Category: Banlist updates

  • October 2013 Banlist Update

    October 2013 Banlist Update

    Valid during October 15th, 2013 0:00 CET until April 14th, 2014 24:00 CET.

    Changes to the present list, effective 10/15/2013:

    Banned

    Unbanned

    Watchlist

    Unban Watchlist

    Single card explanations

    Natural Order

    A Tinker for green creatures. While the format doesn’t have moxes (and probably never will), we do have several first turn mana dudes, and the current design trend is that we continue seeing them. In fact, we have so many of them that the pressure to ban Natural Order has grown, especially since it continues to appear in top 8 lists in large numbers. The “Natural Order+Primeval Titan”-package more and more becomes an auto-include in some of the most popular archetypes, e. g. Goodstuff, Midrange Bant and even in some Naya-builds.

    Goodstuff (24/33)
    Naya (11/33)
    Bant Midrange (18/26)
    Almost 30% of all listed decks include Natural Order (~115/400).
    (Source: mtgpulse.com)

    Furthermore Natural Order assembles the very powerful combo “Dark Depths+Thespian’s Stage” quite easily – a new threat that has already become a nuisance in some communities.

    Generally, when Natural Order resolves you get an awesome board presence that your opponent is very unlikely to deal with completely or has to spend so many resources on in order to keep up with you, that your other cards will be able to run away with the game. On top of this, Natural Order almost always demands an immediate answer from your opponent, which makes it even harder to deal with. It thus creates harsh do-or-die scenarios that more often than not decide games in a very random and non-interactive manner.

    In the end, the combination of its statistical dominance together with its distorting in-game behaviour led us to the decision to ban this card.

    Tolarian Academy / Mishra’s Workshop

    Staxx and other artifact-based decks haven’t appeared much on the latest toplists. Some of the most popular archetypes like Bant, Goodstuff, Naya and 5C-Aggro often have the appropriate toolbox to deal with the keycards of Staxx. At the recent GP there was just one out of hundred decks which employed an artifact-based strategy.

    As a consequence we decided to give those decks a new toy to play with. We are nevertheless aware that now there are very many goodies available (Academy, Workshop, Mind over Matter, Trinisphere etc.) which made those decks quite consistent and dominant in the past.

    Tolarian Academy stays in close observation, as its potential as a key card for non-interactive combo is known. The game is expected to slow down with the introduction of the new mulligan, but with the tutoring power present in the format, building a combo shell around Tolarian Academy is perfectly possible, and we want to see what kind of a new archetype this presents. Should it be harmful for the meta, we have to rethink Academy.

    Oath of Druids

    The reasons to observe Oath of Druids haven’t changed much since we have introduced it on the watchlist. Oath of Druids has occasionally a powerful effect, which with traditional builds brings Emrakul or some other game winning beast into play, but this hasn’t always warranted a win since the board position then can already be in such a way that the opponent is just one turn away from winning via attacking with creatures, or it leaves the opponent some other window to react properly. However, since the last GP we saw a new approach in the winning deck, that enabled a consistent combo kill which was able to end the game right there after one turn. Nevertheless we haven’t seen many top-lists including Oath on mtgpulse.com so we decided not to ban Oath of Druids yet.

    Sensei’s Divining Top / Mana Drain

    Both cards are more or less a community choice. The highlander council always tries to record the feedback of the community members and value that input highly in our internal discussions. Back in 2012 we made a small survey on a grand prix about former banned list. The results 2012:

    BanUnban
    Birthing Pod20 (46,51 %)Life from the Loam11 (25,58 %)
    Stoneforge Mystic13 (30,23 %)Yawgmoth’s Will9 (20,93 %)
    Sensei’s Divining Top7 (16,28 %)Gifts Ungiven8 (18,60 %)
    Mana Drain6 (13,95 %)Dread Return8 (18,60 %)

    (Source: http://www.magicplayer.org/forum/index.php?topic=584.60)

    We want to take a closer look at Mana Drain and Sensei’s Divining Top and want to ignite a discussion about both cards with the community again. So please let us know about your opinion on these cards.

    Demonic Tutor / Mystical Tutor

    We are still evaluating if a change on those tutors would make sense and if the effects especially on the meta would be positive. Our last time announcements on those cards are still valid.

    Dark Depths

    Dark Depths and Thespian’s Stage combine into a two card combo which threatens to win the game within short time. Both cards involved are lands, which makes the combo somewhat hard to disrupt. Also the created Marit Lage Avatar, thanks to his indestructibility, is not easily dispatched.

    The whole combo can be found with many strong cards you’d already play – Primeval Titan, Intuition, Knight of the Reliquary – so it can be added to decks with little cost.

    Other announcements

    Free Mulligan

    The first time a player takes a mulligan, he or she draws a new hand of as many cards as he or she had before. Subsequent hands decrease by one card as normal (cf. Comprehensive Rules, 103.4c).

    Beim ersten Mulligan zieht der Spieler eine Hand mit so vielen Karten wie er zuvor hatte. Die nachfolgenden Hände reduzieren sich dann wie üblich um eine Karte (vgl. Comprehensive Rules, 103.4c).

    Reasons for introducing the free mulligan

    First of all, Highlander is a form of Magic – with all its strengths and its flaws. We neither want to invent a new game nor try to get rid of all the potential flaws the game has, but we want to stay as close to the basic rules of MtG as possible.

    Often, the mulligan-system is recognized as the most annoying “flaw” of Magic because the randomness of opening hands can lead to frustrating games where one side of the table never has the chance to take part in the game. There were different approaches to correct this: The “0,1,6,7-mulligan rule” (where you had the chance to take a free mulligan each time you had a hand with 0,1,6 or 7 lands), the free mulligan, the overdraw (draw 9 cards, put 2 cards on bottom) and the so called spoils mulligan.

    The main aim of all those approaches was to decrease the risk of losing the game before it even started by giving the players a tool that would allow them to shape their starting resources (available mana and spells in their starting hand) to some degree and thus give both players the chance to take part in a game.

    At that time, the spoils mulligan seemed to be the best way for the Highlander Council to deal with this problem. So we decided to make a drastic change of the Magic basic rules by adding this mulligan rule to the Magic universe.
    While we played with spoils we found out that the rule worked well but had to accept that there also were some downsides attached to it. You can follow the discussion on this topic right here: http://www.magicplayer.org/forum/index.php?topic=934.0.

    One big development that is often regarded as problematic was that – over time and through the printing of new powerful spells that gradually rose in power level – curving out became more and more important. Additionally, the release of the new fetch land cycle allowed players to fix their mana better than ever before. The spoils mulligan was used (some say abused) as a tool to not only sculpt your hand in a way that would allow you to participate in the game but rather to refine your starting hand to such a degree that you would be able to curve out with a sequence of cheap and powerful spells that would eventually overpower your opponent.

    One could argue – and indeed we do – that the spoils mulligan might not any longer be the optimal solution for the Highlander format. Overall card quality increased and “getting your game going” is usually quite achievable. Instead the spoils mulligan became a mighty weapon that allowed players to run 4 or even 5 colors with ease and therefore enabled a strategy of “just the best cards”.

    Although this strategy was legit within the recent rules frame we must admit that it wasn’t originally intended when the spoils mulligan was introduced to the Highlander format.

    Indeed the community was split by the question if the spoils mulligan is boon or bane of the Highlander format. Through discussion the question quickly became: Is the free mulligan rule superior to the current spoils mulligan rule?

    With the above said in mind, the main argument for the free mulligan is consequently as follows: It allows players “to be in the game” without being able to sculpt their starting hand as perfectly as the spoils mulligan allowed.

    With our two goals in mind

    a) to stay as close as possible to the official Magic rules and
    b) to reduce the risk that games are decided just by the mulligan

    we come to the conclusion that the spoils mulligan isn’t needed anymore and that it is not superior to the free mulligan which seems to solve the problems at hand better than the spoils mulligan.

    We decided that there would be only one way to prove this and therefore introduced the free mulligan so we could analyze what will happen over a period of at least 6 month and then decide on fundamental tournament data and play experiences.

    That’s why we put the free mulligan on the watchlist. We are fully aware that introducing this rules change is drastic and we want to make clear that nobody can say what will happen with 100% certainty.

    When in the end it becomes clear that the free mulligan is superior or at least as good as the spoils mulligan regarding (1.) the metagame, (2.) the Highlander-games itself and (3.) the community opinon, we will stay with the free mulligan in the future. If not, there is no need to stick to bad rules and we can reverse the ruling and go back to the spoils mulligan.

    Please help us to find out the answer by posting decklists, tournament results and don’t stay away of playing highlander or split from the highlander community. Share your opinion with the community. Your voice will be heard.

  • July 2013 Watchlist Update

    July 2013 Watchlist Update

    Valid during July 1st, 2013 0:00 CET until October 14th, 2013 24:00 CET.

    Changes to the present list, effective 7/15/2013:

    Watchlist

    Unban Watchlist

    Other Announcements

    Mulligan

    Current “spoils mulligan” (also known as “poker mulligan”) has been a subject of a discussion lately, namely in these threads:

    Thoughts about the current HL-Situation
    The Spoils-Mulligan Problem
    Banlist changes I. of 2013

    Main arguments gathered from the feedback have been:

    1. With spoils mulligan interaction starts earlier and games are decided more often on the first turns, making the format too fast
    2. Aggro benefits from spoils more by being able to aggressively “curve out” whereas combo/control can’t establish in same efficiency with answers their fundamental turn
    3. Mulligan is exploited solely for manafixing by lowering the amount of lands in a build, and as a standard strategy “deep mulligan” is then used
    4. Designing mana bases requires currently little to no thinking, as restrictions set by color wheel don’t apply due to mulligan mana-fixing in place; people can play in Bant Eternal Witness as well as Cryptic command with ease
    5. Spoils mulligan is no longer needed as available mana producing lands printed since 2007 is sufficient now
    6. Spoils mulligan is not in line with official DCI-rules making the tournaments “non-sanctionable” and harder for new players to enter

    The original spoils mulligan was borrowed back in 2007 from the same name card game to improve the old mulligan rule to make Highlander games more interactive and address the “mana screw & flood” issues, which were observed to be more common in Highlander due to larger deck sizes (see: faq #12). This was the main motivation for the new mulligan as the games were viewed to be decided by a random chance caused by an outdated mechanic rather than any real interaction or play choices happening. In time this was viewed also to result in more card variety and deck diversity.

    This was also ultimately the viewpoint of the council in which we looked at the big picture of pros and cons (spoils mulligan vs. regular paris mulligan) and though not unanimously, we decided to keep the current spoils mulligan without a need to open a trial for the regular mulligan at this point (as was the case with 3 month transition period in 2007). We viewed that the mana flood/screw happening is such a turnover for the game, that minimizing it for HL-format is a benefit outweighing the above points.

    However, this does not mean that the verdict is final for mulligan as we’re constantly monitoring the state of the game. This said, we encourage players to test the format in local tournament play with regular paris mulligan, and we’d appreciate if you can then report back to forums the findings whether regular mulligan compared to spoils improved the play experience.

  • April 2013 Banlist Update

    April 2013 Banlist Update

    Valid during April 15th, 2013 0:00 CET until October 14th, 2013 24:00 CET.

    Changes to the present list, effective 04/15/2013:

    Banned

    Unbanned

    none.

    Watchlist

    Unban Watchlist

    Single card explanations

    Shahrazad

    The Highlander format currently has ante and dexterity cards banned. Shahrazad belongs to neither of these categories, but the card has been recognized earlier back in 2007 by Wizard’s Organized Play to be problematic both because of technical issues during tournament play (table space, round time) and from a rules point of view (no official errata received anymore due to card’s cross-format ban status).
    In addition Shahrazad also had some potential power level issues in this format, which however, are minor compared to the problems already mentioned above. In order to combat the card’s effect and to mitigate the potential loss of round time, opponents could easily concede the subgame and return to the “real” game, but at that point the card was punishing with a rounded up loss of current life total. This kind of abuse was best observed in various WW based decks for which life totals and round time mattered less when paired up against combo or control. When Shahrazad is cast during the precombat mainphase with enough early threats on the board, it has the potential to be the best non-targeting player burn spell one could dream to have. Once back to the main game while still in the early game, one could then proceed to deliver the rest of the lethal damage with creatures.
    So far in this format, we’ve seen the card making only two appearances, but based on those we concluded it has the risk to fulfill the same negative aspects described above, and we want to avoid those beforehand. Hence also the ban of the card without an initial entry to the watch list, which would be the normal procedure.

    Stoneforge Mystic

    Stoneforge Mystic has been a borderline card for a long time in the format, driving a larger part of the player base to demand its ban. This increased dramatically a year after, when Batterskull was printed. While we’ve heard you, we’ve also been collecting and analyzing tournament stats posted to mtgpulse.com over these couple of years to see what Stoneforge Mystic’s impact on the format really has been, and whether it’s removal could be warranted.
    We noticed from the posted top-8 standings that the card continues to maintain its omnipresence, usually in various GWx builds which we see people playing more. Past quarter had only two tournaments in which the card did not reach the top-8.
    Like with Tinker and Birthing Pod, Stoneforge Mystic is extra good in our format due to its combined abilities to tutor from a big deck and circumvent mana costs, fetching that best equipment for any given play situation, then a turn after cheat it into play with an added bonus to get around a counter, and finally have a ready body to carry the equipment. All these abilities combined made Stoneforge a very good card for a mere 1W mana investment.
    Magic’s trend during the last few years has been that a winning game strategy typically involves more board control, and that’s something that Stoneforge can shift very well, with an early play leaving little chance to interact properly.
    While the format has strategies and deck types that don’t automatically lose to an early Stoneforge Mystic deployment, and the overall power level of the card doesn’t automatically warrant its ban, we looked at the bigger picture in which the tournament results and community feedback led us to favor the option in which a format without Stoneforge Mystic will ultimately be better in the long run.

    Demonic Tutor

    Demonic Tutor was introduced last time to spark the discussion on the status of the tutors overall. We received some feedback. The majority of the respondents thought that the sorcery status and more common applications to find answers were enough to warrant its status in the format, despite its “splashability”, and that the format needs to have that one good tutor which can’t be played in other formats outside of Vintage. 
    Black being the second least popular color in HL, the loss of Demonic would probably mean black will be seen even less. At the moment we haven’t had a chance to gauge Demonic Tutor efficiently enough yet so this research continues.

    Dread Return

    While Hermit Druid combo attempts to build its presence in the format, Dread Return is added to the watchlist in order investigate if the free reanimation spell after activating the Druid is a disturbance for the format. Right now getting Hermit Druid combo activated requires battling through grave hate, creature removal and counterspells, all which can be found plenty in the format. Nothing in the top tournament deck results point out currently that the deck is a problem, but the potential speed of the deck, and whether that becomes a factor (a reliable combo kill) is put under observation.

    Enlightened Tutor

    When we unbanned Enlightened Tutor, we wanted to leave the card on the watchlist to track it no matter what the first results were going to be, and because we knew this would go to the majority of decks with white, which allows us efficiently to collect data on this. The evaluation is now ongoing and the results can be shared when the cycle is over. So far we’ve seen the Enlightned Tutor deployed more in control/combo builds as it gives more consistency to them. The applications to fetch mana hosers like Back to Basics have been few, with Winter Orb even less so.

    Natural Order

    Natural Order has been lately seen in the Rock, Junk and big Naya builds and then some Bants, all archetypes we don’t consider problematic. Also the data from the last quarter shows that Natural order is not that widely played anymore, as top-8 appearances limit themselves to 7 tournaments only. We still feel that a 4 mana sorcery with additional cost is balanced, as the end result is still removable in theory with a large portion of spells. However, Natural Order stays on the list as its impact to game after resolving is still unknown.

    Oath of Druids

    Oath of Druids has occasionally a powerful effect, which with traditional builds brings Emrakul or some other game winning beast into play, but this hasn’t always warranted a win since the board position then can already be in such a way that the opponent is just one turn away from winning via attacking with creatures, or it leaves the opponent some other window to react properly. However, since the last GP we saw a new approach in the winning deck, that enabled a consistent combo kill that was able to end the game right there after one turn. The deck is hard to pilot and we haven’t seen it perform after the GP, but we’re watchlisting the card largely due to power level reasons and to react faster if there’s reason to.

    Worldly Tutor

    Worldly Tutor is in culmination of the tutor policy seeing where the line should be drawn. When we have taken a look at mtgpulse results from the last quarter, we can see only five tournaments where this card has been marked on top-8 eights. As the results are so slow, it will tell us either that

    a) the card is not played as much as we thought
    b) builds it has been used have not been successful

    Knowing this, we continue to investigate in the coming months what the situation is.

    Tolarian Academy

    “The early game was the coin flip, the mid game was the mulligan, and the end game was the first turn.”

    — Pro players at PT Rome, 1998

    An era known as the “combo winter”, Tolarian Academy played a pivotal role in Standard, often ending games as early as turn three, although turn 1 wins in mirror matches happened as well. In Highlander a turn three win with Academy is certainly a possibility, but it would require a very lucky hand of seven and virtually little to no interaction from opponent. This begs a question of how good Academy is nowadays?
    Tolarian Academy made its first major entry on Highlander GP II, with winning 5C-Stax and the only two TPS decks making both to top-8, all three running Academy. After this Grand Prix III took place, this time with four copies of Academy (1x in TPS, 3x in Stax). Those same decks can be benchmarked even today to get a glimpse how good they could be, without Gifts Ungiven, Mana Vault and Balance obviously. So the two deck types that are expected to get most out of the card are Stax and pure combo, both which are not heavily presented in the format currently. This watchlisting now serves the purpose to find out, as the players have argued, whether Tolarian Academy’s entry to the format would distort the meta, or serve merely as a very good card for the aforementioned archetypes.

    Umezawa’s Jitte

    With Stoneforge Mystic gone, we decided to reintroduce Umezawa’s Jitte on the watchlist. Jitte was banned close to 7 years ago with reasons that are still valid. But how well do they apply now that the power level of the decks has been risen? That’s a question we are determined to find an answer for while testing. We remember well that a first drawn Jitte in the aggro mirror used to have a similar unnecessary luck factor impact as Library of Alexandria had in control mirrors. On the other hand Jitte is too slow against many non-creature combo and control builds for which attaining board control matters less.

    Mystical Tutor

    Mystical Tutor would no doubt have many decks to put this into, of which maybe UW-control would be one of the most potent. With this we’re referring to the Miracle-factor, of which Entreat the Angels and Terminus are the most potent ones. Knowing this, our last time announcement on the card is still valid.

    Other announcements

    Rounding of IE/CE card corners

    Cards from International/Collectors Editions do not need to have their corners rounded anymore. If a player so chooses, he must ensure that there’s no possibility to discern a IE/CE card from the back of the card (which usually means it has to be played in relatively new and opaque sleeves).

    This change was made so that in the future there will be no need to damage your otherwise fine IE/CE cards (some of which have become quite expensive). Since sleeve products are enhanced in quality and variety (e.g. perfect fit sleeves) the rounding of corners doesn’t seem necessary anymore.

  • January 2013 Banlist Update

    January 2013 Banlist Update

    Valid from 15. Januar 2012, 0:00 Uhr MEZ.

    Banned:

    • no changes

    Unbanned:

    • no changes

    Watchlist:

    • no changes

    Unban Watchlist:

    • no changes

    There are no changes to be announced to the watchlist, which remains the same (as in: http://highlandermagic.info/index.php?id=watchlist). Potential changes are announced next time April 1st, 2013.

  • October 2012 Banlist Update

    October 2012 Banlist Update

    Valid during October 15th, 2012 0:00 CET until April 14th, 2013 24:00 CET.

    Changes to the present list, effective 10/15/2012:

    Banned

     –

    Unbanned

    Watchlist

    Unban Watchlist

    Single card explanations

    Enlightened Tutor

    As we stated in our last watch list announcement in April 1st. 2012, Enlightened Tutor was banned in 2009 to correct an environment in which the tutor was “used to fetch Survival of the Fittest, Back to Basics or Blood Moon, and from artifact side Winter Orb”. We’ve come to notice during the last few years that the format has evolved greatly from those time, so the statement does not to carry its weight that much anymore. As the format has gotten faster, we’ve also chosen an approach to ban overpowered keycards than to touch tutors, with Gifts being an exception. We anticipate that Enlightened Tutor’s role in the format is to strengthen various combo strategies, in which color white hasn’t been playing much role so far, as well as control decks alike. We do have plenty of non-permanent creature, and all-purpose tutors, but not so many competitive non-permanent tutors to fetch solely artifacts or enchantments.
    However, the inclusion of Enlightened Tutor to the list of allowed cards comes with a watchlist tag. Main concern we’ve come to recognize is that Oath based decks get a significant boost from Enlightened Tutor. With lots of creature based decks around, it is now easier than ever to trigger Oath for Emrakul or even for same turn kill if bomberman shell is used. But since Oath hasn’t been seen in the top-8 lists much, we’re cautiously optimistic to see the impact.

    Lion’s Eye Diamond

    Fast mana has always been bane pushing this game into an unwanted direction, often involving early turn swingy plays to the fundamental turn kills in degenerate combos. However, in this format we believe Lion’s Eye Diamond is an exception as setting it up in a graveyard centric manner with big decks is more difficult than in other eternal formats. Thus we’re ready to put the card back into test. Latest appearance of the card was back in 2007 in GP3, when the card reached as the only copy the top8 in a TPS build. Note that we’re going against the original ban clause here which was specifically to ban LED due to its interaction in combo. So why exactly are we unbanning the card now?
    Yawgmoth’s Will has already been legal for 6 months, but seen very little play. That has been one motivator for us to push this package further to see if TPS (the main motivator behind the original ban) manages to evolve into a real deck which so far has been missing from top-8 lists.
    However, LED introduces some other potential combo scenarios, and that’s why we want to keep the card on the watchlist. One reason is the bomberman shell (even more now that Enlightened Tutor re-enters the format) which could enable third turn wins from play with Oath, Salvagers, LED and Pyrite Spellbomb. Another vector is how well Doomsday manages to take advantage of piles in which Lion’s Eye Diamond has seen use in Vintage and Legacy. Then there are the few rogue, graveyard centric decks like Dredge and Madness which LED gives an additional boost, but we don’t expect them to poise a problem. The coming three months before the next watchlist announcement should tell us where things are heading.

    Demonic Tutor

    People might think something drastic has happened to the format if one of the untouchables has finally gotten on the list. Quite frankly, we’ve pondered this move for some time now, and with this watchlist addition want to ignite discussion of the role of the tutors in our format at present, or more specifically, what kind of tutors we should permit, and if we should heed any experiences from other formats.
    One well known fact is that the less powerful Imperial Seal is not tolerated in the format largely due to it’s availability and price, but Demonic is. From power level standpoint, this is lopsided. We also have evidence that players are willing to splash just for Demonic, but we haven’t seen that kind of deckbuilding with other tutors.
    With this, we want to challenge the traditional thinking by asking if the format would be better if one of its strongest tutors is dismissed for the benefit of weaker one-mana Mirage instant tutors, or if the tutor policy we’re driving is completely wrong.

    Natural Order

    Tinker for green creatures. While the format doesn’t have moxes (and probably never will), we do have several first turn mana dudes. In fact, we have so many of them, that pressure to ban Natural Order grows, especially since it has been seen quite a lot in top 8 lists. We don’t know yet what’s the standard “recovery percent” if Natural Ordering is achieved in matches on third turn, but judging from the top-8 lists it can’t be good. That is the reason why we’ve taken the card under supervision and determine if something should be done, at earliest in 6 months.

    Stoneforge Mystic

    Nothing much has changed with this dude, so it’s being kept on the list. Main applications for Mystic are still Sword of Fire and Ice and Batterskull.

    Worldly Tutor

    The same status quo is with Worldy Tutor, mainly due to reason already stated in our last announcement.. Things are now a little bit different as we also have Demonic and Mystical Tutor on the watchlist, Enlightened unbanned and several other tutors undecided. All but one cards on the watchlist currently have tutor capabilities, so we want to give enough time both for community peer review as for the top-8 lists to be collected to show what route should be taken.

    Mystical Tutor

    Adding one last Mirage tutor to the mix, we’ve taken seemingly the most powerful Mystical Tutor in to see what are the ramifications hypothetically if Demonic Tutor were to exchanged to Mystical and to spark discussion (see Demonic Tutor above). In comparison to Demonic, Mystical has an advantage in how it can be used to setup miracle cards like Entreat the Angels, Temporal Mastery and Bonfire of the Damned. On the other hand, one has to ask if we really want to have a format in which cards can be tutored at instant speed EOT, prior having preserved the counter deterrent during opponent’s turn.

    Other announcements

    Council roster changes

    The longest time member of the current roster, Timo Barwisch a.k.a. Malz77 has implied his willingness to step down as the member of the council and make room for others to carry on the torch. We’ve approached Maqi, who has not only been actively reporting tournaments, but also participating into discussion and showing dedication for Highlander in general. With these changes, we want to thank Timo for his hard work, and in return wish Thomas welcomed to the council.

    Unplanned downtime

    Some of you may have noticed late evening (CET) a slight downtime with magicplayer.org domain, in form of standard 404 http error message or alternatively “Domain is disabled” error.

    This was due to a human error caused by accidentally dropping the DNS mapping of magicplayer.org’s account. It was fixed in matter of hours once our webmaster (derStefan82) was notified about his.

  • July 2012 Watchlist Update

    July 2012 Watchlist Update

    No changes.

    Based on the tournament results we are ready to remove Yawgmoth’s Will and Dread Return from the Watchlist but decided to gather some more data in the next three month before we come to our final decision.

  • April 2012 Banlist Update

    April 2012 Banlist Update

    Valid during April 15th, 2012 0:00 CET until October 14th, 2012 24:00 CET.

    Changes to the present list, effective 4/15/2012:

    Banned

    Unbanned

    New Watchlist

    New Unban Watchlist

    Single card explanations

    Birthing Pod

    At the time when Survival of the Fittest was considered ban worthy, we started to pay attention to cards which allowed with one mechanic a constant card advantage and an access to the most diverse and best creatures, for any given play situation. We came to notice that those mechanics can be quite damaging to our format, especially if one can save both mana and supply bodies for more activations.
    Now that we’ve had Birthing Pod in our format for almost one year, the tournament data, supplemented by player base feedback, has been gathered and analyzed. We’ve come to notice that Pod has been actively used, mainly in various multi-color midrange builds.
    The artifact can be used to build a route for a straight combo kill, as well as a method to ramp up to titans. With its Phyrexian mana, there’s no real conventional mana restrictions on which archetype this tutor artifact can be deployed either.
    We also noticed a disturbing pattern in which a player first resolving and activating the Pod, gained tremendous advantage (especially with a first turn mana creature forming the starting point for the perfect curve), and after a couple of activations it was very difficult to win against an active Pod anymore.
    We have decks that play more creatures than ever before, so having a Pod in an environment where just drawing it into opening hand and then resolving is no longer sustainable, and has to be dealt with in a similar manner we dealt with Survival of the Fittest.

    Dread Return

    It has been pointed out before, that the original ban reason for Dread Return was the Hermit Druid or Cephalid Illusionist/Shuko interaction, which enabled a player to dump his whole graveyard, and then flashback Dread Return for the kill package (e.g. The Mimeoplasm/Terravore/Murderous Redcap) with Narcomoeba, Dregscape Zombie, or similar to help with flashback cost.
    This was just one example, but the question: how strong the Dread Return as the combo enabler actually is, and can it introduce a new contending archetype? We investigated into this and threw the deck against a gauntlet that consisted of the RDW which won the latest GP IX Hanau, plus other well known and played archetypes. The findings were that the combo performed quite inconsistently, so there was no reason in the end not to release the card for community review. As with Buried Alive/Reanimate, the potential for a third turn kill is there (Worldly Tutor, Hermit Druid, then activation), but like with any dedicated combo in Highlander, it becomes a totally different game when an opponent knows that he is playing against just one win strategy and then plays accordingly.
    We believe the same is true with this combo, as it can be quite effectively disrupted with creature hate, counters, or grave hate, among others. For the combo to find answers around with its own weapons (hand disruption, cheap anti-counters, bounce-spells), we start to have interaction. The amount of slots this combo eats from a deck is quite big, so there’s not much room for alternative win condition, or backup plan.
    Metagame today is quicker than it was at the time Dread Return was banned, so we feel it’s a safe call for the format to have this card back. If not for the combo and a new archetype it can potentially create, then just as another reanimation spell. Dread Return has wider applications than the combo it got banned for.

    Life from the Loam

    Life from the Loam has taken a lot of time to investigate properly, and it is one of the cards that has been on and off from the watchlists periodically, and with its many usages it is a difficult card to analyze. The card was announced on July 1st. 2010, with the following three main reasonings:

    1. LftL is dominating most of the control mirrors.
    2. Life from the Loam is destroying two Archetypes: Land Destruction and Discard.
    3. LftL is making Gifts Ungiven and Intuition way too powerful.

    The modern control mirrors nowadays, involve a lot of efficient planeswalkers and creatures, which put on the board pressure. The traditional control mirrors were often won with card advantage, but the times have changed. While the player trying to utilize the Loam’s draw engine would get slow card advantage, he would have to at the same time deal with the board in order not to lose. This is a restriction how much the player can dedicate resources on his Loam-engine.
    The archetypes mentioned, land destruction and discard, are at best fringe archetypes at the moment and haven’t made a dent when speaking about tier decks, so we don’t expect them to be pushed out. Life from the Loam has some unique capabilities of its own too, so the argument here goes both ways.
    The last argument is half true, as now banned Gifts piles were more commonly used to get other packages and Life from the Loam wasn’t necessarily one of them. More potent enabler is a third, or with acceleration a second turn Intuition, but is it alone enough in today’s meta, is unknown as the draw engine setup would still require some turns.
    Loam-packages with Intuition come in many shapes and forms, and the card advantage engine above is just one example. Now that Loam has been unbanned, it has been also added to the watchlist.

    Yawgmoth’s Will

    Many of the established pure combo decks played in other eternal formats have been able to deliver steady results, but for Highlander it has not yet happened. One of the reasons is that the consistency required to build the fast mana base and find the key cards in time is not that easy while racing against aggro decks, as it would be e.g. in Legacy.
    In our opinion the poster boy of combos, Yawgmoth’s Will, would not bring much difference, as the framework described earlier would still apply. Building the mana, getting the cards to graveyard and then resolve this while staying alive is not an easy setup. The current pure combos that would play this in Highlander would be few, High Tide and Dragonstorm among others, but we don’t consider them very popular, or something to be considered as tier-1 decks at the moment.  
    So where this card can then employed? That’s an interesting question, and we expect to see the card from time to time in various control builds that can build up that late game explosive turn, like MBC for example.
    Yawgmoth’s Will has known to be one of the most broken cards in the history of this game, and we respect this by leaving the card on the watchlist until we have the certainty via tournament results.

    Intuition

    As it was said above with Life from the Loam, the inclusion of the Intuition on the watchlist is to verify whether the fetched Loam-package is something that will get out of hand because of this card. This is the first time when we introduce a ban candidate that is closely tied to another card. With both Intuition and Loam in the format, we are able to gather data and see how it plays out first with both the cards available. Intuition is ideal to fetch Loam-piles, but it also serves in this format as a universal tutor, especially with strategies that involve graveyard interaction. Intuition is also very strong played turn before casting now unbanned Yawgmoth’s Will. The power level of the card is not up to par with Gifts Ungiven, but with one less mana cost and little bit watered down tutor effect gets close.

    Stoneforge Mystic

    The Online 100 card Singleton variant of Highlander has now taken the move with this card, and banned it as can be read from WotC’s latest announcement. We have been more patient with the card, mostly because of three things: As a minor effect, Pod is exiting our format, which was often used to fetch this as its first target. More important is that we’ve seen the format to adapt to this somewhat; Stoneforge has proven not be format defining or dominant, but a very good card and somewhat manageable. Despite its omnipresence in deck lists, players know to fight against this card with artifact and creature hate, both which are currently plenty. Third thing is that we haven’t seen much rise of any odd tutors, like Sylvan Tutor to be played purely because of this.
    But because other formats have addressed the card heavily, and because we don’t expect Stoneforge to get any worse as long as Wizard’s continues to print equipments, so we are constantly vigilant with this.

    Worldly Tutor

    Compared to the last watchlist announcement, we haven’t yet moved with this card though we have made progress with certain another 1cc-tutor. Worldly Tutor however, divides the opinions of the council so we are looking what to do with the card, if anything. The combo decks this card support, are reasonably fair in our format and there aren’t many aggressive usage patterns for this tutor, outside a second turn Stoneforge Mystic. The much debated and tier-1 status of various midrange/”good stuff-decks”, have their tier status for other reasons to blame, and Worldly Tutor wouldn’t have much role with that, so the ban would be disputable from the power level point of view. The card is manageable at the moment, but on the edge in a sense that a series of good creature printings and/or changes in meta might tip this over.

    Enlightened Tutor

    Enlightened Tutor was added to banned list back in July 2009. This was done to correct the environment in which this instant was used to fetch Survival of the Fittest, Back to Basics or Blood Moon, and from artifact side Winter Orb. Enlightened Tutor had to go, as it was felt that these cards decided the games too quickly. As the cards used in the reasoning back then suggest, times have changed (and by we do not refer to the currently played 4c-5c decks and how Blood Moons would help), but there’s a strong hypothesis from council’s part that the search targets are now probably broader, and not that game tilting. If it’s a good or bad thing for the format to have potential tutor on the expense of possible key card banning later on remains to seen, but we feel obligated to investigate Enlightened Tutor closer: what archetypes would it serve best, or even help creating. Highlander format right now has plenty of non-permanent creature tutors, but not so many competitive non-permanent tutors to fetch artifacts or enchantments. Enlightened Tutor could easily fill that gap, but should it, remains to be investigated.

    Lion’s Eye Diamond

    We are opening up the format more and doing so fairly determined with Yawgmoth’s Will, but we still want to make sure things stay under control by not introducing too many changes at the same time. While Yawgmoth’s Will gets melted in the format and gets as data, we can turn our eye to Lion’s Eye Diamond. Could the format bear this card too? We have a pretty good case built of Yawgmoth’s Will and LED individually, but not together. So we decided to play things safe for now and take the extra time to see if these could be released gradually. Traditionally outside Highlander, LED has seen usage in explosive storm/Doomsday decks, or in some graveyard utilizing dredge builds, both which haven’t made a show in our format, yet. What we do have seen have been combo/control builds of Salvager-Oath, but the amount Oath sees play now, it is doubtful if LED could suddenly make this combo to perform disturbingly well with Emrakul’s, and various Show and Tell effects out there.

  • January 2012 Watchlist Update

    January 2012 Watchlist Update

    Effective 01/01/2012:

    Watchlist

    Unban Watchlist

    Watchlist changes

    Worldly Tutor

    Worldy Tutor stands in a line with Enlightened and Mystical Tutor as C1 instant Tutor. Apart from Crop Rotation it’s the only one of that kind left in the format since Entomb has gone. As Stoneforge Mystic has been recognized as banned-list-candidate and many decks play a toolbox of creatures which are giving them almost every solution to any given situation (Qasali, Sower, Venser, Thrun, Glen Elendra just to name a few) it’s time to reevaluate if it’s justified to make a difference between Enlightened, Mystical on the one hand side and Worldly on the other.

    Dread Return

    The main reason the card got banned was it’s combo potential in Oliver Malina’s deck after GP V. Time and meta have changed a lot, the card looks fairer now and is subjected to community review. On paper Angry-Ghoul still looks strong. To find out if i can still dominate we need some results vs tier 1 decks till April. Next season of HLL starting in February  will maybe give us some insight because all cards on the unban-watchlist will be allowed and hopefully will see some play next season.

    Trinisphere

    Our decision to unban Trinisphere proved to be right. The card makes Staxx obviously stronger and is a nice anti-aggro card too but didn’t push staxx to next level. Staxx is still tier 2 based on the results we gathered since Trinisphere was unleashed – you’ll find only one(!) top HL decklist using Trinisphere (http://mtgpulse.com/events-highlander). For now, that was the reason why Trinisphere has been vanished from the watchlist.

    Imperial Seal

    The feedback from the community encouraged us to remove Imperial Seal from the unban-watchlist. It hasn’t been a matter of cost but the power level of the card itself which let us to come to this decision. Imperial Seal would have enabled dangerous T2 scenarios in almost every deck it would have been played. Although it is just sorcery speed – unlike the banned C1 tutors – it’s quite hard to react on a T1 Seal and potential T2 unknown threat like e.g. Stoneforge Mystic or Oath of Druids. In addition of the fact it is a tutor for all purposes lead us finally come to the decision to remove the seal just a few month after it has been introduced as an unban-candidate.

    Other changes

    Highlander Council

    The formation of the highlander council has been modified. MarkusMagic retired and Tabris complete the new HL coucil from today on.

    Tabris proved his dedication for HL in many ways for a long time already. He promotes our format with various innovative projects and he has an excellent reputation in the highlander community not just for his high play and deck builder skills. We feel certain that he can be of great help for our future work and welcome him in our circle.

    We encourage people who want to join the HL council to show a great deal of commitment for our format and he/she will always get their chance to join our ranks.

    As some guys asked, below the formation of the current HL council founded by HL godfather Sturmgott as from now:
    (In order of their membership)

    • malz77 – member of the first hour, TO of several HL GPs
    • Vazdru – principal supporter of the international HL forum, initiator of HL Online League (HLL)
    • firestarter – one of the best and most successful players in HL history based on his tournament record
    • pyyhttu – representative of the huge Finnish HL community, German Open Winner 2010
    • Nastaboi – Finnish National Champion 2011, several HL league and online championship victories
    • Tabris – main promoter of HL

    Each member has one vote for ban/unban/watchlist and other changes concerning the HL format and HL council.
    Each decision is made by at least 2/3 majority.

    We wish you a Happy New Year 2012!

  • October 2011 Banlist Update

    October 2011 Banlist Update

    Valid during October 15th, 2011 0:00 CET until April 14th, 2012 24:00 CET.

    Changes to the present list, effective 10/15/2011:

    Banned

    Unbanned

    Watchlist

    Unban Watchlist

    Single card explanations

    Gifts Ungiven

    When we set the card onto the watchlist three months ago, we started to investigate the overall power level of the format, and Gifts was found from the top of the curve. The splashability of the card supported this, as well as the fact that it could be found from quite a lot of top-8 builds. And with the advent of Snapcaster Mage, we don’t expect blue decks playing Gifts getting any worse.
    The three most common scenarios with Gifts have been: tutor up the four best cards for any given situation (tutoring for overall quality), setup a strong graveyard based synergy, or pave a way for a combo win initiated during next turns. So in a sense, Gifts has been both a powerful tutor, as well as an instant draw on steroids at the same time in combo/control builds. When abusing this card, the most broken scenarios have been the ones where Gifts has been used to tutor up a suite of win conditions that in the end leave the opponent no way out.
    So when the council is forced to ban something, we are not banning decks, but we’re banning cards. And that’s done on the basis that the banned list should be as short as possible. We’ve learned that players want the room to form the meta.

    With the above, we came in the conclusion that despite the fact Gifts promotes the play skills of players, the overall power level of the card is too high in order for the format currently to bear and eventually to evolve. The card has also been long banned in Singleton and Commander, further convincing us that this is the right direction.

    Trinisphere

    The watchlist criteria we set for Trinisphere in our announcement last time, was largely that it was a random draw and not necessarily playable due to it’s poor late game capabilities in various nowadays staxx builds. As the availability of fast mana in our format is not so omnipresent as it is in Vintage (restricted) or even in Legacy (not restricted), we want to see where this card lands in highlander. We are occasionally unbanning some cards that allows us to see if the metagame would be even more diverse, as we did with Buried Alive. Trinisphere was deemed as too powerful at one time, and so far no real attempt has been taken to have Trinisphere and Mishra’s Workshop in the format at the same time. Both cards are still powerful, but we believe unrestricting Trinisphere is a reasonable risk to take.

    Trinisphere will stay on the watchlist for the next three months at least, so that we can quickly remedy next time should there start to be any large scale disturbances caused by this card.

    Wheel of Fortune

    Wheel of Fortune with Timetwister are the two most powerful draw7 effects in the game, and so far Time Twister that got introduced first has stood the test of time fine, despite the initial skepticism. This encouraged us to investigate the unban of Memory Jar and now as the natural next step we’re committed to set the Wheel free. We anticipate Wheel of Fortune to be more powerful than twister, but still not too broken as a combo engine. Wheel of Fortune’s combo potential is noteworthy, as it can fill the graveyard better as part of strategy, and can also be taken into use with various red based aggro and burn decks. We believe the card to see play, but not to be game breaking.

    Sensei’s Divining Top

    Sensei’s Divining Top has spurred a healthy discussion, and we’ve been pleased to follow the ongoing discussion as it has been both analytical and widespread. The observations we gave during our last watch list announcement still apply, and we’ve come to notice that the players on this card are quite divided. Because of that reason, we leave the card under scrutiny for the time being.

    Stoneforge Mystic

    Right now we don’t have any creature on the banned or watch list, but Stoneforge Mystic was taken into closer inspection regarding on how the meta has developed during the last weeks. While the card does not win the games outright alone, its impact is noteworthy, especially with the introduction of Batterskull. When Stoneforge Mystic becomes the prime target of various tutors, we start to see the first signs of the metagame centering around the card. People also tend to respond to this by playing more artifact and creature hate, which we’ve already noticed to occur. The card has gradually been banned in other sanctioned formats starting with Standard, but also in Extended and Modern, with the card making a splash into Legacy too. So we’re also watching this card more closely.

    Birthing Pod

    With the Highlander’s 100 card deck sizes and one copy rule, the tutors have been always powerful, especially those that offer perfect answers/threats while ramping up with good creatures to Titans. Something we’ve accustomed to get now with the power creep. In short time Birthing Pod has indicated to show the same symptoms that led to ban of Survival of the Fittest. Pod has the extra value compared to Survival that once it’s active, the threats will be tutored straight into the play, both saving mana and supplying bodies for more activations.

    Without immediate answer to Pod, a linear example we’d offer:

    1. Fetch Glen Elendra Archmage. Counter opponent’s Vindicate/Demonic Tutor/chump block/whatever threat.
    2. Sacrifice a 2cc creature and fetch Deceiver Exarch/Pestermite.
    3. Untap Pod with trigger and sacrifice Archmage to fetch Kiki-Jiki.

    Of course, real game situations are more complicated and versatile than that, but as with every powerful tutor/toolbox card making a sudden impact, we decided to take the card under surveillance.

    Yawgmoth’s Will

    Also known as Yawgmoth’s Win, has been banned from every other sanctioned format except Vintage. The beauty of highlander is that it allows playing quite a lot of cards not available anywhere else without making them overall broken, and we believe Yawgmoth’s Will to be a case example. The main archetype this would be good at are pure combos (TPS/High Tide), but they are not seen currently as they’ve been deemed to be quite inconsistent. When Yawgmoth’s Will was allowed, it was last seen in couple top-8 GP2 storm combo decks, but that has been quite some time ago when powerful and fast mana was excessive (Tolarian Academy, Mana Vault, Lions Eye Diamond). Format has evolved since those days. We believe that without the direct access to the best fast mana and graveyard tutors anymore (Entomb, Gifts), Yawgmoth’s Will has a chance to increase the diversity of the format and pure combo’s portion from the meta which is now very small. Control on the other hand would receive yet another regrowth effect, doubly so for marginal decks like MBC of today. But how the card eventually feels and where it ends up (if anywhere but banned list) remains to be tested during the next months.

    Imperial Seal

    Unofficially this format has a had price barrier, and an iconic but often silenced example of it has been Imperial Seal. When compared to power level of Demonic Tutor, which is currently allowed, we notice that Seal is clearly the weaker counterpart. So we could say we’ve got a paradox; inferior card is now banned while more powerful one is not.
    On play, Imperial Seal can fetch that second turn threat, so we must investigate power level too. The already mentioned secondary challenge is the card’s restricted availability and high price. On the other hand the format has other expensive staples, like Mishra’s Workshop, The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale, Moat, Imperial Recruiter and Ravages of War, largely pushed by the popularity of Legacy.
    The card is highly playable both in control and combo decks alike, and it has been taken as an unban candidate to meter the overall power level of tutors. We would like to gather some input from the community too how you feel about unbanned Seal before we come to a decision.

    Lion’s Eye Diamond

    Didn’t we just state that Yawgmoth’s Will is kept in check with the lack of fast mana? Yes, and we don’t expect to see these two in the format at the same time instantly. But as Yawgmoth’s Will is tested, we decided to push the package. This way we are able to see further beyond the Will. Should it fail to make an entrance, what would be Lion’s Eye Diamond’s role then? Would Salvager/Oath combo in nowaday’s meta be too powerful? If yes, is the problem with Oath, or LED (or with Salvagers)? With the current absence of TPS, would it be a healthy boost to actually have both LED and Will present, would aggro then stand a chance given the golden rule of paper beating scissors as combo should win aggro a turn faster?
    With LED we have many open questions we strive to find answers during the following months.

    Life from the Loam

    The watchlist reasoning with Loam have not changed since the last announcement. The Gifts argument is not very strong as one doesn’t need Loam to win with it, but we’ve noticed that part of the people feel more bad if they lose to Gifts and Loam than Gifts fetching the four best cards. A major weight on banning Loam has undeniably been the fun factor and monotonous performance of it, especially in control mirrors. But now with both Gifts and Entomb gone, cards like Intuition, Hermit Druid and Oath of Druids remain as the major enablers. Will those cards be enough to justify Loam’s current ban is to be investigated.

    Other announcements

    At the beginning of next year, we are re-evaluating the formation of the HL-council. The potential changes to the current roster will be announced on January 1st. 2012 with the quarterly review of watchlist.

    Highlander tournament deck database

    Per Stilling has approached our community and made a contribution: a wiki editable deck database called mtgpulse.com now also includes our Highlander format.

    In return, the council encourages the tournament organizers and players alike to orient and share the tournament deck lists in this service. The immediate gains by doing so are returned to us, as for the first time we all would have a tool at our disposal to see the metagame better than ever.

    Give, and ye shall receive.