I think that Aaron Forsythe addresses the reason for the banning in an indirect manner during his interview in The Magic Show 193. Skip the first 19 minutes to get to the relevant portion.
I will paraphrase and say that he wants the magic experience to be about attacking, blocking, and imaginable interractions. He wants to prevent the tendency of new and casual players losing to complicated loops with no interaction ( like Worldgorger dragon and Flash).
Forsythe probably has more research on what magic players think is fun, and why people quit playing, than anybody else in the world. He doesn't explicitly tell us how much of his version of healthy combo is his own preference and how much is research driven, but I suspect that a banned mystical will lead to more people playing 1.5 in ten years than unbanned tutor.
It's clear Aaron was talking about Standard. Belcher has been legal in Legacy since it's inception.
Also, Aaron also said that he loved the old Stronghold theme deck with portcullis and no creatures because it made him realize that you can play unconventional decks. Now I realize that for unconventional decks to be special, they have to be unconventional, that is, more the exception than the norm, and maybe this might explain some things in this issue.
Smennen, it is not reasonable for you to demand IBA do loads of research to support his position on this forum. As the recipient of his demands upon me of the same kind over many years, I approve of your unreasonable demands.
"Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job."
"Politicians are like diapers. They should be changed often and for the same reason."
"Governing is too important to be left to people as silly as politicians."
"Politicians were mostly people who'd had too little morals and ethics to stay lawyers."
Stephen:
Chris Coppola made several arguments about the Mystical Tutor banning that were based on unclear understanding of Wizards' own qualifiers for why Wizards does or doesn't ban cards. You are apparently conceding most of these points, but want me to provide further justification for Wizards' decision within those metrics.
This is not something I will or can do. Wizards has it's own people that are paid to study what makes the game fun for people. I'm sure there marketing team has most of the data you ask for, but I certainly don't. As I was not the one that made the decision that Mystical had become unfun, however, I feel no compulsion to provide it.
As for the one area in which our disagreement is over the meaning of current precedent, I would point you to certain Extended bannings - Sensei's Divining Top, Aether Vial, Ancient Tomb, Survival of the Fittest, and most recently Hypergenesis and Sword of the Meek as examples where primarily combo reliant cards are banned despite not having dominance at the top tables. Wizards has taken a clear stance overd time against formats where the main action is between combo and disruption, with other strategies peripheral at best.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
Untrue. Where did I ask that of you? I wasn't asking you to provide further justification for Wizard's decision according to the standard they articulated; rather, I was asking you whether *they* provided sufficient evidence for the decision they made within that standard. I wasn't asking you to provide extra justification -- merely to evaluate their logic as presented.Originally Posted by TheInfamousBearAssassin
Your confusion arises because you think:
This is actually wrong because it's a false dichotomy; it's both. It's an appeal to ethos, but it is also logical in form, and therefore susceptible to logical critique. If I were to say that X is not fun, therefore we are banning it, I would need to be able to establish that most players think that X is not fun. Here, they have not done that. According to you, we should just take them at their word, that Mystical Tutor makes Legacy less fun, and that Legacy will be more fun without it. Their evidence is a so-called gentelmen's agreement. Not only is their logic flawed, because it doesn't actually support the conclusions advanced, but the available evidence is actually to the contrary.Why do you think they need any [evidence or logical supoprt]? It's an appeal to ethos, not logos.
Your fundamental error here is assuming, as you have explicitly done in prior posts in this thread, including the quote I just quoted, that their claim need not be supported by evidence because of the nature of the claim. This is incorrect.
Of course it's something you can do. All you need to do is evaluate whether they supported their claim that Mystical Tutor was unfun with persuasive evidence and logical support, or whether this claim was unsupported or supported largely by anecdotal evidence. Your unwillingness to critique Wizard's logic in its own terms can be notably contrasted against your willingness to critique Chris's logic.
This is not something I will or can do.
My point is that we should not, as you suggest, take their explanation at face value; but rather examine it on its own merits. I was suggesting that you do that, not that you conduct further research.
You are "sure"? On what basis is your certainty grounded? You are sure that they've done in depth, valid statistical market research on Legacy? Have you ever heard of them doing something like this for an eternal format before? Or, is your certainty grounded in mere faith? Knowing Wizards as a company, I suspect, better than you, I seriously doubt that they have done this research. I imagine that it's been far more anecdotal in nature.
Wizards has it's own people that are paid to study what makes the game fun for people. I'm sure there marketing team has most of the data you ask for, but I certainly don't.
Nor was I asking you to provide it. I'm not sure why you think I was asking as much, when I never asked that from you, and when I was clear quite clear from the outset, that that's not what I was asking:
As I was not the one that made the decision that Mystical had become unfun, however, I feel no compulsion to provide it.
Notice: i wasn't asking you to provide evidence in support of such a proposition; rather, I was asking you what evidence they provided.Why should we credit the DCI's idea that the format is more enjoyable without Mystical Tutor? What evidence do they advance in support of such a proposition?
Again, I wasn't asking you to provide evidence that Mystical Tutor was unfun. Rather, I was asking you to evaluate Wizards claim and the support (or lack thereof) it offered in support of such a claim. You confused the former for the latter.
In my article on Monday, I do exactly what I was suggesting you do: critique Wizard's logic in its own terms.
My friend Bob runs a restaurant. This restaurant served pistachio muffins until recently. Then Bob cut pistachio muffins from the menu, saying they weren't popular enough to keep making. Then our other friend Dave came in and made a big stink about it, saying that Bob had made the assumption that pistachio muffins were terrible. I pointed out that that's not what Bob said; some people may certainly like pistachio muffins (I like pistachio muffins, for instance), but Bob's reasoning was that he didn't find them popular enough to keep serving at his restaurant. So our friend Frank comes by and starts arguing with me over whether or not Bob has provided clear evidence that muffins weren't popular enough to warrant continuing. Of course he hasn't, and I'm not even sure what Frank means by that- clearly that's a judgment call to be made by Bob. It appears at this point that my friends Frank and Dave have forgotten who actually owns the fucking restaurant. Whether or not Frank and Dave want to continue eating at a restaurant that doesn't serve pistachio muffins, it is clearly reasonable in any way for Bob to make a judgment call about his own business's long term health with the tools at his disposal, just as it is clearly unreasonable for Frank and Dave to demand a full accounting of what led to this decision.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
But you said you were 'sure' that the DCI conducted market research on Legacy? So, now it's just a judgment call?
And, just because your friend owns the restaurant, and has the authority to make the call, doesn't mean he's right! As I said:
The fact that they have the *power* to do whatever they wan, doesn't mean they are insulated from critique on the ground that their justification was unpersuasive, unsupported, or arbitrary and capricious.
I wasn't demanding a full accounting; i was critiquing their logic as presented. Have I demanded that the DCI make a full accounting? No. I'm critiquing their logic. It's now unreasonable to critique people in power? Also, we demand a full accounting from people in power all the time, from the POTUS to the Supreme Court, which is why that institution writes opinions in support of its decisions.
Given that Wizards has repeatedly talked about how much research they do into Magic, and that Legacy is one of their most popular formats? Yeah, I"m pretty sure they've done research. But it's a judgement call regardless of how much research they've done into it.
No, it doesn't. But it certainly means that there's no an equal relationship in any argument. There's lots of things that Wizards does I don't agree with, but I don't presume that they start out needing to justify their decisions to me. The onus should be on you to argue that people were enjoying the combo-heavy metagame pre-banning.And, just because your friend owns the restaurant, and has the authority to make the call, doesn't mean he's right!
Wizards is a business, not a government agency. You can say that you think people would prefer Wendy's bring back the pita wrap, but ultimately that's their gamble to make, or not. You're trying to get into someone else's game and make their plays for them, but without knowledge of their deck and what tells they've seen, you had better have a pretty clear and compelling argument for critiquing their plays.As I said:
The fact that they have the *power* to do whatever they wan, doesn't mean they are insulated from critique on the ground that their justification was unpersuasive, unsupported, or arbitrary and capricious.
I wasn't demanding a full accounting; i was critiquing their logic as presented. Have I demanded that the DCI make a full accounting? No. I'm critiquing their logic. It's now unreasonable to critique people in power? Also, we demand a full accounting from people in power all the time, from the POTUS to the Supreme Court, which is why that institution writes opinions in support of its decisions.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
Yeah, just like they uncovered the 'gentlemen's agreement,' right?
Nor do I. I've never said that they need to justify their decisions to me, or to anyone else. Where did I make such a claim? That's a ridiculous non-sequitor. For someone who proclaims to be a logical thinker, I'm a bit surprised that you ascribe so many claims to me that I have never advanced, including this one.
No, it doesn't. But it certainly means that there's no an equal relationship in any argument. There's lots of things that Wizards does I don't agree with, but I don't presume that they start out needing to justify their decisions to me.
But I take great issue with your notion that we should just 'take what they say at face value,' and 'have faith' that Wizards did due diligence. Not being required to justify their decisions doesn't mean that we can't critique them.
The fact that they don't have to justify what they do doesn't mean we can't critique them, anyway. First you say that I am asking you to justify their decision, now you say that I'm saying they need to justify their decision to me. Where do you get these ridiculous ideas?
My critique isn't based on any duty that they have to justify their decisions.
The metagame was not combo heavy, pre-banning, first of all. Not sure where you are getting your data. I have plenty of data showing the contrary.
The onus should be on you to argue that people were enjoying the combo-heavy metagame pre-banning.
Secondly, why would onus be on me? What's the reason for that? I'm critiquing the DCI's decision in its own terms. Why would I need to prove that the format was fun in order to critique their lack of support for the claim that Msytical Tutor making the format unfun? That doesn't make any sense. How does my formal critique of their logic, and specifically the lack of evidence they advanced to support the notion that Mystical Tutor was unfun, require me to present any evidence whatsoever? My criticism doesn't hinge on any data I could or might present.
And? It's a business that caters to a public. That doesn't mean that it can't or shouldn't provide justification for its decisions, or that it doesn't believe it should.
Wizards is a business, not a government agency.
The June 2008 Vintage restrictions were so widely panned and criticized that the DCI provided a further elaboration in subsequent articles, evidence that it does care what people think.
So, every time you critique your favorite sports team for a draft move or a off season signing, we should just shut up and sit down, because 'they know better?" And, after all, it's 'not our business?' Hardly. They are entertaining us with their product, which they want to us to consume. When they do something stupid, or when they make a decision and produce a stupid explanation, we aren't disabled from critqiuing them. Critique doesn't require permission nor does it require a particular threshold standard to be advanced. You sound ridiculous, making up standards for when and how a particular entertainment company can be criticized.You can say that you think people would prefer Wendy's bring back the pita wrap, but ultimately that's their gamble to make, or not. You're trying to get into someone else's game and make their plays for them, but without knowledge of their deck and what tells they've seen, you had better have a pretty clear and compelling argument for critiquing their plays.
The company should be critiqued because anything that is placed into the public sphere is able to be critiqued. Anything and everything that you encounter should be scrutinized heavily before being accepted as fact, optimal, or correct.
My own experience with ANT is consistent with many of the arguments advanced in the article. On the weekend of June 26/27, I played a build of Dday ANT in 2 tournaments, splitting for t4 on Saturday and scrubbing out on Sunday (I posted a full report on the storm boards). These are the results of the games:
T1 kill: 1
T2 kill: 5
T3 kill: 2
T4+: 5
Fizzle&Scoop: 2
Disrupted&lost: 2
Raced by beatz: 6
Drawn cuz of time: 2
As you can see, I was raced by aggro just as often as I killed on turn 1 or 2. In one of my matches on Saturday, I lost against Sligh 0-2. On Sunday, I lost against B/G Suicide and and a mono-blue deck with Grimoire Thief, Arcane Denial, and Dispersal Shield. I only won about 50% of my games overall.
Although the sample size is limited, it indicates that ANT is a fair deck. I did well one day, and did poorly on another. Nearly all of my matches were fun and interactive, with the exception of one round on Saturday where I was paired against Lands. Furthermore, many of both my wins and my losses occurred in very close games that could have gone either way.
Larger sets of data, such as those compiled by Smmenen, also support the conclusion that combo was far from broken in Legacy. And if it ain't broke, why fix it?
QFT; I like that combo, especially storm, forces you to do a different kind of math than aggro or control require, and I'm in favor of having to think while I play.
I think what people find more telling (depending on your POV, either frightening or heartening) is the growing anecdotal evidence stating that the format won't miss Mystical Tutor; look at the numerous storm players here saying they won't miss it much, as my friends locally agree, and listen to reanimator players debating whether they've been hurt by the banning and how. Heartening because it seems like Wizards made the format more skill-intensive (which I think we can all agree makes it more enjoyable), but frightening because that conclusion leads one to wonder why Wizards bothered banning it. Let me tell you how much fun it was playing Legend of the Five Rings competitively when it seemed like the company was concerned about themselves first; obviously the company has to heed their bottom line, but they also have to take care to not alienate their customers.
Stephen, for someone who claims to hate straw-man arguments when you're the purported victim, you employ them pretty liberally. I've never said you couldn't gripe aimlessly. But if your goal is to argue that Wizards should reverse their policy- and that seems your clear aim- then you do in fact seem to be demanding a deeper justification of Wizards' judgment call in banning M. Tutor than they have given.
However, it remains unreasonable for you to expect an in-depth public expose of every decision a private enterprise makes. If you want to simply complain impotently on message boards, fine, have at it, I retract my criticisms. But anything more places a substantial burden of proof on the people whose livelihoods do not depend on the game's success to show that those who do are doing it wrong.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
That doesn't even make sense. Supposing you are correct, that my goal was for wizards to reverse its decision to ban mystical tutor -- which I'm not saying it is, why would I be calling for a deeper justification? Wouldn't I, rather, simply want to expose the fallacies in their reasoning? Calling for a deeper justification would only give them room to cement their decision.
Secondly, I did not straw man you. You ascribed to me multiple claims -- explicitly -- for which I never advanced, among them the idea that I was asking *you* to justify their decision, and to present further evidence to support it Do you deny that you made such claims? I was quite careful to respond to claims that you *actually* made.
Speaking of straw men...
However, it remains unreasonable for you to expect an in-depth public expose of every decision a private enterprise makes.
Look at how broad the construction of this sentence is:
'in depth public expose' of 'every' decision..
No one is talking about every decision. We aren't debating why Wizards fired Devin Low or why they included Birds of Paradise in M11. We're talking about a very particular kind of decision by Wizards, banning and restriction, for which there is a 18 year history of them justifying their behavior, and critiziing or applauding them.
You have, I've observed, a tendency to unjustifiably define matter at issue too broadly, and make it seem unreasonable as a result. Let's be real here. The DCI advances justifications for its B/$ list decisions, which are made for the public and presented to it. Those justifications are sometimes well reasoned, and sometimes not. This was an instance of the latter. Most folks, it's safe to say, were surprised by the banning of Mystical Tutor. What does that tell you? When DCI policy is effective, it's usually because everyone is supporitive of anticipated B/R list changes. Few people were surprised that Flash was banned, which tells you that it accorded with the general mood and opinion in the format community. This decision is not supported by available evidence. I think it's not unreasonable to believe that this particular decision was unwarrantd, unjustified, and sets a bad precedent.
You assume too much -- what makes you think that this particular forum is the place in which I will advance such a criticism? I've already indicated that my article on Monday is that place. Here, I'm simply refuting your claim that we should credit their opinion that Mystical Tutor was unfun, take what they say at face value, and implicitly, have faith that they've done due diligence. I see no reason why we should automatically credit their claims, take it at face value. Earlier in this thread, you event went so far as to suggest that their argument was not even amenable to logical critique (!), because, you averred, such an argument was an appeal to 'ethos.' My participation in this thread is little more than refuting such claims.If you want to simply complain impotently on message boards, fine, have at it, I retract my criticisms. But anything more places a substantial burden of proof on the people whose livelihoods do not depend on the game's success to show that those who do are doing it wrong.
So let's start with a caveat. I don't spend a lot of time on this game anymore. More than your average casual player, but far, far less than your average tournament player. So I'm a little behind the times. I had read the original Tom LaPille article he's quoting from, but I thought it was a joke. You know, someone just being snarky and coming up with a BS "this is what was going through their heads" type thing. The fact that the article in question was actually real makes me want to cry. How could anything that idiotic not be a joke? I'm half tempted to check my calendar and make sure we haven't jumped all the way to 4/1 again. Now I don't really care about the banning of MT; the format was balanced prior to its banning, therefore its banning is unlikely to have any unbalancing effect on the format. I think the format will shift towards control, but it won't be broken. But that was the worst justification for anything I have ever read in my life. I seriously hope that Mr. LaPille is never responsible for anything more than writing articles about a meaningless card game on the interwebs. Because the idea of someone that dumb having REAL responsibility is terrifying.
ahhhhhhhhhhhh flame warrrrrrrr get the fire extinguisherssssssssssssssssssssssss aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Anyone think they'll reverse this decision?
Honest question, I hear so much more disdain for wizard's right now than praise... Given the controversial nature of the precedence of the banning, it might even be reasonable.
I'm here to kick ass and play card games.
BZK
This is a nonsense. When you attack one argument you implicitly are asking for a stronger argument to replace it. This is how argumentation works.
Of course I don't deny it. Because that's what you did.Secondly, I did not straw man you. You ascribed to me multiple claims -- explicitly -- for which I never advanced, among them the idea that I was asking *you* to justify their decision, and to present further evidence to support it Do you deny that you made such claims? I was quite careful to respond to claims that you *actually* made.
Yes, let's.Speaking of straw men...
You are not asking for those explanations. Eternal players are not the whole spectrum of the Magic playing community. I assure you that the questions asked by Limited and Construct and casual and professional players are wholly different from the questions asked by the Eternal community- no one else, after all, really gives a fuck about the Reserved List.Look at how broad the construction of this sentence is:
'in depth public expose' of 'every' decision..
No one is talking about every decision. We aren't debating why Wizards fired Devin Low or why they included Birds of Paradise in M11. We're talking about a very particular kind of decision by Wizards, banning and restriction, for which there is a 18 year history of them justifying their behavior, and critiziing or applauding them.
You have, I've observed, a tendency to unjustifiably define matter at issue too broadly, and make it seem unreasonable as a result. Let's be real here. The DCI advances justifications for its B/$ list decisions, which are made for the public and presented to it. Those justifications are sometimes well reasoned, and sometimes not. This was an instance of the latter. Most folks, it's safe to say, were surprised by the banning of Mystical Tutor. What does that tell you? When DCI policy is effective, it's usually because everyone is supporitive of anticipated B/R list changes. Few people were surprised that Flash was banned, which tells you that it accorded with the general mood and opinion in the format community. This decision is not supported by available evidence. I think it's not unreasonable to believe that this particular decision was unwarrantd, unjustified, and sets a bad precedent.
But almost every decision Wizards makes, whether it's making human a creature type or keywording lifelink or reprinting a particular card for Type 2- gets questioned. And Wizards answers most of these questions. Just like they answered the question, "Why did you ban Mystical Tutor?" Now you may not like that answer, you may not agree with the reasoning, but you do not have an implicit right to expect that Wizards spend more time answering that particular question in more detail with pie charts and graphs quantifying their decision.
You started this thread hoping that I would find your arguments for why banning Mystical Tutor was incorrect more compelling. Unfortunately, as far as I can tell you have yet to make such an argument. Until you do, I certainly don't judge your baseless demands for quantification as compelling in the least.
I am assuming. I am, for instance, assuming that if I were Stephen Menedian, I would simply shut up about any arguments I have yet to make until such time as I made them, as it looks ridiculous to conduct a crusade based on what's in the mystery box.You assume too much -- what makes you think that this particular forum is the place in which I will advance such a criticism?
And yet if you were refuting that claim, you wouldn't be so completely incorrect when looking at all precedent of when how and why Wizards bans cards, particularly combo-enabling cards. Every argument you've made could apply to the bannings of Hypergensis and Sword of the Meek in Extended, for which they gave even less detail. It could apply to bannings as far back as Aether Vial and Ancient Tomb and Survival of the Fittest. To demand that they now suddenly stop doing as they have been doing requires something more than a hypotheticall future argument.I've already indicated that my article on Monday is that place. Here, I'm simply refuting your claim that we should credit their opinion that Mystical Tutor was unfun, take what they say at face value, and implicitly, have faith that they've done due diligence. I see no reason why we should automatically credit their claims, take it at face value. Earlier in this thread, you event went so far as to suggest that their argument was not even amenable to logical critique (!), because, you averred, such an argument was an appeal to 'ethos.' My participation in this thread is little more than refuting such claims.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
Without question, but the application of that principle doesn't necessarily lead to the inference that I was calling for Mystical Tutor to be unbanned. There can be other objectives at work, for example, shaming or embarrassing Wizards, and/or therefore reducing the potential negative impact of this decision as precedent.
This is often how criticism works in the Courts. Courts may be reluctant to reverse decisions recently made, particularly in light of the weight given to stare decisis. But the pitch and degree of criticism can cabin a particular decision or reduce its influence in subsequent cases.
My criticism here was primarily exposure, not necessarily to reverse that decision. Expecting them to reverse their decision is, frankly, unrealistic, given what we know about DCI decision-making. The 2008 Vintage restrictions were roundly criticized, and they still have not reversed a single one of them. Thus, to be quite frank, it was hardly my intent or goal that they reverse this decision. However, that criticism was explicitly cited by Tom in this article in explaining why PreOrdain was not going to be preemptively restricted! Voila! An Objective of criticism achieved!
Just as important, however, just because a banning or restriction was unwarranted or unnecessary doesn't necessarily lead to the conclusion that it should be reversed. There may be good reasons not to reverse a bad banning. For example, I do not consider the reasons to be ban and the reasons to unban in legacy as reciprical, or inversely equivalent. That's because I think there can be different standards for banning than for unbanning, especially in Legacy. In Vintage, I do consider those standards to be inversely equivalent, though. But that's because I think there should be different standards for restriction in Vintage than banning in legacy.
To recap: you are wrong that my point here that I'm *not* calling for deeper justification in criticizing the decision is 'nonsense.' That's because 1) even if I think a banning was wrong, that doesn't mean I think it should be reversed -- there can be different standards for banning and unbanning. 2) Criticism of the decision can have other goals that seeking that they reverse the decision. and finally 3) asking that they provide more justification would only help them cement their decision, and if my goal was to reverse the decision, as you claim, then why would I want them to provide additional justification? It makes far more sense that I'd prefer that they didn't, and that their logic remained soundly criticized/ridiculed.
That brings me back to your original statement here:
This is the nonsensical claim, not my claim that a critique of Wizards policy does not necessarily mean that 1) I'm asking them to reverse their policy or 2) that I'm asking them for a deeper justification. Your simplistic response that "an attack on one argument implies a stronger argument to replace it" is provably false, *especially* if your goal is to reverse the policy, since a stronger argument may actually prevent that eventuality!But if your goal is to argue that Wizards should reverse their policy- and that seems your clear aim- then you do in fact seem to be demanding a deeper justification of Wizards' judgment call in banning M. Tutor than they have given.
Please be careful when labeling my arguments as 'nonsense,' when what you said makes less/no sense.
Show me the quote where I did. You can't because I didn't.
Of course I don't deny it. Because that's what you did.
I wasn't asking you to provide evidence in support of such a proposition; rather, I was asking you what evidence they provided. Again, I wasn't asking you to provide evidence that Mystical Tutor was unfun. Rather, I was asking you to evaluate Wizards claim and the support (or lack thereof) it offered in support of such a claim. You confused the former for the latter.
I realize that this can be a subtle distinction, and that asking someone to evaluate what is presented rather than to advance additional evidence could be confused if you were not carefully reading my posts, but the fact that I have already explained what I was asking for several times (as if the original points weren't clear enough) makes it increasingly clear that you aren't even engaged in an honest debate anymore.
It's like when I said:
A
You say: Not B because of C
I say: I never said B.
You say: Yes you did.
I say: I didn't say B, I said A. you are confused because of D
You say: you said B
At what point does one stop engaging in such a circular discussion, when the person you are conversing with is no longer even apparently reading or listening to you.
Let me be crystal clear, one last time: I never asked you to come up with additional justification. Rather, I asked you to evaluate the evidence they presented, and gauge whether it sufficiently supported their arguments. Specifically: what evidence did they present that Mystical tutor was unfun?
And, if, as I anticipate at this point you might (as I'm increasingly suspicious that you are just trolling me), you once again just blithely ignore all of this text and say: yes you did ask me to come up with more evidence, let me ask you again: show me where I made such request! Quote me!
False equivalence. While it may be true that the sorts of decisions that I mentioned may get questioned, they are qualitatively different than a decision to ban and restrict, for a number of reasons.
You are not asking for those explanations. Eternal players are not the whole spectrum of the Magic playing community. I assure you that the questions asked by Limited and Construct and casual and professional players are wholly different from the questions asked by the Eternal community- no one else, after all, really gives a fuck about the Reserved List.
But almost every decision Wizards makes, whether it's making human a creature type or keywording lifelink or reprinting a particular card for Type 2- gets questioned. And Wizards answers most of these questions. Just like they answered the question, "Why did you ban Mystical Tutor?" Now you may not like that answer, you may not agree with the reasoning, but you do not have an implicit right to expect that Wizards spend more time answering that particular question in more detail with pie charts and graphs quantifying their decision.
First of all, decision on firing and hiring into R&D or what cards to print in M11 are distinctly within the expertise of the people who make magic. They know better than anyone else what kinds of characteristics are good in sets, since they are the company selling cards. On the other hand, managing Legacy is most definitely not limited in even a significant degree to the people who make magic, and those are the folks that compose the DCI. Rather, Legacy, like Vintage, is a format that is better understood by experts. Wizards, and I know this from both experience -- having actually been to Wizards and discussed DCI policy regarding Vintage for years with virtually everyone who has a hand in it -- knows less than the people who actually play it.
Secondly, B&R list policy is qualitatively different than other kinds of decisions made by the company. The company doesn't go out of its way to justify its hirings and firings. It doesn't go out of its way to justify its decisions regarding what kind of niche magic products they create. it *does* and always has gone out of its way to explain and justify its banned and restricted list policy since the inception of the Banned and Restricted list in January 1994. It's always done so because it wants people to buy into its policy decisions in this regard.
Your basic position is that Wizards doesn't have to justify its decisions. I agree. It doesn't have to. But it wants to. It looks bad if it attempts to and its decisions are exposed as poorly reasoned.
In this context, you are repeatedly misrepresenting my position, saying that I'm demanding a 'full accounting,' etc.
My basic position is that their reasoning is insufficient, and that they have not provided any evidence in support of the presumption hat Mystical Tutor decks make the format less fun. That doesn't mean that I'm asking them to do so; rather it means I'm simply exposing this fact, and suggesting that their reasoning is flawed.
I have:
You started this thread hoping that I would find your arguments for why banning Mystical Tutor was incorrect more compelling. Unfortunately, as far as I can tell you have yet to make such an argument. Until you do, I certainly don't judge your baseless demands for quantification as compelling in the least.
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...rix-Columbus!-[Premium-Article]
My arguments in this context were largely directed at claims that you made, which have been, I believe, largely discredited at this point, since you haven't decided to defend them: specifically, your claim that appeals to ethos, which you assert is the claim here, don't require evidentiary (either logical or empirical) support. I've already established that this is wrong because their argument is both an appeal to ethos and a logical argument. Your fundamental error, and what prompted my involvement in this thread, is your claim that their argument need not be supported by evidence because of the nature of the claim. This is incorrect because, while it is an appeal to ethos, it is in logical form, and therefore susceptible to critique in those terms.
I am assuming. I am, for instance, assuming that if I were Stephen Menedian, I would simply shut up about any arguments I have yet to make until such time as I made them, as it looks ridiculous to conduct a crusade based on what's in the mystery box.
When looking at all of the precedent of when and how Wizards bans or restricts cards, I find your claims completely unavailing. As I said earlier:And yet if you were refuting that claim, you wouldn't be so completely incorrect when looking at all precedent of when how and why Wizards bans cards, particularly combo-enabling cards. Every argument you've made could apply to the bannings of Hypergensis and Sword of the Meek in Extended, for which they gave even less detail. It could apply to bannings as far back as Aether Vial and Ancient Tomb and Survival of the Fittest. To demand that they now suddenly stop doing as they have been doing requires something more than a hypotheticall future argument.
The overwhelming precedent is not that combo can be nerfed when its not at the top of the metagame. In fact, the overwhelming precedent is *against* nerfing combo when its not good. Every single time that the DCI nerfs combo, it's almost always because of the speed AND power factor.
The overwhelming DCI precedent is that the DCI only kills combo when: 1) it's capable of winning on turn one or turn two AND 2) it's a top deck. The DCI almost never just kills combo to kill combo. You are completely wrong on that point.
It's (1) that players don't like, not combo "per se."
As I said before:
There is absolutely no statistically significant evidence that players 'hate combo per se.' What players hate is not getting to play a turn of magic AND not being able to beat that deck no matter what they do. It just so happens that, more often than not, that correlates with combo. But you are confusing correlation with causation.
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