Monday 2 April 2012

Monday night attempt at highlander article which entrophied into a blog post

First of all; 'entrophied' is a word I just made up. It's a past participle of 'entropy', which in this context means that I started with lots of energy and a single idea, but as I wrote my idea fractured, I spent energy, and the following is what I ended up with:

Hey dudes

Continuing with my thoughts on the February 2012 points changes this entry. Once again, I know I'm really late, but there hasn't been a mox-a-licious since so I'm not too late. In case you didn't know there is a massive MASSIVE highlander weekend very soon. Saturday 14th April Ancestral Recall (Ancestralicious) at Games Lab, midday, $35. THEN Sunday 15th April the next day another highlander tournament with Mox Sapphire 1st prize at Goodgames Melbourne, !!!!!!!!!!!
The GG's event isn't on their site's calender but the tournament organiser Isaac Egan has sent out the message.
Gonna be a great weekend, plus it's my birthday on the 15th. Chances are I won't be at my best for the GG's event :P....I already won a Sapphire anyway :P

I probably would've been playing Hermit Druid for the coming weekend except.....
The Hermit Druid combo deck got slammed with 5 points from the February 2012 points changes which was brutal.
The reasoning from the committee was that Hermit Druid needed points and it was unfortunate that it also copped collateral points from the unbanning of Flash-Hulk combo. Dan and Isaac from the committee said that efforts were made to avoid Hermit Druid getting so many points but they couldn't find a solution with the time they had.
The committee is split between Canberra and Melbourne as they're the 2 communities which play the best format in the world. This means that the best time to discuss points discussion is at the big tournaments when committee members travel interstate. The committee are volunteers and they do a good job with the limited time they have.

Had they had enough time I think they could've worked the pointing better to not slam Hermit Druid as hard. The deck was worse than Zoo and U and it could be beaten at will with appropriate sideboarding. Zoo and Timevault both got a point each, so at least the committee acknowledged that those decks are too good, which is great.

I believe U and Zoo's strength still outweigh all other decks without question. The points list slowly improves with each update but there is still a long way to go.

Side note: there was an issue last weekend at the GP with the highlander event organisers referring to an old points list when advertising the event. There should really be a 'mother list' that everyone refers/links to that only the committee has control over. Much like the meter and the atomic clock.

Food for thought: Highlander Combo decks place a huge emphasis on 2 or 3 cards, making those cards really stand out. As a result, combo decks can become victimised by the 'card by card' pointing system of highlander. It's easy for cards to become pointed rather than whole decks.

At the start of this article I did intended to propose the points changes I would've made back in February, but now I'm too frickin tired so it'll have to wait until my next entry. I suppose I can't really critique the committee's job when I can't even find the time to write a blog!

Anyway, g'night or good morning depending on when you're reading this :)

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