Spiderman;277260 said:
I agree, but again, it's how the cards are used in a deck. Black Lotus is fast, free, and plentiful mana. No one's arguing that one by itself is going to break a deck, but if it was unrestricted? The chances of drawing into one suddenly increase by however much and that in turn fuels whatever deck that takes advantage of fast mana. Same with the Moxes and other free mana, to whatever extent.
This is true, but seems pretty unrelated to what I was saying or really more like expounding on what I was saying. I'm not talking about decks being broken, I'm talking about individual cards being broken. And in my experience, a broken card that is banned or restricted is still referred to as broken. In the case of a restriction, it might be used as a one of or it might not. In the case of a ban, it obviously can't be used at all. It's like...
A: So we're building decks for Legacy.
B: Yeah, here's the banned list.
A: I can't use Necropotence?
B: Yeah.
A: Why not?
C: Because Necropotence is broken, NOOB!
B: He means because Necropotence is too overpowered.
A: Oh. Really?
B: Yes, really.
C: Here, I'll show you. Grab one of your stupid decks and prepare to be violated.
Does that seem like a reasonable usage of "broken"? Or should it be more like this?
A: So we're building decks for Legacy?
B: Yeah, here's the banned list.
A: I can't use Necropotence?
B: Yeah.
A: Why not?
C: Because Necropotence is broken, NOOB!
B: Technically, Necropotence can't be broken because it's banned. In order for something to be broken in a format, it has to create a dominant deck. Necropotence can't go into any deck beause it's banned. It WOULD be broken, but banning it stops it from being broken.
C: No, it's still broken. Within the set of broken cards, there's a subset of cards that are banned. The cards themselves remain as they were. They didn't change and are therefore still broken. But they are banned, so this brokenness is kept in check by tournament rules.
B: That can't be right because different cards are broken in different formats. And all of those formats have different rules. Squandered Resources is banned in Mirage Block Constructed, but no one uses it in Legacy at all even though it's allowed. Would you say Squandered Resources is broken?
A: What's Squandered Resources?
C: Shut up, noob. Squandered Resources is broken in Mirage Block Constructed, but not broken in Legacy because Legacy has a much larger cardpool. You know this.
B: So if what's broken necessarily depends on the format in question, then the banned lists for formats also apply. Cards don't exist in a vacuum. A card can only be broken in a format if it's allowed in the format. Necropotence isn't broken in Mirage Block Constructed because it isn't allowed there. Same with Legacy. It isn't allowed, so it can't be broken.
C: Necropotence is part of Legacy though. It's on the banned list. It could, hypothetically, be unbanned. It couldn't be "unbanned" from Mirage Block Constructed because it isn't on the banned list. It's not printed in the cardpool available to that format. It's not a part of the format. In Legacy, it is available in the cardpool, but banned. It's banned because it's broken.
B: It's not broken precisely because it's banned...
A: You're both crazy. I'm going to go play Yu-Gi-Oh.
B: Look what you did!
C: Me? Look what YOU did.
...
Four hours later, B & C are still arguing.