Highlander Magic

Hi fellow Highlander Players,

since there likely will be some changes to the banned list soon, I would like to provoke a discussion about potential upcoming changes to Demonic Tutor and share my thoughts on it.
Surveys at MGM and the Highlander Grand Prix have shown that quite some people think Demonic Tutor should be banned. I am not one of them and I am convinced the card needs to stay in our format and I will tell you why. As you can see it is quite a bit of Text but please stay with me. :)



1. How would a potential Demonic Tutor ban affect certain archetypes?
There are basically three archteypes that use Demonic Tutor: Combo, Control and Midrange. Since there is mostly RDW as a viable aggro Deck, besides some fringe options, I do not think a DT ban would affect that archetype too much.

Combo:
I think combo would be the Archetype that would suffer the most from a ban on Demonic Tutor. It would take away consistency from those Decks. In the last couple of tournaments we have had more midrange and aggro decks putting up good results than combo. Besides from Scapeshift and the the 5c Artifact Deck we haven't seen a lot of them. Storm has basically disappeared and we do not see many reanimator decks either.
Although I dislike playing against solitaire decks myself and It does feel miserable to lose against them I want to see combo decks in our Format. Diversity is good and makes Tournament experience interesting. Weakening Combo is not a good option in my opinion.

Control:
Black Control would suffer a little less, but still hard enough. In those Decks Demonic Tutor mostly finds you a win condition or an answer. As a control-player myself I feel that the flexibility DT provides is very much needed. It is difficult to find the right mix of answers, threads, silver bullets and win conditions for your deck. Having cards that can be either is very important. Yes, Control also has mystical Tutor and I think the card is even better than DT for control, because you don't have to "tap out" on your turn to find what you need. Anyways, taking DT away makes it even more difficult to find the right answers in any given matchup. Besides, there haven't been a lot of black control decks or DT-Splashing control Decks in the last top 8s either. Why make it even harder for them?

Midrange:
Black midrange Decks would feel the DT ban the least. Those decks are packed with Goodstuff Creatures and Planeswalkers, have a high thread density and thus high redundancy. They want to present threats and ask for answers. (As well they have Tainted Pact, which cannot be consistently played by the majority of control Decks.) Mostly it does not matter too much whether you slam a Kaya, Thrun or Leovold. If DT was banned – well – I am sure there are enough value PWs or Creatures waiting in the maybeboard to take its place. I might be exaggerating a little bit, but I think most of it is true. Besides, there are Midrange Decks like Jeskai putting up good results consistently without having access to DT.


To Sum it Up, I think Black Control and Combo would get hit the most and those Decks are and have not been overrepresented in recent Top8s. Banning DT would give Midrange decks an even bigger edge against the other Archetypes since creatures are so powerful these days and oftentimes hard to answer. Especially with the potential unbanning of Stoneforge Mystic on the horizon there might be another 2 Mana thread running around which needs you to find an answer right away.

2. What does DT do and is it too good?
Most people in favor of a DT ban argue, that DT is the best Card in the format and thus needs to go. I partly agree with the statement that it is the best Card, because it is basically every Card in your Deck. Plus 2 Mana. But that is the Limit. And having to pay the 2 Mana extra to get your card oftentimes isn't nothing. Especially in the Mid-Game if you have access to 4-5 Mana. Sometimes you don't have the time to get the real optimal card because of mana limitations. Or you have to anticipate what you will need (which can go very wrong). So the playing DT is not a no-brainer and involves some thinking and leads to interesting lines of play.
Of course it is insane in Top-Deck Mode and often leads to a win. And for combo Decks the whole story might be a bit different, because they can look for a key piece of their combo. In those cases it also might let you win instantly. In Control or Midrange this is not the Case though. Don't get me wrong, the card is strong, but not busted or oppressive by any means in my opinion.

Very important in my opinion: What DT (and other tutor effects) also allow you to do, is to play silver bullets against certain bad matchups, which is great. Highlander Decks do not have a Sideboard so it is much harder to gain some percentage points against Bad matchups. You can't beat everything but DT can help you make your Deck a little better against weak spots without having to commit too much and make your other matchups worse.
In general DT decreases variance in our Format which isn't a bad thing for a 100 Card singleton format. I even think it gives you more deckbuilding options and creates diversity instead of taking it away.

3. The Metagame is quite diverse and not Dominated by DT!
So I took a look at the decklists of the recent 9 bigger HL Tournaments we had back to MGM #6 and Broke down the Archetypes. Out of 72 Top8 Decks there were:
15 Control Decks (4 of which Played Demonic, 11 did not, none splashed for DT)
29 Midrange Decks (17 with DT, 12 without, none splashed for DT)
15 Combo Decks (All of them played DT)
13 Aggro Decks. (12 did not play DT and 1 Deck splashed for it. It was Dion's mono Ub Wizards)

Sidenotes:
- In Total 37 Decks played Demonic Tutor, 35 did not. That's a pretty even distribution. The only Azorious Control Deck was NOT splashing Demonic. The   Only one doing it was Dion's Mono Blue Wizards Aggro Deck.
- 8 of the 15 Combo Decks were Scapeshift variants. I put them into this Category since Scapeshift mostly is the primary wincondition although they play more as a control Deck, so you might put them into this Category.
- I found only 2 non-RDW Aggro Decks.
- The Only Control Decks that Played Demonic were 2 Grixis lists, 1 Mardu and 1 Sultai Control. The Rest was basically UR and very few Mono U and a Jeskai Control deck. (True control, not midrange)

4. Last thoughts:

The arguments against Demonic I recall have been
a.   "The Card is so Good, Decks even splash for only Demonic"
- I think my summary of the Metagame has shown that this is not true (anymore). UWb Decks seem to have fallen out of favor and for the people playing the Deck splashing for DT is not a slam Dunk (anymore).
- The most successful Control Deck (UR) also does not splash for Demonic. I know Payron has tinkered with the Idea but as far as I know, the version he tried was by no means superior to the straight UR version.

b.   "It is the best Card in the Format"
- Well. That does not convince me. Just because it is said to be the best Card, it does not mean it needs to be banned. Brainstorm is the best card in legacy but it stays there. (Although I know some people also suggest for it to be put on the banned list.) Brainstorm defines and warps that format though. I would not say that DT does the same with ours.
- If DT goes, there will be another best Card. And after that another. Those cards might be more difficult to identify but should they be banned as well? I don't think the "best card argument" really is a valid one.

I know it feels miserable to lose against a (top-decked) Demonic. But it also feels miserable to lose against RDW when you resolved a Siege Rhino, equipped it with Sword of light and shadow and connected 3 times (Yes, happened), as well as losing to combo Decks without being able to interact at all. There are feel-bad situations in Magic. We should accept that and move on.

Last but not least Bans and Unbans should be used to make a format better, create diversity, maybe help underrepresented Decks to shine again or get rid of oppressive cards that are so good that you basically can only either play them or try to beat them. I do not see that in our current format at all. And by no means have I ever heard anyone say "I can never beat Demonic Tutor Decks! I guess I need to join them!". We play a high power level format. Some Decks do busted things. But I haven't encountered a truly oppressive Deck lately. People adapted to the 5c Artifact deck or learned to play against it and so will we try to adapt to the RDW menace. I think our format is at a very healthy state at the moment. So I do not think we need to fix a problem that doesn't exist. I am even convinced that taking DT out of our format could decrease diversity and push Decks that are viable or close to being viable out of competition.

Thanks for staying with me through this Wall of Text! Maybe I was able to convince some people that DT isn't too bad, maybe even needed in our format. At least I hope to have provoked some new thoughts on that matter. Feel free to share your thoughts.

Cheers
Max

There is no way that 'Demonic Tutor' will be banned. It effects to many different decktypes in to many different ways. Some decks will be hit hard (especially Combodecks) other decks will not care very much (mostly Midrangedecks like '4cBlood').
The fact that so many different deckstypes have access to this card, shows for me it won't be banned, unless a deck/decktype is totally dominating the format because of cards like 'Demonic Tutor', which is not happening at the moment.
I think there are some other cards which having a much higher potential for discussion:

Quote from: Vazdru on 11-03-2017, 12:44:57 PM
          Facebook Poll                                        Highlander Cup Poll
3.     Mana Drain                   25 votes     2.     Mana Drain                 6     15,38% 
5.     Dig Through Time        12 votes     7.     Dig Through Time      3     7,69%   
6.     Tolarian Academy        10 votes     4.     Tolarian Academy      4     10,26%      

As I wrote a lot about this topic in other threads my points again.

I highly agree with the above statements.

Some examples from my experience:

DT allows you to turn 3 Oath of Druids with Turn 4 first activation.
This is super fair as you are already on an edge to die before against RDW or good Curve aggro (you wasted 2 turns playing dt and oath already without interacting much with what the opponent played).

Using some 3 mana Tutor is just a lot of the time not good enough anymore as you do not survive until turn 5.
There was a time where those 3 mana tutors or transmuters where mostly fast enough but this is not anymore the case.

I event don't play Grim Tutor because it is just to late to much damage.


Regarding archetypes:

I agree that Combo will loose most out of it and it will have even harder times to compete with Aggro (which should not be the case).
Non UR Control lists will weaken as well as they loose one generic answer.
So you are basically strongen all of the current best decks and weaken the brews / already tier 1.5 decks.


Ban/Unban:

Demonic Tutor: I can understand that is likely one of the best cards in the format but it just feels fair to me (considering the speed of the format)

Tainted Pact: This is a card I stopped playing in combo decks at all, you so often see that you exile important deck pieces and it's incredible difficult to do right in those decks. On the other hand in Goodstuff decks it's like an instant DT.
I think if you want to ban a Tutor for weakening Goodstuff decks only this might be the right one.

Mystical Tutor: This one is really good for both Control and Combo, banning this would potentially weaken UR but Combo pretty hard as well.
My personal feeling is that it's ok to have it.

Imperial Seal: This is a better Personal Tutor where I think Personal Tutor is a card on the edge of being good enough to be playable.
I think the card disadvantage + life loss is huge in our format. My personal feeling is that it would be good having it in the format additional to the other ones as it gives combo another faster tutor to deal with the clock.

Vampiric Tutor: Clearly the strongest Tutor out there, I like the idea of having this instead of DT to have all mirage tutors in the format and to increase the speed of non aggro decks. But I understand people don't want this beast in the format.


Other tutors:

I think there are some blowout green tutor effects as well which you need to consider as well like Eldritch Evolution or Eladamri's Call.
Getting specific answers in goodstuff/aggro decks is easier then ever as you have a lot more of those multi effect creatures and spells (commands for example).
There where times when playing a moat was a pretty pressing thing for an aggro deck because you had to decide if you play more enchantmen/artifact hate and therefore weakening your aggro plan. Nowadays you mostly can have both in one spell and you have tutor effects.


My personal preferences for changes right now would be:
Unban Stoneforge:    all players seem to want it
Unban Imperial Seal: giving Combo decks a way to beat aggro decks easier

Don't ban Demonic tutor

I don't know if unbanning imperial Seal would be the right way to go. I catually think the Card is too strong. It is another DT effect and yes it has downsides like card disadvantage and life loss. But the fact it costs only 1 Mana is scary and makes it so much harder to interact with than demonic.
It is a lot faster than Demonic, soft counters like Spell Pierce, Daze, Miscalculation etc. mostly can't hit it. Spell Snare does not hit it! And you can "sneak" it in with your spare mana a lot earlier than DT.


And unbanning Stoneforge. Well, I see the community wants it. But the Card scares me a lot. It is a 2 Drop threat that demands an answer right away. No other Creature does that in my opinion. Sure we have very strong 2 Drops but none that puts you at a very strong disadvantage if you let your opponent untap with it.
In addition I think it might actually pull the metagame towards certain colors: White and Red. White because, well, you can play SFM then and red because red has the most efficient and consistent answers to SFM in the form of burnspells (Also artifact removal). And i feel that Red is already a very present color in our metagame.

If it gets unbanned in might be similar to when Natural Order was unbanned. In Midrange matchups, the one who resolves or untaps with SFM first mostly wins.
It might not be that extreme or I also might be completely wrong though. Maybe it helps keeping RDW in check a little better so I think we could give it a try. As long as the right measures are taken if it ends up being too strong. I wouldn't be mad if if stayed on the Banlist though :)

What about Entomb? I think the Card is totally fine. I don't think it would make reanimator too strong and it actually might have some implications for other Decks that use the Graveyard or Yawgmoth's will.

I can't understand the fear about unbanning 'Stoneforge Mystic', we have a lot more cards to answer it as we had when she was banned, just to name a few cards as example:
- Reclamation Sage
- Kolaghan's Command
- Unexplectedly Absent
- Fatal Push
- Council's Judgement
- Dack Fayden


There are some more problematic cards in the format as I mentioned before and which are also mentioned in the polls.

QuoteSo I took a look at the decklists of the recent 9 bigger HL Tournaments we had back to MGM #6 and Broke down the Archetypes. Out of 72 Top8 Decks there were:
15 Control Decks (4 of which Played Demonic, 11 did not, none splashed for DT)
29 Midrange Decks (17 with DT, 12 without, none splashed for DT)
15 Combo Decks (All of them played DT)
13 Aggro Decks. (12 did not play DT and 1 Deck splashed for it. It was Dion's mono Ub Wizards)

I am not alone.

http://mtgpulse.com/event/27256#356721

http://mtgpulse.com/event/27256#356929

http://mtgpulse.com/event/27256#356715

http://mtgpulse.com/event/27177#355894

http://mtgpulse.com/event/26938#353688

http://mtgpulse.com/event/26830#352463

http://mtgpulse.com/event/26614#350340

http://mtgpulse.com/event/26614#350336

http://mtgpulse.com/event/26258#346693

http://mtgpulse.com/event/26004#344084

http://mtgpulse.com/event/25478#339374

Thanks for the discussion here. As a council member I would like to give my input as well. For a long time I have also been convinced the Demonic tutor is good and needed in the format and that the format is fine with Demonmic arguably being the strongest card in it. However my opinion has shifted recently because I actually started thinking about which decks are enabled by Demonic (and Tainted Pact) the most.

HL as a format is typically full of goodstuff decks because of the singleton nature of the format playing 4 or even all 5 colors. For those decks Demonic tutor and Tainted pact together triple the amount of silver bullets (with Eladamri's call often helping as well) while having a low enough cmc to not turn the tutoring into too much trouble (a state ment which would not be true for Diabolic tutor). However in many games there will be no possibilites to lock up the game with a silver bullet and Demonic T./T. pact is just cashed in for a 'fair' answer. This is why tutors in good stuff decks most of the time do not cause card disadvantage or other downsides. For combo decks such decisions play a very minor role. They mostly care about assembling  thier winning combo and are willing to pay the price.

This is why I am convinced that banning Tainted Pact and Demonic Tutor both would be the right choice. It will remove silver bullet tutoring from greedy 4c midrange decks. Lowering the power of those decks significantly and making 3color midrange/goodstuff decks more apealing in comparision. It will also force players to a bigger extent to make hard card choices while constructing their deck and make an activve decision at the deck list level about which kind of deck archetypes they are expecting the most or need the most help against.

Combo would also lose Demonic tutor but that could be fixed by adding Imperial seal. A card that hopefully has enough of a downside to not attract play in goodstuff decks (though I am not 100% sure about that statement). Being sorcery speed and costing a card (as well as 2 life points) would hopefully be enough to make it a rather unusual choice in a deck like 4c Blood. Reflecting about the latest council discussions in March I think it is a very real possiblity that there will be an Imperial Seal unban sometime in the future. However nothing has been decided and yet and discussions are very open ended. So it is the perfect time to be part of the discussion either here or locally to help make up your own mind (and ours) and let us know about it. 

       

Banning Demonic Tutor is a bad idea, Because:

Banning DT would weaken "decks with a plan", and strenghten goodstuff-value decks. Goodstuff decks (that have already been very presented in HL meta) have tons of cards waiting to fill the hole that DT would leave. Combo decks don't really have any good alternatives. Banning DT would lead to less diverse meta.




If you are Looking to ban a tutor that would weaken 3-5c goodstuff-value decks, it would be Tainted Pact:

-Tainted Pact can't really be played by "decks with a plan" because you end up exiling you winning cards with the exile effect. Therefore, it is mostly played only by goodstuff decks.

-Tainted Pact is an instant, which makes it really powerful compared to sorcery speed DT

-Tainted pact bypasses many cards that are used to prevent searching library, like Shadow of Doubt, Aven mindcensor or Leonin Arbiter just to give few examples.

Let me try to make this sound not too know-it-all (a little bit at least): Everyone who still considers banning a black tutor to be correct, hasn't played much highlander lately. If there has ever been a problem  (which I doubt) it's a moot point by now.

The metagame has shifted radically. To those who still think they are banworthy, I suggest getting back in touch with what's actually going on right now.

QuoteThe metagame has shifted radically. To those who still think they are banworthy, I suggest getting back in touch with what's actually going on right now.

Please tell me "what's actually going on right now"

I played 3 FNM's with the new unbannings and can't see a radical shift in our metagame.

Age of Aquarius is what's going on. Afaik this is also true for Berlin.

QuoteAge of Aquarius is what's going on

Wat?

Blue decks controling the meta in Highlander at the moment, mostly UR and Jeskai

But that's nothing new... UR/RDW is dominating for half a year now.

I thought you were talking about a radical shift since the unban of Stoneforge.

It may be irrelevant for you to discuss the overall power level of DT but some of us think it is still too powerful for HL even though it may not be in the strongest deck at the moment. If you want to discuss other cards/decks feel free to open up a new thread.

The point of bannings however is to create a better or more diverse Metagame. Keeping Decks in Check that regularly crush tournaments, that are too hard to counter if you don't join them and warp a format.

Just banning DT for being "too strong for HL" despite it not showing up in the most dominant Decks at the moment will not help the format. It should be about Decks you need to weaken or opening up new Deck building spaces. Not about a personal Vendetta you have with a card.

I don't get why we discuss in here if we should talk about a certain card. Demonic Tutor is on the watchlist, so there is a reason to see different points of views. As I said before, you can still open up a new thread and talk about how strong Back to Basics, Price of Progress or Squire is. Shahrazad e.g. was banned after being played in only one Top 8 deck, it wasn't even on the watchlist. Btw I don't have a personal vendetta against the demonic, in fact I play it in my deck for ages now. I love the card, you should see my opponents face whenever I cast it, so much joy.



Pro tip: If you have a problem with "Age of Aquarius" build a deck thats defeats them. We had 0 blue based decks yesterday at our FNM.   

I think you completely missed the point Maqi and I are trying to make here.

We are not discussing other cards and whether to ban them or not. Its about why (we think) banning DT would be a mistake.
To see why that is the case you cannot only look at the card in a vacuum, its always within a context. You need to have a look at the metagame as a whole - which was dominated by UR and mono R in the latest tournaments. Whether this is new or not is irrelevant here. It just shows that decks with DT are in fact not dominating. Weakening those decks would only shift the Metagame further towards the ones mentioned above.

And yes, you are right. There is a reason to see different points of views. This is why I opened this thread, to share mine and evoke a discussion.

Btw. I understand why a card like Shaharzard does not belong into our Format. Comparing this to DT is a bit of a stretch though ;)

#Maqi didnt make a point he made a really offensive post calling everybody else dumb and out of touch for not being of his opinion which was completely unneeded. As a fellow council member I expect more of him than shitposting.

Banning Demonic tutor for me has never been about taking away an opressive deck in the meta which most of you are claiming but taking away a tool meant for combo being most effectively used by 4c goodstuff decks (same can be said for Tainted pact).

Banning cards enabling a meta deck might be good on the short term. On the long term you end up with a non-sensical banned list that actively drives away people from the format. When discussing our banned list with potential players the absence of Demonic tutor is the most common talking point.

Regarding RDW I think the deck is quite beatable (outside of the MANY haymaker cards - e.g PoP, Ankh, Blood Moon, Vortex). The biggest problem I perceive is that RDW strongly underrepresented in local small tournaments where people stick to decks they like to play more. Which then seems to lead to players not repsecting the deck enough for big tournaments and choosing to pilot decks soft to RDW. Haymakers and plenty of card draw (or cycling) also enables the UR deck.

I think the best way to hurt both decks is taking away at least Blood Moon.
To reduce the amount of blue in the format we should look at dig through time - another really busted card.
I personally also really hate Tainted Pact though banning that looks really iffy on the banned list. The ruleset of HL coupled with the fetchland/dual mana base really pushges the format towards multicolor goodstuff decks and tainted pact is insane in those (and not a great card in most other decks). I think it is worth mentioning that players have really moved away from combo decks due to the clock/permission of RDW/UR.

Hi there fellow highlanderplayers of europe and esteemed counsil members.

First of all, I'll greet and tell who I am,
I'm Mikko, aka Nuorukain, a finnish mtg player since around 1996 or so.

I've played various formats through this 20+ years, thus I'd imagine I got some sort of experience and understanding of various metagames and formats, though I admit, that during the past 8-10 years or so, I've cut myself from those more modern formats of standard and modern, and concentrated my interest on highlander and legacy. (as vintage isn't played that much here)
But my experience is not the point of authority, or an argumentative power in itself, but just thought to mention that, so that we can ignore any "what do you know"-nonsense that might follow.

But as we are now discussing (the) Highlander, I've in form or another played it from 200X, at the time there was no distinguished "german"highlander with its own banlists, but the t1.5(legacy) banlist was used.

Anyways, now, out from the remembering old stuff, but into the current days issues.

There's some quite a bit of level of rumour and gossip and discussion here in Fi going on about the banning of Demonic Tutor and that there are many counsil members Pro that ban.

I'm here to offer my input here, as a player relatively deeply interested in the format.

First of all, one of the sentiments that seems to be on top of the finnish discussions on that matter is; "why would there ever be a need to ban DT in a format that is in its most balanced and intriguing state in a long time? At its most diverce form..?"

I mean, the original logic of ban DT as it is too good in 4c-blood has to my understanding gone away, as the meta&people have adjusted accordingly. (although, banning of DT would have very very slightly poked at the 4C, in the same time, it would have been a deeper cut on the decks that try to compete against the 4c.)

Also, if your metagames were filled with 4c and other decks with manabases with far too little basic land, that here in Fi we consider "extremely greedy". It is simply right and correct that X-Moon decks have been picked up and played to punish people from their greediness with their good stuff decks. That is actually one of the best ways to counter 4c that I'm aware of, but please, do correct me if I'm wrong on this part. Any competitive honest ex 4c player can give their honest input on this matter?

Now, then there was and still is, the menace of RDW, which is imho one of the deck that seems to be format defining. (underplayed compared to its powerlevel imho too, as some others have said before, but people actually want to play FUN stuff in this format, instead of the best deck.)

Not that I'm a huge fan of Stone Forge Mystic, I do agree that unbanning it was wise, to diminish the relative power of rdw.
And on the same level&context, I simply DO NOT understand the reasons to wish to ban tutors, thus making multible deck types that much worse against RDW too.

Combo is heavily underplayed in the format due the singular nature of this format pushes all, but the creature based combos into a really tight spot on being able to assemble their combos by itself. Competing against the almost legacy speed RDW and permission&distuption of other decks, why do you need to put the close to final nail into the coffin of the decktype that is already on a tight spot?

I mean, I'd almost could understand the emotional need&wish to ban demonic, IF combo was overpowering the format. But even then, my rational approach would be; that is just one deck type to take into consideration in deckbuilding. I mean, there are assloads of answers against Combo available practically in any deck type. If and ONLY IF afrer those answers,combo was still a serious problem, then by all means, ban demonic&whatever needed. But I do not believe this could be the case.

Also, as a provocation, what the hell is this need for you germans to go wildly with the banhammer when there seriously is no need for it at all?
Why trying to "FIX" something that definitely is not _broken_, in its own context?

When you get pissed off at losing to certain decktypes, or some archetype goes strong for a while in your local meta, especially played by a strong player, why not, instead of screaming how unfair that deck is and shout for bannings to break the deck, could you perhaps be able to approach the issue maturely as a deckbuilding challenge to beat, not as a problem that needs to be fixed with bannings? (especially as the strong player will anyway just adapt to the bans, and play something else that breaks your local meta)

If you can't or won't adapt to your local metagames and decks, and there is someone who actually does that, and plays well.
Well, to my understanding that is exactly the moment when the person that has put in the thought and effort actually deserves to win tournaments. That does not mean that any fricking portion of that deck is necessarily broken and needs to be banned. Players just need to ADAPT.

OR are you having the old school classical approach of "ban everything untill Necro(potence) is good again. Then ban Necro."

Do you wish to de-diversify highlander format into the "combat step only"-format, where there is no _real_ room into more intricate mental puzzles of deck construction and metagaming?

Please, the format is not broken, it is healthy and doing fine. Don't hurt&screw it with unnecessary bannings. Ty.

Dear Mikko,

thank you for your long post and sorry that nobody bothered to answer. Right now we have the shortest ban list that we have ever had in our format (and I think this is fun for players) so that you can try and build around almost all of Magic's historic cards. You are talking a lot about combo decks - so here are my two cents:

1)
I dont think we can treat combo as a normal archetype. 30% UR decks or 30% 4c midrange decks or 30% UWx control decks will be a fun meta for most players. 30% Storm decks will not be. I strongly agree that Combo needs to be compettive (and some combo decks have always been the last couple of years). It is just that with the singleton nature of our 100 card decks and convoluted combo wins that the deck pilot probably needs a lot more experience with his deck (opposed to playing a goodstuff deck for example). Keeping this in mind we have started to evaluate strict combo deck only cards a lot less harsh when thinking about ban/unban decisions.

2)
Tutoring has been drastically improved the last couple of years. There have been unbans of enlightened tutor, mystical tutor, and now Entomb and Imperial seal. I personally really like strengthening black's color identity towards tutoring btw. Yes Mystical has been banned again as well. I would argue that for UBx combo decks this is somewhat of a sidestep owerwise (at a certain cost of € to be sure!). Still I want to talk about some problems with tutors as well

3)
Problems with tutoring have mostly shown up in Midrange and control decks which are using the tutors to be a lot more flexible towards the metagame by including many tutors and silver bullets. In that respect Mystical tutor for me personally was a little bit too strong. The unban back then was meant to bolster combo decks. Instead it enabled to kill tapped out opponents by grabbing (Cryptic Command, Ruination, PoP, that sort of stuff). At worst the card can be turned into a sort of 7 card impulse for 3 mana (Dig through time). Again, my personal hope is that with the Mystical -> Imperial Seal swap nothing relevant changed for combo.
When it comes to Demonic tutor for most of my time in the council I was for keeping the card around. It is somewhat of an iconic card for our format by now though it not only strong in combo but also in goodstuff decks (by not causing card disadvantage). That being said I voted for a ban a few times now in the recent past. Right now I will not vote far a Ban again I think. If the meta shifts into 4c blood for me (as of a viewpoint right now) the first card to look at should be Tainted pact. It is basically instant demonic in 4c goodstuff but an unplayable card in many combo decks.

4)
Some few council members believe we have introduced too many tutors. Personally I disagree with that viewpoint but I am a bit scared of the powerlevel of Reanimator in capable hands.

5)
Blood Moon/Back to basics in a singleton format are not enough to punish greedy decks. Instead they are "free win" cards in some archetypes only. I would strongly prefer a format where the inherit rules of Magic (mana consistency) made deckbuilding more rewarding by making 4c decks less stable mana wise. For example just normal mulligan rule (instead of free mull) and/or a fetchland ban. However I dont think such a sweeping change would be apreciated by many players of our format. It not something i would like to try and push people to do. But I do believe changes of such a scope would be needed to deal with greedy 4c decks.

I like normal mulligan.