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[17]

c&p from wl changes Jan. 1 2017:

The tutor setting in highlander has always been a controversial object. How many tutors are necessary for a healthy meta? And which one? There were epic debates over the different tutors in the long history of our format. Many people consider Demonic Tutor as best tutor overall and always wonder why Demonic Tutur is unbanned while other has been banned. Our banning policy is founded on following principles five reasons (http://highlandermagic.info/index.php?id=faq). Imperial Seal was also kept banned by an unofficially reasoning #6 - the price barrier. Since the recent judge foil reprint this has been partly fallen away. At least we decided to have an "overall-picture" view on our tutor setting again and to discuss the current one on the whole. That's why we also added Vampiric Tutor to the watch-list. It is argued that the format should have that one good tutor, which has been Demonic Tutor from the beginning, maybe there is time for a reallocation. It is also said that splashing for Demonic is too easy with no real cost, while Vampiric could perhaps remove that reason. Vampiric is more often harder to interact than Demonic, but a successful counter play to nullify Vampiric Tutor costs to its caster a draw and 2 life, which favors opposing control, and aggro strategies.

Splashing Demonic Tutor is easy. Correct. But that should be an argument for allowing Demonic Tutor, not against it. Every deck that plays black can play Demonic Tutor. That's good for every archetype.

I also don't get the reasoning for Vampiric Tutor. It is often harder to interact with than Demonic Tutor (an assessment I totally agree with). If (big if) one successfully interacts with it (has a counter play) then it punishes the player more (which is again correct in my opinion). But how do you interact? In the current meta Vampiric Tutor is just strengthening the decks that are (too?) strong; the card disadvantage and the two life are something a Combo deck does not care about if it simply wins with the card it tutored for.

Both Imperial Seal and Vampiric Tutor seem comparable in power-level to Demonic or Mystical Tutor, but they shine more in combo-decks and decks with clear gameplan but less in midrange-goodstuff-piles. At the cost of 2 life, sorcery rather instant speed, card disadvantage, and the fact that present meta is lacking a combo presence (Vazdru:  ) with shift to burn, we should take both under a scrutiny.

Since the meta isn't lacking Combo decks any more, there is no reason to include more instant speed tutors to the format.

Indeed Entomb has a different effect on the game play and it is still comparable to the other new introduced tutors on the watchlist. But Entomb is even more a combo-tutor than the others and usually no option for most Aggro-, Midrange- or Control-decks. Entomb is obviously THE tutor for graveyard-based decks, especially of course for reanimator. We will evaluate how strong those decks perform which could have any use of Entomb in the next months.[/i]

That's why I think that Entomb is a great addition to the format. It allows something unique. Still, if (and again I think it's currently questionable) combo decks are too strong, then it would be wrong to ban Demonic Tutor. A ban of a tutor that can only be  (or is mostly) used in Combo decks would be a favorable solution to the dominance of the Combo archetype.

Sorry, but your one play does not convince me It basically comes down to: Opponent did not interact with combo player on the first three turns and lost. Yes, Demonic Tutor is a very strong (the strongest unconditional) tutor. Obviously, it is (very) good in Combo decks. But it is also very good in Control and Midrange decks. You are saying yourself that Demonic Tutor can get every card whatsoever, like the silver bullet a Control deck is playing or the finisher Midrange needs. None of these decks can play Rhystic Tutor like your deck can. I guess Muddle the Mixture would also be questionable.

I think it is weird to some extend that Imperial Seal and Entomb got recently unbanned, which cards strengthening Combo (and Reanimator) and now that those decks seem to be (I'm still not sure they are) too strong, you want to ban Demonic Tutor? I just briefly scanned through the lists, but if I recall correctly, most of the Scapeshift and Reanimator decks play Imperial Seal. Why not ban it, again (Ctrl+z anyone?)

Why do you want to ban cards that are strong in general (but also played in decks that are totally fine) instead of cards that are strong only in the archetype you want to weaken (and maybe only played in this archetype)?

Last, there will always be moments in Magic that are frustrating for the opponent, e.g., loosing due to a bad draw/mana screw/mana flood, Angle Shooting, salty opponents, and many more. Demonic Tutor is like playing some cards twice (just a little bit better, because up until resolving it can be any card left in your deck) but is Demonic Tutor frustrating or the card you looked for? Also, there is always the other point of view: loosing because you are not finding one of your cards needed in the matchup. Again, most decks cannot reasonably play as many tutors as Combo decks can.

I don't get the logic where you first unban tutors that are most powerful in combo decks, and then want to ban the tutor that EVERY deck with black mana source can play. How is this supposed to weaken combo against "fair" decks? I think it would pretty much do the opposite. Combo decks have demonic tutor (which often is not the best for named situation) + a ton of fringe tutors. "fair" decks have demonic tutor, and possibly a tainted pact (if playing 3+ colors). Banning DT will hit a deck much worse if that's the only one, or one of the few tutors it has.
And if you're saying there is still tainted pact, you are pushing people away from building 1-2 color decks where tainted pact can't be played.
There is nothing special in demonic tutor: It does not enable miracles, it is not 2+ combo pieces packed into one (like Entomb or Intuition are), it does not hide the card you searched from being discarded, It is a 2 mana sorcery.

This is the best paragraph I've read about Demonic Tutor in this thread. Banning it would be fatal to Control and Midrange, since  it is taking away the one good tutor these decks are playing. If Scapeshift is to strong, think about banning Bring to Light. If Reanimator is to strong, think about banning Entomb. If you want to ban a more general tutor, think about banning Imperial Seal.

I think, right now doing nothing would be the best for the format. Do not ban anything and do not unban anything. Let's look a little bit longer how the format evolves with the tools given. Whenever there is a new deck to beat a quite loud group demands bans. If I recall correctly, in recent history we had the Artifact Combo Deck, RDW, UR (which was hit by the ban of Mystical Tutor) and now Scapeshift and to some extend Reanimator dominating the format, with people demanding bans to weaken these decks.

Since there are not many frequently tournaments (outside Berlin and maybe some other cities) players and decks adopt new Tier 1 decks very slowly. Give these players some time. Not everybody has a regular Highlander FNM with great attendance.

TL;DR: I would not ban or unban anything.

[The only diffence would be that each archetype other than 4c-blood profits more from entomb]

[...] I suggested in the Poll that unbannig entomb would be possible if demonic tutor would get banned instead. All decks would suffer from banning the best tutor in the format. But entomb could easily play the same role. The only diffence would be that each archetype other than 4c-blood profits more from entomb, since entomb is simply the best card in reanimator/GY-based strategies and decks with snapcaster Mage/jace are usually getting better options than non-Blue decks. even if 4c. blood has some good use für entomb, it would basically upgrade each other deck more than 4cBlood. [...]

I think that Control is another archetype which would miss demonic tutor and even though I have not that much experience playing 4c-Blood I would suspect that they can compensate the loss of Demonic Tutor way better than control decks. Playing a control deck in a diverse meta requires many different solutions and the easiest way to get them is (and most likely will always be) Demonic Tutor. If you search for decks which play Demonic Tutor on mtgpulse, you will find control, 4c-Blood, reanimator and combo decks. Considering all these archetypes, only reanimator would be happy about the proposed change. I guess combo and 4c-Blood could compensate the loss somehow more or less easily while but control players would lose and key part of their deck.

[would travel for a Highlander side event only.]

[...] JK thinks, that HL players would not play a combination of the other announced formats and Highlander or would travel for a Highlander side event only. [...]

And since HL Players hate to travel for just one event, there were 48 players at MGM3, 47 at MGM2, 53 at MGM1, and 30 at the Highlander Bash. And all those events lasted just one day.

Went there all the way from Dortmund and it was definitely worth it. A really well organized tournament with a competitive environment but absolutely nice and friendly players. I really hope that this becomes a regular big tournament. If it fits into my schedule I'll attend again and again The coverage is a really nice thing. Thanks for all the work.

[Which cards are missing on the banned-list and why? (max. the 5 most important ones)]

My opinion has not changed, therefore vote for B)

Which cards are missing on the banned-list and why? (max. the 5 most important ones)

True-Name Nemesis, this card is so #@!%$* annoying. It's boring to play with and against. It's the random win out of nowhere. Sorry to be so harsh but this card is a perfect example of a well thought but poorly executed card design. It works for multilayer but in a one on one game it's just stupid.

[UNBAN]

Can someone explain me why it is a skill testing card? Because you can improve your draws, what almost every player can do?

In my humble opinion it's a skill testing card because it reduces the variance at least a little bit. It also makes shuffle-effects way more valuable which again results in more decisions which need to be considered, e.g. tutoring with one or more good cards on top is quite a big decision. Therefore, as the numbers of possible plays is increased the better player will more often choose the better line of play.

When it comes to the time issue  I don't think that SDT is the problem, it's one of the cards which shows the problem quite clearly. The problem of slow playing players taking hours for their decisions. So all in all I vote for UNBAN.

Card prices increase drastically and the question is where to draw the line. Is a card one can "easily" acquire for 275€ too expensive for the format. If so does that mean that a card needs to be banned as soon as there reach a specific price? I don't think so. Cards should be banned because of their power and only because of that. Personally I think Imperial Seal is banned for good, because it's a too good tutor right now.

Hypothetical, if there were a card, which would cost more than 275€ which would neither be broken, nor weak, which would be used in one specific deck type and is only good there but not even the best card or belonging to the best combination of cards in this deck type. Is there any reason to ban this card?

Banned list is in place to keep people playing or give players incentive to jump into a format [...]

I totally agree with you, but it should be done because of the power of the cards, not their price.

Even though the idea of a point list seems tempting, as one could control the strength of different archetypes even better I don't like it at all. As one allows some way over the top cards the format will become more dependent on the cards one draws (initially and during the game). Right now some players want to ban Mana Drain and Demonic Tutor because it looks like they can turn games around, with even more absurd cards this problem may become more and more present.

I think a card should never be banned because it's expensive moneywise, but allowing the P9 will make it even harder to enter the format and could be really crucial for our beloved format. Even if it's just because new players think that the need P9 to succeed.

Another fact I don't like about these lists is, that it's hard to validate whether a deck is legal or not. At my last HLGP I had an opponent with an unintentionally illegal deck as he had played a Tolarian Academy which was banned back then. He simply had to change the card and everything was good to go. With a point list it will be hard to see whether a deck contains 15 or 14 points. (Please keep in mind that I'm talking about unintentionally having an illegal decklist )

[Worldly Tutor]

Yes if there were more actual Wastelands available in the card pool the problem would not be as severe as playing around these cards would increase your chances of winning. As there are only 1 Wasteland in each deck, you never should mulligan your hand if it was otherwise keepable but loses to Wasteland. On the other hand you should definitely build your deck with the aforementioned hate cards (B2B, moon etc.) in mind and play around those cards. Wasteland is just a card that randomly gets you even if you had the perfect two color manabase but suddenly can't play around it due to inherent random nature of the game. In this format Wasteland is just too close a Strip Mine that it's not fun

There is exactly one of each non-basic in each deck. So this argument can be stated for every card. [SilverBulletAgainstTheDeckOnePlays] is to strong, if my opponent has it I loose. In my opinion, if a manabase is perfect, if there is such a thing, then a wasteland should not disrupt it too much. Of course it's a drawback but otherwise Wasteland would not be a good and therefore played card.

I don't get it why, after every big tournament, there is so much talk about the banlist. Mostly it reads like: A deck with a good matchup against my petdeck/deck I played is available so please do something about it. Thanks to the new mulligan and the current ban list, there are more decks playable then ever at least in my humble opinion. Why is the percentage of the Izzet decks in the top 16 greater than the percentage of the 4c Aggro decks? Maybe because they have a positive matchup against these types of decks? There is a funny thing called meta game. If each deck normaly had a 50% matchup against everything I would agree that something has to be done, but that's simply not the case.

2. My opinion is that the Banned List is quite ok, except that Oath of Druids, Tolarian Academy, Mana Drain, Demonic Tutor and Mishra´s Workshop burst the power level. The question for me is if the other decks can keep those cards in check. I doubt this at least for Oath and Academy (pls don´t refer to the HLGP Top 8, this is just one big tournament and players choose a deck they are used to play to reach Top8 such as me).

These are strong cards without doubt, but I don't think there is any reason why they should be banned. Creatures are getting better and better with nearly every new set. That these cards burst the power level will not be true for very long (I personly doubt the do right now, they are around the best cards, but there always will be best cards.

Which cards are missing on the banned-list and why? (max. the 5 most important ones)

Worldly Tutor: Either have these CMC 1 tutors allowed alltogether or ban them all (with the exception of the black one maybe). Each archetype profits tremendously from 1 or 2 of them, so why have them not all available / banned for fairness reasonings?  

Either you are missing Worldly Tutor or you just want the green one to be banned. I don't think each card of a cycle needs to be either banned or unbanned for fairness. They all give access to different resources which creates a huge difference in the power level. Otherwise either Ancestral Recall needs to be unbanned or Dark Ritual, Giant Growth, Healing Salve and Lightning Bolt needs to be banned as they are also part of a cycle and give you 3 of one resource.

Regarding the poll:

How do you rate the banned-list on a scale from 1 to 10 (1=poor, 10=great)?

9, as there is always something which can be done to improve the format. I'm not sure what it is, but I think this is one of the most enjoyable banned-list since I started playing this format.

How do you rate the highlander mulligan on a scale from 1 to 10?

10, after the first shock (I really liked the Spoils mulligan) this is the best thing which happened to this format lately.

How often do you play Highlander (mp.org-rules) in average

At least once a week.

How often have you played on a HL-GP?

1

Which cards are missing on the banned-list and why? (max. the 5 most important ones)

True-Name Nemesis, this card is so #@!%$* annoying. It's boring to play with and against. It's the random win out of nowhere. Sorry to be so harsh but this card is a perfect example of a well thought but poorly executed card design. It works for multilayer but in a one on one game it's just stupid.

Which cards should be deleted from the banned-list and why? (max. the 5 most important ones)

No time to test, sorry.

[Natural Order]

After reading the reasons for the changes, these are my thoughts:

Natural Order
I don't mind banning this card, Dortmund (where I usually play) has a control heavy meta, there was no problem with it, but I can see the problem in a more green based meta.

Tolarian Academy / Mishra's Workshop
I really like it when cards are unbanned which are not an auto include in popular decks. Thus I do appreciate this decision.

Oath of Druids
I don't care because I don't think the deck is "unfair" or "too strong". Oath is a deck which seems unfair because it has a very strong card it "finishes" with. But the whole deck needs to be built around it, thus it really needs this one card, which makes it kind of fair.

Sensei's Divining Top / Mana Drain
Why on earth would you ban Sensei's Devining Top. It's a card which is not an auto include though it only costs {1}. The effect is an advantage but so is the effect of a Sylvan Library or a Mirri's Guile. The argument that it takes much time is in my opinion not true.
Mana Drain is without a doubt a very good counter. But as the power level of creatures increase Mana Drain becomes one of the few spells which seems to have a suitable power level compared to creatures. In my opinion it's a card which is absolutely essential for control decks.

Demonic Tutor / Mystical Tutor
Please never ever ban Deminic Tutor. This card is one of the few reasons to play black. I have not tested Mystical Tutor, but it is very hard to win against Personal Tutor for Entreat the Angels. I think if this happens end of turn it becomes even harder. Thus Miracle is the reason that Mystical Tutor is too strong.

Dark Depths
I have seen this combo only once. So I have no opinion here.

Doks and I were able to test some hours last weekend. We played UWr-Midrange vs. Creatureless-Esper. Both decks were adjusted to work with the new mulligan. At least we thought that we adjusted our decks

My personal conclusion after the play testing is:

• It's not enough to play more lands. Sometimes it just didn't felt right. Artifact ramp was awkward most of the time.
• Games went much longer (regarding the rounds which need to be played until one gave up or was defeated). But...
• ...games lasted as long as before the mulligan in terms of time. As the decision whether to mulligan or not is way faster than the time needed to spoil and also there were turns where nothing happened.
• One thing I really liked was that the variability of the cards was greater as one was not able to spoil useless or semi-useless cards.
• Also there were way more comebacks. As there was just one game in which one of us was able to play the perfect curve, it's easier to win a game even if the opponent has pressure early on. Thus games were not decided in early turns (which is possibly due to the matchup).
• Screw and flood. It happens and it happens more often than with the spoils mulligan. Right now I'm not sure whether it's due to a bad/imperfect adjusting (which I think and hope) or is owed to the new mulligan.
• Games felt more interactive.

I'm still not sure whether it was a good decision to change the mulligan, but unlike before I now tend more to "yes" than to "no".

... Additionally, it was a very clever way to circumvent or minimize uninteractive games that are caused
by screw or flood. Such games are the main weakness of MTG.

Yes and no. It also required decks to be able to play the prefect curve. So if one player cannot while the other can he would loose, even if he is able to "play" some cards. Right now I'm unsure whether it's a good idea to change the mulligan but we'll never know without lots of testing. This is the best way to test with a large number of participants.

On the one hand I think it's good when the format gets a little bit slower but on the other hand it seems that spell-based combo decks are dead and that's something I don't like as it's something the format is missing.

Yes I can, but they play 60 card decks which can contain up to four copies of one card