Personally I find these types of people toxic to the game and refuse to play with them entirely. Why?
"It's all about them." Meaning, they're all nice and cheery when they are winning (or in the running), but couldn't care less once they are in the red zone. Whether it's validation, feeling of winning, etc. that drives them doesn't matter - the point is that people like this prioritize their own feelings over the friendship/community of everyone else at the table, and this is not the type of person I want to be around. If you can't lose graciously, then I don't want to play with you.
Magic is a game about learning to play and deckbuild. The types of people I want to play with are those that love it when they get blown out - not because they like losing... entirely the opposite in fact. It's because the gears start turning in their head about all the ways they can solve that problem going forward - whether with a different line of play, different answers, different deck construction, etc. When everyone in the playgroup approaches the game this way, you are all getting better together - and enjoying the game even more. It is legitimately an exciting experience to get totally blown out by something new, see how well you can solve it in the moment, and then try to problem-solve going forward.
Experiences with people like this inevitably affect your own deckbuilding process as well, because if you choose to play with them then you are forced to adopt a bunch of nebulous, unwritten rules on what and when you can play. Why should I have to place limits on my own creativity and card selections for such an artificial reason?
Now, at casual tables there are obviously some lines to be aware of - if you serve up mass land destruction in a casual group, then yes, I can see why people might be frustrated and want to stop playing with you. But that's not what I'm talking about here.
In short, there is not enough time in this life to waste it on people who can't handle losing. It's just much better overall to surround yourself exclusively with people who are hungry to have fun, learn/grow, and enjoy the company of the other players - not those who are only there for their own validation.
I could kiss you right now. Why are players like this? Isn't it intensely frustrating to be a salty scrub about every little thing? EDH isn't a fun format if you're like that, why do they even keep playing? In a healthy meta you're only winning 25% of the time, so you're unhappy 75% of the time? I relish the struggle, the back and forth, the blowouts, the interaction. I'll make you kill me if you Armageddoned against my empty board, because I have several turns to draw a land and a Swords/Path/etc. for your (usually) single threat.
Anecdotally though, I had a guy scoop T1 to Force pitching foil Snapcaster to counter his T1 Sol Ring. He was less mad about the aggressive resource denial and way more upset that I had thrown $200 at his $2 Sol Ring. People get mad about weird *****.
All the rumblings over this are just growing pains. Confusion and anger will follow any change in the status quo, but Wizards -finally- listening to the community about the inefficacy of the RC is an objectively good thing.
That said, their banlist is incomplete and their approach is half-hearted, but I'm sure that's because they're trying to avoid stepping on more toes than they have to. I await the inevitable and glorious announcement a year or two from now that WotC is taking full control of EDH as a format.
This is a cute idea, it would be neat if they made the decks modular so you could mix and match too. I don't expect either to be the case, or ultimately care (gimme singles!) but it would show that they're actually putting effort into these.
The 'house rule' rule for EDH is just an abdication of responsibility on the rules committee's part.
Most people who play EDH interact with a varied group of players, like your core playgroup, the people who may or may not show up week to week, new-to-the-area players, new players period, so on and so forth. And then you have skill levels and play philosophies to consider. Compound this by the number of people involved, because not everyone has the same interactions and experiences, and you have a recipe for constantly explaining and defending your house rules every time you want to sit down and play, with the attendant feel-bads. It is not a rule that works.
House rules just end up being super anti-social unless you literally play with the exact same people every time, so the logical solution is to have a solid baseline which everyone knows and understands. The consensus here in Seattle seems to be that it would be a godsend if WotC took over that responsibility, even in light of their own poor track record, because the RC definitely doesn't want it.
Nothing is keeping you from using house rules, it is just not a good idea.
The committee bans based on knee-jerk reactions to whatever gives them the feelbads during their irl games and the howling of the loudest scrubs that spam them with messages over the internet, and chalk it up to a nebulous and undefinable concept called 'the spirit of EDH' and the supremely subjective 'fun'. The vast majority of players I've encountered think the banlist is a hilarious farce and that the format would be healthier if WotC took over so we would get some reason and consistency. Yes, they think this even in light of WotC's embarrassing mismanagement of Modern, the list is that bad. From the spikiest spike to the scrubiest scrub, everyone has beef with the EDH banlist and their concerns are always dismissed with the ever-frustrating and completely unreasonable suggestion to house-rule.
Good luck getting them to do anything that makes a lick of sense OP, especially unban your pet card
I would literally take every card off that list, and the official banlist as well, and do some actual testing to see what is too oppressive for the format so that I could come up with a real banlist that makes sense instead of rattling off a completely arbitrary list like the RC does. And reinstate the easily understandable 'banned as general' list. And the sorely-needed ability to tuck generals. That would be refreshing.
My first swipe would in all likelihood look something like this, though maybe I'd be surprised:
-Power 9
-Hermit Druid
-Sol Ring
-Mana Crypt
-Mana Vault
-Derevi/Rofellos/Erayo/Edric banned as generals
I don't really have a problem with anything on your list, and two of them are banned already anyways?
Wow, this is really, really bad. Indefensibly so. You can't nickel and dime your way up to $75 like that and expect rational folks to eat it. They don't seem to have tried at all to make this worth buying. Wow.
Two specific bad habits that new players tend to exhibit before they are corrected...
-"Still had all these": When you win, don't rub it in by showing your opponent all the sick cards you still had in your hand to crush them with. It is just straight up gloating and it is tacky and rude. Stop it.
-"If only I drew...": When you lose, learn from the experience and move on. Just because you didn't draw the 4th piece to your stupid combo or the 1-of answer in your deck at precisely the right moment doesn't mean you need to whine about it. Getting land screwed in your 20 land deck is going to happen a lot as well. When you don't draw the right cards, frequently, consider that maybe it is a deckbuilding problem. Also, shuffle more.
Hey, without Star City I couldn't have just flipped the fetches I hung onto since Zendikar for 500-900% profit
(thank you for covering the rent this month, Ben!)
But seriously, yeah, **** that *****. Supply and demand is cool and all, but when one company has that much purchasing power, the economy becomes centralized around them.
I'm usually the first out. I don't build as cutthroat as I could and everyone knows this, but my decks are consistently powerful enough to win out of nowhere so I never get left alone for long. I have embraced being the archenemy.
I lend decks out to people I trust not to manhandle them. Any time I let someone I don't know very well play with one of my decks, EDH or not, they mash shuffle (which I don't mind) from the TOP of the sleeve (which I do). Nobody in the entire world shuffles their own deck that way, why is it ok to do it with someone else's?
I do have an EDH deck I built with leftovers to straight up give to a new player who is curious though.
Exactly correct in -both- cases. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
The cards were not picked to replace SP, as that wasn't the point. The point was that there are much, much nastier things legal in the format that have been around for much longer. Swapping those cards in 1-for-1 with SP makes games less fun and that says something whether you cover your eyes and pretend it doesn't or not.
I see that your position is that the RC is perfect and they've made zero bad decisions, so I don't think I can make any headway in making you understand that even good people with good intentions make mistakes. No one is perfect. The RC could be doing much better. Being an apologist or sycophant doesn't help anyone.
... like really bad dude.
I could kiss you right now. Why are players like this? Isn't it intensely frustrating to be a salty scrub about every little thing? EDH isn't a fun format if you're like that, why do they even keep playing? In a healthy meta you're only winning 25% of the time, so you're unhappy 75% of the time? I relish the struggle, the back and forth, the blowouts, the interaction. I'll make you kill me if you Armageddoned against my empty board, because I have several turns to draw a land and a Swords/Path/etc. for your (usually) single threat.
Anecdotally though, I had a guy scoop T1 to Force pitching foil Snapcaster to counter his T1 Sol Ring. He was less mad about the aggressive resource denial and way more upset that I had thrown $200 at his $2 Sol Ring. People get mad about weird *****.
That said, their banlist is incomplete and their approach is half-hearted, but I'm sure that's because they're trying to avoid stepping on more toes than they have to. I await the inevitable and glorious announcement a year or two from now that WotC is taking full control of EDH as a format.
Most people who play EDH interact with a varied group of players, like your core playgroup, the people who may or may not show up week to week, new-to-the-area players, new players period, so on and so forth. And then you have skill levels and play philosophies to consider. Compound this by the number of people involved, because not everyone has the same interactions and experiences, and you have a recipe for constantly explaining and defending your house rules every time you want to sit down and play, with the attendant feel-bads. It is not a rule that works.
House rules just end up being super anti-social unless you literally play with the exact same people every time, so the logical solution is to have a solid baseline which everyone knows and understands. The consensus here in Seattle seems to be that it would be a godsend if WotC took over that responsibility, even in light of their own poor track record, because the RC definitely doesn't want it.
Nothing is keeping you from using house rules, it is just not a good idea.
Good luck getting them to do anything that makes a lick of sense OP, especially unban your pet card
(and yet we still love the format anyways...)
My first swipe would in all likelihood look something like this, though maybe I'd be surprised:
-Power 9
-Hermit Druid
-Sol Ring
-Mana Crypt
-Mana Vault
-Derevi/Rofellos/Erayo/Edric banned as generals
I don't really have a problem with anything on your list, and two of them are banned already anyways?
-"Still had all these": When you win, don't rub it in by showing your opponent all the sick cards you still had in your hand to crush them with. It is just straight up gloating and it is tacky and rude. Stop it.
-"If only I drew...": When you lose, learn from the experience and move on. Just because you didn't draw the 4th piece to your stupid combo or the 1-of answer in your deck at precisely the right moment doesn't mean you need to whine about it. Getting land screwed in your 20 land deck is going to happen a lot as well. When you don't draw the right cards, frequently, consider that maybe it is a deckbuilding problem. Also, shuffle more.
(thank you for covering the rent this month, Ben!)
But seriously, yeah, **** that *****. Supply and demand is cool and all, but when one company has that much purchasing power, the economy becomes centralized around them.
I do have an EDH deck I built with leftovers to straight up give to a new player who is curious though.
Exactly correct in -both- cases. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
The cards were not picked to replace SP, as that wasn't the point. The point was that there are much, much nastier things legal in the format that have been around for much longer. Swapping those cards in 1-for-1 with SP makes games less fun and that says something whether you cover your eyes and pretend it doesn't or not.
I see that your position is that the RC is perfect and they've made zero bad decisions, so I don't think I can make any headway in making you understand that even good people with good intentions make mistakes. No one is perfect. The RC could be doing much better. Being an apologist or sycophant doesn't help anyone.