Emmett Shear reminds us that if you are playing Street Fighter [2 Turbo, presumably] then the solution to the so-called ‘cheese’ moves that seem overpowered is not to ban them, it is to use them until someone shows you or figures out the counter, then everything is fine.
This works exactly because the game is well-designed, with good counters to every such move. If that was not true, this would fail. It also relies on having enough data to find the counter-moves, and enough practice to learn them, to get to the new equilibrium. It does genuinely ruin a different experience some people want. Keep those things in mind while generalizing.
Its worth noting that, at this point, the vast majority of paper magic is explicitly competitive. Commander has eclipsed everything else combined. And in normal commander if your playgroup finds something cheap than you basically can’t use it! Normal commander games run on social consensus of whats acceptable, definitely de facto ban fully optimized lists, and have a strong norm of not bringing strategies anyone at the table strongly objects to. Seems like most people prefer this flexible ‘scrubby’ ruleset.
it is interesting to me that what has won out is neither strictly competitive nor strictly freeform. Commander has a banned list and most people dont explicitly deviate from it. People rarely play totally homebrew formats. What has won is a ‘consensus ruleset’ + ‘flexible social norms around what is de facto banned for being too strong or cheesy’. Very interesting to me.
Note: Im aware CEDH exists but I’m counting it as part of ‘everything else’ for these purposes. I play IRL modern and modern/legacy on mtgo (im sapphirestar on mtgo! send me a friend request if you wanna jam some games). so im not exactly the scrubbiest person myself. But it definitely seems like the hardcore tribe lost out in the marketplace for playershare.
Its worth noting that, at this point, the vast majority of paper magic is explicitly competitive. Commander has eclipsed everything else combined. And in normal commander if your playgroup finds something cheap than you basically can’t use it! Normal commander games run on social consensus of whats acceptable, definitely de facto ban fully optimized lists, and have a strong norm of not bringing strategies anyone at the table strongly objects to. Seems like most people prefer this flexible ‘scrubby’ ruleset.
it is interesting to me that what has won out is neither strictly competitive nor strictly freeform. Commander has a banned list and most people dont explicitly deviate from it. People rarely play totally homebrew formats. What has won is a ‘consensus ruleset’ + ‘flexible social norms around what is de facto banned for being too strong or cheesy’. Very interesting to me.
Note: Im aware CEDH exists but I’m counting it as part of ‘everything else’ for these purposes. I play IRL modern and modern/legacy on mtgo (im sapphirestar on mtgo! send me a friend request if you wanna jam some games). so im not exactly the scrubbiest person myself. But it definitely seems like the hardcore tribe lost out in the marketplace for playershare.