Having Your Voice Heard

[toctheyounger]

Yeah, Iona just feels bad. And as much as I'm reluctant to delve into the murky waters of Coalition Victory discussion - it's been done to death and back again - the format gains nothing by having it released into the wild. While it might not be the prime example of what ought to be on the ban list, it's just a stupid card, so there really isn't any point in it coming off the list.

[Hermes_]

I'm going to state the obvious but it seems to me that it's both sides who failed over this whole communication thing. For example, the poll I did weeks ago,showed that out of the 75 who responded, 61% never visited MTGCommander the official forums for the format. The question I asked was "Before the week of July 7-13 did you visit and or know about any of the following websites?" I put both sal and commander.net,along with nexus (why i don't know). The other side of that coin has been pointed out is/was the lack of some sort of presence on reddit. even if it's just to post links to threads elsewhere.
Now I'm willing to admit that reddit isn't the best place for long term discussion and it can be an echo chamber. But I do think that going foward the RC/CAG should at the very least post a thread link to on going discussions about cards that take place either here or over at mtgcommander. As for redditors, I think they should be willing to come out of the rabbit hole and par take in the discussions even if it's only on the official forums.

RE :Iona..with the ban announcement one of the players in my group posted "Ding dong the witch is dead"

[benjameenbear]

In regards to Iona, I will say that it's made playing a mono-Colored deck against my wife's Kaalia deck WAY less painful, so I've got some positive feedback on that aspect.

I'll always be sad that Engine is dead though...

[Zealcat]

Then, I see messages like this from the creator of the format:

BTW, I'm willing to have this discussion in other places as well. I'd even consider reddit when it stops being actively hostile and troll-infested.

This makes me feel like:

• I am not currently a voice that the RC/CAG hears when curating the format.
• I will never be heard, because of where I choose to discuss the format.
• The founder of the format is willing to sling insults at me, and how I identify with the format (talk about actively hostile! I recognize that I'm an individual, and the comment was not directed at me specifically, but its like sitting with your minority friend, and you tell them that members of their minority are all rapists and thieves. They likely won't be your friend after that point, and that's about how I feel right now. Intentional or not, this is the image that you're crafting for yourself, the RC, and the format as a whole.)
• Not only are entire subsets of the player population intentionally ignored, but the RC is incapable of getting THEIR voices heard by the community at large.
• I think this last point is more important that individual members of the community having their voices heard by the RC

I want to point out this post as one of many where the problem isn't what Sheldon said. It's this person deciding everything is about them, playing the victim, and taking what he said as personally as possible. I'm also a regular lurker of reddit /edh and it definitely is troll infested and not conducive to productive discussion. That doesn't mean I've labeled myself a troll just because I use reddit; I'm just capable of being honest about the medium.

Stop and consider that not everything is about you. CEDH players, you have made the choice to play a casual format- aimed at and maintained for casual players- in a way that breaks it. No one has ever stopped you from playing it that way. Suddenly making demands of this casual format is saying your needs and desires should trump the vast majority of people playing the format as it was designed.

The RC does a difficult and thankless job and the silent majority are happy with the format. Giving in to a loud minority could be a slippery slope that will only demand more of the RC's time and effort in the future as they expect to be catered to. The only solution I can see is making a separate competitive banlist in the vein of French 1v1 which seeks to balance the format for competitive play ala Legacy and Modern, for use in tournaments like Magicfest and FNM. That way, tournament organizers don't have to fall back to the regular edh banlist which is laughable for balanced competitive play.

[Airi]

Please do not invalidate or insult other users based on their views of the format. You don't have to agree with them, but it's unnecessary to turn posts personal. Everyone has their own view of what EDH should be and how the RC should engage with it. Those views are no more or less valid than anyone else's simply because they don't line up with how the RC currently handles the format as long as they are expressed cordially.