Tutoring issue

[MMD]

When I play non-tournament Highlander I started to use a separate pile of Dual & Shockland proxies which really come handy to safe time for searching and shuffling. When you draw one of the original lands you simply put it aside (or exchange them) and redraw.

Card search in a 100/1 format is one of the main issues from other magic players in my play area and fetchlands are the main issue here. Certainly you have to take care during other game states that the original land is still in your library, which can be problematic in very rare situations. But in most cases you simply exchange the land in case you draw it.

I wonder if this could be something which could be allowed on tournament level as well. I mean Highlander already has its own rules and this would be just one more to make games more comfortable and less annoying. One of the downsides is that some of the "pros" will argue even more about the casuality of the format. Also you certainly cannot avoid to search libraries in general as there are too many tutors in the format.

The even better solution for me personally would be to ban all fetchlands not only to save time but also to fight the multicolour madness. But this is another topic which nobody interested when I came up with this proposal a couple of months ago.

Another strategy to make Highlander more attractive would be to go the opposite direction on tournament level and follow the official rules (mulligan, gold boarded cards, etc.) which could convince some of the "pros" to play this format and keep such casual rules just for the kitchen table. The question is what the most useful direction for the format is. The current rules seem a little bit in-between to me in certain aspects.

At least we need to think more out-of-the-box to improve and develop the format. Nothing else was done by the innovators of Highlander in the beginning.

[Nastaboi]

Just play with white-bordered dual lands like everybody else.

[Mir]

There is one very interesting fact. The gap between tournament and casual play is in Highlander greater than in any other format.

Banning tutors and fetchlands would most likely anger people who already invested money into cardpool. Playing 5 colored decks is also something quite interesting since using 5 fetches can potentially remove 10 "bad draws" from the deck (5 fetchlands + 5 lands that were fetched). Thats the effect which greatly affects randomness of cards which are drawn in late game.

Apparently - well made landbase with fetchlands both old and new, old duals (such as volcanic island), new duals (steam vents), ravnica bouncelands improves manabase in means of colors, total amount of mana and later improves the drawing. Such cardbase also costs fortune...

[MMD]

Just play with white-bordered dual lands like everybody else.

Thanks for your instruction but it seems that "everybody" is not on the tournaments I attend.

Also some remaining problems regarding "everybody's" solution:

-   I still searching 100/1 cards, just some of them are marked
-   I have to paint my Asian foil shocklands with white ink
-   white bordered cards do not fit to my Asian foil and altered cards like my Beta duals do

[Nastaboi]

The color of my Jaguar doesn't fit to my wife's new dress either.

[MMD]

The word you ar searching for is irony.

[Tabris]

anyway...


I am pretty sure you dont get more people bc of banning the goldborder cards and even if so (I dont see how ppl could possibly bring that as an argument against playing a format that they would play otherwise...I mean WTF could be the reason for this. Either they want to play it or they dont I mean...cmon is it the money (you have to pay at least 60€ for a Bayou or what is the point? And an CE/IE Underground Sea is about 70€ nowaday which is much for a "proxy") some ppl could skip tournaments bc they already spent money on the goldborder ones.

[Doks]

anyway...


I am pretty sure you dont get more people bc of banning the goldborder cards and even if so (I dont see how ppl could possibly bring that as an argument against playing a format that they would play otherwise...I mean WTF could be the reason for this. Either they want to play it or they dont I mean...cmon is it the money (you have to pay at least 60€ for a Bayou or what is the point? And an CE/IE Underground Sea is about 70€ nowaday which is much for a "proxy") some ppl could skip tournaments bc they already spent money on the goldborder ones.

I second this. Even if you might win some new players, others might go. So in the end, this will probably have no noticeable effect.


Regarding a separate pile of Duals / Shockland proxies: I don't think that this will solve the problem. You already mentioned that there are a lot more tutor effects than only fetchlands.
I rather think that the problem is the playstyle of the deck pilots. If everybody played reasonably fast, there would be enough time for shuffling, tutoring, searching, using SDT etc. Unfortunately, no one really plays decently fast.

It's just that too many players are too inexperienced in certain matchups (I am a good example of this) or play a deck they are not comfortable with and that's why they need too much time thinking.

And of course you have a good number of just slow playing people that think for like 3 minutes, then decide to drop a basic land and say go... but that's another subject.

[Kristian]

Regarding the seperate pile. I don't mind the idea, but it's my experience that it's the player that's slowing it down often, not the amount of fetches. Besides, I only play casually (with full fetches/duals) and I think it's more down to experience and how used you've gotten to making those kind of decisions. Some people seem to sac the fetch land and then proceed to think about which land to find while other have already figured out turns ago.

EDIT: Typo

[pyyhttu]

MMD: For kitchen table games and testing sessions a separate dual stack of cards sounds like a good idea. Haven't come to thought about that and would consider using the method to speed up my play testing (I can be slow to locate my duals from time to time too when fetching).

As part of the official rules of highlander and then enforced in tournaments, I wouldn't endorse this. Main reason being that logistically this would introduce another set of problems, e.g. fringe cases in which some duals were shuffled in a player's deck and he'd then noticed this afterwards --> subjected to game loss, depending on REL obv.

And to keep the format streamlined rules wise and familiar to judges as well, I wouldn't subject the format for another set of oddball special rules unless they'd bring tremendous advantage.

Third, the suggested round time of HL games is 60 minutes (as per http://highlandermagic.info/index.php?id=hinweise) and that was taken into use just to address the time usage that goes to tutoring/fetching, which is inherent to this format anyway.

The best method to enforce the proper time usage of your opponent is via judging. You can signal a judge to observe your opponent if you suspect slow play. Professional judges are good at spotting this, especially after the judge has left and your opponent resumes his slow play afterwards...

[Maqi]

One method to quicken this whole "Fetch-Search-Shuffle" thing is to make your play, announce which land you fetch, tap the fetchland, subtract one life point and let your opponent continue with the game while you are still searching and shuffling.

This obviously works best during the early stages of the game. It does safe a lot of time though.

[MMD]

Gold cards, mulligan and stuff - It's just the feedback I receive from players from official tournament formats not my personal opinion. They don't take Highlander serious because of the special rules. Gold bordered cards are not tournament legal because of known reasons and our mulligan rule affects the balance of the game itself.

I use similar arguments when I discuss with 1on1 Commander players looking at their weird banned list and some unbalanced card interactions with the 40 (21/10) life rule, which is surely too far away from an acceptable and improved modification of the game rules.

Everything which affects the power level of certain cards/decks/card interactions will certainly influent the game itself, so we truly modify one of the cornerstones of Magic with it. They do not see or do not want to see the reason for it and that special rules might be improvement to the game itself. I cannot say (but also doubt) if these "local pros" would play Highlander if this would be changed to standard rules but I think we would be more successful with the recruitment of new players if we extend the player base from the casual  and "aged spike" community side. IMO Highlander is fine to stay in the niche of "most competitive casual tournament format", so it seems OK to use special and therefore casual rules and disregard those complaints.

Fetchland problem – I have a personal solution for the fetchland issue for testing purposes and I already use the solution Maqi proposed for accelerated game play during tournament. After Thinked Twice  about it I agree that my proposal could cause a lot of other problems and does not solve the whole issue. I am just a lazy person person and the searchmania just annoys me from time to time.

[Ball.Lightning]

In our group Maqi's proposition is highly accepted and widely used. It is even beeing used in local legacy tournaments. To be a fast player is certainly advantage. But I have greater problem with players that are VERY VERY slow at playing the game. No matter what you say to to them, their playing speed is not gonna rise. If someone is used to shufling and searching throught the deck, game can flow almost without any delay. Intentional or unintentional slow play can be hardly punished in our playgroup, since we do not have oficial judge to penalize slow player.