Why force cards into decks?

[imppu]

Demonic Tutor, Mind Twist anf Gifts Ungiven. All three are cards that will be present in every good control deck despite of it's colors. Why do you keep cards that are this powerfull, and easy to splash, legal? It's just forcing people to play/splash black and blue. I recently cut black from few of my decks just because I'm growing sick to play these cards in every deck. They do fine like this, but I know they would do better with black splash. Fear for B2B and moons ain't enough to stop people playing these in every control deck. Gifts again is way too powerfull to stay unbanned. It's card advantage and 2x tutor at same time at instant speed. I really hope it's not gonna get defended the same way as Library. "It requires skill to use". Skilled player already has advantage in the game you don't need to help them more. Banning any of these three cards or Library wouldn't kill any deck. From what I hear no one would miss any of these cards. You ban Jitte to take some luck from aggro mirrors and then do the opposite to control decks by unbanning Library. Your goal to make the banned list as small as possible has gone too far.

This wasn't meant as straight attack against the council. Still it seems it will sound like one. For that I'm sorry.

[Vazdru]

Lots of HL-decks wouldn't be playable w/o Demonic and Gifts Ungiven. We would have a higher concentration of aggro decks like WW, Zoo ... which all have one thing in common: a high consistency. Zoo is still able to beat all decks around; have a look at Hanau, recent tournaments and [HLL]League. And Zoo obviously do not play all the mentioned cards and often against them.

What do you think? What will be the effects on the Meta if Demonic and Gifts are gone? I'm sure you do not expect combo and control gettin' stronger?!

Btw. Have a look at the Top 8 of recent Singleton events. RDW/Goblins is the dominating deck-type (like in HL in the times Demonic and Gifts were banned) - ok, there are various reasons for, but the main reasons are banned-list and its cheapness. Singleton do not offer that many deck types as HL, I think this is quite obvious. I played some Singleton tournaments recently; my impression -> banned list of HL is much better  ... like spoils mulligan > DCI mulligan, no sb > sb.

[imppu]

I was really talking about control decks and I thought I was clear about that. I realise these cards help control, but the point was they also force ALL control decks to include these cards. It feels stupid to make a deck and add Gifts, Intuition (wouldn't come in without gifts), Demonic and Twist. If control can't survive without blue and black I'd say there is something wrong with the format.

[Vazdru]

If control can't survive without blue and black I'd say there is something wrong with the format.

They maybe survive ... but that's all. They won't win any tournaments w/o Demonic, Gifts and/or Survival - they don't even win huge tournaments with all the mentioned cards + LoA.

And w/o any good tutors combo can't exist. There have been always autoincludes and there will be always some, doesn't matter how the banned-list looks like.

White -> Swords to Plowshares
Blue -> Mana Drain / Force of Will
Creature-based deck -> Survival of the Fittest, Sword of Fire and Ice

Should we ban all auto-includes? No way!

Btw. I played WGR-Planeswalker-Landdestruction-CONTROL at recent HL-GP. Mono-W-Control and WR-Control have performed well at some recent tournaments. I think it is more your personal impression than a fact that there are no stong Control-Decks w/o Blue and/or Black.

[imppu]

White -> Swords to Plowshares
Blue -> Mana Drain / Force of Will
Creature-based deck -> Survival of the Fittest, Sword of Fire and Ice

Should we ban all auto-includes? No way!

You are still missing my point. Of course stop is autoinclude in white and drain in blue.  These cards discissed are autoinclude also in monoW control! And bringing sofi up is just useless.

[Sturmgott]

If control can't survive without blue and black I'd say there is something wrong with the format.

I'd rather say, if Demonic were banned, Black would no longer be a viable color in HL. It's a fact that WotC has done everything to promote creature-based aggro-decks. The creatures become bigger for less mana all the time (which seems to be the only way they can make new sets attractive for all players these days). Even the Planeswalker concept is obviously of best use in creature-heavy decks because of a) their abilities (the best Planeswalkers all help creatures alot), b) creature's ability to block and thus protect the Planeswalkers, and c) control decks inability to get rid of opposing Planeswalkers by attacking them. c) alone forces control decks to opt vs. a new card type.

There is no other way a banning policy can handle this tendency but unbanning the appropriate weapons control decks need to keep their flexibility - which is why you notice that your control decks subsequently suffer when you do not include its best cards. I'm happy WotC has printed cards in the past that have this power, otherwise this option wouldn't even exist. There is still some weapons there to fight aggro dominance - Mystical Tutor, Balance, to some extent Enlightened Tutor - which in the end turned out to help aggro the most by finding B2B, Moon or Winter Orb eot.

The other way - banning key cards - is not an option to cut aggro down to size. It would either mean to ban all cards that massively affect the mana bases - Armageddon, Ravages, Winter Orb, Back to Basics, Blood Moon, Magus of the Moon - or we'd have to introduce a banned list that would be 3 or 4 times as long as the current one.

We're always trying hard to keep the metagame as diversified as possible and tournament results clearly show we're quite successful in that respect!

[Nastaboi]

You are still missing my point.

His point was this: I have yet to see anyone splash white for Swords alone nor red for FTK. Instead I have made a splash solely for Demonic and/or Gifts countless times.

Another problem is that fetchlands make small splashes too easy and painless, but that's another subject.

[Vazdru]

You are still missing my point. Of course stop is autoinclude in white and drain in blue.  These cards discissed are autoinclude also in monoW control! And bringing sofi up is just useless.

Yes you are right - I mixed it up. Sorry, maybe it was a bit late 

Have a look at Sturmgott's posting. He represents excactly the position of the HL-Council.

And one thing should be clear: Bannings/Unbannings will always have two sides of a coin. If we ban Demonic or Gifts U- and B-splash in control-decks will be probably decimated or even vanish but combo decks and some control-decks will vanish too because they won't be viable w/o them anymore.

[Tiggupiru]

I really don't see the problem with the Gifts Ungiven and Demonic Tutor. Yes, they are autoincludes even when you are not playing said colors, but without them combo would be in a world of trouble. The singleton nature of the format makes even the most dedicated combo deck to function unreliably anyways and banning these would make them close to unplayable. I much rather unban Enlightened tutor than ban these two.

I am much more worried about aggro in the format than some blue cards. It is no secret that Wizards think two players playing a bunch of creatures and have them battle until other one is dead is more fun than control mirrors. This is the reason Wizards keep power creeping the creatures after each set, not to mention the recent policy with the lightning bolt being in M10 is a signal saying quality burn is not far behind.

[so_not]

I'm more concerned about why LoA and Mind Twist are still legal?

[Mythrandir]

I really don't see that problem with gifts. Unless gifts based decks start to dominate the meta (which they are not, i use both gifts and demonic and still, aggro is just that fast for a demonic or gifts to make a difference sometimes).

Also a lot of ppl are splashing for blue because of BTB, or adding red because of its nonbasic hate. Even 5C decks now run these hosers cards, should we ban those?

WOTC is pushing aggro more and more. zendikar brought a 2/2 for R with haste, what it brought to control? a worse wog. Until control decks start dominating the meta why would we ban these "control" cards?

And its normal for a control deck to run blue, blue is known for its good control cards.

The reason "all control decks play X" isn't, IMO, a valid reason to ban a card, and where you read "control", you can also read "aggro", etc, etc.

[Nastaboi]

It is not so straightforward. While combo-control would be weaker without Demonic and Gifts, several anti-aggro strategies would become insane stronger as their worse matchups are weakened. I can't see aggro dominating in the field of MWC/MBC, big mana Wildfire decks and BG midrange decks. And with these decks gaining footsteps, blue control will come attractive again.

You should trust more the metagame and its ability to correct itself.

Also, what so_not says. Splashy effects that go easily into most decks and just randomly win the game are not fun.

[Tiggupiru]

It is not so straightforward. While combo-control would be weaker without Demonic and Gifts, several anti-aggro strategies would become insane stronger as their worse matchups are weakened. I can't see aggro dominating in the field of MWC/MBC, big mana Wildfire decks and BG midrange decks. And with these decks gaining footsteps, blue control will come attractive again.

You should trust more the metagame and its ability to correct itself.

Also, what so_not says. Splashy effects that go easily into most decks and just randomly win the game are not fun.

Good point. Didn't think that far. Although I am unsure if things fix themselves quite that nicely. After all, blue control is indeed playable right now and it is pretty much nightmare matchup versus most of the anti-aggro decks and that might diminish the rise of devoted anti-aggro strategies. Nonetheless, I didn't see demonic/gifts as a problem before, but now I kinda like to see what would happen if these would get the hammer.

I also agree with the LoA and Mind Twist. They are able to win the game solely just by having them in the opening hand. Not to mention they are very good against control, and unbanning these differs with the official 'aggro is a problem' - thinking. In case of a LoA, there is no downside of playing this card if you run like two colors and your deck is somewhat controllish. Bad case scenario: It still produces colorless. "Good" scenario: Unfun game where opponent is unable to find wasteland on time and drowns under the sea of card advantage. Even though you have to play mind twist in the spell slot, and it can be dead draw late in the game, the effect is just far too devastating for it's cost.

[Kassow-Rossing]

WOTC is pushing aggro more and more. zendikar brought a 2/2 for R with haste, what it brought to control? a worse wog.

I don't think you can use Goblin Guide and Day of Judgment as an argument. For all I know, Day of Judgment helps control vs. aggro more than Goblin Guide helps aggro vs. control.

One thing is fore sure: One of the reasons why aggro beat control most of the times, is because there aren't many mass-removal spells out there that will be cost-benefit worthy. Control got another one and now have 3-4 pieces and aggro got a new creature which is only tiny bits better than the others. I think control definetely win this "war" of Day of Judgment-Goblin Guide

That said, I think control needs Enlightened Tutor to become unbanned to stand the chances. Even though aggro can use it, I still think control would benefit more from the change. I am also a pro for unbanning Ancestral Recall or Time Walk even though they're - by nature - too powerful and expensive to be in this kind of format. The balance would be restored though. My guess

[Mythrandir]

WOTC is pushing aggro more and more. zendikar brought a 2/2 for R with haste, what it brought to control? a worse wog.

I don't think you can use Goblin Guide and Day of Judgment as an argument. For all I know, Day of Judgment helps control vs. aggro more than Goblin Guide helps aggro vs. control.

Why not? it's a "fact", Day of judgment is consider a worse card than wog (and let's not go into the "strictly better" discussion here) and goblin guide is a bit of a power creep, even with its drawback. I'm not saying that DoJ doesnt help control, what i'm saying is that these last past sets aggro has been pushed (by WOTC) more than control. Yet, another card that helps more aggro than control is PtE, why didn't they just reprinted STP? And once again you can see that with WWK, where they printed yet another good 1 drop and IMO no real good control cards.
This is just my opinion, i look at the new expansions and don't see an OMG, control bomb! I think the last i´ve seen was cryptic command.