MTGO - Standard Pauper Players: December 2013

12.18.2013

New Player Primer - Coming Soon

More than three years ago, in response to having to answer the same questions over and over again as the host of the popular Monday Pauper Deck Challenge, I decided to create a New Player Primer. The goal was to create a single document that would comprehensively cover all the information a new player would need to play in a Standard Pauper PRE. The result was this document, published over at PureMTGO.com.

While much of this information is still relevant today, much has also changed over the past three years. With the added Standard Pauper filter on Magic Online, there is no longer the need for players to take extra steps to figure out whether or not a deck is Standard Pauper legal. Further, with the release of new features for the Gatherling program on PDCMagic.com, registration is sometimes handled differently than before. And finally, with the upcoming release of the new client for Magic Online, the way that players create tables, join channels, and even navigate to a particular game room have changed.

So, the time has come to create an updated version of this New Player Primer. The plan is to release a new version by the beginning of 2014. And that's where you come in. Take a minute to look over the previous version. Then, in the comments below, help answer the following:

What information is still relevant?
What information is outdated or needs to be updated?
What isn't included but would be helpful for new players?
What is unclear or could be presented better?

Currently, we already have several suggestions by clan members for items that need addressing:

Link to current sets
Standard Pauper filter
Sideboarding rule changes
Deck registration using Gatherling
Room name differences between old and new client
Join channel differences between old and new client
Using pdcmagic.com forums instead of Wizards forums
Updated information about typical Worlds qualifications

Any feedback, comments, or suggestions would be warmly welcomed. Thanks so much!

gwyned is a fantasy writer, aficionado of Magic the Gathering Online, and a regular contributor at PureMTGO on the Standard Pauper format. Follow him on Twitter at username gwyned42.

12.11.2013

SIMIC Aggro Permission

Open your Eyes please

The Counter war !

Today I would like to share my thoughts with you on a Simic list that did quite well versus Dimir Mill at MPDC 23.07. Dimir Mill focused attention and hate since the beggining of the season. Some players like it, others try and do their best, and succeed at that, building decklists or sideboarding options to crush it.

While very few Mill decks and pilots meet success making their way to the top in events, anti-mill builds have to be efficient versus the wide variety of decks in the actual metagame as well.
MBC is a solid and resilient choice to play in Standard Pauper events, as its overall results tend to show this season.

Also remember that Dimir Mill was built in reaction to MBC winning the first event for MPDC, and it has the best matchup knocking the black plague down. That is mainly due to the fact that Mill runs a ton of counterspells negating the key spells from MBC, like Gary or Disciple of Phenax. If you play lots of counters and are aware of the MBC Gameplay timing, you will give them a hard matchup if you can play your win conditions too.

Of course there are multiple solutions to try and beat the Mill / MBC hellish duo while being efficient versus any other archetype in the meta. Some will go for Boros creatures, Boros tokens, Selesnya tokens and/or enchants, U/W Flyers, TurtlePower and many other interesting builds.

I like Control and don't play aggro that much, so what about testing Aggro-Control? We need the heavy counter war gear versus Mill and MBC, so Blue is mandatory. We also need to beat down with creatures, best with evasion and boosting, as win conditions. That means cheap evolve creatures in Blue and Green. Considering Blue and Green both feature good protective spells for our win conditions, let's go for Simic Aggro Permission !

Here is the list :

Fish? Crab? Shark? Bellyful!!

Top 8 by Adner in MPDC 23.07 (3-2)

MAINDECK
Creatures
4 Cloudfin Raptor
4 Frilled Oculus
4 Nessian Courser
4 Shambleshark
3 Leafcrown Dryad
2 Crosstown Courier
2 Omenspeaker
Spells
4 Cancel
4 Essence Scatter
3 Negate
2 Dispel
2 Ranger's Guile
Lands
11 Island
7 Forest
4 Simic Guildgate

SIDEBOARD

2 Dispel

1 Negate

Went 3-2 with that list, beating Dimir Mill twice 2-0. Not trying to show off there, my opponents were skilled at Mill but they had to face landscrew or bad draws, just like me, but it affected the simic list less than theirs. But they had to face Simic too ! There are 23 creatures Maindeck, and we can reach 27 game 2 and 3 if needed. Idea there is a multipurpose sideboard to strenghten either Aggro or Control depending on the matchup we face. The list was still in progress when I ran it that event and ideas came since then to improve those versatile fifteens. But I will not go much further either in that nor in card choices explanations, because it simply falls to MBC Matchup, as tested during the event versus the winning list or later on in the Just For Fun Room.

So from now on this season I think i'll stop publishing decklists and try to focus more on the Metagame.

Mill is not unbeatable. It gets Big (and deserved maybe) Hate, needs real skills to pilot correctly (gameplay is so important in Magic, whatever deck you come up with), but it really stands a chance and good results in the MBC Matchup. Some hate MBC too and will play Mill to combat it. Some hate Mill and will build around it efficiently.

Still there's space around those two dominant archetypes to build something and do well with it.

As recent results in MPDC show evidence.

http://pdcmagic.com/gatherling/eventreport.php?event=MPDC+23.07

http://pdcmagic.com/gatherling/eventreport.php?event=MPDC+23.08

That was today's short message, thanks a lot for reading and see you at MPDC and / or SPDC !!

And I'd like to hear your opinions too, feel free to post them in the comments !

Adner.

12.09.2013

SPDC is Back !!!

It's been discussed for quite a while now, and it's becoming a reality next thursday....

Thanks to PDCMagic.com and Cabel, the U.S timezone-friendly Standard Pauper Players Run Event (PRE) is finally back !

And it feels gooooood !!

- The Event Thread is here :
http://community.wizards.com/forum/magic-online-player-run-events/threads/3962481

- The Series on PDCMagic is here :
http://pdcmagic.com/gatherling/series.php

- The weekly Event is Prize supported by PDCMagic, let's show them Love !

- Cabel steps in as Host for the Series, let's show him some well-deserved Love as well !

A message for all U.S Timezones players who can not attend MPDC on Mondays :

SPDC Wants You !!

OUPPSS, That is the french version...

This one is correct !

YES,

Very good news for the format and the community, today is a great day !!

12.04.2013

Standard Pauper Players Clan : an assessment after 3 months of existence

The title may sound a bit solemn but it's an important thing to do within a young, not to mention newborn, playgroup.

Rather than an assessment, I want to give you feedback and some thoughts on what's been going on.

It's been three months or so now since the utility of a blog for the clan showed up and I decided to create this platform on Blogger. But as you know, no man is an island, no man stands alone, and living that busy and lightspeed life like you all, I made several calls for help and arms so that the playing community for standard pauper would maybe become more active, more structured and invested in its own development and achieve format recognition. And there's joy in my heart from the fact that these calls were heard. Moving forward ?!

Way back !

We need to know where we come from to better understand what we are now and furthermore where we are going in general, so it's background time !

The storytelling

- September 2013 : Decision is made. I'm sadly leaving the PauperKrew MTGO Clan after several years of fun there and with an observation : very few people here care about Standard Pauper. There are lots of great players but rare discussions on this format.

Move to Community / Clans on MTGO for an excavation campaign in search of a new home. Scrolling down, digging again, a Clan called "Standard Pauper Players" is there. It has 45 members at the time and Fyz is the Clan leader. I leave him a PM and we end up chatting with each other shortly after that.

I want to join !

And I want most of all to help the Standard pauper Player base increase and gather around one goal : making the format more popular, more friendly, and trying to contribute having it sanctionned on MTGO one day. The Clan had no mail adress and neither the Blog nor forum back then, and Fyz agreed those tools would be good but he really had no time for them. "I'm up for that" if this can be my contribution.

I receive and immediatly accept the Clan Invitation, and very surprisingly the Clan reins right after. Shock. I want to be a part of it but not really the Captain. Embarrassment. More discussions with Fyz about that and building a stronger and more active community on the format.

I then tought to myself "OK let's give the Clan a try, i have a bit of time and will and we'll see where it's at in 2 or 3 months". Really took it as a challenge, and I was motivated ! But Clan leadership meant "you're going to spend a lot of time on it and play less. Sacrificing a bit of family time too". We will go deeper into that discussion on the Clan forums soon but I always thought Clan leadership should be a game of thrones, turning tables, with responsibilities rotating every year. Not that I plan on leaving my tasks already, but let's keep rotation in mind.

From there, things had to keep on moving, spreading the Clan's existence on the Web and on MTGO, recruiting players, and building teams.

- September 2013 : Standard Pauper Players Clan : A call for action and information posted on PDCMagic.com forums.

http://forums.pdcmagic.com/viewtopic.php?t=8178

Some Clan objective has been posted on the blog :

http://standardpauperplayers.blogspot.fr/2013/10/getting-ready-or-trying-at-least.html

For every action, there's a reaction and several observations can be made since that adventure all started :

The good things

- Many regulars and old online fellows involved in the format joined the clan (check Clan member list on MTGO)
- The clan's existence and objectives started to spread across the web and community, thanks to Gwyned !!
http://writeradept.blogspot.fr/2013/11/clan-standard-pauper-players.html
- The pageviews count of the Blog increased significantly since this was published and we have worldwide visitors. The majority are from the United States, then Europe and Asia and last, but not least, South America.
- Jason Moore published an article about the format and the Clan blog on Blackborder.com, thanks for the mention !
http://www.blackborder.com/q/node/17681
- Linking personal blogs spread all over the web on the Clan's blog is good, as it brings wider representation and interest in the format. Check out our contributors own blogs :
http://cabelthepauper.blogspot.fr/
http://thedraftbrewery.wordpress.com/
I mentionned Gwyned's Writer Adept earlier.

The very good things

- Many of those regulars are active, talkative, and willing to contribute to the fomat and community.

- Lone wolves are turning into wolf packs. Communication between members is increasing.

- BigBee stepped in as Forum Creator / Moderator and made it technically possible, great job, mate!

- Author rights were given to active members so they can contribute and write deck reviews, articles on the

Blog.

And they are prolific ! Below you will find links to articles published in november.

Thank you Clanmates writers : Gamelen, Gwyned, BigBee, Chaotic Crawler, MundisV, Rhysticy, Cabel, NT-Smith, DrChrisBaker.

The clan blog is open to your pen, other clan members, just ask the Captain for Authors Rights and Fire at will !!

There are more to come in december and i do hope it never stops, here's what we wrote about :

The Clan Online Chat does not "shine" in V3 when someone types in it while you are in another chat, so the chat is often silent though many clanmates are online. That's a pity !! Be aware of it. It's not a big problem, because we have other tools to keep in touch with Clan concerns. The Clan chat is mostly used during events, spending time with clanmates attending "live" is really cool and entertaining.

Clan vs Clan ? If all standard players online join the Clan, we'll have no one from other clans to beat or play against, i was told few ago. Is that really a problem? Clan is a small community dedicated to an objective, even several objectives. One of them is sharing bettter play experience, and you can beat clanmates or lose to them, you'll keep getting better and improve your metagame knowledge. You can work with clanmates on dedicated matchups to get better in events with scheduled test sessions. Other objectives have to be discussed by Clan Board, see Perspectives below.

Month of November : most prolific month ever ?
wow, 10 articles using 12 hands on Frontblog this month of november 2013 !!
I do hope this one will not stay in the unclassified things section if we hit less articles next month !!
2 articles in september, 3 in october, increasing authors' investment in writing on the blog feels so good !

Perspectives

- Building a Clan Active Board is mandatory so we can discuss and choose the directions we want to go, according to objectives and priorities. A discussion is up on the Clan forum, step into the board if interested !

- There is an important player base turnover in the format : we need more active players and prospective Getting started / New Players Rooms on MTGO, who's up for this with me?

- Really not complaining on the numbers of posts on the blog in november, but scheduling a post publishing schedule would be good, authors, let's do that on the forum what do you think? What about a post per week, could we afford more? Readers, what is your opinion?

- Gathering ressources on the format : we need a team keeping an Eye of Sauron on everything about the format online and linking them to the forums and blog, who's up for that?

- Working on another assessment with the Clan Board for the month of March 2014 once objectives and priorities have been discussed on the forums.

- Clan is still recruiting active / talkative / prolific members, just send us an Email !

standardpauperplayers@gmail.com

For strength of the wolf is the pack, and strength of the pack is the wolf.

Thanks for reading and see you online or on the forum.

Adner
(Thanks to Cabel for the article revision !)

12.01.2013

Evolution of white monster

(note : This article was submitted by Clanmate BigBee after a good work on the list and a nice Top 4 last MPDC, Thanks and good job !)

Hello, in this article I would like to present Standard Pauper White Weenie. I wanted to create a balanced aggro deck but not crazy, mad and risky, based on the lucky boros style deck. Here is the first list:

I am not (yet) in that list, i fly away !!

Creatures:
4 Syndic of Tithes
3 Master of Diversion
4 Cavalry Pegasus
4 Hopeful Eidolon
4 Daring Skyjek
3 Auramancer
3 Court Street Denizen

Spells:
4 Ethereal Armor
4 Gods Willing
2 Fortify
4 Pacifism

Lands:
21 Plains

It is a human deck based on tapping creatures using Court Street Denizen and Master of Diversion. Cavalry Pegasus cooperates with Human creature type. But the deck is too slow against mill, creatures are too expensive or, in case of Cavalry Pegasus, too small. Tapping creatures gives nothing against Hexproof ability, that is not so rare in todays metagame. It doesn't work. It must be rebuilt, obviously.

Fortify is redundant with Ethereal Armor and the whole philosophy of this deck. Besides, I don't like it. Let's make main enchantment removal tech. Sundering Growth is a very good card. It can replace Fortify. Extort is not what I want. Master of Diversion and Court Street Denizen are for 3 mana, it is too slow and some times you don't have a creature to play after you played Court Street Denizen. In meanwhile I realized that 12 enchantments are too few, I see no other option than Observant Alseid. Here is the list after some updates:

I' m there but i'll soon fly if the bird agrees

Creatures:
2 Observant Alseid
4 Cavalry Pegasus
4 Hopeful Eidolon
4 Azorius Arrester
4 Daring Skyjek
4 Auramancer
3 Capashen Knight

Spells:
2 Sundering Growth
4 Ethereal Armor
4 Gods Willing
4 Pacifism

Lands:
21 Plains

I don't like the Observant Alseid. For now I think that he has too expensive cost and the bestow cost is just a misunderstanding. Cavalry Pegasus remains still in decklist, lets kill opponent with army of white fliers. Capashen Knight does not meet expectations, too expensive casting cost and activated ability is expensive too. Azorius Arresters are too fast for this not so fast aggro deck. His ability, good ability, is wasted. I see no other human creatures. Good bye Cavalry Pegasus. Now I have a lot of place in deck. Maybe I will add 2 Smite? No. 3 is better. Sundering Growth? Nah, Useless card against metagame leader, mill.

Keening Apparition looks nice. I see so many enchantments in decks. Lets add 6! Unfortunately I can add only 4, and I do so. Cavalry Pegasus was the only one flier in deck and I have now many free slots. Sunspire Griffin is nice, 2/3 creature for 3. 3 is a lot, but I can forgive him. At least it is a flying creature. I see no other flier axcept Concordia Pegasus. Good cost but I don't like the 1/3, it looks a little less aggro and I think I will soon remove it from the decklist. Nothing could be more wrong. It is so nice, when cute small Pegasus enchanted with 2 Ethereal Armors smashes the opponents life. It also survives Pharika's Cure. The flood occurence haunted me so many times that I increased the amount of Concordia Pegasus from 3 to 4. One more thing before posting the final decklist. Daring Skyjek can't kill mill's Archaeomancer. I decided to put Syndic of Tithes into the deck . Here is the, for now, final list :

You won't live without gold and you have to deal with me !

Creatures:
4 Auramancer
3 Sunspire Griffin
2 Observant Alseid
4 Concordia Pegasus
4 Keening Apparition
4 Hopeful Eidolon
4 Syndic of Tithes

Spells:
4 Ethereal Armor
3 Smite
4 Gods Willing
4 Pacifism

Lands:
20 Plains

I changed my mind about Observant Alseid. He can be usefull. Now I would like to write about sideboard. It is mostly prepared against mill deck:

Sideboard
4 Razortip Whip
4 Eyes in the Skies
4 Beckon Apparition
3 Celestial Flare

I put in Razortip Whip, Eyes in the Skies and Beckon Apparition. I took out 4 Ethereal Armor, 4 Pacifism, 3 Smite and 1 Gods Willing. Celestial Flares are good removal against hexproof decks, but you need have some luck to catch Gladecover Scout, not impossible. I remove 3 Syndic of Tithes to put in 3 Celestial Flare.

How to win versus RDW? Cast Pacifism on the first creature he puts into the game, then wait for a moment when he will be fully tapped and cast Hopeful Eidolon enchanted by Ethereal Armor. Gods Willing and you almost can't lose. Enchantress decks are very similar to White Weenie, many times my creatures are more and faster enchanted than opponents creatures. Playing against Boros, you need handle Madcap Skills, then victory is not so difficult. There are 12 cards against mill, so winning with it is possible. Returned Centaur appeared in mill sideboard. That can be a problem. He can stop White Weenie's offensive. Mono Black is the worst matchup. I did not test it a lot, yet.

I think that White Weenie is good aggro deck. One event I almost got heart attack losing all first games, but it showed that it is balanced and can withstand a long time and after that win the game. Some cards are missing. Observant Alseid is not bad, but can be better and Syndic of Tithes can be replaced with something. Lets wait for next card set, I'm sure White Weenie will find some good cards in it.

Happy playing,
BigBee

MTGO - Standard Pauper Players

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