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Rant warning;

Unban both, ban nothing.

About the banning notes; imho the metagame is healthy and nothing on the banned list or archetypes they "represent" is unbeatable by choises on deckbuilding&metagaming. Even though I dislike reanimator being as overpowered as it is, it can still be kept in check relatively easily, if chosen to commit into heavy enough hate, thus entomb is just another bomb for that deck.

Mystical tutor and gifts are as safe unbans as Entomb was. Makes animator the deck to beat, if it already wasn't such. (last unbanning was a pure christmass for animator.).
Gifts, while admittably being extremely strong, is still a 4cc spell, while on neutral game state resolving it is likely to end up into caster of it winning by sheer CA/combo cabability. Then again, that said, there are quite a number of 4cc spells that if unanswered,in a neutral game state, will result into resolver of them practically winning the game in short order. (hello Jace the format sculptor!, you had no answer for that immediately? most likely a good game.)

And just for sanitys sake, pls do remove Back to Basics and Blood Moon from the ban watchlist altogether. There is no point in removing the format&manabase&color balancing aspect that their existence in the format creates. Just fricking remove them from that list entirely already. The greedymanabases.dck's need to be (able to be) punished by their choise. (even though I've played a greedy manabase.dck myself for the past year or two, I'd hate to have Blue/Red lose one of their most potent weapons against me/anything similar)- +those cards are almost blanks in case your opponent plays with highly conservative manabases, + while playign them, you more or less give up your own ability to go apeshit with nonbasics....

And while ranting about the basics/nonbasics. Put Library of Alexandria on the watch list for unbanning. The time when it got the hammer, the format mainly consisted of far slower _decks_ and powerlevel of "everything" was lover. At that time it was possible to go with t1/2 Loa, and simply ride the CA into victory, but at the current speed/power of the format, early Loa, while being strong, is not as automatic road to victory as it used to be!

If you really need to ban something again to feel yourself useful with the hammer(the urge to do something when you got the tools, even when nothing would be needed to be done), then simply ban the Tainted Pact. It simply does not function as it was designed to function flavourvise in our format.
It has the same issue, as the Battle of Wits would have in a format that needed for every deck to be atleast 250 cards strong. It does not have(seriously) the draw back it was designed to have. (atleat I trust that it was designed for a 4'of format).
Even contemplating on banning Demonic Tutor is imho absurd, while you have a same casting cost INSTANT speed version of it in the format. (yeah, the drawback can get you some % of the time, sure, but THAT % I would estimate is far smaller than the upside & of it being an instant.)
Just remove it for being simply stupidly most powerfully offensive tutor in the format. (and cutting the pact, gives a better excuse to bring mystical back too)

Hi there fellow highlanderplayers of europe and esteemed counsil members.

First of all, I'll greet and tell who I am,
I'm Mikko, aka Nuorukain, a finnish mtg player since around 1996 or so.

I've played various formats through this 20+ years, thus I'd imagine I got some sort of experience and understanding of various metagames and formats, though I admit, that during the past 8-10 years or so, I've cut myself from those more modern formats of standard and modern, and concentrated my interest on highlander and legacy. (as vintage isn't played that much here)
But my experience is not the point of authority, or an argumentative power in itself, but just thought to mention that, so that we can ignore any "what do you know"-nonsense that might follow.

But as we are now discussing (the) Highlander, I've in form or another played it from 200X, at the time there was no distinguished "german"highlander with its own banlists, but the t1.5(legacy) banlist was used.

Anyways, now, out from the remembering old stuff, but into the current days issues.

There's some quite a bit of level of rumour and gossip and discussion here in Fi going on about the banning of Demonic Tutor and that there are many counsil members Pro that ban.

I'm here to offer my input here, as a player relatively deeply interested in the format.

First of all, one of the sentiments that seems to be on top of the finnish discussions on that matter is; "why would there ever be a need to ban DT in a format that is in its most balanced and intriguing state in a long time? At its most diverce form..?"

I mean, the original logic of ban DT as it is too good in 4c-blood has to my understanding gone away, as the meta&people have adjusted accordingly. (although, banning of DT would have very very slightly poked at the 4C, in the same time, it would have been a deeper cut on the decks that try to compete against the 4c.)

Also, if your metagames were filled with 4c and other decks with manabases with far too little basic land, that here in Fi we consider "extremely greedy". It is simply right and correct that X-Moon decks have been picked up and played to punish people from their greediness with their good stuff decks. That is actually one of the best ways to counter 4c that I'm aware of, but please, do correct me if I'm wrong on this part. Any competitive honest ex 4c player can give their honest input on this matter?

Now, then there was and still is, the menace of RDW, which is imho one of the deck that seems to be format defining. (underplayed compared to its powerlevel imho too, as some others have said before, but people actually want to play FUN stuff in this format, instead of the best deck.)

Not that I'm a huge fan of Stone Forge Mystic, I do agree that unbanning it was wise, to diminish the relative power of rdw.
And on the same level&context, I simply DO NOT understand the reasons to wish to ban tutors, thus making multible deck types that much worse against RDW too.

Combo is heavily underplayed in the format due the singular nature of this format pushes all, but the creature based combos into a really tight spot on being able to assemble their combos by itself. Competing against the almost legacy speed RDW and permission&distuption of other decks, why do you need to put the close to final nail into the coffin of the decktype that is already on a tight spot?

I mean, I'd almost could understand the emotional need&wish to ban demonic, IF combo was overpowering the format. But even then, my rational approach would be; that is just one deck type to take into consideration in deckbuilding. I mean, there are assloads of answers against Combo available practically in any deck type. If and ONLY IF afrer those answers,combo was still a serious problem, then by all means, ban demonic&whatever needed. But I do not believe this could be the case.

Also, as a provocation, what the hell is this need for you germans to go wildly with the banhammer when there seriously is no need for it at all?
Why trying to "FIX" something that definitely is not _broken_, in its own context?

When you get pissed off at losing to certain decktypes, or some archetype goes strong for a while in your local meta, especially played by a strong player, why not, instead of screaming how unfair that deck is and shout for bannings to break the deck, could you perhaps be able to approach the issue maturely as a deckbuilding challenge to beat, not as a problem that needs to be fixed with bannings? (especially as the strong player will anyway just adapt to the bans, and play something else that breaks your local meta)

If you can't or won't adapt to your local metagames and decks, and there is someone who actually does that, and plays well.
Well, to my understanding that is exactly the moment when the person that has put in the thought and effort actually deserves to win tournaments. That does not mean that any fricking portion of that deck is necessarily broken and needs to be banned. Players just need to ADAPT.

OR are you having the old school classical approach of "ban everything untill Necro(potence) is good again. Then ban Necro."

Do you wish to de-diversify highlander format into the "combat step only"-format, where there is no _real_ room into more intricate mental puzzles of deck construction and metagaming?

Please, the format is not broken, it is healthy and doing fine. Don't hurt&screw it with unnecessary bannings. Ty.