HL Bannings - Community Thread

[Doks]

In addition to what haju already said, I'd like to point out that the free mulligan doesn't seem to have the problem of heavily favouring certain strategies. While the spoils mulligan definitely helped proactive strategies out more than reactive ones, the free mulligan benefits both equally (from what I experienced so far).

The average game probably lasts longer, so there are many people that say slow reactive (control) strategies might excel and there is no doubt that the longer the game goes, the higher a lategame oriented deck's win chances will be. However, fast decks will still threaten lethal damage early enough since control is slowed as well. Most crucial thing for control is to hit land drops up to turn 5 at least, preferably up until turn 7. Missing a land / not having the right colour in the four first turns has cost me several of these games.

To become more precise: I was running 38 mana producing lands + 7 mana stones and still managed to get fucked over by screw quantity and quality wise. I'm pretty sure that my mana base is not optimized and that mindlessly adding 3 lands and a few mana stones won't solve this. I can easily see future control decks running 40+ land while still having 3-4 mana artifacts in the deck (compare this to Tabri's Oath control, winner of lastGP Hanau, that ran only 33 (!!!) freaking mana producing lands of which two were colorless also – fucking insane! This was only possible because of the spoils muligan).

So if your mana eats up 45% of your deck space in a controlish strategy, what are you going to cut in order to not lose to early aggression? You still need all that CC1-2 spot removal, but want Wrath effects / Humility to come down on turn 4 reliably. Cutting winconditions never is a good idea in an already low thread deck, but card draw, card quality spells (these ones are strengthened especially with the new rule), counterspells, solutions to non-creature permanents, tutors etc all want their place in my list.

tl;dr: Free mulligan doesn't suffer from the flaw of supporting certain strategies (tempo, low curve, 4-5 colour) more than others. Its first obvious drawback (increasing number of non-interactive games because of mana issues) can probably be adressed by optimizing mana bases. How? I don't know yet, but I like the challenge.

[haju]

After reading the reasons for the changes, these are my thoughts:

Natural Order
I don't mind banning this card, Dortmund (where I usually play) has a control heavy meta, there was no problem with it, but I can see the problem in a more green based meta.

Tolarian Academy / Mishra's Workshop
I really like it when cards are unbanned which are not an auto include in popular decks. Thus I do appreciate this decision.

Oath of Druids
I don't care because I don't think the deck is "unfair" or "too strong". Oath is a deck which seems unfair because it has a very strong card it "finishes" with. But the whole deck needs to be built around it, thus it really needs this one card, which makes it kind of fair.

Sensei's Divining Top / Mana Drain
Why on earth would you ban Sensei's Devining Top. It's a card which is not an auto include though it only costs {1}. The effect is an advantage but so is the effect of a Sylvan Library or a Mirri's Guile. The argument that it takes much time is in my opinion not true.
Mana Drain is without a doubt a very good counter. But as the power level of creatures increase Mana Drain becomes one of the few spells which seems to have a suitable power level compared to creatures. In my opinion it's a card which is absolutely essential for control decks.

Demonic Tutor / Mystical Tutor
Please never ever ban Deminic Tutor. This card is one of the few reasons to play black. I have not tested Mystical Tutor, but it is very hard to win against Personal Tutor for Entreat the Angels. I think if this happens end of turn it becomes even harder. Thus Miracle is the reason that Mystical Tutor is too strong.

Dark Depths
I have seen this combo only once. So I have no opinion here.

[Dreamer]

Anyone have opinions on:

NO+Titan Legal, available strats:
1. Ramp
2. NO=>dedicated combo (f.ex. Hulk)
3. NO=>Titan(=>Stage-Depths) <--problem

Ban Titan:
1. Ramp (all the fatties in the world anyway, no need to be green)
2. NO=>dedicated combo (f.ex. Hulk, without Titan backup option anymore)

Ban NO:
1. Ramp (with Titan=>Stage+Depths available)
2.

[Maqi]

@Dreamer:

Is a dedicated combo strategy à la Pattern-Rector really no longer viable just because NO is banned? I personally don't think so. Even though NO was a very good card in the deck (maybe top 3) it wasn't really needed to assemble the combo and was only seldomly tutored, right?

When you happened to draw it randomly it was very strong, I'll give you that. But I don't think the machinery of the deck doesn't work anymore just because NO is no longer available.

[Dreamer]

Might not kill the deck (the real thing killing the deck is the neverending tide of goodstuff printings), but going from 3 Hulks to 2 does hurt. NO also used the least amount of pieces. Rector=>Pattern=>Hulk burns all your potential. NO=>Hulk leaves both Pattern and Rector online, leaving you with a much better late game.

Was just trying to point out that the NO ban is probably the wrong way to solve the problem - Titan-less NO is a specialist tool for decks with a plan, Titan is just one more fatty for Ramp decks to slam on the board.

[TaZi]

My thoughts on the bannings:

Natural Order:
as with stoneforge mystic, I think the card is just fine. I would rate it somehow in power level like jace or so. I think the format is quite fine with some cards which do a bit more, when everything works out nice (i.e. you have a dude, and your opp. has no counter). I think the ban was somehow not necessary.

Tolarian Academy:
That was quite the right choice. I think we should unban even more cards. I'm at the moment testing a combodeck with academy and even fastbond and it doesn't seem to win as consistently as one might hope. I think the goodstuff decks have so many answers to quite a diverse number of threads today, that combo has a really hard time. On top of that playing combo is not so much fun without spoils mulligan. (My hermit druid deck is really dead now... )

Watchlist:
I think with mystical would be a bit too easy for control decks. Its ok, that they only have access to personal tutor.
Oath is quite ok. As creatures are so good, a deck without them needs some really good arguments. To keep this strategy alive I think its good to have oath. And we also see that its not so widely played.
Jitte might be a too easy autoinclude in any deck with at least three creatures... its somehow like birthing pod. It cost little colorless mana and you just warp around the game, if you have at least one creature on the board.
Then again I think, we should unban more cards to make combo and control more attractive. I would try to unban: fastbond, entomb, mindtwist, (and natural order + stoneforge)

Mulligan:
there has much been said about the mulligan, I want to add 3 things.

- games are starting faster now, which is good.
- games are a bit more random now, which is not good. i.e. with spoils each player had a nice hand, and they could play their deck as it was intended. Now it happens a bit more often, that one player has a nice curve and the other has a random mediocre draw and just looses.

- one thing I almost never heard mentioned in the discussion about the mulligan change was the following argument pro spoils:

Spoils Mulligan is more skill intensive. I see a lot of players taking bad spoils and losing due to that. This is very very good. Magic for me should be a game of skill, and the better player should win. Spoils mulligan accomplishes that in an extraordinary fashion.

Spoils mulligan was always my argument, why Highlander is the best format.

But I think its ok, if we try what happens when everybody is taking free mulligans =).

Ok, that was just my 50 cent.


PS: Dark Depths is completely ok. The combo is around for some time now. There was no winning list with it, as far as I know. I've build a deck around it myself. It was ok, but no monster with 70% against the field.

[pyyhttu]

On top of that playing combo is not so much fun without spoils mulligan. (My hermit druid deck is really dead now...

It may be so, we don't know for sure yet. My initial hypothesis is that without an ability to spoils mulligan to tutor, this may have an effect of making one card combo decks weaker. Let's see.

My hermit druid deck is really dead now...

But not this weak. I've been playing 5c-hermit combo for a while. It'll need to be made more resilient what it comes to mana base. Now that aggro is not able straight to curve out, it should be still possible to tweak hermit druid so that it remains as a tier deck.

- one thing I almost never heard mentioned in the discussion about the mulligan change was the following argument pro spoils:

Spoils Mulligan is more skill intensive.

One could also argue that spoils was almost always applied as a non-brainer. Now with free-mulligan one would have to actually choose: do I ship this back risking a worse hand, or do I stand a chance?

This kind of an experience (or skill like you put it) builds after some time once you've played against the field, and double so in the second game.

PS: Dark Depths is completely ok. The combo is around for some time now. There was no winning list with it, as far as I know. I've build a deck around it myself. It was ok, but no monster with 70% against the field.

True, let's see how things develop.

[TaZi]

The problem I meant for combo decks is not the manabase, but the dead cards in the opening hand. This applies especially to the Hermit deck. This deck has quite some cards which you never want to have in hand. But I'll of course test my druid deck against the new field.

Spoils mulligan was never a non-brainer. If you don't think while spoiling and only say ship back everything thats not a land, you were already playing bad. That said I, more often than not, saw people spoiling in the way that they ended up with too few lands.

[Tiggupiru]

Hey, does anyone know what rules and banlist Canadians use? Could be a decent idea to take a look at that if possible. I am referring to this appearing on mtgpulse.com: http://www.mtgpulse.com/event/15643#218914

I found this, but it doesn't seem to contain anything (yet): http://mondaynighthighlander.wordpress.com/

At a quick glance they seem to have Moxen (!), Black Lotus (!!) and Sol Ring (!!!) legal. Also, Mind Twist, Survival and Grindstone are making appearances at the very least.

[W0lf]

They use a point system instead of a ban list. They have a facebook group called victoria highlander, you can find more informations there.

[Tabris]

I will make a video about their format. Wolf and me are already on their tracks

Their point system needs a bit of adjustment but I am very excited to compare our two formats. Also they just had a tournament with a t8 and video coverage via twitch.  I will provide the links and all informations soon.

[MMD]

During the last months I learned to love the old Spoils Mulligan and now want it back

Don´t get me wrong: The current mulligan is better than the original one but the Spoils seems a further strategic improvement to the game and the current mulligan has not changed the multicolour goodstuff madness at all.

I would appreciate to make a new vote anytime soon, so that we get an update from the community.

@Berlin: Errare humanum est

[Silberhase]

I think its a great idea to do a new vote for the mulligan. Now everyone has enough experience with the free mulligan, so that we can rate him better. In my opinion the free mulligan didnt change the meta very successful.

[Maqi]

At the moment, I'm thinking about the opposite. Maybe we should just adopt the normal paris mulligan. I can't see a great reason why we should differentiate ourselves in this regard from other formats.

For everyone who wants to chime in on the debate, I recommend reading the following pieces from Mark Rosewater about "Randomness" and "The Mana System":
http://dtwtranscripts.blogspot.de/2013/06/62113-episode-39-randomness.html
http://dtwtranscripts.blogspot.de/2013/07/3813-episode-24-mana-system.html

The ultimate question will be how to hit the sweet spot of just the right amount of randomness. Too much randomness induced by the mulligan will obviously lead to bad gameplay (always losing when you have to mull, always losing when you miss a land drop). Too little randomness induced by the mulligan will also lead to bad gameplay (always losing when on the draw, never being able to beat bad matchups, all games feel the same).

[LasH]

In my opinion the free mulligan didnt change the meta very successful.

Spoil Mulligan:
http://www.mtgpulse.com/event/3232#42112
http://www.mtgpulse.com/event/3096#40256
http://www.mtgpulse.com/event/4985#66036
http://www.mtgpulse.com/event/7490#103336
http://www.mtgpulse.com/event/11692#162873 (Finally Land count on a 4 colored deck was down to 31 lands)

Free Mulligan

http://www.mtgpulse.com/event/15482#216790
http://www.mtgpulse.com/event/18160#256484
http://www.mtgpulse.com/event/18746#263935
http://www.mtgpulse.com/event/19676#278298

How exactly do you not see any changes to the meta? According to the last tournaments with > 70 players there is a clear shift to sucessfully played 3 color based decks and the comeback of 2 colored based decks - UR- and UW(b) control. That was exactly the reason for the mulligan change. There is now the possibility to play those decks again. These decks were not competive in spoil mulligan meta.

We still have a huge playerbase playing 4c blood (goodstuff) but there are more viable competive control decks these days.