I agree with Brian. It had been a confluence of life factors that has impacted my ability to play paper Magic (school, health, etc), rather than a flaw in paper events. When I used to go to events, it was a 1.5 to 2 hour drive each way. I also think there are going to be challenges going forward with COVID-19 - for instance, my school strongly discourages nonessential travel at the moment and the policy is evolving with regards to screening and quarantine. The situation is complex ethically, and likely outside the scope of this thread. But as it is now, paper events aren't really on the table for me.
@desolutionist Nothing against Brassman, but any type of voting process is going to be flawed and disenfranchise portions or players. This is an English speaking board...how are you going to poll non-English speaking players who play MTGO? What defines Vintage players in general? Commander was literally created by the people on the council...Vintage has no such ownership outside of Wizards.
I would also not extol American representative democracy given our current situation...
@thewhitedragon69 The alternative is people fighting over the interpretation of the "rules", for instance, whether or not Dig counts as draw, or selection, or whatever. The legal profession exists because people don't agree on the execution of rules, especially in how they are implemented when their own interests are at state. This execution is worse than simply having people vote on whether or not to ban or restrict certain cards based on potential for unforeseen consequences of certain rules. One could easily try to get a rule passed that obliquely restricts Bazaar, Shops, or any hated card without obviously doing so as a de facto loophole. While I recognize that your intent is good, the practicality is tremendously flawed, in my opinion.
Cards do not exist in a vacuum - they interact with each other in the context of a deck and metagame. The failure to grasp this is often one of the greatest hurdles in card evaluation and deck design and it's one of the reasons most players and not very good at both.
I would categorically object to rules-based approach like this.
Here we go again:
If they are going to meaningfully nerf the Companion mechanic, I hope they undo the bans in Vintage and Legacy and allow Lurrus and Zirda to prove themselves within the context of the new rules.
@smmenen Because, again, you blatantly misrepresented my post. Your argument was constructed on a lie. You could have made that argument without involving me but you did, so I feel obligated to push back and call out your deceit.
I operate as a scientist. I collect data and form my opinions based on it. When the data is obvious, I call it as I see it. The pattern was concerning from the first week but not certain and my 9-post thread was meant to reflect that, but over another week of league results and weekend of challenges, it was clear that countermeasures weren't sufficient and Lurrus was going to continue to increase in prominence. And it did. You asked me for my opinion and I gave it to you. Was I wrong? Lurrus almost hit 80% of the metagame before the banning.
Now this is something that makes me uncomfortable because I have imposter syndrome and I don't actually view myself this way. But you yourself looked at data from the challenges and said I had an over 70% winrate and even remarked "maybe you might be ChubbyRain good". My win rate in the challenges has been about consistent, even in metagames I don't enjoy. My success tends to come from my ability to analyze and anticipate metagames, not really from technical play. My lists are almost never refined and sometimes they are arguably suboptimal in omiting Black Lotus.
I don't think it takes much to look at metagames, play a few games, analyze data, iterate, and reach accurate conclusions. I apply this to B&R. You'll note I'm never one of the first ones to yell for a PO restriction after Narset or Karn or whatever gets hit and I said I didn't think Breach would warrant anything close to restriction when it was printed. I don't look for cards to restrict. But I call it when I see it.
This is the last I'm going to say on it. You are attacking me in these last couple of posts under thin veneer (If I were to be snarky, I would do this...really, Steve?) and I'm not going to turn this into a battle of ad hominens.
@smmenen What exactly did you think I meant by "give them some more time?" How long did you think I meant, especially based on my previous history which you are aware of as you are "psychoanalyzing"?
The side events at large events are a small minority of the games played and prizes are often awarded not to winners but by alternate metrics - many times it's "here is your prize booster, give it to whoever you want at the end of your match". So if someone shows up with an overpowered combo deck, the get ganged up on and/or get no actual prize despite "winning". The B&R list is largely irrelevant in that context when the game and incentive structure is such that players control the rewards.
If you actually speak to people who play the format, I guarantee you, they don't have the same take on the importance of the CRC.
...The Commander Rule Committee isn't a democratic body.
And you can't have every Vintage player vote or have a voice for a myriad of practical reasons. You want a "vote", write an article on why Vintage would actually be better off with Force of Will restricted. No one is stopping you from making your case.
Based on every B&R ever, what makes you think Vintage players would have enough consensus for a mission statement? Consensus on members? Consensus on anything, really? Commander isn't bound by its rule council. It's a largely casual format whose banned list and "mission" is enforced by individual play groups, producing a flexible format that appeals to a wide player base. Attributing the Commander format's success to its rule council is absurd. And expecting the Vintage equivalent of a rules council to be effective would be absurd. A lesson here is that since events are unsanctioned, people can possibly agree on modified B&R lists or other custom rules similar to how players run events in Commander. I know Legacy players have started pre-Innastrad Legacy games on MTGO.