150 Highlander Format Introduction

[Utopianlaw]

This thread is for the discussion of my latest article, 150 Highlander Format Introduction. We would be grateful if you would let us know what you think, but please keep your comments on topic.

[burkey_boy]

big fan of highlander.. and i really hope it catches more... magic is about a bit of fun... not just consistenct... consistency makes your deck boring and repetitive... highlander destroys that!!!

good to see... but i play a normal 60card highlander... with the points system... not that i own power to utalise the points....

[Ashmodai]

I think 150 highlander is extremely fun...however a few things still need to be banned. I think the number one card is tinker. It makes games unfun. In a format where alot of people are playing 5 colors...good ole 7/10 off of a tinker usually means game over.

Other cards that are 'on the edge':

Life from the loam combined with gifts or intuition make for unfun games. There is ways out of the ole strip mine/cycle land/library of alexandria intuition but it has definitely made for game over really fast. The question is...is the problem intuition/gifts or is it life from the loam?

Mind Twist can make for dumb games. An early mana vault or sol ring combined with mind twist makes for fast and uninteresting games.

The people that started the 'Seattle 150' don't seem to be updating stuff very often...and someone else should probably take over for the banning etc...

Also there are two 'issues' that some people have:
1. Proxies: I am all for people using proxies. I personally own power but not everyone else does so I really don't have problems with them proxying up a lotus and some moxen. Occasionally you get the busted lotus or double/triple moxen draws...but its rare..and not much more abusive than a simple sol ring.
2. Lands on the side to speed up gameplay. One of the big downfalls of 150 is shuffling up your deck over and over. To alleviate the imminent carpal tunnel issues we (a couple of friends) have a set of all 20 dual lands on the side (10 ravnica + 10 'old' duals)...and when we search for a land (which happens alot with the onslaught lands and all the mirage lands)...we'll just put the proxy in play to save time. We of course still shuffle if we need to (because the library needs randomization due to knowledge - from a divining top for example). This doesn't usually lead to problems...in the 100s of games I have played I think it has only been an issue once or perhaps twice where someone has forgotten that they had used a dual land from the 'side' pile and drew/played one that they draw.

I personally have two 150 decks atm. A 'fun' U/G/b and a more competitive U/B/w that I would play in a 150 tournament (we have had a couple...and they are very fun).

Cheers.
- Mike G

[jro]

I'm all for alternative formats, but the way this format is designed, it just seems to duplicate a lot of the problems with Vintage and 5 color. That is, you need lots of money cards to be competitive and all the good decks are U/x.

[Utopianlaw]

burkey_boy:
Yeah, I love the randomness of the format, but other cards that can do some of the same variants of Shatter are what can make the format interesting.

Ashmodai:
Just counter arguments, nothing against what you've said.
1. I know that the people(person) running the Seattle 150 Highlander site haven't updated it in a while, and I don't know them, but it's the most commonly referenced site when I hear people talk about 150 Highlander around here. We don't (as of yet) have a site to talk about 150 highlander like 5-Color does on SCG (there was some talk on another board, but they deleted that thread. Maybe new one on here if there's enough interest in this format?).
2. Yes, Tinker can be stupid dumb, but if you're playing house rules, you can ban any of those cards (especially Mind Twist and what not). I haven't see that Mind Twist, Sol Ring/Mana Vault combo early turn combo too many time only because of the immense amount of chance of it not happening. As with the Life From the Loam "lock", it can be tough but if you run graveyard removal (which I highly recommend) it can be gotten around.
3. When I play with my proxies (the cool Power 9 ones from gamingetc.com), people kinda gave me this weird look, like "Why are you playing with those?" After enough times of that happening (as well as a 10 year old kid seeing me play with my proxies saying his two Artificial Evolutions were Mox Sapphires), I took them out and replaced them with other cards. For tourneys, I'd say go ahead and use them, but for everyday play, I've gotten enough grief from them.
4. The shuffling? Yeah, only downfall for the format in my opinion.

Jro:
It's not as broken as Vintage because you're playing with a larger deck and you can only have one of (Like FoW and Goblin Welder which can make a difference. With 5-Color, you have to play a certain amount of card from each color, in this, there's no limit of colors or from each one you have to play.
But you don't have to have the money to play with format (like the Proxies example I said up above if you're play group and/or tourneys allows it). If you don't have Wrath of God, Solar Tide can be just fine (and found for much cheaper). I built a 150 Cycling deck where the expensive cards where Eternal Dragon and Exalted Angel. So it all depends on what you want to do with it. Use your inner Johnny.

Thanks for reading and your input.

[JohnJones]

This is already a format which has been around for about 8 years. It is called big-deck. At the beginning of this year, it has becomre more like 5-color in the sense that there is a rules board and tournaments.

here are the rules for deck construction.

This format is Highlander. You may only run one of any card except for cards named Island, Swamp, Plains, Forest, and Mountain (snow or non-snow). (See Errata for any exceptions)


19 Red Cards
19 Green Cards
19 Blue Cards
19 White Cards
19 Black Cards
20 Artifacts
75 Lands
10 additional cards of your choice

200 total cards, no more no less.
You may run up to 10 Unhinged/Unglued cards.
All sets are legal.
Collectors Editions, International Editions, World Championship cards, Starcity proxies and other promotional cards designed for magic (no home computer printout proxies), and printed for that reason (no are permitted.




Errata

Relentless Rats- You may run as many as you like in any slot in your deck in which a black card could be placed.

Frazzled Editor- The text box includes every thing in the text box. Ie flavor text and reminder text.


The Current Banned List

Chaos Confetti
Enter The Dungeon
Gifts Ungiven
Gleemax
Incoming!
Intuition
Johnny, Combo Player
Mox Lotus
Parallel Thoughts
R&D's Secret Lair
Shahrazad
Tunnel Vision




On the minds of the Council
Bringer of the Black Dawn
Panoptic Mirror

[ValHarris]

Hey You 150-Highlander-Guys,
you did not much playtesting, did you?
Look at http://www.highlandermagic.de if you want to see a balanced highlander format.
We had allready two Grandprix, each with about 100 players and a lot of playing groups all over Germany.
If you want to discuss this topic (and speak German) visit www.magicplayer.org
Val

[Landstalker]

Five color is still a way better format and Highlander games can get degenerate because there are not enough banned cards.

[SnoopDoggAtog]

I suspect a couple more tutors are going to make the Banned list, maybe the buyback tutor or D-Consult.

But it seems actually a lot less degenerate by virtue of essentially every card except for land is on the Restricte d list.

[kerbythepurplecow]

I have played highlander 5-Color for several years now.

The most striking thing I noticed with this new highlander format is crumbling sanctuary being banned. In my group, where there are many 5's, this card is not feared. You are more likely to be laughed at for wasting a spot for it. With decks these large, be it 150 or 250, there's no reason not to have removal for little things like that.

[pandafarmer]

my girlfriend is excellent at Magic but doesn't like the tourney scene. we play a highly casual variant of "cheap 250," and we have twice as much fun in those matches than using "real" decks.

rules:

-250 cards
-highlander
-no rare over $5
-Battle Of Wits is banned.
-5 color, 20 of each color minimum, with gold cards counting once for any ONE color in it's casting cost. (if you use Genju Of The Realm for a red requirement, you can't use it for a blue, green, black, or white).

now the "no rare over $5" can be debateable. heck, i just picked up an Avatar Of Woe in a cheap bin last week for 99 cents. but we use the "if the full price for the single at the local shops is over $5, you can't use it. so no Woe for me... BUT, since one of our local shops sells Angel Of Dispair for $5, yet the one down the street is $7, it's legal.

give it a shot! it's VERY fun, and a great way to teach new players or get your casual friends to play games with you without making them feel like they will get owned by your top tier decks.

[politeagression]

I used to play paper 125/150 Highlander for a couple of years. It is a great format. My play group even went so far as to have a 125 card "sideboard," where we marked the sleeves. This way, we could go SUPER HUGE and play 250 highlander (try shuffling THAT).

Anyway, here were the problems I encountered. People vary A LOT on the spectrum of Fun Vs. Powerful. Personally, I think the great thing about this format is being able to play the most powerful cards in magic's history (i.e. Mirari's Wake, Balance). However, my play group tended to make a lot of restrictions (some of which I agreed with).

First of all, we didnt' allow proxies, so no one really played power. Secondly, several things were banned: Mind Twist, Dwarven Blast/Miner, etc. Thirdly, we tended to get rid of "I win" cards. Personally, I hate I win cards in formats like this. I mean, it just makes the game end in a really lame way. The worst offender in this category is probably rude awakening. Even red X spells can be considered for banning here (or somehow restricted in numbers...my play group allowed one...I ran Death Grasp).

However, some of the players quickly voted for even less power (in an attempt to up the "fun") and things like balance and wake were banned. To me, this was going to far.

Nonetheless, it was fun to experiment. Me and my friend made tutorless, discardless, counterspellless 150 decks and those were surprisingly fun. It is VERY strange and interesting when you KNOW that your spells are going to resolve. I suggest giving it a try, but make sure that you have a hefty banned list so that nothing TOO broken happens without countermagic to put a stop to it.

Either way, I still have my paper Highlander deck, but I play almost exclusively online. Online Prismatic Singleton (which is the online version of this format) is great too. There are definitly advantages and disadvantages. PROS: no more shuffling!, official banned list, official rules, easy to find an game. CONS: No old cards , this is especially distressing in the lack of old dual lands, a little more difficult to have house rules, some cards that "should be banned" aren't, some cards that you might not want banned are on the ban list.

[Cornithopter]

I prefer to play with only uncommons and commons, post 6th edition. It's very fun, although all Direct damage (To player) X spells are banned as well as Congregation at Dawn. The playability of some of the most utter jank is really fun (Darksteel gargoyle and stratadon are bombs) It's good to play some wackiness every now and then.

[HighlanderMagic.info]

As Val Harris already stated, we're trying to establish a unified and balanced Highlander Format. An English version of the complete Rules can be found at

www.highlandermagic.info

On http://www.magicplayer.org/index.php?id=decks you can find Top 8 Decks from the last two "Highlander Grand Prix" we held in Dortmund, Germany. The site is in German in general, but the decklists list English card names, linked with MagicCards.info.

We'd be grateful for any feedback on our format!

[krichaiushii]

I enjoyed the article. Its been a long time since I've played any type of highlander deck outside of booster drafts, and even longer since I've run a deck using more than 75 cards. You've reminded me of the fun in doing so, and I appreciate it.

Some minor nitpicks all stem from my English degree and my job teaching high school English.

Editing. Grammar and spelling mistakes can be found throughout your article - not to the point of distraction, but enough that I feel compelled to mention it here.

Forum posts can handle misspelling and grammatical errors, but published articles really shouldn't have many.

That's all. Good article. If I played more often, I would definitely try to implement some variation of 150 card highlander, if only for nostalgia's sake.