Messages

LoA and Top are two completely different cards.

I was using Top for long time, even in less or more complicated combos (strongest is with Counterbalance and Future sight). The best usage was interaction with any shuffling effect.

LoA just add 1 card to your draw every turn even if its not interacting with any other of your cards... practically at zero cost.


Bannings:
Shahrazad - Good step. I wanted to offer this card on tournament as a fun prize, but i agree that playing it should be boring.
Stoneforge mystic - ask yourselves if its this card or batterskull what is broken.

Recent unbannings:
LED has been discussed in a manner "dont do it, its autowin" and nobody tried to buy one and use it in tournament. At least i have not seen it yet.

Watchlist:
Tolarian Academy - I use alternate card which has different mechanics - Lotus Vale. Offers 3rd turn win as well.

I am still very disappointed about new Jace. Its especially because of his first ability... As blue player I will still prefer Tamyio.

There are two points of view which I saw in last weeks.

1. The format is considered to be slow
Hell YEAH! Thats it meant to be. This opinion is common for "Goodstuff" or agro players.

2. The format is considered to be too fast
What? Both at the same time? This opinion was put by control and combo players, who tend to play EDH now.

Bring those two groups on same tournament and it will not be much fun for both sides... And thats the problem.

EDH with more hitpoints makes standard agro strategies less viable and when I compare old control cards with the new ones - well... was there something similar to stasis last years? I dont think so.

What exactly people expect when they start to build 100+ card singleton deck?
- Wide variety of different cards
- Longer game time
- more and even unpredictable interactions between two decks

Well, some of people do. Some dont...

Hmmm...

I feel this would be a very dangerous move. Sideboards will allow players to use hatecards that hose certain strategies.

To me this means "decks with a plan" will suffer relatively more from sideboards than decks that just "do good stuff".

Combodecks and graveyard based decks will be confronted with cards a la Leyline of the Void, Planar Void, Ethersworn Canonist, Gaddock Teeg, Pyrostatic Pillar etc.

What exactly are you supposed to board against the omnipresent and potent Bant deck?

One more thing: Sure, multicolored decks can be hosed via sideboard B2B or Blood Moon type effects. But so can be mono-colored decks. Think about Karma vs. Black or Chill vs. Red. Also: Losing to super-powerful but super-narrow hate cards is not very funny. Sideboarded games might end up being a coin flip decided by the fact which player gets their hoser first...

+1

Besides the mentioned time reasons the absence of sideboard is exactly what I like about Highlander is that players dont use hate cards - or have a very good reason to use one.

Psychic Spiral 4U
Instant
Shuffle all cards from your graveyard into your library. Target player puts that many cards from the top of his or her library into his or her graveyard.
Illus. Ryan Pancoast #47/274

Interesting variation to Time Spiral...

Slow control decks don't even mind countering these spells. These have been printed to bring down aggro-control strategies, namely Delver decks.

Abrupt decay is being discussed by legacy players as first card which can sucesfully destroy infamous Countertop lock. Not true, there was also Krosan Grip some time ago, but I have to agree that this is way better. Also the reason why I started to think about Psychic battle in my deck, but its less versatile...

At all the set looks to change a lot of things, but still I fear that the Hasbro wants to turn MTG into "Clash of the summons".

This and Abrupt decay are going to make some trouble to my monoblue HL deck if I want to keep it monoblue.

Few people predicted that there will be cards which exile spells. Quite a lot of "Cant be countered" spells are coming in this set, and I fear that there will be only few possibilites to keep control strong - cards like Venser, Shaper savant, Time stop and/or Mindbreak trap. However most of them were proven suboptimal... :/

Misdirection will be bit more popular after this set - at least against Abrupt decay.

Supreme Verdict 1WWU

Supreme Verdict can't be countered.

Destroy all Creatures.

8 Players were in tournament so everyone left the game with a price

Of course the number of contestans is much lower I expected. Ninth player arrived in the evening after the tournament.

60 minute round time is fine for the format, however it seemed that people did not expected that games can take up so much time. Few people recommended me to start tournament later, at 14:00pm, but then 6 rounds could take up more than 7 hours and it could be problematic for some people to stay in Trnava during night.

Side-event has been planned. It will be draft in old editions - Visions, Mirage and Ravnica.

1. Moat is in english.
According this guide: http://www.cardkingdom.com/static/grading is in Excellent or "Very good" condition. If interested I will consult the condition of the card with expert. According to cardkingdom the price is over 200 dollars at all scenarios, and yes I understand that price of the card may vary shop by shop. Abugames has even higher price.

Most worn card is Word of Command which is in "Good" condition. Rest is in "Mint/Near Mint" condition.

2. Thats the reason why we are preparing also Sideevent. Decks will be mainly checked if they have proper opaque sleeves, no scratches on the back of the cards, accidentally added banned cards and overall if the deck comply to other rules of Highlander.

3. Thanks for notification. Thats mistake. Second round will begin same day.

I wanted to ask different thing... Who are the typical Highlander players?

1. Do They prefer long games?
2. Variable gameplay?
3. Do they have large card collection, or only "good" cards based on direct power level?

First we have to introduce a bit of statistics... We need to know who are the target players, and what they expect from the play...

What would you think of unbanning some of the cards that might help the control decks? E.g. Balance, Mystical & Enlightened Tutor, Mana Crypt, Mana vault, Sol Ring...

All cheap mana sources such as Sol Ring or Mana Crypt would put this format too close to Vintage. They enable a lot of combos, but may fuel agro decks as well.

I personally play monoblue deck based on both High Tide and Mind over Matter archetypes. To make the deck consistent I use a lot of blue tutors, but:

Putting any spell on your hand, graveyard or even battlefield at instant speed at cost less than 4 is bit broken in this format. Thats something thats direcly in conflict with the slower nature of format.

The questions are how slow or how fast should the format be.

Previously I was trying to find a way how to make casual tournament. However I havent found any way how to do it. Special banlist for single tournament is not the good way. Refusing players because they are profesional players is also not a good way.

I agree on those points:
a) It can be done. There are events in our country which are reported only locally (if they are reported...)
c) Good point, but I people are fairly able to find why is Highlander more "cool" than EDH.
d) Im in. If you need some graphics I will gladly help.
e) This can be done with new webpage.

To Ball.Lightning
I used to play also Magus of the Future, Etherium sculptor and Cloud key...

When I see so many sweet combo decks I add my own creation:

Lands:
18 Snow-covered Island
Academy Ruins
Tolaria West
Esper Panorama
Bant panorama
Petrified field
Wasteland
Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
Teferi's Isle
Lotus Vale
Coral Atoll
Soldevi Excavations
Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
Magosi, The Waterveil

Other mana manipulation:
Expedition map (art)
Armillary sphere (art)
Crucible of Worlds


Control:
Glen Elendra Archmage (wiz)
Teferi, mage of Zhalfir (Wiz) - Legend
Voidmage Prodigy (wiz)
Martyr of Frost (wiz)
Willbender (wiz)
Spell Crumple
Hinder
Voidmage Husher
Trickbind
Counterbalance
Pithing needle (art)

Mana based control:
Static orb (art)
Winter orb (art)
Patron wizard (wiz)
Rhystic Study

Tamiyo, the Moon Sage

Anti-monster control
Cryptic command
Turnabout
Ensnare
Evacuation
Venser, Shaper Savant (wiz)
Gilded Drake
Meekstone

Filtering Engine:
Brainstorm
Cephalid Coliseum
Sensei's divining top (art)
Scroll rack (art)
Petals of Insight
Halimar depths
Sage of Epityr (wiz)


Tutoring:
Long-term plans
Intuition
Fabricate

Tutoring via ability
Vedalken Aethermage (wiz)
Drift of phantasms
Muddle the mixture
Tolaria West (again)

Searching in grave:
Recall
Call to Mind
Snapcaster mage (wiz)

Other:
Savor the Moment
Reminisce
Mnemonic nexus
Gush
Sigil Tracer (wiz)

Engine:

Mind over matter
Freed from the Real
Pemmin's aura
Vigean Graftmage (wiz)
Rings of Brighthearth (art)

Fatestitcher (wiz)
Tidewater minion
Aphetto alchemist (wiz)
Wind Zendikon
Genju of the Falls
Rimewind Taskmage (wiz)

Drawing cards:
Azami, lady of scrolls (wiz) - Legend
Arcanis the Omnipotent (wiz) - Legend
Blue Sun's Zenith
Enclave cryptologist (wiz)
Jushi Apprentice (wiz)
Braingeyser
Stroke of Genius

Gilded lotus (art)
Khalni Gem (art)
High tide
Extraplanar lens (art)


This is casual version of the deck. Competetive has some changes:
Arcanis is replaced by Urza's Blueprints
Trickbind by Stifle
Tamyio by Palinchron

and counterspells are changed to FoW, Daze, Thwart and Pact of Negation.