Is it possible to get a write up of why some of these were banned if it's not already there?
Yep. Please enjoy:
Why Was That Card Banned? 2019 Edition
Do you think there is a card on the OTF ban list that should be released "on parole" without any changes?
Ranked from "yes definitely parole this card yesterday" to "this is a little out there but I think it's plausible":
Dixon Hill
Although Dix has always had vocal critics, more department staffers wanted to keep Dixon Hill legal than wanted to ban him. So why'd he get banned anyway? The decisive argument that carried the day was that banning him would give us a chance to "quickly" give Dixon Hill errata, which would make this Ultra-Rare card printable, because not all cards were printable back then. Well, that's just about the biggest backfire in the history of the ban list: it's been 11 years since Dix was banned, 8 years since all cards were made printable, 2 years of off-and-on talk about paroling him, and poor Dixon Hill is STILL stuck on the ban list. #FreeDixonNow
Smooth As An Android Bottom
...but cautiously. This card was banned for being part of "New Hexany," which depended on pre-errata Beyond the Subatomic. That's no longer a concern. To be fair: Ex-Hexany cards should come back into the pool one at a time, no faster than one every six months, just to make sure we didn't accidentally rebuild the Hexany. But there's no real reason to believe this card is dangerous now, and the reason it remains on the ban list seems to be sheer status quo bias.
What Does God Need With A Starship?
This was banned because Design was annoyed about having to design around it, not because it ever broke the game. Design said that banning it would allow them to develop cooler ships. I have not seen persuasive evidence for this in the seven years since WDGNWAS? was banned.
Tox Uthat
This card was banned for what I have come to conclude were really stupid reasons: a single, fairly isolated playgroup (with a very unique local meta) complained that Supernova was wrecking their local meta. That playgroup had an representative on the Rules Committee of 2011, though, and was able to convince a narrow majority of the Rules Committee (which controlled the ban list back then) that, since Black Hole and Sheliak were already banned, Tox+Supernova should be gone, too. (NOTE:
Black Hole was successfully re-released with no changes a couple years ago.) There were, to my knowledge, no other complaints from any other playgroups anywhere in the world.
Supernovas genuinely scare my butt off, and Kevin Jaeger's saber-rattling about what he would do to me with them makes me even more scared. (He has indeed slaughtered many of us with Black Hole since it returned to the game.) But I'm inclined to parole Tox Uthat just because the reasons for banning it were
so bad. If we re-release it and it turns out to be broken, okay, then re-ban it. That's why this is a "parole" and not a "full pardon." But right now, today, we have no real evidence that Supernova
is broken -- except in a single isolated meta from 2011.
Anti-Time Anomaly
Yeah, I'm as surprised as you are. But Rachmaninoff made a good case
here that ATA would actually be a good addition to the meta in today's low-turns, high-pace game. There's a good chance it would get rebanned before the end of its parole, but we'd learn a lot about both ATA and the game in that time -- and, if nothing else, that would make errata for it a heck of a lot easier!
Because I suspect no-one has thought about this one in ages: Red Alert.
I allllllllmost put this on my list today, but then it clicked with me that we kind of HAVE a balanced modern-day Red Alert!. It's called
Staging Ground, and it's top-tier without being Tier 0 Broken City.
I think if you put "You may not play cards for free" on Red Alert!, that might well do the trick, especially since you have to draw and play it. But I'm not QUITE copacetic about letting it back with no changes... especially because I suspect Red Alert! would completely displace Staging Ground.
Scanner interference. I've soap boxed about it before..
I want this to come back without a
icon or its Scan/Full-Planet Scan hate (since Scan/FPS have already been nerfed through the ground into the Earth's mantle). That's the only reason SI isn't on my list.
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