After the National Championship at Origins, I made a few jottings on my
thoughts about the state of Highlander right now and in the months to come.

IN GENERAL

In all CCGs, resource denial is the key to winning.  There tend to be two
general strategies you can try: attack or control.  Attack decks are fast
and meant to take out the opponent ASAP; the archetypical Ped-5 deck 
corresponds to this type.  On the other hand, control decks may start out
a bit slowly, but strive to lock up the game, keeping your opponent from
playing anything useful (or at least from getting it into play); the
average Xavier Forethought/Plan Ahead deck works this way.  Needless to
say, the two are adversarial in nature.

I opted for the attack variety in the Nationals, and this cost me,
especially given that my speed didn't materialize.  Just about everyone
else rightly went for control (and who believes Disarm isn't a control 
strategy? =), though the lack of WGW decks puzzled me to no end.

MR. SUITCASE

The so-called "Mr. Suitcase" phenomenon first came to light in Magic before
the "types" (I, 1.5, II) were developed.  Basically, it became impossible
to win consistently without key cards (Lotus, Moxen, Big Blue), which cost
some serious $$$s.  Thus, if you'd been around a long time or had money to
burn, you were at a serious advantage.  WotC began Type II in order to help
lessen the "learning curve."

It's my feeling that Highlander is suffering from a "Mr. Suitacse" phase. 
Quite simply, the promo cards may be (IMHO) killing the game -- especially
the hard to find critical ones.  We tend to be, in general, the "haves" of
the HL scene, given that we have access to most of the big cards.  Put
yourself in the shoes of a newbie to HL; would you want to get in if you
knew that without PG Darii, TCGs, and maybe a Quickening or two (more on
Quickenings later), you don't stand a chance in major tourneys?  

The "learning curve" is quite simply too steep.  There's a need to balance
the playing field.  And it's only going to get worse when promos stop being
so readily available.  Nothing scares off new players more than having to
shell out big bucks just to be tournament competitive.  How many people
avoided Magic because of the required Mox/Lotus/Big Blue factor?

One solution is to make the promo cards more readily available, or released
in some other way.  Put the PG Darius in TV2; if that idea is scary, then
think about how much more scary it is when the only way to get it is to win
a tournament -- and the best way to win a tournament is to have the big
cards.  It's a Catch 22.

But I digress.  TCG should make more -- many more -- anti-PG cards (maybe
an Edge or Event card that causes both players to lose 1 Ability for each
PG card they have in play, as well as others?), and then make them
readily available to players -- especially new players.  Maybe even do a
store package of promos, with a few of each of the promos in it (and maybe
just one PG Darius =).  I heard a rumor from someone (Terry Elldred? 
Dunno) that TCG may be doing this; I certainly hope they are.

Now for Quickenings.  I don't really think they're all that imbalanced...
or maybe I should say they they won't be when ME comes out and increases the
head-taking.  As it is, playing with one means that you've probably got to
play at least 2 TCGs to protect it, if not more.  Plus, Divine Intervention
is a perfect counter for them, even if it is a bit difficult to get ahold
of in mass quantities.

Pre-game Darius, on the other hand...  Sigh.  One of the things I hate most
on the MtG groups is the "ban/restrict" whining, so I try to keep out of
such things.  I don't think Ped-5 is broken.  I have no problem with people
using Sedarius.  And so on.  So, it causes me no small pain to say that the
PG Darius is an intensely broken card in need of a fix.  Here's why I'm of
this opinion:

1) By definition, Thunder Castle is a game-breaker.  There's a reason
those little restriction numbers are there, folks; it's because those cards
in a greater quantity are game-breakers.  A card which allows you to exceed
that restriction number is thus a broken card by definition.

2) It is neccessary to have a consistently winning deck.  Was anyone else
bothered by the sheer number of PG Darii at Origins?  To be fair, I should
point out Bruce advanced with only one (I think), but I still don't see
how without massive luck and/or burning of TCG cards.

3) It is not available to the general public.  Not grounds for "brokenness"
on its own (otherwise Asgard would be intensely broken =), but when
combined with the others only serves to fortify my point.  Anything that
maximizes the gap between the haves and the have-nots to this degree
qualifies as broken in my book.

4) There is no effective counter to it.  The only possible counter is
Divine Intervention, but it doens't really help.  Remember, it's discard,
then endurance, then hand.  If it gets through, odds are they've burned one
Darius'ed in card, making it essentially useless.  If the ruling for Divine
on PG Darius were changed to hand, then endurance, then discard, I might
have an easier time accepting it.  However, it's also worth pointing out
that Divine Intervention is also a promo card.

For these reasons, I'll be restricting the PG Darius in all tourneys I run
from this point on, as well as declaring it an ante card (a la
Quickenings).

I realize a lot of my comments here are bound to be controversial, and that
everyone won't agree with my observations (I'm just waiting for the
requisite "But ME will change all that"), but this is what I've found to be
the case from both my perspective and from trying to recruit new players.


THE FUTURE

HL is becoming much more chaotic with the advent of ME.  Having gotten a
sneak peek at the proofs at Origins, I know we're in for a wild ride.

The first deck-building impulse will be to try to build in options for
every contingency.  We'll need Alterness for those Seduces.  Have to have
Focus for the WGW.  Don't forget the anti-disarm stuff.  Etc.  This leads
to bigger deck, which leads to less chance of drawing that one card you'll
need, which means a bigger deck isn't really a solution at all.  It might
have the added incentive of making Maurice more popular for players of this
deck style, though. =)

The second deck-building philosophy may be a more risky one, but will be
faster.  Play a narrow deck, realize its limitations, but just hope you
don't run into its one or two nemesis decks.  For example, stick with
Sedarius and just hope they don't play with Alertnesses -- or that they
don't get them.  It's a combination of risky and stupid.

Comments?

-Jeff