Topics

[Thanks go to Tabris for translating these reasons into English.]

Library of Alexandria

“We want to test how the unbanning of LoA will influence the highlander meta […]”
We unbanned LoA and Mind of Matter on 01.10.2008. The card was about one year and nine
months legal. Now we´ve decided to ban it again. Why? Similar to the Survival of the Fittest
ban multiple reasons occurred to justify the re-banning:

• Availability: The card is very expensive and each player who decided to play a control
deck needs this card.
• Frustration: Players get frustrated if their opponent reveals a 1st turn (lucky draw) LoA
and if they don’t have a fast aggro deck or an immediate answer they feel upset about
it even though a early LoA don’t lead automatic to a win.
• No LoA means no “optimal” control deck: People want to play optimal decks there for
they need the best cards that are available for the archetype. So a lot of players decide
not to play a control deck since they don’t have the optimal cards for their decks. If
they don’t want to play any aggro or combo builds they don’t play anyway which
means less players for the format.
• Type 1 is not sexy: We´ve spoke with many players which are interested in highlander
and they are concerned about the card pool. A lot of people who play Legacy are not
willing to invest so many resources into Vintage (which has already a small pool of
players) since its way too expensive. LoA is one of the cards which are a “must have”
card if you decide to play T1. We don’t want to scare people away from highlander
with cards like this.
• Randomness: A LoA in a control mirror increase the odds of winning a lot. As
Umezawa's Jitte in aggro matchups determine the win by pure randomness the same is
true for LoA in a control mirror (In my opionion Jitte is much more devastating).

In summary we can say LoA is a) not necessary and b) harmful for our format. A lot of
players are not willing to play highlander if LoA is legal so we´ve decided after many
discussions to re-ban it. Four of five members of the council voted for the ban.

Life from the Loam

This card was for a long time on the watch list. We´ve decided to delete it from the list just to
put it on again. We don’t ban it because of the power level but for the following reasons:

• LftL is dominating most of the control mirrors. Only if a player can “answer” an LftL
with some graveyard hate or hand disruption the match is going to focus on other
cards. The resource advantage which LftL is generating is way too much. A game can
simply end on turn 3 if a player can resolve a turn 2 Intuition which is finding
Wasteland, LftL and a cycle land. Dredging the LftL and wasting the nonbasic land of
an opponent on turn 3 is a very frustrating play. This monotone cycle is not healthy for
the format so we want to change that.
• Life from the Loam is destroying two Archetypes: Land Destruction and Discard
which are for the most part are not represented in the format because of this card.
• LftL is making Gifts Ungiven and Intuition way too powerful. We want to keep these
cards in the format. With the banning of LftL players need in the future more skill to
get the full value out of the cards. Some decks will not even play Intuition anymore
because the huge advantage LftL was generating is gone. Of course this will consume
more time to find the correct piles but we think it’s important that the cards can fulfill
their roles; to find answers or threats.
• We have a lot of powerful lands in the format: Bazaar of Baghdad, Volrath's
Stronghold, Academy Ruins, Karakas, Maze of Ith, The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale,
Wasteland, Mishra's Workshop. LftL find these cards way to easy. With the banning
of LoA we took one very powerful land out of the format and with other cards like
Crop Rotation, Knight of the Reliquary or Sylvan Scrying players can still find the
good lands. But Gifts Ungiven and Intuition find these lands en passant together with
Life from the Loam!

In summary we think without these two cards the format will be a lot more diversified and is still
very interesting for players. Finally since both cards weren’t necessary for the control vs.
aggro matchup we don’t weaken control with these decisions.

Protean Hulk

Not too much to say but we´ve decided to unban the Hulk since most cards which provide an
early, constant and safe abuse are banned (Flash, Entomb, Buried Alive, Survival of the
Fittest). Some finish players tried to abuse the Hulk but weren´t able to do so. We thought
also about an unbanning of Wordlgorger Dragon but decided not to because it offers some
random turn 2 or turn 3 kills. Additionally it doesn’t need 4-5 combo pieces and is easy to
implement into reanimator decks.

Thanks go to Tabris for translating these reasons into English.

A big "Thank you" goes out to Tabris who invested his time to do a translation of our banning reasons from German to English for our international friends!

Entomb:
Tutors with cc1 are always under suspicion to be problematic. Since the release of Iona, Shield of Emeria, Entomb got a lot stronger. But Iona, is not the only reason for the banning. Since Entomb enables a random  “turn 2 instant win” because of his capability to search the best creature (e.g. Sphinx of the Steel Wind, Iona, Shield of Emeria) in a specific matchup, makes it too strong. Furthermore WotC released a lot of insane-big creatures in the last sets and there are no signs that this trend will end. A third important reason is the appearance of entomb in other deck types which search Life from the Loam which is also a problematic card. So the majority of the council members come to conclusion to ban the card. Besides that the council decides to put Worldgorger Dragon and Protean Hulk on the Unban watch list which isn’t possible without the absence of entomb.


Mind Twist:
Sometimes one black mana makes the difference. Mind Shatter doesn’t see any play but as expected Mind Twist were to be found in any deck which has access to black mana. The card doesn’t crushed the format but in a lot of games it influenced the game state a lot and keep one side from doing anything. The scalability of the card makes Mind Twist in every phase of the game really good. It was not rare to see a turn four Mind Twist which discarded the whole hand from the opponent with newer cards like Lotus Cobra. Combined with the trend that nearly every deck plays mana acceleration these day an early Mind Twist just ruined the whole “early- game”.


Grindstone:
It’s a common understanding that Grindstone and Painter´s Servant cannot both be legal. Since every deck can run this combo and a lot of decks can easily tutor for both cards and we don’t want to see a game-winning combo which just required 6 mana. So as the community asked for we decided to switch these both cards.


Survival of the Fittest:
Survival is known as a problematic card and got a lot of attention in the last months. So we´ve put the card on the watch list to see how it will influence the format. Now we think the point is reached which force us to ban this card. Survival of the Fittest dominated the format in the last months and the meta get stucked. With the banning of Enlightened Tutor the council took care of cards which enable the whole Survival-engine and started to ban around this strong card. We´ve also considered to ban Squee, Goblin Nabob but we´ve stopped at this point and banned Survival to make space for new decks which couldn’t be developed since they had a bad matchup against Survival decks. If we would have banned Squee, Goblin Nabob it would be replaced by Krovikan Horror (with enough mana this card produce a huge card advantage) or Gigapede (which replace “crap cards” + SotF into the good creatures and work also very good with wonder). So to solve this problem we´ve decided to ban the card. Other  known reasons and valid arguments are:
•   Loyal Retainer + Iona, Shield Emeria: Well known Legacy reanimator tech which is easy to implement in Highlander
•   One card combo which can protect himself since it can search for the answers: Eternal Witness, Venser, Spellshaper, Mystic Snake
•   Combo starter with cards like Body Double, Reveillark
•   Most games which breached the 60 minutes involved a Survival deck
•   The advantage a player gets by casting Survival lead often to a win
•   Survival decks with a huge toolbox running always the same monotone routine:
1.   (Enable the Survival engine): Squee, Wall of Roots, BoP, Sakura Tribe Elder
2.   (Get the pressure from the table): Harmonic Sliver, Bone Shredder, Flametongue Kavu, search for answers
3.   (Stabilize): Kitchen Finks, Loxodon Hierarch, Lifegain
4.   (Finisher/ Answers): Doran, Baneslayer Angel, Rampaging Baloths, Mystic Snake, Venser, Spellshaper Servant
•   Survival blocks the development of the format
•   It generate a high frustration
We are aware that none of the reasons alone are enough to ban Survival of the Fittstest but all together force us to remove this card from the format. The only option would have been to ban Demonic Tutor but we see that card as a vital source for the format. The diversity of Demonic Tutor is a enrichment and unlike Survival it doesn’t tends to result in Survival and Anti-Survival decks (like the tourneys in Dülmen und Iserlohn have shown)  Besides that most of the creatures which are available for the Survival decks have a good Power/Toughness/Mana cost-relation and can fight on their own.
A short note on Enlightened Tutor; we don’t think that we can unban it since Oath decks could be a viable deck type again since their best answer (survival decks) are gone. Besides with the release of Rise of the Eldrazi a lot of alluring creatures will be accessible for this deck.


Power Artifact:
Power Artifact + Grim Monolith/Basalt Monolith offer infinite mana for four mana. But to use it you need a third card like Stroke of Genius or Staff of Domination. So it’s a three card combo which can be “countered” by any enchantment/artifact removal. There are other combos (Aluren, Squirrel Nest/Earth craft) which can be easy achieved but weren’t too present so we don’t expect to see any dominating combo decks. We don’t unban it for a long time because we thought one of the best decks in the format, Staxx, don’t need another combo-kill but we´ll see if players find a way to include this possibility in their builds.


Some remarks on the bannings:
As always this bannings will get acceptance and denial that is the nature of this procedure and we can’t change that. There are always good reasons for a decision and against it. So as everyone else the members of the council can just bring their own perspective to the discussion. It´s always a matter of consideration and balancing. So the council will continue his work for a viable alternative to the boring 4-of formats. In the upcoming season we will develop an official banning policy which can be used as an indicator for coming bannings.
The council is thankful for the constructive feedback from all players which help to develop the highlander format.

Representative for the Highlander Council,

Frank Topel

Please note that cards from the new Worldwake expansion will become tournament legal for Highlander as of 02/15/2010.

This is to ensure players have an equal opportunity to get their hands on the cards they need respectively to update their MWS and decks.

I've done it with success before on a PTQ, but Frank Karsten is doing it on Worlds - he's playing an extended 60 cards Highlander Deck!

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/worlds09/video20

Despite the parallel pre-release of M10, HL was attended fine by 16 players, which was played out in 5 rounds.

As usual, Patrick Richter won (5-0-0), this time with with 5c OathStax, 2nd was someone I didn't know who played 3c Basic Ramp. I went 3rd with "White Stax with a Twist", going 3-1-1. My los was against UGbw Survival Combo (0:2), and I had a really HUGE game vs. Captain America Control where I must have had about 45 permanents in play, maybe 25 cards left in the library and couldn't find a win option in time because my own Moat prevented my Karn from killing the opponent, who was down to 5 permanents which were all permanently tapped due to 2 Tangle Wires. The game took about seventy minutes and we couldn't finish it, not even in the overtime. (0-0).

I won vs 3c Survival in round 1 (2:0), vs. Boros (Payron style) in Round 3 (2:0) and vs. 5c Oath in the last round (2:0).

The prizes: 1. German blackbordered Badlands, 2. Revised Scrubland, 3. Maze of Ith (nm, me), 4. Oath of Druids, 5. Serra Avatar, 6. Ensnaring Bridge (Stronghold).

I'll post the official results as soon as I find them available.

Here's my list:

3rd place

// Mono White Stax with a Twist

// Lands
    1 Flagstones of Trokair
    1 Darksteel Citadel
    1 Blinkmoth Well
    1 Wasteland
    1 Flooded Strand
    1 Windswept Heath
    1 Ancient Tomb
    1 Horizon Canopy
    1 Ancient Den
    1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
    1 Tundra
    1 Scrubland
    6 Plains
    1 Maze of Ith
    1 Rishadan Port
    1 Karakas
    1 Library of Alexandria
    1 Dust Bowl
    1 Kor Haven
    1 Mishra's Factory
    1 Deserted Temple
    1 Vesuva
    1 Academy Ruins
    1 Mishra's Workshop
    1 City of Traitors
    1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
    1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All

// Creatures
    1 Magus of the Tabernacle
    1 Argivian Archaeologist
    1 Aven Mindcensor
    1 Kitchen Finks
    1 Leonin Abunas
    1 Windborn Muse
    1 Sundering Titan
    1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
    1 Wall of Reverence
    1 Auriok Salvagers
    1 Karn, Silver Golem
    1 Exalted Angel
    1 Eternal Dragon
    1 Weathered Wayfarer

// Spells
    1 Worn Powerstone
    1 Moat
    1 Timetwister
    1 Tangle Wire
    1 Oblivion Ring
    1 Pulse of the Fields
    1 Ghostly Prison
    1 Wrath of God
    1 Crucible of Worlds
    1 Darksteel Ingot
    1 Scepter of Dominance
    1 Coalition Relic
    1 Well of Knowledge
    1 Sculpting Steel
    1 Static Orb
    1 Decree of Justice
    1 Rout
    1 Mind Twist
    1 Martial Coup
    1 Roar of Reclamation
    1 Mindslaver
    1 Catastrophe
    1 Gilded Lotus
    1 Thran Dynamo
    1 Scourglass
    1 Mind's Eye
    1 Smokestack
    1 Faith's Fetters
    1 Ravages of War
    1 Armageddon
    1 Icy Manipulator
    1 Swords to Plowshares
    1 Ivory Tower
    1 Tithe
    1 Land Tax
    1 Path to Exile
    1 Pithing Needle
    1 Sensei's Divining Top
    1 Phyrexian Furnace
    1 Argivian Find
    1 Dispeller's Capsule
    1 Enlightened Tutor
    1 Scrabbling Claws
    1 Prismatic Lens
    1 Ring of Gix
    1 Winter Orb
    1 Talisman of Dominance
    1 Talisman of Progress
    1 Candelabra of Tawnos
    1 Mind Stone
    1 Coldsteel Heart
    1 Marble Diamond
    1 Grim Monolith
    1 Mox Diamond

32 participants, six rounds, alot of Aggro, some Stax, few control decks.

Rd 1 vs Dark Bant 2:1
Rd 2 vs Naya 2:0
Rd 3 vs Stax-Oath 2:1
Rd 4 vs UWb Control 1:0:1
Rd 5 vs 4c Control (UWBR)
Rd 6 vs RDW 0:2

Enough for a  4:2 and a very good 4th place. I won a Foil Figure of Destiny. I played Hot Bant (and will immediately replace Gemstone Mine by another land).

The winner was Patrick Richter with his 5c Basic Ramp Survival Non-Basic-Hate-deck.

Seond place was Sascha, I also lost vs. his UWb Control. Third place RDW Goblins, 4th me (best Opponent Score of all those with 12 points).

Prizes: Bazaar of Badhdad, Library of Alexandria, German blackbordered Plateau, Foil Figure of Destiny, Foil textless Wrath of God, Place 6-9 smaller gems.

Really good prize support!

Has there ever been a tournament with such a load of extremely valuable prizes?

Banned: Time Vault

Time Vault had to go because of the Oracle Wording Change that WotC imposed on TV (<-lol) on Sept. 26, 2008. According to this functional change any untap effect gives you an extra turn in combination with TV. As we have an extremely cheap, permanent means of untapping TV every turn in the form of Voltaic Key, it was plain obvious that one of the two couldn't survive, since it is effectively the cheapest 2-card-victory combo since Flash/Hulk.
We decided not to ban the key, but the TV for the key is a versatile utility card and by itself by no means broken. TV would surely only see play to break it and go infinite turns - pure single player magic is the goal of that.

Unbanned: Mind over Matter

Ever since we banned Tolarian Academy this has been an overlooked candidate for unbanning. We correct that and allow MoM from October 15th on.

Unbanned: Library of Alexandria

We've been eyeing on the Library for quite some time, but never actually had the time to test it thoroughly. Several aspects led us to unban it nonetheless:
- It requires skill to use;
- it requires you to keep your hand on 6-7 cards at all times which means you've either got to have it in your opening hand or play control to be able to profit;
- apart from MoM, we see no potential for combo abuse.
Since most control decks already have multiple options to generate significant card advantage, we assume that the Library will be a strong card in these decks, but neither an autowin nor an autoinclude in every other deck. As such, please understand the unban as test-wise. We'll all see how much impact it will have on the format at the end of November on HL GP 6.

There will be another small Highlander tournament at the Drachental-store in Düsseldorf. Here's the facts:

• Date: 09/22/2007
• Starting fee: 4.00 â,¬
• Starting time: 11:00 o'clock
• Location: Drachental Store, Liesegangstraße 15, 40211 Düsseldorf
• Registration and further information: +49(0)211/5803795

Hope to meet you there! 

[free]

MagicPlayer will offer an Online Highlander Tournament on
September 23, 2007, starting from 15:00 CET.

Here's the quick facts:

    * Participation is free for everyone!
    * Sponsored prizes with a total value of 60,- â,¬ by our main sponsor, MagicUniverse
    * Platform: Magic Workstation 0.94f
    * Rules: Same as for real life Highlander, see http://www.highlandermagic.info
    * The tournament will be rated at K-value 8.
    * Unrated players aquire their first Highlander Rating in the tournament.
    * International Players are of course welcome!

We will be gathering all further information on a separate page. This will include an extensive installation and quickstart guide for MWS. All players will be required to have an active ICQ account beforehand and during the complete tournament and to publish their ICQ-number in the upcoming registration thread in our forums so everybody can communicate without hassle.

After having played with Magic Set Editor 2 ( http://magicseteditor.sourceforge.net ) for quite some time now I came up with the idea of creating a whole set. I would like it to be a big set to which we could even, much later on, develop expansions.

The theme/setting that goes around in my mind is "The Sun", thus the working title "Sunset". Maybe we should first gather ideas to closer specify the setting. I will post my ideas here:

• Sun cult, and its adherers
• Renegades from this cult...
• ...maybe they pray to the moon (but the moon could also be the center of the first expansion)

I already have done a suggestions for a set symbol and a first draft of the logo, which I will attach.

I'm currently trying to revive a deck type that used to be strong some years ago. I already have good results with it vs UG and R/U Stax, and it should be quite strong against all mediocre beatdown-strategies - yet it totally fails versus RDW, which is a problem that must be solved, otherwise the deck will never be viable.

Here's my current build:

Code Select Expand

// Deck file for Magic Workstation (http://www.magicworkstation.com)

// Lands
    1 [ON] Polluted Delta
    1 [TO] Tainted Wood
    1 [LG] Karakas
    1 [SH] Volrath's Stronghold
    1 [RAV] Overgrown Tomb
    1 [B] Bayou
    1 [TE] Reflecting Pool
    1 [UL] Treetop Village
    11 [8E] Forest (2)
    1 [AQ] Mishra's Factory (1)
    1 [RAV] Golgari Rot Farm
    1 [AN] Diamond Valley
    1 [ON] Bloodstained Mire
    1 [ON] Wooded Foothills
    1 [ON] Windswept Heath
    10 [9E] Swamp (1)

// Creatures
    1 [MR] Solemn Simulacrum
    1 [TSB] Twisted Abomination
    1 [TSB] Withered Wretch
    1 [10E] Graveborn Muse
    1 [CHK] Nezumi Graverobber--Nighteyes the Desecrator
    1 [8E] Nekrataal
    1 [MM] Thrashing Wumpus
    1 [UL] Bone Shredder
    1 [RAV] Stinkweed Imp
    1 [AL] Krovikan Horror
    1 [BOK] Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni
    1 [LE] Bane of the Living
    1 [CHK] Kokusho, the Evening Star
    1 [FUT] Tarmogoyf
    1 [JU] Genesis
    1 [LE] Nantuko Vigilante
    1 [FD] Eternal Witness
    1 [OD] Wild Mongrel
    1 [RAV] Golgari Grave-Troll
    1 [TSB] Wall of Roots
    1 [ON] Wirewood Herald
    1 [9E] Viridian Shaman
    1 [NE] Skyshroud Poacher
    1 [6E] River Boa
    1 [CHK] Sakura-Tribe Elder
    1 [DIS] Indrik Stomphowler
    1 [EX] Spike Weaver
    1 [6E] Birds of Paradise
    1 [ON] Krosan Tusker
    1 [ON] Ravenous Baloth
    1 [DS] Viridian Zealot
    1 [JU] Phantom Centaur
    1 [SH] Hermit Druid
    1 [UL] Deranged Hermit
    1 [UL] Yavimaya Granger
    1 [SC] Elvish Aberration
    1 [AP] Spiritmonger
    1 [PLC] Darkheart Sliver
    1 [10E] Squee, Goblin Nabob

// Spells
    1 [DS] Sword of Light and Shadow
    1 [DS] Sword of Fire and Ice
    1 [EX] Oath of Ghouls
    1 [9E] Phyrexian Arena
    1 [A] Demonic Tutor
    1 [TE] Diabolic Edict
    1 [OD] Entomb
    1 [EX] Recurring Nightmare
    1 [RAV] Darkblast
    1 [SC] Decree of Pain
    1 [ON] Oversold Cemetery
    1 [WL] Buried Alive
    1 [SH] Tortured Existence
    1 [PLC] Damnation
    1 [PS] Diabolic Intent
    1 [UL] Unearth
    1 [VI] Necromancy
    1 [TE] Living Death
    1 [UL] Rancor
    1 [RAV] Life from the Loam
    1 [UL] Crop Rotation
    1 [MI] Worldly Tutor
    1 [A] Regrowth
    1 [EX] Survival of the Fittest
    1 [AP] Pernicious Deed
    1 [RAV] Putrefy


To improve the deck vs. Goblins and other very fast beatdown strategies, I considered adding Engineered Plague and Sickening Dreams. I'm open to any new ideas you possibly have. If you want to test the deck, I'll attach it in .mwDeck-format.

Hello everyone,

first of all thank you for being here with us, which already shows that you really care about Highlander. As you surely know, the starting phase of a forum is very critical as success or failure depends on it very much - and this is why I write this post.

We are trying to promote the forum on most big international forums already, e.g. tcgplayer.com (former Brainburst), themanadrain.com, and currently I'm also trying to inform Highlander players on the Starcitygames-forums as well, being prevented from doing so only by scg's restrictive link-posting-policy.

Highlandermagic needs your help! So what can you do?

First of all, bring all your friends to joins us here, and take part in the discussions, post their decks, and simply make this a vivid place worth visiting again and again.

Second, if you know of any forums we didn't list above, make this new forum known to us, or even much better, use your account there - if you have one, that is - to help other Highlanderplayers find this place here.

I'm doing my best not only to provide you all with the best Highlander format available, but also with a great spot to talk about it - that is the single reason this forum exists.

Other ideas which could elevate this project are always welcome!

Make yourself heard, and if you can, help the project.

Thank you for your attention,

Regards & best wishes from Germany,

Frank Topel

[Protean Hulk]

Single Card Explanations

Protean Hulk will be banned from the format because even without Flash he provides a basis for a viable combodeck. By reanimating and sacrificing Hulk the comboengine stays nearly the same. This problem could only be avoided by banning other cards like Entomb. We chose to ban Hulk and not Entomb, because Entomb is "broken" with no other card in the format, but can be put to good use in many decks, while Hulk will always be merely a combo piece. Thus banning Entomb would limit deck building far more than the absence of Hulk does. This decision was based on the same argumentation as the banning of Worldgorger Dragon.

Flash gets banned to get around similar combodecks which could otherwise surprisingly emerge in between two banning seasons if other abusable creatures hit the format in the future.

Unbanning Balance did not have the desired effect of improving control decks in the format. Instead of that Balance was abused by combo decks as the ultimate no-brainer creature removal. Furthermore the stax deck abused Balance as a combination of Wrath of God/Mind Twist/Armageddon for just two mana. In this respect unbanning Balance was a mistake which we hereby rectify.

The last Highlander-GP (in Germany, with 96 players competing) showed more than clearly the format-defining position of the Stax deck. Among the Top nine decks four players used such an artifact-based deck. The overwhelming dominance of this decktype was just stopped by extremely fast combo decks like HulkFlash or TPS and another deck which ran a huge load of artifact hate. In addition to that this decktype is confronting the metagame with the permanent threat of massive land destruction. For this reason we decided to intervent by banning the most powerful and threatening card of this decktype: Tolarian Academy.

While it's true that artifacts can easily be destroyed, we feel it's not healthy if success in our format depends on either being able to destroy at least two artifacts by turn four, or even having won by then already. We think that 'Stax' decks will remain playable even without Tolarian Academy. If this should turn out wrong, the power of this deck was obviously based on one "broken" card. Since all other decks (except for Yawgmoth's Will in TPS, see next paragraph) lack access to comparably powerful cards, we decided to take regulating action here.

Especially the decision whether we want the TPS deck to stay in the format in its actual form took us a long time and alot of debating. At last we decided to subscribe to the view of Hajo, SimonG and some other people and ban Yawgmoth's Will. The other option would have been to ban Gifts Ungiven. But Gifts does not do such broken things in other decks and is also an important card in every control deck. This is the reason why we want to keep Gifts in the format. Possibly TPS will now shift to being played Iggy-Pop-style, replacing Y.W. by Ill-Gotten-Gains, but we are convinced that the resulting deck won't be powerful enough to be a viable pure combo deck. We assume the deck will have to play some kind of other, defensive strategies to get the extra time needed.

Lion's Eye Diamond is another card which is only interesting for combo decks and would probably turn out to be the basis for the next-best combo deck with Auriok Salvagers. Since we don't want to jump out of the frying pan and into the fire, we applied preventive measures here.

Because Tolarian Academy is no longer permitted, Crop Rotation can rotate back in and will be legal for playuse in Magicplayer-Highlander as of 07/15/2007.

Changes to the Mulligan rule

The new Mulligan rule has been accepted as expected and we have received very positive feedback. The major criticisms have been addressed by the changes presented below, since the Combo-decks have had there potency greatly reduced, and many saw the combo-decks advantaged by this mulligan rule. The problem of “receiving a bad hand after the new mulligan and subsequently having to mulligan to 6 cards = Autoloss”, will be prevented by allowing the Mulligan rule once for the hand of his choosing. If you receive a bad 7 card hand, you could directly go to 6 cards without rejecting any cards. You can then apply the new mulligan rule on the 6 card hand so you would not be entirely helpless to a 7 card optimized hand.

In General

We have extended our Banning Policy to include the following point 5:

*Point 5 of the Banning Policy*

If a deck is playable only because of the existence of a “broken” card, then it has no right to existence in this environment and the broken card will be banned.

It is clear to us that there are points of argument regarding this case and that the decisions made under this point must be extremely well considered. We will continue to attempt to cater to your demands as well as our own in regard to care in maintaining and creating a healthy and balanced format.

Further Thoughts

The idea of unbanning further tutor cards and the future strategy of key-card bannings, was critically addressed. However, we concluded that the number of available good tutors is adequate. Unbanning further tutors would not provide any advantages. Especially regarding the Mystical Tutor, we spent a long time debating its worth. We decided it to be a Combo-Tutor card. Since we want to distance ourselves somewhat from excellent combodecks and also do not wish decks such as WWu and Stax to gain further tutors for their Armageddon-Effects, the decision was made to keep the card banned.

Demonic Tutor remains as the best tutor in the format since we wish to have one really good, universal tutor in this format and consider this tutor to be less dangerous than Vampiric Tutor especially since Balance will no longer be legal. In our opinion, the sorcery speed and the double cost is a greater disadvantage than not having the card directly in your hand.  The Vampiric is considered the best tutor for any potentially emerging future combodeck. Even the possibility in a control deck to wait for a threat from the opponent and in response an EoT tutor to search for the perfect answer is considered by us stronger than the advantage of the Demonic.

The Mystical Tutor presents the same advantages. Mystical Tutor searches for effects that can only be countered in contrast to enlightened tutor or worldly tutor which search for “Permanents” which can be attended to in various ways. As an example, just think of how good this addition to the HulkFlash deck would have been â€" it will find the Hulk (through the Summoner's Pact), as well as the Flash, and even Duress, Orim's Chant or Abeyance in order to protect the combo.

Insertion:

In addition â€" and this is just my personal opinion! â€" Demonic Tutor has a sense of charm that no other Magic card achieves. A banning of this card reduces the flare of Magic somewhat.

Umezawa's Jitte has not been unbanned despite several demands from players in the Forum. The reason remains the same as the reason we originally banned the card. We decided to ban Umezawa's Jitte for the following reasons:

1. Powerlevel and casting cost: Jitte provides a way too high powerlevel according to it's casting costs and cardtype (artifact). Jitte combines multiple important funktions in one card. It offers boardcontrol and fast kills for just two mana. Because the equipped creature only needs to deal damage, not combat damage, Jitte is almost always impossible to handle.
2. Missing selfregulation: The intended selfregulation through its legendary status (my Jitte destroys your Jitte) from WotC's R&D does not work for Jitte. It's far less likely to draw Umezawa's Jitte the time needed than in other formats to destroy the opposing Jitte. Thereby the luckfactor in a aggro vs. aggro matchup becomes more and more important because a Jitte which could not behandled for two or more turns is in most cases equal to victory.

Besides, Umezawa’s Jitte in this format presents an unwelcome and unnecessary worsening of the format.

Conclusion

We hope with these decision to have allowed a better and broader metagame which has less of a Type 1 feeling. This time we have attempted to achieve a greater level of transparency in our decisions. We are greatly looking forward to your discussions in the forum may it be criticisms or compliments: http://www.magicplayer.org/forum/index.php?board=16.0

The creator of the magic sock did it again:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/feature/393

Now that's really sort of an appreciation and encouragement to have WotC themselves suggest our rules! Kind of rewarding feeling for all the hard work we've put into this 

// Edit: I know the article is a bit older already, but maybe not all of you have read it yet 

This topic has been moved to General Discussion.

http://www.magicplayer.org/forum/index.php?topic=26.0

What do you think? Too good to be printed?

This topic has been moved to Banned List because that one is intended specifically for that topic.

http://www.magicplayer.org/forum/index.php?topic=10.0

We will apply warnings/bans according to the following forum rules:

1) Be civil to other forum users. Don't engage in name calling, flame wars, or other malcontent behavior.

2) Stay on-topic in threads. Off-topic posts will be deleted. Also, try to avoid posting one-line posts - if your entire post amounts to one sentence, it's probably not worth posting.

3) If there's already a current thread on a certain deck or topic, don't start a new thread on the same topic. Do not post requests for decklists. In both cases, use the search option to find relevant threads. Please do not necro dead threads (make a post on inactive threads that are old).

4) Make an attempt to write properly. Using "U" instead of "you" makes your post hard to read, and causes others to skip what you have to say. Put effort into your spelling, grammar and punctuation - if you don't put any effort into your post, chances are nobody will put any effort into reading it.

5) Do not post links to pornography or other blatantly questionable content. This includes your sig and your avatar.

6) Advertising of any kind is prohibited, with the exception of posting tournament announcements in the appropriate tournament announcement forum.

7) If you see a post which violates the rules, please click the report button, and a moderator will quickly deal with that post. Please do not add a post to that thread about the violation, as we’ve found that those types of posts tend to take a thread completely off-topic.

8) Problems related to the use of stone-age browsers like Internet Explorer below version 7 or the like will be ignored. We strongly suggest you try Firefox or Opera or Safari instead, all free and far superior products.

zkforum.de offers an online Highlander tournament today. Participation is free.
Magic Workstation is the software that will be used to play (http://www.magicworkstation.com).

Registration is open until precisely 2:00 p.m. CET. You are required to send your decklist as well as the security code to the TO "Boneshredder" in that forum. Send these to him as a personal message here:
http://www.zkforum.de/private.php?do=newpm&u=1032