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Editor:Staff 6th May 2008
Highlander
By Dan Unwin Most people who play magic have heard of Highlander or singleton but what the actual format is varies from place to place, person to person. The basic rule of highlander is that your deck can play no more then ONE of each card as apposed to the four that you can play in other constructed formats. The sets that are legal and size of the decks vary but all highlander and singleton formats follow the one key rule. The name for the format is drawn from an 80’s movie with the same name. In the movie a bunch of immortals run around trying to cut each others head off and become the last one. The phrase “There can be only one!” is thrown around and it is this phrase that led to the name for the format. In Australia the highlander format is very similar to vintage or legacy. Your main deck must be at least 60 cards and it can be accompanied by a 15 card sideboard. All cards that are legal in vintage are legal in highlander and this is where it becomes complicated. It is no secret that magic in the early days had some pretty broken cards and this has necessitated the vintage restricted list. In highlander this restricted list doesn’t have much impact as all cards are restricted in the same way. Highlander is a fun format and having all decks containing full sets of power and tutors would make it a bit stale and you may as well be playing Vintage. The first option is to just play legacy highlander. Its simple and easy, what this doesn’t allow is for players to play their favourite cards. The compromise is that the best cards in magic are assigned points values and your deck can contain a certain number of points total. An example of this is a points total restricted to 5 and ancestral recall has a points value of 3, Demonic Tutor has a value of 2 and all the moxes have a value of 1. You can choose to play 5 moxes; demonic tutor and 3 moxes; ancestral and demonic tutor or ancestral and 2 moxes. At present the total points limit varies from state to state and the cards that are pointed and their value change regularly. There are a large number of cards on these points lists with even the shortest list containing over 30 cards. There are non stop arguments about all aspects of the list and it is painful, complicated and time consuming and I believe one of the main reasons why this form of highlander has not taken off around the world. The minute a person runs a tournament with an alternative list segregation occurs between players and it is very hard to play casual games as the points list they are using may differ to considerably to yours and the decks could have a huge difference in power level. The following article was written to argue for a particular set of pointing principles to be adopted.
Many different theories exist as to how a points list should control the format of highlander. I am writing this to explain one of these theories. This article will argue that the metagame should be used in co-operation with a skeletal points list to allow the format to be powerful and also balanced while not interfering on a regular basis. When debating cards to point, most highlander players do not expressly consider set criteria. This article proposes a number of key criteria to consider when creating or altering a highlander points list. These criteria are as follows; 1. Is this card against the spirit of highlander? 2. Is this card too powerful? 3. Does this card make a deck too powerful? The metagame, if trusted, could control many of the cards that are pointed; Looking at the Canberra and Melbourne lists you can see that the differences are mainly from cards that fit the third criteria, cards like land tax, eternal witness, wasteland and sword of fire and ice. These are not cards that fit either the first or second criteria in that they are not against the principles of highlander nor are they overly powerful. They are given points due to their perceived affect on certain decks and therefore the format. These cards could all be left off if we trusted that the metagame would sort them out. Decks would be more powerful but the metagame would remain balanced due to reactionary deck choice and side boarding from players. The same can be said for cards that are pointed under category 1. Cards like merchant scroll and personal tutor are assigned points because they are not what highlander is about but they are in no way over powered. Cards like diabolic tutor and cards with transmute all violate the rules of highlander but they are not pointed due to their lack of power. If the metagame was trusted then many of the borderline tutors could be removed from the list entirely. Tutors that remain on the list would be the ones that are overly powerful or too easily abused by certain decks. The metagame can balance the environment only so much. To some degree a healthy environment is maintained by the points list. If all cards were unpointed every deck would have access to cards that are too powerful, do not encourage the principles of highlander and make a deck too strong. Given that metagame influences will exist in parallel to a points list, the purpose of a point list is to regulate all cards that break the key criteria listed above. Critical mass is also something that can be examined. Is there a key number of cards that are dangerous to the format and that make a deck too powerful? Are we ok with decks having access to lots of fast mana or a large number of tutor effects? Are draw 7s ok if you can only play them without fast mana and no more then a couple? If we trust the metagame to deal with most cards and only point a bare minimum, how many pointed cards do we let people play? How do we differentiate between the better pointed tutors and the second rate ones? How do we do the same with fast mana? The answer to most of these questions lies in a very low points total for decks. The number 3 allows us to differentiate between black lotus and sol ring, between demonic tutor and grim tutor while not allowing people access to too many of these cards at once. This is inflexible but simple and since we are relying on the metagame to sort out the rest an inflexible points list is not a burden. 2 points: Ancestral Recall, Black Lotus, Tinker, 1 points: Time Walk, Balance, Channel, Demonic Tutor, Memory Jar, Mind Twist, Oath of Druids, Survival of the Fittest, Time Spiral, Timetwister, Wheel of Fortune, Entomb, Fastbond, Gifts Ungiven, Grim Tutor, Imperial Seal, Lim-Dul’s Vault, Mana Drain, Mana Crypt, Mishra's Workshop, Mox Emerald, Mox Jet, Mox Pearl, Mox Ruby, Mox Sapphire, Mystical Tutor, Necropotence, Recurring Nightmare, Sol Ring, Strip Mine, Tainted Pact, Vampiric Tutor, Yawgmoth‘s Bargain, Yawgmoth‘s Will. This list has the added benefit of being short. A short list is easy to remember and straight forward; it not confusing in any way and new players should not feel overwhelmed. Larger lists contain far more cards and are very difficult to remember. A short simple list should not result in players accidentally playing too many pointed cards, while in a large list it is harder to avoid. Aggro decks can run 2 moxes and strip mine, 3 moxes or black lotus and 1 mox. Control decks get sol ring and ancestral or tinker and mox. Combo decks get lotus and DT, will and lotus, vampiric, DT and grim tutor but never lotus, Will and a tutor in the same deck. These decks are still strong as cards like equipment, land tax, eternal witness, regrowth and windfall are all free. The metagame can deal with these cards as long as decks can’t run them alongside multiple powerful tutors or fast mana. One additional thing that needs to be clear is that highlander has always pointed the most expensive and hardest to find cards, these are the cards are good enough to be pointed on power level but it has to be kept in mind that people need to be able to make quality decks with full points without having to play power and the points list needs to reflect this. It is hard to make changes to the above list because in order to add a card we are asking people to choose between it and the very best cards magic has to offer, to change a card from 1 point to 2 is to change it from 33% of available points to 67%. This is where trust in the metagame is key. If you are losing to certain card or a particular deck and you don’t want to you need to adjust your deck or change to a deck that has a better matchup. Throughout all constructed formats decks have bad matchups and good matchups, having this as an aspect of highlander is healthy but. From the time of the first pro tour people were talking about paper-scissors-rock. Aggro beats control, control beats combo and combo beats aggro. This has changed through the years but whenever a format has existed with a “best deck” a metagame deck with a favourable matchup has been available. A “rock” has been created to beat the “scissors”. If the “rock” becomes a large enough part of the metagame a deck that has a bad matchup with “scissors” will start being played for its favourable matchup against “rock”. In standard with morningtide, the faerie deck has a favourable matchup against the reveillark deck and red based aggro entered the format to beat faeries. It has an unfavourable matchup against reveillark but this is ok because faeries is more popular. There are many other viable decks in the format such as red green big mana, Doran rock, elves (both mono green and green black) and merfolk. There are even more decks that given the right Meta would reappear as more serious contenders. Goblins, dragonstorm and teachings have all been strong at different points recently and that may be the case again in the future. Let’s say for instance you were a dragonstorm player before morningtide. When it came out you added shard volley to the deck and were happy with the change, Then you went to your local FNM and got smashed by both faeries and reveillark. They countered your spells and bounced too many permanents and you were unable to get a win. You were happy with your deck and now it was not nearly as viable. You have a whinge to your friends about these stupid new cards and go home and tune it. You have a transformational sideboard and try again but the matchups are still not good. You give up and pick up a red burn deck and beat that faerie scum. What you don’t do is whinge to the DCI that bitter blossom and reveillark need banning and expect it to happen. Nor should this happen with highlander. The extent to which a matchup is unfavourable is obviously influenced by the strength of a particular build and the skills of the players. Sideboards are also there as a way to adjust an unfavourable matchup in a way that gives you the best possible chance. The matchup may not become favourable post board but it is possible to change a 30-70 matchup to 50-50 if you have a good enough plan and devote enough cards to that plan. Highlander did not have access to sideboards until the creation of “wishes” this necessitated that players be able to have sideboards. Now they are used in exactly the same way they are in other constructed formats. A good player will examine the weaknesses in their deck and create a sideboard that can adjust this when needed. Bad matchups will still exist and if there is too high a portion of your metagame as a bad matchup then you need to examine your deck choice if you wish to be competitive. A Highlander points list should not quash any new deck that wins a tournament. It should give the players enough credit and expect them to be able to beat it next time around. Maybe it wins 2 in a row, more players start playing the deck as it is the be all and end all of the format. In the third tournament all players who have worked hard and expect to do well will either be playing the deck or have a really good way to beat it. This happened with Standard. Reveillark was the first cab off the rank, it became more popular and then people discovered the Faerie deck, it thrashed Reveillark and was a great deck, it became the most popular and this led to the Red deck being created. Highlander players can be expected to act in a similar way. Bannings of borderline cards doesn’t need to occur for a format to be healthy. The format may change from time to time and at times it won’t change as quickly as people want but players are good enough and the card pool is deep enough that it will adjust and be able to correct nearly all issues. The best deck will change from time to time and will often cease to exist. This is how standard and extended formats change and those formats are very healthy. There is a massive amount of quality disruption available in highlander; cards like tormod’s crypt, wasteland and stifle are all good answers to powerful strategies. As long as players have access to enough disruption to deal with any strategy there is no reason emergency pointings need to occur. Highlander is a very different format to type 2 or extended but the principles of the metagame will still be effective. With a structured and measured approach to the pointing process such as the criteria I proposed and a little moderation, the points list can exist and influence without having to be adjusted regularly. The 3 point limit is strong enough that a deck cannot contain too many pointed cards while remaining simple. It can be adjusted where needed but for the most part should be left alone. Dan Unwin
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