Some assorted responses to ideas in this thread (coming from someone who mainly plays 1v1 Constructed formats and is somewhat biased in that direction, meaning that my opinions probably should be taken with a grain of salt):
Hulk is very good and presents a weird warped play pattern with the efficient instant speed combo.
As discussed many times, this is the key factor that makes Flash Hulk ban-worthy from a competitive perspective. Not necessarily its win percentage, which admittedly is a bit high too, but the idea that from turn 1 or 2 players need to always have some interaction up or run the risk that they just lose, or that they blow their resources stopping the Hulk player from winning only for someone else to swoop in. Then again, the latter is a fundamental aspect of any interactive game, at least in my opinion, but it does "feel bad"; I do think especially at higher power levels where there's this expectation of competitiveness people should accept that, make better play decisions next time, and shuffle up to play another round, but it never hurts to minimize moments where a player feels cheated out of a game. An analogous situation could be Twin in Modern where you needed interaction up by turn 3 or else every turn had the potential for the end-step Deceiver Exarch, next turn Splinter Twin, and from the competitive perspective that was judged too unfun compared to what everyone else was doing. While it's disputable if Twin was "too good," or if Flash Hulk is "too good," undoubtedly a good number of decks are forced to walk on eggshells or lose.
cEDH players trying to peddle while conveniently always unwilling to concede the multitude of concerns for everyone else
This makes it sound like cEDH players are trying to deal drugs, subvert democracy, or do something so much more insidious than trying to enjoy playing EDH in a way that's fun for them without falling into the same trap all the other attempted splinter formats fell into.
yet when it's brought to light by many how cEDH players are most often the pubstompers
I'd like to see some data for this. Who has "brought this to light"? Anecdotal evidence isn't data, nor is a consensus of players who are collectively resentful of their own boogeymen that instead of swiftly cutting them out of their playgroups and moving on, they demonize a whole host of other players simply because they seem kind of similar.
say they don't want to play with normal Commander players and that they're outliers! How convenient!
This relies on the assumption that pubstompers are primarily cEDH players, or that that fact somehow casts doubt on the entire cEDH community. Dictators are primarily from third-world countries, yet somehow I don't accuse everyone from those countries of having repressed authoritarian tendencies. Painting such broad strokes creates the appearance of desperation, and frantic flailing is no way to talk when better options are available.
"We're the next level and save casual players from pubstompers" is such a ridiculous attempt at trying to appear righteous.
I agree with you. That is a ridiculous argument, especially as I imagine most pubstompers aren't going to willingly put themselves on a more even playing field; still, characterizing whoever said that as hiding some greater moral fault (I am quite curious who you're quoting, by the way) seems purposely confrontational, and generalizing an entire group of players beyond a few people who mistakenly believe in the "cEDH player's burden" is counterproductive. Still, this is a game, not an exercise in morality; why is righteousness or feeling good about creating an elaborate sculpture of fun times and good feelings a concern? We'd all be greatly advantaged if we dispensed with those illusions, especially cEDH players who think they're stooping down to a lower level and tricking "regular EDH" players by being the good guy.
cEDH players play with entirely different goals and intentions in mind for their decks and gameplay.
I agree. Still, games evolve, and most games with a competitive scene were not originally formulated to such a high degree. Taking video game speedrunning as an example, the amount of games crafted by the developers under the assumption their assembly code would be sifted through by hand and players would spend hours routing in different ways is quite small; many presently popular video games for speedrunning were originally aimed at the under-10 demographic. They're clearly having fun, even if arbitrary code execution is at odds with "yay, I caught a Mewtwo!," so why is their fun so unimportant as to define them as some faceless other of unrefined enemies of the common man?
they can't stake a claim as playing the highest form of Commander and stroke their egos and treat themselves as superior and look down on those who aren't playing cEDH?
And many people here could be said as stroking their egos by saying that they are playing the "highest form of Commander," and those who are playing something else like cEDH are sub-human or unrefined. Would you consider yourself as "treating yourself as superior" right now, or are you merely arguing what you believe is unfailingly correct, like many cEDH advocates?
Yet, cEDH is supposedly a "misnomer"? Not competitive?
cEDH is competitive by definition. Arguing otherwise is incorrect. I agree with you here.
cEDH needs its own ban list. It should not coincide with casual players.
This would lead us toward the ideal banlist in my opinion, just banning the clearly broken Power 9 and ante/dexterity cards, giving individual playgroups the authority to see what works best for them instead of one central group having to represent everyone and be guaranteed to irritate somebody with every word written. If cEDH players want something more regulated at the tournament setting, they can either try to abuse things as much within the given constraints as they can (which I personally consider the epitome of any format) or play something else a bit more heavily modulated. My answer to the "Ban Flash" conundrum is to "unban everything and let people figure out individually what they want to do".
What I don't understand is why so many cEDH proponents all of a sudden think that the casually minded RC - whose focus has always been on the casual side of things - should be obligated to moderate their format, too.
I think the ideal is a RC that encompasses all ends of the format, from the "ladies looking left" end to the "what do you mean, you don't play Force of Will?" end. EDH is everyone's format, and the RC should include everyone.
A ban would do more good than ill, there are currently more cEDH players detrimented by Flash than casuals who even play the card. If you want to hold a format hostage to feel like you got even with that one pubstomper at your LGS, I have little sympathy for your points.
While utilitarianism understandably rubs a lot of members here the wrong way, especially if the cost-benefit analysis doesn't agree with their personal opinion, from my personal perspective it is the right call. That's how society works: there are always winners and losers, and nobody is forcing you to stay if you happen to be part of the minority.
He dragged all the pubstompers out and whomped them with better decks until they all stepped it up and became part of the CEDH community.
Once again, this is a great heart-warming story, and of course I'd love this to happen always, but one "happily ever after" story does not mean the cEDH community has some magic power to solve all that is wrong with EDH. The schoolyard bully approach of "have the biggest guy beat up the smaller guys" is a personal favorite, but I can't see this as a widely-endorsed policy, nor should the cEDH community be stuck with the responsibility of draining the cesspool.
"What do cEDH players feel would be the right amount a card is played in order to be "safe" from a banning?" That is, where is the cutoff to where a card is busted in cEDH but is still used enough by "casuals" to be safe from a banning based on that criterion?
In my opinion, perhaps a bit too weighted toward utilitarianism and competitive balance not to be at odds with the EDH community's approach, for any card it's simple: if more players are hurt by its presence in the format than actively benefit from it, regardless how they're split between casual and competitive, that's a fair criterion for a ban, that is, if we aren't taking my favorite approach of "pretty much everything is unbanned, if you don't like a card, suck it up." A card like Cyclonic Rift is in somewhat of a reverse position to Flash where it's seen in cEDH but quite infrequently, yet often brings the same feel-bad moments that Flash does. And of course, if there were a proposed ban, of course the minority of players that uses it in a "fun way" would crawl out of the woodwork and complain that their jank is more important than competitive balance.
I think your second point is extremely important. The double standard that casual players should use rule 0 but competitive players can't is a dangerous attitude since the natural philosophical result of that attitude is that casual players don't need a banlist and the list should focus on competitive balance.
While this is obviously not the widely-held opinion, I don't believe in rule 0. Players playing weaker decks should be willing to accept that while they can still have fun (and in most healthy formats people playing weaker decks should still be having fun, otherwise something is clearly quite wrong), it's an inevitability that they will lose to better decks. Likewise, players should accept that playing to the utmost highest standard means playing what is best, not playing decks which one wishes to be best and complaining they aren't on the top of the food chain anymore. If it wasn't obvious by now, I am somewhat of a masochist.
I don't like this much myself as it amounts to a soft banlist, and that could lead to particularly vocal players insisting that all named cards should be banned
I have enough faith that players can figure out which cards are causing problems in their playgroup and resolve those issues, either by playing better decks or through other means.
The main problem I envision with another format that is disconnected is it splits the party into guys who want to stay playing EDH and the new crew. Then the people who stay behind revert to pubstomping for lack of anyone to play with.
Certainly. Under the assumption (which is most likely true) that pubstompers want to maximize their personal win-rate, the optimal means of doing this is avoiding players who play similarly-powered decks. Creating a new format won't stop them unless the regular EDH banlist is somehow adjusted to force power levels to be uniform, and that is a bad idea for countless reasons.
Whether or not you feel that's false righteousness or whatever is up to you
I agree. Righteousness can't be used as code for "I fundamentally disagree with my opinion, so I will create a straw man and attack all of you so inwardly I know that the opinion I've always held is right."
But that's fine, and honestly is part of what makes EDH such a fantastic format: it's really what you make of it with your friends and other players.
This is certainly an argument for the most lax official policies as possible, and to quote Federalist 10, that serves quite well to quell the "mischiefs of faction".
Does the fact that the RC wants to cater to a more battlecruiser type of EDH mean that a given cEDH player's opinion is actually less valuable than the average player's?
Great question. It certainly does appear to be the case, and while the other argument is often that cEDH players matter more because they spend more money on their decks, spend more time analyzing things, are smarter, or whatever else, fundamentally their relative worth should be equivalent. If a policy benefits more players than it hurts, it should be implemented. And I assume there are far more cEDH players who are affected by Flash and non-cEDH sympathizers who've never seen Flash played, but support competitive balance and not tossing out a group of players to the curb because they hold different opinions, than those who say "I play Flash to drain life with Kokusho, I'm special and creative! Those cEDH players could never figure out such fun interactions because they're too busy gouging each other's eyes with rusty spoons or drinking moonshine, I'm sure".
Is my fun less important than RxPhantoms?
Yes, because you don't have the common decency to go to your mildewy basement and play masturbatory solitaire with similar societal misfits while everyone else drinks beer, eats chips, and judiciously avoids stax, infinites, MLD, or winning. Similarly, RxPhantom's opinion is less important than yours because they don't have the common decency to roll up to FNM smelling of moldy Doritos with their anime girl playmat in hand playing their "only artists who are Sagittariuses who have lived in New Jersey and dislike opera" deck, primed to body slam the first player who plays Kiki combo because prizes are on the line.