To Ban or Rebalance

Today Wizards announced a new bans list (see that here) and a new rebalanced list for Alchemy (here), the online-only format. These approaches show the pros and cons of paper vs. digital.

As previously discussed, ban lists are necessary because when a new set is released, it is impossible to exhaustively predict how the new cards will interact with the existing. Sometimes, a new card (or combination made possible by it) unbalances the format- the only way to be competitive is to play that card (or build a deck specifically to counter it). This makes the format stale and frustrating, and so banned cards are a reality because you cannot change the wording of a card once printed. The banning itself is both welcome (for those who hate the broken cards) and cursed (by those who are using them). Players can lose quite a bit of money, sinking money into cards that may no longer be legal tomorrow. It's a risk.

Digital formats don't have such drawbacks- you can easily adjust card cost or abilities when overly powerful (or weak) cards are found. And Wizards does just that in their Magic Arena format, Alchemy. Alchemy features the 'paper' cards but 

• adds new digital-only cards, often with mechanics made plausible by the computer-aided tracking
• adjusts wording on the paper cards to rebalance them

It's nice to be able to change cards on the fly like that- and it's also annoying. It introduces the situation where your paper deck and your Alchemy deck may have all the same cards in it, but the Alchemy deck's cards will be slightly different. It's a lot to keep track of, and easily confusing.

As a traditionalist, I'm happy for the opportunity to play on Arena but worry that the constant adjustment of digital cards will create a confusing environment for new (or old) players and may, eventually, lead to Wizards making Magic digital-only. Time will tell.