Author: Council

  • July 2011 Banlist Update

    July 2011 Banlist Update

    Valid during July 15th, 2011 0:00 CET until October 14th, 2011 24:00 CET.

    Changes to the present list, effective 7/15/2011:

    Banned

     –

    Unbanned

    • Buried Alive

    Watchlist

    • Sensei’s Divining Top
    • Gifts Ungiven

    Unban Watchlist

    • Wheel of Fortune
    • Trinisphere
    • Life from the Loam

    Single card explanations

    Buried Alive

    Buried Alive came under closer scrutiny three months ago when it was placed on the unban watchlist. For those unfamiliar with the combo, Buried Alive revolved around finding Pestermite/Karmic Guide and Kiki Jiki, the Mirror Breaker, then targeting Karmic Guide with a random reanimate spell. This resulted in the end attacking with infinite copies of Pestermites.
    Hypothesis was that in today’s meta, Buried Alive based combo decks may not be such a force to be reckoned with, that it couldn’t be handled with disruption from aggro, or reactive answers from control. Also, we wanted to challenge whether this 4 or 5 mana mono black combo would be too resilient or fast to deploy. Fundamental turn for this sort of a deck varies, and it can take an opponent by surprise few times. But when the combo gradually gets known and potentially played in tournament environment, only then can we really meter and see the results. But that means that the card has to break the tournament barrier first, and to this date Buried Alive has not made a serious entrance. So with the second chance, we hope to introduce, if not a new seriously taken archetype, then one card shorter banned list.

    Sensei’s Divining Top

    Sensei’s Divining Top stays on the watch list, and mainly because of the two reasons which haven’t changed from the last time: Being an auto include in almost every deck, the card makes this format more like of 99 than 100 cards. Secondly, the artifact makes drawn out games while giving significant advantage to the player who has it first active. There aren’t enough good tools that punishes directly from playing the card (à la Burning-Tree Shaman), so we are a little bit at crossroads here. While we strive to keep the banned list as short as possible, we must ask whether the format would be more enjoyable without the card, and for this we’d need more community input from the next 3 months. So keep posting those deck lists and tournament results.
    On the other hand, the ban of Sensei’s Divining Top does not fall clearly into any of the five banning reasons being an unprecedented exception to the established policy, and we don’t know what waits at the end of that road. Also, the card is skill rewarding with many options it offers when activated. Lastly, we don’t have enough information how the card is perceived by a larger community and the current assumption is, that the card isn’t necessarily that big of a problem.

    Gifts Ungiven

    Gifts Ungiven has been the card that has probably generated more discussion than any other card in the recent history of this format. We feel that the time is ripe enough to seriously investigate what the ban of this card would mean. There’s a lot of material to go through, so the process might take time before the end resolution has been reached. At the same time, we do have much experience playing with and against this card. One thing is clear, that as the cornerstone of the current ban list, Gifts would introduce other cards to the format, so we are nevertheless talking about a format defining card here.
    The power level of Gifts has become familiar to those who play the Online League regularly, and people know by now how to construct piles that either win right after on the next turn, or then through the gained advantage in the coming turns. Gifts is no doubt one of the most skill intensive tools in the format, so it truly rewards those who know the four best cards in their library at a given situation.

    Wheel of Fortune

    Wheel of Fortune visited briefly on the watch list back in early 2009, but that time it didn’t quite make it, because it was perceived to be too strong an asset for red based aggro decks. Now two years later, we see the situation from a little bit different angle. We estimate that the combo potential of the card is greater, especially in draw7 based combo, but so far it has failed to be a serious deck. The closest comparable card is Timetwister which has seen some play, and this indicates there’s definitely some usage for Wheel too. Also we asked that if Timetwister is in the format, but from functionality standpoint similar Wheel of Fortune is not, it’s little incoherent in our opinion. So the call for unban watch list for Wheel was made in order to test it more closely.

    Trinisphere

    So let’s take the boogeyman out of the closet first: Crop Rotation, Workshop, Trinisphere, go. GG? Often so, but luck has always been an inseparable part of the game, and now with the advent of various good equipment (and to some extent Stoneforge Mystic), we are seeing more artifact hate. Wasteland from the opponent is not the only option anymore either. The issue with Trinisphere is its randomness. It’s only devastating when played on the very first turns of the game. By fifth turn, aggro decks have already played their hands out and have 3 lands to play any spell they draw. Thus, we do not consider Trinisphere because of the card’s “anti-aggro-qualities” or “staxx not being tier one”, but because the randomness of the card. Right now we don’t know for sure how much of an impact the card would have, but we intend to find out.
    Also, Trinisphere is as much of a call made by player base, because we can’t ever fully recognize the unfun factor without trying cards first. We are quite good at valuing cards’ power levels and studying decklists, but what we can’t ever factor completely in, are the reactions of player base.

    Life from the Loam

    Life from the Loam has been on the watch list probably longer than any other card in the past, until it finally got the axe on the third quarter of 2010. So why reintroduce the card again after such a short period?
    The card gives no direct board presence (unless opponent’s mana base is really greedy), but it does generate card advantage, although slowly. This has been regarded by portion of the players as monotonous as the setting tends to win control mirror match ups for the player who resolves Gifts or Intuition first. And there’s really the culprit. If we are to watchlist Gifts, we’d be entitled to also investigate Loam’s impact again, as this has never the been the setting before. We anticipate this would strengthen the graveyard recursion based decks marginally, and graveyard hate would find it’s way back in the control archetypes again, but it’s little bit too early to anticipate that.

    Other changes

    Biannual announcements and watchlist policy

    From October 1st. 2011 onward, the potential ban list changes will be published only every six months (1.4 & 1.10), instead of the currently used quarter year announcements. However, the watchlists are still being scrutinized in smaller scale quarterly, and we have set up a guideline to do bannings/unbannings only through watchlists from now on.

    The aforementioned changes to the announcement cycle and watchlist policy will serve two purposes:  

    1. We believe to the transparency and flexibility via watchlist changes, because we’ve learned that the predictability of the council is something that players do approve.
    2. We do not want to subject the format to too many and sudden changes (stabilization), thus the biannual announcements, but quarterly watch lists.

    Commander set legality

    Cards from Commander reprint set including its featured new 51 cards from pre-constructed decks have been tournament legal in highlander from the set’s release date onward (June 17, 2011).

  • April 2011 Banlist Update

    April 2011 Banlist Update

    Valid during April 15th, 2011 0:00 CET until October 14th, 2011 24:00 CET.

    Changes to the present list, effective 4/15/2011:

    Banned

    –

    Unbanned

    Watchlist

    Unban Watchlist

    Single card explanations

    Cephalid Illusionist

    In the past, Cephalid Illusionist was a part of a combo called Cephalid Breakfast (or Dancing Ghoul), where a player could repeatedly target the Illusionist, usually with either a Shuko or Nomads En-Kor, effectively milling his library into his graveyard. When Dread Return was still unbanned, this enabled then more easily to move to the next phase: cast either a hasted thirty-something powered Terravore or Sutured Ghoul with Dragon Breath attached.
    Nowadays we are talking about a three card combo when Cephalid Illusionist is involved, as the piloting player now needs to have the reanimate spell ready when Dread Return is not available. We recognize that Cephalid Illusionist has that certain surprise value when compared to Hermit Druid as the combo enabler, but since we haven’t seen Hermit Druid making a similar dent yet as a two card combo, we are encouraged taking the step further by allowing Cephalid Illusionist back into the format.

    With the format evolved over the years, the setup and protection of the combo should now also prove to be much harder.

    Memory Jar

    Memory Jar has been on the ban list from since the dawn of this format, and it hasn’t been scrutinized much, until now. Compared to previously unbanned Timetwister and other playable and symmetrical draw 7 effects, Memory Jar forms an exception being a permanent.
    We recognize potentially the most powerful play scenarios to be where Jar could be recursively abused by bringing it back from graveyard and then be activated again, emptying your hand of mana in between the process. While we don’t expect Jar creating a dedicated combo deck, we expect it to find its way into some stax builds, but that alone does not warrant its ban as old reasonings used to.

    Thus, we expect Memory Jar seeing play in one build or another, but impact would be presumed to be moderate and not game breaking. We want to confirm this by putting the Jar also on the watchlist.

    Sensei’s Divining Top

    Sensei’s Divining Top introduction to the watchlist may come as an surprise, because it’s one of those few cards that have other disruptive qualities than mere power level that may go unseen. With many shuffle effects in the format, Sensei’s Divining Top makes sometimes quite drawn out games. When 60 minutes round time was introduced, we hoped this would not be an issue anymore, but we haven’t seen much progress here. As an indication, singleton also has this banned, so we are now also taking a closer look whether a ban verdict in our format would bring some value.

    Buried Alive

    We’d like to introduce Buried Alive to be subjected for peer review to determine its status in current meta. Originally, Buried Alive was banned in exchange of unban for Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, based on recognition that Buried Alive with Reanimate as a mono colored combo can be used to win the game too easily with four mana. With other supportive cards gone, (Survival of the Fittest), we’d like to investigate this more, and while at it, also welcome the community to scrutinize whether Buried Alive could be used in current decks so that it’s too strong. At the moment, we have numerous other powerful two card combos in the format, so we see this as a good time to research how Buried Alive compares to those.

  • January 2011 Banlist Update

    January 2011 Banlist Update

    Banned as of 01/15/2011:

    • no changes

    Unbanned as of 01/15/2011:

    • no changes

  • October 2010 Banlist Update

    October 2010 Banlist Update

    Valid during October 15th, 2010 0:00 CET until April 14th, 2011 24:00 CET.

    Changes to the present list, effective 10/15/2010:

    Banned

    –

    Unbanned

    Watchlist

    Unban Watchlist

    Single card explanations

    Worldgorger Dragon

    Locking down Entomb and Survival of the Fittest earlier, enabled other cards to be put on a pedestal for a closer review. Among them is a card with a peculiar mechanic from Torment. Worldgorger Dragon. Earlier Dragon was being abused in vintage as part of an interaction with various Animate Deads and e.g. Bazaar of Baghdad where Dragon is part of a chain of events netting large amounts of mana and cards (win condition) for the player.
    When Wizards initially announced their Singleton format axioms, the Worldgorger Dragon was not placed onto their banned list as they didn’t want to eliminate all the combos but went after the heavier tutor banning instead. Although the two formats aren’t near the same, (highlander still has those tutors) we feel that Dragon shouldn’t significantly tilt the meta, partly because the combo has failed to make any kind of a show in its digital form.
    Encouraged by this, we decided to put the card under community peer review. While testing the combo, we noticed a couple of things:

    • Worldgorger might potentially be explosive (e.g. with Doomsday), but it can be disrupted rather easily with timed, instant answers: grave hate, creature removal, bounce, as well as with enchantment removal. Anticipating these, the card promotes play skills on both sides of the table.
    • Basically as a three card combo (likewise Grim Monolith/Power Artifact), tutoring or drawing the combo in time against aggro is challenging.

    However, we acknowledge that using Dragon one may be able to create a loop and get intentional draws if game state looks hopeless. We are following very closely should the Dragon enter the meta and cause this kind of an undesired show.

    Protean Hulk

    Now that Flash, Entomb and Survival of the Fittest are gone, Protean Hulk is back. It already caused a slight stir in Finland by winning the Nationals with Pattern of Rebirth/Academy Rector and sacrifice synergies, but other than that, we haven’t seen much of the Hulk. Because of this, we wait for the results and give the necessary time to see whether this card could be taken off from the watchlist.

    Cephalid Illusionist

    The banned Dread Return keeps currently in check two powerhouses: Hermit Druid and Cephalid Illusionist. So in that sense the ban has been spot on. While the format has the seemingly more powerful Hermit Druid allowed, Cephalid Illusionist on the other hand is still behind the bars. And this has been legitimately been addressed. But because the Worldgorger Dragon was prepared this long, we don’t want to cause too many changes all of the sudden, so we felt it was purposeful to introduce the Illusionist on the unban watchlist first, rather than to toss it straight into the format.

    Other Changes

    Council

    With the format’s originator Sturmgott standing down, the remaining four members of the council started to look for a replacement for him. It gradually dawned to us that no-one can really fully replace our former chairman. At the same time, we had two potent applicants as core members for the council. So in the end, we decided that we’d wanted them both.
    Mark Hildebrandt (MarkusMagic) received good references from Sturmgott and his long experience of the format and merits as a prominent HL tournament organizer should speak for themselves.
    Another international addition comes from Finland. Juha Ihonen (Nastaboi) was one of the first early adopters of the format locally and has ever since shown commitment by actively partaking into discussions as well participating in tournaments.
    We feel these changes will continue to even out the workload among the remaining members as well as strengthen the demographic decision making policy.

    New sets legal from release date onward

    In order to streamline and lessen the past confusion with the release dates, highlander format will now also include the standard set legality and allow sets to be legal as of its worldwide release date, instead of the 20th. day of the current month as per the old policy. We already had a well received but unofficial announcement from format’s father Sturmgott on this, and it was applied in M11 set for the first time. The release date set legality has been originally applied in DCI Floor Rules since Morningtide. So as of writing this, the Scars of Mirrodin expansion will be legal in Higlander from its official relase date onward, (October 1, 2010).

  • July 2010 Banlist Update

    July 2010 Banlist Update

    Library of Alexandria

    We want to test how the unbanning of LoA will influence the highlander meta.

    We unbanned LoA and Mind of Matter on 01.10.2008. The card was about one year and nine months legal. Now we’ve decided to ban it again. Why? Similar to the Survival of the Fittest ban multiple reasons occurred to justify the re-banning:

    1. Availability: The card is very expensive and each player who decides to play a control deck needs this card.
    2. Frustration: Players get frustrated if their opponent reveals a 1st turn (lucky draw) LoA and if they don’t have a fast aggro deck or an immediate answer they feel upset about it even though a early LoA doesn’t lead to an automatic win.
    3. No LoA means no “optimal” control deck: People want to play optimal decks there for they need the best cards available for the archetype. So a lot of players decide not to play a control deck since they don’t have the optimal cards for their decks. If they don’t want to play aggro or combo builds they don’t play anyway which means less players for the format.
    4. Type 1 is not sexy: We’ve spoken with many players who are interested in highlander and they are concerned about the card pool. A lot of people who play Legacy are not willing to invest so many resources into Vintage (which has already a small pool of players) since its way too expensive. LoA is one of the cards which are a “must-have” card if you decide to play T1. We don’t want to scare people away from highlander with cards like this.
    5. Randomness: A LoA in a control mirror increase the odds of winning a lot. As Umezawa’s Jitte in aggro matchups determine the win by pure randomness the same is true for LoA in a control mirror (In my opinion Jitte is much more devastating).

    In summary, we can say LoA is a) not necessary and b) harmful for our format. A lot of players are not willing to play highlander if LoA is legal so we’ve decided after many discussions to re-ban it. Four of five members of the council voted for the ban.

    Life from the Loam

    This card was for a long time on the watch list. We’ve decided to delete it from the list just to put it on again. We don’t ban it because of the power level but for the following reasons:

    1. LftL is dominating most of the control mirrors. Only if a player can answer an LftL with some graveyard hate or hand disruption the match is going to focus on other cards. The resource advantage which LftL is generating is way too much. A game can simply end on turn 3 if a player can resolve a turn 2 Intuition which is finding Wasteland, LftL and a cycle land. Dredging the LftL and wasting the nonbasic land of an opponent on turn 3 is a very frustrating play. This monotone cycle is not healthy for the format so we want to change that.
    2. Life from the Loam is destroying two Archetypes: Land Destruction and Discard which are for the most part are not represented in the format because of this card.
    3. LftL is making Gifts Ungiven and Intuition way too powerful. We want to keep these cards in the format. With the banning of LftL players need in the future more skill to get the full value out of the cards. Some decks will not even play Intuition anymore because the huge advantage LftL was generating is gone. Of course this will consume more time to find the correct piles but we think it’s important that the cards can fulfill their roles; to find answers or threats.
    4. We have a lot of powerful lands in the format: Bazaar of Baghdad, Volrath’s Stronghold, Academy Ruins, Karakas, Maze of Ith, The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale, Wasteland, Mishra’s Workshop. LftL find these cards way to easy. With the banning of LoA we took one very powerful land out of the format and with other cards like Crop Rotation, Knight of the Reliquary or Sylvan Scrying players can still find the good lands. But Gifts Ungiven and Intuition find these lands en passant together with Life from the Loam!

    In summary we think without these two cards the format will be a lot more diversified and is still very interesting for players. Finally since both cards weren’t necessary for the control vs. aggro matchup we don’t weaken control with these decisions.

    Protean Hulk

    Not too much to say but we’ve decided to unban the Hulk since most cards which provide an early, constant and safe abuse are banned (Flash, Entomb, Buried Alive, Survival of the Fittest). Some Finnish players tried to abuse the Hulk but weren’t able to do so. We thought also about an unbanning of Wordlgorger Dragon but decided not to because it offers some random turn 2 or turn 3 kills. Additionally it doesn’t need 4-5 combo pieces and is easy to implement into reanimator decks.

  • April 2010 Banlist Update

    April 2010 Banlist Update

    Entomb

    Tutors with cc1 are always under suspicion to be problematic. Since the release of Iona, Shield of Emeria, Entomb got a lot stronger. But Iona, is not the only reason for the banning. Since Entomb enables a random “turn 2 instant win” because of his capability to search the best creature (e.g. Sphinx of the Steel Wind, Iona, Shield of Emeria) in a specific matchup, makes it too strong. Furthermore WotC released a lot of insane-big creatures in the last sets and there are no signs that this trend will end. A third important reason is the appearance of entomb in other deck types which search Life from the Loam which is also a problematic card. So the majority of the council members come to conclusion to ban the card. Besides that the council decides to put Worldgorger Dragon and Protean Hulk on the Unban watch list which isn’t possible without the absence of entomb.

    Mind Twist

    Sometimes one black mana makes the difference. Mind Shatter doesn’t see any play but as expected Mind Twist were to be found in any deck which has access to black mana. The card doesn’t crushed the format but in a lot of games it influenced the game state a lot and keep one side from doing anything. The scalability of the card makes Mind Twist in every phase of the game really good. It was not rare to see a turn four Mind Twist which discarded the whole hand from the opponent with newer cards like Lotus Cobra. Combined with the trend that nearly every deck plays mana acceleration these day an early Mind Twist just ruined the whole “early game”.

    Grindstone

    It’s a common understanding that Grindstone and Painter’s Servant cannot both be legal. Since every deck can run this combo and a lot of decks can easily tutor for both cards and we don’t want to see a game-winning combo which just required 6 mana. So as the community asked for we decided to switch these both cards.

    Survival of the Fittest

    Survival is known as a problematic card and got a lot of attention in the last months. So we’ve put the card on the watch list to see how it will influence the format. Now we think the point is reached which force us to ban this card. Survival of the Fittest dominated the format in the last months and the meta get stucked. With the banning of Enlightened Tutor the council took care of cards which enable the whole Survival engine and started to ban around this strong card. We’ve also considered to ban Squee, Goblin Nabob but we’ve stopped at this point and banned Survival to make space for new decks which couldn’t be developed since they had a bad matchup against Survival decks. If we would have banned Squee, Goblin Nabob it would be replaced by Krovikan Horror (with enough mana this card produce a huge card advantage) or Gigapede (which replace “crap cards” + SotF into the good creatures and work also very good with wonder). So to solve this problem we’ve decided to ban the card. Other known reasons and valid arguments are:

    • Loyal Retainer + Iona, Shield Emeria: Well known Legacy reanimator tech which is easy to implement in Highlander
    • One card combo which can protect himself since it can search for the answers: Eternal Witness, Venser, Spellshaper, Mystic Snake
    • Combo starter with cards like Body Double, Reveillark
    • Most games which breached the 60 minutes involved a Survival deck
    • The advantage a player gets by casting Survival lead often to a win
    • Survival decks with a huge toolbox running always the same monotone routine:
    1. (Enable the Survival engine): Squee, Wall of Roots, BoP, Sakura Tribe Elder
    2. (Get the pressure from the table): Harmonic Sliver, Bone Shredder, Flametongue Kavu, search for answers
    3. (Stabilize): Kitchen Finks, Loxodon Hierarch, Lifegain
    4. (Finisher/ Answers): Doran, Baneslayer Angel, Rampaging Baloths, Mystic Snake, Venser, Spellshaper Servant
    • Survival blocks the development of the format
    • It generate a high frustration

    We are aware that none of the reasons alone are enough to ban Survival of the Fittest but all together force us to remove this card from the format. The only option would have been to ban Demonic Tutor but we see that card as a vital source for the format. The diversity of Demonic Tutor is a enrichment and unlike Survival it doesn’t tends to result in Survival and Anti-Survival decks (like the tourneys in Dülmen und Iserlohn have shown) Besides that most of the creatures which are available for the Survival decks have a good Power/Toughness/Mana cost-relation and can fight on their own.

    A short note on Enlightened Tutor; we don’t think that we can unban it since Oath decks could be a viable deck type again since their best answer (survival decks) are gone. Besides with the release of Rise of the Eldrazi a lot of alluring creatures will be accessible for this deck.

    Power Artifact

    Power Artifact + Grim Monolith/Basalt Monolith offer infinite mana for four mana. But to use it you need a third card like Stroke of Genius or Staff of Domination. So it’s a three card combo which can be “countered” by any enchantment/artifact removal. There are other combos (Aluren, Squirrel Nest/Earth craft) which can be easy achieved but weren’t too present so we don’t expect to see any dominating combo decks. We don’t unban it for a long time because we thought one of the best decks in the format, Staxx, don’t need another combo-kill but we’ll see if players find a way to include this possibility in their builds.

    Some remarks on the bannings

    As always this bannings will get acceptance and denial that is the nature of this procedure and we can’t change that. There are always good reasons for a decision and against it. So as everyone else the members of the council can just bring their own perspective to the discussion. It’s always a matter of consideration and balancing. So the council will continue his work for a viable alternative to the boring 4-of formats. In the upcoming season we will develop an official banning policy which can be used as an indicator for coming bannings.

    The council is thankful for the constructive feedback from all players which help to develop the highlander format.

  • January 2010 Banlist Update

    January 2010 Banlist Update

    Effective from January 15, 2010

    Banned:

    • No changes

    Unbanned:

    • No changes

    Watchlist (Changes):

    Added to Watchlist:

    • Patrick Richter 😉

    Reasoning:

    The results from various tournaments (Iserlohn/Dülmen, Hanau, and the Online League) do not currently allow for a unified interpretation of the format’s state. The Survival dominance observed in Dülmen and Iserlohn (or rather, the dominance of Patrick Richter) has not been seen online or in Hanau.

    For this reason, Patrick Richter is being added to the watchlist ;). Before making any significant changes to the Highlander format, we will wait for the results of upcoming tournaments, at least until the next Banning Season.

  • October 2009 Banlist Update

    October 2009 Banlist Update

    Effective from October 15, 2009

    Banned:

    • No changes

    Unbanned:

    • No changes

    Watchlist:

    • No changes

    Additional Update:
    The Zendikar set will be legal for Highlander tournaments starting from October 15, 2009.

  • July 2009 Banlist Update

    July 2009 Banlist Update

    Effective from July 15, 2009

    Banned:

    Unbanned:

    Watchlist:

    Reasoning:

    Enlightened Tutor
    If there have been any signals recently that certain cards are problematic in the format, they would be the following enchantments: Survival of the Fittest, Back to Basics, and Blood Moon, as well as the artifact Winter Orb. These cards have decided a significant number of games in the past months, as evidenced by tournament results and the personal experiences of council members. Since all three enchantments are currently considered essential for maintaining balance in the format, the council decided to ban the strongest tutor for these cards: Enlightened Tutor.

    There was also discussion regarding the unbanning of Mystical Tutor, but the council unanimously agreed that Mystical Tutor is not healthy for the format. The mere possibility that Mystical could find Armageddon, Wildfire, Upheaval, Mind Twist, or Gifts Ungiven at the end of a generic turn clearly illustrates that Mystical is far too strong.

    Buried Alive & Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
    With recursion-based Rock decks and Reanimator decks no longer being viable in tournaments (and unlikely to become viable again in the near future), Buried Alive has seen minimal play. It was only used in combo decks involving Reveillark, Body Double, and other combo pieces. As a result, the council decided to trade out the less interesting Buried Alive for a card that is more exciting to play: Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker.

    The interaction between Buried Alive and any reanimation spell, which allows a player to reanimate Kiki-Jiki, Karmic Guide, and either Pestermite or Sky Hussar to immediately win the game, was considered too strong. The ability to execute this combo with 4-5 mana, entirely from hand, in a single turn, was deemed too powerful.

    However, Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker still holds significant combo potential, which is why it has been placed directly on the watchlist.

    Chain of Plasma
    Due to multiple player requests, the Swans of Bryn Argoll / Chain of Plasma / Conflagrate combo is being given the chance to prove how strong it really is.

    With the presence of Path to Exile as a format staple, which not only destroys the combo but also exiles Swans of Bryn Argoll, and considering the upcoming Wizards rule change that eliminates access to exiled Swans via Death Wish or Living Wish, the council sees reduced potential for this combo to dominate.

    Additionally, Aggro decks are now about 0.5 turns faster than they were when Chain of Plasma was initially banned.

    However, uncertainty remains regarding which future cards Wizards may print that could allow access to the “Exile” zone. Furthermore, since the current metagame is dominated by creature decks, and bounce effects are likely to become less relevant in Highlander due to the M10 rules changes, Chain of Plasma will be placed directly on the watchlist.

    Other Watchlist Changes

    These cards have either never been a serious threat (in the case of Earthcraft) or have not displayed any problematic behavior in recent months. For this reason, they will be removed from the watchlist.

    Other cards that are frequently discussed, such as Gifts Ungiven and Library of Alexandria, are also seen as non-problematic within the current creature-dominated metagame.

    Note on Umezawa’s Jitte
    Some players have suggested the removal of Umezawa’s Jitte from the banned list, but the council unanimously considers Umezawa’s Jitte to be ban-worthy. No council member sees any reason for it to be part of the format. The card is considered problematic, and with the upcoming rule changes, Umezawa’s Jitte is likely to become even stronger.

    With Wizards’ strategy of making creatures better and stronger, we are now at a point where even 3-mana counterspells have become nearly unplayable. The council will not unban anything that would push creature decks even further.

    Impact of Upcoming Rule Changes
    We will also be watching closely to see how the upcoming rules changes affect the Highlander format.

    Closing Remarks
    We wish all Highlander players a lot of fun exploring the new possibilities. Feel free to discuss the changes in the forum or in the comments.

    Frank Topel, on behalf of the council, currently consisting of:

    • Timo Barwisch (malz77)
    • Gerry Stahl (Vazdru)
    • Frank Topel (Sturmgott)