Beyond the Norm: Banned and Restricted Perspectives

The recent banning of Bridge from Below, which is sometimes generously referred to as a “Magic card,” has sparked the usual discussion around whether Wizards made the correct decision. There are three general views on this.

The Boring Viewpoint

There’s at least one person in every circle of friends who, though you may like them, has the crippling flaw of being a rational, reasonable human being. While this may serve them well in most areas of life, it’s an undeniable buzzkill in Magic circles. Nobody has ever gone viral on Magic Twitter posting lukewarm takes like: “The Bridge ban seems reasonable. Looking forward to trying the new format.” Nah, the people who go viral on Magic Twitter are the same people who show up to events wearing eSports jerseys emblazoned with their Twitter handles on the back alongside a couple of companies that you’ve never heard of and are pretty sure simply don’t exist.

Nonetheless, there are individuals who hold this point of view.

Modern: In Modern, these people are like, “Yeah, the format seems okay. Phoenix isn’t too good with the Bridge from Below ban, the metagame will adjust.” They announce this while doing their taxes and eating a salad. When they notice your sandwich doesn’t use whole-grain bread, the disapproving frown on their face is unmistakable.

Standard: Standard served as a great purge of people from this viewpoint. Infamously, the number of rational, calm people who held unwavering faith in Wizards of the Coast fell dramatically after the WotC acknowledged that they had somehow totally missed Felidar Guardian + Saheeli Rai combo in Standard. The true WotC diehards viewed this as a period of weeding out the weak, and the printing of Nexus of Fate only strengthened the resolve of this core group. Today, these people repress all but the smallest twitch of an eye as they calmly explain that Teferi, Time Raveler is actually a fantastic card for Standard, a healthy design with a net positive effect on the format. After all, if he wasn’t WotC wouldn’t have printed him.

Wizards Didn’t Go Far Enough

Individuals who hold this perspective believe that Modern is fundamentally broken, too far gone, and needs serious action to be taken in order to save it. These baby steps aren’t doing anything to address the underlying problems of the format. The type of person who holds this viewpoint is also likely to be the kind of person who, when made aware of a scratch on their car, hammer the door off, burn the car to the ground, and then build their own car which, while not entirely capable of “driving,” certainly doesn’t have any scratches in its doors.

Modern: Listen, fellas. Forest fires are an important part of the natural ecosystem. Burning everything down makes way for new life, and Modern is no different. Modern is broken on so many different axes, that drastic action is required if its viability is to be ensured. When WotC announced Modern, it was supposed to be a Turn 4 format; nobody died before Turn 4. Today, Neoform kills on Turn 1, Infect kills Turn 2, and UW Control just hopes you’ll concede because they’re not actually sure how to kill someone on any turn, ever (maybe this 2/1 will do the trick?) The point is, it’s time to burn the format to the ground. My proposed banlist is as follows:

8^th Edition is banned (Blood Moon, Tron Lands, Dingus Egg)

Neoform, Simian Spirit Guide, Chancellor of the Tangle, Faithless Looting, Ancient Stirrings, Mox Opal, all spells with Phyrexian mana, Inkmoth Nexus, Mycosynth Lattice, Ensnaring Bridge, and all Teferi’s and Jace’s are banned.

As the format develops, it may be necessary to add to the banlist cards that are deemed to be unfun. Eventually, Modern will become a fair format filled with vanilla, 4-mana 3/3’s duking it out. Be careful though! Your opponent could always have a Murder to mess up your double block!

Standard: Do they test this format? I know they say they test this format, but they also said they tested Modern Horizons. Did they really think people were going to play Altar of Dementia as a nice, fair Millstone? Standard has too many problems right now, and they all need to go.

They acknowledged that this card is terribly warping of every format it’s in, and this one is no different. It exacerbates the play/draw difference, and the threes (Teferi, Risen Reef) are simply too good on Turn 2.

Teferi is a mess, and I simply don’t feel comfortable looking at that sexy, sexy pirate Jace in a public setting. Get 'em out of here. 

There doesn’t need to be anything here. Everyone understands that the play pattern of this card is miserable and fundamentally wrong.

Some of us actually LIKE interacting with each other!

I’ve been pecked to death by this obsessed monster one too many times.

 Banning is Fundamentally Wrong; This is the Wrong Conversation

Just like intentional draws are the moral equivalent of grand larceny, banning cards is a lot like mass murder. You wouldn’t murder someone, would you? Even if there were peer pressure? This is the same reason individuals who hold this perspective continue to sneak banned cards into their decks. They might get DQ’ed from the tournament, but at least they won’t burn in hell.

Modern: Instead of talking about relegating perfectly innocent Magic cards to the dumpster heap of history, let’s instead talk about freeing those who have been wrongly locked away! Which is, of course, all of them! Splinter Twin is fair! In an average match of Modern, you’re dead before you can even cast Stoneforge Mystic! Artifact lands aren’t even good enough for Affinity, the deck doesn’t play any cards with Affinity! Eye of Ugin doesn’t even tap for mana! Why are these cards banned? They’ve done nothing wrong! Wizards designed all these cards, and if they have a problem with the cards, they really have a problem with themselves. Instead of banning symptoms, it’s time for them to look within and figure out why they feel the need to brutally slaughter any card that doesn’t make Modern the kind of format that thought it would be when it grew up. It’s common sense that the more they ban, the more that Modern is going to rebel. There is a correlation between the number of cards banned and the speed of the format, and if there’s one thing I learned in Scientific Math Numbers, it’s that correlation always implies causation. Let Modern grow into the format that it wants to be, and unban everything on the banlist.

Standard: Suppose you have a pet kitten. A really cute pet kitten, in fact. This pet kitten is a wonderful friend, but has a habit of hanging out in a sketchy part of town, perhaps the Ramunap District near some Ruins. Eventually, the city decides that Ramunap is an eyeblight, and they destroy the entire region to build some nice new apartments for the Google employees that work a couple miles away. After doing that, they decide to also hunt down and kill your pet kitten. That’s unacceptable, right?

But that’s exactly what happened to an innocent three-mana 3/3 with Menace. It had some trinket text about preventing lifegain and dealing damage on creatures entering, blah blah blah. The point is, there is a friendly dinosaur out there named Rampaging Ferocidon, and this magnificent prehistoric beast was banned simply because someone in Wizards R&D was overcompensating for all their mistakes. They literally had Gatherer display a random card from Standard and banned it, thinking that it would appear as a #GalaxyBrain move and people would have their faith restored in WotC. “Wow,” people would say. “Rampaging Ferocidon? He always seemed like such a nice dino. Kept to himself, sure, but was friendly when we chatted. He just doesn’t seem like the kind of lizard to get mixed up in this kind of stuff. I guess Wizards really did their research this time…”

Turns out, we’ve all been duped! I invite everyone to join me in raiding Area 51 on September 20 to free all the poor Magic cards that have been banned over the years. Wizards has Ferocidons aplenty locked up in Area 51, and it’s our duty to set them free!

Ryan Normandin is a grinder from Boston who has lost at the Pro Tour, in GP & SCG Top 8's, and to 7-year-olds at FNM. Despite being described as "not funny" by his best friend and "the worst Magic player ever" by Twitch chat, he cheerfully decided to blend his lack of talents together to write funny articles about Magic.