1st. of April 2010 - New HL bans

[so_not]

You can't just fit in Balance in any control deck and expect it to work.

Yeah, you would actually put Balance in just about any deck and it would work.

And Mythrandir: imppu is right that Squee is not the bad guy here.

[marchhare]

another positive effect the bannings could have would be an ascent of new players.
i heard many people complain about how unfun highlander is (younger ones) /became (older ones) because
"everyone plays survival" and that many associate survival with lame 5c decks they consider to be the only playable deck to play with success (very expensive for most newer players).
this bleak prospect prevented the kids in our store from trying out highlander or playing it on tournaments, now they have the chance to find more fun in the game ( especially when it looks less "serious", its like wizards with their new deal in marketing  )

btw i also would like to see winter orb banned (with special permission for finns with alternate arts  )

[malz77]

We had balance in the format for a while and this was no good idea. This card is nuts. As it was written before: It's Mind Twist, Armageddon and Wrath in one card and it's not very hard to abuse it... This card will not hit the format again (as least as I'm a member of the council)

[Kassow-Rossing]

Even though it can sometimes be a game-winner in control match-up's, I do not like the banning of Mind Twist since:

1. It doesn't do much against agro. (Mostly a Hymn for 3)
2. It doesn't get played in agro.
3. It can be a dead card in some situations.

That said it's a good card. I just don't think it's too good, because it's not always affecting the game like Balance and it's sometimes 1:1 or 0:1. Against agro players you rarely have time for abusing it.

Even though I do not play Survival, I think it's a bad banning still. I rarely lose to a Survival deck and I don't think control is dominating the fields. As far as I'm concerned Oath of Druids should DEFINEDLY not be banned now because then control will have nothing left to beat agro. Survival should be on the unban watchlist as should Mind Twist.

The rest is perfect! Good job overall!

[LCG]

Hi, I was just somewhat confused.

According to the banned list page on this site changes don't take effect until April 15 - why does this say April 1 and will these be the official changes made to the banned list on this site?  I have a circle of friends who play Highlander in Boston and we've been going by this list, I'm just not sure what's official anymore...Is it going to be updated to include these changes?

Thanks

[Dreamer]

The banned list, at the moment, is the one on highlandermagic.info. The changes in this thread will be added to it on April 15th. They're just announced ahead of time so people have time to adjust.

[happis]

Let me tell tiny story about those lovely cards that every deck wants to play. Well actually 1 is land that all non agro decs wants to play. LoA, Loam and Gifts. Something must be wrong if people add 4th or even 5th color to their decks to include that powerfull engine.  GW Elf playing blue only to add gifts. 3 color controll becomes 4 color to play Loam.
Now when Mindtwist gets banned, LoA has 1 answer less. Needle, Wasteland, Ghost Quarter, Duress/Thoughtseize (only slows 1 turn), hey, don't get too happy yet. You destroy opponets LoA, want to guess what he does next? You were right, Loam, if that is not already in hand he can use Demonic Tutor to find Loam or Gifts. Gifts gets Loam, Wasteland, some cycling land and something. Something should be done to stop this, it just aint fun to play agains that.

This happened in last tournament i played. Last round and 3-0 gets paired agains 2-1 (me) if i win i might get to first place and if i lose ill be in somewhere middle. Opponent starts, LoA go. Joy, don't have answet to that. Couple turns draw go and opponent has 7 cards and some mana faxes, i have 3 cards and way less permanents in battlefield. You can imagine how that did end.
Game 2. Shiny, i have answet to LoA in hand, couple lands and Demonic Tutor. Land go. Opponent plays fetch, land that gives green, Crop Rotation, LoA. I spent second turn to tutor Wasteland. Extra card for opponent and land go. Yay, LoA goes to grave. Two turns later opponent forces Gifts, gets Loam, Wasteland...... There goes my lands and opponent gets LoA+Loam combo. My buss leaves in 30 mins so i play 20 minutes draw go and watch how opponent draws cards and plays lands.

LoA is just too powerfull card. Loam+Gifts is awsome too, but getting lot of cards with it eats all mana and countering Gifts works to stop it. You can't counter LoA. In my opinnion LoA should be in banned list, so does Loam or Gifts too. Banning Entomb is great, can't use it to get Loam to grave but also makes harder to get 2nd turn Iona agains mono colored decks. Survival makes reanimator and man combo decks bit harder to work, but they are still playable. Bans are ok but there should be LoA and perhaps Gifts or Loam.

-happis

[Tabris]

So we´ve got the the reasons for the bannings. Will be there a translation ?

[Kristian]

Even though it can sometimes be a game-winner in control match-up's, I do not like the banning of Mind Twist since:

1. It doesn't do much against agro. (Mostly a Hymn for 3)
2. It doesn't get played in agro.
3. It can be a dead card in some situations.

That said it's a good card. I just don't think it's too good, because it's not always affecting the game like Balance and it's sometimes 1:1 or 0:1. Against agro players you rarely have time for abusing it.

Even though I do not play Survival, I think it's a bad banning still. I rarely lose to a Survival deck and I don't think control is dominating the fields. As far as I'm concerned Oath of Druids should DEFINEDLY not be banned now because then control will have nothing left to beat agro. Survival should be on the unban watchlist as should Mind Twist.

The rest is perfect! Good job overall!

1. Agreed.
2. It gets played in midrange and I would play it if it was on color in other aggro decks too.
3. All cards can be dead in some situations.

Mind Twist is a devastating card, my main reasons for being happy to see it gone is that it's not a a fun card and I don't have to cut another card in my 5CC in favor of Mind Twist ^^.

Protip: When spelling a word in all capital letters, spell it right!

[Sturmgott]

So we´ve got the the reasons for the bannings. Will be there a translation ?

You are welcome to do the translation. I have no time for it.

[kmzandrew]

Since people have been talking about possibly banning LoA, gifts and loam I'll just give my opinions...

I believe LoA is by far the most broken card of the 3. It is probably the most broken card that is legal atm. I think its strictly better than mind twist and hate how random some games can be thanks to the autowins/autolosses you will have due to opening with turn 1 LoA. It should be banned.

Gifts is also extremely powerful. It is really the most powerful tutor out there as it can tutor up many different 2 card combos that win the game as well as various answers or engines. Most of the time if you resolve gifts at your opponents eot and untap with enough mana you can't lose. That being said gifts can easily be countered or discarded. It is a lot easier to stop gifts from resolving than to shut down LoA. We also have a lot of other very powerful tutors in this format and until control decks running gifts start dominating the format I am fine with it staying. I actually don't like banning tutors and would probably want gifts to be legal regardless especially since it is fairly mana intensive and a lot of cheap mana accel is already banned.

I don't think loam engines are all that powerful. Even if they get going you can win through them and unless you gifts into a loam engine they take a lot of luck/setup. Gifts into loam is also somewhat unimpressive when compared to other gifts piles so I don't think loam should be banned.

[Kristian]

So we´ve got the the reasons for the bannings. Will be there a translation ?

I found the Google translate link posted in the first post sufficient. Hope you can use it

[Mythrandir]

So we´ve got the the reasons for the bannings. Will be there a translation ?

I found the Google translate link posted in the first post sufficient. Hope you can use it

Well, some really ackward phrases there, but we can get the gist of it. Glad they pondered squee getting the hammer, but i understand that SOFT was too dominant and even more problematic (IMO) it raised a lot of time issues with all the searching and shuffling.

As for entomb + iona example, i sure hope that wasn't decisive for the banning...

And couldn't agree more on the "last comments", even reading via google translator!

[Tabris]

I will make a short excerpt if ppl want to.

[imppu]

So we´ve got the the reasons for the bannings. Will be there a translation ?

You are welcome to do the translation. I have no time for it.

Thanks for the input.