7-Point Highlander MTGO League – lessons learned for European Highlander

by Paul W. Over the last couple of weeks, I exposed myself for the first time in months to a competitive Highlander tournament-setting (or rather, as competitive as a non-sanctioned format can ever dream of being, but you get the idea…) by participating in a 200+ player 7 Point Highlander (7PH) league on MTGO, equating to 10 rounds of Swiss with a cut to Top […]

Summer Musings (or: Why Mystic Sanctuary is busted)

by Paul W. From 07/30 – 08/02 we held an eight-player gathering which resulted in four glorious days of barbecue, sunbathing and – of course – exchanging ideas about and playing our beloved format highlander. As I expect my readers to bemost interested in the format-related outcomes of the bootcamp, I will skip the parts about how enjoyable and valuable of a social experience this […]

How to win a MGM – Azorius Midrange Control

By Jonny A. Hey there, my name is Jonny and I just won the last MetaGameMasters tournament. While I am usually not a big fan of deck guides for well-known archetypes I thought I use this call for a community article to channel my desire to entertain the highlander community and some of you might remember my weekly highlander column several years ago which served […]

HL Deck Building in 2018

By Paul W. This article aims at analysing the main tendencies in the current highlander metagame. By eluding to top tournament finishes over the course of the last two consecutive seasons, it renders visible the dominant decks as of now. Albeit Highlander being considered an open format free of oppressing strategies, the article attempts at providing a cohesive theoretical explanation on why some decks have […]

Building 5C or HowToGoMad Part 2: The Learnings

Months have passed since my first piece on building 5C. Months that felt like years. That’s the way it should be I guess. Life happens. But the 5C quest still exists. And you know what: I haven’t changed my current 5C list for about two months. It’s REALLY good. But to get there wasn’t easy and I still don’t play it well enough. No practice, […]

Breaking Midrange

Breaking Midrange I am a midrange player by accident. The 100 cards I owned at the time fit the midrange strategy, when I started playing Highlander 2012. Now my cardpool allows me to play almost any deck, be it combo, aggro or control. After my infamous MGM 5 performance (35th Place) with artifact combo I am curious to combine midrange and combo. Partially inspired by […]

8 Cuts – 4cBlood by Tom F. (MGM5 Winner)

Hello and welcome to what is hopefully becoming kind of an article series: 8 Cuts. Cutting 8 cards out of an existing deck and replace them with other cards. Why? 1. 100 Cards are a lot and identifying the weakest links is challenging and interesting. 2. I believe it’s hard to be immune to what I call „Staple-Blindness“ – some cards have been part of […]