Summary
- Unbanned:
- Natural Order (trial concluded)
- 3-Month Unban Trials:
- Cards to Watch:
- Other Cards Discussed:
- Player Questionnaire:
- Results and feedback from our October 2026 player questionnaire.
- Changes in Council:
- Marvin (Rigero) and Justus (Hoylt) are stepping down.
- Willy from Germany joins the council.
- Applications are open for one additional council seat, with particular interest in candidates from Slovakia.
- Effective Date: All banlist changes announced here will take effect on November 15, 2026.
- Next Announcement: February 1, 2027.
- Unban Trial Period: The three-month trials for Sensei’s Divining Top and Skullclamp will run from November 15, 2026, through February 14, 2027. Any changes announced on February 1 will take effect on February 15, allowing players and tournament organizers two weeks to prepare.
- Transition Period: The two-week transition period has been a standard practice in European Highlander for over 12 years, giving players and tournament organizers time to prepare for banlist changes. However, the council’s effective dates are guidelines rather than strict rules, and local playgroups, tournament organizers, and stores are free to adopt the changes and start testing the unbanned cards earlier if everyone involved agrees.
Unbanned
Natural Order (5 yes, 1 no, 1 abstain)
Throughout the trial period, the council’s own experiences, observations from tournament play, feedback from local communities, and responses to our latest player questionnaire have largely supported keeping Natural Order legal. Tournament results have shown no indication that Natural Order has been dominating the format.
Natural Order is undoubtedly a powerful card, capable of ending games on the spot under the right circumstances. However, as a four-mana green sorcery requiring the sacrifice of a green creature, it comes with meaningful restrictions and deckbuilding costs. Considering the overall power level of European Highlander, we do not believe the card stands out as an unreasonable outlier.
One concern raised before the trial was that Natural Order might become an automatic inclusion in nearly every green midrange deck. Tournament decklists have not supported this concern. Instead, the card has primarily found a home in creature-based combo and toolbox strategies, such as Pattern Rector / Protean Hulk, Cradlehoof, and Brightglass Gearhulk decks. These archetypes represent relatively small portions of the metagame, and giving less commonly played strategies additional tools can contribute positively to the format’s diversity. Meanwhile, traditional green good-stuff midrange decks have rarely adopted Natural Order simply to search for standalone threats such as Primeval Titan or Atraxa, Grand Unifier.
Based on these observations, the council has decided to keep Natural Order legal following the conclusion of its trial period.
3-Month Unban Trials
Sensei’s Divining Top (4 yes, 2 no, 1 abstain)
It has been ten years since Sensei’s Divining Top was banned in European Highlander. While its raw power level has never been the primary concern, its tendency to slow down games and create frustrating play patterns has historically caused problems, particularly for tournament organizers. The card remains controversial, both within the community and the council itself. Nevertheless, it has consistently been one of the most requested unban candidates.
Magic and European Highlander have changed considerably over the past decade. With the increasing importance of efficiency and tempo, we want to see whether Sensei’s Divining Top would still find its way into nearly every archetype, as it once did, or whether it is now too slow for many decks. It could also provide additional support for artifact combo, control, and Miracle strategies. Previous trials have shown that expectations based on a card’s historical performance do not always hold true in today’s format.
The council remains concerned about the potential impact of Sensei’s Divining Top on tournament round times. Some may question this decision following the ban of Nadu, Winged Wisdom, but we consider the situations different. Unlike the potentially lengthy and unpredictable combo sequences enabled by Nadu, Winged Wisdom, individual activations of Sensei’s Divining Top are generally easier to identify and address through slow-play enforcement. However, repeated activations can still consume significant time over the course of a match, and this remains one of the central concerns of the trial. We want to emphasize that this is a three-month trial, not a permanent unban. We are far from convinced that the card’s historical issues have disappeared.
We strongly encourage players to observe and report how much time Sensei’s Divining Top consumes during matches. We also recommend that tournament organizers consider the round structure successfully used in Finland: 60-minute rounds, followed by a maximum of five additional turns or ten minutes, whichever comes first.
Skullclamp (5 yes, 1 no, 1 abstain)
It has already been five years (feels like yesterday!) since Skullclamp was last given an unban trial alongside Umezawa’s Jitte. Following that trial, Skullclamp was considered too powerful and returned to the ban list.
Skullclamp is undeniably an extremely powerful card advantage engine. However, much like with Sensei’s Divining Top, the format has changed considerably over the past five years. Games have become faster, efficiency and tempo matter more than ever, and many modern threats already generate card advantage on their own. These changes raise the question of whether investing mana and time into Skullclamp activations is still as appealing as it once was, although its low mana cost and powerful synergies may remain highly relevant. We also believe that artifact removal and effects that punish or prevent card drawing have become more prevalent in the format.
Skullclamp could provide additional support for artifact and token strategies, green mana-dork decks, and white weenie decks, particularly through synergies with cards such as Stoneforge Mystic and Cloud, Midgar Mercenary.
We are also aware that both Skullclamp and Sensei’s Divining Top are potential targets for Urza’s Saga. Testing them simultaneously may seem unusual, but it also provides an opportunity to see whether decks actually want to include both cards or prefer one over the other. Their individual and combined impact will therefore be important to evaluate during the trial.
Ultimately, this trial will help us determine whether Skullclamp‘s historical power level remains problematic in today’s European Highlander.
Cards to Watch
The Fantasticar (no vote)
The Fantasticar has quickly established itself as an exceptionally powerful card, receiving a ban in Legacy and a restriction in Vintage shortly after its release.
The card seems almost tailor-made for Doomsday (now often referred to as Vroomsday) and other Storm strategies, with potential applications in artifact-based decks as well. In practice, it can function almost like a colorless three-mana Tendrils of Agony, requiring only a storm count of four and without needing to be the final spell in the sequence. Interacting with it can also be challenging, as its transformation into a creature is optional, making conventional creature removal unreliable.
Doomsday and Storm variants remain relatively fringe archetypes in European Highlander, and giving these strategies a boost towards competitive viability is not necessarily harmful to the format’s diversity. However, their low representation also makes gathering meaningful tournament data difficult. Unlike many other powerful cards, The Fantasticar is not a generic good-stuff inclusion and requires a dedicated deck to fully exploit its potential. Nevertheless, there are limits to how much power any single strategy should gain, regardless of its current popularity. The council will therefore continue to monitor both the competitive results and gameplay impact of The Fantasticar to determine whether it pushes these archetypes beyond a healthy level of competitiveness.
Other Cards Discussed
Entomb and Fastbond (no vote)
In our previous announcement, we highlighted Entomb and Fastbond as cards to watch. While they enable different strategies, namely Reanimator and Lands-based combos, both often rely heavily on the graveyard. Wasteland locks and many Fastbond-based combos can be disrupted by the same graveyard hate commonly used against Reanimator.
We believe the metagame has adapted to these strategies, with players increasingly including graveyard interaction in their decks. While the availability of such answers does not eliminate the power of either card, our current observations suggest that this adaptation has helped keep both Reanimator and Lands strategies in check. As a result, the council is currently less concerned about Entomb and Fastbond being among the format’s most pressing issues.
The One Ring (no vote)
The One Ring has been brought up in both community feedback and council discussions. It is undeniably a powerful and widely played card, capable of breaking open midrange mirrors and providing substantial card advantage across a variety of strategies. It is also particularly strong in artifact-based decks, especially those built around Mishra’s Workshop.
However, while its high play rate is worth acknowledging, based on our current observations, we do not believe The One Ring is having a sufficiently negative impact on the wider metagame to warrant a ban. Its four-mana cost and accumulating life loss also come with meaningful trade-offs, particularly in faster matchups. We will continue to monitor its prevalence and impact.
Urza’s Saga (no vote)
Urza’s Saga remains one of the most powerful and debated cards in the format. Its ability to provide both threats and access to a wide range of utility artifacts makes it a valuable inclusion in many different strategies.
With Sensei’s Divining Top and Skullclamp entering unban trials, the council is particularly interested in seeing how these additions affect the role of Urza’s Saga in the metagame.
Player Questionnaire
Our latest player questionnaire was conducted between October 8 and 22, 2026, receiving a total of 77 responses.
We are pleased to see that overall satisfaction with the format remains very high. The average rating was 4.36 out of 5, with over 92% of respondents rating the current state of the format either 4 or 5. Most players described the format as healthy, diverse, and enjoyable, although concerns were raised about certain powerful cards, combo packages, and the increasing overlap between different midrange strategies.
Most respondents considered Natural Order powerful but reasonable within the current environment, and many appreciated the additional options it provides for green creature-based strategies.
Regarding potential unbans, Skullclamp and Sensei’s Divining Top were the most frequently suggested cards, followed by Tolarian Academy. Concerns about The Fantasticar, Karakas, and The One Ring were among the more frequently raised topics regarding potential bans.
We would like to thank everyone who participated and shared their thoughts. Your feedback continues to provide valuable insight into the state of the format and helps inform our discussions and future decisions.
Changes to the Council
Marvin (Rigero) and Justus (Hoylt) have both decided to step down from the European Highlander Council. We would like to sincerely thank them both for their time, dedication, and contributions to the format. We wish them all the best in their future endeavors!
We are also happy to welcome Willy from Germany as the newest member of the council. Here is a short introduction from Willy himself:
Hiiiiiiiii,
I’m Willy. I started playing Highlander in Erfurt, Germany around 2011 (though I bought my first magic starter deck from Scourge in 2003 when I was 7 lol and was infatuated with the look of basic forests).
Atm, I reside in Berlin where I am hosting an annual tournament, our year-end invitational, and countless testing sessions. My playmat reads “Magic: the Addiction” and that’s where I am at, playing approximately 20 hours of highlander every week.
I am committed to making our format as transparent, welcoming, and diverse as possible. If you ever want to chat about Highlander or have any suggestions to keep this format as distinctive and cool as I believe it is, feel free to ping me on Discord.
Cheers, Willy
We are also looking to fill one additional seat on the council. We would particularly like to encourage applications from regions that are not yet represented, and we would especially welcome applications from Slovakia. However, applications from all regions are welcome, and we encourage anyone interested in contributing to the future of European Highlander to get in touch.
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