(And for those of you on phones you can find the video here)
Hello everyone! I understand this review is a little late given that Strixhaven spoilers have nearly concluded. I thought it was best to make this after the introductory articles so that the card evaluation could be understood when it came to assessing cards for Canlander
I very much hope you all enjoy this review and expect a similar one next time for Strixhaven, before returning to the usual articles after that :)
Canadian Highlander shares a lot of aspects with a lot of formats; its 100 card singleton nature with Commander, its card pool with Vintage, and decks and archetypes from all across Magic’s formats. The format does, however, have 1 defining feature, a feature that sets it apart, and in my opinion above, any other format, the points list.
The points list is Canlander’s answer to a banlist, but rather than restricting what people play it instead limits the power level of decks, while allowing every card to see play. In Modern for example, when Birthing Pod decks became too powerful, they banned Pod, meaning people had to find a completely different deck to play. In Canlander if a Pod strategy becomes too good, the points values of certain cards can change to stop that, but people can still play a Pod deck. I use this example because that’s exactly what happened last year! A Pod deck taking advantage of an infinite turns combo was proving too strong and so the points values of cards were changed. Time Walk went from 6 to 7 points, and Spellseeker from 1 to 2 points. Now you can’t play Walk, Seeker, AND Pod in the same deck, but you can still play all those cards in the format.
The points list is an ever-changing balancing act for the format but it does an incredible job at keeping the format fresh whilst not stopping people from playing the cards they love, so let's take a deeper dive into the points list, look at the most common reasons a card becomes worth pointing and how best to use our points!
Turns Out, Ramp Is Good?
As anyone who’s played commander will know, ramp is a very powerful tool that can absolutely warp games when seen at the right time (read, early). Due to ramp often being an effective way to get ahead of your opponents quickly a lot of the more powerful ramp finds its way onto the points list. The biggest examples of pointed ramp are the 5 Moxen, Sol Ring, and Mana Crypt, though there are others.
One of the most powerful things you can do in Magic is ‘cheat’ on mana costs, the game allows you to play 1 land on each of your turns and as such you’re expected to play a 4 drop on turn 4. There are plenty of cards in Magic that can set you a turn or so ahead: mana dorks, ramp spells, and mana rocks, but the best of the best can completely warp the game, as well as the format, around them. Every pointed mana rock in the format gives more mana than it costs, this means that not only do they get you ahead on mana in future turns, but also ahead the turn they are played.
The amount of mana that a card gives you is often correlated with the number of points that it has. As a comparison, the Moxen cost 3 points, while Sol Ring costs 4. Both cards accelerate you ahead 1 mana the turn they’re played, but in future turns Ring gives you 2 additional mana rather than 1 like the Moxen do. How consistently they give you that mana is also a factor; Mana Vault may accelerate you more than a Moxen or Ring do, but it doesn’t regularly untap and so sits at a measly 1 point, purely due to the fact that fewer decks want a one-off burst of mana over a consistent source.
The 1 card that doesn’t fit the idea of consistent mana being more point-worthy than single bursts is a little-known card by the name of Black Lotus. Lotus is by far the most powerful single burst of mana in Magic, but it also costs a whopping 7 points. Were Black Lotus solely a ramp card 7 points would be unreasonable, however, an important thing to understand about cards on the points list is that they aren’t in a vacuum. It’s not uncommon for cards to be pointed to some degree because of how they interact with other cards, Lotus being the prime example. Lotus on its own is already very good, but when you combine it with cards like Demonic Tutor, in a Storm deck, that combination of cards becomes unreasonably strong, and so points have to be allocated to stop that from happening.
What They Don’t Teach You In School
Speaking of Demonic Tutor, let's talk about another big chunk of the points list, Tutors. Tutors have always been strong in Magic, and in a singleton format they arguably become even more powerful, acting almost like second copies of a card. It’s a lot easier to find 1 card in 50 than it is 1 in 100. Tutors fall into a similar camp to Black Lotus, sure they can be used ‘fairly’, finding a land drop or removal spell for an opposing planeswalker, but the vast majority of the time people are using them to find a kill spell for a player, not a planeswalker. While Demonic Tutor does often do a great Sylvan Scrying impression it’s much more likely going to find a Tendrils Of Agony at the end of a Storm Players pop-off turn.
When it comes to why Tutors are pointed it often comes down to 3 factors: when, where, and what. When can you cast it? Where does it put the card? What card(s) can it get? As a point of comparison let's look at 3 similar, but differently pointed tutors; Imperial Seal, Vampiric Tutor, and Demonic Tutor.
Imperial Seal is a single point, it’s a sorcery and therefore can only be cast on your turn, it finds any card, but it puts it on top of your library. Vampiric Tutor is 2 points, it is an instant so can be cast any time, finds any card, but also puts it on top. Finally, we have the previously mentioned Demonic Tutor. DT is 4 points, is a Sorcery, also finds any card, but puts it directly into your hand! Seal and Vampiric when compared make a pretty obvious example that instant speed spells are much more powerful than sorcery speed spells, the fact you can Vampiric at any time makes it 1 point more, as well as much more playable than Seal. The interesting comparisons come when we bring DT into the discussion. DT is slower than Vampiric, finds all the same cards, but puts it directly into hand, which gets it a whole 2 more points. Canlander is a fast format and sometimes 1 turn can be the difference between winning and losing, so DT putting the card into your hand is a huge difference. DT also has no downsides, Seal and Vampiric, as well as the similarly designed Grim tutor all have life loss attached to them. Often life loss won’t mean much but against the quicker decks in the format that can be the difference between a tutor saving you/winning you the game, and death.
In a 100 card singleton format consistency is an important part of deckbuilding and Tutors are a very powerful and effective way of increasing that consistency. Tutors, perhaps more than any other subset of cards on the points list, help show why the list is so important, helping to not only keep the format from becoming homogenized but also balanced and fun
Halting The Storm
The last big subset of cards we’re covering today is Combo cards. Magi is full of ‘fun’ little interactions and combos, most of which are harmless, but some of which end the game very fast, and often very abruptly, in a casual format like Canadian Highlander these decks are certainly allowed but are certainly not ones that you want to give too much free reign to, lest they dominate the format.
There’s no real trick to why combo cards are pointed the way that they are, all are pointed because of how they interact with other cards but they can interact in many different ways. Some cards like Yawgmoth’s Will and Underworld Breach are banned because of the value they give often leading to either a massive swing turn or outright ending the game. A lot of Tutors often overlap into this section, such as DT being pointed at 4 rather than 3 in large part because of its domination of the format alongside Black Lotus in Storm decks when the 2 could be paired together. Similarly, cards like Flash and Protean Hulk are pointed the way that they are since they are often paired together as well, their pointing of 6 and 3 respectively meaning that you have an extra point to use, but not allowing you to include cards like Spellseeker to make the deck too consistent.
Combo cards are the prime examples of cards being pointed because of their ceiling. Sure you could build a fair Birthing Pod deck where Pod doesn’t feel worthy of its 2 points, but then you look at a full-on combo pod deck and there are chains that exist where Pod with near enough any creature and enough life/mana is an instant win.
The Best Of The Rest
Of course, not all cards in Canlander take up multiple points, a large portion of the list is taken up with a whole host of cards that only cost you a single point. These are the cards that often aren’t the most abusive cards, but are instead cards that it’s not a great idea to allow everyone to free role. The poster child of this in my mind is True-Name Nemesis. TNN is an incredibly obnoxious card in the right matchup, making combat incredibly awkward for any creature-based deck, and outside of dedicated combo decks a creature that would quite happily be played by the vast majority of Blue decks. In control it would allow you to keep the opponent’s creatures at bay, in tempo it’s one of the best threats in Blue. SO, in order to keep it from showing up in the vast majority of Blue decks, it has been allocated a single point.
TNN isn’t the only card like this, Dig Through Time/Treasure Cruise, Library Of Alexandria, Crop Rotation, Mind Twist, and so on are all cards that, were they not pointed, could easily become staples of their colours. The power level of these cards is nothing to scoff at and that combined with an interest in keeping the format diverse and interesting is why these cards often see themselves pointed.
Defining A Format
The points list is a system that very few formats implement, and understandably so as it can lead to some confusion, especially in competitive events. However, I do believe that it serves to give Canlander an identity and a balance that is incredibly unique to the format. It’s a system that allows you to play any cards you want, but also keeps you from going haywire, keeps the format open and fresh, but not overpowered or homogenized. The system isn’t perfect, and with WOTC continually releasing incredibly busted cards (see Oko and Opposition Agent especially) I feel there is very possibly room for some improvement, but keeping on top of a format as big and as complex of Canlander is incredibly difficult, and I think the Council does an incredible job. The format has been going for decades at this point and shows no signs of stopping. While the format may give you 10 points to play with, the most important point is to have fun!
Thanks for reading everyone! So sorry this took so long to come out, I will try my absolute best to get back to the usual 2 week Schedule from here on :) This was my final article in regards to introducing the format to people, from here on we get to talk about the fun stuff, starting with my incredibly on time review of Kaldheim! See you then!
Questions? Comments? Want to talk about the format? I’d love to hear from you! I can be found on Twitter @ForceOfWilko.
It’s no secret that Canadian Highlander can be an expensive format. The format lets you use essentially every card in Magic’s long existence and as such the price range of playable cards varies wildly. With Canlander being one of the few formats in which players can use cards like the Power 9, players will no doubt want to play with those cards. Whilst those cards are a defining part of the format, it’s important to realise that they do not define the format in the same way they do in Vintage. It’s okay to not play with power; the points list system allows for you to play more budget friendly cards and still come away with a deck of a similar, if not identical power level.
SO today, I want to look at some decks in the format that can still give you a good chance to win, whilst not giving your wallet the same beating they can give your opponent. Let's start by looking at the shining example, a staple of every format there is, Mono Red.
Bolt the Rich
Mono red is one of the most customisable decks in the format: you can build more burn based, more creature based, you can play goblins or even go bigger and play what is known as medium red with 3 and 4 drops galore. For today, I want to focus on the first two options that I mentioned.
Mono red has been a game staple for years when it comes to budget decks, and it’s no different here. The deck is extremely customisable and gets new cards near enough every set, whether that be in huge bomb cards like the recently printed Bonecrusher Giant, or the smaller role-players like Skewer the Critics.
Canlander is a very fast format and at the end of the day it doesn’t really matter how you get your opponent's life total to 0. Mono Red has near infinite variants of pay X deal X so no one’s going to judge you for not being able to afford a Wild Slash because they're still going to die to the Shocks and Galvanic Blasts that fill that same role. The Mox Ruby seen in the decklist above is also entirely unnecessary, Ruby can give you more explosive draws for sure but it could easily be more burn or a creature and you’ll still overrun people with pressure.
With the Ruby removed, the deck comes to just under 400 dollars. Now, this is a lot but the majority of the money there is in the mana base. Just like the power cards, fetches aren’t the be all and end all of the format but they do significantly improve the deck: fuelling cards like Grim Lavamancer and allowing you to have a tighter mana base. A mana base of 30 Mountains still lets you cast your spells, and still lets you use your Shock to kill your opponent's 50 dollar Planeswalker.
Mono colour decks like Red Deck Wins are a great starting point for getting into the format; the mana bases are the simplest and let you save money on cards like fetches and dual lands. Mono colour decks do often lack power however, especially on a budget. With that in mind let’s look at playing a multicolour deck on a budget.
Showing Your Budget Prowess
In the above decklist, we’ve taken the previous example of Mono Red and have turned it into a Jeskai deck. This Jeskai Tempo list is looking to play a somewhat similar game to Mono Red, getting the opponent’s life total to 0 as quickly as possible, whilst being a little bit more tricksy. Playing Jeskai allows us to play some more expensive (mana wise) but scarier threats, such as Brimaz, King of Oreskos and True-Name Nemesis.
Despite having 2 extra colours, this decklist is only around 50 dollars more than the Mono Red list from earlier. Again, a lot of that money comes from the 9 fetches that the deck plays, though unlike in Mono Red a 3 colour deck’s mana base is significantly worsened without these cards. The deck also requires you to play lands like shocks, fast lands and checklands in order to make sure that you have the mana you need to cast your spells. This list is also a budget conscious one, we are not playing cards such as Jace, the Mind Sculptor or Force of WIll that are obvious upgrades for the deck, but again, not entirely necessary.
Despite the mana base being so expensive, the addition of 2 more colours has meant that we have more powerful spells at our disposal that are still good budget options. Every colour has good budget cards, but red and blue are certainly 2 of the better colours for this. This is due to the amount of redundancy that these colours have.
I made reference to it earlier, when discussing shock and its many variants, but redundancy is one of the most powerful tools at your disposal when wanting to play on a budget. Examples of redundancy can include cards that do a near identical job at a cheaper price point. For example, comparing Noble Hierarch to Birds of Paradise, or even cards like Llanowar elves.
Another great example is finding a list that maximises on similar effects: the mono red list, for instance, is looking for cards that deal damage at an efficient cost, whilst the Jeskai list is full of cheap and efficient card draw spells. The Jeskai list also takes advantage of cards such as prowess creatures or “army in a can” cards such as Young Pyromancer or, if your budget can afford it, the more powerful but more expensive Monastery Mentor.
So as mentioned, this Jeskai list is only about 50 dollars more than the Mono Red list, and a lot of that is because of the extensive mana base that a 3 colour deck requires. So how would our budget work out if we were to only play 2 colours?
Izzet Cheaper?
For our final decklist, the white has been dropped and we’ve gone for a more streamlined Izzet build. The price difference? This deck is actually more than the Jeskai deck! Despite both decks not including cards like Force of Will and Snapcaster Mage, the 3 colour deck costs less. Both decks have their fair share of expensive cards, such as Brimaz and Jitte in the Jeskai deck or Blood Moon and Back to Basics in the Izzet list, however the average cost of the cards in the Jeskai deck is just slightly lower. Once Izzet has added all the best budget cards, it has to look at the more expensive options. With Jeskai, you have an entire other colour you can look to for options.This won’t necessarily work for every archetype, nor every colour, but it is something that should be considered if you’re being budget conscious.
Budget deckbuilding is hard, but there are many options out there. I hope that these 3 decklists have shown you what’s possible and that it’s okay to experiment beyond just mono colour and two colour decks. If you have fetches already from playing alternative formats, as well as other staple cards, then deckbuilding becomes significantly easier. If you don’t, however, I feel there are ways that you can work towards acquiring such cards in ways that can benefit you beyond Canlander.
Building Your Collection
Once your deck has reached a point where you’re happy with it, you can look at improving it with pricier cards. This will improve both the deck and your collection, which will lead to more options, not just in regards to the deck you have but other decks you can build as well.
As I have referenced after every list, the mana base is often the area of the deck that is the easiest to improve: adding in fetchlands, utility lands, and dual lands. While the fetchlands are extremely important, if not a necessity for 3+ colour decks, I don’t believe that they are the be-all and end-all for 2 colour mana bases. Your deck will likely encounter some consistency issues and may require less colour hungry cards, such as Crackling Drake in the Izzet list, but 8-10 dual lands and some basics will serve you well until fetches can be acquired.
My biggest tip for building a collection is to pick up cards that can have use elsewhere, such as Snapcaster Mage or Force of Will. These cards will make it into the vast majority of blue decks you play in Canlander, or even Commander. Snapcaster mage, however, can also see play in modern which may be more relevant to you. The more formats and more decks that you will personally use the card in, the more you’ll get out of the card, and your money. As a personal example, I recently acquired a Gaea’s Cradle, an incredibly expensive pickup for me, but I have 2-3 decks built for Canlander that can use the card, as well as a Marath commander deck. Not only is that card powerful in those decks but I can now even consider building GW maverick in legacy because I now own a cradle. Even though it was a costly purchase, the fact I can make use of it in multiple formats and in multiple decks meant I was happy to pick it up.
Another thing to consider, when playing between friends, is to allow proxies. Proxies aren’t legal to use in sanctioned events, but if you just want to jam some games with friends it’s a perfectly acceptable way to play with power without paying for it. For example, my playgroup tries their best to get the deck as built as possible and then uses proxies for particular high-end cards such as Time Walk or Ancestral Recall. There is no official stance on proxies in the format, but make sure to check with other players that they are okay with you using them. My friend and fantastic writer Kristen Gregory has a great article about the pros and cons of proxies in casual formats, especially Commander, here.
Speaking of Commander...
99+1 ≠ 100
One of the most popular questions I receive from many Magic: The Gathering players when it comes to deckbuilding is if it is possible to turn your Commander deck into a Canlander deck, the answer to which is a hard maybe.
The reason I bring commander up is because if you play the format you likely already have more of a Canlander deck than you realise. Whilst the majority of decks on the whole can’t be easily translated between formats, a lot of the cards can. From staples like Sol Ring, cantrips like Ponder and Brainstorm, removal spells like Swords to Plowshares or Path to Exile, chances are that a lot of the cards you already own are cards that see a lot of play in the format. This means that depending on how many cards you have, you can save money on your deck or use that money for more impactful cards.
As a broad example let's take a look at my Marath EDH deck:
My Marath deck is a strange beast, and certainly a deck that wouldn’t translate well directly into Canadian Highlander. For starters there are too many cards that care about Marath himself, and too many cards that do too little for their mana cost. Doubling Season may be one of commander’s most defining cards but in Canlander, the card just isn’t good enough.
However, looking at some of the lower costed and more efficient cards, we see that I have cards that are usable in a variety of decks: from spells like Green Sun’s Zenith and Council’s Judgment to creatures such as Scavenging Ooze and Eternal Witness. Almost half of the non-land cards in the deck are playable in some deck in Canlander, and I could certainly use a lot of them in a GWx midrange strategy or some form of Birthing Pod based combo deck.
The End Step
It’s worth remembering, everyone’s budget is different, everyone’s collection is different, and everyone’s needs are different. I hope this article has shown that it is possible to play Canlander without breaking the bank. Ultimately it doesn’t matter if it’s lethal burn from a 10-cent common, or a hit from a 50-dollar Uro, Titan Of Nature’s Wrath. So long as your deck is working, and you’re having fun, then you’re in for a good time in the format.
As with any new format, it can be a daunting task to create your first deck. Can I play my favourite Commander cards? What do the manabases of the format look like? Is my boy Doran, The Siege Tower even playable? Most of these questions will be answered soon!
The first thing I like to do when building any Canlander deck, not just the first, is to have a starting point to build from. Most of the time I have 3 areas that I like to start from: A particular Colour combination, A particular Strategy/Archetype, or a particular card I want to play. Having an idea of even 1 of these factors is a start, if you can get 2 in mind, you’re golden.
Let's say you’ve always wanted to play a deck with Monastery Mentor, that is already narrowing down the type of deck you likely want to look into. For one thing, choosing Mentor means you’re going to be a white deck, as well as likely a slower deck since Mentor isn’t really seen in Combo or Aggro decks. From here the 2 most obvious routes would be a control deck or a token strategy. Control would lead you down the UW route, while tokens would likely lead to WR or WB decks, perhaps with a third colour. This goes to show how even a single card can help you narrow down your options, and help you work out the deck for you.
The Second Hurdle: Don’t Durdle
With Canlander being a 1v1 format another key part of deck building is making sure you can win the game, and win it effectively. Canlander is a rather fast format and so making sure that your win cons are as efficient as they can be is always important.
Different decks will go about winning the game in different ways and it’s important that you always know what that way is. Often the faster Aggro and Tempo decks won’t have a specific card in mind when it comes to winning the game. Their win-con will be whatever creatures, burn spells and such they play getting the opponent's life total to 0. Control decks on the other hand will likely have a handful of cards that they aim to win the game with. Not that control can’t win the game with Snapcaster Mage beats or a flurry of burn spells, but it’s a lot more likely that they aim to use the ultimate of a powerful Planeswalker, or cast an Entreat The Angels to make a board of Angels.
When thinking about the win conditions for your deck it’s always important to think about what your game plan is. Are you wanting to kill your opponent as quickly as possible? Are you looking to control the game and outresource your opponent? As well as think about how you expect the game to end. This may sound obvious but it can be easy to include cards that seem good in practice but when looking at the deck as a whole don’t fit in with what you want to be doing. Some extreme examples of this would be including Inferno Titan in a burn deck or Goblin Guide in a Jeskai control deck. Burn ideally doesn’t want the game to reach turn 6, so a 6 drop is far from what that deck wants. Similarly, Jeskai Control is aiming for the game to go on for a long time and Goblin Guide doesn’t help you in those sorts of games.
One of the most important things to think about when building a deck for the format is making sure that you’re going to make the most out of your cards. One of the biggest mistakes I see is players playing too many ‘do nothing’ cards. Do nothing cards are cards that often cost relatively large amounts of mana that don’t immediately impact the game. Possibly the most well known, and loved, example of a do-nothing card in Canlander is Doubling Season. Doubling Season is a fantastic card in Commander, a format that is much slower than Canlander and therefore a format where high cost, high impact cards run rampant. The issue with doubling Season in Canlander is twofold; it costs too much mana, and it doesn’t reliably impact the game.
To help illustrate the issue with cards like Doubling Season in the format let's compare it to a format staple enchantment; Sylvan Library. Library is another card that doesn’t immediately impact the board, so why is it so much better than Season? The biggest reason is of course the mana cost. Library can come down on a much earlier turn than Season can, or on a later turn while also allowing you to have mana up to cast something else, like a threat or a counterspell. The other reason, however, is the important one, and that is that Library impacts the game every turn, it takes a turn to get going, but every turn after that it lets you look at, and possibly keep more cards. Season only works when backed up by yet more cards, if you don’t have those cards, it’s worthless.
When building a canlander deck you want your cards to be as useful as often as possible, if they don’t immediately affect the game you want them to consistently affect it every turn. A card like Wishclaw Talisman does nothing the turn it’s played, but can lead to a game-ending turn further down the line. Whilst a card like Metallurgic Summonings costs so much more mana, doesn’t immediately affect the board, and requires yet more cards to be used to make it do anything.
It’s Time To Talk Mana
Of course, it’s all well and good talking about what spells are the best to play, but you need to be able to cast them too. Luckily the manabases of Canlander are relatively simple, especially if you have any experience with other singleton formats.
A good starting point for the manabase of your deck is to know what numbers you’re going to want to be looking at. Aggressive strategies will be looking at a lower land count, somewhere around 32-34 should do. You want to make sure that you have enough lands to cast your spells but not so many that you’re drawing too many when you could instead be drawing spells that actually kill your opponent. Control decks will often look towards the higher end of land numbers, around 36-38. Control decks want to be making sure that they hit their lands every turn so that they can cast any spells that they draw, if a control deck falls behind on lands it can be easy to become overwhelmed by the opponent. Finally, midrange decks, as you likely guessed already, normally play somewhere in between Aggro and Control decks, often around 34 lands.
When looking at the number of lands that you play it is also a good idea to consider that some lands won’t actually help you with your mana, lands like Dark Depths and Maze Of Ith are popular includes in the format but don’t make mana themselves.
While the number of lands you play is very important an equally important part of your manabase is what lands you play. Obviously, you’re going to want to have a good balance of colours so you can cast your spells, but lands can do much more than just make mana.
Earlier I mentioned that Aggro decks play low land counts so that they don’t draw 2 many lands, since they want to draw cards that kill the opponent, to further help with this most Aggro manabases play a plethora of lands that can help get their opponent's life total to 0. Lands such as Mishra’s factory, Mutavault, Barbarian Ring and Ramunap Ruins all see regular play in the format, as they give aggro decks that extra damage they need, whilst also letting them cast their spells.
It’s not just aggro decks that make good use of utility lands, it’s rare to see a manabase without a few utility lands, Wasteland especially is a format staple, allowing you to hit your opponents ability to generate the colours they need, or to deal with their own utility lands.
Not every utility land is created equal, however. As previously mentioned, Canlander is a fast format and as such you want the vast majority of your lands to enter untapped. Aggro decks will very rarely play any lands that enter tapped at all, while control decks may play the odd land that does so but will often have to carefully time when it comes down, you don’t want to need a fourth land for a Wrath only for that land to have to enter tapped. The most common examples of playable tapped lands in the format are the Creature Lands, such as Treetop Village or Celestial Colonnade. These lands entering tapped can be awkward at times but their ability to block incoming attacks, deal with planeswalkers or even get in for lethal means that they are often considered worthwhile in Midrange and Control decks. A land entering tapped has to be worth it in this format, the scry from a temple won’t be enough.
Get Brewing!
Should you still be struggling for ideas, websites such as TappedOut and MTGGoldfish have plenty of decklists that you can look at for inspiration. My personal tapped out can be found here. I have a whole heap of different decks that you can look at as well as a gauntlet that I try my best to keep updated as sets come out.
Hopefully, this article has helped you get some idea of what deck, or decks, you want to build for the format. Certain decks are better than others in the format but it’s amazing just how many strategies are viable in the format; whether you want to port over a reliable staple like Jund Midrange or make a 5 Colour Cascade Stax deck. The deck-building of Canadian Highlander is by far the most difficult part of the format, but also the most rewarding, the format lets you play with nearly every Magic card out there and the options are endless.
