Why I Have Not Been Playing Or Blogging Standard Pauper And Have No Plans To Do So In The New Year

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

ERRATA: Another STD Pauper Video Review of DTK Exists!

I reported yesterday during my round-up of other DTK set reviews for Standard Pauper that MagicGatheringStrat are the producers of the "only" video review of the set.

That is incorrect!  This cannot stand!

DrChrisBakerDC over at The Draft Brewery has also produced another Standard Pauper themed assessment of every single card in YouTube video form.  He brought the error in my reporting to my attention in the comments section of the blog post, providing a link to his excellent video review. You can watch the entire video right here, right now.

His narration has some great laugh-out-loud moments and his card evaluation skills are excellent,  It is a must-watch for all Standard Pauper players.  In fact, how about you just watch out below!  I'll save you some browser navigation time to help atone for my mix-up:

Please note that Dr. Chris doesn't start off with the new set: don't be fooled by his focus on the previously-evaluated Fate Reforged cards.  The good doctor checks his last top ten predictions for that set based on how the Standard Pauper metagame has actually played out since.  Just keep viewing - he'll get to Dragons of Tarkir soon enough after he's done reviewing...his own reviews!  Now that's impressive intellectual integrity!

Honestly, having watched it after posting my own Critiques, it makes me wonder just how much I got horribly wrong in my own evaluations.  I suppose we all make mistakes when it comes to judging new cards upon their initial release, but we can quickly fix our deckbuilding and spellcasting strategies to compensate.

But a blatant error in reporting and compiling information?  That, dear reader, is a different animal entirely!  The only humane thing to do is acknowledge it cannot be saved, put it to sleep and out of its misery, and properly dispose of the remains.  It's like a cat that's grown so old and sickly it's practically a zombie.  To not correct and update one's informative posts online is as filthy and mangy as a...

Am I correctly exploiting this scary simile?

In any case: Apologies for this oversight go out to my readers and Dr. Chris himself.  I honestly cannot believe I missed this and I'm very glad he brought this great piece of Standard Pauper media to my attention.  I hereby correct myself like any good objective e-journalist should.  The offending text has been struck out to indicate where the mistake took place and a link to this message has been added to the text of the offending post.

I will also opine - once and only once since this is my first official correction here - that it's only we red-blooded Leftists and our pinko-brained progressive-leaning  pals who ever seem to submit such errata and make such displays of intellectual honesty.  A word on how one's politics and philosophy affects their informative and editorial output on the Internet:

Part of being right all the time like a true radical commie bastard like myself (or right at least some of the time like any progressive) is...being able to admit that you get things wrong sometimes!

Our consistently incorrect counterparts?  Your conservative-leaning liberal wimps and outright Right-winged reactionary wankers of the word?  Those fools never, ever seem to do this sort of thing. They just plain do not possess the intellectual integrity required for such behavior thanks to their idiotic ideology.  They are incapable of this.

If they did have the ability, acuity, humility, and/or sagacity to make editorial corrections to mistakes in their odious output...well, then they wouldn't lean to the right and be wrong all the time in the first place now, would they ;-)  They would cease to bear any resemblance to the Magic card that perfectly describes them...

Libertarian Anarcho-Capitalist Self Portrait, conservative oil on canvass, 2015, collaboration by Glenn Beck, Ann Coulter, Alex Jones, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Ron and Rand Paul and the artist who actually performed all the work and didn't share in any of the profits.  So there.

Thanks for reading this piece from Cabel the Red's Bureau of Correctional and Re-Education Facilities. We now return to our regularly scheduled blog-jamming.  Thanks for reading and good luck & have fun with those new Dragons of Tarkir cards for all people who play Pauper on paper.  Peace,

- C

DTK Midnight Release Musings & Reviewing...the Reviews!

Part 1: Dragons of Tarkir Midnight Release Musings

I am tired this morning and afternoon!  And not just because I finally finished my five-part Critique of Dragons of Tarkir the day before: the new set was released at midnight last night.  And I was there to get my new cards as soon as my favorite card shop could legally sell them.

Partly because this was the first full set I reviewed in full, partly because I am to begin hosting Standard Pauper events at my local games shop this coming Tuesday, and partly to disprove all those fallaciously claiming "Pauper does not drive sales" - a part of the debate about Standard Pauper not even being listed as an official format on the Wizards.com Formats page! - I decided that it was worth it to head to my favorite hobby gaming and scifantasy fiction store at midnight to pick up my traditional Fat Pack and Intro Packs.

See?  Standard Pauper actually does drive sales!

I do this almost every set.  Although I could build a Standard Pauper collection by only making purchases on the secondary market, cracking open Boosters of a brand new set as soon as possible is just part of what makes Magic so, well, magical!  One of the great things about buying boosters and playing mainly Pauper is you can build your collection very quickly for less cash on opening day, when many stores offer first-time discounts to generate additional revenue for the most important thing any business can do...make payroll!

The next step for me?  Taking whatever rares, mythics, or in-demand pieces of silver back to the game shop to get some of your money back, then using that to complete your playsets of the commons you were not lucky enough to unwrap.  It actually works rather well, and if you go this route, you still get to have the irreplaceable experience of getting fresh new cards as soon as they are unleashed.  Hey, even Paupers have dreams of opening big money mythic rare foils :-)

And that's not all: this isn't just a Standard Pauper blog.  It's about all Rarity-Restricted Casual & Competitive formats.  Peasant is also an existing format.  So is SilverBlack, which is basically just "Rareless."  I may yet desire to return to an FNM to challenge myself to see how well I can do when utilizing uncommons.  And though I just purged my collection of all rares in order to get back into IRL Magic playing, I am (deep foreshadowing, here folks, stay tuned...) working on a Rarity-Restricted format of my own invention that will, I expect, allow cards with golden expansion symbols.

So after I got the promotional e-mail from the struggling little shop where I'll be running Standard Pauper Tuesdays starting in just a few days, I shuffled up my paper Standard Pauper decks and dropped in about 11:30 PM.  To my dismay (and owner on the phone with the cashier!) there was only one other customer there, and she was too tired to play.  But another dude walked in early to pick up his box, his hopes high that his chase for new Legendary rare perfect for his favorite Commander deck would be successful.  I sure hope it was!

I asked him if he'd ever heard of Standard Pauper.  He'd heard some rumors about it (and certainly didn't find out about it on the official M:TG website...grrr!) but never played before.  After that, it wasn't too difficult to entice him into a duel while we waited for the clock to strike twelve.  I gave him the current best deck in the format, Azorius Heroic Cruise, and he cut my Izzet Tokens Control build to play a game as we waited for midnight to arrive and legally allow us to make our purchases.

He dropped dudes nearly ever turn, but I had answers.  He was clearly still having fun plenty of fun, and was even able to Cruise for Treasure twice to summon more than a couple threatening Heroes.  But my bounce, permission, and burn was able to clear the way for Minotaur tokens for the win: I drew all four copies of Flurry of Horns.  Despite his defeat, he seemed more interested in Standard Pauper than ever, and the time flew.  He grabbed his box and quickly left as I wished him luck in finding that new Legend he'd been building his Pauper EDH deck around for months.

As for me, I grabbed the Fat Pack I always get because I think they are good buy.  For forty bucks, I get plenty of basic lands with new artwork and the correct expansion symbol for building block decks and keeping my decks aesthetically pleasing to me.  I get the booklet with the collectors checklist to help me keep track of how unlucky I am when trying to collect common playset.  I get that very cool d20 with the set symbol that could someday end up being a collector's item. And in my experience, you do get a better shot at pulling money cards from Fat Packs.

This is probably not true, but there was that mythic rare in the last pack.  Some kind of Deathtouch, Megamorph, Jurassic Park kitchen-scene lookin' beast.  I can probably turn this clever girl into that last copy of Impact Tremors I need for the  Mardu Tokens deck I'm brewing.  I failed to pull a single Ojutai's Summons to update that Izzet build with either, but I can turn that and a couple of foil rares I was lucky enough to find into funds for Standard Pauper.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this story of my midnight Magic experience.  I thoroughly enjoyed playing a Standard Pauper match with another dude face-to-face, chatting with my co-organizer at the shop, and busting open those packs after reading the story.  I ripped open the packaging while re-watching the Dragons of Tarkir Standard Pauper set review from my comrades at MagicGatheringStrat...

Part Two: Reviewing the Reviews of DTK for Standard Pauper

...which brings me to part two of my blog post today, which is much happier than my previous critical reviews and my desperate ravings about Wizards refusing to acknowledge that this format exists.  I may be the most long-winded and foul-mouthed of Standard Pauper online personalities, but I'm by no means the only one.  There are others.  And I compile them here today for your convenience and reading pleasure.

See, the existence of these guys work is what allows my blog to take a unique perspective.  I couldn't be the long-winded, foul-mouthed, left-wing voice of the format if I was the only voice!  I need others to add their unique voices as well, in their own personal style.  If you'll forgive me this indulgence before we get to other Standard Pauper DTK reviews: This is one of the essences of collectivism being a superior line of thought than mere liberal individualism:

There is NO reason to be an individualist if you have NOBODY to share your individualism with!  In this sense, our old Existential Marxist friend, Jean-Paul Sartre, was wrong.

Hell is not, as he insisted, "other people."  Other people are, in fact, our Heaven here on Earth!

The only reason a collective ever exists is to ensure the expression of it's members' individuality with other individuals, isn't it?  The only reason individuals exist is to become part of an empowering collective, and the only reason a collective exists is to empower all the individuals that comprise the collective.  See?  ¡Sí!

Give that line of socialist thinking a second thought if you're so inclined.  But definitely check out these, the best of the rest of the Standard Pauper set reviews for Dragons of Tarkir!

GWYNED, THE WRITER ADEPT, ON PUREMTGO

Gwyned is THE authority on Standard Pauper!  He hosts the long-running MPDC PRE series on MTGO through PDCMagic.  He  blogs about Magic and many other topics on his succinct, well-composed blog Writer Adept.  And he also is the author of Standard Pauper articles on PureMTGO.com.  It's almost a moot point to instruct you to read his work.  If you get into Standard Pauper either in real life or online, coming into contact with his consistently excellent work is inevitable.  He's been giving us set reviews from the perspective of a Standard Pauper player for a long time.

The first part of his full set review is already published on PureMTGO and I highly anticipate parts two and three.  Instead of just going by color as most do, his approach is to review cards by various relationships such as new mechanics, horizontal and vertical cycles, and card types.  And instead of over-used letter grades or ratings on a scale of one to infinity, he uses a concise system based on Channel Fireball's "hit or myth" system.  Read his stuff if you only have time for one Standard Pauper set review.  That's an order, comrade!

DR CHRIS BAKER DC ON THE DRAFT BREWERY

Next up, we have DrChrisBakerDC, who is likely the Standard Pauper with the most reach and connection in to the world of Money Magic.  Chiropractor to the Pros, they call him.  His magical creations are written and published on his Wordpress blog called The Draft Brewery.  His nowhere near as high in word count as mine or Gwyned's, but can you blame him?  He's making sure that professional Magic players are in good enough physical condition in order to remain functioning mental athletes!

You can find a lot of good information on Limited play on his blog as well (something I need as much as I can get with!) and he's a formidable Magic player in his own right.  Seriously, one of the best who you can expect to lose against if you start hunching over your computer screen.  Since he's such a busy doctor and such a freaking good Magic player, he hasn't invested as much time as Gwyned or myself in reviewing the entire set or establishing a consistent, creative rating system.  But that's refreshing and it still works.  When you're as good as Dr. Chris, you can simply rate things on an A through F scale, rank the colors, and present a top ten list of the cards in the set.  He's got the authority to do so.  Respect his authorit-ah!

ERRATA: DrChrisBakerDC has also produced a 90 minute YouTube video reviewing every single card in the set, contrary to what I am about to report in the segment that follows.  Sincerest apologies submitted and appropriate action taken in compensation.  This message has been brought to you by Cabel the Red's Bureau of Correctional and Re-Education Facilities.

MAGIC GATHERING STRAT'S YOUTUBE DTK SP REVIEW

Thirdly, there is the gang at MagicGatheringStrat.  This cast of colorful characters are into both writing articles and Skyping together to produce YouTube videos and Podcasts about a variety of Magic formats.  Among the formats they cover, they produce probably more Standard Pauper content excepting perhaps myself or the Gwyned the Great!  They are the creators of The Standard Pauper Show, the only place on the web to get news on this format on a regular basis in a way that won't leave your eyes blurry from reading voluminous blog posts...

They even have a Standard Pauper subsection on their forums, the only other place I've found such a thing and that even I only just found out about.  Wow! Just...wow!

This is the second (or third?) time Brennon, VaultBoyHunter, and FanOfHistory have collaborated to produce what is thus far the only audio-video version of a full set review specifically targeting the Standard Pauper format.  These guys work through every new card in Dragons of Tarkir with great insights in real time featuring accurate visuals (with swipes that would make George Lucas envious). And they do it with a style is wonderfully informative and wickedly entertaining.  You will love their visual effects, their inside jokes, back and forth debates about whether cards are good or bad, and their enthusiasm for the format combined with a laid-back, down-to-earth attitude.

It's as if my prayers were answered.  These guys are the Standard Pauper equivalent of Evan Erwin & Brad Nelson's ten-hour Magic Show set reviews.  When you pick up your Fat Pack of Dragons of Tarkir, put this on and enjoy their hard work while you start brewing your deck!

CARDBOARD COMMONS REVIEWS PARA PAUPER...EN ESPAÑOL

Cardboard Commons Review Para Pauper de DTK Parte Uno: Blanco

Cardboard Commons Review Para Pauper de DTK Parte Dos: Azul

Cardboard Commons Review Para Pauper de DTK Parte Tres: Negro

Cardboard Commons Review Para Pauper de DTK Parte Quatro: Rojo

Cardboard Commons Review Para Pauper de DTK Parte Cinco: Verde

 (¡Próximamente!)

Finally, this one is rather challenging but I TRY to read it because my other hobby these days is...learning how to hablar español! Produced by a group of Spaniards (or at least Spanish-speakers) on a Wordpress blog called Cardboard Commons, this is one of my favorite new discoveries that combines two of my hobbies: reading and writing about Pauper and learning foreign tongues!

ASIDE: When you debate communism on social media as much as I have, you're going to start hearing the words "Why don't you just move to Cuba you commie bastard!" in your sleep.  I currently plan, long-term, on taking them up on that just to show 'em!  I also figure that learning how to speak this beautiful Romance language will make me a more marketable prospective employee during my remaining time here in the United States, which is now a bilingual country.  Deal with it.  America, love it or leave it? Tú habes. ¡Soy relinquo!

But enough about me.  And thank God for Google's translate feature!  That allows me to check my own translation (or see how bad Google has translated things...it's quite amusing to see Chrome get confused when encountering Magic player vernacular!) and so far I've found that these are the only other guys on the planet giving each card in all five colors a page of their own with reviews and critiques geared exclusively towards Pauper.  That makes for a marvelous discovery, indeed.  I encourage everybody to check them out now that they have been added to my Rarity-Restricted Casual/Competitive Magic: the Gathering blogosphere links.

¡Bien hecho, Cardboard Commons! ¡Sigan con el buen trabajo! ¡No puedo esperar a que el Review Para Pauper de DTK parte Cinco: Blanco!

El Fin

So there you have it, my personal story about my first ever foray into busting down a card shops doors to get my hands on brand new Magic cards as soon as possible.  And now you know I care enough about Standard Pauper to not just review the cards...but review the other other reviews!  Yeesh!

Before closing and wishing you all good luck & have fun, let me add this: my local games shop has decided to INCREASE THE PRIZE PAYOUT for the STANDARD PAUPER EVENTS played IN REAL LIFE beginning this coming TUESDAY, MARCH 31st!!  That's right!  You'll still be able to pick 40, 20, or 10 commons out of their huge dump-box inventory, but NOW you can also WIN PACKS!  That's right!  Win PACKS for playing STANDARD PAUPER!  Damn, this is exciting!  

Okay.  Now you have fun and hopefully experience good luck ripping open those brand new Dragons of Tarkir booster packs!  Until next time, thanks for reading ALL this text :-)  Peace,

- C

To Draft or Not to Draft: Pack 1 - To the Left

We begin our story on the battlefield of the mind.  Our establishing shot pans out to the staging ground: a small room with a tiny desk and an inexpensive yet functional laptop computer.  Its wallpaper is an image of the flag of Cuba with an iconic image of Che Guevara in a bright burning red.  There are .txt files littered all over the desktop.

Rough drafts prior to editing.

There is a bed, unmade, and some dirty clothes and Magic card boxes scattered about the floor, but not too many of either.  For the most part, the room is organized with plenty of books.  They are arranged by subject matter, from philosophy to religion to the art of languages, including a row of various Bible translations.  Also present are several spiral-bound and composition notebooks and small writing pads.

Notes before drafting even begins.

It's clear we have a writer here, one who apparently cares deeply about the act of writing.  Yet many have not heard from him on his usual platform.  The same is true of his Magic playing habits, but that is for the second part of this trilogy on drafting.

Today, we examine the importance of drafting when it comes to writing, the crisis that this presents in our current climate where most writing takes place, and lead in to how this relates to those Magic cards lying on the floor when our heroes primary collection was, until recently, only accessible as digital object behind the computer screen instead of readily available in his bedroom.

But first, let me get my pronouns consistent and clean up some run-on sentences!  Our hero is me.  And my sentences are still far too long.  If I do not shorten them via editing by referencing my nearby copy of Strunk & White's Elements of Style, our hero (damn, I did it again!) may never reach the end of this epic, three-part trilogy (damn...redundancy!).

Kindly allow me a moment to go from the first Revised version to the corrected current edition...

Ah, that's better!  And it illustrates my point perfectly.  When it comes to writing, the most important step is drafting.  This is the key to the steps of writing.  Let's review how we get from the beginning to the all-important middle long before we reach the end-goal: 

First, you obtain a spark where you come to know or want to know something.  This is not unlike when a Planeswalker experiences her transformative spark!

Next, you go about taking notes on the subject, obtaining knowledge about it, especially if you think you already know everything about it!  Because you never do.  You are not a know-it-all.  Nobody knows everything.  Never has, never will.  Keep this point in mind before, during, and after drafting.

Once your notes are taken, it's time to organize the mess you made.  Do this aftersleeping on it a day or so as marathon writing sessions are not adviseable.  Neither are binge watching or drinking sessions for that matter.  You'll get out your notebooks and begin to connect the ideas, flesh them out, and create lists as a plan of action for putting it all together.

This is quite similar to constructing a Pauper deck you intend to be competitive with instead of just casually throwing something together for fun - but I'll tackle that in pack two after a break.  And it's best to take some breaks from this step as well.

In fact, when doing any sort of work, one really should be allowed a temporal break so the body and mind can recover.  The fact that the capitalist social conditions of wage-slavery don't adequately allow for this is a different topic for a different day...

And now you are finally prepared to create your first rough draft.  These I consider to be the most important pieces of writing one can put to paper.  Or input into a word processing program, as it were.  Only once these are finished can you get some idea as to how well your ideas are fitting together.  Then, and only then, can you decide whether the piece is good enough to refine via editing and perfect through a grammar check.

Only after taking these steps of drafting and revising will the final composition be ready for publication.  For sleeving up and shuffling for your readers to cut before drawing and opening hand, if you will.

Or, if you've come up with absolute drivel again (this happens constantly if you write like you mean it) then you'll know that the draft is irredeemable.  You return to the beginning of the process working backwards from the outlines, lists, notes, and even your initial idea.  You'd best take a break here, too, because having your draft fail is pretty rough.  Hence the name: rough draft.  Don't let that frazzle you.

Here is the where we reach the conflict in my story.  It is not the struggle with myself to compose better pieces of writing.  No.  In this story, I'd like to be the hero and make things all about me.  Yet where most writing takes place these days - here on the Internet - the judgment of villain is the one most frequently cast upon me.

I disagree!  I maintain that the problem with writing on the Internet is this: the vast majority of people who use it to post their thoughts on social media and other blogs just plain do not know how to write.  They fail to follow these steps.  Most of the time, one can tell that all they did was draft and immediately publish.  To say nothing of any initial thought, research, or organization as the required  first steps to proper composition, most people on Facebook, Twitter, Blogger, and through e-mail and text messages clearly just type away as quickly as possible, click "send" or "post" or "tweet" with nary a second though, and then move on to the the next fleeting distraction.

This is has made it crystal clear that most people, including grown adults who should know better, have very little writings skills, if at all.  And having gotten high marks in schools for my English speaking and writing skills, and recieved consistent praise in person for my communication skills, I reject their poorly-written replies to my accusations that their writing is incomprehensibly bad.

It's one of the main reasons I've removed myself from Facebook, as you may recall from a previous post.  One of the reasons I've done this is because I just cannot take it any longer, it being the  reading through a daily (hourly) glut of ridiculously atrocious writing posted by 99% of people - and how woefully wrong their points are because of how little thought they've put into their rough drafts which, of course, were never drafted in the first place!

To me, this is infuriating , saddening, debilitating, and yet inspirational all at once.  So if you'll forgive my  regressomg into a rant of sorts...

Honestly, folks!  The following is not an example of a damned sentence:

"They shud just all go bak 2 there cuntry!1!!!"  

Not only is it far from being well written, the idea being expressed is disgustingly, hopelessly, and wickedly - sinfully! - wrong to begin with.  It's ignorance!  It's racism!  As socially deplorable as it is grammatically incorrect!

I see this kind of thing over and over again when it comes to people who refer to non-whites with racial epithets; to men who think women are a lesser sex and refer to them all as "sluts"; who think those without jobs are simply "lazy", who express that those who struggle to survive mental illness are just "crazy" and should be quarantined to a deserted island.

In my vast exploration of the Internet, I have come to a conclusion that I stand upon like a house founded upon rock: most of the worst examples of horrible grammar express the most horrifying ideas imaginable.

Now I've been doing this America Online tied up my parents phone line.  But even though I can continue to write, I remain firm in my decision to halt my practice of regular posting in response to this nonsense and bigotry on social media.

Why?

The answer lies in more than just my approach to writing.  The main reason is the content I write about and the context  in which I present it.  My philosophical and political attitudes are exactly the opposite and vehemently opposed to the average American citizen.  These are the crypto-fascist, pro-capitalist, frankly Cro-Magnon to Neaderthalic types of writing that are merely rough drafts of a brutal ideology called neoliberal capitalism.  I provided an example of the same regarding immigrant workers as and introduction to my desperate ravings...

I am no liberal capitalist.  I am a Leftist with a capital L (liberals are not even leftists with an uncapitalized letter, but try explaining that essential element of political philosophy to these linguistically deficient ingrates). I disdain to conceal the fact that I am a socialist in the Marxists tradition.

My social media and blog posts - as well as those of my comrades on the Left - are good pieces of writing.  They are well-presented arguments, thoughtful points regarding the conflict between capitalism and communism.  Above all, they are grammatically correct with far more consistency the than elementary liberal bullshit - conservative and progressive - currently clogging up the plumbing of the World Wide Web.

In fact, one of the main reasons I settled upon this side of the political spectrum was the writing.  It was the Leftists who were adhereing to the rules of the King's English and the liberals who continuously bastardized the languages' core principles of grammar, syntax, spelling, and punctuation.

What a relief it was to see a complete sentence!  What a joy to see commas separating the clauses therein!  How happy to find puns and other ingenious, ironic literary devices hidden among these compositions aimed at the idiot right-winger in a way that only we true Leftists could fully understand to further enhance our enjoyment of political and philosophical debate!

After exploring philosophy and familiarizing myself with Marxist, socialist, communist, and anarchist ideas and seeing clearly how their present-day adherents were the ones who knew how to write in contrast to the incoherent, incorrect ramblings of liberals - both progressive and conservative! - I had no choice but to solidfy which side I was meant to be on.  And I started to draft and revise pieces of writing to post online about it.  Day in and day out.

But...the problem with this is connected to what I spoke of in the first couple of blogs I published here upon my return to Cabel the Pauper.  It is another piece of me that, while I am good at writing lengthly arguments against the wicked Right-Wing reactionaries in favor of the right wing (the Left!), I ended up doing it too much.  Way too damned much.  And because I insist that my writing be perfected after drafting first, this resulted in far too much time wasted.  I finally realized where this daily excursion into argumentation was getting me.

That's right.  Nowhere.

So while I remain proud of my writing skills and as confident as ever in the superiority of my Leftist  positions, there is another saying that is not a double entendre the way my "To Draft or Not to Draft" title is meant to be:

"Pride comes before the fall."  

Indeed, I'd fallen deep into a Facebook hole of excellent Leftists arguments against the deep-seated racism, sexism, classism, etc., inherent these neoliberal, ungrammatical United States.

All my perfect paragraphs were ever met with were misspelled non-sentences taking me completely out of context.  And viciously declaring me such things as "faggot" and "asshole," with instructions to  "go fuck yourself," or "move to Cuba!"  Because apparently the average American liberal's reading comprehension is as good as their ability to compose a complete sentence: tragically terrible.

What's worse: they were insulting and incredibly mean.  It reached the point where it affected me emotionally to the point of depression so deep I found myself asking, as Hamlet did, whether I should continue to be or not to be...

So when I ask the question "To draft or not to draft?" on the topic of writing on social media, the answer is a like a Resounding Roar: Yes.

But after hard casting my diatribes one too many times and not being able to get full value out of this play, I concluded it was time to break the cycle and stick to blogging mostly about Magic: The Gathering Rarity-Restricted Casual/Competitive formats and the 5M's of Cabel the Pauper only once in awhile.  And to do it here on Blogspot as opposed to social media where doing little more beating a dead horse. Literally and literarily,  like that misogynist, bigoted, syphilis-ridden windbag Nietzsche.

As such, from now on, you'll find some political and philosophical posts here once or twice a month to provide a little bit more than just Magic: The Gathering.  These posts will remain uncommon or rare because I'll be spending a good deal of time writing them properly: by drafting them first.  Because when it comes to writing, the answer to the  question "To Draft Or Not To Draft" must be....

 DRAFT!

Thanks for reading.  Part two of this mini-series will appear in hopefully a weeks' time, depending on how drafting it goes.  And this time we'll switch topics to drafting Magic: the Gathering and why the answer to that question is...well  first, I've got to draft it!

Until then, thank you for reading what I worked long and hard one once again.  And good luck & have fun in all your endeavors, Magical and literal. Peace,

- C

Back to Blogging and The Five M's of Cabel the Pauper

It has been nearly a year since I have posted anything new here.  And what a year it was!  I shall spare the details for the sake of my readers and myself.  All you need to know for the purposes of this long-overdue post is this: I've returned to playing Magic: The Gathering in real life at the same time I am reforming my writing activities on the Internet.

That means it's time to get back to blogging here after breaking several promises to update regularly about Magic Online and far too many other topics.  On this Monday, I will begin (again!) by directing your attention to the changes already made and my plans for the future.

First of all, this blogs description in the header has been shortened from its former declamatory incarnation to be more concise and accurate regarding the intended content.  I've distilled what I'll be covering to one main point and five other interrelated interests of mine worth writing about.  The most important is now listed at the top of the page and the rest of these - all beginning with the letter "M" by some strange coincidence - you will find in a revised list of links in the sidebar.

Magic: the Gathering will be what I post about the majority of the time.  It will not be about bourgeois Money Magic formats, which I oppose. Instead, this will be the place for what I have christened Rarity-Restricted Casual/Competitive styles of play.  I explained what this was in the post immediately preceeding this one three days shy of one year ago.  If you are unfamiliar with what this approach to Magic is, I encourage you to find out below or by clicking the link provided.

In fact, I intend to make it known to you and every other Magic player I come into contact with.  Much, much more on this in future posts.

Last, but not least, are the other Five M's of Cabel the Pauper.  I will elaborate on these sub-topics in the future.  For now, two elements of each are alluded to in parentheses as sub-headers for the new link lists featured to your right.  Here they are for reference below:

• Marxism (Philosophy & Politics)
• Meditation (Buddhist & Franciscan)
• Music (Performance & Enjoyment)
• Mixology (Professionalism & Recovery)
• Media (Social & Traditional)

You'll note that there are five of these just as there are five colors in Magic: The Gathering.  The idea here is to connect these areas of interest and inquiry to the game itself, as well as combine them together in the same way the five colors join forces into guilds, shards, and wedges.

Perhaps someday I'll be good enough a writer to compose a piece that connects all six!  But that post is for another day and, after having said all that needs to be said for now, this post itself has become too magniloquent.

In closing, I hope you enjoy the new format and subject matter.  This time I make no promises with regard to a set blogging schedule. But I plan to explain reasons for returning to playing Magic: The Gathering in real life as opposed to Online; for returning here instead of continuing to post elsewhere on the Internet; and for settling upon these specific five topics.

It's good to be back!  Thanks for reading and following along and good luck to the Standard Pauper players still struggling with Magic Online.  Peace,

- C

What Is Rarity Restricted Casual Competitive Magic?

Introduction

What do I mean when I refer to a Magic: the Gathering format as a Rarity-Restricted Casual-Competitive variant?  If you've read my previous PureMTGO articles or followed my forum posts as a Standard Pauper player and PRE host, surely you've heard me refer to two key different standards of building M:TG decks:

Money Magic versus Rarity-Restricted Casual-Competitive Magic

You can probably guess the difference by the keyword "Money" and the phrase "Rarity Restricted."  Money Magic is what I call the game when it is played with no rarity-based restrictions to building decks.  In other words, you can use any card in your deck regardless of rarity.  The primary forms of Money Magic formats are Standard, Modern, and especially Legacy and Vintage.  These are the formats that are the most expensive to play as the most powerful rares and mythics end up costing quite a bit of money on the secondary market, or one has to spend a lot of money chasing the cards.  This may not have been Richard Garfield's goal when designing this incredibly fun Turing complete game, but it is clearly the profit motivator of Wizards of the Coast.

Important Distinction & Philosophical Roots

This brings me to an important distinction: Rarity-Restricted Casual-Competitive arose in opposition to Money Magic because the rarity system itself, combined with the power of the secondary market, operating under the principles of capitalism, has engaged the very same oppositions in economic social classes as described by Marxist, anarchist, and other Leftist economics and philosophies.  I'll have more on these ideas as the philosophy of Rarity-Restricted Casual-Competitive (abbreviated as "RRCC Magic") but first, a few examples of existing formats.

RRCC Magic Formats

The prime example of RRCC Magic is Pauper, which of course restricts the cards allowed in deck building by the rarity of the card rather than what set the card is printed in.  In Pauper Magic variants only cards printed at common are allowed.  Another example, Peasant, also restricts rarity by allowing an unlimited number of commons and a limited number of uncommons (up to five) between the main deck and sideboard.  Finally we have Silverblack which restricts rarity by allowing an unlimited number of commons and/or uncommons in the deck.  I consider all three formats to be RRCC Magic because they are defined by the rarity restrictions applied to deck building.

Four Things That Rarity Restriction Does

Once one has decided on a system of restricting the rarity of cards one uses, a four distinct things happen.  First, the monetary value (or exchange value) of the cards used in the RRCC Magic deck falls dramatically when compared to Money Magic decks.  Second, the way that cards work and metagames develop (by the use value of the cards) changes, turning otherwise overlooked weak looking cards into Pauper and Peasant powerhouses.  Thirdly, one can apply the agreed-upon rarity restriction to the Set-Restricted Money Magic formats and play something like Standard Pauper in which only commons from cards printed in the current Standard card pool may be used.

But the fourth and most important things that happens when RRCC Magic formats come into existence is this: it allows Magic players who love the game but do not possess the economic means to play Money Magic formats competitively to play the game in a format they can actually afford.  In other words, my knowledge of Marxism leads me to believe there are two classes of Magic players: those who can afford the Money Magic formats like Standard and Legacy and those who can only afford to play in formats where the rarity of cards allowed is restricted.

Personal Experience and RRCC's Existence

If it wasn't for the existence of RRCC Magic formats like Pauper and the communities that foster them like PDCMagic.com and Gatherling.com, I would not be able to enjoy the game competitively.  This brings up the final distinction of RRCC Magic: they are designed to be both casual play formats and avenues for competitive play at the same time.  What that means is that there is a casual element to the game that does not destroy the competitive element of Magic via tournament play.  One can impose rarity restrictions on deck building parameters simply for the fun of it or for the challenge involved.  Hence the "challenge" part of the PDC acronym, which stands for "Pauper Deck Challenge."

The Acronym Evolves

The way I see it, this acronym needs to evolve to keep pace with the evolution of  Magic formats.  Peasant in the paper world and Pauper, a chiefly Magic Online phenomenon, are both a part of the same family and now Silverblack has joined the fray.  The goal of this piece is to raise awareness of R/C Magic variants so that good Wizards of the Coast customers never again feel that a rewarding casual or competitive gameplay experience cannot be had.  RRCC Magic can be either a stepping stone for somebody just starting on before moving on to playing with rares. Or one can do as I have done and dedicate oneself to only RRCC formats for both real world financial reasons and for the mental athletic challenge.

TL;DR Summary Definition

So there you have the basic definition of Rarity Restricted Casual Competitive Magic.  It says exactly what it means: any Magic: The Gathering format that restricts cards by rarity in order to produce a casual or competitive game play experience for the player who  does not have the money to play Magic without rarity restriction and/or desires the extra challenge of building decks with greater restrictions.  Magic guru Mark Rosewater is always repeating the same maxim "Restrictions breed creativity."  I agree, and I hope that Wizards itself realizes the creative force that rarity restrictions brings to the game as well as how R/C Magic can keep the game alive in times of economic hardship.

To Be Continued...

In the future, I will elaborate on some of the issues that R/C Magic brings to the table and what brought R/C to that table in the first place.  I'll explore how formats like Peasant and Pauper came to exist and why their existence is crucial to the survival of Magic: the Gathering as a living game...and why Wizards of the Coast should officially support these formats with the same energy and focus as they do Money Magic.

Conclusion and Farewell

For now, I hope you find yourself philosophizing a bit on these issues yourself in between sessions of building your Pauper or Peasant decks and playing on a level playing field in a format you can actually afford to invest your money and time in.  And as always I hope you have good luck and good games doing so, no matter what class of Magic player you fall into.  Peace,

-C