Highlander Magic

MagicPlayer Highlander => Tournaments => Reports => Topic started by: Vazdru on 21-04-2013, 02:59:41 PM

Title: HL Cup Hanau (GP XII) - 20.04.2013
Post by: Vazdru on 21-04-2013, 02:59:41 PM
First of all congratz Tabris for your victory in Hanau and that impressive 8-0-2 performance!
Congratz to firestarter and maqi as well for their nice performance. Firestarter has taken part in all 12 HL GPs and reached 11 times! Top 8  ;D he is the living evidence that highlander is everythin else but pure random and best decks and most skilled players always reach a top spot.

I start this thread for anybody who wants to add anythin related to yesterday's HL Cup with 101 particiapants.

On mtgpule i added this event and the first decklist of one top-8-player (Elves of Bernd Fristch) which you can find here:
http://mtgpulse.com/event/12976#181958
Feel free to add your Top 16 decklists!

Some further informations (e. g. final standings) you can find here:
http://www.planetmtg.de/articles/artikel.html?id=6400&typ=2&action=comments



Title: Re: HL Cup Hanau (GP XII) - 20.04.2013
Post by: Doks on 21-04-2013, 03:17:51 PM
Thank you very much, I was about to start a thread on my own. Congratulations Tabris, I watched you play when I had time and have seen some really nice plays.


Since I have the feeling that this forum usually needs a little kick in the ass to get going, I decided to start a discussion with a tournament report of my own. So, I just came home from work friday night and only had my UB control ready to play. Since I didn't want to completely sleeve up a new deck, I just decided to throw in green for the Oath plan. I usually play Esper but find BUG Oath to be somewhat more flexible in an unkown metagame. Let the games begin.

Round 1 vs. Matthias, Izzet Control, 1-1 Draw

In G1 it's a typical attrition war. I let my discard and counters focus on all the non-basic hate he's running (Moon, B2B, PoP etc.) but never really resolve a threat in return since he knows what he is doing. When I then finally get to trigger an Oath after 30 minutes or so, he steals my Rune-scarred Demon with a Sower of Temptation. Wouldn't be too bad if there wasn't that bitch called Spellskite which ate all my spot removal until the Demon beats me to death. In G2 I hardcast one of my creatures, but he has some blockers and finally Maze of Ith. When I add Jace, the Mind Sculptor to the board and start fatesealing, he scoops. G3 couldn't be finished, so I start the day with a Draw.

Round 2 vs. Ronald, Uwbg Aggro Control, 0-2 Loss

I mulligan to six in G1 and see a Bribery with a T1 Inquisition. Unfortunately, I don't find a solution until he just goes for it in turn five. From there on, my own Demon beats me again and when I finally take care of it, I used too much to ever get back into the game. In G2 I'm somewhat low on lands, but he also played really well and kept me from getting back into the game in time. He grew his Knight of the Reliquary and just before I could hit the crucial Oath, I roll over to a searched Wasteland in my upkeep and Oath gets countered by Force Spike into Mana Tithe into Daze (only had 2 Mana open). Then the Knight kills me.

Round 3 vs. Olga, Orzhov Aggro Control, 2-0 Win

Olga is five minutes late into the round, getting a game loss and we start G2. That one was fast: I took her removal with Duress and Inquisition and then resolved Oath. I offered her to play another game for fun to see what would have happened and that turned out to be quite funny. I keep Oath in my starting hand, but it gets removed by a Tidehollow Sculler. She beats me dangerously low to exactly 1 live with a 2/2 Zombie, Isamaru and the Sculler. However, I find the Black Sun's Zenith, clean the board and counter the next two threats. Then I hardcast Pelakka Wurm. The gained life gives me some breating room to finally come back with Tamiyo ultimate into Oath trigger -> I have a hand of 50+ cards. No comeback for her.

Round 4 vs. Manuel, BUG Oath, 1-1 Draw

Mirror match, that's ugly. In G1 he kills a land of mine with Beast Within and drops Oath into Emrakul. Game Over. Pretty fast for a control mirror I'd say. At least my mulligan to 6 didn't really matter then. G2 I drop Oath and have Orchard ready. He uses a ton of resources to play around the tokens, we both get to Oath two times when he finds an Orchard of his own. But I have the Karn Liberated to remove his Emrakul and then beat him to -2 life. G3 can't be finished fast enough.

Round 5 vs. Andre, Esper Combo, 1-1 Draw

In G1 he finds the Leyline + Helm combo pretty fast while I can't do shit under his Back to Basics. In G2 I see a pretty weak hand with a T1 Duress. He focuses on successfully handling all my few win options, but finally I stick a Jace, the Mind Sculptor and win with his ultimate. G3 starts with the extra turns -> Draw again.

Round 6 vs Johannes, Naya Aggro, 2-1 Win

In G1 it's the die roll. I tutor Oath, he tutors Pridemage. I tutor Regrowth and drop Oath again. After the last attack before my upkeep Oath trigger, I'm at 3 life and he shows me the classy Lightning Bolt. Damn, that was close. I blindly Mental misstepped his T1 Birds of Paradise (played with a Savannah, so I guessed that he might be playing Bant) which I better saved for the killing Bolt. Well, at least I knew what I was up against. G2 I play Inquisition to steal his T1 play which gives me a lot of time. When I see him being stuck on two lands, I tutor for wasteland to screw him even more over. Soon after, Jace the Mind Sculptor hits the board. Fatesealing prevents him from finding sufficient Mana and there comes the 2nd ultimate kill of the day. G3 is pretty close again because he begins pretty explosively. Innocent Blood kills Thalia, Guardian of Thraben (who is a real bitch btw) and a devastating 3:1 trade with my Damnation lets me staiblize on 2 life. He has no cards, I only have a Force of Will without a blue card. So it takes a lot of time to play around a potential burn kill. I finally Get Oath + Orchard going, finding me Primeval Titan that generates so much Mana I almost could have hardcasted Emrakul.

Round 7 vs. Timo, Izzet Control, 2-0 Win

In G1, he is colour screwed in a two colour deck. Bitter irony. So he only has Islands and can't play the Blood Moon. Meanwhile, I handle his Vendilion Clique and get Liliana of the Veil + Life from the Loam going. He scoops when he thinks he is just too far behind with Liliana hitting a +7 counters, stealing half of his lands and continuing to rip his hand apart next turn. In G2, a Wasteland of him disrupts my plans and he establishes a very strong board position with tons of Mana via Grim Monolith and Izzet Signet + a ton of unattackable basics. However, he goes out of gas soon after, I bait his counter with an EoT Fact or Fiction and then resolve Pernicious Deed on my own turn. Blowing it up for X = 2, I kill Snapcaster Mage, Monolith, Phyrexian Furnace and Signet for a really good 3:1 trade (he had mana to activate the Furnace before Deed blew up everything). Getting rid of his graveyard hate, that leaves him vulnerable and an Intuition for Life from the Loam + cycle lands. This draws me tons of cards while I keep countering his few key spells. Finally, I stick a Vraska, the Unseen that kills his Jace, the Mind Sculptor and ticks up to 7, then drops to 4 again due to a bolt. Few minutes later, Vraska finally ultimates and Timo became the first victim of my assassin tokens ever.

Total result: 3-1-3


Overall, the deck feels very viable, but not too strong as some of the people I talked to criticized. There are quite some drawbacks when going for the Oath plan (missing all the super good utility creatures, very few real win conditions, being reliant on Oath, still losing after a triggered Oath because you are already low on life etc.). And I still can't decide if I want B or W as the third colour after UG. Regarding my playstyle, I really need to focus harder on winning G1 to avoid so many draws. No matchup really felt unwinnable, it's just that this deck can take ages to kill (apart from the random instant Oath win). Especially control matchups are so damn annoying as they consume a lot of concentration, too. If I played better, I guess that at least one of the draws could have been a win, maybe even two.  

I had a diverse mix of opponents. Some tried super hard and didn't really seem to be too relaxed, with others I could joke around and talk trash while having a good time. Nevertheless, all of them were nice and well-mannered. Combined with a solid location, getting up early and travelling to this event was totally worth it.



So long,

Doks
Title: Re: HL Cup Hanau (GP XII) - 20.04.2013
Post by: orca- on 21-04-2013, 07:19:21 PM
Quote from: Doks on 21-04-2013, 03:17:51 PM
Round 6 vs Johannes, Naya Aggro, 2-1 Win

I finally Get Oath + Orchard going, finding me Primeval Titan that generates so much Mana I almost could have hardcasted Emrakul.

Wasn't it a Beast Within? ;)


The biggest problem I saw was that those two were inexperienced judges concerning the highlander metagame(like the humility/manland interaction and such) and that it was only 2 judges. Especially without a microphone it was hard to hear any announcement of them at all ....
Title: Re: HL Cup Hanau (GP XII) - 20.04.2013
Post by: Tabris on 21-04-2013, 11:13:03 PM
added the UR list.
Title: Re: HL Cup Hanau (GP XII) - 20.04.2013
Post by: Doks on 21-04-2013, 11:37:08 PM
I see you completed your Oath list, thank you very much.

As the current Highlander Cup champion, what is your opinion on Oath of Druids as a potential format breaking card? Some find it to be simply overpowered, some think it's just fine. You've been playing the deck for quite a long time, and now you have won one of the (if not the biggest regular) tournament with it. What can you contribute to the controversial discussion?

In addition, I really like how an Izzet control deck made Top 8. There have been several people that claim non-basic hate strategies to be not strong enough because of Fetchlands that get all the basics. Now, the archetype has made Top 8 again which shows the opposite in my opinion.
Title: Re: HL Cup Hanau (GP XII) - 20.04.2013
Post by: Tabris on 22-04-2013, 12:42:40 PM
Well I dont think its an format breaking card. ET surely gives the deck a big edge and I know how frightening a T2 Oath can be but as I played my Swiss rounds I never heard a player complain about the card itself or the deck. This is not the proof for the balance of the card itself but I dont think the format is dominated by this archetype right now. I saw some Oath decks but the T8 is very diverse and to be fair I played versus the UR deck for fun and I simply lost 4 games in a row so the greed will be punished. Which leads me to the next point:

nonbasic hate is a viable strategy in the current meta BUT you cant rely only on this approach and I think Patric (UR Player) should have added some more threats or overall flexible cards since his narrow plan simply costed him the game in the quarterfinals against a 4c bant with 3 basics on the board. Besides that he told me he dodged his bad matchups like rdw. I think this deck is quite potent and I love the Counterburn archetype but its not the cure for 5c madness.

(btw I never had a t1 Tutor for a t2 oath in the entire tournament)

The t8 lists are complete now.
Title: Re: HL Cup Hanau (GP XII) - 20.04.2013
Post by: ChristophO on 22-04-2013, 03:44:09 PM

Thx to everybody for the great tournament. I played creatureless staxx to a 5-2 finish and enjoyed making (almost) everybodies life miserable with Tabernacle, Humility, Wildefire, Winter Orb and co. ;-).

@Doks:
I strongly disagree with your back handed compliment for the Izzet player/deck. The Izzet deck ist not viable only because of the land hate package but instead is complimented nicely by it. Clearly the top 8 result of the Izzet deck benefited from Blood Moon/Back to Bascis/Ruination. However this does not mean that the non basic hate cards are a good tool to stop 4 and 5 color decks. There are 5 decks in this top 8 playing 4 colors (or more)....

@Deck lists:
All decks except the UR deck and to a lesser degree the oath deck in the top 8 are unplayable in a format without the spoils mulligan since they are all "cheating" down the number of lands to increase the power level of their deck as a trade off for a lessened consistency which is fixed by the spoils mulligan rules. There will always be an optimum of power vs. consistency and with the spoils mulligan this means reducing the land count by 5 or so to increase the power level. I dislike this feature of highlander.

Title: Re: HL Cup Hanau (GP XII) - 20.04.2013
Post by: MMD on 22-04-2013, 06:28:13 PM
Congratulation to Tabris for winning the Cup and also to Firestarter for his 11th Top 8 on a HLGP!

I fulfilled my promise to my GP Utrecht teammates and piloted Boros...

...to a horrible result. My friends were not able to talk me out of this "plan" before the tournament. Some call it principles, some call it senile stubbornness, but now I know - Boros is a horrible deck. Creature power creep really makes the Boros strategy obsolete, nearly unplayable. 2 power evasion for two mana is really not good enough nowadays. If you don't curve out until the opponent is dead (or draw one of your silver bullets in the right matchup) you will loose. You even lose against double counter/removal in matches against control/goodstuff, beside the fact that you have just a couple of top decks available in the late game. I dropped at 1-3-1  :-X. My only win was against Boros  ::) How can I resign from the Boros guild?   :'(

This time no report but a some bad beats:

-   Esper Control opponent dead on the board next turn but top decked an Entreat for 6 angels ftw. Next game he played another Entreat the Angels for 4 token, but this time from his hand and without any mana acceleration (or Crucible shenanigans) with two Islands left for a Counterspell, which means I did not manage to kill him until turn +20

-   Opponent on 20 life  on our 4th extra turn with three soldier token in play (Timely Reinforcements) and tapped out. Me having just a sole Silverblade Paladin in play, killing two of his guys eot. Getting my Goblin Guide force-of-willed (single out) after playing Flametounge Kavu to kill the last blocker and soulbond with the Paladin, giving him +3/0 and haste with Reckless Charge, which would have made an attack for 20 damage possible in the last extra turn

-   Naya opponent very behind on the board and very low on life without a card in his hand. He  had just 1- 2 Mana Elves, Mother of Runes and an Ulvenwald Tracker on the board against my army of creatures, top decking a Baneslayer Angel which immediately fights with one of my creatures, repeating this until back to starting life total while beating me to death.

However, beside the tournament result itself it was a another great weekend and I had a lot of fun talking to the other Highlanders and my fellow companions. Beware, next time I will leave my fork at home and bring my bazooka again to battle against your handguns  ;D
Title: Re: HL Cup Hanau (GP XII) - 20.04.2013
Post by: pyyhttu on 22-04-2013, 07:55:41 PM
Quote from: MMD on 22-04-2013, 06:28:13 PM
How can I resign from the Boros guild?

By playing WW with all the relevant hate bears.

Seriously though, could you post your list for us to see? Would be interested to see if I had approached it somewhat differently.
Title: Re: HL Cup Hanau (GP XII) - 20.04.2013
Post by: Vazdru on 28-04-2013, 04:23:27 PM
I've played my UBw-ComboControl (http://mtgpulse.com/event/12925#181270) at GP Hanau with a few minor changes:

Round 1 vs Paul (Bant, 70th place)
I was lucky in the first game when he had Elspeth + Treetop Village online. In the end I combed him out with 1 LP left.
G1 took too long so we've had just 5 Min for game 2 which we couldn't finish in time.
1:0 / 1:0:1

Round 2 vs Dominik (UWb-Creatureless-Control, 16th place)
One turn before I can combo off he played Humulity. As I've had Sorin II + Lingering Souls I managed to beat him to death.
G2 I played T1 or T2 Bitterblossom which made the difference.
2:0 / 3:0:1

Round 3 vs Justus (Captain America, 9th place)
G1 I assembled combo when I was on 16 LP. G2 Tokens beat him to death.
3:0 / 5:0:1

Round 4 vs Tim (Jund, 12th place)
I play vs Tim in 6th round of last GP for Top 8 and lost. Afterwards he reached 7th place with similar deck http://mtgpulse.com/event/11692#162879 as he took the victory in that match.
In g1 of our rematch I played an early bribery for Primeval Titan which he can handle once. I get Titan back with Animate Dead and beat him to death. In g2 I assembled combo quite fast.
4:0 / 7:0:1

Actually I'm on rank 3 and need one more win for Top 8.

Round 5 vs Christoph (Bant-Tempo http://mtgpulse.com/event/12976#182073, Semifinalist)
G1 he mulliganed to 5. I have some discard to wreck his hand completely. 1:0

...One game away of Top 8...

G2 he played Winter Orb in the right moment for the win.
We have not much time for g3 nevertheless I have a decent hand with Mana Drain and an early Buried Alive. As he knows that I have Mana Drain (Gixt. Probe) he didn't played anything. Extra-Turn 3 I played Buried Alive with one mana left. He didn't have any counter-spells, so I need to topdeck a reanimation-spell or tutor in last turn which failed –  one or two turns later it would have been probably my win as I've still had Mana Drain, Snapaster  (Impulse in GY), Mystical Teachings and 5 Mana (5th card from the Top Animate Dead).    
4:0:1 / 8:1:2

Again one win short of Top 8 but still rank 4.

Round 6 vs Thomas  (5C-AggroControl http://mtgpulse.com/event/12976#182072, Quarterfinalist)
He had much better draws in both games  and I've never had the chance to win this match.
4:1:1 / 8:3:2

Still one win short of Top 8 and dropped to rank 11.

Round 7 vs Daniel (UW-Control http://mtgpulse.com/event/12976#182142, Quarterfinalist)
I've played vs Daniel in GPs twice already and lost both matches. The first one was very traumatic as I was the safe winner when I've lost because I've forgotten to note one life-loss through fetchland. The second match he played Naya and I've had Reanimator and in all games (of three) he managed to sneak Scavening Ooze in for the win.
G1 was nothing  special. He killed me with 2 random critters and enough counter-backup as I was color-screw on Blue with 4 black cards in hand. G2 I was able to combo. 15 minutes left for g3. After spoils I've had:

Fetchland / Fetchland / Buried Alive / Animate Dead / Augur / Impulse / Thoughtscour on the draw.

He had acceleration but no business on the first turns. I played Augur T2 (Land, Xplosives, Go for the Throat), Turn 3 I still had no landdrop so I played Impluse for 4 non-landcards obviously. Turn 4 I've had a Discard-Spell and eot Thoughtscour on me for Land + Land in gy and draw nonland-card. Turn 5 or 6 he transmuted Tolaria West for Wasteland get me down to 1 Land. A few turns later he played Entreat the Angels for 3 Angels from the top when I was on 2 lands again. I obviously wasn't able to get rid of that clock in time.

Like the GP before I managed to drop out of the price-ranks after starting 4:0. There must some kind of Top-8-curse for me, at least I've had the feeling in round 7 again. Sorry for getting all excited over in last round, the frustration level reached a critical limit.

4:2:1 / 9:5:2 for 20th place

Anyhow the GP was much fun, I enjoyed the tournament as always.  At least with Opp-Score 70%+ I reached one top (but worthless) record, beatin 3 top-16-player and losing only to 2 Top-8-players. Maybe I can break that "Top-8-curse" next time. Cya then.

Mentionable cards:

Sorin II: Was the last card I've added (cut Careful Consideration), played him two or three times in the tournament and he was always a blast both vs UWb-Control and vs Captain America as well.

Thoughtscour: Although it had a nice "opponent plays eot Enlightened Tutor" appearance I would cut it next time.

I've added Mana Drain and Bribery before tournament again, Bribery was gamewinner each time cast (2 or 3 times), Mana Drain was gamewinner only with Bribery on hand (1 time)  ;D
Title: Re: HL Cup Hanau (GP XII) - 20.04.2013
Post by: W0lf on 28-04-2013, 07:35:06 PM
When will you publish the top8 sheets? Might want to add something more to mine now.
Btw was fun to play with you, you shouldn't be too unhappy about our draw,was a bad matchup for your deck still getting a draw is very good.
Title: Re: HL Cup Hanau (GP XII) - 20.04.2013
Post by: Kenshin on 29-04-2013, 06:47:21 AM
The Reason why I think that Oath is overpowered and should be banned is pretty simple and I think Tabris's arguments are off target. Neither is it relevant what people perceive as a problem, but what can be deduced from logic thinking nor is Oath's undoubtedly strong effect in itself the true problem. Its what the card allows you to do in terms of deckbuilding that really makes it too strong.

First off the main problem with oath is, that it allows you to commit as ridiculously few as 3 slots to actually winning the game with damage. This is about 20-40 cards less than any regular Deck that tries to win the old fashioned way. And it is pretty obvious that cards like Emrakul and Griselbrand are insanely good at winning by themselves. With fetches in the format it is pretty likely, that you just have to smash once to win.

Your best and almost instantly winning Card Oath costs a meagre 2 mana which makes it fairly easy to proect and since you only play 3 "combo pieces" and maybe 4-7 Planeswalkers which are far from weak, you can stuff your deck with all the control cards you want. You are probably always in control of the match since every card except for the lands, the walkers and the Oath package are answers, tutors or card advantage generating.

It is laughably easy to activate the "combo". There is hardly a Deck that does not play creatures and almost none that do not need one on the board to kill you. And for those few decks that actually do not need one, you have the means to give them one. It's a one card combo at that. There is no setup required, no digging for parts. Its just the one card.

There may be removal for your oath, but as mentioned before, in a Deck that plays almost every useful counter imaginable, you can not tell me that you will not have the one counter to save it that single turn.

Saying that you never pulled of the turn 2 oath is a non-argument. It's like saying you should be allowed to own automatic guns because you never used them on other people so far. Stoneforge Mystic was banned for the possibility to have it on turn two and its impact on the game later on. Oath does the same but even better. Sure you need to build a Deck around it, but that obviously is far from challenging.

And lastly I doubt your sincerity when arguing for Oath. You are a highlander writer and a resourceful one at that. All these facts can not be new to you. You are throwing out some decoys and false reasons that sound convincing but do not withhold on further inspection.
I understand that you want to keep the card in the format, you obviously figured out, that it is the best deck at the moment. But the reason it does not get played more widely is most likely due to the casual appeal of the format. Most people do not like lame control decks like that. If this was a really competitive format, there would be a ton of oath decks and everyone would pack hate. But this is not a competitive scene. This is still a fun format. People play whatever the hell they please and that makes the format so diverse, despite most decks hardly being tier 2.
Maybe the deck is even hard to play but everyone can figure it out with some pracitice.

So my conclusion is: Ban Oath, its a one card combo, that requires neither setup nor takes up some slots. Even the Hermit Druid Combo requires at least 7 slots (Druid, Dread Return, Mimeoplasm, Triskelion, the guy with the counters, Narcomoeba and Lingering Souls) and is far from fair in my opinion.
You can not turn a blind eye here.
Title: Re: HL Cup Hanau (GP XII) - 20.04.2013
Post by: MarcMagic on 29-04-2013, 10:49:23 AM
Quote from: Kenshin on 29-04-2013, 06:47:21 AM
The Reason why I think that Oath is overpowered and should be banned is pretty simple and I think Tabris's arguments are off target. Neither is it relevant what people perceive as a problem, but what can be deduced from logic thinking nor is Oath's undoubtedly strong effect in itself the true problem. Its what the card allows you to do in terms of deckbuilding that really makes it too strong.

First off the main problem with oath is, that it allows you to commit as ridiculously few as 3 slots to actually winning the game with damage. This is about 20-40 cards less than any regular Deck that tries to win the old fashioned way. And it is pretty obvious that cards like Emrakul and Griselbrand are insanely good at winning by themselves. With fetches in the format it is pretty likely, that you just have to smash once to win.

Your best and almost instantly winning Card Oath costs a meagre 2 mana which makes it fairly easy to proect and since you only play 3 "combo pieces" and maybe 4-7 Planeswalkers which are far from weak, you can stuff your deck with all the control cards you want. You are probably always in control of the match since every card except for the lands, the walkers and the Oath package are answers, tutors or card advantage generating.

It is laughably easy to activate the "combo". There is hardly a Deck that does not play creatures and almost none that do not need one on the board to kill you. And for those few decks that actually do not need one, you have the means to give them one. It's a one card combo at that. There is no setup required, no digging for parts. Its just the one card.

And lastly I doubt your sincerity when arguing for Oath. You are a highlander writer and a resourceful one at that. All these facts can not be new to you. You are throwing out some decoys and false reasons that sound convincing but do not withhold on further inspection.
I understand that you want to keep the card in the format, you obviously figured out, that it is the best deck at the moment. But the reason it does not get played more widely is most likely due to the casual appeal of the format. Most people do not like lame control decks like that. If this was a really competitive format, there would be a ton of oath decks and everyone would pack hate. But this is not a competitive scene. This is still a fun format. People play whatever the hell they please and that makes the format so diverse, despite most decks hardly being tier 2.
Maybe the deck is even hard to play but everyone can figure it out with some pracitice.

Imho you are missing two things:

1.) Oath is not allowed to play all these good (semi-)control creatures which makes Goodstuff decks so powerful. You have to pick the best control cards to compete versus these decks! Oath of Druids is one strong card by its own but it's very easy to handle as well. I remember UG playing Krosan Grip in the past and once they found it the Oath player never had a chance to win the games (since clock + control the game out). The new meta maybe doesn't allow ppl to play Krisan Grip again (not 100% sure though) but that's just an example of how easy you can stop decks that rely on single cards (even though Oath Decks shall not completely rely on this single card but anyways).

2.) As soon as ppl compete on a HL Grand Prix - ..ehrr sry Cup - the competetive nature of the format shines as well. Ofc ppl playing for fun but so do competetive Standard/Legacy players. Your argument about HL being a casual and fun only format ist not valid in my opinion!

This discussion about Oath being too powerful is going on since.. I can remember. And so far it was never too powerful not even before ET got banned, nor yet.
Title: Re: HL Cup Hanau (GP XII) - 20.04.2013
Post by: Tabris on 29-04-2013, 02:41:46 PM
@ Kenshin

Your argument about the few slots you have to invest is very interesting and I agree with that point but you can also use that point against that deck. If the premise is right that we
dont need so many slots to win its clearly true that once our one card threat is answered (or cant be found during a match) we simply cant win anymore, right? In the scenario where our Oath is answered I have left 4 creatures which can be easy answered and my opoonent will accumulate their creature removal during a long match and none of my creatures is insanely strong + they have very high mana costs which dont allow me to have counterbackup if I hardcast them (I assume my opponent will have some ammount of pressure and I am forced to play a creature before I have 2 counterspells in my hand as backup)

Btw. I dont think that Griselbrand and Emrakul are good targets for an Oath deck and I spoke about the reasons in my last week column. (That is not an argument for anything just a statement regarding the powerlevel)

I agree with the fact that I am not the first source you should ask if the card which maybe lead me to victory is too strong for obvious reasons BUT I am a little bit offended that you accuse me of throwing decoys and false arguments. I will always try to be as objective as possible and my goal as a council member is always to have a balanced meta and get more people into the format. Before the last bannings I wrote a long statement which points are important for me and what approach I have when I am evaluating single cards or decks which seem to be problematic. Oath (and this is my honest opinion) is not a format dominating card nor too powerful. I often see that line of thinking, a card have a strong impact and thats why we have to ban it. Its ok to have strong cards and I think particularly control decks need those cards (which dont mean they should have the cards by all means ignoring the health of the format).

Surely I have a weakness for slow control decks and one could argue I want to get my pet-decks stronger and stronger but my deckchoices over the years at big tournaments reflect always what I thought was a good meta deck or at least a deck which can get through the swiss rounds which doenst mean that they were the best deck/strategy at the time. This time I chose a deck from which I thought it would go through all the goodstuff/midrange decks like a knife through butter since I was thinking the meta would be filled with those. And I was right or at least I got a lot of these decks in my rounds. ( The appereance of Oath itself during the rounds is not an argument against the brokeness but maybe a hint for my card choices and my deckbuilding)

Round 1 5c Midrange (Oath included in G1)
Round 2 RDW (Oath included in G2)
Round 3 Bant Midrange (the tempo version from the T8 would be much worse for me although I have some cards which can deal with the deck)(No Oath)
Round 4 5c AggroControl (he answered my Oath both games but I got enough of my "other" threats to win)(No Oath)
Round 5 5c Staxx (Oath included in G3)
Round 6 Draw (in the fun games I simply lost 4 games in a row trough non basic hate)
Round 7 Draw
QF      4c Goodstuff (Richterstyle meaning 29 lands aeathervial.dec) (Oath appeared in one game and got immediatly answered)
HF      4c Bloodaggro (In all three games Oath was included)
F       GB Elves (clearly a good matchup since I ve got so much creature hate but never won a game with Oath)

Btw. I didnt meant to use the appereance of the Oath on T2 as an argument for the non-brokeness of the card I was just telling the fact.

Regarding your competitive argument: I have to disagree with you and be with MarcMagic here. While you are right that HL is a fun format (because its the best format ;) ) that means  in this context we dont get supported by WotC but not that people only play monoG//monoR Control decks. All the decks I saw were highly competitive and showed a lot of thinking. People who participate at a 15€ event (which is held in a little town at a saturday morning) usually think about their chances to win this tournament and try to come with a strong deck. Of course that cant be generalized and there will be always people who play just for fun (to quoute here myself fun and winning are not contradictory ) and not for winning which doesnt mean they have shitty decks but maybe play some pet cards.

Besides that I think through the network and transparency of the different citys people get more techs/cardchoices and can constantly improve their decks. So even if they are going to play with their Tier 2 Decks they will be better then they were in the past. Also I got around 300 people each week watching my column and hope to improve their decks, plays and meta game a bit :)

Long story short:

I understand your concerns regarding the powerlvl of Oath (and we as a council are aware of it and watch it closely especially with En. Tutor unbanned).

I am a bit offended by your smoke grenade allegation.

Hl Cups are not a casual playgroup at the kitchen table. (maybe the skill of the players may fluctuate but that is also true for a standard Grand Prix and is not a phenomenon of the HL format only)

Title: Re: HL Cup Hanau (GP XII) - 20.04.2013
Post by: Kenshin on 29-04-2013, 06:30:27 PM
You are right, I guess I was a bit harsh, but to me your reasoning seemed to only stress the less vital points of why oath is such a strong card. This led to me assuming you were defending a pet card of yours no matter what. I am sorry, if I got that wrong.

On the topic of slots and winconditions. Of course, once your Oath is handled, you have a tougher time winning with planeswalkers and such but after all, your deck is geared to buy time and protect your most vital cards. How likely is it for you to really lose it? What clock can your adversary put you under while being heavily disrupted? I have never played the Oath deck myself, so I may as well be wrong, but Krosan Grip aside, which card really handles oath definitely?

And the competetiveness surely is there, else this format would not appeal to me this much but contrary to a regular Tournament, where most people would play what they think is the best deck (or what they can afford) or the best deck suited to their playstyle, on the HL Cup and Tournaments the beloved pet Deck factor is much much higher.
Just look at all those foil, alternate art, signed and whatnot cards in most of the decks. A lot of the people there have put a considerate effort and a lot of money in hunting down unique/special versions. Do you think they change their decks at a whim?
Again, no one doubts the competitive nature of the format, but after all most players love their highlander as much as they would love their cat/dog and they even groom it to a certain extent. It is hard to just get another cat because the one you grew up with does not catch mice anymore. Maybe you get her eyes fixed, but you do not let her go easily.

I for one will probably always play esper highlanders. Of course I try to build a strong deck and I am sure I succeeded at that, but I know that a lot of archetypes out there are stronger. And I say this as a very competitive player with several PTQ T8s, three PTs and one top 16 PT finish under my belt. There is a soft spot in my heart for this 100 card pile. I can not just leave it at the side of the road like a dog before the holidays.
Title: Re: HL Cup Hanau (GP XII) - 20.04.2013
Post by: Doks on 29-04-2013, 06:46:52 PM
Quote from: Kenshin on 29-04-2013, 06:30:27 PM
You are right, I guess I was a bit harsh, but to me your reasoning seemed to only stress the less vital points of why oath is such a strong card. This led to me assuming you were defending a pet card of yours no matter what. I am sorry, if I got that wrong.

On the topic of slots and winconditions. Of course, once your Oath is handled, you have a tougher time winning with planeswalkers and such but after all, your deck is geared to buy time and protect your most vital cards. How likely is it for you to really lose it? What clock can your adversary put you under while being heavily disrupted? I have never played the Oath deck myself, so I may as well be wrong, but Krosan Grip aside, which card really handles oath definitely?

And the competetiveness surely is there, else this format would not appeal to me this much but contrary to a regular Tournament, where most people would play what they think is the best deck (or what they can afford) or the best deck suited to their playstyle, on the HL Cup and Tournaments the beloved pet Deck factor is much much higher.
Just look at all those foil, alternate art, signed and whatnot cards in most of the decks. A lot of the people there have put a considerate effort and a lot of money in hunting down unique/special versions. Do you think they change their decks at a whim?
Again, no one doubts the competitive nature of the format, but after all most players love their highlander as much as they would love their cat/dog and they even groom it to a certain extent. It is hard to just get another cat because the one you grew up with does not catch mice anymore. Maybe you get her eyes fixed, but you do not let her go easily.

I for one will probably always play esper highlanders. Of course I try to build a strong deck and I am sure I succeeded at that, but I know that a lot of archetypes out there are stronger. And I say this as a very competitive player with several PTQ T8s, three PTs and one top 16 PT finish under my belt. There is a soft spot in my heart for this 100 card pile. I can not just leave it at the side of the road like a dog before the holidays.

Have you played an Oath deck by yourself for a certain amount of time? I don't mean like 10 or 20 games, but maybe over a few weeks. No offense intended, I'm being completely serious about this. To me it seems that you had some really bad games playing against the Oath archetype. But only playing it yourself will show you how much the named drawbacks really weigh.

For quite some time, I hated all multicoloured aggro archetypes because losing on turn 4/5 feels somewhat 'unfun' to me. I became so narrow-minded playing against a friend of mine that I only noticed his good draws and neglected the times he didn't kill me so early with a bunch of undercosted 3/x beaters. He offered me to swap decks for several games and suddenly I realized that his Naya has some bad and mediocre draws as well.

It's the same with Oath: losing to a Turn 2 Oath definitely feels somewhat 'dumb'. But if you ever play the deck, you will notice that you just win or lose without an Oath equally often. In theory, this deck indeed is full of answers and can handle everything. But a purely reactive deck core is not a winning strategy. Answering your opponent's threats 5 turns in a row is not going to win you the game any time soon.
Title: Re: HL Cup Hanau (GP XII) - 20.04.2013
Post by: Kenshin on 29-04-2013, 08:16:45 PM
Believe it or not, I have neither played with nor against an Oath deck. I am not biased in any way. I do not need to flip several million coins to conclude that they will roughly come up 50/50.

In the end I may have made the wrong assumptions but arguing with results is a pretty shaky basis in this case.
Title: Re: HL Cup Hanau (GP XII) - 20.04.2013
Post by: Vazdru on 29-04-2013, 09:15:56 PM
@ W0lf

thx! it was fun to play against you too - in rl you're a nice guy while the evil one on this forum  ;), never guessed you could be the same person  :P

i try to publish the Top 8 profiles till end of this week


@ Oath discussion

just checked decklists of HL Cup Hanau for Oath-builds, here the results:

Jonny / Tabris with 4C-Oath, 1st, 17 pts after Swiss
Andreas Keupp with Reanimator-Oath, 10th, 15 pts
Marcel Schneider with BUG-Oath, 36th, 12 pts
Florian Hering with BUG-Oath (Top 8 with BUG-Oath last HL Cup and Trial-Winner with Oath this time) -> 42nd, 10 pts (6 rounds played - 2 wins, 1 draw, 2 losses, 1 Bye)
Manuel Laubscher with BUG-Oath (Trial-winner), 64th, 8 pts (6 rounds played - 1 win, 2 draws, 2 losses, 1 Bye)

the performance of the Oath-Decks obviously not meta-breaking not to say just average
i watched some Oath-matches of Tabris and they were quite close each time

nevertheless Oath is on Watchlist, so everyone can be relaxed, we - the hl council- are aware that this card could cause problems especially the combo-oath-version, which noone has chosen this time as it is quite hard to pilot
Title: Re: HL Cup Hanau (GP XII) - 20.04.2013
Post by: LasH on 29-04-2013, 09:58:11 PM
I kinda think the balance discussions get to a useless point. The amount of players for certain cards will always be like 50:50 or max 60:40. I absolutly cannot follow hl-council members argumentations anymore.

Quote from: Tabris on 22-04-2013, 12:42:40 PM

(btw I never had a t1 Tutor for a t2 oath in the entire tournament)


Statements like this are so opposed. Since u never had that "autowin" draw we can unban Libraryof Alexandria because the main argument is that its autowin on starthand? BC you just say u didnt draw a certain card for 8 rounds of HL in the first turn you contradict with a statement against library in the format. Is the card less broken because you didnt draw it?

Its just one example of MANY. There is so much contradict in the banlist and it really feels like ppl are 50:50 about all cards why dont we implent a straight going for banning cards.

91% of banned cards do have a manacost of 2 or less (the 3 remaining: gifts ungiven, birthing pod, tinker). So for example:

- Only undercosted cards get consider for a ban because they stop interacting with players or give one player a drastic early advantage (Reason to BAN P9, a reason not to ban natural order/gifts because decks are supposed to handle 4 mana cc cards)

- A card gets banned if the active player has a drastically early advantage which rarely loses a game(reason to ban survival, jitte, birhting pod, oath )

- banning one cards combos (hermit druid, survival, birthing pod, tinker)

- if a card is stoping evolution of the format (tolarian academy, tinker, survival)

- Either ban or unban one mana tutors. Stop the randomnes.

No one can seriously argument against this. This would finally stop all biased ban/unban argumentations and we had a straight going for banning cards. If a card matches at least 2/3 of the categories it gets banned. Pretty simply.

Im not saying this raster is perfect but you could work it out so the banlist at least 100% reasonable. Because right now its absolutly not the case. Im not saying we have a bad banlist. But some cards get banned for a reason while other cards have the absolutly same impact and dont get banned. I can totally understand why ppl ask to ban oath, because it matches at least 5 reasons why you banned survival. Check your newspost 01.04.2010.

The performance of oath is not meta-breaking? It won 2 GPs in a row in 2 completly different versions. Once again a fail statement (sry i like you :D). We dont have much tournaments so if a deck wins the biggest tournament at all TWICE by different players you cannot say its not meta breaking.

Quote from: Kenshin on 29-04-2013, 06:30:27 PM

And the competetiveness surely is there, else this format would not appeal to me this much but contrary to a regular Tournament, where most people would play what they think is the best deck (or what they can afford) or the best deck suited to their playstyle, on the HL Cup and Tournaments the beloved pet Deck factor is much much higher.
Just look at all those foil, alternate art, signed and whatnot cards in most of the decks. A lot of the people there have put a considerate effort and a lot of money in hunting down unique/special versions. Do you think they change their decks at a whim?
Again, no one doubts the competitive nature of the format, but after all most players love their highlander as much as they would love their cat/dog and they even groom it to a certain extent. It is hard to just get another cat because the one you grew up with does not catch mice anymore. Maybe you get her eyes fixed, but you do not let her go easily.


Thats the reason why we dont see a TOP 8 full of "affinity-decks". If ppl only would run the best decks we would see MUCH more combo builds like christoph's build. Did the eternity top8 player patrick richter EVER changed his goodstuff deck in any GP? Most players run 1 deck like some1 else said before and thats usually not the best deck. If you want to play the best deck you check christoph's statement how to "break the format" in speed and consistency and he proofed that it works.
Title: Re: HL Cup Hanau (GP XII) - 20.04.2013
Post by: W0lf on 29-04-2013, 11:20:57 PM
Ok i can`t help it i must tell you my opinion on oath and the Top 8 decks i will try to be nice and reasonable this time.

When I´m looking at the t8 decks I see that everyone of them has really really focused game plan  whether it is early board control from elves,softlock/nonbasic hate strategies from aggro-control/UR decks or heavy control that relies on single spells to win. You just take one look at the lists and you know what they will do to you if you play against them.
They are all extremely well built and i can imagine the amount of time and brains invested must have been huge.
Anyone of them could have won this Tournament if the pairings would have been different as every deck in this list has a bad matchup against at least one of the others.

Regarding the Oath discussion:
For me the Card that rly breaks Oath in Jonnys build is the addition of Eternal Witness in combination with Volrath`s Stronghold.While "All-in" oath decks are just to weak, he took a different route and built the ultimate Control Deck engine. This is no cheap win strategy, it is high level Deckbuilding that everyone should respect.
Hope i didn`t insult anyone this time, just saying the possibilities in HL are endless and there will always be a better deck to create somewhere hidden in your mind.  ;)



Title: Re: HL Cup Hanau (GP XII) - 20.04.2013
Post by: Tabris on 29-04-2013, 11:34:38 PM
Just some short statements regarding your points Lash:


The mentioning of "I had never a t2 oath" is not an argument for anything I just wanted to show (as I already said) that my deck is a heavy control deck which CAN win w/o Oath and the card alone is not the only thing which helped me win the tournament. If I remember correctly every T8 participant made a mistake which lead to a loss (since the UW and Bant players are friends of mine, they told me what tend to their losses) also my opponents in QF and SF did make some mistakes which lead to their defeat (well one could argue that the BBE decission was not a mistake but more a high risk/high reward play).

Besides that, Patrick played a huge variance of decks. At the DM he played a Bant Ramp deck with Upheaval + Sorveigns of lost Alara before that he had a 4c Toolbox deck since the last GP he choose an aggro control deck, so saying hes playing the same deck over and over is not true. He switched from midrange to ramp to aggro control and back again :) (sure they all have a 4c greed mana base + some pet cards but they differ in many ways and their approachs)
Title: Re: HL Cup Hanau (GP XII) - 20.04.2013
Post by: LasH on 30-04-2013, 08:14:31 PM
Quote from: Tabris on 29-04-2013, 11:34:38 PM
Just some short statements regarding your points Lash:

The mentioning of "I had never a t2 oath" is not an argument for anything I just wanted to show (as I already said) that my deck is a heavy control deck which CAN win w/o Oath and the card alone is not the only thing which helped me win the tournament. If I remember correctly every T8 participant made a mistake which lead to a loss (since the UW and Bant players are friends of mine, they told me what tend to their losses) also my opponents in QF and SF did make some mistakes which lead to their defeat (well one could argue that the BBE decission was not a mistake but more a high risk/high reward play).

I dont see the relation of this post and my statement. Who said your deck can only win with oath? Which oath list cannot win without oath? Why is this matter important at all? (Many questions but i dont get it right now)

Quote from: Tabris on 29-04-2013, 11:34:38 PM
Besides that, Patrick played a huge variance of decks. At the DM he played a Bant Ramp deck with Upheaval + Sorveigns of lost Alara before that he had a 4c Toolbox deck since the last GP he choose an aggro control deck, so saying hes playing the same deck over and over is not true. He switched from midrange to ramp to aggro control and back again :) (sure they all have a 4c greed mana base + some pet cards but they differ in many ways and their approachs)

http://www.mtgpulse.com/search#[byplayer=Patrick%20Richter]

Thats for 2 years. The concept does not change. Cards always change in time, splashing does change in time. What he does is adapting his deck to the meta (very efficient). I doubt he would ever run UW control on a GP. Hope this helps you to understand my purpose of this example. Btw it was not a negative statement about patrick. It shows his skill to reanimate his deck perfectly for each meta but thats what goodstuff is about, isnt it? And he does it tight.

I would rather see a statement from you about the important parts of my post.
Title: Re: HL Cup Hanau (GP XII) - 20.04.2013
Post by: W0lf on 30-04-2013, 11:08:15 PM
There is nothing important in your post?
Title: Re: HL Cup Hanau (GP XII) - 20.04.2013
Post by: MMD on 01-05-2013, 10:21:03 AM
Tabris's Contol Oath list looks rock solid (though I just don´t understand the reason for playing G1 sorceries instead of artifact ramp) but I doubt that adding Witness/Stronghold is neather new nor format breaking. He mentioned that he dodged non basic hate and benefited from opponents misplays. In addition to beeing an good magic player this can be enough to win such a tournament.

I don't want to say ,,ban oath" because it won two tournaments in a row (with two different strategies which is also very important to see imo) but I agree with a lot of LasH's arguments regarding the banned list in general. Imo Oath can be compared (cheap, hard to kill, game wharping, etc. ) to some cards which are already on the banned list for a good reason.

Btw, there is also a Oath-topic in the banned list thread: http://www.magicplayer.org/forum/index.php?topic=908.15
Title: Re: HL Cup Hanau (GP XII) - 20.04.2013
Post by: W0lf on 01-05-2013, 12:02:40 PM
The only thing thats nether new or format breaking is people crying about cards after every gp.the one thing you dont see is banning oath wont make you better at playing magic.

DEAL WITH IT!
Title: Re: HL Cup Hanau (GP XII) - 20.04.2013
Post by: MMD on 01-05-2013, 12:40:57 PM
Quote from: W0lf on 01-05-2013, 12:02:40 PM
The only thing thats nether new or format breaking is people crying about cards after every gp.the one thing you dont see is banning oath wont make you better at playing magic.

DEAL WITH IT!

Thanks for your intelligent and enlightened feedback! Can we come back to some useful content please?
Title: Re: HL Cup Hanau (GP XII) - 20.04.2013
Post by: Kenshin on 01-05-2013, 01:40:15 PM
Quote from: W0lf on 01-05-2013, 12:02:40 PM
The only thing thats nether new or format breaking is people crying about cards after every gp.the one thing you dont see is banning oath wont make you better at playing magic.

DEAL WITH IT!

This is probably the most stupid thing I have read in a while. I asked myself if such douchebaggery even deserves an answer, but I will feed the troll:

Beneath the fact that I told you I have won PTQs and played PTs, which should tell you that I am probably not a bad player (though not as good as I was back then because I took a break during Innistrad and Scars), I doubt that this is even a point in this discussion. Most of the posters before brought up good reasons why to ban/not ban Oath. I never played against Oath, I am surely not "butthurt". The card poses a problem and we discuss it. I do not see a person in this thread hating on it for the reasons you accuse them of.

And surely most of those people spoke out against Oath before that tournament. I sure did and I even tried to bring it up with Vazdru at our local Tournaments in Karlsruhe but that is not the place to have a lengthy discussion so we just had a little chat about it. Recent events tend to define the topics of discussion. That is perfectly normal. There is no surprise in the timing of Oath coming up as the subject "du jour".

If this was any other format I would invest some time to hunt down the relevant cards and learn how to play this oath deck to the highest possible extent of my abilitys. But this is not Type 2 or modern and it won't get me on the Pro Tour, so I do not. I do not know if it is the strongest Deck around but it sure is the strongest I have seen so far.
Title: Re: HL Cup Hanau (GP XII) - 20.04.2013
Post by: Maqi on 01-05-2013, 07:07:34 PM
Regarding a possible banning of Oath of Druids (wall of text incoming):

When you take a look at the HL banned list you'll see (ante, manual and time issue cards aside) that there are basically 5 different kinds of cards:
1. Fast Mana (Black Lotus, all the Moxen, Mana Crypt, Mana Vault, Sol Ring, and to some extent Fastbond and Tolarian Academy)
2. Grossly undercosted cards a.k.a. mistakes from the past (Ancestral Recall, Balance, Time Walk)
3. Combo pieces (Flash, Grindstone, Strip Mine, Time Vault)
4. Combo tutoring (Entomb, Imperial Seal, Mystical Tutor, Tinker, Vampiric Tutor)
5. Dominator cards (Birthing Pod, Gifts Ungiven, Library of Alexandria, Mind Twist, Skullclamp, Stoneforge Mystic, Survival of the Fittest, Umezawa's Jitte)

When talking about Oath we are talking about category #5 - Dominator cards. And I feel it surely belongs in this category.

What are Dominator cards?

There are several dimensions to this concept.

1. Non-interactivity
That means, a card renders many or even all cards of your opponent useless (in the context of what is important in the current game state) or just doesn't allow your opponent to cast spells at all.
An aspect of Non-intereactivity is the "game-warping" attribute, which means that as soon as the specific card hits play, everything revolves around it. It becomes the center of the game.

Non-banned cards of this kind: Trinisphere, Oath of Druids, The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale, Back to Basics, Blood Moon, Humility etc.

2. Inevitability
The card wins the game, almost regardless of what else is going on. This is not to say, that the game must be won on the spot but can rather mean that the game is locked into a state where winning is only a matter of time.

Non-banned cards of this kind: Oath of Druids, Jace TMS, Sylvan Library, Aether Vial etc.

3. Wins the game from a position where winning shouldn't be possible
The card is winning out of the blue. This means, that the card can come down too early in the game or that it can win from a position where one is so far behind, that winning through the means of one card alone feels unfair to the opponent.

Non-banned cards of this kind: Black Vise, Price of Progress, Scapeshift, Mana Drain, Oath of Druids, Parallax Wave etc.

Obviously every card has a little bit of everything. It would be more accurate to regard each specific card individually and attribute a score for each category. For example, Survival of the Fittest would score something like the following:

Non-interactivity / Game warping: 7 points (of 10)
Inevitability: 8 points (of 10)
Winning out of the blue: 3 points (of 10)

Dominator cards tend to lead to UNFUN game states. Non-interactivity, Inevitability and wins out of the blue are not FUN. And the criteria of FUN/UNFUN must be the ultimate cornerstone that guides a banning decision. If a card only leads to frustrating games, it must banned - period.

The difficult part of course is to evaluate if a card scores to high on the above categories.

If I were to rate Oath of Druids it would look something like this:

Non-interactivity / Game warping: 7 points (of 10)
Inevitability: 7 points (of 10)
Winning out of the blue: 6 points (of 10)

These are of course subjective numbers.

Krosan Grip is being tossed around by some of you as an answer. I don't know if you have noticed, but Abrupt Decay got printed. Nevertheless, that's not what matters. When a game warping card begins to even warp the metagame and deckbuilding decisions around it, something's fishy.

Let me ramble on for a bit. These are just unconnected thoughts I have on the subject.

I think that Oath of Druids is not played as much as it should be because of the price tag on The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale. An optimal Oath-list needs one of those. But not that many players own one. I for myself have not played Oath in tournament because I don't own a TaPV, although I have everything else assembled.

Furthermore, a card like Oath poses a special threat to a format without a sideboard. If you could play a board with say 1x Nature's Claim, 1x Extract and 1x Krosan Grip it would be much less of a problem. Draw these exact cards vs. the RDW or Naya aggro player however, since you have to run them mainboard, and you are pretty surely not going to have much fun with them.

Do I think Oath needs to be banned? I guess my answer at the moment would be "yes". I once was convinced, that a short banned list is a plus for the format. But I no longer think so. Instead I think that several more cards need to be banned. But that is another topic in its own right.
Title: Re: HL Cup Hanau (GP XII) - 20.04.2013
Post by: Nastaboi on 01-05-2013, 08:01:10 PM
Oath could also be classified as a mana accelerator (cheats mana costs), tutor (finding one of the few fatties in the deck) or combo tutor/piece (mill your whole deck and win from there). Not saying that is should be necessarily banned, but that we could compare its banworthiness in other categories, too.
Title: Re: HL Cup Hanau (GP XII) - 20.04.2013
Post by: Vazdru on 02-05-2013, 09:59:53 PM
I've added another decklist of Andreas Keupp / meteora, 9th place of final ranking:
http://mtgpulse.com/event/12976#183549

first player profiles online

runner-up Bernd Fritsch, who played Elves! like a day after in Legacy in which he reached Top 4 too: http://www.planetmtg.de/articles/artikel.html?id=6465

HIGHLANDER TOURNAMENT HANAU Apr. 20th, 2013 - TOP 8

RUNNER-UP

NAME / NICKNAME: Bernd Fritsch
Age: 29
Hometown: Ansbach
Occupation: professional elves player

Shop and/or community where you usually play Magic:
Prinz Regent Ansbach

Your deck archetype:
Elves! (Voll auf die Elf!)

Why did you choose your deck?
I play it in every format: "Always the elves."

Number of Times Playing on Highlander GPs:
4

Number of HL Top 8s:
1

Other previous Magic Accomplishments:
none

What was your record today?
5-1-1

How often do you play Highlander?
every week

Is there any card you would like to nominate for Ban / Unban in Highlander?
Ban: Oath of Druids

Anything else you would like to say?


________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

HIGHLANDER TOURNAMENT HANAU Apr. 20th, 2013 - TOP 8

SEMI-FINALIST

NAME / NICKNAME: Christoph Quade / W0lf
Age: 29
Hometown: Berlin
Occupation:  -

Shop and/or community where you usually play Magic:
Berlin

Your deck archetype:
4C Tempo

Why did you choose your deck?
Wins against everything except Elves.

Number of Times Playing on Highlander GPs:
3

Number of HL Top 8s:
1

Other previous Magic Accomplishments:
none

What was your record today?
5-0-2

How often do you play Highlander?
every day

Is there any card you would like to nominate for Ban / Unban in Highlander?
Unban: Jitte / Library of Alexandria // Ban: Craterhoof Behemoth  

Anything else you would like to say?
Title: Re: HL Cup Hanau (GP XII) - 20.04.2013
Post by: Tabris on 03-05-2013, 01:22:06 PM
1st Place

NAME / NICKNAME: Jonny Al-Saidi
Age: 29
Hometown: Berlin
Occupation: Student

Shop and/or community where you usually play Magic: Der Andere Spieleladen

Your deck archetype: UBGw Oath (Green Esper)

Why did you choose your deck? To punish all the creature decks


Number of Times Playing on Highlander GPs:
4

Number of HL Top 8s:
3

Other previous Magic Accomplishments:
none

What was your record today?
5-0-2

How often do you play Highlander?
every week

Is there any card you would like to nominate for Ban / Unban in Highlander?
In the future I would like to see Gifts Ungiven but I imagine we have to work around that (meaning banning other cards :D )

Anything else you would like to say?

Again the HL-Cup was a huge success and I enjoyed it a lot. Maybe with three people from Berlin (six in total at the Cup) in the Top8
we should add Berlin to the watchlist since we are so format dominating :D
Title: Re: HL Cup Hanau (GP XII) - 20.04.2013
Post by: Vazdru on 09-05-2013, 05:34:29 PM
HIGHLANDER TOURNAMENT HANAU Apr. 20th, 2013 - TOP 8

QUARTER-FINALIST

NAME / NICKNAME: Daniel Tzscheuschner
Age: 31
Hometown: Berlin
Occupation: BRD

Shop and/or community where you usually play Magic:
Friends & Kitchentable

Your deck archetype:
UW-Something

Why did you choose your deck?
Super Testing 1-31 !

Number of Times Playing on Highlander GPs:
6

Number of HL Top 8s:
3

Other previous Magic Accomplishments:
none

What was your record today?
5-1-1

How often do you play Highlander?
once a week

Is there any card you would like to nominate for Ban / Unban in Highlander?
Unban: LOA

Anything else you would like to say?
Thx

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

HIGHLANDER TOURNAMENT HANAU Apr. 20th, 2013 - TOP 8

QUARTER-FINALIST

NAME / NICKNAME: Patrick Richter / firestarter
Age: 30
Hometown: Ascheberg (Münsterland)
Occupation: Teacher

Shop and/or community where you usually play Magic:
-

Your deck archetype:
BUGW Aggrocontrol

Why did you choose your deck?
Deck rewards good playing. Good matchup vs. midrange- and combo-decks.

Number of Times Playing on Highlander GPs:
12

Number of HL Top 8s:
11

Other previous Magic Accomplishments:
none

What was your record today?
5-1-1

How often do you play Highlander?
once per month

Is there any card you would like to nominate for Ban / Unban in Highlander?
all fine

Anything else you would like to say?
See ya next time!

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

HIGHLANDER TOURNAMENT HANAU Apr. 20th, 2013 - TOP 8

QUARTER-FINALIST

NAME / NICKNAME: Thomas Hollbach
Age: 20
Hometown: Erfurt
Occupation: Student

Shop and/or community where you usually play Magic:
Comic Attack Erfurt

Your deck archetype:
Aggrocontrol

Why did you choose your deck?
Deck rocks! Fuck yea!

Number of Times Playing on Highlander GPs:
1

Number of HL Top 8s:
1

Other previous Magic Accomplishments:
none

What was your record today?
6-1

How often do you play Highlander?
once per week

Is there any card you would like to nominate for Ban / Unban in Highlander?
Ban: Oath

Anything else you would like to say?
Stifle for the win!