January 2020 Ban List Update - No Changes

[cryogen]

Link to announcement

With a busy year in the books, we open 2020 all quiet on the B&R front.

The format continues to grow in all its forms, but there's been a lot of good discussion about ways to improve and capitalize on opportunities. With the introduction of Commander-focused premier events, the number of games played outside local playgroups is rising. Similarly, more games are being played between friends, in stores and homes, than ever before.

In terms of cards, there were no consensus threats to players' enjoyment and we're not making any changes at this time. We continue to emphasize the importance of pre-game discussions as an important part of finding enjoyable games.

[Myllior]

Hmm, not entirely unexpected, but still a little surprising. Given the greater engagement the RC's had with the cEDH community and their acknowledgement that Thassa's Oracle warranted discussion, I was leaning towards a Flash ban being the more likely outcome. It's possible that, even if we ignore the philosophical question as to what influence the competitive approach should have on bans in an ultimately casual format, it was decided to take a "wait and see" approach.

I feel like there may still be an eye on Flash, and it will be the next ban announcement that is more telling of its long-term future in the format.

[cryogen]

Yes,I think Flash is the only card right now that is seriously on their Watch List (which totally doesn't exist).

[Airi]

Well, that's rather disappointing. I don't personally have a stake in cEDH style games, but I imagine a lot of people in that group are going to have a few months of absolute misery. :/

[Segrus]

I think there's a decent number of people out there who felt a Flash ban was a foregone conclusion.

[cryogen]

It may be. Things to consider are how long the RC has dragged their feet on some bans in the past (Iona, Prophet immediately come to mind as well as unbans like Kokusho, Painter's Servant). Also, banning a card because of its application in cEDH has HUGE ramifications longterm, and there's no shutting that door once they open it. So they probably want to be absolutely sure that they want to go in that direction first.

[Maluko]

I hope I'm not going off-topic here, but I merely wanted to applaud the inclusion of the section "Is mass land destruction (MLD) allowed in Commander? Counterspells? How about hand disruption? Life-setting cards?" in the FAQ released in the new Commander website. I think such statement by the Rules' Committee is very important for casual players so that new players to the format know beforehand there are some strategies that are not considered appealing to play against by the general public. Hopefully this will reduce the amount of times such cards/strategies appear in Commander decks and facilitate the understanding between players about why these cards/strategies are unfun. At worst, players now have something where they can point to about this which has been stated by the official ruling body of the format.

[Segrus]

Cryogen, I agree there are long-term implications/consequences for banning a card which entirely only concerns cEDH play. I honestly didn't expect the RC to ban it this time around. I've only mentioned that people expected a ban based on discussion I've seen elsewhere, but calling what I've seen discussion is being way too polite considering the vitriol there. Nice to see this place hasn't exploded considering I don't have much elsewhere to go now that the original Commander forums don't seem to exist currently.

[ISBPathfinder]

In general, I think its always safe to assume that no bans will happen. Its usually a long fought battle to change the RC's minds on topics even if the community largely supports a change. Lots of bans and unbans were the result of long discussions over years about how healthy certain cards were and or how they would not be a problem to unban.

I feel like the flash topic isn't new but I also feel like it didn't really surge in popularity in discussion until a few years back. Like, I can't say that I really recall hearing about it for more than the last year or two but some of that might also be an increase in popularity of CEDH. I can't remember offhand exactly when hulk got unbanned but I feel like it was something like 4ish years back. The immediate impact of it was primarily crickets for me and only over time did I start hearing about the issues with flash.

[pokken]

I think they could have been a bit more communicative about what's on their minds and such, as the lack of communication appears to be most of what has the CEDH community all riled up.

But I also see the danger in putting out a big long explanation because it will inevitably get deconstructed and hyper-analyzed until they're out to, and I quote:

It almost seems like theres a conspiracy. Let cEDH get so bad by not banning cards that no one wants to play cEDH

[Airi]

I mostly think they could have completely removed the line about player enjoyment. Regardless of your feelings on cEDH, I think we can probably all agree that the current set release is going to impact their enjoyment, and that line feels very out of place.

[d0su]

I hope I am not off topic. The new announcement is being delivered via their new website, and it seems their forums are no more.

Is that the case? Not that those forums were active, but they contained a wealth of history and knowledge. I will be a bit sad if they are gone.

[KitsuLeif]

I can't remember offhand exactly when hulk got unbanned but I feel like it was something like 4ish years back. The immediate impact of it was primarily crickets for me and only over time did I start hearing about the issues with flash.

Pretty accurate. Hulk unban came together with Leovold ban in april 2017, so more like 3 years ago, but for me it felt like 2 years :D


I'm not surprised by the "no changes" announcement, even though I hope that they keep their eyes on Flash and eventually ban it in april with the next B&R announcement after they gathered enough data. IF it becomes even more of a problem than it is now, of course. Maybe if it becomes a problem in casual as well, they'll have to take measures, because the banlist is clearly not for cEDH, as they stated a lot of times:

And also on the new website as well:

The goal of the ban list is similar; it does not seek to regulate competitive play or power level, which are decisions best left to individual play groups. The ban list seeks to demonstrate which cards threaten the positive player experience at the core of the format or prevent players from reasonable self-expression. The primary focus of the list is on cards which are problematic because of their extreme consistency, ubiquity, and/or ability to restrict others' opportunities.

On the other hand, they said the following:

With the introduction of Commander-focused premier events, the number of games played outside local playgroups is rising.

So they kind of want to balance the casual EDH format, but if there is a rise of the use of unbalanced cards on official events like MagicFests or whatever those events are called, there might be the need for action against these cards.

[Segrus]

I hope I am not off topic. The new announcement is being delivered via their new website, and it seems their forums are no more.

Is that the case? Not that those forums were active, but they contained a wealth of history and knowledge. I will be a bit sad if they are gone.

Seems to be that way. The forums weren't exactly non-active, just not as active as other places. I'll be missing them too which is why I'm here now--was on those forums beginning in 2011 or 2012.

I mostly think they could have completely removed the line about player enjoyment. Regardless of your feelings on cEDH, I think we can probably all agree that the current set release is going to impact their enjoyment, and that line feels very out of place.

It is an odd line, but I don't think it is necessarily malicious or pointed. They do care about player enjoyment, but they don't ban things in advance of releases. That is, they generally let new cards get a chance to settle before they ban something (Griselbrand being a prime example). So if by the next ban announcement it seems that something is wrecking the format due to new cards from Theros, there'll be changes then if any.

[cryogen]

I hope I am not off topic. The new announcement is being delivered via their new website, and it seems their forums are no more.

Is that the case? Not that those forums were active, but they contained a wealth of history and knowledge. I will be a bit sad if they are gone.

They are still undecided on if they want to continue the forums. I've seen a fair number of people share your sentiment, so hopefully they opt to reinstate a forum in some fashion.

[Hermes_]

well dang it... [mention]cryogen[/mention] gen is still allowed to play

[cryogen]

well dang it... cryogen gen is still allowed to play

Womp womp

[pokken]

I don't see that their forums really add anything material. Too many shards of community already, and forums are a fairly costly thing to run at scale (lots of technical overhead, lots of management, etc.).

If I were them I'd stick to twitter, fb, reddit, and existing forums. Not like it's hard for them to get the message out with the existing platforms.

[Shabbaman]

Seems to be that way. The forums weren't exactly non-active, just not as active as other places. I'll be missing them too which is why I'm here now--was on those forums beginning in 2011 or 2012.

*hugs*

And we missed actual Grixmas.

As for Flash, the last time I saw anyone play it was years ago, and it wasn't EDH. I wouldn't miss it, I wouldn't even notice it was gone. But since it isn't widely played it does mean it's not format warping... yet it is for competitive players. The RC could come up with a new ban criterium, but not only would that mean they take responsibility for cEDH well-being, they'd eventually get to the point where a card is problematic in cEDH but widely played without abuse in kitchen table EDH. This seems like a difficult step to me.

[Sheldon]

Yeah, sorry for the forums issue at the end of the year. I misunderstood the order of operations in the transition. I expected old site to stay up right to the end, which isn't how it apparently needed to happen. I'll see if Gavin has any idea how to recover said info, especially on the Grixmas stuff.

[Segrus]

*hugs*

And we missed actual Grixmas.

Aw! *hugs* Yeah, missing actual Grixmas was rather unfortunate. I'm just glad it was able to be resolved through email. I think this pretty much spells the end of Grixmas though.

Yeah, sorry for the forums issue at the end of the year. I misunderstood the order of operations in the transition. I expected old site to stay up right to the end, which isn't how it apparently needed to happen. I'll see if Gavin has any idea how to recover said info, especially on the Grixmas stuff.

It would be nice to still be able to see Grixmas entries over the years--some people did some really great work. We were able to finalize voting and confirm stuff offsite for this year, thanks to the patience, persistence, and effort of Treamayne.

I don't see that their forums really add anything material. Too many shards of community already, and forums are a fairly costly thing to run at scale (lots of technical overhead, lots of management, etc.).

If I were them I'd stick to twitter, fb, reddit, and existing forums. Not like it's hard for them to get the message out with the existing platforms.

It may be accurate to say the Commander forums didn't add much of anything for a vast number of people, but even still it was really the first Commander community I actually felt a part of. It'll likely be better for the RC to stay away from forums moving forward since there's so many other outlets of communication.

The thing is...I'll still miss it. When I wanted to see solid, thought out conversation about something Commander related, it was the place I went to. That's not saying there aren't other places to go, it was just the first place I found and really connected to. Anyway...I'm curious to see how cEDH tries to adjust in the face of Theros Beyond.

[Zealcat]

Banning one card isn't going to fix cEDH. It's gotten more homogenous the last year or two, partly because it's become so much more popular. With more people trying to solve a format that is using a tiny casual banlist, homogeneity happens. Especially as WOTC is content to keep pushing the power level with their EDH releases- there will be more Thrasios and Tymnas and Urzas down the road. Thus banning one card is only a short term bandaid.

a) stick to their guns and keep this casual format for its original intended audience. There are many competitive formats that cater to competitive players, EDH should stay the lone exception and not provide privilege to its competitive minority. Or:

b) make the banlist truly balance competitive play, expanding it quite a bit. I'd suggest making it more like Legacy or French 1v1, in that all the net positive fast mana and cheap tutors would need to go, plus demonic consultation, flash et al. It makes the most sense to either do a lot of bannings to make things more competitively balanced, or no bannings at all. Banning broken cards take options away from casual decks, but on the plus side it reduces the power of pubstompers.

[pokken]

Saw this link on reddit and think it's very relevant:

https://jqlgirl.tumblr.com/

I'm not going to paraphrase too much yet, but she says a lot of things I have said and I generally agree with the sentiment - though I think right now I come down slightly on the side of not banning.

[Jace]

I don't think anything warrants a ban at this time, including Thassa's Oracle. Give the card a chance. Like Vannifar, it may just be an overstated influence. The only card I'd like to see go at this time is Cyclonic Rift and perhaps Oko.

[Airi]

Just as an add on to the CAG blog post that Pokken added earlier (though in the opposite direction), /u/LazyEights made a really good post on one of the reddit threads discussion the issue that I'd like to highlight here, in hopes that maybe Sheldon or CAG members see it an at least consider things:

There's a weird amount of non-cEDH players in this thread that seem to think that their personal dislike of cEDH justifies not only ignoring the cEDH crowd but actively shutting down their involvement in the format. As a non-cEDH player here's the way I see it:

• The banlist exists to remove cards that are not fun to play against in order to maximize fun in the format.
• cEDH players collectively find that Flash has homogenized the format at the competitive level to the point that it is not fun to play. Oracle makes this problem worse.
• Casual players do not play Flash in any significant manner and banning Flash would have little effect on casual play.
• Flash ban would increase fun at the cEDH level and have little effect at the casual level, therefore increasing the total amount of fun had in the format.

None of this seems against the RC's stated purpose of the banlist. I neither play Flash nor do I want to play against it. If a Flash ban is found to be good for cEDH then even though I don't play cEDH I fully support it. Have some empathy.

You don't need to agree with the way that someone enjoys this format, nor do you necessarily need to agree with their stance on a ban, but I think it would go a long way for a lot of our community at large, not just on Nexus, to have some empathy for the situation.