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 

Treasure Cruise BANNED in Classic, WOTC Silent on Standard...

The ban hammer falleth! This is huge news for Rarity-Restricted Casual/Competitive Magic: the Gathering Players.  Wizards of the Coast has announce that, as of March 27th, players of Classic Pauper will no longer be able to pack this powerful card in their lists.  The ban announcement dropped yesterday will be effective on Magic Online, where Pauper is played most, on the 1st of April.

This is probably the right move.  In that format, it is clearly overpowered and, by extension, overused, resulting in a warped metagame where one is either playing the card and winning or not playing it and inviting immediate defeat.

The best scribe and sage of Classic Pauper is without a doubt Alex Ullman.  I got the news via his Twitter feed where I also found his incredibly comprehensive data and analyses and on the MTGO Pauper metagame on his Facebook notes.  Here is the recent iteration of that research that found that over two-thirds of 4-0 decks were running Treasure Cruise.

The evidence is overwhelming.  Treasure Cruise has warped Classic Pauper for the worse and therefore cannot be allowed in decks.  That conclusion is not alarming.  What is eye-raising is just how quickly this decision was made!  This happened much faster than previous efforts to ban such criminally overpowered cards as Cloudpost and Frantic Search.

As I recall, these took months of badgering Wizards with solid data and sound arguments to even get them to consider doing the right thing.  Hundreds of players had to send thousands of e-mails, threads on PDCMagic.com went on for weeks, months, For reference, here is ye olde Format Health Discussion thread in the Classic forum on PDCMagic.  Talk about a piece of community history right there!

(I say history because, well, as of this writing, the last post on that thread is dated way back in November.  Of 2013.  This should raise eyebrows...)

In any case, it seems these days the Duelists Convocation International is a bit more attentive to the needs of Pauper Magic players.  'Bout time!

...or are they??

But now we come to the big question: what does this mean for Standard Pauper?  It's kind of difficult to ascertain the answer to this question.  One need look no further than the "Many Ways to Play" page on the official Magic: The Gathering website to confirm that WotC doesn't care a lick about the format or its players.  Standard Pauper is not even on the list!

Bow down  before the one you serve / You're gonna get what you deserve

Wow... 

Much customer service... 

 Such support informative...

Many a happy stock-holder...  

How wealthy chief executive officers....

Shorter Mark Rosewater:

Bow down to New World Order!  

Gag me with a Strix...

Sarcasm aside (and I get to be sarcastic when WotC is obviously ignoring us Standard Pauper players) this banning poses serious questions for our beloved format. Yet because Wizards shows us Standard Pauper players absolutely zero respect, these questions are nearly impossible to answer at this point.

I do not use Magic Online anymore (because the software is not functional and infuriating) so I cannot confirm beyond communication with those who can still run the program whether or not Treasure Cruise is still legal in the format.  Of course, we won't know whether some bug due to the company's infamous inattentiveness to it's least financially well-off customers will screw things up for our community.  At least not until April 1st.  And don't expect them to figure out the answer to this all-important question before that date.

Why, you ask?  Well, I can answer that and the answer should be obvious by now.  It's because...

...WOTC doesn't give a flying FUCK about us and treats us like SHIT!!  

What else is new!?!? 

Beyond getting upset (although I maintain I have a right to be upset when a loyal customer gets treated like this), if indeed we can still run Treasure Cruise, will this have any impact on Standard Pauper?

For example, I wonder if Classic players fed up with the ban after having spend their hard-earned money on play-sets of Cruise be drawn to one of the last formats where the card is legal for play?  Or, might it re-ignite the conversation of whether or not to ban this card-drawing powerhouse in our favorite format?

The issue will not go to rest.  And it certainly won't be helped by silence - or outright shunning - from Wizards of the Coast and the DCI.

Standard Pauper gets no respect from these organizations that claim to care about their customers when it comes to their flagship product, especially the Magic Online community.  This is why I am organizing In Real Life events at my Local Games Shop.  Or, at least, I'm trying to....and if I don't get my answers, then it's not tournaments I'm going to organize....

...it's mutiny.

Now, my events are supposed to begin just one week from today.  I've got to be able to explain the deck construction legalities to my players in a way that makes competition fun and fair.  My goal is for our events to be consistent with the MPDC and SPDC events still being run Online (against all odds, no thanks to WotC!)

I cannot afford ambiguity like this.  I am trying to make sure that kids and adults with limited financial resources can still spend money on Magic cards, dammit!  To make sure a charming little shop doesn't go under because they've lost so many customer who believe (and their kind of right) that Magic is too bourgeois and expensive for a hobby.

That, and I just scoured all three shops in my area for the copies of Treasure Cruise I require in order to keep a few decks built in case a new player comes without a Standard Pauper deck so they can still discover how fun this format is.  So they can find out that you don't have to be a spoiled, smug, upper-class p.o.s. in order to enjoy a game that everybody should be able to enjoy.

If I don't get my answer - hell, if I don't even get some fucking respect and get Standard Pauper at least listed on the damned Formats page! - then I'll be left with no choice.  I'll give right the fuck up.

What's the deal, WotC?  Is Treasure Cruise going to remain legal in Standard Pauper or what?  Do you intend to even pretend to give a damn about me and other Standard Pauper players or not?  This is getting fucking frustrating and I'm not prepared to have my time wasted after putting in all this work to enjoy a game from a company that continues to show  us such disregard and disrespect.

To hell with the niceties.  You've got my money, Wizards.  Against my better judgment, I bought Magic cards from you in an attempt to continue enjoying this game and help others do the same. And this is the thanks I get!?  This is how you treat me and the other tournament organizers on Magic Online who help your game survive and bring in new customers despite your crappy treatment of us?

That entitles me to some damn answers.  

And it entitles me to be fucking pissed.

If I don't get my answers, then I'm done.  I will get off this boat for good.  Because while playing Magic: the Gathering for nearly twenty years has provided me with countless delights on the surface, I'm getting sea-sick at the dark schemes that run below this game...

Wacky Wednesdays - Pauper Dailies Whacked!

It's a great time for the Standard Pauper tournament scene - the revived MPDC series is halfway through its new season and the revival of SPDC starts tomorrow!  But Classic Pauper players just got whacked by Wizards big time.

I did not notice Monday's announcement as I was too focused on Standard Pauper, but apparently Wizards has completely pulled support for Classic Pauper Daily Events on MTGO.  The Pauper community is all abuzz about this (check out this long thread on Reddit) and the vast majority of them are not happy.  Not one little bit.  They are correct in saying this is whack.

I can't add much to the discusion because I rarely play Classic Pauper and have never participated in a DE.  The Player Run Events offered by PDCMagic have always served my Magic gaming needs.  But I acknowledge that Dailies have a huge following and that Pauper Dailies in particular have a strong following and legacy on Magic Online.  Classic Pauper players often experiment with Standard, so this inadvertently affects us, too.

I will only say that this is also blow to Standard Pauper players.  Many of us are hoping for the same kind of official support for our format that Classic Pauper recieves.  I was even more optimistic this was on the way when we got our filter a short while ago.  But now that WotC is pulling support for the big Pauper format, I'm not as hopeful that Standard Pauper will get any Dailies anytime soon.  I hope Classic gets theirs back as soon as possible.

In the meantime, some are suggesting that PREs are a good way to fill the void.  If Wizards is going to actively destroy opportunities to play Pauper, then by golly, us Pauper players are just going to have to actively create new opportunities ourselves.  Sure, it requires players to step up to host, but I've found before that hosting is a fun and rewarding challenge.  I'm up for it again, with accidentally good timing.  So if you're a Classic Pauper player whose Daily just got whacked  (thanks, Wizards!) then I encourage you to stop by the Anything Goes room tomorrow at 8:30 PM, Eastern Time, for the Standard Pauper Deck Challenge event!

Until then, I offer my condolences to Classic Pauper players everywhere.  Give Standard Pauper a try while we wait for Wizards to get their act together.  See you soon and have a Wacky Wednesday! Peace,

- C