February 1st, 2021 - Watch List Changes

[Rigero]

February 1st, 2021 - Watch List Changes

Current watchlists:

Ban watchlist:                                                  
• Demonic Tutor
• Dig Through Time
• Intuition
• Oath of Druids
• Oko, Thief of Crowns
• Opposition Agent *NEW*
• Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath
• Tainted Pact
• Thassa's Oracle
• Underworld Breach
                                   
Unban watchlist:                                                    
• Skullclamp
• Tolarian Academy
• Treasure Cruise
• Umezawa's Jitte


Single cards explanations:

Intuition
While Intuition continues to be a very powerful card that enables a lot of different game winning setups we do believe that it is neither too dangerous nor impactful enough to warrant a spot on the watchlist for now. We will however keep monitoring it's impact on the format in the future.

Opposition Agent
Even though this card was just printed lately, it caused quite some discussion about how interfering a card should be. We want to watch this card closely in the next period, whether it has a big impact on the format or just stays inconspicuous.

Treasure Cruise
The ban on Treasure Cruise aimed to weaken the powerlevel of all kinds of blue based decks but especially tempo and midrange builds that utilized the Delve mechanic to the fullest. As those decks still continue to perform at the top level while other strategies could closen the gap a little we don't think that Treasure Cruise will be reintroduced to the format any time soon. It is therefore removed from the watchlist.

Tolarian Academy
The potent artifact powered land was removed from the format with our last ban announcement back in November 2020. We don't foresee this card coming back into our format soon so we are removing it from the watch list.


Upcoming Topics

Tutors in Highlander:
Tutors were often discussed in the past and their place in the format is quite controversial. Some people think tutors are too strong and dominate highlander, especially with the arise of more competitive combo decks, some others think tutors are needed to keep variance in check, and others think tutors shouldn't be a thing in a one-off format at all. In the past tutors were always part of Highlander and therefore finding a common ground is a balancing act that needs a lot of evaluation. We want to emphasize discussion about this topic and request input from the community. This means please contact us in any form via Forum, Facebook or Mail. What are your thoughts?

Combo-Decks:
We know there are quite a some people, who are afraid of a combo dominance in the format. However, current reported tournament results (even though statistics are low because of corona) are not indicating a dominance of this archetype. Additionally, we want to make sure to not forbid combo decks or whole type of decks without a time to adjust. Instead we want to evaluate whether it would be more reasonable to weaken this kind of decks in another way. This is of course closely connected to the tutor topic. Here as well discussions are very welcome.
An example: Ban Tassa's Oracle or weaken the combo by banning Tainted Pact? Or neither of these since the meta will adapt anyway, and currently with few tournaments it is not the right time to decide?

Unbanning Cards on Time:
Since there are few tournaments happening in the past year, adaption on the meta and new cards may be slower than usual. Currently we are discussing and want to discuss with you, if this might be the right time to unban cards for half a year to test the impact on the format. Length, cards etc. will of course have to be decided at a later point, but we want to start the general discussion with you now.

Council member:
We are currently actively looking for more fitting members to add to the council. However, the process is rather slow, since we want to be sure to select people that not only want to, but also are able to fit into the team. Additionally, this means that we are not solely looking for representatives of region, but also on the ability to reflect the whole Highlander community. We like to encourage once again applications and recommendations and will contact these individually.



Contact us:
Forum (http://www.magicplayer.org/forum/index.php), Email (hlcouncil.eu@gmail.com)


Next scheduled Update: 1st May 2021 - Ban & Watchlist update