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Still, especially now with Iona's printing, Survival and Entomb were pretty much necessary bans.

This is exactly the kind of thinking that gets us into these discussions.
"Uh-oh, there's a new card that makes X, Y, and Z broken! We should ban X, Y and Z."

WRONG! Ban the new card! If everyone has such a problem with Iona, ban her! Why ban multiple cards when you can just ban one?

Now, don't get me wrong, I agree with the banning of Survival and Entomb, I'm just using this as an example. (Sorry to pick on you, Dreamer )

And well to the Kiki-Jiki combo Buried Alive:
As the council tells us. The combo is a too fast and dangerous. Will be boring to play with and against.

Kiki-Jiki is the most fun and less overpowered of the two, so it should stay. Buried can be abused in many ways. Kiki-Jiki is just a cool card for FIVE mana lets you combo. Can also be used on a casual level for anything else. Buried is just always bad for a format.

So Kiki got unbanned, Buried got banned. Everybody should be happy because it can't be any other way.

The combo isn't Buried Alive/Kiki, it's Kiki/Pestermite and the combo still exists! Doesn't anyone else see this?

IMHO, there is no reason why Buried Alive should be banned.

You´ll also need karmicguide in grave ;-)

Not necessarily. If I draw Kiki and Pestermite, I still win.

Still, especially now with Iona's printing, Survival and Entomb were pretty much necessary bans.

This is exactly the kind of thinking that gets us into these discussions.
"Uh-oh, there's a new card that makes X, Y, and Z broken! We should ban X, Y and Z."

WRONG! Ban the new card! If everyone has such a problem with Iona, ban her! Why ban multiple cards when you can just ban one?

Now, don't get me wrong, I agree with the banning of Survival and Entomb, I'm just using this as an example. (Sorry to pick on you, Dreamer )

And well to the Kiki-Jiki combo Buried Alive:
As the council tells us. The combo is a too fast and dangerous. Will be boring to play with and against.

Kiki-Jiki is the most fun and less overpowered of the two, so it should stay. Buried can be abused in many ways. Kiki-Jiki is just a cool card for FIVE mana lets you combo. Can also be used on a casual level for anything else. Buried is just always bad for a format.

So Kiki got unbanned, Buried got banned. Everybody should be happy because it can't be any other way.

The combo isn't Buried Alive/Kiki, it's Kiki/Pestermite and the combo still exists! Doesn't anyone else see this?

IMHO, there is no reason why Buried Alive should be banned.

So how do the "wishes" work in this format, i.e. Cunning Wish, Burning Wish, etc? I know in other formats they limit your searching range to your sideboard, so how does it work in Highlander? Can I really "wish" for ANY card (of the appropriate type) in my collection?

we just enlarged the council (pyyhttu + Firestarter), changed the process of bannings/unbannings, added a foreign member to the council and made the point of view of a single council member more transparent (at least for new council-members -> subforum)

...can't you see anythin has changed...

I just ask for a little bit more patience; have a look what will gonna happen in two weeks (bannings / unbannings as of April, 1st)

I guess there will be definatly some minor and maybe some major changes at the banned list
so some reasonings you might ask for may become obsolete

Thank you, Vazdru for your response. As I mentioned previously, I'm new to the highlander scene and was unaware that any changes were being made. Of course, I can be patient and wait for the decisions of the "new" council in April.

Thanks for the quick responses. I have read all that before, Sturmgott, and it doesn't answer any of my questions.

Unban Kiki Jiki, Mirror-Breaker / Ban Buried Alive

Recursion-based decks and Reanimator weren't viable recently. Buried Alive didn't play a big role at the latest tourneys and when it was played it was just to support Combo in particular Reveillark Combo.

Buried Alive had to go cause it would have been a possible Turn-3-kill:

T1: Forest + Birds / Bayou + Elf or the like
T2: Land, cast Buried Alive for Kiki, Pestermite, Karmic Guide to grave
T3: random reanimate and win
You can't have this with Survival, Intuition, Gifts in that celerity (maybe T5).

We aware of the fact Kiki Jiki might cause some problems in combination with Reveillark and Survival that's why we put it on the watch list.

This is how I read this:
"Nobody played Buried Alive and people like Kiki-Jiki. Since they can't both exist in this format, one of them had to go."

This is not a reason to make a change. In my opinion, Kiki-Jiki has much more combo potential.

The main problem is that Buried Alive + Reanimate is a too strong 2-card-combo. It can completely be resolved on an otherwise empty board except mana sources able to produce 2BB, requires no additional setup and it wins outright.

And this doesn't make any sense either since I can accomplish the same thing with Entomb/Reanimate on Turn 2! Or Turn 1 with a Lotus Petal or Chrome Mox or the like.

Dread Return

Since the combo is still possible via the Hermit Druid we have
thoroughly pondered whether the hermit needs to go too. Many players
like this card very much (it is gladly played as an utility creature)
and it has never made a ban-worthy appearance. Therefore we have
decided not to destroy the combo deck completely but to hinder it for
the time being. So far the Hermit Druid, together with Narcomoeba and
Acorn Harvest or Chatter of the Squirrel, has been a single card
combo. Now a player needs at least the reanimation in hand (or bring
it into his hand) to win the game. Since, in our opinion, the Hermit
Druid can not remain while Dread Return is in the
format, the latter has to leave. Should Hermit Druid turn out to be
too abusable, then it can potentially change its place with Dread
Return in one of the next banning seasons.

I reiterate: Why is Buried Alive banned and not Hermit Druid? They accomplish the same task. Also, how is this such a devastating combo if Kiki-Jiki is banned?

I await your responses to these questions and anything I forgot to mention from my original post.

Thanks.

Hello all, I'm new to the Highlander format. I built my first deck recently, without consulting the banned list (my mistake). I decided I wanted to build a reanimator deck because it's one of my favorite archetypes.

So I sat down to play against a friend of mine, whom has been playing Highlander for a while now. Imagine my surprise when I played a Buried Alive and he told me that it was banned! He didn't know why, so I did a quick Google search, found this site and searched the forums for the answer.

So it seems that the combo is using Buried Alive to get Kiki-Jiki, Pestermite, and Karmic Guide. Then use any reanimate card to get back Karmic Guide, then Kiki-Jiki, then copy Karmic Guide to get Pestermite, untap Kiki-Jiki, copy Pestermite, rinse, repeat for infinite Pestermites with Haste. WOW! Cool combo! But the problem, to me, doesn't seem like it's Buried Alive, it's Kiki-Jiki! So why did Buried Alive get the shaft? Is there something else I'm missing?

While searching for my Buried Alive answer, I realized that Dread Return is also banned. This one I don't care as much about, but still seems like an unnecessary banning. Seems like there is a similar combo to the above one where you use Hermit Druid to mill your whole deck, flash back some cards to make cheap creatures (Chatter of the Squirrel and/or Acorn Harvest), then sac them to flash back Dread Return for what I assume is the Karmic Guide/Kiki-Jiki/Pestermite combo.

So you might see why I'm a little confused here. In these two combos, Buried Alive and Hermit Druid accomplish the same task: getting those three creatures in the graveyard. So why is Buried Alive banned and not Hermit Druid? But even better, why not just ban Kiki-Jiki? Then this combo wouldn't even exist, and we would be free to unban Buried Alive and Dread Return, which are so vital to a reanimator deck. If you're a good Magic player, you know that two-for-one is always a good trade!

One final comment/question: If we leave the banned list the way it is, Kiki-Jiki and Pestermite still exist in the format. Are we going to ban every card that lets you get the two of them out quickly? I'm sure there are a million ways of doing it already.

I look forward to your response. Thanks.