Ban List Update - Flash Banned

[MrMystery314]

I would think for any format, regardless of how competitively it is played, balance is a reasonable goal, especially when this balance doesn't come at the expense of fun. I don't think many people believe Flash being banned makes EDH less fun in any quantifiable terms other than some looming fear that maybe other cards they could care about more would be banned too.

Playing the way that we want to.

Who are you speaking for? With all the talk of "them" you're clearly referring to some group of cEDH players, but that leaves an extremely varied group of players, most of whom I imagine do not feel personally attacked or threatened by the Flash ban.

[Sheldon]

cEDH players are part of the subset of Commander players, just like Battlecruiser EDH players are. We can't pretend that they have a completely overlapping set of needs or desires. Sure, the meta-goal of "have fun" is the same, but the meaning of fun, or at least how to get there, is different.

[tstorm823]

I would think for any format, regardless of how competitively it is played, balance is a reasonable goal, especially when this balance doesn't come at the expense of fun. I don't think many people believe Flash being banned makes EDH less fun in any quantifiable terms other than some looming fear that maybe other cards they could care about more would be banned too.

Balance isn't a reasonable goal. Balance is possibly the most difficult goal that any format of any game or competition could ever even hope to achieve. You can't just toss a half measure in and say "hey, it makes things more balanced". Cause it doesn't. Balance is an impossibly difficult goal. This ban is not going to make anything more balanced. Much like the Prophet of Kruphix ban, this was addressing a popular complaint, and that's basically the extent of it.

Who are you speaking for? With all the talk of "them" you're clearly referring to some group of cEDH players, but that leaves an extremely varied group of players, most of whom I imagine do not feel personally attacked or threatened by the Flash ban.

I don't feel personally attacked or threatened by the Flash ban. I don't care about it. I don't think I've ever personally seen the card cast in this format. But I love that I don't have to care about it. I have a format full of similarly-minded enough people to play with that I don't have to deal at all with the most degenerate nonsense ever printed, be it banned or not. That's the beauty of the casual format: self-regulation.

What I take issue with isn't this ban, or even the implications of it. This ban is fine. What I take issue with is the idea that its all one harmonious combined format. Not because I think any way of playing is objectively better, but because pretending we're all doing the same thing helps nobody. cEDH IS a different format. Pretending to all be the same doesn't make people friendlier, it does exactly the opposite when competing interests are fighting over rules when they aren't even playing against one another. I don't want to play my Zedruu against a tuned Flash deck, and any respectable pilot of that deck doesn't care to play it against Zedruu. So why pretend they're the same thing?

cEDH players are part of the subset of Commander players, just like Battlecruiser EDH players are. We can't pretend that they have a completely overlapping set of needs or desires. Sure, the meta-goal of "have fun" is the same, but the meaning of fun, or at least how to get there, is different.

If two groups of players both actively want to avoid intermingling, are they really playing the same format?

[pokken]

If two groups of players both actively want to avoid intermingling, are they really playing the same format?

Depends on what you mean by mingling. There's quite a lot of cross pollination of ideas. I do think there's value in really understanding what makes decks tick.

I'm never gonna hoop with Lebron but I don't think he'd tell me I'm not playing basketball

[tstorm823]

Depends on what you mean by mingling. There's quite a lot of cross pollination of ideas. I do think there's value in really understanding what makes decks tick.

I'm never gonna hoop with Lebron but I don't think he'd tell me I'm not playing basketball

Yeah, but Lebron also isn't going to say your playground court has to be NBA regulation size. You might both be playing basketball, but the 3-point line isn't the same distance.

It's not the same format.

[pokken]

Depends on what you mean by mingling. There's quite a lot of cross pollination of ideas. I do think there's value in really understanding what makes decks tick.

I'm never gonna hoop with Lebron but I don't think he'd tell me I'm not playing basketball

Yeah, but Lebron also isn't going to say your playground court has to be NBA regulation size. You might both be playing basketball, but the 3-point line isn't the same distance.

It's not the same format.

I think it's pretty easy to stretch any metaphor to its breaking point, but I would say my intention is to interpret that stuff (court size, regulation rules, etc.) as akin to the rule 0 discussion, and the general game of basketball as Commander format -- as opposed to comparing Basketball → Magic, and then NBA format vs. Street ball as formats within Magic.

The point is I have a lot more to learn from CEDH players than I do from Modern players, as a casual EDH player, in much the same way that I have more to learn from Lebron than a professional dunker as a basketball player.

[tstorm823]

I think it's pretty easy to stretch any metaphor to its breaking point,

I would argue that I dunked on your metaphor.

but I would say my intention is to interpret that stuff (court size, regulation rules, etc.) as akin to the rule 0 discussion, and the general game of basketball as Commander format -- as opposed to comparing Basketball → Magic, and then NBA format vs. Street ball as formats within Magic.

The point is I have a lot more to learn from CEDH players than I do from Modern players, as a casual EDH player, in much the same way that I have more to learn from Lebron than a professional dunker as a basketball player.

I don't know that I would dispute any of that. But that's not really the point. People have chosen to play in a way that makes it so they can't reasonably play those decks against the majority of players. They have literally separated themselves out into a distinct play category. Playing regular edh decks against cedh is desired by neither group, and actively discouraged as pub-stomping if done without warning.

People say we're all playing the same format as though that makes people more friendly or inclusive, but it does the opposite. I don't have to worry about butting heads with legacy players, or pauper players, or even basketball players. All those people can easily recognize we're doing different things, so you don't get arguments about who's doing the thing the right way. Trying to be a big tent for all types isn't the solution to the bad blood, it's the source of it.

[pokken]

I think it's pretty easy to stretch any metaphor to its breaking point,

I would argue that I dunked on your metaphor.

I assume this is a joke but I think willfully misinterpreting a metaphor is rather the reverse of dunking

I don't know that I would dispute any of that. But that's not really the point. People have chosen to play in a way that makes it so they can't reasonably play those decks against the majority of players. They have literally separated themselves out into a distinct play category. Playing regular edh decks against cedh is desired by neither group, and actively discouraged as pub-stomping if done without warning.

You isolate yourself from at the least 50% of the format simply by building a deck. It's impossible to build a deck that does not have horrendous games with a significant portion of the format.

cEDH has done a lot for the format to advance dialog about power levels in my opinion, and has likewise seriously cut back pubstomping; the closer your deck drifts toward CEDH the smaller your pool of peers until you either need to dial it back or move to CEDH.

"Is this too close to CEDH?" is something I think people are starting to ask themselves and I see people purposefully avoiding common CEDH elements like busted acceleration and tutors.

[MrMystery314]

You isolate yourself from at the least 50% of the format simply by building a deck. It's impossible to build a deck that does not have horrendous games with a significant portion of the format.

Exactly. There's no issue when someone's "cards that start with the letter S" tribal deck isolates them from even some unambiguously casual decks, let alone anything higher on the spectrum, but they aren't refusing to play ball with everyone else, they are merely playing in a way that makes them fun. You can't kick a parent and their child off the basketball court simply you and your buddies want to play a pickup game. I don't think it's a fair assumption to insist on a separate "casual" set of rules because that automatically creates a set of "competitive" rules too, whether implicit or explicit. It's just as legal to play alliteration tribal against Shimmer Zur as it is to play Shimmer Zur against alliteration tribal; the person playing the better deck shouldn't be forced to be more responsible than the other player in that interaction if everything is made explicit beforehand. I don't like how this discussion about power level disparities always ends up somehow being the higher-power player's responsibility.

"Is this too close to CEDH?" is something I think people are starting to ask themselves and I see people purposefully avoiding common CEDH elements like busted acceleration and tutors.

This idea is partial proof that power level discussions have a way of working themselves out. Playing on Untap, I commonly see "no Mana Crypt/Sol Ring" as stipulations, even if those inclusions by no means make a deck competitive (a cEDH deck that took out all its mana acceleration will probably still win against a casual deck ramping into Grave Titan). These innovations happen with or without Flash being banned, and I'd like to think the end result is happier players.

[Sinis]

I don't think telling people to leave is ever reasonable.

I wonder if this is true.

What about when one group starts insisting on a ban to the detriment of others. It's no secret that the cEDH demographic has Opinions™ about partners. The Thrasios/Tymna combination as a shell is commonly cited as imbalanced.

So, let's say a significant number of the cEDH demographic insists on banning either Thrasios or Tymna. Let's also say they reach the same fevered pitch as they did with Flash.

For this hypothetical and in your opinion, is it reasonable to tell them to go away (as in, you wont' get your ban, tough luck), rather than ban marquee cards from commander products that people definitely enjoy?

[MrMystery314]

I think you'll find that banning partners is a far more unpopular opinion than banning flash among self-identified cEDH players at large. What I do think would be an interesting exercise would be if all the partner cards that specifically said "Partners with _______" instead worked with any other partner like the originals. I think that would be quite interesting from a deck-building perspective and from a competitive perspective, even if the most likely outcome would be a few months of 4-color soup. That would be a great idea for a temporary experiment like the Unstable legalization: generalize all partner cards to partner with any other partner card, e.g. something like Rowan Kenrith + Thrasios (why that combination specifically? I don't know.) There may need to be some rules clarification on that (if you did have that combination, could you still fetch Will Kenrith from your deck when you played Rowan? I'd assume the answer is yes), but I think that's an example of a relatively harmless experiment.

[Airi]

For this hypothetical and in your opinion, is it reasonable to tell them to go away (as in, you wont' get your ban, tough luck), rather than ban marquee cards from commander products that people definitely enjoy?

I don't think this is going to be a fair hypothetical, because I am generally for banning in favor of cEDH, far more than the RC or most of the player base is. So if it came to that, I'd ultimately support it.

As a whole group though? Yeah, no. They are as much a part of us as every other sub-EDH demographic. Just because I don't personally find the method of play enjoyable doesn't mean I think it has no value. But, seeing cEDH players at least treated like valued members of our community has been my pet cause since long before I was modded back on MTGS, so I'm probably pretty set in my views. I can understand why people oppose the flash bad, but I also think if it were my community, I'd want the same understanding and at least respectful treatment I feel anyone else deserves.

[tstorm823]

I assume this is a joke but I think willfully misinterpreting a metaphor is rather the reverse of dunking

Do you know what the reverse of dunking is?

SPOILER

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Still dunking.

cEDH has done a lot for the format to advance dialog about power levels in my opinion, and has likewise seriously cut back pubstomping; the closer your deck drifts toward CEDH the smaller your pool of peers until you either need to dial it back or move to CEDH.

Yes. Good. cEDH is good for casual EDH because in most cases people are acknowledging and embracing the clear distinction between competitive play and everyone else. Accepting that difference in play is good for everyone.

[cryogen]

I don't think telling people to leave is ever reasonable.

I wonder if this is true.

What about when one group starts insisting on a ban to the detriment of others. It's no secret that the cEDH demographic has Opinions™ about partners. The Thrasios/Tymna combination as a shell is commonly cited as imbalanced.

So, let's say a significant number of the cEDH demographic insists on banning either Thrasios or Tymna. Let's also say they reach the same fevered pitch as they did with Flash.

For this hypothetical and in your opinion, is it reasonable to tell them to go away (as in, you wont' get your ban, tough luck), rather than ban marquee cards from commander products that people definitely enjoy?

The thing to keep in mind is that the RC is taking the majority into their consideration primarily. They have received Strong Opinions on Flash for over a year now, and took their time in part because they probably weighed the ramifications of making a "cEDH only" ban, but also because they wanted to consider how it would affect their main base. I would suspect that a ban which impacted the majority more directly (such as the hypothetical partner ban) would be approached much differently and likely you would find that they decide in favor of no action since it would hurt the majority in order to please the minority.

[onering]

I would think for any format, regardless of how competitively it is played, balance is a reasonable goal, especially when this balance doesn't come at the expense of fun. I don't think many people believe Flash being banned makes EDH less fun in any quantifiable terms other than some looming fear that maybe other cards they could care about more would be banned too.

Playing the way that we want to.

Who are you speaking for? With all the talk of "them" you're clearly referring to some group of cEDH players, but that leaves an extremely varied group of players, most of whom I imagine do not feel personally attacked or threatened by the Flash ban.

Balance is impossible with a format like this. It can be achieved in standard due to a small card pool and design and development crafting for it, and to some extent in modern (but even there balance is a pretty tenuous and fragile thing propped up by copious bans). Vintage and Legacy are not balanced, they skew heavily towards their own defining aspects. In Vintage, that is a set of archetypes that can best abuse the most broken cards, which is varied but not balanced, and Legacy, while highly varied, is also highly blue centric and defined by brainstorm and FoW. Commander, with a cardpool as large as vintage and Legacy but more built in randomness in some ways and the inherently unbalancing feature of the commander itself is an impossible format to balance. Even getting as close as vintage or legacy would require banning far too many cards to be worth it.

Banning Flash will make cEDH more healthy, but it will not make it close to balanced. It will make it more balanced yes, but only because it had degenerated into the most unbalanced state a format can get, the top deck and the deck built to beat it. Becoming somewhat more balanced, while still being extremely unbalanced, is a side effect of removing what cEDH players described as a toxic play experience that Flash caused. cEDH had been nearly as unbalanced in the past, but the decks causing it weren't as toxic and the RC let it sort itself out with time, which is usually going to be inevitable as more sets get released and the top players use the new cards to beat the old top decks. With Flash that proved unlikely, but with Flash gone the format will remain in a state of severe unbalance. I can't predict what decks will shake out of this beyond some form of consultation oracle led by the partners, but it's almost certainly going to be a format defined by fast combo, maybe stax, and maybe a hate bear deck like bloodpod, and maybe some form of control that leads to a slightly slower combo. That's an extremely unbalanced format, and the RC should do nothing to change it.

[Drusus]

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

If they are treated with less seriousness, I don't think you get to say you can treat them with more respect as you don't think they should be treated seriously.

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.

Because they are. The only ones who don't are contrarians who actively move against the grain. Even a casual player is just simply tuning their deck to make its function better. They don't immediately make the distinction of Casual Vs Compeitive because its just a natural thing to do in every other format of magic. Its only viewed as a sin in EDH.

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.

Smells like "Not all Scotsman" fallacy getting wafted in this thread. Because even in the normal EDH reddit they were celebrating the ban of Flash.

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

I think you do venture underground get away from the light of what is considered the norm. I mean its why the format was born in the first place, a grassroots movement with contrarian ideals to get away from people who played the same thing.

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.

NO TRUE SCOTSMAN FALLACY. (bolded for emphasis)

You don't want the inclusiveness of both the casual, semi-competive and competive edh players. You want to create camps so you can hide behind things like Rule 0. Meanwhile CEDH games play the game in both spirit and letter of the law of the deckbuilding restrictions and banlist. If they really didn't care about your banlist, they would have made their own.

AND the MTGNexus and MTGSalvation boards are basically ghost towns which is why the contrarians try to stay here and not go to places like Reddit or Twitter as they barely get any support and are actually seen as the minority on many topics regarding EDH.

[Dragoon]

AND the MTGNexus and MTGSalvation boards are basically ghost towns which is why the contrarians try to stay here and not go to places like Reddit or Twitter as they barely get any support and are actually seen as the minority on many topics regarding EDH.

Just jumping in but you do realize that even if you sum up all people here, on MTGS, on Reddit and on Twitter, they would still be a minority of all EDH players, right? It's not for nothing that the biggest format of Magic is still "pile-of-cards on the kitchen table", way above Commander. "True" casual players are way more numerous than any "invested" player (not talking about competitive, just players who are so invested in Magic that they will go on forums and other sites to keep themselves informed and tchat with fellow invested players). I feel like people always forget that and think they are obviously the majority and that their voice needs to be heard more than anything else. Heck, in my playgroup, some people were playing the game since Revised and they didn't know who Mark Rosewater was until I told them.

[Drusus]

AND the MTGNexus and MTGSalvation boards are basically ghost towns which is why the contrarians try to stay here and not go to places like Reddit or Twitter as they barely get any support and are actually seen as the minority on many topics regarding EDH.

Just jumping in but you do realize that even if you sum up all people here, on MTGS, on Reddit and on Twitter, they would still be a minority of all EDH players, right? It's not for nothing that the biggest format of Magic is still "pile-of-cards on the kitchen table", way above Commander. "True" casual players are way more numerous than any "invested" player (not talking about competitive, just players who are so invested in Magic that they will go on forums and other sites to keep themselves informed and tchat with fellow invested players). I feel like people always forget that and think they are obviously the majority and that their voice needs to be heard more than anything else. Heck, in my playgroup, some people were playing the game since Revised and they didn't know who Mark Rosewater was until I told them.

"True" Casual Players? Oh more 'No True Scotsman' getting wafted in here.
Oh how the game is only big because "pile-of-cards on the kitchen table"? Bandwagon.
Citing an event that applies to an experience when it came to the knowledge of Mark Rosewater? Anecdotal.
Saying that "true" casual players are more numerous than any "invested" player? Is that Black-or-White I see?
In general your post smells like Special Pleading AKA Moving Goalposts.

Its been fun dissecting these sorts of posts as it usually involves ripping out the falsehoods in these sorts of arguments. However I got better things to do.

<Removed.>

Infraction for trolling. -Airi

[Segrus]

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.

NO TRUE SCOTSMAN FALLACY. (bolded for emphasis)

Enough cEDH players who we trust have convinced us that it is the only change they need for the environment they seek to cultivate. Though they represent a small fraction of the Commander playerbase, we are willing to make this effort for them.

This was taken directly from the ban announcement. The ban announcement is stating the banning is explicitly for cEDH. There's no fallacy in what you've quoted. You may want to take a step back to reread and understand what the 'No true Scotsman' fallacy is.

[Dragoon]

Wow, what a wave of vitriol. Sorry, I'm not a native english speaker and I feel like there are some cultural differences which make me not understand some parts of your post.

"True" Casual Players? Oh more 'No True Scotsman' getting wafted in here.

I don't know what that "True Scotsman" is supposed to be referring to so I can't really comment on it. I was just using the "true" term to help distinguish what I called casual players in my post a.k.a people who play the game without going on websites and forums to get more knowledge about it.

Oh how the game is only big because "pile-of-cards on the kitchen table"? Bandwagon.

I don't understand that part either. Sure, there is a bandwagon effect, like for any other game. What does this have to do with anything?

Citing an event that applies to an experience when it came to the knowledge of Mark Rosewater? Anecdotal.

I never claimed anything else. Obviously, this is anecdotal evidence, it is used to illustrate what I'm saying, not prove it.

Saying that "true" casual players are more numerous than any "invested" player? Is that Black-or-White I see?

That's just a fact. Stated by WotC and MaRo on multiple occasions. A fact is a fact, our personal opinion doesn't matter.

In general your post smells like Special Pleading AKA Moving Goalposts.

I don't understand that either but I doesn't look like a compliment. And saying something like "In general" following by "your post" seems a bit contradictory. Who was talking about anecdotal evidence again?

[DirkGently]

It's like somebody heard that you win arguments if you can name a fallacy that vaguely sounds like it might be applicable to what's being said. Without actually addressing any of the arguments or knowing what any of the fallacies mean.

[cryogen]

AND the MTGNexus and MTGSalvation boards are basically ghost towns which is why the contrarians try to stay here and not go to places like Reddit or Twitter as they barely get any support and are actually seen as the minority on many topics regarding EDH.

Or maybe people just like coming here because they get a different experience that they can't on Twitter or Reddit. Even things as simple as having the ability to personalize their profile, or hold a linear conversation without the added difficulty of downvotes or timeline algorithms interfering, or relying on external sites for decklist support are things you don't get with Twitter or Reddit.

[Airi]

Friendly reminder that it's getting a bit heated again, let's not toe the line on insults please.

[pokken]

It's like somebody heard that you win arguments if you can name a fallacy that vaguely sounds like it might be applicable to what's being said. Without actually addressing any of the arguments or knowing what any of the fallacies mean.

I think most people don't realize that almost all arguments will align to a fallacy. I'd go so far as to say any argument that is the least but subjective will sniff of a fallacy if you look hard enough.

Fundamentally most fallacies have a "this is okay if you're not exaggerating the likelihood or effect" qualifier, e.g. lots of slopes are slippery and lots of consequences are bad and sometimes a person's authority or motives are relevant.

[MrMystery314]

Quoting a laundry list of logical fallacies to make MTGNexus users seem like cave trolls hiding in their den, occasionally venturing outside to steal a goat to savagely rip apart with their bare teeth, isn't doing much to help your argument. You're quite correct, honestly, but your delivery is off.