So it bears mentioning all the other formats are competitive, i.e. if your playing for a different reason than winning you are "doing it wrong." If I take my vintage deck to a tournament and it is 20 Kavus and a prayer... I am basically just a bye for the opponents.
Why do I bring this up? Because I read a quote by Sheldon that I think is appropriate: "Good in Commander" and "good for Commander" can be two different things. Cards that limit other players' ability to do anything have the greatest delta between good in and good for, but Chris' point is well-taken. I think the format would stand a good chance of being better with a permanent Stranglehold for everyone (but don't panic; there's no plans to move it that way). Blanket tutors like Razaketh and Demonic Tutor carry the biggest negatives, since they mostly lead down the same paths (not always; some folks love to tutor for answers, not combo pieces). Obviously, there's no reasonable decision that gets rid of all of them (or even some) and it'd cause quite a revolt if we tried. We'll continue along the road of sharing our vision that folks think about both the good in and good for sides of the equation."
I'd like to highlight ther eis no "Reasonable decision" that would work without a revolt. That is really the point of all this. Can they ban allt he cards? Sure... is it a good idea nope. Let me explain why I feel that way:
Claiming that
Expropriate or Iona are equivalent to cancer seems like a significant streatch. There is a big difference between something that is not good for you (maybe that 3rd cookie assuming you are not diabetic or allergic to the ingredients?) and a cigarette. Cigarettes are not healthy for anyone, known to cause cancer 100% of the time if you smoke enough and even hurt others through second hand smoke. Eating too many Oreos on rare occasion will not be the reason I eventually buy the farm.
Going back to my example of Vintage, if I bring a Shops deck and I play against someone's "used to be standard" Marvel deck it won't be much of a game either. But this often happens in EDH, someone will bring a deck that is far more powerful than the opponents. Are the individual cards at fault or was there a lack of honesty or communication? I believe this is the true issue in EDH, there is a huge range of power levels.
I sold a big chunk of my collection almost a year ago, but before I did that I had about 40 EDH decks, even in my collection there was massive power range. That was intentional as I wanted to be as close to the same (or average) power level as the group. The best games are when everybody can contribute and feel at the end they could have won. The worst games are when someone says "I am totally casual" and then wins on turn 4 (or sooner). If they had been honest I could have pulled out a deck that would be closer in power level and I could have had eariler interaction that could have slowed them down. That would have been a much better game for most if not all involved. Currently I have 4 decks and I am currently skewed more towards the fun catagory than the singleton legacy catagory. I would not be able to kill a table before maybe t8 without serious help. That is the types of games I prefer.
Since we are not playing for prizes, shouldn't we be able to play EVERYTHING? I argue we should be able to play more than we currently are able to, not less. If you have a miserable time playing against
Expropriate you would likely have had a miserable time playing against that opponent regardless of what he was playing. Adding another 40 cards to the ban list won't fix the actual problem.
Now I agree there are some people (really everybody) that will misevaluate a card thinking it will be fun to play and then they find out it is not, but if they had gone to a different shop or even the same shop different pod they might not have had such a negative reaction. Some people will try to claim that certain cards are univerally hated (Iona,
Deadeye Navigator, etc.) but that simply is not the case. If EVERYBODY hated those cards they would either be banned or simply never be played. Some people like them, some people play with them and the group has a great time. I have had Iona in a few decks and when she showed up she did slow down people for a few turns, then a board wipe happened and it was done. Could someone have reanimated/cloned/stolen her? Of course, but the group was more interested in doing that to something that would further the game rather than slow it down. I do not, nor have I ever owned a
Expropriate as I did not open much Conspiract: TtC and I don't play a lot of extra turn cards in EDH.
I have only ran into
Expropriate a hand full of times, and it did end the game most of the time, but it was on turn 14 or so when the game kinda needed to end anyways. Once someone powered it out on turn 5, stole some stuff and got 2 turns... but it didn't make much of a difference as the next player wiped the board and then his advantage was really he got 2 land drops (which he missed anyways) and 10 damage split between 2 people.
Now I will be the first to say that I rarely get the chance to play in paper any more, so that will skew my opinions as well. Are people really adding U to their deck to play
Expropriate? Is it showing up in every other game and ending the game quickly? I know that $35 for a single card is not in everybody's budget but I doubt people would call it a barrier to entry either. Seems like this is not at all worthy of a ban in my opinion.
Now to address this:
Sid the Chicken wrote:
Inkeyes22 wrote:
It always amazes me when people feel that those that have a different opinion are catagorically and completely wrong. "If you don't agree with me you're an idiot."
Perhaps it was unintentional, but the way your post is structured appears to be labeling me a closed-minded jerk for pointing out the above, which I really think is unfair
This was not targeted at you at all. I know that we do not always see eye-to-eye, but I personally feel that is a good thing. I do think that people are entrenched in their own opinions and far to often listen to respond rather than listen (or in this case read) to understand. Far more would be gained if everybody was open minded, sadly that just is far to rare these days. I am sorry if feelings were hurt.
_________________
"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him."
J. R. R. Tolkien
Shabbaman wrote:
The usual answer is "the social contract", but I guess that is not what you are looking for. Try house rules.