Ban List Update - Flash Banned

[onering]

I don't think it's an unnatural or illogical response to react to a ban that while certainly appreciated, runs at odds with prior messaging that seems quite hostile, with a closer read than "OK, well it seems like our problem was solved!". I don't necessarily want to comb through the section about Flash and point out the phrasing that could be seen as somewhat duplicitous. It's like the Trojan horse: when a group which has vocally acted against your interests for a while comes with an olive branch, you look for some hidden meaning, even if only to predict what will happen in the future.
From the rules update:

Enough cEDH players who we trust have convinced us

I'd be quite curious to know why this took so long, who's doing the convincing, and what new arguments were made that haven't been repeated on Reddit, on this forum, or elsewhere.

Though they represent a small fraction of the Commander playerbase, we are willing to make this effort for them. It should not be taken as a signal that we are considering any kind of change in how we intend to manage the format; this is an extraordinary step, and one we are unlikely to repeat.

Fair. I don't oppose this sentiment, although I'd hope that cards that warp the metagame at any power level (whether something like Flash or something like Paradox Engine that everyone likes playing to the expense of everyone else, and that also doesn't do something automatically broken that can be used as a safe excuse) are treated with some skepticism. I'd love to see an environment cultivated where all sorts of players feel that regardless of where and how they play EDH they don't need to worry about boogeymen that can't be dealt with simply.

We use the banlist to guide players in how to approach the format and hope Flash's role on the list will be to signal "cheating things into play quickly in non-interactive ways isn't interesting, don't do that."

That statement indicates far greater faith in humanity, and EDH players specifically, than I have. For one, this signalling is ambiguous: is Show and Tell pushing it? Is Animate Dead too much? What sort of interaction should we be expected to run, Doom Blade or Force of Negation? Who is inspired by the banlist to not play similar cards that would play those similar cards if not for the banlist; for example, who would not play Jokulhaups not because they personally find it unfun, but because Worldfire is banned? Maybe I'm too cynical, but I don't trust players to take signals reliably.

We believe Commander is still best as a social-focused format and will not be making any changes to accommodate tournament play.

Fair.

Taking responsibility for your and your opponents' fun, including setting expectations with your group, is a fundamental part of the Commander philosophy.

This is better known as being a good sport, and really should be applying to every game of Magic if there isn't some extenuating circumstance like it being a tournament round.

Organizers who want to move towards more untrusted games should consider adding additional rules or guidance to create the Commander experience they want to offer.

I'm not quite sure what is meant by "untrusted" games. Are these games with strangers? Or is this for a tournament setting? This seems to be a restatement of rule 0 to some degree, but with the added layer for more potential disagreements, especially when playing pickup games. This may be a phenomenon somewhat localized to Untap, which admittedly does not always attract the most civil players, but maybe just shy of 50% of the "casual EDH" games I play have some sort of power level debate during the game, whether it's someone playing a ludicrously underpowered deck and quitting when their first spell gets countered; someone playing an irrelevant Ensnaring Bridge so they don't get stomped by the other players with bigger boards, leading to them ragequitting and nobody leaving satisfied; or someone playing a gimmick deck like Demonlord Belzenlok and winning because nobody runs interaction, and then them being forced to explain how it's not a competitive deck and everyone else is just playing worse decks. If those experiences have taught me anything, it's to trust no game that isn't meticulously labeled beforehand, yet unsurprisingly, few people want to join those. There are always unwritten rules, like if Sen Triplets is your commander you'll become the archenemy regardless of what else you're doing (and of course this is your fault for playing an unpopular commander, yet if you try to defend yourself from this onslaught you're stalling by not having the dignity to get out of the way), and I've found the least ambiguity in games labeled as cEDH. Online, at least, nobody particularly cares for long dialogues beforehand with strangers who hold different views. If I come in thinking my deck's competitive or casual and people disagree, I'm going to be annoyed regardless if I'm right or wrong. I'd really love something like "Be nice" to be an official rule, but of course that can't happen. Power level discussions are quite hard to get consistently right with strangers.

Since he specifically said organizers, that makes me think tournaments. I see a lot of complaints online focus around rule 0s incompatibility with tournament play or edh needing balance for tournament play. I don't imagine that there are many people organizing commander pods who would outright dissuade people from discussing power level or preferences unless it's a tournament.

Even online, discussion is fairly easy, for mtgo at least. The host types what he/she is looking for in the comments, and you join based on that. The most common uses are "no infinite combos" and "cEDH game".

[tstorm823]

CEDH players are like the canary in the coal mine. They are the warning of dangers yet to come.

Well, it's been about a decade since hermit druid was the boogeyman deck, and I didn't see casual players flock to that.

Frankly, for almost the entire history of Magic: the Gathering, players in a casual group imitating tuned, competitive decks has been viciously, viciously criticized.

Let's not pretend competitive players are just ahead of the curve. The vast majority of players are plenty capable of diving into competitive formats if they so choose. (Most of us just don't want to. )

[RedCheese]

People are really taking things out proportion. I think the RC takes alot of undeserved heat, specialy for sutch a casual format. Maybe im biased because im still yet to disagreed with what ever change or ban they have done. I dunno i don't think they did wrongfull stuff to get people asking feraking Wizards to dictate Commander instead of a group of actuall players.

[TerrorChicken]

I feel like there will be a segment of the cEDH community who will see this as a successful lobby in a wider attempt to create a banlist focussed on "balanced competitive play". I hope the RC will take steps to guard against this in the future.

Speaking of which, has anyone ever seen any hypothetical "tourney banlist" from the cEDH community that they are in near-unanimous support of? Just want to see how far the current banlist is from their ideal given their hatred of the current list.

[MrMystery314]

Since he specifically said organizers, that makes me think tournaments.

That makes sense, and I think it would be an interesting idea for an article, especially with how more and more Magicfests are offering EDH on the side, offering suggestions for how sanctioned EDH play should be handled. Even if it wasn't "the intent" originally, it's clearly happening and people want it, and official guidance seems a better option than leaving it a Wild West and letting everyone figure it out for themselves. It's still somewhat of a weird topic to bring up at the end of an unrelated piece, in my opinion, but that's not to say it couldn't spark more discussion, for instance of how things like casual vs. competitive splits should be handled equitably.

I see a lot of complaints online focus around rule 0s incompatibility with tournament play or edh needing balance for tournament play.

I agree with these complaints in general. Sanctioned EDH side-events are happening whether the RC likes them or not unless they are explicitly banned, and while when playing a pickup game with friends or strangers you can certainly tinker with the rules, suggesting that in a competitive setting with prizes on the line that people try to negotiate the rules is a recipe for anarchy. Nobody's going to agree on an uniform definition of casual play besides perhaps "not competitive," which is another bag of worms entirely, and even at a "competitive" table you're going to get wildly differing notions of what is competitive or not. Inexperienced Ivan who thinks he has a pretty mean Breya deck is going to join the competitive table because he regularly beats his friends, and when he does he's going to be greeted by something wholly foreign; if he's never seen Food Chain combo or a stax deck with a win condition besides "frustrate everyone else," he's going to be in for a rough time. Similarly, if after being demolished by everyone at the competitive table he goes to the casual table, he could just as easily run into players of similar power levels or far below. This isn't a fault of EDH being unbalanced, it's the fault of this discussion being hard to have in a tournament setting when Inexperienced Ivan's trying to get some quick prize tickets before the next Mystery Booster draft. It's in his best interest to win quickly because otherwise he's wasting money; very few players will want to have spent $75 on entry and who knows how much more to lose to players with different priorities.

The host types what he/she is looking for in the comments, and you join based on that. The most common uses are "no infinite combos" and "cEDH game".

I wish it were always this simple in practice, but perhaps due to Untap's built-in tagging of games ranging from "beginner" and "janky" to "relaxed," "optimized," and "competitive," those subjective terms really don't do much to help things. There can be massive ranges of power even in "no combos or wins before turn 6" gameplay, and it feels weird to jump in a game solely labeled "competitive," ask if any power level is fine, be told yes, and be playing Shimmer Zur against Atraxa, Golos, and Daretti. Communication doesn't help there because it can't reveal true meanings of phrases for different people unless the discussion ends up being convoluted. Often the best way to figure out power levels is to play a game with whatever decks people happen to take out first and see from there who needs to scale up and who needs to scale down.

[CrazyPierre]

if4ko explained (finally) why there's not a cEDH stand-alone, it's due to card cost.
I will say that our Duel Commander league has allowed proxies of Reserved List cards only for events under two conditions:
1)The card must be visibly identical to the original
2)The card must be valuable enough to proxy, i.e. Dual-lands and Nether Void are fine, but Martyrs of Korlys or whatever unlikely.
Now, the events are "sanctioned" but stores can run casual events for store credit, which is what's done over here.

ANYWAY, that went astray. Glad for cEDH that Flash is banned, though I'd prefer Protean Hulk.
Hopefully this makes the meta slow down a bit, there should be fun stuff? If not they can just ban Thassa's Orcale next time.

[toctheyounger]

I wish it were always this simple in practice, but perhaps due to Untap's built-in tagging of games ranging from "beginner" and "janky" to "relaxed," "optimized," and "competitive," those subjective terms really don't do much to help things. There can be massive ranges of power even in "no combos or wins before turn 6" gameplay, and it feels weird to jump in a game solely labeled "competitive," ask if any power level is fine, be told yes, and be playing Shimmer Zur against Atraxa, Golos, and Daretti. Communication doesn't help there because it can't reveal true meanings of phrases for different people unless the discussion ends up being convoluted. Often the best way to figure out power levels is to play a game with whatever decks people happen to take out first and see from there who needs to scale up and who needs to scale down.

Yep, can confirm. Untap is my most common source of magic these days and it's wildly inconsistent in getting the kind of game you want. I had a 'relaxed' game where someone went for WGD/Animate combo against like casual jank. Guy was even surprised it was an issue.

For what it's worth though the silver lining is I now feel like I'm a lot less salty about dealing with differing power levels. I'll go up against whatever mostly and unless it's seriously painful I'm alright just to roll with however the game plays out.

[DirkGently]

Flash
Speaking of exceptional decisions, we are banning Flash (the mechanic, not the card).

I'm glad the RC finally stepped up. Yeva, Nature's Herald had been a problem in the format for far too long. Playing things at instant speed isn't fair to those of us who only know how to play Hearthstone. Thank goodness the RC finally saw our perspective.

Still waiting for them to ban instants and activated abilities, but baby steps. I can't wait for the day I can go to the bathroom between turns and not miss anything. And imagine the potential of EDH by mail in these days of self-isolation!

[pokken]

Still waiting for them to ban instants and activated abilities, but baby steps. I can't wait for the day I can go to the bathroom between turns and not miss anything. And imagine the potential of EDH by mail in these days of self-isolation!

Have you been playing on MTGO?

TAP OUT YIELD ALL PUT LANDS OUT RABBLERABBBLE DON'T YOU DARE TARGET MY STUFF SCOOP

[DirkGently]

Have you been playing on MTGO?

TAP OUT YIELD ALL PUT LANDS OUT RABBLERABBBLE DON'T YOU DARE TARGET MY STUFF SCOOP

Lol I'm too scurred. It takes me a while to get up the courage just to draft on Arena, let alone navigate the minefield of commander with strangers on the internet. I really only play hearthstone single player these days, when I used to play ladder it just stressed me out after a while and I was miserable to be around.

Sounds like draw-go Phelddagrif would not be much appreciated anyway =/

[pokken]

Have you been playing on MTGO?

TAP OUT YIELD ALL PUT LANDS OUT RABBLERABBBLE DON'T YOU DARE TARGET MY STUFF SCOOP

Lol I'm too scurred. It takes me a while to get up the courage just to draft on Arena, let alone navigate the minefield of commander with strangers on the internet. I really only play hearthstone single player these days, when I used to play ladder it just stressed me out after a while and I was miserable to be around.

Sounds like draw-go Phelddagrif would not be much appreciated anyway =/

People complain about the amount of interaction in my Ephara deck, which is about 1/4 what's in Pheld.

You'd win a lot though since people would start scooping around the 20 minute mark

[cryogen]

Flash
Speaking of exceptional decisions, we are banning Flash (the mechanic, not the card).

I'm glad the RC finally stepped up. Yeva, Nature's Herald had been a problem in the format for far too long. Playing things at instant speed isn't fair to those of us who only know how to play Hearthstone. Thank goodness the RC finally saw our perspective.

Still waiting for them to ban instants and activated abilities, but baby steps. I can't wait for the day I can go to the bathroom between turns and not miss anything. And imagine the potential of EDH by mail in these days of self-isolation!

Ban Interrupts you cowards.

[RxPhantom]

Flash
Speaking of exceptional decisions, we are banning Flash (the mechanic, not the card).

I'm glad the RC finally stepped up. Yeva, Nature's Herald had been a problem in the format for far too long. Playing things at instant speed isn't fair to those of us who only know how to play Hearthstone. Thank goodness the RC finally saw our perspective.

Still waiting for them to ban instants and activated abilities, but baby steps. I can't wait for the day I can go to the bathroom between turns and not miss anything. And imagine the potential of EDH by mail in these days of self-isolation!

Ban Interrupts you cowards.

Ban Mana Sources you punk beeyotches.

[Sinis]

I think the cEDH community should be taken with more seriousness and respect.

I think they should be treated with less seriousness (and maybe more respect).

You want data and knowledge on what new cards could be potentially hazardous to the format's health? Of what cards should be ignored or put on a watch list? Then working with them, instead of against them, can help make EDH more casual in the long run. As all wo play multiplayer EDH, whether casually or competitively, are part of the format. All play with the same banlist unless modified by house rules.

CEDH players are like the canary in the coal mine. They are the warning of dangers yet to come.

The problem with this whole argument is the assumption that cEDH occupies some end-of-history paradigm that all EDH players are slowly moving towards.

We are not. Flash wasn't popularly played by the casual crowd because we are not necessarily interested in playing broken cards, or inching towards optimization. cEDH players are only metaphorical canaries in the coal mine if we're all metaphorical coal miners.

But we're not. Most of us don't even venture underground.

Make no mistake: Flash was banned solely for the cEDH players, not for the 'good of all EDH players', or the 'format's health'. For those latter two, the Flash ban is almost entirely irrelevant.

[Airi]

cEDH players are EDH players, though. There are lots of cards on the banlist that don't always apply to the wider EDH community, such as Panoptic Mirror, or black Braids. Disagreeing with the shift in overall philosophy is one thing, but there are a lot of people here acting as if cEDH players are lepers, and I don't really think it's doing our community any justice.

Especially here, as MTGN has a pretty solid mix of EDH players from all degrees of competitiveness.

[Sinis]

cEDH players are EDH players, though.

I agree, and absolutely not denying 'edh-hood' to cEDH players. I don't think many, if any, people are.

Additionally, I did not make the distinction in this particular context; Drusus did, when they wrote that cEDH players are the canaries in the coal mine.

Without that distinction, the statment is "EDH players are the canary in the coal mine", which is, I guess, vacuously true.

I think when we use the term 'cEDH players', it doesn't mean "People who play the format wrong" or "People playing another format". It is shorthand for "the demographic among EDH players who are identifiable by their Rule 0 agreement that if it is legal, it is necessarily included in the kind of game they want to play." It is a demographic description, rather than an 'othering'.

It is just easier to say 'cEDH players' than "the demographic among EDH players who are identifiable by their Rule 0 agreement that if it is legal, it is necessarily included in the kind of game they want to play" every time we want to reference that demographic.

It is not intended to be exclusionary language, only descriptive. I think people like the open letter author in @Hermes_'s comment on page 2 of this thread are trying to disingenuously draw battle lines so they can paint the RC as aloof, uncaring, and exclusionary when nothing could be further from the truth, especially the day after the RC catered to the needs of that demographic.

There are lots of cards on the banlist that don't always apply to the wider EDH community, such as Panoptic Mirror, or black Braids. Disagreeing with the shift in overall philosophy is one thing, but there are a lot of people here acting as if cEDH players are lepers, and I don't really think it's doing our community any justice.

I feel like I should answer, here, even though I'm not sure it applies to me.

I don't believe cEDH players should be treated like lepers. I even wrote in my response that while cEDH players need to be taken less seriously (especially if we believe in the philosophy document the RC has published on their site) that they maybe deserve more respect.

The truth of the matter is, the polite people from 'that EDH demographic' seem to be few and far between. Our regulars are polite. Our drivebys with throwaway accounts are not. Reddit is not. Twitter is not.

At some point, you have to call a spade a spade.

[Hawk]

Since I know Sheldon looks at threads like this, allow me as a totally filthy casual to say - I am 110% fine with the Flash ban.

If you are trying to play this card "fair", you are likely better off with a variety of alternate effects to sneak in a creature be that cards that more permanently let you flash in cards or more efficient effects like Savage Summoning . It's a niche effect, one that will rarely be useful in a normal kitchen table brawl. Yes, yes, I know this is the format of niche and fun stuff - but seriously, few will miss this.

As a result, most everyone running this is running it to break it. Again, that's nothing new in Commander - people break things all the time. But that is the primary use of this card. This is not like Tooth and Nail or Flash's partner in crime Protean Hulk - it is not a card lil' Timmy is going to see flipping through an old rare binder and think "wooooooow that's awesome" and that he will use in a totally fair way. It's going to be one he cruises right over, because it isn't all that great if you aren't breaking it and has very few legitimate fair uses.

In that regard it does have some precedence - the Panoptic Mirror comparison is a good one, as that's a card that has legitimate use but that degenerates to the illegitimate use in most all cases. What's actually better, to me, is that there is little lost here - I am sad I can't chain Ghostly Flicker durdles with Mirror because everyone else was busy taking infinite turns. Here - as a casual player I lose basically nothing by this being out of the format.

What is unprecedented is that they even mentioned cEDH as a reason, and that this is a card that doesn't get broken "by accident", which has previously been the reason that Mirror, Paradox Engine, or Biorhythm got the axe. But to me that's fine; again from an optics perspective I think this card causes less consternation than any of those cards, the ones that a non-invested player might jam and then be annoyed when they show up to Commander Night are illegal. In that regard, I think dropping Flash and preserving Hulk was absolutely the best call.

So yay for Flash ban. It affects not a single deck in my entire playgroups 30+ decks. And in a few months, if they decide to similarly drop the hammer on Demonic Consultation while preserving Thassa's Oracle I'll be here for that too.

[HoffOccultist]

It is not intended to be exclusionary language, only descriptive. I think people like the open letter author in Hermes_'s comment on page 2 of this thread are trying to disingenuously draw battle lines so they can paint the RC as aloof, uncaring, and exclusionary when nothing could be further from the truth, especially the day after the RC catered to the needs of that demographic.

Although I disagree some with your ending point (I think it's more that the worst people among those who enjoy cEDH happen to crow the loudest, while many players engage in places outside of reddit/here/twitter and are not particularly toxic), but this particular part of your post is 100% the case.

The fact that some other folks in the cEDH and EDH reddits and other communities are so busy reading the rules announcement so very disingenuously and then complaining about "tone" is so absolutely problematic, and cuts to the issue with more leveled discussions being drowned out by some of these bad actors crowing so loudly.

Heck, the announcement even made reference to the fact that the RC is listening to cEDH players--but some of these knuckleheads are unhappy it's not them specifically being listened to, and that's completely absurd.

[pokken]

There is definitely a subset of the community that paints literally everything the RC does as bad because they have a political agenda to undermine them. The agenda is - as near as I can tell - to oust the RC and have the format run with competitive balance as the focus. Thankfully this appears to be a minority and not a position held by the most influential folks in the CEDH community.

It's tough because on one hand you don't want to dismiss arguments because of their motivations (fallacious argument from motives) but you can't neglect the possibility that the argument is in fact disingenuous.

The reason you can't just focus exclusively on the argument is because you can't rebut a disingenuous argument effectively; the arguer's mind can't be changed and they'll just pivot to another argument, so engaging with them is never going to bear fruit. And it muddies the water.

It has some parallels to the Just Asking Questions thing that conspiracy theorists do to legitimize wacky ideas -- when they draw the RC into these debates and get them to deny being big old meanies the mere act of denial gives some legitimacy to the accusation, which is patently ridiculous.

[onering]

I see a lot of complaints online focus around rule 0s incompatibility with tournament play or edh needing balance for tournament play.

I agree with these complaints in general. Sanctioned EDH side-events are happening whether the RC likes them or not unless they are explicitly banned, and while when playing a pickup game with friends or strangers you can certainly tinker with the rules, suggesting that in a competitive setting with prizes on the line that people try to negotiate the rules is a recipe for anarchy. Nobody's going to agree on an uniform definition of casual play besides perhaps "not competitive," which is another bag of worms entirely, and even at a "competitive" table you're going to get wildly differing notions of what is competitive or not. Inexperienced Ivan who thinks he has a pretty mean Breya deck is going to join the competitive table because he regularly beats his friends, and when he does he's going to be greeted by something wholly foreign; if he's never seen Food Chain combo or a stax deck with a win condition besides "frustrate everyone else," he's going to be in for a rough time. Similarly, if after being demolished by everyone at the competitive table he goes to the casual table, he could just as easily run into players of similar power levels or far below. This isn't a fault of EDH being unbalanced, it's the fault of this discussion being hard to have in a tournament setting when Inexperienced Ivan's trying to get some quick prize tickets before the next Mystery Booster draft. It's in his best interest to win quickly because otherwise he's wasting money; very few players will want to have spent $75 on entry and who knows how much more to lose to players with different priorities.

Here's the thing: this format was created to be a casual format, with the rules and banlist tailored to casual play. If people want to organize tournaments around a format that is explicitly designed for casual, and whose creators and stewards don't think it serves well as a tournament format, that's fine for them, but they should not expect that the RC will change the purpose of the format to cater to their needs. Tournaments are not the intended function of commander, and they are not the way the majority of the playerbase plays commander, and they do not represent the majority of games of commander (in case anyone thinks that some ultra committed minority plays so many games in tournaments that those games outnumber those played casually). If organizers are organizing paid commander tournaments with prizes on the line, that's their responsibility alone, and the RC is under no obligation to make those events work, nor should they try. The simplest answer to these events is to assume that if an event is a paid tournament, you should bring a tier 1 deck or expect to lose, unless your a pro with a new build that you think is the secret tech. That is, fundamentally, the same as any Standard or Modern tournament, or really any competitive format's tournament except maybe Legacy (because Legacy is surprisingly open to viable rogue decks).

The fact is that the RC isn't suggesting rule 0 be used for tournaments. The mere fact that it is a tournament defines the expectations that everyone should have, that you should expect to face the most efficient decks with the highest win percentages in the meta and that if you bring something too weak to compete too bad so sad. I have no sympathy for Inexperience Ivan bringing in Breya and getting trashed by a table of real cEDH decks in a tournament, no more than I would have if he brought his pet deck that wrecks scrubs at FNO to a qualifier and got schooled.

The complaints I see online about rule 0 being incompatible with tournament play don't revolve around things like "we want to run 75% tournaments," but around things like "we want edh tournaments to be more like standard tournaments." They are essentially complaints about the nature of the format not really being good for tournament play (which the RC recognizes) and wanting changes made to make edh better suited to tournament play, and saying that rule 0 is garbage because they have an idea for the sort of games they want for tournaments but they can't rule 0 it into existence, because tournaments need a concrete set of rules. One of the big things is fast mana rocks adding an increased luck factor to edh, that sometimes a player with a sol ring or mana crypt in a cEDH game is just going to be able to win on the spot, because that early mana advantage is even more significant at high level play than in casual as it can be leveraged into early win lines. EDH is rife with things that are capable of giving players an early advantage, and these generally are more problematic at higher levels of play, and are barriers to a balanced tournament format that prioritizes skilled play over lucky draws. The whole magic online specific banlist debacle was predicated on this problem. Many, the RC included, believe that commander will never be balanced and a viable tournament format, and that attempting to do so will create an ever expanding banlist that still fails to accomplish its mission. What the RC is saying is that, if others want to attempt it, they are free to and encouraged to, but the RC will not be a part of it. The RC has to their credit never stood in the way of outsiders creating variant formats or pursuing goals that the RC wouldn't (like creating competitive variants), and they have encouraged those people in their efforts because they see what they are doing as just another example of the player base taking commander and making it their own.

As a side note about Rule 0, any of these variant formats are applications of rule 0. EDH is the umbrella format, but all the subformats, and any competitive minded banlist that someone might come up with, are applications of rule 0, because they are just people taking the base rules of commander and modifying them to what they want to be. As I said before, tournaments set expectations by their very nature as tournaments, so in a way they are engaging in rule 0 without saying it, because by being a paid tournament they are setting the expectation that its build and play to win, be cutthroat, no variant rules.

[onering]

cEDH players are EDH players, though.

I agree, and absolutely not denying 'edh-hood' to cEDH players. I don't think many, if any, people are.

Additionally, I did not make the distinction in this particular context; Drusus did, when they wrote that cEDH players are the canaries in the coal mine.

Without that distinction, the statment is "EDH players are the canary in the coal mine", which is, I guess, vacuously true.

I think when we use the term 'cEDH players', it doesn't mean "People who play the format wrong" or "People playing another format". It is shorthand for "the demographic among EDH players who are identifiable by their Rule 0 agreement that if it is legal, it is necessarily included in the kind of game they want to play." It is a demographic description, rather than an 'othering'.

It is just easier to say 'cEDH players' than "the demographic among EDH players who are identifiable by their Rule 0 agreement that if it is legal, it is necessarily included in the kind of game they want to play" every time we want to reference that demographic.

It is not intended to be exclusionary language, only descriptive. I think people like the open letter author in Hermes_'s comment on page 2 of this thread are trying to disingenuously draw battle lines so they can paint the RC as aloof, uncaring, and exclusionary when nothing could be further from the truth, especially the day after the RC catered to the needs of that demographic.

There are lots of cards on the banlist that don't always apply to the wider EDH community, such as Panoptic Mirror, or black Braids. Disagreeing with the shift in overall philosophy is one thing, but there are a lot of people here acting as if cEDH players are lepers, and I don't really think it's doing our community any justice.

I feel like I should answer, here, even though I'm not sure it applies to me.

I don't believe cEDH players should be treated like lepers. I even wrote in my response that while cEDH players need to be taken less seriously (especially if we believe in the philosophy document the RC has published on their site) that they maybe deserve more respect.

The truth of the matter is, the polite people from 'that EDH demographic' seem to be few and far between. Our regulars are polite. Our drivebys with throwaway accounts are not. Reddit is not. Twitter is not.

At some point, you have to call a spade a spade.

%$#% on Reddit aren't representative. The %$#% are always the loudest. Most polite and reasonable cEDH players probably avoid those cesspools because they get %$#% on as much there as anyone else because they are willing to take casual into account and don't want to crucify the RC.

Infraction for flaming - cryo

[tstorm823]

cEDH players are lepers, and I don't really think it's doing our community any justice.

cEDH players are part of the same community, sure, because they probably also play regular Commander or are friends with people who do.

But cEDH players are making an active decision to play the format differently than the majority, including seemingly the founders of the format. It also needs to be understood that the people in that majority are also making the active decision to play in the way that we do. We choose to play this casual format casually because it's casual. When the accusation is "you don't care about the competitive metagame", the answer is "yes, exactly!" Not having to care about competitive metagames or hyper-specific deck optimization is a genuinely likeable differentiator that EDH has going for it. For people who don't want the competitive aspect of Magic, or who want a break from competition to just relax and do dumb things, Commander is home. So when someone comes in and claims that the ban list leads to unbalanced degenerate play and an unhealthy competitive metagame, the instinct is to say "I'm here explicitly to not care about that crap, go away." Which is a bit harsh, but completely reasonable.

%$#% on Reddit aren't representative. The %$#% are always the loudest. Most polite and reasonable cEDH players probably avoid those cesspools because they get %$#% on as much there as anyone else because they are willing to take casual into account and don't want to crucify the RC.

Most cEDH players probably aren't complaining at all to a wider audience because they take responsibility for the ways in which they choose to play the game rather than yell about hoping someone will fix their problems for them.

[Airi]

cEDH players are part of the same community, sure, because they probably also play regular Commander or are friends with people who do.

But cEDH players are making an active decision to play the format differently than the majority, including seemingly the founders of the format. It also needs to be understood that the people in that majority are also making the active decision to play in the way that we do. We choose to play this casual format casually because it's casual.

That's not really true of all of us though. I probably don't play this format the way the founders intended, since they focus more on social aspects of the game, and I focus more on my personal deck building and game play experience, since I largely play with random players. At the same time, I would be laughed out of a cEDH game with any of my decks, so it's not as if I'm a particularly competitive player.

When the accusation is "you don't care about the competitive metagame", the answer is "yes, exactly!" Not having to care about competitive metagames or hyper-specific deck optimization is a genuinely likeable differentiator that EDH has going for it. For people who don't want the competitive aspect of Magic, or who want a break from competition to just relax and do dumb things, Commander is home.

It's also home to those of use who really like the personal aspect that EDH has that isn't found in other formats. There's a lot of personal identity you can express in your decks, your general, the color identity, etc. that you don't find in other formats. I love playing Legacy on occasion, but I have never felt the same attachment to any of my decks there that I do to my generals, where they are a part of my self expression.

So when someone comes in and claims that the ban list leads to unbalanced degenerate play and an unhealthy competitive metagame, the instinct is to say "I'm here explicitly to not care about that crap, go away." Which is a bit harsh, but completely reasonable.

I don't think telling people to leave is ever reasonable. There are plenty of things about our current banlist I abhor, especially in this update (Companion), but I recognize that those bans do serve a group even if I disagree with it.

I'm certainly willing to die on my pet hills for the cause, but I'm never going to tell people who play the game differently than me that they should find something else to do. That defeats the very spirit of EDH to me, the personalization. Like I said, I totally can see people disagreeing with the philosophy changes, and I'm content to let ya'll have that debate out. But the way people talk about cEDH players is just... really sad to me.

[tstorm823]

I'm certainly willing to die on my pet hills for the cause, but I'm never going to tell people who play the game differently than me that they should find something else to do. That defeats the very spirit of EDH to me, the personalization. Like I said, I totally can see people disagreeing with the philosophy changes, and I'm content to let ya'll have that debate out. But the way people talk about cEDH players is just... really sad to me.

You're reading it backwards. It's not telling people who play the game differently that they should find something else to do. It's telling them that we're doing something else. It's not an attack or insult to tell someone you're playing a different game than them. We're here doing something fundamentally different than competitive Magic. Playing the way that we want to. I'm sure most cEDH players understand that. We're not playing the same game. This isn't competitive Magic.

[Airi]

You're reading it backwards. It's not telling people who play the game differently that they should find something else to do. It's telling them that we're doing something else. It's not an attack or insult to tell someone you're playing a different game than them. We're here doing something fundamentally different than competitive Magic. Playing the way that we want to. I'm sure most cEDH players understand that. We're not playing the same game. This isn't competitive Magic.

I think you're mistaking me talking about you personally, rather than the overall EDH community. cEDH players are routinely told to gtfo and make their own format, and I don't find that to be acceptable, which is largely what I have been commenting on the last few posts.

I think we're going to have a fundamental disagreement here, because EDH is not a casual format to me. It's a format with unique deck building rules, and a million different ways to play it, and it's no more a casual format than it is a competitive one. I certainly can't change your view of the format, but hopefully that at least explains why I don't like the stance that we're all not the same community, and why I'm phrasing this the way I am.