Collectible Card Game Headquarters

At some point I may start removing bad cards from the "best of" version in order to add new, better cards. What are the top cards you'd like to see go? Feel free to group cards together if they are similar. My short list is:

1) Functionally identical cards (Ex: Ravages of War)
2) Strictly worse cards (Ex: Squire is strictly worse than Glory Seeker)
3) Laces
4) Ante Cards
5) Lucky Charms (Ivory Cup, Angel's Feather etc)

-Astral Cards
-Wards (Green Ward, Blue ward, etc)
-Signets (Gruul Signet, etc)
-most vanilla gold legends (Jedit Ojanen, Jasmine Boreal, etc)
-oasis
-power leak
-overcosted useless vanilla things, especially when duplicated by something else (Raging Bull, etc)
-bounce lands (Rakdos Carnarium, etc)
-mana batteries
-anything with islandhome (Dandan, Sea Serpent, etc)
-creature bond
-energy tap
-entomb (I don't care if it was restricted, it's still crap)
-Ghosts of the Damned
-Goblin Tutor (just because it is unglued)

These are cards that I think even in sealed deck are so bad that they would not ever be used. No offense to any of the coders who did those.

Personally, I vote for the elimination of completely crap creatures like the Anaba minotaurs, lesser critters like Mountain Wildcat or in general, other creatures that you would never put in constructed decks like Azure Drake, Coastal Hornclaw, the Griffins, or Forysian Brigade, for example.

yeah all/most astral cards are terrible
Laces/wards should go
ante cards are very limited, some are very aweseome though!
there are a ton of useless cards that i could find if i went through it one by one

--ps. some of those vanilla creatures are good/fun in sealed but i wouldnt touch them in making a deck.
oh and i cant believe there are no pain lands! id rather have that than comes into play tapped.

Laces, wards, and lucky charms are easy calls.

Don't know about ante cards - ya think people will give up their Contracts without a fight?

It gets fuzzy when removing any cards, though. A draft/sealed environment changes when you don't have to separate the wheat from the chaff. "Skill-testing" cards exist for a reason. /end rant

Professor wrote:It gets fuzzy when removing any cards, though. A draft/sealed environment changes when you don't have to separate the wheat from the chaff. "Skill-testing" cards exist for a reason. /end rant

That's why there is a completely separate version for draft/sealed. In the past, I wouldn't remove any card for that reason, but now I have no problem hacking apart Alpha in the non-limited version.

I think aww1979's list is pretty spot on, taking all that chaff out would clear up so much room that you'd be hard pressed to code enough cards to fill it up. The only risk with removing bad cards is that they can be useful in certain contexts (drafts, challenge modes etc) but if there's two different versions I say fire away. Pretty much all of the older sets (A/B/U, An, Aq, Legends etc.) are 75% useless crap and I wouldn't mind seeing them picked apart

i really like where this is going... two versions, one limited with complete sets, and one "best of" that is actually becoming "best of". the more "useless cards" we eliminate, the more great cards we can add from other expansion sets, effectively creating a vintage environment. in time, i think we could eliminate over half the cards but an anti-wish list is a good place to start. i agree with most of the suggestions made:

laces, wards, dual lands strictly worse than the alpha duals, signets, most color-specific cards, any cards with banding, astral set, etc.

Hey, Joemuz, don't touch my banding guys!!! :p Actually, though, I find banding quite handy at least in situations like Sealed Deck. (or Shandalar, but that doesn't apply here)

And yeah, the astral cards are pretty lousy. Probably the only one of any value in sealed/constructed is Aswan Jaguar, but I never use it because I never think of it, due to it not existing IRL. (though I have somewhere a pretty funny deck with Pandora's Box, nasty upkeep creatures, and sac cards like Diamond Valley :p)

I'd also like to keep most of the weaker dual lands. When I make a 2-color deck, say, a B/R deck, my mana base will be 4x Badlands, 4x Blood Crypt, 4x Bloodstained Mire, and depending on the spells involved, I'll even use the ones that always come into play tapped.

Of the cards in my antiwish post, the only ones I have ever used in sealed/constructed were the wards, and that only in some very silly constructed decks. (Artifact Ward + Martyrs of Korlis, for instance, or Ring of Ma'Ruf + Veteran Bodyguard + wish for appropriate ward)

@Professor: Actually, you are right, the ante cards would have some use in Sealed deck, now that I think about it. If I got a Contract in sealed, odds are I'll be playing black that day (I always play ante in sealed)

I'd also argue that some of the functionally identical cards should be kept. For instance, Knight of Stromgald + Order of the Ebon Hand (and the white ones). I've made several decks using each of those, and when imitating past tournament decks, a lot of decks of the era had 5-8 of those. I have trouble imagining a deck that would use a 5th armageddon, though. (Ravages of War)

To agree about which cards should be removed would be troublesome.
For example, somebody said that Entomb should be removed, and another user said that some functionally identical cards should be kept. I don't agree with them, but it's their opinion and is as valid as mine; so what to do? People's lists would always be very subjective.

Personally, I agree with most users about what should be removed:
- Functionally identical cards (Pump Knights, Bog Wraith, Ravages of war, and the kind)
- Crappy Vanilla cards (Well, there are LOT of them: Raging Bull, terrifying Legends cards, those awful 4th edition treefolks, moss monster WTF is a MOSS MONSTER???)
- Some 1-for-color cards, that need very specific conditions to be played (Mana Batteries, Throne of Bone, Iron Star and the like, Laces...)
- Ante cards

aww1979 wrote:Hey, Joemuz, don't touch my banding guys!!! :p Actually, though, I find banding quite handy at least in situations like Sealed Deck. (or Shandalar, but that doesn't apply here)

And yeah, the astral cards are pretty lousy. Probably the only one of any value in sealed/constructed is Aswan Jaguar, but I never use it because I never think of it, due to it not existing IRL. (though I have somewhere a pretty funny deck with Pandora's Box, nasty upkeep creatures, and sac cards like Diamond Valley :p)

I'd also like to keep most of the weaker dual lands. When I make a 2-color deck, say, a B/R deck, my mana base will be 4x Badlands, 4x Blood Crypt, 4x Bloodstained Mire, and depending on the spells involved, I'll even use the ones that always come into play tapped.

Of the cards in my antiwish post, the only ones I have ever used in sealed/constructed were the wards, and that only in some very silly constructed decks. (Artifact Ward + Martyrs of Korlis, for instance, or Ring of Ma'Ruf + Veteran Bodyguard + wish for appropriate ward)

@Professor: Actually, you are right, the ante cards would have some use in Sealed deck, now that I think about it. If I got a Contract in sealed, odds are I'll be playing black that day (I always play ante in sealed)

I'd also argue that some of the functionally identical cards should be kept. For instance, Knight of Stromgald + Order of the Ebon Hand (and the white ones). I've made several decks using each of those, and when imitating past tournament decks, a lot of decks of the era had 5-8 of those. I have trouble imagining a deck that would use a 5th armageddon, though. (Ravages of War)

that is a good point about the duals.. i spoke too quickly about that... but on some of your other points, i think it would be ok to eliminate cards that are useful only in sealed because we will still have a version that caters specifically towards that: the limited version! i think jatill's idea is to have the "best of" version more geared to vintage/legacy play where we truly have the best of the best cards available and the limited version with complete sets more geared to constructed play with sealed deck, drafting, etc. so if a card is primarily useful in sealed play, we should look to drop it from the "best of" as it will still be available for that purpose in the limited version.

now with that said, it takes time to program in cards so we can start with cards that just about everyone agrees to get rid of like laces and wards and worry about the ones people may disagree on when that time comes.

I would be all for the removal of most, if not all, of the Vanilla Creatures and look-a-likes... although a case might be made for a few (the original Elementals, for instance). Please, not the Pump Knights. They're fantastic for fun "Protection" Decks, which I like. I think all the Dual Lands are great, but I'd trade the Pain-Givers for the ComesIntoPlay-Tappers in a heart beat! But, anything that wouldn't be used in a serious Constructed Deck probably doesn't have any business in a "Best Of" Collection; we have the Limited Version for that (Sealed Deck, Draft and Whatnot).

Laces, Wards, Lucky Charms, IslandHome, Mana Batteries, Astral Set, TreeFolk, Griffins... these are all cards you're forced to play with; never cards you'll choose to play with. Anyone would have a hard time defending their validity in a set of Vintage Tournament-Staples, which is what this set is rapidly appearing to be. ^_^

Wow! This new thread has been a surprice and I'm happy that we are talking about that, but please don't be too "aggressive" in the selection of cards that you want to remove, because I've seen a general underestimation of cards that instead may have their good use, especially in other formats than Vintage. Power is not the only goal, but also the fun that a card may provide.

What follows is my personal opinion in detail:

Cloned cards - I also agree about removing the ones (as Moor Fiend or Ravages of War) that do not offer any benefit in a number greater than 4, while I wouldn't remove some useful ones as the "Pump Knights" or Fyndhorn Elves (clones of Llanowar Elves) because there are some decks that can use 8 of them succesfully.

Vanilla creatures - Not all vanilla cards are ugly: Woolly Thoctar is a vanilla card and is great But also older ones as Fire/Earth/ Water Elemental or Grizzly Bears are vanilla cards and are more than decent. So please remove ONLY the ones from the Legends and Dark that have a bad ratio among power & casting cost. Please, don't remove Jasmine Boreal and Sir Shandlar of Eberyn.

Unlimited Set - Even if I would be very happy to see the Laces and Unlimited lucky charms disabled (they are not bad but the new ones are much better), remember that changing cards from Unlimited set will affect Shandlar too and thus they can't be removed: in fact, as far as I remember, Shandlar and the Duel share the same art and CSV (cards.dat), which actively influences cards behavior. Also, Unlimited set has a valued as 99% completed set in sealed game. At this purpose, Wards can have a value for weird combos and as Sideboard Cards, while Banding may be strong in such game modes with a low ratio of direct anti-creature spells.

Legends & Dark - I know that those sets did include a lot of junk, but please don't be too radical in removing them all. Eg, I don't see any reason to remove the mana batteries, since they can be useful in Sealed Deck games. There is much worst to start from.

Astral set - For reasons that I've explained elsewere, I would remove all of them except Aswan Jaguar and Fairy Dragon. But changing them would affect Shandlar too.

Ante Cards - Ante is part of the game, there are ante modalities and so those cards can be used in sealed deck game and may be very powerful (especially Contract from Below). IMHO, they should NOT be removed.

Bouncelands - I dislike them too, because they are very slow and because the AI makes a terrible use of them.

If you really want a solid list of cards to remove, let's start from here: they are already 34 free slots, so there is no reason to start "killing" other cards.

8th Edition
Coastal Hornclaw (it is the only card from that set which is really ugly!!)

Unlimited Laces (just disabled)

Manalink 2.0 the five "voice of ..." Angels. With Voice of All, they are all made obsolete. Even if they have other minor advantageas, as a less-confusing use for AI, lower rarity in sealed deck and a slighty cheaper casting cost, those advantage do not compensate the space that they take.

Legends.
557 Aisling Leprechaun - can't find any application, there are better pixies
.577 Barktooth Warbeard - vanilla and/or ugly creature
.669 Hell Swarm - surpassed by Marsh Gas
.667 Headless Horseman - vanilla and/or ugly creature
.676 Hunding Gjornersen - vanilla and/or ugly creature
.689 Jedit Ojanen - vanilla and/or ugly creature
.695 Kasimir the Lone Wolf - vanilla and/or ugly creature
.708 Lady Orca - vanilla and/or ugly creature
.727 Mold Demon - vanilla and/or ugly creature
.748 Princess Lucrezia - vanilla and/or ugly creature
.744 Planar Gate - too mana-expensive for being used
.757 Raging Bull - vanilla and/or ugly creature
.759 Ramirez DePietro - vanilla and/or ugly creature
.776 Riven Turnbull - vanilla and/or ugly creature
.790 Sivitri Scarzam - vanilla and/or ugly creature
.388 Word of Binding - just ugly
.721 Mana Matrix - too mana-expensive for being used
.620 Elder Land Wurm - vanilla and/or ugly creature, personally would like to see it "upgraded" to Alabaster Dragon or another nice white dragon.
.621 Elder Spawn - vanilla and/or ugly creature

Dark
.308 Coal Golem - useless mana source
.314 Erosion - out of flavor for blue, useless
.937 Goblin Rock Sled - ugly even as sidebard card vs. red
.335 Hidden Path - self-suicide card
.343 Mana Clash - useless and ugly
.345 Martyr's Cry - ugly and extremely limited
.948 Squire - made obsolete by tons of better cards, useless even in sealed deck
.950 Tivadar's Crusade - too specific and useless, since we don't have a sideboard.

Also, even if it is not so bad by itslef, I would prefer to see Angry Mob upgraded to Crusading Knight.
Even more, I wouldn't remove Righteous Avengers because it may be a nice sideboard card in Sealed Deck and would never remove the ugly (I know) Akron Legionnaire for affective values: when I was a kid, I did a deck with Urza's Land, Angelic Voices and only Artifact creatures to use the Legionaire and I love to have it here on the PC Pleaseeeeeeeee

0rion79 wrote:Wow! This new thread has been a surprice and I'm happy that we are talking about that, but please don't be too "aggressive" in the selection of cards that you want to remove, because I've seen a general underestimation of cards that instead may have their good use, especially in other formats than Vintage. Power is not the only goal, but also the fun that a card may provide.

I agree with this. I'm not planning on just catering to Vintage, but to Extended, Legacy, and Standard as well. And some casual cards too... for now. Maybe in the distant future we'll have another version just for casual cards. In fact, if we had a good desktop app programmer, we could pretty easily make a "build your own" magic, which included whatever 2000 cards you wanted from the list of coded cards.

Orion-
When I eventually get around to removing cards, I will not be concerned with Sealed deck or Shandalar play. They use different files / card lists.

jatill wrote: When I eventually get around to removing cards, I will not be concerned with Sealed deck or Shandalar play. They use different files / card lists.

I knew that you would have understood Anyway, as far as I remember from the times of Fran Avalon's mod, the cards "replaced" for the Duel mode also had some changes on the Shandlar game, at least the art. I'm almost sure that they have different resources about the exe but that they share the art and some part of the CSV.

Anyway, before being too drastic, may I suggest to remove cards gradually? Start from the less valuable cards: in order the "clones" if useless, then the junk that I've just listed from The Dark and Legends*, the laces, the lucky charms, the 5 angels and then, if needed, if we'll still be in need of free space, let's talk about it agan. Once we have 40 new slots (plus the other ones that are still unused), I think it would be more than enough for some time.
* About that list, I don't pretend to be a truth-bringer, but consider that my profession brings me to understand others' point of view and so I'm almost sure that those cards are a good STARTING POINT for removals, nothing more than that.