In the interest of sustaining an EDH quality banlist I have proposed a merged bans list from Highlander and the current EDH. I will call this the Tournament Worthy Ban List for EDH, because this is the list I personally will use. The primary purpose of this effort is to sustain a highlander format that is casual, infinites should be generally available after drawing 20-30 cards but 2 card tutor win packages should be banned (as should 1 card wins like protean hulk). This list should also be adequate to sustain the 1v1 play that is primarily in this forum, so let's get to work and see if we can get this finished. I will update with suggestions.

Tournament Worthy Ban List

Banned Generals:

Braids, Cabal Minion
Rofellos

Banned List:

* Ancestral Recall
* Black Lotus
* Chaos Orb
! Crucible of Worlds (banned only in duels)
! Dream Halls
! Fastbond (banned only in multiplayer)
* Grindstone
* Karakas
* Kokusho, the Evening Star
* Limited Resources
* Lion's Eye Diamond
* Metalworker
! Mind Twist (banned only in duels)
* Mox Emerald
* Mox Jet
* Mox Pearl
* Mox Ruby
* Mox Sapphire
* Panoptic Mirror
* Protean Hulk
* Recurring Nightmare
* Riftsweeper
* Time Vault
* Time Walk
* Tinker
* Yawgmoth's Bargain
* Worldgorger Dragon

Alternate Win Conditions:

* Biorhythm
* Coalition Victory


Upheaval/Reset Class Cards:

! Shaharazad
* Sway of the Stars
* Upheaval

All Ante Cards:

* Amulet of Quoz
* Bronze Tablet
* Contract from Below
* Darkpact
* Demonic Attorney
* Jeweled Bird
* Rebirth
* Tempest Efreet
* Timmerian Fiends

All "Unglued" and "Unhinged"

Currently Under Discussion:
Sundering Titan
Gifts Ungiven
Time Stretch

Previously Discussed and Rejected from Banning(for the moment until someone re-opens discussion):
Library of Alexandria
Life from the Loam
Mindslaver
Power Artifact
Survival of the Fittest
Zur the Enchanter

Library of Alexandria, Coalition Victory, and Panoptic Mirror almost certainly belong on there as well, and I don't think both Kokusho and Recurring Nightmare need restricted in duels, though that's probably a much larger concern in a team/2hg game.

3sphere? For real?

This isn't vintage why in the world would you restrict it?

I also feel compelled to point out there are still tons and tons of infinite combos that could be easily assembled.

Cards that should be on your list:
Upheaval
Balance
Timespiral (more powerful in EDH than Time =twister)
Yagmoth's Bargin
Yagmoth's Will

Removed Timetwister because it clearly is not worthy of a ban as you noted. Added a few alternate win bans, but I honestly see no motivation to ban Library of Alexandria. If you're going to lose to a control deck you can pack it in your deck as well and hope you draw it before your opponent. As I didn't ban Tolarian Academy or Gaea's Cradle or Sol Ring it would be almost ridiculous to consider Library of Alexandria bannable.

Also, I did not ban Balance because it is fair. I am mainly trying to address combo, symmetric effects are similar to Cataclysm to me...not that fun but you should be able to deal with them and also abuse them if you want to.

Edit: I didn't even ask if we should ban the alternate win condition cards, is there anyone who is against these cards being banned? Honestly they're more unfun than ban-worthy but in my book banning something unfun is totally legit. Anyone disagree?

Edit: Removed Trinisphere, was on from normal highlander list but I don't see it being too much of an issue since crucible is banned.

you should add mindslaver but only if it is in combo with any goblin welder-like(academy ruins...)...

Heh, I love that logic

Anyway... I'd say banning LED and Servant outright is probably more coherent than an either/or clause... neither seems to draw much complaint.

The big question I can see for a dueling banned list is to determine the critical turn of the format (in the most competitive competition). Given that it's based on the Vintage cardpool, I doubt it'll be much more than 7 if both players are looking for hard locks (Erayo, Braids), geddon-beatdown, or combing out. Once you figure out the "normal" time it takes people to win the game against one opponent, you can look for cards or strategies which are outliers.

Interested to see how it shapes up

EDIT: One last note... like multiplayer, it may take some time for people to "settle out" and adapt. At first, no one wants to play disruptive elements, so strategies run unchecked. Likely (presumably?) permission and other protective disruption will become more popular as time passes, which will "rebalance" some of the most abusive strategies. Vintage would be pretty weird if no one played Duress/FoW

I marked a lot of cards with ! that I consider to occur after the critical turn, or employ a strategy that is easily counterable/symmetric. Shaharazad shouldn't even be a f'ing magic card though so screw that bloody waste of time. Any objections to cutting ALL of those cards from this list?

Coalition Victory should stay gone just because in five color decks it's a sorcery that reads "You win the game", and LR should probably go as well just because of Zur.

We play Highlander Tournaments (1vs1 // Two-Headed-Giant) each Saturday and some bigger Grand Prix Highlanders in Germany with rulez like normal magic, a modified bannedlist and a modified mulligan.


Ancestral Recall

Balance
Black Lotus

Crucible of Worlds

Demonic Tutor

Flash

Gifts Ungiven
Grindstone

Hermit Druid

Imperial Seal
Intuition

Land Tax
Library of Alexandria
Life from the Loam

Mana Crypt
Mana Vault
Memory Jar
Mind Twist
Mox Emerald
Mox Jet
Mox Pearl
Mox Ruby
Mox Sapphire

Necropotence

Protean Hulk

Skullclamp
Sol Ring
Survival of the Fittest

Timetwister
Time Walk
Tinker

Vampiric Tutor

Wheel of Fortune
Worldgorger Dragon

GENERALS:

Rofellos

ANTE BANNED:

Amulet of Quoz
Bronze Tablet
Chaos Orb
Contract from Below
Darkpact
Demonic Attorney
Falling Star
Jeweled Bird
Rebirth
Tempest Efreet
Timmerian Fiends



The list itself is oriented on the "fast", "consistent" and "strong" combos in the format and from decks that placed Top8 from week to week, and with multiple in Top8 (so no "luck" at a basic).

I'll explain some of the bannings, so you can easier get why they are banned:


Ancestral Recall
Just power, everyone can see that a player will win when this resolves, just because the brutal and extrem easy card advantage.

Balance
An extrem board sweeper. The "balancing" aspect nearly never happens when a deck plays it, like Stax like variants that use it like, "mind twist", "wrath of god" AND Armageddon at the same time, a game is finished when this resolves and its way to cheap to have a right to exist in a healthy format.

Black Lotus
Way to easy mana boost, and combos easy with Auriok Salvager, storm and nearly any strategie you can have.

Crucible of Worlds
A card that is a problem to fight, just because games are won by it and a recurring wasteland/fetchland/manland, and its a easy way to give Oath of Druid decks an easy "alternativ" win, and ofcourse it makes "stax" decks better and a game can easy shift to the player that has this in play.

Demonic Tutor
Cheap tutor, no drawback at all and makes combos easier to hit. Being cheap makes the combo fast, and thats what needs the ban, a combo itself can be ok, but fast combos are deadly for a format.

Flash
Everyone knows the Hulk Flash, but even a Academy Rector is a 2card combo, when you can hit your enchantment of choice namely Yawgmoths Bargain, a combo deck that played without hulk was a "storm" combo with Oath of Druids, Rector, Gamekeeper that could easy hit the Y.Bargain turn 3-4 and combo out. Without flash the deck needs a lot more backup and lost its "instant win".

Gifts Ungiven
The two card combo itself. Every player that resolves this will win the game by brutal card advantage cards or a combo itself. Most players just searched for 4 flashback spells, from Ancient Grudge/Ray of Revelation/Deep Analyse/Genesis an U/G deck can easy fight everything with that, and be sure that a deck with Gifts has "multiple" ways to get everytime a solution even for games you would call "lost".

Grindstone
Too crazy fast combo with Painter's Servant, this combo goes online turn 2-4 easy, depending on how much tutors you need and the parts are incredible easy to tutor for.

Hermit Druid
Without basic lands this fills your graveyard very easy and than you will put the needed cards on top with Krosan Reclamation or win instant with a Sutured Ghoul, alternativ is Terravore.

Imperial Seal
To fast and to easy tutor.

Intuition
Weaker than Gifts but does the same for combo decks and each deck with a toolbox for it will win when this resolves.

Land Tax
Extrem hard card advantage on the land base, Stax uses this card to get extrem ahead and some controll use it to get a long Solitary Confinment so they can easy win with some evasion guys or just get enough time to set up mana, and its a card which is incredible powerfull turn 1 and each deck that uses it abuses it badly.

Library of Alexandria
A card that everyone want to play. The thing is itself the card is not that "brutal" fast, but like above its a way to have an easy way to make Solitary Confinment an unbreakable defence and a controll deck with it will rarely lose. The most important thing is "everyone" will play it and if a player wins just because he played this turn 1 and doesnt need a special deck to make it broken, it should be clear that the card itself is way to broken for the format.

Life from the Loam
A card that lead us to a format in which "everyone" splashes green just to get this incredible card advantage machine. Wins like Crucible with recurring problem lands like Wasteland, Volraths stronghold and for controll Maze of Ith, Karakas, the thing is that a player wins when this gets online and so its a card that is way to strong for the cost and it makes even some problem with fastbond, like Crucible does infinited combos (wasteland + a way to gain life, Zuran Orb or lands with lifegain, win with Barbarian Ring or other damage lands, you have infinited mana anyway).

Mana Crypt
Too fast and too easy mana.

Mana Vault
Too fast and too easy mana.

Memory Jar
An incredible draw 7 that always makes storm based decks possible and it never is fun to lose against something like this. And yes Stax uses this with Goblin welder and friends (slaver is strong too).

Mind Twist
A card that was on a twist. When the format shifts to "slow" this card can be king, when its fast this loses power, but everytime it hits for 3B you will win a game just because the card advantage, and green/black can force this out easy turn 2-3 with a brutal discard that finishes the game.

Mox Emerald
Mox Jet
Mox Pearl
Mox Ruby
Mox Sapphire

All too good for its money, and really cards that make combo too fast, controll too fast and games just unfun because they speed like hell.

Protean Hulk
Extrem easy combo creature, from Kiki-Jiki combos to Reveillark, whatever you do you will win.

Skullclamp
Makes the allready good green/black decks a lot more scary and each creature deck with this online will never ever lose a card advantage fight and so its boring to lose just because "skullclamp".

Sol Ring
Too fast, too easy mana.

Survival of the Fittest
A card that made green/black a powerhouse (GB is still one of the strongest color combination today, but not broken anymore) and everytime this hits play, you will go for Squee, Eternal Witness and than everything you like from solutions, to fatties, to combos (ala Reveillark that easy gets a set up with this).

Timetwister
Again an extrem fast way to get a draw 7 and so this makes storm fast and easy, you will always draw in mana boost and you will win with a turn 3 Empty the Warrens with low storm, or a late game Tendrilds with brutal storm, that can only be brutal with "draw 7" spells.

Time Walk
A joke in itself.

Tinker
Way to broken with Darksteel Collossus. Thats the most important target, but the card was a joke in Stax decks and everyone played it while legal, so this was very fast banned (was legal only before Mirrodin was Released, got some problem with the artifacts ala Mishras Helix / Phyrexian Processor and such, but was just a real problem with the Darksteel Collossus).

Vampiric Tutor
Too fast and too easy tutor.

Wheel of Fortune
A draw 7, not just for blue but for red strategies too. Way out of color and the effect is to swingy for its mana, always ends in a combo when it resolves, because you get enough fuel and easy "discard" when you need it.

Worldgorger Dragon
Easy combo with Necromancy, Animate Dead, Dance of the Dead. You just need lands for infinited mana, a comes into play trigger creature will do its job and you can easy do all this turn 2-4 without big problems.




Cards that are on the watch right now are cards that encourage easy and fast combos, thats things like "entomb", the 1-2 mana tutors and cards that make easy mana (too much).

The format itself has incredible much combos, even 1 card combos.
Some funny decks that we see use "warp world" to go in an deadly "warp loop" because it uses creatures with tokens and cards that easy set up mana, so when it resolves you always get a way to get it back with Eternal Witness, Anarchist or just put enough creatures into play, because your opponent will have instants/sorceries you will not have.
Tooth and Nail like tactics are possible, Reveillark, JuniperOrder, some "elf infinited" combos, Palinchron with High Tide/Mirrari's Wake and others.
The possible combo decks are endless, but the important thing is that you try to use the banned list to make the "top8" decks not that consistent, so you dont have just the "best" deck and the decks that beat the best deck, you want a format that evolves itself and so each week you have new decks and possible ways to fight the older decks.

Today this works and we look at our Top8 lists to figure out which combo is too easy and always dominates again and again, so we can use the banned list to fight it until its a deck that is "balanced" and healthy enough.


Just that you dont wonder. We will never ban some combos that work with cards like Panoptic Mirror and Time Walk, this is incredible slow and way too slow and too inconsistent, so the problem is never a "possible" 2 card combo, but the "fast" and "consistent" 2 card combos that will shift a format to beat it, thats the problem to fight with a banned list, something the meta game cant do itself.



A problem with the Generals is that a format must be "healthy" in itself so that player want to build a deck with a general they like and that can win a tournament.
The banned list tries to kill the cards that force you to "splash" colors, thats Life from the loam that forces green, Gifts/Intuition that force blue, the best decks most the time play 4 or 5 color, just splashing some power house cards, and so they automatic play a 5-color general, and ignore the general most the time.
For a Tournament the system doesnt work that you let a player play a special general, you have tournaments with 30+ players and some come from other cities to play, so everyone can play what they like, most the time Sliver Overlord because it can beat some "noobish" sliver decks or steal some changelings.

Rofellos is a problem be got too, its one of the generals that make "mono" color decks possible and it makes a hell of mana turn 3, so you can play nearly everything you like, and it even combos with cards like Umbral Mantle , staff of domination and such cards, so its banned.

A rule we want to introduce is that a player can play any general and still play 5-color so its really only the general, this will remove the problem of the general choices right now and make the EDH concept better fit in the highlander play, so you can use "braids" in a Green/black deck, and even Isamaru in your Zoo like, some things will make problems like Teferi and Erayo and so they will see ban for sure.

We think that this change will make the General part more fun and less restrictive and so players will use the General more to the actual deck plan and not just play decks that use Sliver Overlord just to use 5-color and never play it.

*********************************************************
Ill finish, maybe write some more in the future, and how our changes effected our meta game.
*********************************************************

So at the end, good look with a banned list, if you figure out some combos that are too fast and too easy let us know.

With your banned list, you make it feel like the format is much more broken than it actually is.

First of all, you need to remember that your cards are restricted by the colours of your general. That alone already removes a large chunk of possible combos. (Unless you are playing a 5-colour general, which I will get back to later.)

Second, some of the cards you've mentioned are not even all that broken on their own. Under the current banned list, these combo's you've mentioned are quite difficult to put together. Due to the nature of the format, it is much more difficult to consistently get a great opener. Let's take the deck-size change. You've changed from 60 cards to 99 cards; that's 33 more cards. Even if you were to run the same ratio of lands to deck-size, your results will differ. In a regular deck, you have about 24 land sources. That's about 40% of your deck. In that case, we should have 40 in EDH decks. Even though the reduced fraction is the same, your results average out over a longer period of time, so you WILL be forced to mulligan more often because of this. That's why we run other acceleration spells such as signets, talismans, etc. This takes away card spaces which decreases your chance of drawing your tutors or your individual pieces.

At our playgroup, we play a lot of these cards too (under the current banned list), however, we still don't win that quickly. The quickest turn for a "win" (having the game locked in, etc.) is about turn 7. This is because we run something called DISRUPTION. With the people I play with, blue reigns supreme (as always). Games last longer just because of the presence of blue. Black is a close second with your hand destruction, etc. I personally attack the mana base as well, hitting signets or other artifact mana with artifact destruction and bouncing/destroying Ravnica bouncelands (metagame call). Your banned list feels like your group or whatever doesn't run all that much disruption or want to "fix" the banned list so that the need for disruption is a lot less. Wouldn't it be more efficient to tune your decks to play against the metagame rather than "fix" the banned list to eliminate viable decks? I'm not sure about everyone else, but part of what makes this format fun is to play cards I don't get to play anymore. By banning them, I feel even more restricted.

Currently, I am working on a Nath deck that focuses on discard spells and fast beatsticks such as Erhnam Djinn, Plague Sliver, Grinning Demon, etc. to destroy their combinations. As a metagame call against these combo decks, the strategy is to run hand-disruptions spells between turn 1 and 3, because at this point, they are only dropping land and artifact mana, etc. to set up for their spells on turn 4+. Just an example of other options available to you BEFORE a ban list.

TheOnlyOne: What you're describing has basically nothing to do with EDH. There are forums for generic "100 card highlander", which is not EDH and much more closely resembles what you are playing.

Edit: Also, what cmb_ says is very true... a lot of "combo rampant" metagames are simply bereft of proper control elements.

I've isolated all the cards you have suggested adding for simplicity's sake. The three cards I put in italics are the three that I believe are quite unstoppable in terms of the generated advantage, but I still did not include even those three in the list. The reasoning here is that they don't win. None of the cards you listed win. They are extremely powerful, but when played symmetrically they are almost PERFECTLY balanced. I say this in the spirit of vintage and type 1. In that sense I think you're misinterpreting our goal. It is not to see what is strong, because we like what is strong. Our goal is to ban the BROKEN, the flash hulk win that seems like you're being cheated. When someone goes off with wheel, twister, 4 pieces of badass artifact mana and tolarian academy, you know you've been trounced and with plenty of blue mana open you probably could have stopped it. When someone flashes hulk in EOT and "just wins" you don't get satisfaction when you lose that...you're left clinging to a thread wishing the game didn't desert you so suddenly. That's what we want to address here, it's not necropotence draw 30 go down to 4 life and pass the turn. It's tutoring up salvagers with LED all day all night boring everyone to death. While sol ring rocks some shiznit it's never made a game boring that I've played.

Edit: If you can find an instance where sol ring really ruins the game...let me know. I'd be very interested.

In a duel one person plays turn one Sol Ring, the other does not. GG

I find it truly funny, that you have all these less broken cards here, whereas, I can just Tinker for my Mindslaver and kill you with your own Necropotence...

"SNAP"

Demonic Tutor - Aven Mindcensor, Shadow of Doubt
Flash - Counterspells???
Gifts Ungiven - Aven Mindcensor, Shadow of Doubt, Withered Wretch, GOOD PLAY SKILL
Hermit Druid - MY GOD. Just about any removal kills this guy. If you're holding a removal, you KILL this guy.
Imperial Seal - Aven Mindcensor, Shadow of Doubt
Intuition - Aven Mindcensor, Shadow of Doubt
Land Tax - This one is actually annoying. I have nothing to say for this one.
Life from the Loam - Withered Wretch
Mana Crypt - First of all, good luck finding one of these. Second, Chalice of the Void for 0, Engineered Explosives for 0...Powder Keg...(Card's still good though)
Mana Vault - Chalice of the Void, Engineered Explosives, Powder Keg...(Card's still good though)
Memory Jar - Okay, this is a truly good card here. Just about nothing you can do to stop it. I can only think of Stifle, Trickbind and Voidmage Husher. Play the Husher.
Mind Twist: COUNTERSPELL. Or a Misdirection effect. The latter is funnier.
Necropotence - Mindslaver, pffft. Enchantment removal.
Skullclamp - Is this really as good in this format as the other ones? I can see it being great with Sek'kuar. Or other decks built to abuse it. But are you really gonna build an entire deck to abuse your singleton Skullclamp? Anyway, basic artifact destruction here.
Sol Ring - AWESOME CARD. There is just about nothing that can replace the tempo advantage this thing gives. Every single turn, you're power-boosted one turn. By the time you have a solution for it, it doesn't matter anymore. Um, I got no solution for this one. Truly a great card.
Survival of the Fittest - Aven Mindcensor, Shadow of Doubt, enchantment destruction
Timetwister - Good card here. Only counterspells for this one.
Tinker - Yeah, I have to admit, this is stupidly broken. I love using this card. But even this card has a buffer time. When you Tinker, you first need the artifact to sacrifice, which isn't too hard if you have a couple artifact land, artifact mana sources, etc. But the second part to recognize is what you get with your Tinker. The most usual choices are Darksteel Colossus, Sundering Titan, Platinum Angel, Duplicant, and Mindslaver. With Mindslaver, you need to ensure you have the 4 extra mana available at your disposal before you can use the Tinker effectively. At this point in the game, your opponent may have a counterspell, an Aven Mindcensor or Shadow of Doubt, or even anything that counters activated abilities. Congratulations, you have just been 2(or 3) for 1'd. With Darksteel Colossus and Platinum Angel, they can just as easily be BOUNCED, which can sometimes lead to a pretty useless Darksteel Colossus in the hand. This is where you pack in your Echoing Truth's. The rest is pretty much self-explanatory; play artifact destruction. Ancient Grudge, Krosan Grip, Seal of Primordium, Disenchant, etc.
Vampiric Tutor - Aven Mindcensor, Shadow of Doubt (I'm pretty sure you get the idea by now)
Wheel of Fortune - Great card. Only counterspells


I gave you an entire list of solutions to just about all of these cards. Now, some, you may not be that satisfied with, but I'm writing this on a whim here, so you can probably do better. But for basic metagame calls, I would recommend the following anti-metagame cards.

Aven Mindcensor
Shadow of Doubt
Voidmage Husher
Engineered Explosives
Ancient Grudge
Withered Wretch
Scrabbling Claws
Aether Vial
Gaddock Teeg
Dosan, the Falling Leaf
Duress
Echoing Truth
Powder Keg
Seal of Primodrium
Krosan Grip

This is just a basic list, but a list of cards that I personally would use. I did however, acknowledge that some of the cards listed ARE good. But a lot of them...no. For now, I believe the basic ban list is fine, but adding a couple of these wouldn't hurt much either.

I would like to chime in and say that counterspell should not be listed as a solution to any of the cards that are on anyone's ban list. Not only does this earn a "duh" from everyone, but it stifles creativity of finding solutions to cards that are deemed overpowered.


to TheOnlyOne:

I agree with cmb in the sense that your meta may be full of 5c generals (otherwise why would you have such a long ban list including "everyone is splashing green for Life from the Loam"?) Since there are only 8 5c generals, you could try using Diversity Rule for top 8, that is, top 8 consists of 8 totally different generals. So basically if some guy places, say 5th after swiss but another guy places 4th w. the same general, the 5th place guy is not in top 8 and his spot passes down to the guy who finished 9th, provided he isn't using the same general as anyone who did better than him in the Swiss. They use this rule in UFS tournaments.

Of course, if this eventually becomes top 8 brackets consistently represented by them 8 5c generals, we have a problem.