In casual games, the goal is not to win, but to have fun... Although winning is usually a good thing in most circumstances. Casual games are where players of all backgrounds and experience levels play in the same environment, but without the looming need to win. Casual games are where almost all cards from a person's collection can be played.

However, the casual gaming environment is often disrupted by certain cards, which make winning a near inevitability for certain decks without the help of other players. These cards give the possessor an unfair advantage and often take the fun out of playing casual games, much like the dreaded feeling when a player casts Upheaval, then floats enough mana to play Psychatog in tournament play.

This list is not written in stone, but is intended rather to be a guideline and should differ within playgroups. Some cards like Stasis, Winter Orb, and Rising Waters should get some consideration, as well as cards with alternate win conditions such as Test of Endurance and Epic Struggle. I believe the following cards should be banned in all multiplayer casual player games:

• Any Creature with Shadow
• Crystalline Sliver
• Opposition
• Wellwisher
• Worship

Shadow creatures are usually undercosted and most often unblockable - this often leads to an early exit for at least one player, for only other creatures that have shadow themselves can be used to block these planar anomalies. Most shadow creatures played are usually black or white, although there are a few blue creatures with shadow but they pale in comparison. Shadow creatures are often combined with cheap creature enchantments that have strength in the title like the old-school creature-pumper Unholy Strength, Planeshift's Sinister Strength, or Weatherlight's Empyreal Armor. Black shadow creatures also are hard to handle if you are a black mage since one weakness of black, is it's inability to deal with black creatures. Shadow creatures are comparable to creatures that are unblockable, like Phantom Warrior and Metathran Solider. Where Metathran Soldier is the cheapest mana costing creature that comes out of the chute with the unblockable attribute at two and Phantom Warrior costs two, Soltari Foot Solider - at a mere casting cost of one - starts the mana curve of creatures with shadow and goes up to four with Dauthi Mindripper, Thalakos Deceiver, and Soltari Guerrillas - but there are a dozen or so creatures in between. Unblockable creatures have balanced casting costs for their power and toughness (Phantom Warrior is a 2/2 for three and Metathran Solider a 1/1 for two) where most shadow creatures have casting costs of two for a 2/1. Plus, unblockable creatures are all blue making them vulnerable to black removal.

Crystalline Sliver should be banned because nothing is more annoying to be holding a mitt full of targeted removal in your hand as you watch a swarm of often-colorless slivers fly over your helpless blockers ending your life. Often Crystalline Sliver is paired with another multiplayer nightmare in Worship - which means if there isn't enchantment removal or mass creature removal like Wrath of God, the game is likely won by the sliver player. Where Crystalline Sliver differs from other untargetable creatures like Jolrael's Centaur and Deadly Insect is that it improves all other slivers where the previous mentioned cards only benefit themselves - and I have yet to see a deck that plays only one sliver.

Having your dragons tapped down by an insane elf and his lowly squirrels is not a fun thing and being unable to do anything on your turn because your all your permanents are turned 90 degrees isn't either, but Opposition can do both at the same time. Opposition is a card that quickly degenerates the game to kill the Opposition player before he taps all their opponents' resources turn after turn and then win at the Opposition's player's leisure. Making all your creatures (most of the time squirrel tokens or elves) into Icy Manipulators takes out any strategy. One of the Opposition player's creatures is equal to any other creature since it can be tapped down and total control is maintained as long as the Opposition player has more creatures than the combined total of all opponents creatures and lands. Sorcery speed removal is quickly nullified if your mana is tapped down. Once the lock is accomplished, hope comes if an instant-speed enchantment removal spell is cast or the enchantment is bounced and then countered.

Wellwisher seems like a very harmless card at first, which seems like it should be thrown into any elf deck. But the whole basis of most of these decks is to get multiple Wellwishers down and then gain obscene amounts of life where they would rarely die from damage and being decked is a more likely scenario to how they would lose. The problem is worsened by cards like Steely Resolve or Eladamri, Lord of Leaves which protect their elves from targeted removal. It fairly easy to hit triple-digit life totals and in rare circumstances quadruple digits when the elves are left unchecked. The life gaining machine is also helped with the addition of Seeker of Skybreak (which untaps his fellow elven brethren), the Wellwisher, and/or Skyshroud Poacher (which performs two duties - first, to first fetch the Wellwishers, and then to retrieve other elves once all four Wellwishers have entered play). Even if these hordes of 1/1s are dealt with, there is still the daunting task of dealing with the hundreds of points of life that have been accumulated.

Worship is a card that many black and red decks have no chance of winning since black and red decks have virtually no way of removing enchantments that come in the black or red variety once this game prolonging enchantment enters play. As well, many times it comes often down to whether a white mage or green mage can Disenchant the Worship in time before she is killed. Many decks don't even have enchantment removal even if they are green or white to further exacerbate the problem. In most situations for the black or red mage to win, they must try to remove all creatures from the Worship player's side and then deliver the fatal blow. For black mages they can still win by making the Worship player lose life to pass through the magical one life barrier with cards like Brush with Death or with unopposed Guiltfeeder attacks. Red players, however, are screwed - since one of only ways to remove Worship in their color is to play Anarchy. But who plays with Anarchy?

Hopefully, you will take these suggestions into consideration when building your decks so that people will have a more fun experience when playing against you. However, if you continue to play these cards, don't be surprised if your opponents band together to quickly stomp you into oblivion for playing these much-hated cards.

(Note: I disagree with banning these cards intensely - and you can see my response in the StarCity forums. Scroll up and click, chief! - The Ferrett, who's writing more in the forums than in the site these days)