Highlander

"Highlander" (or "Singleton") is an unofficial term used to refer to a deck-defining minion ability that activates if the deck contains no duplicate cards. The ability debuted in The League of Explorers with Reno Jackson and has made subsequent appearances as headline mechanics in Mean Streets of Gadgetzan and Saviors of Uldum. All Highlander cards are Legendary.

The moniker comes from the movie Highlander line “There can be only one”. This deck type became Wild-only at the start of Year of the Raven, when the relevant cards rotated out of Standard. However, several new Highlander cards were added with the Saviors of Uldum and Descent of Dragons expansions, which caused Highlander decks to make a comeback in Standard. The deck type has since returned to being wild only with the Year of the Gryphon.

While no official keyword is used to denote the highlander effect on minion cards, precisely the same text is found on all associated cards: If your deck has no duplicates.

Strategy

 * All Highlander cards have extremely powerful effects for their mana cost, which is balanced by the reduced consistency of the rest of your deck.
 * Although you can include duplicate cards for this effect, it's usually not recommended since it greatly reduces the consistency of your power play. However, you can counteract this by including draw cards that target the duplicates. For example, a deck with duplicate Secret s can drain those duplicates with cards like Subject 9.
 * Decks that can draw all of their cards fairly quickly (or decks that plan to go into fatigue) can include Highlander cards and play them once their deck is drained.
 * Highlander decks are vulnerable to effects that shuffle duplicate cards into the opponent's deck, such as Bad Luck Albatross and Beneath the Grounds. This disables the key cards' effects until these duplicates are drawn or destroyed.

Cards
This section lists cards with the Highlander effect.

Trivia
The nickname "Highlander" is inspired by the Highlander franchise, which had the tagline "In the end, there can be only one."