July 2005 Banlist Update

Effective from July 15, 2005, 00:00 CET, the MagicPlayer Highlander format will be updated as follows:

Banned:

• Imperial Seal
• Strip Mine

Unbanned:

• Worldgorger Dragon

Watchlist:

• Enlightened Tutor
• Necropotence

Added:

• Eternal Witness
• Umezawa’s Jitte

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Reasoning:

1. Strip Mine:
Despite its completely symmetrical design, a large number of Highlander players consider the card to be unfair and fun-destroying. As a result, the council, despite some reservations, decided to ban the card from the Highlander format. Originally added as a replacement for Dust Bowl to provide more than just Wasteland as a means to deal with annoying non-basic lands like Maze of Ith or Volrath’s Stronghold, it unfortunately turned out that Strip Mine was much more frequently used as an early attempt to color-screw or mana-screw the opponent. The effect could also be repeatedly abused with cards like:

• Eternal Witness
• Regrowth
• Cartographer
• Sylvan Scrying
• Petrified Field

These interactions made the lock effect far too strong.

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2. Imperial Seal:
Although very few players actually own this card, it had to be added to the banned list for the sake of completeness. The number of strong and playable tutors should remain limited to prevent combo decks from becoming too strong. Vampiric Tutor has always been banned, and for consistency, Imperial Seal is now banned as well.

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3. Necropotence:
In light of the current strength of Tier 1 decks and the BBB casting cost, it was decided to allow Necropotence again. The goal is to give heavy-black decks a card that can compete with the power level of frequently played blue cards like Gifts Ungiven and Intuition. In the Highlander format, Necropotence has access to fewer effective life-gain effects than in traditional formats, meaning that playing the card carries a significantly higher risk. As a result, it is considered fair for this format.

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4. Enlightened Tutor:
The color white is traditionally one of the weaker colors in Magic overall, and especially in Highlander. To give white mages a way to respond more flexibly to situations and to slightly counteract Red Deck Wins (RDW), since specific “hoser” cards can now be effectively available twice, Enlightened Tutor is being unbanned.