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Grid is a decent card. Its actually ok as win con and checks walkers somewhat. Its slow though.

Vs ouphe and other hatebears oath of druids can be a plan b.

As for stony, rod. Those are really hard and probably beat you when they come early. If you can get academy going you might get some counterplay but its hard.

B2b can be beaten with candelabra.

Much appreciated!

Me too.

Currently not. But things may change.

Thank you very much for the content!!!

Volcano Cup is taking place tomorrow. Time to give your deck the finishing touch, polish your dice and choose your gametime dress!

See you all at Wizard's Well!

This Saturday is gametime!

Hopefully many of you will be able to make it.

Let me add, that there will also be a team challenge alongside the regular tournament. Buyin to this will be 10 € per team. Just register together with two friends and build a team. Your overall swiss performance will be tracked and before the top 8 the best team will grab the pot in the form of store credit at Wizard's Well. Most important thing about this: Choose a sweet name!

Yes!

[February 3rd, 2018]

The VOLCANO CUP - 3rd tournament of the BIG KAHUNA Series - will take place on February 3rd, 2018.

Location will be:
Wizard's Well
S4, 23
68161 Mannheim

Buy In: 15€
Registration 9:30, Tournament starts at 10:00

Prizes:
1st place - Volcanic Island (3rd ed. wb, Italian), Qualification for the BIG KAHUNA Invitational Final, Winner's Playmat!
2nd place - Sylvan Library (Legends), Qualification for the BIG KAHUNA Invitational Final
3rd+4th place - Leovold, Emissary of Trest (CN2)
5th-8th place - Flooded Strand (KTK)

Twitch stream will be live on www.twitch.tv/TheOneHL

If you have any questions, feel free to ask them here. I will answer.

Would be nice!

This is so unbelievably great! Congratulations to Christian and the best of luck to him for the top 8. I hope he takes the whole thing down!

Reminder! This Saturday is gametime! Tell your friends, maybe form a team, and compete for prizes and glory!

I like normal mulligan.

@Tabris (copied from the Facebook discussion):

My statements have to be viewed as "ceteris paribus". I thought this would be clear when talking about a matter of probabilities.
By stating, I should not be arguing as simplistic as you insinuate, you seem to think I'm arguing in absolutes. Which I don't. But I should have made that clearer.

When I say that Emperion-Izzet beats RDW, I of course don't mean all the time. About 60% is my estimation.

You however make a mistake in the opposing direction by saying: "Everything can beat everything all the time, bc decks are generally potent and Highlander has critically more variance than other formats so the meta is healthy."

This is not true. Variance doesn't go all the way.

There are best decks.

Sadly these decks happen to play in a way a lot of people dislike.

Several not-so enfranchised players told me face-to-face they stopped playing bc Highlander morphed into all blue mirrors which they disliked.

They have a point and I feel obliged to act bc I share some of their fears/discontent.

[The Izzet-Situation]

Blood Moon	ban
Back to Basics	ban
Dig Through Time	ban
Mana Drain	ban
Mystical Tutor	ban
Oath of Druids	no ban
Stoneforge Mystic	no ban
Demonic Tutor	no ban	Watchlist
Tainted Pact	no ban
Tolarian Academy	no ban	Watchlist
Treasure Cruise	no ban	Watchlist
Grindstone	no ban
Yawgmoth's Will	no ban
Birthing Pod	unban
Entomb	unban
Imperial Seal	unban

                  
The Izzet-Situation
- Izzet is in my opinion (slightly) the best deck in the format. At the same time Izzet offers a kind of gameplay which many players deem unfun.
- The only rival to Izzet (measured in tournament wins) is RDW.
- Emperion-Izzet beats RDW.
- Izzet's best and most annoying weapons are Blood Moon, Back to Basics and (Mystical Tutor into) Ruination. These play patterns suppress a large amount of otherwise possible decks that require some form of elaborate setup or have to bridge across several colors in order to execute their gameplan.
- Non-basic hate together with cheap and efficient countermagic exert a harsh and restricting doorman function for what is possible in the current metagame.
- The deck is supplemented by some of the most powerful spells in the format: Treasure Cruise, Dig Through Time, Mana Drain
- Results have shown that "decks with a plan" do not play a meaningful role in the format. To open the door for them, Izzet needs to be weakened.

The Blue-Situation (within the Izzet-Situation)
- Besides Izzet and RDW, tournaments are mostly being won by Ub-Wizards, Esper Control, UB-Control, UW-Control and the like.
- One reason for this is, they play mostly one color (Blue) and splash for a second, thereby being mostly safe against Izzet's non-basic hate angle of attack. Note that non-Blue two-color decks are mostly bad. An Izzet dominated metagame therefore becomes a U(r) vs. U(x) metagame with RDW thrown in for good measure and other decks resting at the sidelines.
- In comparison to other colors, Blue has stronger and more broken cards. Something has to go in order to level the playing field.

Conclusions
- Oppressive non-basic hate has to be banned.
- Some Blue power has to be banned.
- Tutoring options for "decks with a plan" have to be unbanned.
- Birthing Pod can be unbanned in order to counter blue dominance but has to be monitored closely.
- The Mystical Tutor ban will also weaken "decks with a plan" but the simultaneous unban of Entomb and Imperial Seal is a net gain for them. This trade-off can be seen as a hedge. Also, Mystical Tutor is a critical linchpin card for Izzet. Without it, the Madcap Experiment into Platinum Emperion plan seems to be gone for good and Ruination won't be ending games as often as is currently the case.
- "Decks with a plan" - or Combo decks if you like - will become relatively better in a world which would be a little less blue. These decks usually have a good matchup vs. non-interactive decks like RDW. This way, RDW will have more predators and won't reign supreme.

Things are more complicated than what can be expressed in the above paragraphs. Although I stand by the points I made, I want to stress that there are more deliberate reflections which went into my voting. I also did some testing with Entomb-powered Reanimator builds beforehand. The games I played reinforced my notion that Entomb is not too broken for our format as it stands right now.