First of all I’m so sorry for the delay on this article. Anyone who watches my Twitter will know that I suffer from some health problems that unexpectedly flared during this last month. Now that I’m finally back on my feet and functioning (mostly) I have had a chance to assemble the information from the poll.
This actually took me a lot longer to sort through then expected. I have a market research background, so I had high standards and had to go through and clean out bad results (people who were obviously not really taking the quiz but trolling, etc). Fortunately I had plenty of results that I was able to remove the bad ones and still had a large pool of results.
The card people thought should be unbanned the most was Bloodbraid Elf with 67% of respondents thinking the card should be unbanned. Fortunately for that 67% (which includes myself) Bloodbraid Elf was unbanned only three days after this poll went out. I’ve been calling for Bloodbraid Elf to be unbanned for a few years now. I’ve written about it before, and am really happy with this change that that it seems most of the community agrees with it.
In second place for unbanning was Stoneforge Mystic at 37%. I’ve also joined this team recently. I don’t think Stoneforge is as scary for Modern as it used to be. There is some great removal available, and also many fast things to play. If you’re going turn two Stoneforge, turn three Batterskull and your opponent has a turn four Kolaghan’s Command, the game just got really sad for you.
Jace and Splinter Twin made up third and fourth with only 1% point of difference. 27% of people thought Jace should be unbanned, which he was just three days after this poll opened. I also thought Jace would be a safe unban, something that I’m sure we’ll learn soon enough. I won’t pretend I’m not worried about seeing him in my decklist of my nemesis, Lantern Control, though. 26% of people thought Splinter Twin should be unbanned, which doesn’t surprise me considering how many people thought it shouldn’t have banned in the first place.
For the second half of the survey there were a lot of calls for Ancient Stirrings and various Tron Lands to be banned. Lantern, Ensnaring Bridge, and Grapeshot also saw a handful of mentions. Blood Moon or “All of 8th Edition” also were popular answers. The last answer, which there was quite a few of, was none. A lot of people thought Modern was perfect the way it was and a lot of people said “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” in their responses.
I think it is really interesting seeing how the community feels about bans. I’m definitely tempted to do this with other formats. If you’re interested in seeing the community opinions on other formats tweet at me @BeauteCoulisses!
Kate hails from Worcester MA and also does a bit of Card Altering. Check her Stuff out on Facebook! She mainly plays legacy and modern though will occasionally find herself playing EDH.