Bannings II / 2012, October 15th

[pyyhttu]

2-3 colour mana bases are no problem even without fetchlands but I really see Back to Basics & friends becoming too strong and fun killing. Perhaps they have to go, then...

That's an interesting hypothesis... but do play basics lands. Basics are good™.

My prediction is that without fetches Back to Basics becomes efficient enough of a hoser it deserves to do its job (punish greedy mana bases), compared to the trend we've seen now, i.e.: The card is currently too slow to make impact (opponent's board presence already established), or if played too early, greedy player can then play around it by fetching his few basics instead.

So I pretty much sign what you say, but am hesitant at this point to say if it would become too strong.

But one step at the time. After all, we're talking about things that aren't even watchlisted yet, and a major one at that!

[MMD]

That's an interesting hypothesis... but do play basics lands. Basics are good™.

But one step at the time. After all, we're talking about things that aren't even watchlisted yet, and a major one at that!

I am really in love with basic lands...but fetchless Highlander will already lose 5C (most probably also 4C non-control decks) and even 3C will have a hard time not losing to those hoser cards. You´ll probably see a lot of UR decks in this test tournament. Thank god that Wizards has not printed a critical mass on Tier1 creatures in this colour combination.

[Tiggupiru]

You´ll probably see a lot of UR decks in this test tournament.

Well, I don't know. That sounds something that loses to monored pretty hard and burn is pretty much the only top tier deck that loses nothing when the fetches leave.

@nonbasic hate bans

I don't think nonbasic hosers ever need to be banned. Hosers make greedy strategies vulnerable, but do not make anything broken themselves. If Blood Moons become too good, then non-greedy decks get better as they naturally dodge the hate and if that happens often enough, people will stop playing their dead hosers. After that there is always a possibility of greedy manabases coming back as there is no hate around to punish them and the loop starts over again. This is a very good thing. Constantly evolving metagame is why Legacy is such a big hit despite it being studied constantly by good players; the balance of power is constanly in motion. Whenever that motion stops, they ban the offending cards (like the time when they removed the powerlevel errata from Flash). We need to get that motion going again in HL.

[MMD]

@nonbasic hate bans

I don't think nonbasic hosers ever need to be banned. Hosers make greedy strategies vulnerable, but do not make anything broken themselves. If Blood Moons become too good, then non-greedy decks get better as they naturally dodge the hate and if that happens often enough, people will stop playing their dead hosers. After that there is always a possibility of greedy manabases coming back as there is no hate around to punish them and the loop starts over again. This is a very good thing. Constantly evolving metagame is why Legacy is such a big hit despite it being studied constantly by good players; the balance of power is constanly in motion. Whenever that motion stops, they ban the offending cards (like the time when they removed the powerlevel errata from Flash). We need to get that motion going again in HL.

Personally Agreed. But I question if this is also the opinion of the HL-community as most of them play HL as kitchen table format and like it colourfull. I am already frightenend about the reaction of many unexperienced HL players in case the council anounces fetchlands to be on the watchlist...

Many HL-players love their 4-5C piles and will have a hard time to reduce it to 3C (which is in the fireline of non-basic hate) or even 2C. I already hear them whining when they constantly lose to non-basic hate. We already have the first example that some of them will better leave the format before they ask themselves how to prevent that.

IMO a 3-4C manabase itself plus land destruction will already challenging enough to reduce the power of goodstuff.

I really don´t know what we should do with people like delta_strike (sorry, but this is a perfect example) which threaten to turn their back to HL if the council touches the mana base.  I mean they are also a big part of the current HL community.

In any case, IF the council finally puts Fetchies on the watchlist they should better hire a damn good ghostwriter for official statement

[ChristophO]

Hi,

interesting discussion on the last page. I would like to chime in on the fetchland issue especially. Please have a look at Maqui's greart guide to Highlander Mana bases:
http://www.magicplayer.org/forum/index.php?topic=829.0

2 color Decks

Needs of mana base for a two colored deck:
Depending on double costs, cantrips, and cmc in deck a typical two mana colored deck needs 15 to 17 sources for an important color (even color split or main color). 2nd color splashes work starting at 12 to 13 sources. But typically, say a RG beats Highlander deck will need to play both colors pretty even to keep up card quality in Highlander I believe. If we calculate with 34 lands for an aggro deck with lets say 2 colorless lands (waste, Edge) this leaves 32 lands for fixing the mana. So how many untapped immediate mana sources are there to make both R and G on turn 1? Looking at Maqis guide I think he missed the Future Sight Land cycle and City of Brass as a great 1 of in his Exploring Mana Bases post but otherwise listed all the playable cycles. Lands that come into play untapped on T1 and make 2 different sorts of mana are acutally far and few in between for two color decks:

Avaiable singleton of the cycle for all of the 10 2 color pairings:
1) City of Brass
2) Dual Land
3) Shock Land
4) Pain Land
Avaible for some color pairings:
5) Scars of Mirrodin cycle (allied pairings only)
6) Future sight cycle (G/W pairing; G/R pairing)
There are some more cycles that enter play untapped but do not fix on T1:
7) M10 Dual
Filter land

This means there are at most 8 etb untapped lands left for a two color deck. Our GR beats deck would now play 2 colorless lands, 8 duals and would have in total space for 20 additional lands. Assuming you would also play Raging Ravine there are 19 slots left for basics or etb tapped special lands that also make a colored mana (e.g. Urzas saga lands). This means the deck will have a really tough time to sport 20 immediate mana sources in both green and red. The deck will most likely have mana troubles from time to time. Depending on how aggro this deck would play it might be looking for some additional Enter the battlefield tapped fixing lands.


3 color Decks
The calculation is very comparable to the one for a 2 colored deck, but there are 3 avaiable lands from each cycle. Just multiplying this results in 24 lands so only space for 10 basics at most (assuming 2 colorless lands and lets say 36 lands here because we are planning a more controling deck...). Since there are 3 duals and 3 shock duals in the deck the 6 m10 duals will etb untapped more than half of our games but not even close to every game. Such a deck would have 16 mana sources or a bit less (maybe a few of the less strong duals for the third color would be cut to increase necessary immediate mana source count on T1 for the main color/s). The three color deck would also have problems assembling a really reliable mana base but would not be worse of than a 2 color deck. But such a deck would have less acess to basic lands than 4 color decks now that play 10 fetchlands and 4 singelton basics or so. 3 color decks would be really easy to hose with Back to Basics and Blood Moon.


4+ color Decks
I can not see a working mana base for such a deck without Artifact mana fixing (Signets, Talismans etc.) as well as using ETB. tapped lands. One should however note that there is a great fetchland uncommon cycle in Mirage that works just like the normal fetchlands with the exception that the fetchland enters the battlefield tapped (e.g. Bad River). This cycle has only been printed for the allied color pairings.



How to compromise on the fetchland topic  
I believe the requested "ban all fetchlands" would result in more playable archetypes for our format as it would force people to decide on 3 or 2 color pairs by weakening the mana bases. However especially for 3 color mana bases this will make those decks very vulnerable to Blood Moon and Back to Basics. If all fetchlands were to go I would at least throw the community a bone and take Back to Basics and Blood Moon along; there will still be Magus of the Moon and Price of Progres to punish 3 color decks with that are not as severe. What I dislike about a full 10 fetchland ban is that 2 color mana bases are not stronger than 3 color bases. Therefore I would acutally prefer a severe limit on the fetchlands: I would propose a hard limit of 3. This will push 2 colored decks above 20 IMS for both colors without enabling crazy 4 color enter the battlefield untapped mana bases. It is fare better to punish 4 color with enter the battlefield lands so that they have to pay with a turn for their 4th color and have to pay almost every swingle game instead of playing in the back to Basics/Blood Moon lottery. You will loose that lottery maybe once or twice in ~15 to 20 games (7-8 Rounds) over a big Highlander tournament which simply is not punishing enough to stop anybody from playing such a 4 color deck. Such a change would be much better to sell to players than just going and banning all fetchlands and forcing everybody to go 2 color again.  

[Tiggupiru]

I don't think the "You can play only three fetches" is a solution. Mainly because it's very confusing. There is nothing similar in any of the other formats, combined with the weird mulligan rule (which comes as a hugely confusing to new players sometimes), this would create a pretty weird set of format specific rules. It's also close to impossible to control without deckchecks. Other than that it's a fine idea, but I really don't see the advantages outweighing the confusion.

It sucks that two colored decks wouldn't still be strictly easier to build what comes to the manabases, but if the hosers would not be banned, we would at least have clearly good reasons to not go overboard with lands. Besides, it would still be the same lottery, but unlike right now when Back to Basics might just be 3 mana enchantment that does pretty much nothing, here it would actually win games. I think three colored controls are viable as they can use artifact mana to smooth the colors. Base green also allows you to play more colors than normal. Three colored aggro might not be worth it, but I feel it can work if the manabase is done perfectly. This is something we probably know more of after we play couple of these dummy tournaments with the fetchbans.

[pyyhttu]

We threw together a 5€ test tournament at Helsinki on 17.11. where fetches are banned, another on 1.12 or 2.12. Just to get grasp if the idea is worth pursuing. We'll report back how it was.

And we played out the first of the tournaments, results posted to http://mtgsuomi.fi/keskustelu/index.php/topic,67075.msg317943.html#msg317943

Decklists posted to: http://mtgpulse.com/event/11331#157548

At this point feedback is mixed, but we'll test some more on 2.12 (and regular fetchlands allowed next Sunday to get reference). 

[carte_blanche]

First of all: thanks a lot for sharing the results of your experiment with us, pyyhttu. -> +1

If banning fetchlands is such a problem for so many people, let's approach the problem from the opposite side: not from the tutor side (as ChristophO described it) but from the target side: Duals. Such a notional ban seems to fit into the banning policy since we saw some tutors being unbaned (we sould keep the tutors - fetchlands - in the format).

For the time being it's just an idea... I admit that I've not thought too long about it, but here is what I came up with:

- We got still an alternative to the old duals: the shock-dual manabase that enables multicolr decks as well but to a slightly higher price (play-wise). Therefore very colorful decks are still playable (in theory). Three color lists will still be playable for sure.

- It will reduce the financial barrier for new players a lot. The shock duals will be reprinted if their price rises too high and I'm quite optimistic that the fetchlands will see a reprint in the upcoming two or three blocks. (Resulting in more highlander players? - That question I cannot answer straight away.)

- It will make a 5c manabase very costy in matchups against aggro decks, therefore giving the goodstuff decks at least one (don't want to say "bad") worse matchup in comparison to the situation right now.

- Will it make control decks less playable? First I thought it will, but I'm not so sure about that anymore... it seems like the most played classical control decks are UBx and UWx nowadays - often without a third color as a splash. These decks already play quite a lot basics and are fine with that. They will loose one (important card) but still their manabase will change far less than the bases in other decks. Therefore, I assume that these decks will not suffer so much by a ban of the old duals.

- What I'm a little concerned about are the die hard combo decks that need fast access to different colored mana...

- The bad point about a ban: HL will feel less an eternal format without the old duals.


I would be happy to read some oppinions about that... maybe I just missed some important points.

[MMD]

At first +1 for Finland for testing this and +1 to you for the upload!

Interesting

- that RDW has not Top3'd
- absence of non-basic hate in the Top 3
- that somebody chooses lftl in the moment where fetchlands are gone
- to see a BRW deck in the Top 3 (I was not aware that BRW is a deck at all  )

Regarding Fetch vs Dual:

I see the main differences in time consuming fetchlands and non-basic hate foiling the dual land fun. I have no testing results, so no vote for me here. At first I wanted the fetchland ban because I am lazy but it is possible that non-basic hoser would be too mighty then...I don´t know.

[Dreamer]

I played with a fetchless Pattern-Rector for some time (sadly didn't manage to attend the test tournaments, but they inspired me to try). It was ok, though more haphazard-feeling and in some nebulous way a small bit less fun. More colour screw as expected. If the evidence points to 3c mana bases still being better than 2c ones, bleh, leave the fetches be. That was the main motivation for me, anyway, in addition to deterring for-the-hell-of-it splashing some.

[W0lf]

You should not forget that Highlander is a non-official Format, Fetchlands cannot be banned such a drastic move would lead to people making their own local rules which would then make your banned list and this Forum obsolete.

[W0lf]

and let me add this:

Fetchlands are fun to play with, the strategic deep they provide add alot of thrill to a game of Highlander.
There are alot of decisions to make when fetching for a land, the right time to dodge stifle/search deny effects, opponents non-basic hate etc. Fetching for a wrong land in one of the early turns can always cost you the game in the long run. This is what makes Highlander so interesting, limited resources and perfect timing.
You are taking the heart from this game should you really decide to ban these cards.
I`m really suprised there are people who claim to like Highlander that want to see these cards banned.

[Dreamer]

It's drastic, but hardly unreasonable. One illogical effect of the fetch-dual manabase, for example, is that 3 colour decks are actually more stable mana-wise than two-colour decks. An even more odd thing is that a 2-coloured aggro deck is more susceptible to nonbasic hate than a 3-coloured one. These things make no sense. The fetch-dual manabase also makes it very hard to punish any but the most outrageously greedy decks for that greed in constructing a mana base.

I don't think the issue of 3c resilience vs. 2c can be reasonably solved, but I'd imagine the 2c stability inching closer and closer to 3c with every new dual land printing, especially for allied colour pairs. I just hope the retarded bombs don't kill any gameplay we have before that.

[W0lf]

i feel like this might be the case on lower level play, not in competetive tournaments.
UW-Control is 2 coloured, extremly stable and can beat everything if played well.
same goes for decks like boros or any counter-burn archetype.
You improve your game dude and everything will be fine

[Dreamer]

Where did I say anything about two-colour control? Two-colour control is the best two-colour archetype in the format. They can also afford to play many more basic lands than a fast aggro can, and so are about equal, if not a smidge better, than a fetch-dual 3 colour deck manabase consistency/resiliency wise. But fast aggro still suffers a lot, which is the point. It's a thing that shouldn't really be, is anyway, apparently isn't fixed by a fetchland ban, and probably slowly improves over time to a point where allied colour aggro is nearly as stable as 3c fetch decks and 2c control, but more susceptible to hate.

And wtf is that attack on my level of play, seriously?