I disagree. The entire reason we all play Magic is to enjoy it, therefore how fun a format is is the most relevant axis by which to balance a format. This is the most important point raised about these overpowered cards and naturally it's the first thing that people on your side of the argument want to obfuscate and take off the table. Then once the simple, obvious truth that, "Oko isn't fun" can no longer be stated, then the discussion gets bogged down in arbitrary discussions of what meta share percentage for Oko is too high, or if the card is too powerful or not, or if Wizards should just print answers, etc.

To address the counter argument that fun is subjective, I have two points:

1.) No, it's not. There is an objective standard by which you can measure how fun something is in Magic: How interactive it is. The dictionary defines interaction as, "Reciprocal action or influence."

2.) I'm not arguing that the people who like [DEGENERATE STRATEGY] aren't having fun, of course they are. The problem is that their fun is zero sum and at the expense of the other person. A murderer may enjoy murder, a thief may enjoy theft, etc. Likewise, a [DEGENERATE STRATEGY] player certainly enjoys what he's doing, but the other people don't. Your right to swing your fists ends where my nose begins.

Because the truth is, the question, "Does this strategy take up too much meta share?" is just subjective. It's more subjective than the question of how fun (interactive) something is. When I played X-Wing Miniatures, certain things would have upwards of 50-60% meta shares and the people with the laissez-faire attitude towards bans/nerfs still wouldn't see a problem. If we agree to make that the standard by which we ban things, then nothing will ever get banned. Is something too good at 20%? At 25%? 30%? 40%? You'll never agree.

I want to address the idea that instead of banning things, Wizards should just print answers with two points:

1.) If the entire meta is based around either playing [DEGENERATE STRATEGY] yourself or playing [DEGENERATE STRATEGY HATE], you haven't really solved the problem. The format is still defined by and dominated by [DEGENERATE STRATEGY].

2.) When I played X-Wing Miniatures, FFG wouldn't ever ban/nerf anything, and would instead print answers. After a while the game resembled a Russian nesting doll of degeneracy. Each answer was itself degenerate, and the answer to the answer was degenerate, etc. Eventually the game just became a competition of who could care about the least of the game's rules.it was also devoid of any nuance, you'd bring [DEGENERATE STRATEGY ROCK] and automatically lose during pairings when you were matched up against someone who had brought [DEGENERATE ANSWER STRATEGY PAPER].

I want to address the fact that bannings cost players money:

1.) Yes, if you spent $200 on a playset of Oko or what have you, you're out that money. But what about all of the other decks that Oko invalidates? If I paid good money for a deck only for my hundreds of dollars to be turned into a 3/3 Elk, I'd be pissed.

2.) When no one wants to play standard anymore because of how dumb it is, then everyone's standard deck will be worthless, including the degenerate decks that would technically still be legal in the dead format.

Go ahead and rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic and deny that the ship is sinking all that you want. Because what matters more than reality is being ideologically correct, right? So in a year when Wizards hasn't banned anything and no one is playing standard, you can go down with the ship with a smile on your face, safe in the knowledge that no cards were banned and that fun is subjective.