Highlander Magic

Warum findet auf magicplayer.org eigentlich keine öffentliche Diskussion über die neuen Bannings im Oktober statt?
Alles was ich sehe sind interne Post vom Rat. Da sollten doch mehr Leute mit reden können und dürfen. 
Die eigentliche Communitymeinung kann mehr einbezogen werden oder?

Quote from: Wasser on 24-09-2013, 05:59:57 PM
Warum findet auf magicplayer.org eigentlich keine öffentliche Diskussion über die neuen Bannings im Oktober statt?
Alles was ich sehe sind interne Post vom Rat. Da sollten doch mehr Leute mit reden können und dürfen. 
Die eigentliche Communitymeinung kann mehr einbezogen werden oder?

Witzig ist ich werde als Newbee eingestuft und bin fast von Anfang an dabei.

Quote from: Wasser on 24-09-2013, 05:59:57 PM
Warum findet auf magicplayer.org eigentlich keine öffentliche Diskussion über die neuen Bannings im Oktober statt?
Alles was ich sehe sind interne Post vom Rat. Da sollten doch mehr Leute mit reden können und dürfen. 
Die eigentliche Communitymeinung kann mehr einbezogen werden oder?

Quote from: Loose translation:
Why aren't there any public debate on the new Bannings held in October magicplayer.org?
All I see are internal posts by the Council but there should be more people to be involved.
The actual community opinion could be included.

That's because the bannings have not been announced yet. Due date is October 1st. And community opinion is included, see http://highlandermagic.info/index.php?id=faq#4

Quote from: WasserWitzig ist ich werde als Newbee eingestuft und bin fast von Anfang an dabei.

That's because this board configuration happens to use post count to display the status (not that it marks anything really, it's the post content that matters).

First I like to ask you to write your posts in english so not any non-german speaking member has to use google-translator and since two of five council members are non-german speaking people and you adress a matter to the council it would help really much.

To your point. We discuss bannings and unbannings very open with the community for example the thread about the hl mulligan also contains a lot of discussion regarding single cards which are problematic. Furthermore we created the watchlist for exactly that purpose so the community can give us input about problematic cards or cards which are no longer needed to be banned.

There is a huge difference betweent passive forum lurking and giving input through the years tbh so maybe you are not a newbie but you didnt participate much either (I know you were mainly on the german subforum active)

 Zunächst möchte ich mich für die schnelle Antwort bedanken.
Und auch dafür, das auf jeden Punkt eingegangen wurde.

Ich möchte auf die gleiche Weise antworten:

Aus meiner Sicht ist das inhaltich jeweils (PUnkt 1-3) dicht an der schlechtest möglichen Antwort, die man bekommen kann (ich war dicht davor Bullshit zu schreiben).

Punkt 1: Zur Aufforderung englisch zu schreiben:
Ich schreibe gern deutsch und ziehe es vor weiter deutsch zu schreiben.
Ausnahmen gab es und gibt es natürlich weiterhin.
Als ich damals in Finnland für das Goetheinstitut und für die Deutsche Botschaft gearbeitet habe und nebenbei in Helsinki gehighländert (sic)  und Werbung für
Sturmgotts Format gemacht habe und ich möchte auch sagen das es vom Herzen her auch ein bischen zu meinem Format geworden ist, habe ich auch keine Sekunde gezögert via english die Kontakte zu Highlandern in Finland zu fördern und zu erhalten.
Wenn ich eine echte Wahl habe, dann möchte ich deutsch schreiben, danke.
Wenn ich das nicht dürfte, wie peinlich wäre das denn??

Punkt 2: Seit Sturmgott seine respektable leider auch folgenschwere Entscheidung getroffen hat ist das
Deutsche Forum (das in einem LInk den ich gerade drückte noch "Main Forum " genannt wurde)
erlich gesagt kalt und nicht nur das. Was eine der schlechten Entwicklungen des und wie gesagt auch meines Formats ist.
Darüber bin ich, wie hier deutlich wird, unzufrieden.

Wichtiger ist, das ich es auch peinlich finde, das man mir zurückschreibt

das
man ja erst nach dem Banning diskutieren sollte.

Was für eine Art demokratisches Community Highlanderrat Verständnis ist das denn?
Es wird verkündet........
..... dann darf man noch einen Meinung haben.
Peinlich!
Wo finden im deutschen (main) Forum die wichtigen Gespräche über Inovationen statt?
Da ist doch viel Potential zur Verbeserung lasst es uns nutzen.

Punkt 3: NewbeeStatus. Frage war: Warum ich als Urgestein des Formats Newbeestatus habe
Antwort:
Nicht genug posts. Danke, das man mir erklärt das die Post den Status entscheiden.
Das war mir nicht neu.
Die Frage enthielt eine tiefere Botschaft zwischen den Zeilen:
hier explizit (worauf ich eigentlich verzichten wollte - aber hier der Wink mit dem Zaun)
Ich habe von Beginn an schon sehr viel gepostet/geschrieben und ja sehr selten
auch unbequemes ausgesprochen. Ist das alles weg? Kann das mal jemand ändern?
Und selbst wenn irgend jemand mal nicht so viel schreibt im Netz. Ist doch kein Grund Ihne zum Newbee zu machen.
Eine aus der comerziellen Webwelt zu unrecht übernommene Fehleinschätzung
Leute die mehr lesen und nicht posten anders zu bewerten.
Das man keinen Content produziert heißt doch nicht, dass man nicht gedanklich und vor allem dann im real
life in der community nicht handelt.

Shortlist:
1. Deutschreiben sollte erlaubt und erwünscht sein.
2. Nicht der Rat entscheidet Bannings sondern er spricht die Bedürfnisse der Community aus und trägt Sorge für die Weiterentwicklung des Formats
3. Newbee ist ok ;). Das ist Kinderkram und ist mir auch gar micht so wichtig. Aber solche schwachen Antworten als ob man ein Newbee wäre ....da sehe ich meinen Beitrag für das Format von einem Newbee (der sehr wohl anerkannt momentan viel für das Format tut) doch zu sehr übergangen.

PS: Es fehlt mir die
ehrenhafte Art mit der Sturmgott diesem Format im Rat Stil gegeben hat (Bspw. den Demonik Tutor mag ich nach wie vor nicht, aber ich kann akzeptieren warum er im Sinne der Einzigartigkeit, highlanderartigkeit in Sturmgotts Augen im Format sein musste)
Man konnte jedem sagen es sei das beste Format. Ich habe mich gern dafür eingesetzt. :)
Heute ist es irgendeinem Format näher als zu vor. Daran muss sich etwas ändern.
...

Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam

Wasser

Wasser:
As Tabris has said you are excluding all non German players. This is pretty stupid if you can actually manage to get your point across in english.
I agree that the Front end is a mess. I disagree on the proposed consequences. The German Forum is dead and there is no point in having one (since everybody who plays Magic AND can afford the Highlander Manabase should be able to speak some basic English at least).

You make a pretty compelling argument why the council discoussion is closed. With people like you the tone on this board will reach the level of shit flinging pretty quickly which will lead to a commuinity that is worse-off (same as with your writing in German). Also there is no need for an open council group. You can talk about every card before it gets unbanned or banned since the council is using a banned/watch list/unbanned system. Since you dont seem to get I will try to explain it to you:
Cards are never banned outright. They get moved to the ban watchlist first (this can happen every three months). If a card is watchlisted you disagree with you have got three months to discuss about it on this board. Same is true for card unbannings. Claiming you are not enabled to discuss and make your point is wrong. You can open threads at anytime and talk about changes and take influence. But you might need to do it in English, otherwise quite a few people will not read it.
I really dont miss Sturmgott and the german board. I reread the discussion about the introduction of the spoils mulligan and THAT situation clearly was neither democratic nor fair. LOTS of people protested and their input was put down because Sturmgott claimed he knew better making all discussion needless because he had picked his decision from the very beginning. This is the important part: listening to the feedback and having a flexible mind as a council member. Not wether Council members have a closed sub forum. Are you also forbidding personal talk via skype or PN for council members? You are crazy.

Quote
First I would like to thank you for the quick reply.
And also this , which was received at each point.

I want to respond in the same way :

In my view, the inhaltich each ( items 1-3 ) is close to the worst possible answer , you can get (I was close to it to write bullshit ) .

Point 1: english writing prompt to :
I like to write German and prefer to continue to write German .
There were exceptions , and there are of course continue .
When I worked at that time in Finland for the Goethe Institute and the German Embassy in Helsinki and by the way gehighländert (sic ) and advertising
Storm god format have made and I also want to say that it has become from the heart a little bit to my size , I also hesitated for a second via english to promote contacts with Highlanders in Finland and maintain .
If I have a real choice , I would write German , thank you.
If I should not , how embarrassing would that be ?

Point 2: Storm Since God has made ​​his respectable unfortunately momentous decision is the
German forum ( which was not mentioned in the LInk I just pressed " Main Forum " )
variably said cold and not only that, what is one of the developments of the poor and as I said even my size.
Furthermore , I am, as is evident here , dissatisfied.

More importantly , I find it embarrassing that you write me back

the
should be discussed only after the Banning yes .

What is it for a kind of democratic community Highlanderrat understanding ?
It is announced ........
..... then you may still have an opinion.
Embarrassing !
In German ( main) forum where you can find the important conversations about inovations instead ?
But there is much potential for the Improvement let us use it .

Point 3: NewbeeStatus . Question was: Why do I have as a veteran of the format Newbeestatus
Answer:
Not enough posts . Thank you, you explained to me that the post office decide the status.
This was not new to me.
The issue contained a deeper message between the lines:
explicitly here ( which I really wanted to do without - but here's the hint, )
I have a lot posted / written from the start and yes very rare
also extremely uncomfortable . Is it all gone? Can someone change ?
And even if someone writes times not so much on the net. Ihne is no reason to make the newbee .
A miscalculation wrongfully taken from the comer essential web world
People who read and do not post more be evaluated differently .
This is not to say it does not produce any content that you can not intellectually and especially in real
life is not in the community .

Shortlist :
1 German rubbing should be allowed and encouraged .
2 Not the Council decides Banning but he speaks of the needs of the community and shall ensure the development of the formats
3 Newbee 's ok Wink . That's kid's stuff and I also do micht so important. But such weak answers as if you were a newbee .... I see my post for the format of a Newbee ( doing well recognized currently much for the format ) but too much ignored.

PS: I miss the
given honorable way with the storm god this format, the Council has style (For example, the tutor Demonik I still do not like it, but I can accept why he had the sense of uniqueness, highlanderartigkeit in storm god in the eyes of its format )
You could tell everyone it was the best format. I have often used me for it. Smiley
Today, it is closer than any format to before . Because something has to change .

QuoteI reread the discussion about the introduction of the spoils mulligan and THAT situation clearly was neither democratic nor fair.

Can you please post the links for this?

Sturmgott you should take over the Format again, these guys are killing it.

@ Wasser:

I was really pissed when I read your post and my rage knew no limits. Now as I am calm again I will get to your points. Some of them were already answered by ChristophO though.

A) English vs German. Its simple as ChristophO said, you are simply excluding some members and in particular the ones you are trying to reach. I dont know what your side-brag-story about Finland should tell me but the fact that you once spoke english doesnt mean you dont have to do it anymore also no one forbids you to write a german post but I asked you if you could do it in english for the reasons above.

B) That you miss Sturmgott is your problem alone we got so many positive feedback over the years and people telling us how they are mostly pleased with our work and of course there will always be room for discussion and also some interests will colide but that is the nature of a wide open community as ours. I mean we speak about 400-600 people who are more or less aware of this forum and the whole structure of the council. Furthermore as I remember the discussions in the german forum it was heavily influenced by a certain region in germany now we have a lot more communities giving their input even outside of germany.

C) NO ONE said we discuss bannings after the decissions. I dont know how often you visit this forum but we have a shitload of threads about certain cards/rules. We established several times votings where the communities could exchange reasons and opinions about certain cards. We try to get all the input we can get. Also a lot of discussion moved to facebook at least for some communities where 3 of 5 council members are present. There are at least two groups with about 100 people and the structure there helps a lot to mobilize people to tell their opinions.

And I am very upset to read your bullshit "the council simply declares..." we had a thread about changing the mulligan and about 100 people participated in that so pls dont tell me about the good old times where 10 people from NRW discussed about change.

Innovation has no end in itself if something is stucked or need to change, it will change or it dies. And as you maybe can see the format is growing. I get so many messages from people enjoying the format even old ones. Also some communities have a steady growth in their tournament attendance. In Berlin for example we have a weekly tournament with 12-17 people which is huge for a non sanctioned format. So please stop your whiny attitude and participate. Which brings me to the next point:

D)No one "made" you the noobs you were simply declared to one by the system since your post count is low as pyht already explained so why do you come up with that commercial bullshit accusation I didnt say you are worth less or something I said you should participate if you love the format so much. I mean your posts in the old german forum dont count anymore since this is another community now, simply as that and to say "I posted a lot back in the days"...well good for you you had a opinion 5 years ago. The format changed a lot and the people who are shaping it too (and I dont mean only the council)

That you loved Sturmgotts style so much and believe the format is now worse then before I am sorry but you are mostly alone with that opinion and as long people give that much positive feedback I personaly will not change anything. I dont know what your "honor-style" talking means probably because I dont have any since I am a member of this demonic council but we are open and try to make our decissions transparent also we interact a lot with our local communties and bring that back into the discussions here.

And btw. Bis repetita non placent. So pls keep your latin quotes for yourself.

Quote from: Sturmgott on 29-09-2013, 03:45:09 AM

QuoteOriginally by ChristophO: "I reread the discussion about the introduction of the spoils mulligan and THAT situation clearly was neither democratic nor fair."

Can you please post the links for this?

@Frank: ChristophO *may* point to this post: http://www.magicplayer.org/forum/index.php?topic=882.msg9121#msg9121 (follow the link to old phpbb-boards).

In any case: We've went through the old posts from archived boards on how the spoils came to be, to better understand what purpose exactly it serves, and to review whether it serves that same purpose anymore (without side effects).

Larger community discussion on the mulligan you can backtrack from the start of the same thread I linked you to.

 Vielen Dank für die Antworten
und die Begründungen.

Das hilft mir weiter.
Zudem sind mir ein paar Dinge bei den Antworten positiv aufgefallen.

ChristophOs Antwort scheint mir inhaltlich nachvollziehbar und plausibel
(ich bin mir noch nicht sicher ob ich das alles genauso unterschreiben würde, ich denke darüber aber  nach und nehme diesen Blickwinkel auch ernst).  
Ich sehe da bei der Sprache auch keinen Zwang zu polarisieren. Die meisten Highlander, die ich kenne sind halt aus Deutschland und da kann man doch manchmal seine eigene Sprache verwenden. Wenn es meinen internationalen Freunden hilft unterhalte ich mich gern auch mal in englischer Sprache.
Aber die Freiheit zu wählen möchte ich gerne behalten.

Mir gefällt auch an Tabris Antwort die Energie und das Engangement, das zwigschen den Zeilen durchklingt.
Das kann, richtig eingesetzt, nur gut für das Highlanderformat sein. Dieses Engagment habe ich ja bereits an anderer Stelle schon kurz gewürgdigt.

Meine ohne Zweifel unvollkommenen Überlegungen wurden hier fast durchgehend konstruktiv aufgenommen und keiner nimmt so etwas persönlich, das gefällt mir. Es geht doch darum dieses einzigartige Format zu entwickeln und entspannt zu genießen. Da fällt keinem ein Zacken aus der Krone.

Sturmgott und Firestarter haben dem Format auch Format gegeben und mir nebenbei mir viel Freude damit gemacht dafür bin ich dankbar. Ich finde das darf man auch mal schreiben ohne zum "Königsmörder" zu avancieren. (Dabei fällt mir "offtopic" der Text vom Goblinking ein, der Marciavelli sicher gefallen hätte) Oft habe ich deren Entscheidungen im Rat erst nicht geteilt um viel später herauszufinden und anzuarkenen, dass Sie das Format noch viel besser im Blick hatten als ich. Den Eindruck habe ich übrigens von ChristophO dessen Decks und Kommentare mir den Eindruck vermitteln als würde er das Meta bis in die... na ja sagen wir mal... recht genau kennen.Ich schätze das.  

Man kann sich doch ruhig neben den Stärken die Tabirs und andere nicht
 zu vernachlässigende engagierte Highlander haben
sich etwas bei den zuvor genannten Gründervätern abschauen.Oder?
Highlander wird nicht nur durch die Spielregeln oder durch einige youtubevideos oder Konformität zum Format. Es war und sollte das einzigartige Format sein.

In diesem Sinne
auf eine gute neue "postbanningseason"
Gruß

Wasser


Für Unentspannte: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBMn-WPqbZI
Für FDP Freunde: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynNaJcfbXiY

Wasser: I am not going to run your posts through Google translator, so here's at least one council member you won't reach. If you really want to influence us, please use English. If you want to just whine with no intention to be productive, you can use any language you prefer.

Council members do participate to the discussion about bannings in open board. We even start threads specifically to get people's opinion on things.

Quote from: pyyhttu on 29-09-2013, 03:47:09 PM

Quote from: Sturmgott on 29-09-2013, 03:45:09 AM

QuoteOriginally by ChristophO: "I reread the discussion about the introduction of the spoils mulligan and THAT situation clearly was neither democratic nor fair."

Can you please post the links for this?

@Frank: ChristophO *may* point to this post: http://www.magicplayer.org/forum/index.php?topic=882.msg9121#msg9121 (follow the link to old phpbb-boards).

In any case: We've went through the old posts from archived boards on how the spoils came to be, to better understand what purpose exactly it serves, and to review whether it serves that same purpose anymore (without side effects).

Larger community discussion on the mulligan you can backtrack from the start of the same thread I linked you to.

Following the link in the post you mentioned and linked gives me a 404. :(

Nastboi to Wasser:

"I am not going to run your posts through Google translator..."
1.  You say you dont translate my posts. Thats ok with me. When we ever play a game we can chat and talk.
Its the game that brings people together. I am fine with that.

"[Wasser]just whine with no intention"
2. In the old times no member of the council would ever have said that to me.
Is this is the way a council member speaks to an veteran comunity member. This kind of offensiv talk is inacceptable in every language I know. Stop it.

3. "no intention"
My posts have reasoned arguments to develop the Highlander format/forum. You might disagree based on good
reasoning. Thats ok with me. Dont say things that are not true esspecialy when you didnt read the original posts.  

4. "If you really want to influence us,"
What is "US"? Who hides behind this miracle Group.  
And I dont need and want to influeence your "US". I dont care. I do care for the Highlanderformat/community.
A community I did ( a very little bit but with heart )help to build. People I do play with every week. People that learned to love this kind of Magic. I am part of what I concider "US".  

5. "We even start threads specifically to get people's opinion on things"
I support that. But there are still many active People part of what you call "peoples opinion" and I would call the "Highlandercommunity" that are not part of your threads. Some like the old forum,some the german forum and some no pc,mobile, internetplatforms at all.    
Highlander happens everywere else also. We should have that in mind to prevent that highlander is only
a group of people in these forums, laddertounaments or in todays council. And yes its impossible to include
all of their demands. Thats ok. But dont think just the internetforums you referring to are the community.

6.
Language: I prefer the possibility to talk (not exclusive but as a possibility) in a german forum and in my language. I am no one that want to be exclusive or excluded by doing that. My point is that its ok to speak with people in your own laguage and its not ok do demand that you have to speak and write in another.
The german main site is my mothership and there is not much inteaction happening right now (maybe because of a new policy I dont know).
I am not exclusiv by prefering speaking to my playpals in mothertounge. Should I choose my religion by biggest size of there followers because than I am at least exclusiv. I think that inclusion works different. You are allowed to be like you want and choose your kind, but you still could find good ways to communicate with those who choose otherwise. Why not speak and write like you do best. And if you like to talk to others try to choose a language that work. Like I try do it here. Hopefully it works? I try it.
"We" and "us" could do more important things for the community than tell people in wich language to post.

Shortlist:
I like the idea of an open discussion process and Banning is a major issue.  
I like the idea of no offence and good reasoning.
I like the idea of having the right to choose to write in my mothertounge /language.

If I could have a wish. Stop acting like in your last post.This is suboptimal.  
Some, maybe many people who are not part of the todays  preferd Internetspots
did there share to create and develop this community, and many are still an active part of it away from your prefered englishforum, treat them with respect. ;)

We should develop the Format and give the Highlander format more of the honor and the quality back that
it had lost since the bright days of Sturmgott. Maybe it will become even better one day.
Lets start with the decisions for October and the way we argue.  

Greetings

Wasser

P.S.
I m a nice guy. Dont take things to serious.  ::)
Im übrigen bin ich der Meinung das das Format eine Spur zu schnell (zu legacyartig) ist.
Und ich es mir manchmal so wie tabris in seinen Maybordvideos geht und man die ein oder andere Exotenkarte einbauen möchte.Ich es aber aus rationalen Gründen nicht kann, um im Format konkurenzfähig zu sein.  
 

I am sure that neither the council nor the banned list, even not the mulligan is the problem. Highlander is lacking an active community.

Who can say that he is supporting the format? Who is promoting the format? Who gives meaningful content to the community? Most players just utilize or even exploit it.

This format can only be kept alive or even spread with an active community behind it which also requires an active forum to share opinions and thoughts. Sorry to say that a big part of the community has already turned away from this forum and mostly the council members and some people with "special behaviors" like W0lf or Wasser post here. Decreasing activity is an evidence of a dying format IMO. This may not be valid for certain local communities and/or players (e.g. Tabris and his Berlin crowd seems to be in good condition, which is the crop of their own investment) but even these healthy local communities require an International community on the long-run.

@ topic:

This is not the first time people feel disregarded, so it seems that this is a weak spot. Why not hiding the council activity report or even choose different communication channels to stop it?

Why not open an official community banned list topic next time to satisfy the moaning players? At least you can counteract their argument that the community has no voice. It seems that parts of the community want to share their thoughts but are afraid to start the discussion and need the council´s help to do so.

Sounds stupid but it seems necessary. Damn politics and strategy...


@ Council: Thanks a lot for your efforts! Keep up the good work!

@MMD
I think it is the pricing of cards. Highlander has older players that have little time for stuff like weekly tournaments and Forums. And Fetchlands and Duals have become so expensive that people just do not buy into the format anymore as much. Even non blue Zendikar fetchlands are close to 30 Euros by now. 3c Mana base is ~500€ I guess (3 duals + 9 fetch). It is the same with Legacy right now: the format is great but has become insanely expensive so guys that stopp playing because of a busy life can not all be replaced by newbies.

For me it's not so much the price. For me, it's just the goodstuff. Average card power is rising so fast that actual engine/synergy decks (the type I enjoy playing the most) become harder and harder to build. At some point you just have to ask why are you not casting Karn or playing some relatively narrow, dull Emralolol/Griseltard deck. Or in control, why win with some cool interaction when retarded things like AEtherling exist.

You can see it in Tiggupiru's and Triack's Pattern builds - More Goyf, more Smiter. Less zany synergies, less combo kills.

I went to Legacy, and found it fun to Hoof people. I found it fun to cast Llanowar Elves, except that it's actually Dark Ritual and Ancestral Recall stapled into one card. The sort of thing that feels decidedly criminal but comes together from cards working together. It's just a thing that's bloody hard in this format.

And most things that could be done to help it (bringing back Survival/Pod/something) would just power up goodstuff in equal measure, probably more.

I do like the idea of a singleton format, but I think in the pressures of three-colour manabases being simply the best, more and more goodstuff seeing print, and deck sizes being huge, something has got to give.


EDIT: Also, Wasser, the only thing you're succeeding in by writing in German is making me think you're an ass who just wants to troll instead of communicate.

Quote from: Dreamer on 02-10-2013, 03:38:33 AM
For me it's not so much the price. For me, it's just the goodstuff. Average card power is rising so fast that actual engine/synergy decks (the type I enjoy playing the most) become harder and harder to build. At some point you just have to ask why are you not casting Karn or playing some relatively narrow, dull Emralolol/Griseltard deck.

I got "frustrated" to the format bc of goodstuff decks too. The new mulligan rule is the best way to make this archetype worse. I started the thread about the mulligan to nerf this archetype. Maybe give the format another try right now.
The toolbox-goodstuff deck will suffer from the new mulligan as most, because u wont be able to shuffle your unneeded toolbox effects simply away. The greedy manabases wont work at all anymore. Goodstuff cards do usually have a very good manacost/effect. The format will be slower by the new mulligan which makes "fun/effect"-cards at higher cc slots much more playable.

I have changed my list. I have started doing test draws. everything i feared appears true. i find this change to the format that has grown lately in popularity completely unnecessary and uncalled for. anyone in the council better keep a damn close eye on what happens because of their vote.

Do you mind sharing your list? I would like to help, maybe it can be improved.

i am not unhappy with my list. i am unhappy with the outlook of a more boring metagame. i have made a low curve naya list that looks very good and i don't see how control strategies are supposed to keep up with aggressive low and midrange strategies. i have stated everything before, so i am not gonna repaet it. meta bores me already though. congrats to the council on giving hl a severe push towards 60 card deck ratios and eliminating a good portion of archetypes and playables.

Quote from: berlinballz on 03-10-2013, 10:08:55 PM
i am not unhappy with my list. i am unhappy with the outlook of a more boring metagame. i have made a low curve naya list that looks very good and i don't see how control strategies are supposed to keep up with aggressive low and midrange strategies. i have stated everything before, so i am not gonna repaet it. meta bores me already though. congrats to the council on giving hl a severe push towards 60 card deck ratios and eliminating a good portion of archetypes and playables.

And you figured all that after 2 days. You alrdy know how the metagame will evolve with 0 tournaments played, new season not even started.

What do u know what we dont know?

Quote from: berlinballz on 03-10-2013, 10:08:55 PM
i am not unhappy with my list. i am unhappy with the outlook of a more boring metagame. i have made a low curve naya list that looks very good and i don't see how control strategies are supposed to keep up with aggressive low and midrange strategies. i have stated everything before, so i am not gonna repaet it. meta bores me already though. congrats to the council on giving hl a severe push towards 60 card deck ratios and eliminating a good portion of archetypes and playables.

And in tournaments with 60 cards deck only the aggro/mid range deck win...

Quote from: orca- on 03-10-2013, 11:03:57 PM

Quote from: berlinballz on 03-10-2013, 10:08:55 PM
i am not unhappy with my list. i am unhappy with the outlook of a more boring metagame. i have made a low curve naya list that looks very good and i don't see how control strategies are supposed to keep up with aggressive low and midrange strategies. i have stated everything before, so i am not gonna repaet it. meta bores me already though. congrats to the council on giving hl a severe push towards 60 card deck ratios and eliminating a good portion of archetypes and playables.

And in tournaments with 60 cards deck only the aggro/mid range deck win...

60 card deck ratios, maybe. Maybe.

Actual 60 card singleton, though, allows for a lot better control decks and actual combo/synergy decks to exist.

@LaSH: I have just tested a lot and thought about this.

- Combo decks like pattern feel dead without the spoiler mulligan.
- naya feels even stronger.
- 4 color feels unplayable.

I have said it all along, diversity will suffer. I guess some people just have to put their hand on the stove to see that it's hot, even if told so.

But what I am really worried about is, that we probably won't go back to the spoiler mulligan, even if the metagame gets worse. You know why? Because this council has proven to believe that HL needs to move towards "normal magic".

And we damn sure just moved towards normal magic. Where a lot of combo decks and 4-5 color don't exist. Just feels like sad days for HL.

With the new Mulligan I slowlsy get the feeling that all my decks are dead or no fun to play ´:(
It`s so frustrating to get mana/coloursrew all the time . . .
I start to lose faith in this format and the council :(
It was fun to play because you got the chance to pay decks you could never play in any other formats
But I guess the Casual/Fun HL player has to switch to Commander to keep their pet decks

Is being able to play one's pet deck forever a definition of a good format?

Thank you for this question Nastaboi. Very bright. Sums it up perfectly.

We'll talk in April.

Certainly we have some crying A-voters now. It´s seems there are two archetypes of doomsayers, the Uninspired and the Omniscient.

The Uninspired

...expects to use his pet deck list nearly 1:1 with the new mulligan rule and cries that his deck does not work. I can only shake my head that they even blame the council's decision for it.

You should better throw away "your" Spoils deck lists and rebuild your deck from the very beginning, taking into account that the new mulligan will change how the format "works". Take the rules and the anticipated metagame and build your deck, not the other way around. Too bad that you cannot copy/paste winning deck lists at the moment. OK, one free spoiler: Try more lands, a mana curve and less different color symbols.

The Omnicient

...are already fully aware of the all consequences of the new mulligan and the future metagame. As they are all-knowing they should also know that nobody can seriously claim that.

Where is the evidence that fast aggro is unbeatable in the new format? Even if it would be true (which I doubt) you should better build a deck which crushes fast aggro.

Why should the game be less diverse with the new mulligan? Fast combo was nearly dead before and slow combo could now be fast enough to fight power card piles. You should better blame WotC about single card power level nowadays which makes card combinations less appealing.
Sure, 4-5C is nearly dead but perhaps the 2C Guilds can now win major tournaments again. Who knows and why is this worse...?

Time will tell...It seems I have to be enlightened and burn my hands first...


@ Council:  My regards for having the balls to change!

To all:

What MMD said. This is one of those changes that has to be metered out together, and for that I urge to do what Vazdru requested: Post those top-4/top-8 decklists to mtgpulse. We can then using that tool to see what has happened to card and deck diversity. Right now it's too early to say anything.

I my opinion the spoils mulligan was an important and much needed unique feature of the format.
Additionally, it was a very clever way to circumvent or minimize uninteractive games that are caused
by screw or flood. Such games are the main weakness of MTG.

Quote from: JK on 04-10-2013, 09:00:53 PM
... Additionally, it was a very clever way to circumvent or minimize uninteractive games that are caused
by screw or flood. Such games are the main weakness of MTG.

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

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

What I don't get is that people keep complaining about combo getting weaker. The biggest problem for any combo deck in this format has always been the fact that opposing decks can just present the perfect curve and kill the combo player before they can win. Without the spoils, combo gets a few turns more to set up and since those decks are composed from pretty much nothing but cantrips and tutors, they are nearly as reliable as they were a with the spoils. Having more turns is more valuable to combo decks than losing their spoils. It's way easier to combo off if you can do that after resolving a Fact or Fiction or Careful Consideration instead after casting a lowly Impulse. Tolarian Academy scared me a little bit when spoils was legal, now I think it's even better. I have no testing to back anything up, so I am not declaring anything, but I would not be too surprised if combo finds it's way back in top of the standings when the first results start to come in.

Also, what's with the "aggro is unbeatable" - nonsense? Naya and goodstuff are the decks that lose the most from this change since their manabases suddenly got much, much worse and they don't curve out all the time. WW and Burn do get better, but those decks have always been metagame decks and are fairly easily dispatched when prepared accordingly. And since they don't curve out all the time, control and combo have more turns to get their big spells online. Naya presented a problem even when decks were prepared against them, since their creatures had the most impact. When WW curves out, it's 2/2, into 2/2 into 2/2. When Naya curves out, it's 2/2, into 3/3, into 4/4 all with potentially relevant abilities. Goodstuff curving out was even more problematic for the spell based decks. Mana elf, into CA - creatures or lock pieces, into planeswalker backed with discard and/or counterspells was a nightmare to any combo player. I am not sad to see those starts become more rare at all.

Now, when is the next tournament in Finland? I have few decks that need to see the light of day.

@Tiggupiru
Agree100%

Looking forward to test High Tide and Tolarian Academy Draw7 deck.

Quote from: TiggupiruNow, when is the next tournament in Finland? I have few decks that need to see the light of day.

Let's contact poromagia here in south and get something worked out. They have always held tournaments when requested in enough time advance.

Quote from: JK on 04-10-2013, 09:00:53 PM
I my opinion the spoils mulligan was an important and much needed unique feature of the format.
Additionally, it was a very clever way to circumvent or minimize uninteractive games that are caused
by screw or flood. Such games are the main weakness of MTG.

thats just plain true. if people have so much problems with 4color goodstuff decks, why dont you just try banning the fetch lands or restrict them?

also there are tier1 control, aggro, midrange and combo decks. why all of a sudden is there a need of such a BIG change? (no pun intended)

Hi, I'm ne here and just registered due to a big problem, namely the new Mulligan.
First i want to excuise my bad english. I'm not used to type in this language and hope that even with much of wrong grammer the contents of my post become clear.

  I'm totally upset about the mulligan change from spoils to 1-free-to-paris. I'm feeling like the call for a slower format (thats my only explanation for the changes) is justified but the new mulligan is blindfold. Slow down the format and make decks more inconsistent and cause a slow down accidently are to different things. One thing that bannings and rulings are good for is to regulate a format in the way that good luck or bad luck is minimized. In my opinion the spoils mulligan was mandatory for consitent decks and so for a healthy format in three different ways.
  1.First it replaced the lack of a sideboard while giving the ability to keep cards that are good for a certain matchup in g2 and g3. With the new mulligan you are only able to keep kind of randomly playable hand.
  2.Second the spoils mull was important for Deckconstruction, in the way that it allowed players to build a more focused deck including cards that support the gameplan even without "Value" printed on them. With the new Mulligan its hard to support a card which reads "dead in opening hand" or "I'm part of a toolbox". I claim that a more randomized hand shortens the number of playable cards equalizing shortens the formats variance.
  3.Third is about the gameplay itself. I'm one of those who have fun playing Magic when following case happens: "Awesome! my deck does what it is suppose to do". In a 100 crad singleton format the spoils mulligan was one of the main guarantors helping to achive that case.

Next is about killing all the decks. Highlander is a casual Format and therefore I disagree with a policy of making changes to the format in a way so drastically that certain archetypes become nearly unplayable.
  Decks like for example 5-color aggro or other decks which gameplan it is to cut off the opponent from the lategame are somewhat killed.
  Elves, combo,etc. to mention a few which rely on a good start are tend to be cut off the format. 
  And even "Big Dudes" are are nearly not maindeckable since they doing what a mull to 6 does, cutting a card from your hand. (maindeckalbe? oh yeah brings me to 1. again)Poeple, including me, investet much Money in a deck, which is only for casual gameplay and dont like to come to the conclusion that i investet several hundreds of euros in it for being unplayable now. Thats some kind of a subjective reason, but i don't care cause i'm kind of pissed of ::) .
I'm aware of the fact that banning a single card, like Oath for example would kill an entire archetype too, but i think its a whole new ball game.

To release a Tolaian Academy to a situation like this is somewhat of a dicision i'm not able to reenact. Be consequent and unban jiite too then.

Last point is the Time. Even with the format as fast as it was pre-changes 60min a round was a short amount of time, even without UX-control crawling around everywhere. my prediction: Prepare for more mulligan time, since you will often take several ones. Conceding in a boardsitutaion where you are way behind and have card disadvantage too will become more popular then killing the opponent. Draw's or even 1:0 matches will become more regular in tournaments.

I hope the "council" will reconsider their decision and maybe come to a conclusion to withdraw.
Thanks for regard.
Bye
Peddy

@peddy frost:
Your (written) english is just fine. Don't worry! Regarding your points and my opinion on them:

1)
With the new mulligan rule you are also allowed to take a "free" mulligan to avoid bad starting hands. If you want to play very narrow cards that hose certain decks you will have to think hard about wether your metagame justifies that decision. Your choice kind of shifts from the spoils decision to a deckbuilding decision.

2)
Toolbox cards will still be played (maybe one or two per deck will be cut. I do not know). I claim that people can no longer spoil away the less good cards in their opening hands so that we will see a higher number of different cards per number of games played. Games will also take longer which increases number of cards drawn wich decreases influence of bad luck (its tougher to flood or screw badly the more cards you see). Longer games will also allow you to play those dead cards in opening hand more often. It is not as easy as you make it out to be. How games will feel like exactly only testing and time will tell, but I really liked my games with the new rules so far (UW Control and Pattern rector).

3)
I am very sure you will be able to adapt your decks to the new free mulligan and still will be able to realize your decks game plan (unless your opponent plays Winter, Orb, Armageddon, Tabernacle etc. ;-)). I would like to help you (or anybody else) with deck adjusting to free mulligan rules.

I'd like to note that there's a reason the change was watchlisted. The whole point is to get people to test to see if it is actually good. In a game as varied as Magic testing by a small group of people is never enough. If it turns out that the change is really bad for the format, it can be rectified as soon as the next ban announcement. But to have anything to base that on, we need play, not theorycrafting. This game is pretty famous for theorycrafting being inaccurate.

That said, NO ban :'(
I don't deny that even Hulk.dec fetched Primeval Titan with it a lot, about as often as Hulk itself. But in that case, wouldn't ramp, ramp, Titan be just about as nasty, especially as noted in a slower format? I feel that the decision that's being made is kind of Vengevine vs. Survival ban type - NO-Hulk is interesting (in my highly biased opinion), and ramp doesn't really care that the fatty happens to be Primeval Titan - there's tons of good fatties to play, but Hulk gets hurt unnecessarily as splash damage. Basically:

Current:
1. NO-combo
2. Ramp
3. NO-Titan <--The problem, as I understand it.

Ban P-Titan:
1. NO-combo (w/o Titan option, and thus more a tool for dedicated combo/toolbox decks)
2. Ramp

Ban NO:
1. Ramp
2. :'(

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

My personal conclusion after the play testing is:

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

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

Quote from: Peddy Frost on 07-10-2013, 02:41:14 PM
Next is about killing all the decks. Highlander is a casual Format and therefore I disagree with a policy of making changes to the format in a way so drastically that certain archetypes become nearly unplayable.
  Decks like for example 5-color aggro or other decks which gameplan it is to cut off the opponent from the lategame are somewhat killed.

Actually, it will be just the opposite: more decks will become playable. While you technically could play two or three colored decks before, there were no reason not to splash from fourth or fifth color and have a slightly better deck with no costs added. Now you have to actually make a choise between Bant/Naya/BUG/RUG/Jund/Junk (six different decks) instead of just playing 4.5C goodstuff (really just one deck).

@christophO

Thanks for reply. I'm glad to see that posting in this forum is not for the birds.

1) In my opinion the "free" mulligan is not a valid way to avoid bad hands. You have 7% chance of drawing a specific card in your opening hand, assumed you play exactly 100 cards. Spoiling away cards from your hand while keeping a certain number of them directly increases your chance to add a keycard to your openening hand. For example I spoil away 4 cards I now have 11% chance of hitting a needed card in my opening hand. its like increasing your chance of having a better opening hand. While shipping away the whole hand just allows you to have the exact same chance since you shuffle inbetween and draw 7 out of 100 again.
I agree with you that it is more relevant to consider specific cardchoices addicted to the metagame, and that is not a bad thing by itself. But my argument was more about cards fitting the curve while beeing not as good in a vacuum or cards beeing better in the early game while mostly being dead in the late game. With less chances of having those cards in your opening hands or beeing cut from it there are less agruments of playing them. The adjustet mulligan in g2 and g3 I mentioned last post is something that will cease to exist almost entirely.

2) About the increasing and decreasing of Luck, I agree with you that longer games reduce the impact of flood or screw. But as it not that easy ;) it favors strategies relying on card advantage in a greater extend than tempo based strategies. when games tend to take longer having a dead card in your hand is some kind of different problem if u wanna tempo your opponent out or if u want to have card advantage. While having more chances of hitting a good opening hand/ having a more consistent opening hand, sure makes the format faster overall but supports no game strategy explicit.

3) talking about making decks nearly unplayable is not talking about a disability to adapt decks to the new mulligan. I'm sure that i am able to change my deck in a way to fit but it will be a completly different deck. Off the record-tempo becomes midrange! I was playing a 4-color tempo based deck pre-changes. Of cause I had a greedy manabase (extremly greedy with 28 lands including dryad arbor which isn't really a land) since drawing a land turn 4 and 5 was something that could lose me the game quite easly. Spoils mulligan allowed me to play like this cause I could mull specificly to find lands and in fact I only mulled to find lands. adapting the land base means go from 28 to maybe 35 even in a aggressiv deck like rdw it is hard to go under 34 with new mulligan I think. As you said time will tell, but I'm suggesting thats the case. cutting like 7 times buisness for 7 times dead cards plus the off chance of having good opening hand almost kills the deck on the spot. Sry but thats how it is. From Tier to mere!

thanks for regard
bye
peddy

Quote from: haju on 07-10-2013, 04:06:06 PM
Doks and I were able to test some hours last weekend. We played UWr-Midrange vs. Creatureless-Esper. Both decks were adjusted to work with the new mulligan. At least we thought that we adjusted our decks :P

My personal conclusion after the play testing is:

• One thing I really liked was that the variability of the cards was greater as one was not able to spoil useless or semi-useless cards.
• Also there were way more comebacks. As there was just one game in which one of us was able to play the perfect curve, it's easier to win a game even if the opponent has pressure early on. Thus games were not decided in early turns (which is possibly due to the matchup).
• Screw and flood. It happens and it happens more often than with the spoils mulligan. Right now I'm not sure whether it's due to a bad/imperfect adjusting (which I think and hope) or is owed to the new mulligan.
• Games felt more interactive.

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

If u keep adjusting your lists these points will become more viable with each game. I have as much fun with the new mulligan as i didnt have since firesgeddon left the competive area and i would never want the spoil mulligan back.

Especially your last sentence is very important because your first impression was rather bad on the new mulligan. Most ppl who are upset right now didnt even play alot or did adjust their deck wrong. No1 can exspect to build the perfect list in 4 days. A bad deckbuilder has big problems with the new mulligan esp because there are no online lists right now. But if you take your time, play - rebuild, play - rebuild you will have the best time in this format.

I also claim that the skill lvl gets much more important with this mulligan. Everybody can play the perfectly outcurved 5c Aggro but if you have to make decisions you can make faults. Longer games more decisions more fun :)

I don´t get this ongoing theoretical discussion because we already have a decision, at least for the next season. Build your best deck according to the rules and play the game. If the community finds out that the free-mull does not improve the game (or is something the community wants) we can revise the rule again.

I would love to read posts like haju´s which are really helping the community and the format. I´ll post my experiences soon.

Btw, Tolarian Academy...are you sure? I will try to break this monster for you...


P.S. For the new members here: There is already a long thread about the mulligan. Take your time to read it and you will find some food for thought.

just a few things to think about:

* the spoils mulligan was a drastic change of the Magic rulebook made by the hl council, it was justified mainly as reaction of a flaw of Magic itself, loosing a game before it actually started by mulligan it away ... the game orginally based on random hands and thereby it is and will always luck-based, leading to flooded and screwed hands as (sometimes quite unfun) part of the game
if you now want to annihilate that "flaw", you even could bring forward the argument, everyone just stack his deck before playing, screw and flood would be a thing of the past and the best deck and player would win more often, the deck would make what its made for, lucky and bad hands are minimize drastically...ok, this is a bit exaggerated, it should simply show that if you start changing rules you could even go further ...and further... - so the basic principle for the hl council should be not to change any basic rule as long this is no part of hl itself (deck creation and banned-list) and acceptable in any kind...[insertion:] i can still remember the petition "we wanna have damage-on-the-stack back again", do you? some hl council members were subscribers - what would have happened, if hl just kept origin rule by call upon using the "better" magic rules? -> my conclusio: keep the basic rules, even if you think there are better ways to play magic, btw. noone asks for damage-on-the-stack nowadays [/insertion]
so the main aim of introducing spoils was to reduce flood and screw, not to push any archetypes, enable new decks (28lands 5C aggro) or anything else - the frustration of mulligan to 6 or less cards in a decision game is cruel as anyone of us knows...theoretical free mulligan could minimize that problem almost as good as spoils
now there will be some kind of "test phase" just to varify that a change of mulligan is still justified, therefore we need your help by collecting as much data as possible ... we will decide on that basis and the experience with free mulligan in next months - that also means your theoretical analysis is appreciated but well-known (and don't make me change my mind)...the only way to change my mind is to give us any feedback to tournaments you've played in the next few month, i gonna make a poll again how and in which direction the position of the community to the question of mulligan drift after next gp and analyse metagame (based on gp / mtgpulse)    

* to spoil the right cards it is obviously a big advantage to know what your opponent is playing - if you know that your opponent is mono-colored you would never keep Back to Basics
so if player A is knowing what his opponent plays (deckspying in previous rounds etc) and his oppenent player B does not, player A receives a bigger advantage of spoils mulligan in game 1 than player B... this is at least a little downside of spoils-mulligan, isn't it?
you can say this phenomen is true with free mulligan too but you have to confess that the effect is smaller by far

anyhow ... the council has never said that free mulligan is better than spoils mulligan [nor the other way round]...but we aren't convinced spoils mulligan is needed at all costs, especially since community is split by this question
we have a good database and much experience with meta and gameplay using spoils mulligan but no fundamental data for free mulligan - so plz help us to collect those informations by posting your decklists and tournament results in the future

In addition to what haju already said, I'd like to point out that the free mulligan doesn't seem to have the problem of heavily favouring certain strategies. While the spoils mulligan definitely helped proactive strategies out more than reactive ones, the free mulligan benefits both equally (from what I experienced so far).

The average game probably lasts longer, so there are many people that say slow reactive (control) strategies might excel and there is no doubt that the longer the game goes, the higher a lategame oriented deck's win chances will be. However, fast decks will still threaten lethal damage early enough since control is slowed as well. Most crucial thing for control is to hit land drops up to turn 5 at least, preferably up until turn 7. Missing a land / not having the right colour in the four first turns has cost me several of these games.

To become more precise: I was running 38 mana producing lands + 7 mana stones and still managed to get fucked over by screw quantity and quality wise. I'm pretty sure that my mana base is not optimized and that mindlessly adding 3 lands and a few mana stones won't solve this. I can easily see future control decks running 40+ land while still having 3-4 mana artifacts in the deck (compare this to Tabri's Oath control, winner of lastGP Hanau, that ran only 33 (!!!) freaking mana producing lands of which two were colorless also – fucking insane! This was only possible because of the spoils muligan).

So if your mana eats up 45% of your deck space in a controlish strategy, what are you going to cut in order to not lose to early aggression? You still need all that CC1-2 spot removal, but want Wrath effects / Humility to come down on turn 4 reliably. Cutting winconditions never is a good idea in an already low thread deck, but card draw, card quality spells (these ones are strengthened especially with the new rule), counterspells, solutions to non-creature permanents, tutors etc all want their place in my list.

tl;dr: Free mulligan doesn't suffer from the flaw of supporting certain strategies (tempo, low curve, 4-5 colour) more than others. Its first obvious drawback (increasing number of non-interactive games because of mana issues) can probably be adressed by optimizing mana bases. How? I don't know yet, but I like the challenge.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anyone have opinions on:

NO+Titan Legal, available strats:
1. Ramp
2. NO=>dedicated combo (f.ex. Hulk)
3. NO=>Titan(=>Stage-Depths) <--problem

Ban Titan:
1. Ramp (all the fatties in the world anyway, no need to be green)
2. NO=>dedicated combo (f.ex. Hulk, without Titan backup option anymore)

Ban NO:
1. Ramp (with Titan=>Stage+Depths available)
2. :'(

@Dreamer:

Is a dedicated combo strategy à la Pattern-Rector really no longer viable just because NO is banned? I personally don't think so. Even though NO was a very good card in the deck (maybe top 3) it wasn't really needed to assemble the combo and was only seldomly tutored, right?

When you happened to draw it randomly it was very strong, I'll give you that. But I don't think the machinery of the deck doesn't work anymore just because NO is no longer available.

Might not kill the deck (the real thing killing the deck is the neverending tide of goodstuff printings), but going from 3 Hulks to 2 does hurt. NO also used the least amount of pieces. Rector=>Pattern=>Hulk burns all your potential. NO=>Hulk leaves both Pattern and Rector online, leaving you with a much better late game.

Was just trying to point out that the NO ban is probably the wrong way to solve the problem - Titan-less NO is a specialist tool for decks with a plan, Titan is just one more fatty for Ramp decks to slam on the board.

My thoughts on the bannings:

Natural Order:
as with stoneforge mystic, I think the card is just fine. I would rate it somehow in power level like jace or so. I think the format is quite fine with some cards which do a bit more, when everything works out nice (i.e. you have a dude, and your opp. has no counter). I think the ban was somehow not necessary.

Tolarian Academy:
That was quite the right choice. I think we should unban even more cards. I'm at the moment testing a combodeck with academy and even fastbond and it doesn't seem to win as consistently as one might hope. I think the goodstuff decks have so many answers to quite a diverse number of threads today, that combo has a really hard time. On top of that playing combo is not so much fun without spoils mulligan. (My hermit druid deck is really dead now... )

Watchlist:
I think with mystical would be a bit too easy for control decks. Its ok, that they only have access to personal tutor.
Oath is quite ok. As creatures are so good, a deck without them needs some really good arguments. To keep this strategy alive I think its good to have oath. And we also see that its not so widely played.
Jitte might be a too easy autoinclude in any deck with at least three creatures... its somehow like birthing pod. It cost little colorless mana and you just warp around the game, if you have at least one creature on the board.
Then again I think, we should unban more cards to make combo and control more attractive. I would try to unban: fastbond, entomb, mindtwist, (and natural order + stoneforge)

Mulligan:
there has much been said about the mulligan, I want to add 3 things.

- games are starting faster now, which is good.
- games are a bit more random now, which is not good. i.e. with spoils each player had a nice hand, and they could play their deck as it was intended. Now it happens a bit more often, that one player has a nice curve and the other has a random mediocre draw and just looses.

- one thing I almost never heard mentioned in the discussion about the mulligan change was the following argument pro spoils:

Spoils Mulligan is more skill intensive. I see a lot of players taking bad spoils and losing due to that. This is very very good. Magic for me should be a game of skill, and the better player should win. Spoils mulligan accomplishes that in an extraordinary fashion.

Spoils mulligan was always my argument, why Highlander is the best format.

But I think its ok, if we try what happens when everybody is taking free mulligans =).

Ok, that was just my 50 cent.


PS: Dark Depths is completely ok. The combo is around for some time now. There was no winning list with it, as far as I know. I've build a deck around it myself. It was ok, but no monster with 70% against the field.

Quote from: TaZi
On top of that playing combo is not so much fun without spoils mulligan. (My hermit druid deck is really dead now...

It may be so, we don't know for sure yet. My initial hypothesis is that without an ability to spoils mulligan to tutor, this may have an effect of making one card combo decks weaker. Let's see.

Quote from: Tazi
My hermit druid deck is really dead now...

But not this weak. I've been playing 5c-hermit combo for a while. It'll need to be made more resilient what it comes to mana base. Now that aggro is not able straight to curve out, it should be still possible to tweak hermit druid so that it remains as a tier deck.

Quote- one thing I almost never heard mentioned in the discussion about the mulligan change was the following argument pro spoils:

Spoils Mulligan is more skill intensive.

One could also argue that spoils was almost always applied as a non-brainer. Now with free-mulligan one would have to actually choose: do I ship this back risking a worse hand, or do I stand a chance?

This kind of an experience (or skill like you put it) builds after some time once you've played against the field, and double so in the second game.

Quote
PS: Dark Depths is completely ok. The combo is around for some time now. There was no winning list with it, as far as I know. I've build a deck around it myself. It was ok, but no monster with 70% against the field.

True, let's see how things develop.

The problem I meant for combo decks is not the manabase, but the dead cards in the opening hand. This applies especially to the Hermit deck. This deck has quite some cards which you never want to have in hand. But I'll of course test my druid deck against the new field.

Spoils mulligan was never a non-brainer. If you don't think while spoiling and only say ship back everything thats not a land, you were already playing bad. That said I, more often than not, saw people spoiling in the way that they ended up with too few lands.

Hey, does anyone know what rules and banlist Canadians use? Could be a decent idea to take a look at that if possible. I am referring to this appearing on mtgpulse.com: http://www.mtgpulse.com/event/15643#218914 (http://www.mtgpulse.com/event/15643#218914)

I found this, but it doesn't seem to contain anything (yet): http://mondaynighthighlander.wordpress.com/ (http://mondaynighthighlander.wordpress.com/)

At a quick glance they seem to have Moxen (!), Black Lotus (!!) and Sol Ring (!!!) legal. Also, Mind Twist, Survival and Grindstone are making appearances at the very least.

They use a point system instead of a ban list. They have a facebook group called victoria highlander, you can find more informations there.

I will make a video about their format. Wolf and me are already on their tracks :P

Their point system needs a bit of adjustment but I am very excited to compare our two formats. Also they just had a tournament with a t8 and video coverage via twitch.  I will provide the links and all informations soon.

During the last months I learned to love the old Spoils Mulligan and now want it back ;D

Don´t get me wrong: The current mulligan is better than the original one but the Spoils seems a further strategic improvement to the game and the current mulligan has not changed the multicolour goodstuff madness at all.

I would appreciate to make a new vote anytime soon, so that we get an update from the community.

@Berlin: Errare humanum est

I think its a great idea to do a new vote for the mulligan. Now everyone has enough experience with the free mulligan, so that we can rate him better. In my opinion the free mulligan didnt change the meta very successful.

At the moment, I'm thinking about the opposite. Maybe we should just adopt the normal paris mulligan. I can't see a great reason why we should differentiate ourselves in this regard from other formats.

For everyone who wants to chime in on the debate, I recommend reading the following pieces from Mark Rosewater about "Randomness" and "The Mana System":
http://dtwtranscripts.blogspot.de/2013/06/62113-episode-39-randomness.html
http://dtwtranscripts.blogspot.de/2013/07/3813-episode-24-mana-system.html

The ultimate question will be how to hit the sweet spot of just the right amount of randomness. Too much randomness induced by the mulligan will obviously lead to bad gameplay (always losing when you have to mull, always losing when you miss a land drop). Too little randomness induced by the mulligan will also lead to bad gameplay (always losing when on the draw, never being able to beat bad matchups, all games feel the same).

Quote from: Silberhase on 11-06-2015, 02:32:00 PM
In my opinion the free mulligan didnt change the meta very successful.

Spoil Mulligan:
http://www.mtgpulse.com/event/3232#42112
http://www.mtgpulse.com/event/3096#40256
http://www.mtgpulse.com/event/4985#66036
http://www.mtgpulse.com/event/7490#103336
http://www.mtgpulse.com/event/11692#162873 (Finally Land count on a 4 colored deck was down to 31 lands)

Free Mulligan

http://www.mtgpulse.com/event/15482#216790
http://www.mtgpulse.com/event/18160#256484
http://www.mtgpulse.com/event/18746#263935
http://www.mtgpulse.com/event/19676#278298

How exactly do you not see any changes to the meta? According to the last tournaments with > 70 players there is a clear shift to sucessfully played 3 color based decks and the comeback of 2 colored based decks - UR- and UW(b) control. That was exactly the reason for the mulligan change. There is now the possibility to play those decks again. These decks were not competive in spoil mulligan meta.

We still have a huge playerbase playing 4c blood (goodstuff) but there are more viable competive control decks these days.

@Maqi: I allways think again just the opposite: Magic should adopt the free Mulligan =).

I'm fine with the current Mulligan. I think it was a huge upside of the old Version, that it needed quite some skill to Mulligan correctly, but nowadays the games are a bit slower and you have more games you really play.

@Maqi:

IMO mana availability is a flaw of the original game and Spoils reduces this flaw much better than Paris can ever do. Also the strategic approach of the game will be improved which is a thing I like. I don´t get your argument regarding differentiation in context with allowing gold bordered cards.

However, I get the point of "games feeling the same" in a non-evolving format. I remember playing with some cards more seldomly as I have always rejected them from my initial hand, but I don´t see that is a problem but part of a stragic card game.

My current opinion is that the Commander mulligan might be better then the above mentioned. At least you get punished for your greediness.



@ LasH:

The Meta as changed from 4-5 to 3-4 coloured good stuff which is not a big improvement to me as well. There might be some decks which are now playable but there is no huge shift towards two coloured decks which some people have predicted. Izzet and Gruul were good decks also before the mulligan change.

Just wanted to give also my opinion, because I am pretty quite in all the diskussion in this forum.

I think there are so much possibiltys right now. So much decks could be played. Before the mulligan change, I felt that only aggro and tempo decks. Control was just a non aggressiv midrange build. Now I play a creatureless control deck which is a new archtyp. I buildes around with an ramp deck which also workes pretty well and I have the feeling that I need to fear every single trash build. Isn t that waht we wanted? A colorful meta. A lot of people stay to there pet decks and adopt to the new meta, other players try to break the meta ans a differnet part also netdecks. In our format we feel also this netdecks because people go to bigger tournements to win, therefore they copy succesfull decks and in such a small formt you can feel that. So for me it is no wonder we see also alot of the same decks.

I think the worst part about spoils is that you have and outloss if you go to an unspoiled 6 hand and I didnt realy wanted to play this games.

Quote from: MMD on 15-06-2015, 07:21:21 AM
IMO mana availability is a flaw of the original game and Spoils reduces this flaw much better than Paris can ever do.

I was of the same opinion not too long ago (you can re-read older posts of me defending the spoils mulligan in several places on this forum). I have come to embrace the Free Mulligan in the meantime. That being said, our argument has to go down one level because our premisses are different. You say: the Mana system is a flaw. I say: It is a boon. Here are some quotes from the second Rosewater podcast I posted previously:

Quote[...] And the mana system's important because you need things to go wrong. You need things, you know, I know people look at mana screw as always being a bad thing, but you know the times in which it doesn't quite work out but you have to scramble to make it work. That's—there's a lot of fun in the scrambling.

QuoteI think if you think back to the most awesome games you ever played of Magic, they were not games in which everything went perfectly. Like it's not like "Oh, I made my turn one drop, then I made my turn two drop, then I made my turn three drop, and I just beat him." That's not the most memorable games. The most memorable game is, "I got my first drop, then I didn't get my second drop. Or I got my second drop on turn three but then I didn't get my third drop until turn seven! I had to last for seven turns with two mana!" "So did you lose?" "No, I won!" Those are the amazing games.

QuoteThat's another very common thing that happens when people go "I'm going to make a better game! I'm getting rid of the mana system!" What they find is, "Oh, well you don't have mana screw, but then the best players always win." And that might be great for the best players, and maybe that small subset's really happy, but you are—as a game designer, you have to make the game not just for your winners but for everybody who plays. If losing your game is not fun, you are in trouble. Because people will stop playing. And then the people who like to win don't have anybody to play, and then your game fails. Okay? You need—it is important that everybody have a chance to win.

In general, arguing about what mulligan to use, essentially means arguing which degree of variance we want in the game. I am of the opinion that the level of variance we use should be the same amount of variance that is typically used in Magic: The Gathering. Not more and not less.

@Maqi and variance: I agree with you that we should not reduce the variance too much in order to make sure that everyone has a fair chance to win a game. However, we play a format that has intrinsicly more variance than the 'usual' magic (4 copies of the key cards + 60 card decks) simply because it's a 1off-format and the decks are larger.

You were addressing the mana system only, but I think this ignores the fact that we do have a lot more variance in the power level of the cards we play with the mana. Discussing the mulligan issue has to take this into account as well - especially if we argue with the variance of opening hands/ topdecks. The 'usual' magic, the mana system and the mulligan rule are tailored toward 60 card decks with 4offs. We opted to consciously get rid of the 4off/60 cards rule to allow more variance in the stuff we cast with the mana.

I think what we did with the alternative mulligan rules in this particular format is: Shifting the variance from the manabase to the cards we cast with the mana. Less variance in the manabase, more variance in the cards played.

I personally like this manabase -> spell variance shift... I hate losing because of screw/flood. It feels like not playing a game. Losing because my opponent has better cards / played better... that's ok for me. At least we played the same game. ;)

Bottom line @ mulligan: I like the free mulligan a lot. With the spoils mulligan the pre-game hand shaping felt quite absurd. I played cards I should not have considered playing... but with the spoils I was sure to (almost) never have them in my opening 7.
The normal mulligen... I personally don't like it in this format.

-----

Another argument I read now and then: "We should try to be as close to the 'usual' magic as possible. That's why we should use the Paris mulligan.'

I disagree and, honestly, I don't quite understand the logic behind this. @Paris mulligan: See text above....

@we should be as close to 'usual' magic as possible: This would imply to not allow cards with gold borders and IE / CE if we are consequent here. The format is already very expansive... why should we increase the price to play a successful deck even more if we want to attract new players? The vintage community nowadays depends on allowing to play proxies because nobody can afford the card prices. I personally think that's where this line of thought would lead us.

This format will never even feel like 'usual' magic. So why bother? This way we are in complete control what happens to our ban lists, mulligan rules and so on... just like we do in this thread.  :) I appreciate this. Why hand the power to shape our format over to WotC? (Because this would be the ultimate goal if we follow the 'as close to usual magic as possible' road.)

My 2 cents. I hope the text is not too confusing to read.

Quote from: carte_blanche on 16-06-2015, 11:30:27 AM
@Maqi and variance: I agree with you that we should not reduce the variance too much in order to make sure that everyone has a fair chance to win a game. However, we play a format that has intrinsicly more variance than the 'usual' magic (4 copies of the key cards + 60 card decks) simply because it's a 1off-format and the decks are larger.

You were addressing the mana system only, but I think this ignores the fact that we do have a lot more variance in the power level of the cards we play with the mana. Discussing the mulligan issue has to take this into account as well - especially if we argue with the variance of opening hands/ topdecks. The 'usual' magic, the mana system and the mulligan rule are tailored toward 60 card decks with 4offs. We opted to consciously get rid of the 4off/60 cards rule to allow more variance in the stuff we cast with the mana.

I think what we did with the alternative mulligan rules in this particular format is: Shifting the variance from the manabase to the cards we cast with the mana. Less variance in the manabase, more variance in the cards played.

I personally like this manabase -> spell variance shift... I hate losing because of screw/flood. It feels like not playing a game. Losing because my opponent has better cards / played better... that's ok for me. At least we played the same game. ;)

Bottom line @ mulligan: I like the free mulligan a lot. With the spoils mulligan the pre-game hand shaping felt quite absurd. I played cards I should not have considered playing... but with the spoils I was sure to (almost) never have them in my opening 7.
The normal mulligen... I personally don't like it in this format.

-----

+1

some new input...

https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/3biiz3/ori_new_mulligan_rules_and_other_rules_changes/

@Vazdru: I would love to try that.

Also funny that they implemented the "Chapin rule" and the "Sullivan rule" where the first one enables video evidence to the judges on the biggest tournaments and the second one forces players to adhere to a uniform set up of their side of the table.

I think that this muligan is fine option to reduce variance and I really like the idea. If WOtC changes the rule after the PT, we should adopt that in addition to the free muligan.

I encourage all the local playgroups to test this new ruling and to post their impressions here.

Hello,
I am new to this forum, so I will start slowly - just 1 topic - to not make too much mess at once.  ;)

Quote from: Maqi on 30-06-2015, 10:24:56 AM
I encourage all the local playgroups to test this new ruling and to post their impressions here.

Last 2 weeks, we tested this option in Bratislava and even that we had just a few games each under this rule, I believe it is a step forward.
Due to free mulligan, you mulligan in HL to 6 or less a lot less times, but you are still grateful for any help, when you go down to 6 or less.
But that is expected I believe. :)
I myself have gone down to 6 cards 3 times in those games and once I have chosen to put the card down, the other 2 times I kept.
My opponents went to 6 2 times and once kept, once put down. 1 time they went to 5 and kept the card that time.
I think the only question to test is, whether it can be used to some unfair advantage, so we will see people go down to 6 a lot more then before, so here is my analysis on that:
Just to clarify - it doesn't make something all the times - the biggest effect it has is when you put the card down. You more or less draw a half card (typical scry effect). That's exactly when you should be happy for that rule :)
When you keep, the only time you can somehow work with it is when you go first and keep the card since you don't draw a card for the turn - you have time until your 2nd turn to fetch or not fetch for example - that's the only time it interacts with the game itself. But - ussually when you keep it, you want it, so ...
Other times it just gives you that small option to keep or not - which of course makes people at least feel better after going to 6.

So, all in all I believe it makes people only happier without giving them something really great - just a small crutch after he got hit with some bad luck (mostly).
So I don't see any way to abuse it and therefore I like it :)

Appreciate your feedback! I have similar feeling regarding the Scry-Mulligan so far.

Aside: Welcome to our forum! It was nice playing you at the recent HL Cup.

Wasteland.

It has been discussed earlier and said that winning with Wasteland recursion is slow and disruptable.
Thing is, not all "Random Wasteland Wins" are wins by recursion. In fact, only a vast minority of them are. LftL/Crucible combos are only a small part of the format, at least over here.
Wasteland is just an oppressive "oops I won" card that I don't think is good for the format. It's an auto-include in literally every deck. It's a good toolbox component, but even then we have good and fair stand-ins in Tectonic Edge, Ghostly Quarter and even Enroaching Wastes.

Wasteland is similar to Oath of Druids in that it can just outright win the game out of the blue. It makes the luck component of the game even more conspicuous. Blood Moon and other such NBL hate is in my opinion good and necessary for the format, but they are easier to play around and more importantly can be answered to. I think Wasteland overall makes the format significantly more un-fun.

I could be nice here and try not to be a dick but that is one of the worst posts I ve ever read (and I saw some amount of 4chan posts). I am not sure if that is some kind of trolling or not. But the part about "Wasteland is like Oath-a random win" is highly indicating that you cant be serious and therefore I dont try to explain to you on how many level you are wrong.

Quote from: Tabris on 09-08-2015, 08:16:14 PM
I could be nice here and try not to be a dick but that is one of the worst posts I ve ever read (and I saw some amount of 4chan posts). I am not sure if that is some kind of trolling or not. But the part about "Wasteland is like Oath-a random win" is highly indicating that you cant be serious and therefore I dont try to explain to you on how many level you are wrong.

Thank you for your courteous and well-argued response. It makes me feel very welcome to try and discuss the format in the appropriate place.

My point is, against a known Oath opponent you know you should mulligan for an answer against a T2/3/4 Oath if you're planning on playing creatures. That's not unreasonable and while Oath is a top-tier combo archetype I've never felt it's too oppressive to keep tossed around on the watchlist. Against Wasteland, you can fetch basics (not a reasonable option most of the time) or just hope your opponent doesn't have it or you don't have to indicate by missing a land drop. Every single deck in the format plays Wasteland so you can always expect the possibility if you absolutely have to play around it. I understand fixing is one of the problems you agree to when you decide to run a greedy manabase, but the fact that uneven mana is one of the major complaints against Magic as a game isn't remedied well with resource denial literally every deck runs. It never feels good or rewarding to either win with or to lose to a Wasteland on T2/3/4 because a lot of the time it happens because you're setting up the game in a way that you can actually play the game.

I agree that you sometimes lose to Wasteland when it comes down early. But several side-conditions have to met for both players.

1. You have exactly enough or too little mana.
2. Your manabase is susceptible to Wasteland at the time.
3. Your opponent has excess mana and is therefore able to give up on the colorless mana produced by Wasteland.
4a. As a result of you having one land less, you aren't able to cast relevant spells or
4b. The tempo gained by wasting is leveraged into an (mostly onboard) advantage that leads to a win (often facilitated by Elves or other mana acceleration in company with Wasteland)

All in all, I don't think those conditions are met often enough as to necessitate a Wasteland discussion.

In the contrary, I think the mere presence of Wasteland in the format makes for interesting decisions early on (e. g. play around Wasteland or Mindcensor? play my nonbasic or basic? ...).

Due to the singleton rule and the 100 card limit players will not see non-basic hate often enough in most metas to choose a deck that is resistant against that hate. Wasteland can be the most punishing card in the early turns.

However, there are ways to prepare for the impact of that card that are much more sophisticated than fetching basics. Like Maqi has written Tempo is extremely important when coping with Wasteland. Opponent has a flipped Delver and Wastelands your only land? You are in for a bad time. You play Bayou and cast Llanowar elves and the opponent uses his single land drop to waste you? Likely a big missplay by your opponent. Getting legs on the board and using your mana every turn is extremely rewaring for MTG games and especially against Wasteland szenarios. 

Lead with a basic land/fetch land especially on the draw to avoid "losing" your very first turn. This is very important against decks with x copies of "Llanowar elves". Green decks also have acess to Knight of the Reliquary and maybe Crop Rotation. Play in a way that wasteland can not stop your first "big play" from being played. But once you are out of the gates and have 2 or 3 lands in play fetching basics can actually be quite bad against wasteland only because colorscrewing will be a lot easier for your opponent then. This is one of the reasons I religiously avoid playing WW spells other than Karmic Guide in Pattern Rector for example so that I can avoid those screw scenarios as well as keeping the amount of BB spells somewhat on the lower side. 

The alternatives that were mentioned (Ghost Quarter, Tectonic Edge) are also a lot less playable which would have implications for the other lands in the format (lets say Tabernacle, Cradle, Academy, Bazaar) if Wasteland wouldnt be around in every deck.  

1. I also think that the WL is not such a big issue. Especially not after change to Free mull, since you do not have the option to sculpt your hand to have a exactly the curve you kind of wish so much by sending away lands in excess for example. So it happens a lot more, that you have more lands and 1 wasted random dual land does almost nothing. At least thats my feeling - I try to use WL a lot more on some special lands.
2. For the scry mull - it has really been welcomed well here,cardthere is no issue I believe. From the strategic point, it looks to me like you have almost 2 free mulligans. Because if you count that scry1 as 0.5 card, it is like 7=>7=>6.5 cards. So, if players are really trying to find some key cards, they have more tries in fact in every game. Which I personaly like and dislike at the same time. I felt like free mull was enough for HL decks. But I am anyway OK with any change and I can adjust always, so ...