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Editor:Staff 7th November 2007
Controlling Highlander
By Tom Haddy Hello all. Over the last year and a half, I have been getting extremely excited about a new format that has been sweeping the casual tournament scene in my home town of Melbourne. The highlander format offers so much for so many players. It is competitive, but social. It can be played on large and small budgets. It allows players to play new and old favourite cards in their decks, and it has generated an exciting and open metagame, with a number of different, viable strategies. As a player who has been very dubious about the Vintage format for a number of years, this platform allows people to experience Magic in a way that has a very classical feel to it without necessarily being blown away by raw power. Card interactions that would generally never be seen become quirky side strategies, and players of the format are pressed to be creative in a world where the internet won’t have all the answers for you. I wanted to talk today about playing a solid control strategy in highlander, and to share my thoughts, observations and personal experiences. Firstly, I think a lot of people are constructing control decks badly in the format. It has been my belief for a long time that no well built control deck should have a flimsy strategy against creature rush. Highlander is no different. If you look at the results from the first Moxalicious tournament in Melbourne, you’ll see a plethora of fast, small creature decks. Why did they do well? Because people who played control decks weren’t equipped to deal with a lot of fast pressure. Traditionally, and I’ll take the example of control strategies that were in effect when I first started playing, players would play 4-8 spot removal cards, 4 mass removal cards, and other assorted universal answer cards to deal with creature strategies in constructed tournaments. In many of the highlander decks I have seen, players play too many of the universal cards, and too many cards that draw other cards. I believe this stems from the fact that there are a lot of recognised cards in those two categories, and very few recognised cards in the spot removal/mass removal categories. For example, If I was playing U/W control in classical standard I would typically be looking at the blue cards to be counter spells and card draw effects, and the white cards to be my removal. In traditional control, you would see a 4 Wrath of god, 4 Swords to Plowshares, 4 Counterspell etc type deck. However, Wrath of God and Swords to Plowshares are very unique cards, and Counterspell also has quality properties that few cards possess. Have a look around and try and find another card that will kill a creature in play for one mana in white. I can tell you, there isn’t one that doesn’t have a condition to it, and even then there are very few. Wrath is very similar, because many of the traditional control decks spent their time trying to get to four mana to cast Wrath, and the sad truth is that most Wrath variants cost more than 4 mana to cast. The same mana issue can be said for counterspell, as there is only one other hard counter at that cost in magic that doesn’t have a negative drawback. This creates a bit of a dilemma, and what I have observed in highlander is that people will just ignore the fact that they can’t play four of each of these cards, and just play either more draw effects or cards they are familiar with, or cards that are functionally similar, but have different costs. This is where they fall down. It is still fairly easy to create a creature rush deck in highlander with a good mana curve, but control players seem to be ignoring the concept of mana curves all together, and as a result, all their spells fall over each other in their efforts to get cast. It just isn’t plausible to play a 1cc, two 2cc and a 3cc array of spells in place of 4 1cc spells and use the same strategy of trying to spot remove creatures. You will lose to tempo, and the fact that you can’t cast your spells fast enough will be your downfall. The other problem is you can’t play the mana fixing land base that you need to support these strategies, so you end up with a bunch of spells that need more land than usual as you struggle to find the correct colour combinations. The end result is a deck that just can’t handle a stock standard creature rush effectively, and so the creature decks dominate. So how do you combat this? Well, awareness is half the battle. I have found that the two best ways to combat the aggressive decks is to play a style of control that utilises ongoing answers rather than being more reliant on individual spot answers, and playing strategies that involve more cards with double uses. What do I mean by this? Well, As far as ongoing answers are concerned, there are a number of extremely effective artefacts and enchantments that once played, continuously harass an aggressive player. My personal favourites have been Ivory Tower, Night of Soul’s betrayal, Propaganda/Ghostly Prison and Peace of Mind (A very personal favourite. I realise I look amateurish for mentioning this card, but those who have played against my decks that pack this know how scary it can get). In regard to cards with double uses, what I’m talking about are cards like Trinket Mage, Court Hussar, Wall of Roots etc. In essence, cards that give you an ability, but can also act as threats and blockers for early opposition threats. If you can utilise these cards effectively in your control decks, you’ll go a lot further to beating out the aggro decks. A second problem I see is people playing too much counter magic. Just because there are so many to choose from, it doesn’t mean you should play them all, and the more effective control decks I’ve seen are not necessarily the ones packing the most counter spells. Back in the day, Magic had a concept called utility, and highlander lends itself extremely well to that form of control. I believe all control decks should have solid ways of dealing with artefact and enchantment threats in highlander after they have hit the board. The number of times I’ve seen people just lose to mundane enchantments because they only have one enchantment answer in their decks is crazy. People are forced to play more exotic spells in this format, so you need to be prepared to handle more exotic threats. Play a disenchant type card in your deck. Play a bounce effect in your deck. Play multiples of those effects, because I promise you they will very rarely be totally dead cards, and they will stop you losing to stray cards like Phyrexian Arena, Holistic Wisdom, Winter Orb, Sulphuric Vortex etc. Finally, one of the major trends I have seen in highlander is players’ willingness to play decks that manipulate their graveyards heavily. A card like Withered Wretch is not a horrible main deck option in the format, and I think most decks should be looking at playing cards like Scrabbling Claws, Phyrexian Furnace and Tormod’s Crypt in their sideboards for graveyard strategies. I have even played those first two artefacts in main deck on occasion. I have seen so many control decks lose to Oversold Cemetery, Genesis, instant reanimate spells, Volrath’s Stronghold and cards of that type, and it should be easily avoidable if you are just aware that the threat exists. Play ways of stopping graveyard abuse, and forego losing to some janky graveyard nonsense. It has also come to my attention that many of the combo type decks of the format revolve around graveyard strategies, so by packing some graveyard hate in your deck, you can effective take care of a wide range of opposition threats while still utilising the same number of deck slots. Hopefully this has given some players an insight into the highlander format, which I think is one of the most enjoyable formats I’ve played in a long time. I highly recommend building a deck, and if you live in an area that hasn’t embraced the format yet, build some hype and get into it. Thank you for taking the time to read my article, and keep bashing out those primitive creature swarms. Gaddy Email me at thaddy@hotmail.com, or PM Gaddych on the paradise forums
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