Finnish Highlander? Again?

[pyyhttu]

I've prepared a translation for Sturmgott and others in the council to see of that whole thread Dreamer linked to. The translation will be ready momentarily.

I have to relocate these from ~/temp to somewhere soon, but in meanwhile here they are:

Page 1: http://iki.fi/~pyyhttu/temp/Finnish%20Highlander.htm
Page 2: http://iki.fi/~pyyhttu/temp/Finnish%20Highlander2.htm
Page 3 (partially, started from the middle): http://iki.fi/~pyyhttu/temp/Finnish%20Highlander3.html

[Vazdru]

Sorry this wouldn’t be worth a single word imo it’s just a secondary area of conflict. There are vintage tournaments with proxies and there are vintage tournaments w/o any. So if your Finnish TO do not allow gold cards in his local tournament â€" so what? The HL council won’t send him into exile  If we allow them on next GP in May â€" so what? I can’t see the point how people can argue about that silly thing. Don’t get me wrong â€" I do not want to be offending â€" it’s just a lack of understanding on my side.

This is exactly what we are probably going to do. We'll encourage TOs to not allow them.

Sure thing - I'm not angry at that at all 

Btw. I know some regional TOs who organized HL Tournaments in the context of Gateway, CE/ICE were allowed. I’m not absolutely sure but I believe it’s already possible to have our HL-format in “DCI-clothes”  Correct me if I’m wrong.

Gateway doesn't exist any more. It was replaced by the WPN. By the WPN rules proxies are not allowed and CE/IE cards are considered proxies. These "DCI-clothes" are the casual non-rated events I have been talking about all the time.

Ok - I wasn't up-to-date. If a TO wanna organize HL events as WPN i would encourage him even if the prize would be CE/ICE cards won't be allowed in this event. Like i've said gold cards do not affect how HL gets played - maybe only by whom. If the fan-base in Finnland do not want to have them -> cut them! The intention for this rule was to give players the chance to get older cards more easily or cheaply and to raise the attraction of highlander for new players. If the rule does excatly the opposite this intention gets lost. Maybe the rule could be verbalized a bit different so the fan-base in Germany -which want that cards- could have them and the Finns don't have to see them in tournament-play (at least as long they do not visit the next GP in May  ). Btw. I guess there are not more than 1% of the cards played in HL CE/ICE - so really no thing to argue about.

I do no longer want Gifts Ungiven gets the bannhammer...

Neither do I demand it when there are other more blatantly overpowered and stupid cards not banned. And what comes to the aggrodominance, I can give multiple reasons why aggro decks in general tend to do well in this format:
1. Decks are more consistent by default (only having one plan isn't very hard to build around)
2. Deck are easier to play about right (including mulligan decisions and such)
3. Cards are probably little easier to get
4. Games are faster (more time to think per turn -> less mistakes) also not so many ties
(5. The legality of Mind Twist, Library etc. does not make control better against aggro but it makes control mirrors awfully luck based.)

I agree with your analysis 1-4. Point 5 is always on a watch.

My impression: I'm playing control w/o LoA but often against it, Mindtwist and Gifts Ungiven are autoincludes but far from beeing autowins when they resolve in Control-Mirror. I've seen at least as many games decided by a simple Back to Basics (yes - often after LoA made my opponent watch pitiful on my side of the board - at least before b2b resolved  ). Btw. I play Tsabo's Web as well - nice card vs Control and Aggro (Mutavault, Factory, Treetop, Barbarian Ring usw.).

But that do not mean Mindtwist, LoA, Survival or other card won't be maybe banned in the near future. We are always discussing that most hated cards in the council and it's still possible some of them have to leave hl-scene in the near future.

[Vazdru]

I've prepared a translation for Sturmgott and others in the council to see of that whole thread Dreamer linked to. The translation will be ready momentarily.

I have to relocate these from ~/temp to somewhere soon, but in meanwhile here they are:

Page 1: http://iki.fi/~pyyhttu/temp/Finnish%20Highlander.htm
Page 2: http://iki.fi/~pyyhttu/temp/Finnish%20Highlander2.htm
Page 3 (partially, started from the middle): http://iki.fi/~pyyhttu/temp/Finnish%20Highlander3.html

Thx for your support!

[imppu]

We had some discussions and we came to conclusion that pyyhttu would be best person to join the council. I will fully support him.

[Nastaboi]

We had some discussions and we came to conclusion that pyyhttu would be best person to join the council. I will fully support him.

Seconded, to make it more official.

[Vazdru]

all right

at first i will ask Sturmgott for an internal board for the HL council - i think it is now (formerly face-to-face or phone) the easiest and most convienient way to communicate

imo next steps must be to clarify the statues more officially and to gather status quo of the considerations to the banned list rather next bannings /unbannings

[so_not]

Pyyhttu will have my full support also.

about this:

Please note that cards from the new Worldwake expansion will become tournament legal for Highlander as of 02/15/2010.

This is to ensure players have an equal opportunity to get their hands on the cards they need respectively to update their MWS and decks.

I hope this is only affects mws-play since it would be totally random to diverge from normal legality-policies.

[Sturmgott]

No, it does not, and that is in no way random, but rather well-considered. WotC obviously changed its policy as of when a new set becomes legal for tournament play to push early sales and to put further pressure on the players before it becomes clear what the really needed and good cards are and thus, whether a set is worth investing in or rather buying those 5 cards you need. Giving people two weeks time to get their hands on the cards ensures that everybody has the opportunity to do so. This used to be WotC's policy in former times and that was for the better (afair they gave players at least 20 days time).

It is not our aim to support this increased pressure and WotC's commercial interest, but rather we have the player base in mind. Not everybody has the chance to participate in pre-releases, and many players take some time to evaluate a new set before deciding whether they buy boosters or rather singles. Two weeks time is in our opinion a good compromise between the interests of early adopters who are of course eager to play their new cards, and those players that are not that quick.

Remember, this is meant to be rules for Highlander as a tournament format, but it is not meant to be Highlander for tournament players only.

Sometimes it is not easy not to think that your position is that everything WotC does and says is best for all. Could that be true?

[pyyhttu]

I think this is the first time anyone asked publicly *why* release dates differ in HL from the sanctioned tournament's. I don't know any other place where the reason for this is documented than http://vaihdetaan.kapsi.fi/forums/index.php/topic,60050.msg230731.html#msg230731

I had to ask this very same from Sturmgott just 6 months ago, a day prior to our HL-Nationals to be sure. It almost caused confusion back then in that thread, but didn't.

So... a constructive suggestion #1: if the 15th day is to be kept, and would indeed enable the slowest player to get the hottest new cards, then it would be worthwhile to document/link the reason for this at http://highlandermagic.info/index.php?id=hinweise with a couple of sentences.

In the end there isn't that much stake at here: standardization of legality dates (to minimize the confusion) vs. securing the availability of cards to everyone (noble cause).