An Analysis of Banned Cards (Finally)

Today we are going to analyze the results of the previous six (6) entries on the color wheel, what cards have been banned and the next two (2) entries will be on Stoneforge Mystic and Jace, the Mind Sculptor and how WotC should have known that these cards will be banned.

Below is a chart summarizing the results. I was a little generous with the classifications of cards as a miscellaneous category or too many categories do not tell us anything useful.

Tutor or Fetch: A card which allows you to look through your library for a specific card or a scry effect. Crop Rotation and Brainstorm fall in this category.

Recycle: Allows you to reuse resources, like Recycle, only worse.

Creatures: Cards which allow creature decks to consistently win. Kurd Ape and Orcish Oriflamme fall in this category.

Reset: Like a reset button for the board situation. Armageddon and Wrath of God fall here.

Mana +/-: Cards which allow for more mana or cards which deny resourcesTolarian Academy allows for more mana and Rishidan Port allows for less mana aka mana denial.

Life Loss: As it says, cards which make an opponent lose life.Disciple of the Vault is here.

Card Draw: Cards which allow additional cards to be drawn. Stroke of Genius and Windfall are placed here.

Ability Abused	White	Red	Blue	Black	Green	Artifacts & Lands	Totals
Tutor/Fetch	2	1	4	3	4	1	15
Recycle	1		1	1			3
Creatures		5		1		1	7
Reset		1	1	1		1	4
Mana +/-			3		1	20	24
Life Loss				2		2	4
Card Draw			9	1		1	11
Totals	3	7	18	9	5	26	68

As we can see, certain colors and certain effects tend to show up. Artifacts, lands and blue cards tend to the most banned colors and cards which generate mana as well as fetch effects tend to be problematic. But we will go over these results in more detail in future entries.

Next time we'll go over Stoneforge Mystic. For those who wish to recap or figure out where I got my material, my notes are below:

>White: http://mtgolibrary.blogspot.com/2011/07/color-wheel-white.html

Red: http://mtgolibrary.blogspot.com/2011/07/color-wheel-red.html

Black: http://mtgolibrary.blogspot.com/2011/07/color-wheel-black.html

Green: http://mtgolibrary.blogspot.com/2011/07/color-wheel-green.html

Blue: http://mtgolibrary.blogspot.com/2011/07/color-wheel-blue.html

Artifacts & Lands: http://mtgolibrary.blogspot.com/2011/07/color-wheel-artifacts-and-lands.html

Color Wheel: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic:_The_Gathering

List of Banned Cards: https://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/149