Author: Council

  • November 2022 Banlist Update

    November 2022 Banlist Update

    Changes to the present banned list, effective 15/11/2022:

    Unbanned

    Ban watchlist

    Single card explanations

    Birthing Pod

    The last 3 month have shown us that this card is not as scary anymore as it was when it was banned. With the current meta being a lot faster and punishing against the life loss, we did not observe any domination by Birthing Pod. In fact we noticed that it was not played as much and left a lot of lists that were prime candidates to play it. However, a three month trial period cannot show all effects on the meta and we will keep an eye on the development of the format with Birthing Pod.

    Attractions and Cards from the Unfinity set

    To clarify the questions regarding the legality of attractions and cards from the Unfinity set; We’ve decided to go with the same way WotC put forward. This means all eternal legal cards from this set will also be legal in European Highlander (“Not every card in the set has an acorn symbol. The other cards, known as “eternal cards,” are just like cards in any other expansion. They conform to the Comprehensive Rules, although in many cases they necessitated new rules being written.”

    If there should be the need to ban certain cards in the future, we will adjust this accordingly over the normal banning of said cards.

    Contact us

    Next scheduled banlist update: February 1st, 2023

  • August 2022 Watchlist Update

    August 2022 Watchlist Update

    Changes to the present watch list, effective 15/08/2022:

    Ban watchlist

    Unban watchlist

    Because we are testing Birthing Pod for an unban we are putting the card on the unban watchlist.
    If we decide not to unban Birthing Pod after evaluating its trial period, we will remove it from the watchlist again.

    Trial Period

    The following card will be unbanned from August 15th till November 1st 2022.(It will be default banned at that date unless it specifically gets unbanned)

    • Birthing Pod

    Single card explanations

    Birthing Pod

    The discussion about this card is going on for quite a while, and we think currently the format is in a pretty good shape, with a lot of diversity. Therefore, we think it is a good time to shake up the format a bit and try out cards that might not be as broken/influencing anymore as they were when they were banned. This time we want to test out Birthing Pod for 3 month to see how it performs.

    To further improve the format and gain valuable information we need your input, worries and opinions on these changes and views on the format. Do not hesitate to contact any of us via private message or just start a topic in the forum.

    Contact us

    Next scheduled banlist update: November 1st, 2022

  • May 2022 Banlist Update

    May 2022 Banlist Update

    Changes to the present banned list, effective 15/05/2022:

    Banned

    Unbanned

    Ban Watchlist

    Unban Watchlist

    Single card explanations

    Underworld Breach

    This enchantment has enabled one of the most powerful and resilient combo decks the format has seen. Although not putting up huge player numbers, the dominance of the deck, if picked up, was undeniable. Similar to the artifact deck that was powered by Tolarian Academy, the Underworld Breach deck led to undesirable and frustrating gameplay. While bans to the card Tolarian Academy itself and Thassa’s Oracle were initially thought to be sufficient to cut back on Breaches powerlevel, the core of the deck proved to still be more than competitive enough. New additions like Urza’s Saga and Lier, Disciple of the Drowned helped the deck to secure its spot at the top. Unmatched in raw speed (thanks to the fact that it basically runs Black Lotus as part of the combo), incredible adjustability to almost any situation on the board due to a plentora of tutor spells and the possibility to grind out opponents that overloaded on combo-interaction with backup plans like ThopterSword, Oath of Druids or Retrofitter Foundry made the deck a nightmare to deal with.
    In our statement regarding combo decks in the format we emphasized that we not only want these decks to not go above a certain degree of speed but also to allow meaningful interactions and decisions that matter to the outcome of the game.
    Unfortunately, after having monitored the situation for quite a while, we think that these fundamentals of the format are violated by the card in question.
    It is therefore that Underworld Breach is banned!

    Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath

    This stabilizer turned every non-combo matchup into a grindfest due to the fact that Uro can not conclusively be dealt with by discard, counterspells or non-exile removal. Uro is engine, enabler and payoff in just one card. Including it in an UGx shell has basically no downside since it fuels itself while being easily tutorable. While other format staples have similar qualities, the inevitability of Uro puts it over the top. As soon as Uro is found by an UGx-player via draw, selfmill or tutoring, the game revolves around it and even if handled once or twice it will eventually win the game either by attacking or just by outvaluing the opponent. It often has an extremely smothering effect on the game by drowning the opponent in card advantage, while at the same time limiting the UGx players opportunity to make meaningful decisions, since very little is better than looping Uros. The combination of Uro/Oko/Life from the Loam emphasized these strengths of UGx to a point, where it was by far the “best fair thing you could do”. We hope this banning will result in more deck diversity and lead the community to explore new, different, and exciting paths of deck building.

    Mind Twist

    Similar to Umezawa’s Jitte , we mostly got positive feedback on this card during the trial period. While some concerns were raised about frustrating gameplay experiences when on the receiving end of a Mindtwist we ultimately think that these situations will be few and far between. Mind Twist stays on the watchlist for now, in case we were to be wrong about this. However, we are confident that the results of the trial period are valid and there won’t be reasons for unease.

    Intuition

    Intuition has been a powerful tutor for a long time already and even enjoyed a short period on the watchlist previously for setting up strong interactions with cards like Sevinne’s Reclamation . Then it was mainly used for cards like Uro and Life from the Loam in order to get card advantage from it. This was already raising eyebrows from players about the power level of this card, but with the edition of channel lands, it crossed the line into brokenness, at times essentially providing almost always 3+ cards. While not being that fast at 3CMC, it often turns into a powerful shell for escaping Uro as well as setting up for a lot more card advantage in future turns if paired with Loam/Channel Lands/Urza’s Saga. Despite the current Uro ban, we want to keep monitoring this card and its interactions, so we decided to put it on the watchlist again.

    Dig Through Time / Opposition Agent / Tainted Pact

    All three of these cards have been on the list for quite a bit of time now. While all of them are very potent we don’t think that any one of them is a cause for concern at the moment. We are therefore removing them from the watchlist.

    Birthing Pod

    With two bannings and one unbanning as well as the recent release of a new set there is already plenty of change happening in the format. While we might ultimately end up testing an unban of Birthing Pod we’ve decided that it would be best to run trials like this only after watchlist announcements (or maybe ban announcements without any other changes) as to being able to better assess the influence of a trialed card. For now we would like to hear your feedback about a possible unban of the powerful phyrexian artifact.

    Contact us

    Next scheduled banlist update: August 1st, 2022

  • February 2022 Watchlist Update

    February 2022 Watchlist Update

    Changes to the present watch list, effective 15/02/2022:

    Ban watchlist

    Unban watchlist

    Because we are testing Mind Twist for an unban (see next point Trial Period) we are putting the card on the unban watchlist.
    If we decide not to unban Mind Twist after evaluating its trial period, we will remove it from the watchlist again (similar to how we previously dealt with Skullclamp).

    Trial Period

    The following card will be unbanned from February 15th till May 1st 2022. It will be default banned at that date unless it specifically gets unbanned:

    Single card explanations

    Umezawa’s Jitte

    This powerful equipment was unbanned with our last announcement after being extensively tested during a trial period. Because Jitte didn’t prove to be problematic during either the trial period or the time since the unban we have decided to remove it from the watchlist as we don’t expect this card to be banworthy again any time soon.

    Mind Twist

    We want to continue to give some cards that have been on the banned list now for quite some time a chance to reenter the format. The choice this time fell on Mind Twist as we thought the card to be least unfair. The general idea is, that Mind Twist only shines when it is played for 4 or more mana (Hymn to Tourach is the more efficient card at lower values!). However Highlander has become much faster over recent years. People play lower mana curves and a four mana spell that doesn’t evolve your board has to be pretty good to be played. We think Mind Twist is still a good card, but we don’t think that it is as much of a deciding factor in our game as it used to be some years ago.
    We especially want to gather feedback on whether or not Mind Twist exclusively leads to “unfun” play experiences for the person casting it or the one being on the receiving end (games being decided by hitting either no relevant cards or all relevant cards).

    To further improve the format and gain valuable information we need your input, worries and opinions on these changes and views on the format. Do not hesitate to contact any of us via private message or just start a topic in the forum.

    Contact us

    Next scheduled banlist update: May 1st, 2022

  • November 2021 Banlist Update

    November 2021 Banlist Update

    Changes to the present banned list, effective 15/11/2021:

    Banned

    Unbanned

    Single card explanations

    Umezawa’s Jitte

    A powerful equipment for sure, Jitte was deemed to be over the limit for a long time. But, in the days of fast, aggressive and powerful tempo decks, the initial investment of 4 mana to get the card going means it is not so over the top anymore. That’s not to say it isn’t potent. In fact beyond the 1st activation it is anything but weak. Still, during the trial period we got mostly positive feedback on this card and that’s why we feel confident Umezawa’s Jitte can stay in the format for now.

    Skullclamp

    Clamp in testing was warping decks towards smaller creatures, tutoring and anti-clamp tech. We saw an uptick of Stoneforge Mystic and Steelshaper’s Gift being played. Also Urza’s Saga, as the newcomer of the format, was used for this. Anti-clamp techs saw various artifact hate and instant based removal being played.
    The trial period showed that Skullclamp mostly wasn’t healthy for the format because it was warping games, it was included in from a card advantage point of view, and it was also freezing the boardstates into an unfun holding pattern with little to no hope of out-tempo’ing or out-value’ing the card. This was most crucially evident in midrange on midrange matches where advantages gained from Clamp could not be compensated for by the opponent. At the same time, the card pushed out many decks that didn’t have a chance to be competitive (in particular control decks that are already lagging behind) due to clamp being in the format.

    As Skullclamp has proven to be too powerful for the format as of now we have decided to keep it banned as well as to remove it from the unban watchlist for the time being!

    Secret Lair x The Walking Dead

    The ban of the Walking Dead Secret Lair never happened due to power or in-game reasons. Because the original contributing factors for the ban have been taken care off by Wizards, we don’t see any more reasons to keep the TWD cards banned. Therefore we decided that future “Universe Beyond”-cards will be legal in our format, too.

    Ban watchlist

    Unban Watchlist

    Additional Topics

    Secret Lair Statement

    As stated above WotC announced future “Secret Lair// Universe Beyond”-cards will also see printings in regular sets or on the “List”. (Source: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/secret-lair-universes-beyond-update-2021-06-07) Therefore they will be available much more easily and we decided that future “Universe Beyond”-cards will be legal in our format.

    Trial-Period Feedback and changes

    We were satisfied with the Trial Period as an instrument to playtest possible unban candidates. As it was the first time, we applied this instrument, we now have the opportunity to evolve this tool and adjust it to the specific needs of our player base.

    A large number of players were concerned, that the duration of the Trial Phase was too long. In the possible but hopefully not imminent case of the trial of a meta-breaking card, this would lead to an unhealthy metagame for a long period of time. Therefore, we decided to limit the Trial Period to three months. Some might be concerned that this time span is too short, but we felt that three months are enough to at least get a gist on the effects a possible unban will have on the format without influencing and possibly hurting the metagame for a long period of time.

    Possible trial candidates are all cards mentioned on the Unban watchlist, emphasizing its importance. If you see banned cards you would like included on the Unban watchlist and therefore possibly tested in a trial period, please mention them in your feedback of your own Trial Period testing.

    Furthermore, the Trial Period will be linked to the Watchlist announcements, giving us the possibility to react to the results of the testing and the community feedback in our upcoming Ban announcement. In this context we want to stress again how vital your input is in the further progression of our format.

    To further improve the format and gain valuable information we need your input, worries and opinions on these changes and views on the format. So please do not hesitate to contact any of us via private message or just start a topic in the forum.

    Contact us

    Next scheduled banlist update: February 1st, 2022

  • August 2021 Watchlist Update

    August 2021 Watchlist Update

    Ban watchlist

    Unban watchlist

    Single card explanations

    Demonic Tutor

    The discussion about tutors in Highlander is as old as the format itself. After years on the watch list, we now decided to take Demonic Tutor from the watchlist. Tainted Pact will stay for now. This has the following reasons. First and foremost, we are quite happy with the banned/unbanned status of the tutors today. Of the really powerful tutors Demonic Tutor, Tainted Pact, Imperial Seal, Vampiric Tutor, Mystical Tutor, Enlightened Tutor and Worldly Tutor, the latter two are of a manageable power level, because they create card disadvantage and their scope is somewhat limited. Demonic Tutor and Imperial Seal on the other hand have a maximal scope but are much slower at sorcery speed, which we deem also ok. Vampiric Tutor and Mystical Tutor on the other hand, are not only instant but the breadth of their scope pushes them over the top in terms of power level. Finally Tainted Pact is a somewhat complicated animal. It is instant and has a very large scope, however it restricts deckbuilding to a significant degree and some combos can’t really make use of it because they risk to exile other necessary combo pieces. Our experience is, that Tainted Pact is ok in good-stuff decks however the printing of Laelia, the Blade Reforged and related effects prevented a majority for taking it of the watchlist too.

    Urza’s Saga

    Modern Horizons II introduced many powerful new staples to our format. A standout of these is Urza’s Saga. Being a land makes it exceptionally hard to interact with, while generating a board presence and tutoring value engines (Retrofitter Foundry, Skullclamp), hate pieces (Relic of Progenitus, Pithing Needle) or combo pieces (Zuran Orb, Expedition Map, Grindstone). It finds inclusion in all archetypes and might be overly powerful in comparison to the rest of the format. The singleton nature of Highlander emphasizes its strength even more, being a land, threats and value in just one card.
    We do want to watch its development closer and have the possibility to take action against it if necessary.

    Thassa’s Oracle

    In the last update we stated our vision of combo decks in the format. Therefore there is currently no reason to keep Thassa’s Oracle on the Watchlist for the moment.

    Other Topics

    Discussion of Skullclamp and Umezawa’s Jitte

    Half of the test phase of the unbanning of Skullclamp and Umezawa’s Jitte is now over and at this point we would like to ask you how your feeling are about those cards in Highlander. For that reason we will start discussions here in the Forum as well as on Facebook within the next week and want to encourage you to tell us your experiences with those cards. Additionally, you are welcome to write any of us directly or use the council email for direct feedback.

    Use of Proxies in European Highlander

    We noticed the recurring discussions about the use of proxies1 or playtest cards2 in highlander, as the price of decks and cards always increases. That’s why we need to state that we cannot decide for or against the use of those at all. The use of proxies is completely with the tournament organizers and these are usually bound to the specifications given by WotC.
    The boundaries between proxies, playtest cards and counterfeits are partly fluid and subjective.
    This means there is a possibility for store owners to lose their contracts if they allow those on sanctioned tournaments or even if people play with those in their store. Additionally, the harm of counterfeits3 is imminent and not only hurts the store but is also a legal offense that a tournament organizer cannot permit.

    All in all we cannot give any regulations for the use of proxies / playtest cards in the format as we are not in charge here. And of course as we want to support our local games stores we cannot recommend to allow proxies or playtest cards on official tournaments. However, we want to support the use of playtest cards in any casual environment outside of a tournament.
    And last but not least we want to distance ourselves from ANY counterfeits. Using, buying, selling etc these is a legal offense and we would never accept these in any tournament nor store environment.

    1Proxies = a placeholder card given out by a judge as a replacement e.g. for a marked or damaged card during a tournament; only legal for this specific tournament; c.f.: Magic Tournament Rules 3.4 (status: July 23, 2021)
    2Playtest cards = what players really mean if they talk about proxies; a placeholder for a card in your deck, not legal on official WotC tournaments
    3Counterfeits = a fake card; something that imitates a card produced by WotC; Proxies and playtest cards that are not immediately recognizable as those are also included here

    Dungeon Mechanic in European Highlander

    Dungeons aren’t cards in the traditional sense, but are regarded more as tokens. They can’t go into your deck, and their main function is as a specialized progress marker. That’s fine in Highlander and they’ll work as normal. We take the very same stance on Dungeons as has been taken in Commander.

    Contact us

    Next scheduled banlist update: November 1st, 2021

  • May 2021 Banlist Update

    May 2021 Banlist Update

    Changes to the present banned list, effective 15/05/2021:

    Banned

    • Thassa’s Oracle

    Unbanned

    • No changes

    Unbanned for 6 Month Trial

    • Skullclamp
    • Umezawa’s Jitte

    Single card explanations

    Thassa’s Oracle

    Oracle was put on the watchlist in August last year when we wrote: “Right now it Thassa’s Oracle is only seen as a sidekick (although a very powerful one) but in reality it has the potential to be the main gameplan aswell and we want to be prepared for that instant.”
    Since then Oracle, paired with Tainted Pact, has shaped the meta to a point where it slid into almost any deck that could cast the combo. The fact that the game-winning trigger can not be dealt with via creature removal narrowed the amount of playable interaction down to a point where blue based tempo decks had no longer to worry about their green based creature midrange matchups because those decks had basically become unplayable at the top level.
    For it’s continuous influence on wraping the meta we have decided to ban Thassa’s Oracle.
    For more information about our approach towards combo decks see the respective passage further down in this announcement.

    Unbanning on Time

    We had once more a closer look at the banned list and the feeling grew, that some of the cards have been on the list for so much time now, that it is very hard to evaluate them in the current, much stronger, metagame. This holds for Jitte as well as for Skullclamp and to some extend also for Mind Twist. The idea, as announced in the previous Announcement, is the following.
    As currently less competitive tournaments happen, we want to use this as a trial period for potential unbannings. This means the following cards will be unbanned for 6 Month until the next banning Period. The default for those will be that they get banned again after this time. Of course they will be voted again to keep them unbanned without limitation. Additionally be aware that non of those cards would have been unbanned in the normal procedure this time. Your feedback is required here to evaluate the influence of these cards and of course we want your opinion on the option to unban cards for a limited amount of time.

    Skullclamp

    Creatures in play are a pretty valuable asset in contemporary Magic games and more and more cards, in particular creatures, provide card advantage just by themselves. Moreover wrath effects play a pretty minor role already. Combined with the fact, that Skullclamp doesn’t provide an advantage in the crucial early game, we think that Skullclamp is weak enough to test her temporary unban. This said, we believe that Skullclamp is still a strong card, however not as dominating as 17 years ago.

    Umezawa’s Jitte

    While this surely is a strong card, creatures have become much bigger these days and hence you can’t kill them as quickly. This is also a card, that might not find the way into your 15 creatures Uxx aggro-control deck, because you might end up without any creature on the board for some time. Finally answers in the form of Abrupt Decay and Assassin’s Trophy are more present today. Overall, we think, we should give her a chance after all these years in the dark cellar.

    Ban watchlist

    Unban watchlist

    Additional Topics

    Council

    Max / Bobz0rd leaves the Council. We thank him for the time and commitment that he has made available to us and we wish him all the best for the future.

    At the same time, we are happy to announce our new Council member Justus / hoylt, who has decided to join us from now on. Justus has been known for his regular tournament presence for many years. Beside of his current work on his podcast project he was particularly noticeable because of his always friendly and fair dealings with other community members. We looking forward to work together in the future and thank Justus very much for his support.

    Tutors in Highlander

    The tutor topic is one of the longest ongoing discussions in the community. We discussed this topic intensively in the past few month and came to the conclusion that tutors belong to the Highlander format, even though its singleton approach on MtG. This means we dont think there is the need to ban more tutors and we want to focus more on other parts of the deck construction to keep balance in the format. In our opinion tutors that have the worst influence on the format are already banned, and currently there is no need to ban more in the ever accelerating deckplans. However, we will of course come back to this discussion every now and then and closely observe the influence of tutors, especially in the connection with combo decks.

    Combo Decks

    With the rising of powerful, fast combo decks we came to the conclusion that we of course want to keep combo decks in the format. However, these should not be combo’s that are simple to set up, universally usable AND fast. This means we want to restrict “two-card combos” that can be reliably played in non focused decks and lead to wins reliably in the very first turns. As an example Thassa’s Oracle combo can end the games very fast in addition to be playable in a lot of non-combo-focused decks. What we want to keep in the format are combo decks that on the one hand both need specific set ups and decks built around them to work and on the other hand allow for interactive games with decisions for both players.

    We want to stress again that we need your input, worries and opinions on these changes and views on the format. So please do not hesitate to contact any of us via private message or just start a topic in the forum.

    Contact us

    Next scheduled banlist update: August 1st, 2021

  • February 2021 Watchlist Update

    February 2021 Watchlist Update

    Ban watchlist

    Unban watchlist

    Single card explanations

    Intuition

    While Intuition continues to be a very powerful card that enables a lot of different game winning setups we do believe that it is neither too dangerous nor impactful enough to warrant a spot on the watchlist for now. We will however keep monitoring it’s impact on the format in the future.

    Opposition Agent

    Even though this card was just printed lately, it caused quite some discussion about how interfering a card should be. We want to watch this card closely in the next period, whether it has a big impact on the format or just stays inconspicuous.

    Treasure Cruise

    The ban on Treasure Cruise aimed to weaken the power level of all kinds of blue based decks but especially tempo and midrange builds that utilized the Delve mechanic to the fullest. As those decks still continue to perform at the top level while other strategies could closen the gap a little we don’t think that Treasure Cruise will be reintroduced to the format any time soon. It is therefore removed from the watchlist.

    Tolarian Academy

    The potent artifact powered land was removed from the format with our last ban announcement back in November 2020. We don’t foresee this card coming back into our format soon so we are removing it from the watch list.

    Upcoming Topics

    Tutors in Highlander

    Tutors were often discussed in the past and their place in the format is quite controversial. Some people think tutors are too strong and dominate highlander, especially with the arise of more competitive combo decks, some others think tutors are needed to keep variance in check, and others think tutors shouldn’t be a thing in a one-off format at all. In the past tutors were always part of Highlander and therefore finding a common ground is a balancing act that needs a lot of evaluation. We want to emphasize discussion about this topic and request input from the community. This means please contact us in any form via Forum, Facebook or Mail. What are your thoughts?

    Combo Decks

    We know there are quite a some people, who are afraid of a combo dominance in the format. However, current reported tournament results (even though statistics are low because of corona) are not indicating a dominance of this archetype. Additionally, we want to make sure to not forbid combo decks or whole type of decks without a time to adjust. Instead we want to evaluate whether it would be more reasonable to weaken this kind of decks in another way. This is of course closely connected to the tutor topic. Here as well discussions are very welcome.
    An example: Ban Thassa’s Oracle or weaken the combo by banning Tainted Pact? Or neither of these since the meta will adapt anyway, and currently with few tournaments it is not the right time to decide?

    Unbanning Cards on Time

    Since there are few tournaments happening in the past year, adaption on the meta and new cards may be slower than usual. Currently we are discussing and want to discuss with you, if this might be the right time to unban cards for half a year to test the impact on the format. Length, cards etc. will of course have to be decided at a later point, but we want to start the general discussion with you now.

    Council member

    We are currently actively looking for more fitting members to add to the council. However, the process is rather slow, since we want to be sure to select people that not only want to, but also are able to fit into the team. Additionally, this means that we are not solely looking for representatives of region, but also on the ability to reflect the whole Highlander community. We like to encourage once again applications and recommendations and will contact these individually.

    Contact us

    Next scheduled banlist update: May 1st, 2021

  • November 2020 Banlist Update

    November 2020 Banlist Update

    Changes to the present banned list, effective 15/11/2020

    Banned

    Unbanned

    • No changes

    Single card explanations

    Tolarian Academy (Unban 2x / Ban 4x)

    As it was communicated on the last banning season, this card is viewed as one of the most discussed cards for banning. This time we decided it is time to ban it – mainly due to sustained dominance and support from new added cards to this archetype like Echo of Eons, Wishclaw Talisman, Sevinne’s Reclamation, Urza, Lord High Artificer just to name a few. We assumed Academy has its weaknesses – especially blue based tempo decks, which are among the most popular archetypes at the moment, are one of the best tools to fight Academy. Despite this development, the Artifact Academy deck as well as the Underworld Breach deck, which also exploits the powerful land, are still among the best performing decks. The fact that we are hitting the archetype that is supposedly in charge of having to keep the Academy powered decks in check by removing Treasure Cruise from the format is another reason to take action now. We believe that artifact centric decks still have a spot in the meta but they will have to forgot Tolarian Academy in the future.

    Treasure Cruise (Unban 1x / Ban 5x)

    For quite some time now, almost every blue deck has been including the two delve spells Dig Through Time and Treasure Cruise by default since those cards are among the most powerful spells in the format. Especially tempo decks use them more effectively than other archetypes, building their plan around early disruption and cheap spells to fill the graveyard quickly in order to reload and continue to dominate the game. This puts those decks to the point where they dominate the whole metagame. This fact and longlasting community calls for weakening of the blue color pushed for the banning of this card. One could ask why this one and not the other? As you can see Dig Through Time was close to receiving a ban as well. However we feel like it is better to take measures step by step and watch if and how the situation changes, when only one of the delve spells is available. Treasure Cruise was chosen to be banned over Dig Through Time to weaken Tempo Decks in particular, as Treasure Cruise is a lot easier to cast, enables more powerful turns and the sheer card advantage it provides is viewed as the bigger problem. We will continue to monitor closely how this decision influences the whole meta of course.

    Secret Lair X The Walking Dead (Unban 1x / Ban 4x / Abstain 1x)

    We have long discussed whether this specific Secret Lair should be added to the Ban List. The crucial point here was the feedback from the community. Nevertheless, and for reasons of better traceability, we would like to emphasize at this point that none of the ban proponents gave their “yes” for the common reasons, such as the skill-presence ratio or expected gameplay strength. We also doubt that the often-cited and player-desired “protest effect” will have a really significant impact on Wizards of the Coast and rather fear future difficulties with similar sets that will appear and to which we now may be forced to react similarly. Nevertheless, we understand the current dissatisfaction and in this case we want to listen to the community more than other formats have done. We will probably have to find out together whether that was the right decision in the long term.

    Close to be banned

    Dig Through Time (Unban 3x / Ban 3x)

    As mentioned in the explanation for the banning of Treasure Cruise we ultimately decided to leave Dig Through Time in the format for now. Reason being that this card is the weaker card in tempo decks, which we wanted to target in particular. Dig Through Time is harder to cast and the double blue mana cost make it more difficult to double spell with it. Furthermore it provides less card advantage but instead allows to find answers for specific situations which makes it a more “defensive” card. However, Dig Through Time will still be subject of our discussions and might get banned in the future if we observe that banning only Treasure Cruise is not enough.

    Close to be unbanned

    Skullclamp (Unban 3x / Ban 3x)

    This card is still the most discussed candidate for an unban mainly to push heavy creature decks like Elves or Goblins into a more playable territory. As we don’t like to have too many changes at once the card stays banned for now.

    Ban watchlist

    Unban watchlist

    Single cards explanations

    Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath

    Uro is another one of recent incredibly powerful printings that changed the landscapes of multiple formats from Standard to Legacy, leading to yet another ban in Standard. This creature does it all in some kind: It is a recurring and hard to answer threat that provides a strong board presence while giving you a constant flow of life and cards. In Highlander it has also shown to be a card that is hard to beat in “fair” matchups. While being more difficult to cast we consider it close to Oko in powerlevel, who joined our watchlist in May. The addition to the watchlist does not mean it is close to being banned, but we choose to keep an eye on Uro in the future.

    Council

    We are happy to welcome and introduce Sebastian Z./ TaZi as new council member. He has shown great dedication for our format as regular participant of the Online League since 2014, the FNM Online Series and many HL tournaments all over Germany in the last years. Moreover, he proved keen insight in the format and in the game in general by catching some top spots in those tournaments he took part, especially with his self-developed UGrb-Scapeshift. He has granted some content from time to time for our format on his YouTube-Channel “Heinz Holzwurm” where you can still find some decent decktechs and tournament-reports.
    But TaZi isn’t our only newcomer. We decided to include Marvin M./ Rigero as well. Some of you may already have seen him in his long-term role as a judge of the Berlin Magic scene. He is also part of the coverage and podcast team and has been supporting the Council for a long time with his technical and organizational skills. Rigero was also heavily involved in the development of the website, for which we are very grateful. He is currently collecting data on the mulligan, the most popular meta decks and various watchlist cards and would appreciate your support.

    We know both of them as smart and gentle guys with exceptional analytic and programming skills. We are pretty sure they are a great assets for the HL Council and we are glad to have those two on board. We would also like to add that we have not yet concluded our discussions regarding further admissions and are currently still processing applications and / or recommendations for other potential candidates.

    We would like to thank the leaving Council members Dr. Opossum and Vazdru for their dedication and the work they have put into our format for many years and wish them all the best for the future! Vazdru stays in the council till the end of this year as contact person for the community and to assist the new formed council.