Standard Pauper Card of the Day: Razortip Whip

Once again I have to apologize for a missed deadline as there was no Weekend Update.  The excuse this time comes in the form of eight inches of powder falling over the weekend as well as some increased musical activity.  I'll share more about that last bit someday, but for now, I'm pressed for time again and still need to make some changes to my Boros Aggro deck before MPDC starts today.

But I've got time for a pretty interesting Standard Pauper Card of the Day that I'll be going into battle with:

Razortip Whip - Gatecrash

Razortip Whip - MTGO Traders - 0.02 Tix

One of the things I make sure to do on the blog is link to a place to purchase an online copy of the card (always to MTGO Traders, because they support Standard Pauper more than anyone else) in case you don't yet own a copy.  I had to stock up on these after they made their debut in the metagame long after their Gatecrash release.  They didn't look like much then, but these days they count for a lot more than met the eye.

Whip was first employed to break Dimir Mill mirrors from the sidebaord.  These acted as an extra "ping" threat akin to the Archaeomancers that served as the back-up plan to milling the opponent to death in the original version of the deck.  The nice thing about them was the neither list had anything beyond counterspells that could interact with an artifact.  They were guaranteed to stick and put the opponent on a more strict clock than any creature could.


Soon, Whip became used even more.  According to a Gatherling search, it's been featured in over 20 decks entered in Standard Pauper contests, from Dimir Mill itself to aggressive Red-based builds and controlling Black ones and even completely unrelated Azorius builds!

Presently, sideboards are starting to feature artifact-hate and one would be hard pressed to cite a source other than Razortip Whip to justify such inclusions.  I like when older cards that get overlooked upon their release finally reveal themselves to be relevant.  It helps prove that Standard Pauper is always evolving and the small card pool has more opportunities to explore than meets the eye.

Off to go find some sideboard or maindeck space for a couple more!  Thanks for reading, and sorry for the delay again.  Peace,

- C

Tuesday Post-Tournament Post - MPDC 23.07

Yesterday's MPDC 23.07 event finally broke what I've dubbed "The Dimir Milling Streak." As for me, I ended a long streak of games as well...as losing streak!  I took my Boros list from last week that failed to make the cut to Top Eight and turned it inside out. I lowered the curve to make it faster.  I stuffed in more haste.  I even turned it into Aura deck at the same time.  And this time, it got me past the wall.

The results were pleasing, and I think if I'd played better throughout the event I'd have had an easier time of making it into the playoffs and pressing onward.  The deck really only gave me awkward draws related to mana, which I think is my fault, too.  Considering this, if I can make so many mistakes all night and still get to the second half of the tournament, then perhaps I've finally found a decent list.  Or at least the start of one.  I call it...

 Aura Boros Aggro:

MAINDECK

Creatures

4 Akroan Crusader

4 Wojek Halberdiers

3 Foundry Street Denizen

3 Hopeful Eidolon

3 Minotaur Skullcleaver

3 Rakdos Shred-Freak

3 Viashino Firstblade

2 Auramancer

Spells

3 Dragon Mantle

3 Gods Willing

3 Madcap Skills

3 Titan's Strength

2 Ethereal Armor

2 Prophetic Prism

Lands

9 Mountain

6 Plains

4 Boros Guildgate

1 Unknown Shores

SIDEBOARD

3 Razortip Whip

3 Keening Apparition

3 Electrickery

3 Chandra's Outrage

3 Celestial Flare

It took a little bit of experimentation to the get he numbers seeming right.  I knew space would be tight and I would be sacrificing the consistency of Boros by lowering the creature count to make room for the Auras suite.  So I ended up making the somewhat weird-looking choice to only go with two  copies of Ethereal Armor even though these are the most powerful Aura on its face.  What's the deal with that?

The thing is, I found Armor became a win-more card for when things were already working out here than in other Aura decks, where it's a pure backbone card. Also, Madcap Skills is just perfect as a three-of in Boros; this was not my innovation, so I did not want to touch it.   The decision came down to the balance between Armor, Dragon Mantle, and Titan's Strength, two spells that have been doing well in aggressive Monored builds  In the end, I went the more red route and ended up relying less on the optimal draws Armor wants and just ended up with draws to begin with.  This helped me out tremendously in testing and in-tournament and I would still get the concessional Eidolin + Armor god draw.

I was also taking my new one-drop into consideration, taking a build-around me approach.  Akroan Crusader can be a real nastyman, especially in an opening hand with any of of the buffs.  Some of my testing matches before the tournament convinced me when I was able to swing for almost half my opponent's life total on the second turn.  No joke, give the deck a test run and see how high you can get your second turn swing!  You just need one of the other dudes and some buffs.  More on these in later post since Boros is the Deck of the Week.

Above all, the real MPV of the deck is not any of its creatures or auras or pump spells.  It's Gods Willing.  No contest.  More about this later in the Card of the Day since I haven't even mentioned the players who did even better than Boros.

The trophy honors went to Grociu's Monoblack control, giving the archetype its second win this season.  All this talk about how mean, nasty, and prevalent Dimir Mill is has kind of overshadowed this beast. In fact, it seems Dimir Mill has failed to place at all!  Are happy days here again?  Or have we traded one awful control build for another?

Only time will tell, and there are plenty of contenders to knock Control off the throne developing.  The rest of the players who had success after the Swiss had as wide a variety of decks as we've seen all season.  Gwyned's new  Turtle Power! deck based around Nivix Cyclops took second place and is the most refreshing entry to me, but there's even more variety this week, from new Simic strategies to trie-and-true Hexproof.

Looks like some changes are a-happenin'!  We're already pretty much halfway through the season and the environment is still in far from solved.  See you around the second half the season!  Thanks for reading, good games, and good luck.  Peace,

- C

 

Tuesday Post-Tournament Post - MPDC 23.06

On Mondays, I always try to play in the MPDC  Player Run Event on Magic Online.  This weekly gathering is a long-standing Standard Pauper tournament run through PDCMagic.com and hosted by gwyned, author of a blog similar to here, Writer Adept.  I recommend frequenting these places regularly if you're interested in or serious about Standard Pauper.  The best place to get started if you're brand new is the MPDC Season 23 Master Document, which gives you all you need to know to get started (and good for all players to refer to).

So on Tuesdays, I'll post my brief thoughts and take-aways from the tournament experience, which is always good fun (even if my luck is bad).  I used to write blog-length ramblings and play-by-plays right in my deck descriptions on Gatherling, but I think this new blog will save that sites memory and grant me more free rein here.

Then let's get to it!  Yesterday twenty-five Standard Pauper players got together to compete in the sixth event of MPDC's twenty-third season.  It marked the third week in a row that SPP Clanmate MudnisV has piloted the dreaded Dimir Mill deck to victory!  He's got a great post talking about how he's developed this monstrous control deck over at the Standard Pauper Players Clan Blog.

Dimir Mill is definitely the deck to beat in the early Theros season.  I was playing it the previous couple weeks as I always give the "best" deck a shot.  But I am an Aggro player at heart and was not playing the deck very well.  So instead, I built up a Boros Aggro deck based on rhysticy's winning list  from before MundisV's Milling streak began.

Here is my Boros Aggro from MPDC 23.06:

Boros Batallion Unleashed

RW Aggro by Cabel in MPDC 23.06 (1-2)

Creatures 4 Daring Skyjek 4 Gore-House Chainwalker 4 Skyknight Legionnaire 4 Viashino Firstblade 4 Wojek Halberdiers 3 Bomber Corps 3 Foundry Street Denizen 3 Splatter Thug 2 Rubblebelt Maaka 31 cards Other Spells 3 Madcap Skills 2 Gods Willing 2 Lightning Strike 1 Celestial Flare 1 Chandra's Outrage 5 cards

Lands 9 Mountain 7 Plains 4 Boros Guildgate 20 cards Sideboard 3 Keening Apparition 3 Electrickery 3 Chandra's Outrage 3 Celestial Flare 3 Annihilating Fire 15 cards

Join the glorious Boros Reistance against the Dimir Mill oppressors!

I did not end up doing well in the Swiss.  It's been like that all season so far.  But damn if it didn't feel good to turn dudes sideways and blow stuff up again!  Constantly staring at a fistful of blue counters and black removal with nothing but land and Archaeomancers on the battlefield is just not action packed enough for me right now.  I need some good old red-based excitement!  I'm really liking some of the Boros options; had fun trying out Bomber Corps, but I think I should stock up on Haste creatures and put Rakdos Shred-Freak back in that slot.  What do you think of the switch?  Feel free to make suggestions about Boros Aggro in the comments below!

I tried to practice a bit more than I did in preparation for previous tournaments and think I played a bit tighter than normal.  Still not good enough, though.  Some of the decks I faced were completely new to me and threw me off.  The Bant Enchantments deck the clan captain is working on and an interesting Simic Evolve both bested me and got me thinking I'll have to plan for them in the future.

But I'll stick with something Red for now.  I'm a Red Mage at heart and it felt great to have some burn at my disposal and army of quick little beaters.  I will likely try Boros again next week, practicing more and refining the list further.  Then again, I might not be able to resist building a straight Red Deck. No ice!  Mono Red has been placing fairly well, which gives me hope for the future :-)

And there you have it!  The first installment of my weekly post-tournament musings are up on The Web.  I hope  to see you for the tournament next week.  Thanks for reading.  Have fun, good luck, and good games!

Peace,

- C

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