Monday Metagame Report

The first week of the New Year is usually a slow one for Standard Pauper PREs.  This year is no different.  There was no MPDC tournament last week due to the holiday break (which ends today with MPDC 23.10!) and the first event in the 20th SPDC season has already been covered here in a tournament report.

Furthermore, while it has not seen the light of day quite yet, I expect that the next edition of Standard & Pauper (here is last month's article) will be published shortly on PureMTGO.  I've a hunch it will appear today, but I could easily be wrong.  I'm probably not the only amateur Magic writer who has taken it upon himself to churn more drafts in the New Year :-)

So instead of a redundant post, we'll have to wait until next week to see how the Monday Metagame Report pans out.  You can expect a summary of what happens later in today's MPDC and the results of SPDC 20.02 coming up this Thursday.

I will instead update this post with a link to January's installment of Standard & Pauper as soon as it is published.  In the meantime, here's a preview of some of the metagame data I've tracked for the series:

The article will also track the Top 10 decks of the metagame, the balance between aggro and control, and an updated look at the comparative ratio of colors being played.  I hope you enjoy it, maybe between rounds of today's Standard Pauper event...

That's all for this slow week.  Stay tuned for next week's metagame report as things begin to pick up speed again.  In any case, have a great Monday!  Peace,

- C

Standard Pauper Deck Challenge Report: SPDC 20.01

A new season of the Standard Pauper Deck Challenge series began last night.   New Years' hangovers and the rescheduling of Pauper Classic Tuesdays due to the holiday did not prevent enough paupers showing up to compete.

On my end, I had fun running back and forth between windows and faucets to make sure the pipes and Grandma didn't freeze in between rounds.  You do what you gotta do :-)  Let's see how the event played out:

Standard Pauper Deck Challenge 20.01 Event Report

This tournament gave us a first in Theros season Standard Pauper: playoffs composed enitrely of Mono Colored Decks.  I'll grant we only ran a Top Four playoff, but we still have the following decks leading the way, all of them running only a single color.

Finals and Playoffs Winners:

1st Place: White Weenie  

2nd Place: Big Green

3rd Place: Mono Black (deck not yet posted)

4th Place: Red Deck Wins 

This is the first time a straight Green deck has made it to the Playoffs.  I've run into these big Snakes and Foxes before.  They are tough to deal with and can finish games in very few swings - without messing with too  Auras the way White Weenie and Red Decks do.  It looks to ramp up to big brutes right quick, then smash with something that's too big to handle...

But the finals match was brutally quick.  Xelz's White Weenie deck bestowed upon him two Hopeful Eidolon plus Ethereal Armor openings in a row while Jadis's Big Green could not ramp fast enough.  With this victory, the archetype is second only to Dimir Mill in total wins.

Swiss Honorable Mention:

We're not sure of the exact list posted by Mono Black last night (make sure you post your deck lists to Gatherling to receive your season points and contribute to metagame data).  But I did run into a slightly different Black deck in the Swiss played by FlxEx.  It's a surprisingly fast thing compared to the usual Mono Black Control list.  That's because this is Mono Black Aggro...Blade!

Yeah, I kept looking for it but never saw it either.  There really is no Gray Merchant of Asphodel here.  I found myself making mistakes with my Simple Izzet Control list that was used to the Devotion strategy.  Instead, FlxEx bested me in the Swiss even after I had a chance to play test against it before the event.  He just kept dropping cheap dudes and swinging like any other Rakdos Shred-Freak deck.

The Takeaway:

Personally, I'm glad the new season began without a hitch and in a particularly challenging time in real life.  That's a big step up from the disappointment of Worlds 19 not firing; the season needed a good start to boost my morale at least.  Hopefully yours, too!

I'm looking forward to next week, with MPDC 23.10 on Monday, to see if single-color decks arrive in greater numbers.  Green Ramp and Black Aggro were both very interesting entries for me, just when I was starting to think that guild-based decks were the way to go.  And once again, I think I'm sick of White Weenie already again, but that's just me :-)

Also, I anticipate attendance being higher next week as there will be no conflict with any other PRE's (to the best of my knowledge).  That means the competition will be stronger and could lead to an even higher prize payout!  Thanks to all who played this week and see you next Thursday in the PDC room at 8:30 PM EST for SPDC 20.02.  Till then, good luck!  Peace,


- C 

2014: A New Year for Standard Pauper

Happy New Year!  This will be my fifth year of playing Standard Pauper and the eighth year of Standard Pauper play on Magic Online.  I hope it will be the first year for loads of new players, too.

In that sense, the most important article of 2014 has already been published just for them.  On day one, no less!  Gwyned, the author of Writer Adept and host of the MPDC series has updated his New Player Primer from a couple years ago to provide players who have never participated in a Player Run Event before all they need to know to get started.

PureMTGO - Writer Adept: New Player Primer 2014

The article covers the both the old and new MTGO clients and some updates to the Gatherling procedure for these tournaments.  And there are links, links, links to every place that updates content regarding the format.  The information is as applicable the MPDC series as it is the 20th season of SPDC I will be hosting this year...starting tomorrow!

So if you are new to Standard Pauper, do check out Gwyned's article on PureMTGO to help you get started and join us on Monday afternoons and Thursday nights all year long for the best kept secret in Magic Online.  And if you're a returning player, then welcome back!  I hope to see you online and get the best games of my Standard Pauper career in with you this year :-)  Good luck and have fun with your 2014!  Peace,

- C

I Think It's Thursday...But It's Freakin' Friday!

Sorry about the missed post yesterday, folks.  I think I've got a good excuse: I was re-acquainting myself with the hosting process for running Standard Pauper tournaments on Magic Online!

And the SPDC 19.37 and Last Chance Qualifier event did fire and go off without a hitch.  I'm happy to report we had just enough players to make it a real tournament, there were no client or computer freezes on my end, and hosting has become kind of like riding a bike.  This bodes very well for the future of the SPDC series.

You can see how the tournament played out in the Gatherling Metagame Report.  Despite a low turnout, there are still interesting developments for the format we haven't seen in the MPDC series yet.  Blue-White Control has won for the first time during Theros-era Standard Pauper, thanks to GodZo's innovations and piloting with Azorius Fortress.

But DrChrisBakerDC's Izzet Razor-Burn put up a good fight in the finals after a strong performance all night.  I'll bet DrChris will have something to say about his build over at his Draft Brewery pauper blog...

Oooh, lookie here!  Read up on this awesome new archetype from the horse's mouth :-)

As for me, I can say I've been thinking about crafting a "bigger" Izzet strategy to face both Dimir Mill and Monoblack while still holding fast against the aggro strategies also gunning for those two.  Also, I'm looking for other ways to abuse the card in common to Mill and the new Azorius and Izzet builds: Archaeomancer!  Much more on her to come.  For now, though, I'm just glad the event went smoothly and I'm looking forward to hosting the next one.

Speaking of which, SPDC Season 19 Worlds will take place the next time I think it's Thursday.  Hopefully it's not freakin' Friday by the time the time that happens!  Seriously, though, I will keep players posted in the coming days as to the particulars of next Thursday's event.  As for now, I'm off to figure out how to craft a trophy for GodZo to commemorate this victory. Thanks for playing and following along.  Peace,

- C

Tuesday Post-Tournament Post - MPDC 23.08

The MPDC series broke 30 players yesterday at MPDC 23.08.  The Top 8 players favored mono-colored decks this week, with BigBee's White Weenie taking the gold in the finals against dueyutah's Red Deck.

As for me, we won't get too into that.  All I'll say is played my Boros Auras deck
one more time and barely avoided very last place.  It was fun for a bit, but now I've reached that point in the season where I just don't know what to play.

Dimir Mill seems to be dropping off slightly, though it is still a huge metagame consideration (one player even showed up with a 90-card deck, presumably to fight this).  Mono Black Control is fast replacing it as the top control deck to beat.  And stumbling on mana against either one really isn't much of an option.  This keeps on happening to me with Boros Aggro, and I suspect I'll run into the same trouble if I try out the Selesnya Tokens or Simic Evolve decks that have been popping up and sparking my interest.

Chances are this week I'll load up a stock list that I feel has a good chance to auto-pilot me to a decent showing.  Right now, I'm concentrating a little harder on reviving the SPDC series, which starts again in just two more days!

These events will be run in a manner almost identical to MPDC, featuring the same Standard Pauper format and same Swiss/Playoff structure with similar prize support thanks to PDCMagic.  But SPDC will take place at 8:30 PM instead of starting registration at 2:00 PM, Eastern Time like MPDC to provide Paupers of the Western Hemisphere a weekday evening event.

In any case, despite a poor performance, I really enjoyed yesterday's MPDC and I'm really looking forward to hosting the next Standard Pauper event and hope to see you there!  Until then, good luck & have fun!  Peace, 

- C

Monday Musings: Return to Hosting for SPDC

Welcome to the third week of blogging on Cabel the Pauper.  It's Monday and the MPDC Standard Pauper tournament is about to start.  I'm looking to outdo myself with Boros Aggro and Auras once again.  But that's really not what's got me so excited this week.  I'm guns-a-blazing getting ready to return to hosting Standard Pauper events myself by reviving the dormant and long-running SPDC series!

Right now, there is only one Standard Pauper weekly Player Run Event on Magic Online.  MPDC is run on Mondays at 2:00 pm Eastern because this caters to Europeans during their evening down time from work and family.  But it used to be that PDCMagic would run two Standard Pauper tournaments, and this series was the first.  "SPDC" stands for "Standard Pauper Deck Challenge" and first began in 2006.  Many hosts have lead this Thursday night event to provide a convenient time slot for American players to get the same chance to play competitive Standard Pauper for prizes.  And glory!

But for the past few months, the current season has been without a host.  Now, just at the time when a new Standard Pauper Clan arises and the old host of MPDC, gwyned, returns to regular events, it seems fitting that if I've got Thursday nights free and clear to provide that opportunity once again.  So I'm bringing back SPDC!

PDCMagic will continue to sponsor the series with 15 tix worth of prizes each tournament.  We'll be using the PDCMagic.com Gatherling feature for registration, reporting, and deck list posting just like MPDC.  And I'll keep things at the traditional time slot, that is Thursdays at 9:00 PM, Eastern Time.

And I'm getting started this week with the SPDC 19.37 & LCQ event!

More info is sure to follow.  After I "sleeve up" my deck for today's event!  I hope to see you there and wish you good luck & good games.  Peace,

- C