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[Vazdru]

Highlander is intended to be played as a 1v1 format and we believe that competitive, tournament level play is a natural progression of that. The rules of Highlander are designed to follow the rules of official Magic formats as close as possible to keep the entry barrier for new players as low as possible.
An increased round time of 60 minutes in tournaments is a concession to the difference between Highlander and regular 60-card 4-of’s formats but is merely a narrow disparity.
The two main rule exceptions, the 100-card-singleton deck building restriction and the absence of a sideboard, are the only differences to official deckbuilding rules, but are there to emphasize the format’s flavour: “There can be only one!”
The format strives to offer a diverse as possible metagame, as we consider this to be a vital part of an overall enjoyable play experience. In accordance with this we seek to foster a wide variety of different decks and deck types as viable contenders in our format. Aggro, Midrange, Control and Combo should all be present in Highlander, with no single strategy dominating the others.

Complex board- and play situations are a natural consequence of this balance, and should typically favour the players who build their decks more cohesive, thus showing up better prepared, and/or come up with the better plays in a given situation. We want to differ from other formats, where game interactions are often learned and then simply handled by repetition. The goal is to have a format that presents challenges that need to be dealt with case by case, whether it is during the game itself or beforehand during the deckbuilding process at the drawing board.
Highlander is supposed to reward both deckbuilding as well as in-game skills.

Unfortunately, no format can go without a list of cards that are not allowed to be battled with for power reasons. We strive to keep the banned list as short as justifiable as well as the amount of playable decks as high as possible. We prefer to be conservative with what goes on or comes off the ban list, as we don't want to introduce too sudden changes to it but first give the players the opportunity to work the meta out by themselves. However, if the strategy/deck/card in question can’t be dealt with conventionally via the many possibilities the eternal card pool offers and without warping the meta around itself, measures should be taken.

We try to work together, across borders, online and offline, to support one another, assist both new and veteran players and help grow the Highlander community.

[t3nn0]

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Complex board- and play situations are a natural consequence of this balance, and should typically favour the players who build their decks more cohesive, thus showing up better prepared, and/or come up with the better plays in a given situation. We want to differ from other formats, where game interactions are often learned and then simply handled by repetition. The goal is to have a format that presents challenges that need to be dealt with case by case, whether it is during the game itself or beforehand during the deckbuilding process at the drawing board.
Highlander is supposed to reward both deckbuilding as well as in-game skills.

...

This is the core of Highlander - love to see it written down!
Keep up the good work

Please don't get to specific about bannings - this is a vision for the format. It will be develop over time (yearly improvement f.e.).
Anyway nit-pickers or power gamers will try to find a way to sneak in more rules to get a hold

Detailed Version in german (sry I have no time at the moment to translate my thoughts into englisch).
> Die Vision gibt eine Richtung vor auf die sich alle verpflichten können. Es geht nicht darum im Detail bannings oder ähnliches zu diskutieren (siehe auch Facebook-Kommentare).
> Eine Vision sollte regelmäßig auf ihre Gültigkeit überprüft werden (Vorschlag: jährlich).
> Ich sehe nicht den Mehrwert alles in Regeln zu gießen. Es geht hier um ein Hobby und das sollte den Beteiligten Spaß machen. Wer alles bis ins Detail geregelt haben will (einzelne Kartenentscheidungen), soll dies besser in einer anderen Tätigkeit machen. Wir hören sonst auf zu spielen, weil wir uns zu Tode geregelt haben... (siehe auch Facebook-Kommentare)
> Entscheidungen werden im Konsens getroffen (Mehrheitsbeschluss). Es wird nie der Fall sein, dass alle mit der Banned-Liste zufrieden sind. Die Balance ist etwas, das im Fluss ist und Veränderungen braucht!
> Ein wichtiges Verkaufsargument für Highlander war seinerzeit auch, dass es eine Möglichkeit ist fast alle alten Karten zu spielen. Mittlerweile sind manche davon absurd teuer geworden für Neueinsteiger. Das ist ein Problem für den Highlandernachwuchs. Wir können wir das adressieren? Wer jetzt in das Format einsteigen will und bisher ein paar Drafts und Standard auf der Haben-Seite hat, ist natürlich viel stärker angesprochen von EDH, Brawl oder Pioneer bzw. Arena-gestützten Formaten.
> Für mich ist Highlander das beste Magic-Format aus den oben zitierten Gründen. Kein anderes Format hat mir so viel beigebracht und abverlangt an Gedanken, wie Highlander. Ich würde fast sagen: "You have not played Magic if you did not play Highlander" :-)

Keep up the good work! Thanks and Untap