UNBAN SHAHRAZAD

[Gexzilla10]

Hello all. This thread is for supporting unbanning Shahrazad which was banned starting September 1, 2007. Shahrazad is not a broken or unfair card by any streach of the imagination. A player can concede at any time to prevent a drawn out game and usually do so. To say that a card only a few people play has any affect on a format, much less a negative one is ludicrous. The second problem I have with the banning is that it was completely unprovoked and without warning and without consulting the players of Type1 and Legacy. Banning Shahrazad in this fashion sends the message that Wizards has the power to ban any card it wants and will do so without provocation. This thread is to gather support for Shahrazad and hopefully with pressure Wizards into rethinking and ultimately unbanning Shahrazad.
Thanks

[Chaos Lord 21]

I agree that the card should not be banned. From my understanding, most people do concede the subgame strategically when  time is a factor in winning the actual game/match. If people were going to abuse the card in the way Aaron Forsythe mentions, wouldn't they have been doing it already for the past 10+ years?? It just takes away from the current spirit of Vintage that any non-ante, non-dexterity card should be legal for play.

[Setnakt]

I think the issue is that while you do certainly have the choice of simply conceding the subgames in the interests of time constraints, you should not HAVE to do so.

The fact that the card has not been notably abused is not really indicative of anything in particular. Sometimes it takes time, or new elements in the card pool, for some niche cards to find a home. Though I agree that Shahrazad is not a card to be particularly concerned about regarding power level, that was not the argument I understood from their end. Their concern seems to be regarding the practicality of trying to force a possible 8 (or more! 4 shahrazad + 4 burning wish + death wish?) subgames per game and thus a possible 27+ games per match in a typical 50 minute round.

In any event it seems to me that that angle is what you have to address when discussing the legality of the card.

[diopter]

The only time that a strategic concession should be acceptable is because a player has effectively (if not numerically) lost the game, and thus moving on to the next game is logical.

There are political concessions that allow a player to give his opponent the win - those are not within the scope of this discussion.

There are strategic concessions in which a player still has the ability to win the game (even though he may be at a disadvantage) but is forced to concede because of time constraints. These concessions are unfortunate - an unavoidable byproduct of Magic tournament structure.

Shaharazad exacerbates this problem - why should a player "have to" concede a subgame and lose half his life when he is perfectly capable of defeating the Shaharazad wielder (and given the fact that the opponent is wielding a Shaharazad deck and the format is either Vintage or Legacy, that outcome is likely) just to save time in the round?

In any case, Shaharazad was not oft played, so its banning means almost nothing. It's like banning Fugitive Wizard or Berserk Murlodont - nobody cares.

Also, banning Shaharazad made infinitely more sense than restricting Brainstorm or Merchant Scroll. Thankfully the former happened instead of the latter.

[Gexzilla10]

The fact of the matter is is that Shahrazad has not become a nuisence. There are no decks that abuse Shahrazad or cards that make it unreasonable. As for the "forced" consession problem, it is considered good strategy to concede especially when time is a factor just like its good strategy to play Brainstorm at the end of your opponents turn or to Vampiric Tutor for a key card in your deck. What really gets my ire is that the banning was seemingly arbitrary. There were no calls for Shahrazad to be banned because its a fringe card no one uses. To ban something just because you can without a good excuse is bull and an abuse of power. Not only that, but Forsythe deciding to quit and take Shahrazad with him is rather suspicious to me but I'll let you guys ponder that one.

[Gexzilla10]

In any case, Shaharazad was not oft played, so its banning means almost nothing. It's like banning Fugitive Wizard or Berserk Murlodont - nobody cares.
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While it may be true that Shahrazad is an obscure card, it does have fans and they deserve better than having a fun card banned for no reason. Just because no one plays a card competatively doesn't mean you should just ban it, if they did that then the majority of the cards would be banned. There's a larger problem that people aren't getting, and that is that it was an abuse of power to ban a card without reason. Shahrazad should be unbanned because it was unjustly targeted without a good reason.
~Shane

[lplaat]

I agree Shahrazad should not be banned for multiple reasons mentioned by others ("all" cards should be allowed in Vintage etc., etc.)

Additionally I play casual tournaments with friends, often of the "Vintage" type (I.e. the T1 banned/restricted list is used).

So Mr. Forsythe's remark

"And if you enjoy playing the card casually, feel free to do so."

is no longer an option thanks to this unneccesary ban.

Thank you for annihilating one of my (favourite) decks and decreasing the value of my collection for no apparent reason (I seriously doubt that Shahrazad ever really caused either "time" or "space" problems in real tournaments).

Cheers,
lplaat

[Setnakt]

Would you rather Shahrazad had become a staple in some deck before they banned it? Would that have pleased the collectors more?

There hasn't really been a counter-argument to the reason they banned it. That's not the same as there being no "good reason" to do so.

Also, comparing the fact that it may be "good strategy" to concede a subgame to using Brainstorm EOT? That's crazy! You Brainstorm EOT because you decide to; it's how your deck operates, and you're leisurely allowing the opponent to play through their turn before you decide how to prioritize the cards in your hand. You then proceed with the rest of the game having used a solid cantrip to improve card quality. This is not something that is inherently disruptive to the very structure of the match. On the other hand, some random guy shows up with 4 Shahrazad/4 Burning Wish.dec and drags out 27 games in a match and forces you, the player of the better deck, to start conceding games just because 27 is a big number and 50 minutes suddenly don't seem very long, and you think that's just fine?

You're seriously going to have to do better than that to just compare a cantrip to a card that can create more than 24 extra games in a single match. Whatever.

[zeus-online]

There's a million cards out there which can stall a game almost indefinetly....so why suddenly ban shahrazad? I'm pretty sure noone would ever play it seriosly, and if it ever showed up in a tourney it would probably get torn apart by REAL decks and never really impact the results.

I see no reason for this ban, it's about the most random act i've seen the DCI commit (That and time vault, but that's another topic)

/Zeus

[3eowulf]

It has been banned for the same reason Falling Star and Chaos Orb are:
it doesn't belong to competitive play.

The whole SUBGAME thing (other than requiring a lot of rules), it's really unpractical in a tournament enviroment:
- do you and your opponent take your decks and move to a free table?
- do you and your opponent take your decks and move under the table?

[Norm4eva]

It has been banned for the same reason Falling Star and Chaos Orb are:
it doesn't belong to competitive play.

I understand the reasoning behind the ban but this has nothing to do with it.  Chaos Orb and the like fall under "ante/dexterity" or whatever the subheading is, and comparing Shah to those is really unfair.  They exist in completely different areas of design space and card function.
One should really, really be careful when discussing what cards "belong" in competitive play and which do not.  Elder Land Wurm sees about as much play as Shahrazad and as of yet, remains unbroken, even conceptually.  The last time we saw this kind of theory-driven ban was before the Scourge release, when Mind's Desire was banned in Vintage before it was even legal.  Now, we can extrapolate the potential for Mind's Desire before we actually play with the card, and whether or not that ban was correct is sort of a forgone conclusion that Vintage would have really, really sucked donkey balls with four Mind's Desires.  I've seen the concept decks and they're real monsters.  Trouble is, there are no concept decks surrounding Shahrazad.  If it's an engine waiting to be broken, it's an engine waiting for a vehicle.
These Shah decks, do they 'go off' in the first 3 turns with little or no capacity to be disrupted?  Do they genuinely prevent gameplay from occurring?  Show me the Shah list that is so much as half as prohibitive in regard to gameplay, sheer power and interactivity as 4Desire, since the reasons for restricting/banning either card have both been, in my vision, equally putative.

[Implacable]

These Shah decks, do they 'go off' in the first 3 turns with little or no capacity to be disrupted?  Do they genuinely prevent gameplay from occurring?  Show me the Shah list that is so much as half as prohibitive in regard to gameplay, sheer power and interactivity as 4Desire, since the reasons for restricting/banning either card have both been, in my vision, equally putative.

This argument is specious.  You keep citing concerns of power or efficacy, as Forsythe did (for no reason, I assert) in his article.  The card simply does not belong in a tournament setting because of its impracticality.  That is an excellent rationale for a ban.

[Glix]

Would you rather Shahrazad had become a staple in some deck before they banned it? Would that have pleased the collectors more?

There hasn't really been a counter-argument to the reason they banned it. That's not the same as there being no "good reason" to do so.

That is the counter-argument, however.  Yes, yes I would rather see it become a staple.  And there is reason for that.  First of all, you can't just ban/restrict cards because "they're useless" but they "might someday become broken".  Should we ban every card that doesn't see competitive play?  I get your point, from the collector standpoint, however you must understand that we can't just ban every worthless (price and play wise) card out there to anticipate future brokenness.  Should be ban Despotic Scepter because someday it might combo with some imaginary card?  Should be ban Imperial Mask because it "wasn't intended for vintage play".  No, I don't think so.  I know that my statements are steeped in hyperbole, but it is to accentuate my point.  I also realize that Shaharazad has a higher threshold of danger than Despotic Scepter or Elder Land Wurm, but that shouldn't matter.

Also, comparing the fact that it may be "good strategy" to concede a subgame to using Brainstorm EOT? That's crazy! You Brainstorm EOT because you decide to; it's how your deck operates, and you're leisurely allowing the opponent to play through their turn before you decide how to prioritize the cards in your hand. You then proceed with the rest of the game having used a solid cantrip to improve card quality. This is not something that is inherently disruptive to the very structure of the match. On the other hand, some random guy shows up with 4 Shahrazad/4 Burning Wish.dec and drags out 27 games in a match and forces you, the player of the better deck, to start conceding games just because 27 is a big number and 50 minutes suddenly don't seem very long, and you think that's just fine?

You're seriously going to have to do better than that to just compare a cantrip to a card that can create more than 24 extra games in a single match. Whatever.

Once again, he was indeed using hyperbole.  However, think about Shaharazad as a punisher card.  "pay half your life or go into a subgame"  You don't have to do the subgame, just concede.  "WW, sorcery: target player loses half" is hardly broken, and if you want to win a match then you should just concede.  Honestly, this card can never really be broken simply because you can just pay life to counter it.  Its in the worst color of vintage, and its just a mediocre burn spell really.  Should we ban Time Vault and Mizzium Translequat because they can stall a game indefinitely?  Obviously not.  Playing Shaharazad as a strategic burn spell should be an acceptable move.  Do you honestly, honestly, believe that 4 Wish/4 Shaharazad would ever see vintage play?  He might cast one, and ouch, but then any real vintage deck should be able to take that hit and win.

As a community, we cannot simply "Consider the banned list ante cards, dexterity cards, and subgame cards".  To change the rules like that sets a dangerous precedent.  Next we'll be considering other random singular abilities.  Just because a card is useless, just because it has the potential to do something, and I severely doubt this card even has that, is no reason to ban it.  We have a format where we get 3 mana for nothing and 3 cards for U, is a WW sorcery speed burn spell really a threat?  If a card is impractical, it won't see competetive play.  The problem will solve itself.  If it was a problem, I'd accept action, but it simply isn't.

The real reason for the argument is that proponents of the ban are claiming that impracticality in tourament play justifies denying the creative space of the card existing.  However, this directly clashes with the ideology of vintage, which I believe should be our first concern, and that is that players get to "play with all of their cards", and only banning those which honestly do not work at all with current game rules, which is what we had.

[Ephraim]

The comments contained in this post were ungentlemanly.  I have deleted them.

[diopter]

Recall Forsythe's logic on keeping Land Tax on the Legacy banned list. A strategy that is centered around not playing lands is considered unnatural by the DCI. Likewise here, a strategy that effectively and regularly forces opponents to concede games before they begin because of time constraints is considered unnatural by Organized Play.

[Philatio]

There are no decks that abuse Shahrazad or cards that make it unreasonable.

True, but I will say a few years ago I was at a Lotus tourney where a guy playing a R/W burn deck played Shahrazad and Forked it for a slick 15 to the dome.  I had never thought of it as a burn spell before.  This was back when Hulk Smash was the deck to beat, and it was janky by the standards of those days, but that play earned some style points in my eyes.  I don't think that card does anything besides make Johnny happy.

[Gexzilla10]

There has been an argument made saying that Shahrazad was banned because it would somehow become broken because of these new Planeswalkers cards. If that is the case, then Wizards should have waited to see if this prediction came true before they do something as reckless as ban a card. If the reason wasn't the possiblity of complications with Planeswalkers, then there is absolutely no reason to ban the card. Forsythe has said that Organized Play was the one who requested the ban. If that is so, at least give some definitive evidence to show how Shahrazad has become broken. Forsythe should have taken OP's request under consideration like any good leader would and then try to find evidence to support OP's claim, especially before banning a card, a desicion that is basically saying a card never existed. By tha I mean that most casual players abide by the B/R lists, something not taken into account by Forsythe in his article. All players need to take a stake in this argument and not stand for it for the continued success and health of the game.

[Setnakt]

Glix and Gexzilla, your arguments are still centered around power levels. That is not the issue. The fact is that there is an effect that the card produces that you are admitting to forcing you to start CONCEDING GAMES because of an arbitrary time restraint; this is especially strange in light of the fact that you are arguing that the proper strategic play is to concede to an admittedly lesser deck. The DCI wants to keep the matches functioning as reasonably as possible, and the only time this would be an issue is with unreasonable play or specifically with Shahrazad. The only way to arbitrate against Shahrazad's match stalling is to ban it.

No one is arguing that Shahrazad is "broken." The fact is that it screws up the very structure of a match by creating more and more and more games; your only option, in the interests of time constraints, is to lose. Frankly that seems stupid. I don't know that Shahrazad is a problem and I wasn't previously of the opinion that it needed to be banned, but it always seemed so strange anyways, so I guess I'm not opposed to it.

[justaguy]

Recall Forsythe's logic on keeping Land Tax on the Legacy banned list. A strategy that is centered around not playing lands is considered unnatural by the DCI. Likewise here, a strategy that effectively and regularly forces opponents to concede games before they begin because of time constraints is considered unnatural by Organized Play.

I was reminded of this, too.  It seems that the logic is that games should be at very least 4 turns, centered around flashy creatures and removal, require as little patience as possible (at the expense of play options), and that you should easily be able to play three or more colors.  Also, counters and mana denial are the devil's tools and should be extremely inefficient or narrow. 

As a fairly old player and something of a "Johnny", I am not disappointed with Shazharad as much as the direction of the game.  Some of my favorite cards are Brainstorm and Lim-Dul's Vault, and I fear we are moving further away from those types of cards that award decisions.

[Gexzilla10]

The power level of Shahrazad isn't the problem. No one asserts that it is broken or unfair in terms of power. The problem comes from the unnecassary banning of a card without reason. I encourage all players who want this game to grow and prosper to write Wizards, the person who is replacing Forsythe, or anyone you can think of to remedy this injustice. As paying customers of Magic, we deserve better treatment than what we are getting now: the lack of trust from Wizards that we don't want the best for the game we love.

[Setnakt]

There was, in fact, a reason. Please address it or cease with your apocalyptic rhetoric.

[LotusHead]

Shaharazad exacerbates this problem - why should a player "have to" concede a subgame and lose half his life when he is perfectly capable of defeating the Shaharazad wielder (and given the fact that the opponent is wielding a Shaharazad deck and the format is either Vintage or Legacy, that outcome is likely) just to save time in the round?

Mind Twist and Channel were UNBANNED once upon a time because Vintage is a place where you can play with all of your cards (and by Vintage, we mean DCI Vintage and Proxy-but otherwise adhere to DCI rules). Ante cards, we understand, Dexterity cards, well, what ev', but physically impared planeswalkers should play tourney Magic Too.

My response to Dipoter's comment is this:

As far as anyone cares, this "Banning" will affect like 3 people in the whole world, as the card sucks and only noobs play it, with the current cardpool obviously.

But as for tourney setting, this Shaharazad tactic only works once against a player who plays Force of Will or other disruption. Any player with SOME experience should be able to handle the Sharahazad threat by simply not sucking twice in three games. If people try using Shaharazad Tactics against the Meta in general, they get what Ichorid Gets: No 1st place Prizes in any tourneys ever (except that one first week or so.). Shaharazad will be hated out.

Now, Shahrazad is a very UNIQUE card, and if something Wizards is gonna produce in Lorwyn or beyond will "break" Shaharazad, and Wizards wants to give it the AXE for THAT REASON, then they should just say it. I'm convinced that Time Vault got neutered by Time Spiral.

As someone else mentioned, Time Vault is another topic altogether, or is it? I thought Twiddle + Time Vault = Free Turn until I heard about "Time Counters errata" and Time Spiral...Time Counters... Doh!

Let Wizards give Shaharazad the Axe.

(I can't belive I'm saying that!), but Shaharazad IS the only TRULY UNIQUE CARD in Magic, and likely only casual non-tourney players would ever play it. I am certain that 98% of these cards lay in collectors binders somewhere, and the other 2% are in other binders, owned by newbs who will never affect Vintage anyways (Yes, Smmemmen, break that card! See if it can be Done!)

[ELD]

If people try using Shaharazad Tactics against the Meta in general, they get what Ichorid Gets: No 1st place Prizes in any tourneys ever (except that one first week or so.). Shaharazad will be hated out.

See Myriad Games September 1st Results for contrary evidence.

I can see both sides to this issue.  On one hand, I feel Vintage should be the format where you can play with all your cards.  On the other, playing sub-games is not possible with normal tournament play space.  When all is said and done, I'm not sure this is really going to matter.  I'm not happy they banned it, but I can't see why it matters in anything other than principle.  No one plays the card, so banning it doesn't actually impact things. 

[Norm4eva]

These Shah decks, do they 'go off' in the first 3 turns with little or no capacity to be disrupted?  Do they genuinely prevent gameplay from occurring?  Show me the Shah list that is so much as half as prohibitive in regard to gameplay, sheer power and interactivity as 4Desire, since the reasons for restricting/banning either card have both been, in my vision, equally putative.

This argument is specious.  You keep citing concerns of power or efficacy, as Forsythe did (for no reason, I assert) in his article.  The card simply does not belong in a tournament setting because of its impracticality.  That is an excellent rationale for a ban.

Impracticality is entirely relative.  We're getting into intangibilities here.  Strictly speaking, it's impractical for any deck to create 1000 Squirrel tokens and attack with them - who carries 1000 Squirrel tokens with them to a tourney?  Yet the combo exists.  We don't even require the Squirrelcraft player to play with actual tokens.  However bad the combo may seem, we enable that impractical situation by allowing the shortcut of simply saying "yeah there's 1000 squirrels in play now."  Hell, do ETW players even bring enough Goblin tokens to cover their asses?
What about the Confinement lock issue that arose a few years ago in Extended?  It's not hard nor illegal to build a deck with the primary goal of achieving non-losing non-winning scenarios.  Should I be forced to build a win condition into my deck?  How do you define win condition?  If I have the Confinement lock and you can't deal, you'll eventually draw your deck and lose - sounds like the Solitary lock is a win condition to me, but as long as we're discussing what's practical and what's not I have to appeal to the logic of the opponent who will (hopefully) realize what's up and not actually try and draw his deck.  If he plays it out, whose fault is that?  What's the real source of the obstacle here?

No one plays the card, so banning it doesn't actually impact things.

Not singling you out but there's been a few comments like this.  I hope it's understood that this can be no kind of rationale for restriction or banning, or else Sea's Claim should be next on the chopping block along with Sorrow's Path and The Brute and thousands of other such rogues.  That's like saying we can get rid of the Third Amendment of the US Bill of Rights because a soldier's never actually tried to force me to put him up for the night.  (ok that's severe heh.  the spirit of the argument remains the same)

[Vegeta2711]

What about the Confinement lock issue that arose a few years ago in Extended?

It took 15 seconds a to set-up the actual 'lock' and once the opponent knew, you could shortcut that down to 5 seconds or so a turn. The two speed-wise isn't even comparable since S-zard requires a significant time investment once it's cast just to set-up what the intended effect is.

Like not even close.

[Ephraim]

I keep seeing, "But the opponent can always concede!"  The opponent only has a reason to concede because there are time and space constraints created by the tournament structure and having nothing whatsoever to do with the actual game of Magic.  By my estimation, the Shahrazad deck is bad and without time as a consideration, a good player with a good deck will probably prevail against nested subgames.  The Shahrazad deck isn't trying to play a winning game of Magic, though.  It's trying to game the tournament system.  If you want to argue that the tournament system is as much a part of competitive Magic as the actual game is, I can't tell you not to have that opinion, but I will state without reservation that I find that attitude contemptible.  There is a reason why it is punishable to play slowly.  The rules are geared to promote good play, not to encourage the player who knows how to waste time when they're up a game.

[diopter]

I keep seeing, "But the opponent can always concede!"  The opponent only has a reason to concede because there are time and space constraints created by the tournament structure and having nothing whatsoever to do with the actual game of Magic.  By my estimation, the Shahrazad deck is bad and without time as a consideration, a good player with a good deck will probably prevail against nested subgames.  The Shahrazad deck isn't trying to play a winning game of Magic, though.  It's trying to game the tournament system.  If you want to argue that the tournament system is as much a part of competitive Magic as the actual game is, I can't tell you not to have that opinion, but I will state without reservation that I find that attitude contemptible.  There is a reason why it is punishable to play slowly.  The rules are geared to promote good play, not to encourage the player who knows how to waste time when they're up a game.

Emphasis mine.

The fact that Shaharazad was banned instead of restricted implies that it is an issue of principle and not power level - by putting it in the same class as ante and dexterity, Wizards is sending a message that Shaharazad does not belong in the game. Along the same vein I think they might look at cards like City in a Bottle - differentiation by expansion seems incongruous with the concept of reprints.

[Matt]

I'm with Ephraim on this basically, but I have a larger concern: did they really not have anything better to do with their time than to monkey around with an obscure backwater card from 13 years ago? Are things going that swimmingly?

[BruiZar]

Cards like Shah

divine intervention
platinum angel
chance encounter
the cheese stands alone and its legal counterpart

The card is in line with cards such as:
Dash Hopes
Browbeat

For reasons known to every vintage player, those cards can never be competitive.


The card isn't unpractical at all for tournament play. Vintage uses a hand, a graveyard, and maybe 5 permanents max. That's really easily put aside. Whoever banned Shahrazad is an amazing ass imo.

[Norm4eva]

What about the Confinement lock issue that arose a few years ago in Extended?

It took 15 seconds a to set-up the actual 'lock' and once the opponent knew, you could shortcut that down to 5 seconds or so a turn. The two speed-wise isn't even comparable since S-zard requires a significant time investment once it's cast just to set-up what the intended effect is.

Like not even close.

No, it might require a significant time investment.  There's nothing that says Shahrazad couldn't just lead to a turn 2 - 4 win for either player, which would return the players to the main game, one of them at half life.  While I've never played the card I can see how its application could potentially give a strong aggro White Weenie deck a way to give combo a run for their money by saying "Hey, nice combo.  Let's see if you can pull it off twice, or thrice, go ahead."  I also see that it can be used as a means to stall the game by delving deeper and deeper into subgames, but this to me falls under the heading of decks like High Tide which can legitimately spend a long, long time trying to combo out and just never draw the goods until many moons have passed.  It happens to anyone who's played the deck; you HAVE to combo out NOW but you don't have all the pieces, and with a deck like that you've just got to dig until you get it.  Sometimes it's exasperating and time consuming.  Sometimes you just topdeck and win.  If you go to time honestly trying to win, what's the difference?
Just as one could build a Tide deck that just dicks with itself all afternoon, one could build a Shah deck that just generates subgames ad infinitum.  I fail to find a relevant difference since the effect one would try to avoid is already a factor of game play that can never truly be excised.  Banning a card which nobody's playing isn't bringing the game any closer to that impossibility.  I find Matt's comment sums that feeling up nicely; were things really that stagnant at DCI headquarters that they were just throwing darts at the "stuff we could ban but don't really need to, but it'd be edifying for us anyway" board?