The only people that ever whine about sol ring, mana crypt and/or mana vault in EDH are the people that don't have them.
I own a Sol Ring in real life, and I'm currently working on getting a Mana Crypt even though they are damn near ****ing impossible to find in my area (yay for scouring deals on eBay I guess).
The only people that ever whine about sol ring, mana crypt and/or mana vault in EDH are the people that don't have them.
To the contrary, I own 2 Sol Rings, a Mana Crypt, and 3 Mana Vaults (Mana Vault is fine, by the way).
I think a much more accurate perspective is that the people who don't complain about Sol Ring and Mana Crypt are typically the ones who have them, because they don't want to have replace them and lose their advantage/investment.
Self-interest is okay to a point, but the banlist is for the health of the game, not your pocketbook.
I will reiterate here what we have been trying to say for the last couple of pages. Sol Ring and Mana Crypt make up maybe 2% of the entire EDH deck. As such the odds of drawing either of them in your opening hand is about 2% at most (probably a slight bit more if you take into consideration there isn't exactly 100 cards in the EDH deck). That is a phenomenally low number. As such the likelyhood that a person can pull the shenanigans that Crz87 pulled off more than 1 game in a row is highly improbable, much less doing it more than once in 10 games.
Additionally, how exactly is Sol Ring or Mana Crypt violating the principles by which cards are banned in EDH?
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I will reiterate here what we have been trying to say for the last couple of pages. Sol Ring and Mana Crypt make up maybe 2% of the entire EDH deck. As such the odds of drawing either of them in your opening hand is about 2% at most (probably a slight bit more if you take into consideration there isn't exactly 100 cards in the EDH deck). That is a phenomenally low number. As such the likelyhood that a person can pull the shenanigans that Crz87 pulled off more than 1 game in a row is highly improbable, much less doing it more than once in 10 games.
Someone on the official forums (oddly enough, I don't think it was you) just posted exactly the same argument. I blew it to pieces. There are two huge flaws with your argument: 1) a starting hand consists of 7 cards, not 1 card, and 2) you can always mulligan, and frequently will. My post from the other forums addresses your argument perfectly, so I'll just repost it here:
Arguing probability isn't going to help your argument at all here. You shouldn't make statistical arguments if you're not going to back them up with at least rough math, especially when that math shows that you're wrong.
Some napkin math here because it's late and I'm tired, but the odds of drawing Sol Ring or Mana Crypt in your opening hand is roughly 14/99. Didn't get one? Mulligan. You're up to 28/99. If you've got to, mulligan again. 34/99. I know these numbers aren't exact, but they're close, and I find about a 1/3 chance of drawing into Sol Ring or Mana Crypt in the opening hand. Include Mana Vault, which, while not nearly as good and not deserving a ban, also easily allows a turn 2 Arcum, and those odds are more like 60/99--almost 2/3. There are also further little accelerants like Chrome Mox, Ancient Tomb, Tolarian Academy. By themselves, these won't result in a turn 2 Arcum, but they definitely can in certain hands. There are 7 2cc mana accelerants in crz87's deck, and combining one of these with one of the aforementioned cards also results in a turn 2 Arcum. Those combinations are admittedly more unlikely, but they do increase the odds of turn 2 Arcum even more. Despite my rough math, I'm fairly certain that the odds of achieving a turn 2 Arcum with crz87's deck, using up to 2 mulligans, is over 50%.
That doesn't seem like "phenomenal" odds to me. The chance of drawing into Sol Ring or Mana Crypt is not anywhere near as low as you seem to think it is, once you account for how aggressively this type of deck mulligans. When, as has been shown, you really don't need to draw into anything special but broken mana artifacts, why not mulligan aggressively? The benefit when you find them is worth it. I only did the math up to the second mulligan, but it's certainly possible to do even more--I've played around with a similar Arcum deck on occasion, and I've won games off of 3 land hands that contained Mana Crypt. You really don't need much else. I'd like to take this opportunity to note, by the way, that just by banning Sol Ring and Mana Crypt, you'd reduce crz87's chance of a turn 2 Arcum by more than half, down to around 20% or so. Considering that he's running around 20 cheap accelerants to help get Arcum out faster, that's a huge decrease from banning 2 cards.
So yeah, try again on the "phenomenal" odds. The odds are in fact pretty low for a turn 1 Arcum, but that's not what crz87 had, and that's not necessary to dominate the game. I explained above how Braids could reasonably consistently mulligan into a turn 2 Braids--Arcum is the exact same way. If this kind of start only happened in 1/100 games, it would be fine (though admittedly annoying when it did happen). However, if you actually test, you'd see that, including mulligans, the odds of achieving a turn 2 Arcum is more like 50%, I think even higher. Odds are, crz87 is going to be that lucky again in the very next game he plays. Still don't think it's a problem?
Additionally, how exactly is Sol Ring or Mana Crypt violating the principles by which cards are banned in EDH?
I've addressed this before. To be blunt, the banning principles are not infallible. There are cards on the banlist that do not really meet the banning principles, yet they are banned anyways. There are many cards that meet the banning principles, yet are not banned. Those principles serve as guidelines, not law. If cards that should be banned for the health of the format are not bannable under those principles, then it is the principles that need to change.
I'm going to sleep now, but I'll be happy to continue this discussion tomorrow night.
ban: Staff of domination, umbrella mantle, tunnel vision, Rofellos as a general.
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@Khymera: Crz87 probably loses that game if ANY of his opponents have ANY cheap spot removal in their hands. How do we even know their decks weren't garbage? It is very surprising to me that most of the people advocating the banning of Sol Ring point to that single game. Well, one time, I played Sol Ring turn 1 in a 6 man game and lost. Clearly it must not be too powerful. See how silly that sounds? The French list has it banned in their 1v1 list, and for good reason, however the list we are talking about is geared for multiplayer. If Crz87 is playing against 5 of the best decks in the format do you think he still just wins off of a turn 1 Sol Ring? I agree arguing statistics is pointless, due to the fact that all decks should have Sol Ring & Mana Crypt and thus should all have exactly the same chance to start with them in the opening hand (although some decks are able to mulligan more aggressively than others of course).
um...correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't EDH a casual format? Therefore, aren't "ban lists" nothing but house rules anyway? Heck, in my experience, every group I've played EDH with plays with different rules. So, isn't having a ban list without some authority to back it up kinda useless?
um...correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't EDH a casual format? Therefore, aren't "ban lists" nothing but house rules anyway? Heck, in my experience, every group I've played EDH with plays with different rules. So, isn't having a ban list without some authority to back it up kinda useless?
Yes, but think of EDH as uniform house rules. Conversely, EDH ceased being a casual format once there was tournaments with prize.
@those who insist on the casual and multiplayer aspects of EDH :
Yes, that may be how EDH was born, but there are people who want to play differently. And those people need a banlist more than you do.
Here, in France, EDH is getting more and more popular as a 1VS1 format (beginning at 30 life to encourage aggro). My local shop organizes many EDH tournaments.
The french banlist is the following (you may be interested if your playgroup need a 1 VS 1 banlist, after all) :
I like the French list. But I also think the 30 life starter makes Sol Ring and Mana Crypt more pertinent than in 40 life starters.
I do think Sol Ring is one card that is so ubiquitious it could be an exception to the "we don't ban due to ubiquity" rule and benefit the format.
I'd be happy if the French list were adopted for the game, but if it isn't oh well. (My groups' decks migrate from 1 v.1 to multiplayer without tweaking between, so that is part of why I like this list.)
um...correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't EDH a casual format? Therefore, aren't "ban lists" nothing but house rules anyway? Heck, in my experience, every group I've played EDH with plays with different rules. So, isn't having a ban list without some authority to back it up kinda useless?
The EDH rules comittee is a very informal, but useful, authority. It gives players and venues a starting point and is essential to the growth of the format.
It also gives playgroups a pretext for adopting a ban. Simply put, there isn't always a comfortable way of bringing up a ban to your playgroup. A player might feel singled out, and an organizer might be percieved as being authoritarian.
@ Khymera: While i certainly respect your opinions on this issue (as I know from past experience chatting with you that you are a highly competent and well versed EDH player) and you make some very solid arguments in voicing your opinion, I'm still not necessarily sold. First of all, your napkin math is off. Any deck with bothSol Ring and Mana Crypt has a (14/99) 14%+/- chance of drawing either of them, mulligans aside. Your probability does not change with a mulligan, it is still the same (28/198)14%+/-.
No one is doubting the dominating performance of crz87 in that particular match, and with Arcum at the helm, I'm not necessarily surprised either. However, your argument is flawed in the respect that you are not taking the quality of the draws of the other players into account. What if any of the other 5 players also drew Sol Ring or Mana Crypt, would the outcome have been different? I would assume so as it would have given them the tempo boost to match and possibly derail Arcum before he got all crazy as he often tends to do anyway, tempo advantage aside. Better yet, lets instead, for argument sake, say that crz87 did not draw into the Crypt, but rather the Uril player did, wouldn't you agree that this would have leveled the playing field a little? The kicker here is that crz87 was the only one to draw into one of the artifacts in question. This leads into precisely the reason that I belive that I believe they should remain unbanned: because anybody can play them in their decks since they are not color dependant. If for whatever reason Sol Ring/Crypt were blue or black cards for example, yeah sure, ban the hell out of them since they would provide more specific generals/archetypes the potential for an unmatched or uninhibited tempo advantage. Keep in mind, Sol Ring and Mana Crypt provide tempo advantage to whoever draws them and this can be the difference maker that can give "non tier 1" generals, for lack of a better term, a stand a chance against guys like Arcum, Zur, etc.
Rofellos. Card is completely broken in this format. Umbral Mantle + Rofellos = t3 infinite mana combo.
Honestly, I think this is the only currently unbanned card that NEEDS to be banned.
Kokusho shouldn't be banned. I never understood this. It's good but so many other cards are better.
Shaharazad should possibly be banned. I put it in for fun, but it got old really fast. I stopped playing it when it became "WW, Sorcery, Your opponent concedes the game."
Arcum Daggson and Zur are also rather imba - having a recurring creature (general) with recurring tutor effects in a vintage deck is grossly powerful. 3/4 mana generals that basically say "remove this before my next turn or you will lose the game." I'd personally ban them as generals, but that's just me.
EDIT: I think Necropotence should probably be banned too. If I play Necro, I generally win, and that's far too strong for a 3 mana card. Especially when Bargain is banned. 40 life = lots of cards.
Also Miscalculated, ironically, your math is incorrect. You have two attempts. Thus your probability of getting a Sol Ring or Crypt on at least one attempt of the two doubles.
Rofellos. Card is completely broken in this format. Umbral Mantle + Rofellos = t3 infinite mana combo.
Arcum Daggson and Zur are also rather imba - having a recurring creature (general) with recurring tutor effects in a vintage deck is grossly powerful. 3/4 mana generals that basically say "remove this before my next turn or you will lose the game." I'd personally ban them as generals, but that's just me.
Honestly, this would just set a dangerous standard: "Lets just ban all of the tier 1 generals". If you get rid of Rofellos, Daggson, and Zur, there are still a handful of other generals that will take their place at the top. Then you would have to ban them. This trend would inevitably continue until everyone would wind up playing with, I can't believe I am saying this, Lady Orca, and other underwhelming generals like that. No offense to anyone who currently plays her.
EDIT: My math is fine, sure you have two chances, hence (28/198) instead of (14/99). Both numbers double since you are reshuffling (thus re-randomizing) the entire deck. If when mulliganing you took away the initial 7 cards, your odds would increase, sure. Just because you flip a coin more than once, your odds of getting heads are never greater than 50%. By reshuffling, however, you can expect to see different cards than before, but your odds of finding a certain card in particular are exactly the same.
The only way it would double is if you added an extra copy of both the cards in question, you have another 'chance' to draw them but by no means is your 'chance' twice as good.
I also sense that a lot of the opinions on card balance is based entirely on 2 player games. Edh is not meant to be a 2 player game, if you want to play it that way, then accept that the blue player loaded with counterspells is never going to lose. Which of course is not a viable way to play with 4 other players. In a 2 player game whoever draws their engine, or achieves card advantage first, wins. Where as in a multilplayer game you have 4 other hands that can answer your turn 4 minds eye or turn 2 jitte, ect.
I wonder how many people would find it annoying if I complained just as much about creature combat, because I dislike games where people do nothing but cast creatures, butt heads and do boring combat math?
I will reiterate here what we have been trying to say for the last couple of pages. Sol Ring and Mana Crypt make up maybe 2% of the entire EDH deck. As such the odds of drawing either of them in your opening hand is about 2% at most (probably a slight bit more if you take into consideration there isn't exactly 100 cards in the EDH deck). That is a phenomenally low number. As such the likelyhood that a person can pull the shenanigans that Crz87 pulled off more than 1 game in a row is highly improbable, much less doing it more than once in 10 games.
I found this quite funny as well.
Additionally, the odds of pulling a Sol Ring or Mana Crypt in your opener is 7%, double that if you have 2, which is 14%.
Now, if you mulligan, it doesn't increase your odds, it actually decreases them, putting it to 12%.
And people ar complaining that it is too powerful in your opening hand.
So you want to ban a card that is not based on the other 86% of games that happen?
Let me put it into some kind of perspective.
The odds of getting EXACTLY 5 of 10 coin flips correct is 24%. Why don't you go try that, and tell me how many times that happens.
I will bet it doesn't happen a lot, and the oddes of opening a hand with Sol ing or Mana Crypt is LESS.
There's a reason everyone goes back to the same story, it's because it's the only report that supports your their arguement.
If you flip a coin, you have a 50% of getting heads. If you flip a coin twice, you have a 50% of getting heads. Possible results are:
HH
HT
TH
TT
Thus if you flip a coin twice, 3/4 of the time, you will get at least one heads result.
The same applies above, your chance of getting either of those cards is the same on your first hand or second hand, but the chances of getting one of those cards over two hands is higher because you have a second attempt. It's like buying additional raffle tickets, you increase your probability.
Dyne: First mulligans is free, therefore same odds on 2nd hand.
Furthermore, your odds of getting a Mana Crypt or Sol Ring in a single opening hand is not about 14%, it's closer to 13%, because there is a slim chance that you would get both cards which still counts as a single positive... there's also no replacement, etc.
Sure it is more than 50% in your controlled scenario where you are showing each of the four possible results from a double coin flip and only regarding 3 of them. If you were to actually do it, where the flip is not being predetermined, you'll find it is still 50%. In your example you showed 8 coins flipping total, count the number of H's and T's...4 and 4 right?...still 50%. You failed to take into consideration the last two T's.
I just did the same experiment you did without predetermination, here are my results:
TT
TT
TH
HH
You cannot rely on getting all four of the possible combinations of heads or tails (thereby obtaining your stated 75%) with any sort of consistency. Do this experiment repeatedly and the numbers will eventually work out to be ~50%.
Raffle tickets = terrible example. Lets say you are part of a raffle where 100 tickets are sold and you have 1 ticket. What are your odds? 1/100 or 1%, the same as everyone else. Lets say your friend gives you his ticket, now your odds have increased because you hold 2/100 or 2%. Now, if they are raffling off multiple items, your odds will increase, but only because the person that won before you no longer has a ticket in the pool. Hence the pool is getting smaller and you still have the same amount in it. When you shuffle your deck, the pool does not get any smaller, thus your odds are the same.
We really should be getting back on topic. Of any of the three generals that you mentioned previously, Rofellos is the most deserving, though I would hesitate to ban him, myself.
I will admit, my math was wrong as I neglected to take into account the starting hand. However that doesn't change the fact that the odds of drawing a particular card in ones opening hand (mulligans included) are still phenomenally low.
Kokusho shouldn't be banned. I never understood this. It's good but so many other cards are better.
Think of it this way, you are in a 5 player game, where all of the people you are playing against are considered your opponents. When you play Kokusho and she is killed sending her to the graveyard will net you approximately 20 additional life, and deal 5 damage to each of the other players. Add to that the fact that she is a 5/5 flyer, and you have a game breaker.
Basically, when Kokusho hits play in a multi-player game. The game devolves into a battle over control of Kokusho. That is why she was banned more than anything else.
@ ShaolinDolemite actually now that I have had time to think it through clearly (instead of posting at like 3:00 am in the morning), I believe Dyne, Misculated, and the others claiming that the probability is about 14/99 (or 14.1414%) on the first mulligan and 28/198 (or 14.1414%) on the second mulligan, are in fact correct. The reason for this is because you are having to reshuffle your cards into your deck. Drawing a completely new hand (7 new cards in multi-player on the first mulligan) thereby doubling the ratio but not the percentage.
Now when you go to your third mulligan, you are in fact getting the following percentage: 34/297 = 11.4478%. So in fact on the third Mulligan, the odds of drawing one of either card is in fact Lower.
Now you may in fact be correct about the fact that it may be closer to 13% on the first and second mulligan due to the possibility of drawing both cards in the opening hand. However as I am not a statistician, I cannot say for certain on this one. I will ask a friend of mine who is extremely good at math though.
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"As the size of an explosion increases, the number of social situations it is incapable of solving approaches zero." -- Varsuvius, Order of the Stick
You are all mistaken. The chances of drawing either Sol Ring or Mana Crypt out of 99 cards in a 7 card hand is approximately 0.149857. This chance does not change with mulligans, otherwise we'd all be winning the lottery.
You are all mistaken. The chances of drawing either Sol Ring or Mana Crypt out of 99 cards in a 7 card hand is approximately 0.149857. This chance does not change with mulligans, otherwise we'd all be winning the lottery.
and what does 0.149857 translate to when it is converted into a percentage? 14.9857%!!!! (not quite the figure I came up with, but VERY VERY close).
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"As the size of an explosion increases, the number of social situations it is incapable of solving approaches zero." -- Varsuvius, Order of the Stick
Odds of getting Sol Ring or Mana Crypt in opener: 1-[(97/99)*(96/98)*(95/97)*(94/96)*(93/95)*(92/94)*(91/93)] = 13.708514%
Either way, Rofellos doesn't need to be banned. He is green, what are you afraid of? If anything, ban Staff of Domination. I am surprised everyone is so afraid of someone going infinite on turn 3. Just say "Good job with that masturbation, now the rest of us are going to actually have fun and play the game."
Now when you go to your third mulligan, you are in fact getting the following percentage: 34/297 = 11.4478%. So in fact on the third Mulligan, the odds of drawing one of either card is in fact Lower.
Careful DC, you almost got it ;)...14+14+12* = 40/297 or ~13.5%. But yes, you are correct in that your odds of drawing it go down after the first mulligan.
*use 12 because you are drawing 6 cards and you are trying to find 1 of 2 cards.
EDIT: Ahmad did it the correct, but longer way, I was just trying to get the point across and it works out to about the same.
Ah true, didnt think about Kokusho in MP. Still don't think it's ban worthy... maybe as a general though. Stuff like Mind's Eye feels more OP.
Apologies for the cumulative math, I realize that was ********. Still, despite discrediting myself:
http://stattrek.com/Tables/Hypergeometric.aspx
Population Size (cards) - 99
Sample Size (hand) - 7
Number of Successes in Population (Sol Ring, Mana Crypt) - 2
Number of Successes in Sample (1 + 2, one or both are acceptable) - (1) + (2)
Hypergeometric probability - 13.2% chance of getting either Sol Ring OR Mana Crypt, ~.5% chance of getting Mana Crypt AND Sol Ring, thus 13.7% (oops)
Ahmad: Agree with your sentiment on Rofellos, but some of us have local stores with EDH tournaments. Besides, couldn't that kind of response apply to pretty much any magic card/format?
You know a card doesn't need to be banned when it accumulates a page+ of statistical discussion… How many times are cards ever banned because "you draw it % of the time"?
I own a Sol Ring in real life, and I'm currently working on getting a Mana Crypt even though they are damn near ****ing impossible to find in my area (yay for scouring deals on eBay I guess).
Do not be so quick to jump to conclusions.
To the contrary, I own 2 Sol Rings, a Mana Crypt, and 3 Mana Vaults (Mana Vault is fine, by the way).
I think a much more accurate perspective is that the people who don't complain about Sol Ring and Mana Crypt are typically the ones who have them, because they don't want to have replace them and lose their advantage/investment.
Self-interest is okay to a point, but the banlist is for the health of the game, not your pocketbook.
Additionally, how exactly is Sol Ring or Mana Crypt violating the principles by which cards are banned in EDH?
I've addressed this before. To be blunt, the banning principles are not infallible. There are cards on the banlist that do not really meet the banning principles, yet they are banned anyways. There are many cards that meet the banning principles, yet are not banned. Those principles serve as guidelines, not law. If cards that should be banned for the health of the format are not bannable under those principles, then it is the principles that need to change.
I'm going to sleep now, but I'll be happy to continue this discussion tomorrow night.
ban: Staff of domination, umbrella mantle, tunnel vision, Rofellos as a general.
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Yes, but think of EDH as uniform house rules. Conversely, EDH ceased being a casual format once there was tournaments with prize.
I like the French list. But I also think the 30 life starter makes Sol Ring and Mana Crypt more pertinent than in 40 life starters.
I do think Sol Ring is one card that is so ubiquitious it could be an exception to the "we don't ban due to ubiquity" rule and benefit the format.
I'd be happy if the French list were adopted for the game, but if it isn't oh well. (My groups' decks migrate from 1 v.1 to multiplayer without tweaking between, so that is part of why I like this list.)
The EDH rules comittee is a very informal, but useful, authority. It gives players and venues a starting point and is essential to the growth of the format.
It also gives playgroups a pretext for adopting a ban. Simply put, there isn't always a comfortable way of bringing up a ban to your playgroup. A player might feel singled out, and an organizer might be percieved as being authoritarian.
No one is doubting the dominating performance of crz87 in that particular match, and with Arcum at the helm, I'm not necessarily surprised either. However, your argument is flawed in the respect that you are not taking the quality of the draws of the other players into account. What if any of the other 5 players also drew Sol Ring or Mana Crypt, would the outcome have been different? I would assume so as it would have given them the tempo boost to match and possibly derail Arcum before he got all crazy as he often tends to do anyway, tempo advantage aside. Better yet, lets instead, for argument sake, say that crz87 did not draw into the Crypt, but rather the Uril player did, wouldn't you agree that this would have leveled the playing field a little? The kicker here is that crz87 was the only one to draw into one of the artifacts in question. This leads into precisely the reason that I belive that I believe they should remain unbanned: because anybody can play them in their decks since they are not color dependant. If for whatever reason Sol Ring/Crypt were blue or black cards for example, yeah sure, ban the hell out of them since they would provide more specific generals/archetypes the potential for an unmatched or uninhibited tempo advantage. Keep in mind, Sol Ring and Mana Crypt provide tempo advantage to whoever draws them and this can be the difference maker that can give "non tier 1" generals, for lack of a better term, a stand a chance against guys like Arcum, Zur, etc.
Current EDH Decks:
G Multani, Maro-Sorcerer
B Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed
GU Momir Vig, Simic Visionary
Honestly, I think this is the only currently unbanned card that NEEDS to be banned.
Kokusho shouldn't be banned. I never understood this. It's good but so many other cards are better.
Shaharazad should possibly be banned. I put it in for fun, but it got old really fast. I stopped playing it when it became "WW, Sorcery, Your opponent concedes the game."
Arcum Daggson and Zur are also rather imba - having a recurring creature (general) with recurring tutor effects in a vintage deck is grossly powerful. 3/4 mana generals that basically say "remove this before my next turn or you will lose the game." I'd personally ban them as generals, but that's just me.
EDIT: I think Necropotence should probably be banned too. If I play Necro, I generally win, and that's far too strong for a 3 mana card. Especially when Bargain is banned. 40 life = lots of cards.
Honestly, this would just set a dangerous standard: "Lets just ban all of the tier 1 generals". If you get rid of Rofellos, Daggson, and Zur, there are still a handful of other generals that will take their place at the top. Then you would have to ban them. This trend would inevitably continue until everyone would wind up playing with, I can't believe I am saying this, Lady Orca, and other underwhelming generals like that. No offense to anyone who currently plays her.
EDIT: My math is fine, sure you have two chances, hence (28/198) instead of (14/99). Both numbers double since you are reshuffling (thus re-randomizing) the entire deck. If when mulliganing you took away the initial 7 cards, your odds would increase, sure. Just because you flip a coin more than once, your odds of getting heads are never greater than 50%. By reshuffling, however, you can expect to see different cards than before, but your odds of finding a certain card in particular are exactly the same.
Current EDH Decks:
G Multani, Maro-Sorcerer
B Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed
GU Momir Vig, Simic Visionary
I also sense that a lot of the opinions on card balance is based entirely on 2 player games. Edh is not meant to be a 2 player game, if you want to play it that way, then accept that the blue player loaded with counterspells is never going to lose. Which of course is not a viable way to play with 4 other players. In a 2 player game whoever draws their engine, or achieves card advantage first, wins. Where as in a multilplayer game you have 4 other hands that can answer your turn 4 minds eye or turn 2 jitte, ect.
I found this quite funny as well.
Additionally, the odds of pulling a Sol Ring or Mana Crypt in your opener is 7%, double that if you have 2, which is 14%.
Now, if you mulligan, it doesn't increase your odds, it actually decreases them, putting it to 12%.
And people ar complaining that it is too powerful in your opening hand.
So you want to ban a card that is not based on the other 86% of games that happen?
Let me put it into some kind of perspective.
The odds of getting EXACTLY 5 of 10 coin flips correct is 24%. Why don't you go try that, and tell me how many times that happens.
I will bet it doesn't happen a lot, and the oddes of opening a hand with Sol ing or Mana Crypt is LESS.
There's a reason everyone goes back to the same story, it's because it's the only report that supports your their arguement.
Thanks to Heroes of the Plane Studios for the amazing sig.
NO RUG: Primer
Tempo Thresh: Primer
If you flip a coin, you have a 50% of getting heads. If you flip a coin twice, you have a 50% of getting heads. Possible results are:
HH
HT
TH
TT
Thus if you flip a coin twice, 3/4 of the time, you will get at least one heads result.
The same applies above, your chance of getting either of those cards is the same on your first hand or second hand, but the chances of getting one of those cards over two hands is higher because you have a second attempt. It's like buying additional raffle tickets, you increase your probability.
Dyne: First mulligans is free, therefore same odds on 2nd hand.
Furthermore, your odds of getting a Mana Crypt or Sol Ring in a single opening hand is not about 14%, it's closer to 13%, because there is a slim chance that you would get both cards which still counts as a single positive... there's also no replacement, etc.
I just did the same experiment you did without predetermination, here are my results:
TT
TT
TH
HH
You cannot rely on getting all four of the possible combinations of heads or tails (thereby obtaining your stated 75%) with any sort of consistency. Do this experiment repeatedly and the numbers will eventually work out to be ~50%.
Raffle tickets = terrible example. Lets say you are part of a raffle where 100 tickets are sold and you have 1 ticket. What are your odds? 1/100 or 1%, the same as everyone else. Lets say your friend gives you his ticket, now your odds have increased because you hold 2/100 or 2%. Now, if they are raffling off multiple items, your odds will increase, but only because the person that won before you no longer has a ticket in the pool. Hence the pool is getting smaller and you still have the same amount in it. When you shuffle your deck, the pool does not get any smaller, thus your odds are the same.
We really should be getting back on topic. Of any of the three generals that you mentioned previously, Rofellos is the most deserving, though I would hesitate to ban him, myself.
Current EDH Decks:
G Multani, Maro-Sorcerer
B Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed
GU Momir Vig, Simic Visionary
Think of it this way, you are in a 5 player game, where all of the people you are playing against are considered your opponents. When you play Kokusho and she is killed sending her to the graveyard will net you approximately 20 additional life, and deal 5 damage to each of the other players. Add to that the fact that she is a 5/5 flyer, and you have a game breaker.
Basically, when Kokusho hits play in a multi-player game. The game devolves into a battle over control of Kokusho. That is why she was banned more than anything else.
@ ShaolinDolemite actually now that I have had time to think it through clearly (instead of posting at like 3:00 am in the morning), I believe Dyne, Misculated, and the others claiming that the probability is about 14/99 (or 14.1414%) on the first mulligan and 28/198 (or 14.1414%) on the second mulligan, are in fact correct. The reason for this is because you are having to reshuffle your cards into your deck. Drawing a completely new hand (7 new cards in multi-player on the first mulligan) thereby doubling the ratio but not the percentage.
Now when you go to your third mulligan, you are in fact getting the following percentage: 34/297 = 11.4478%. So in fact on the third Mulligan, the odds of drawing one of either card is in fact Lower.
Now you may in fact be correct about the fact that it may be closer to 13% on the first and second mulligan due to the possibility of drawing both cards in the opening hand. However as I am not a statistician, I cannot say for certain on this one. I will ask a friend of mine who is extremely good at math though.
EDIT: 0.145897. I can't type well when I'm tired.
and what does 0.149857 translate to when it is converted into a percentage? 14.9857%!!!! (not quite the figure I came up with, but VERY VERY close).
Either way, Rofellos doesn't need to be banned. He is green, what are you afraid of? If anything, ban Staff of Domination. I am surprised everyone is so afraid of someone going infinite on turn 3. Just say "Good job with that masturbation, now the rest of us are going to actually have fun and play the game."
Careful DC, you almost got it ;)...14+14+12* = 40/297 or ~13.5%. But yes, you are correct in that your odds of drawing it go down after the first mulligan.
*use 12 because you are drawing 6 cards and you are trying to find 1 of 2 cards.
EDIT: Ahmad did it the correct, but longer way, I was just trying to get the point across and it works out to about the same.
Current EDH Decks:
G Multani, Maro-Sorcerer
B Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed
GU Momir Vig, Simic Visionary
Apologies for the cumulative math, I realize that was ********. Still, despite discrediting myself:
http://stattrek.com/Tables/Hypergeometric.aspx
Population Size (cards) - 99
Sample Size (hand) - 7
Number of Successes in Population (Sol Ring, Mana Crypt) - 2
Number of Successes in Sample (1 + 2, one or both are acceptable) - (1) + (2)
Hypergeometric probability - 13.2% chance of getting either Sol Ring OR Mana Crypt, ~.5% chance of getting Mana Crypt AND Sol Ring, thus 13.7% (oops)
Incidentally, if you mull further:
6 cards - 11.8% chance
5 cards - 9.9% chance
4 cards - 8% chance
3 cards - 6% chance
2 cards - 4% chance
Ahmad: Agree with your sentiment on Rofellos, but some of us have local stores with EDH tournaments. Besides, couldn't that kind of response apply to pretty much any magic card/format?
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