(Article) Format Problems and Solutions by Shaheen Soorani

[lordofthepit]

The man at no point indicates that he advocates nerfing either deck because they are too powerful. Shaheen's only beef with the deck is the time it takes to complete a round.

It would be hypocritical for him to single out Miracles and Lands for those reasons, because his deck of choice probably takes as much time as Miracles and certainly more than Lands, even if he's a pretty fast player.

[glowparty]

so if sdt extends rounds, how much time are we talking here? it can't be significant if players go to turns at 45 minutes.

in regards to a sdt ban only effecting miracles, it's already been said that builds of painter and 12-post use the full four copies. not two. not three. and the number doesnt really matter, a single card in a deck can be a very important slot. Since we do have the luxury of handicapping miracles in a way that doesn't handicap any other decks, i think that would be preferable.

edit: and the whole argument that 'people move on' doesn't have any meaning since that's what people necessarily do when a change happens that they don't have control over.

[phonics]

So instead of 2-3 draws a round you'd have 6-10...

No.



Maybe they should... but that doesn't mean they do that. Now I'm not saying new players pile onto the Lands Bandwagon... I think new players picking up Miracles is way more common.

Did you just make up numbers or do you have any source? Draws may increase, but the change would also influence deck choices. Banning cards would only have a negligible effect on tournament lengths.

[iatee]

No round goes longer that the allotted time. Really the problem is rounds going to short, because matches aren't always finished.

The problem with this article is that it proposes sacrificing the diversity that comes with the only two creatureless control decks Legacy has seen in a long time (one of those decks being blue-less, for those who care). This cost associated with his solution isn't even acknowledged, indicative of the bias perspective from which he writes.

Mishra's Factory before that, but originally it was Nantuko Monastery!

Making 90% of the tournament sit around waiting for an extra 20 minutes each round is pretty obviously a terrible idea, especially when 'large magic tournaments take too long' is already an issue.

[Dice_Box]

If you have a large enough event, every round will go to time anyway. Because that's just the way the dice fall.

Seen a Dredge mirror go to time because they both dropped a Leyline on each other. Some decks do it more, but everyone does it at some point.

[bruizar]

Haven't read the article but "wotc pls ban teh durdles" is a horrible thesis.

I still miss my playset of Shahrazad

[iostream]

Making 90% of the tournament sit around waiting for an extra 20 minutes each round is pretty obviously a terrible idea, especially when 'large magic tournaments take too long' is already an issue.

Rounds are going to go to time at any large tournament for lots of reasons that have nothing to do with deck choice. Sometimes rounds will be extended even longer than the typical five turns due to complicated judge calls. Rounds taking 90 minutes or whatever is just how large-scale, competitive tournament Magic works. The solution to "large magic tournaments take too long" is "if you don't like it, don't come to the tournament," not "ban a card".

[bruizar]

Even if everybody is playing fast, there is still the issue of deck checks that require significantly more shuffling time after it has been performed. Deck checks are also performed when the round has already started and a few minutes of valuable shuffling time are done.

[iatee]

Rounds are going to go to time at any large tournament for lots of reasons that have nothing to do with deck choice. Sometimes rounds will be extended even longer than the typical five turns due to complicated judge calls. Rounds taking 90 minutes or whatever is just how large-scale, competitive tournament Magic works. The solution to "large magic tournaments take too long" is "if you don't like it, don't come to the tournament," not "ban a card".

I was arguing against extending the time even further, because yes, no matter what the time limit is, matches will go that long.

SDT is just a really unpleasant card to play against from a game play perspective. It's not more broken than many other legacy cards, it disrupts the rhythm of the game and is super tedious for your opponent. (And while it doesn't inherently make large tournaments take longer, it does make small legacy tournaments take longer all the time.)

[Sturtzilla]

My local legacy play group goes through a discussion like this maybe once or twice a year. There are many points to consider when calling for the banning of a card. Some may include:

-Is X too powerful for the format in question?
-Is X seeing a statistically disproportionate amount of play?
-Is X seeing a statistically disproportionate amount of play in the decks with the best records?
-Is X a burden on the physical operations of a tournament?
-Does X lead to non-interactive Magic?
-How do these affect overall customer service?

As for points one though three, I think it is a very powerful card. I think it sees a lot of play... this could be confirmed by GP Lille statistics and SCG PIQ data. Does it see a "disproportionate" amount of play? This is a hard question to answer as you would have to define "disproportionate." That is not something that I think is productive to discuss, as we have no real say in the metric.

As for Sensei's Divining Top is concerned, I personally believe it egregiously violates the fourth question. I can personally attest to as both an avid Legacy player and a Level 2 Judge (with SCG Opens and GPs under my belt), is that at nearly every event after time is called, there will be active matches involving SDT. I am not saying that it is impossible to play fast with SDT and get matches finished on time. What I am saying is that most players who believe that they can do this, in fact, cannot. SDT is a difficult card to master. It can be hard to remember your top three cards. This leads to the average player unnecessarily spinning a Top to double check. This takes a few seconds to do each time and if it happens a few times over the course of the game/match this player is simply burning valuable play time.

One could make the argument that this leads to uninteresting/non-interactive games of Magic. As an opponent waiting on an SDT trigger to be resolved, you get to do just that... wait. You watch precious seconds slip away as the controller of the ability agonizes over what to draw second and third. This is something you have to put up with unless you call a judge to watch for slow play. Most players feel like this is a rude thing to do and therefore don't do it. I can't even begin to count the number of players who have bemoaned how they should have called me (or another judge) over to watch for slow play due to an SDT.

These two points factor into the last point which is overall customer service. If round times consistently hit 65+ minutes, we as players will complain that the round times are too long. For a medium to large sized event, you will be there all day. When you have cards like SDT in a given format this is going to happen. There are always going to be other slower decks and inexperienced players that will cause rounds go to time. However, this is not acceptable logic to allow problem cards to remain legal. If WotC were to ban SDT, many of these slower decks would be cut from the field. Due to this there would be fewer matches live at the end of a given round. Fewer matches means better judge coverage, which translates to faster turnarounds and a faster event. Typically both players and judges agree that faster round turnarounds equal better customer service.

I think that there is logical ground to ban SDT. The same could be said for Punishing Fire; however, I find this a bit of a stretch as there are far fewer decks that play it. If it were played in the same or similar numbers as SDT, then I would likely agree that it should also go. Anyway, both of these cards have been legal for years and there has been no movement on banning them, so I doubt it will occur.

[Chatto]

The same cannot be said about PF. Either you burn and recover it from your GY, or not. SDT let's you set up certain lines of play, thus giving you more to think about.

[bruizar]

My local legacy play group goes through a discussion like this maybe once or twice a year. There are many points to consider when calling for the banning of a card. Some may include:

-Is X too powerful for the format in question?
-Is X seeing a statistically disproportionate amount of play?
-Is X seeing a statistically disproportionate amount of play in the decks with the best records?
-Is X a burden on the physical operations of a tournament?
-Does X lead to non-interactive Magic?
-How do these affect overall customer service?

As for points one though three, I think it is a very powerful card. I think it sees a lot of play... this could be confirmed by GP Lille statistics and SCG PIQ data. Does it see a "disproportionate" amount of play? This is a hard question to answer as you would have to define "disproportionate." That is not something that I think is productive to discuss, as we have no real say in the metric.

As for Sensei's Divining Top is concerned, I personally believe it egregiously violates the fourth question. I can personally attest to as both an avid Legacy player and a Level 2 Judge (with SCG Opens and GPs under my belt), is that at nearly every event after time is called, there will be active matches involving SDT. I am not saying that it is impossible to play fast with SDT and get matches finished on time. What I am saying is that most players who believe that they can do this, in fact, cannot. SDT is a difficult card to master. It can be hard to remember your top three cards. This leads to the average player unnecessarily spinning a Top to double check. This takes a few seconds to do each time and if it happens a few times over the course of the game/match this player is simply burning valuable play time.

One could make the argument that this leads to uninteresting/non-interactive games of Magic. As an opponent waiting on an SDT trigger to be resolved, you get to do just that... wait. You watch precious seconds slip away as the controller of the ability agonizes over what to draw second and third. This is something you have to put up with unless you call a judge to watch for slow play. Most players feel like this is a rude thing to do and therefore don't do it. I can't even begin to count the number of players who have bemoaned how they should have called me (or another judge) over to watch for slow play due to an SDT.

These two points factor into the last point which is overall customer service. If round times consistently hit 65+ minutes, we as players will complain that the round times are too long. For a medium to large sized event, you will be there all day. When you have cards like SDT in a given format this is going to happen. There are always going to be other slower decks and inexperienced players that will cause rounds go to time. However, this is not acceptable logic to allow problem cards to remain legal. If WotC were to ban SDT, many of these slower decks would be cut from the field. Due to this there would be fewer matches live at the end of a given round. Fewer matches means better judge coverage, which translates to faster turnarounds and a faster event. Typically both players and judges agree that faster round turnarounds equal better customer service.

I think that there is logical ground to ban SDT. The same could be said for Punishing Fire; however, I find this a bit of a stretch as there are far fewer decks that play it. If it were played in the same or similar numbers as SDT, then I would likely agree that it should also go. Anyway, both of these cards have been legal for years and there has been no movement on banning them, so I doubt it will occur.

I agree with your post besides on punishing fire. There is no agonizing/pondering that takes place when playing punishing fire. Either you burn something that is burnable, or you burn face. Welder-beat down has been a plan for more than 10 years. Just because you don't play fast win conditions like Emrakul, doesn't mean you can't play prison type decks.

[ahg113]

Sigh...

The man at no point indicates that he advocates nerfing either deck because they are too powerful. Shaheen's only beef with the deck is the time it takes to complete a round. He mentions that banning Divining Top would solve this issue only because it is the culprit and therefor the obvious card to kill. Note that he does not even go into detail about what to ban from Lands to solve its analogous problem because that is not the point of this piece. This is an article about the health of the format. As he sees it, rounds run long too often (which is a major problem), and he holds these decks responsible.

Is he wrong about this in your view? Yes? Let's hear about how Lands and Miracles are not causing rounds to go too long. As it stands, none of your words call into question either his declaration of the problem or the solution he proposes.

he's complaining that he (and superficially others) can't win fast enough. That's a 'you' problem, and not a 'me' problem. It'd be great if all the decks would fold under pressure and capitulate to the designed game plan. Just as there are dichotomies of fair vs. unfair & interactive vs. uninteractive, this fast vs. slow argument is hollow. Magic is great because players have options on playstyle. Eliminating said play style is bunk. A step further would imply game-time should be lessened to burn vs. Belcher match-ups, because time, over game play, is so important.

Either you are belittling the article and author because you did not understand it (and you are now brandishing it for all to see) or you are just complaining about some minutia that he did not focus on because...well...I can say a lot about that behavior, but any of my observations will get this post deleted.

Opening Salvo-

This is the format where slow play and card interaction difficulty are at their highest point. I'm sure many of you just threw your hands up the first time you played against Dredge, not understanding or caring how your opponent's cards worked. That problem still exists in Legacy today.

Regarding Lands (emphasis mine)-

"The card interactions that exist in the deck can be confusing to newer players..."
"The deck is difficult to pilot for new users. This isn't an excuse that I typically take into consideration, because the opponent can easily call a judge to speed up the play of the new Lands player."
"Lands, like Dredge, has a lot of cards that just aren't used in any other deck. For that reason, odd interactions occur and “careful” play takes place in order to make optimal decisions. "
"Take all of these reasons and tack on the biggest flaw, which is the length of time required to win the game."
"It probably sounds hypocritical for me to call out the length of time a deck requires to defeat an opponent..."
"High Tide suffers from a similar problem, but the difference will always be in the amount a deck is played. I'd be shocked if we have more than one person playing Time Spiral at an Invitational, due to the general weakness of the deck the and time difficulties involved in playing it. The biggest issue with Lands is that it's also very good, which draws more and more people to the cause. The deck has always been around, and now we're taking note as it continues to place well in big tournaments and get picked up by talented mages."

Regarding Miracles (emphasis mine)-

"Miracles has been the best control deck in Legacy for years now... It's a control deck that has all of the most powerful card draw and removal spells alongside a free combo."
"Sensei's Divining Top allows a player to set up draws and find answers with very little drawback. When we combine it with Counterbalance, any opponent on the other side of the table wants nothing more than to concede and move to the next game... but they don't. I wouldn't either, and that creates the biggest time issue that this fantastic game can experience."
"...so the typical win condition is a one- or two-of Miracle that can take ages to find. The win will happen eventually, as we saw with Lands, but the opponent is under no obligation to scoop up their cards because things aren't going his or her way. "
"Miracles may be the toughest deck in Legacy to play, and that goes for the most experienced player down to one that is just getting into competitive Legacy. Brainstorm is tough enough to figure out once, but then you throw in four artifacts that can Brainstorm whenever you want and now we have a problem."

Closing Salvo (emphasis mine)-

"Break out the banhammer my friends and cut the legs off of both these decks."
"...it's important to ban the right card to only affect the decks that deserve it. Sensei's Divining Top is a great Magic card, and luckily it's only played heavily in one deck."
"...card I'd select to get banned from Lands is much trickier to determine. We could destroy their ability to win through burn by removing Punishing Fire, but that hurts Jund and other Tier Three decks that may enjoy the fair removal combo with Grove of the Burnwillows. I'm afraid that removing Dark Depths may not slay the beast completely, but that land is at least only used in the deck in question here. If I was a member of Wizards of the Coast tasked with nominating a card for removal I would vote for Punishing Fire, but that is purely based on my hatred for the card with a complete acknowledgement of my personal bias. The more logical removal would be between Dark Depths and Life from the Loam, which are rarely used outside of the Lands strategy."

So where was I off? I'm literate, pretty sure, that's what the guy I'm paying to type this is telling me. (I told him to dictate this whole soliloquy.) He identifies High Tide as being a slow control deck that can take forever to win, but it's ok because it shows up so infrequently, why bother. He specifically targets these two decks because they're good. You don't need to knee cap them, and ancillary others, by removing SDT & either/or DDepths and LftL, as he proposed. He makes a notion that players deserve to play blah blah blah because they paid money, but that exclusive thought discredits the opponent that also paid money bringing the Lands/Miracle deck (wait, do these guys get to play for free, entry fees waived?), to whom a draw may be preferable. Goose, gander, etc.

Yeah, not sure where the static is coming from, but whateve's. You be a dick, I'll be ignorant, and the world will continue to spin.

@Lord Seth - I agree that a Thespian Stage ban is stupid, I thought I was clear that any ban of these cards was stupid. I posit that Thespian Stage is a less stupid ban than Dark Depths however. As for V.Hexmage- well, I didn't say it was a good cheat, but it is a cheat. And while a deck packing such probably didn't make it very far to upper tables where the elite (I presume) like you inhabit, it's a thing, it's happened before. [/Cheers]

[Sturtzilla]

I agree with your post besides on punishing fire. There is no agonizing/pondering that takes place when playing punishing fire. Either you burn something that is burnable, or you burn face. Welder-beat down has been a plan for more than 10 years. Just because you don't play fast win conditions like Emrakul, doesn't mean you can't play prison type decks.

I am firmly pro-banning on SDT. Do I think that it will happen, probably not. On a completely separate topic, if Punishing Fire style decks were being played in similar numbers to say Miracles, then maybe we should think about its impact on tournament operations. Like I posted, many players will complain about opponents taking too long with SDT. I don't think that I have really heard anything like this with PFire. I don't think it is anywhere near deserving a ban, but I would reserve judgement on it and really any card that makes matches go to time.

[Tammit67]

My local legacy play group goes through a discussion like this maybe once or twice a year. There are many points to consider when calling for the banning of a card. Some may include:

-Is X too powerful for the format in question?
-Is X seeing a statistically disproportionate amount of play?
-Is X seeing a statistically disproportionate amount of play in the decks with the best records?
-Is X a burden on the physical operations of a tournament?
-Does X lead to non-interactive Magic?
-How do these affect overall customer service?

As for points one though three, I think it is a very powerful card. I think it sees a lot of play... this could be confirmed by GP Lille statistics and SCG PIQ data. Does it see a "disproportionate" amount of play? This is a hard question to answer as you would have to define "disproportionate." That is not something that I think is productive to discuss, as we have no real say in the metric.

As for Sensei's Divining Top is concerned, I personally believe it egregiously violates the fourth question. I can personally attest to as both an avid Legacy player and a Level 2 Judge (with SCG Opens and GPs under my belt), is that at nearly every event after time is called, there will be active matches involving SDT. I am not saying that it is impossible to play fast with SDT and get matches finished on time. What I am saying is that most players who believe that they can do this, in fact, cannot. SDT is a difficult card to master. It can be hard to remember your top three cards. This leads to the average player unnecessarily spinning a Top to double check. This takes a few seconds to do each time and if it happens a few times over the course of the game/match this player is simply burning valuable play time.

Why are we blaming the card for that? We as judges should push more for slow play warnings. Their are more widespread/played cards that are a burden on physical operations but top is under scrutiny because the decks that run it really want to make the game go late. See: Fetchlands, ponder, brainstorm, Dig for examples of physically intensive operations.

One could make the argument that this leads to uninteresting/non-interactive games of Magic. As an opponent waiting on an SDT trigger to be resolved, you get to do just that... wait. You watch precious seconds slip away as the controller of the ability agonizes over what to draw second and third. This is something you have to put up with unless you call a judge to watch for slow play. Most players feel like this is a rude thing to do and therefore don't do it. I can't even begin to count the number of players who have bemoaned how they should have called me (or another judge) over to watch for slow play due to an SDT.

These two points factor into the last point which is overall customer service. If round times consistently hit 65+ minutes, we as players will complain that the round times are too long. For a medium to large sized event, you will be there all day. When you have cards like SDT in a given format this is going to happen. There are always going to be other slower decks and inexperienced players that will cause rounds go to time. However, this is not acceptable logic to allow problem cards to remain legal. If WotC were to ban SDT, many of these slower decks would be cut from the field. Due to this there would be fewer matches live at the end of a given round. Fewer matches means better judge coverage, which translates to faster turnarounds and a faster event. Typically both players and judges agree that faster round turnarounds equal better customer service.

I don't think anything beyond your first 3 bullets should be used as banning criteria.

Non-interaction is something kitchen table players scream when they get introduced to combo for the first time. Belcher- the poster child of non-interactivity, completely safe to keep legal. If a deck forces the format into non-interactive matches, we've hit one of your first three points and we can ban from there. Non-interactivity itself isn't bad and by banning solely on that, you alienate the combo players of the format who get shit on by WotC's philosophy for their newer formats.

The only card that hits physical limitations to me is shaharazad and it is an extreme case. No other card comes close to eating up as much time as the first cast of that sorcery does. Top doesn't have that, it instead has bad players who aren't planning before they spin the top. These players should be punished with slow play warnings not with bannings. They will also get more draws and be out of the running for tournament prizes so the next event they've either practiced more with top or switch to a deck that runs more win conditions.

Also players need to learn to just scoop sometimes.

Over all customer service is subjective- player hates playing against show and tell, we should ban it. Invigorate too becomes the outcry... hell just look at the poll from the B&R thread stickied at the top. People are going to complain and unwarrantedly so.

[Finn]

Opening Salvo-


Regarding Lands (emphasis mine)-


Regarding Miracles (emphasis mine)-


Closing Salvo (emphasis mine)-


So where was I off? I'm literate, pretty sure, that's what the guy I'm paying to type this is telling me. (I told him to dictate this whole soliloquy.) He identifies High Tide as being a slow control deck that can take forever to win, but it's ok because it shows up so infrequently, why bother. He specifically targets these two decks because they're good. You don't need to knee cap them, and ancillary others, by removing SDT & either/or DDepths and LftL, as he proposed. He makes a notion that players deserve to play blah blah blah because they paid money, but that exclusive thought discredits the opponent that also paid money bringing the Lands/Miracle deck (wait, do these guys get to play for free, entry fees waived?), to whom a draw may be preferable. Goose, gander, etc.

Yeah, not sure where the static is coming from, but whateve's.............................................

@Lord Seth - I agree that a Thespian Stage ban is stupid, I thought I was clear that any ban of these cards was stupid. I posit that Thespian Stage is a less stupid ban than Dark Depths however. As for V.Hexmage- well, I didn't say it was a good cheat, but it is a cheat. And while a deck packing such probably didn't make it very far to upper tables where the elite (I presume) like you inhabit, it's a thing, it's happened before. [/Cheers]

@Mods: This is not a response to flames. I am ignoring the personal attack and I have even removed it from this quote.

Shaheen marked those decks as responsible for causing excessively long rounds. And he is correct. They are. The details of all those quotes you bothered with are just a discussion of what causes this. He goes on to back up his plan for taking out Divining T...
Ah, I don't feel like explaining this again. Think what you want.

[ahg113]

@Mods: This is not a response to flames. I am ignoring the personal attack and I have even removed it from this quote.

Shaheen marked those decks as responsible for causing excessively long rounds. And he is correct. They are. The details of all those quotes you bothered with are just a discussion of what causes this. He goes on to back up his plan for taking out Divining T...
Ah, I don't feel like explaining this again. Think what you want.

Without either of us insulting the other-

He's described a problem, slow play, and picked two decks that are notorious for slow play. But that's a player problem, not a deck problem. He wants to nerf these two decks, because that will magically solve the problem, I disagree. In the article he mentions something about calling judge five minutes into a rd because the opponent is displaying slow tendencies. Then he rebutes himself in saying that's not a probable solution.

Either make rounds longer, or solve the problem with your deck choice and play. Removing cards from these decks is an assault meant to make them unpopular, thus leaving only "time-considerate" decks left viable (unless one felt like durdling with a tier three deck).

Long story short, his beef is a glorified hit job on two decks he doesn't like solving a problem that didn't need a solution. Player habits is the culprit, not SDT nor LftL/DD. Tabernacle, Chasm and CBalance are all more responsible for the 'this is taking too long' than the cards he spot lighted. It's a bad article because it identifies and excuses the base problem. Not having a similar play style as him, his bias is found offensive, or mayhap inciting. Creative solutions were found for the legend rule, mulligans, noticing triggers, a similar non-ban could be discovered for time of game play as well. But ultimately, between one and their opponent, both are taskedwith ending the game in the alloted time. This sounds like people complaining they couldn't win. Caveat, cause there's always an exception, go to turns, ends at five, one player has a probable kill on table on turn 6-8, ok I sympathize. If one's deck doesn't have answers or runs out of gas, too bad.

So, it's agreed everyone is allowed to think what they think. Historical agreement made, much rejoicing in my household.

[iatee]

Non-interaction is something kitchen table players scream when they get introduced to combo for the first time. Belcher- the poster child of non-interactivity, completely safe to keep legal. If a deck forces the format into non-interactive matches, we've hit one of your first three points and we can ban from there. Non-interactivity itself isn't bad and by banning solely on that, you alienate the combo players of the format who get shit on by WotC's philosophy for their newer formats.

Belcher is completely safe to keep legal because it's inconsistent enough that it won't succeed in a large tournament by nature. It's safe to keep legal, but there's no particular good reason for it to be legal. It doesn't actually bring anything positive to the format, it's just a disease that ruins a few peoples' days at an event - sorry to 'alienate any combo players'.

[Sturtzilla]

Why are we blaming the card for that?

It is a constant decision point that allows players the opportunity to waste time knowingly or unknowingly.

We as judges should push more for slow play warnings.

Totally agree. We should give them out more frequently and for shorter durations of inaction. I give them out like candy...

Their are more widespread/played cards that are a burden on physical operations but top is under scrutiny because the decks that run it really want to make the game go late. See: Fetchlands, ponder, brainstorm, Dig for examples of physically intensive operations.

Apples and oranges. When you activate a fetchland or cast any of the above spells, you have to complete one action or one series of actions. SDT presents this same type of decision every single time it is activated. When you say Brainstorm or Ponder is like SDT you are making a logically flawed argument that only considers the casting and first SDT activation. The fact that it sticks around and will be activated multiple more times over the course of the game are not counted. The time players spend carrying these out can be the problem.

I don't think anything beyond your first 3 bullets should be used as banning criteria.

That's like your opinion, man. I disagree.

Non-interaction is something kitchen table players scream when they get introduced to combo for the first time. Belcher- the poster child of non-interactivity, completely safe to keep legal. If a deck forces the format into non-interactive matches, we've hit one of your first three points and we can ban from there. Non-interactivity itself isn't bad and by banning solely on that, you alienate the combo players of the format who get shit on by WotC's philosophy for their newer formats.

I agree that Belcher is in a lot of ways non-interactive. I also agree that it is safe to keep in the format. Force of Will typically keeps it in check. There are other types of non-interaction as well. The kind I am more concerned with for the sake of this thread/posts is the constant activations of SDT. As an opponent you basically sit and let it happen. For newer players this is confusing. For more experienced players it is frustrating as you just have to wait for your opponent to finish. This can sometimes take awhile. Sometimes you have to wait multiple times due to fetchlands or Ponders in between activations.

The only card that hits physical limitations to me is shaharazad and it is an extreme case. No other card comes close to eating up as much time as the first cast of that sorcery does. Top doesn't have that, it instead has bad players who aren't planning before they spin the top. These players should be punished with slow play warnings not with bannings. They will also get more draws and be out of the running for tournament prizes so the next event they've either practiced more with top or switch to a deck that runs more win conditions.

Shahrazad is a fine precedent. Again I agree with giving more Slow Play Warnings. Sure slow SDT players will draw themselves out of contention. Still it has an impact on all of the other players, judges, and staff in terms of round times and overall event times.

He's described a problem, slow play, and picked two decks that are notorious for slow play. But that's a player problem, not a deck problem. He wants to nerf these two decks, because that will magically solve the problem, I disagree. In the article he mentions something about calling judge five minutes into a rd because the opponent is displaying slow tendencies. Then he rebutes himself in saying that's not a probable solution.

Calling for a judge to watch for Slow Play/Stalling (these are two different infractions but as an opponent may look very similar) is great. We are happy to do it. However if we were to try to cover every SDT in the room, floor coverage for other players would drop. This would be bad. Therefore it isnt' really a solid answer to the problem. It is unlikely that you are going to be able to get a judge to monitor your match for very long unless there is something very bad happening.

Either make rounds longer, or solve the problem with your deck choice and play. Removing cards from these decks is an assault meant to make them unpopular, thus leaving only "time-considerate" decks left viable (unless one felt like durdling with a tier three deck).

This is a poorly constructed argument as you are asking two groups of people to do two things that may or may not solve the problem. Making round times longer is a WotC and Judge Community question. Would it help? Probably not. We would still have players durdling at the end of 60 or 70 minute rounds due to inexperience, stalled game states, and/or SDT. Moreover the events would take longer, possibly needing to be split over two days. Solving the problem with your deck choice and play is a consideration for your opponents. You cannot bank on your opponent playing fast or well. Saying it on this forum will not change that. Therefore I believe it is a cultural question and/or a banning question. Players need to alert judges to slow players so we can act. If this doesn't help, problem cards should meet their ill fate.

[Whitefaces]

Can't believe people are actually humouring the notion of banning Punishing Fire.