[Announcement] 5 Color Highlander tournament

[Toad]

So hmm... I've been playing a lot of casual games lately and I want to organize a fun tournament for Mana Drainers, with the following rules for deck construction :

* Maindecks of 60 cards, sideboards of 15 cards. Wishes are allowed.

* The deck has to be highlander, that means no more than 1 of any non basic land card.

* The deck has to be a real 5 color deck, that means at least 4 cards for each color (yes, even at least 4 green cards!). Split cards and gold cards will only be counted once, with the color of your choice.

* Land destruction is banned. Sundering Titan, Stone Rain, Armagueddon and whatever destroys a land. 5 color highlander mana bases are usually unstable and even a single Stone Rain is no fun.

* In order to kill stupid broken Combo decks, restricted cards in T1 are banned (playing under the old school T1.5 rules). Guys, this is meant to be a fun tournament. Dutch players can enter the tournament though.

* Play with creatures !

* Survival of the Fittest is banned !

More rules may be added. The Ban List is susceptible to change before the beginning of the tournament. If some player sees a problematic card, LMK.

Interested players, please post there including time zone and suggestions. The tourney will go over a couple of weeks (depending on the attendance) in order to allow Europeans to face Americans.

**************************************************************************

Player list

Toadi
Gimbles
MoreFling
Kasuras
Jacob
Kowal
Matt
Nataz
xthexpunisherx

[SpencerForHire]

I'm quite interested in playing.  I'm assuming it will be using MWS correct?
I'm available most days from 9pm-12 EST.

[Toad]

I'm assuming it will be using MWS correct?

User's convenience.

Apprentice works under most Window OS. MWS hates my home Win98

[rvs]

Count me in. When is the deck submission deadline?

[Toad]

As soon as we have enough players to make a cool tournament + a couple of days

[Kasuras]

As long as I can play between 7 and 10 at monday-thursday, friday after 4 and in the weekends. All times are of course Dutch which is Greenwich +1/-1. Can't remember.

Well, then I'm in.

[Jacob Orlove]

Oooooh man. Sign me up for this. Everyone knows what I'll be playing, but I don't care. :D

[Kowal]

I'm so totally in, but I need to think of something awesome to play.

[Matt]

Count me in.

[OptimusDeutz]

Is there an apprentice/mws variant that functions on a mac?

If anyone knows if that can be done... Ill happily play...

[Nomad]

I don't know how to play highlander decks without combo nuts, so I'll probably have to sit out.

(Actually, I more than likely won't be able to find the time randomly in the week...)

Why not make it 100 card minimum too though?

[Matt]

Rules question: what exactly counts as land destruction? Would a Jokulhaups count? What about Shimmer? What about Exhaustion? And how do artifact lands affect this - will Gorilla Shaman be banned?

Also, how many snow-covered land are we allowed? They are generally counted as basic lands but I don't know how you want to do them.

[Toad]

I knew you guys would come

Regarding Matt questions...

By land destruction, I mean "anything that specifically destroys lands of your opponent in order to color screw him". That includes stuff like Stone Rain, Avalanche Riders, Sundering Titan, etc... Jokulhaups and Exhaustion does not fit in this category (one is global destruction, one is tempo), Shimmer does. So I'd ban Shimmer and allow the other two.

Not sure how to deal with Gorilla Shaman and artifact lands.

Does the snow-covered status matter?

[rvs]

Does the snow-covered status matter?

Not really, since you can use basic lands as you please, so I guess Matt missed that part in your original post. (Or he's figured out something horribly broken to do with Snow-covereds, and wonders if you can use more than 1 of a kind of them ).

edit: btw, could you please quote the exact legal sets, and the exact list of banned cards? Thanks.

[Kasuras]

* The deck has to be a real 5 color deck, that means at least 4 cards for each color (yes, even at least 4 green cards!). Split cards and gold cards will only be counted once, with the color of your choice.

So like.. I can't play InvasionBlock.dec? That really makes me cry. Why not count those cards once (of course, beause you need 60 cards) but count them as "having" multiple colors.

Perhaps reword to the following?

You must have at least 4 of every mana symbol in your deck. Which basically means that if you have the 5 dragon legends (darigaaz, crosis, dromar, rith, trevar) and Cromat in your deck: you have yourself a deck legal for this tourney.

Which also would mean that having Eternal Witness and Ravenous Baloth in your deck doesn't make you have more green cards! Isn't that fantastic?!?

Don't think this would dramatically change your manabase compared to your system Toad, it would be more practical and fun.

[Toad]

edit: btw, could you please quote the exact legal sets, and the exact list of banned cards? Thanks.

All the sets that are legal in Type One are legal for the tournament.

Banned cards :

* Cards that are restricted in Type One.
* Cards that destroys a specific land or a specific kind of lands. Stone Rain or Flashfires, for example. 5 color highlander mana bases tend to be quite unstable and destroying lands kills the fun of the 5 color concept.

That's all at the moment. We can analyse specific cards individually (hint : Skullclamp) to define an updated banned list.

You must have at least 4 of every mana symbol in your deck. Which basically means that if you have the 5 dragon legends (darigaaz, crosis, dromar, rith, trevar) and Cromat in your deck: you have yourself a deck legal for this tourney.

Which also would mean that having Eternal Witness and Ravenous Baloth in your deck doesn't make you have more green cards! Isn't that fantastic?!?

That would not make real prismatic decks :<
You can almost play mono colour with your method.

It would also be nice If you guys don't try to "cheat" with the 4-cards limit by playing with useless cards with cheap colorless cycling

[Jacob Orlove]

4 of every mana symbol would mean that two useless door to nothingness would let you play a mono-colored deck. Toad's rules are much better.

[Toad]

Important note

Survival of the Fittest is banned

It's ridiculously overpowered since everyone will play creatures.

[Matt]

By asking those specific cards I was actually trying to hint at stuff more along the lines of Limited Resources, Ritual of Subdual, or Land Equilibrium, all of which I was considering breaking.

The snow-covered thing was because I was trying to break the Highlander rule by using 1 Pestilence, 1 Withering Wisps, and so on.

But I found something better than either of those so you guys can have that free tech.

New question - can I count something like Leonin Sun Standard as a white card?

[nataz]

I would like to play

EST

Apprentice and MWS, but currently I can't paly anyone with a firewall (i.e., I have to be called), but this will change within a week.

[Toad]

Fine for Leonin Sun Standard as a white card since It's only good with white mana anyways.

Nataz is in.

[Kasuras]

I think you guys got me wrong. I meant casting cost, not activation cost or something like kicker/ cycling. So Door to Nottingness would still be an artifact and not be counted.

Editt: Do those rats break the highlander rule?

[SpencerForHire]

Important note

Survival of the Fittest is banned

It's ridiculously overpowered since everyone will play creatures.

GAH, I've already had the deck built and testing since post one.  Thanks for ruing my fun.

Before I go any further in deck building, what about stifle affects?

[Matt]

Fine for Leonin Sun Standard as a white card since It's only good with white mana anyways.

Nataz is in.

Does this also apply to other artifacts with colored activations? Obviously Granite Shard won't count, but what about Spellbombs, or wackier, Gauntlet of Might?

Also, I assume that the 4-of-each-color thing means maindeck, otherwise you could too eaisly make a monocolored deck.

[Kasuras]

You might want to edit your rules; highlander goblins with a green splash for food chain and ESG + 4 blue cards SB + 4 white cards SB + 4 black cards SB + 2 green cards SB.. Is not really fun.

[Toad]

The color limit obviously only applies to the maindeck. This is meant to be a casual tournament FOR FUN. You guys should really stop breaking the rules by all means.

Spellbombs cantrips for colorless mana, they can't be considered as colored spells. It's far too easy otherwise. ALL the cards from each color have to be used with the intention of casting them. That means, no 1 Expunge, 1 Sicken, 1 Unearth and 1 Disciple of Malice as only black cards and no Swamp to cast them, for example.

[Matt]

Must I intend to cast my spells or merely be able to? I certainly intend to use them as more than just cycling cards, but I have other ways of getting them into play that I would prefer to hardcasting.

[Toad]

Well running 4 green fatties because they are cool with Show and Tell or Sneak Attack sounds like trying to break the rules to me.

So yeah, you must intend to cast all your spells.

[Matt]

I don't know if I like you making up rules at the last minute here just to kill my good ideas. We should be rewarding creativity, not the enforcing this "nobody do anything clever" style communism.[/b] :P

[xthexpunisherx]

Count me in.  It might be fun to have to see my opponents use the attack phases for once .  Tsabo Tavoc FOR LIFE!!!!