In the past few weeks there were many changes and I'd like to keep you up-to-date on what happened.

1. If you read my previous articles you probably noticed that the community was discussing possible bans or unbans in the format.
2. ML_Berlin, the host of Chainsaw Massacre, the person keeping this format alive for us for years, handed hosting of the event to another player. With that happening I'd like to give big thanks to ML_Berlin for his dedication, effort and all time he spent hosting events and finding new players. He kept the 100 Card Singleton format alive for all of us who love it, he gave us the opportunity to play, and meet new players.

    

   THANK YOU, ML

   Lowman02 is the new host, he is a very good player, a good person who can help make the community grow and I believe that he will keep the Chainsaw Massacre event very much alive. He is providing very high quality content on his Youtube Channel where he explains different strategies in 100CS. If you are interested in seeing how the format can look like I'd recommend watching his videos. Lowman02 also wrote a primer for the format, so if you are not yet familiar with decks or cards, head over to the article -> 100CS Wants You.

3. We also started a new subreddit which can be found at https://www.reddit.com/r/S100/. If you have any questions regarding the format, ask there and we will happily answer.
4. With Lowman02 negotiated bigger prize support (from 11 tix to 16 tix, 8 tix goes to the winner, the rest is divided among players that lost once.) for the event and started a voting process for banlist changes.

First of all, what me and Lowman02 wanted to achieve with the change of banlist was freedom in playing and deckbuilding. We wanted equality for different deck archetypes in order to create a more healthy metagame that can also shift depending on what people would bring to the table. There wouldn't be one dominant deck like there is now - 4c Blood - around which the metagame would need to warp. With unbannings we envisioned certain decks could become dominant, but there would be an opposition to them which would steer the metagame into another direction. This means there is another impact on the metagame which we didn't talk about but is derived from this. With cards unbanned we will get control decks and combo decks in the format which will give more room for the decks that would prey on those (for example aggressive decks will be the ones keeping Loam decks in check). With more different decks in the metagame, we will get more variance. This means that in events we can get paired against good matchups or bad matchups while before the unbannings the win percentage was mostly in 10-15 percentage difference. I don't want to say that this is bad, it is actually good and this alone should allow us to have more fun playing, experimenting - any deck can win now.

Since we don't have a banlist committee like the German Highlander community for example, there is no explanation why cards were chosen to be banned or unbanned. We as players voted and that means that all our subjective feelings and objective thinking was included in the results.

The results are as follows:

On Tutors

Boogeyman man number one is Demonic Tutor. Only 30 percent voted for its unban while Mystical Tutor was unbanned with 70% agreement. This is a relatively strange thing and shows a certain bias towards Demonic Tutor and maybe a little bit of underestimation of Mystical Tutor. In German Highlander at the time of the voting we said goodbye to Mystical Tutor while Demonic Tutor (that was on the watchlist) is still legal in that format. Why did that happen? I'd like to use this one example to show you that maybe there is more to some cards then you think and that some cards seemingly overpowered are not.

When we are judging the power of the cards many people just look at the card and its effect. Some will also look at the cards in context of the format and some will even go further and look at the context of the actual games played with these cards in their decks. Based on the voting we can see that majority of the people most probably thinks that Demonic Tutor is the superior card which in vacuum can be true. In the context of Vintage, I would agree. In the context of 100CS or German Highlander I wouldn't. Why? What's different?

We can look at these tutors from different perspectives. If we break down the two cards we can come up with a table.

If we look at this we might come to the conclusion that Demonic Tutor is the better card after all. In Vintage for example it would be true. Mystical Tutor is a card that was often cut from decks because there were stronger cards. The card was doing the best job in a Delver shell where it could find the needed answer, timely Time Walk or flip Delver of Secrets with certainty (if Tutor resolved). In combo-control decks the card disadvantage and tutor's limitation (looking for instant or sorcery) was sometimes simply the reason to cut the card altogether. When the card was used mostly to look for instants, players even gave preference to Merchant Scroll.

In 100CS the situation is different. I'll share my experience from playing Demonic Tutor and Mystical Tutor. I used to play with Demonic Tutor in all my decks I brought to events. Even if that was the single splashed black card since I was often on multicolored decks and splashing a color was easy. Mystical Tutor was finding its way into blue-based decks. The use of the tutors was totally different though. Since I played with both cards for years and even was checking the winning cards in my decks for 3 years, I noticed one thing. Most of the time Demonic Tutor was searching for answers while Mystical Tutor in the decks I played it in was looking for a win condition. I'll give few examples from this weekend. I used the said tutors to look for these cards.

In the case of 4c Blood (Demonic Tutor) I looked for the cards in order to even have a chance to win the game. Without playing the tutor I'd most probably simply lost the game. In the case of UWb Combo-Control I searched for cards that allowed me to win in two turns (or be in winning position from which I couldn't lose). In two cases I looked for a tutor that I needed in order to find what I needed in order to win. In the first case I just needed one part of the combo and in the second one I needed to look for both parts of it - Helm of Obedience and Rest in Peace. In the third case I just looked for Entreat the Angels to win the game on my next turn. In the last case I needed to get rid of my opponent's creatures in order land Jace, the Mind Sculptor and win with it. Tutoring for Terminus to put it on top of my library and cast it for its miracle cost meant that I could play both cards and still have mana open for permission. In the first two cases I could have played Demonic Tutor with the same result (even though I couldn't cast it in case 1) in the other two Mystical Tutor's 'disadvantage' was turned into an advantage. With Demonic Tutor I wouldn't be able to cast the spells for their miracle cost.

On our way back we discussed the banning of Mystical Tutor and while at it the winner of the tournament said that he cast Mystical Tutor 4 times during the event. In three cases he looked for a card that ended the game - Price of Progress twice and Ruination. I believe that if you'd ask the Demonic Tutor players and Mystical Tutor players about their tutored cards their answers could be divided in two categories similarly to my example - answers and win conditions.

What does this mean? While Demonic Tutor is very strong card and I won't argue about that, Mystical Tutor is often on very similar power level or even stronger in singleton. Casting Demonic Tutor at Sorcery speed and waiting a turn to play the tutored card or playing it right away needing more resources is often something that makes Demonic Tutor less powerful. Mystical Tutor doesn't allow for sorcery speed disruption and even blue permission has difficulties since the player casting the tutor usually casts it at end of turn while being untapped. The fact that the card needs to be revealed isn't much of a downside since the card will be played the next turn and the opponent simply doesn't have much room to deal with the tutored card. If you don't see what I mean try replacing Mystical Tutor with Imperial Seal. After casting it few times you will realize that the one full turn your opponent has to find an answer for something that is coming (the target will most likely be easy to divine if the tutored card is a win condition or answer depending on the board state) is a very big difference.

Mystical Tutor is not the only tutor unbanned. Intuition is also a powerful card but often underrated as well. This card will find its way into combo decks but also into BUG control decks where it will search for Life from the Loam in most of the cases. In others it can look for 3 removal spells for example or 3 relevant creatures when one is needed. Intuition though is the perfect tutor for Life from the Loam and some lands. No matter if you look for Life from the Loam, Wasteland, Cycle land or Life from the Loam, Eternal Witness, Volrath's Stronghold what you earn is a huge card advantage over time. This of course has a downside and that is the speed. Using Loam engine to gain card advantage takes time. It can be efficiently used at the earliest during the time when aggressive decks should have won (or lost) the game. This in general means that decks utilizing this engine will be soft to Red Deck Wins or White Weenie/Death and Taxes decks. When facing a control deck though, if you manage to resolve Intuition on turn 3 and use Loam a turn later, you've most probably just won. Loam package comes with a price and it is up to the player to see if that is worth including, this alone suggest that the card or cards in question are not all-powerful.

After reading this article you should be able to see Mystical Tutor and Demonic Tutor in a different light. What you need to understand is that many players often cast Demonic Tutor in a losing position while Mystical Tutor is being cast in winning one. Mystical Tutor is being cast in order to secure your position and win the game, when you fall behind this card often doesn't save you. Demonic Tutor looks for the answer that can put you back in the game, but it can also lose you the game since often time is of the essence when you need to cast this card.

What is important when evaluating cards is context. I used Vintage and 100CS as an example. It does not stop there. 100CS has a certain metagame and that creates another context. Different matchups create other contexts. If you know how to play and what you need you will know what to do and how the game should progress. This way you can use the knowledge to use your cards the best. In this case I was talking just about two cards - with one now being legal, while the other one banned mostly due to misconception of the card.

Don't be afraid of the cards that got unbanned. If you don't have enough experience with them, just try them out. See how they behave in your deck and what is the best use for them. Necropotence might seem overpowered but what deck wants to play it? BBB is a very big commitment and the deck needs to win on the spot (next turn) in order to make use of it. Even Storm in 100CS wants to stay away from it. If you don't know why, put the deck together and goldfish. The answer can be easily found, just by playing. You will find out that Ritual driven deck similar to Legacy's ANT is more difficult to built than one that is cantrip driven and plays High Tide to generate mana, cast spells, tutor for Tendrils of Agony, and cast them.

Thank you for reading
S'Tsung (stsung on Magic Online, stsungjp)