Highlander 1.5+ Tournament Report

Foreword, 9.12.2024

While creating this website, I went to the deep end trying to find all of the historical banlist updates to save for posterity. In that process, the oldest mention of a paper tournament for the format I found was a report from a quarter of a century ago for a tournament in Bochum, Germany. I felt the urge to dig it up and put it on display as a piece of our history.

Original post


Hello Magic Friends,

Here, at long last, is the tournament report for the Highlander 1.5+ Tournament on December 6, 2000. The report was kindly written by the tournament winner, Sören Kerner. He gives a brief description of his opponents, their decks, and how his matches against them played out. So, let’s hear directly from Sören!


Round 1 – Tu Binh Hong – B/R Land Destruction – 2:0

This was the shortest matchup of the evening, lasting only 5 minutes. In game 1, I overwhelmed Tu Binh with 2 lands, some burn spells, and a bunch of 1/1 creatures. In game 2, he was mana-screwed. Since his deck was built around land destruction + shadow creatures, I probably wouldn’t have had much trouble anyway, as my deck isn’t particularly affected by either.


Round 2 – Uwe Grabowski – B/R/U Good Stuff – 2:0

Uwe’s deck was filled with big creatures and strong (but mostly expensive) spells. Since he had poor land draws, I overran him in both games with little resistance. His deck used B/R/U colors, and the land destruction spells in my deck were quite useful here. We played a few more games afterward, but he only won one of them. In that game, I had no early pressure, and after getting him down to 2 life, I got steamrolled by Sol’kanar, the Swamp King and Crosis, the Purger.


Round 3 – Claus Chudzinski – G/R Beatdown (designed by Frank Topel) – 2:1

This was the most intense matchup of the night, as Claus was playing a deck with a mana curve similar to mine. Since he was also playing green, his creatures were stronger than mine, but my mana base was more stable.
All three games were incredibly close, and the winner of the coin flip had a major advantage. Claus won the coin flip and took control of game 1. I went first in game 2, and thanks to that, I barely managed to win.
Game 3 was the most exciting and the closest. After several creature trades, I managed to gain the upper hand. Then Claus played a Winter Orb to remove my freshly played Ghitu Slinger, which was a smart move. Without that, I would have won in no time with Viashino Sandstalker and a Hammer of Bogardan in my hand. Under the effects of Winter Orb, we kept trading creatures and burn spells for a while. Eventually, I managed to gain control of the board. However, the match remained razor-close. Claus was one turn away from winning. If he had drawn a Forest, he could have activated his Treetop Village and cast Rancor. If he had drawn a Mountain, he could have played Skizzik without Kicker. But since he drew neither, I was able to finish him off on my next attack.


Round 4 – Hajo Höh – Five-Color Combo – 2:1

Hajo’s deck was the most creative of the night. It aimed to get as many large creatures onto the battlefield as quickly as possible.
Game 1 was a textbook demonstration of how his deck was supposed to work. I had a perfect start:

  • Turn 1: Haste creature
  • Turn 2: Another creature
  • Turn 3: Haste creature

On his turn 4, Hajo played Academy Rector. I decided to hold off on attacking and instead played another creature, aiming to overwhelm him in the following turns or finish him off with burn spells. But Hajo had other plans. On his next turn, he played Defense of the Heart and Diamond Valley. Things were looking bad for me, and I knew I had to act. Since I couldn’t get rid of enough of my own creatures to “disable” Defense of the Heart, I played another haste creature and attacked. After Hajo sacrificed the Rector, he dropped to 7 life. The Rector fetched a Sneak Attack.

On his upkeep, he sacrificed Defense of the Heart, which allowed him to bring a Verdant Force and a Spirit of the Night into play. Then, with Sneak Attack, he summoned a Crater Hellion, wiping my entire board. The rest of the story writes itself — I had no chance.

Luckily, I faced much less resistance in the next two games and was able to win both. But I have to say, Hajo had by far the coolest deck of the night.
Lastly, a big thanks to the Trader for sponsoring the prize: The Abyss

  • Sören Kerner, Winner of the Nikolaus Tournament in Grunewald on December 6, 2000

Final Standings (After Round 4)

RankNamePoints (P)
🥇 1Sören Kerner12
🥈 2Claus Chudzinski10
🥉 3HaJo Höh9
4Frank Topel9
5Falk Bernhardt9
6Uwe Grabowski7
7Christoph Schaumann7
8Andreas Weber6
9Thomas Schmolinski6
10Tu Binh Hong6
11Thorsten Klünter6
12Michael Steinbach4
13Christian Pimmingstorfer4
14Lars Scharnagl3

Sören’s Killerdeck

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