Messages

It's not only combo decks that utilize the graveyard: Loam decks make good use of it, too. And the Highlander mulligan helps as well: You can throw graveyard hate away if you know you're not playing against combo, or try to dig for more hate cards with it. As far as graveyward hate goes, we now have enchantments (Leyline, Planar Void), instants that can be played for free (Ravenous Trap), cheap and free artifact hate (Relic of Progenitus, Tormod's Crypt), cheap and free creatures that can hate the graveyard (Yixlid Jailer, Faerie Macabre), and Worldwake is even bringing us a common land that kills a graveyard when it's played. On top of that we have exiling removal like Swords, Path and Oblivion Ring. The hate is pretty easily integrated into a deck without hurting it too much, IMHO.

One addition on the subject of Portal goodies and other ridiculously expensive and hard-to-get cards.
In my opinion this boils into a single question: Do we maintain the ban list strictly for tournaments, or as general guidelines for casual fun? If strictly tournaments, price shouldn't be a consideration, but if we steer more towards a casual-focused mindset, I wouldn't mind having a lower ban threshold for really expensive cards, especially if they're splashable and usable across multiple decks (Like Library, for example). Archetype-specific cards obviously wouldn't need as much attention IMHO.

The above is strictly my opinion and not a general sentiment expressed by a large portion of the Finnish Highlander community, as the first paragraphs of my opener were.

The discussion on us Finns establishing our own Highlander format has surfaced again at vaihdetaan.net. The discussion so far has been both intelligent on some people's part and outright stupid on some others'. There's been discussion about ditching the special mulligan for an EDH-style free mulligan rule and other stuff (like allowing CE cards), but in the end we're mostly happy with just about everything. The one issue that's been consistently raised up, unsurprisingly, has been the banned list, and especially the way it's maintained.

Many people here feel that the way you maintain the list is odd, and at least unpredictable. They don't generally see a problem with the format having a most-played deck unless it starts warping the format into DtB + hate decks, like happened with Affinity and several others. In their opinion, cards should be banned strictly on power level concerns, or if their banning can deliver a blow to a format-warping deck. Cards shouldn't be pre-emptively banned unless they're clearly bonkers (P9, Library of Alexandria, etc.): If they cause problems, fine.

Another more common criticism is your harshness towards combo. The format's nature itself already harshly limits strategies based on specific cards, and especially ones intending to use those cards quickly enough to race aggro. Many casual players LIKE combo decks a lot, and many of the more experienced ones feel that a good combo presence in a format helps keep it healthy. As an avid combo and control player, I can personally say that I'd support loosing the reins on combo a bit.

Third, people just can't see the sense in things like the Painter/Grindstone situation: Right now, we have an utterly useless (not to mention expensive) card in the format that nobody wants to play because it's only use is a broken combo that's been banned. Painter without Grindstone, on the other hand, has interesting but hardly broken interactions with cards like Persecute, Iona and Oona. As far as I can remember, the Painter issue is a prime example of the policy of pre-emptive banning - it could be a problem, so might as well kill it anyway. This is not liked.


With those general sentiments expressed, my own thoughts:
I'm a bit ambivalent on the issue, but would lean towards the side of Finnish criticism. Your goal of format diversity is admirable, and it's certainly true that a sufficiently diverse format helps foster interest in it. However, I feel that the "ban if it proves to be a problem/is just plain obviously broken" mentality to banning would lead to a more sensible, coherent and predictable ban list than the current philosophy of balancing archetypes does. This doesn't mean that it isn't a good idea to keep format diversity in mind: A diverse format should be more fun for more people.

Many people are irritated about Gifts, especially it's splashability. I wouldn't mind fixing the Tarmogoyf problem, but the problem is that in addition to "(blue controls)decks running Gifts" there are "Gifts (combo) decks", the latter being based around the broken piece of cardboard instead of just putting it in because it's, well, broken. Some are also annoyed at Survival and Demonic Tutor, but I haven't personally seen quite as much loathing for them. The parentheses above give away another problem: Banning Gifts would severely hurt combo, which would probably be a bad thing. How can we limit blue control without weakening combo further, while perhaps applying the new "if it's a problem" policy?

This is just one relative newcomer's suggestion, but I'd suggest the following changes to the banned list:
- = Ban
+ = Unban

- Grindstone (broken combo)
- Gifts Ungiven (very splashable and extremely powerful tutor, greatly powers up blue control)
- Library of Alexandria (breaks control mirrors in half)
- Mind Twist (very splashable, often wins the game against control on the spot.)

+ Painter's Servant (useful, but likely won't be broken without Grindstone)
+ Buried Alive (strengthens Reanimator while providing a less versatile Gifts replacement for Survival decks. If Kiki-Guide-Mite proves broken, Pestermite and Sky Hussar could perhaps get the boot: Kiki and Guide have more widespread and interesting uses.)
+ Protean Hulk (Shouldn't be so fast as to be a problem when Flash is banned, graveyard-based versions are more vulnerable to hate and require setup)

These changes have a distinct slant of pushing black graveyard strategies and weakening blue control - the latter's loss in strength should give rise to alternative board control decks to keep aggro in check (and be kept in check themselves by the strengthened combo decks). Additionally, Worldwake will bring us a land version of Tormod's Crypt, so more quality graveyard hate would be available as well.

Comments?

More modifications. Etched Oracle got the boot, and has been replaced with Loxodon Hierarch. I've seen the card in many builds, and it's clearly there for a reason.

EDIT: Some deckstats.net analysis on the contents of my meat pile: http://deckstats.net/deck-30854-3ebc4743b537bcf0700fa37d12afe922-en.html

Spiritmonger, Doran, Stag cut from the deck. Temporal Isolation will get the boot when I get my hands on a copy of Oversold Cemetery.

I don't doubt that the cards you run are good, that's evident based on tournament results in one format or another. The thing here is simply that while some cards are good, the deck is better in the end without them. No one would doubt that a card like Doran is insane: It's easily one of the better Rock-aggro cards there is. Yet it or Great Sable Stag are probably the weakest cards in my deck.

As for the Project X combo, I played it previously on a reasoning largely similar to yours: Saffi and Champion are both individually good cards, and sometimes they can combo out for insane results (in the ideal case, a 3rd turn kill). Thing is, the combo requires a lot of pieces and just isn't as robust and easy to assemble as the Reveillark kill. It's decent, but it's likely that the deck is better without it.

You run Recurring Nightmare, Oblivion Ring, Survival and Deed. This means that Zur, for example, is far superior to the Champion in your current build, and I'd recommend putting him into the deck immediately. Likewise, Aven Mindcensor and Mind Twist will probably do the deck more good than Saffi.

As far as the Sliver goes, I'd just run Vindicate and Maelstrom Pulse instead of the Sliver and Vindicate. The gulf in card quality is just too big, and you can already Survival out answers like Pridemage, Shriekmaw and Man-o'-War. It's just not worth it.

The answer to the "What to cut?" question comes when you decide whether to do control or combo. Gifts-Survival is an archetype that generally has lots of elements from both, but some of your cards are blatantly combo (black reanimation spells), some blatantly control (Loam, Looter, Teeg etc.). There's even the odd aggro card, like Rafiq.

As far as Reveillark combo goes, I'd prefer Nantuko Husk and Carrion Feeder to Mirror Entity, at least if you're going to run one or the other. They protect your guys from RFG removal, and provide a one-turn win condition by becoming arbitarily huge.

You're running Crypt Champion and Saffi Eriksdotter, yet the only thing I can see that benefits from the recursion engine is Caller of the Claw, which is a bit narrow IMHO.

Darkheart Sliver and Harmonic Sliver are good creatures on their own, but I'm a bit hesitant about Necrotic Sliver. You wanted Vindicate in the deck. Run it instead of the copycat Sliver.


I'm running a somewhat similar list myself, check it out if you could find some ideas.

Isolation is in the deck primarily so that Zur can handle Shroud stuff like Sphinx of Jwar Isle etc. I agree that it is suboptimal otherwise, though. I stumbled on Valori's deck loooong ago, but it does still have some good stuff that could be incorporated into my build (Oversold Cemetery, for example)

The topic pretty much says it all. This is my current Highlander deck, a 4-color Survival build with the usual suspects of Gifts, Lark, Zur, Recurring Nightmare, Genesis etc.

It's pretty basic stuff: A controlling combo deck with lots of creatures with interesting abilities and many tutors. Apart from the archetype-defining stuff above, standout cards include the Squirrelcraft combo (meaning Zur has a three-turn clock) and an alternate win condition of tinkering for Progenitus.

Protection is primarily in the form of targeted discard and a small assortment of counterspells.
As it stands, the deck is 111 cards, which might be a bit too big. Any suggestions on what to cut? Other recommendations heartily welcomed, as well.

Meat: 33 pieces

Arbor Elf
Birds of Paradise
Carrion Feeder

Wall of Roots
Wall of Blossoms
Mesmeric Fiend
Sakura-Tribe Elder
Tidehollow Sculler
Qasali Pridemage

Kitchen Finks
Aven Riftwatcher
Nantuko Husk
Aven Mindcensor
Knight of the Reliquary
Eternal Witness
Vampire Nighthawk

Loxodon Hierarch
Mystic Snake
Venser, Shaper Savant
Wickerbough Elder
Solemn Simulacrum
Zur the Enchanter
Glen Elendra Archmage
Academy Rector

Mulldrifter
Shriekmaw
Reveillark
Genesis
Karmic Guide
Baneslayer Angel
Body Double

Empyrial Archangel
Progenitus


Enchantments, Artifacts: 11
Sensei's Divining Top

Oversold Cemetery
Survival of the Fittest
Sylvan Library
Earthcraft

Pernicious Deed
Oblivion Ring
Phyrexian Arena
Squirrel Nest
Recurring Nightmare

Nevinyrral's Disk


Spells: 25

Path to Exile
Swords to Plowshares
Worldly Tutor
Duress

Castigate
Demonic Tutor
Negate
Merchant Scroll
Remand
Muddle the Mixture
Life from the Loam
Regrowth

Maelstrom Pulse
Putrefy
Intuition
Compulsive Research

Careful Consideration
Damnation
Natural Order
Fact or Fiction
Gifts Ungiven
Wrath of God

Primal Command
Force of Will
Worm Harvest


Land: 39

4x Island
4x Swamp
5x Forest
1x Plains

Reflecting Pool
Seaside Citadel

Verdant Catacombs
Marsh Flats
Arid Mesa
Misty Rainforest
Scalding Tarn
Polluted Delta
Windswept Heath
Flooded Strand

Lonely Sandbar
Secluded Steppe
Tranquil Thicket
Barren Moor

Temple Garden
Hallowed Fountain
Breeding Pool
Watery Grave
Overgrown Tomb
Godless Shrine

Tropical Island

Stirring Wildwood
Treetop Village

Wasteland
Tectonic Edge

Not necessarily delete the German forum, per se, but move the magicplayer.org main site to English or something, etc, start promoting the fact that the format is played worldwise and try to bring people together here. This way the banned list discussions on the main site etc. would be in English and much more approachable to foreigners. It's a bit of a hassle to get the ball rolling, but I believe it would eventually result in a self-feeding phenomenon where activity attracts more and everyone ends up the better for it.

That's just the thing: We have three relatively quiet forums and the magicplayer main site (again, in German). There's three relatively quiet trickles of information each of which only has a portion of the format's players. If we had a single, dedicated Highlander forum we could have all the players in the same place. People would have more threads to read and post to, resulting in a more lively forum, which again attracts more people who happen to check it out for one reason or another.

Hello,

I'm a Finn who has been playing German Highlander for a few months. So far, it's been pretty much the best format I've ever played, with a good mix of the best sides of being a good player (all the card analysis, deck tuning and so on) and the things that made Magic so fun in the beginning (discovery and things like killing people with squirrels).

It's not all rosy, though. Oh, I've got my complaints with the banned list (Why ban Painter and not Grindstone? You could probably also ease on the combo phobia a bit.), but those are largely insignificant to one overarching problem: Discussion.

I like discussing decks and the formats I play as a whole, but have a problem. I don't know German. Sure, there's the Finnish forums at vaihdetaan.kapsi.fi where you see pyyhttu, Nastaboi etc., and these international forums at magicplayer.org, but both are pretty quiet places at least as far as actual Highlander discussion goes. The german magicplayer.org forum seems to be more active than the two aforementioned ones combined, and I'd love to take part in the discussion but can't because of the language barrier.

German Highlander is the most played Highlander variant in Finland by a good margin, but Finns, on average, speak English much better than German. This basically splits the Finnish and German Highlander communities apart. If we had a single, shared international forum, we could have much more active discussion which in turn could get more and more players into the fold for the benefit of everyone.

I realize that I'm just a single person, but I believe the idea has merit. What do you people think about it?