I actually typed out a constructive response, but I kept forgetting what was banned and what wasn't. I saw a bunch of tutors on the list... so using that logic can we ban counters as well? They get stronger every time a powerful spell gets printed and that's not fun. Your list is to big, clunky, and way to hard to remember or even take seriously.
I agree. We should all only play g/x decks because they are the most objectively fun and anyone who disagrees does not know the truth about EDH. Everyone should just play their decks because interaction beyond high fiving about how many land are in play is unfun and equivalent to casting Stasis while kicking puppies. I for one will never play with anyone who casts tutors, removal spells, blue cards, things I arbitrarily decide I don't like but will probably cast myself later.
You considered All is Dust for banning? What lead you to that? Mana Vault? Again, why would you ban that? Have you read the card? Its decent sometimes but far from degenerate.
It's hard to take this list seriously, I think it goes way too far. The Swords, Jitte, Wheel, Doubling Cube, All Is Dust, Thrun...really? I get that a lot of casual (err, social is the new casual?) players dislike combo, but you're casting a very wide net. There's very little rhyme or reason to your list, and I think this is precisely why the RC doesn't do what you're doing.
I host a weekly Commander tournament online that uses themes to restrict the card pool and I thoroughly enjoy rebuilding under new rules like that. For me, the fun comes from constantly changing themes, building new decks, and playing in a new meta every week. I understand that a lot of fun can be had by placing further restrictions on the card pool, but I think you should organize that on a local level rather than proposing this ban list. As far as I'm concerned, the official ban list is already tailored for social play. If you don't like fast mana, tutors, combo, or anything remotely powerful (as your list suggests), then ban them locally.
Please ban Damnation and their ilk as they make people in their social circle (read 'me') unhappy getting their creatures killed, hence goes against the spirit of 'social' EDH.
Please ban Armageddon and their ilk as they make people in their social circle (read 'me') unhappy getting their lands destroyed, hence goes against the spirit of 'social' EDH.
Please ban Counterspell and their ilk as they make people in their social circle (read 'me') unhappy getting their spells countered, hence goes against the spirit of 'social' EDH.
Please ban Any card and their ilk as they make people in their social circle (read 'me') unhappy getting their wins neutered, hence goes against the spirit of 'social' EDH.
/sarcasm aside
Personally I think the term 'social' is tentative and overused too much here. The playgroup I'm in is a social playgroup, we don't join any leagues and such, and we don't have any soft bans on cards/strategies. Anything that is legal in the current banlist we will play. Yes it is interesting and fun, everyone gets a chance to do their fantastic, 1shot kill, infinites or anything. Conversations during the games are funny, full of sarcasm and generally light hearted.
Comments like "WTF Sharuum is going to combo off, let's go on temporary truce, whack him until he can't combo then we duke it out" are frequent.
Like a post which I read recently, it will be better if one just divide their decks into tiers. In this way playgroups can just have sessions like "Only Tier 3 decks night" or "Let's be a dbagy as possible night". This will help smoothen the power level of decks in a game rather than just straight up banning popular, efficient cards that are not OP in the first place.
EDH/Commander is a social format, right? So why don't people use their social skills to discuss what they like and don't like, instead of adopting a list with 60+ banned cards?
Instituting a banned list is more anti-social than social.
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Sorry but I read this and this would make me never wish to play this format if this became the official banlist. This list that was created seems in my mind to strip most of the power that green and black currently have and just hand the blue mage the game on a platter. Blue mages have long relied on card draw more so than tutoring so removing the tutor abilities of green and black as you have listed in your suggested list just hands the blue players the game even more than they already do. Blue combo control would be even more of a troll than it already is.
I am not saying that some of blue's power cards are not on this list however this would hinder green and black to the point that they likely would not be able to compete with blue.
EDH/Commander is a social format, right? So why don't people use their social skills to discuss what they like and don't like, instead of adopting a list with 60+ banned cards?
Another problem is that the card types you chose to ban don't cover everything, so there are a lot of gaping holes. Green Sun's Zenith, Chord of Calling and others have already been mentioned when it comes to tutoring, but where do you draw the line? Is Trinket Mage tutoring Sensei's Divining Top every game bad? Is Kiki-Jiki copying Zealous Conscripts bad? Why Exploration but not Burgeoning? You start to see the problem with this type of banlist. When you decide to start banning a certain card type or the "problem cards", it becomes abundantly clear that you need to ban a lot of these cards. I admire that you sort of acknowledge that you don't want the banlist to get big, but you've already doubled it, and you need to add even more if you want to stay true to your banning philosophy and not look completely silly.
And large ban lists kill formats. This should in itself be a way to discourage you from using this ban list.
Quite honestly, I'm in favor of a more comprehensive ban-list and I believe that this is an excellent start. One my biggest complaints with the Commander format is that the more experienced players usually have a much broader / more powerful selection of cards, as well as a better knowledge of / access to more infinite combos and degenerate strategies than newer players.
In my local playgroup, which is fairly large given it's part of a university community, this has led to a bit of an arms race between that the more experienced players and/or the players willing to shell out more money on their hobby, particularly for our Commander decks. Our decks steadily became more optimized and more cut-throat to the point that newer players were completely unable to compete and the only way for them to win was for everyone else to throw the game.
We have tried, in the past, to implement a "Gentlemen's" agreement but it was never really successful. Many of the players, myself included, simply did not want to play suboptimal decks or deliberately misplay games to give our opponents the opportunity to win. While implementation of this ban-list would not alleviate all of these issues, it would certainly help curtail some of the worst offenders (the cards, not the players) and promote more skill-based gameplay.
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EDH/Commander is a social format, right? So why don't people use their social skills to discuss what they like and don't like, instead of adopting a list with 60+ banned cards?
So what happens when my playgroup allows banned cards? And when i play against another person?
What's the point of the banned list if it does nothing then!?
If you sit down and actually talk about what kind of experience you want to have as a group, you won't have to worry about that.
What do you mean "when you play against another person"? Like 1v1? That's a completely different format.
The banned list is not the bible. It's a guideline, a list of cards that you should probably avoid going into a blind meta. If your playgroup is fine with them, play with them by all means.
EDH/Commander is a social format, right? So why don't people use their social skills to discuss what they like and don't like, instead of adopting a list with 60+ banned cards?
While it is true that there will always be a set of "the most powerful cards," it does not follow that the same imbalances will follow. Sure, if Sol Ring is banned then the new top tier mana rock will be ____, but that doesn't mean that ____ will cause the same problems that Sol Ring did -- it simply doesn't do what Sol Ring does nearly as well. It's more fair, and even though it's top tier it doesn't negatively affect the game life Sol Ring did.
Why do you think there are banned cards in standard? The same logic applies there, too. After Jace the Mind Sculptor was banned, there was a new "best" planeswalker, but not nearly as broken.
A statement without support merits a dismissal without reason.
i disagree completely, you're taking the example in its own little bubble, but when you take half the edh staples in your ban list then youve drastically lowered the power lever of the format as a whole, so on a case by case example your logic may be true, but when youre adding like 40 additional things all at once then suddenly that card has just as much impact as sol ring, just in a slower, watered down game.
also using standard in comparison to edh is horrible, you're talking drastic differences in card choices, if you want a new best rock for edh is could probably think of ten off the top of my head that fulfill basically the same role as sol ring just slightly worse. you cant go oh jtms is banned so ill have to run the card thats identical other than it costs one more.
making someone who wants to combo out and win as fast as possible go from a turn two win to a turn three win (and im not even sure it would be that big of a difference) wont change what you want to change, this is exactly what the RC constantly say they don't want to do to the game, and i completely agree with them.
5 Color Cromat with tons of tutoring that doesn't reveal the card. Play a few classic playing cards, a couple Uno Draw 4s (Ancestral Recall eat your heart out), some basic Pokemon for defense, a Get Out of Jail Free card, and have assembling all five pieces of Exodia be your win condition. People will flip because EXODIA!? IMPOSSIBLE! NOBODY'S EVER BEEN ABLE TO SUMMON HIM!
It seems less like a banlist and more like a "cards I don't like playing against"-list made up by a single person.
Tutoring is a part of the game, their entire point is to make it less variable and more predictable. Cards like Demonic Tutor should always stay in this game.
Fast Resources are very important.
Your list banned a couple of ones, but actually made Green almost three times as powerful since you took the resources away from all other colours.
Why aren't people allowed to go infinite?
What's the difference between going infinite with blue and hitting for 60+ dmg with Kaalia?
Well, nevermind. I am just glad it's not a real banlist.
All those suggestions would effectively kill over half of the decks in my playgroup.
Those suggestions beneath it would kill the other half.
People are still calling for Serra Ascendant to be banned?
You guys really need to learn how to play magic, or at least understand power level.
Well duuh, either that or change the ruling because the card "abuses" the EDH-rules.
Same goes for all the other cards that require you to "gain 10 or more life" in normal games but instantly trigger in EDH.
If playing with just the lower level of player we play 1 game for hours.
We have one combo player (he is working on a new deck since he is sick of been hated out). We lock him out of the combo by not letting his commander live or be cast. (ah Nevermore naming Mikeaus, the unhallowed get rid of that mono black!).
We were able to adjust our decks to dealing with the combo player but we essentially only had to deal with 1 card. I guess we need to make our decks very anti equipment if we want to deal with a ton of swords.
It's just a matter of what's going on in your group. I'm fortunate; I play at 3 different shops and there is I think one person that plays combo. I've never run into anyone playing mass land demo.
If all you get is beaters swinging all day, that gets just as boring as people going infinite. At times I wish someone had a combo to end some games that just drag because of: creature, creature, creature, board wipe, until people run out of answers and we're overwhelmed by the player who consistently draws the best creatures.
I don't think there should be a ban list at all. We're not children who need to RC to be our mommies and hold our hands and protect us from all those nasty spikes. I appreciate them trying their best to keep everyone having fun and playing the format. There isn't much they can do to change people's personalities. This mentality of "if we make guns illegal there will be no more murder" is counter productive. People will find a way.
Somebody said it earlier. Commander is a vintage based format, why ban all the cool vintage cards? If you don't like facing tutors and high powered cards, create a Modern Commander or Standard Commander format for your group. Not to say that those formats don't have powerful cards, but it probably would take care of some of your concerns. What your trying to do would be like saying, "lets ban the power 9 and all the cool cards from vintage, that way I can play vintage."
@Narvuntien: I don't know what you were saying but Prime Titan is pretty much the ultimate Timmy card, not spike. Gisela is Timmy as well. You should re-acquaint yourself with the 3(5) psychoanalytical magic types.
Going to throw out a friendly reminder that the statements and arguments made here should be about the merits of the idea or the contents of the list and should stay away from personal attacks.
That's the sad thing. Most people see the word 'ban' and panic, attacking anything and everything the poster is in an attempt to disuade him from ever mentioning that word again. Can't speak if you're buried approach....not really the argument of an intellectual.
As to the OP, fantastic concept. Really like the idea of an expanded banlist for casual players. Appriciate how you've taken a 'best stab' at what people may consider overly broken....however....
What people consider overly broken is very subjective and changes with the meta. I, as an example, am a very casual player. I play with infinite combos. I play to win. I play with theme. I play because the card choices have good art. etc. Many of the selections you have on your 'austere' list, I play with, and our meta doesn't have a problem with. That doesn't mean our meta is actaully a competitive one because there are MANY decklists I see on this site that can smash my decks into oblivion.
The best way to cutail a new 'austere' banlist would be to poll each card in turn. Problem with that appproach is the trolls on this site. Only bonified casual players or players who can prove casual objectivity should vote towards the casual banlist. Naturally, again subjective. It is impossible to accomplish this task.
I applaud your attempt and your willingness to share your meta's banlist views.
That's where it will end though...
edit: should also mention there being 5 cards on your austere list that we play with. Other's while not necessarily banned, simply haven't come across our meta yet.
However, players usually play in dedicated, close groups that get together fairly often to play.
Soooooo yeah. Commander is usually self-correcting as far as card choices go:
Did your deck get whupped last week? Add some more powerful cards in to up the ante.
Did your deck tear everyone apart and cause bg feelings? Tone it down a bit.
Does that guy with the Zur deck always win? Gang up on his ass to teach him a lesson.
If everyone isn't having fun, you're doing it wrong. It's the people that don't understand this that are the problem, not the banned list.
U Soramaro, First to Dream U (decklist)
W Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite W (decklist)
Nath of the Gilt-Leaf (decklist)
Glissa, The Traitor (decklist)
Jhoira of the Ghitu
Melek, Izzet Paragon
Borborygmos, Enraged (decklist)
WBG Ghave, Guru of Spores WBG
WRG Uril, the Miststalker WRG (decklist)
Mana Vault? Again, why would you ban that? Have you read the card? Its decent sometimes but far from degenerate.
I host a weekly Commander tournament online that uses themes to restrict the card pool and I thoroughly enjoy rebuilding under new rules like that. For me, the fun comes from constantly changing themes, building new decks, and playing in a new meta every week. I understand that a lot of fun can be had by placing further restrictions on the card pool, but I think you should organize that on a local level rather than proposing this ban list. As far as I'm concerned, the official ban list is already tailored for social play. If you don't like fast mana, tutors, combo, or anything remotely powerful (as your list suggests), then ban them locally.
Please ban Damnation and their ilk as they make people in their social circle (read 'me') unhappy getting their creatures killed, hence goes against the spirit of 'social' EDH.
Please ban Armageddon and their ilk as they make people in their social circle (read 'me') unhappy getting their lands destroyed, hence goes against the spirit of 'social' EDH.
Please ban Counterspell and their ilk as they make people in their social circle (read 'me') unhappy getting their spells countered, hence goes against the spirit of 'social' EDH.
Please ban Any card and their ilk as they make people in their social circle (read 'me') unhappy getting their wins neutered, hence goes against the spirit of 'social' EDH.
/sarcasm aside
Personally I think the term 'social' is tentative and overused too much here. The playgroup I'm in is a social playgroup, we don't join any leagues and such, and we don't have any soft bans on cards/strategies. Anything that is legal in the current banlist we will play. Yes it is interesting and fun, everyone gets a chance to do their fantastic, 1shot kill, infinites or anything. Conversations during the games are funny, full of sarcasm and generally light hearted.
Comments like "WTF Sharuum is going to combo off, let's go on temporary truce, whack him until he can't combo then we duke it out" are frequent.
Like a post which I read recently, it will be better if one just divide their decks into tiers. In this way playgroups can just have sessions like "Only Tier 3 decks night" or "Let's be a dbagy as possible night". This will help smoothen the power level of decks in a game rather than just straight up banning popular, efficient cards that are not OP in the first place.
WUBRG Reaper King - Elf Tribal WUBRG | Tribal Fun
WRG Gishath, Sun's Avatar - Dinosaur Tribal WRG | Rawr!!!
WUG Derevi, Empyrial Tactician - Enchantress Tactics WUG | Enchantments Focused
GBG The Gitrog Monster - Land Shenanigans GBG | Lands/Mill Focused
WBW Kambal, Consul of Life Allocation Matters WBW | Life Gain/Loss focused
UBR Kess, Dissident Mage of the Lotus UBR | Spellslinger
BGB Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons - Counters & Tokens BGB | -1/-1 counters focused
Instituting a banned list is more anti-social than social.
On Mythic Rares: "What's next, Wizards will print six golden Black Lotuses and randomly place them in boosters, and if someone gets one, they get to tour the Wizards facility?"
Wydwen|Edric|Sakashima|Marrow-Gnawer|Hazezon
8.5 Tails|Seton|Rasputin|Doran|Gisela|Karona|Márton
I am not saying that some of blue's power cards are not on this list however this would hinder green and black to the point that they likely would not be able to compete with blue.
EDIT: also... the fact that Worldly Tutor is on this list but Chord of Calling, Green Sun's Zenith, and Eladamri's Call are not made me sort of chuckle.
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[Modern] Allies
And large ban lists kill formats. This should in itself be a way to discourage you from using this ban list.
In my local playgroup, which is fairly large given it's part of a university community, this has led to a bit of an arms race between that the more experienced players and/or the players willing to shell out more money on their hobby, particularly for our Commander decks. Our decks steadily became more optimized and more cut-throat to the point that newer players were completely unable to compete and the only way for them to win was for everyone else to throw the game.
We have tried, in the past, to implement a "Gentlemen's" agreement but it was never really successful. Many of the players, myself included, simply did not want to play suboptimal decks or deliberately misplay games to give our opponents the opportunity to win. While implementation of this ban-list would not alleviate all of these issues, it would certainly help curtail some of the worst offenders (the cards, not the players) and promote more skill-based gameplay.
-Richard Dawkins
I do like it because it makes some absolutely horrible cards far more playable.
It still doesnt deal with ramp being rampant.
Mimeoplasm Midrange, CHAINER CHAINER HIGH VOLTAGE
Rafiq of the Astral Slide, 67land.dec Child of Alara, Gisela <3 Sunforger
TRADE!?WUBRGMy Pauper Cube
Sek'Kuar, Deathkeeper, Phage the Uncastable, Azusa Lost but Stompy, Crosis Combo Breaker, All-In-Skullbriar, Rafiq/Jenara ETB army, Hazezon Swarm, Glissa Voltron!, Jarad Zombie Tribal, Zedruu Pillowfort, Reaper King Artifact Shenanagains
So what happens when my playgroup allows banned cards? And when i play against another person?
What's the point of the banned list if it does nothing then!?
The OP is obviously a green player.
This list is absolutely terrible. That's all I'm going to say. Terrible.
Emphasis is mine.
The EDH stax primer
When you absolutely, positively got to kill every permanent in the room, accept no substitutes.
If you sit down and actually talk about what kind of experience you want to have as a group, you won't have to worry about that.
What do you mean "when you play against another person"? Like 1v1? That's a completely different format.
The banned list is not the bible. It's a guideline, a list of cards that you should probably avoid going into a blind meta. If your playgroup is fine with them, play with them by all means.
Communication. That's all it takes.
i disagree completely, you're taking the example in its own little bubble, but when you take half the edh staples in your ban list then youve drastically lowered the power lever of the format as a whole, so on a case by case example your logic may be true, but when youre adding like 40 additional things all at once then suddenly that card has just as much impact as sol ring, just in a slower, watered down game.
also using standard in comparison to edh is horrible, you're talking drastic differences in card choices, if you want a new best rock for edh is could probably think of ten off the top of my head that fulfill basically the same role as sol ring just slightly worse. you cant go oh jtms is banned so ill have to run the card thats identical other than it costs one more.
making someone who wants to combo out and win as fast as possible go from a turn two win to a turn three win (and im not even sure it would be that big of a difference) wont change what you want to change, this is exactly what the RC constantly say they don't want to do to the game, and i completely agree with them.
Tutoring is a part of the game, their entire point is to make it less variable and more predictable. Cards like Demonic Tutor should always stay in this game.
Fast Resources are very important.
Your list banned a couple of ones, but actually made Green almost three times as powerful since you took the resources away from all other colours.
Why aren't people allowed to go infinite?
What's the difference between going infinite with blue and hitting for 60+ dmg with Kaalia?
Well, nevermind. I am just glad it's not a real banlist.
All those suggestions would effectively kill over half of the decks in my playgroup.
Those suggestions beneath it would kill the other half.
Well duuh, either that or change the ruling because the card "abuses" the EDH-rules.
Same goes for all the other cards that require you to "gain 10 or more life" in normal games but instantly trigger in EDH.
The Spikes.
Then Johnnies and Timmies.
the Spikes have their Stoneforge mystics, primeveal titans all the swords and mass land destruction.
The game goes about 10 turns before they are attack with a Sword of war and peace, darksteel plate, lightning greaves equipped Giesla, blade of the goldnight with double strike from sliverblade palladin. Then cleans us up 1 by 1.
If playing with just the lower level of player we play 1 game for hours.
We have one combo player (he is working on a new deck since he is sick of been hated out). We lock him out of the combo by not letting his commander live or be cast. (ah Nevermore naming Mikeaus, the unhallowed get rid of that mono black!).
We were able to adjust our decks to dealing with the combo player but we essentially only had to deal with 1 card. I guess we need to make our decks very anti equipment if we want to deal with a ton of swords.
Pioneer:UR Pheonix
Modern:U Mono U Tron
EDH
GB Glissa, the traitor: Army of Cans
UW Dragonlord Ojutai: Dragonlord NOjutai
UWGDerevi, Empyrial Tactician "you cannot fight the storm"
R Zirilan of the claw. The solution to every problem is dragons
UB Etrata, the Silencer Cloning assassination
Peasant cube: Cards I own
If all you get is beaters swinging all day, that gets just as boring as people going infinite. At times I wish someone had a combo to end some games that just drag because of: creature, creature, creature, board wipe, until people run out of answers and we're overwhelmed by the player who consistently draws the best creatures.
I don't think there should be a ban list at all. We're not children who need to RC to be our mommies and hold our hands and protect us from all those nasty spikes. I appreciate them trying their best to keep everyone having fun and playing the format. There isn't much they can do to change people's personalities. This mentality of "if we make guns illegal there will be no more murder" is counter productive. People will find a way.
BUG Damia, Sage of Stone BUG
Retired:
GWR Uril, the Miststalker GWR
Also, how does Crucible of Worlds "violate the spirit of Commander?"
That's exactly what it looks like. It also happens to resemble a CardsICantAfford.banlist
That's the sad thing. Most people see the word 'ban' and panic, attacking anything and everything the poster is in an attempt to disuade him from ever mentioning that word again. Can't speak if you're buried approach....not really the argument of an intellectual.
As to the OP, fantastic concept. Really like the idea of an expanded banlist for casual players. Appriciate how you've taken a 'best stab' at what people may consider overly broken....however....
What people consider overly broken is very subjective and changes with the meta. I, as an example, am a very casual player. I play with infinite combos. I play to win. I play with theme. I play because the card choices have good art. etc. Many of the selections you have on your 'austere' list, I play with, and our meta doesn't have a problem with. That doesn't mean our meta is actaully a competitive one because there are MANY decklists I see on this site that can smash my decks into oblivion.
The best way to cutail a new 'austere' banlist would be to poll each card in turn. Problem with that appproach is the trolls on this site. Only bonified casual players or players who can prove casual objectivity should vote towards the casual banlist. Naturally, again subjective. It is impossible to accomplish this task.
I applaud your attempt and your willingness to share your meta's banlist views.
That's where it will end though...
edit: should also mention there being 5 cards on your austere list that we play with. Other's while not necessarily banned, simply haven't come across our meta yet.
| 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
Because OP says it does. The majority of his list is pretty silly.