Thoughts about the current HL-Situation

[SirGalahad]

Lol @ Wolf. What a blatant lie!

Not only do you just tell people to get lost if you are missing proper arguments, now you try to tell people things that just aren't true? Nice one...

[W0lf]

Why do you think thats a lie?
Without spoils you just play the most consistent deck, which are 1 or 2 colored ones. I have been playing highlander for more than 10 years. If the mulligan rules will change there will be a few bannings to dampen the then out of control combo decks and then you will have a meta of simplified consistent aggroish decks. You will see for yourself soon. Change the mulligan, the same People constantly whining will still be unsatisfied and the game wont change for the better.

[Tiggupiru]

Has anybody tried out option B or C? Right now the only thing I see are theoretical(?) arguments based on the personal opinion regarding this topic. I personally think that the arguments for A are more important for a fun and healthy format but maybe I'm wrong because I haven't tested the other options.

We've had couple of normal paris mulligan tournaments in Finland. I personally liked them, seemed to favor the synergistic, more focused decks. More testing would be required to actually start figuring out what the ramifications are.

I played with normal mulligan before the spoils mulligan was introduced. Decks like mono red and ww had been the strongest.
If you want to play rdw vs ww all day long, go for it.

WW and Burn are complete and total metagame decks. They perform really well if the metagame is unprepared and they do incredibly poor if people prepare accordingly. These deck will get crushed as soon as they are perceived as threats and they can never be a real problem in the long run. Metagames will adopt quickly once we figure out what is the correct ratio for lands vs. spells with the new mulligan and then you throw a decent UWx-control against monocolored aggro decks and proceed to crush them with ease.

Here's an example: WW was really good in this year's Finnish nationals as nobody was really prepared for it. It had a bad matchup against the most controlling of decks, but people weren't playing those decks because of WW. Everybody knew burn was going to be an issue, so the most popular deck of the tournament didn't put up very good results as players knew how to play against them and made card choices to reflect that.

[W0lf]

Without a sideboard or spoil mulligan you cannot prepare your deck against ww and rdw. You can put in some hate cards but you need to add quiet alot in order to be effective should new mulligan rules be introduced and by that limiting the number of win options leading to more draws or losses. With the increased power level of creatures wizards introduced a decent and stable control decks seems like an illusion to me. The value of classic mass removal effects has decreased over the years aggressive creature based decks don't need to swarm the table like they used to. A single creature like goyf or geist of sant draft can decide a game alone now. Oath control might be an exception but i expect it to get the ban hammer soon with or without mulligan change.

[Tiggupiru]

So the WW is splashing for Geist and monoR for 'Goyf all of a sudden? Mass removal is stupidly good against WW which wins through many small creatures. If you don't overextend against control, you risk them having a spot removal or two and giving themselves a ton of time to end the game with a finisher (any kind of good card draw will suffice) of some sort. Monored has the worst possible creatures on the planet. They are outclassed by anything, but the deck gets around this by having ton of removal. Killing their creatures or having good blockers (Wall of Omens, Kitchen Finks... etc.) will give you a ton of time against them. Life gaining is obviously the nuts, but it's not required.

Your arguments make perfect sense when you apply them to aggressive Naya with the spoils-mulligan. Now they can run much fewer lands and still end up having their colors work. They have quality burn to finish the job even if their massive creatures are dealt with. Control decks are an illusion when they are facing an endless barrage of must-removed creatures with perfect curve and just the right amount of lands aggressive decks want. Imagine trying to cast Kird Apes, Gaddock Teegs and Woolly Thoctars on time without the spoils.

[W0lf]

Haha true i guess with goyf and geist i picked the wrong examples here. you might have noticed this discussion is really hitting a nerve on me. I was obe of the guys who would have wanted a sideboard and the spoil mulligan was for me the only thing thaz provided some kind of adjustment  for every game.

[Nastaboi]

It's also not like one player is allowed to use the spoil mulligan and the other isn't. If both players hit the "perfect curve", where is the problem? In that case, the game is still perfeclty competitive. Falling behind in these games does not necessarily mean that you will lose either. I have won many games in the past where I had technically fallen behind, yet managed to turn the game because I drew the right card at the right time or my opponent made a mistake. I also lost a lot of games where I was far ahead because of removal, a last-minute topdecked combo or a mistake on my behalf. The game is not only defined by your opening hand, player skill and luck still matter.

Ah, the good old "it's the same for everybody" argument (not the first time there though). For what it is worth, no changes to rules or banned list should never be necessary because rules are already the same for everybody.

The problem is just that when both players hit the perfect curve the games last fewer turns, resulting less choises for players to make, fewer chances to make mistakes and fewer changes for clever plays. In short, play skill will matter less.

[Vazdru]

update, 45 votes
                           

NO.	A) SPOILS	B) FREEMULLIGAN	C) ROAD TO PARIS	D) OTHER
1	W0lf (Ger, Berlin)	Payron (Ger, East)	pyyhttu (Fin)	Goblin-Diplomaten (Ger)
2	berlinballz (Ger, Berlin)	guru (Ger, East)	Tiggupiru (Fin)	orca- (Ger, BW)
3	tonytahiti (Ger, Berlin)	hitman (Ger, BW)	Nastaboi (Fin)
4	Tabris (Ger, Berlin)	Doks (Ger, NRW)	Lightstorm (Fin)
5	dynagfx (Ger, Berlin)	MMD (Ger, NRW)	kasta (Fin)
6	Absolem (Ger, Berlin)	LasH (Ger, NRW)	SirGalahad (Ger, NRW)
7	Vazdru (Ger, BW)	ChristophO (Ger, North)	MarcMagic (Ger, NRW)
8	Maqi (Ger, BW)	JohnnyComboplayer (Ger)	Wasser (Ger, NRW)
9	goblinpiledriver (Ger, BW)	~fenry~ (Ger)	Pennywise (Ger, Berlin)
10	Orkpopper (Ger, BW)	azmotus (Fin)	cagain (Ger, BW)
11	peeler (Ger, NRW)		helle (Ger)
12	effect (Ger, East)		Assariah ()
13	BallLightning (Cze)
14	nahkampfhamster (Ger)
15	Thaddeus (Cze)
16	phyrexianblackmetal (Ger)
17	haju (Ger)
18	flashfreeze (Ger)
19	Madsam (Ger)
20	EntenMagier (Ger)
21	oschmael (Ger)

[Maqi]

The problem is just that when both players hit the perfect curve the games last fewer turns, resulting less choises for players to make, fewer chances to make mistakes and fewer changes for clever plays. In short, play skill will matter less.

I think your argument is a fallacy. Shorter games do not necessarily mean less decisions.

It rather means that decisions have to happen in a condensed time frame. You can not deduct that "less overall turns" equals "less overall decisions to be made".

A "slow" game will usually not present many branches of decision-making during the early turns and opportunities to choose between different lines of play will be scarce in the beginning. Interaction will happen later in the game.

A "fast" game however that is marked by early interaction will force you to decide quickly on how to proceed. For example, "Should I take the hit of my opponent's Stromkirk Noble or should I block with my Llanowar Elves? If I block, how likely is it, that I find my needed 3rd land to drop my Kitchen Finks on the table? Or if I don't block, how likely is it, that he can burn my Elf away with an unknown card in his hand?"

I just recently read an interesting article about the Legacy format that kind of adresses this issue.

You can read it here: http://www.starcitygames.com/article/26423_Legacy-Openings.html

It's called "Legacy Openings" and shows how much thought and decision-making is present even in the very early stages of the game.

I guess it's safe to say that play skill will always matter much. Even in shorter (more condensed) matches.

[Nastaboi]

Shorter games do not necessarily mean less decisions.

Not necessarily, but most often they do.

I have played much Vintage and Legacy, and while those formats have many important decicions to be made in early turns and choises to be made, that's mainly because of abundance of free and powerful cheap spells. Legacy also has 4 Brainstorm along with Ponders and Divining Tops whereas in Highlander you have almost no control on your draws, thus you cannot play into drawing certain card (unless you have no other choise, but that's another thing).

For the same reason you can't really play around cards like Stifle or Daze or Force or Wasteland, as they can have at most one of them in 100 cards. Sure, you'll play around it if they telegram it or if playing around costs you nothing, but in normal situation not playing around will always be statistically correct play.

You can't really draw parallers from Legacy or Vintage to here, and I'll stay with my opinion that in Highlander, in games where more turns are played and more cards are drawn, more choises will be given to players and playskill will matter more than in games that last fewer turns.

[W0lf]

If i already have a bad matchup against a certain deck not being able to use the spoil mulligan will put me even further behind.
How can you say that playskill will matter more? The games will just be more random and feel less rewarding.
Seriously make up your mind.

[Tiggupiru]

update, 45 votes

Thanks for compiling the votes. Looks like more players prefer some change over the current rule, so that's certainly interesting. Option B is getting a _ton_ of love in the way of people having it as their second choice. Even though it's kinda like the "lesser evil", it's also widely regarded as a good compromise.

@Maqi & @Nastaboi:

You are both missing the point. The reason spoils allows less play skill is how it (in conjunction with the deckbuilding process) shapes the entire first few turns. Once you mulligan yourself a curve, you are almost always executing that sequence since it's the most powerful way to spend your mana every turn. There are situations where you might differ from that, but even then you have very limited options. Sometimes you have two two-drops and figuring out the correct one to play on the second turn is usually the biggest decision your early game allows.

If one player has perfect curve and the other one doesn't, the game is usually over. The game might get dragged for few turns, but the game has actually ended right there. This gives an illusion of game having more choices and freedom, but in reality that is rarely the case.

And yeah, Legacy is a totally different beast. Spells cost way, way less and you need to play around specific cards in specific matchups. Besides, haven't every thread ever already stated how you should not compare Legacy and Highlander?

@W0lf: Shut up.

[Maqi]

@Nastaboi/Tiggupiru:

I did not "compare" Highlander and Legacy in a sense that I think one should be regarded as the other. I just made the reference to highlight my point, that decisions happen even in the very early stages of a game.

Also, If a player happens to curve out in an environment without the spoils mulligan, the opponent might haven even less chances to come back.

We are at a point whatsoever, where theoretical argumentation won't get us further. I feel that both sides have valid arguments.

As of now, I'm in the "pro Spoils"-camp. But I'm open to be convinced otherwise. We really need some testing with the other options available (free mulligan / paris mulligan).

I'm going to do some testing in the near future with the free mulligan rule and tell you what I think of it.

[NerfHerder]

Hi all,

Achim from Germany//BW here. Maqi asked me to register and to "vote".

I have to admit I don't care, if about a Free Mulligan or a Paris Mulligan, but from my point of view, the Spoils mulligan is getting more and more powerful with each set. I also have to say, I'm really a kind of person which likes to see the most variety of cards possible.

The spoils mulligan makes every deck more consistence. POINT. I guess thats a fact.

Without that mulligan, all deck designer have to go a step backwards, away from the super-greedy manabases. I'd like to see this...

So my vote is: against the spoils mulligan, with a small favour to a the free mulligan (THG-style - so with the chance of a mulligan to 6, to 5 and so on afterwards).

Laters!

NerfHerder

[LasH]

I'm going to do some testing in the near future with the free mulligan rule and tell you what I think of it.

I think this is very hard to do. It was much easier to try out the spoil mulligan 2007 than the other way around. Pretty all lists are designed with spoil mulligan in mind and you have to do major changes not only adding lands. Futhermore i think its hard to find opponents who run lists designed for the new mulligan.

Can you explain how you gonna run your testings?

Can you give us some decklists so other ppl dont need to build a proper list and can instantly run testings too?

(I did test decklists from 2005-2007 - http://www.magicplayer.org/?id=decks - adapted them to better slots from today and tested with them and it felt pretty good but these decks are surely no tier decks today anymore so im curious how you gonna proceed)