 |
| 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 :)
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 :)
No comments:
Post a Comment