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The second place came in 5th at the recent mgm. The list is on mtgpulse.

Jan 12 5C Value Cascade
Christoph 9 4C Value Cascade (no white)
Jonny 7 4C Scapeshift
Anton 7 Grixis Control
Luca 6 Boros Thopter
Marvin 3 Mardu
Tino 3 4C Blood
Daniel RG Monsters

Yesterday we held the third highlander tournament of our MGM series. The tournout was great with 48 players, especially regarding the fact that we had 33 degrees and a lot of sun in Berlin. Deck variety and quality felt high and some scary shit was happening deckwise with some great players showing up and piloting new decks to the top8 that so far hadn't been on the radar and had not succeeded in larger tournaments. Carsten won the whole thing with his storm list that he plays better than most and which got another push from Fastbond which felt broken in half at times. Congrats to Carsten who finally won after he top8ed each of the MGMs so far. The atmosphere was great, no one died from the heat and I'm sure our awesome judges led by the newest council member will help provide an exact analysis of what happened. Thanks to everyone wo came, even travelling in from out of town, to the judges, the staff at Der Andere Spieleladen and mr. coverage, tabris, who captured some of the greatness on camera for the world to see. Have fun checking the stuff out and readying yourself to maybe taking part in MGM Vol. 4 in November.

Hello everyone!

We hope your decks are getting ready for the Metagame Masters Highlander Vol. 3 @ Der andere Spieleladen Berlin. We've had about 50 players show for each of the tournaments so far and we hope to continue to grow that number.

As promised we plan for 2-3 events a year and this is the second one in 2015. The winners of MGM 1 & 2 have already promised to show up again and we are looking forward to a lot of amazing games powered by the diverse Berlin meta, where Fastbond is a thing and Artifacts can ruin your day in devastating fashion.

Location: Der andere Spieleladen Prenzlauer Allee 192 10405 Berlin Tel.: 030 441 5151

Date: 8.8.2015 Registration: 10.00 - 11.00 am Start: 11.00 am

Starting Fee: 10 Euros (please bring decklists)

There will be HL staple card prices for the Top 8, some MKM vouchers and all prices will be adjusted to player count as always.

If you have any questions feel free to ask here or join our facebook-group: http://www.facebook.com/groups/metagamemasters/

So far the MGMs have been a ton of fun, with great decks and coverage of the games and we really hope to see you there !!!

Seems kinda shabby to dump all the leftover Ravages of War no one bought on the HL-Community, since that card is neither really playable nor sought after and will drop in value once the much nicer looking judge reward version hits the streets. booh!

Hello everyone!

We're happy to announce the second Metagame Masters Highlander, this time @ Der andere Spieleladen Berlin.

The vivid highlander scene of Berlin would like to invite you for a day of fun and competition and the eventual
crowning of the first Metagame Master of 2015. We hope Metagame Masters Volume 2 can match the success of its
predecessor (53 Players), so this tournament series will continue to establish itself and give highlander players
the chance to compete on a high level (we plan for 2-3 events a year).

Location: Der andere Spieleladen Prenzlauer Allee 192 10405 Berlin Tel.: 030 441 5151

Date: 11.4.2015 Registration: 10.00 - 11.00 am Start: 11.00 am

Starting Fee: 10 Euros (please bring decklists)

Prices for 32 Players (will be adjusted to player count):

1. 100€ MKM Voucher
2. 50€ MKM Voucher
3. 25€ MKM Voucher
4. 25€ MKM Voucher
5. 15€ ASL Voucher
6. 15€ ASL Voucher
7. 15€ ASL Voucher
8. 15€ ASL Voucher

If you have any questions feel free to ask here or join our facebook-group: http://www.facebook.com/groups/metagamemasters/

We really hope to see you in April !!!

Jan 12 Naya Blue Ochsenknecht
Leon 9 Temur Twinshift
Luca 9 Jeskai Twincendancy
Thomas 7 Jeskai Twin
Tobias 7 Temur Twinshift
Cedric 6 Naya Tokenchantfinity
Dennis 6 Jeskai
Jonny 6 Jeskai Heavy Control Addiction
Malte 3 Mardu Garga-Tokens
Patrick 3 Naya
Max 3 UR
Stefan 3 Temur Twinshift
Duc 0 UR

Cool list! Thanks for the effort. I would really like to see this list for successful decks since the mulligan change.

Although I am not sure how good exactly Deceiple of Deceit will be, I think it has potential that needs exploring. What I am very certain about is the fact, that if my opponent EVER plays Dakra Mystic I will be very happy and will have to fight autopilot mode for the rest of the game.

B for Ban.

No interaction, mostly auto win on its own if put on an even board. to me on stoneforge mystic / birthing pod powerlevel. costs uu, but you pay only 3 mana once. wins on its own and if equipped is completely unbeatable.

@phyrexianblackmetal

I like beating control as much as you, don't get me wrong. But it's disappearing in Berlin. And that is bad for the metagame. I am not talking about the first 3 months either. The metagame is evolving. I am talking about now. And now control and tolarian decks are a no-show in Berlin. UW midrange tempo which won a bunch of times lately is not a control deck, but a midrange deck playing blue. Not all decks that play blue and counterspells are control decks.

Your deck (mono black) is the perfect example of a consistent midrange deck that profits from the new mulligan and that's great. With one color you might have a hard time if a tournament goes more rounds because of some bad matchups, but because of a good amount of cards in the 2-3-4 spot and no mana issues the deck works well now. It's a midrange strategy.

I am just worried that I don't see anything with a really aggressive low curve strategy succeed (except that 5 color beast in Leipzig, even WW wasn't really low) and no control with a higher curve anymore. And games REALLY being less fun to me, because they are topdeck lotteries.

Thanks for the constructive reply Maqi. I am very interested in finding out, why the perception of the effect on control especially is so different for everyone.

You are right, I also think the metagame hasn't fully evolved yet. But for me it really all points to midrange only so far.

I am not a control player myself, but many here are saying that finding the right answers is very tough, while creature/permanent based midrange strategies just consistently create board presence. Very low curve aggro decks lack punch and fattie strategies get stuck with  do nothing hands.

Also what I would like to know is how others are feeling about the perception that the metagame is very topdeck dependant. In my experience a lot of games are solely decided on topdecking better. Questionable keeps and bad top decks make games lopsided. Is no one else experiencing this?

I would like to mention that I still play and succeed. It just was more fun to me before.

I had actually analyzed a bunch of the tournament numbers, but decided to not include them, because of the discussion that lead nowhere and because the results are simply not representative, although I wish they were (not even the ones from Mannheim, where the best magic players, with money finishes even, come from and never get tired of telling eachother, you guys are really good, I'm serious!).

Looking at the so far posted lists proves nothing. Except Hanau, there has not been a tournament where it is safe to assume that there was a great enough variety of deck strategies, top notch players piloting them and enough rounds. Midrange dominated Hanau, so that is my numbers if you need them to listen to me.

If there was a will in the community to seriously evaluate and debate whether the free mulligan is better for highlander magic than the spoils mulligan, we'd first need a definition of what highlander magic should achieve and then we would have to actually discuss the pros and cons of both mulligan rules. And yeah, it's gonna be opinionated and based on personal experience and trying to think in a bigger context and reasoning for it. And it will be theoretical, as any complex process is. Like Highlander magic. And if all you're able to do is point to numbers that prove absolutely NOTHING then my belief is that you are not helping anyone except your own feeling of being right.

I play in Berlin on a regular basis, talk to other players about the metagame almost daily and lucked myself to a top 8 finnish in Hanau although I am not from Mannheim.

This is my experiences:

1) Control decks used to clearly win most tournaments in Berlin before the rule change. Now they never win although we have some very good control players and they try.
My opinion: The free mulligan is causing this.

2) There used to be many competitive combo decks and ramp decks. Now they do not exist anymore or lose all the time. People stop playing them, which is sad to see.
My opinion: The free mulligan has caused this.

3) There is one deck strategies I see constantly succeed now and it's midrange. 4-color, 2-color and some mono color builds. Essentially they all try to get along with the inconsistency of the mulligan the best. I assume tolarian academy decks are good but even those did nothing in Berlin, although played by good players.
My opinion: The free mulligan is causing this.

4) There is much more shuffling, much more taking mulligans, much more keeping bad hands. Yeah it can be reduced. But not completely. And don't tell me that this is, because decks are not built correctly. That is just very ignorant. If you said that, I would have to say that the only reason the hands you are keeping are always good enough is because the people you play magic with suck at playing magic (just an example of how ignorance works, please don't get offended).

I still believe in the thoughts I shared earlier, so if we are gonna have a discussion I would be glad if you actually wouldn't discard them as a whole because you find one thing like ,,he didn't consider the tournament lists, so now everything he says is wrong, omg".

I would be very interested in someone proving to me by naming the advantages of the free mulligan, that it is better. I know it's closer to the official mulligan. But we are far from original magic and there are a lot of bad effects I see that the new mulligan has caused.

So prove that it has made Highlander better by arguing without showing tournament lists. Again: Statistically they are not significant.

It's hard to discuss anything when you guys' reactions to a structured set of thoughts are nothing more than a) just say "nope, don't think so" or b) just throw results of a random selection of tournaments around that happen to have been posted. If you are not ready to try to think outside of your tiny boxes then fine. Good luck trying to win a larger and relevant tournament with control.

[Introduction]

Evaluating the effects of the new mulligan on the Highlander format

Introduction
It's been a few months of Highlander play with the changed mulligan-rule. The previous posts prove that tournament results might not be the right way to evaluate whether the drastic mulligan rule change has done and will do the format good or not. It's just too easy to say ,,we don't have enough results yet" (will we ever?).

I (Dethloff Zoo ) have joined forces with Tabris and Tony Tahiti on this matter. The plan was to make an easy-to-read essay that's as short as possible. Short text takes time. Everyone here should take a little more I think.

To evaluate we are going to try to stick to the council's reasoning for the rule change, our experience of how game play has changed and the metagame we've seen in a lot of tournaments we took part in and the direction decks are taking. We will try to look at the bigger picture instead of single experiences.


Council Reasoning Summary

The council has stated in it's reasoning for the rule change that:
(a) the spoiler mulligan might not be needed any longer, as the card pool has recently grown good enough to get playable hands without spoiling
(b) 4-5 Color goodstuff-decklists are too easy to play with the spoiler-mulligan and too dominant in the format
(c) highlander magic should try to stay as close to Magic the Gathering rules as possible and the spoiler mulligan not only tried to fix singleton problems, but general magic ,,problems"
(d) curving out became too strong, as the spoiler allowed for perfect curves and therefore a player assembling the perfect curve won the game.


Step 1 - The problem of evaluating HL

What is missing and has been missing is a definition of what highlander magic should be. If this definition doesn't exist, how can we evaluate anything? Here is our shot:

Highlander is a competitive format of Magic the Gathering. The singleton nature of the 100-card decks, the special mulligan rule and the banned-list shall allow for the biggest possible variety of game situations in 1-1 matches within 60 minutes of play. Of all constructed magic formats HL should allow for the largest pool of playable cards and tier-1 decktypes. The rules should allow for as many different deck-strategies as possible to consistently assemble a starting hand to follow the deck's plan.


Step 2 - Looking at the metagame before and after the mulligan-change

Yeah ... this has been tried enough already, so we won't.


Step 3 - Questioning the reasoning for the mulligan change

(a) The council was right, it is possible in HL to get good enough hands with the free mulligan to play games. But now: mostly one player does and one doesn't. So how many deck strategies still have a shot now at winning a large tournament? Simple answer: Creature based Midrange basically. Aggro has a hard time of consistently being fast enough, control has a hard time of consistently having the right answers (anyone saying control has improved: HOW? Where is it then?) and most Combo is simply dead. How many deck strategies consistently got playable hands before the rule change? All. Now: One.

(b) The council was right, "5-color goodstuff decks" appear not playable anymore with the new mulligan. But "3 to 4-color decks" are playable. And not only are they playable: The new mulligan has made all strategies except midrange so inconsistent, that 4-color goodstuff ,,greed piles" can exist with only one philosophy: ,,No game plan really works, so I will have better topdecks than you. Much respect to Mannheim for finding out this deck works. But seriously? 2 and 1 color midrange decks work because they have the right hate for 4c. But 4c greed is THE metagame deck.

(c) The council was right. We are closer to ,,normal" magic rules now. We shuffle a lot more and the mulligan is not so different from the other formats. But the result is, that now we have a metagame with even less strategy variety than the other formats. Because we play each card only once. So regarding the rules, yes, highlander is now closer to the other formats. But where Highlander was the most diverse format before, it is now less diverse than legacy and even standard. So we have moved away from the rest of "healthy" magic in that regard.

(d) The council was right, curving out has been reduced. But this has not improved anything. The result is a great amount of inconsistency for many decks. Which is why a lot of games are much less interactive. One player finds a hand that fits his strategy, one doesn't or gets screwed or flooded and the other player wins without much battle. Rarely are games played with both players being able to actually compete. It's simply less fun and more shuffling for it.


Step 4 - Where do we go from here? Our conclusion ...

Changing rules is tough. Especially since we just did. Bans won't help. But to us it is very apparent that with the spoils mulligan the format was more fun. The new mulligan has not solved the ,,problems" and created more. It has erased a great amount of the tier 1 decks from competition. It has made topdecks an even larger factor than curving out was before. Play is one sided most of the time.

Something needs to change again.