The Standard Pauper Filter Issue

Today we were going to have a happy post about the Standard Pauper Double League, but instead we need to talk about some bad news.

Yesterday, Wizards announced the retirement of the Standard Pauper filter on MTGO among other formats which are being cut. I will quote their reasoning here:

"In order to focus our efforts on improving the most popular formats on Magic Online, we are removing official support for some rarely-played formats and player configurations with the November 11, 2015 downtime. Combined, the removal of the formats below represents less than one percent of play on Magic Online.

...

We are always looking to improve the player experience on Magic Online. Trimming our offerings will allow us to focus on improving the most-played formats, and will simplify the interface for starting a game."

This is really hard to understand. First, because relating the removal of a "rarely-played" format with the improving of a popular format is something impossible to buy. Do you really thing Standard Pauper, or Legacy Tribal Wars, or Emperor, or all of them combined took any focus from what would Wizards give to the main formats? In the especial case of Standard Pauper, the filter is just a subset of the Standard filter and it does use only the core constructed rules. I wouldn't agree, but I wouldn't be able to deny it if they said that formats using different rules require too much attention and maintenance from them, but I cannot believe the almost zero support they give to Standard Pauper can hold any other format back.

Second, none of the formats being cut add any unwanted complexity to the interface. If you don't deliberately build a deck for some of these formats, they simply won't show up in your lobby. Surely there are a lot of improvements in the lobby and in the collection being asked by the community, but this decision won't help it in any way. If you don't play these formats you will see no improvements at all, on the other hand, if you play them, your hobby will become much harder (in the case of Standard Pauper) or nearly impossible (in the case of more complex formats). And that's what bugs me the most.

Well, I can be completely wrong about all of this. Maybe there is some big update in the client interface coming up in the next few months and having extra, underplayed formats would make its implementation much harder, but if that's the case, I think Wizards should be clear about it.

Their reasoning aside, I think there are other reasons why this is a bad decision:

MTGO tries to emulate paper MTG as close as it can, including the financial model. One of the main advantages of paper MTG is that you can play the game any way you want. Of course, this can't be fully reproduced in the digital game, but those filters help go a long way on helping that.

As for Standard Pauper, specifically, the format is the best entry choice for Constructed play. It is very cheap and easy to learn.  MTGO really lacks a good newbie friendly option for constructed play. Classic Pauper is just too advanced for a new player without enough paper experience while Standard is too expensive for someone who doesn't even know the basics of competitive play.

By cutting Standard Pauper from the client instead of taking the further step of adding basic sanctioned support for the format, Wizards is not only hurting the format passionates like us but also ignoring the players who come to MTGO without previous MTG knowledge. Every other digital card game works hard to get this kind of customer, and that's why some of them are ridiculously bigger than MTGO.

We have two PRE's happening every week with 16-22 players. It may not look like much, but it is a decent size tournament, on par with Modern, Legacy and Vintage daily events. These players usually find the format by themselves, since there is no promoting being made by Wizards. In my case, having the option to build a Standard Pauper deck in the client prompted me to search the internet about the format and find pdcmagic.com. The PRE's can still happen without the filter, but new players will have a harder time discovering the format, and that's why the filter is so important for us.

Can we do something about this? Please check this blog post by gwyned. If you care about Standard Pauper, the best thing you can do is let WoTC know about it.

To end my rant on a positive note, I remember you again to check the Standard Pauper Double League. It is pure awesomeness! Months of fun and over $175 in prizes!

And that's all...

Have a good one

rremedio1
@Zygrunt on Twitter
rremedio1 on MTGO

SPDC 31.01

Hello there! Long time no see!

Yesterday, season 31 has officially started for Standard Pauper, meaning Theros block and M15 are gone for good while Battle For Zendikar is now legal.

This is very interesting because Theros and Battle for Zendikar are completely different from each other and to be fair, most of us were very tired of Theros.

While I'm not a fan of the new set, the new format looks very good. I've seen a lot of good decks and there seems to be a lot of room for brewing. Since it is a new format, let's make a report!

SPDC 31.01 Report

The tournament had 16 players and the most popular color build was Rakdos, with 6 decks, followed by Izzet with 3 decks. All the other color archetypes presented had 1 deck each. The Rakdos popularity is not really a surprise. The deck was already among the best in the previous format and it translates very well into the new one. It was a solid and safe choice. Red has been the best color in the format for a while now and I think this will not change soon. Red is great in both aggro and control and has the best answers to all the tokens that are swarming the format right now.

pproteus took down the event with his UR Tempo deck, beating tortadelimao's Rakdos deck in the finals. Forli with Sultai Grind and kakuyasu with another Rakdos deck completed the money finishes while Izzet Tokens, Gruul Landfall, Jeskai Control and Esper Tokens completed the top 8.

The new format looks very grindy. Creatures die a lot, all decks are looking for 2-3 for 1s all the time and I've seen and experienced a lot of comebacks from decks that were apparently losing a given match. A midrange feast!

Let's highlight some of the top decks in the tournament before I talk about what I played.

UR Tempo by pproteus - 1st (6-0)

4 Evolving Wilds 4 Swiftwater Cliffs 8 Mountain 5 Island 4 Mage-Ring Bully 4 Elusive Spellfist 4 Valakut Predator 3 Eldrazi Skyspawner 2 Clutch of Currents 1 Ojutai's Summons 4 Tormenting Voice 4 Treasure Cruise 1 Anticipate 2 Fiery Impulse 1 Outnumber 3 Twin Bolt 3 Touch of the Void 2 Claustrophobia 1 Dispel Sideboard: 3 Dispel 2 Negate 4 Boiling Earth 1 Jeskai Sage 1 Claustrophobia 1 Murk Strider 1 Ojutai's Summons 1 Twin Bolt 1 Touch of the Void

pproteus deck was a true tempo deck. He would play a few early creatures and proceed to clear the way for them to attack with removal and bounce. He crushed me in our round-3 match and Elusive Spellfist looked especially good. While I can say to my defense that my flooding, especially in game 2, helped him a lot, but it was clear to me that his deck was much more well built and he knew what he was doing very well. And his 6-0 record shows just that.

Rakdos by tortadelimao - 2nd (4-2)

4 Gurmag Angler 4 Sultai Scavenger 4 Vulturous Aven 4 Ghirapur Gearcrafter 3 Fiery Impulse 4 Dragon Fodder 4 Read the Bones 4 Tormenting Voice 3 Arrow Storm 3 Twin Bolt 1 Rakshasa's Secret 1 Temur Battle Rage 7 Mountain 6 Swamp 4 Bloodfell Caves 4 Evolving Wilds Sideboard: 4 Duress 3 Act of Treason 2 Butcher's Glee 2 Barrage of Boulders 1 Twin Bolt 2 Unholy Hunger 1 Fiery Impulse

My fellow Brazilian tortadelimao had the best finish of the Rakdos guys. He's beaten me in the top 8 match after 3 fun and grindy games. The main innovation here is <span class="mtgcard">Arrow Storm</span> which gives him the ability to win against a stabilized board and also deals with opposing <span class="mtgcard">Gurmag Angler</span>. This deck beats hard and never runs out of gas.

Sultai Grind by Forli - Top 4 (4-1)

4 Sultai Emissary 4 Vulturous Aven 4 Blisterpod 4 Eldrazi Skyspawner 2 Eyeless Watcher 1 Swarm Surge 2 Dutiful Attendant 2 Silumgar Butcher 4 Bone Splinters 4 Treasure Cruise 3 Altar's Reap 2 Ethereal Ambush 4 Dismal Backwater 4 Evolving Wilds 4 Jungle Hollow 4 Thornwood Falls 2 Forest 2 Swamp 1 Island 2 Mortuary Mire Sideboard: 4 Debilitating Injury 2 Sidisi's Faithful 2 Duress 2 Dispel 2 Disdainful Stroke 2 Fetid imp 1 Aerial Volley 1 Complete Disregard

Not unlike my own deck I'll be discussing later, Forli's deck is grindy to the bone. It gets extra points for being the BUG colors, the best color combo in MTG. Forli plays a lot of token generators of both the ETB and the dying trigger types. He then used them as resources to fuel the Exploit creatures, Altar's Reap and Bone Splinters. The result is a deck that is very hard to deal with, since killing his creatures doesn't detract his gameplan that much.

GR Landfall by amnaremotoas - Top 8 (2-2)

4 Looming Spires 4 Rugged Highlands 1 Tormenting Voice 4 Titan's Strength 4 Mage-Ring Bully 4 Infectious Bloodlust 4 Makindi Sliderunner 3 Temur Battle Rage 4 Snapping Gnarlid 4 Valakut Predator 4 Evolving Wilds 2 Belligerent Whiptail 4 Titanic Growth 5 Forest 6 Mountain 1 Barrage of Boulders 2 Hooting Mandrills Sideboard: 3 Barrage of Boulders 2 Plummet 2 Savage Punch 2 Aerie Bowmasters 2 Epic Confrontation 4 Fiery Impulse

A few days ago my friend Sam from MagicGatheringStrat.com asked me my opinion about a GR Landfall deck in the format and I said him I thought it wouldn't happen because the support cards were not very good and the creatures, while not bad, were not very impressive. It seems I was wrong. While this deck may have a hard time against a grindy field, it is surely capable of stealing wins out of nowhere, especially with Temur Battle Rage. The creatures are naturally powerful and with the help of the best pump spells in the format, they will never let you feel safe against them.

My deck: Esper Tokens

So this is what I played yesterday.

Esper Tokens by rremedio1 - Top 8 (2-2)

5 Swamp 2 Complete Disregard 2 Scoured Barrens 2 Dutiful Attendant 4 Eldrazi Skyspawner 3 Read the Bones 2 Gurmag Drowner 3 Harsh Sustenance 2 Plains 1 Monastery Loremaster 2 Nantuko Husk 4 Palace Familiar 5 Island 3 Sandsteppe Outcast 4 Evolving Wilds 4 Dismal Backwater 4 Anticipate 3 Treasure Cruise 3 Vulturous Aven 2 Tranquil Cove Sideboard: 1 Complete Disregard 2 Gideon's Reproach 2 Celestial Flare 2 Spell Shrivel 2 Negate 2 Send to Sleep 2 Clutch of Currents 2 Macabre Waltz

I've been running this kind of deck for a long time and I think this is the format where it can really shine. My 2-2 record is not that impressive, but the deck felt very good overall. While this deck is capable of pretending of being an aggro deck with an unlikely fast draw against a very slow opponent, it is, in fact, a midrange, stall deck, not unlike Forli's Sultai Grind deck. We will play tokens and cycle through our deck using our exploit creatures, our draw spells, and Anticipate, get things back from the graveyard with Dutiful Attendant and Monastery Loremaster and eventually win. Harsh Sustenance is a big card here, doing double duty as both removal and finisher (3 of the 5 games I won were finished by this card).

But not everything is great. The deck felt much better after sideboarding in removal in every match which probably means I should play more removal in the main deck. That removal is white, which meant that sometimes I had a hard time casting it because of having few white sources. This can be fixed by changing the mana base, or simply playing black removal. Bone Splinter is a very cheap and effective card with so many tokens on our side and maybe it is the better option. Anyway, Gideon's Reproach overperformed and Celestial Flare was very useful dealing with Anglers. That's a tough call.

Other cards that I missed in my list were Altar's Reap, Disdainful Stroke and Duress.

Altar's Reap can replace Read the Bones, which wasn't very good. RtB is actually the better card of the two, and by a long margin, in my opinion, but Altar's Reaps instant speed and synergy with the deck are good arguments for it. As I said before, creatures die a lot in this format, and this can make Altar's Reap completely free of downside.

Disdainful Stroke seems to have targets in almost all decks I've seen so far. So many important targets that it may be a main deck card for many decks. Our deck taps out a lot and because of that I would probably keep it in the sideboard, but it is clearly better than Spell Shrivel for us.

Duress is a common choice for black sideboards and I usually advocate it as a main deck card in Standard Pauper. It could have been very good against the Izzet deck I faced in round 3 and I think it was a big mistake not including it.

As for the rest of my sideboard: Complete Disregard was lackluster both main and side; Spell Shrivel just doesn't belong in this deck; Negate would be nice if I ever drew it in my matches; Clutch of Currents was never sided in and given the way the deck played, I think the Awake mode would not have been that great, so maybe it can be cut (or changed for Dissolve, which is an instant); Send to Sleep was surprising good, even finishing the match against GR Landfall, but I feel it is not really the kind of card I need, even if I'm willing to test it a bit more.

So here is the list I'm going to test before my next tournament. I'm still not sure about Altar's Reap and I've chosen to play both Bone Splinters and Gideon's Approach. I'm cutting 1 Anticipate and 1 Vulturous Aven for the time being, but the Aven is likely to come back.

Esper Tokens by rremedio1 - Testing

4 Swamp 2 Bone Splinters 2 Scoured Barrens 2 Dutiful Attendant 4 Eldrazi Skyspawner 3 Altar's Reap 2 Gurmag Drowner 3 Harsh Sustenance 3 Plains 1 Monastery Loremaster 2 Nantuko Husk 4 Palace Familiar 4 Island 3 Sandsteppe Outcast 4 Evolving Wilds 4 Dismal Backwater 3 Anticipate 3 Treasure Cruise 2 Vulturous Aven 3 Tranquil Cove 2 Gideon's Reproach Sideboard: 3 Duress 2 Celestial Flare 2 Disdainful Stroke 2 Negate 2 Send to Sleep 2 Clutch of Currents 2 Macabre Waltz

That's all for now. Feel free to critique and send suggestions.

I see you next time!

Peace!

rremedio1
@Zygrunt on Twitter
rremedio1 on MTGO

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