I think you misunderstood the reference. It's part of a larger quote: "guns don't kill people, people kill people." It has nothing to do with murder or other criminal punishments, it's a pro-gun argument. The implication here is that gun control is mostly meaningless because a bad actor will simply find another way to commit their crime while responsible gun owners are unfairly punished by having their guns taken away.
Laying aside the real world politics (in which this is a flawed and terrible idea) it translates pretty well to EDH. We all know that the ban list is kind of a joke from a competitive point of view. The RC has admitted as much and said they don't particularly care about that aspect. But if you're already letting people run around with Stasis and Doomsday, is there really any reason to keep something like Balance on the list? If people want to ruin games, they're going to ruin games. I guess the EDH corollary would be "cards don't ruin games, people ruin games". There is some merit in the idea of just straight up removing the ban list and trusting people to play in a social way. Isn't that the entire point of the format in the first place?
I'm quite familiar with the saying, and it's a ridiculous argument that tries to take a complicated debate and package it into a simple catchphrase. But I'm also for stricter gun control, so there's that.
Since we don't need to have a debate on gun control I'll skip a lousy analogy that would get nitpicked. Instead, I'll just say that the idea of the ban list is to remove the cards which go against the RC's philosophy document, as well as the cards which run afoul of the target demographic (which isn't to say that people not of that demographic are being excluded, simply that the ban list is not being maintained with them in mind). So no, I xont think there is merit to the notion that since people are already ruining games by not engaging in social behaviour which will enable better games, removing the ban list will somehow encourage that social behaviour. I think it will just exaggerate the problem even more and cause people to quit the format or retreat from public games altogether.
Figured as much given the Baltimore location, but just for the sake of being explicit I thought I'd throw it out there because it wasn't clear from your initial response. Maryland certainly loves their guns.
Instead, I'll just say that the idea of the ban list is to remove the cards which go against the RC's philosophy document, as well as the cards which run afoul of the target demographic (which isn't to say that people not of that demographic are being excluded, simply that the ban list is not being maintained with them in mind). So no, I xont think there is merit to the notion that since people are already ruining games by not engaging in social behaviour which will enable better games, removing the ban list will somehow encourage that social behaviour. I think it will just exaggerate the problem even more and cause people to quit the format or retreat from public games altogether.
That's a pretty doom-and-gloom outcome. I think the more likely outcome of removing the entire ban list would be people put Prime Time and Prophet back into their decks and then carry on like normal.
Figured as much given the Baltimore location, but just for the sake of being explicit I thought I'd throw it out there because it wasn't clear from your initial response. Maryland certainly loves their guns.
Yeah......
That's a pretty doom-and-gloom outcome. I think the more likely outcome of removing the entire ban list would be people put Prime Time and Prophet back into their decks and then carry on like normal.
Sure, some people do. I'd slot Recurring Nightmare and Sylvan Primordial into Karador before I finished reading the announcement, Gifts into Mizzex, and find a home for Library as well. But remember that just about every card on the ban list has had a thread made for it debating its place on the list, so somewhere out there someone wants to run Balance, or Sundering Titan, or Time Vault. So I fully expect to start seeing the less enjoyable cards to show up in public games.
It would be an interesting experiment to see what banned cards people would gravitate towards, and one that 8 would enjoy participating in, but not something I would unleash on the world.
It would be an interesting experiment to see what banned cards people would gravitate towards, and one that 8 would enjoy participating in, but not something I would unleash on the world.
Without thinking in every single deck I have, for the 4C Rashmi deck I have I would:
- Proxy all relevant power 8 cards
- Proxy library
- Get Leovold
- Use Gifts
- Get Fastbond
- Get Tolarian Academy
- Get Tinker
- Get Prophet of Kruphix
- Maybe Erayo, could be 'fun'
- Maybe Primeval Titan
There are currently no decks I'd proxy Time Vault in, but I can certainly see myself doing it.
I might rebuild Karador for Recurring Nightmare and all the fatties.
Don't think I'd run Sway & Co anywhere, I dislike those cards for casual and they aren't good enough for anything else.
And I think I could pretty easily find a place for Limited Resources, Balance, and Karakas.
I don't think I'd play Biorhythm, Channel, Emrakul, Painters Servant, Coalition Victory, Panoptic Mirror, and Yawgmoth's Bargain anywhere either.
In the past two weeks, I've seen decks run Sylvan Primordial and Prophet of Kruphix because the makers of the decks were relatively new to the format and did not realize they were on the banned list. Guess what? They were just as obnoxious as they used to be, and before those games had finished, people had cloned or stolen/reanimated both of those creatures multiple times.
Some things just don't work.
If Balance was in the format, I seriously wouldn't even bother playing, because griefer douches would love playing that card.
The RC has done a remarkable job of ensuring I can play with people in Phoenix and play with people in Erie or Cleveland or Kansas and rarely have a totally bizarre game. Decks are either "CEDH" or "T-rash" or they can play together in a group of 4.
So as much as I disagree with their decisions in some respects, the whole "remove the banlist because it doesn't cater to cEDH players or Jank players well enough," really has to stop.
The Format would be an unmitigated disaster if I couldn't sit down at a table anywhere and say "You playing CEDH? No, okay, let's have a game." Because that's what it would be like if there were no banlist.
Expect every Derevi deck to he a tutor race for Time Vault.
For me (assuming proxies), in addition to the obvious Moxen in their appropriate decks, Ancestral Recall goes in every blue deck, Braids would find a home somewhere in Karador or Meren, Erayo goes into Animar, Gifts into Mizzex, Karakas into probably every white deck, Library into Mizzex, Prime Time and Prophet definitely find homes somewhere, Recurring Nightmare and Sylvan Primordial in Karador, Time Vault in Derevi, Time Walk in every blue deck, and Tolarian Academy somewhere.
I'm sure I could use these cards somewhat responsibly, but I would hate to he on the receiving end of most of them.
The RC has done a remarkable job of ensuring I can play with people in Phoenix and play with people in Erie or Cleveland or Kansas and rarely have a totally bizarre game. Decks are either "CEDH" or "T-rash" or they can play together in a group of 4.
So as much as I disagree with their decisions in some respects, the whole "remove the banlist because it doesn't cater to cEDH players or Jank players well enough," really has to stop.
The Format would be an unmitigated disaster if I couldn't sit down at a table anywhere and say "You playing CEDH? No, okay, let's have a game." Because that's what it would be like if there were no banlist.
This, like 30,000 times. The banned list isn't perfect. Most of us disagree with one or more decisions the RC has made (I still think making commanders invulnerable to tucking was a mistake, personally). But by and large it works, as demonstrated by the continued success of the format and by the fact people are on here arguing about it rather than having given up and decided to play or do something else.
Here's where my prejudice comes in (and I'm not being sarcastic in the slightest here): it's difficult for me to process that a kind, friendly person can play the kind of decks that take away the game from opponents
But I def think we're 100% better off with the RC than without it, just wish the Ivory Tower wasn't so tall, you know.
Also abolishing the Banlist for the sake of cEDH is stupid. Most of the things in the banlist that are currently banned and are relevant (ie power 8, maybe alexandria, time vault, and maybe fastbond) would stay banned in a cedh centric list, the only real difference would be adding like Crypt, Flash, and Ad Naus... why kill a whole list because it's 'missing' three cards?
But I def think we're 100% better off with the RC than without it, just wish the Ivory Tower wasn't so tall, you know.
People make it out to be a lot taller than it actually is. Sheldon, and to a lesser extent Toby, have come off as elitist and snarky in the past, but I have yet to see any evidence that their personal beliefs have influenced the way they manage the format.
I don't think it does either, but it affects how people perceive the format and how people interact with other players. The RC is in a position of authority and their talking down or out right stating that they're prejudiced against people who don't play the format as they intended tickles down into the community and results in the near zero tolerance that a lot of the community has. For example, in that same article some of the comments included calling the two players that Sheldon referenced 'psychopaths', because they play Winter Orb or MLD... it's obviously not the RCs fault directly, they can't control what people do but they certainly enable it with their language.
Edit: Sheldon did mention they were going to expand on the community outreach, so I'm hoping it helps create some positive changes.
Isn't this an argument for unbanning Painter's Servant though? To me it seems if Wizards is still using this design space, that means there will be plenty of interesting and legitimate ways Painter's Servant could be used in the future.
Except that the two most recent cards off the top of my head, Ugin and All is Dust, are not the least bit interesting or fun in their interaction with Servant.
I don't see how a two-card combo that uses this much mana that is a board reset is worse than many of the other things in the format. I make Bearer of the Heavens pretty one-sided. Llawan, Cephalid Empress would be annoying.
There are all the Blind Seer cards like Douse and Insight.
Grindstone and Sphinx's Tutelage seem stronger reasons to keep PS banned... but they are not stronger 2-card combos that Food chain and the cards that it goes infinite with, including some Generals.
Also, Shifting Sky exists and hasn't caused problems. Mycosynth Lattice and Enchanted Evening cause a lot of the same problems as PS (making it easy to blow up everything, for example).
I don't care about PS. It is not design space that interests me. But I think the arguments people have used are very poor. There are a lot of game resets in the format and many are more abusable than PS. There are also many combos that are more abusable. So.... why exactly do we care?
I feel like if PS were unbanned it would almost never come up, and when it does, it would be a cool interaction or a very annoying interaction. If the person wants to play PS and All is Dust, then they are also fine with abusing Apocalypse, Jokulhaups, Bearer of the Heavens.... or any other combos that just wipe the board.
I don't see how a two-card combo that uses this much mana that is a board reset is worse than many of the other things in the format. I make Bearer of the Heavens pretty one-sided. Llawan, Cephalid Empress would be annoying.
There are all the Blind Seer cards like Douse and Insight.
Grindstone and Sphinx's Tutelage seem stronger reasons to keep PS banned... but they are not stronger 2-card combos that Food chain and the cards that it goes infinite with, including some Generals.
Also, Shifting Sky exists and hasn't caused problems. Mycosynth Lattice and Enchanted Evening cause a lot of the same problems as PS (making it easy to blow up everything, for example).
I don't care about PS. It is not design space that interests me. But I think the arguments people have used are very poor. There are a lot of game resets in the format and many are more abusable than PS. There are also many combos that are more abusable. So.... why exactly do we care?
I feel like if PS were unbanned it would almost never come up, and when it does, it would be a cool interaction or a very annoying interaction. If the person wants to play PS and All is Dust, then they are also fine with abusing Apocalypse, Jokulhaups, Bearer of the Heavens.... or any other combos that just wipe the board.
The problem isn't just what current synergies and combos exist, it is the unknown of what Wizards could do in the future. Will they make another Iona variant? What about Oona?
I don't see how a two-card combo that uses this much mana that is a board reset is worse than many of the other things in the format. I make Bearer of the Heavens pretty one-sided. Llawan, Cephalid Empress would be annoying.
There are all the Blind Seer cards like Douse and Insight.
Grindstone and Sphinx's Tutelage seem stronger reasons to keep PS banned... but they are not stronger 2-card combos that Food chain and the cards that it goes infinite with, including some Generals.
Also, Shifting Sky exists and hasn't caused problems. Mycosynth Lattice and Enchanted Evening cause a lot of the same problems as PS (making it easy to blow up everything, for example).
I don't care about PS. It is not design space that interests me. But I think the arguments people have used are very poor. There are a lot of game resets in the format and many are more abusable than PS. There are also many combos that are more abusable. So.... why exactly do we care?
I feel like if PS were unbanned it would almost never come up, and when it does, it would be a cool interaction or a very annoying interaction. If the person wants to play PS and All is Dust, then they are also fine with abusing Apocalypse, Jokulhaups, Bearer of the Heavens.... or any other combos that just wipe the board.
The problem isn't just what current synergies and combos exist, it is the unknown of what Wizards could do in the future. Will they make another Iona variant? What about Oona?
If I am being honest the more I have read this reason the shakier it gets.
Why not flip Iona and Painter's now and if Painter's has to be reconsidered in the future then so be it.
If the RC is truly not banning against stuff like the Grindstone interaction
Then the worst you get is the Ugin, the Spirit Dragon interaction which is 10 Mana to set up and all kind of Sorcery speed
and the Wash Out interaction which just becomes a 2 Card Upheaval
And a lot of more interesting interactions out there to actually utilize.
Trying to future proof a ban list when you are not the ones designing the cards seems the height of both arrogance and/or folly if that is indeed what is happening.
I don't see how a two-card combo that uses this much mana that is a board reset is worse than many of the other things in the format. I make Bearer of the Heavens pretty one-sided. Llawan, Cephalid Empress would be annoying.
There are all the Blind Seer cards like Douse and Insight.
Grindstone and Sphinx's Tutelage seem stronger reasons to keep PS banned... but they are not stronger 2-card combos that Food chain and the cards that it goes infinite with, including some Generals.
Also, Shifting Sky exists and hasn't caused problems. Mycosynth Lattice and Enchanted Evening cause a lot of the same problems as PS (making it easy to blow up everything, for example).
I don't care about PS. It is not design space that interests me. But I think the arguments people have used are very poor. There are a lot of game resets in the format and many are more abusable than PS. There are also many combos that are more abusable. So.... why exactly do we care?
I feel like if PS were unbanned it would almost never come up, and when it does, it would be a cool interaction or a very annoying interaction. If the person wants to play PS and All is Dust, then they are also fine with abusing Apocalypse, Jokulhaups, Bearer of the Heavens.... or any other combos that just wipe the board.
The problem isn't just what current synergies and combos exist, it is the unknown of what Wizards could do in the future. Will they make another Iona variant? What about Oona?
If I am being honest the more I have read this reason the shakier it gets.
Why not flip Iona and Painter's now and if Painter's has to be reconsidered in the future then so be it.
If the RC is truly not banning against stuff like the Grindstone interaction
Then the worst you get is the Ugin, the Spirit Dragon interaction which is 10 Mana to set up and all kind of Sorcery speed
and the Wash Out interaction which just becomes a 2 Card Upheaval
And a lot of more interesting interactions out there to actually utilize.
Trying to future proof a ban list when you are not the ones designing the cards seems the height of both arrogance and/or folly if that is indeed what is happening.
Agreed.
In any case, what are they going to print? Ugin is the last card printed to interact unfavourably. It is 8 mana.
They also keep making things that destroy all artifacts and enchantments, but EE and ML are barely abused in that regard.
I find it so unlikely that they make something that is abusable for a low mana cost.
Well I've been rereading through the Painter's Servant thread, and it's worth a read again, but I'll just post this quote from papa_funk: "You can't evaluate PS card by card. No one card is getting it banned. You have to look at the whole spectrum of interactions, from the Ionas and Grindstones to the All is Dusts to the Lifeforces to the Teysas to the Phyrexian Slayers to the Regal Forces. On balance, that's a lot of detriment and not a lot of counterweight, Even then, it's still a card that's on the border and gets talked about a lot."
Not that I have a horse in this race; I don't think I've once wanted to include it in a deck.
Edit: I was taken aback to see Sheldon say that Iona occupies interesting design/deckbuilding space.
Well I've been rereading through the Painter's Servant thread, and it's worth a read again, but I'll just post this quote from papa_funk: "You can't evaluate PS card by card. No one card is getting it banned. You have to look at the whole spectrum of interactions, from the Ionas and Grindstones to the All is Dusts to the Lifeforces to the Teysas to the Phyrexian Slayers to the Regal Forces. On balance, that's a lot of detriment and not a lot of counterweight, Even then, it's still a card that's on the border and gets talked about a lot."
Not that I have a horse in this race; I don't think I've once wanted to include it in a deck.
Edit: I was taken aback to see Sheldon say that Iona occupies interesting design/deckbuilding space.
Yes, the ever interesting design space of "you bought one of the mono-colored EDH decks as your intro to the game? Well, you're about to learn today by twiddling your thumbs for 20 minutes."
I've railed against Iona before, and I do it still. If you play a mono colored deck, and see someone running white, you need to kill them ASAP otherwise you lose. That's not fun at all.
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You don't call "dying to removal" if the removal is more expensive in resources than the creature. If you have to spend BG (Abrupt Decay), or W + basic land (PtE) to remove a 1G, that is not "dying to removal". Strictly speaking Goyf dies to removal, but actually your removal is dying to Goyf.
It's even pretty oppressive against 2-color decks when they pop your removal color (e.g. golgari deck they name black to prevent you from ever having a creature removal spell, and shut off half your deck in the bargain).
I have exactly zero times seen Iona hit the board and someone went "Wow, that's cool, sure made the game interesting!"
That is a fallacy though because that is also true for thousands of Magic the Gathering cards.
Iona like a lot of other cards produces interesting and at times oppressive situations however not generally unique or specific to Iona and often when I see that angel it ends up backfiring on whoever casts it and the person 'targeted' by the Angel gets to bide their time quite effectively while everyone is aware that they can't do anything outside of artifacts and lands.
I wish the internet had never popularized talking about fallacies. Now everything's a fallacy or whatever.
It's only a fallacy if I'm presenting an if-then argument wherein the only argument is (something like):
-If a card creates no fun it should be banned
-Iona creates no fun
-Therefore iona should be banned
Iona has a bunch of quirks that add up to make it a card (potentially) worthy of banning, not just its tendency to cause lockouts. It has a lot of things going against it.
* being able to be a commander (ugh, anyone ever run into an Iona deck?)
* being a creature which is the easiest "type" of card to cheat out
* being unfairly punitive against single and two color decks
* being a powerful enough effect to see a good amount of play (e.g. nobody is complaining about Lifeforce crapping on Black because it's a very weak card)
Part of the reason I think it's OK to ban Iona is that it doesn't really create a lot of fun scenarios. But that's just one of the reasons.
And just to pile on with the whole fallacy chucking, my statement was:
"I have exactly zero times seen ***" == clearly an anecdote, which implicitly cannot be fallacious. It can be a fallacy to argue that anecdotes are proof, but I didn't do that.
TLDR not everything's a fallacy and I doubt anyone would miss Iona
And I don't really care that much, I don't have a huge stake in the argument, I just can see the reasons and wouldn't mind seeing it go.
You sure used that to go off in a completely different direction and dance around what I actually posted, but whatever I have at this point talked Iona to death, a bad creature that shouldn't be banned because it is rarely worth thinking of and also I don't have some desperate Iona hungry group of people around me like some of you seem to.
It is a creature that exists in a pretty wide spectrum of experience IMO and mine still stands at meh
yes, lots of cards create unfun board states or 'oppressive situations.' But you say this without any examples and without engaging with the broader context of the discussion which is that Iona is in fact kind of unique in the way it creates oppressive situations - being able to completely lock someone out of a game.
The rest of your statement (e.g. often backfiring) is just another anecdote; you can't call my anecdote a fallacy then reply with an anecdote. It's very confusing. So I didn't engage with that part of the statement.
The reason your anecdote doesn't work is specifically because of the words you typed in the post up there:
I have exactly zero times seen Iona hit the board and someone went "Wow, that's cool, sure made the game interesting!"
This statement applies to thousands of Magic the Gathering cards and that was my entire point, it is completely meaningless
I see Praetors and Void Winnower and Nezahal, Primal Tide, Consecrated Sphinx, NuKozilek, Titans randomly. I just don't see people going in an Angel direction ever. So I am betting the amount of Iona in general played is rather varied and that is what generally keeps her unbanned.
Her backfiring is an anecdote sure but it is also the logical outcome she comes into play and has only a handful of options
1) All 3 opponents share a color
2) Pick the color most likely to stop your game plan
3) Pick the color most likely to remove Iona
4) There is a mono-color player at the table and they are way ahead or you have some weird spite against the person
If it is #4 then that person is taken out of the game theoretically so the 2 players who didn't cast Iona are unlikely to just stomp on the player who also can't cast spells
If it is 1, 2 or 3 all the 3 people have a decent reason typically to get rid of the Angel so Iona feels like to me often not worth it and why I have never bothered getting one.
I never see the card or have a desire to play with it because I think she is a bad creature so a ban or a not ban is nothing I just don't like things being banned because a handful of people are loud about a card that isn't actually that good.
I'm quite familiar with the saying, and it's a ridiculous argument that tries to take a complicated debate and package it into a simple catchphrase. But I'm also for stricter gun control, so there's that.
Since we don't need to have a debate on gun control I'll skip a lousy analogy that would get nitpicked. Instead, I'll just say that the idea of the ban list is to remove the cards which go against the RC's philosophy document, as well as the cards which run afoul of the target demographic (which isn't to say that people not of that demographic are being excluded, simply that the ban list is not being maintained with them in mind). So no, I xont think there is merit to the notion that since people are already ruining games by not engaging in social behaviour which will enable better games, removing the ban list will somehow encourage that social behaviour. I think it will just exaggerate the problem even more and cause people to quit the format or retreat from public games altogether.
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That's a pretty doom-and-gloom outcome. I think the more likely outcome of removing the entire ban list would be people put Prime Time and Prophet back into their decks and then carry on like normal.
Sure, some people do. I'd slot Recurring Nightmare and Sylvan Primordial into Karador before I finished reading the announcement, Gifts into Mizzex, and find a home for Library as well. But remember that just about every card on the ban list has had a thread made for it debating its place on the list, so somewhere out there someone wants to run Balance, or Sundering Titan, or Time Vault. So I fully expect to start seeing the less enjoyable cards to show up in public games.
It would be an interesting experiment to see what banned cards people would gravitate towards, and one that 8 would enjoy participating in, but not something I would unleash on the world.
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Without thinking in every single deck I have, for the 4C Rashmi deck I have I would:
- Proxy all relevant power 8 cards
- Proxy library
- Get Leovold
- Use Gifts
- Get Fastbond
- Get Tolarian Academy
- Get Tinker
- Get Prophet of Kruphix
- Maybe Erayo, could be 'fun'
- Maybe Primeval Titan
There are currently no decks I'd proxy Time Vault in, but I can certainly see myself doing it.
I might rebuild Karador for Recurring Nightmare and all the fatties.
Don't think I'd run Sway & Co anywhere, I dislike those cards for casual and they aren't good enough for anything else.
And I think I could pretty easily find a place for Limited Resources, Balance, and Karakas.
I don't think I'd play Biorhythm, Channel, Emrakul, Painters Servant, Coalition Victory, Panoptic Mirror, and Yawgmoth's Bargain anywhere either.
Some things just don't work.
If Balance was in the format, I seriously wouldn't even bother playing, because griefer douches would love playing that card.
The RC has done a remarkable job of ensuring I can play with people in Phoenix and play with people in Erie or Cleveland or Kansas and rarely have a totally bizarre game. Decks are either "CEDH" or "T-rash" or they can play together in a group of 4.
So as much as I disagree with their decisions in some respects, the whole "remove the banlist because it doesn't cater to cEDH players or Jank players well enough," really has to stop.
The Format would be an unmitigated disaster if I couldn't sit down at a table anywhere and say "You playing CEDH? No, okay, let's have a game." Because that's what it would be like if there were no banlist.
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For me (assuming proxies), in addition to the obvious Moxen in their appropriate decks, Ancestral Recall goes in every blue deck, Braids would find a home somewhere in Karador or Meren, Erayo goes into Animar, Gifts into Mizzex, Karakas into probably every white deck, Library into Mizzex, Prime Time and Prophet definitely find homes somewhere, Recurring Nightmare and Sylvan Primordial in Karador, Time Vault in Derevi, Time Walk in every blue deck, and Tolarian Academy somewhere.
I'm sure I could use these cards somewhat responsibly, but I would hate to he on the receiving end of most of them.
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This, like 30,000 times. The banned list isn't perfect. Most of us disagree with one or more decisions the RC has made (I still think making commanders invulnerable to tucking was a mistake, personally). But by and large it works, as demonstrated by the continued success of the format and by the fact people are on here arguing about it rather than having given up and decided to play or do something else.
But I def think we're 100% better off with the RC than without it, just wish the Ivory Tower wasn't so tall, you know.
Also abolishing the Banlist for the sake of cEDH is stupid. Most of the things in the banlist that are currently banned and are relevant (ie power 8, maybe alexandria, time vault, and maybe fastbond) would stay banned in a cedh centric list, the only real difference would be adding like Crypt, Flash, and Ad Naus... why kill a whole list because it's 'missing' three cards?
Edit: changed the highlighted word, sorry
People make it out to be a lot taller than it actually is. Sheldon, and to a lesser extent Toby, have come off as elitist and snarky in the past, but I have yet to see any evidence that their personal beliefs have influenced the way they manage the format.
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Edit: Sheldon did mention they were going to expand on the community outreach, so I'm hoping it helps create some positive changes.
I don't see how a two-card combo that uses this much mana that is a board reset is worse than many of the other things in the format. I make Bearer of the Heavens pretty one-sided.
Llawan, Cephalid Empress would be annoying.
There are all the Blind Seer cards like Douse and Insight.
Grindstone and Sphinx's Tutelage seem stronger reasons to keep PS banned... but they are not stronger 2-card combos that Food chain and the cards that it goes infinite with, including some Generals.
Also, Shifting Sky exists and hasn't caused problems.
Mycosynth Lattice and Enchanted Evening cause a lot of the same problems as PS (making it easy to blow up everything, for example).
I don't care about PS. It is not design space that interests me. But I think the arguments people have used are very poor. There are a lot of game resets in the format and many are more abusable than PS. There are also many combos that are more abusable. So.... why exactly do we care?
I feel like if PS were unbanned it would almost never come up, and when it does, it would be a cool interaction or a very annoying interaction. If the person wants to play PS and All is Dust, then they are also fine with abusing Apocalypse, Jokulhaups, Bearer of the Heavens.... or any other combos that just wipe the board.
8.RG Green Devotion Ramp/Combo 9.UR Draw Triggers 10.WUR Group stalling 11.WUR Voltron Spellslinger 12.WB Sacrificial Shenanigans
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16.Reyhan, last of the Abzan's WUBG +1/+1 Counter Craziness 17.WUBRG Dragons aka Why did I make this?
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The problem isn't just what current synergies and combos exist, it is the unknown of what Wizards could do in the future. Will they make another Iona variant? What about Oona?
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Resources:Commander Rulings FAQ | Commander Deckbuilding Guide
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40 life does some wild stuff when those cards are hanging around.
If I am being honest the more I have read this reason the shakier it gets.
Why not flip Iona and Painter's now and if Painter's has to be reconsidered in the future then so be it.
If the RC is truly not banning against stuff like the Grindstone interaction
Then the worst you get is the Ugin, the Spirit Dragon interaction which is 10 Mana to set up and all kind of Sorcery speed
and the Wash Out interaction which just becomes a 2 Card Upheaval
And a lot of more interesting interactions out there to actually utilize.
Trying to future proof a ban list when you are not the ones designing the cards seems the height of both arrogance and/or folly if that is indeed what is happening.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Agreed.
In any case, what are they going to print? Ugin is the last card printed to interact unfavourably. It is 8 mana.
They also keep making things that destroy all artifacts and enchantments, but EE and ML are barely abused in that regard.
I find it so unlikely that they make something that is abusable for a low mana cost.
8.RG Green Devotion Ramp/Combo 9.UR Draw Triggers 10.WUR Group stalling 11.WUR Voltron Spellslinger 12.WB Sacrificial Shenanigans
13.BR Creatureless Panharmonicon 14.BR Pingers and Eldrazi 15.URG Untapped Cascading
16.Reyhan, last of the Abzan's WUBG +1/+1 Counter Craziness 17.WUBRG Dragons aka Why did I make this?
Building: The Gitrog Monster lands, Glissa the Traitor stax, Muldrotha, the Gravetide Planeswalker Combo, Kydele, Chosen of Kruphix + Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa Clues, and Tribal Scarecrow Planeswalkers
Not that I have a horse in this race; I don't think I've once wanted to include it in a deck.
Edit: I was taken aback to see Sheldon say that Iona occupies interesting design/deckbuilding space.
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Resources:Commander Rulings FAQ | Commander Deckbuilding Guide
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Yes, the ever interesting design space of "you bought one of the mono-colored EDH decks as your intro to the game? Well, you're about to learn today by twiddling your thumbs for 20 minutes."
I've railed against Iona before, and I do it still. If you play a mono colored deck, and see someone running white, you need to kill them ASAP otherwise you lose. That's not fun at all.
"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
I have exactly zero times seen Iona hit the board and someone went "Wow, that's cool, sure made the game interesting!"
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Iona like a lot of other cards produces interesting and at times oppressive situations however not generally unique or specific to Iona and often when I see that angel it ends up backfiring on whoever casts it and the person 'targeted' by the Angel gets to bide their time quite effectively while everyone is aware that they can't do anything outside of artifacts and lands.
It's only a fallacy if I'm presenting an if-then argument wherein the only argument is (something like):
-If a card creates no fun it should be banned
-Iona creates no fun
-Therefore iona should be banned
Iona has a bunch of quirks that add up to make it a card (potentially) worthy of banning, not just its tendency to cause lockouts. It has a lot of things going against it.
* being able to be a commander (ugh, anyone ever run into an Iona deck?)
* being a creature which is the easiest "type" of card to cheat out
* being unfairly punitive against single and two color decks
* being a powerful enough effect to see a good amount of play (e.g. nobody is complaining about Lifeforce crapping on Black because it's a very weak card)
Part of the reason I think it's OK to ban Iona is that it doesn't really create a lot of fun scenarios. But that's just one of the reasons.
And just to pile on with the whole fallacy chucking, my statement was:
"I have exactly zero times seen ***" == clearly an anecdote, which implicitly cannot be fallacious. It can be a fallacy to argue that anecdotes are proof, but I didn't do that.
TLDR not everything's a fallacy and I doubt anyone would miss Iona
And I don't really care that much, I don't have a huge stake in the argument, I just can see the reasons and wouldn't mind seeing it go.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
It is a creature that exists in a pretty wide spectrum of experience IMO and mine still stands at meh
The rest of your statement (e.g. often backfiring) is just another anecdote; you can't call my anecdote a fallacy then reply with an anecdote. It's very confusing. So I didn't engage with that part of the statement.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
This statement applies to thousands of Magic the Gathering cards and that was my entire point, it is completely meaningless
I see Praetors and Void Winnower and Nezahal, Primal Tide, Consecrated Sphinx, NuKozilek, Titans randomly. I just don't see people going in an Angel direction ever. So I am betting the amount of Iona in general played is rather varied and that is what generally keeps her unbanned.
Her backfiring is an anecdote sure but it is also the logical outcome she comes into play and has only a handful of options
1) All 3 opponents share a color
2) Pick the color most likely to stop your game plan
3) Pick the color most likely to remove Iona
4) There is a mono-color player at the table and they are way ahead or you have some weird spite against the person
If it is #4 then that person is taken out of the game theoretically so the 2 players who didn't cast Iona are unlikely to just stomp on the player who also can't cast spells
If it is 1, 2 or 3 all the 3 people have a decent reason typically to get rid of the Angel so Iona feels like to me often not worth it and why I have never bothered getting one.
I never see the card or have a desire to play with it because I think she is a bad creature so a ban or a not ban is nothing I just don't like things being banned because a handful of people are loud about a card that isn't actually that good.