"Happy new year", said IdfTrotter, "what about some bans ?"

The question was a long time one, but this time it's going for real. Before we detailled them, let's explain why some bans have to occur.

Because PEZ is intended as both a cheap AND fun format. The Affinity / Mono-Black / UB Tendrils domination currently leaves no room for any other deck, and these 3 fight each other as this : UB beats Affinity beats MB beats UB.

Some other decks are trying to show up (Life, IsoMUC), but can't really exist before a good opening hand of any of these three.

So, in order to "break" these decks, without making them unplayable, IdfTrotter suggested to ban some essential cards to them. You may be find these choices irrelevant, stupid or whatever, but they have been long debated, and if you know your Magic well, you should notice these are already ban in Legacy AND restricted in Vintage. So to say they're overpowered.

So let's strip PEZ of the mine...

Mono-Black heavily abuses Strip mine. First it was a common, but the Peasant Council over-rated it as an unco. Unfortunately, any game with 4 Strip Mine and 4 Sinkhole is an auto win. And actually, the card's so good it has been seen in IsoBurn, leaving the Isochron Scepter as a sided fifth unco !

Cool down, don't be so Frantic

UB Tendrils, and in a lesser proportion, ProsTides, relies on Frantic Search. We first tought the problem was High tide, but it's not. You can run a UB Tendrils without it but with Frantic Search untapping again and again a Dimir Aqueduct. Drawing 2, discarding 2 AND untapping 3 lands, at instant speed... definitely was too much.

End of Capitalism and Animal Research

Remember the "No Producing more than they cost Artifact" Policy from wizard ? That's it. You won't ever see Black Lotus anymore. But PEZ wasn't concerned : the dreadful flower is a rare. But Sol ring is not. It's an unco. And it makes 2 colorless at the cost of one. And it's an artifact. So it fitted too well in Affinity.

Turn 1 : Seat of Synod, Sol ring, Ornithopter, Cranial Plating, free Frogmite, free Frogmite.

Hope ? What hope ? Well, it's over. No more Sol ring. The bad thing is, it will actually hurt a lot of decks that could use this fusion thing, but it only proved it was too much of an energy source : the card is so good it could claim at least a slot over any other uncos : everybody needs fast, reliable mana.

The last card still has an uncertain future, as we don't know yet if it will be utterly ban, or simply restricted. The French community - where all this occurs, remind you, all you happy US readers - is strongly fighting for a restriction to a single... SkullClamp. Affinity first used this as its unco, till it realized Sol ring was just better. If you ban Sol Ring, you have to deal with SkullClamp unless you want to downgrade only 2 of the 3 tier 1 decks.

But the sad thing is : what about all the others decks (ElfClamp and KoboldClamp, to mention the best known) that relies on this artefact ?

In order to keep these decks alive, with a lot of change (be prepared to see a lot more of Enlightened tutors), we're trying to push to a simple restriction.

Here are the 2007 PEZ Changes. These are still subject to criticism, experimentation and final validation. But that's the way we're taking here in France. Feel free to comment !