Highlander Magic

OK, so I will cast the first stone even if I am not into actually playing with cards lately. So this is my theoretic approach on it:

True-Name Nemesis – seems OK, even if I think that Jitte has a similar power level. Both are oops I win cards in creature matchups.

Tolarian Academy – The power level of this card is just absurd. But as long as no deck shows up which breaks the metagame I cannot argue. Similar status than Yawgmoth´s Will IMO.

Mystical Tutor – This is where things went wrong IMO. Unbanning Mystic was the last piece of the puzzle to raise blue based control above the other deck strategies. With Cards like Entreat the Angels available you can even center your strategy on Mystical Tutor. I wonder why control decks do not play Merchant Scroll and Mystical Teachings as standard setup.

The best cards in the format can be played in one deck strategy. Mana Drain, Demonic Tutor, Mystical Tutor, Enlightened Tutor, Jace the Mindsculptor, Brainstorm, Sensei, Divining Top, (Tolarian Academy), (Yawgmoth´s Will) and even splashing Oath of Druids if you want. Perhaps Dig through Time is even another card which comes into this elite circle (not played with it yet). The only question for me is if an UWb(x) Control or Tezzerator deck will win the next HL Cup.

Entomb – Not sure about that. Creates no-brainer games like Oath of Druids does. I would not allow both if I could choose.

Fastbond – Niche application with a huge payout like Tolarian Academy and Yawgmoths Will. It is worth a test IMO

Gifts Ungiven – I am happy that the council thinks that this card does not belong in our format any more. I would love to play with it but I think it will just create silly decks together with the above mentioned power cards.

Natural Order – Perhaps this is not a must ban but I have to cut 2 cards in all green based deck. Natural Order for Primeval Titan is just a no-brainer and must play for me. I don´t see the use of unbanning it again.

Stoneforge Mystic – same as NO. I will just put this guy in every white deck available. But this goes even further. I expect that I could even center my strategy on it in midrange decks as there are a lot more creature tutors out.

Btw, I am still missing to see Imperial Seal on the watch list for unbannings. Don´t see that this is any better than the other tutors around.

The same goes for Demonic Tutor, Mana Drain, Enlightened Tutor, Jace the Mindsculptor and Oath of Druids. Not that I want them to go now but everyone taking a look on the HL rules should now that these cards are on the borderline regarding the allowed power level.

@ MMD

+1
I agree with almost everythin you've said
call me your voice in the council  ;)

...but unfortunately it isn't like in former times when Sturmgott made the decisions (almost) alone...so it's just 1/6 voice of the council ...  ;D

...
and for all who doesn't know me...

...that was just kidding obviously - I'm quite happy we have a council and I do not to have to make the decisions by my own ... better 4 u anyway  ;-)

this small font thing you are doing is not only really weird but also very unnecessary. speak up and speak clearly if you got to say something, i dont want to get a magnifying glass everytime you say something.

Quote from: tonytahiti on 18-10-2014, 09:08:01 PM
this small font thing you are doing is not only really weird but also very unnecessary. speak up and speak clearly if you got to say something, i dont want to get a magnifying glass everytime you say something.

indeed - you are absolutely right!
thanks for this piece of advice

i guess this small font thing is almost as unnecessary as your post (and mine) - I try to avoid it in the future!

Mystical Tutor: It basically is a 2nd copy of your best spell at the expense of discarding an additional card. The problem is that there are game-ending instants and sorceries (especially problematic: Price of Progress) which are worth the card disadvantage. Who cares if you have one less card, if your opponent is already dead. Terminus and Entreat the Angels did not convince me. Both cards are hilariously bad when in your hand early or drawn at a bad time. The thing happening the most is my opponent getting price and then "punishing" me for greedily having 4 non basics out of 10 lands... I dislike the unbanning.

Gifts Ungiven, Stoneforge Mystic, Natural Order: No... please no... Unlike other cards of that category, they do not require you to bend your decklist. You would play redundant spells, Batterskull or Green Creatures and Titan anyway. Having those "oops, I just won!"-buttons in a deck comes at virtually no cost. They are good in almost any stage of the game and allow for the creation of gamestates where one cheap spell creates a problem so big that it can only be solved by investing multiple cards and a lot more mana. They either are against the idea behind highlander times four (Gifts), are a two mana gamewin engine or a four mana cardadvantage and boardpresence machine. Just brutal and lame cards that are almost impossible to play around or outrace. TNN is in almost every regard a worse card.

There is a ton of pretty retarded cards out there. For me the question is wether or not it can be handled by various decks through various means. TNN seems okay to me. It is a silly card and pushed beyond belief but it still is easily beaten most of the time I see it in play. The decks just adapted. There are other crazy cards that most decks are absolutely incapable of handling even with changes. It is always hard to draw the line, but you have to draw it somewhere. And to me TNN is at the fringe of what is acceptable and I would not be sad to see it go but the cards mentioned above are just so game-breaking, that I would be really displeased to see them back in our format.

nemesis is very clearly a better card in highlander than stoneforge. stoneforge was never a problem in some local metas and people there were super suprised it got banned in the first place. its good but it also means you have to play at least 2 equipment (you dont want your stoneforge to be a squire when you draw the one equipment first naturally) which means you gotta play batterskull + 1..that +1 in most midrange decks can be super awkward on opening hand and is only being put in FOR and BECAUSE OF stoneforge. its a sacrifice you make and a sacrifice that can actually cost you games.

nemesis needs absolutely no build around, you just throw it into any blue deck with creatures. when cast turn 3 on the play very often runs away with the game. the rest of your hand only needs to be decent to ride nemesis to victory. stoneforge means you spend turn three putting it in (if stoneforge gets bolted then you basically have no relevant board) and you can easily lose to some tempo deck or tempo draw by some midrange deck. just my thoughts.

ps: to use a tutor (i guess wordly turn one you mean) to get stoneforge is, especially on the draw, an absolute huge liability. turn one you do nothing, turn two you play a squire, turn three you vial that equipment in..this start is super weak against a good aggro draw, turn 1 creature, turn 2 creature,  turn 3 removal on stoneforge (or even his turn 4 when he didnt get batterskull in response to equip) - the stoneforge deck basically loses to the 4 drop there, you did nothing relevant to the board and you need a sweeper right then and there. If that kind of strategy is build around and too strong for your local meta..i mean..its really not that strong vs alot of opening hands.

Thank you everyone for their feedback (and I would vermy much like to read more from other players as well even it might be similiar to feedback/opinions already made. I would like to comment on a couple of things and tell everyone how I voted in the council and why I made my choices like I did.

Comments first:
@MMD
Entomb - I also fear the dread of T2 Griselbrand being reanimated again and again.
Oath - Agree Oath is very borderline. I like that it is a card that restricts the player on creature choices (like Acadamy and maybe Fastbond).
Imperial Seal - The card is one of several cards that has been discussed in the council. I personally would not vote for its unbanning right now.
Jitte - I disagree on your Jitte comment. Jitte is far more powerful than TNN. You can not race it/overwhelm it. Jitte gains life and kills creatrues wehter you block or not. With TNN it is easier to pick your poison. 

@Kenshin
Mystical - Demonic also fetches all the non miracle spells in the mid and late game. Do you feel that Mystical is a specific problem because it is blue
and therefore better fits into decks like UR Aggro Control when comparing with other?
Ooops I win spells - There are a LOT of oops I win spells in the format. I agree on that but that is also the nature of MTG formats with a big cardpool when you spend more than two or three mana. That said I feel Natural Order is just too cheap for the effect and Gifts Ungiven is broken in HL the same way Pod was because the card just offers so many more options than it would in normal 60 card deck with lots of 4 ofs. Stoneforge/TNN see tonytahiti.

@Tony:
Apearantly we have very different experience with Stoneforge/TNN. This is how I see it:
Stoneforge and TNN are very different cards. Stoneforge creates card advantage because it tutors for a high quality card. Please take note that many decks like to play Batterskull and/or other equipment. TNN creates virtual card advantage because it blanks most removal and outclasses most creatures at the same time. Depending on the Matchup/Meta/Game Situation one or the other can be better. That said, Stoneforge is 2 mana only which completely invalidates a direct comparision because of the inferior mana cost. Just think about Tarmogoyf2 costing GG1 instead of G1 like the original does.  
Regarding the tempo discussion Stoneforge is extremely hard to answer mana and card neutral In the following I will discuss the typical turn 2 Stoneforge fetch Batterskull play. If you (can) immediately kill the Stoneforge  you need to spend mana when you have very little of it - turn 2 or 3 depending on who started. If you have a removal for one mana and a second spell for 1/2 the opponent can gain a small tempo advantage at the cost of a card which often happens to be very strong to catch up (Batterskull) due to the lifelink + vigiliance. Please take note that the Bolt + follow up play could also have created Tempo against every other two drop creature without the opponent getting an extra Batterskull out of it. Now, if you have an instant kill spell for the germ or the Batterskull itself you could also wait for the vial effect and kill it directly in the combat step. There are not a lot of cheap cards that do this. Examples would be StP/Path/Vapor Snag/Dismember for the token and Putrefy; Wear//Tear for the artifact. In either case you need to spend mana that could also be used to cast further threats. Again, If you have a good follow up threat that makes you use your mana you get out ahead Tempo wise but not by much. If the Stoneforge player also has a one mana removal and/or some good 4 drop you will not win before T5 comes around and Batterskull is live again. You need to have a very busted draw of efficient threats and your best removal to rush through a Stoneforge Mystic. When Stoneforge and the Spoils mulligan was still around I played a lot of Pattern Rector to great sucess with Stoneforge where all of this happened routinely. Stoneforge gets you a great card and drains the tempo out of the opponents draw because he has to cast removal instead of threats which enables the Batterskull even more.
This is why I am strongly against unbanning Stoneforge Mystic because it is so deveastating to most aggro starts. And aggro is the archetype with the biggest troubles right now because there is a lack of good one and two drops in the appropriate numbers for creature based aggro decks. Mono Red burn is fine obv.

My votes:
Unban: Nothing of the watch list.
Ban: Still unsure about wether Mystical is too powerful. I feel banning Mystical but leaving Demonic feels strange Demonic being the more powerful card. I also feel the weakest tutor still being banned is Entomb and I just dislike 2 card you win/lose the game combos on turn 2. T3 and later is fine because it opens up enough avenues to interact. This is also why I hate to have Trinisphere + Workshop in the format but I seem to be the only one...  

@ChristophO: Yes, I think the main Problem is, that it is blue. Black is not the best highlander color at the moment (I think) but Demonic is a strong incentive to splash. It usually is the superior card with the exception being the miracles. And the fact that you can Tutor for U at the end of the opponents turn. So a Spell costs its mana cost and not 1B + mana cost.
The only real problem I have with Mystical is that it gives UR a virtual 2nd copy of Price of Progress. A card that in my opinion is really broken. Early it wipes planeswalkers with 4+ loalty for just 1R and later it wins games, even if you have a basic heavy manabase with a few nonbasics. A manabase like that lets you almost ignore Back to Basics or Blood Moon effects. But Price of Progress still kills you because it usually hits for more than 6 and ends the game on the spot, while the other nonbasic hosers at least leave you with some room to wiggle.

I personally would like to see the Price on the watchlist. It is a card that causes such huge gameswings, it seems brutally unfair to me, especially for its casting cost. The reason it is not banned or on the watchlist is, that like many powerful non-permanent spells, it does not sit around on the battlefield, being a visible nuisance over several turns, but hits hard and then is put away to the graveyard. I personally have lost so many games I could not have lost to any other card (especially at that mana cost) to a timely price, even with enough artifact mana and basics to fight through any other form of nonbasic hate, that I came to the conclusion that this card is straight out broken.

TNN: it is certainly very powerfull creature. I think it is stronger in decks, that accualy want to see it atacking. T2-T3 TNN with almost any follow up is almost gg. Good thing is that control decks use TNN usually as better wall, so there is time to breathe. If TNN gets equiped or is followed by any 4cc creature it is almost GG, which I don't like. There is still not enough answers to it. In my eyes TNN>Stoneforge. In our meta is blue midrange underplayed, so I dont see it as too problematic card. No ban.

Mystical T.: I see great fear of MT fetching Price of Progres. It has never happened to me though. Mystical is usually fetching some miracle spell (usually Terminus or Entreet). Which I find quite backbreaking and hard to play around. While POP is played in UR builds it is played mainly in agro decks. Introducing MT did not led to new combodecks. Combo is still nonexisting in our format, it has made control better. I would not ban it now. Format need still time to evolve. With new control goodies (Dig through time or Treasure Hunt, it might be too much) We will see. If meta turns into only blue controldecks, I would ban it then.

Btw. if you want to fetch POP - use Muddle to Mixture! ;-)

Stoneforge: I think it is safe to unban. It should not have been banned in the first place. I tend to play agro now, but equips are not the greatest cards in the deck. There is quite a preasure to play artifacts hosers due to Academy plus format is full of removal, that swords can end up useless (TNN, Maze, Wraths..). With bigger availability of PWs even for agro it is not necessary to play equipments. Stoneforge would probably change that, which is not necessarily bad thing. The only problem I see here is more situations that lead to TNN+equipment.

Order: Do not unban. It would push some decks over the top.

Last word: Unban Imperial seal. For those, who claim that it have to stay banned. Write here what WORST cards it could fetch. It would not probably be used in control, because of the life loss and the fact it tutors just on top. Cards aside from combo usage, that might end up beeing searched for are probably Tolarian Academy or Oath of Druid. Whitch is still not that insane after all. If someone use this for Stoneforge, I would laugh :-)

i agree. i am really suprised that the equipment-package you need to play for stoneforge is rarely being used as an argument. in legacy you play 4 stoneforge and 1-2 batterskulls, which means you are 4 or 2 times as likely to draw stoneforge than batterskull which is so different to highlander where its 50/50 to draw stoneforge or batterskull naturally (tutors excluded, call on stoneforge or worldy on stoneforge is not that insane of a play). in legacy you play more stoneforge than equipment, in highlander it is the opposite, THAT MAKES A HUGE DIFFERENCE. stoneforge is not "oh it goes in every white deck without any loss, booh"..you will draw the skull and you will draw the sofi and alot of decks havent played those cards before. batterskull is slow (especially for naya decks) and sofi can be super clunky. i do think stoneforge ban needs a new evaluation. here in berlin nobody had a problem with stoneforge (maybe "a berlin thing") and i heard the same about other cities. the ban felt rushed.

@tonytahiti:

"Very clear" as playing Chain of Vapor?  ;)

In midrange decks it will be most probably Batterskull and SoFaI which you play along with Stoneforge Mystic. I do not see it a liability to play SoFaI in any creature based deck, in fact there are situations where I use Enlightened Tutor to get it. Drawing one of these equipment's naturally is no liability for me either as they are both strong enough on their own. I have won many games not although but because of an equipped mana dork or a hardcast Batterskull. I still play SoFaI in nearly all creature decks and Batterskull in most control shells, even without Stoneforge Mystic available. Both are certainly clunky but there should be something in your hand to interact with your opponent before you hit five Mana, otherwise I would question your keep. Having the second equipment on hand with an active Stoneforge can even be very nice. Paired with any hexproof/protected creature he will be a force not speaking about the devastating situation when you have Stoneforge AND TNN. Certainly in white aggro decks you should think about cutting Batterskull but also playing one of the others swords (at least SoWaP) is not a mistake IMO.

He will be even "splashed" in creature less UWx builds to get either Batterskull or Sword of the Meek which cannot be said for TNN.

Center a strategy didn´t meant to play bad tutors or "waste" a 1st turn Worldly Tutor but he will definitely be the main target for Eladamri´s Call and Fauna Shaman as he simply brings the most value for many game states due to his cheapness. The rest of the statement could be copied from ChristophO´s post...

@ ChristophO:

Comparing cards is always very hard to do. Either side can argue with a good reason from either position.  Jitte is perhaps even better in creature matchups but TNN always threatens Planeswalkers and has an immediate effect on a board which has creatures on it. Also it is very unlikely that you waste mana into casting TNN which is very possible while equipping Jitte. Also I would better draw TNN as Jitte against control decks in general. A clear advantage is certainly that Jitte is colourless and would go into any creature deck, so I can really understand its ban. So TNN is very borderline for me and I wouldn´t raise my eyebrows if TNN would be banned in future. I see all three cards on a similar power level, but they are certainly very different on their own and have differently strengths in different situations.

Regarding Imperaial seal I don´t want to give up. I request to receive a statement from the council why Imperial Seal is banned. IMO Seal exclusively improves combo strategies. Combo is nearly non-existent in HL and could need some help from the banned list. So what are the council´s restrictions? Having Demonic/Mystical allowed and this on the banned list is simply causeless.

Quote from: MMDI request to receive a statement from the council why Imperial Seal is banned.

It's too expensive. Once Wizards reprints it as a judge foil, then sure.

Alternatively, if majority of the players think that price point shouldn't be used as an argument, then sure, it can also be unbanned.

But then logical follow-up measure would be that all IE & CE cards will also be banned.

Quote from: pyyhttu on 20-10-2014, 06:53:45 PM

Quote from: MMDI request to receive a statement from the council why Imperial Seal is banned.

It's too expensive. Once Wizards reprints it as a judge foil, then sure.

Alternatively, if majority of the players think that price point shouldn't be used as an argument, then sure, it can also be unbanned.

But then logical follow-up measure would be that all IE & CE cards will also be banned.

You know what questions will follow:

What about the Workshop/Tabernacle argument? The price tag is the same.
Why is an unban of Imperial Seal connected to IE/CE bannings in this context?

I have no problem when the community says "NO" due to the financial aspect but than you should communicate a critical value and take the others out as well.

The thing with Imperial Seal is this:

1.) It is outrageously expensive. Last time I checked there were only 29 items for sale on magickartenmarkt.de. Last selling price is about 325 € (which is in the same league as Mishra's Workshop or The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale).
2.) It is an automatic inclusion in any Oath deck and in almost any combo deck, which will lead to a sharp rise in demand. My estimation is, the price will at least shoot to somewhere around 430-450 € after a very short while. That price tag is a considerable amount higher than what you have to pay for basically every other high end card in the format. The likelyhood of it being sold out at a reasonable price for a relatively long time is quite high.
3.) People will be frustrated either because they cannot afford the card or because they have to spend so much cash to get it in order to not having to to play suboptimal lists (which feels super horrible).
4.) The card enables broken t2 stuff, which is always dangerous (the most obivous case is Oath of Druids, of which it is basically another copy) and might result in a re-ban of the card, which will make people feel even worse.
5.) In the case of a re-ban, people will have problems to sell the card again because it is not played anywhere sans Commander. It is even banned in DuelCommander. In the end, that money spent could very likely be gone for good.
6.) There is very little emotional investment in the card. What I mean by this is, cards like Bazaar of Baghdad or Mishra's Workshop or Tabernacle provide some kind of unique effect, that no other card copies or mimics to an entent that feels quite the same. I can understand somebody that is attached to these cards. Imperial Seal though is "just" a tutor. It won't have a lasting effect on the game (since it is placed in the bin immediately) and won't make itself noticed after it has resolved. My point is, what do we add to the game by unbanning this? The inherent fun/play value of the card is quite low.
7.) The only positive merit of unbanning Imperial Seal would be to strengthen the combo archetype. I doubt however that this alone would suffice to make something like storm.dec for example viable. In the face of modern day Magic card design, combo will have a hard time going forward with or without Imperial Seal. However, the more cards à la Jeskai Ascendancy are being printed, the brighter combo's future may look.
8.) This leads me to the other already mentioned  high priced cards in our format (Bazaar of Baghdad, Workshop etc.). Now, here is the important sentence: If they were banned, I doubt we would unban them. However, things are as they are and as of today those cards have been unbanned for a very long time. Players have had time to adapt to the fact that they exist in the format. They could have set aside aside money bit by bit to buy those cards (as I did) and can be relatively sure that they are here to stay. Otherwise, they would still have the option of selling them at about the same price they paid to acquire those cards (because they are "live" in other formats as well).
9.) That being said, in a perfect world price should not be a factor for banning/unbanning. The world is not perfect whatsoever. People have limited budgets, expected gains or merits of unbanning cards vary, our player base is small, entry barriers are already high etc.
10.) Everybody that wants Imperial Seal unbanned should write letters to WotC and convince them to reprint it in a From the Vault expansion.

I hope this makes sense to you. Let me add that this is my line of argumentation and my reasoning to have voted against an unban and I do not speak for the council as a whole.

Your line of argumentation makes sense to me. Just my two cents on that:

Exchanging Imperial Seal with Oath of Druids in the banned list to keep combos alive and take out THE "most frustrating hard to deal with no brainer oops I win" two drop looks as it would be an improvement of the format in a perfect world disregarding price and availability. IMO Oath of Druids should be banned due to power level and unfun reasons anyway.

I was simply not aware that fun/frustration, emotion and price tag/development are official valid arguments for the council. Actually I appreciate that the council takes care about these "soft factors" as in the end this is still a fun niche format. I´ll go to contact WotC for a Judge Promo, then  ;)

P.S.: Perhaps Kenshin is right as the description of THE "most frustrating hard to deal with no brainer oops I win" two drop also fits to Price of Progess...

So, let me get this straight: We need to contact Wizards to get them to reprint Imperial Seal so that we can unban it while we also ban Price of Progress and Oath of Druids? Am I the only one who doesn't think any of that is a good idea?

Anyways, my personal opinions about the current watchlist:

Stoneforge Mystic and Natural Order are unneeded bans in my opinion, but these can be annoying in the German metagame so I can see why, but it just baffles me everytime.

Gifts Ungiven - I can see this card becoming a fair card at some point in the future. Effective cheap/midrange creatures makes Gifts weaker. While I agree the time is not now, it's good to revisit it once in a while. Also the fact that it takes years to resolve is a good reason to keep it banned even if there would be time for it to see play.

Fastbond - Would not unban it personally, I think it is too powerful, but I would love to brew a deck for this, so there is that. I am for the unban, I guess.

Entomb - Sure, there is a possible turn two Griselbrand associated with this card, but there are so few two mana reanimation spells in the format that it is far from likely. Besides, if you switch Entomb with Careful Study or Faithless Looting in that scenario, you still get the turn two animation. With the current targets, it really doesn't matter a whole lot what creature is coming to the party on turn two for it to be unbeatable. Deathrite Shaman and Scavenging Ooze have already made playing Reanimator very annoying, so I rather unban it. Also would enable some niche strategies across the board, never a bad thing.

Mystical Tutor - I think this is fine as it is, but I was one of the guys who were very vocal about unbanning it in the first place, so I might be biased.

Tolarian Academy - Would not have removed it from the watchlist yet, but at the same time I am very happy that I can keep playing it for six more months at the very least. I also feel like there are lot of untapped potential we've still yet to uncover. New potentially broken combo enablers like Jeskai Ascendancy have a ton of players working to see if they are viable since they are legal in standard and modern. Academy (and Fastbond) are cards that nobody has put any serious work into as they are banned in just about every conceivable format known to man, meaning that the work hours for Academy is next to nothing compared to the discussion and playtesting that Ascendancy has had in the couple of weeks it has been legal.

True-Name Nemesis - It's not as oppressive as Jitte, but the lack of interaction is the real problem. You do have many more answers to Jitte than to TNN. O-Rings, Reclamation Sages and creature removal all work, but against TNN you need to have specific cards most of the time. Cards like that aren't usually even good enough unless you really need to deal with the TNN, so playing them is kinda like shooting yourself to foot. I am also not saying Jitte should be unbanned, the card can burn in hell for all I care, but comparing the two is misleading IMO.

Imperial Seal - I am more than okay with this being banned due to the high market price. Workshop is something that I personally feel that it should fall into the same category. The card isn't even that good in the format to begin with. Tabernacle is only rarely played, so that is not a card I personally am worried about. Imperial Seal would be nigh automatic slam to any black deck.

Vampiric Tutor & Demonic Tutor - I probably sound like a broken record, but the power level of these cards are through the roof. I really can't understand other one being allowed and the other one not. I would ban both, but unbanning Vampiric would at least bring some consistency.

I also feel that Chain of Vapor should not be banned.

Eventhough price is important it is even more important to talk about card avaiability. As far as I know those are the sizes:
Alpha: ~1100 of each Rare
Beta: ~3 * Alpha
Portal Three Kingdoms (en): slightly lower than Beta (was released only in Australia, New Zealand region)
Portal Three Kingodms (several asian releases): havent found numbers for this, but on MKm it is 50% engl. 50% asian offers.

I believe it is plausible that less than 10.000 copies of each Three Kingdoms rare has been printed.
Dual lands have a print size of several 100.000 and Power I believe of several 10.000 copies each.


----------------------------

tiggupiru:
Entomb - Entomb tutors best fatty avaiable out of the library, Loot effects have to work with the selection in your hand strongly decreasing the power of the effect. T2 reanimation is also not a autowin if your fatty is Sphinx of the steel wind for example. Scavenging Ooze is no out to T2 renaimation and Deathrite is only an out when the DRS player is on the play. There are also quite a few reanimation spells for 2cmc or less with Reanimate, Life//Death, Dance of the Dead, Reanimate Dead, Exhume, (Goyo's vengeance, Shallow Grave) avaiable. The biggest problem for Reanimtor is getting the most game braking fatty into the yard  - at least according to my (limited) reanimator playing experience.
Vampiric vs. Demonic - Vampiric is much more powerful to enable broken things on T2 because the card costs only one mana and is instant. I agree that Demonic is extremely powerful. But for tutoring I almost completely look at the mana cost and wether the tutor is an instant. There will always be game ending/braking Spells like Wildfire, Armageddon, Back to Basics, Price of Progress, Winter Orb, Blood Moon, Back to bascis, Humility, Yawgmoth's Will etc. in the format and that is the way I like it! But it should always be viable to at least survive the first two turns...

Quote from: ChristophO on 21-10-2014, 04:45:54 PM
tiggupiru:
Entomb - Entomb tutors best fatty avaiable out of the library, Loot effects have to work with the selection in your hand strongly decreasing the power of the effect. T2 reanimation is also not a autowin if your fatty is Sphinx of the steel wind for example. Scavenging Ooze is no out to T2 renaimation and Deathrite is only an out when the DRS player is on the play. There are also quite a few reanimation spells for 2cmc or less with Reanimate, Life//Death, Dance of the Dead, Reanimate Dead, Exhume, (Goyo's vengeance, Shallow Grave) avaiable. The biggest problem for Reanimtor is getting the most game braking fatty into the yard  - at least according to my (limited) reanimator playing experience.

Yea, Entomb would obviously be the best card in the deck. I am not arguing that.

Sphinx of the Steel Wind is one of the few targets that doesn't win the game immediately. Right now I am playing these targets in my reanimator list:

Elesh Norn, Grave Titan, Wurmcoil, Rune-Scarred Demon, Drogskol Reaver, Jin-Gitaxias, Sun Titan, Griselbrand, Woodfall Primus, Consecrated Sphinx, Sphinx of Uthuun, Ashen Rider, Damia, Terastodon, Primeval Titan and the Steel Wind.

Out of that list, there are few creatures that might do nothing: Steel Wind, Wurmcoil and Elesh Norn. Some require immediate answer: Consecrated Sphinx, Jin-Gitaxias and Damia, Sage of Stone. Rest of the targets do something immediately and most of that is really backbreaking to see on the second turn especially when they come with a big body attached. I honestly think that if there is going to be something reanimated of the second turn of the game, it is more often than not really bad for you even if you can immediately kill it.

We also get potential new targets about every other set released. I fondly remember the time when Akroma, Angel of Wrath was the best possible target for animation and now that is so laughably bad card it isn't even funny.

Quote from: ChristophO on 21-10-2014, 04:45:54 PMVampiric vs. Demonic - Vampiric is much more powerful to enable broken things on T2 because the card costs only one mana and is instant. I agree that Demonic is extremely powerful. But for tutoring I almost completely look at the mana cost and wether the tutor is an instant.

Sure. Vampiric enables more broken things on the 2nd turn, but what are these broken things? I mean, most of them require a bunch of other stuff to actually do backbreaking stuff, or if you have few really broken examples that are consistent, maybe we should ban the cards that enable those things. I get the idea behind your argument, but if you need several cards to work together in order to produce that broken turn two play, you could argue that Demonic Tutor is just as bad because it allows broken stuff to happen of turn two if you have Chrome Mox in your starting hand.

Just a few thoughts from a Duel Commander player (I'm currently writing an article - in french sorry - about the differences in Highlander / Duel Commander banlists).


1. Fastbond is legal in Duel Commander since a lot of time now. Fastbond is really better when you have 30 life and a high-casting cost commander to cast (Maelstrom Wanderer for example). But even with that, it's not broken. Sure it wins games on turn 1 (Land, Fastbond, Land, Land, Lotus Cobra, Bounceland, Cast Commander, gg) but this can't be done in Highlander (no commander !). And if you really fear Zuran Orb + Fastbond + Crucible, just add some Naturalize-like effects to your deck, it's a 3 card combo with only enchantments / artifacts !

So I really think you should unban it (but maybe I miss something)


2. Natural Order : no, don't unban it ! Winning T3 just because you sac'ed an elf to get Titan or Terastodon isn't really interesting... (plus you could fetch Protean Hulk too and get this combo deck a really powerful outlet)


3. Entomb : we have it legal in Duel Commander, and yes sometimes it wins too early... but wait, we have that "spoils mulligan" rule which allows to keep "land + entomb" and see 4 other cards to get a reanimate-like. So with the normal mulligan you have, maybe it's worth testing. I really don't know, you should test a reanimator build with Entomb. Even with a spoils mulligan, it's under 10% of having Entomb + Reanimator on turn 2/3. So yes, it will make some free wins, but Back to Basics or Wasteland + Sinkhole too, and it's not easy to have it early with normal mulligan :)


4. Mystical Tutor : I don't see why you would ban it :
* if you lose to Price of Progress and don't want to see two copies of it in your opponent's deck it's your problem, not the banlist's one
* if you fear Miracles, ban Sensei's Divining Top instead ! :p [ok, I'm a bit exaggerating, but not that much]


5. On Stoneforge Mystic I really don't know. But a similar question that comes to my mind is : why do you have Skullclamp banned ? As far as I understand your format :
* Weenie White would be very much improved. Well, the weakest deck being improved, not a problem
* Other aggro deck usually don't play many elves, they prefer having many 4-mana silver bullets
* Combo and Control don't care.

So I don't know but maybe at least one of those two cards could be unbanned in my opinion, unless I miss something.

this is not meant as a deep analysis, just trying to get a feel: i was wondering what peoples experiences with tolarian academy are?

in berlin, eggs is a deck that is VERY hard to beat when piloted right and when you play against it a few times you really wonder why academy was ever unbanned, since the powerlevel is OFF THE CHARTS, its actually disturbing. It can kill turn 2, often turn 3, likely turn 4 or 5 and as an opponent you sit there when it goes off and ýou find it unbelievable that this card is legal and a card like stoneforge is not. the powerlevel of this card is three times as high as stoneforge (a guess/a feeling), its just not close (if it was close i could live with the argument "stoneforge goes in every deck and academy is a very narrow/niche card that needs building around"). i am all for deck diversity, i really am, and i know eggs and academy hasnt been a problem anywhere else (at least i havent seen anything) but what this deck does with academy is not healthy for the format, i am convinced of that.

also (and it needs to be mentioned since "fun" and "play experience" are very important arguments): it takes forever to win, is not interactive at all and is overall a frustrating deck to play against.

Played some games vs. eggs some months ago. Mainly with 4c Blood and UR Control.

4c Blood MU seemed 50/50-ish (on the back of discard, 187-Artifact-killers and good pressure).

UR Control seemed very much in favor of UR. Therefore the Eggs player discarded the project because why would you run a deck that has something like 30/70 against one of the most played decks? The MU was really hard for eggs mainly because of cheap tax counters and mild flash pressure (Aggro-Control route). Furthermore the deck had insane bombs against eggs: Moon-effects and Dack Fayden (!).

Overall the combo player felt that High Tide was the more robust and overall better deck because it cannot be hated that easily. I tend to agree.

Regarding Tolarian Academy: That card is sure bonkers in eggs. It is so crucial to the deck whatsoever, that without it winning becomes very hard. Wasn't that the reason why we introduced TA in the first place (enabling new deck archetypes)?

EDIT:

The fun/play experience argument is very important to me. Personally, in the games I had vs. eggs I didn't find it too boring. When they "have it" things go relatively fast (like ramping to a certain amount of mana and going infi with Rings of Brighthearth. From there on it is over on the spot or the eggs player cracks some of his namesake eggs and tries to find missing business which seals the game, like SDT or Intution or whatever.) High tide, in contrast, takes much longer to actually kill you when going off because it goes off more often without already having infinite mana available and just kind of gets there while digging and untapping and doing its thing.

That being said, I can certainly relate to the feeling of "not being able to interact at all" and that it is not very fun when the combo player gets going and you stare at your hand of Thrun, Swords to Plowshares and Lightning Bolt or something along those lines.

If Eggs should get somewhat dominant we surely need to reconsider TA. But I don't see this dominance at the moment.

I have played almost all HL matches in 2014 with a 5c creatureless artifact deck. Core of the deck are lockpieces such as Winter Orb, Tabernacle (and the enchantment copies of those cards), Wildfire effects and other assorted sweepers with just a few PW and Thopter Foundry and Assemble the legion as kill options. In that deck Academy also is one of the most important cards to really break Winter Orb.

Academy allows the deck to just overpower control decks mana wise in a single turn, increase the speed against aggro decks and makes it easier to play through soft counters or "jump" the mana curve when the aggro control player does not expect it. The deck is really awesome for online play because the matches there are always untimed and shuffling and searching effects take less time. In Real life the clock can be problem when you have really long games. For Example, during the HL GP I drew two matches because of time issues. That said if your are not playing aggro yourself which typically has a bad Blood MU you can alwasy get into time problems against the controlish and even slower midrangey decks anyway - at least when people start to slow down in playing speed because the tournament is bigger than a weekly thing for a couple of boosters.
That said I believe that playing an Academy deck agaists a field with lots of control MU was still the proper choice because the Mana advantage is just that huge and the Land search spells are both cheap and plentiful. I would advise to play Adacemy with Candelabra and Maze of Ith. Keep in Mind that Candelabra is also awesome to fix color demands, escape Back to Basics lock (with some Signets) and breaks Winter Orb symetry (with some Signets) besides the insane Academy Interaction. 

 

In Berlin, we allowed 10 Proxies for the weekly tournament. That was the reason, why many players tend to build artifact decks (including me). And Eggs is not the only working artifact deck, we got different builds and all seem to perform very well. Also in cockatrice many players are running artifact decks. The reason, why players else don't play much artifacts not because of the power level, its more the cost of the deck imo. And I also think 4c blood has a worse MU against eggs then 50/50. Many removals can be useless, cause the most keycards are only played in that turn, where that deck is comboing out.

And another problematic card is Oath, which is also played in eggs. This card is really unfair and decide games on its own.

there is too much 4cblood talk + glorification. it absolutely has no 50/50 matchup vs eggs, it has very little hate (ooze) and little disruption (discard), here in berlin we joke how eggs (skilled eggs pilot like thoralf severin or jonny from berlin) would slice through a field of goodstuff. i think its something like 60/40 maybe even better. and UR is not 30/70, thats also crazy. watching good pilots with this deck over weeks slicing through different kind of aggrocontrol control and especially goodstuff decks those percentages are very far off in my opinion. also "eggs is not a problem deck yet" seems to be the wrong approach when we are talking about incredibly fast mana starts and absolutely bonkers turn2 and turn3 plays. it doesnt always have academy and thats why it doesnt ALWAYS win, but how healthy is a card that when you draw it it straight wins you the game and your whole plan the first turns revolves around getting that card? that is an argument i believe for a card being unhealthy for a format.

Sure i'm not as good a player as Toffel is, but having tested the Eggs-Deck myself for quite some time, i had the impression that it is much more importent that your opponent knows what to do. If your opp is experienced with this matchup, they don't need much disruption. Sure, you have the oops-i-win-draws, but the other games got so much harder for me as i played more matches.
Of coure there are some decks never beating Eggs, but often times Eggs can't beat a single counterspell acompanied with some pressure. And the deck doens't always win when having academy. That's exaggerating as much as the 70/30 matchups people talk about.

Some remarks:

As I stated in the past I was not sure how good TA would be and what things could be achieved by it so I was eager to see what will happen if we unban it and let people eventually break the card (which is not that hard in hindsight). I think we reached that point and I am not talking about some random 3/4/5c Artifact decks which can abuse the card the most but specifically about eggs, which is a deck I love. Its a beautiful piece of art, its a puzzle which challenges the pilot in every game and you will explore so many new routes every time. But there lies the problem its mainly a solitaire game and the deck can easily win on T1-3 (which is a fact we consider for bannings since most hate-cards cannot be deployed in that time).

But that is not the only problem. To win with the deck you need to repeat a lot of actions in one turn which takes a lot of time simply because you cant physically do it faster. That was one of the reasons for WotC to ban it in modern. The player had to shuffle, sac, keep track of mana, draw a card and repeat it multiple times a turn. The HL version is even worse since there are so many different ways to win. Last week (and that is just an example but it will occur very often in different iterations) my egg opponent drew 21 cards in turn one and he took the first 10 minutes of the game doing that (which was not his fault but thanks to the way the deck works). I ve played the deck many many times and had always the feeling to understand the mechanics to a certain amount (like 63% or something) but giving it to Toffel I was able to see what the deck is capable of if you add another 20% of understanding and the possibilties are endless and most of those routes take at least 10-15 minutes and that is most of the time not the fault of the pilot.

And to adress some of the points here: UR is not a 70-30 MU like not even close, if a 5cdeck can easily break out of a B2B lock or even outplay a Moon effect its eggs (and the UR player has usually no tutorspells for those 2/3 cards + PoP (which I outplayed with Zuran Orb many times). Sure you have your cantrips and stuff but at the same time you need threats and counter. But even if it would be 70-30 we dont want a meta which allows only Eggs and its counter-decks. And the fact there are maybe 1-2 decks in the format which can beat eggs doesnt make TA fair. Its good to know there are predators out there which will punish greed builds but they cant be the excuse to allow broken cards. Same is true for 4cBlood (which I dont see beating eggs in any universe) its a good midrange deck with a lot of answers and threats but its not built to beat eggs. But again thats not the point, maybe there are decks out there which have a good MU against it but that doenst make the other 99 MU any better since we dont want a meta were you have to run eggs or the counter to it.  And again its not just the TA itself but the combination of the deck mechanics + TA which makes a ban necessary.

Would be nice to see the latest eggs build so we all can test it a bit more in our respective playgroups.

I really liked tonytahitis starting post in that he formulated what he experiences in Berlin and where he is seeing problems. What I feel is not helpful is berating other posters about their experiences afterwards. I especially feel that claiming MU x vs. y is aa:bb% is not helping anybody. Those percentages are already tough to narrow down for 60 card decks with lots of 4 offs. Highlander MU are far more volatile due to the singleton format. Helpful comments (I feel) are posts pointing out typical situations where cards show how powerful they are or where problems in game play.

This is what I have gathered so far:
- Solitaire games of the Eggs deck are too boring/frustrating
(I get that)
- The deck has a too many T1 and T2 wins
(How many different cards are needed for this? I imagine one would need quite a few. How is TA involed in T1 and T2 wins?)  

Questions I would like to know the answer for and apreciate the impact of the Toffel and other sucessful Eggs pilots:
- How would the removal of Second Sunraise and Faiths reward impact the deck (lets say they were banned)
- How would TA banning impact the deck/would there be a deck left?
- could Tabris or Toffel do a deck tech explaing and justifying card choices and omissions and maybe even do a couple of games to show the deck?

Quote from: Tabris on 17-02-2015, 01:23:05 PM

And the fact there are maybe 1-2 decks in the format which can beat eggs doesnt make TA fair. ....And again its not just the TA itself but the combination of the deck mechanics + TA which makes a ban necessary.

I had a good laugh  ;D

Quote from: ChristophO on 17-02-2015, 04:41:59 PM- The deck has a too many T1 and T2 wins
(How many different cards are needed for this? I imagine one would need quite a few. How is TA involed in T1 and T2 wins?)  

I've never gotten neither turn one or turn two kill. Theoretically it is not insanely hard to produce turn two kill with Oath (Forchard + Oath + Accelerant and hit Salvagers and LED from Oath), but I don't like Oath in that deck anyway and Oath is capable of doing turn two kills in other shells as well. Not to mention in most cases getting to activate Oath early is basically game over, despite the actual life total reduction to zero happening few turns later.

Quote from: ChristophO on 17-02-2015, 04:41:59 PMHow would TA banning impact the deck/would there be a deck left?

There would not be a deck anymore. I made this deck well before TA was even a possibility and there were way too many problems back then. Either you ran out of cards or mana even if you had generous amounts of time to set the turn up.

as much I appreciate such theoretical discussions I would appreciate to see some more impressive performances of Egg-decks in different local metas even more
in fact the deck had no mayor influence in any other playgroup than Berlin, it wasn't the deck-choice of any player at recent HL Cup which is quite untypically for a dominating archetype
It would be great to have some Egg's pilots at one of the next HL Cups, but even the ladder tournament or the hll league would grant the opportunity to show how strong this deck could perform outside Berlin and how devasting it could be against the "dominator" 4C Blood
personally i would love to play against it even if I had to suffer a 10-min opponent's turn! maybe i will change my mind when there are more Eggs player and I have to suffer more of such solitaire-turns...

@Maqi: I will post an updated list

@Christoph: I am with you here regarding "the deck x has y% against z" thats why I find it hilarious that someone actually said that. As you already said, HL has a much higher variance and therefore you cant predict the outcome of many matchups (but in some regards we have a pretty good intution what the outcome will be fueled by our experiences)

TA is always involved in the T1/2/3 scenario (except for an oath win) for instance the starting hand of my opponent last week: LED, Wheel of Fortune, City of Traitors, Chromatic Sphere, Frantic Search, Mox Opal, X, which lead to a T2 kill bc he drew Crop Rotation from the top and managed to cast TimeSpiral, Wheel of Fortune in T1 and deployed 5 artifacts with one of them being Candelabra. Dont get me wrong I dont say "omg ban TA bc that happens all the time" but because the deck is designed to function like that and break TA (and maybe you can explain what is so funny about that statement because I didnt say there are only 2 decks in the format who can beat eggs but even IF there were enough even matchups the deck itself will generate a lot of solitaire turns)

Second Sunraise and Faith Reward are most of the time only value cards but can lead to wins with codex shredder so I would say banning them takes some amount of power from the deck but dont solve the problem itself. I try to talk with toffel about the decktech idea.

@Tiggu: When I talked about T1-3 kills I dont meant  Oath, that is just some icing on the cake (the occasionally oops I win draw). I agree the ban of TA would destroy that gem :<

@Vazdru: I would love to see more eggs variants popping up in the community but like OathTPS its not a deck you just pick up and play. It requires A LOT of playtesting and many patient opponents who are willing to give up some of their precious time. I ve won from so many angles with the deck I couldnt even imagine. My very first game with it lead to a T1 kill and at the beginning of the turn I didnt even realize that fact but while I played I came closer and closer to the core of the right path and let my opponent watch me 10 minutes preparing the kill (he was on TPSOath and had the T2 Doomsday kill :) )
Thats why you cant just say "oh if its so dominant why no one plays it?" well because its complicated.

Same is true for TPSoath. No one played this in the last HLCup and I was brewing with Alzheimer to improve his TPS build (sadly he got ill one day earlier) so he could easily bash all the tasty midrange decks and I imagine a lot of people would have voted for a ban of Oath if again a TPSoath deck would have won the Cup (the truth is, oath is not even that strong in the build we came closer to a doomsday/ad nauseam deck but included the occasional "oops I win" draw"). My point is, %appearance of a certain deck doesnt say anything about its powerlevel ( and that works in both ways ;) )

That said I understand the fact that you cant just "trust" us and have to see it for yourself but to get some people in your region to play the deck to its limits will not be easy.

That is the current list we are using. I like to include Capsize in my builds as well as claws of gix. Toffel suggested to include Shivan Gorge to have some outs against Gy removal, so if you find a slot for that, test it.

1 Tropical Island
1 Savannah
1 Underground Sea
1 Tundra
1 Scrubland
1 Bayou
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Arid Mesa
1 Marsh Flats
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Tree of Tales
1 Seat of the Synod
1 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand
1 Windswept Heath
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Ancient Den
1 Vault of Whispers
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Ancient Tomb
1 Tolaria West
1 City of Traitors
1 Darksteel Citadel
1 Great Furnace
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Flagstones of Trokair
1 Deserted Temple
1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
1 Volcanic Island
1 Crystal Vein
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Candelabra of Tawnos
1 Jeweled Amulet
1 Mind Stone
1 Mox Diamond
1 Mox Opal
1 Lotus Bloom
1 Lotus Petal
1 Second Sunrise
1 Open the Vaults
1 Faith's Reward
1 Sylvan Scrying
1 Prophetic Prism
1 Kaleidostone
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Conjurer's Bauble
1 Darkwater Egg
1 Mossfire Egg
1 Skycloud Egg
1 Shadowblood Egg
1 Sungrass Egg
1 Chromatic Sphere
1 Chromatic Star
1 Scroll of Avacyn
1 Sunbeam Spellbomb
1 Necrogen Spellbomb
1 Æther Spellbomb
1 Phyrexian Furnace
1 Lifespark Spellbomb
1 Scrabbling Claws
1 Crop Rotation
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Chrome Mox
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Wargate
1 Fabricate
1 Tezzeret the Seeker
1 Expedition Map
1 Reshape
1 Transmute Artifact
1 Artificer's Intuition
1 Frantic Search
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Oath of Druids
1 Time Spiral
1 Timetwister
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Memory Jar
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Thopter Foundry
1 Sword of the Meek
1 Auriok Salvagers
1 Rings of Brighthearth
1 Codex Shredder
1 Zuran Orb
1 Pyrite Spellbomb
1 Voltaic Key
1 Mana Drain
1 Defense Grid
1 Brainstorm
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Intuition
1 Glimmervoid
1 Karakas
1 Terrarion
1 Ponder
1 Preordain
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Regrowth

Dedicated win-cons are the worst. You guys realize that you can win through GY hate as is?

TonyTahiti: "There is too much 4cBlood glorification."
Vazdru: "I would love to play vs Eggs with The "dominator" 4cBlood".

You remind me of my littly nephew, he gets the most of my attention when doing exactly the opposite of what i say. Only difference: he is cute when he does it. If you think Rock with redsplash (4cBlood is just that, since red does nothing vs eggs, Rock has even better matchup because of that) has a shot in hell vs Eggs you need to come to earth or i need to buy toffel or jonny a ticket to mannheim and let them give you a reality check.

Also: Stoneforge Mystic needs to be unbanned as soon as possible and the Council needs to admit banning it was a mistake and rushed. In Berlin Highlander Players are playing Tiny Leaders now cause its legal there and it gives us a warm fuzzy feeling playing with it, it just baffles us that stoneforge mystic is banned

For what it's worth, I would like to say that in French Duel Commander, there was the same issue of "it's not a powerful deck, nobody plays it" with Zur, the enchanter. This commander is now banned, because it's too much powerful (in the three possible decklists : Reanimator, Control or General-focused). The deck was not played at the beginning (or played with bad decklists), until someone took it to a major event with a good list, won, and everybody started to copy the decklist (nobody took the Reanimator decklist, though, because nobody could netdeck it, so when it was showed, everybody started to go for Oloro Reanimator... guess what happened). Then everybody figured out that it was that powerful.

So maybe the argument "it's not played" is not a good one, especially when talking about a format where a big event has only 100/150 people ! In French Duel Commander we have one pro player (Guillaume Wafo-Tapa) who designed 3 decklists, every decklist was original, and every decklist was in top8 when he (or one of his friends) played it. Well. If there was enough people like him, we could really look at top8s and say "this is too much powerful" or "this is ok". But since this doesn't happen (well, I've read that some HL players also have results in other formats, but still they are not the majority and I don't think they are top pro players), you have to admit that maybe there is a best decklist out there, which haven't been in top8 yet because nobody figured it out (or nobody has the money to buy te deck, or it's too hard to play, as you wrote), but still, which has to be stopped with the banhammer.

So I don't know about Tolarian Academy, but keep in mind that with only 100/150 people, that's not enough to see fast what is really too much powerful !

As for other cards, I posted before, but apparently it has gone unnoticed :)

Quote from: tonytahiti on 21-02-2015, 08:34:08 PM
TonyTahiti: "There is too much 4cBlood glorification."
Vazdru: "I would love to play vs Eggs with The "dominator" 4cBlood".

You remind me of my littly nephew, he gets the most of my attention when doing exactly the opposite of what i say. Only difference: he is cute when he does it. If you think Rock with redsplash (4cBlood is just that, since red does nothing vs eggs, Rock has even better matchup because of that) has a shot in hell vs Eggs you need to come to earth or i need to buy toffel or jonny a ticket to mannheim and let them give you a reality check.

omg ;D you are cute!
but maybe to can turn down your aggro-mode a bit and try to read posts twice before you make any silly comments?
I've never written I would believe i could win with Blood vs Eggs but I would like to play against it - maybe you'll find the small difference in both statements?
furthermore u've missed the quotation-marks or you tried to ignore it because you can't find any reasons for...
however, I said to myself i should better try to ignore your posts but sometimes I'm weak...me culpa...I will try to be focussed a bit more next time

so we can summarize that you think i am cute and i dont think you are cute, yes? i figured.

then: this 4cblood obsession seems very naive and results obsessed. also 4 blood decks in this online semifinal: where is the innovation, where is the urge/drive to build something different and unique? i am disappointed. and 4c blood sounds fresh and wild, but sometimes i get the feeling some people dont realize its rock with redsplash? haha, i mean this obsession ist almost satirical, like people are proud of playing a simple goodstuff deck that everybody plays. we all know you top8 for the first time with 4cblood, but that doesnt mean you have to give all credit to the deck and no credit to yourself. maybe it was you who top8 and not the deck, give yourself more credit as a player, it might be helpful.

Quote from: ZeSword on 11-12-2014, 07:50:55 PM
Just a few thoughts from a Duel Commander player

1. Fastbond is legal in Duel Commander since a lot of time now. Fastbond is really better when you have 30 life and a high-casting cost commander to cast (Maelstrom Wanderer for example). But even with that, it's not broken. Sure it wins games on turn 1 (Land, Fastbond, Land, Land, Lotus Cobra, Bounceland, Cast Commander, gg) but this can't be done in Highlander (no commander !). And if you really fear Zuran Orb + Fastbond + Crucible, just add some Naturalize-like effects to your deck, it's a 3 card combo with only enchantments / artifacts !

So I really think you should unban it (but maybe I miss something)


2. Natural Order : no, don't unban it ! Winning T3 just because you sac'ed an elf to get Titan or Terastodon isn't really interesting... (plus you could fetch Protean Hulk too and get this combo deck a really powerful outlet)


3. Entomb : we have it legal in Duel Commander, and yes sometimes it wins too early... but wait, we have that "spoils mulligan" rule which allows to keep "land + entomb" and see 4 other cards to get a reanimate-like. So with the normal mulligan you have, maybe it's worth testing. I really don't know, you should test a reanimator build with Entomb. Even with a spoils mulligan, it's under 10% of having Entomb + Reanimator on turn 2/3. So yes, it will make some free wins, but Back to Basics or Wasteland + Sinkhole too, and it's not easy to have it early with normal mulligan :)


4. Mystical Tutor : I don't see why you would ban it :
* if you lose to Price of Progress and don't want to see two copies of it in your opponent's deck it's your problem, not the banlist's one
* if you fear Miracles, ban Sensei's Divining Top instead ! :p [ok, I'm a bit exaggerating, but not that much]


5. On Stoneforge Mystic I really don't know. But a similar question that comes to my mind is : why do you have Skullclamp banned ? As far as I understand your format :
* Weenie White would be very much improved. Well, the weakest deck being improved, not a problem
* Other aggro deck usually don't play many elves, they prefer having many 4-mana silver bullets
* Combo and Control don't care.

So I don't know but maybe at least one of those two cards could be unbanned in my opinion, unless I miss something.

Since you asked for feedback:
1) Fastbond - For me this card has no safe mode. i will either be a dead card or completely break the game. I personally do not see a "safe" value gained by unbanning the card.
2) The card was legal for a long time together with Titan and Progenitus. People hated T3 Natural orders and the council was frequently asked to finally ban it. Fetching Hulk is fine and I did it sometimes but even in my Abzan Pattern Rector Deck NO Titan was used more often because it also was a win >80% of the time and much more robust in a LOT of circumstances.
The only way I will vote for this card to come back is without Titan in the format. Then Progenitus is still a problem.... so for me the chances for this are pretty slim...
3) There are enough Reanimate spells for 1 or 2 mana that I feel the card makes Reanimator - a perfectly viable deck (competitive in almost any meta - but not played much). I also dislike that you could alwasy pick the "best" fatty instead of having to choose between those that you can loot into the yard.
4) Agree
5) I do not like that the card is so strong against aggro. Nevertheless I am tending towards voting for an unban
6) Skullclamp makes combat impossible besides really boosting toughness one decks. I would be fine if the equipped creature could not attack and not block as a combo engine for creature decks like elves. In reality the card would be abused in goodstuff decks. 

@tonytahiti: I think this is the right place for my answer.

Quote from: tonytahiti on 28-02-2015, 03:05:40 PM
when replying to a post and talking about "legit arguments" one should make sure to actually check at least the two last pages of results. eggs won 2 times (you overlooked one) and conceded once in the finals to a friend (you couldnt know that). toffel i think played 5 tournaments with eggs and effectively won 2/3. and those are not small tournaments. people have been frustrated with academy for awhile here, its not just my sentiment. i would like to know who you are (i am sure you are from berlin, otherwise you wouldnt dare/claim to have an actual mattering opinion on this), we can have a discussion in private then.

You know, I did not want to say that the deck is not broken or that Academy should not be banned. I do not have a valid knowledge about that. I am not from berlin and I just tested the deck some time on cockatrice now. The problem I have with your arguments are (well besides that your way of arguing in this forum seems a bit harsh to me) that they are based on the results of just one player. And this player is a realy good player. Since highlander-tournaments tend to be not that competetive its no wonder to me that good players can earn good results quite often. Patrick Richter is the best example for that. But the difference could be ("could" be, this is just a theory) that his decks look more "fair" to the average player because it does not win out of nothing. I can understand that many players get annoyed if they are looking forward to their next turn to play their final burnspell or nice planeswalker or whatever, and then suddenly realize this turn will never happen...

Then again your argument, Eggs is making people stay at home instead of playing the tournament looks weird to me. I would expect the good players, which are confidant to make a good place at the tournament, to prepare for the metagame. There are definately good ways to fight Eggs... But then, the tournament before there were so few players, there was no Eggs-Deck.

I agree with you, it is a strong deck! And it is on the borderline to be broken, maybe it is. I try to figure that out by playing it at the online league. I think we need more results in different environments to see the truth.

I would risk to wait till the Metagame Masters... After that, maybe we know! I just hope some players bring their eggs to the tournament! ;)

btw. if Toffel played 5 tournaments with eggs and won 2... how do you come to the conclusion he won 2/3?

i meant 2-3 (won 2, condeced once in the finals, another match he would have won very easily). i didnt mean 2 out of 3, i wasnt precise with my words there and i apologize. lets see what the metagame masters 2 brings (such a great tournament series btw, compliments to the creators).

i have great faith in the council that they will do the "right" thing (as representers of the community and their needs) and unban stoneforge in april. they will know that having oath, academy and mana drain (three cards that have far higher powerlevel and are banned in legacy until the end of time) NOT BANNED but stonerforge BANNED is ridiculous and make this format look like a joke from the ouside. the banned list is very important for a format to be taken seriously and we need a good banned list, that actually makes sense.the community puts their trust in the council and we are sure you wont disappoint us.

That is your opinion. Stoneforge does not require a tailor made deck to function, if it comes down early it is always gamebreaking and being not banned in a format with 4 forces per deck is the worst argument ever. You are not the community. And you are even mostly wrong when looking at past debates. Always quick on the judgment, usually bad at reasoning and rude to the others. But thanks for your input anyway.

You have to give tonytahiti props for his trolling skills, which over the past couple of years he has brought to an expert level! :)

Also, there is some truth in what he says. Tolarian Academy, Oath of Druids (and to a lesser extent Mana Drain) are far more powerful than Stoneforge Mystic in a vacuum, if something like a "power in the abstract" even exists. But I guess that is a question better left for metaphysical Magic discussions (which there should be more of ;) ).

There are two main reasons why Academy and Oath are unbanned whereas SM is not:

1. Both cards require building around them, which is significantly harder to do in a singleton format than for example in Legacy where the best and most relevant tools are available in quadruples.

2. The true brokenness of the cards only unfolds in a dedicated strategy (see point 1) which in return doesn't function without the card itself.

Basically we could sum up in a more abstract way with A(n) being abstract powerlevel values of cards and Syn(n,m) being power created through synergy between card n and card m:

Synergistic deck:
A1=1, A2=1, A3=1
Syn1,2=5, Syn1,3=5, Syn2,3=5

Struggling state: average powerlevel of card = 1
In full swing: total powerlevel with all relevant pieces enabled = 18

Goodstuff deck:
A1=4, A2=4, A3=4
Syn1,2=1, Syn1,3=1, Syn2,3=1

Struggling state: average powerlevel of card = 4
In full swing: total powerlevel with all relevant pieces enabled = 15


The crucial point now is this: In HL, you won't as easily be able to achieve "full swing" mode because it is harder to enable all your pieces. Therefore cards that shine in highly synergistic decks are relatively weaker here than compared to a format like Legacy.

Most often decks will find themselves in a "struggling state", and this is where Stoneforge Mystic shines, since she needs no synergies. She has it all built into herself.

Actually, Mana Drain is a lot closer to SM in comparison. It really doesn't need much to be very strong (synergistic requirements not 0 but relatively low). Consequently, you see Mana Drain in almost any blue deck just like you saw SM in almost any white deck. This is specifically not the case with TA and Oath of Druids, which are only to be found in very few archetypes.

That being said, I would argue to ban Mana Drain because it is as omnipresent as SM and too strong relative to the rest of the cardpool, constantly deciding games in an almost non-interactive and random fashion.

Cards like TA, Oath, Workshop etc. have to be considered for banning when "full swing" mode is achieved often enough so the average powerlevel of a given synergistic deck is high enough that is has to be considered better than other decks and therefore gets played by the majority.

Let p be the probability of achieving "full swing" for any given deck. With the values from above and p=40%:

Synergistic deck:
p = 0.4
Average powerlevel = 0.4 * 18 + 0.6 * 1 = 7.8

Goodstuff deck:
p = 0.4
Average powerlevel = 0.4 * 15 + 0.6 * 4 = 8.4

This kind of represents the current state of the HL metagame (and an arbitrary 6:4 matchup between goodstuff decks and synergy decks). Goodstuff decks will on average be better than synergistic decks. But you can see that if p(full swing) becomes higher (>0.5), the average powerlevel of the synergistic deck will surpass the goodstuff deck. This is where it becomes the best deck.

The art of banning, if you will, lies in the delicate balance of the numbers above and should optimally lead to a flat average powerlevel for every deck archetype.

@Maqi: Brilliant post, agree with everything.

In addition if you ban this "strategy" cards I assume we will end up with tournaments full of U(w|r) and Goodstuff decks and no big variance.

Those cards are a big reason for people playing different strategies which otherwise would not be possible.

From the tournament reports we are far away having from mostly Survival lists in the top 8's, at this time there was really a card which broke the format and you could see it (everywhere).

Thank you!

Survival of the Fittest is an excellent example by the way because it was a card that synergized with goodstuff. And that was far too good obviously. Similar case with Natural Order and Birthing Pod.

I completely agree. Especially on tonytahiti's trolling skills.

The problem why Mana Drain is unlikely to be banned (or why I think it is not that great of an idea) is that there is no redundancy present on the UU counter target spell slot. There is only Counterspell and the slightly broken Mana Drain. Yet both cards seem absolutely necessary for control. If Mana Drain was just a straight up Counterspell with another name, I would immedeately jam it in every blue list.

I think Mana Drain is necessary to keep critical Mass in the 2cmc hardcounter department. But it's powerlevel really is very high. But to be fair, it is a reactive Card and I think a lot of the hate stems from psychological reasons too (your play getting denied). I was unsure about wether Drain should be banned or not a year ago and I still am now because I do not see the card as that big of a problem but not as unproblematic either.

Quote from: tonytahiti on 21-02-2015, 08:34:08 PM
Also: Stoneforge Mystic needs to be unbanned as soon as possible and the Council needs to admit banning it was a mistake and rushed. In Berlin Highlander Players are playing Tiny Leaders now cause its legal there and it gives us a warm fuzzy feeling playing with it, it just baffles us that stoneforge mystic is banned

You can't play Batterskull in Tiny Leaders to go with SFM. Just sayin'.

Quote from: tonytahiti on 04-03-2015, 11:47:38 PM
i have great faith in the council that they will do the "right" thing (as representers of the community and their needs) and unban stoneforge in april. they will know that having oath, academy and mana drain (three cards that have far higher powerlevel and are banned in legacy until the end of time) NOT BANNED but stonerforge BANNED is ridiculous and make this format look like a joke from the ouside. the banned list is very important for a format to be taken seriously and we need a good banned list, that actually makes sense.the community puts their trust in the council and we are sure you wont disappoint us.

I am sorry to inform you that you are not representing the HL community at all. I can´t help myself but I always read: "Please council, help me to improve my pet deck. The power level of Jeskai creatures needs to be improved in order to compete against the green based good stuffs as they have a superior creature base.

Back to topic. My opinion on the Banned List:

Stoneforge Mystic - It's simply an auto include in all (non-Oath) decks which can pay 1W, also creatureless Esper. I expect that it will weaken aggro strategies even more and they already have a hard time to fight the midrange madness. It's good for me personally as it will feed 100% of my pet decks but bad for the balance of the format. UNBAN WATCHLIST

Tolarian Academy - Cards like Tolarian Academy are always very borderline and should be nailed on the watch list (if not banned) to represent their power level. They burst the single card power level but might be needed to fight good stuff mania. BAN WATCHLIST

Oath of Druids - I do not like these "oops I win" games when the opponent has an early Oath, which is often a no-brainer and does not need a lot of synergy to function while Tolarian Academy needs a better set up. BAN - UNBAN WATCHLIST

Fastbond – Same category as Oath of Druids for me. UNBAN WATCHLIST

Entomb - Same category as Oath of Druids for me. UNBAN WATCHLIST

Natural Order – feeds Goodstuff with a very good Semi-Combo. UNBAN WATCHLIST

Mystical Tutor - At first I thought it must be banned but I currently think that he is some kind of "balancer" and "glue" to help the synergistic decks (like Enlightened Tutor). On the other hand there too many synergistic cards out there, so it will always be hard to keep them under control. In case they get out of control you should think about a ban again. BAN WATCHLIST

Mana Drain – Power level strictly above the format. Has some synergistic requirement to become broken, so I do not think that it must be banned by any means. However, Mana Drain into 5drop is very hard to beat in many cases. BAN WATCHLIST

Demonic Tutor – Power level strictly above the format. Does not only feed synergistic decks but auto include in any black deck. Can be quite "expensive" for good stuff, bonkers in synergetic decks, so it currently helps to keep balance. However, its power level should be reflected somehow. BAN WATCHLIST

Imperial Seal – Banned because of availability and price (council´s explanation exclusive for this card as far as I know) but needs to be unbaned immediately as soon as this changes. UNBAN WATCHLIST


@ Maqi: Thanks for your brilliant post!

Maqi's post about evauating strengts of synergistic and goodstuff deck is quite interesting. But what I don't like about it is, that the numbers used in the post are pure fiction, to backup otherwise good points. I found this bending numbers to get them in the form, where it shows what Maqi is claiming, realy uncecessary.

From reading posts in this thread, I got the feeling, that Stoneforge is banned, mainly because of it's possible inclusion in so called goodstuff decks. Because it is the card, that these decks will gladly play. Stoneforge is definetely not banned because of it's power level (even if it is quite good). This line of thinking about banned list is very akward for me. You basicaly deny all players to be able to use card, that would be otherwise widely played, just because THIS? It is realy hard to punish goodstuff players, to accualy discurage them from playing their decks. That is going to happen next? Will HL go with Modern banned list route and start banning creatures that are widely played? When we will see Deathrite banned? or Kniht of Reliquary? or Birds of Paradise???, because theese cards are all very good and also played in goodstuff.

^^This is not the way! Wizards keep printing better and better creatures, so gues what - creature based decks (either you call them goodstuff or not) will get better and better. I think you can't stop the tide by taking few drops from the sea.

So my opinion is clear - UNBAN Stoneforge

No, it is banned because it would just go into EVERY deck that plays white and is not pure combo. And on top of that it is actually busted.

It probably could be unbanned but the reason it had to go in the first place was its omnipresence (which is not enough to warrant a ban on its own) and that it led to really stupid blowouts (the classic "oops, I win!" situation) as early as turn three. Other cards that can deliver those blowouts require a specific deck build (e.g. Oath) and thus can never be an auto include. The control decks already play a Batterskull and would put Mystic in there even if they played a low creature strategy. The aggressive or midrange decks play swords of... already and would probably include the odd batterskull too. It just is a stupid card that is good without any prior setup or deck building challenge and is backbreaking early and still brutal later.
Is there any other legal card that fits this description? Mana Drain comes close but it is a purely reactive card, a horrible topdeck when behind and requires you to have the ridiculous follow up in your hand come next main phase in decks that are chronically horrible at having those. I think there is nothing close to it and unbanning it would lead to a similar stupid meta where this girl was legal. I remember. I played her and played against her. And I played her in Esper and she was the stone cold nuts. Maybe she could be unbanned if Batterskull goes in her stead but that would not be a beneficial trade for the metagame as a whole, I think.

Of course maqi made those numbers up but despite looking odd it is actually a very simple and clear way to bring his point across. If he explained it in words alone it would be a lengthy post. He condensed his arguments into the very essence.

Kenshin: In my vocabulary is the word 'blowout' defined in completely different way. Blowout is in my opinion very punishing situation for me, the situation that should go from 'I win' scenario to 'I lost'. There is definetely lots of cards that make this possible - usualy instants - Cryptic Command, POP, timely removal, Mindcensor, Vialed creature...

I don't see a single scenario with Stoneforge (not involving vialed Stoneforge) that can turn to blowout for me.

As for it's strengs - lets asume, that oponent is on play and we do not have early removal. I would definetely hate more to see him play mana dork on his T1 than Stoneforge on T2. Stoneforge is great when the bord state is somewhat even, since it brings Sword with itself. When behind it is squire which solves nothing.

I would like to point out, that nowadays we have quite lot of good removal for swords of all kind, that was not available at the time when stoneforge was at large. Destructive Revelry, Reclamation Sage, Council of Judgment, Decay.. Moreover people are more willing to bring these cards to the table, because of Tolaria Academy is a thing.

Sure enough: batterskull + SFM can be anoying. But this is least of my worries in current metagame.

to the guy, who said i want my "jeskai-tool" stoneforge back: you amuse me ("amusing" in the way bad guys in movies are amused when they hear something ridiculous from somebody they dont know and never heard about, they chuckle while sipping their drink). stop stalking my decks, stop following my every step like a fan, stop thinking i need stoneforge to beat green based decks, its the most ridiculous thing i've ever heard. i wanted to spark a discussion, maybe in a "trolling" way but at least something is happening. you take stuff a little serious, i am affecting you too much considering i dont know who you are.

Hello - in order to explain my point about the banlist, I have to say some background first:
I play german HL for some time, even organize/help organizing tournaments in Slovakia as much as possible cca. last 3 years.
I am not the first one to start playing it here on Slovakia, but I believe that after I joined, we started to travel more to Hanau
and also try to update decks to be as competitive as possible due to your big tournaments also, which I am very thankful for of course :)
At first, I looked at banlist very negatively, mainly because my deck was loosing tools almost every time, there was a banning time.
Natural Order, Birthing pod, etc. All cards that I really loved to play.
BUT
I started to look at it the other way later and I still didn't see this point here - in the postings:
What about banning/unbanning cards as a tool, to make players more satisfied? Maybe it is very easy to say and pretty hard to do,
since everybody has its own point on every powerful card.

What I am saying is - lets at least try to look at it this way! Lets look on those cads on banlist/watchlist also from the motivation point!
If we unban some card, or ban it - would it make more people start playing the format again? If yes, lets do it! The worst thing,
that can happen is that we would have a shift in the metagame - I believe it is not that bad of a thing and you?

Quote from: Dalibor on 08-08-2015, 01:50:39 AM
BUT
I started to look at it the other way later and I still didn't see this point here - in the postings:
What about banning/unbanning cards as a tool, to make players more satisfied? Maybe it is very easy to say and pretty hard to do,
since everybody has its own point on every powerful card.

What I am saying is - lets at least try to look at it this way! Lets look on those cads on banlist/watchlist also from the motivation point!
If we unban some card, or ban it - would it make more people start playing the format again? If yes, lets do it! The worst thing,
that can happen is that we would have a shift in the metagame - I believe it is not that bad of a thing and you?

personally i guess the diversity of the meta is one of the most important points for a banning decision...and unbanning strong cards always involve the risk that the meta shifts in a wrong and unhealthy way (same can be true by banning cards obviously) ... the latest tournament results show a more or less healthy meta imo, what do you think? (http://www.magicplayer.org/forum/index.php?topic=1120.0 / http://www.magicplayer.org/forum/index.php?topic=1111.0)

if I understand your point correctly you would like to have more democratical ban/unban-decisions out of the community itself?! we try to involve the community-will as good as we can, from time to time we make some surveys (http://www.magicplayer.org/forum/index.php?topic=584.120) and we always try to receive the community feedback to upcoming (and recent) ban/unban decisions ... therefore we e. g. developed the watch-list system so we can collect different views on cards before the council makes a decision for the watch-listed cards

there are quite a few different approaches for ban-list-design in the community, there are also players who wanna have a definite longer list to make the game less random and more calculable (no ..."ups Scapeshift from the top you are dead", thank you for "Mana Drain-ing" into CC5-Drop T3, have fun watching my Solitaire-Mode with Tolarian Academy while playing Eggs ...just to mention a few "random" and for the players sometimes less satisfying sceanrios), some guys wanna have a short banned-list as possible, again some bring forward arguments like "randomness", "fun", "motivation and satisfication" always on the background of their own experience and evaluation...we try to respect as much of this feedback as possible still aware that our desicions will always be dssappointing for a part of the community

concerning that motivation-point:
cards like Survival, Birthing Pod, Library of Alexandria, Gift Ungiven etc have either the pontential to make players more motivated playing highlander like the opposite way
each decision has up- and downsides

I personally quit around the time of the NO ban. Just didn't have the interest when the fun cards were getting banned left and right. It was harder and harder to justify playing Nantuko Husks over goodstuff anyway, let alone when the supporting engines got banned one after another.