We play Highlander Tournaments (1vs1 // Two-Headed-Giant) each Saturday and some bigger Grand Prix Highlanders in Germany with rulez like normal magic, a modified bannedlist and a modified mulligan.
Ancestral Recall
Balance
Black Lotus
Crucible of Worlds
Demonic Tutor
Flash
Gifts Ungiven
Grindstone
Hermit Druid
Imperial Seal
Intuition
Land Tax
Library of Alexandria
Life from the Loam
Mana Crypt
Mana Vault
Memory Jar
Mind Twist
Mox Emerald
Mox Jet
Mox Pearl
Mox Ruby
Mox Sapphire
Necropotence
Protean Hulk
Skullclamp
Sol Ring
Survival of the Fittest
Timetwister
Time Walk
Tinker
Vampiric Tutor
Wheel of Fortune
Worldgorger Dragon
GENERALS:
Rofellos
ANTE BANNED:
Amulet of Quoz
Bronze Tablet
Chaos Orb
Contract from Below
Darkpact
Demonic Attorney
Falling Star
Jeweled Bird
Rebirth
Tempest Efreet
Timmerian Fiends
The list itself is oriented on the "fast", "consistent" and "strong" combos in the format and from decks that placed Top8 from week to week, and with multiple in Top8 (so no "luck" at a basic).
I'll explain some of the bannings, so you can easier get why they are banned:
Ancestral Recall
Just power, everyone can see that a player will win when this resolves, just because the brutal and extrem easy card advantage.
Balance
An extrem board sweeper. The "balancing" aspect nearly never happens when a deck plays it, like Stax like variants that use it like, "mind twist", "wrath of god" AND Armageddon at the same time, a game is finished when this resolves and its way to cheap to have a right to exist in a healthy format.
Black Lotus
Way to easy mana boost, and combos easy with Auriok Salvager, storm and nearly any strategie you can have.
Crucible of Worlds
A card that is a problem to fight, just because games are won by it and a recurring wasteland/fetchland/manland, and its a easy way to give Oath of Druid decks an easy "alternativ" win, and ofcourse it makes "stax" decks better and a game can easy shift to the player that has this in play.
Demonic Tutor
Cheap tutor, no drawback at all and makes combos easier to hit. Being cheap makes the combo fast, and thats what needs the ban, a combo itself can be ok, but fast combos are deadly for a format.
Flash
Everyone knows the Hulk Flash, but even a Academy Rector is a 2card combo, when you can hit your enchantment of choice namely Yawgmoths Bargain, a combo deck that played without hulk was a "storm" combo with Oath of Druids, Rector, Gamekeeper that could easy hit the Y.Bargain turn 3-4 and combo out. Without flash the deck needs a lot more backup and lost its "instant win".
Gifts Ungiven
The two card combo itself. Every player that resolves this will win the game by brutal card advantage cards or a combo itself. Most players just searched for 4 flashback spells, from Ancient Grudge/Ray of Revelation/Deep Analyse/Genesis an U/G deck can easy fight everything with that, and be sure that a deck with Gifts has "multiple" ways to get everytime a solution even for games you would call "lost".
Grindstone
Too crazy fast combo with Painter's Servant, this combo goes online turn 2-4 easy, depending on how much tutors you need and the parts are incredible easy to tutor for.
Hermit Druid
Without basic lands this fills your graveyard very easy and than you will put the needed cards on top with Krosan Reclamation or win instant with a Sutured Ghoul, alternativ is Terravore.
Imperial Seal
To fast and to easy tutor.
Intuition
Weaker than Gifts but does the same for combo decks and each deck with a toolbox for it will win when this resolves.
Land Tax
Extrem hard card advantage on the land base, Stax uses this card to get extrem ahead and some controll use it to get a long Solitary Confinment so they can easy win with some evasion guys or just get enough time to set up mana, and its a card which is incredible powerfull turn 1 and each deck that uses it abuses it badly.
Library of Alexandria
A card that everyone want to play. The thing is itself the card is not that "brutal" fast, but like above its a way to have an easy way to make Solitary Confinment an unbreakable defence and a controll deck with it will rarely lose. The most important thing is "everyone" will play it and if a player wins just because he played this turn 1 and doesnt need a special deck to make it broken, it should be clear that the card itself is way to broken for the format.
Life from the Loam
A card that lead us to a format in which "everyone" splashes green just to get this incredible card advantage machine. Wins like Crucible with recurring problem lands like Wasteland, Volraths stronghold and for controll Maze of Ith, Karakas, the thing is that a player wins when this gets online and so its a card that is way to strong for the cost and it makes even some problem with fastbond, like Crucible does infinited combos (wasteland + a way to gain life, Zuran Orb or lands with lifegain, win with Barbarian Ring or other damage lands, you have infinited mana anyway).
Mana Crypt
Too fast and too easy mana.
Mana Vault
Too fast and too easy mana.
Memory Jar
An incredible draw 7 that always makes storm based decks possible and it never is fun to lose against something like this. And yes Stax uses this with Goblin welder and friends (slaver is strong too).
Mind Twist
A card that was on a twist. When the format shifts to "slow" this card can be king, when its fast this loses power, but everytime it hits for 3B you will win a game just because the card advantage, and green/black can force this out easy turn 2-3 with a brutal discard that finishes the game.
Mox Emerald
Mox Jet
Mox Pearl
Mox Ruby
Mox Sapphire
All too good for its money, and really cards that make combo too fast, controll too fast and games just unfun because they speed like hell.
Protean Hulk
Extrem easy combo creature, from Kiki-Jiki combos to Reveillark, whatever you do you will win.
Skullclamp
Makes the allready good green/black decks a lot more scary and each creature deck with this online will never ever lose a card advantage fight and so its boring to lose just because "skullclamp".
Sol Ring
Too fast, too easy mana.
Survival of the Fittest
A card that made green/black a powerhouse (GB is still one of the strongest color combination today, but not broken anymore) and everytime this hits play, you will go for Squee, Eternal Witness and than everything you like from solutions, to fatties, to combos (ala Reveillark that easy gets a set up with this).
Timetwister
Again an extrem fast way to get a draw 7 and so this makes storm fast and easy, you will always draw in mana boost and you will win with a turn 3 Empty the Warrens with low storm, or a late game Tendrilds with brutal storm, that can only be brutal with "draw 7" spells.
Time Walk
A joke in itself.
Tinker
Way to broken with Darksteel Collossus. Thats the most important target, but the card was a joke in Stax decks and everyone played it while legal, so this was very fast banned (was legal only before Mirrodin was Released, got some problem with the artifacts ala Mishras Helix / Phyrexian Processor and such, but was just a real problem with the Darksteel Collossus).
Vampiric Tutor
Too fast and too easy tutor.
Wheel of Fortune
A draw 7, not just for blue but for red strategies too. Way out of color and the effect is to swingy for its mana, always ends in a combo when it resolves, because you get enough fuel and easy "discard" when you need it.
Worldgorger Dragon
Easy combo with Necromancy, Animate Dead, Dance of the Dead. You just need lands for infinited mana, a comes into play trigger creature will do its job and you can easy do all this turn 2-4 without big problems.
Cards that are on the watch right now are cards that encourage easy and fast combos, thats things like "entomb", the 1-2 mana tutors and cards that make easy mana (too much).
The format itself has incredible much combos, even 1 card combos.
Some funny decks that we see use "warp world" to go in an deadly "warp loop" because it uses creatures with tokens and cards that easy set up mana, so when it resolves you always get a way to get it back with Eternal Witness, Anarchist or just put enough creatures into play, because your opponent will have instants/sorceries you will not have.
Tooth and Nail like tactics are possible, Reveillark, JuniperOrder, some "elf infinited" combos, Palinchron with High Tide/Mirrari's Wake and others.
The possible combo decks are endless, but the important thing is that you try to use the banned list to make the "top8" decks not that consistent, so you dont have just the "best" deck and the decks that beat the best deck, you want a format that evolves itself and so each week you have new decks and possible ways to fight the older decks.
Today this works and we look at our Top8 lists to figure out which combo is too easy and always dominates again and again, so we can use the banned list to fight it until its a deck that is "balanced" and healthy enough.
Just that you dont wonder. We will never ban some combos that work with cards like Panoptic Mirror and Time Walk, this is incredible slow and way too slow and too inconsistent, so the problem is never a "possible" 2 card combo, but the "fast" and "consistent" 2 card combos that will shift a format to beat it, thats the problem to fight with a banned list, something the meta game cant do itself.
A problem with the Generals is that a format must be "healthy" in itself so that player want to build a deck with a general they like and that can win a tournament.
The banned list tries to kill the cards that force you to "splash" colors, thats Life from the loam that forces green, Gifts/Intuition that force blue, the best decks most the time play 4 or 5 color, just splashing some power house cards, and so they automatic play a 5-color general, and ignore the general most the time.
For a Tournament the system doesnt work that you let a player play a special general, you have tournaments with 30+ players and some come from other cities to play, so everyone can play what they like, most the time Sliver Overlord because it can beat some "noobish" sliver decks or steal some changelings.
Rofellos is a problem be got too, its one of the generals that make "mono" color decks possible and it makes a hell of mana turn 3, so you can play nearly everything you like, and it even combos with cards like Umbral Mantle , staff of domination and such cards, so its banned.
A rule we want to introduce is that a player can play any general and still play 5-color so its really only the general, this will remove the problem of the general choices right now and make the EDH concept better fit in the highlander play, so you can use "braids" in a Green/black deck, and even Isamaru in your Zoo like, some things will make problems like Teferi and Erayo and so they will see ban for sure.
We think that this change will make the General part more fun and less restrictive and so players will use the General more to the actual deck plan and not just play decks that use Sliver Overlord just to use 5-color and never play it.
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Ill finish, maybe write some more in the future, and how our changes effected our meta game.
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So at the end, good look with a banned list, if you figure out some combos that are too fast and too easy let us know.
_________________ If u take me too serious, you may explode ...
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