I suppose before we discuss a banned list of cards to put in your deck for 1v1 matches, the first and most obvious question is: "should the list of permitted generals be altered?" I suppose the best way to do this is to look at some of the obvious troublesome ones.

The first I see is Erayo; flip him, and your opponent could be having fits behind your counters and card drawing in hand. You had better hope you have a lightning bolt or swords or something plus mana to cast in your opening hand.

Any other potentially problematic generals besides the already banned Rofellos?

Or are there any opinions contrary- same generals legal for both styles of play?

I say we start the discussion in this new forum with the heart of our format. The big Men and Women of legend that make it possible!

I honestly think Teferi is more obnoxious in a 1v1 than Erayo, just because it's even harder to get out from under the counter wall.

Having played the Erayo and Teferi flavors of Monoblue, I can say that Erayo is a much harder lock to get out from under. He's too easy to flip and once he is, the deck just has too easy a time countering everything.

I concur. Turn 2 Erayo + 3 zero-CC artifacts; Turn 3 Tolarian Academy; into a Capsize lock is pretty stiff. Constructed viable, really.

That's a bit unlikely really, especially in Highlander without access to solid black tutors.
But, that said, Erayo, plus counters, plus:
Arcane Lab
Blue Ertai
Capsize
Time Elemental
Temporal Adept
Tradewind Rider
Teferi
...etc

All seems a bit of a recipe for a bad day's magic.

Has anyone any real experience of such a deck? Can it work reliably? I'd expect flipping Erayo to be a bit of a task unless your deck's full of worthless Ornithorpers, Sheild Spheres and Phyrexian Walkers.

I have a Teferi deck that I sometimes play on MWS. It is viable but not a sure winner, I'd stop playing it if it was. I play erayo but do not build the deck around him in any way. I do feel that while you can play 40-50 counters if you want (there are more than enough). the Highlander format means that you cannot rely on having early counters. I do not think that anything needs to be banned for 1 on 1 matches, though I hav'n't explored Erayo to his full. People online seem to have built decks to deal with such a metagame change.

I think that massive LD is not a way to have fun in EDH...I force the opponent to run counterspells or only cheap spells...not rzeally a fun option
on the opposite discard or countermagic is not such a problem...

Is there an easy way to post the list or would I have to type it all out?

Whenever I have managed to flip Erayo, it has been in my opponents turn countering the second thing they play then something at end of turn.

Filling it with "worthless" cards- -singleton zero mana artifacts for the surefire ability for an surefire erayo lock on turn 2? It's not unreasonable.

I'm gonna go build the atrocity, and I'll post a decklist shortly hereafter.

This is what I've been testing with, goldfish-style:

// Deck file for Magic Workstation (http://www.magicworkstation.com)

// Lands
1 [US] Tolarian Academy
1 [FUT] Tolaria West
35 [IA] Snow-Covered Island

// Creatures
1 [SH] Shifting Wall
1 [RAV] Drift of Phantasms
1 [CHK] Meloku the Clouded Mirror
1 [BOK] Mistblade Shinobi
1 [BOK] Ninja of the Deep Hours
1 [4E] Time Elemental
1 [8E] Temporal Adept
1 [AL] Shield Sphere
1 [VI] Phyrexian Walker
1 [VI] Phyrexian Marauder
1 [4E] Ornithopter
1 [CS] Heidar, Rimewind Master

// Spells
1 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
1 [FNM] Impulse
1 [IN] Fact or Fiction
1 [US] Stroke of Genius
1 [U] Sol Ring
1 [PR] Mana Crypt
1 [FNM] Brainstorm
1 [B] Counterspell
1 [CS] Counterbalance
1 [AL] Lodestone Bauble
1 [TE] Capsize
1 [US] Arcane Laboratory
1 [MM] Gush
1 [OD] Extract
1 [MR] Mindslaver
1 [SOK] Ebony Owl Netsuke
1 [8E] Boomerang
1 [CS] Commandeer
1 [7E] Force Spike
1 [6E] Mystical Tutor
1 [ON] Reminisce
1 [6E] Memory Lapse
1 [RAV] Remand
1 [7E] Unsummon
1 [GP] Repeal
1 [TSP] Ancestral Vision
1 [FD] Engineered Explosives
1 [TE] Lotus Petal
1 [IA] Jeweled Amulet
1 [LRW] Herbal Poultice
1 [AL] Gustha's Scepter
1 [10E] Fountain of Youth
1 [CS] Mishra's Bauble
1 [FE] Delif's Cone
1 [DK] Dark Sphere
1 [US] Claws of Gix
1 [MR] Chrome Mox
1 [MR] Chalice of the Void
1 [TSP] Snapback
1 [MR] Welding Jar
1 [MM] Misdirection
1 [BOK] Disrupting Shoal
1 [AL] Force of Will
1 [IA] Zuran Orb
1 [SH] Mox Diamond
1 [IA] Urza's Bauble
1 [DK] Tormod's Crypt
1 [8E] Spellbook
1 [FD] Paradise Mantle
1 [CHK] Orochi Hatchery

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [SOK] Erayo, Soratami Ascendant


Example Goldfishes:

Turn 1: Snow Island, Lotus Petal, Erayo, Orinthopter, Snapback
Turn 3: Time Elemental
Turn 4: Arcane Laboratory

Turn 1: Snow Island, Suspend Ancestral Visions
Turn 2: Snow Island, Erayo, Delif's Cone, Force of Will the Cone, Gush
(Hand of Memory Laspe and Counterspell)

T1: Snow Island
T2: Island, Impulse
T3: Erayo, Mox Diamond, Welding Jar, Zuran Orb (Holding commandeer, repeal, Ninja of the Deep hours)

T1: Island, Mox Diamond, Erayo, Orochi Hatchery, Force of Will
(left my hand empty, though)

Dueling against Grand Arbiter Augustin is pretty tough.

Especially when the deck is created simply to increase the cost of every spell, and to limit what spells you can cast and/or how many.

It's an uphill battle starting at turn four.

I can forsee pretty much any duel involving at least one permission-based general being a race to see who gets theirs first, and then ending the game.

My GAA4 deck plays Chrome Mox and all sorts of 2cc accelerators just to get GAA4 out by turn 3. Suddenly my opponent isn't playing anything until turn 5 or 6, at which point it's probably gona get countered anyway. I stopped playing it in duels (vs. my friends) because of their complaints.

That's just my point.

Throw in nastiness like Sphere of Resistance, Propaganda effects, Kismet, Frozen Aether, Pirates, Suppression Field, Spelltithe Enforcer, Orb of Dreams, Umbilicus, Blood Clock, Sunken Hope, Noetic Scales and you have an eeeeeeeeeeevil deck.

Uh, we just did an EDH tournament at our school and I played Zur and it was pretty ridiculous. I'm pretty sure the only deck that could have beat it was Erayo or Teferi playing 40+ counters(which no one played).