April 1st, 2014 - Banned List Changes

[Vazdru]

Valid during April 15th, 2014 0:00 CET until October 14th, 2014 24:00 CET.

Changes to the present list, effective 04/15/2014:

Banned:

   
Unbanned:

   * Mystical Tutor

Watchlist:

   * True-Name Nemesis
   * Mystical Tutor  
   * Tolarian Academy

Unban-Watchlist:

   * Gifts Ungiven

Single card Explanations:


Sensei's Divining Top
We are aware that SDT is an autoinclude in many archetypes and its repeatable effect consumes more time than usual in comparison to other cards. Nevertheless, we feel that it is not quite strong enough and its in-game behavior is not quite distorting enough to warrant a ban.

We encourage judges to keep a close eye on slow play and stalling issues. Don't hesitate to call a judge when you feel that your opponent is taking too long to resolve SDT activations. We advise players to rather err on the side of calling one, than to feel bad when the game ends in a draw (which usually doesn't serve any of the players involved).

Tolarian Academy
Tournament results indicate that, although academy-centric artifact decks are a viable option now, there is no dominance of the archetype. Tolarian Academy is a very strong card and enables very powerful plays, but you have to set it up correctly, which allows the opponent to interact and to disrupt your plans.

We therefore think it is good for the diversity of our format to have Academy back. Nevertheless we will keep it on the watchlist because the sheer power level and the possibilities offered by Academy demand a continued surveillance.

True Name Nemesis
It seems that all the relevant arguments for and against a ban of TNN have been exchanged by now. Individual experiences and stances on the matter vary nevertheless. We have decided to gather more data on the subject and further investigate True Name Nemesis and its effect on the format.

Mystical Tutor
We chose to unban Mystical Tutor.

This will give white Control decks a powerful new tool to enable its miracles and allows them to find silver bullets in order to solve specific problems.

Furthermore we hope that the momentarily (mostly) absent Combo archetype will be able to make good use of the tutor. It should be noted that, at the moment, there are no fast, spell-based decks known in Highlander that profit more from Mystical than they do from Demonic Tutor.
We are aware that Mystical Tutor offers very potent EOT plays that may decide a game rather abrupt (e. g. by fetching up a Price of Progress or Entreat the Angels). However, it can be argued that Demonic Tutor is even stronger in the late and mid game. This is why many players feel it is strange that Mystical was banned but Demonic Tutor never was.

As is usual for unbanned cards Mystical Tutor will stay on the watchlist.

Entomb
We felt that the Reanimator strategy might need a little boost in power and discussed the unbanning of Entomb as a possible option.

However, the line of "T1 Entomb, T2 Animate Dead/Exhume/Reanimate..." on the play is rather devastating and should win the game by itself almost always. In contrast to other cards like Careful Study, Faithless Looting etc. Entomb not only enables the reanimation spells but also allows the tutoring of the strongest target depending on the matchup.

Ultimately, we felt that Entomb won't lead to enjoyable games because of its arguably broken early game potential.

Gifts Ungiven
This led us to Gifts Ungiven. If we wanted to strengthen Reanimator we could possibly unban Gifts Ungiven instead of Entomb.

Its effect is very powerful, but doesn't come down on turn 1. The fact that it costs four mana means it can't be used until the midgame, where the opponent has had time to develop its own strategy and is able to fight back. Furthermore, Gifts Ungiven requires serious thought and is a very skill-intensive card.

In addition to that, it is a tool that not only Reanimator can use. It will find a home in other strategies as well, such as Control, but also Combo and blue Midrange strategies.
Gifts is a "build-around-me"-type card that allows for powerful toolboxing outside of the green centered "GSZ-Eladamri's Call-Worldly Tutor" paradigm and might give birth to new archetypes just of itself.
Gifts Ungiven will undoubtedly inspire deckbuilders to tinker with new brews and to tweak their current lists, which is a good thing per se.

We are aware though that Dread Return and Unburial Rites allow for some nasty Gifts piles which might be too broken considering the overall strength and multidimensionality of Gifts Ungiven.

Of course, we want to hear your opinion on this matter.


Mulligan

It was last year October, when we stated - regarding the introduction of the Free Mulligan - that we would observe the new mulligan rule for at least six months.
These six months have passed by now. The majority of the players seem to like the Free Mulligan rule better than the old variant.
Nevertheless, there is a non-negligible group of players which prefers the old Spoils Mulligan.

We said, if the Free Mulligan proved to be at least on par with the Spoils Mulligan, we would stick with the Free Mulligan. All things considered, this is arguably the case right now. We set three benchmark criteria against which the new Mulligan had to be measured:

1) Metagame - The metagame seems to be as diverse as with the Spoils Mulligan. New decks have emerged, others have faded. It can be stated, that there hasn't been a shift to an unhealthy, non-diverse meta.

2) In-game behavior - Gameplay has changed to some degree. Games tend to go a little longer, tend to be a bit more swingy, some weight has shifted from the earlygame to the lategame. Overall, the change in gameplay seems to be appreciated by the majority of players. It seems safe to say, there hasn't been a drastic change between how games play out before and after the rules change - Highlander still feels like Highlander.

3) Community opinion - As already mentioned, there is no unanimous consent. However, the larger part of the community likes the new Free Mulligan rule better than the old one.


In accordance with what was said above, we will keep the Free Mulligan. However, we have an open ear to the community, we listen to your concerns. We will observe the rules change for a little longer to make sure, that everything witnessed so far hasn't been a false impression. We will decide this issue without rushing things.

[pyyhttu]

highlandermagic.info/de has been updated with the changes.

[Vazdru]

statement concerning mulligan has been added