Topics

Since some ppl alrdy ask me to share my madness list here it is

1 Arrogant Wurm
1 Basking Rootwalla
1 Roar of the Wurm
1 Fiery Temper
1 Violent Eruption
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Windfall
1 Obsessive Search
1 Anger
1 Wonder
1 Oath of Scholars
1 Tropical Island
1 Volcanic Island
1 Taiga
5 Forest
1 Wild Mongrel
1 Bazaar of Baghdad
1 Circular Logic
1 Reckless Wurm
1 Vengevine
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
1 Life from the Loam
1 Brawn
1 Bonfire of the Damned
1 Reforge the Soul
1 Revenge of the Hunted
1 Temporal Mastery
1 Thunderous Wrath
1 Lightning Bolt
1 Chain Lightning
1 Ancestral Vision
6 Island
5 Mountain
1 Fledgling Dragon
1 Lightning Surge
1 Werebear
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Call of the Herd
1 Deep Analysis
1 Devil's Play
1 Faithless Looting
1 Careful Study
1 Gnaw to the Bone
1 Quiet Speculation
1 Intuition
1 Tarmogoyf
1 Bloodbraid Elf
1 Kitchen Finks
1 Trygon Predator
1 Edric, Spymaster of Trest
1 Llanowar Elves
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Lotus Cobra
1 Sylvan Library
1 Gigapede
1 Flametongue Kavu
1 Noble Hierarch
1 Obstinate Baloth
1 Merfolk Looter
1 Thought Courier
1 Bloodghast
1 Enclave Cryptologist
1 Ghor-Clan Rampager
1 Izzet Charm
1 Blastoderm
1 Deadbridge Goliath
1 Spellbreaker Behemoth
1 Iwamori of the Open Fist
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Fire-Lit Thicket
1 Flooded Grove
1 Stomping Ground
1 Breeding Pool
1 Steam Vents
1 Noxious Revival
1 Wasteland
1 Arid Mesa
1 Flooded Strand
1 Polluted Delta
1 Desolate Lighthouse
1 Naturalize
1 Wickerbough Elder
1 Reclaim
1 Birds of Paradise
1 Sensei's Divining top

This is a list which synergizes very well with: Madness, Miracle, Threshold, Flashback.

Miracle:
You can afford to play all good miracle cards in here, bc of alot draw/discard. You can always "cycle" miracle cards or bring them back with reclaim/noxious revival. Eot Opp turn draw/discard on miracle is also pretty nice. All miracle cards have broken effects for their miracle costs.

Madness:
I play all madness themed cards bc its simply card advantage even if a 3 drop 4/4 trample is rather bad these days, the card advantage makes up for it.

Threshold:
Its pretty fast so you can play this mechanic. I only run fleding dragon and werebear atm.

Flashback: Even more card-advantage. Quiet Speculation works like (search your library for 3 extra handcards).

Intuition is mvp in this deck because you can bring up pretty broken staples. (fe: Anger/Wonder/Gigapede)

The deck is very fun to play but i guess not very competive right now. It beats control decks pretty easy but has no chance vs combo decks of any kind.

I hope the list will excite ppl and animate to experiment with mechanics rather than goodstuff staples. So enjoy this brand new stax list !

[Boros charm]

Full Spoiler is out: http://www.wizards.com/magic/tcg/article.aspx?x=mtg/tcg/gatecrash/cig

Boros charm seems to be one of the best cards of the set. Hope to see more boros action soon

Domri seems playable and synergizes well with wordly tutor.

Ghor-Clan rampager is pretty nice compared to colossal might.

Spell rupture is a slap in tha face for each muc lover

Hellkite Tyrant is my personal favorite card of the set

All other cards r pretty disapointing and overcosted. Did i miss anything good?

[Mulligan:]

I wanted to share some of my thoughts about the current meta.

Mulligan:

I think the spoil-mulligan needs a review. The majority liked the introduction back in the year 2006/2007 (myself included). We had several issues in the past (for example: color-screw, not enough 1/2 to drops to have early interaction) that made this special rule pretty good for the format. I think things changed alot in magic in the last years.

So what crucial changed:

1) 10 fetchlands up from 5
2) much more 1/2 drops (for aggro (Many new 1 drop creatures for aggro/color fixing/ramp, and control got new tools(path, forked bolt, ponder-preordrain, probe etc)

Why i dont like the mulligan anymore:

We had a discussion about banning the fetchlands. I think changing the spoil mulligan back to the roots would solve this issue. Lets be honest. Actually you can build a 4c deck (with a good manacurve on spells) and only run 30 lands. 10 fetchlands with the spoil mulligan generate this advantage. You could never run such a small manabase without the spoil mulligan. The spoil mulligan generates nearly a constant 1 drop mana elf nowadays because so many of them got printed.

Not having the perfect manabase or drops is part of magic. Mana-screw and taking a mulligan to 6 is part of magic. Having a 5cc spell on your starthand is part of magic if you choose to play these cards. Miracle cards got printed and get absurdly strong with spoil-mulligan (even if only 4 r playble). A special mulligan rule only for this format is strange. No other format is changing the basic concept of the game (mulligan and life (lets ignore EDH ).

To many cards got printed to help avoiding those situations. It should be about deck building to prevent you from colorscrew and high cc spells not about abusing the spoil mulligan.

So i think it would be time to check if the spoil mulligan is really necessary nowdays.

Combo decks in general:

I wanna talk about the 2 playable combo decks right now: Cephalid combo and storm.

In general: Combo decks cant get the hate they get in each other format because of no sidebord. You cannot run to much graveyard removal maindeck because its pretty bad in other matchups. Thats the reason control deck's cant handle combo decks in highlander like they do in other formats.

Cephalid combo

It is okay to have a 2 card combo deck that straight ends the game by activation. I absoluty don't like a _1_ card combo in this format (playing hermit druid-activate-end the game). I vote for a ban of hermit druid. This format should only allow to run 2 card combos. It feels wrong to force decks to have extremly fast creature-removal on each hand to handle the druid. By banning the druid the combo does still work by cephalid+x and mesmeric orb - basalth monolith, but there would not be a 2 drop creature in the format that wins the game by itself. Futhermore decks can handle the combo by creature removal, grave removal or artifact removal and simply have more time to get those (1 turn is crucial here).


Storm Combo

Tps dominated the format back in 2004 according to this forum. Thats why the council banned cards like yawgmoth's will, LED. I dont know why the council decided to bring this deck back to the format. First of all, the deck is very fast, in some situations hard to play, but - very constant and fast (turn 3/4 kills possible). On the other hand its very slow (time based) and only 1 player is playing once he started the combo (it can take up to 10-15min until he finally kills you, while you watch him playing). Only experienced players can pilot this deck to a top 8. But they will do, because its so hard to interrupt this deck (discard/counter is a must have, grave removal helps alot but both of them don't prevent the tps deck to start the combo the turn after). I vote for a ban of yawgmoth's will or past in flames. These cards give the deck the boost (and reduce the effect of counter/discard) and 2 of this kind make it so much more constant. Both dont get played in any other list.

I can see these deck still exisiting but they need to get slower and easier to disrupt.

About the ban-list:

For april i vote to ban:

-Past in flames or Y-Will
-Hermit druid
-Stoneforge mystic
-natural order
-mana drain

Reasons for the other 3 cards got discussed enough. All of these cards are ridiculous in their effect. Pls stop thinking the banned list needs to be as short as possible. SFM is banned in each other format for a reason. The right cards need to get banned and they are not.

Discuss 

Temporal Mastery gonna break the format? I think this card is the best card printed for highlander since years. Personal Tutor finally gets an insane target. Miracle cards in general perfectly fit the highlander theme and sensei's divining top gonna get better which each miracle card printed.

So today Wotc announced that Jace 2.0 and Stoneforge Mystic are banned from T2.

While nothing changed for jace 2.0, batterskull gave a nice boost to stoneforge. But is it broken in highlander, too?

I personally think that turn 2 stoneforge is the best drop in the current meta but i dont have enough experience yet (with batterskull) to judge over a ban right now.

What do you guys think about these cards in highlander recently?

[at least]

Today i wanna discuss the ban of tolarian academy in the current format.

Back in 2006, it was one of the strongest mana producer in the format. Stax was a deck to beat and this card was a cruel part of it. I dont remember much other decks abusing it.

So in my opinion, the strongest use of the card will still be stax.

2011, we have alot of new cards, thats why i wanna put the light on this card again.

Reasons why it should get unbanned

Statement 1:
Producing alot of mana is now viable for alot more decks (lotus cobra, more 1 drops for mana producing), which makes all green based decks alot faster than back in 2006, sometimes faster or even with artifact producer.

Statement 2:
There is ALOT more hate for handling lands (Phyrexian revoker, fullminator mage, tectonic edge, dust bowl (was banned before), goblin ruinblaster, magus of the moon, ajani etc).

Statement 3:
There is alot more hate for handling artifacts (maelstrom pulse, o-ring, quasali pridemage, new uktabi apes (renegades, viridian shaman etc), which can make it less effective.

Statement 4:
You need at least 2 artifacts + something to untap a land to really "abuse" tolarian academy.

With the ban of LFTL its much harder to get specific lands online. There are only 4 playable "searcher" currently (crop rotation, sylvan scrying, demonic tutor, expedition map, which usually search workshop in the early stage of the game), and ofc, in lategame they would get the academy.

Back in old days, it was incredible insane to abuse the academy after all lands got destroyed with LFTL + crucible, because you still had massiv mana with only one land after "geddon-effect". This point leads back to statement 4, no more LFTL makes searching and reviving for this combo MUCH harder.

I dont see TA to be broken-overpowered anymore. I see it extremly strong in a lategamephase, i see it boosting a currently dead archetype back in the meta, without making stax unbeatable.

Opinions?

Hi, i played the last highlander grand prix in frankfurt.

And you did a "poll/survey" about the current format. I forgot to do it, but i think its a great idea.

Do u think its possible to put the poll online for a limited time? This would also allow to get opinions from foreign players.

Thanks :-)