German Highlander

[Dragonegg5]

http://www.highlandermagic.info/index.php

Anyone check this format out? I've played a few games, and its quickly becoming my favorite format. There are few things more fun than piloting 100-card Highlander Heartbeat.dec

[jro]

I've played a few games with a Tog/CS hybrid I built, mostly against aggro decks.  I think it is a lot of fun.  I used to have a 5-color deck, but I didn't like that the format is even more expensive to play than Vintage.  When I heard about Highlander, I thought it sounded pretty cool.  I think it's better at achieving the variety and old-school feeling that 5-color strives for.  I can't really follow the format, though, since all of the high-level discussion is in German, which I don't understand.

[Dragonegg5]

I agree, its one of the reasons I'm trying to pimp this format out. We're going to have a tournament here locally in a week or so, I'll try and do a report, with pics maybe.

[Shake]

It seems that the banned list is kind of all over the place.  Basing the banned list on vintage with price considerations might make a little more sense or on prismatic's official banned list.

I think some of the banning could be avoided with metagaming, because they have seemed to ban some of the simpler combos, or limited them.

A few things I see as odd:

Banning Crop rotation without banning Academy
Banning Trinisphere without banning Mishra's Workshop
Banning Mystical Tutor, Vampric Tutor, Imperial Seal, but not banning Demonic tutor
Banning World Gorger Dragon but not Entomb

Dust Bowl, Jitte, and a few other seem odd because they have never been banned before.

There are a couple of things that could straighten out a banned list like this, like a systematic way of looking at the bans and what you want the format to look like.  Already the format looks like a vintage restricted list.  If you fear combo, and you see combo thriving against decks that have been constructed properly to include a decent amount of removal, then I think the sensable thing would be to ban tutors, including buried alive, Entomb, or Gifts Ungiven.  If you're fearing an unfair tempo boost that would make the matches too fast and too random, then ban the tempo cards like lotus, soul ring, and mana crypt.  If you're worried about swingy games because of card advantage then ban Necropotence, Yagmouth's Will, Ancestral Recall and the like.

I think that the benifit of a format like this is the joy of seeing some of the more fair power cards without fearing that they would become degenerate combo pieces.  For example, Wheel of Fortune.  It's a great card, I wouldn't fear it in a highlander Sligh deck though, I'd call it luck and shuffle up again.  I'd only ban it if I saw it in a third turn kill storm combo deck, but I'd like to see a hundred card deck like that before I did ban it.

I think that this format is the best place for people to try out broken cards in an enviroment where they would not be able to achieve their brokenness, like Mind over Matter getting a chance to shine.  I also think that people should play the format with enough time for a metagamed response to disrupt certain cards before, as a last resort, they are put on a banned list.  I don't see how trinisphere can get on a banned list without people first trying to play disenchants.  The likelyhood of a first turn workshop trinisphere opening is so slim it doesn't look like it would warp the enviroment.

If I'm missing something, and someone can show me a consistent 100 card third turn kill combo deck, then be my guest.

[jro]

It seems that the banned list is kind of all over the place.  Basing the banned list on vintage with price considerations might make a little more sense or on prismatic's official banned list.
...
There are a couple of things that could straighten out a banned list like this, like a systematic way of looking at the bans and what you want the format to look like.

I agree that the banned list seems kind of wonky.  The FAQ doesn't really explain individual decisions, but does say that bannings are decided by a group of frequent players in a manner similar to the 5CRC, and that they've maintained the format for 8 years.  But there's no point in deriving the banned lists from other formats.  This format clearly doesn't have much in common with 5-color or Vintage, so why force those banned lists on it?  If too many games were being decided by who draws their singleton Jitte, then ban Jitte.

As for the tutor situation, the problem with tutors tends to come from having too many of them in general (like 5-color used to), not necessarily from having a single powerful tutor effect.  Demonic Tutor may be a better card than the others that are banned, but if you decide that your format should only have one of that set of Tutors, why not make it Demonic?  Remember that the banned lists for casual formats are more about creating a good environment and attracting players, not about goals like "playing with all your cards" or "not banning if the metagame can respond".

[Shake]

I can understand the desire for diversity of decks, and to eleminate degenerate combo.  I could also see the benifit of eliminating the expensive tempo cards.  I would disagree with the swingyness of the topdecked card.  I think part of the thrill of the game is the topdeck.  With a single card in a 100 card deck I think that for every person curses the topdecked jitte, another person will feel great about that jitte that stole the game from the losing board possition.  To eliminate swingy cards, especialy ones that have never been banned before (outside tribal) seems to be questionable and may be a product of a more aggressive metagame than card power.

In order to keep the diversity that seems to be the intent of highlander, and to decrease the power of broken cards, I would ban all of the good, and maybe some of the iffy, tutors.  That includes graveyard tutors like Buried Alive.  I'd get rid of some of the most powerful draw cards too, as well as the acellerators.  I wouldn't eliminate combo cards so longs as they are a dead card in and of themselves, like worldgorger dragon.  Another way of dealing with combo pieces is to keep the oldschool orical corrections on the cards, like basalt monolith/grim monolith was corrected to prevent the mana from being used to untap itself, or the "free" cards like great whale didn't work if they were played from the graveyard.

I think that getting rid of some of the swingy cards takes some of the thrill out of playing with Highlander, whether that card is jitte or Wrath of God.

[jcb193]

Banning Crop rotation without banning Academy
Banning Trinisphere without banning Mishra's Workshop
Banning Mystical Tutor, Vampric Tutor, Imperial Seal, but not banning Demonic tutor
Banning World Gorger Dragon but not Entomb

I am completely guessing here, but based on my own personal experience with the Highlander my friends and I play.
- Academy is not nearly as overpowering as Library of Alexandria.  It is almost impossible to lose with LOA.
- I don't think there are enough "outs" to survive an early trinishphere with a 100 card deck.
- Highlander is for people who want to play Magic like they did in 1995.  Demonic allows this.

The biggest problem we face with highlander (especialy multiplayer) is all the tutoring and fetchies. 

[RaZe]

A few things I see as odd:

Banning Crop rotation without banning Academy
Banning Trinisphere without banning Mishra's Workshop
Banning Mystical Tutor, Vampric Tutor, Imperial Seal, but not banning Demonic tutor
Banning World Gorger Dragon but not Entomb

Dust Bowl, Jitte, and a few other seem odd because they have never been banned before.

There are a couple of things that could straighten out a banned list like this, like a systematic way of looking at the bans and what you want the format to look like.  Already the format looks like a vintage restricted list.  If you fear combo, and you see combo thriving against decks that have been constructed properly to include a decent amount of removal, then I think the sensable thing would be to ban tutors, including buried alive, Entomb, or Gifts Ungiven.  If you're fearing an unfair tempo boost that would make the matches too fast and too random, then ban the tempo cards like lotus, soul ring, and mana crypt.  If you're worried about swingy games because of card advantage then ban Necropotence, Yagmouth's Will, Ancestral Recall and the like.

I think that the benifit of a format like this is the joy of seeing some of the more fair power cards without fearing that they would become degenerate combo pieces.  For example, Wheel of Fortune.  It's a great card, I wouldn't fear it in a highlander Sligh deck though, I'd call it luck and shuffle up again.  I'd only ban it if I saw it in a third turn kill storm combo deck, but I'd like to see a hundred card deck like that before I did ban it.

Crop as mention earlier = 2nd of any land you have in the deck. From Maze of Ith to Library of Alexandria. Tolarian on the otherhand isn't as impressive without Moxes, being in a 100 card deck and the less consistency of having Academy and cheap artifacts on the board early in the game.

Restricting Trinisphere should make sense to anyone who's experience it's power. Mishra's Workshop shares the same weakeness as Tolarian plus it can only CAST ARTIFACTS.

As for the tutor question, I have no idea.

A deck can be built to abuse WGD. Cuz it's an engine. It wouldn't be that hard to find an animate enchantment with the many ways to filter draws, tutors [transmute ftw] and there are enough Bazaar-like and Compulsion like cards. [There should be at least 5 and numerous ways to find them] Instead of banning ALL the tutors and hinder other combo-set up possibilities, just banning this one card would make more sense.

[Hi-Val]

That WGD deck seems fair though. You need a lot of setup and the combo is vulnerable to hate that any good deck will be running. What if the combo happens only around turn 5? Is it still unfair? What if it only happens on turn 10 or later? Still unfair?

It seems people hate playing against combo because they perceive it as inherently unfair, but there are certainly fair combos that should be allowed. If you're transmuting for Animate Dead, good on ya, it means you aren't stopping my Ronom Unicorn.

[darkmindtone]

That WGD deck seems fair though. You need a lot of setup and the combo is vulnerable to hate that any good deck will be running. What if the combo happens only around turn 5? Is it still unfair? What if it only happens on turn 10 or later? Still unfair?

It seems people hate playing against combo because they perceive it as inherently unfair, but there are certainly fair combos that should be allowed. If you're transmuting for Animate Dead, good on ya, it means you aren't stopping my Ronom Unicorn.

This format had two TPS decks in the top 8 of their annual big event last year, and allows Bargain, Will, Gifts, etc. to be played still.  There is definitely a healthy combo presence already, so I trust they made the decision on Dragon because it was truly degenerate. 

On the format, my local area recently began playing it after interest generated from the MTG.com article that appeared a month or so ago.  It's been extremely popular, often bringing more people than the sanctioned limited or constructed events being hosted.  Any format that allows me to Yosei lock people out of the game with Recurring Nightmare is fine by me.....

[zimagic]

Apologies for Necro-ing this thread but I think that the latest planned bannings are pertinant to this discussion.

From: http://www.highlandermagic.info/index.php?id=bannedlist

Banned as of 07/15/2007:
Flash / Aufblitzen
Protean Hulk / Veränderlicher Hüne
Balance
Tolarian Academy / Akademie von Tolaria
Yawgmoth's Will / Yawgmoths Wille
Lion's Eye Diamond / Das Auge des Löwen

Here's the reasoning: From th esame site (I'll translate it later when I get in from work)
"Protean Hulk wird gebanned, da er auch ohne Flash noch ein veritables Kombodeck über Reanimation und Opfern ermöglicht. Da sich dies nur durch Bannen weiterer Karten wie Entomb / Einbuddeln vermeiden ließe, wird der Hulk gleich ganz verbannt wie schon der Worldgorger Dragon vor ihm.

Flash wird gebanned, um für die Zukunft zu vermeiden, dass bei Erscheinen evtl. ähnlich missbrauchbarer Kreaturen erneut eine überraschende Dominanz von Kombodecks entsthet.

Balance zu unbannen hat nicht den erwünschten Effekt der Verbesserung von Control Decks auf das Format gehabt. Statt dessen "glänzt" Balance in erster Linie als No-Brainer-Solution für Kreaturenprobleme in Kombodecks sowie als Armageddon/Wrath/Mind Twist in einer Karte im Stax-Deck für 2 Mana. Insofern war es eine Fehlentscheidung, Balance zu unbannen, welche wir hiermit korrigieren.

Der HL GP 3 hat mehr als deutlich eine formatdefinierende Wirkung des Stax-Decks gezeigt. Von den Top 9 spielten 4 Spieler ein solches, artefaktbasiertes Deck. Die völlige Dominanz dieses Decktypus wurde lediglich von ultraschnellen Kombodecks (Hulk, TPS) sowie durch ein Deck verhindert, welches übermäßig viel Artefakthate gespielt hat. Da zudem das Metagame sich durch die Präsenz des Decks mit der permanenten Drohung der Zerstörung der gesamten Manabasis konfrontiert sieht, wird hier dämpfend eingegriffen, indem das Deck um seine stärkste Karte erleichtert wird: Tolarian Academy muss nun nach mehrjährigem Gastspiel in unserem Format wieder ins Off. Das Argument, dass Artefakte sehr gut angreifbar seien, trifft zwar unserer Auffassung nach zu, dennoch sollte unser Format nicht so beschaffen sein, dass man einfach verliert, wenn man nicht bis Turn 4 mindestens zwei Artefakte zerstören kann oder selbst gewonnen hat. Wir denken, dass auch ohne die Academy solche Decks weiterhin spielbar bleiben. Sollte dies nicht der Fall sein, so verdankt das Deck seine Stärke offenbar eine "brokenen" Karte wie Academy. Da andere Decks keinerlei vergleichbar "brokene" Karte haben (außer TPS in Form von Yawgmoth's Will, s. dazu nächster Abschnitt), wird hier regulierend eingegriffen.

Besonders lange haben wir darum gerungen, ob wir TPS in der jetzigen Form im Format halten möchten. Zuletzt schließen wir uns hier der Auffassung von Hajo, SimonG und anderen an und bannen Yawgmoth's Will. Die Alternative dazu wäre gewesen, Gifts Ungiven zu bannen, die jedoch in keinem anderen Deck etwas derart "brokenes" tut und als wichtige Karte für jedes Controldeck im Format gehalten werden soll. Sollte eine TPS-Version auf Basis der Legacy-Iggy-Pop-Version mit Ill-Gotten Gains möglich sein, so wird diese für schwächer gehalten, so dass das Deck als pure Kombodeck wohl einiges an Outs spielen muss, um sich die benötigte Mehr-Zeit zu verschaffen.

Lion's Eye Diamond ist ebenfalls eine Karte, die ausschließlich für Kombodecks interessant ist und nach TPS vermutlich das nächstbeste Kombodeck ermöglicht. Um hier vorzubeugen, wird Lion's Eye Diamond ebenfalls gebanned.

Durch die nicht mehr im Format vorhandene Tolarian Academy kann nun auch Crop Rotation wieder "reinrotieren" und wird somit ab 15.07.2007 wieder legal für MagicPlayer-Highlander."

While these bannings aren't really surprising, what's interesting is the willingness to allow strong tutor effects but ban the cogs. (I have a pretty dim view of this approach in relation to bannings after some time playing VS) There's always another way to find a broken combo if the tutors are allowed to stay in the game. Maybe with singleton it will take longer and be less spectacular.

I'd also recommend going here for more background on their banning philosophy:

http://www.highlandermagic.info/index.php?id=faq

[zimagic]

Translation:
"Protean Hulk is being banned because, even without Flash, it enables real combo decks through reanimation and sacrificing. Not banning it meant we could really only avoid these combos by banning further cards like Entomb, so Hulk is being banned in much the same spirit as Worldgorger Dragon was.

Flash is being banned to ensure that in the future further creatures are not missused and to ensure that an new spät of such combo decks don't dominate.

Unbanning Balance didn't have the desired effect of improving control decks in the format. Instead Balance "glänzt" (slid in?) to the front line as a No-Brainer-Solution for creature control problems in combo decks acting as an Armageddon/Wrath/Mind Twist in one 2 mana card in Stax-Decks. In this regard it was a mistake to unban Balance which we are correcting now by rebanning it.

HL GP 3 (Highlander Grand Prix 3) showed more than clearly how format defining Stax-Decks have become. In the Top 9, four people played this type of artifact based deck. The total dominance of the deck type was only somewhat hindered by the ultrafast combo decks (Hulk, TPS) and decks that played an extraordinary amount of artifact hate. Through this deck the format has been confronted with a huge amount of emphasis on manabase destruction, and will be dealt with here through the banning of the deck's strongest card: Tolarian Academy, after some years as a guest in our format, has to go again. The arguament is that artifacts have become so central to our format that it seems that if you haven't destroyed two artifacts by turn 4 or have already won yourself, you will simply lose. We think that such deck will still be playabe once Academy is banned. Should that not be the case, the deck can put it's dominance down to an openly broken card as Academy and move on. Other decks with less broken cards (except TPS in the form of Yawgmoth's Will, see below), should be able to break through regularly.

For quite a long time now we have been discussing whether we can allow TPS in its current form to continue in the format. Finally we have followed the views of Hajo, SimonG & others in banning Yawgmoth's Will. the alternative to this would have been to ban Gifts Ungiven which is not considered broken in any other deck and, as an important card for every control deck in the format, should be kept. Should a TPS deck based on the Legacy-Iggy-Pop-Version with Ill-Gotten Gains become possible, it will also be weaker, so that the deck will play as a pure combo deck with few outs, to get the necessary Mehr-Zeit (storm count?).

Lion's Eye Diamond is simillarily a card which is solely a combo staple and enables the next best version of TPS. To head this off Lion's Eye Diamond is also being banned.

As Tolarian Academy will no longer be in the format, we can allow Corp Rotation to be "rotated" back in [sic] and will be legal again as of 15.07.2007 for MagicPlayer-Highlander."

Given that I've just had a long day's work and am not up for 100% textbook translation, I ask for some forbearance in how it scans. I wasn't slavish to the original but each sentence is true to the original in spirit and overall meaning.

[Hi-Val]

Like hey, just ban Brain Freeze and Tendrils and you don't have to worry about a 50-card long banned list.

[Jacob Orlove]

No, they'd still have Warrens, and Dragonstorm, and Desire.

I'm really confused by that ban list, though. Mystical and Seal, but not Demonic? Jitte?

[asi]

Banning Crop rotation without banning Academy
Banning Trinisphere without banning Mishra's Workshop
Banning Mystical Tutor, Vampric Tutor, Imperial Seal, but not banning Demonic tutor
Banning World Gorger Dragon but not Entomb

I am completely guessing here, but based on my own personal experience with the Highlander my friends and I play.
- Academy is not nearly as overpowering as Library of Alexandria.  It is almost impossible to lose with LOA.
- I don't think there are enough "outs" to survive an early trinishphere with a 100 card deck.
- Highlander is for people who want to play Magic like they did in 1995.  Demonic allows this.

The biggest problem we face with highlander (especialy multiplayer) is all the tutoring and fetchies. 

Your last statement isn't true, at least not for all Highlander players.

My brother and I have been playing 100 cards Highlander (HuCaHi) for more than five years, at least once a week, often every day (students have plenty of time). We're living in Germany, but we think this Highlander website and their illogical rulings make no sense whatsoever. Dust Bowl banned, but not Demonic Tutor? Even worse, you'll notice Oath of Druids is missing. Well, one of the players in that "league", which would like to represent the German Highlander Community, regularly plays (or played) Oath.dec, which is so unfair and broken its's not funny (I played it myself for a while, but I soon realized it's not fun to win 2nd turn with Counter backup in such a format. Nearly every deck plays lots of creatures, so the Oath is a "random win" card that shouldn't be allowed in this format). Power Artifact is banned, Grim Monolith isn't. Not even Survival is banned currently, though that card is not only absurdly powerful, it's also extremely annoying to play against.

In short, ignore this website about German Highlander. There are much better rules systems to work with, like a slightly modified Legacy list

My brother and I have bought bazillions of cards to play this format; every dual, fetchie, pain land, "new dual" is important in some way. You need a lot of cards, but it is really great fun to play. You see so much strange cards, and a lot of surprising actions. We mostly play all sorts of Aggro and Control, but sometimes Combo as well (my favorite Combo-Deck being Dreamhalls).

We have our own rules system, but I wouldn't recommend it for larger groups, because it is relatively complicated. We have "restricted cards"; it is a long list including stuff like Survival, Demonic, Gifts, Intuition, Goblin Recruiter and Jitte. We wanted to play as much of all the cards we own as possible, but we noticed that when you're allowed to play all those cards you can build decks that are warping the format, so we decided that you're allowed to play up to two cards of that list (similiar to the "points system" wizards proposed more than ten years ago). So, when you play Gifts+Intuition, you can't play Demonic, Will, or Recruiter anymore.

This was a nice way of having an as large as possible cardpool, but some cards still proved to be problematic, among them the power nine, Sol Ring, Oath, Tinker, Skullclamp (well, I think that's it, really). So those are "twice restricted"; playing one of them means you can't play any other "restricted" card.

Well, as I said, rather complicated. It allows some nice things in order to tweak the meta without actually removing cards; for example, we often discuss whether Armageddon or Upheaval should be restricted. Well, in such a small group, that's no problem, and it can be changed very often. In larger groups, you should take a lot of time before banning/unbanning something, because it really lets people not take you or the format you try to organize serious; I was very interested when I first saw the above mentioned website, but soon realized that their policies are rather ridicilous and in no way something I could adapt to.

On the mercadiade, which is a convention organized by the largest german magic community mercadia.de, several formats get played (for example, there was a Legacy tournament with about one hundred players. At that time, it was the biggest Legacy tourney in Germany ever, followed by the Legycy tourney they had last year). They tried out Highlander, but because they didn't like the banned list of the "official" Highlander community, they simplay played with none (or maybe they played with the official one- the point is, everyone was dissatisfied with the solution, because everyone knew they needed a Banning list, but nobody wanted to have the "official" one).


edit: if anyone is interested, decks we played include: Mono B Sui, R/G Aggro, G/W Aggro, Mono Red Goblin, U/B Dreamhalls combo, U/B / U/R / W/U-control, U/B/g-Psychatog, U/G-Madness, G/B- Sacrifice.dec (one of my favorites; sort of an aggro/combo-deck), Mono U and U/B-Fish (equipping Swords of F/I on some 1/1 flier is as strong as it used to be in other formats), and so on.

[HighlanderMagic.info]

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

[asi]

I would be interested. Though I don't agree with the choices made on that website, I would appreciate standardization for a Highlander format.

[HighlanderMagic.info]

...but soon realized that their policies are rather ridicilous and in no way something I could adapt to.

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... ?

[asi]

I think I'm registered there (asi as well). I'll admit, last time I checked for the site was more than a year ago, I think. I apologize for using the word "ridicilous"; "incomprehensible  ", at least for me, would have been more fitting.

Examples (translated by me) : "Demonic Tutor will still be permitted, because we want a good, universal tutor in the format and we think this one's less dangerous than Vampiric Tutor, especially since Balance won't be legal anymore. Sorcery speed and higher costs outweigh the advantage of putting the card directly into your hand. Two examples to clarify this: Turn one Vampirc finding Oath or Surviaval, Turn 2 Oath/Survival is much stronger than turn two Demonic, turn three Oath/Survival. Vampiric would probably the best tutor in every futurous combo deck."

What follows is an explanation why Enlightened is unbanned why Mysrical is that goes like "cards that can be found by enlightened can be disenchanted".


3What I dislike here is that you not only did not ban Survival/Oath, you even made Demonic and Enlightened playable. Jitte is banned in your format, because it can quickly decide a game laid second turn. Well, Oath does that a million times better in a format filled with creatures, much faster, and more difficult to handle (because the Jitte player needs creatures, while the Oath-player can play bazillions of counter variants. He already has enough tutors in your format). That's why my brother and me think Oath is a big no-no and should never be allowed in this format.

Lots of your bannings/unbannings are made to "tweak" archetypes, rather than looking at the sheer card power. For example, unbanning Balance and banning Dust Bowl to give Control better chances. Well, if every card was looked upon only it's power level, such "tweaking" would not be necessary, because without brokeness like Oath/Survival/Demonic, players would simply do what they do in every other format: build the best decks by using creativity/tech, then competing. If one archetype is better than the others, it will often be because of the player's preferences, because when every broken card is banned, the archetypes are equally playable. I'll admit, where I play combo is the weakest, but that's better than having unfair and unfun combo decks in the format (even wizards doesn't like combo for that reason).

Why is Protean Hulk banned? Flash is already banned; you wrote that it was easy to build new combo decks using Reanimator tech, similiar reasoning was given behind banning LED. Well, ban the tutors and some other brokeness, and Protean Hulk/LED-combos aren't a problem. 

In my opionion, you experiment with the players, rather than with testing groups. Banning/Unbanning of Jitte/LED/Academy/Will/Skullclamp/Balance/Demonic (all were banned/unbanned, then changed their status, then some changed their status back again, like Demonic) in a rather random and incomprehensible way doesn't show much understanding of the format, and makes players like me frown.

Also, why is power artifact banned? Why have the brokeness allowed and ban some bad combo decks? Why is Bargain unbanned (together with Enlightened Tutor and Academy Rector), one of the best cards in the format?

You see, I doubt the objectiveness, the seriousness and the fun-factor of your format. I don't doubt your engagement or your good will, but I dislike the format this website wants to have as "official Highlander" format. I also want a standardized Highlander format, but not with second turn Oaths with counter backup or Survival-topdecking in the late game (or even Bargain, late or early). That doesn't mean I disliked combo; I love Dreamhalls decks [especially with Myojin of Seeing Winds], I love my Salvagers/LED-Deck (which, originally, played Oath, btw.), playing Tooth and Nail for Trinket/Salvagers, and though those decks are slightly underpowered, I'm not the most creative, nor best combo player out there, so there will be people finding combos even without the brokeness you allow them.

Your new mulligan rule, by the way, supports combo decks the most and discriminates aggro. It is "A player may put any number of cards from his starting hand aside, draw that many cards, then shuffles the cards he put aside into his or her library. I won't write more about that, because you said yourself that every tournament organizer should decide himself which mulligan rule he wants to have used.

Concerning your policies:
1. To maximize the variety of competitive decks
2. Combodecks should be possible but not dominate

I would agree to both, but wouldn't it be better to have much more combo material (LED/Power Artifact/Protean Hulk) without the brokeness that interfers with the second point (Rector/Demonic/Bargain/Oath/Survival/Gifts/Intuition are all slightly or completely "too good" for this format to be healthy, I think)

3. Keep the number of banned cards as low as possible

Agreed. But some cards really have to be there. In my opinion, it's usually better to have broken cards on the list, no matter whether the format can deal with it (which it usually can't). That means (using an older example from wizards), "unbanning Necro and in turn unbanning Black Vise" might not be a good idea.

4. React to the metagame should certain deck types begin to dominate

I don't like the way you do that. Instead of banning the broken and unpleasant cards, you do things like "unbanning Balance because control is too weak". Balance should not be allowed, no matter how weak you feel Control is. Also, metagames change, not only with every new set, but also with every player, every creative idea, every random aspect of the game. Don't interfere too much, that only hassles the players.

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 don't know whether I understood that right, so I'm not gonna say something about that.



You see, I really, really love the format. I've played it for so many years and are still playing it nearly every day (even on MWS, though that's often quite the pain).I'd like to have an official site (in best case, sponsored by Wizards  ), so that's why my critique is so harsh. Not because I dislike you or your site, but because I- just like you- like the format so much.


I posted on this site for two reasons:

- I already posted on german forums. One was yours, the other were some (Swiss?) people arguing about how bad your banned list was while having a much worse list and acting like douchebags.
- I'd like to hear the opinons of other Magic or Highlander players about my concerns.

If no one here answers or is interested, you could still copy/past this into your forum. I'd just like to hear other people with less bias than you and me have.

I assume you are familiar with that already since you are obviously so well informed... ?

No need to be humble. I'm a german Highlander player. Of course i know the site.

[HighlanderMagic.info]

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.

[asi]

I've been playing Magic since 1995, my brother since 1994. I have no idea why age should even matter- I've seen 12 years playing better than me and thirty-year olds who started '93 playing much worse than me. It should be all about objective criteria for the rules of the game we love so much, and there definitely are objective criteria. It doesn't matter how long you've been doing this or how much people you know who accept the system your group has developed, as long as it's only a local group of people. Wizards has done at least 2 formats since at least 1994, and they made TONS of mistakes- some even think they made one or two when unrestricting Gush/Mind Twist in T1 respectively re-wording Flash without emergency banning [ the "Flash-Dilemma], and those are fairly recent occasions.

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

Two things to consider: Does the number of players necessarily suggest that your rules are widely accepted or popular? GP: Columbus had lots of players, Skullclamp-infested Standard did not mean a severe reduction in player numbers. There are more examples, but the point is: Don't you think there's a chance even more players would enjoy your format if there were more objective criterias to use upon the banned list or other rules you suggest (like the mulligan rule)?
And second, don't you think there's a possibility that the players attending "MagicPlayer Highlander" (as you call it) tournaments don't reward your efforts regarding rules, banned lists and forum maintenance, but rather your (laudable) efforts to organize tournaments? Even our small group of Highlander players was considering attending the "official Highlander GP" [a tourney organized by said group], just because we could meet lots of other players there. But, in the end, we decided no one wanted to support this format of yours because of its- in our opinion- obvious flaws.   

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.

Regarding your Oath example, well it's just that, an example. Here's another one: I play Lackey, with Siege-Gang and Fanatic in Hand to remove the first blocker. You go Chrome Mox, Trop, Oath. I lose, without much chance to do anything. I've played lots of Oath Variants; before Loam was printed with Salvagers/LED[ also: Gamekeeper, Trinket Mage, Tooth and Nail], then with Loam , testing Akroma/Razia/DSC/SSS/even Tidesprout Tyrant. I played a Recoup/Replenish-varaint before we decided to restrict the use of Replenish. I played against Aggro, control, combo with it, and it has proved to always be an unfair card. I have no idea why we have allowed it for so long, but you can be sure there were good reasons why wizards banned it in Extended and even Legacy. Also, don't conclude a card is reasonable because your deck seems to be. I could put a Black Lotus in a bad deck, but that would not make the Lotus bad, I'd think. In Highlander, where decks have 100 cards and only single ones, it's hard to tell whether one card is broken or not, because it will not have the same impact on a deck's functionality as it has in a 60-card-all-4-of's-deck. So, some caution might be good, though in my opinion, Oath is too obvious an example of a has-to-be-banned card to be ignored by you.  I think it might be problematic that it seems to be a pet card for you and at the same time, you are one of the people having some influence on the B/R-list of the format. That isn't a healthy combination in this case, me thinks.

And to hopefully-not-finish-this: I hope one day there will be an internationally accepted, more-or-less official Highlander-format (for paper magic). In order to achieve this, it would be nice if there was some interest in this discussion from other players, no matter whether they already played it or not. What needs to be done in order to have one generally-accepted rules system?

[zimagic]

Hi All,

I'm finally back in front of a PC and am very happy to see Frank has had time to stop in to kickstart the discussions.

I think that Asi has made a hugly important point in the banned list discussions with the 60-100 card deck comparison and in the defense of German highlander, there is a difference in power level for many cards between 60 & 100 card magic.

When I started playing HL (accepted not as long ago as either of you two) we used the Legacy B&R list with 60 card decks. This was fine but one of our playgroup came across the German HL B&R list while looking for stuff on the web and we adopted that. Straight away the fun element diminished as easily findable combos edged out the creature & combat based decks. We re-instated the Legacy B&R list and the balance swung back to find a pretty happy medium.

When we had a go at building 100 card decks, German HL B&R list, the difference was nowhere near as big. While control and combo had their place, WW, Mono R & RG beats decks were still very competitive. That all said I can't claim that I or my play group partners are the best players or deck builders but we can generally hold our own.

I'd be interested in seeing whether German Highlander (100 card min) or Singleton (60 card min) [apologies for the MTGO term but it seems the easiest WotC moniker to use] would be more popular/accepted/interesting and approach the B&R list from there.

This doesn't help the discussion of the current German HL B&R list though! Asi what other cards are missing from the B&R list in your opinion?

[asi]

Well ,our list is quite long [excluded are ante/dexterity cards]:


# Ancestral Recall
# Academy Rector
# Armageddon
# Balance
# Bazaar of Baghdad
# Black Lotus
# Black Vise
# Demonic Tutor
# Entomb
# Fact or Fiction
# Fastbond
# Goblin Recruiter
# Gifts Ungiven
# Grim Monolith
# Intuition
# Land Tax
# Library of Alexandria
# Mana Crypt
# Mana Drain
# Mana Vault
# Memory Jar
# Metalworker
# Mind Twist
# Mishra's Workshop
# Mox Emerald
# Mox Jet
# Mox Pearl
# Mox Ruby
# Mox Sapphire
# Oath of Druids
# Replenish
# Skullclamp
# Sol Ring
# Survival of the Fittest
# Strip Mine
# Time Spiral
# Time Walk
# Timetwister
# Tinker
# Tolarian Academy
# Umezawa's Jitte
# Wheel of Fortune
# Worldgorger Dragon
# Yawgmoth's Bargain
# Yawgmoth's Will


You'll notice some oddities here. Vampiric Tutor, Frantic Search, Dreamhalls, Necro are not on the list, but Intuition/Gifts are; if you don't agree there, I'd propose to rather ban the former than unban the latter.

As I explained above, we play with a different "restriction"-system, and we often have some more cards unbanned or others banned, just to test the cards [I wouldn't recommend this in a theoretical official format, because it upsets the players when the list often changes. Therefore, it's better to be cautious]. The cards that are bold are cards I would never consider to allow, because they can warp the format on their own.

This list is from my memory, so some cards might be missing. I'll try to find some sort of list on my PC, but we usually don't need one 

zimagic has a very important point to discuss, by the way: 60 or 100 cards? I personally prefer 100 cards, because it makes you play with really weird cards and feels more like it's own format and not so much like a more random legacy. It also hase some nice aspects like exploring the brokeness of cards like Arc Slogger  It has disadvantages, though; you suddenly need all kinds of strange cards you never heard of before just to complete your deck, and shuffling can be a nightmare when playing 3+ colours.


edit: In italics are cards that were unbanned and didn't warp the format, but we still decided to have them banned.

[Georg B]

Hi,
I'm Georg from germany and I play Highlander for two years now.
I have got an offer for all of you who want try out the format with some experienced players and without paying for it.
At the 19.08. there is an online tornament at the german magic forum "www.zkforum.de".
If you want to try it out, register there and write me a personal message (i have there the same name like here).
I will explain you everything in english and nerely everyone in the forum can speak english good enough to play a round with you.
Maybe you have time. It will be very funny.
If you have any questions to the regisration, write me a PM here and I'll help you.

[HighlanderMagic.info]

@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.

[asi]

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

Power-to-cost ratio, brokeness/unfairness, fromat-warping capabilities. The same criteria Wizards uses. Other criteria should not be of primary interest; when a card makes an unplayable archetype/decktype better, but is still unfair/broken, don't unban it.It's better to have mediocre control decks than having control dcks which rely on absurdly random and broken cards like Balance. Also, don't underestimate the players, thinking "unbanning Balance makes it easier for them to build a control deck". Well, deckbuilding shouln't be easy, and players are usually creative enough to find other ways than Balance+Demonic+Muddle the Mixture+other tutors... to build a deck.

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.

This statement has two flaws, in my opinion.It doesn't matter how good your deck or the archetype is, as long as the card is broken/unfair. I'd never say it destroyed the possibility of playing aggro, but rather that it limits the choices control players have. I've tested dozens of control variants [like U/B, U/R with Niv-Mizzet tech, mono blue, U/G, U/G/B with Dryad and Deed] and found most of them to be quiete playable, but "strictly worse" than Oath (strictly in quotation marks to differentiate it from the narrow meanings it usually has in Magic lingo). With Oath unbanned, I usually threw some obvious cards (Muddle/Tutors/Force/Counters/Carddraw) together, then used a minimum of creativity to find a win condition, and soon an over-the-top deck was created. It makes other control decks look shabby; in my opinion, it's better to ban some broken Aggro/Combo cards together with Oath to help control to become a viable archetype than to unban Balance, for example, or banning cards like Dust Bowl. 
Oath can ruin a player's experience, because it comes online early, wins the game fast and doesn't require much cards. I'm not saying that it always does, but the fact that it does so sometimes makes me question your decision to have it unbanned. It's neither a fun, nor a balanced card; it was a mistake to print (for wizards) and is a mistake to have in any non-vintage meta.

Your other point stands very valid- I don't expect you to create a worldwide accepted format, I'm just saying that it would be very nice to have one. First of all, there would have to be some competition to the format you suggest, because this would then lead to the development of a worldwide accepted format through market mechanisms. But I somehow doubt there's enough worldwide popularity of our beloved Highlander format to ensure this, sadly.

@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.

Combo can be viable without broken tutors. Why, do you think, did you have to ban Protein Hulk weeks after you banned Flash? Because with cards like Intuition/Demonic/Gifts and others, the combo itself doesn't matter as much. When you ban one combo piece of a ridicilously broken combo, people will simply replace it or employ other brokeness. That's why the artifact lands had to be banned together with Discipline and Ravager: because people would find ways to break them nontheless. That's why broken cards need to be banned: because players will find ways to break them. It's as simple as that, in my opinion.

[Georg B]

The Hilk was banned at the same time Flash was.
And Hulk was banned because you can play the combo if you reanimate him, and thats very easy too.

[asi]

The Hilk was banned at the same time Flash was.
And Hulk was banned because you can play the combo if you reanimate him, and thats very easy too.

Just checked the website and you're right about the Hulk being banned the same time Flash was.  The question is: Is Protein Hulk really broken without Flash, in a well-balanced format?

[Georg B]

The question is: Is the Format well balanced with Hulk in it.
You need also two cards and only a bit more mana to play the combo with a reanimated Hulk. So it is a to fast combo.

[asi]

The question is: Is the Format well balanced with Hulk in it.
You need also two cards and only a bit more mana to play the combo with a reanimated Hulk. So it is a to fast combo.

Well, that was my point. If even a card such as Protein Hulk without Flash is broken, the format might not be well-balanced. With broken tutors running around (Gifts/Intuition/Survival/Demonic, to name some), lots of originally harmless cards become dangerous.