Rivals of Ixalan Highlander set review

Open the door, get on the floor, everybody walk the dinosaur.

This is my Rivals of Ixalan Highlander set review. Just in time for CanCon....hmmm. You can find coverage of CanCon here. Great job CBR MTG team!
Disappointing that I didn't go this year. I can barely write these articles in a timely matter let alone organise to get to another city. It's almost impossible.

Anyway! Set review, in no strategic order:

Joins a long line of Savannah Lions. Together proud and a pride. 
Here's how I rank the Savannah Lions at the moment:
Dryad Militant
Soldier of the Pantheon
Kytheon, Hero of Iroas
Skymarcher Aspirant
Mardu Woe-reaper
Dragon Hunter
Expedition Envoy
Elite Vanguard
Savannah Lions

Let's be honest, none of them are excellent. They all get rekt by Liliana, the Last Hope. They're passable in Death and Taxes, where being mono white gives you consistency and lots of Skullclamp tutors. The Savannah Lions get sided out against decks that block them well.

"Each upkeep", therefore pretty good in creature decks which play pain lands/City of Brass/Mana Confluence/Horizon Canopy. Ideally you'll have a few cheap instants and abilities so that when you tap your pain lands in their turn to get the paladin trigger, you will be able to utilise the mana.

Playable in decks which tutor for Ancestral Recall and Time Walk, e.g. the 'turns' deck. May also help some random combo decks which don't have access to Regrowth. Sometimes your key instant or sorcery combo piece gets discarded or countered.

"Target player". This card is pretty powerful. You need to put in some work to make it great though.
Imagine having Spirit of the Labyrinth or Chains of Mephistopheles turn two and then casting this turn three.
Also, if you play ways to sacrifice enchantments (which is actually pretty hard to do), then this doubles your hand. A sleeper card which gives added incentive to sacrifice enchantments is Hatching Plans.
This may also be good with Life from the Loam and Land Tax when you've cast all your spells and just have lands in hand.
Against some combo decks this acts as a super Vendilion Clique.

There are very few ways to put cards from your hand onto the top of your library, so anytime one gets printed my Highlander senses start tingling. Others include:
Brainstorm

Jace, the Mind Scupltor

Scroll Rack

Conch Horn

Hidden Retreat...

As you can see, it drops off fast.

This is a very powerful effect when combined with miracles (Entreat the Angels, Temporal Mastery, Bonfire of the Damned). There are also cards like Aethermage's Touch, Descendants' Path and Impromptu Raid, which let you cheat huge threats into play.

Sometimes you just want cards back in your library, e.g. in decks which play Protean Hulk, Natural Order or Tinker.

Riverwise Augur is four mana, which is quite slow, but he may still be good enough. You can always just put two bad cards back on top and shuffle them away.

Straight into Red Black aggro which Dillon Kikkawa and Jeremy Neeman have had some success with. I'd say it replaces one of the lesser burn spells, e.g. Fire Bolt.

 

Unique. This card got me pretty excited when it was spoiled. This would go in the Channel + Lich's Mirror deck if it was just a Diabolic Tutor reprint; However, it also has that amazing other mode. Channel Mirror now has a reasonable out to Extract without losing a maindeck slot.
You can jam this in almost any combo deck as long as you have Massacre and some zero-to-cast combo hate in your sideboard, that way you can tap out for this without dying.
This card is just so much more powerful than it looks.

"Chupacabra", so fun to say. A fine addition to Birthing Pod and Recurring Nightmare decks, hard to imagine it played outside that archetype.
May dethrone or at least buddy up with Palace Jailer in that role.
Reveillark returns it. If you have a Canadian in your life, listen to how they pronounce "Chupa Chup". Don't screw it up by using your pronunciation in the question.

Anything which hurts fetchlands is fine with me. I don't think you can play this in a deck with fetchlands. Naturally you'll be playing mana acceleration to get Blood Sun onto the battlefield ASAP. One-cost mana dorks, Chrome Mox, Mox Diamond, Simian Spirit Guide, Ancient Tomb, City of Traitors etc. That last one is particularly exciting since Blood Sun removes it's downside. Playing mana dorks helps fix your mana, which is nice since you're forgoing fetchlands. If you're playing Ancient Tomb and City of Traitors without fetchlands, you may need additional colour fixing other than lands.
Ironically you're likely to play Blood Moon in the same deck as Blood Sun and occasionally you will undo some of Blood Sun's work by letting their fetchlands tap for red rather than nothing.
Fetchlands are the main lands effected, what else is there?

Ravnica bounce lands are excellent under Blood Sun. These lands are only for players who like to take risks, since a Wasteland will really screw you. Maybe bounce lands + Blood Sun is more for Modern.

Lotus Vale and Scorched Ruins are like Ravnica bounce lands on crack. If you're playing effects which untap lands or have ways to get value from your lands dying, then you can have these in your sideboard against decks which can't remove your lands.

With the recent rules change, Dark Depths now enters the battlefield without counters if Blood Sun/Moon is on the battlefield. Therefore, if you remove Blood Sun/Moon afterwards, Dark Depths will trigger and release Marit Lage.
If you're playing Dark Depths then you'll also be playing Thespian's Stage, Expedition Map and all the green nonbasic lands tutors. Beware that Marit Lage is surprisingly easy to stop in Highlander, so take precautions to recover from the tempo loss of losing two lands and/or protect Marit Lage somehow.

Maze of Ith and Bazaar of Baghdad get hit by Blood Sun but they aren't commonly played.

Excellent against all the blue good-stuff decks which are popular now. Ancestral Recall, Treasure Cruise, Dig Through Time are dream targets, but even just exiling Preordain is great.
Even if you aren't able to cast something, a 2/1 First Striker for two mana is still fine; attacks into Trinket Mage, Vendilion Clique and Kitchen Finks. Better than usual with Jitte. Also good against Jitte if the opposing creatures are ≤ two toughness.
Exiling an instant/sorcery may even disrupt some combo decks, e.g. Past in Flames in Storm.

And the winner is...Merfolk! With FIVE new additions including Jadelight Ranger, a.k.a. Alex Bertoncini (two explores), which is even playable outside a tribal deck. Here's a list that Brett Hughes and I threw together. I played it yesterday at the awesome charity event Isaac organised at Good Games Melbourne. Five rounds of swiss. I miraculously made the semi final. Miraculous considering that I hadn't played the deck before and had just built it for fun. Realistically the deck is weak, mostly due to it's lack of good one-drops.

Qasali Pridemage has been a mainstay in Highlander since it's printing. It gives creature decks a tutorable answer to cards such as Moat, Vedalken Shackles, Umezawa's Jitte and Time Vault. Being green is important for Green Sun's Zenith.
Pridemage's strength comes from it's decent size-to-cost ratio and ability to cast proactively. Other 'naturalize creatures' are either poorly costed or only naturalize at sorcery speed when entering the battlefield.
Thrashing Brontodon is now the second best naturalize creature and the best non-white one, which is fantastic news for Sultai, Jund and Temur.

Decent dude for Zoo and Boros aggro. Particularly good in the mirror where you may not be the aggro player.
You'll want plenty of pump and burn to minimise the chance of having to 'chump attack' into an opposing fatty.
It's a small thing but worth noting, Relentless Raptor is horrendous against Vedalken Shackles; they can either steal a different creature and you'll be forced to attack the Raptor into what they stole OR they can steal the Raptor and be able to attack AND block with it. Vigilance creatures are bad against control magic effects.

If you're playing enough ways to sacrifice creatures at will, then this is a sweet. Often you can Journey a creature with an ETB or death trigger for a bit more value. I'm imagining this in a deck like the one Keith Frost posted in the public "7 Point Highlander" facebook group recently: link. The Protean Hulk kill in that deck is very elaborate!

Solid in Mishra's Workshop stompy decks. I recently cut Precursor Golem from my version, so no need to worry about that blowout :P

Also great in Workshop decks. I imagine it's also good in Tolarian Academy combo decks which can quickly generate six mana and take full advantage of the spell cost reduction.
Gets better every time a new planeswalker is added to other decks. Obviously you don't want to play your own planeswalkers.
You practically win the game if you untap with this.

We have a lot of options for graveyard hate now. If you want to keep your graveyard in tact and also don't need to target cards in it, then this may be preferable to the other graveyard hate.
Ground Seal is another effect like this.

I'm not familiar enough with the Lands deck to know if this guy would make the cut. To make up your own mind, check out Jake Sims' take on the deck here.

FRINGE PLAYABLES

This guy screams combo to me. I did a few Gatherer searches an voila! Resplendent Mentor = infinite life. That's not very impressive when you compare it to Kiki-Jiki + Pestermite, or even Spike Feeder + Archangel of Thune, but it is white only, so it could fit some small niche. If you already have a creature based deck with some life gain synergies and tutors, then it could be worth chucking in. Prepare yourselves for the Resplendent Mentor buyouts ;P

Finds Famished Paladin! :P You can never discount cmc≤3 tutors from playability. 
There aren't many exciting vampires; Vampire Hexmage comes to mind for it's interaction with Dark Depths, but that combo is surprisingly easy to deal with - Ghost Quarter, Wasteland, Path of Exile, etc.You haven't lived until you've combined Skullclamp with Bloodghast and fetchlands. That interaction may warrant a tutor for Bloodghast. It also solidifies vampires as a Skullclamp deck in my opinion.

Vampire Nocturnus is the only amazing tribal payoff.
Rivals added a few 'ok' vampires for the day that more tribal payoffs are printed:

Mono blue beatdown is probably a thing now. I'm imagining the colour pie as Pac-Man and he's throwing up.

Sword of Fire and Ice and it's brethren equip nicely to these. 

Warkite Marauder pairs well with pingers like Cunning Sparkmage or Izzet Staticaster, or even Curse of Death's Hold.

Going mono-blue would let you play a bunch of value colourless lands or you could go all islands and play Back to Basics, Thassa, triple U creatures and Master of Waves.

Might be good in Elves, where you make enough of them to ascend and the vigilance is really sweet since you can attack AND tap for mana postcombat. Myr is another 'mana tribe'. For fun here's a bad list!

Glare of Subdual, EarthCraft, Cryptolith Rite and Opposition get better when all your dudes have vigilance.

Niche reanimation target. Maybe in a build playing Soulflayer.

Another resilient fatty for ramp deck sideboards. Nezehal joins the ranks of:

Thrun, the Last Troll
Gaea's Revenge
Carnage Tyrant
Quagnoth
Akroma, Angel of Fury
Sphinx of the Final Word

On another note; why does the maximum hand size rule exist? It seems unnecessary and is just a random complication. I've lost count of how many times my opponents have forgotten to discard to hand size. Also, sometimes you need to keep a risky hand and you miss your land drop; consequently discarding to hand size feels so bad. Also, no one's going to complain if Manaless Dredge is eliminated from Legacy.

I'm probably way off here, but I can imagine this in a Brandon Owen style UB Counterspell tempo deck. That kind of deck needs to hold up it's counterspells a lot so that it doesn't lose to powerful artifacts and enchantments, but it also needs to deploy threats so that it doesn't get attritioned by Life from the Loam or some other inevitable card engine.

Absolutely unplayable right now, but once again, a tutor is a tutor. Eventually pirates will be printed again and this will be the forerunning tutor. I say that, but ninjas have yet to be revisited, so perhaps not. Ninjas are fucking great, where dey at!?

Maybe after the third Ixalan revisitation set. Probably also relying on another set of Lorwyn changelings.

Squee akbar! Grenzo akbar!
Raging Goblin eat your heart out.
Once upon a time I built a few goblin decks. The one-drop slot was where the decks were really lacking. I was resorting to Goblin Firestarter. Fanatical Firebrand is at least an improvement on that. He's not the saviour of Goblins but he'll be in your list.

Naturally a win-more card, which you wouldn't want. However, it could find a niche in a Nourishing Shoal combo deck. 

Path of Niche and Metzali, Tower of Niche.

Great sideboard card for any deck which could transform it. Good at killing mana dorks.

Alright! That sums up the set review. Naturally tribal strategies get far fewer printings than simple 'good card' strategies so I'm always happy to see a tribal set.

No huge impact cards this time round. Blood Sun, Dire Fleet Daredevil and Thrashing Brontodon are my picks for the best highlander cards.

Until next time,

Mulch

Highlander Hermit Druid Deck Guide

Hello!

Lots of Highlander players are presenting their pet decks for all to see, I thought I'd do the same. One of my favourite brews is Hermit Druid combo. I won a Mox Sapphire with it before the format matured but haven't had much success since. I wrote an in-depth article about the deck years ago for a website called Papergamer.com but the website got shut down and the article lost.

My current list is below. After it, is an explanation of card selection and how the deck functions:

Hermit Druid*
Dread Return
The Mimeoplasm
Murderous Redcap
Lord of Extinction
Narcomoeba
Fatestitcher
Sacred Cat
Phantasmagorian
Cabal Therapy
Memory's Journey
Vampiric Tutor***
Worldly Tutor*
Survival of the Fittest*
Green Sun's Zenith*
Sylvan Tutor
Gamble
Fauna Shaman
Eladamri's Call
Imperial Recruiter
Recruiter of the Guard
Shred Memory
Muddle the Mixture
Cephalid Illusionist
Nomads en-Kor
Shaman en-Kor
Reanimate
Shallow Grave
Apprentice Necromancer
Postmortem Lunge
Daze
Mental Misstep
Shriekmaw
Qasali Pridemage
Wooded Foothills
Misty Rainforest
Windswept Heath
Verdant Catacombs
Polluted Delta
Marsh Flats
Bloodstained Mire
Scalding Tarn
Arid Mesa
Flooded Strand
Mana Confluence
City of Brass
Gemstone Mine
Tundra
Savannah
Scrubland
Taiga
Volcanic Island
Underground Sea
Bayou
Overgrown Tomb
Botanical Sanctum
Blooming Marsh
Tropical Island
Breeding Pool
Pendelhaven

SIDEBOARD
Laboratory Maniac
Oblivion Stone
Chaos Warp
Carpet of Flowers
Wild Growth
Bloodghast
Invigorate
Sivvi's Ruse
Orim's Cure
Sivvi's Valor
Stony Silence
Null Rod
Faerie Macabre
Extract
Volrath's Stronghold

There he is, Rob Zombie. The combo is, have zero basic lands in your deck, get Hermit Druid on the battlefield, activate him to put your whole deck in your graveyard, then win. It takes a lot of support cards to win with your graveyard. These support cards are low powered when played ordinarily, therefore you can't fight toe-to-toe against fair decks; you need to go all-in on the combo.

The main support card is:

There are many creatures you can return which will win the game immediately. My current favourite is:

Exiling these two:

 

Murderous Redcap can be substituted for Walking Ballista if you like. I'm not sure which I prefer. Redcap gives more value at four mana and can kill a Deathrite Shaman for cheaper (without exposing itself to Deathrite's exile ability). Redcap can be reanimated when you're grinding and doesn't turn on an opposing Null Rod or Stoney Silence after game one. However, Ballista is better basically everywhere else.

An alternative trio of creatures is Angel of Glory's Rise + Laboratory Maniac + Azami, Lady of Scrolls. I don't play these because the cards are generally worse outside the combo and post-board I want Laboratory Maniac separate to my combo to give me resilience against Extract.

Irrelevant History

Before The Mimeoplasm was printed my Dread Return target was Necrotic Ooze with Devoted Druid, Morselhoarder and Molten-Tail Masticore in the graveyard. That was of course one more card than the current kill. And before Necrotic Ooze was printed my kill was Sutured Ghoul + Dragon Breath + Terravore. Only three cards but was vulnerable to creature removal. Yes I've been playing this deck that long!

But what if combo pieces are in your hand?

Never fear, Phantasmagorian is here. It's as if this card was printed for this deck. You'd be surprised how often I cast this thing.

In the event that you draw Phantasmagorian AND one of your combo pieces, you can Cabal Therapy yourself instead. That is Cabal Therapy's main purpose but it doubles nicely as a bad Thoughtseize.

How do you have enough creatures to flashback Dread Return?

Narcomoeba is free but you'll also need a blue or white mana in addition to the green for activating Hermit Druid to have three creatures to flashback Dread Return. The fourth graveyard creature (Sacred Cat) is handy for a few reasons:

• In case you naturally draw Narcomoeba.
• If you don't have a blue mana for Fatesticher.
• In case you need to Cabal Therapy yourself or your opponent.
• In the event that you opponent kills Hermit Druid in response to the activation. This can happen when you reanimate it with haste using Shallow Grave or Postmortem Lunge.

How do I reliably draw Hermit Druid?

You may have noticed that the deck plays a large number of tutors. In fact all my points are devoted to tutors for Hermit Druid:

Vampiric Tutor***
Worldly Tutor*
Survival of the Fittest*
Green Sun's Zenith*
Sylvan Tutor
Gamble
Fauna Shaman
Eladamri's Call
Imperial Recruiter
Recruiter of the Guard
Shred Memory
Muddle the Mixture

The three-cost tutors are quite slow when you consider that you still need to cast Hermit Druid the following turn and wait an additional turn for him to recover from summoning sickness. By that time an opposing combo deck or aggro deck may simply race you. I still play four three-cost tutors. The recruiters are still good against aggro because the chump block buys you time. They can also be reanimated.
Muddle the Mixture counters things occasionally. Shred Memory is the worst of all the tutors. The three-cost tutors are a necessary evil. Previously I've played Grim Tutor and Dimir Infiltrator but they were cut as better cards were printed (Dimir Infiltrator nombos with Shallow Grave).

You may have noticed that my list plays an unusually high number of lands, 26. Honestly I would be happy playing 27. I like the high land-count not only for consistency but also because Worldy Tutor, Sylvan Tutor and Vampiric Tutor deny you a drawstep. Turn one Gamble may also strip you of a land.
Another note on Gamble; most combo decks require more than one card to go off and such don't play gamble because the odds of discarding a combo piece are too high. This deck only needs Hermit Druid, so Gamble is fantastic. Even if you do discard Hermit, there are the soon-to-be-mentioned cards as backup.

What if they kill Hermit Druid before I can activate him?

This is where the deck has a 'nine lives' feel. Reanimate, Shallow Grave, Postmortem Lunge and Apprentice Necromancer all provide backup. Shallow Grave and Postmortem Lunge are the best since they give haste, which enables you to go off even against a second removal effect. Apprentice Necromancer is there as the creature option so that all your creature tutors become secondary Hermit Druids. Reanimate is there because it's cheap. By why not play Unearth or Claim//Fame instead of Reanimate? That will be explained in the next question.

What if Dread Return gets countered?

Since your entire library is in the graveyard, you need to win that turn or else you will lose to your following draw step. Do not fear, most of the time Fatestitcher will be able to tap down one of their blue lands. They will of course float a blue mana in response but that's ok, you just go to the second main phase to let the mana empty from their pool.

In the event that a counterspell is still a threat, you can take a stab at discarding it from their hand with a blind Cabal Therapy. It is a beautiful thing when you choose correctly; one of the many edges you can gain by having experience with the deck and playing mindfully.

If Dread Return still gets countered, there's backup:

You can use this to shuffle Reanimate into your library, so that you can reanimate The Mimeoplasm the following turn. If you have three mana, you can also shuffle-in Postmortem Lunge which lets you reanimate Apprentice Necromancer with haste, which reanimates The Mimeoplasm. 

Dread Return rarely gets countered but I like the security. Post-board Memory's Journey becomes a lot more important as it allows you to shuffle Laboratory Maniac back in as the only card in your deck in response to surprise graveyard hate like Ravenous Trap and Faerie Macabre. Post-board, try to keep up an extra green mana when activating Hermit Druid.

Memory's Journey also doubles as a hoser against graveyard decks.

Irrelevant History

I used to play Krosan Reclamation before Memory's Journey got printed. Memory's Journey was the biggest upgrade to the deck since I began playing it. Holding up one mana instead of two, allowed me to reliably respond to graveyard hate and not scoop to Ancestral Recall targeting me, which hilariously was a real threat at the time.

What if Hermit Druid gets EXILED before I can activate him?

This is why I play Cephalid Illusionist, Nomads en-Kor and Shaman en-Kor. The interaction isn't obvious so I'll explain; the en-Kor ability has been errata'd so that it targets. With an en-Kor and Cephalid Illusionist on the battlefield together, you can target the Cephalid over and over as many times as you choose, milling three cards at a time, effectively your entire library. Note that there doesn't need to be any damaging effects present to use the en-Kor ability.

If you have the choice, you should cast your en-Kor first before the Cephalid. This way, if they have a removal spell, they will kill the en-Kor before the Cephalid resolves, otherwise you'll gain priority and be able to mill your whole graveyard in response. The reason you play the en-Kor first, is because the deck has a second en-Kor to tutor for but there's only one Cephalid. Sometimes it may be more mana efficient to cast Cephalid first, in which case it is best to risk Cephalid first.

There is a third two-cost en-Kor which the deck doesn't play, Warrior en-Kor, but it is WW to cast, which is difficult. Also, playing three en-Kors increases the probability of drawing too many of them. I like playing two. You almost never draw both and having a two-cost one turns on Shred Memory and Muddle the Mixture. Having a two-toughness en-Kor also gives you an out to Darkblast.

If you naturally draw an en-Kor or Cephalid, it's almost always better to go for this combo rather than Hermit Druid, because if you have a reanimate effect after an opposing kill spell, this combo can mill your graveyard immediately rather than having to wait a turn for Hermit Druid's summoning sickness to wear off.

I've covered most of the spells so far. The only ones left are a few of the 'anti-disruption' spells:

• Daze and Mental Misstep. You'll notice that these are zero-mana to cast. This deck hasn't got time to tutor and cast Hermit Druid AND hold up mana for protection effects. Daze and Mental Misstep are the only feasible free-to-cast counterspells. Misdirection and Force of Will require too many blue cards.
• Qasali Pridemage. This guy is a catch all. Conveniently he can be transmuted and Green Sun's Zenith'd for. Umezawa's Jitte is the main target but there are many others, such as: Oblivion Ring and the like, Pithing Needle and the like, Control Magic and the like. 
• Shriekmaw. This is one of the weakest cards in the deck. It is a personal choice and almost exclusively for killing Scavenging Ooze. Previously I tried Stingscourger and Sidisi's Faithful but killing that fucking thing dead is more desirable. Reanimated Iona or Elesh Norn are also things which must die.

The mana base

As previously explained, the land-count is high for consistency. Green is the primary colour as it casts and activates Hermit Druid. Survival of the Fittest is also very green-hungry. With a heavy green Survival of the Fittest curve, you can go turn two Survival, turn three triple activate, turn four unearth Fatestitcher tapping their land, second main Nomads en-Kor + Cephalid Illusionist, which is almost always a win.

Sacred Cat is a new addition to the deck (which is a rare occurrence relative to other decks), so I'm not sure which is the second-most important colour to fetch after green. Blue gives you Fatestitcher. White gives you en-Kor and Sacred Cat. Black gives you reanimate effects, which can involve double and triple black.

Admittedly, Pendlehaven is an untested new inclusion. I realised that most of my creatures are 1/1's:

Hermit Druid*
Cephalid Illusionist
Nomads en-Kor
Murderous Redcap (Persisted. Pendlehaven in response to trigger for value)
Narcomoeba
Sacred Cat
Imperial Recruiter
Recruiter of the Guard
Apprentice Necromancer
All the tutors find these 1/1's and all the reanimation returns these 1/1's. With all that, Pendlehaven seemed excellent, especially if it protects Hermit Druid from Electrolyze, Collective Brutality or the like.
I don't know if the 'fast lands', i.e. Blooming Marsh and Botanical Sanctum are better than the 'pain lands', Yavimaya Coast and Llanowar Wastes. Testing will tell.

Irrelevant History

Sacred Cat superceded Dregscape Zombie. Dregscape Zombie made lands which tapped for black more appealing. With the addition of Sacred Cat, perhaps Plateau is worth including. Currently Marsh Flats has no way of fetching red mana. I tried Badlands whilst I was playing Dregscape Zomie but it screwed me too many times, whereas Plateau can cast en-Kors, Qasali Pridemage, Eladamri's Call and post-board enables Sivvi's Ruse, Sivvi's Valor and Orim's Cure.

The sideboard

This deck is so tied up by all the combo pieces and support cards it needs to play, that it can't board-out many cards, therefore the sideboard is very narrow.

Laboratory Maniac comes in almost every time. It is particularly good against Extract as it gives you a win condition even if The Mimeoplasm is exiled. It also gives you an out against surprise graveyard hate from their hand, e.g. if The Mimeoplasm gets exiled from your graveyard, you can still Memory's Journey Laboratory Maniac into your deck for a second chance of winning.

Oblivion Stone
Chaos Warp
Carpet of Flowers
Wild Growth
Bloodghast
These are the anti-Blood Moon package. Yes, that card has beaten me enough times to justify five sideboard slots to it. It's not like I can play basics to counteract it...If you expect your opponent is playing Blood Moon, bring in these five. Bloodghast substitutes Sacred Cat. Under a Bloodmoon, Wildgrowth and Carpet of Flowers can only provide the green for casting and activating Hermit Druid, you can't produce blue or white for Fatestitcher or Sacred Cat, hence the addition of Bloodghast. Unfortunately Bloodghast requires a land drop the turn you go off but I think it's worth the risk.
Note that I play Wild Growth but not Utopia Sprawl, this is because Blood Moon would make the enchanted land no longer a forest, causing Utopia Sprawl to fall off.

Invigorate
Sivvi's Ruse
Orim's Cure
Sivvi's Valor
These are just against burn decks. Very narrow but zero-mana counterspells are amazing.

Stony Silence
Null Rod
Silver bullets against Storm and Workshop decks

Faerie Macabre
Silver bullet against graveyard strategies. Being a small creature makes it searchable by almost all your tutors.

Extract
A silver bullet against potentially faster combo decks.

Volrath's Stronghold
Relatively new addition to the sideboard. Gives you the potential to grind against Jund and Grixis decks, which don't exile Hermit Druid. Volrath's Stronghold is only really effective once you have five mana (the mana required to put Hermit on-top in your upkeep and cast him the same turn).

What is ok to sideboard out?

• If they're not playing Scavenging Ooze, you can board out Shriekmaw. 
• The slower tutors are always trimmable: Shred Memory, Muddle the Mixture and the recruiters.
• Reanimate and Postmortem Lunge are bad against graveyard hate, which you can expect your opponent to bring in. Shallow Grave and Apprentice Necromancer are still good against reactive graveyard hate because when you Dread Return and they try to exile your graveyard in response, you can respond with Shallow Grave or Apprentice Necromancer. Note that when you mill your graveyard with Hermit Druid, you are allowed to order it as you like, i.e. you should always order The Mimeoplasm as the top creature in your graveyard for Shallow Grave.
• Trimming a land is ok, especially on the draw

I don't cut any of the other cards. When I have, I have regretted it.

What is the best metagame for this deck?
This Hermit Druid deck loses to decks which draw about three or more disruption effects in a game. Basically you're flopping Hermit Druid out there and hoping they don't kill it. If your local metagame includes lots of decks which are low on creature removal, then it's ripe. Hermit Druid combo is more consistent than most combo decks whilst being just as fast and having incidental graveyard hate main, so a combo-heavy meta is good for Hermit Druid.

What can I cut if I want to put my own spin on it?
My build plays a lot of backup cards. It may very well be correct to cut cards such as Cabal Therapy, Memory's Journey, Reanimate and Shriekmaw for generally stronger cards.
I play a lot of lands, Pendlehaven, Blooming Marsh and Botanical Sanctum are the weakest if you want to cut some of them.
The entire sideboard is adjustable except for Laboratory Maniac. I have played Leonin Relic-Warder in the past, just for Cursed Totem, which is otherwise unkillable.

Well that's about all I wanted to cover. I still very much enjoy playing the deck even after all these years. It's a thrill to play because the smallest decisions can be the difference between a win and a loss. There are also hilarious games where you're beating down with crappy guys.
Which lands to fetch and what to name with Cabal Therapy are big challenges. Trying to win when your combo pieces are missing is where it gets most challenging. I may be shooting myself in the foot by publishing this article but I don't mind. The more people know about Highlander, the better.

Happy Hermit Holidays,

Mulch

Ixalan Highlander Set Review

Ahoy!

Get rowdy! In the realm of Rogue Refiner (but not the plane). Not bad as just a value creature which nets you a card. You can work the Crew a bit harder and get more value though. Put them in a midrange dredge deck, make your graveyard huge and have a high chance of discarding two cards of the same type because dredge gives you more control over what you draw.
Even simply playing a higher count of a certain card type improves your Crew.

Roooooararragghh! The dudes in the art are fucked.
Super Thrun basically. Devours control decks.
Pretty excited to add this to my Scapeshift deck. That deck suffers against counterspells and Carnage Tyrnant rips counterspells to shreds.

You know it, I know it.

Passable hate bear dino. Stops Splinter Twin, Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, Copy Cat, Alluren. Also stops you dying on the spot to Flash combo, although if this is in play they'll just go for Titania + Sylvan Safekeeper instead. You'll still get a few pings though and possibly be able to burn them out.
The pings help a bit when you're grinding against planeswalkers.
Turns off Grove of the Burnwillows + Punishing Fire.
I'd only play this if your local metagame has a couple combo decks to hate on.

Needs to go in a super aggro deck because it's really bad at blocking. A weakness of super aggro decks is their weakness to sweepers, so the indestructible is very appealing.
Works well with Death's Shadow.

The best card for Highlander from the set in my opinion. Deals with Gaea's Cradle, Tolarian Academy, Mishra's Workshop, Maze of Ith, Dark Depths.
Some other bonuses: Two landfall triggers. Combos with anti-search effects like Aven Mindcensor.
Obviously you'll need to play a few basics to ensure you can find one.

On the low end of the power spectrum but it's a flexible one-drop and that counts for a lot. Grinds ok. The graveyard hate is handy against most decks, e.g. messing with delve, Snapcaster Mage, etc; can even win the game in some matchups.
'Two mana, tap, get a counter' is below rate. Drawing a land however, is good. Kind of a mini Tireless Tracker.

If there's a Merfolk deck, it's probably UGx after Ixalan. Kumena's Speaker is a good beater for non-Naya aggro decks (since Naya has access to enough good one-drops to push this out).

Generally inefficient. You're spending two mana to turn off a card your opponent hasn't invested mana into yet.
This card isn't great but some decks struggle against certain card types and are still happy to have an inefficient answer, e.g. mono blue control against planeswalkers or mono black against artifacts.
The situation where this shines most is against decks which heavily rely on a single card, e.g. Time Vault.
Seeing their hand is a strong effect, even if you don't see anything worth naming.

Roooarrr! Dinosaurrr! Better than Thragtusk, albeit two colours. Gonna be a powerhouse in Standard. Green Sun's Zenithable. Worse than Titania but still quite strong. Gives you good value in almost every situation where you can cast a five drop.

FRINGE CARDS

 

Two mana is a large tempo loss for not disrupting your opponent or adding to the board. You'll need to be playing supplementary cards which regain that tempo. You also want to aim for the long game to get the most out of Azcanta. You'll take a turn off here and there to impulse, then spend the next two or three turns regaining that tempo but eventually you'll overcome your opponent. Since you're aiming for the late game you'll need answers for all kinds of threats (creatures, lands, planeswalkers and artifacts), very tricky to do.
Obviously this performs better in graveyard conscious control decks. I'm thinking Emrakul, the Promised End since this helps in play and if milled is one of few appropriate enchantments.
Be aware that main deck yard hate is a thing, so don't expect this to always flip.

Only good if you're cheat casting. Mizzix's Mastery perhaps. The card I'm keen to try this with is Dream Halls. I really need to bust out that deck again. Basically you cast Dream Halls and draw your deck.

Shout outs Nathan Brewer. One more lord for the people of the sea.

Coralhelm Commander

Lord of Atlantis

Master of the Pearl Trident

Merrow Reejerey

Merfolk Sovereign

hmmm that ain't many. Merfolk probably still aren't playable but eventually there'll be enough.

Playable aggro beater. Much easier to cast than other 3-power haste creatures, e.g. Boggart Ram-Gang, which I've been happy playing.

Only two toughness so she will trade down often.

Bit of colour fixing, which is handy. You'll probably be playing one-mana instants like Lightning Bolt and Fatal Push, so being able to tap out turn three and use the treasure to remove their blocker, is efficient.

She might edge into an aggro deck on the back of artifact synergies.

Players have tried Quirion Dryad. It's been close. Acts something like a Tarmogoyf in dedicated spell decks. Unfortunately, decks designed to abuse cards like this, receive diminishing returns from pay-off creatures.

Very win-more but still good enough. Provides some protection against sweepers, which is nice for aggro decks. However, you'd rather leave a creature in play post-sweeper than get one in hand.

I haven't got any sweet combos for you unfortunately but one day this'll be part of one. Best I can think of at the moment is Wirewood Symbiote. Maybe it could set up a win with Goblin Recruiter or Dwarven Recruiter?

Big dumb dinosaur gets there! Not really much worse than Reality Smasher. Thundermaw Hellkite is better but why not play both?! Only a single red, so easy to cast off Mana Vault, Mana Crypt and Ancient Tomb. I think Graham King's big red deck will play this.

This card excites me. Is there a way to ping it a bunch of times early? Seal of Fire is ok. Razorfin Hunter?

Decent sideboard card in ramp decks against aggro.

Might get a spot in the hyper aggro RB deck which has done pretty well in the hands of Jeremy Neeman and Dillon Kikkawa (good luck in Alberquerque dude!). One power is pretty bad at attacking into a Trinket Mage though.

Goes in most three-colour tribal decks but there aren't many of those.

This little fella is a stretch, even for the fringe category. It's just such a unique effect that I couldn't shake it from the list. I know the card Akki Rockspeaker exists, so goblins that ETB generate mana, are on the radar. Maybe there'll be some kind of Food Chain/Lightning Crafter/Birthing Pod Goblin shenanigans deck, who knows?

SIDEBOARD ONLY

Hard to evaluate. Defends himself poorly, hence the sideboard allocation. Good to bring in against decks with very few creatures. You also want to be playing small creatures of your own; ideally going one-drop, two-drop, Jace, for max lootage. That's a tall order for a heavy blue deck.

Infinite with Doubling Season.

Anyone familiar with the Static Field ability of the Sorceress in Diablo II?

This card is fringe sideboard. Only good against decks which aren't trying to aggro you out. I'm imagining versing a control deck, they counter and remove your first four threats and then Dire Fleet Ravager comes down and they lose seven life. This is a pretty unique card. I'd love to see an opponent gain 'infinite life', where they choose something like "One billion life". If you have Dire Fleet Ravager and a recurring blink effect "One billion" is not enough.

This card's name is really bad. Not only is it long and generic, it also uses 'Ravager', confusing it with the iconic Arcbound Ravager.

Too slow to maindeck. Excellent in proactive decks post-board against slow decks. When I say 'proactive' I mean you can play most of your cards onto an open board, i.e. not counterspells or lots of removal.

Blue Moon has a lot of trouble against enchantments. Their answer is to either race or bounce plus counter. 

The flip-side is pretty unbeatable for any noncombo deck.

Awesome ability but only one-power and therefore not a good enough attacker to main deck. Pretty good against Birthing Pod decks and some combo decks.

In the realm of Threads of Disloyalty. More synergistic in blue decks with all the instant/sorcery synergies, e.g. Snapcaster Mage and Delver of Secrets.

Fringe sideboard yard hate. Some decks really want the cantrip effect that comes with some of the yard hate artifacts. Others would rather curve out proactively and have yard hate with a zero mana activation cost. In that category, Sentinel Totem is third to Grafdigger's Cage and Tormod's Crypt. If the deck is white, then it's worse than Rest in Peace and Wheel of Sun and Moon. If the deck is black then it's worse than Leyline of the Void and Nihil Spellbomb. If the deck is green then they already have Scavenging Ooze. So I can really only see this in the sideboard of artifact decks or mono red proactive decks, even then it'd need to be a heavy graveyard metagames to play Tormod's Crypt, Grafdigger's Cage AND this.

Just another big dirty six-drop planeswalker. Take your pick of them really. Most of the time they get played cause people just love them, but in some control decks and ramp decks I like them. Vraska is almost impossible to kill, so if you can disrupt combo decks enough and survive to six mana, then game on.

For my Commander 2017 set review, I listed Kindred Discovery as playable in Elves. This is practically the same card for that tiny tiny narrow corner of playability that I've theoretically constructed. This works well in my Contruct tribal deck that I featured in that article.
Kobold tribal? Maybe one day.

My favourite card from the set, just for the art, definitely not the power level. Imagining the chirp noise this thing would vocalise as it runs off with a delicious egg, cracks me up.
I have this listed as fringe playable for mono red sligh. One-toughness for Skullclamp and does a respectable amount of damage if you burn away any blockers. Once you add another colour though, the amount of better two-drops pushes this little guy out.

I like this in the infect deck or the double strike deck. You may not have seen them before but they're possible and can definitely steal wins. No need to play removal in those decks if you can just fly over blockers and outrace like Roadrunner verses me.
If wizards print more cheap hexproof creatures (unlikely), this could go in boggles.


That's it for this set review! I've been slow with this one because I've started back at full-time work, which has been bitter sweet sweet, that is, much more sweet than bitter. So many sweet brews I'd like to try, but no time.

Thanks,

Mulch