Why not?

Gwyned, the tireless host of MPDC has setup a survey on his blog asking why players do not attend to Standard Pauper PREs. On the past months we had an extreme decrease in our player numbers, which makes the community worried about the current state of the format.

Please take a few seconds to check his post and answer the survey, specially if you haven't joined the PREs (MPDC and SPDC) lately or ever at all.

Click on the image below to check out his blog and survey:

Infinite Combos in Standard Pauper?

Rumor has it that infinite combos arrived in Standard Pauper and they are here to stay. You see, we have our share of unfair decks, just like Modern :)

If you checked the latest SPDC results you noticed Forli got to the finals piloting a deck which features an infinite combo, in Standard Pauper! I had seen the combo in action the day before, piloted by DrChrisBakerDC and I was impressed.

Before Dragons of Tarkir

There was already an infinite combo in the format that I was aware, but it was so clunky and hard to assemble that nobody ever tried it in tournaments.

You need two Midnight Guards, one of them enchanted with Karametra's Favor. You also need an Akroan Crusader enchanted with Dragon Mantle. So you cast Retraction Helix on the non enchanted Guard, bounce the Mantle, tap the other guard for red mana. Cast the Mantle again creating a token and drawing a card while activating the triggered ability of the Guards, untapping them. Now you can bounce the Mantle again and start over. This gives you infinite hasty tokens as well as drawing a lot of cards.

The New Combos

Of course that is a terrible combo because you need six cards spread across four color, pretty much unplayable. But Dragons of Tarkir brought us not only one, but two 4-cards combos! Four cards is still a lot to assemble, but it is much much easier.

The Scribe Combo

The first combo is the one used by Forli in the tournament.

Here you will cast Retraction Helix on Zephir Scrybe, bounce a Spidersilk Net and cast it again for free, which will untap the Scribe and allow you to bounce it again. Every time you do that, your Elusive Spellfist you gain +1/+0. So you will repeat it until the Spellfist is big enough to kill your opponent and attack. You want to use the Spellfist instead of a Prowess creature because it cannot be blocked.

The main strengths of this combo lie on the Zephyr Scribe itself, because it's ability helps you sculpt your hand in search for combo pieces and combo protection and also on the fact that it is a mono blue combo, so you won't worry about mana fixing.

The Impact Tremors Combo

The other new combo is a bit similar.

You cast Retraction Helix on a Midnight Guard, bounce an Ornithopter and cast it again. The guard will untap so you can repeat it. Every time the Ornithopter enters the battlefield, Impact Tremors will do one damage to your opponent.

This is harder to assemble because of the three colors, but Impact Tremors is a card that helps aggressive token decks, which makes me think a token decks with the combo as a plan B might be viable.

You can even make a Jeskai deck with both combos. I tried it but I didn't think it was good enough. Maybe after some more testing and tweaking, I can get to something competitive.

So what do you think? Both combos are a bit too hard to assemble and a bit too easy to disrupt. Anyway, Forli managed to get to the finals with one of them and it was just the first try. Can a true combo deck arrive to the top tiers of Standard Pauper?

Hopefully, we will talk about this again. Until then, have a good one!

rremedio

Dragon Toys for Gary

So, Dragons of Tarkir is under prerelease which means next week we will have access to the new cards. The set looks great, specially for a third set in a block (maybe it received extra care since it is the last third set and it will survive the next two Standard rotations). If you don't know the new cards yet, here is a list of set reviews made specially for Standard Pauper:

• Standard Pauper Review of Dragons of Tarkir by gwyned Part One - Part Two
• Dragons of Tarkir Standard Pauper Set Video Review by DrChrisBakerDC
• Cabel's Critique of a New Release: Dragons of Tarkir for Standard Pauper White - Blue - Black - Red - Green
• The MagicGatheringStrat Show Episode 4

The most impressive cards, in general, are the Exploit ones. Enters the battlefield effects are always great, specially in Standard Pauper where the power level of the cards is almost always very low. Add some cards with drying triggers (there were some of them already in the format and DTK brings us new ones) and you have a ton of value coming from one Exploit trigger.

It happens that the Exploit is the Dimir mechanic of this set and it happens that Dimir (sometimes with a third color) Devotion is my pet deck in the format so you can color me happy.

There are also some sweet non Exploit cards coming in these colors, some of them which fit perfectly in the archetype:

Anticipate is probably the best card in the whole set for Standard Pauper. It is the closest we get to a Ponder/Preordain/Brainstorm effect and it is an instant, which makes a huge difference for an effect like that. 

Dimir Devotion usually struggles in the early game, when other decks are pressuring us and we need to slow them down and secure our land drops. In that case, we can keep our mana untapped in turns two or three so we can cast Voyage's End or Pharika's Cure if we need, and Anticipate in the end of the opponent's turn to fetch the best of the next three cards in our deck. Later in the game, it will accelerate our search for Gary, Treasure Cruise or anything else we need to win.

This deck was designed to beat Boros Heroic and it was good at it by that time. But Boros evolved with Temur Battle Rage making them much faster. Also, Azorius Heroic is now a top deck and our discard effects are not enough to keep them off balance, because they play Treasure Cruise and can refill their hand very easily. The main problem of Dimir, however, is the terrible matchup against Izzet Control. Anticipate will make devotion stronger against all these opponents, but even more important is the next card:

Duress is being reprinted and it comes with a nice timing. Last time it was on the format it was relegated to sideboard card against control, now I see it being a main deck card which will only be sided out in a few matches (mainly against RDW). Duress  hurts control decks, like Izzet, when it deprives them from the answer to your next move or the card they plan to use to take over the game. Against Heroic, it can take away a protection spell, or force the opponent to cast it before you targeted their creature, making your removal or bounce spell easier to land.

This is how I think the current Dimir Devotion deck will look like in the next season.

This is a simple update on the current deck, but you can also go all in Exploit. In this case, the plan is to maximize the value out of Exploit triggers while also navigating the game to the point where you can also maximize the value of Gray Merchant of Asphodel. You will do this by bouncing it, getting it back from the graveyard or simply building devotion with other cards before casting it.

Let's take a closer look in some of the new cards:

Palace Familiar is a sacrifice target, one of the best you can get since it you draw you a card. It is also a cheap air blocker that you won't mind losing very much, which makes it perfect. Because of being able to block in the air it is better than Jeskai Sage for this deck.

Dutiful Attendant is another target for Exploit. Much alike the Familiar, it will give you a card when it dies, the difference is that you get to chose the card (a creature from your graveyard). Since your creatures will be dying a lot, it shouldn't be hard to have a good target for this ability.

Sidisi's Faithful is our first Exploit creature and I think it can be the little engine that makes the deck work. It costs only one mana and it can be used in multiple ways. You can bounce opponent's creatures if you need to deal with them or you can bounce your own creatures for extra life swings with Gary or extra Exploiting with Gurmag Drowner and Vulturous Aven. Pay attention to the triggers order. For instance, if your opponent have no cards in hand, you can Exploit a Black Cat, make the exploit trigger first and bounce an opponent creature, then the black cat will trigger and make the opponent discard the creature you just bounced.

Gurmag Drowner is the next and if you check the set reviews made for Standard Pauper you will notice that most players are not very excited about it. I trully think they are all wrong. This card is a powerhouse and I can see some decks running a whole playset of it. You get to choose from one of the next four cards in your deck and the others will all fuel your Delve cards. If you ever played with Sea Gate Oracle or Court Hussar you know how strong this effect will be. I'm using only one copy here because the deck needs more black permanents to the devotion count and because Vulturous Aven serves us better in the 4 mana slot. But this card can really save your day finding that one card you need exactly in the moment you cast it. And of course you can setup the triggers in a way that if you exploit a Dutiful Attendant, you can chose two of those next four cards, if there is a creature you want between day. It's all value! (edit: you can't really do that because you need to target a card in the graveyard when you are putting the triggers on the stack).

The last exploit creature is Vulturous Aven. This is the one which let most players excited. A 2/3 flyer for 4 mana in black is already playable. If it comes with Sign In Blood attached, it is a beast! If you can any extra value from the creature you are exploiting, it is gross. This card is so good that you can run it even in black decks not designed to be "exploit decks". 

Gravepurge: this is another reprint and it is a card which will face harsh competition in that recursion slot. Font of Return is just more powerful while Unmake the Graves is arguably more powerful and conditionally cheaper. I chose Gravepurge because it can be used earlier, because it is an instant and because this deck can accelerate the card drawing to compensate for the fact that you are putting cards back on the top of your graveyard, but I'm not sure it will work as well as I expect.

That's all, folks! These lists are here to get you started and they probably need a lot of tuning before they can be played in tournaments. UB and Exploit are far from being everything Dragons of Tarkir have to offer and I'm sure all decks are receiving at least some updates. We will find out soon.

I see you at MPDC and SPDC Worlds! Until then, prepare yourself with Cabel the Pauper Standard Pauper Metagame Report for March.

Have a good one!
rremedio

The Standard Pauper Format Exists...But Wizards' Website Doesn't Say So!

Greetings, fellow Standard Pauper Players!  This transmission comes to you from Cabel the Pauper.  I know you have not seen me Online in a long while - and it has been too long, dear Clan Mates!!  Miss ya lots...sadface...

But rest assured that  although I cannot use Magic Online any longer, I am still playing Standard Pauper In Real Life.  In fact, tonight was the first gathering of Standard Pauper Paper Players at my Local Games Shop.  We did not have enough people show up for the event to officially fire and give out prizes.  Despite this, good times were had by all, slinging commons with various Standard Pauper decks.  A Red Deck was trying to Win in an attempt break Impact Tremors, without success, while a Black & White Warriors & Tokens build won in a Rush of Battle!  And what Standard Pauper get-together would be complete these days without a White Blue Heroic Cruise list out-performing all the rest?

Ah, yes...This great format is (keyword there...) as much fun on paper as it is (again, keyword...) in Magic Online.  I just can't help but wonder why so few people showed up.  Not only to my in-store event but at the MPDC and SPDC tournaments, which have been well-attended for going on nine long years now.

Hmm... could it be, perhaps, that maybe nobody knows about the very existence of our favorite format because...the official Magic: the Gathering website doesn't even say it exists!

There is page that lists all the other formats on Wizards.Magic.Com.  It's linked to in bold above so you can see for yourself that I'm not making this up.  Really...you can't make this stuff up!

Dig this: Every other format gets acknowledged as existing on that page.  Regular Standard is right up top, but Standard Pauper isn't mentioned anywhere.  Pauper itself is also there, but not the Standard Pauper variety our great Clan is built around.  Just plain old Pauper without a single word about Standard Pauper being a thing.  According to that web page, this thing we do... is not a thing!

At first, I couldn't believe it.  I thought I just didn't see it.  But nope, it's not there.  And I still can't believe I have to tell you this!  I shouldn't have to tell you Standard Pauper exists.  But no, I have to say it exists because the WotC MtG Format page doesn't.  Can you believe I am telling you this?

Well, believe it, Standard Pauper players, both Clan Mates and the uninitiated.  I'm telling you the cold, hard, awful truth: our favorite way to play is nowhere to be found, not anywhere at all, on the Magic: the Gathering site run by Wizards of the Coast themselves.  I don't mean it's buried and hard to find or in really, really small text at the very bottom of the page...

No, I mean this as literally as possible want to say it as clearly as possible here...

Nowhere at all!

 Nulle parte! 

Es ist nicht da! 

¡Nada en absoluto! 

Non una parola! 

 Zupełnie nic! 

Existe até mesmo uma menção? 

Ακόμη μια φορά; 

Нет, нет и нет!!

...in other words, the Standard Pauper format exists...but Wizards' website doesn't say so.

When it comes to this format, Wizards cannot even conjugate the English verb to be! (Because that is the key word here,)

And that means there is only one thing to do:  We must fix this problem.  Once and for all.

This has to be a big part of the reason why our two weekly events on Magic Online are not nearly as well attended as they have been in the past.  Why, I recall when we had well over thirty players on a regular basis.  That was fun!  But it's not fun when events don't even fire, and my Offline event didn't because, darnitall, nobody can find out about it hardly anywhere... when  they should be able to find out about Standard Pauper at the same place they can find out about every other format under the sun.

But Wizards of the Coast doesn't list it on the Formats page.  That leaves us Standard Pauper players and potential new players, friends, and competitors - unfairly - in the dark. 

Now, I have already posted about this on my own blog, Cabel the Pauper, where I am actively blogging about the format again, this time as an IRL event organizer.  Gwyned has also added his voice to his blog, Writer Adept. I'm sure you've heard of it, or met this long-time MTGO host :-)

I've even sent out tweets and e-mails, too.  Most recently, I started a Discussion Thread on the Standard Pauper Forums at PDCMagic.com to help reach those who are not in the Clan or just don't frequent this blog too often.  I'm currently working on getting a Change.org petition started to change this situation. That seemed to help us back when we didn't have a Filter for Magic Online.  We got what we asked for.  Well done!

And now all we're asking for is that the Format we know and love, Standard Pauper, be given a seat at the table with all the other formats on that web page.  Because it's a format, so it belongs there.  All we want is for Wizards of the Coast to say that Standard Pauper IS.  Period.

Consider this blog a call to action to start contacting everyone you can: every fellow Standard Pauper player, every Magic player you meet, and certainly everybody at Wizards of the Coast you can possibly contact in any way, shape, or form.

We're a Clan, Mates.  That means when trouble strikes or a problem arises, we all put down our decks of cards and take to our computers to communicate and make our voices heard.  Or we stay at our computers, but we log off Magic Online and open up our GeeMail, MyFace, or Twhatever and get to work, together, to get what we Standard Pauper Players rightfully deserve.  What we've earned by making Standard Pauper a thing, a good thing, a great thing, possibly, dare I say, the best thing ever!

So let's get to work to get Standard Pauper listed on that Formats page on the official Magic: The Gathering website!

Standard Pauper Players of the World, Unite!

You have nothing to lose but good games :-)

I wish you all good luck with this, Mates, and I hope you have fun with it, too, just like I always close with a wish that you have good games: GL&HF!  Peace,

- C