[article] Survival Doesn't Need To Be Banned

[Michael Keller]

With seven (last I counted) threads devoted to this topic, it has gotten so old and so redundant it's like beating a dead horse with a stick. Just let it go.

[D. Watta]

Mr. Hollywood--

A definitely agree with you, and would like to suggest two closing thoughts on my part, on the matter:


--First, we all agree Vengevine is responsible for the "breaking" of Survival, that it is the needle of the matter. Vengevine has singlehandedly turned Survival into a redundant engine, which is tragic considering how many forms of survival there were just a few months ago. Yet the major response to the banning of Vengevine is, a suggestion of the obviousness behind Wizard's monetary interest...ie, why would they ever ban an in print mythic?

Problem--Have any of you tried playing VV in legacy without Survival? The card sucks beyond this interaction and will not be played. If SotF is banned, Vengevine will, for all intents and purposes, be almost a non-entity in the format.



--Second, and perhaps most important as this is the point that branches from the increasingly redundant "Survival should//should not be banned" points being expressed: There seems to be a terminating capacity, a critical mass, if you will, of cards in Magic. Particularly in the eternal formats, it seems, and as we are seeing now with minor interactions like Phyrexian Devourer//Triskelion//Necrotic Ooze, and as we have seen in the past with a multitude of different degenerate card interactions, it would seem things are going to become increasingly difficult for the DCI and R&D both to avoid creating, many times entirely by accident, combos and such that "break" the game. I am, by no means, suggesting Vengevine is one of these cards with the connotations as follows, but I believe we may be slowly revealing the ultimate demise of MTG---that is, a world in which so many interactions become "problematic", things that need fixed.

Yet to put it simply: I feel we should collectively hope DCI takes faith in R&D and proceeds to avoid the ban of many cards, and to instead take faith also in its players such that they remember Wizards has created a quality product that, as is the idea of the game, evens itself out, in a constantly running checks and balances schematic, without the meddling of cards. We players must have faith we can defeat temporarily problematic decks and devices with the stretching card pool already assembled and the tactics we've learned by playign the game, and we must give the DCI a reason to believe it's eternal players can figure out a puzzle without coming in and banning every winning strategy.