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Hi,
after reading anouncement, one thing crossed my mind regarding Scapeshift issue. What is real offender in Scapeshift deck? Is it Scapeshidt itself or the fact, that it tutors Valakut that insta-kill the opponent. I have never seen using Valakut in RDW as a tech for manaflood situations and I gues, that any other deck can't even think about including it. On the other hand Scapeshift itself has some interesting applications. It can tutor tech lands, enable land synergies, landfall triggers, Dark Depths combo, Urborg & Cabal Coffers, Glacial Chasm lock... All above mentioned is quite fun and can bring interesting games. What is currently not so fun is the fact, that resolved Scapeshift ends the game without much possibility for opponent to interact with it.

Would you reconsider swapping Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle for Scapeshift on the Watchlist?

Maqi: Including NO is far from brainless. Sure midrange or ramp will love it. Aside from countering it there is reasonable amount of hatecard or ways to play around that - censor, thalia, any mana denial card, gaddock, removal for mana elves, ankh of mishra, POP... I have got an impression, that you hate to play against T3/T4 titan. But killing titan on spot, copying it (metamorf) are also relevant answers. Sure it is better if the first player didn't get those two lands, but it is nowhere to autoconcede.

As for true ramp decks, they are almost nonexistent. Last year I was forced to create new archetype on mtgpulse, because there was no to be found. Pattern was also sort of pushed out of meta. Agresive decks can be so agresive and disruptive at the same time, that comoing off needn't happen.

It is like one 4c player got outgoodstuffed by titan and complains, while other was killed T3 by storm deck and feels realy good about that! If someone hates random factor of mirrors so much, he should play different deck than 4c. No matter what in few years this HL format's metagame will probably turn into standard type metagame, where few potent strategies exists and are strongly represented + few rogue decks. Get ready for more mirrors. Banning of either card can't stop that.

I know that today it is first april = fools days. But I do not find nothing funny or amusing on today's anouncement. I will not be defending Top, although I think, it is far from neccessary to ban it.

What surprised me was banning of Natural Order. It was clear, that people who are willing to play this card will not be searching Courser of Crupix with it but Primeval Titan, Crafthoof Behemoth or Protean Hulk.

I searched decks which accualy made it to mtgpulse and I found 18 entries (still it is just Berlin meta though). Uses of the card varried - 8x4c piles, 4xRG various builds, just 1xPattern. Which is not that bad or supposed to be used as banning criteria. On several tournaments we had here in Prague, one could see someone resolve Natural Order, but there was no crying about it or no heated discussion.

You released demon from the bottle, people used it and before meta could adapt you stripped the card again. I think it is mistake to ban it so harshly.

I wonder, how it is possible, that everyone in this thread ignores Pieces of Puzzle. Which is clearly one of best 3cc draw/filter spells in years + it is delve enabler + staple for reanimators decks.

PWs in this set are sort of nice. The competition on 4cc PW is realy hard though. Most of HL playable cards are fast / agresive creatures. Wizards are not done with printing 2/x for one in every set. Something which were premium agresive creature stats is now almost boring cards to see. Boring but playeable, if anyone is interested. In five years from now it will be possible to build Rb deck soletely based on one drops... They are not needed anymore.

This set does not bring much for our HL. But I think, think that somewhere in top 10 Radiant Flames should be named. Since it is another 3 mana sweeper. Might not be good enough for grixis decks, but for jeskai? who knows.

I know it is matter of personal preference, but the cards we will face probably the most often from this set, are the full art basics. Some of them are quite beautiful.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So my opinion is clear - UNBAN Stoneforge

Geroge B: When you have Oath out and your opponent has more creatures, it is only up to you if you use Oath. Oathing is not mandatory.

Hi, thank you for the effort!

I have one constructive comment: when I tried to acces our highlander TOP8's I clicked on SEARCH, and then I sort of expected, that Highlander will be included in the combo box FORMAT. I can't think of another way to accualy find HL decklists on mtgtop8 otherwise than clicking on the link, you have provided.

I would like to point out, that there is more creatures, than the obvious three named here, that render Slagstorm useles: Academy rector, Vengevine, Gravecravler, Bloodghast, Bloodsoaked Champion, Geralf's Messenger - there are probably some more.

It also deny's random interaction like: Unearth, Eternal Witness, Scavenging Ooze. I would personaly play always Anger of the Gods instead of Slagstorm.

Situations where you want to burn both players 3 life is rarer than all the upsides i named. (I can think of one! Slagstorm can probably kill Jace 2.0 which is the only one good thig I can think off)

Supplement to above:

I would consider definetely testing against Burn. In Prague it is heavily played (15-20% of the field) and there is at least one burn in T4.

Next i would try to test against abzan midrange and naya (which is my favourite deck this year).

But as for trying to figure out what your test gauntlet will be, it largely depends on the type of the deck, you are going to play. Since you can merge different decks to one category.

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

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

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

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

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

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

I have tested some cards in Reanimator deck - namely Sultai's Charm, Treasure Cruise a Tormenting Voice. All peformed extremely well. Charm is probably the strongest one, since it is almost catch all answer, which also synergises with the deck theme. Treasure crusise is just Ancestral Recall in this type of deck and I was also very happy with Tormenting Voice as well. It is one of the best discarders possible on 2cc (if running red). I sort of dont understand, why it has been skipped by everyone here..

NO ban.

I voted for ban earlier this year. Lots has changed since then though. Sure TNN is still pure pain to face and some decks are barely playable, since they almost fold to this creature (which are exclusively agrodecks). Combo decks almost do no exists(and if they do, they do not care), for them it is non-hate beater. Control decks do not care either. Nonblue nonblack decks got at least Council's Judgement, which kills this bugger quite elegantly. I see introduced Mystical tutor as much bigger haymaker, that it has overshadowed TNN in my eyes.

It would not feel right to demand TNN bann when Mystical Tutor is unbanned.

I used to play lot's of combo earlier, but now it seems that everything is dead(you can still play them, but it is hard to gain consistent results with it). I will do some more attempts, but I am very sceptical now.

Post the decks you run somewhere. I'd like to see what builds you're playing with, and if there's something to make them better.

I am glad you to ask. I was posting decklists on this forum through years - namely High Tide, Heart beat and Hulk combo. My last posts were before mulligen change and before Natural order bannings. Hulk combo lost lots with departure of Order and mulligen, but there might be way with Dark Depths, that I am trying to fit in. It is not finalized product and I will not feel comfortable to go to tournament with it (my inspiration came from one guy on cockatrice (sorry, I forgot his name) http://deckstats.net/deck-3861065-8659295c19599639c8fd8f1a941eff1a.html I have not corrected that decklist yet). My current Tide version is something like this, but I am unsure about some cards (Spell Snare, Noxious revival, Intuition, Repeal) - http://deckstats.net/deck-3968098-d216c33c6fdb913e60fd438379702a5b.html  Same story here, it is pretty weak against all sorts of fast agro decks. I have yet to find some sort of new incarnation of hearth beat deck, but I am not sure, I will find one. I am testing differents splashes.