I don't have the time to go through the whole list, but this section alone seems to basically be pulled out of someones backside without any actual coherent thought. Excluding the things on the current banlist, you're skipping out on pretty much all the top tier commanders barring Breya and Zur, so you clearly aren't looking at it from a powerlevel perspective, and instead you randomly ban things like Titania and Kokusho. And then there's Rune-Tail, a card I don't think I've ever seen actually played.
And overall, who exactly is this aimed at? It's not the causal players, as they aren't going to care, and it's not the competitive players, as it's being able to actually play cards like Mana Crypt, Vampiric Tutor, Hermit Druid and Doomsday in a high powered high speed format which generally attracts people to cEDH in the first place.
I am for a moment going to ignore all of the discussion because I am a little more interested in the OP and the suggested bans:
Holy ***** it feels like you are for no reason targeting green a lot. I dont know what kind of issues you have with green but I saw a lot of cards on there that were green that are bans in addition to what the RC has banned. I have no idea why for a good portion of these cards. Birthing Pod for instance is not a broken card in any shape or way. Burgeoning but not Exploration???? I just honestly don't see a rhyme or reason for most of the things you chose.
It seems like you chose to ban things due to their price tags. I cannot get behind that at all. I say this from the standpoint of those who may already own these cards. Sure it feels *****ty that some of these cards are expensive but what about those who got them when they were cheaper? It hardly seems like an excuse to ban these cards.
Tutors - I don't really know what you think you are doing by banning some of the noteable tutors. You miss several obvious ones and seem to hit green hardest with the ones you chose but also hit black some. You don't have Demonic Tutor but you have Vampiric Tutor / Imperial Seal??? There is no consistency what soever with what you chose. Honestly I think hitting green and black tutors makes blue stronger which is not something I would want to push for.
You a really random in what MLD cards you think should be removed. I am seeing that you seem to think the ones that blue cant counter should be removed but I don't really think that is really at all a fair assessment. I would say Armageddon / Ravages of War are far more detrimental to far more decks not to mention other cheap or efficient ones like Cataclysm. Why would you hit just those two and leave so many left? I think personally just dont worry about any of them. Don't show favoritism to blue.
CARDS THAT SHOULD BE REMOVED FROM THE LIST ENTIRELY:
The above cards just have no real room for discussion of being ban worthy if you ask me. I left most of the controversial ones alone but I think to get started these all need to be removed from the OP list because they just have no room for discussion.
Food Chain is also a very odd choice to ban. To my knowledge one of the only thing its really a problem with is Prossh, Skyraider of Kher. Oddly enough you suggest most of the rest of the cycle of commanders to be banned but not Prossh??? Honestly I would take Food Chain off and ban Prossh as a commander instead as I dont think that Food Chain is the problem for prossh I think Prossh is the problem. I would probably hit Prossh before Oloro to be totally honest so it surprises me that you omitted Prossh.
TLDR: honestly, I see a *****load of favoritism to blue in everything you have here so far. I don't think that what you have outlined and suggested would make for a better banned list I think it just pushes blue to be stronger. You seem to have a heavy slant towards green in your suggested bans which I don't agree with either. There are several suggestions that just make zero sense in why you would suggest banning them and there is a lack of consistency that would lead me towards the RC's decisions to leave all of the cards unbanned over being biased in what cards are vs not being banned (demonic tutor not being banned but vampiric tutor being banned???)
Regarding Food Chain, it combos with Eternal Scourge or Misthollow Griffin and any commander with an ETB/Cast trigger that can win the game. (It's also one of the only decks that wants to run Demonic Consultation, as exiling one of the cast from exile creatures while tutoring for FC makes comboing so easy, so why both those cards are on this banlist together is odd...)
General Tazri is the typical deck for it (tutor one of the ETB lifeloss allies, play it then infinitely recast her), and is generally considered to be a fair bit better than Prossh these days as you have access to all 5 colours. Indeed Tazri is definitely in the top 10 commanders, possibly the top 5 power wise.
So if you are really concerned about combos, it does make some sense to ban it. But why the concern about combos? If you're looking at EDH from a competative standpoint, that's the entire point of the format and cutting them completely kills cEDH, and if your looking at it from a casual perspective, well, you're not playing that type of deck anyway so who cares.
For what it's worth OP, wizards actually tried to replace the real banlist with their half baked 1v1 centered banlist earlier this year, and immediately backtracked after players revolted. They still tried a test run for a month, and it was roundly rejected by the user base. You can now choose to use either the real, rules committee banlist, or the wotc derived banlist (similar to your proposal), for 1v1 or multiplayer games. I see the 1v1 banlist chosen for 1v1 matches in a 2-1 or 3-1 margin over the traditional banlist, but the traditional banlist is the only one I ever see fire on a consistent basis for multiplayer. Every once in awhile I see wizards banlist in a multiplayer game, but its rare enough that I'm surprised when I see it, whereas I usually see 1v1 traditional banlist matches fire.
Leaving the banlist in the hands of the RC is the right thing to do, despite the feelings of a very vocal minority. For paper magic amongst friends, reasonable house bans let you craft the format to your desires. For online play, we have a choice, and the vast majority of players have chosen the RC banlist.
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The Meaning of Life: "M-hmm. Well, it's nothing very special. Uh, try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations"
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Whether its blue players countering your spells, red players burning you out, or combo, if you have a problem with an aspect of Magic's gameplay, you can fix it!
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
While not infinite, Food Chain is also pretty bonkers in Maelstrom Wanderer.
Yeah, you can use it for some pretty nice value that way. Of course, if you want to put the cast from exile creatures in too, Wanderer is an outlet for the combo (cast him infinite times to cascade your entire deck into play).
Leaving the banlist in the hands of the RC is the right thing to do, despite the feelings of a very vocal minority. For paper magic amongst friends, reasonable house bans let you craft the format to your desires. For online play, we have a choice, and the vast majority of players have chosen the RC banlist.
This is it for me - a light touch is best in terms of managing degeneracy, also in terms of allowing people to express themselves with creative lists.
The OP's list is far too arbitrary to of any use outside of a really specific meta. There's too many omissions (No Arcum Dagsson as commander?) and too many cards on the list that deserve a place in the game (Burgeoning is so far from broken it's crazy). It seems like OP just picked cards they don't want to see, or has taken his meta's personal bugbears and made them official. That's never a good way to officiate, and it's a damn slippery slope.
To my mind, this issue is best solved within the meta as a discussion between equals about what is acceptable and enjoyable, and what isn't. That's how EDH works best, and that's how it works out for the most equally distributed fun times.
Also, what's up with the name? Why the "Wii Banlist"? You can't name your banlist after a ten year old console and not explain why, come on bruh
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The Meaning of Life: "M-hmm. Well, it's nothing very special. Uh, try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations"
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Whether its blue players countering your spells, red players burning you out, or combo, if you have a problem with an aspect of Magic's gameplay, you can fix it!
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
Also, what's up with the name? Why the "Wii Banlist"? You can't name your banlist after a ten year old console and not explain why, come on bruh
It was in the title: Wizards Is Incompetent. I mentioned it before that this is dumb because Wizards has nothing to do with the banlist. The OP has chosen to change their title of this thread to get rid of the actual words but they left a (seemingly) nonsensical name in its place. Just their little "dig" at Wizards I guess.
Holy ***** it feels like you are for no reason targeting green a lot. I dont know what kind of issues you have with green but I saw a lot of cards on there that were green that are bans in addition to what the RC has banned. I have no idea why for a good portion of these cards. Birthing Pod for instance is not a broken card in any shape or way. Burgeoning but not Exploration???? I just honestly don't see a rhyme or reason for most of the things you chose.
To be honest Green is pretty degenerate. Green can very consistently produce lots of mana fast and draw lots of cards. Banning some of the tutors and degenerate mana production seems fair to me.
To be honest Green is pretty degenerate. Green can very consistently produce lots of mana fast and draw lots of cards. Banning some of the tutors and degenerate mana production seems fair to me.
This is all assuming that every meta is also combo central winning. What if you are playing a fair green deck and suddenly you have banned everything. I still stand by if you ban a bunch of green and black cards you just make blue even better.
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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.
To be honest Green is pretty degenerate. Green can very consistently produce lots of mana fast and draw lots of cards. Banning some of the tutors and degenerate mana production seems fair to me.
Sure, but every colour has its ways and means. Barring white, maybe. Black has Urborg/Coffers and tutors aplenty, Blue has High tide and crazy artifact synergy, Mind over Matter, extra turns, red has wheels, kiki-jiki, worldgorger, even colorless has easy access to degeneracy. Green does have some culprits. Gaea's cradle is nuts, and so is food chain, I could see a valid reason for banning either or both. I think it's more in this case that some of the identified cards don't make any sense whatsoever. After turn 3-4 Burgeoning is a dead draw most times for me. Even Exploration, which is much, much better, isn't ban worthy. Tainted Pact is difficult to see as ban worthy, Birthing Pod is nowhere near broken, even Scroll Rack isn't anywhere near it. In fact removing access to the Rack severely neuters white's access to reasonable draw and ramp.
Green is pretty gross, but a lot of the additions here just don't deserve to be on the list, and a lot of the adds here are inconsistent as hell.
This is all assuming that every meta is also combo central winning. What if you are playing a fair green deck and suddenly you have banned everything. I still stand by if you ban a bunch of green and black cards you just make blue even better.
Sure, but every colour has its ways and means. Barring white, maybe. Black has Urborg/Coffers and tutors aplenty, Blue has High tide and crazy artifact synergy, Mind over Matter, extra turns, red has wheels, kiki-jiki, worldgorger, even colorless has easy access to degeneracy. Green does have some culprits. Gaea's cradle is nuts, and so is food chain, I could see a valid reason for banning either or both. I think it's more in this case that some of the identified cards don't make any sense whatsoever. After turn 3-4 Burgeoning is a dead draw most times for me. Even Exploration, which is much, much better, isn't ban worthy. Tainted Pact is difficult to see as ban worthy, Birthing Pod is nowhere near broken, even Scroll Rack isn't anywhere near it. In fact removing access to the Rack severely neuters white's access to reasonable draw and ramp.
Green is pretty gross, but a lot of the additions here just don't deserve to be on the list, and a lot of the adds here are inconsistent as hell.
Blue has one high tide. Green has Birds of Paradise, Boreal Druid, Elvish Mystic, Fyndhorn Elves and Llanowar Elves. Those are just the mono green variants. Multicolor decks get even more. None of the cards you listed are any good on turn one, turn 2 or turn 3. Even on turn 4 the listed card are kinda questionable. Most games I have played is where a green player just ramps into big stuff and wins the game. Banning pod would mean that green decks have slightly harder time finding their wincons.
If it were up to me I would ban even more green cards.
Yeah, man, you really have to watch out for those Boreal Druids and Llanowar Elves. Yikes, if only I had a dollar for every time they won a game in the same fashion as High Tide, why, I'd almost be able to afford an Elvish Mystic to complete the set.
Seriously, though, green ramp has plenty of counter plays. To be really degenerate, it almost always relies on committing heavily to the board, which can in turn be punished by sweepers and removal.
If "most games" you play are won by green mana ramp, and especially green mana ramp based on dorks like Fyndhorn Elves, I think your meta needs to pack more removal. Maybe invest in some Pyroclasm variants?
I mean, I don't really have a leg to stand on, as I run mono green, with some degree of success. But then my mono white Bruna does just fine without mega ramp too. They're kind of foils, one ramps quick, the other slows opponents down until I'm damn well ready.
That's the thing with this game, for almost every problem there is a solution. I am of the opinion that the fewer times we resort to banning as a solution the better off we are. Ramp isn't everything, as important as it is. And there are plenty of situations mono green can't handle.
Also, what's up with the name? Why the "Wii Banlist"? You can't name your banlist after a ten year old console and not explain why, come on bruh
It was in the title: Wizards Is Incompetent. I mentioned it before that this is dumb because Wizards has nothing to do with the banlist. The OP has chosen to change their title of this thread to get rid of the actual words but they left a (seemingly) nonsensical name in its place. Just their little "dig" at Wizards I guess.
Oh, wow. I guess that says all we need to know about how worthwhile this suggestion is.
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The Meaning of Life: "M-hmm. Well, it's nothing very special. Uh, try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations"
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Whether its blue players countering your spells, red players burning you out, or combo, if you have a problem with an aspect of Magic's gameplay, you can fix it!
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
Green's ramp spells aren't a problem with the current EDH banlist, as every deck gets access to really good colourless ramp - Sol Ring, Mana Crypt, Mox Diamond, Mana Vault, Ancient Tomb etc. If you start taking those away, then green looks increasingly strong - if I were looking to build a competitive EDH list without the good rocks, I'd want green in there (hell, I generally want green in there as is, loosing the colourless acceleration just makes said colour even stronger). However, even then, there's few if any individual cards that are too strong; instead it's the overall package available to the color that pushes it. Llanowar Elves is not EDH banable by any stretch of the imagination, but when one colour gives you access to 10 or so 1 mana ramp spells, while every other colour can't start accelerating until 2 mana, I'm not sure it's really balanced given how important mana is in this format.
I don't have the time to go through the whole list, but this section alone seems to basically be pulled out of someones backside without any actual coherent thought. Excluding the things on the current banlist, you're skipping out on pretty much all the top tier commanders barring Breya and Zur, so you clearly aren't looking at it from a powerlevel perspective, and instead you randomly ban things like Titania and Kokusho. And then there's Rune-Tail, a card I don't think I've ever seen actually played.
And overall, who exactly is this aimed at? It's not the causal players, as they aren't going to care, and it's not the competitive players, as it's being able to actually play cards like Mana Crypt, Vampiric Tutor, Hermit Druid and Doomsday in a high powered high speed format which generally attracts people to cEDH in the first place.
CARDS THAT SHOULD BE REMOVED FROM THE LIST ENTIRELY:
The above cards just have no real room for discussion of being ban worthy if you ask me. I left most of the controversial ones alone but I think to get started these all need to be removed from the OP list because they just have no room for discussion.
Food Chain is also a very odd choice to ban. To my knowledge one of the only thing its really a problem with is Prossh, Skyraider of Kher. Oddly enough you suggest most of the rest of the cycle of commanders to be banned but not Prossh??? Honestly I would take Food Chain off and ban Prossh as a commander instead as I dont think that Food Chain is the problem for prossh I think Prossh is the problem. I would probably hit Prossh before Oloro to be totally honest so it surprises me that you omitted Prossh.
TLDR: honestly, I see a *****load of favoritism to blue in everything you have here so far. I don't think that what you have outlined and suggested would make for a better banned list I think it just pushes blue to be stronger. You seem to have a heavy slant towards green in your suggested bans which I don't agree with either. There are several suggestions that just make zero sense in why you would suggest banning them and there is a lack of consistency that would lead me towards the RC's decisions to leave all of the cards unbanned over being biased in what cards are vs not being banned (demonic tutor not being banned but vampiric tutor being banned???)
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General Tazri is the typical deck for it (tutor one of the ETB lifeloss allies, play it then infinitely recast her), and is generally considered to be a fair bit better than Prossh these days as you have access to all 5 colours. Indeed Tazri is definitely in the top 10 commanders, possibly the top 5 power wise.
So if you are really concerned about combos, it does make some sense to ban it. But why the concern about combos? If you're looking at EDH from a competative standpoint, that's the entire point of the format and cutting them completely kills cEDH, and if your looking at it from a casual perspective, well, you're not playing that type of deck anyway so who cares.
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For what it's worth OP, wizards actually tried to replace the real banlist with their half baked 1v1 centered banlist earlier this year, and immediately backtracked after players revolted. They still tried a test run for a month, and it was roundly rejected by the user base. You can now choose to use either the real, rules committee banlist, or the wotc derived banlist (similar to your proposal), for 1v1 or multiplayer games. I see the 1v1 banlist chosen for 1v1 matches in a 2-1 or 3-1 margin over the traditional banlist, but the traditional banlist is the only one I ever see fire on a consistent basis for multiplayer. Every once in awhile I see wizards banlist in a multiplayer game, but its rare enough that I'm surprised when I see it, whereas I usually see 1v1 traditional banlist matches fire.
Leaving the banlist in the hands of the RC is the right thing to do, despite the feelings of a very vocal minority. For paper magic amongst friends, reasonable house bans let you craft the format to your desires. For online play, we have a choice, and the vast majority of players have chosen the RC banlist.
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
Yeah, you can use it for some pretty nice value that way. Of course, if you want to put the cast from exile creatures in too, Wanderer is an outlet for the combo (cast him infinite times to cascade your entire deck into play).
This is it for me - a light touch is best in terms of managing degeneracy, also in terms of allowing people to express themselves with creative lists.
The OP's list is far too arbitrary to of any use outside of a really specific meta. There's too many omissions (No Arcum Dagsson as commander?) and too many cards on the list that deserve a place in the game (Burgeoning is so far from broken it's crazy). It seems like OP just picked cards they don't want to see, or has taken his meta's personal bugbears and made them official. That's never a good way to officiate, and it's a damn slippery slope.
To my mind, this issue is best solved within the meta as a discussion between equals about what is acceptable and enjoyable, and what isn't. That's how EDH works best, and that's how it works out for the most equally distributed fun times.
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
To be honest Green is pretty degenerate. Green can very consistently produce lots of mana fast and draw lots of cards. Banning some of the tutors and degenerate mana production seems fair to me.
This is all assuming that every meta is also combo central winning. What if you are playing a fair green deck and suddenly you have banned everything. I still stand by if you ban a bunch of green and black cards you just make blue even better.
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Sure, but every colour has its ways and means. Barring white, maybe. Black has Urborg/Coffers and tutors aplenty, Blue has High tide and crazy artifact synergy, Mind over Matter, extra turns, red has wheels, kiki-jiki, worldgorger, even colorless has easy access to degeneracy. Green does have some culprits. Gaea's cradle is nuts, and so is food chain, I could see a valid reason for banning either or both. I think it's more in this case that some of the identified cards don't make any sense whatsoever. After turn 3-4 Burgeoning is a dead draw most times for me. Even Exploration, which is much, much better, isn't ban worthy. Tainted Pact is difficult to see as ban worthy, Birthing Pod is nowhere near broken, even Scroll Rack isn't anywhere near it. In fact removing access to the Rack severely neuters white's access to reasonable draw and ramp.
Green is pretty gross, but a lot of the additions here just don't deserve to be on the list, and a lot of the adds here are inconsistent as hell.
Blue has one high tide. Green has Birds of Paradise, Boreal Druid, Elvish Mystic, Fyndhorn Elves and Llanowar Elves. Those are just the mono green variants. Multicolor decks get even more. None of the cards you listed are any good on turn one, turn 2 or turn 3. Even on turn 4 the listed card are kinda questionable. Most games I have played is where a green player just ramps into big stuff and wins the game. Banning pod would mean that green decks have slightly harder time finding their wincons.
If it were up to me I would ban even more green cards.
Seriously, though, green ramp has plenty of counter plays. To be really degenerate, it almost always relies on committing heavily to the board, which can in turn be punished by sweepers and removal.
If "most games" you play are won by green mana ramp, and especially green mana ramp based on dorks like Fyndhorn Elves, I think your meta needs to pack more removal. Maybe invest in some Pyroclasm variants?
That's the thing with this game, for almost every problem there is a solution. I am of the opinion that the fewer times we resort to banning as a solution the better off we are. Ramp isn't everything, as important as it is. And there are plenty of situations mono green can't handle.
Oh, wow. I guess that says all we need to know about how worthwhile this suggestion is.
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
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