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HL Cup Hanau (GP XII) - 20.04.2013

Started by Vazdru, 21-04-2013, 02:59:41 PM

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Vazdru

First of all congratz Tabris for your victory in Hanau and that impressive 8-0-2 performance!
Congratz to firestarter and maqi as well for their nice performance. Firestarter has taken part in all 12 HL GPs and reached 11 times! Top 8  ;D he is the living evidence that highlander is everythin else but pure random and best decks and most skilled players always reach a top spot.

I start this thread for anybody who wants to add anythin related to yesterday's HL Cup with 101 particiapants.

On mtgpule i added this event and the first decklist of one top-8-player (Elves of Bernd Fristch) which you can find here:
http://mtgpulse.com/event/12976#181958
Feel free to add your Top 16 decklists!

Some further informations (e. g. final standings) you can find here:
http://www.planetmtg.de/articles/artikel.html?id=6400&typ=2&action=comments



Far below the earth
Where the demons hunt the souls of those that sleep
In the city of the Vazdru and the Drin
Where the black flame burns inside the palace fountain.

Doks

#1
Thank you very much, I was about to start a thread on my own. Congratulations Tabris, I watched you play when I had time and have seen some really nice plays.


Since I have the feeling that this forum usually needs a little kick in the ass to get going, I decided to start a discussion with a tournament report of my own. So, I just came home from work friday night and only had my UB control ready to play. Since I didn't want to completely sleeve up a new deck, I just decided to throw in green for the Oath plan. I usually play Esper but find BUG Oath to be somewhat more flexible in an unkown metagame. Let the games begin.

Round 1 vs. Matthias, Izzet Control, 1-1 Draw

In G1 it's a typical attrition war. I let my discard and counters focus on all the non-basic hate he's running (Moon, B2B, PoP etc.) but never really resolve a threat in return since he knows what he is doing. When I then finally get to trigger an Oath after 30 minutes or so, he steals my Rune-scarred Demon with a Sower of Temptation. Wouldn't be too bad if there wasn't that bitch called Spellskite which ate all my spot removal until the Demon beats me to death. In G2 I hardcast one of my creatures, but he has some blockers and finally Maze of Ith. When I add Jace, the Mind Sculptor to the board and start fatesealing, he scoops. G3 couldn't be finished, so I start the day with a Draw.

Round 2 vs. Ronald, Uwbg Aggro Control, 0-2 Loss

I mulligan to six in G1 and see a Bribery with a T1 Inquisition. Unfortunately, I don't find a solution until he just goes for it in turn five. From there on, my own Demon beats me again and when I finally take care of it, I used too much to ever get back into the game. In G2 I'm somewhat low on lands, but he also played really well and kept me from getting back into the game in time. He grew his Knight of the Reliquary and just before I could hit the crucial Oath, I roll over to a searched Wasteland in my upkeep and Oath gets countered by Force Spike into Mana Tithe into Daze (only had 2 Mana open). Then the Knight kills me.

Round 3 vs. Olga, Orzhov Aggro Control, 2-0 Win

Olga is five minutes late into the round, getting a game loss and we start G2. That one was fast: I took her removal with Duress and Inquisition and then resolved Oath. I offered her to play another game for fun to see what would have happened and that turned out to be quite funny. I keep Oath in my starting hand, but it gets removed by a Tidehollow Sculler. She beats me dangerously low to exactly 1 live with a 2/2 Zombie, Isamaru and the Sculler. However, I find the Black Sun's Zenith, clean the board and counter the next two threats. Then I hardcast Pelakka Wurm. The gained life gives me some breating room to finally come back with Tamiyo ultimate into Oath trigger -> I have a hand of 50+ cards. No comeback for her.

Round 4 vs. Manuel, BUG Oath, 1-1 Draw

Mirror match, that's ugly. In G1 he kills a land of mine with Beast Within and drops Oath into Emrakul. Game Over. Pretty fast for a control mirror I'd say. At least my mulligan to 6 didn't really matter then. G2 I drop Oath and have Orchard ready. He uses a ton of resources to play around the tokens, we both get to Oath two times when he finds an Orchard of his own. But I have the Karn Liberated to remove his Emrakul and then beat him to -2 life. G3 can't be finished fast enough.

Round 5 vs. Andre, Esper Combo, 1-1 Draw

In G1 he finds the Leyline + Helm combo pretty fast while I can't do shit under his Back to Basics. In G2 I see a pretty weak hand with a T1 Duress. He focuses on successfully handling all my few win options, but finally I stick a Jace, the Mind Sculptor and win with his ultimate. G3 starts with the extra turns -> Draw again.

Round 6 vs Johannes, Naya Aggro, 2-1 Win

In G1 it's the die roll. I tutor Oath, he tutors Pridemage. I tutor Regrowth and drop Oath again. After the last attack before my upkeep Oath trigger, I'm at 3 life and he shows me the classy Lightning Bolt. Damn, that was close. I blindly Mental misstepped his T1 Birds of Paradise (played with a Savannah, so I guessed that he might be playing Bant) which I better saved for the killing Bolt. Well, at least I knew what I was up against. G2 I play Inquisition to steal his T1 play which gives me a lot of time. When I see him being stuck on two lands, I tutor for wasteland to screw him even more over. Soon after, Jace the Mind Sculptor hits the board. Fatesealing prevents him from finding sufficient Mana and there comes the 2nd ultimate kill of the day. G3 is pretty close again because he begins pretty explosively. Innocent Blood kills Thalia, Guardian of Thraben (who is a real bitch btw) and a devastating 3:1 trade with my Damnation lets me staiblize on 2 life. He has no cards, I only have a Force of Will without a blue card. So it takes a lot of time to play around a potential burn kill. I finally Get Oath + Orchard going, finding me Primeval Titan that generates so much Mana I almost could have hardcasted Emrakul.

Round 7 vs. Timo, Izzet Control, 2-0 Win

In G1, he is colour screwed in a two colour deck. Bitter irony. So he only has Islands and can't play the Blood Moon. Meanwhile, I handle his Vendilion Clique and get Liliana of the Veil + Life from the Loam going. He scoops when he thinks he is just too far behind with Liliana hitting a +7 counters, stealing half of his lands and continuing to rip his hand apart next turn. In G2, a Wasteland of him disrupts my plans and he establishes a very strong board position with tons of Mana via Grim Monolith and Izzet Signet + a ton of unattackable basics. However, he goes out of gas soon after, I bait his counter with an EoT Fact or Fiction and then resolve Pernicious Deed on my own turn. Blowing it up for X = 2, I kill Snapcaster Mage, Monolith, Phyrexian Furnace and Signet for a really good 3:1 trade (he had mana to activate the Furnace before Deed blew up everything). Getting rid of his graveyard hate, that leaves him vulnerable and an Intuition for Life from the Loam + cycle lands. This draws me tons of cards while I keep countering his few key spells. Finally, I stick a Vraska, the Unseen that kills his Jace, the Mind Sculptor and ticks up to 7, then drops to 4 again due to a bolt. Few minutes later, Vraska finally ultimates and Timo became the first victim of my assassin tokens ever.

Total result: 3-1-3


Overall, the deck feels very viable, but not too strong as some of the people I talked to criticized. There are quite some drawbacks when going for the Oath plan (missing all the super good utility creatures, very few real win conditions, being reliant on Oath, still losing after a triggered Oath because you are already low on life etc.). And I still can't decide if I want B or W as the third colour after UG. Regarding my playstyle, I really need to focus harder on winning G1 to avoid so many draws. No matchup really felt unwinnable, it's just that this deck can take ages to kill (apart from the random instant Oath win). Especially control matchups are so damn annoying as they consume a lot of concentration, too. If I played better, I guess that at least one of the draws could have been a win, maybe even two.  

I had a diverse mix of opponents. Some tried super hard and didn't really seem to be too relaxed, with others I could joke around and talk trash while having a good time. Nevertheless, all of them were nice and well-mannered. Combined with a solid location, getting up early and travelling to this event was totally worth it.



So long,

Doks

orca-

#2
Quote from: Doks on 21-04-2013, 03:17:51 PM
Round 6 vs Johannes, Naya Aggro, 2-1 Win

I finally Get Oath + Orchard going, finding me Primeval Titan that generates so much Mana I almost could have hardcasted Emrakul.

Wasn't it a Beast Within? ;)


The biggest problem I saw was that those two were inexperienced judges concerning the highlander metagame(like the humility/manland interaction and such) and that it was only 2 judges. Especially without a microphone it was hard to hear any announcement of them at all ....

Tabris


Doks

#4
I see you completed your Oath list, thank you very much.

As the current Highlander Cup champion, what is your opinion on Oath of Druids as a potential format breaking card? Some find it to be simply overpowered, some think it's just fine. You've been playing the deck for quite a long time, and now you have won one of the (if not the biggest regular) tournament with it. What can you contribute to the controversial discussion?

In addition, I really like how an Izzet control deck made Top 8. There have been several people that claim non-basic hate strategies to be not strong enough because of Fetchlands that get all the basics. Now, the archetype has made Top 8 again which shows the opposite in my opinion.

Tabris

#5
Well I dont think its an format breaking card. ET surely gives the deck a big edge and I know how frightening a T2 Oath can be but as I played my Swiss rounds I never heard a player complain about the card itself or the deck. This is not the proof for the balance of the card itself but I dont think the format is dominated by this archetype right now. I saw some Oath decks but the T8 is very diverse and to be fair I played versus the UR deck for fun and I simply lost 4 games in a row so the greed will be punished. Which leads me to the next point:

nonbasic hate is a viable strategy in the current meta BUT you cant rely only on this approach and I think Patric (UR Player) should have added some more threats or overall flexible cards since his narrow plan simply costed him the game in the quarterfinals against a 4c bant with 3 basics on the board. Besides that he told me he dodged his bad matchups like rdw. I think this deck is quite potent and I love the Counterburn archetype but its not the cure for 5c madness.

(btw I never had a t1 Tutor for a t2 oath in the entire tournament)

The t8 lists are complete now.

ChristophO


Thx to everybody for the great tournament. I played creatureless staxx to a 5-2 finish and enjoyed making (almost) everybodies life miserable with Tabernacle, Humility, Wildefire, Winter Orb and co. ;-).

@Doks:
I strongly disagree with your back handed compliment for the Izzet player/deck. The Izzet deck ist not viable only because of the land hate package but instead is complimented nicely by it. Clearly the top 8 result of the Izzet deck benefited from Blood Moon/Back to Bascis/Ruination. However this does not mean that the non basic hate cards are a good tool to stop 4 and 5 color decks. There are 5 decks in this top 8 playing 4 colors (or more)....

@Deck lists:
All decks except the UR deck and to a lesser degree the oath deck in the top 8 are unplayable in a format without the spoils mulligan since they are all "cheating" down the number of lands to increase the power level of their deck as a trade off for a lessened consistency which is fixed by the spoils mulligan rules. There will always be an optimum of power vs. consistency and with the spoils mulligan this means reducing the land count by 5 or so to increase the power level. I dislike this feature of highlander.


MMD

Congratulation to Tabris for winning the Cup and also to Firestarter for his 11th Top 8 on a HLGP!

I fulfilled my promise to my GP Utrecht teammates and piloted Boros...

...to a horrible result. My friends were not able to talk me out of this "plan" before the tournament. Some call it principles, some call it senile stubbornness, but now I know - Boros is a horrible deck. Creature power creep really makes the Boros strategy obsolete, nearly unplayable. 2 power evasion for two mana is really not good enough nowadays. If you don't curve out until the opponent is dead (or draw one of your silver bullets in the right matchup) you will loose. You even lose against double counter/removal in matches against control/goodstuff, beside the fact that you have just a couple of top decks available in the late game. I dropped at 1-3-1  :-X. My only win was against Boros  ::) How can I resign from the Boros guild?   :'(

This time no report but a some bad beats:

-   Esper Control opponent dead on the board next turn but top decked an Entreat for 6 angels ftw. Next game he played another Entreat the Angels for 4 token, but this time from his hand and without any mana acceleration (or Crucible shenanigans) with two Islands left for a Counterspell, which means I did not manage to kill him until turn +20

-   Opponent on 20 life  on our 4th extra turn with three soldier token in play (Timely Reinforcements) and tapped out. Me having just a sole Silverblade Paladin in play, killing two of his guys eot. Getting my Goblin Guide force-of-willed (single out) after playing Flametounge Kavu to kill the last blocker and soulbond with the Paladin, giving him +3/0 and haste with Reckless Charge, which would have made an attack for 20 damage possible in the last extra turn

-   Naya opponent very behind on the board and very low on life without a card in his hand. He  had just 1- 2 Mana Elves, Mother of Runes and an Ulvenwald Tracker on the board against my army of creatures, top decking a Baneslayer Angel which immediately fights with one of my creatures, repeating this until back to starting life total while beating me to death.

However, beside the tournament result itself it was a another great weekend and I had a lot of fun talking to the other Highlanders and my fellow companions. Beware, next time I will leave my fork at home and bring my bazooka again to battle against your handguns  ;D
Feel free to browse through my MKM account:

http://www.magickartenmarkt.de/index.php?mainPage=showSellerChart&idInfoUser=13199

I also have a huge amount of chinese and japanese foil HL staples not listed yet,  which I would like to downgrade to english foil. Just let me know!

pyyhttu

Quote from: MMD on 22-04-2013, 06:28:13 PM
How can I resign from the Boros guild?

By playing WW with all the relevant hate bears.

Seriously though, could you post your list for us to see? Would be interested to see if I had approached it somewhat differently.

Vazdru

#9
I've played my UBw-ComboControl (http://mtgpulse.com/event/12925#181270) at GP Hanau with a few minor changes:

Round 1 vs Paul (Bant, 70th place)
I was lucky in the first game when he had Elspeth + Treetop Village online. In the end I combed him out with 1 LP left.
G1 took too long so we've had just 5 Min for game 2 which we couldn't finish in time.
1:0 / 1:0:1

Round 2 vs Dominik (UWb-Creatureless-Control, 16th place)
One turn before I can combo off he played Humulity. As I've had Sorin II + Lingering Souls I managed to beat him to death.
G2 I played T1 or T2 Bitterblossom which made the difference.
2:0 / 3:0:1

Round 3 vs Justus (Captain America, 9th place)
G1 I assembled combo when I was on 16 LP. G2 Tokens beat him to death.
3:0 / 5:0:1

Round 4 vs Tim (Jund, 12th place)
I play vs Tim in 6th round of last GP for Top 8 and lost. Afterwards he reached 7th place with similar deck http://mtgpulse.com/event/11692#162879 as he took the victory in that match.
In g1 of our rematch I played an early bribery for Primeval Titan which he can handle once. I get Titan back with Animate Dead and beat him to death. In g2 I assembled combo quite fast.
4:0 / 7:0:1

Actually I'm on rank 3 and need one more win for Top 8.

Round 5 vs Christoph (Bant-Tempo http://mtgpulse.com/event/12976#182073, Semifinalist)
G1 he mulliganed to 5. I have some discard to wreck his hand completely. 1:0

...One game away of Top 8...

G2 he played Winter Orb in the right moment for the win.
We have not much time for g3 nevertheless I have a decent hand with Mana Drain and an early Buried Alive. As he knows that I have Mana Drain (Gixt. Probe) he didn't played anything. Extra-Turn 3 I played Buried Alive with one mana left. He didn't have any counter-spells, so I need to topdeck a reanimation-spell or tutor in last turn which failed –  one or two turns later it would have been probably my win as I've still had Mana Drain, Snapaster  (Impulse in GY), Mystical Teachings and 5 Mana (5th card from the Top Animate Dead).    
4:0:1 / 8:1:2

Again one win short of Top 8 but still rank 4.

Round 6 vs Thomas  (5C-AggroControl http://mtgpulse.com/event/12976#182072, Quarterfinalist)
He had much better draws in both games  and I've never had the chance to win this match.
4:1:1 / 8:3:2

Still one win short of Top 8 and dropped to rank 11.

Round 7 vs Daniel (UW-Control http://mtgpulse.com/event/12976#182142, Quarterfinalist)
I've played vs Daniel in GPs twice already and lost both matches. The first one was very traumatic as I was the safe winner when I've lost because I've forgotten to note one life-loss through fetchland. The second match he played Naya and I've had Reanimator and in all games (of three) he managed to sneak Scavening Ooze in for the win.
G1 was nothing  special. He killed me with 2 random critters and enough counter-backup as I was color-screw on Blue with 4 black cards in hand. G2 I was able to combo. 15 minutes left for g3. After spoils I've had:

Fetchland / Fetchland / Buried Alive / Animate Dead / Augur / Impulse / Thoughtscour on the draw.

He had acceleration but no business on the first turns. I played Augur T2 (Land, Xplosives, Go for the Throat), Turn 3 I still had no landdrop so I played Impluse for 4 non-landcards obviously. Turn 4 I've had a Discard-Spell and eot Thoughtscour on me for Land + Land in gy and draw nonland-card. Turn 5 or 6 he transmuted Tolaria West for Wasteland get me down to 1 Land. A few turns later he played Entreat the Angels for 3 Angels from the top when I was on 2 lands again. I obviously wasn't able to get rid of that clock in time.

Like the GP before I managed to drop out of the price-ranks after starting 4:0. There must some kind of Top-8-curse for me, at least I've had the feeling in round 7 again. Sorry for getting all excited over in last round, the frustration level reached a critical limit.

4:2:1 / 9:5:2 for 20th place

Anyhow the GP was much fun, I enjoyed the tournament as always.  At least with Opp-Score 70%+ I reached one top (but worthless) record, beatin 3 top-16-player and losing only to 2 Top-8-players. Maybe I can break that "Top-8-curse" next time. Cya then.

Mentionable cards:

Sorin II: Was the last card I've added (cut Careful Consideration), played him two or three times in the tournament and he was always a blast both vs UWb-Control and vs Captain America as well.

Thoughtscour: Although it had a nice "opponent plays eot Enlightened Tutor" appearance I would cut it next time.

I've added Mana Drain and Bribery before tournament again, Bribery was gamewinner each time cast (2 or 3 times), Mana Drain was gamewinner only with Bribery on hand (1 time)  ;D
Far below the earth
Where the demons hunt the souls of those that sleep
In the city of the Vazdru and the Drin
Where the black flame burns inside the palace fountain.

W0lf

When will you publish the top8 sheets? Might want to add something more to mine now.
Btw was fun to play with you, you shouldn't be too unhappy about our draw,was a bad matchup for your deck still getting a draw is very good.

Kenshin

#11
The Reason why I think that Oath is overpowered and should be banned is pretty simple and I think Tabris's arguments are off target. Neither is it relevant what people perceive as a problem, but what can be deduced from logic thinking nor is Oath's undoubtedly strong effect in itself the true problem. Its what the card allows you to do in terms of deckbuilding that really makes it too strong.

First off the main problem with oath is, that it allows you to commit as ridiculously few as 3 slots to actually winning the game with damage. This is about 20-40 cards less than any regular Deck that tries to win the old fashioned way. And it is pretty obvious that cards like Emrakul and Griselbrand are insanely good at winning by themselves. With fetches in the format it is pretty likely, that you just have to smash once to win.

Your best and almost instantly winning Card Oath costs a meagre 2 mana which makes it fairly easy to proect and since you only play 3 "combo pieces" and maybe 4-7 Planeswalkers which are far from weak, you can stuff your deck with all the control cards you want. You are probably always in control of the match since every card except for the lands, the walkers and the Oath package are answers, tutors or card advantage generating.

It is laughably easy to activate the "combo". There is hardly a Deck that does not play creatures and almost none that do not need one on the board to kill you. And for those few decks that actually do not need one, you have the means to give them one. It's a one card combo at that. There is no setup required, no digging for parts. Its just the one card.

There may be removal for your oath, but as mentioned before, in a Deck that plays almost every useful counter imaginable, you can not tell me that you will not have the one counter to save it that single turn.

Saying that you never pulled of the turn 2 oath is a non-argument. It's like saying you should be allowed to own automatic guns because you never used them on other people so far. Stoneforge Mystic was banned for the possibility to have it on turn two and its impact on the game later on. Oath does the same but even better. Sure you need to build a Deck around it, but that obviously is far from challenging.

And lastly I doubt your sincerity when arguing for Oath. You are a highlander writer and a resourceful one at that. All these facts can not be new to you. You are throwing out some decoys and false reasons that sound convincing but do not withhold on further inspection.
I understand that you want to keep the card in the format, you obviously figured out, that it is the best deck at the moment. But the reason it does not get played more widely is most likely due to the casual appeal of the format. Most people do not like lame control decks like that. If this was a really competitive format, there would be a ton of oath decks and everyone would pack hate. But this is not a competitive scene. This is still a fun format. People play whatever the hell they please and that makes the format so diverse, despite most decks hardly being tier 2.
Maybe the deck is even hard to play but everyone can figure it out with some pracitice.

So my conclusion is: Ban Oath, its a one card combo, that requires neither setup nor takes up some slots. Even the Hermit Druid Combo requires at least 7 slots (Druid, Dread Return, Mimeoplasm, Triskelion, the guy with the counters, Narcomoeba and Lingering Souls) and is far from fair in my opinion.
You can not turn a blind eye here.

MarcMagic

Quote from: Kenshin on 29-04-2013, 06:47:21 AM
The Reason why I think that Oath is overpowered and should be banned is pretty simple and I think Tabris's arguments are off target. Neither is it relevant what people perceive as a problem, but what can be deduced from logic thinking nor is Oath's undoubtedly strong effect in itself the true problem. Its what the card allows you to do in terms of deckbuilding that really makes it too strong.

First off the main problem with oath is, that it allows you to commit as ridiculously few as 3 slots to actually winning the game with damage. This is about 20-40 cards less than any regular Deck that tries to win the old fashioned way. And it is pretty obvious that cards like Emrakul and Griselbrand are insanely good at winning by themselves. With fetches in the format it is pretty likely, that you just have to smash once to win.

Your best and almost instantly winning Card Oath costs a meagre 2 mana which makes it fairly easy to proect and since you only play 3 "combo pieces" and maybe 4-7 Planeswalkers which are far from weak, you can stuff your deck with all the control cards you want. You are probably always in control of the match since every card except for the lands, the walkers and the Oath package are answers, tutors or card advantage generating.

It is laughably easy to activate the "combo". There is hardly a Deck that does not play creatures and almost none that do not need one on the board to kill you. And for those few decks that actually do not need one, you have the means to give them one. It's a one card combo at that. There is no setup required, no digging for parts. Its just the one card.

And lastly I doubt your sincerity when arguing for Oath. You are a highlander writer and a resourceful one at that. All these facts can not be new to you. You are throwing out some decoys and false reasons that sound convincing but do not withhold on further inspection.
I understand that you want to keep the card in the format, you obviously figured out, that it is the best deck at the moment. But the reason it does not get played more widely is most likely due to the casual appeal of the format. Most people do not like lame control decks like that. If this was a really competitive format, there would be a ton of oath decks and everyone would pack hate. But this is not a competitive scene. This is still a fun format. People play whatever the hell they please and that makes the format so diverse, despite most decks hardly being tier 2.
Maybe the deck is even hard to play but everyone can figure it out with some pracitice.

Imho you are missing two things:

1.) Oath is not allowed to play all these good (semi-)control creatures which makes Goodstuff decks so powerful. You have to pick the best control cards to compete versus these decks! Oath of Druids is one strong card by its own but it's very easy to handle as well. I remember UG playing Krosan Grip in the past and once they found it the Oath player never had a chance to win the games (since clock + control the game out). The new meta maybe doesn't allow ppl to play Krisan Grip again (not 100% sure though) but that's just an example of how easy you can stop decks that rely on single cards (even though Oath Decks shall not completely rely on this single card but anyways).

2.) As soon as ppl compete on a HL Grand Prix - ..ehrr sry Cup - the competetive nature of the format shines as well. Ofc ppl playing for fun but so do competetive Standard/Legacy players. Your argument about HL being a casual and fun only format ist not valid in my opinion!

This discussion about Oath being too powerful is going on since.. I can remember. And so far it was never too powerful not even before ET got banned, nor yet.

Tabris

#13
@ Kenshin

Your argument about the few slots you have to invest is very interesting and I agree with that point but you can also use that point against that deck. If the premise is right that we
dont need so many slots to win its clearly true that once our one card threat is answered (or cant be found during a match) we simply cant win anymore, right? In the scenario where our Oath is answered I have left 4 creatures which can be easy answered and my opoonent will accumulate their creature removal during a long match and none of my creatures is insanely strong + they have very high mana costs which dont allow me to have counterbackup if I hardcast them (I assume my opponent will have some ammount of pressure and I am forced to play a creature before I have 2 counterspells in my hand as backup)

Btw. I dont think that Griselbrand and Emrakul are good targets for an Oath deck and I spoke about the reasons in my last week column. (That is not an argument for anything just a statement regarding the powerlevel)

I agree with the fact that I am not the first source you should ask if the card which maybe lead me to victory is too strong for obvious reasons BUT I am a little bit offended that you accuse me of throwing decoys and false arguments. I will always try to be as objective as possible and my goal as a council member is always to have a balanced meta and get more people into the format. Before the last bannings I wrote a long statement which points are important for me and what approach I have when I am evaluating single cards or decks which seem to be problematic. Oath (and this is my honest opinion) is not a format dominating card nor too powerful. I often see that line of thinking, a card have a strong impact and thats why we have to ban it. Its ok to have strong cards and I think particularly control decks need those cards (which dont mean they should have the cards by all means ignoring the health of the format).

Surely I have a weakness for slow control decks and one could argue I want to get my pet-decks stronger and stronger but my deckchoices over the years at big tournaments reflect always what I thought was a good meta deck or at least a deck which can get through the swiss rounds which doenst mean that they were the best deck/strategy at the time. This time I chose a deck from which I thought it would go through all the goodstuff/midrange decks like a knife through butter since I was thinking the meta would be filled with those. And I was right or at least I got a lot of these decks in my rounds. ( The appereance of Oath itself during the rounds is not an argument against the brokeness but maybe a hint for my card choices and my deckbuilding)

Round 1 5c Midrange (Oath included in G1)
Round 2 RDW (Oath included in G2)
Round 3 Bant Midrange (the tempo version from the T8 would be much worse for me although I have some cards which can deal with the deck)(No Oath)
Round 4 5c AggroControl (he answered my Oath both games but I got enough of my "other" threats to win)(No Oath)
Round 5 5c Staxx (Oath included in G3)
Round 6 Draw (in the fun games I simply lost 4 games in a row trough non basic hate)
Round 7 Draw
QF      4c Goodstuff (Richterstyle meaning 29 lands aeathervial.dec) (Oath appeared in one game and got immediatly answered)
HF      4c Bloodaggro (In all three games Oath was included)
F       GB Elves (clearly a good matchup since I ve got so much creature hate but never won a game with Oath)

Btw. I didnt meant to use the appereance of the Oath on T2 as an argument for the non-brokeness of the card I was just telling the fact.

Regarding your competitive argument: I have to disagree with you and be with MarcMagic here. While you are right that HL is a fun format (because its the best format ;) ) that means  in this context we dont get supported by WotC but not that people only play monoG//monoR Control decks. All the decks I saw were highly competitive and showed a lot of thinking. People who participate at a 15€ event (which is held in a little town at a saturday morning) usually think about their chances to win this tournament and try to come with a strong deck. Of course that cant be generalized and there will be always people who play just for fun (to quoute here myself fun and winning are not contradictory ) and not for winning which doesnt mean they have shitty decks but maybe play some pet cards.

Besides that I think through the network and transparency of the different citys people get more techs/cardchoices and can constantly improve their decks. So even if they are going to play with their Tier 2 Decks they will be better then they were in the past. Also I got around 300 people each week watching my column and hope to improve their decks, plays and meta game a bit :)

Long story short:

I understand your concerns regarding the powerlvl of Oath (and we as a council are aware of it and watch it closely especially with En. Tutor unbanned).

I am a bit offended by your smoke grenade allegation.

Hl Cups are not a casual playgroup at the kitchen table. (maybe the skill of the players may fluctuate but that is also true for a standard Grand Prix and is not a phenomenon of the HL format only)


Kenshin

You are right, I guess I was a bit harsh, but to me your reasoning seemed to only stress the less vital points of why oath is such a strong card. This led to me assuming you were defending a pet card of yours no matter what. I am sorry, if I got that wrong.

On the topic of slots and winconditions. Of course, once your Oath is handled, you have a tougher time winning with planeswalkers and such but after all, your deck is geared to buy time and protect your most vital cards. How likely is it for you to really lose it? What clock can your adversary put you under while being heavily disrupted? I have never played the Oath deck myself, so I may as well be wrong, but Krosan Grip aside, which card really handles oath definitely?

And the competetiveness surely is there, else this format would not appeal to me this much but contrary to a regular Tournament, where most people would play what they think is the best deck (or what they can afford) or the best deck suited to their playstyle, on the HL Cup and Tournaments the beloved pet Deck factor is much much higher.
Just look at all those foil, alternate art, signed and whatnot cards in most of the decks. A lot of the people there have put a considerate effort and a lot of money in hunting down unique/special versions. Do you think they change their decks at a whim?
Again, no one doubts the competitive nature of the format, but after all most players love their highlander as much as they would love their cat/dog and they even groom it to a certain extent. It is hard to just get another cat because the one you grew up with does not catch mice anymore. Maybe you get her eyes fixed, but you do not let her go easily.

I for one will probably always play esper highlanders. Of course I try to build a strong deck and I am sure I succeeded at that, but I know that a lot of archetypes out there are stronger. And I say this as a very competitive player with several PTQ T8s, three PTs and one top 16 PT finish under my belt. There is a soft spot in my heart for this 100 card pile. I can not just leave it at the side of the road like a dog before the holidays.