By banning the cards we did, we were convinced we would face a deck similar to the one we did. We added the deck we used for the sole purpose of beating a single deck of a single element. It seems only fair that we would try and beat it to set an example it is not unbeatable, rather than delay the inevitable. I estimated the chance per game of our deck to win against a certain General variant of this SoFree deck at over 60%. You add two bloody Shockwaves and the odds turn against us.
Reading your text it seems that you recognize that Sofree is OP and willing to accept a ban on war 12, that is cool.
I disagree that SoFr is more powerful than a handful of other cards, however I do think the fact that we can field a deck vs Aether and expect it to win every round is a bad thing.
Have at least 3 
decks that I know that can beat sofree consistently, if you don't think SoFree is more OP than some others cards so don't agree with one ban for war 12 so easily
but if you says "It has never felt irreplaceable" well then please use one replace deck, if don't is many relevant for air is very relevant for the rest 11 teams
Do you know how many times I've heard this? Still waiting for 1 idea to actually work...
And where were you last war with these ideas? Huh?
We have tried a plethora of ideas over the past months, I have basically been discussing a counter with deuce since trials. Shard of Sacrifice and Sundial are pretty much the only ways to consistently stop the damage of a combination of Damselflies, Sky Dragons and Shards of Freedom. So then you must ask yourself: how do you build an Aether deck around it that deals enough damage in time for this much stalling to matter? Aether cards are expensive. Phase Recluses extremely vulnerable to CC and are blocked by Wings, Psions lack in offensive power, are not particularly sturdy and are still blocked by Sundial. SoW Dragons is the best kind of offense that does not suffer from CC, Fog Shield or Wings. But it is very, very slow. And SoSac SoW Dragons is definitely something I have tried, but it is unlikely to work against a human opponent. 15 Aether Pillars, 5 Phase Dragons, 5 SoW, 5 SoSac off Mark. And you will never get enough offense unless you can get Phase Dragon + SoW before your first SoSac.
Lets face it, the fact that SoFree bypasses pretty much EVERY kind of protection without requiring time to setup or having specific counters, while simultaneously protecting your creatures from CC to boot, is just crazy. You can hard counter SoW and Psions with Reflective Shields, you can destroy a Catapult before it can launch a creature. Momentum + Immortality does fall in a similar category as SoFree, but there are no deadly fast combos available for this. I know SoFree does not protect against mass CC, but that is of little consequence when facing Sky Dragons.
But maybe deuce, RR, I and everyone else deuce has discussed trying to build a counter with are all just noobs at deckbuilding. You will have to forgive me for being skeptic about this claim until it is backed up with a consistent counter (75+ % win chance per game) to a small variety (Sky Blitz, Wings, Shockwaves, Thunderstorm and Fog) of mono Air SoFree decks that is at least 50% Aether, to boot.
While you are at it, give me counters to bw decks that work against other main decks of every elements.
Been there, done that.
http://elementscommunity.org/forum/round-1-166/(extra-salvager)-xn0ize-3-1-uzumakinaruto-(sideboard)/Focuses on beating CC-heavy Bone Wall decks, you can just use Brimstone Eaters and Minor Phoenixes to beat down Bone Walls in other cases.
I mean, I always liked War better without shards.
As do I.
