Messages

Unban Loam

Reasons:
1. It was originally banned because of it's interaction with gifts ungiven, wasteland, LoA and cycle lands. Half of those are currently banned. So it's not as powerful as it was.
2. Metagame became quite stagnant with bant being on top and no other decks doing good enough.
3. Loam is slow, but unbanning loam will give control and other slower decks better lategame. Like BUG control will get much more value of loam than bant giving it good fighting chance. And oath with reanimator become playable decks (they aren't good enough now).
4. People are afraid of games going to LftL->wasteland, but metagame is flooded with 5c decks and other goodstuffs. Loam makes people think about manabases making 5c goodstuff strategies worse. Also i think wasteland should be banned because it's too random to win games just because of wasteland in opening hand (tectonic edge + ghost quarter + back to basics + magus of the moon + blood moon are still good answers to decks abusing nonobasics).
5. Goodstuff and control decks are supposed to play tutorable graveyard hate anyway, so loam shouldn't be broken in this metagame anyway.
6. Shaking up the metagame to change it and make highlander more fun, since current meta is quite boring.

P.S. I agree with the opinion that council should be more brave with unbannings. Unban  yavgmoths will, dread return, loam. You won't know how bad they are until you actually unban them, and if worse comes to worst you can just ban them again 3 months later.  But you will get good testing and opinions from multiple sources.

@Tarmogoyf
I see where your point about him, and maybe in time I will change my opinion. But in my meta there are a lot of aggro/midrange decks and goyf was from medicore to very good against those, so I don't think I want to be cutting him, at least yet.

@Bribery
You said yourself that it's okay, but most people seem to think of this as an autoinclude. I'm just saying there are a lot of blue decks where you don't want to play Bribery. Playing some titan or some other finisher instead of bribery is more consistent, since against good  decks bribery has high chance to fizzle. For example in finnish HL nationals I was beating my opponent with primeval titan and some random guy, he played bribery hoping to get progenitus or sun titan, but I didn't play proge and titan was in my hand which led to him taking slime to destroy my land: not exactly best result. Other examples that happen quite often is when opponent tries getting titan or mulldrifter I just bounce it to my hand with command, roil, jace, etc.
In the end my point isn't that bribery is bad card right now, but good highlander decks have few targets for bribery, making it very inconsistent. And since most people put Bribery in as a finisher, it gets quite awkward.

I also agree with you on the most part, but have some comments as well:
Moxes: I agree with so_not chrome mox is ok as long as you need fast mana and it usually replaces a land. There are quite a few decks that want this card, but it acually is overrated since most people just slam the moxes as autoinclude. Diamond on the other hand is goon only in combo (havent seen any combo decks that would want this though)and superfast 4 or 5 color aggro: even though it could be played there, even so it's not that good and I wouldn't play it since as so_not said it takes slot of the burn and is only good in starting hand. If you compare Gemstone caverns is better but better on the draw when you need the speed and if you are on the play you don't need to use it thus not losing relevant spells. So I would prefer gemstone carverns to diamond, and you don't see caverns in these decks.

Tarmogoyf: I disagree with evaluation on this card. For aggro this is a 2 mana guy that beats for 3-5 which is good enough for aggro. While in control decks this is excellent blocker since it's evry hard for aggro to kill him and he can beat down there as well. So My opinion is that goyf is autoinclude in all non-combo green decks, even if this isn't as good as in legacy it's still good enough.

Here are some overrated cards:
Wraths: I think people overrate mass removal. I'm not talking about control decks, since you usually want to play wrath in those (although i wouldn't play anything besides wrath and doj even in those). Mainly it's wrong to play wraths in goodstuff decks because your deck should be good enough to match creatures from aggrodecks and wrath is useless against control.

Bribery: Only good target is progenitus. Most decks that play progenitus have answers to them. In addition to that players are finally starting to notice that you shouldn't play progenitus. Making bribery much worse since cards it gets are mainly titans, acidic slime or mulldrifter (you don't want to be casting bribery against aggro), but unsummon effects aren't uncummon which nullifies advantages given by bribery initially.

well i like that gifts finally got banned (about this card testing skill, it just doesnt: if you're not complete noob you will get unfair advantage and if you are then it doesn't matter), and hoping loam will get unbanned.
I completely don't agree with reasons for unbanning wheel of fortune: you cannot compare red spell that gives card advantage which isn't hard to get with blue card advantage spell which is very hard to get and costs too much (hence most of the people who would like to play or test with it are unable to, at least in finland that is so). But maybe it's not so bad and won't break the aggro decks, ti,e will tell.

On imperial seal: it would really suck if this were unbanned, because it's not necessarily weaker than demonic tutor, since you can play it t1 to get your best 2 drop (confidant,mystic, sylvan library and some other) which would mean that after unbanning it every good t2 play  should be banned, because they will be much more consistent (imagine opponent getting t2 mystic twice as often as he should).

On price barrier: actually i like this very much and think that it should be enforced instead of weakened. In addition to aforementioned reasons i want to say that many people just won't play with suboptimal decks (some cannot be played like dredge without bazaar of the baghdad and artifact deck without mishra's workshop). Second reason is that these rare cards will be used only in highlander (as oppose to duals and other HL staples which coincidentally are legacy or modern staples) so people are quite reluctant to get them. I claim that there should be more artiact decks around with banning of workshop and more dredge type decks without bazaar.

P.S. I actually haven't heard anywhere that people would complain about those pricey cards like imperial seal or p9 being banned. While there were quite often complaints about turn 1 workshop or bazaar.

I really like that council is considering unbanning cards that may give rise to combo decks, since HL doesn't have combo goodstuff decks like bant and such run amock and need some answers (which control seems unable to provide).

P.P.S. I hope that cards on unban watchlist (except imperial seal) will get unbanned, but in addition to those is dread return really banworthy: we now have unburial rites which works as reanimation target and i don't feel that dread return is as broken as it may have been.

Jitte is more powerfull than SoFI because the ability triggers anytime the creature deals combat damage not only when the creature deals combat damage to a player. It also stacks up counters, wich can be used at instant speed not only when the damage is dealt. SoFI cant kill a potential blocker before combat or save you from a deadly blow.
SoFI doesn´t synergize with Proliferate
Without SFM to cheat Batterskull in it will affect the game later and it doesn´t give the controller as many options as Jitte.
If Jitte was in the format I would vote for a ban of SFM.

I didn't mean that sofi is better than jitte, what i mean is that sofi's powerlevel isn't that far from jitte and in current fomat with mystic batterskull and sofi legal, you wouldn't even fetch jitte as often (if you need life or against aggro in general batterskull is usually better and against control sofi is usually better) so what i'm saying is that jitte is just a strong equipment. It woouldn't change anything if it were unbanned now. That's why I don't agree with jitte staying banned and mystic/batterskull/sofi unbanned it just feels wrong since they are of a similar powerlevel.

I agree that banlist should be as short as possible, but then again gifts is a card that should be banned anyway, so it's more like trading loam for intuition (Former enables more deck stratiegies and is more interesting card than the latter).

I think either Wordly should be banned or Mystical and Elighted should be unbanned.
Either one is fine for me.

If Call and Vampiric are on the same level as the three cards mentioned above, I really can´t say atm but my feeling sais that if Worldly was banned Call should also be banned. If Mystical and Enlighted are unbanned I don´t think that Vampiric can be unbanned.

Cheers

Maggot

I agree for the most part of this statement, because my feeling is that mystical and enlightened tutors aren't as bad anymore as when they were initially banned (one of the main problems for enlightened tutor, it got survival). So It most likely wouldn't break anything unbanning them.

My biggest problems with the banlist is that with all the new cards some banned cards aren't as strong or don't need to be banned:
-Jitte: It's strong but with abudance of artifact removal and arguably stronger equipments, is it really banworthy? Consider this mystc, sofi and batterskull. Is jitte thatmuch stronger than the others? I think mystic is around the same powerlevel of bokeness as jitte is, so i don't see point of one being banned and other not (except that you dont want to keep both in format at the same time, but then again batterskull kinda breaks things).
-Enlightened tutor (And mystical to lesser extent): Nothing broken happens even if you unban them, because 1 more tutor for combo-decks doesn't change much and since enlioghtened tutor can't get survival and as people pointed out winter orb is nowadays just bad, so it's not as bad anymore. On the other side worldly tutor is getting much stronger than either of the 2 since guys are nowdays answers to anything.
-Entomb: again with no loam in the format this isn't as bad as it used to be. It only supports combo and reanimate strategies, which are currently too weak so it wont harm people to help them a bit (maybe then we will finally see some relic of progenituses, because I haven't seen any dedicated graveyard hate cards in the decks since loam got banned   )
-Life from the Loam (replacing gifts and maybe intuition): with no LoA it's not as bad as it was before banning and without gifts it won't become war of attrition on who gets bored first. Loam is mostly relevant in control/midrange mirrors which are dominated by gifts anyway and it kinda helps against mystic (More probability of maze of ith sticking around).

I am pointing those out in hopes that at least some changes would be made to the banlist, so it would liven up the format. Cheers  

Yet again, you got off topic. The problem is not dealing with thrun specifically. Its about repetitive gameplay. But fyi, I was talking about control only when talking about thrun. And thrun is everything but bad against control. If you think Thrun is bad you either have a not too complex meta or you should consider retooling your deck..meaning putting thrun in it  .

Nobody is saying thrun is bad, it's just that thrun has it's answers, costs 4 mana and overall isn't as frightening as mystic. I myself have played against thrun quite a few times, but he isn't that big of a problem if you can chump/kill/race him, while against mystic he chooses best equipment and your only hope you have fast answer, because racing killing/racing isn't option if he got batterskull and if you have chump blockers relevant sword is fetched an you're in trouble (again not saying thrun isn't powerful just not as powerful as mystic, because In most situations mystic is just better).

By unbanning LFTL you go from games being centered around stoneforge and start having games centered around LFTL (at least in more controlish matchups).

Not saying we should ban him... just saying he's a cheap little annoying bastard!

That may be so, but my point is that as it is Highlander is becoming stagnant and centered too much around mystic. I do not want to argue about banning mystic or not, ultimately it's councils decision, all I'm saying is that where I'm from everybody is sick of mystic and don't want to see it.

P.s. Currently controllish matchups end up in the victory of one who resolves gifts first anyway so it's not that different and loam can be answered by gravehate(which admittedly most decks don't play currently because there isn't anything relevant to hate). Without LoA and gifts beside it loam isn't as broken as it was before it's banning. But then again that's only my view and if you have tested it extensively then I won't argue. I just want format which would be fun to play. 

I think this one isnt' broken per si but it bordelines it. It gives you CA, pressure on the table. It's cheap, splashble (if it were WW instead of 1W we porbably wouldnt be having this discussion...).

Is also tutors a card which is difficult to deal: equipments! Even if you don't play with skull you still have multiple swords, including SoFI.

The problem runs deeper than this single card: cards like pridemage are also problematic, because WOTC has decided to put everything on a stick meaning you really haven't to choose between steelshaper's gift and a creature or a naturalize and a creature.

They aren't broken, but they are annoying and specially with stoneforge games are starting to become centered around them. But there was once a time we games were centered around playing gifts (unbanned) and LFTL (banned). So i think we should wait a little more and see if the meta reacts to it.

While that is true, I don't see problem with these creatures most of the time, since with most of the cheap ones it's still 1v1 the scary creatures are the ones that are cheap and provide CA, and wizards haven't printed a lot of those (like dark confidant, dark confidant, witness, lavamancer and of those only mystic provides immediate card advantage and only mystic got banned in standart).

While mystic isn't autowin, but the games where he comes t2 are a lot more boring, since they become more on how to deal with opponents batterskull than how to kill opponent. So my argument on banning mystic isn't solely based on powerlevel, but also on the "fun" factor.

P.S. On the other hand with some other bannings/unbannings metagame could be shaken enough so that mystic wouldn't be as bad (for example banning gifts, unbanning loam -> more maze of iths (or at least more consistent) -> swords/batterskull become weaker).

No it´s not. Please dont confuse powerful with overpowerd. Jitte is much stronger and you still need one removal for the card shes getting. Its like with any other strong card. You need your answer and you need the answer as quick as possible (Pernicious Deed, Treachery, Bribery, Titan, Oath etc.)In this case if your opponent is getting a Batterskull on turn 2 "just" kill the mystic and your opponent got a "dead" card until turn 5.

Sorry but I didn't quite get your argument. I mean both require fast removal. And in mystic's case you still have batterskull left, and if opponent killed batterskull (which could be hard with 3 mana bounce) you still have mystic which can cheat random swords or could be ounced/blinked. Plus while jitte changes any guy you have into threat, it's uselesss unless you have guys. While mytic is threat on it's own as well as changing any of your guys into threats (since you can fetch sword as well). So doesn't that actually make mystic better than jitte?

I would like to note that though mystic isn't broken it doesn't mean that it shouldn't be banned.
My opinion is that playing second turn mystic generates too much advantage and thus is banworthy. Let's compare mystic with jitte since it's already banned. Both cards come turn 2. Jitte requires a creature, but when you attack with it, it's is unfair against aggro decks if unremoved. While mystic is unfair against aggro decks (mystic->batterskull is harder to deal with and much more cost efficient) AND control decks, since it provides tempo and card advantage. And even if mystic is removed you still get to keep batterskull to play later.
So my point is: if jitte is banned because it provides too much advantage, why shouldn't mystic be banned, since it usually provides more advantage than jitte.

P.S. Food for thought: in legacy finding batterskull with mystic is often better play than finding jitte.

So after some testing i decided that i want to play with most broken cards in highlander in this tournament, which means following: JtMS, bribery, Stoneforge Mystic, recurring nightmare, demonic tutor, natural order, primeval titan and birthing pod. Which meant i had to play something like 4c goodstuff. After a lot of testing i was happy with my list (and i still wouldn't change anything in this deck) and went to tournament, here is how matches went:

Round 1 - Bant

Game 1
opponent started with landdrop, while i got fyndhorn elves. Second turn he again just played a land, on my turn in upkeep i played worldly tutor to put stoneforge mystic on top, and then after making a land drop i casted it, which to my surprise resolved, so i got batterskull. Next turn opponent played finks, while i passed after playing a land. On his next turn (fourth) opponent tried casting sword of feast and famine to which i had FoW and then put batterskull into play with mystic EoT. After 2 turns opponent scooped (couldn't cast anything since he didn't draw any green sources) and we went to second game.

Game 2
Game started with both of us having noble hierarchs on first turn. Turn 2 opponent played worldly tutor in upkeep to get mystic on top, after which he casted it to get sword of feast and  famine. After untapping i played my own mystic getting batterskull. Next turn he played teeg which was pretty bad since i had Garruk, green zenith, but i still got to cast sylvan library to smooth my draws and knight of the reliquary to try getting maze of ith next turn. After equipping sword to teeg he attacked next turn making me discard zenith, but at least i had some exra life thanks to batterskull attacking previous turn. Since i was still at 15 life with batterskull i took one extra card from library, played land and attacked with batterskull which opponent couldn't block. Opponent tried attacking with teeg, to which i tried activating KotR to get maze of ith, opponent played aven mindcensor in response, luckily i at least got Creeping Tarpit, but i still had to discard garruk to sword. Next turn i finally got removal in form of vindicate to get rid of sword and attacked. Opponent tried bouncing teeg with Karakas to discard it to fauna shuman, but he didn't have any outs anymore.

About matchup: matchup is good since i practically play best cards from bant but instead of counters i have more tutors and threats, making this deck somewhat upgrade over bant. The fact that this deck is 4 colours doesn't matter since there isn't enough hate for it to be serious drawback (you can afterall get basics when you need)

Games 2 - 0

Round 2 - Hulk combo

Game 1
Nothing much to say here i just got some beatsticks in form of Acidic Slime and random mana dudes, while opponent only got gyus that fetch lands (yavimaya elder, sylvan ranger), with help of some disruption game ended quickly.

Game 2
This game was a bit more interesting since neither had much of action, but i got to resolve 4th turn gifts which got me bribery. Next turn opponent got natural order into terastodon,
breaking my only blue sources, but thanks to fetch i got tropical island to untap it with arbor elf getting his protean hulk with bribery. Now he couldnt attack me and after few turns I overwhelmed his board and got rid of terastodon and game ended.

About Matchup: this is usually good matchup since this deck disrupts everything opponent is trying to do (path+stop remove creatures, vendilion+exarch hand disruption, slime+pridemage land and artifact/enchantment removal and ton of tutors to get the needed cards), so comboing is hard, and without combo it's just worse version of this deck, because blue gives better cards.
 
Games 4 - 0

Round 3 - Oath

Game 1
I got goyf on t2 but opponent had removal to it. T3 I tried casting birthing pod, After some thinkin opponent said: "I assume since you're playing it, it's dangerous to let it resolve, so I'm going to counter it". After a few turns i got acidic slime breaking his land. He then transmuted muddle to get oath (i didn't know he played oath before so i had slime and dryad arbor in play). After he played oath i played my bribery which got me Emrakul. Opponent got blightsteel colossus from oath (no other creatures in the deck) and played control magic on my slime trying to survive, but i had stop to put him at six permanents making him sac them all after attacking with Emrakul.

Game 2
I started my game trying to get card advantage from sylvan library (since life didn't matter much) and some guys which he killed. On turn 5 i had some pressure and he played bribery, but i had primeval titan in hand, so he couldn't find any6thing better than got acidic slime destroying sylvan library. After few turns of going back and forth he played discard to make sure i didn't have anything relevant in hand, i had FoW but nothing to pitch with 4 mana, i just attacked on my turn. Then he played show and tell with 1 card in hand, he got emrakul and i put topdecked sower of temptation killing him with his own emrakul again.

About Matchup: didn't test much but from what i saw, unless i draw well and have answers in time he is favoured since he has better removal and card advantage.

Games 6 - 0

Round 4 - Goblins

Game 1
He started only with land, I think I had llanowar elves, he then played vexing shusher, but i got mystic for batterskull and thoughtseize, he played tangle wire. I put batterskull into play on upkeep, that got to attack one time after which he destroyed it with topdecked tuktuk scrapper. Afterwards i continued beatdown with finks and some random guy, while he got recruiter. I played acidic slime to make deny him some mana, but he still had enough for ringleader. I played jace to filter topdecks, but he just killed it. Afterwards he tried playing goblin lord and mana producing goblin (the one that gives red for sacrificing a goblin), but thanks to jace i had oblivion ring and vindicate for them. Thanks to my beatdown he was at nine, so while trying to get enough goblins i just killed him with tarpit.

Game 2
He got vial into warchief into ramgang wastelanding one of my lands, while my first relevant play was finks on turn 4, at which pioint he killed me.

Game 3
After killing my lanowar elves it turned out he was color/mana screwed (balck two drops and red three drops with only mountains), but so was i, but i got land faster,
enabling me to get birthing pob into acidic slime denying him access to mana, at which point he scooped.

About Matchup: Goblins isn't bad matchup since i have a lot of removal and he has combo and reach, so it mainly depens on the luck of the draw (though if opponent isn't skilled enough with goblins then it's easy)
Games 8 - 1

next i just took 2 ID:s to get to top8

Top 8:

Quaterfinals - Bant

Game 1
Game wasnt too exciting, he got gideon, while i had volrath stronghold and venser, shaper savant. Turn six i played primal command putting gideon on top of his deck and searching mystic, which i immediatly played to get batterskull. Afterwards it was few turns of him +2:ing gideon and me attacking with my creatures, but opponent drew only land, while i got some tutors and we went to second game.

Game 2
After seeing mana drain with batterskull in my opening hand I had my gameplan set, so after he played land and some mana guy, i played tropical island into arbor elf. Turn 2 he tutored Stoneforge mystic, while i just played a land into ponder. Next turn he tried garruk which i mana drained getting mana for batterskull next turn. He tried to get back into the game with trygon predator and stoneforge mystic into his own batterskull, but i responded with vendilion clique which revealed he had fact or fiction and batterskull. I cycled his batterskull away. Now i had blocker for his predator, so i just attacked with batterskull again, which got through. EoT he played Fact which revealed: Glen-elendra archmage, spellsnare, Force of Will, noble hierarch and counterspell, i divided: elendra and spellsnare into one and Fow, counterspell and hierarch into second pile which he took (I think I might have made a mistake here, but it was alredy a long day at that point so i was a bit tired). On his turn he played noble attacking with predator that i had to chump block with vendilion clique. Over the next few turns i got some guys into play (i had arbort elf, llanowar elves, acidic slime and court hussar in game) while he finally got through with predator (making me bounce batterskull), played gideon. At this point I had around 30 life (thanks to batterskull), vindicate in hand (only scrubland to provide black or white) and recurring nightmare which he countered with counterspell. After few turns of me attacking gideon he finally died while he was attacking me for 3 in the air. I topdecked worldly tutor which i played his EoT, which he decided to FoW (hardcast), then i topdecked bribery which got spellpierced. Opponent then proceeded to topdeck a sun titan to return mystic fetching batterskull, while i got Eladamri's call with six mana to spend, so i tutored sower to get his sun titan and passed, opponent played land and attacked with predator putting me at 21. On my turn i drew land played it and attacked with sun titan (he was at 9) to get quasali pridemage from grave, opponent put batterskull with mystic into game, which i destroyed with pridemage, but he chumped my titan with his elf. He  proceeded to get mini-jace and attacked me with predator, which put me at 18. On my turn I drew land again and attacked with titan, getting pridemage from grave, which then tried destroying batterskull opponent put with mystic into play, but opponent bounced it back again. He then finally found elspeth, but couldnt swing with it since i had too much board presence, so he just made token and attacked me with predator to 12 (he still had noble in play). I attacked with sun titan and sower returning recurring nightmare to play (he didnt have mana to use mystic), he chumped titan with token from elspet putting him at 7 life. I used nightmare to sacrifice my guy (i think it was court hussar) to get some guy from graveyard (i think it was acidic slime). Opponent drew card for tourn and with jace, played top, topped and then made token from elspeth. On my turn I topdecked treachery. I then cast treachery to predator and vindicated his token to finally kill him.

Games 10 - 1

Semifinal - Oath (the same one from swiss)

Game 1
He started with duress revealing a few lands llanowar elves, tainted pact and gifts. He took pact since it was too dangerous (if i had fetched correctly it couldn't fizzle and i could get sower in response to show and tell or slime for oath). t2 lotus cobra, t3 he force spiked my gifts, t4 mulldrifter (I played  creeping tarpit). My hand had skinrender (dead card), Stop (if he got blightsteel colossus i could use this), fauna shaman and tarmogoyf. After attacking him he was at 12 and i played fauna shaman, he played shockland untapped (to 10) and damnation. I played goyf to which he responded with smother (which was a mistake, since he should gave killed it with ghastly demise, because now he couldn't use it to kill my tarpit). Afterwards i proceeded to kill him in 3 turns with my tarpit.

Game 2
He got Sensei's divining top, but on turn 2 he used it to draw card and play watery grave, so I thought he was mana screwed and proceeded to vindicate his tropical island turn later. And later i used acidic slime to hit another land. He proceeded to draw some lands, but it still slowed him down enough so i could start beating him down. Next turn he didn't do much, but i had eladamri's call into glen-elendra archmage with 2 open blue mana (had to play shockland untapped for that). He played merchant scroll and personal tutor that i countered with archmage (couldnt let them resolve, since he most likely alredy had some piece of como). After 1 turn he tried tapping my guys and draw card in my upkeep with cryptic command (he was at 6 or nine, i hit him for 3 per turn), which i mana drained and played sun titan from drained mana.

Games 12 - 1

Finals - Grixis control
before games we agreed on prize split, so we practically just played for title. Game one he inquisitioned my mystic, and after some FoW wars (he had mystical teachings into gifts, and then pitched it to Fow trying to counter my recurring nightmare, but i FoW:ed it pitching treachery he knew about, he resolved inferno titan which got shriekmaw) he got to resove wildfire leaving me with 1 land, and then proceeded to draw 2 lands and JtMS. Game 2 he just cast treachery on my knight of the reliquary and followed it with burning of xineye leaving me with no lands again.

About Matchup: I didn't test against this deck so cannot say much, but matchup doesn't seem too good, it seems to moslty depend on whether he has enough disruption to kill/counter my threats in time. Wildfire/xineye is definitely MvP for him, since everything else i can deal wiht, but he has troubles with fast primeval titan/birthing pod.

Games 14 - 3

Decklist can be found here: http://www.magicplayer.org/forum/index.php?topic=618.0

Comments are welcome

Here is the deck i played to get 2nd place in finnish highlander nationals

About deck:
After watching what people play in Finland it occured to me that there was practically no drawback to playing four colors instead of 3, because there clearly wasn't enough nonbasic land hate and i could play the best cards legal in highlander: JtMS, bribery, Stoneforge Mystic, recurring nightmare, demonic tutor, natural order, primeval titan and birthing pod. I tested quite a lot and ended up with the following list:

Decklist:
Deck: 4c Best Stuff

maze of ith
Bloodstained mire
verdant catacombs
windswept heath
arid mesa
wooded foothills
flooded strand
polluted delta
misty rainforest      
marsh flats
scalding tarn
wasteland
horizon canopy
dryad arbor
volrath's stronghold
treetop village
creeping tarpit      
plains   
underground sea
watery grave      
tropical island
bayou
savannah
overgrown tomb
breeding pool
tundra
hallowed fountain
swamp         
2 island
2 forest
snow-covered swamp
snow-covered island   
snow-covered forest
scrubland

sensei's divining top
ponder
swords to plowshares
duress         
fyndhorn elves
noble hierarch
thoughtseize
llanowar elves      
birds of paradise
arbor elf
inquisition of kozilek
preordain
worldly tutor
path to exile
elves of deep shadows
brainstorm

Tarmogoyf
sylvan library
tainted pact
quasali pridemage   
stoneforge mystic
eladamri's call
demonic tutor
fauna shaman      
sakua-tribe elder
mana drain
lotus cobra
wall of roots

vindicate
pernicious deed
trinket mage
sword of fire and ice   
recurring nightmare
knight of the reliquary   
vendilion clique
maelstrom pulse   
yavimaya elder
oblivion ring
kitchen finks
sword of feast and famine
court hussar
eternal witness

entomber exarch
birthing pod
glen elendra archmage
venser, shaper savant   
gifts ungiven
natural order
sower of temptation
loxodon hierarch      
jace, the mindsculptor
fact or fiction
skinrender
garruk wildspeaker

shriekmaw
primal command
mulldrifter
treachery      
batterskull
bribery   
acidic slime

Sun Titan
Primeval Titan

Force of will
Green Sun's zenith
Engineered explosives

Card choices:

Finishers: after a lot of testing i found out that primeval titan was sufficient finisher and deck didn't need any terastodon or progenituses, since you would practically never cast them, and only they were mostly NO targets, but primeval titan is always good (getting it and then tutoring volrath stronghold with wasteland or manlands puts you very far ahead, and even if they killed it you still have advantage). So you can play less expensive/dead cards and fill those slots with something more relevant. I never actually missed terastodon or progenitus since natural order won't usually resolve and if it resolved i won with just titan. On the other hand it made games against decks with bribery much easier, since now the best they got was prrimeval or sun titan that i could bounce to hand. And grave titan was useless in every game I drew it during testing, so while I understand it's very good, it just didn't have enough synergy with the rest of the deck, although i could see myself playing him in slower metagame (with more ramps and controls and less combo/bant/reanimator decks)

Counterspells: i left only drain and FoW because i usually tapout don't have mana to counter spells. And most of the time my spells are better than opponents. You could call i metachoice, since you only want counters against combo or ramp decks. While you still have good disruption against combo, I might add more counters to deck if there were more decks like what my finals opponent played.

No white planeswalkers: after testing i noticed that it was too hard to cast those with four color manabase so i had to cut nearly all spells that cost double black or double white. Only exeptions were sun titan (usually i had possibility to get 2 white sources by turn 5-6) and entomber exarch (In one game opponent asked me: "Isn't playing exarch too greedy for that deck" to which I answered: "No, you see I have 2 swamps in the deck so i can cast him"  ). Mainly because they were creautres so i could tutor them to birthing pod and they come late enough for me to have time to fix my mana. I could usually cast them whenever i needed.

Primeval Titan: this guy is all you need to win a match, by tutoring wasteland and volrath stronghold you usually get ahead of opponent on mana, break their important lands (like their maze of ith). And if they somehow get rid of titan you just return it on top of the deck. against aggro you can always get maze of ith. If you have lacking board presence you get manlands. If you don's have much cards in hand horizon canopy helps you there. While i know these things are obvious, most people still try to win with Progenitus/terastodon that are vulnerable to mass removel/or edicts, while with primeval titan even if they kill it you still can get lands and if they don't kill him, well trampling 6/6 ends games fast enough. So while it's a bit harder to win with primeval titan being only big threat it makes deck more consistent.

About new cards:

Batterskull: this card is sick, i cut wurmcoil engine for it, since now playing stoneforge mystic t2 is gg against any deck that can't destroy it fast enough. It practically kills burn and gives tremendous advantage against control since it is very hard to destroy. With five mana and stoneforge open, you can just trade the token with anything and bounce+replay it EoT. now opponents have to get rid of both mystic and euipment ASAP. A lot of the times in tournament when asked how the games went they answered: "opponent got t2 mystic so couldn't do anything" or "I got t2 mystic so it was easy". Mystic was nearly borken before batterskull, now it's just stupid (recall what was argument for banning jitte, mystic creates similar situations).

Entomber exarch: I'm amazed how most of the people missed how good this guy is. This guy is pure utility: aginst contorol/combo you can duress them and beat down and against creature decks he returns finks/shriekmaw. It's good against any deck and always a relevant card (btw it can also discard lands, didn't notice it until yesterday)

Birthing pod: People who say it isn't good or medicore, just haven't tested with it. This card is nuts it's power level is somewhere between survival of the fittest and recurring nightmare. I am still to lose a game where this has resolved. Some highlights about this card:
-it practically gives your creatures vigilance since you can upgrade them postcombat.
-With  help of some mana guy you can play and activate it turn 3 or play it t2 and activate t3
-It can upgrade llanowar elves (or any other 1 mana managuy) into stoneforge mystic
-It can upgrade you 2 drops into: kitchen finks/witness/vendilion Clique/Yavimaya elder
-It can upgrade your 3 drops (especially fun when your 3 drop is yavimaya elder or finks) into: baloth/venser/sower/glen-elendra Archmage/entomber exarch/skinrender
-It can upgrade your 4 drops into: acidic slime/shriekmaw/mulldrifter/reveillark/arc slogger
-It can upgrade your 5 drops into: titans (i succeded only once every other time opponents scooped after i got 5th drop)
-it can sacrifice creatures you stole from opponent with sower/treachery
-you can set up chains that you want, for example saccing wall of roots into finks to get 2 four drops, or if you don't have enough land 2 drop into elder, and then into four drop
-creatures mentioned above are mostly for this deck, but any color combination with green in it (and sometimes without) has enough good targets for birthing pod to be very good.

comments and suggestions are welcome

Edit: tournament report can be found here: http://www.magicplayer.org/forum/index.php?topic=619.0

the thing about demonic tutor is that it finds best card for the situation but it costs 2 mana and a card for you + you still need to resolve that spell. With mystic things are different: it costs you 2 mana but provides a body so it actually is card advantage, and if it isn't killed you don't need to cast the equipment since mystic conviniently can cheat it into play around conunters and equipment removal EOT, while at the same time providing body to equip sword to. And if they kill mystic you still get to keep the card you found (maybe even cheat it into play if opponent takes too long to answer mystic).
So to sum it up I think that mystic isn't quite comparable with Demonic Tutor, but if it is compared to mystic it's actually fair card.

p.s. I should note that I sometimes find myself demonic tutoring for stoneforge mystic, since it is such a good threat.

I dont think anything else will see play than lands with Lftl. We had it alrdy in the format and it was just totally boring. It was kinda the slowest format we ever had with highlander, since all decks just tryed to get the draw engine online. No matter which decktype you went for, Lofl had always the perfect answer in form of lands. Futhermore it delayed the games so long, i played grand prix 2 years ago, where it was still allowed to play and went with an aggressive deck in each game to the timeout, mainly because of lftl (+ top + fetch).

I know what you mean, but then again the format had LoA (the card is just retarded, i don't want to see it unbanned ever) and gifts (to lesser extent intuition) which slowed it much more. What i mean is with loam in the format people will play more controlling strategies: looters will become better, and genesis with worm harvest will finally be viable options to play again. This in turn will slow format down. Its not like aggros will stop being good. It will just slow down the format, getting control more time to stabilize.

But then again it is just my opinion and i will be fine either way, as long as either gifts or loam is in the format.
 

I totally agree. SM and Quasali pridemage are to low costed for their abilitys in this format. Compare these creatures to the other "versions": Steelshaper Apprentice, Stonehewer Giant, Taj-Nar Swordsmith or Wickerborn Elder, Indrik Stomphowler, wich are perfectly balanced for their abilitys.

Once again, the abilitys are fine and good for the format. The cc of these cards is not. Exspecially with all CHEAP creature tutor's you are much to flexible, because of the ridiculous low mana costs of these cards. You kinda can play tutor and you can use them in the same turn alrdy, because they are so cheap to cast. And these guys DO change the bord or they control the bord, which is actually simply to strong in that cc slot for the format in my eyes.

While I agree on your arguments i don't think pridemage is that bad, since it has drawbacks: It's 2 colored so it means you have to be playing those colors already and secondly it doesn't provide card advantage (there are other creatures with similar effect in white pridemage is just a bit better than the rest ), so you cant exactly compare it to 4-5 drops that kill artifacts/enchantments when they come into play.