creeper's the best

It's the Penguin and don't even try to pretend otherwise.



wah wah wah

I'm pretty sure that's exactly what he meant. He's looking for discussion on exactly how much to ban.

I realize that Prosak may "not appreciate" the following input, but I believe it is valid input none-the-less.

I myself, am primarily a casual player. I will openly admit that I am more concerned with the state of the casual gaming base than the balance of the top level tournaments. I hope that this doesn't cause people like Prosak to dismiss my arguement (although I fear it may), but rather just to accept it in context as a voice from a different part of the community.

Also, I would like to state that I am working under a major assumption that I whole-heartedly believe based on my long experience as an avid casual CCG player.

That assumption is as follows:

When a card becomes banned - it is commonly perceived as no longer being a viable card for the game. In other words, once a card is banned, IT WILL BE BANNED.

In all my time playing card games (I first got into it back in Magic: Arabian Nights), whenever a card has become banned, it is immediatley rejected by 99.8% of the casual base as well.

This is for a myriad of reasons, as the card becomes *taboo*, because of the overlap between the casual and "professional" communities, because people feel like they're cheating - and are commonly accused of doing so - for running such cards. Even casual players wish to be "armed" to play, and having illegal decks isn't how. If the local comic-book store is running a tournament, they want to be able to jump in.

I've played tons of ccgs casually over the years, so I feel safe making the following generalization: When a card becomes banned, it becomes banned, and it is not seen in game again. I realize there are exceptions to this, but 99.998% of casual players I've encountered will not run a banned card.

In fact, they will pick up another game before playing a game "wrong", "cheating", and being ridiculed for winning with a card that has been banned.

Ok, with that being said, I believe that banning all of the cards that Prosak has listed will do a LARGE amount of damage to the casual base. This may be debated if you wish, but it is something I believe whole heartedly. The vast majority opinion for NOT banning EomE (none the less Mobilize!) I think is just support for this concept.

That being said, I believe that Prosak is working from an assumption as well - that assumption being that there is nothing more important than the balance of the professional game. As such, I interpret alot of the assertions he's made as attempting to "carve out a better game" by chipping away cards he believes is a detriment to this.

I understand that, but banning is a drastic action - PARTICULARLY that of some of the cards that Prosak has selected. I'm not proporting eratta, and I'm not saying that we should just take no action if this is deemed a serious problem in the professional environment.

What I AM saying is that we should look for compromises that will do minimal damage to the casual community before just smashing everything ('erring on the side of over-banning') that Prosak sees as not ideal.

In this light, I would like to underline one comment that he has made. That he has no problem with there being a "broken" format (his words) a-la Magic Type-1. I've heard other pro's gripe about Golden Age being given equal "professional" time as Silver and Modern age as well, and how it can't be viable as a major professional format forever.

Perhaps something to think about?

Definitely something to rep.

This.

Thread.

Hauls ###.

So, you want format-warping cards to not be banned so you can play them "fairly" in your casual environment, where they can be played with anyway, banned or not, and you just refuse to play with them if banned.

Give me a break.

Again, children, let's play nice. So far so good.

That was not at all what he said. And I agree in large part with what he said. Casual and competitive alike have invested a great deal of time, energy, and money into these cards. Banning two handfuls at a time would be drastic, and very harsh on everyone.

Your over-generalizing what I said.

Even Prosak himself said that he has no problem with a format a-la-Magic Type 1. I did not propose that we just ignore the issue, I asserted that maybe some of the cards in question should be restricted to Golden Age and that "professional" VS be shifted away from the format (such as Type 1 Magic). That way the cards are still largely removed from professional play while doing minimal damage to the casual base.

I also do not believe that Mobilize is a "format warping card".

Frankie and such, however, I have no problem with ouright banning, of course.

Are you claiming, for example, that Hobby League prizes will be awarded to people who use banned cards - none the less that they will be allowed to play?

One of the assumptions of mine that I pointed out is that once a card is banned it will no longer be played. Maybe you could have made a counter-arguement to the premise if you hadn't just replaced my quote with the word "nonsense".

We could all do the same to everything we disagree with too, and we'll get nowhere.

Basic Premise: Respect Opinions, even those you don't agree with. If you drastically don't agree with them, than pick them apart rather than dismissing them.

You're right, I just latched onto the part about banned cards being unplayable in a casual setting (which is still completely ridiculous).

Otherwise, the idea of making Golden Age closer to Type 1 Magic and cleaning up the other two formats seems perfectly reasonable.

Also, earlier in the thread I specifically said I don't think there is a problem with Mobilize.

Knowing Stu will speak against this:

That's the most ignorant thing I've ever heard.

Nah, I'm okay with that. Banned cards have a stigma. Most people are a combination of casual and competitive, with varying shades of grey. However you want to say it, banned cards are unplayable in almost every situation.

I understand both sides, and again I applaud everyone for their civility.

BackAgain, don't do it again.

Ok, let me clarify my position.

I don't think that everything on Prosaks list is wrong. One or two things on there SHOULD be banned.

I do, however, think he's drawing a net big enough (metaphorically speaking) that it will damage the casual game. He himself has admitted that he's erring on the side of over-banning.

I'm proposing that rather than smashing all of the cards on the list, perhaps some should be moved to Golden Age, while simultaneously shifting Professional play a bit more towards Silver/Modern Age, as to give players who wish to play with EomE, ect, a "Haven" of sorts and simultaneously shifting these cards out of the majority of professional play. I believe it's been made sufficiently clear that there are a majority of us that would not want to see the card removed, and don't think this is unreasonable.

This quote I had to rep.

There are all sorts of angles by which you can look at this.

First, I agree that once a card is banned, it's done, casual or competitive. That's true in all games. But I'm not at all convinced that banning Frankie, or anything else, will be bad for casual gaming.

In general, banning cards is just as good for casual gaming as it is for tournament play, and it only vaguely depends on the cards. Take JLoA. I'm sure this was an annoying-as-hell casual deck to play against before the pros tuned it for San Francisco. I have a hard time imagining anyone who didn't build this deck in advance being disappointed about the banning.

This is the same with almost any engine card, because engine cards are not fun to play against, whether you're casual or competitive. If you were a casual player and you had the Valeria/ADUAO combo, did your casual opponent even want to play a second game? A lot of times, the cards that were banned for tournament play get 'banned' by people refusing to game against them in casual.

Very few of the bannings are ones I see the casual playerbase rebelling against. Antarctic Research Base and Detective Chimp are probably the ones that upset the most casual players. But the average banning removes both broken stuff and not-fun stuff at the same time, which fits the goals of both tournament and casual players.

From the casual players I've known, they pretty much roll with the punches unless the banning rips the heart out of their pet deck. Really, what casual gamer was playing with Attend or Die, for instance? I'd rather it be banned in tournament play, where it's going to have a whole lot more impact, than I'd like to avoid upsetting the dozen people who have Attend or Die in their deck and are actually playing it fairly.

In short, I don't think bannings have as much of an impact on casual gamers as you think. If they don't quit in disgust immediately, they almost always find something else entertaining to play. There are 2500 cards out there, after all.