Okay. I will comment on several of these points and hopefully put this to bed for good. Reread these selections to refresh your memory on the main points, and I'll give my two cents at the bottom.
Most other blue-based control decks have adapted to Crucible, these wont auto-lose to a resolved Crucible, and you still need brains to play these decks so why don't people switch instead of complaining?.
You don't just "adapt" to CoW without weakening yourself in the process (like sacrificing color consistency). This means that you can pursue two avenues - minimization of getting locked by CoW but decreasing the power and scope of the deck, or not changing anything but leaving yourself open to random CoW locks. Furthermore, its not like 4CC has been pushed out of the environment due to non-basic hate; don't simplify the argument by trying to suggest that we have 4CC players spearheading the attack on CoW who refuse to adapt and resort to complaining.
I think that we should be exceedingly careful about "expanding the bubble" to include cards like CoW. Because unless we have a strong understanding of where the lines are drawn--which I think can only be achieved with a well-defined set of restriction criteria--we are in constant danger of overstepping the bounds and simply restricting any card that is powerful.
I don't think that we are in any danger of "overstepping the bounds" for two reasons. Again I use quotes because this idea of "boundaries" needs to be clarified. As I posted above, even if the DCI errs or is too hasty to restrict a particular card (and they've done just that in the past), it is very likely to not be detrimental to the game itself or the format's "balance". I'm not suggesting that the DCI should open the floodgates and axe everything powerful in sight, or that the restriction of CoW would open up that possibility. But even if it did happen, it would hardly be the end of the world - T1 would still be an exciting, competitive format.
Interestingly enough, we could argue that the Extended format might not have required mass bannings to neuter many of the top level decks. What if we still had many of the powerful cards in the format, such as Goblin Lackey and Recruiter, Oath of Druids, Survival of the Fittest, Metalworker, Grim Monolith, Entomb, Replenish, Skullclamp, Tinker, Hermit Druid, Earthcraft etc. Is it not conceivable that the format would retain some sort of "balance" akin to the type of balance we have in T1, where each deck almost ignores its opponent and races to do its own broken play? Is this an idea of an exciting, competitive format, or would it be deemed as being simply too random and not sufficiently skill-intensive, and hence providing justification for the chain reaction of bannings? It seems to me that this sort of chain reaction of restrictions/bannings could easily occur in T1 - start by axing CoW and Trinisphere and perhaps even Mishra's Workshop, then move on to control and nail the Mana Drains and ban Yawgmoth's Will to retain the balance, but in doing so restrict Dark Ritual, Charbelcher, and Bazaar of Baghdad to ensure that no combo deck can combo off on turn 1-2. I'm not implying that this should be done, but it would be consistent if we wanted to move away from much of the randomness and have more skill intensive battles.
First off, there is absolutely no need to restrict crucible. It is such a non-broken card it's ridiculous. You'ld be more justified in restricting brainstorm. The card by itself does nothing. It is good at fixing manabases and ruining opposing bases WITH wasteland or strip mine, and it is only a lock with trinisphere. So you are saying that because of strip mine, trinisphere, workshop, and crucible being a two turn, FOUR card combo, that the lot should get axed? Nigga please. Axe ORCHARD/OATH first as it is only 2 cards. The reason crucible (and trinisphere) are viable is because it costs 3. Vice got axed because it cost 1 and it didn't matter if you were sligh, keeper, stompy, whatever...you could run 4 vice easily. How many burn decks or stompy decks do you see with 4 crucibles?
Adapting is not bad for the game AT ALL. The fact that people have to say "hmm, I'm combo. Trinisphere beats me," or "hmm, there are wastelands out there, maybe I shouldn't run all non-basics," is a GOOD thing. Ritual is a speed demon for combo, and makes it smash shit fast, but when rituals run into trinisphere or sphere of resistance, they kinda lick balls. Trinisphere is a nice prison piece, but when your opponent plays his own workshop/crucible/waste, then you just got trinijacked (I claim this term in the name of the White Dragon). If I drop wastes and my opponent plays a crucible, I just wasted my wasteland.
The point is this...all these cards that everyone bitches about do not need to be restricted. Granted, some cards like vice need to go due to cost-power ratio. This is not always the case with all cards though. Workshop has a drawback of not being able to cast colored spells, so if you want to play a fast trini, realize you just played a non-colored source that will make you cry when it falls to a wasteland. If you want to go nuts with 8000 black mana in ritual/yawgwill/tendrils, just know a trinisphere may lurk in your oponnents hand. When you deck build and judge a metagame you don't need to rely on the restriction list to balance the game. The game is balanced by having cards that hose other cards. Ancestral is broken...but not under chains, yawg will is broken...but not under trinisphere...get the point? If you want to fight crucible, play 4 artifact blasts. C'mon, one red to counter any artifact? Sometimes you need to use crap to fight broken, that will lose to other crap. Sometimes you have to accept that you can go broken or get totally hosed. The hate between cards in the cardpool make the game balanced, not the B/R list.[/quote]
