We need your input!

Currently we have Threads discussing 5c Control variants, 5c Stax, UGw Aggrocontrol... and we have a "We make the Set"-project which could use some external help and ideas.

Get involved!

Hello everyone,

I'm sure (and a quick search on these boards confirms this) many of you like to play a format called Highlander. Those who don't, have mostly at least already heard of it.

The basic idea of Highlander is that you are only allowed to play one copy of each card in your deck - and unfortunately, this is where similarities in different variants of this format end already. Some play singleton-style with 60 cards, some with a 250 cards minimum, probably most players go along with 100 cards.

We (a group of long-term, passionate Highlander players from Germany) have started a project that aims to end this mess and provide a basis for a well-balanced, fun and worldwide standardized Highlander tournament format (find our suggestion here: http://www.highlandermagic.info/index.php ).
We have been quite successful in this already with WotC themselves suggesting our rules ( http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/feature/393 ). On top of that, we have organized several Germany-wide tournaments we call "Highlander Grand Prix", each of them attended by about 100 players from all corners of the country. In Germany most HL players have joined us already and now we would like to inspire you to become part of the crowd as well.

Since we are aware of the fact that the biggest obstacle in getting involved in this project for most people is the language barrier since all discussions in our forums used to be held in German. We have now installed a new forum for all international Highlander fans to get rid of this obstacle.

Not only do we want you to become as crazy about the project as we are, but we would also very much appreciate input from non-German-speaking HL players. So if you have ideas, feedback, improvement suggestions or anything else you'd like to let the HL world know, here's the place to be:

http://www.magicplayer.org/forum/index.php

I kindly ask everybody who's interested in Highlander Magic to join the forum which is of course absolutely free. Make yourself heard!

Update: The forum needs your input now. We are just starting and some opinions are already there, along with our statements. zimagic has joined already and started a discussion. As I see you have some good points in your argumentation, Asi, I'd appreciate you taking part in our new forum!

That sorely depends on how many people support the idea of a centralized discussion spot on the web like you just did!

Please be aware of the fact that the new forum is just 3 days old. The more people give it a chance, the more it will flourish. The start of a new forum is always a critical phase, and to survive it needs active participants!

Because we are aware of the fact that the language in "our" forum (German) is an obstacle to non-German-speaking HL players, we have opened a central place for ALL players interested in the Highlander format here (where only English is spoken):

http://www.magicplayer.org/forum/index.php

We appreciate your criticism very much and we really want your feedback, but please understand that we cannot discuss these issues in every forum, so we MUST centralize it. Everything else is just not manageable! Thank you for your understanding and please register at our forums so we can come to a vivid discussion there!

You're saying it. Precisely.

Nothing of what you suggested can be done with Entomb is even close to being banworthy.

And the sheer number of examples you gave us - thx for that - proves that Entomb is a very versatile card that can be used for many a purpose - but NOTHING broken except Gorger/Hulk - which is why we banned those two.

Now how many decks can you imagine that want to play Hulk without being the cheesy combo guy?

@all others: Anyone interested in me uploading my current gauntlet?

Edit: As international interest in the format grows, I have set up a new forum for highlander players all over the world. I kindly ask everyone interested in Highlander to register and be part of the crowd! You can find the new forum here: http://www.magicplayer.org/forum/

The point with Hulk is: We don't want the HulkFlash deck, which had nothing more to do than find Hulk and find Flash, to mutate to "find Entomb" + "find Necromancy/Footsteps of the Goryo", which would cost 2 mana more to perform in a single turn.

We chose to ban Hulk and not Entomb, because Entomb is "broken" with no other card in the format, but can be put to good use in many decks, while Hulk will always be merely a combo piece. Thus banning Entomb would limit deck building far more than the absence of Hulk does. This decision was based on the same argumentation as the banning of Worldgorger Dragon.

And as I said: We decided to go the way of keycard banning, not tutor banning. I see you disagree with this, but there's no point in further discussing this specific issue.

@asi: What could those "objective" criteria be in your opinion?

We think that with the points we stated in our banning policy we have formed widely acceptable expectations on a balanced highlander format. To agree with everyone in the world on our choices for banned cards is neither achievable nor can it be our goal. What we currently have allows for a very widespread metagame with every decktype having a fair chance to emerge. And no, the presence of Oath of Druids in the range of allowed power houses does NOT mean that creature based decks are no longer viable. Oath is just an option - admittedly a good one, but it's not like it owns the format, not even slightly. I don't know why OoD seems to appear so unfair and "so obvious has-to-be-banned-card" to you. Even in a deck built around it, it only matters in like every third or fourth game you play.

@others:

Yes, a combo deck killing in turn 2 or 3 is possible, even in 100/1 Highlander. Flash/Hulk taught us this on the last GP, and even TPS was (before bannings as of 07/15/2007) constantly performing (avg) turn 3.5/4 kills, if not severely interrupted. We decided that pure combo decks should not be able to win so consistently in such an early phase of the game.

So we had to make a decision (and btw. Yawgmoth's Bargain was never really a tier 1 card): Ban the tutors, disallowing key card strategies with this, or banning the key cards from decks that turned out to be too powerful? We decided that alot of players (and decks) would miss the absence of cards like Intuition, Gifts or Demonic / Enlightened Tutor, but only those players who prefer decks with few or no interaction necessary would miss the combo pieces. Thus the way to go for us is now to ban combo pieces, if the otherwise possible combo decks basing on them could mean a serious threat to the metagame. We don't want to ban combo, but we don't want pure combo decks that ignore what the opponent does - at least these decks shouldn't be viable from our point of view.

Just three words about Oath:

Today I played a small tournament in Düsseldorf (at the River Rhine). In a total of 4 Matches - I was playing 5c Oath Control - I had exactly ONE game in which Oath played a role and won me the game, and that was vs. White Weenie. The by far most important card in the deck is not Oath - it's Life from the Loam.

Banning Oath is really absolutely NOT necessary. It IS a very good card, yes, but in no way does it define the format. Even WITH all the "brokeness" as you call it, 5c still has very hard matchups vs. RDW, WW and UG Aggrocontrol which often see an Oath player winning at 3 or less life - should he win at all.

I respect your opinion on how Highlander should be from your point of view, but you need to accept that we have a different approach. I accept your apology for using the term "ridiculous" and I presume you'd extend it to also no longer advising Highlander noobs not to test "our" suggestion for a standardized format.

And one more question: How old were you when we already organized tournaments in this format? 9 years old? That kind of personal attack is inappropriate for TMD. Don't do it again.
-Jacob Orlove
Hi Jacob, this was not meant to be a personal attack. It was meant to clarify that to fully comprehend a development that began more than 10 years ago, it is not sufficient to have played Highlander for 2 or 3 years. 'asi' says this himself, he calls the banned list and our decisions 'incomprehensible'. I was just pointing out the cause.

And to really finish this: Yes, MagicPlayer Highlander (as we call our suggestion) IS the most played Highlander format in Germany, and I'd not be surprised if it was also in the world.

Our "policies" are (as can be read here: http://www.highlandermagic.info/index.php?id=faq#4 ):

   1. To maximize the variety of competitive decks;
   2. Combodecks should be possible but not dominate;
   3. Keep the number of banned cards as low as possible;
   4. React to the metagame should certain deck types begin to dominate;
   5. If a deck can merely exists due to a "broken" card, this deck loses the right to exist. The "broken" card must be banned.

I'd be very interested in you telling us what in your opinion is so ridiculous and unacceptable (other than your statement)?

Apart from that: If YOU are the only person interested in me taking position here, I'd prefer to find you in our forums at www.magicplayer.org . I assume you are familiar with that already since you are obviously so well informed... ?

Hey everybody out there,

first of all thank you for your interest in "our" Highlander format. At this point, allow me to shortly tell you who I am: My name is Frank Topel, and I am the webmaster of Highlandermagic. info and "father" of this project. But why are we putting rules on the internet anyway?

It started back in 1997. Someone suggested trying out "Highlander" which none of us knew at the time. But the idea sounded nice, so we gave it a try in our local play group. Quickly Highlander became my favorite format, so I tried to convince everyone to also try it out and build a Highlander deck. More and more people did, and soon players wanted to compete, so I began to organize tournaments. The number of players attending those tournaments grew until we reached some kind of regional limit of about 20-25 players, which was perfectly okay. At the time, we sticked to the 1.5 banned list ("Legacy" was far from being born), simply because we didn't put too much thought into the format and because it seemed okay. After some more tournaments some cards which weren't on the T1 restricted list (older players remember that 1.5 simply banned all T1 restricted stuff and nothing else) turned out to be kind of too powerful and started to dominate the format.

Every once in a while, it happened that in between games when while I was playing on a DCI tournament, I asked my opponent if they had a HL deck. Most of them didn't, so I borrowed them one of mine and played, which was okay and fun. But every once in a while I would meet someone who actually HAD a Highlander deck he also owned. So we started to play, and soon it would turn out that they were playing cards which we banned or vice versa.

So the idea was born to create a well-balanced, STANDARDIZED format by tailoring the banned list to satisfy these expectations.

By coincidence, at the same time WotC introduced Legacy as a custom format. That was the point when we - after long discussions whether the decision we were about to hit wouldn't be too much of an obstacle to promoting the format - decided that HL DOES need a custom-made banned list to fit its specific needs.

Sorry everyone, the batteries of my keyboard are just about empty, will have to continue this tomorrow after shops have been reopened

Btw, is anybody interested in our thoughts at all? If not I can as well spend the time on testing my new killer HL deck

Regards to everyone,

Frank Topel