Canadian Highlander: The Best Format You’re Not Playing

Canadian Highlander is an upcoming format in the Magic scene. It is also my favourite format and, in my opinion, the best the game has to offer.

Often described as Constructed Cube, Canadian Highlander (or Canlander for short) is a 1v1, 20 life, 100 card Singleton format. The format doesn’t allow for sideboards or any other kind of outside of the game cards, like Companions or Commanders. Imagine the perfect Cube deck and that’s pretty much how it feels to play a deck in Canlander.

The format plays like the majority of other 1v1 formats but the bit that makes Canadian Highlander special is the deckbuilding. Where other formats outright ban cards that are causing issues in the format, Canlander uses a points system. Every Canlander deck can have 10 points and while most cards are 0 points, cards that have proven too powerful or problematic have been assigned various points values from 1 all the way to 7 (as of writing). As an example, a pesky creature like True-Name Nemesis is 1 point, Demonic Tutor (arguably the most powerful tutor in the game) is 4 points, whilst some of the most powerful cards the game has ever seen, such as Black Lotus and Ancestral Recall, sit at 7 points each.

The points system allows the format to feel fresh and to balance itself without stopping players from playing with their favourite cards. If you want to play Black lotus in a deck then go right ahead, however, that does mean you can’t play cards like Demonic Tutor alongside it. The points list is ever changing, with cards being added, removed, or just otherwise changing points to fit with the everchanging game of Magic. As an example, in 2019 Black was seen as a weak colour in the format, and so DT was taken down to 3 points. This points reduction caused a surge in powerful storm decks playing DT and Lotus as their 10 points, this was seen as too powerful of a strategy and so DT was reverted back to 4 points. Had this been any other format a card would have likely had to have been banned, however, for Canlander a simple tweak of the points sorted that problem nicely.

For the specific points list, as well as a list of what VERY few cards in the format are banned, head on over to the official Canadian Highlander website. This website, as well as the format itself, is overseen by "The Council". The Council is a group of players in Victoria, where the format originates, that decide on points changes, rules changes and making sure the format stays as fun, and healthy, as possible.

Where to Start?

Entering a new format can be a daunting task, especially one with all of Magic’s history to pick cards from. To start, I would always suggest building from a deck you play in another format. This could be Death and Taxes because you play it in Legacy, Jund Midrange because you play it in Modern, or even Elves because you play it in Commander.

This isn’t to say, however, that the decks will look or play the way you’re used to. As an example, I adore Legacy Death and Taxes, and so as you may expect it was one of the first decks I built for the format. In Legacy, D&T plays almost like a control deck, taxing your opponent's spells and mana whilst chipping in with an array of white dorks. The Canadian Highlander rendition of the deck doesn’t have the luxury of multiple Wastelands/Rishadan Ports, or the consistency of having a Thalia or Aether Vial early in the game, and so it plays much more into the weenie route, whilst hurting the opponent in many different ways. Cards such as Sanctum Prelate no longer have a place in the deck, whereas cards such as Linvala, Keeper of silence and Aven Mindcensor become archetype staples. This is a 20 life format and as such you can’t afford to durdle like you may well do in formats like Commander, you are at half the usual life and it’s 1v1, your opponent will be out to get you from turn 1!



Always remember to keep the points list in mind when building your deck. If you are using a former commander deck as the starting point for your deck be aware that it will likely be way overpointed, a Sol Ring alone is 4 points after all! This can work in your favour too though, are you wanting to build an artifact deck? Now you have access to Tolarian Academy and Tinker!

When building a deck for Canadian Highlander you will often find yourself playing cards that would otherwise not be good enough in other competitive formats due to the singleton nature of the format, when you have 4 copies of Fatal Push in your deck cards such as Go For The Throat or the recently printed Eliminate get pushed to the wayside, whereas in Canlander those cards are very playable replacements for Pushes 3-4. This example can be most prevalently seen in red decks, where Lightning Bolts and Chain Lightnings are often seen burning opponents and killing small creatures alongside the likes of Incinerate, Arc Trail and even Shock and its variants.

It’s Not Just About Winning

It’s very easy to look at this format and assume it’s a format played by the richest and most competitive of players, but I personally feel like it couldn’t be further from that. Price is an issue that I will go into in a coming piece as that’s its own can of worms, but the whole point of the format is to have fun and to play what you enjoy. I got into Canlander because I bought a mana drain for my 1v1 Commander deck, only to realise it was banned in the format, so I got a friend to help me try out a format where I could play it and we didn’t even get a full game in before we realised it was something special.

Canlander lets you play with cards you would otherwise never dream of playing with, whether those be pointed cards like Black Lotus and Time Walk, or just cards that don’t quite reach the required power level of formats like Legacy or Modern. Cards that were once format staples that have fallen by the wayside have found a place in this format, standard staples of old such as Sphinx’s Revelation and Lingering Souls, former modern staples like Kitchen Finks and Vendilion Clique, as well as cards that never really saw any play at all like Mu Yanling, Sky Dancer.

You Really Can Play Anything

If you’re interested in looking into pre-existing decks for the format I have a gauntlet of sorts that I keep regularly updated with new set releases, it can be found here. (https://tappedout.net/mtg-deck-folders/gauntlet-2/)

This gauntlet was made both so that I have a plethora of decks to play and choose from, but also to show people just how varied the format is, there’s everything in here from Aggro, Tempo, Midrange, Control and combo. A lot of the decks have variations in other formats, D&T for example has Modern and Legacy variants as mentioned earlier, however, some of the decks here are wholly unique to Canlander, they just wouldn’t work in other formats. Paradox Academy for example is a deck that utilises cards like Paradox Engine and Tolarian Academy, cards that are either banned or not strong enough to see play in formats like Commander or Modern. Flying Men is one of my absolute favourite decks, utilising cheap fliers and lots of interaction to win. Flying Men is also a deck that would be laughed out of the room in any other 1v1 format, and just doesn’t have the power to win in a format like Commander with 3 opponents and 120 life to get through.

While Canlander shares a lot of similarities with other formats it sits in a very unique position, a position where a deck with all the best modern and legacy staples, can still lose to a deck full of 1 mana 1/1 fliers. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Give It A Chance

Canadian Highlander is the purest form of 1v1 Magic. It’s a format that lets you loose, lets you play with all the toys that Magic has to offer, gives you the chance to use the most powerful cards ever printed, to do the most powerful, or most dumb things. You’re as likely to see a Black Lotus letting a storm player pop off as you are to let a Mono Green player cast a T1 Questing Beast. It’s a format where for every Lightning Bolt or Tarmogoyf you die to, you’ll just as likely die to a creature or spell you haven't seen cast for years, if ever before. It’s a format where I’ve cast Time Walks, Tinkers, Tutors and True-Names. And it’s also a format where I’ve killed people by attacking them turn after turn with literal actual Flying Men. Canlander is the format that saved my love for Magic, and I hope you can learn to love it as much as I have.

Questions? Comments? Want to talk about the format? I’d love to hear from you! 

I can be found on Twitter @ForceOfWilko. Thank you so much for reading!