt these two cards did not foster the types of games they wanted the format to be about.
And I will say that I think both were absolutely the right bans. You may have a complaint about it, but don't make your voice the voice of everyone at "lower levels" because it is not. As for WotC taking it over, they already tried that online and they failed miserably. They ended up having to back out their banlist for Multiplayer after 3-6 months or so. Wizards does fine with tournament formats (not perfect, but good enough overall) but they have already shown they have no idea how a ban list should look for EDH because they want to handle it like a tournament format.
So, no, dissent over a single ban is not enough to start proclaiming the sky is falling and that the RC is out of touch. It is a severe overreaction to a decision a subset of people find poor. It is nowhere near unanimous that this is a bad decision.
And, for some metrics (using the current data we have):
There is a survey that is going around that currently has 9000+ responses. Within that survey, regarding the 4 most recent bans above, here is where things stand (do note the percentages are a little higher as they don't count people who said "no changes" so I added that percentage in parenthesis):
Paradox Engine: 39.7% (35.5%)
Iona: 27.3% (24.4%)
Leovold: 15.7% (14.1%)
Prophet: 26% (23.2%)
More people want Coalition Victory unbanned than PE and almost as many people want Gifts Ungiven. And I would wager a lot of those responses for PE are more emotional than logical. Not to say the number will change a lot in the long run but I would expect it would go down once people stop to think about it. And, who knows; maybe it will go up later but what we have is what we have for now.
But, the point is that less than 40% of people want it unbanned. Your dissent over this ban isn't even the majority opinion. Likely there are plenty of people that are indifferent to the ban but this still shows that less than the majority actually want it back.
As for faith in the RC:
38.3% are either Extremely or Moderately Satisfied with the RC. If we add in those that are still satisfied but only "Somewhat" the number goes to 52.3.
Only 35.8 people are dissatisfied (using the same ratings of "Extremely", "Moderately", or "Somewhat").
11.8% are in the middle.
I would be curious to see your data showing this is a lower number than any previous lows in "all time" numbers. But, again, your statements seem a bit hyperbolic and I would wager that at least some of the dissatisfaction comes about directly from PE's banning and these numbers coming so soon after that. Not sure how much this would change in a year or so.
Also worth pointing out is that I realize not everyone everywhere is going to take this survey and there will be people on both sides that are not included in it. But 9,000+ people is a reasonable sample size to discuss the points brought up
I do agree about Gifts though. While it would be a powerful card, it would likely just be a powerful card in a sea of other powerful cards. I can see where they want to be cautious, which is fine as papa_funk said they are kind of watching PS too, so letting two questionable cards loose at the same time is probably more than they want. Over time, and perhaps with more CAG and RC deliberation, maybe Gifts will be free at some point.