Banning Season II/2016 Announcement as of October 1st, 2016

[Vazdru]

Valid during October 15th, 2016 0:00 CET until April 14th, 2017 24:00 CET.

Changes to the present list, effective 10/15/2016:


Banned:                                                      
none

Unbanned:                                                      
none                                                      

Ban watchlist:                                                      
Demonic Tutor
Fastbond
Mana Drain
Mystical Tutor
Oath of Druids
Tainted Pact
Tolarian Academy
Yawgmoth's Will
Dig Through Time *new*
Treasure Cruise *new*
                                                      
Unban watchlist:                                                      
Stoneforge Mystic
Gifts Ungiven

Explanations:

No bans, no unbans

First of all, while all of the cards currently on watch are worth debating about, we believe that the Highlander metagame and the Highlander gameplay are both in a very good spot right now. Community feedback mostly echoes this sentiment.

Also, some big tournaments lie ahead of us and we want to wait until after the dust has settled and we have new data so we can make more profound and correct choices when it comes to banning or unbanning something.


Off the ban-watchlist

Timetwister - We observed Timetwister as kind of a placeholder for all Draw-7 effects. Those have the potential to be broken when paired with fast mana.

It seems though, the amount of fast mana available in Highlander is too small to really make the Draw-7's oppressive.

Currently, Storm seems to have fallen off the radar and Artifact Combo or Eggs remain as the sole archetypes sporting Draw-7's. Those decks are able to win tournaments but are lacking in the consistency department.

We are fine with a certain amount of brokenness in the metagame. As already stated, we believe we are in a good spot right now metagame-wise. Combo is viable and even good but not dominant. Because of this, Timetwister leaves the watchlist.

Mishra's Workshop - The ol' shop is inherently broken. No doubt about it. There is more to it though. To really leverage the Shop's power, you have to run a large number of artifacts in your deck. The Shop makes you go "all-in" so to speak.

The problem then becomes, when you don't have Mishra's Workshop. What do you do with all these Trinispheres, Coalition Relics and Lodestone Golems in your hand? Those cards are amazing when powered out by the Workshop but lackluster when cast on curve and even when cast after mild acceleration like a Talisman or Signet. Unlike in Vintage, where the "shop-density" is rather high (4/60), we have to make do with 1/100. This poses great challenges to deckbuilding, where you want to make your deck good with and without Mishra's Workshop.

Overall, we think Mishra's Workshop enriches the format by being a very good but not mandatory incentive to play artifact-centric decks. We know this is a judgment call and one could certainly argue otherwise but we feel the provided deck-building incentive outweighs the potentially dangerous brokenness of the card.


On the ban-watchlist

Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time

If you'd have to pick the single color which has got the most powerful cards it would certainly be Blue. As the stale saying goes: The best land in Magic is Island. Nothing new under the sun.

Consequently, we have to make sure to keep Blue contained. Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time certainly rank as two of the best blue cards at the moment. Their ability to run away with the game should be known by now. Most decks built to abuse the Delve mechanic will cast those cards for U and UU pretty consistently. The deck-building cost isn't even very high, because you just
play cantrips, fetches and cheap spells which is a thing most decks want to do anyway.

Having these two cards on watch can't certainly be a wrong thing.