You cant ban Sol Ring, Mana Vault but then leave Mana Crypt out there.... that would just be stupid. Sol Ring is at least cheap to obtain and everyone has it. Mana Crypt is just as abusive but due to costs prohibitive as to who has it. It definately needs to make the list if Sol Ring and Mana Vault are.
Other than that I agree with most of the ideas. Unban Koko, Ban Hermit Druid, the rediculously expensive $$$ tutors, and the broken mana lands like coffers and cradle.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
You cant ban Sol Ring, Mana Vault but then leave Mana Crypt out there.... that would just be stupid. Sol Ring is at least cheap to obtain and everyone has it. Mana Crypt is just as abusive but due to costs prohibitive as to who has it. It definately needs to make the list if Sol Ring and Mana Vault are.
Other than that I agree with most of the ideas. Unban Koko, Ban Hermit Druid, the rediculously expensive $$$ tutors, and the broken mana lands like coffers and cradle.
Emmara is like the worst parts of Legends and Homelands got pregnant, aborted the fetus, tossed it in the trashcan, set it on fire and wrapped the corpse in a Dragon's Maze pack wrapper.
Emmara is like the worst parts of Legends and Homelands got pregnant, aborted the fetus, tossed it in the trashcan, set it on fire and wrapped the corpse in a Dragon's Maze pack wrapper.
Yes I think there has been a large outcry for those 2 to happen for some time now. The arguments against either going through have been sort of flakey at best.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
The problem is that you're reducing the ban list to a democratic system, where everyone's opinion has equal weight. But that's not an accurate reflection of reality, which is the original point I was getting at. Not everyone's ideas are good, and their votes don't matter.
This probably comes off as brash and arrogant, but at least let me be open about my opinions here. My opinions on this matter have more weight and value than the vast majority of posters here. I don't appreciate the fact that my opinion only counts in this poll with value 1 while everyone else's also counts at value 1. You'll get a number at the end, but I don't think that number represents anything meaningful.
First off, I just want to say that I usually really appreciate what you add to discussions. You're a thoughtful poster and you play some good magic, from what I can tell.
However, statements like this (as you acknowledged) do sound arrogant and inflammatory. Maybe I'm missing something other posters know in regard to your experience or qualifications, but it'd be a good idea to let us know why your opinion should garner 2 votes (or 5, or 20) instead of being on the same level as someone who just got into EDH. I saw that you're going to perform a "Sol Ring Test" on Tooth & Nail - great! You'll need a bit more than that to get people to take your aforementioned statement at its word.
That said, I agree pretty much completely with what you've said here. The vast majority of the people willing to voice their opinions on this thread aren't willing to do the work in order to test cards scientifically and objectively (myself included, oftentimes), and I'd bet that more than one of us finds it hard to even listen to our own playgroup when a problem card is presented. Making this a democratic venture certainly isn't gonna work; I'd much rather hand this over to more experienced players (Donald, d0su, and Surging Chaos, to name a few) than let the masses squabble and piss on each other until a 51% presents itself.
As bad as it feels to agree with Tedv I also have to agree with that statement... When someone comes and says we should ban Giant Growth we just shrug it off and move on. However if we make a system of figureing this out where everyone has equial say then obviously we need to go back and look at Giant Growth...
I would be surprised if this thread ever got to a consensus beyond Drama's above statement:
I personally think these changes are long overdue on the changes to the ban list but for some reason we cannot convince the RC to make them... Everything else is probably debatable and to a much lesser degree. These 2 changes though probably should happen and I wouldn't be surprised if they went through sometime in the next few months.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
First off, I just want to say that I usually really appreciate what you add to discussions. You're a thoughtful poster and you play some good magic, from what I can tell.
However, statements like this (as you acknowledged) do sound arrogant and inflammatory. Maybe I'm missing something other posters know in regard to your experience or qualifications, but it'd be a good idea to let us know why your opinion should garner 2 votes (or 5, or 20) instead of being on the same level as someone who just got into EDH. I saw that you're going to perform a "Sol Ring Test" on Tooth & Nail - great! You'll need a bit more than that to get people to take your aforementioned statement at its word.
That said, I agree pretty much completely with what you've said here. The vast majority of the people willing to voice their opinions on this thread aren't willing to do the work in order to test cards scientifically and objectively (myself included, oftentimes), and I'd bet that more than one of us finds it hard to even listen to our own playgroup when a problem card is presented. Making this a democratic venture certainly isn't gonna work; I'd much rather hand this over to more experienced players (Donald, d0su, and Surging Chaos, to name a few) than let the masses squabble and piss on each other until a 51% presents itself.
I'm not saying that this is the best solution to the problem. In fact, sceptics (I would probably include myself as one) may very well be right in thinking that it's not, but it is a theoretical step toward a solution.
Taking steps toward achieving something is always better than doing nothing at all. The truth is that we lack solutions. Or options even. We need to abide by what the RC says. Whether Wizards or more "experienced players" (depending on how you want to define this) take a stand toward improving the list, there will still be masses who disagree with it.
Making this a democratic process is a fair and just solution that I believe will make for an interesting (at least) analysis of what EDH players think about the banlist. After all, who can deny the people of which every individual is a part of?
Again, I'm not guaranteeing change and I see how it's easy to be pessimistic about the whole situation. I'm mostly giving people the benefit of the doubt is all.
@Pathfinder: It could very well be that we never come to a consensus besides the Kokusho and Hermit dilemma, but that doesn't mean that the experiment has failed. It would simply mean that those are the prime offenders to most players right now. We are merely highlighting that fact.
Emmara is like the worst parts of Legends and Homelands got pregnant, aborted the fetus, tossed it in the trashcan, set it on fire and wrapped the corpse in a Dragon's Maze pack wrapper.
I tested the crap out of painters servant in my Isperia deck, the card is broken.
The deck is kind of the EDH version of CawBlade with about 25 artifacts, and the ability to tutor flyers. Here is a typical game - Turn 1 and 2, and maybe 3, mana artifacts, tutor for servant with an artifact tutor. Turn 4/5 play Isperia, and swing, tutor for Iona. Turn 6 play Iona with servent, lock the table and win. This can happen every single game and it is hard to disrupt without a counter spell. I have even pulled it off as early as turn 4 with the deck. It made the deck so unpopular that I removed painter's servant and Iona from the deck.
Now I do not believe Iona should be banned. Yes it can lock players out, but by the time I get to 9 mana I have already won the game most of the time, and locking a player out is the fastest way to do that.
It is kind of like an armageddon effect, why not ban that?
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I'll just go into detail on three things. But first, my philosophy is that EDH is already a broken format and that the banned list shouldn't cater to what is the most competitive build possible. A card should be banned only if what it does is both degenerate and without more fair applications. As a result, I prefer the idea of a short banned list since I don't want things being banned based only on some notion of tournament performance.
1) Hermit Druid. I've seen this guy played in EDH in only a half dozen decks, I admit, but none of them were this crazy combo everyone is up in arms about. He's a great, fair and fun card for a dredge deck (playing 10-15 basics, let's say) as well as for a deck that likes to get lots of lands in hand. Those decks shouldn't be punished because some guy couldn't play EDH responsibly.
In particular, intention is a big factor here for me. If you build Hermit Druid.dec, you know exactly what you're doing. Unlike Protean Hulk or Tinker, for example, this card can't accidentally ruin a game.
2) Mishra's Workshop. Playing old, powerful cards is part of what EDH is about in my mind. The cost doesn't come into play here since this card is far from necessary or ubiquitous. It's also much slower than the other banned accelerants and has a hefty drawback in that it can only be used to cast artifacts.
3) Painter's Servant. Outside Iona and Grindstone, the scariest thing this little scarecrow can do is a fragile three card combo with Teysa to remove all creatures from the game. Besides that, he has some other fun and fair applications that I'd like to see opened up.
Iona, on the other hand, is a card that many EDH players would feel bad about running anyway. If one has to go, banning Iona is the choice with more of an EDH feel to it in my opinion. Grindstone is just collateral damage, but it's 100% unplayable anyway.
Statements like this (as you acknowledged) do sound arrogant and inflammatory. Maybe I'm missing something other posters know in regard to your experience or qualifications, but it'd be a good idea to let us know why your opinion should garner 2 votes (or 5, or 20) instead of being on the same level as someone who just got into EDH.
I thought about this a bunch. It's kind of a hard question to answer. I have qualifications, but at the end of the day, past experience doesn't mean as much as results. It's much more important to be right than have a good resume, and presenting qualifications is just presenting a resume.
That said, let me list the qualifications. I've worked as a computer game designer. I've also been a play tester for a reasonably popular TCG (no, it wasn't Magic). My hobby is board game design-- I currently have two designs in various stages of the publication process, plus two more I've been working on. I've also been a play tester for several other board games, including Hamburg, Innovation, Navegador, and an awesome game from Rio Grande called Gladiators that hasn't been published yet! I've played at a pro tour and at US Nationals. Qualifying for nationals included building a deck from scratch that went 7-0-2 (two intentional draws to make top 8).
None of that says my opinion matters, of course. All it says is that other people think my opinion matters. I think the most important credential is this one:
But basically to really learn to do something well, there's no substitute for continual practice over years and decades. You just have to do it a lot and, if you're open to improvement, you will become good at it.
I'd much rather hand this over to more experienced players (Donald, d0su, and Surging Chaos, to name a few) than let the masses squabble and piss on each other until a 51% presents itself.
That was my feeling as well. I certainly have my opinions about who has legitimately useful thoughts about a good ban list, and there's at least 5 people here in that category, but I didn't mention anyone's name because I didn't want to start a "why didn't you pick me?" discussion. (I guess I named Devon because he's the most obvious choice, and I named myself because I think highly of myself.)
The problem with defining [EDH] by what is "fun" is that everyone seems to define fun as what they don't lose to. If you keep losing to easily answered cards, that means you should improve your deck. If you don't want to improve your deck, then you should come to peace with the idea that you are going to lose because you chose to not interact with better strategies.
Those are all understandable points Tedv and it is hard to argue with those qualifications. Your experience has always been appreciated especially when I can make use of it.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
Those are all understandable points Tedv and it is hard to argue with those qualifications. Your experience has always been appreciated especially when I can make use of it.
Hey, just remember the three fundamental rules of game design:
1) Most ideas are bad.
2) Most good ideas are inspired by bad ideas.
3) There's no correlation between good players and good designers.
So try to forget about my qualifications and just focus on the logic of what I say. It can be wrong just like anyone else. I just hope it's wrong less often.
The problem with defining [EDH] by what is "fun" is that everyone seems to define fun as what they don't lose to. If you keep losing to easily answered cards, that means you should improve your deck. If you don't want to improve your deck, then you should come to peace with the idea that you are going to lose because you chose to not interact with better strategies.
Banning Cradle/Coffers makes sense. I think there are worthwhile arguments for keeping/banning both, but if we're going to take a hard stance on degenerate mana producers as a community, keeping two offenders who are arguably worse than Tolarian Academy unbanned is moronic.
Have to chime in again. Coffers is nowhere near Cradle in context. Cradle comes online much easier, has potential for much more mana, much more useable in 2+ color decks, and you don't have to limit your utility lands to make it worthwhile.....and the biggest point that most people miss....
Without big mana potential, Monoblack is badly hurt. MB has very few ways to deal with artifacts and enchants, and needs mana doubling to remain competitive. Green decks aren't even phased by not having cradle in the meta, but losing coffers would be a big blow to mono blacks viability.
Hey, just remember the three fundamental rules of game design:
1) Most ideas are bad.
2) Most good ideas are inspired by bad ideas.
3) There's no correlation between good players and good designers.
So try to forget about my qualifications and just focus on the logic of what I say. It can be wrong just like anyone else. I just hope it's wrong less often.
Good to have you on board, then!
Even despite your qualifications, opinions and statements need to be gauged by their own intrinsic merit rather than the minds behind them, as you have said many times. Do you have any suggestions as to how this predicament the community has with the RC could be addressed?
Emmara is like the worst parts of Legends and Homelands got pregnant, aborted the fetus, tossed it in the trashcan, set it on fire and wrapped the corpse in a Dragon's Maze pack wrapper.
Yes it seems as though there are not many complaints on them. I think I heard one person who didnt like the idea of banning the druid because it can be fun. However I think 9/10 times where he is used at all in EDH is for Hermit Combo instead of fun interesting dredge style play. The fact that many of the cards on the ban list can be used casually in non broken means doesnt mean much because it was how they were implimented most every time that got them banned.
As a side note... WTF is your Xira's Rat Fetish deck.... that kind of worries me Drama lol.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
Rather than arbitrary opinions, I'd like to run an experiment: essentially running a proof that card x should be banned/unbanned. For example, lets take the two big ones right now: Hermit Druid and Kokusho, the everning star.
We know why the Druid needs to be banned, the broken deck has already been built, and is in front of us.
The rules committee maintains that having Kokusho as one of the 99 becomes a battle over who can rez him the most, and that having him as a general makes the problem worse.
How about we try and build this deck? A mono-black Kokusho at the helm reanimator deck, complete with infinite combos and cheap rez. Then play it online and see what happens.
While not empirical, it will at least give us data to work with, and more direct experience with his ability other than: OMG EXSANGINUATE=BETTER.
EDIT: I still do not see a non-degenerate-use of Mind Over Matter or Dream Halls. One person wrote off dream halls as just a mana discount, and I am apalled at the narrow minded-ness of such a statement.
Yes it seems as though there are not many complaints on them. I think I heard one person who didnt like the idea of banning the druid because it can be fun. However I think 9/10 times where he is used at all in EDH is for Hermit Combo instead of fun interesting dredge style play. The fact that many of the cards on the ban list can be used casually in non broken means doesnt mean much because it was how they were implimented most every time that got them banned.
As a side note... WTF is your Xira's Rat Fetish deck.... that kind of worries me Drama lol.
Yes, it seems to be consensus that most people would like these changed. I'll wait a little more on it to see if anybody else would chime in and give an opinion.
Concerning my Xira deck, it's a TOP SECRET project that may just end up becoming a masterpiece :D. I might post it up sometime but it's still under construction at the moment.
Emmara is like the worst parts of Legends and Homelands got pregnant, aborted the fetus, tossed it in the trashcan, set it on fire and wrapped the corpse in a Dragon's Maze pack wrapper.
Rather than arbitrary opinions, I'd like to run an experiment: essentially running a proof that card x should be banned/unbanned. For example, lets take the two big ones right now: Hermit Druid and Kokusho, the everning star.
We know why the Druid needs to be banned, the broken deck has already been built, and is in front of us.
The rules committee maintains that having Kokusho as one of the 99 becomes a battle over who can rez him the most, and that having him as a general makes the problem worse.
How about we try and build this deck? A mono-black Kokusho at the helm reanimator deck, complete with infinite combos and cheap rez. Then play it online and see what happens.
While not empirical, it will at least give us data to work with, and more direct experience with his ability other than: OMG EXSANGINUATE=BETTER.
EDIT: I still do not see a non-degenerate-use of Mind Over Matter or Dream Halls. One person wrote off dream halls as just a mana discount, and I am apalled at the narrow minded-ness of such a statement.
I think we need to do 2 seperate experiments though...
1) Kokusho completely legal to play as a commander and make the deck with him at the helm.
2) Ban him as a commander and just use him as a singleton. The deck best able to abuse him would likely be some sort of grave abuse monster and see how bad he is in that deck in comparison to other options it would already have.
I think we need to do the #1 first though. I think he has a lot more potential as a commander than he does as a singelton. At the very least I think he could be brought back as a single for EDH but the first test would sort of tell if he could be potential to come off altogether or not.
EDIT: Drama I hope that isn't some sort of Relentless Rats style deck... I have seen it attempted several times but it is just so easily disrupted from my own personal experience.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
Have to chime in again. Coffers is nowhere near Cradle in context. Cradle comes online much easier, has potential for much more mana, much more useable in 2+ color decks, and you don't have to limit your utility lands to make it worthwhile.....and the biggest point that most people miss....
Without big mana potential, Monoblack is badly hurt. MB has very few ways to deal with artifacts and enchants, and needs mana doubling to remain competitive. Green decks aren't even phased by not having cradle in the meta, but losing coffers would be a big blow to mono blacks viability.
Yep. I'm well aware on all of those points, and couldn't agree more with you in my fullest capacity. The G decks that "need" cradle to win are in denial over the fact they're in green ("OH GOD HOW WILL I EVER RAMP?...wait"). The path to color identity is a pretty huge delimma for a lot of pre-creatively awakened mages, but after mana-puberty they realize there are alternative paths to victory. And besides, nobody wants to be cradled their whole life, right? right.
Smarmy comments aside, I'd even say that MBC isn't possible without coffers. But if we're knocking one, we might as well get them all-otherwise, we'll be right back here again in 6 months because a bunch of morons couldn't stop complaining. I'd like to see what a format without degenerate mana producers would be like.
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Anyone who disagrees with "Jack from NC" is an idiot."-The Dead Weatherman
Yep. I'm well aware on all of those points, and couldn't agree more with you in my fullest capacity. The G decks that "need" cradle to win are in denial over the fact they're in green ("OH GOD HOW WILL I EVER RAMP?...wait"). The path to color identity is a pretty huge delimma for a lot of pre-creatively awakened mages, but after mana-puberty they realize there are alternative paths to victory. And besides, nobody wants to be cradled their whole life, right? right.
Smarmy comments aside, I'd even say that MBC isn't possible without coffers. But if we're knocking one, we might as well get them all-otherwise, we'll be right back here again in 6 months because a bunch of morons couldn't stop complaining. I'd like to see what a format without degenerate mana producers would be like.
Honestly I think MBC could probably get by fine without Cabal Coffers
Somehow I think they could probably still manage without it... Sure Coffers is the go to abuse toy of choice but I think MBC would be far from dead without it. It would force them to adjust be I mean it is 1 out of 100 cards guys.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
It's a world-wide effect anyone can take advantage of. You don't actually need to combo with it to do fun things (I discard Squire, casting Prog) and, of course, it's a 3-4 card combo that needs another 5-6 cards to actually kill your opponent with. How is this an issue?
Along that, actually using dream halls creates huge card disadvantage until you actually assemble the combo. A combo, I might add, that gives every blue player 7 Force of Wills and lets everyone else cast their shenanigans for virtually free too.
I can't think of a good combo piece that requires such massive card disadvantage. (Mind Over Matter does not count, it's slow, easily stopped, and is in a color that can't reliably tutor for it.
Are you out of your mind? Every deck in existence would be glad to carry both of these in the 99. Library is insane card advantage on a land that also taps for mana! (Bazaar is card disadvantage that does nothing else)
Any one of my decks would be nearly unbeatable if Library was there. I hear drawing two cards a turn is great, so why not.
As for Lotus - having access to 4 mana for free on turn 1 is not my idea of a fun game. At least Lotus Bloom takes 3 turns to get going, and LED is massive card disadvantage. Black Lotus should never be unbanned.
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Tantarus: It didn't make the gaka greifer level, so it should be fine
Do you have any suggestions as to how this predicament the community has with the RC could be addressed?
Realistically this will take a lot of work, but if someone cared enough, they could do it.
You have to understand how the RC makes decisions. They give zero weight to community input, even input that's collated, well organized, and edited. (Note that banning Emrakul was not an instance of the RC listening to community input-- that was a situation where the RC's desires happened to align with the community.)
The RC isn't transparent because there's no benefit for them doing so. The more they write, the more people will attack them, and being transparent costs time. If you can do a good job in secret, or a good job in public but spend more time and be attacked for it, what would you choose?
This means the RC is actually quite insular to any recommendations for changes. As soon as you're saying, "I think X should/shouldn't be banned," you're starting on the wrong foot and it probably won't go well for you.
Also note that the RC classifies EDH players into two basic categories. There's the people who are playing it "the way its meant to be played" (from their perspective) and people who are actively trying to break game states and cause trouble. You can see this thinking in the "Adam West's Batman" explanation, and the description of Scott Evil just not getting it.
I'm going to loosely classify these groups as "good guys" and "bad guys", from the perspective of the RC. Note that I'm not using the terms casual and hardcore, though there's obviously some respective overlap between the RC's perspective and how players choose to self-identify as casual or hardcore.
You have to understand that the RC doesn't give a **** what the "bad guys" want out of EDH. They can't stop them from playing the game, but they aren't willing to give up one bit of fun that "good guys" could have playing the game. They only marginally care if a bad guy ruins the fun that a good guy has playing the game too, since they think the good guy should just only play with other good guys.
The thing is, "bad guys" are people who care about the balance of the format and like pressing it to its ends. So in the minds of the RC, it's the bad guys who want bans. That's why when someone asks them for a ban, they immediately ignore them. They've already labeled you as someone they don't want playing their game. That's the real reason Sheldon is so stubborn when people ask him for bans. It's also why they completely ignore decks like the Scion Hermit Druid decks. It's a deck explicitly designed to abuse Hermit Druid to win the game in the same way each time. The RC just doesn't care about people who are even interested in playing decks like that, so why ban Hermit Druid when casuals might enjoy it?
So how do you convince the RC to actually ban a card that needs banning? The key is to convince them that you are a good guy. Then you need to play the bannable card in a fair context and have it consistently win the game. Note that "fair context" generally means "not part of the same infinite combo." Using Hermit Druid to combo out with Necrotic Ooze isn't interesting to them, but maybe using Hermit Druid in a Karador deck with 3 basic lands would be motivating. It's a use of the card that a "good guy" would use and it's still totally degenerate. It also doesn't guarantee an infinite combo but often can.
The shortest path to making this happen is to become a judge, then work your way up the track and spend a lot of time judging grand prix and tours, then play EDH with other judges in the downtime. In several years (maybe 5), you could build enough connections with judges on the RC that you might be able to convince them by being both a good guy and playing degenerate cards in your fair decks.
The other option is joining Wizards as a designer or developer and playing a lot of EDH with other employees. The RC does take the input of Wizards very seriously, even if the RC has the final say. This path is much less likely to work, since you first have to get employed.
I personally think there are better ways of spending one's time.
And in case anyone was wondering, I most strongly color identify with black, so this might give you some insight into what the color black is like outside of the context of "OMG Evil!!!"
The problem with defining [EDH] by what is "fun" is that everyone seems to define fun as what they don't lose to. If you keep losing to easily answered cards, that means you should improve your deck. If you don't want to improve your deck, then you should come to peace with the idea that you are going to lose because you chose to not interact with better strategies.
Somehow I think they could probably still manage without it... Sure Coffers is the go to abuse toy of choice but I think MBC would be far from dead without it. It would force them to adjust be I mean it is 1 out of 100 cards guys.
Again, I agree. They'll "manage", but "manage" isn't what most pilots are looking to do, right? Of those you suggested, Lens/Caged Sun are the closest to providing that same one-sided advantage that MBC needs, and both of them have drawbacks severe enough to put them a very far step down away from Coffers. Sun is 6 freaking mana-do you know how hard that is for MBC? Lens is three, but puts you back a land, making recuring it less than an optimal choice. "Mange" indeed, they'll get kicked to the curb.
No Doubling Cube?
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Other than that I agree with most of the ideas. Unban Koko, Ban Hermit Druid, the rediculously expensive $$$ tutors, and the broken mana lands like coffers and cradle.
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[Modern] Allies
I believe I actually mixed the two up.
How stupid of me.
Hermit Druid needs a ban
Power Artifact needs a ban
Survival of the fittest needs a ban
| B Erebos, God of VampiresB | GYeva SmashG | RBosh ArtifactsR | GURAnimar +1 BeatsGUR | RBVial's Secret Hot SauceRB | UBRNekusar, Draw if you DareUBR | RGBDarigaaz'z DragonsRGB | GBSlimeFEETGB | UBOn-Hit LazavUB | URBrudiclad's Artificer InventionsUR | GUBMuldrotha's ElementalsGUB | WUGKestia's EnchantmentsWUG | GUTatyova - Draw, Land, Go!GU | WGArahbo's EquipmentWG | BUWVarina's ZOMBIE HORDESBUW | WLyra's Angelic SalvationW | WBChurch of TeysaWB | UAzami...WizardsU
Both Hermit Druid and Kokusho, the Evening Star have received 10 votes in favour as of now.
If the banlist were to change, it would be:
- Kokusho
+ Hermit Druid
Does everybody agree that these changes be made?
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[Modern] Allies
First off, I just want to say that I usually really appreciate what you add to discussions. You're a thoughtful poster and you play some good magic, from what I can tell.
However, statements like this (as you acknowledged) do sound arrogant and inflammatory. Maybe I'm missing something other posters know in regard to your experience or qualifications, but it'd be a good idea to let us know why your opinion should garner 2 votes (or 5, or 20) instead of being on the same level as someone who just got into EDH. I saw that you're going to perform a "Sol Ring Test" on Tooth & Nail - great! You'll need a bit more than that to get people to take your aforementioned statement at its word.
That said, I agree pretty much completely with what you've said here. The vast majority of the people willing to voice their opinions on this thread aren't willing to do the work in order to test cards scientifically and objectively (myself included, oftentimes), and I'd bet that more than one of us finds it hard to even listen to our own playgroup when a problem card is presented. Making this a democratic venture certainly isn't gonna work; I'd much rather hand this over to more experienced players (Donald, d0su, and Surging Chaos, to name a few) than let the masses squabble and piss on each other until a 51% presents itself.
I would be surprised if this thread ever got to a consensus beyond Drama's above statement:
I personally think these changes are long overdue on the changes to the ban list but for some reason we cannot convince the RC to make them... Everything else is probably debatable and to a much lesser degree. These 2 changes though probably should happen and I wouldn't be surprised if they went through sometime in the next few months.
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I'm not saying that this is the best solution to the problem. In fact, sceptics (I would probably include myself as one) may very well be right in thinking that it's not, but it is a theoretical step toward a solution.
Taking steps toward achieving something is always better than doing nothing at all. The truth is that we lack solutions. Or options even. We need to abide by what the RC says. Whether Wizards or more "experienced players" (depending on how you want to define this) take a stand toward improving the list, there will still be masses who disagree with it.
Making this a democratic process is a fair and just solution that I believe will make for an interesting (at least) analysis of what EDH players think about the banlist. After all, who can deny the people of which every individual is a part of?
Again, I'm not guaranteeing change and I see how it's easy to be pessimistic about the whole situation. I'm mostly giving people the benefit of the doubt is all.
@Pathfinder: It could very well be that we never come to a consensus besides the Kokusho and Hermit dilemma, but that doesn't mean that the experiment has failed. It would simply mean that those are the prime offenders to most players right now. We are merely highlighting that fact.
The deck is kind of the EDH version of CawBlade with about 25 artifacts, and the ability to tutor flyers. Here is a typical game - Turn 1 and 2, and maybe 3, mana artifacts, tutor for servant with an artifact tutor. Turn 4/5 play Isperia, and swing, tutor for Iona. Turn 6 play Iona with servent, lock the table and win. This can happen every single game and it is hard to disrupt without a counter spell. I have even pulled it off as early as turn 4 with the deck. It made the deck so unpopular that I removed painter's servant and Iona from the deck.
Now I do not believe Iona should be banned. Yes it can lock players out, but by the time I get to 9 mana I have already won the game most of the time, and locking a player out is the fastest way to do that.
It is kind of like an armageddon effect, why not ban that?
California DCI Level 2 Judge
I'll just go into detail on three things. But first, my philosophy is that EDH is already a broken format and that the banned list shouldn't cater to what is the most competitive build possible. A card should be banned only if what it does is both degenerate and without more fair applications. As a result, I prefer the idea of a short banned list since I don't want things being banned based only on some notion of tournament performance.
1) Hermit Druid. I've seen this guy played in EDH in only a half dozen decks, I admit, but none of them were this crazy combo everyone is up in arms about. He's a great, fair and fun card for a dredge deck (playing 10-15 basics, let's say) as well as for a deck that likes to get lots of lands in hand. Those decks shouldn't be punished because some guy couldn't play EDH responsibly.
In particular, intention is a big factor here for me. If you build Hermit Druid.dec, you know exactly what you're doing. Unlike Protean Hulk or Tinker, for example, this card can't accidentally ruin a game.
2) Mishra's Workshop. Playing old, powerful cards is part of what EDH is about in my mind. The cost doesn't come into play here since this card is far from necessary or ubiquitous. It's also much slower than the other banned accelerants and has a hefty drawback in that it can only be used to cast artifacts.
3) Painter's Servant. Outside Iona and Grindstone, the scariest thing this little scarecrow can do is a fragile three card combo with Teysa to remove all creatures from the game. Besides that, he has some other fun and fair applications that I'd like to see opened up.
Iona, on the other hand, is a card that many EDH players would feel bad about running anyway. If one has to go, banning Iona is the choice with more of an EDH feel to it in my opinion. Grindstone is just collateral damage, but it's 100% unplayable anyway.
I thought about this a bunch. It's kind of a hard question to answer. I have qualifications, but at the end of the day, past experience doesn't mean as much as results. It's much more important to be right than have a good resume, and presenting qualifications is just presenting a resume.
That said, let me list the qualifications. I've worked as a computer game designer. I've also been a play tester for a reasonably popular TCG (no, it wasn't Magic). My hobby is board game design-- I currently have two designs in various stages of the publication process, plus two more I've been working on. I've also been a play tester for several other board games, including Hamburg, Innovation, Navegador, and an awesome game from Rio Grande called Gladiators that hasn't been published yet! I've played at a pro tour and at US Nationals. Qualifying for nationals included building a deck from scratch that went 7-0-2 (two intentional draws to make top 8).
None of that says my opinion matters, of course. All it says is that other people think my opinion matters. I think the most important credential is this one:
10,000 hours
That's how much time I've spent doing game design in my life. The book "Outliers" has more information on this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outliers_(book)
But basically to really learn to do something well, there's no substitute for continual practice over years and decades. You just have to do it a lot and, if you're open to improvement, you will become good at it.
That was my feeling as well. I certainly have my opinions about who has legitimately useful thoughts about a good ban list, and there's at least 5 people here in that category, but I didn't mention anyone's name because I didn't want to start a "why didn't you pick me?" discussion. (I guess I named Devon because he's the most obvious choice, and I named myself because I think highly of myself.)
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Hey, just remember the three fundamental rules of game design:
1) Most ideas are bad.
2) Most good ideas are inspired by bad ideas.
3) There's no correlation between good players and good designers.
So try to forget about my qualifications and just focus on the logic of what I say. It can be wrong just like anyone else. I just hope it's wrong less often.
Have to chime in again. Coffers is nowhere near Cradle in context. Cradle comes online much easier, has potential for much more mana, much more useable in 2+ color decks, and you don't have to limit your utility lands to make it worthwhile.....and the biggest point that most people miss....
Without big mana potential, Monoblack is badly hurt. MB has very few ways to deal with artifacts and enchants, and needs mana doubling to remain competitive. Green decks aren't even phased by not having cradle in the meta, but losing coffers would be a big blow to mono blacks viability.
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EDH Decks:
Ghost Council: The Magic Mafia of Orzhova
BB Drana: Down with the Sickness
Rasputin: Reality is Broken
Vish Kal Bleeder: Bloody Kisses
Teysa, Orzhov Dominatrix
Stonebrow: Breaking Things
BWR Kaalia Punisher: Heaven's on Fire
Grimgrin: Dead Reckoning
Good to have you on board, then!
Even despite your qualifications, opinions and statements need to be gauged by their own intrinsic merit rather than the minds behind them, as you have said many times. Do you have any suggestions as to how this predicament the community has with the RC could be addressed?
Anyway, I'd just like to reiterate:
As a side note... WTF is your Xira's Rat Fetish deck.... that kind of worries me Drama lol.
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We know why the Druid needs to be banned, the broken deck has already been built, and is in front of us.
The rules committee maintains that having Kokusho as one of the 99 becomes a battle over who can rez him the most, and that having him as a general makes the problem worse.
How about we try and build this deck? A mono-black Kokusho at the helm reanimator deck, complete with infinite combos and cheap rez. Then play it online and see what happens.
While not empirical, it will at least give us data to work with, and more direct experience with his ability other than: OMG EXSANGINUATE=BETTER.
EDIT: I still do not see a non-degenerate-use of Mind Over Matter or Dream Halls. One person wrote off dream halls as just a mana discount, and I am apalled at the narrow minded-ness of such a statement.
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Yes, it seems to be consensus that most people would like these changed. I'll wait a little more on it to see if anybody else would chime in and give an opinion.
Concerning my Xira deck, it's a TOP SECRET project that may just end up becoming a masterpiece :D. I might post it up sometime but it's still under construction at the moment.
I think we need to do 2 seperate experiments though...
1) Kokusho completely legal to play as a commander and make the deck with him at the helm.
2) Ban him as a commander and just use him as a singleton. The deck best able to abuse him would likely be some sort of grave abuse monster and see how bad he is in that deck in comparison to other options it would already have.
I think we need to do the #1 first though. I think he has a lot more potential as a commander than he does as a singelton. At the very least I think he could be brought back as a single for EDH but the first test would sort of tell if he could be potential to come off altogether or not.
EDIT: Drama I hope that isn't some sort of Relentless Rats style deck... I have seen it attempted several times but it is just so easily disrupted from my own personal experience.
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Yep. I'm well aware on all of those points, and couldn't agree more with you in my fullest capacity. The G decks that "need" cradle to win are in denial over the fact they're in green ("OH GOD HOW WILL I EVER RAMP?...wait"). The path to color identity is a pretty huge delimma for a lot of pre-creatively awakened mages, but after mana-puberty they realize there are alternative paths to victory. And besides, nobody wants to be cradled their whole life, right? right.
Smarmy comments aside, I'd even say that MBC isn't possible without coffers. But if we're knocking one, we might as well get them all-otherwise, we'll be right back here again in 6 months because a bunch of morons couldn't stop complaining. I'd like to see what a format without degenerate mana producers would be like.
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Actual Truth:
Honestly I think MBC could probably get by fine without Cabal Coffers
Somehow I think they could probably still manage without it... Sure Coffers is the go to abuse toy of choice but I think MBC would be far from dead without it. It would force them to adjust be I mean it is 1 out of 100 cards guys.
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Definitely should not be banned.
It's a world-wide effect anyone can take advantage of. You don't actually need to combo with it to do fun things (I discard Squire, casting Prog) and, of course, it's a 3-4 card combo that needs another 5-6 cards to actually kill your opponent with. How is this an issue?
Along that, actually using dream halls creates huge card disadvantage until you actually assemble the combo. A combo, I might add, that gives every blue player 7 Force of Wills and lets everyone else cast their shenanigans for virtually free too.
I can't think of a good combo piece that requires such massive card disadvantage. (Mind Over Matter does not count, it's slow, easily stopped, and is in a color that can't reliably tutor for it.
There is nothing wrong with it.
Someone mentioned unbanning Black Lotus and Library of Alexandria.
Are you out of your mind? Every deck in existence would be glad to carry both of these in the 99. Library is insane card advantage on a land that also taps for mana! (Bazaar is card disadvantage that does nothing else)
Any one of my decks would be nearly unbeatable if Library was there. I hear drawing two cards a turn is great, so why not.
As for Lotus - having access to 4 mana for free on turn 1 is not my idea of a fun game. At least Lotus Bloom takes 3 turns to get going, and LED is massive card disadvantage. Black Lotus should never be unbanned.
EDH:
RNorin the WaryR <-Link! (Primer - Mono Red Control)
GUEdric, Spymaster of TrestUG <- Link! (Mini-Primer - Dredge)
Duel Commander:
WUGeist of Saint TraftUW <- Link! (Aggro-Control)
BGSkullbriar, the Walking GraveGB <- Link! (Aggro)
BUGDamia, Sage of StoneGUB <- Link! (Extinction Control)
Church of the Wary
Realistically this will take a lot of work, but if someone cared enough, they could do it.
You have to understand how the RC makes decisions. They give zero weight to community input, even input that's collated, well organized, and edited. (Note that banning Emrakul was not an instance of the RC listening to community input-- that was a situation where the RC's desires happened to align with the community.)
The RC isn't transparent because there's no benefit for them doing so. The more they write, the more people will attack them, and being transparent costs time. If you can do a good job in secret, or a good job in public but spend more time and be attacked for it, what would you choose?
This means the RC is actually quite insular to any recommendations for changes. As soon as you're saying, "I think X should/shouldn't be banned," you're starting on the wrong foot and it probably won't go well for you.
Also note that the RC classifies EDH players into two basic categories. There's the people who are playing it "the way its meant to be played" (from their perspective) and people who are actively trying to break game states and cause trouble. You can see this thinking in the "Adam West's Batman" explanation, and the description of Scott Evil just not getting it.
I'm going to loosely classify these groups as "good guys" and "bad guys", from the perspective of the RC. Note that I'm not using the terms casual and hardcore, though there's obviously some respective overlap between the RC's perspective and how players choose to self-identify as casual or hardcore.
You have to understand that the RC doesn't give a **** what the "bad guys" want out of EDH. They can't stop them from playing the game, but they aren't willing to give up one bit of fun that "good guys" could have playing the game. They only marginally care if a bad guy ruins the fun that a good guy has playing the game too, since they think the good guy should just only play with other good guys.
The thing is, "bad guys" are people who care about the balance of the format and like pressing it to its ends. So in the minds of the RC, it's the bad guys who want bans. That's why when someone asks them for a ban, they immediately ignore them. They've already labeled you as someone they don't want playing their game. That's the real reason Sheldon is so stubborn when people ask him for bans. It's also why they completely ignore decks like the Scion Hermit Druid decks. It's a deck explicitly designed to abuse Hermit Druid to win the game in the same way each time. The RC just doesn't care about people who are even interested in playing decks like that, so why ban Hermit Druid when casuals might enjoy it?
So how do you convince the RC to actually ban a card that needs banning? The key is to convince them that you are a good guy. Then you need to play the bannable card in a fair context and have it consistently win the game. Note that "fair context" generally means "not part of the same infinite combo." Using Hermit Druid to combo out with Necrotic Ooze isn't interesting to them, but maybe using Hermit Druid in a Karador deck with 3 basic lands would be motivating. It's a use of the card that a "good guy" would use and it's still totally degenerate. It also doesn't guarantee an infinite combo but often can.
The shortest path to making this happen is to become a judge, then work your way up the track and spend a lot of time judging grand prix and tours, then play EDH with other judges in the downtime. In several years (maybe 5), you could build enough connections with judges on the RC that you might be able to convince them by being both a good guy and playing degenerate cards in your fair decks.
The other option is joining Wizards as a designer or developer and playing a lot of EDH with other employees. The RC does take the input of Wizards very seriously, even if the RC has the final say. This path is much less likely to work, since you first have to get employed.
I personally think there are better ways of spending one's time.
And in case anyone was wondering, I most strongly color identify with black, so this might give you some insight into what the color black is like outside of the context of "OMG Evil!!!"
Again, I agree. They'll "manage", but "manage" isn't what most pilots are looking to do, right? Of those you suggested, Lens/Caged Sun are the closest to providing that same one-sided advantage that MBC needs, and both of them have drawbacks severe enough to put them a very far step down away from Coffers. Sun is 6 freaking mana-do you know how hard that is for MBC? Lens is three, but puts you back a land, making recuring it less than an optimal choice. "Mange" indeed, they'll get kicked to the curb.
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Actual Truth: