With Magic’s most powerful cards banned in almost every format, there remain very few places where the game’s best cards remain legal. Outside of Vintage, an MTG format that restricts instead of bans, Canadian Highlander is one of the few places where you can play Magic’s most powerful designs.
Offering a two-player 100-card Singleton format, Canadian Highlander meshes the feel of Commander, without an actual Commander, and two-card competitive formats together. Instead of banning cards, Canadian Highlander instead uses a point system, allowing any list to play only 10 points worth of the format’s strongest cards. This keeps every single Canadian Highlander deck from running the full Power Nine, encouraging format versatility.
Today, responding to a rise in noncreature combo decks, a few new cards are being added to the points list.
MTG Enlightened Tutor
- Enlightened Tutor is moving from 0 to 1 point in Canadian Highlander
Effective as of September 1st, 2026, Enlightened Tutor will be going from zero to one point to include in Canadian Highlander decks. According to the announcement, this change is being made in an effort to try to slow down how fast combo decks can put their wins together.
Enlightened Tutor, in particular, is extremely potent in Bant Time Vault decks, the most powerful Canadian Highlander archetype at the time of writing. Capable of finding both Time Vault and Manifold Key to untap it, Enlightened Tutor can help set up the two-card infinite turns combo with ease.
If that weren’t enough, Tutor can also grab other core combo pieces like Black Lotus or Lion’s Eye Diamond, increasing the consistency of artifact combo decks across the board. Alternatively, you can also find cards like Portable Hole or Defense Grid to deal with interactive elements that can stop you from comboing.
Throw in the ability to find alternate win conditions like The Fantasticar or Urza’s Saga, and Enlightened Tutor’s speed and flexibility are too strong to be a free inclusion in Canadian Highlander. To try and slow down the rise of combo in the format, Enlightened Tutor will now cost a point to include in your deck.
MTG The Fanasticar
- The Fantasticar is moving from 0 to 1 point in Canadian Highlander
A frequent flier across recent banlist updates, The Fantasticar is once again causing problems. This time, the card has proven to be an extremely powerful alternate win condition across combo decks in Canadian Highlander. The format’s various Black Lotus Storm decks, in particular, include Fantasticar as a potential 16 Flying Haste power out of nowhere, dodging graveyard hate and counterspells when resolved early.
While Canadian Highlander’s singleton nature, once again, makes The Fantasticar less potent than usual, the format’s vast amount of fast mana still makes pulling this card off in the opening turns trivial. As a result, the card may become a homogenizing force in Canadian Highlander if left as a free inclusion, raising its point count to one.
MTG Tolarian Academy
- Tolarian Academy is moving from 1 to 2 points in Canadian Highlander
Banned basically everywhere except for Vintage and Canadian Highlander, Tolarian Academy is one of the most broken lands of all time. When combined with cards like the various Moxen, Black Lotus, and Mana Vault, this card can create overwhelming fast mana advantages. In Canadian Highlander, this exact synergy is causing free wins for artifact-focused combo decks that are happening a little bit too frequently.
As is the case with Enlightened Tutor, Bant Time Vault decks are the core issue here, leveraging Tolarian Academy as both an incredible fast mana card and as a way to cast beefier cards in the midgame. This is accomplished by using a unique mix of fast mana and land-based synergies, creating multiple different styles of Tolarian Academy draws that require different answers.
By increasing the points count on Tolarian Academy, the goal is to force Bant Time Vault to choose between the card’s fast mana or land-based synergies, while slowing the deck down overall. Throw in some splash damage to other combo decks like Paradox Academy, and this points change should help reduce the pressure of artifact combo’s fastest draws.
MTG Spellseeker
- Spellseeker is moving from 0 to 1 point in Canadian Highlander
Unlike most of the other cards in this ban update, Spellseeker is not a core part of the Bant Time Vault Canadian Highlander shell. This card is, instead, a core part of Flash Hulk combo, a strategy that uses the card Flash to cast and sacrifice Protean Hulk for two mana, assembling a game-ending combo.
As pointed out in the announcement, Spellseeker is one of the few MTG cards that is capable of finding both pieces of this lethal two-card combo. While Spellseeker easily finds Flash directly, it can also get access to Protean Hulk through tutoring up Summoner’s Pact. By making Spellseeker a pointed inclusion, this strategy’s consistency will be hit slightly, keeping it in line with other combo decks that are getting nerfed today.
Outside of Flash Hulk, Spellseeker also functions as a six-mana one-card win condition in Canadian Highlander using what is referred to as the Seekerwalk combo. To pull this off, you need to start by finding Ephemerate, flickering Spellseeker and finding Time Walk. After taking an extra turn, Ephemerate will once again flicker Spellseeker, finding Neoform. You can then Neoform your Spellseeker, finding Timeless Witness, bringing Ephemerate to your hand. From here, you can now flicker Timeless Witness, return Time Vault, and establish a loop.
While this combo isn’t as popular as it was previously due to its vulnerability to creature removal, it is beginning to resurface thanks to the recent points adjustment to Time Walk. Appearing in Nadu Winged Wisdom decks, pushing Spellseeker from zero to one point puts the Seekerwalk combo back to six points.
Between all of these various nerfs, combo strategies in Canadian Highlander should, hopefully, come closer in line with the format’s other decks. Should combo decks remain an issue, the next points change window for Canadian Highlander will occur on December 1st.
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