Since the amount of banned cards has seemed to increase with the frequency of sets being released, maybe (now this might just seem pure out and out crazy talk here), maybe if UDE slowed down on the releases and actually play tested the new cards better then they wouldn't have to ban 3-4 cards per set.

Honestly, this is what kills TCGs. Making cards useless by banning them, but still continue printing them and selling them. Pretty soon, people stop buying the TCG because of the B.S.

Yeah, you draw into this card if you are lucky and you ... force your opponent to KO a character that they can just recruit again.

Ingenious.

The banned list is as follows:

Antarctic Research Base
Detective Chimp, Bobo T. Chimpanzee
Dr. Light, Master of Holograms
Fiddler, Isaac Bowin
Frankie Raye™ ◊ Nova, Optimistic Youth (Effective Feb. 9, 2007)
Go Down Fighting
Gone But Not Forgotten
Justice League of Arkham
Nenora™, Skrull Usurper (Effective Feb. 9, 2007)
Overload
Talia, LexCorp CEO
Valeria Von Doom, Heir to Latveria

That's TWELVE CARDS.

If you somehow got a magic pack that had every one of these cards AND a foil copy of one of these cards ... you'd STILL have 1 card in the pack that wasn't banned.

LESS THAN A SINGLE PACKS WORTH OF CARDS ARE BANNED.

In how any sets?

Twelve sets.

That's a ONE CARD PER SET AVERAGE.

And that isn't counting any of the starters.

MOR - 220 cards
DOR - 165 cards
MSM - 165 cards
DSM - 165 cards
Every set forward - 220 cards [not counting a SINGLE reprint in Marvel Knights]

So that is 220 x 9 + 165 x 3 - 1 = 2474

Now, there is the Batman starter, the X-Men starter and the Fan Four starter. There should be at LEAST 26 more cards between those three. So let's round it up to 2500 ...

12/2500 = 0.5%

That's 1 in 200.

2 cards from MOR banned.
1 card from DOR banned.
1 card from DSM banned.
1 card from DGL banned.
1 card from DJL banned.
1 card from MXM banned.
2 cards from DCS banned.
3 cards from MHG banned.

So MHG is the set with the most banned cards.

THREE.

THREE BANNED CARDS in one set.

All still playable in sealed mind you. All common cards. So at worst you'll get FOUR cards in a pack [assuming you 'duplicate' a common in the foil slot] that are banned. That's still less than a third of the cards in the pack.

But hey, why not just throw around claims like "way too many cards banned" or "every pack you get a card that has been banned". Who cares if they are ridiculously overstated, exagerated hyperbole.

Who here has gotten a copy of Nenora OR Fankie OR Valeria in EVERY PACK of Heralds?

What about DC OR Fiddler in EVERY pack of IC?

The rest aren't even worth mentioning as the only other set with more than one banned card has an uncommon and a rare ... thus SIGNIFICANTLY reducing the odds of pulling one or the other in EVERY pack you open.

Ultimately, massive overstatements and huge generalizations are NOT going to get people to rush to your cause.

Saying stuff like "Every free character needs to be banned" or "everyone on this site is a whiner" or "every pack you open will have a banned card in it" are ALL statements that basically translate to "I am blowing things out of proportion ...".

Considering that satirists will mock people by taking their opinions and blowing them out of proportion ... doing it to yourself means you risk being a satiric self-parody that undermines your own argument.

Guys, leave Walter alone, Jesus Christ.

Can we discuss something that matters, like where does Zarbon come up with those ingenious counting jokes.

Go Colts!

You might get an answer, but I wouldn't count on it.

go down fighting was in x-men not avengers.

that's why they sell singles...

Pfft.. amateur..
My build phases with Frankie were at least 20 minutes long. :)

Let's see:

Yu-Gi-Oh's banned list includes how many cards? 33, not counting anything other than strictly banned cards.

Has there been more than 33 sets for Yu-Gi-Oh? Just wondering ... don't actually know.

Magic's banned list includes how many cards?

Standard -> None
Extended -> Four
Block -> Ten [Mirrodin Block], Two [Masques Block], Seven [Urza Block], One [Tempest Block], One [Mirage Block], Four [Ice Age Block].

Number of sets per block? Three.

I won't even mention the Legacy/Vintage lists.

However ... consdering the concept of fromats similar to Gold/Silver/Modern in use [and the Magic equivalent to Golden Age isn't really a 'supported' format] all seem to indicate that banning cards does NOT lead to killing TCGs.

And I'm reasonably sure there are a number of games that haven't banned cards, but failed anyway.

Should they perhaps try to prevent future bannings in the future? Yes. However, testing for future sets does not retroactively prevent the need for bannings.

And ultimately, there are X playtesters. There are Y players. Since X < Y by a huge margin ... there is bound to be something that players find that playtesters do not.

Again ... so far there are TWELVE cards banned out of TWELVE sets. The number of cards banned is obviously going to be greater LATER in the game than later in the game:

(A) Early in the game, there are less cards, it's easier to playtest every possibility, not to mention limited search capabilities means certain combos aren't even possible.

(B) The first few sets after the initial Origin sets were a bit weaker, aiming "low" to avoid broken effects. As they've raised the level back to a comparable ammount, broken effects came with it.

(C) After the first few bannings you create an unknown state ... without Dr. Light, you have to basically 'start over' in terms of playtesting, since he was such a linchpin card in any format he was in.

(D) Enemy ... and other search cards ... have made any strategy someone can think up relatively consistent even if it requires very disparate parts [in fact, it thrives as a result]. Any 'broken' combo that would be enabled by Mobilize would have been easy to spot in playtesting ... it's mainly involving a team that is SUPPOSED to work with itself. The stuff that slips through is more likely to be some strange combination of characters ... thus Enemy is often a staple in these degenerate decks.

Yay it's the smart walter!

Don't say Enemy though. It's Flamebait.

Frankie was amazing because it allowed me to not get any sleep the night before tournaments. I could stay up all night doing whatever the #### I want and then catch up on sleep during my opponent's build phases the next day. It was really convenient.

Thanks for banning Frankie, Hump. Now this guy still stop ****ing around me before PCQs.

Sure they are banning cards but they also have the ability to redo them in a neutered way. This is evident in the fact that system failure basically replaced overload, altough taking away the free stun, and they have already said that another version of anartic research base will be released in marvel team up.

I think the bannings they have done are good for the game

Should they test more yes they should but sometimes things slip through

Team stamping Frankie would clean up alot of the crap... as in a pure Heralds deck she was far from broken. I don't understand Nenora however. My only guess is the same basic format as Frankie, but without the gamebreaking effect.

I would say that Nenora was a pre-emptive banning in order to prevent aggressive Nega-Bombing from being too easy.