Interview with Bigbee, MPDC Season 27 Worlds Event Winner

Hello Bigbee, and congrats on taking down the MPDC Worlds Event last Monday !

1- Could you please introduce yourself ?
Hello, my MTG Online screen name is BigBee. I think that I'm a MTG Online (or even MTG) antifan.

2- For how long have you been playing magic, both on paper and online?

I started while Torment was around. I started more competitive play when Scourge was released. I had access to good white and blue cards, like Wrath of God, Decree of Justice, Eternal Dragon, Exalted Angel and Cunning Wish. That was a Standard deck, I also played  Extended using No Stick deck (Isochron Scepter + Orim's Chant) until Ravnica Release, I decided not to buy 10 Shocklands to my Extended deck just to play FNM once a week and maybe 2-3 bigger events in a year. I bought a MTG Online account, but I made a wrong decision to play Extended instead of Standard or Block. So I stopped playing. I came back when WotC released Return to Ravnica and started playing Standard Pauper. I discovered that they started printing cards at Mythic rarity (=> nice move, WotC => shame on you, mtg players, that you allowed that to happen).

3- What is your favorite archetype / player profile and for what reasons?

My favourite deck type is Control, especially UW. For what reason?  It Usually had good mass removal and realistic, working win strategy. I mentioned some UW cards earlier. Unfortunately MTG has changed. Mostly, I miss Counterspell in Standard and Modern, not this funny latest counterspells. But they sadly slowed the game down, introducing Planeswalkers in order to make children happy when they put loyalty counters using random stone or dry dog or cat excrements as found in sandbox.

4- For that reason, could you please explain us how you came to play that wonderful winning WW Tokens build?
  - Did you use MyGalaxy's list or did you bring in some additions, and wich ones?

I really chose that deck as an opposite to my likings. Why? Because I think that WX is the best choice because of protection spells and a legion of flying creatures. We can insert R in the place of X, but it looks very boring. So I chose to insert 2nd W. Did I prepare? Of course... I downloaded this deck 5 minutes before start and borrowed 2 cards. I copied whole MyGalaxy deck. There was even no sideboarding plan here.

5-  Could you please give us a few hints on How to play this list depending on the matchups you've been facing during the event (sorry, results are not uploaded yet on Gatherling)?

Hmm, looks like you trust that I can play using this WW tokens deck. Can we just load a picture of a dog from meme : "I have no idea what I'm doing"?

Adner :  "Better not..." But here it is, or something as close as possible...

There you go !

It looks like the whole thing is built around tokens and flyers. You just need to take care about main Scouring Sands or Festergloom. Sometimes you have to play risk and cast more tokens. You can't be afraid to attack, but sometimes attacking too fast ends very bad. There are no good tips. You need some experience, I didn't have a lot of it.

First Top 8 game was against MyGalaxy. The Swarm and boost worked as expected in the first game. In game two I think I hesitated in the most important part and made an awkward attacking move with too few creatures. At the end of this game MyGalaxy kept too few untapped blockers and I topdecked a boost card.

Second match was against Black. Opponent caught me with a sideboarded festergloom. In game 3 I was lucky and I flooded him with creatures before he was able to cast any treat.
In final I was able to stop RDW in game 1. In game 2 I cast 3 Sungrace Pegasus and protected them. I also exiled growing Satyr Hoplite from the game. Sumarrizing this incredibly short description of Top 8 games, I was very lucky. I made some mistakes playing against MyGalaxy. I played well against JorgeJacoh and Carnuz but this deck just kept me away from doing something wrong.

But it's not the right dog....

Ok it's this one doggy !

6- We've sadly witnessed a significantly decreasing attendance this season for both SPDC and MPDC, what are your thoughts and explanations about that?

There could be many reasons.

1- Poor meta, some players told us that they didn't play in last season because of Mill, now I think it can be the same. Some people claim that Treasure Cruise is overpowered and meta-ruining, but I rather think that meta is impacted by White, with too many protection spells making heroic creatures the biggest threat. It is easier to create a deck that can beat control deck (Izzet) than chord of white flyers with 20 possible protection spells.

2- European players' opportunities to play are lowered when event ends at 3 a.m. Also sometimes Americans are not able to join. I tried to discuss this on PDC Forums but there was no answer. It looked like nobody cares and did not mind discussing their hobby, which is playing those events. I understand that there is no way to solve it, but let's not keep eyes closed on that problem.

3-WotC "good" decisions are making people angry. Releasing and pushing customers on bugged client in time when Blizzard introduced a wellbuilt and solid one was brilliant. The fact is that frustrated people won't leave to have fun. They, for sure, will stay, you have one heart that can be damaged by stress caused by 10 disconnects ;-) I also like Minotaur-Voyage Ends bug. It's hilarious. So both first concerns can be a problem, but I think that third is the main reason. Also, we get nothing by buying an MTG Online account.

7- Your homemade Simic build took down an event and did good in others this season, why did you quit playing it ?

Simic is fun to play. The Peel of Reality + Mnemonic Wall combo can be an answer to protection spells. However, there are no easy matchups and there are a lot of extremely bad ones. Your wins are confined like urinary stones... It can be little frustrating when you are paired unlucky.

8- Did you like Season 27 's metagame evolution with Khans and the riddance of Ethereal armor? What were the most important shifts in the metagame this season from your point of view?

At the end of last season I was playing with WB anti Ethereal Armor, so I didn't miss it in this season. I don't like this meta because of the fact that creating a new deck is difficult. This also can be the reason why we don't see new players, because of very high building skills-demanding meta. Important shifts? I'm not a regular player. I play from time to time. I saw that Izzet brought something new.

9- Season 28 is about to start with the Fate Reforged release online, so what deckbuilding ideas do you have in mind at the moment? Could new archetypes make their way to success ? Wich already well settled archetypes will benefit the most from this new set?

I didn't even read the new spoiler yet, so I don't have a clue.

10- Final question : There are many STD Pauper resources online, what could we do as a community (inside and outside the MTGO clan) to keep our beloved format thriving in the future?

Communication and chat are the most important when it comes to Clan. Clan chat is not working, because there's no information about someone writing a message.
Inside clan? It will be a really pessimistic and harsh answer : there's nothing we can do but just wait for implementation of that feature. Without it we can just dissolve clan... Talking about Standard Pauper Community, for sure we need new players.

I sometimes try to advertise MPDC and SPDC on new players. Not often. They play Standard Pauper in Just for Fun and don't know that such a thing, like PRE, exists. Some of them are very happy about links and some of them treat it like a spam. There are a lot of more ways bringing players to Standard Pauper and that needs to be discussed. But who will and where will that take place?

Thanks for your time, mate. I'm very glad we could make this interview since it's the first time we were given to take you out of your silent and hidden community devotion. See you next season, Bigbee !

More on Standard Pauper with Fate Reforged!

Next week we will see the start of Season 28 for both MPDC and SPDC debuting the new cards from Fate Reforged.

If you are wondering about what to play, what will be the top decks and if new decks are coming to shake the metagame, I assure you that chances are great that the top decks remain the same, only receiving a few updates from the new cards. For what I've seen so far there may appear new variations on existing decks, like WW Tokens or Mono Blue Control splashing a second color and there is always the chance of the top Wx Heroic deck to change its second color but I don't think this is likely this time. Also, a deck which run out of favor by the season's end - but got a formidable runner up finish at MPDC 27 Worlds by Carnuz - is RDW: this deck is receiving more playables than most of the others and I expect a raise on its popularity and power level.

Instead of diving into these matters, it is obviously much more fun to try new things (even if they are not so new), so I've been trying to have some brews ready for the coming season. None of these decks is supposed to be a top contender because while powerful, they are not optimized and they have some weakness to certain decks that make them not reliable for tournament play, but they are fun, solid lists that may (or may not) get there with more tweaks.

Delve Without Cruise

The first deck I want to talk about is based around the black Delve creatures from KTK block. All of them have good stats and even the worse in the pack, Shambling Attendants, is interesting being able to block almost everything in the ground. But the star in this deck is the newcomer Gurmag Angler, everyone's favorite undead fish.

I decided not to go on the self mill route since I'd rather put effort on things that actually move our game forward, so I decided the best way to make this work was via cheap removal with Magma Spray, Lightning Bolt and Pharika's Cure, and ramp provided by Generator Servant. This card means 3 mana when you are casting a Delve spell and can give Haste to the creatures you cast. A good enough deal. We also have one Bathe in Dragonfire which can remove big blockers from our way, Read the Bones, Tormenting Voice and Bitter Revelation to give us more gas with the later two providing some extra graveyard fuel without the risk of milling a need card. Completing the package there is Hammerhand which can remove a blocker from our way and also give haste to a fattie, Barrage of Boulders which usually means game if you have your big fish on the table and Goblin Heelcutter as a repeatable way to make our fatties get past blockers.

I made a good amount of testing and I think it is a good deck against aggro because it packs a lot of removal and when it beats, it beats hard. Six Mind Rot effects in the sideboard confirmed my suspicious that against Wx Heroic decks the best thing you can do is to attack their hand. The removal package is great and there are some dream scenarios like casting two Delve creatures with haste on the same turn or double striking with the giant fish with Temur Battle Rage. Unfortunately, the match up against Treasure Cruise based Control decks is almost impossible. I could steal a few wins out of the Fonts of Ire and Bolts of Keranos in the sideboard, but I don't think playing those cards is a solid choice and I feel if you are not playing Cruise, you better be playing an ultra fast aggro deck like RDW or WW, or a heroic deck full of protecting spells. Anyway, the deck is fun and maybe some of you masterminds can find a way to improve that matchup.

Mardu Warriors

The biggest problem with White tokens decks is their vulnerability to X/1 sweepers. Many matches are decided by their opponent drawing or not their Scouring Sands or Festerglooms. At the cost of losing some of their speed I'm trying to give that kind of deck more depth with some card draw and more creatures which won't die to those spells. Looking at my choice of creatures I noticed a lot of Warriors, so I wanted to test Rush of Battle instead of Inspired Charge. While the Charge is a better card for being Instant speed, Rush of Battle worked well in my tests (lifelink is a magic word in Standard pauper). I've chosen Mardu Colors, but you could also try it without Red (and probably without the Warrior theme) for better mana base and speed. I'm in fact not sold to the 3 colors choice since I lost some games due to being too slow or lacking one more mana of the color I wanted, but when it worked it was a blast, Borderland Marauder, Lightning Strike and Tormenting Voice are great cards. Here you go:

Here we have the usual tokens package plus Warriors that survive Scouring Sands: Sultai Emissary (he doesn't survive, but you get it), Borderland Marauder and Sultai Scavenger, which usually can be cast for cheap. I couldn't find a way to put more fliers, but it would really help the deck. Rush of Battle is surprising relevant because of the lifelink provided.

Deck Updates

Last time I've showed you other two FRF brews. After a week I tested enough to have a better feel of the decks and their opponents. The Manifest deck really won't work. It is similar enough to Mono Blue Control to win some games, but it is often too slow and usually it is not able to effectively protect the player while it is trying to create board presence. I've seen a lot of people testing similar ideas, usually with more colors and morph creatures, but all those decks had similar characteristics: good late game, but nothing great, and terrible early game.

The other deck, Harsh Esper, looks really solid, however. It doesn't lose much of the consistency of the Dimir version and the white cards really give the deck more reach. I wouldn't say it is clearly better, specially in the "mirror" where the Dimir deck looks more focused, but it improved even more on the ability of recover from almost lost games, which is my favorite feature of the Dimir deck. Here is an updated list after testing.

 

Recent News

• The Standard Pauper Sealed League has started. Here is a video from a round 1 match: bava vs vhaso. After Round 1 is finished you can check the standings here.
• Gwyned, the tireless host of MPDC had published a series of posts on Treasure Cruise and the need of banning it or not, including the arguments from Zoltan, a strong supporter of the banning of this card. You can check it on his Blog. He comes to the conclusion that there's no need to ban it right now, which I agree 100%. But it is a overpowered card and we should watch for its effect on the metagame as new sets arrive.
• BigBee is the new Captain of the Standard Pauper Players Clan! I wish you a fine stay as our clan leader, buddy! You probably know him for his numerous MPDC wins, including the recent taking of MPDC 27 Worlds but BigBee is also a strong supporter of our format, advertising it in MTGO in every chance he gets. He is also strong critical of everything V4. Stop complaining BigBee! :-) (of course I'm joking, any reasonable person is critical about V4).

Ok, that's all folks! I hope to see interesting brews and updated top decks next week when he season start. Take care!

Interview with Rremedio, SPDC 27 Worlds Winner !

Season 27 Champion

Hello Rremedio, and congrats on taking down the SPDC Worlds Event last sunday.

Hi Adner! Thank you! I'm very pleased with that result and it was very hard getting to it.

1- Could you please introduce yourself ?

My name is Roberto and I'm from Brazil. I'm a 33 years old computer programmer, web developer and salesman. I have a lot of hobbies which include football, computer games, drawing, guitar playing, barbecues and loads of beer.

2- For how long have you been playing magic, both on paper and online?

I started playing MTG just after the release of 4th Edition and played it until just before the release of Weatherlight. After that, the only contact I had with the game was via the old Microprose game and sometimes in a friends house. I knew MTGO for a while, but one year ago I decided to give it a try. I was almost quitting again when I learned about Standard Pauper and I fell in love with the format.

3- What is your favorite archetype / player profile and for what reasons?

I don't think I have a clear favorite archetype, but maybe I enjoy playing midrange controlling decks the most. I like to play cards that give me extra value, like creatures with ETB effects or triggered abilities, and I like to have answers in my decks, specially removal spells. That said, I also enjoy playing aggro but I'm prone to making stupid combat mistakes very often.

4- For that reason, could you please explain us how you came to that wonderful winning BU build?
  - Do you know why this list was not used so much this season, although its efficiency, using 2 of the best cards in the format, Gary and treasure Cruise?

Well, some weeks ago my friend Dan from MagicGatheringStrat was searching for a list to abuse Gary and Cruise. I was thinking about the same thing at the time and came up with something similar to this list for him to test. After getting tired of my Grixis deck often losing to its mana base I decided to give it shot in SPDC. The reason Merchant decks have not been that popular anymore is the lack of decent removal. My deck is a little different because we try to force the opponent to cast or discard their protecting spells so we can profit in the long game with our extra card draw (10 spells). Beatnik Bobby had great success with UB Merchant lists this season but his game plan was usually more based on the sheer power of Gary (casting hard to kill early blockers to build devotion) and late game hexproof beaters. My deck is more set for the grindy late game.

5- As results show, you have played very close matches all along the event, beating WW tokens, Izzet Control, Boros heroics, as well as a rogue WGB build from Beatnik Bobby called Lifelink (Bobby, congrats on being Season points champion for SPDC !), could you please give us a few hints on How to play this list depending on those matchups?

I changed the list before the tournament because I expected a lot of WW decks with token swarms. The basic strategy is to hold on with cats and snakes until you can cast Gary and draw spells. Then, things become great because we get a lot of mana and play Cruise and Gary several times.

Against WW tokens you are usually trying to get rid of anything they play in the early turns with Pharika's Cure or gain time with Voyage's End, then you start drawing cards and gaining life. It is a lot easier after first game, siding  in the Festergloms and a few Negates.

Against Izzet Control we try to aggro them in the first game with our weak beaters. It is important to get them off balance so they need to expend their mana in turns 5-7 producing tokens. This is when we cast the Merchant and the Disciples. After sideboarding we have access to counterspells which we use to force them to expend more mana or to protect our important creature spells. Their late game is better than ours, so we can't just wait and do nothing while they build their mana base and sculpt their hand.

Against Boros we rely a lot on the cats and snakes. In the early game we do a lot of work on the end of their turns making them use their protection and finding the right moment to effectively get rid of their creatures. If we manage to survive until mid game, we are able to draw a lot and gain a lot of life. The deck was build when Boros was dominating the metagame and I chose the discard theme because of it. It's interesting that discard spells are usually considered bad against Aggro and good against Control, but in our meta with aggro decks playing cantrips and keeping protection spells in their hand while Control decks want their graveyard filled, it seems to be to opposite.

None of these matchups are really good or bad, so the outcome depends a lot on having the correct draws, specially in the early game.

Against Bobby's deck I think we are favored, because the moment when his deck starts to snowball with tokens and morph creatures is usually when we are getting Cruise and Gary online. Festergloom is great after sideboarding and in the finals I could get rid of an insane amount of creatures at once by double casting it a single turn. The important thing is hold the ground early when it is dangerous for him to attack into Pharika's Chosen and Black Cat. His deck is interesting because he can win by swarming you in the air, allthough the deck is also very strong on the ground. But it is not as fast as tokens.

6- We've sadly witnessed a significantly decreasing attendance this season for both SPDC and MPDC, what are your thoughts and explanations about that, both from the player and replacement host for SPDC point of view (thanks for hosting !) ?

I think the greatest fall in attendance came with the switch to V4 when a lot of casual players just couldn't stand all the bugs. Not being a format with dailies and other official tournaments made a big difference after the switch because the casual population decreased more than the competitive one, imo. I see new players every week but a lot of regulars are not showing up lately which I think, at least for SPDC, that maybe we have competition from other formats PREs. I hope the format recovers from that soon.

7- There are more and more Brazilian players attending the STD Pauper Events online, shoutout to them all !!! Do you know them in real life and is there a living STD Pauper scene with paper cards play at local game stores as well in your country?

I don't know any of them in real life and there's nothing I can tell you about the paper scene here in the last 17 years...lol. But one of them commented the last Sunday that in his city, store owners have been promoting Standard Pauper events. I'm also aware of a Brazilian online league which is happening and has something around 20+ players. Unfortunately I wasn't able to join them on time.

8- Did you like Season 27 's metagame evolution with Khans and the riddance of Ethereal armor? What were the most important shifts in the metagame this season from your point of view?

I think changes were interesting because we are playing different decks now. Ethereal Armor was so strong that almost all the decks tried to profit from it. Now we have Treasure Cruise and all decks try to use it or beat it, so things haven't changed that much. Like the previous format, this one has a small amount of top decks, but you can still win with other lists as the results show, and it is a good thing. While in the previous format when Ethereal Armor kept non Ethereal Armor decks at bay, White based Heroic does the same now. Control decks lost a lot of power because of the lack of good removal, but Treasure Cruise makes up for it.

9- Season 28 is about to start with the Fate Reforged release online, I know you like to build and test weird decks, so what do you have in mind at the moment? Could new archetypes make their way to success? Which already well settled archetypes will benefit the most from this new set?

Yes, I love weird decks! I've been testing several things like the Esper Gary-Cruise and the Simic Manifest decks I posted on the clan's blog and I've been also trying a Mardu Tokens/Warriors deck. I'm not sure new archetypes will come out but I think there is enough cards to make a Delve based creature deck to work and we have to wait to see what Manifest can do. While testing I found out that the mechanic can do powerful things but a deck based on it will surely be slow, so for now I'm skeptical about a manifest based- deck being competitive.

Current decks may probably gain color shifted versions, like WW that can be built in BW or BRW colors. All the top decks are granted updates and Mono Red is getting more good cards than the others, so maybe it's RDW time.

10- Final question : there are many STD Pauper resources online, what could we do as a community (inside and outside the MTGO clan) to keep our beloved format thriving in the future?

Keep playing and keep inviting people to the tournaments. I see BigBee doing this all the time and I'm always inviting people too and some of them end up becoming regulars. Maybe we should also find more ways to advertise the tournaments in forums and web sites.

Thanks for your time and help, Rremedio, as well as for the nice posts you have published on the clan's blog, keep on doing what you do for the format and community sake !
Ad'

Thank you, Adner! I hope to meet you guys in the battlefield soon :)