I mean, after two solid months of no updates after the appeal to save Standard Pauper fell on deaf ears over at Wizards of the Coast - and after a year of rather infrequent posts - it should be pretty clear that this blog is dead. The Standard Pauper format is still alive thanks to dedicated players and community leaders, but the filter has been taken away at the same time a lot of changes have happened rapidly in my personal life.
So it looks like I'll be composing a eulogy for the Cabel the Pauper blog instead of an obituary for the format.
So why have I not been playing Standard Pauper since about mid-season or blogging about it? And why does it look like I won't again, at least not in 2016? I feel I owe whatever readers I have some answers.
The first reason is romance. This is something that I did not see coming, but after catching up online with an old acquaintance this spring and summer, things moved rather quickly into the fall and I'm now involved with a woman who has fast become the love of my life. She knows how to play Magic but isn't really too into it and was also in the European time zone finishing her doctoral degree. So my time was better spent chatting with her on Sundays and Mondays when the PDC events were going on. That is a pattern that will definitely continue once she goes back to Britain after coming home for the holidays.
I know, I know: it's the classic "found-a-girlfriend excuse" but I've always been of the mind that there's no such thing as excuses. There are just good explanations and bad explanations. I think falling in love and maintaining a long distance relationship is as good an explanation as any for just not having the time to log in to play Standard Pauper any more. And I can only hope that every Magic player out there - every human being, really - can find someone special against all odds to truly fall in love with.
Now that the sappy stuff is out of the way, the second and third reasons fit in with the Letter-M theme I've developed on the blog. These are music and Marxism.
On the music point, I've recently switched instruments from bass to acoustic guitar and will be going back to school for music. Specifically, I'll be training to become an audio recording engineer and I'm focusing on guitar because I already know how to play bass, keyboard, and can carry a tune singing. In about a year or so my final project for graduation will be to produce a 20-minute recording myself.
This means I can finally write and record all the songs I've been working on for years that all the bands I've been in before weren't interested in. It also means I'll have a marketable skill set as both a songwriter and studio engineer so this long spell of joblessness can finally be put to rest. So since I'll be practicing an instrument as often as recommended by my instructor and studying for classes, Magic simply has to take a backseat and I've already gotten halfway decent at guitar by spending my time learning chords and rhythms instead of playing Magic.
Finally we come to Marxism. I'm proud to report that after several years of starting and stopping with the bitch of text that is Marx's Das Kapital Volume I, I've finally finished reading the book and the lectures posted for free by Dr. David Harvey. Now I feel I truly understand several of the contradictions that are inherent in the capitalist system and know for a fact that Marxist philosophy and economic theory is more relevant than ever. My new girlfriend even got me Volume II for Christmas (she is also a socialist!) and I'll be spending my spare time this semester reading that one and following along with Dr. Harvey's newly posted lectures on this essential Marxist text.
Anybody interested in this intellectual undertaking can find Dr. Harvey's lectures here. I highly recommend not trying to tackle this masterpiece of philosophy, political economy, and world literature on your own. God knows I didn't make it very far by myself, so it's a blessing to have somebody who has been teaching the book for over forty years share his course materials for free over the Internet.
So those are the reason that I haven't been keeping this blog up to date and why I have no plans to do so after the publication of this post. My time will be spent maintaining a healthy long-distance relationship until summer arrives and my love finally comes home for good, practicing my guitar and learning the ins and outs of audio recording and engineering, and continuing my autodidactic studies of Marxist philosophy. This leaves no time for playing Magic, much less blogging about it.
The fact that the Standard Pauper filter was taken away from us and that a nasty bug in my MTGO client made deck-building a bigger chore than it was before are small potatoes compared to these positive life changes and thus warrants no more than a passing mention here.
The main thing I want to say is that it's been a hell of a lot of fun being a member of this small but close-knit community of online Magic players and doing a little bit of self-indulgent blogging about it from time to time was fun, too. I want to thank everybody who read this blog or my old forum posts and PureMTGO articles, everyone in the Standard Pauper Players Clan for keeping the format alive, and, of course, I wish you all good luck & have fun!
Peace Out!
- C
Tuesday, December 29, 2015
Wednesday, October 28, 2015
My Personal Appeal to Save Standard Pauper
Fellow Standard Pauper players, by now you've probably heard the news that Wizards of the Coast plans to remove the Standard Pauper filter from Magic Online on November 11th of this year.
Our MPDC and Standard Pauper Double League host Gwyned broke the news on his blog, Writer Adept, and you should visit that blog post right now and take the time to contact the appropriate persons linked to therein in order to make your own personal appeal to them to please, please not do this.
The sub-host of the SPDC series, rrmedio1, has also posted some very good reasons as to why this decision is just awful over at the Standard Pauper Players Clan blog, saying it better than I could. It leaves me no reason to compose a blog of my own on this topic, but I figured I'd make public the e-mail I sent to the people in charge of this decision in one last attempt to save the format. Quoted below is the full text of the e-mail I sent to all the people Gwyned suggested we all contact.
Dear Wizards:
I am writing you to urge you to reverse a decision that a Magic Online Player Run Event host, George Leonard, has made me aware of. He hosts a weekly Standard Pauper event and is about to play host to a Standard Pauper Double League which Wizards of the Coast is generously donating prize support for in the form of sealed product. He tells me that WotC has decided to retire the Standard Pauper filter on Magic Online.
I urge you to please not remove the Standard Pauper filter from Magic Online. The hosts of two weekly PRE's have put in so much good work fostering a community of players to play good games of Magic Online when we simply cannot afford any other format. Standard Pauper is an excellent, challenging format to play Magic and is extremely accessible for new players.
I have been playing Standard Pauper of and on since Zendikar. Often my breaks between gaming are due to depression, which has kept me unemployed for years now. Playing Standard Pauper is one of the few things in my life that works when everything else has gone wrong. The friends I have on MTGO are some of the few friends I have left because of how my bipolar mood swings have adversely affect my offline life. It would hit me rather hard if Standard Pauper were to leave me and I'm sure many other players feel the same.
I'm sure this is just a mistake that went unnoticed in your organization. It does not make sense to me that Wizards of the Coast would first choose to offer prize support to the Standard Pauper format only to turn around and make the format almost impossible to play.
In the past, we used the Pauper filter. However, there is a huge problem at present because Treasure Cruise is banned in Pauper but not in Standard Pauper. We would have to use the Freeform filter or something and that leads to a lot of confusion regarding deck legality.
I was very happy when we finally received a Standard Pauper filter on Magic Online to facilitate finding other players to ply Magic with. I was also very happy when Standard Pauper was added to the official formats web page on the Magic The Gathering website. And I was beyond overjoyed when I saw WotC finally offering prize support for one of our Player Run Events. I still hold out someday that WotC will host Standard Pauper Dailies.
But first I have to hope that the decision to retire the Standard Pauper filter on Magic Online will be reversed. Please do not take this from me or my fellow Standard Pauper Players clan mates. We really do love playing the game this way and so long as there is a Standard Pauper filter on Magic Online you can count on us picking up tickets in order to complete our modest collections each time a new expansion set is released.
Personally, I think Magic R&D is doing a better job than they ever have in the past at designing sets that make this format even more enjoyable. I understand we are not a large or particularly profitable group of player, but we do love the game that you produce and we would all appreciate it very much if you kept the Standard Pauper filter.
Thank you for taking the time to read and consider my appeal to keep the the Standard Pauper filter on Magic Online. GL & HF!
Sincerely,
Colin Abele (Cabel on MTGO)
Now your own appeal does not have to be as long or personally revealing as mine. I just wanted to put out there how much this format means to me (and all of us) in light of my unique individual situation.
To make a long story short, Standard Pauper has been one of the few things that keeps me going. I'd hate to have the last blog I compose here be an obituary for the format.
Thanks for taking the time to read my own personal appeal and for clicking the links provided above to add your voice to this movement to save Standard Pauper. The next update to this blog will, I hope, be about the success we all will be sharing in when Wizards of the Coast reversed this decision....or about how I give up on Magic Online for the last time.
Peace,
- C
Sunday, July 26, 2015
Back to Standard Pauper with Izzet Tokens
It's been a while since I last posted here after rage-quitting Magic Online because Standard Pauper wasn't listed on the Formats page. And out of frustration with how poorly that program was performing...
But after a few months of cooling down, I found that Wizards of the Coast remedied the problem faster than I expected. And when I took the plunge to invest a few bucks into cards for some Standard Pauper decks just to see if Magic Online was working, I was pleasantly surprised with how well both the client and the deck I constructed were performing.
To make a long story short, the client has never once crashed, disconnected, or otherwise crapped out on me in three weeks of playing, during which I've had some of the most fun and successful Standard Pauper experiences of my "career" in the format. In other words, it's a fanastic time to stop hating on WotC and play some Standard Pauper!
So I guess I take back all those means things I said about R&D and Maro. Sorry guys! I suppose I just love the game too much and it makes me a jerk sometimes But enough of that, on to the deck!
As of this writing, on the eve of the MPDC Season 29 Worlds Championship, I've had greater Top 8 success with my Token Izzet Control build than any other stack of 75 digital cards I ever entered in a PDC tournament. I've twice made it the finals for a second-place finish and twice made it to the semi-finals out of five total entries. I consider this successful because, hey, winning isn't everything!
Just tonight I nearly won the SPDC Season 29 championship against a Mono Black Control build that I had bested in the Swiss. Unfortunately, my luck ran out against Izzet Control's toughest matchup.
But I still wouldn't change a thing about this list. All I'm going to do is update the Khans-block Dragon Fodders with the cool new Magic Origins printing that features the original Shards of Alara artwork. This brings me to a question I really have to ask:
Dragon Fodder has always been a nuts card and fits perfectly into the strategy of using only token-producing spells to summon two dudes at once while leaving the rest of the list open for control, card draw, more control, and even more card draw.
Most importantly, by running Dragon Fodder in Izzet Control instead of relying only the five-mana big token spells, the deck suddenly has the opportunity to apply pressure in the early game. I've won games off the back of a single Dragon Fodder dropped on the second turn while taking care of every potential blocker and threat my opponent could muster. It almost feels like I'm playing a Red Deck Wins....with Treasure Cruise and Nullify!
That and those Goblin tokens are fantastic when you need a couple of chumps to fend off a Boros Aggro or Formidable Green assault. I cannot recommend using Dragon Fodder in Izzet Control lists any higher. This inclusion was the only main difference between my build and the established Izzet decks, some of which forgo tokens entirely and focus on on Whirlwind Adept (which makes for a nice sideboard option here) hence the name "Token Izzet Control" to distinguish it from the rest. I believe it's well positioned in the format and primed for a win...
I've got one last chance this season to take the top spot as MPDC Season 29 Worlds happens tomorrow! But after results like this, I'm happy just to play. Indeed, I'm happier now that I'm actually able to play without Magic Online blowing up and it's a bit easier to find opponents. That, and this Standard Pauper metagame is incredibly deep and diverse.
So it's good to be back and it's even better to have people reading the blog. For the few who do, don't expect me to go overboard again and post all the time. I've already decided that blogging about Magic doesn't make one a better Magic player, so my updates here will be infrequent and completely random.
But thanks for reading anyway and good luck & have fun for everybody who participates in the last event of the season. It's good to be back :-) Peace,
- C
But after a few months of cooling down, I found that Wizards of the Coast remedied the problem faster than I expected. And when I took the plunge to invest a few bucks into cards for some Standard Pauper decks just to see if Magic Online was working, I was pleasantly surprised with how well both the client and the deck I constructed were performing.
To make a long story short, the client has never once crashed, disconnected, or otherwise crapped out on me in three weeks of playing, during which I've had some of the most fun and successful Standard Pauper experiences of my "career" in the format. In other words, it's a fanastic time to stop hating on WotC and play some Standard Pauper!
So I guess I take back all those means things I said about R&D and Maro. Sorry guys! I suppose I just love the game too much and it makes me a jerk sometimes But enough of that, on to the deck!
Token Izzet Control
Not Your Mom's Blue-Red Deck by Cabel
| Creatures 0 cards Other Spells 4 Dragon Fodder 4 Lightning Strike 4 Magma Spray 4 Nullify 4 Treasure Cruise 3 Anticipate 3 Divination 3 Flurry of Horns 3 Ojutai's Summons 2 Cancel 2 Voyage's End 36 cards |
Lands 11 Island 5 Mountain 4 Evolving Wilds 4 Swiftwater Cliffs 24 cards
Sideboard
3 Scouring Sands 3 Disdainful Stroke 3 Negate 2 Whirlwind Adept 2 Pin to the Earth 2 Voyage's End 15 cards |
|
As of this writing, on the eve of the MPDC Season 29 Worlds Championship, I've had greater Top 8 success with my Token Izzet Control build than any other stack of 75 digital cards I ever entered in a PDC tournament. I've twice made it the finals for a second-place finish and twice made it to the semi-finals out of five total entries. I consider this successful because, hey, winning isn't everything!
Just tonight I nearly won the SPDC Season 29 championship against a Mono Black Control build that I had bested in the Swiss. Unfortunately, my luck ran out against Izzet Control's toughest matchup.
But I still wouldn't change a thing about this list. All I'm going to do is update the Khans-block Dragon Fodders with the cool new Magic Origins printing that features the original Shards of Alara artwork. This brings me to a question I really have to ask:
Why have Izzet Control players not been using Dragon Fodder all season???
Dragon Fodder has always been a nuts card and fits perfectly into the strategy of using only token-producing spells to summon two dudes at once while leaving the rest of the list open for control, card draw, more control, and even more card draw.
Most importantly, by running Dragon Fodder in Izzet Control instead of relying only the five-mana big token spells, the deck suddenly has the opportunity to apply pressure in the early game. I've won games off the back of a single Dragon Fodder dropped on the second turn while taking care of every potential blocker and threat my opponent could muster. It almost feels like I'm playing a Red Deck Wins....with Treasure Cruise and Nullify!
That and those Goblin tokens are fantastic when you need a couple of chumps to fend off a Boros Aggro or Formidable Green assault. I cannot recommend using Dragon Fodder in Izzet Control lists any higher. This inclusion was the only main difference between my build and the established Izzet decks, some of which forgo tokens entirely and focus on on Whirlwind Adept (which makes for a nice sideboard option here) hence the name "Token Izzet Control" to distinguish it from the rest. I believe it's well positioned in the format and primed for a win...
I've got one last chance this season to take the top spot as MPDC Season 29 Worlds happens tomorrow! But after results like this, I'm happy just to play. Indeed, I'm happier now that I'm actually able to play without Magic Online blowing up and it's a bit easier to find opponents. That, and this Standard Pauper metagame is incredibly deep and diverse.
So it's good to be back and it's even better to have people reading the blog. For the few who do, don't expect me to go overboard again and post all the time. I've already decided that blogging about Magic doesn't make one a better Magic player, so my updates here will be infrequent and completely random.
But thanks for reading anyway and good luck & have fun for everybody who participates in the last event of the season. It's good to be back :-) Peace,
- C
Monday, April 6, 2015
Red Deck Wins SPDC 28 World Championship, IRL Standard Pauper Events Begin Tonight!
The 28th season of the Standard Pauper Deck Challenge on MTGO is over and nothing could make a Red Mage like myself happier than a Red Deck living up to its name and Winning the World Championship. Yesterday a straight-up Red Aggro build took the top spot at the SPDC Worlds 28 season finale:
That should put to rest any idea that Treasure Cruise is hammering the format into ban-worthy pieces. This hyper-aggressive, Sligh-curved masterpiece runs no additional card draw beyond that attached to Dragon Mantle, and no top-deck fixing except the useful Scry on Titan's Strength.
For the starkest of contrasts, it was piloted to the finals against the event host's own Izzet Blitz deck, which plays very similarly but splashes blue for Cruise, some bounce, and - in an interesting innovation - a blue Runemark. In the end, it looks like mono-colored consistency won the day against diluting the power of pure Red!
By sticking with the one true color, our hero was able to run fewer lands and more fuel to add to the fire. I personally like the inclusion of Inferno Fist to act as a heroic trigger while doubling as burn. The Barrage of Boulders tech in the maindeck and sideboard are great ways to push through damage. However, this is all speculation: I was not able to view the game in action or replay, so if anybody involved in the tournament has any comments, I encourage you to leave them below.
In other news, tonight will be the first night of a new season of In Real Life Standard Pauper events at my Local Games Store. I previously reported these were to start last week and run on Tuesdays, however, there was an oversight: Tuesday is already Warhammer 40,000 night....
ASIDE: Warhammer players take up a lot of space. And are rather noisy. This makes finding a place to play Standard Pauper a bit tougher. And makes things like communicating with your opponent and silently calculating combat damage a little difficult....
Therefore, we moved the event to Mondays while keeping everything the same. Stay tuned to see how my own Red Deck ends up performing after failing last week.
On that note, having tested Impact Tremors at that event, I have to change my mind about the card; I'll be cutting it and filling the slot with something that impacts the board instead of just my expectations. For your continued reading pleasure, now that this blog entry is coming to a close, Gwyned has some thoughts on this card and other Token Deck possibilities up on Writer Adept for once Dragons of Tarkir is legal Online.
Until then, all real life Magic players are encouraged to give this awesome format a try. And I hope all Online Standard Paupers enjoy the break between now and the 28th Monday Pauper Deck Challenge World Championships, set to take place on the 20th of April.
Good luck & have fun! Peace,
- C
Red Aggro
1st Place at SPDC 28 WORLDS by goomy1 on 5th April 2015
| Creatures 4 Akroan Crusader 4 Nyxborn Rollicker 3 Borderland Marauder 3 Satyr Hoplite 3 Goblin Heelcutter 3 Mardu Scout 2 Minotaur Skullcleaver 21 cards Other Spells 4 Dragon Mantle 4 Lightning Strike 4 Titan's Strength 3 Magma Spray 2 Inferno Fist 1 Barrage of Boulders 1 Hammerhand 19 cards |
Lands 19 Mountain 19 cards
Sideboard
4 Forge Devil 2 Act of Treason 2 Collateral Damage 2 Scouring Sands 2 Krenko's Enforcer 1 Barrage of Boulders 15 cards |
 |
That should put to rest any idea that Treasure Cruise is hammering the format into ban-worthy pieces. This hyper-aggressive, Sligh-curved masterpiece runs no additional card draw beyond that attached to Dragon Mantle, and no top-deck fixing except the useful Scry on Titan's Strength.
For the starkest of contrasts, it was piloted to the finals against the event host's own Izzet Blitz deck, which plays very similarly but splashes blue for Cruise, some bounce, and - in an interesting innovation - a blue Runemark. In the end, it looks like mono-colored consistency won the day against diluting the power of pure Red!
By sticking with the one true color, our hero was able to run fewer lands and more fuel to add to the fire. I personally like the inclusion of Inferno Fist to act as a heroic trigger while doubling as burn. The Barrage of Boulders tech in the maindeck and sideboard are great ways to push through damage. However, this is all speculation: I was not able to view the game in action or replay, so if anybody involved in the tournament has any comments, I encourage you to leave them below.
In other news, tonight will be the first night of a new season of In Real Life Standard Pauper events at my Local Games Store. I previously reported these were to start last week and run on Tuesdays, however, there was an oversight: Tuesday is already Warhammer 40,000 night....
ASIDE: Warhammer players take up a lot of space. And are rather noisy. This makes finding a place to play Standard Pauper a bit tougher. And makes things like communicating with your opponent and silently calculating combat damage a little difficult....
Therefore, we moved the event to Mondays while keeping everything the same. Stay tuned to see how my own Red Deck ends up performing after failing last week.
On that note, having tested Impact Tremors at that event, I have to change my mind about the card; I'll be cutting it and filling the slot with something that impacts the board instead of just my expectations. For your continued reading pleasure, now that this blog entry is coming to a close, Gwyned has some thoughts on this card and other Token Deck possibilities up on Writer Adept for once Dragons of Tarkir is legal Online.
Until then, all real life Magic players are encouraged to give this awesome format a try. And I hope all Online Standard Paupers enjoy the break between now and the 28th Monday Pauper Deck Challenge World Championships, set to take place on the 20th of April.
Good luck & have fun! Peace,
- C
Saturday, April 4, 2015
Monthly Metablog & Metagame Report: March 2015, Part III - Metablogging about Me, Cabel the Pauper
The Monthly Metas are almost complete. All that remains is to blog about blogging. For those mainly interested in Magic or the other Five M's here, you may wish to skip this. I would not hold it against you, dear reader.
This Metablog is more for my purposes. But I do love sharing my thoughts with my most dedicated readers. So let's go beyond (thoroughly beyond, to the other shore!) and jump on in and see what the past month was like here on Cabel the Pauper.
BY THE NUMBERS: POSTS AND PAGEVIEWS
In the month of March, I returned to blogging after nearly 12 months of inactivity and posted a total of 14 entries to Cabel the Pauper.
Upon my return I reorganized the layout and purpose to streamline this blogs' topical content and to make sure such a prolonged absence does not occur in the future. This was explained in my first blog of the month, "Back to Blogging and the Five M's of Cabel the Pauper."
The total pageviews for the last month met my unspoken goal of breaking a thousand, hitting 1,035 total views. This brings the total pageviews of all time to 8,892, finally surpassing my previous blogspot page, Soundpolitic (which will not be brought back to life as this one was...and won't even be linked to!).
The two most viewed blog this month were "Standard Pauper vs. Friday Night Magic & Announcing: Standard Pauper In Real Life!" with 62 pageviews, and "Treasure Cruise BANNED in Classic, WOTC Silent on Standard..." garnering 45 hits. These are numbers that make sense given the relatively small size of the Standard Pauper community.
As far as unquantifiable statistics go, I have not kept a log of my hours spent drafting, revising, editing, and posting and re-editing my blogs (ASIDE: Thanks to all comrades in the Pauper community for correcting my many errors!)
However, an unspoken goal has been to get in the habit of writing as soon as possible after waking up in the morning on a daily basis. This is dialectically opposed to my previous approach, which was to blog in a more spontaneous and sporadic fashion usually late at night.
That was probably the reason I had started this up twice and then failed to continue for an extended period of time. I am pleased with these results regardless of how many articles went live and how many hits they have received. I believe that Cabel the Pauper is well on track to meet another monthly goal.
MAN OF LETTERS: M's OF THE MONTH
The primary M's blogged this month, aside from Magic and Metablogging, were Marxism and Media. Magic: the Gathering Rarity-Restricted Casual Competitive formats, especially Standard Pauper, remain the primary focus of Cabel the Pauper. The Marxist philosophical and political slant is always pervasive and I try to be humorously serious about this for purposes of both entertainment and agitation.
I enjoy this about my blogging probably more than any other aspect. I believe it makes mine the single most unique website about both topics, Magic and Marxism - which, by the way, is merely a catch-all phrase for philosophy and politics in general, just like the former might refer to all fantasy gaming in all mediums, as well. In future months, other schools of philosophy and political tendencies will be featured here, as will other fantasy hobby games...
However, the M of the Month was probably Media. A major reason to return to blogging as a writer was to shift to this medium from one less conductive to producing quality content and encouraging engaging discussion, social media. The reasons for this were outlined in "The Last Facebook Post."
Additionally, I consider writing to be a traditional medium of human expression, even when inputted and published on an electronic machine such as a computer. Last month I began work on an extensive three-part series about writing on social and electronic media posted to the internet. I gave this the title "To Draft Or Not To Draft" and Pack I - To the Left" appeared in March. The next episode in this trilogy will be arriving in this new month of April.
Finally, I will use the rest of the month of April to provide additional links to the Five M's on the sidebar as well as finally get around to posting about the two which remain least-mentioned, Mixology and Meditation. Stay tuned!
IN CONCLUSION: I'M OUT...LIKE A LION
Thanks for reading, though I wouldn't hold it against anyone to not go through all this. The Monthly Meta is, as explained, more for my purposes than yours. But your purpose as a read is my purpose is a writer: making this blog a positive force in our lives. I hope it's entertained some positive thoughts about your favorite games and perhaps has perked your interest in one of the topics that I find interesting.
With that, the Monthly Meta for March is over and out...like a lion! And now it's on to the month of April and the rest of Easter weekend. Here's wishing everybody a blessed holiday...a perfect time for getting in some games and sharing ideas with friends and family. Good luck & have fun! Peace,
- C
Friday, April 3, 2015
Monthly Metablog & Metagame Report: March 2015, Part II - Standard Pauper Metagame
The month of March saw nine Player Run Events on Magic Online via PDCMagic.com. The Standard Pauper Deck Challenge (SPDC) and Monday Pauper Deck Challenge (MPDC) are nearing the end of their 28th seasons for the ninth and eighth years running, respectively. The metagame data for these events are compiled on the Gatherling tool on PDCMagic.
The Top Deck of the format this month was an Aggro build, Azorius Heroic Cruise. This build adds the power of Treasure Cruise to a combination of efficient White and Blue Heroic and Prowess creatures with effective combat tricks to trigger these mechanics, protect threats, and frequently cantrip into more of the same. With four wins, Heroic Cruise has won twice as many events as any other competing archetype. It's performance in the Top Four is also better than any other list, making the cut nine times out of nine, an amazing 100% events-to-playoffs ratio.
That means it's not just the breakout builds of the season. It will go down in history as one of the greatest Standard Pauper decks of all time!
The Metagame is almost evenly split between Aggro and Control strategies, with 19 of the former and 16 of the latter being piloted to Top Four status. The most top-performing Control deck is Izzet Tokens Control, a "creatureless" strategy with the win conditions Flurry of Horns and/or Rise of Eagles, generating two large tokens at once, and backed up with counters, bounce, and burn. Behind Azorius Heroic Cruise is the other best Aggro deck, Boros Heroic Aggro, which forgoes the card-drawing prowess in blue for more aggressive red creatures and direct damage.
Other decks of note are the Black-splash-Blue Devotion builds running Gray Merchant of Asphodel, at once a win condition and an engine for staying in the game. These also play Treasure Cruise along with blue and black removal and card advantage spells for controlling board until Gary drops down on the battlefield. Some players have splashed an additional color, the most popular being White for even more drain-life effects useful in the long-game. On the Aggro end of the spectrum, an Orzhov Tokens strategy has become popular this month, featuring powerful white token-makers for card advantage and enough black removal to clear a path before a well-time white mass pump spell.
Only one Top 8 deck, Mono Blue Control, has completely dropped off the radar after appearing earlier in the month. Most recently, entirely new builds have surprised contestants and won events in their first entry! The last two events were won by an Izzet Blitz list, looking very much like "Red Deck Splashes Blue for the Win," piloted by the event host himself. The next day, a Grixis Control build by rrmedio1 with no Gary or Izzet token makers (but plenty of Treasure Cruise and a scary Hexproof finisher) took the top spot at the last MPDC tournament of the month.
The most powerful card in the format is hands down Treasure Cruise. No hard numbers are needed to back this up: the card was banned in Classic Pauper last month. Having already been banned in other Eternal formats, this makes Standard Pauper one of the last places to play Magic where the card is legal and not overpowered.
Still, the conversation about possible ban-hammer-worthy cards is contentious - even when they are commons - and we Standard Pauper players must remain vigilant to make sure no single card destroys our format. Until then, it's safe to say that Cruise has replaced Gary as the boogie man of Standard Pauper, for better or for worse. It is this Pauper's opinion that the ship should remain on the waters and not be banned, and the rest of the community seems to have come to the same consensus. It's a sure bet that Treasure Cruise will remain legal in the 29th seasons of MPDC and SPDC starting soon.
Campaign to Get Standard Pauper Listed on the Magic Formats Web Page
The banning of Treasure Cruise in Pauper raised questions of whether or not the card would still work with the Magic Online Standard Pauper filter. In researching this, I came to discover that finding information on Standard Pauper on the official Magic: the Gathering Formats page on Wizards of the Coast web site is impossible: Standard Pauper is not listed as a format.
This month, other top players and I began discussing (perhaps a little too strongly at first...my bad!) on how to change this lack of information this long-running format, which has existed and thrived on Magic Online for going on ten years and is now being explored In Real Life at Local Game Shops as a result of the MTGO v4 debacle. Stay tuned to the PDCMagic.com and other forums (and, of course, this blog!) for updates on the ongoing campaign to get Standard Pauper listed on the Magic: the Gathering Formats information page.
The month of March 2015 in the World of Standard Pauper is now in the history books. Looking ahead, the month of April 2015 starts off with a bang: The SPDC Worlds Season Championship takes place this Sunday and the MPDC finale will take place about a week later. It is very rare that new winning decks take players by surprise the week before these season finales. Based on the metagame this month, one can expect the above-discussed archetypes to have a good change at the top trophies of the season(s).
Best of luck to and congratulations the Paupers who earned invitations and byes to the championships. And to all participants, may your topdecks be relevant, your maths be accurate. Good luck & have fun...and hey...Good Friday, too :-) Peace,
- C
TOP DECKS OF MARCH 2015
The Top Deck of the format this month was an Aggro build, Azorius Heroic Cruise. This build adds the power of Treasure Cruise to a combination of efficient White and Blue Heroic and Prowess creatures with effective combat tricks to trigger these mechanics, protect threats, and frequently cantrip into more of the same. With four wins, Heroic Cruise has won twice as many events as any other competing archetype. It's performance in the Top Four is also better than any other list, making the cut nine times out of nine, an amazing 100% events-to-playoffs ratio.
Azorius Heroic Cruise
1st Place at MPDC 28.03, March 9th, 2015, by Forli
| Creatures 4 Akroan Skyguard 4 Hopeful Eidolon 4 Wingsteed Rider 2 Jeskai Student 2 Lagonna-Band Trailblazer 16 cards Other Spells 3 Jeskai Sage 4 Defiant Strike 4 Feat of Resistance 4 Gods Willing 4 Treasure Cruise 3 Refocus 2 Chosen By Heliod 18 cards |
Lands 10 Plains 4 Evolving Wilds 4 Tranquil Cove 2 Island 20 cards
Sideboard
3 Negate 3 Retraction Helix 2 Ajani's Presence 2 Disdainful Stroke 2 Last Breath 2 Pillar of Light 1 Erase 15 cards |
|
That means it's not just the breakout builds of the season. It will go down in history as one of the greatest Standard Pauper decks of all time!
The Metagame is almost evenly split between Aggro and Control strategies, with 19 of the former and 16 of the latter being piloted to Top Four status. The most top-performing Control deck is Izzet Tokens Control, a "creatureless" strategy with the win conditions Flurry of Horns and/or Rise of Eagles, generating two large tokens at once, and backed up with counters, bounce, and burn. Behind Azorius Heroic Cruise is the other best Aggro deck, Boros Heroic Aggro, which forgoes the card-drawing prowess in blue for more aggressive red creatures and direct damage.
Other decks of note are the Black-splash-Blue Devotion builds running Gray Merchant of Asphodel, at once a win condition and an engine for staying in the game. These also play Treasure Cruise along with blue and black removal and card advantage spells for controlling board until Gary drops down on the battlefield. Some players have splashed an additional color, the most popular being White for even more drain-life effects useful in the long-game. On the Aggro end of the spectrum, an Orzhov Tokens strategy has become popular this month, featuring powerful white token-makers for card advantage and enough black removal to clear a path before a well-time white mass pump spell.
Only one Top 8 deck, Mono Blue Control, has completely dropped off the radar after appearing earlier in the month. Most recently, entirely new builds have surprised contestants and won events in their first entry! The last two events were won by an Izzet Blitz list, looking very much like "Red Deck Splashes Blue for the Win," piloted by the event host himself. The next day, a Grixis Control build by rrmedio1 with no Gary or Izzet token makers (but plenty of Treasure Cruise and a scary Hexproof finisher) took the top spot at the last MPDC tournament of the month.
TOP STORIES OF THE MONTH
Treasure Cruise Banned in Pauper, Remains Legal in Standard Pauper
The most powerful card in the format is hands down Treasure Cruise. No hard numbers are needed to back this up: the card was banned in Classic Pauper last month. Having already been banned in other Eternal formats, this makes Standard Pauper one of the last places to play Magic where the card is legal and not overpowered.
Still, the conversation about possible ban-hammer-worthy cards is contentious - even when they are commons - and we Standard Pauper players must remain vigilant to make sure no single card destroys our format. Until then, it's safe to say that Cruise has replaced Gary as the boogie man of Standard Pauper, for better or for worse. It is this Pauper's opinion that the ship should remain on the waters and not be banned, and the rest of the community seems to have come to the same consensus. It's a sure bet that Treasure Cruise will remain legal in the 29th seasons of MPDC and SPDC starting soon.
Campaign to Get Standard Pauper Listed on the Magic Formats Web Page
The banning of Treasure Cruise in Pauper raised questions of whether or not the card would still work with the Magic Online Standard Pauper filter. In researching this, I came to discover that finding information on Standard Pauper on the official Magic: the Gathering Formats page on Wizards of the Coast web site is impossible: Standard Pauper is not listed as a format.
This month, other top players and I began discussing (perhaps a little too strongly at first...my bad!) on how to change this lack of information this long-running format, which has existed and thrived on Magic Online for going on ten years and is now being explored In Real Life at Local Game Shops as a result of the MTGO v4 debacle. Stay tuned to the PDCMagic.com and other forums (and, of course, this blog!) for updates on the ongoing campaign to get Standard Pauper listed on the Magic: the Gathering Formats information page.
IN CONCLUSION
The month of March 2015 in the World of Standard Pauper is now in the history books. Looking ahead, the month of April 2015 starts off with a bang: The SPDC Worlds Season Championship takes place this Sunday and the MPDC finale will take place about a week later. It is very rare that new winning decks take players by surprise the week before these season finales. Based on the metagame this month, one can expect the above-discussed archetypes to have a good change at the top trophies of the season(s).
Best of luck to and congratulations the Paupers who earned invitations and byes to the championships. And to all participants, may your topdecks be relevant, your maths be accurate. Good luck & have fun...and hey...Good Friday, too :-) Peace,
- C
Thursday, April 2, 2015
The Monthly Metablog & Metagame Report: March 2015, Part I - General Introduction
μετά
Of all the blogs I post, few are more fun than those in which I blog about blogging itself. Every month here on Cabel the Pauper, I will go meta. I sincerely hope you enjoy reading them as much as I do drafting, editing, and publishing these Monthly Metablogs.This may be more for my own purposes than for my readers. See, as long as I've been writing on the Internet, I've often found that when I'm writing about writing on the Internet while I'm...well, we have this prefix in order to not repeat ourselves so often, don't we? The dictionary can define this better...in fewer characters than I seem to be able to keep to:
In the case of a metablog, we're after the second entry in the above-linked definition of this useful prefix. Just as metaphilosophy is a branch of philosophy, primarily concerned with the question of what philosophy is (basically, philosophy is just thinking about thinking) a metablog is a blog about blogging. These have been happening ever since The Blog as a genre of Internet literature first appeared. The Wiktionary has a nice clear entry on this:
A Metablog can become self-referential. In fact, it has to be. By definition! This can get humorous, become confusing, and possibly annoying. Indeed, many see it as a waste of time or a load of nonsense. I recall when I was working on a the wiki page during the Great Designer Search 2. I often had more fun writing about how to do the tasks than actually doing them! It didn't take long for somebody to post a lamentful quip: "The Wiki has gone meta." This poster was using the word accurately as defined above, but was also very likely hinting at the term's more vernacular use. The Urban Dictionary is always fun to consult:
You got it: Metagame! We use this word very often, fellow Paupers, Peasants, and other proletarians Magic-players. Yet in drafting the metablog on metagaming for this month, I could not find a single, definitive definition expressed in dictionary times like those linked to above.
Now the Urban Dictionary did have an entry linked to on the "Meta" page, but I found unsatisfactory for Planesalkers. We need something more specific for our Magic metagaming purposes. There's much more to any Magic: the Gathering format's existence, and quite a bit more thought that Magic players put into the action of metagaming than a single dictionary-style entry just can't define. One really should read (or re-read) an entire article on the topic from a verified professional:
This piece may be several years old (about as old as Standard Pauper as a Format Magic Online) but it's by no means out of date. It remains one of the best places to familiarize yourself with the a metagame is and how to do metagaming. Just in case any of you reading this were not yet familiar. And to lead in to the second reason a blog titled something like "Monthly Meta" will appear early each month: to report on a Rarity-Restricted Casual/Competitive Magic: the Gathering Format's metgame!
With all that out of the way, I'm done blogging about why I'm blogging right now. Let us proceed with the Monthly Meta and take a thoughtful look at March 2015's Format of the Month, Standard Pauper...
...tomorrow :-)
Yes, dear reader, the one metablogging point I'll make in this entry is that my others are often very long. Perhaps too damn long! So the goal for this new month of April will be to "go beyond" my usual writing habits and shorten things up. A bit.
That makes this entry merely an introduction to the Monthly Metas here on Cabel the Pauper. And it means it's over. Expect the March Metagame report for Standard Pauper tomorrow and the Metagablog for March on Cabel the Pauper, featuring the M's of the Month, later this week.
Until then, thanks for reading and good luck & have fun! Peace,
-C
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