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A year ago, I wrote some thoughts on the cards that were banned in EDH at the time and why they should or should not be on the list.  After a year has passed, I wanted to do an updated analasys of those cards, but I realized that my original analasys was never public.  Here are the catagories of cards on the EDH banned list from 2010 as I see them, and what actions I would take if I were on the council.  Shortly, I will be posting a new analasys based on the modern EDH/Commander Banned list:

Power 9(8) - [card]Ancestral Recall[/card], [card]Time walk[/card], [card]Black Lotus[/card], [card]Mox Sapphire[/card], [card]Mox Ruby[/card], [card]Mox Pearl[/card], [card]Mox Emerald[/card] and [card]Mox Jet[/card]:
No one can argue that Time Walk and Recall are not broken good and will always be used to do unfun things.  the Moxen and Black Lotus are good in EDH but not broken.  However, they cost an INSANE amount of money and are not available to most players.  They also set a precedent; cards that are unavailable to most players have no place in EDH.  As long as that is true, it is possible that a threshold dollar value needs to be in place that makes a card "too unavaliable" to be allowed in EDH.  This is of course only one factor in many that can cause a card to be banned, but the Moxen are far from what I would consider ubiquitous in any EDH deck they would be legal in if unbanned.  All of the artifact sweepers make the single turn of access negligable.  Lotus, on the other hand, is more powerful because of the bigger mana boost but is weaker in multiplayer, as it suffers the same disadvantages that [card]Dark Ritual[/card] does.  It is however a powerful combo piece and easier to recur on the cheap than Ritual.  Making it bannable even if it were reprinted at common in Mirroden Besieged and cost $1.  
Analysis: KEEP THESE BANNED FOREVER!

Broken combo pieces that are only for combo - [card]Fastbond[/card], [card]Lion's Eye Diamond[/card], [card]Panoptic Mirror[/card], [card]Protean Hulk[/card], [card]Recurring Nightmare[/card], [card]Worldgorger Dragon[/card], [card]Painter's Servant[/card], [card]Staff of Domination[/card], [card]Time Vault[/card] :  Black Lotus could fit into this category as well, but i think "Power 9" is a bit more prevalent than combo potential.  These cards are all simply used for unfun and/or infinite and difficult to disrupt combos that just plain-old win the game.  They are almost always used for unfun game-states and rarely used in a fair manner, if that is even possible.  All of these are good bans.
Analysis: Keep these banned unless there is a MAJOR rules change that makes their combo potential reduce SIGNIFICANTLY (Ironically, this is the group that multiple cards have been unbanned from since this article was written)

Oops I win Cards - [card]Balance[/card], [card]Biorythm[/card], [card]Coalition Victory[/card], [card]Upheaval[/card], [card]Sway of the Stars[/card]: 
Some would not put Upheaval or Sway (I am one of them for Sway) in this category as well, because they do not end games immediately.  I think that Upheaval definitely puts you in a position to win quickly, and I have seen Sway abused, but on the other hand I have seen it played fairly as well.  It has no applications in any other formats (that are even kind of played on any regular basis) and it is pretty good in EDH and can give a red player/someone with a hasty general a huge advantage.  If you are playing [card]Horde of Notions[/card] this is a little rough, but mostly Sway seems fine.  Biorythm and Coalition Victory are extremely unfair and the Oops-I-wins that they create are obvious.  Balance is 2 mana to wreck everyone's board but your own if played properly.  Upheaval is broken because it does nothing to your mana pool and hand, giving the active player a significant advantage (being able to play anything that was bounced even without flash).  Also, Upheaval is blue and broken blue cards are a dime a dozen.  If this were some crappy color like red I MIGHT see the argument for it staying unbanned.
Analysis: Sway of the stars is the only one of these I have any kind of argument for removing from the list.  The random hand you draw plus your general will rarely just flat out win you the game after a resolved sway and it speeds up a slower EDH game that needs to end because it has been going on for 2+ hours.  I wouldn't mind testing Sway of the stars for unbanning.  The ohters, stay banned.

Stupid good tutors that setup an Oops-I-win - [card]Tinker[/card], [card]Gifts Ungiven[/card]:
These cards both let you not only search for a your most broken card(s) but then usually pull an "Oops, I win" moment like the aforementioned catagory.  
Analasys: Keep these banned.

Cards that are Stupid in EDH due to the different environment - [card]Karakas[/card], [card]Yawgmoth's Bargain[/card]:
These cards are victims of the rules of EDH.  Yawg. Barg. was good before and now you have double the life to pay to it.  Karakas bounces a general at instant speed for free repeatedly on the hardest type of permanant to deal with short of Planeswalkers.  It is WAY too good.
Analysis: Banhammer!

Broken good fast mana - [card]Tolarian Academy[/card], [card]Channel[/card], [card]Metalworker[/card]:
Channel also fits a bit into the previous category.  Life payments just don't mean as much in EDH.  However these 3 cards let game-breaking plays happen on the first 3 turns far too often.  Depending on the number of broken things that they can play early, these could be unbanned, but I would rather ban them than have to ban a TON of other broken but expensive cards that see less play in general.  
Analysis:  Keep these banned, you could ban a bunch of other 7+ CC cards instead but why would you when 3 fast mana cards is so much cleaner a fix.

Cards that are super broken in multiplayer - [card]Limited Resources[/card], [card]Kokushko the Evening Star[/card]:  These 2 scale massively with multiple players.  Limited Resources keeps most players on 1-0 lands which makes EDH a non-game.  Everyone will hate-scoop and no one will have fun.  Kokushko is a little more debatable.  While she does provide a cheap evasive fat body with an ability that scales in multiplayer, with the presence of Infect and general damage (not to mention mill and alt win cons/infinite combos) the life you gain from the card has come to mean much less.  It produces a minimum 15 point life swing (gain 10, 2 opponents loose 5 each so you are 15 ahead of any given player) the fact that it becomes the center of attention and creates unfun games is the primary reason for its banning.  I think that [card]Emrakul[/card] fits these stipulations as well and remains unbanned as does [card]Sundering Titan[/card] (which also resembles Limited Resources a bit as well by scaling for multiplayer and unfun limitations on playing any spells).  These cards are all in a similar boat and should probably all be either banned or unbanned.  Emrakul is the weakest of the 3 but Titan is certainly less fun and more likely to make games degenrate to "who has the Titan" than Kokushko.
Analysis:  Kokushko needs to have some testing.  If kokushko stays banned, Titan may need to be banned as well.  Limited resources should stay banned forever.  (I'd Like to think that my analysis played a minor role in Emrakul's banning...I think Sheldon at least READ this when I wrote it.)

Which brings us to the final card on the list, [card]Library of Alexandria[/card]:
The card is good but not overpowered
The card is expensive but not moreso than other legal cards
The card is Ubiquotious, but not moreso than other expensive cards
Truth be told, Library is ALMOST a culprit of ALL the banning principals, but falls just short of each.  Does this still make it need banning...maybe, but it also makes it the hardest card to test.  Testing how many people WOULD PLAY a card if it were legal is hard to say.  Do i think unbanning the card would hurt the format?  No.  Do i think it would help it?  Yes.  It is easy to disagree with my position?  Yes.  
Analysis:  Library needs to be tested...But HOW?!

Cards that I believe need testing:
[card]Sway of the Stars[/card] 
[card]Kokushko, the evening star[/card]
[card]Library of Alexandria[/card]

In support of the EDH/Commander community, one year ago, I wrote some thoughts on the cards that were banned in EDH at the time and why they should or should not be on the list.  After a year has passed, I wanted to do an updated analasys of those cards.  Here are the catagories of cards on the EDH banned list from as I see them, and what actions I would take if I were on the council:

Power 9(8) - [card]Ancestral Recall[/card], [card]Time walk[/card], [card]Black Lotus[/card], [card]Mox Sapphire[/card], [card]Mox Ruby[/card], [card]Mox Pearl[/card], [card]Mox Emerald[/card] and [card]Mox Jet[/card]:
No one can argue that Time Walk and Ancestral Recall are not broken, and far too powerful, let's be honest, to even have seen print.The Moxen are EXTREMELY good in, but in EDH, not broken.  However, they cost an INSANE amount of money and are not available to most players.  They also send a message, "Your stupid-broken-prohibitively-expensive cards aren't welcome here" to new players, even though the rules do tend to allow some stupid-broken and/or prohibitively-expensive cards.Black Lotus actually fits both of those descriptions, AND (in EDH) could fit into the next category as well.  Analysis: KEEP THESE BANNED FOREVER!

Broken combo pieces that are only for combo - [card]Emrakul, the Aeons Torn[/card], [card]Panoptic Mirror[/card], [card]Protean Hulk[/card], [card]Recurring Nightmare[/card], [card]Painter's Servant[/card], [card]Staff of Domination[/card], [card]Time Vault[/card] :  After the unbanning of [card]Lion's Eye Diamond[/card] and [card]Worldgorger Dragon[/card] I have wondered about this entire group.  Most of them can be equally or more fun than the aforementioned cards that were removed.  Panoptic Mirror has a lot of fun options, as does Protean Hulk.  And with the Hulk, you pretty much have to build the deck to be unfun to make it broken.  Painter's Servant and [card]Iona, Shield of Emeria[/card] have an ever ongoing debate about which should be banned.  Personally I find Iona to be much less fun, but it isn't unfathomable to allow both cards in an environment where Worldgorger is considered fair.  Emrakul is really only ever used for infinite turns, and is so difficult to disrupt that finding answers are hard.  Emmy might be safe to remove from the list because [card]Mindslaver[/card] is still unbanned, but she also has a bit of the next category in her as well.  If you ramp into her quick, she can be an Oops-I-win card too! Staff causes unfun game-states and infinite combos by accident, Time Vault is only even playable in an infinite turns engine and Nightmare is far to difficult to disrupt.  Those three are all definitely staying on the list!
Analysis: Now that cards on this list are starting to come off, I would suggest Panoptic Mirror, Protean Hulk and Painter's Servant could be tested for unbanning

Oops I win Cards - [card]Balance[/card], [card]Biorythm[/card], [card]Coalition Victory[/card], [card]Upheaval[/card], [card]Sway of the Stars[/card]: 
Most of these cards cause far too great a swing in a game for their small mana cost...others just outright win the game on the spot.  Coalition Victory and Biorythm are clear instant win cards in decks with a creature that is always available (and a 5 color one in any deck with Victory in it).  Balance wrecks entire tables for 2 mana, and leaves the caster no worse for the wear if played properly.  Upheval puts the caster in an insurmountable advantages position if played with floated mana.  The caster can replay many of the permanents that were bounced, while the other players are left to play only cards with Flash and a land on the next turn they get before discarding their entire board.
Sway of the Stars I am still not convinced is broken.  Many would compare it to Upheval because of a similar effect.  The major incongruence is the fact that Sway prevents replaying your permanents.  It can and may sometimes tuck the caster's general, and opens the doors to any aggressive deck a better position.  The major opponents of Sway often bring up the floating of mana to cast a general after Sway resolves.  This is a good play, but seems somewhat underwhelming for 10+ mana.  Consider [card]Insurrection[/card], for 8 mana you get a card that almost always wins you the game.  If sway costs 10+ mana and 2 cards (your general) to win that seems a little less powerful.  The other aspect that is not being considered consists of how long players have until they win.  Sway of the Stars plus the best general I could come up with ([card]Soromaro[/card]) takes a turn per player to win the game.  Other cards with similar mana costs to Sway end games much faster.
Analysis: Sway of the Stars seems like a fun, splashy card that is only playable in EDH, and is no more or less fun/powerful than cards like [card]Insurrection[/card], [card]Obliterate[/card]..etc.  Testing should commence.

Stupid good tutors that setup an Oops-I-win - [card]Tinker[/card], [card]Gifts Ungiven[/card]:
These cards both let you not only search for a your most broken card(s) but then usually cause an "Oops, I win" moment.  Tinker for [card]Blightsteel Colossus[/card] on turn 2 with a [card]Sol Ring[/card] is not fun.  Gifts usually searches for [card]Eternal Witness[/card] or other cards to get back anything discarded and becomes a "Search for 4 cards and keep 'em" spell.  
Analasys: Keep these banned.

Cards that are Stupid in EDH due to the different environment -[card]Karakas[/card], [card]Yawgmoth's Bargain[/card]:
These cards are victims of the rules of EDH.  Yawg. Barg. was good before and now you have double the life to pay to it.  May often wonder why [card]Necropotence[/card] is not also banned, but Necropotence makes you discard down to 7 right as you draw, before you can play non-instant spells, as well as predict how many cards you want/need.  The ability to draw instantly is MUCH more powerful, even for double the mana cost.  
Karakas bounces a general repeatedly, at instant speed, for free.  It is also the hardest type of permanant to deal with short of Planeswalkers.  It is WAY too good.
Analysis: Banhammer!

Broken good fast mana - [card]Tolarian Academy[/card],[card]Fastbond[/card], [card]Channel[/card], [card]Metalworker[/card]:
Channel and Fastbond also fit into the previous category.  Life payments just don't mean as much in EDH, and Ramp is second in importance only to card advantage.  All of these cards cards let game-breaking plays happen too early  too often.   Players often wonder why [card]Gaea's Cradle[/card] isn't on this list.  Cradle ramps better in the mid-to-late game, the only reason ramp gets banned to date is because it promotes stupid things happening too early on in the game.
Analysis:  Keep these banned.

Cards that are super broken in multiplayer - [card]Limited Resources[/card], [card]Kokushko the Evening Star[/card]:  These cards scale massively when more players are added to the game.  Limited Resources keeps most players on 1 or less lands which makes EDH a dreadful chore. not a game.  Everyone will hate-scoop and no one will have fun.  
Kokushko is a little more debatable.  While she does provide a cheap evasive fat body with an ability that scales in multiplayer, many options to fight her are available.  Infect, general damage, mill, combo and alternate win conditions all get around the life gain just fine.  Even allowing each strategy (Aggro/Combo/Control) an out.  The life you gain from the card has come to mean much less because of these alternate methods of victory.  Kokusho produces a minimum 15 point life swing (in a 3 player game you gain 10 life, 2 opponents loose 5 each so you are 15 ahead of any given player) and that just isn't that much in EDH.  We have discussed previously that life is something players value much less in the previous sections, and Kokopuffs here should not ignore that simply because you are gaining (not losing) the life.  
The fact that Kokusho becomes the center of attention is the primary reason for it remaining banned.  I think that [card]Primeval Titan[/card] degenrates games in this manner and still roams free in EDH games.  Really, after [card]Emrakul[/card], PrimeTime, [card]Sundering Titan[/card], and most huge powerful creatures hit the board, they warp it in this same way.  I don't think that it is abnormal for big, swingy creatures and spells to get copied, recurred and the like is abnormal.  
Analysis:  Kokushko needs to have some testing.  If Kokusho stays banned, Titan may need to be banned as well. 

Which brings us to the final card on the list, [card]Library of Alexandria[/card]:
The card is good but not overpowered
The card is expensive but not moreso than other legal cards
The card is Ubiquotious, but not moreso than other expensive cards
Truth be told, Library is ALMOST a culprit of ALL the banning principals, but falls just short of each.  Does this still make it need banning.  I would say no.  The concept of mandatory cards in EVERY EDH deck is laughable.  If you cannot build a deck in the format where almost every card is playable without a Library....or a [card]Sol Ring[/card]....or [card]Lightning Greaves[/card]...or a [card]Sensei's Divining Top[/card] then you just arent trying that hard.  Find other ways to gain card advantage.
If Library were unbanned, it could draw in many players who have one.  It is useless or banned in EVERY fromat that currently sees play.  It grants a small amount of incremental card advantage in a format where you are already outmatched by a minimum of 2-1 in card drawing power.  Yes it is a terrific card, no it's not mandatory and it's not broken either.
Analysis:  Library needs to be tested!

So, you want to get your dudes back from the bin after you've already used it, but aren't playing White, Black or Green?  Need to reuse a spell but aren't running colors that can fetch it? Here are some options for you to get what you need!

White is already pretty amazing at bringing back Enchantments, Artifacts, and Creatures.  Surely everyone is familliar with those things.  White even has some pretty famous land recursion in [card]Sacred Ground[/card] and the less known [card]Planar Birth[/card].  There isn't alot to tell about white's recusion that isn't common knowledge....but blue...now there is a different story.  

Blue is quite good at recurring artifacts, instants and sorceries, but when it comes to the other card types, let's look at our options:

Playing blue and looking to get guys back out of the bin.  Well, if they are black or white creatures, [card]Dreams of the Dead[/card] is an interesting repeatable blue reanimation spell.  Pair it up with [card]Eon Hub[/card] to not have to pay the upkeep costs, or something like [card]Power Conduit[/card] to not have to pay near as much during future upkeeps.
The fact that it is repeatable is pretty amazing, and if you can manage to [card]Flicker[/card] the creature, it looses cumulative upkeep AND doesn't exile when it dies!

Much less versitile, False Demise and it's big brother [card]Fool's Demise[/card] are almost too much like a theft effect to be reanimation, but they do technically return creatures from your graveyard to play in mono blue.  [card]Puppet Master[/card] also does basically the same thing as these cards.

A build-around-me type of card, Hakim here does return a subset of enchantments to play from the 'yard.  They are by default attached to him, but there are plenty of ways to scoot Auras around in blue.  From [card]Enchantment Alteration[/card] to [card]Crown of the Ages[/card] Hakim can get back your auras like a boss!

Apparently, old cards with the word 'Recall' in the title are quite good.  Even [card]Hurkyl's[/card] saw some torunament play at some point.  Recall will get you back anything you want, and with a light-on-the-blue mana cost, is easy to splash into other decks that need the help.  Recall can get multiple pieces of a combo back from the grave, turn crummy cards in hand (or land) into business and shape your hand back into things you wish you still had.  The best part is, this card was reprinted so many times that the 5th edition version is basically worthless.  You can easily get copies of this card for under 50 cents!

Another color known for it's use of the graveyard, black can get back creatures like no other, but what about other card types.  There are certantly a few known cards that dig around in a creatureless grave for black...[card]Yawgmoth's Will[/card] comes to mind, but what other options are out there...

Cards with the new border do not usually make it into the Deckbuilder's Guide, however, occasionally there is a card that is newer that gives a unique ability to a color that does not usualy have it.  Grim Discovery allows black to get lands back from the graveyard.  An excelent way to get back [card]Cabal Coffers[/card] or [card]Volrath's Stronghold[/card] and a dude too, Grim Discovery gives both recursion AND card advantage, being a 2-for-1 in and of itsself.

Another newer gem, this card gives you a free re-casting of any instant or sorcery in your graveyard something that black rarely can do at all.

Quite the sought-after card of EDH players, Xiahou does have the amazing ability to recur ANY BLACK CARD.  He is pretty much the only card to ever do something this broad, and to be able to recur Xiahou to then get back any spell you want over and over is REALLY STRONG.
Xiahou's price tag reflects his scarceness and playability though, with cheap copies of this card still going over $100 easily anywhere singles from P3K can be found.

Next: Red and Green, and recursive Artifacts for EVERYONE!

As you may know, I have four beautiful children running around my house, and one of thier favorite things to play with are shoes.  We have TONS of shoes.  My eldest daughter (3 years old) buys shoes instead of toys sometimes when we offer to get her something at Target for being good, and my wife is also guilty of being a shoe-lover (pun not intended, but terrible nevertheless).
Then recently it occured to me that there was also something useful I could do with this: 

It's no secret that [card]Shoe Tree[/card] is one of my favorite cards from silver-border land for obvious reasons.  But recently, I just realized the coolest board state of all time!

New Phyrexia brought with it a mechanic that can cause the above picture to be a legitimate board state! 
Proliferate and [card]Shoe Tree[/card] makes me laugh, and all other forms of counter-moving shenanigans can absolutely COVER the table in shoes!
Here is my deck-list that I want so badly to be permitted to play.  Never in my life did I think I would be making a deck to simply put as many shoes onto the table as possible, but here I stand (barefoot!).

Shoe Shenanigans:
10 [card]Forest[/card]
10 [card]Island[/card]
4 [card]Tropical Island[/card]
2 [card]Everflowing Chalice[/card]
4 [card]Worldly Tutor[/card]
3 [card]Contagion Clasp[/card]
1 [card]Fate Transfer[/card]
3 [card]Land Aid '04[/card]
4 [card]Laughing Hyena[/card]
2 [card]Thrummingbird[/card]
1 [card]Gilder Bairn[/card]
2 [card]Propaganda[/card]
1 [card]Whispersilk Cloak[/card]
3 [card]Tezzeret's Gambit[/card]
2 [card]Doubling Season[/card]
2 [card]Genesis[/card]
1 [card]Inexorable Tide[/card]
4 [card]Shoe Tree[/card]
1 [card]Contagion Engine[/card]

The deck is designed more to cause laughter than to win, but there is an ok chance of it taking a couple of games at the multiplayer table as well.  [card]Laughing Hyena[/card] and [card]Propaganda[/card] are for the early game protection.  The hyena just keeps coming back (with any luck) and [card]Propaganda[/card] is obvious.  [card]Land Aid[/card] and [card]Everflowing Chalice[/card] ramp a bit, and the latter has synergy with all of the proliferate.  The rest of the deck's plan is simply, land a [card]Shoe Tree[/card] and put as many shoes onto the table as possible (P.S.: bring a bag of extra shoes!)
[card]Fate Transfer[/card] is not at all good in the deck, it's simply in there as a Hail Mary; if you are about to be killed off, move all of the shoes onto someone else's creature so they just sit there on the board, taking up space and stinking.  Counters do not have an owner, so they will remain on the board until the permanent is removed from the battlefield!

That's all the time I have this week, see you next week for more variant format goodness!

Until Next time, use YOUR shoes as counters....and PROLIFERATE THEM!

-Shoe