German Highlander is a 100 cards singleton format, which is maintained at highlandermagic.info
This page contains some changes to the rules when playing either the Partner format or the Emperor format.
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General
Partner is played with two teams of two players each.
The player seating as well as the turn order is shown in the image below.
The two red players make up one team, and the two blue players make up the other, where each player is partnered with the player opposite him.
If a player wins the game, that player's partner also wins the game.
The players may not look at eachother's hands if not instructed to by the game rules. Each player can however reveal a card in his or her hand to all players in the game at any point during the game.
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Mulligan
Each player has one free mulligan at each hand size.
At the beginning of each game, each player may Scry X, where X is 7 minus the starting hand size of that player.
Note: Often, players agree that any mulligan to less than 5 cards is replaced by a mulligan to 5 cards.
Example: After seeing 3 bad hands of 7, 7, and 6 cards respectively, the player still has one more mulligan to 6 cards before going down to 5 cards.
Example: A player takes 5 mulligans and keeps his or her hand of 5 cards. At the beginning of the game, the player may Scry 2.
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Marching
After each beginning of combat step there is a marching step. At the beginning of the marching step, the active player may march any amount of creatures he or she controls.
To march a creature, the creature is moved either from the controller's battlefield region to the partner's battlefield region or from the partner's battlefield region to the controller's battlefield region.
Marching happens only once each marching step where any number of creatures march simultaneously.
Tapped creatures and creatures with summoning sickness cannot march.
No player receives priority during the marching step.
Marching a creature does not change control of that creature. It still untaps during its controller's untap step, and can attack and march during its controller's turn as normal.
Creatures can block as if they were controlled by the player whose battlefield region they occupy.
If a marched permanent stops being a creature, it is returned to its controller's battlefield region.
All creatures enter the battlefield in their controller's battlefield region.
Note: A creature can never march to an opponent's battlefield region.
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Life Transfer
At any point during a player's upkeep, that player may transfer any amount of life to that player's partner at the cost of 2 life per life.
Transfers do not count as life loss or life gain.
Transfering life does not use the stack.
Example: Player A has 15 life and his or her partner, player B, has 6 life. Player A chooses to transfer 4 of his or her life to player B, which results in player A having 11 life and player B having 8 life.
Note: Any amount of transfers can be made in one upkeep.
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Leaving the Game
A team can concede the game at any point of the game.
A single player may only concede the game outside of the combat phase and only if the stack is empty.
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General
Emperor is played with two teams of three players each.
The player seating as well as the turn order is shown in the image below.
The three red players make up one team, and the three blue players make up the other.
The middle player of each team is the Emperor and the two others are Lieutenants.
If an Emperor loses the game, that Emperor's team team loses the game.
If a player wins the game, that player's team wins the game.
The Emperor starts the game with 30 life, while the Leutenants start the game with 20 life.
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Mulligan
Each player has two free mulligan at each hand size.
At the beginning of each game, each player may Scry X, where X is 7 minus the starting hand size of that player.
Note: Often, players agree that any mulligan to less than 5 cards is replaced by a mulligan to 5 cards.
Example: After seeing 5 bad hands of 7, 7, 7, 6, and 6 cards respectively, the player still has one more mulligan to 6 cards before going down to 5 cards.
Example: A player takes 7 mulligans and keeps his or her hand of 5 cards. At the beginning of the game, the player may Scry 2.
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Spell Range
In a game of Emperor, each player has a spell range of 2, which means that each player can only reach players within two seats.
Being able to reach a player means being able to target the player, target spells cast by that player, target permanents in that player's battlefield region, and target activated abilities from permanents in that player's battlefield region.
If a spell or ability allows a player to change the targets of another spell or ability, it can only be changed to targets within the spell range of the player that cast the spell or activated the ability.
Note: When at least one player has left the game, spell range no longer has any effect, as each player can reach all other players.
Note: Spell range has no effects on anything other than targets. This means that Wrath of God will still destroy all creatures and Clone can copy any creature on the battlefield.
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Marching
After each beginning of combat step there is a marching step. At the beginning of the marching step, the active player may march any amount of creatures he or she controls.
To march a creature, the creature is moved from one battlefield region to another adjacent battlefield region.
A creature can never march to an opponent's battlefield region.
Marching happens only once each marching step where any number of creatures march simultaneously.
Tapped creatures cannot march.
No player receives priority during the marching step.
Marching a creature does not change control of that creature. It still untaps during its controller's untap step, and can attack and march during its controller's turn as normal.
Creatures can block as if they were controlled by the player whose battlefield region they occupy.
If a marched permanent stops being a creature, it is returned to its controller's battlefield region.
All creatures enter the battlefield in their controller's battlefield region.
Note: Unlike in the Partner game variant, creatures with summoning sickness can march in the Emperor game variant
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Attacking
Creatures can only attack opponents adjacent to their current battlefield region.
Usually an Emperor cannot be attacked before he loses a Lieutenant. Some cards rely on players being able to attack each other and change this rule. Currently, the Emperor may be attacked from the battlefield region of the opposing Emperor if (1) the Emperor controls a planeswalker, (2) the Emperor is the Monarch, or (3) the Emperor controls the card Luminarch Ascension
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Life Transfer
At any point during the Emperor's upkeep, he may redistribute the team's life totals at the cost of 2 life per life.
Transfers do not count as life loss or life gain.
Transfering life does not use the stack.
Example: Lieutenant L1 has 15 life, Emperor E has 30 life, and Lieutenant L2 has 10 life. The Emperor chooses to transfer 1 life from L1 and 7 life from E to L2, which results in L1 having 14 life, E having 23 life, and L2 having 14 life.
Note: Any amount of transfers can be made in one upkeep.
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Leaving the Game
A team can concede the game at any point of the game.
A single player may only concede the game outside of the combat phase and only if the stack is empty.
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General
In addition to the ban list at highlandermagic.info, the following cards are banned:
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No Mass Land Destruction
No Mass Land Destruction is an optional house rule, which means that no single effect can destroy more than two lands from among the opponents' lands during a single turn.
Cards like Armageddon may still be played, but will only destroy up to two lands controlled by the caster's opponents (As well as all lands controlled by the caster and his or her team).
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No Arbitrarily Long Sequences
No Arbitrarily Long Sequences is an optional house rule, which means that if a player has the ability to execute an arbitrarily long sequence of plays, he or she may only use each unique part of the sequence once every time each player has taken a turn.
If the combination of one or more sources provide an arbitrarily long or infinite loop of triggers, each unique trigger ability can trigger only once each time the loop is started.
Example: A player controls Kiki-jiki, Mirror Breaker and Zealous Conscripts, which in combination is able to generate an arbitrarily large number of copies. Under this rule, Kiki-jiki can copy the Conscripts once and the Conscripts can untap Kiki-jiki, but Kiki-jiki cannot use its ability again on the Conscripts until after each player has taken another turn.
Example: A player controls Bayou, Wasteland, Crucible of Worlds, and Fastbond. The player is able to tap Bayou for mana, use wasteland to destroy Bayou, replay both lands taking two damage from Fastbond, and repeat this process generating one mana for every two life. This sequence is not arbitrarily long, as the player will go down to 0 life at some point and lose the game.
Example: A player controls Bayou, Wasteland, Crucible of Worlds, Fastbond, and Courser of Kruphix. The player is now able to keep generating mana without losing any life, which means that the sequence can be arbitrarily long, and each unique part may only be used once. The player can tap Bayou, destroy it with Wasteland, replay both lands, but not use Wasteland to destroy Bayou again. Wasteland can however be used on another land, but then it cannot be replayed from the graveyard again until every player has taken another turn.
Example: Sanguine Bond, Exquisite Blood, and Centaur of Kruphix create an infinite loop when a land is put into play, where Sanguine Bond triggers off Exquisite Blood’s trigger and visa versa. This means that each unique trigger ability can only trigger once each time the loop is started. In this case that this means once each time you gain life. Polluted Delta can be played and used to find a Swamp to activate the loop twice, which results in you gaining a total of 2 life from Sanguine Bond and your opponent losing a total of 2 life from Exquisite Blood.