Bannings as of July 1st, 2009

[Mythrandir]

Then you are playing the card wrong. Why don't you just go something like Wrath, Hierarch, Primal Command, Faith's Fetters and call it a day?

Ahh, if only it was as simple of that. 1) you need the right mana, 2) you need to play with all those cards and 3) And even then, it may still be too little.
It's very situational what cards are better, i believe i make the best choice of 4 cards vs the current board/situation most of the times, but sometimes aggro is just that fast.

Gifts is often used to set up LFTL engine, but I agree with you on two the latter. They can be frustrating cards to lose against and require less skill to take advantage. I would not mind these two getting banhammered.

well, i believe that banning cards means that they are just too overpowered most of the times, which isn't the case for LOA and mindtwist, mindtwist isn't as effective vs aggro and LOA in late games with hand empty is a bad draw... It's also frustrating to lose (when you have an entire control of the game) to PoP and BTB and this also don't require that much skill to play either.
Banning cards is not an easy decision.
Gifts to LFTL is very good vs control matchups, but i rarely ever waste a gifts on lftl vs aggro.

Just look at the top3 decks of our league, which i believe to be quite competitive, and you see aggro without Gifts, so gifts isn't really a problem.
Of course gifts is present in many of the top10, but, like i said before, unless it becomes dominant i don't feel it deserves the banhammer

Just my opinion

[Orja]

well, i believe that banning cards means that they are just too overpowered most of the times, which isn't the case for LOA and mindtwist, mindtwist isn't as effective vs aggro and LOA in late games with hand empty is a bad draw... It's also frustrating to lose (when you have an entire control of the game) to PoP and BTB and this also don't require that much skill to play either.

Sure, LoA with empty hand is kinda bad, but it is just as bad as any other land. But its kinda frustrating to lose against it every god damn single time when my opponent is LUCKY enough to find it in opening 7 in combo/control vs. combo/control. You are down to 2 outs to cut the tome, and those are Vindicate and Wasteland.

What comes to Buried Alive & Gifts & Survival discussion, its so ridicilous that I don't even bother to comment. Yes, I play a deck that runs all three, and no, Buried Alive isn't the best one from those three. Actually, it was on the cutlist before I heard about the ban, and I'm happy to give room to Karmic Guide once again.

[GoblinPiledriver]

LOA a card two opinions.
I think the card is clearly overpowered. In the oppening hand you get two cards each turn. And even when the opponent plays wasteland against it you still can draw a card, so with the best solution against it you still get advantage out of it. And when your opponent plays vindicate then he looses the best removal only to a land and you still draw a card and get with advantage out of it. 
And when you say in the late game the card is useless like mindtwist this is weird. LOA is still a land, and mindtwist still destoys all cards your opponent has.

I think LOA is strict overpowered, and Mindtwist the 1 to x removal spell is also overpowered.