Standard Pauper Carte du Jure: Traveling Philosopher

This is an appropriate choice for Thursdays, which are philosophy-focused days here.  One of the things I like about philosophy is that it aids in figuring out how things are no good or just plain wrong.  And I really don't think this card is any good at achieving what it's trying to do and the flavor is wrong on so many levels:

Traveling Philosopher - Theros

MTGO - Traders: Traveling Philosopher - 0.02 Tix 

So what's my beef with this card?  There's obviously nothing wrong with it from a mechanical standpoint.  White typically gets a vanilla 2/2 in at least one set of every block, usually the big set like Theros.  It's a hole that needs to be filled for Limited play, so the only real thing Wizards has to do is make the flavor fit and just call a Grizzly Bear something else.  But filling in a mechanical hole only to leave a flavor chasm is not acceptable.

That's my beef with this card: how am I supposed to accept that a Human Advisor in soft robes who calls herself a "philosopher" acts exactly the same way from a mechanical standpoint as a hulking, angry mass of fur?  I mean, even the flavor text points out that this lady doesn't win her battles through brute force but through words, just as a philosopher should.  So why the lack of any white-styled ability to show this mechanically? 

Travelling Philosopher should have been a card more in line with the every other Advisor ever printed.  There are tap-down abilities white has access to that fit in perfectly with the story told on the card.  There are life gain and card drawing and pump effects that could represent the effect that hearing a Traveling Philosopher might have on other creatures. But to try to pass off a card as a philosopher when it's clearly just a plain-old white-washed bear!?  

Yeah, that's not gonna work with somebody who actually knows a little something about philosophy.  Good thing white has plenty more options in Standard Pauper so I do not have to even consider adding this piece of flavor fail to our decks.  We'll have good luck and have fun and good games without it.  Thanks for reading!  Peace,

- C

Standard Pauper Carte du Jure: Ethereal Armor

Since we are in White this week and the current Standard & Pauper side story is about all the Aura decks in the format, it's only fitting to make the Card of the Day the Enchantment that makes it all possible.

Ethereal Armor - Return to Ravnica 

MTGO - Traders: CARD NAME- 0.07 Tix 

The appearance of Ethereal Armor in Return to Ravnica wasn't really much of big deal, but you can see how Wizards designs for inter-block synergy.  Given Theros would include more enchantments than usual thanks to the Bestow mechanic, I'll be they decided to place this card in a bordering block to make sure Theros limited did not get out of hand.

And luckily, things haven't gotten out of hand in Standard Pauper.  While Armor is strong in a deck built around it (an to be an Aura deck, you pretty much have to) it can still be answered by any number of enchantment hate cards.  And which color has the best access to these?  White, of course!

Anyway, so far Ethereal Armor has been the starting point for the many Aura Decks in Standard Pauper.  Three of the Top Eight decks at this week's MPDC featured it as their base.  So they are doing better than before thanks to this powerful aura and we'll have to stay tuned to see if they get even better.  Good luck & good games with that!  Peace,

- C

Wacky Wednesday: Color Screw is Whack!

You know, while I do love this game, sometimes I hate it.  The color wheel may be the nuts and bolts of Magic, but sometimes it just acts like a wacky screw.  Especially if you're going for two-color Aggro like Boros in Standard Pauper.

I ran into a lot of color-screw with Boros last week, but not this time.   I included two Prophetic Prisms and singleton Unknown Shores to assist my Gates to make sure I could cast my golden three-drops.  But I may have overcompensated:  I ended up trading color screw for tempo screw at some points (thanks, shuffler, for giving me all my color fixing by my first draw step!). Prisms did topdeck and manafix me to speed up a couple of starts. 

Unknown Shores, though?  See ya when I splash black for Crypt :-)  

I'm still a bit torn about color-smoothness in two-color aggro and a very, very bad mana base mathematician., are Prisms a good idea here?  I'm thinking of keeping them as the fourth and fifth cantrip to compliment Dragon Mantle.  They seem like a good way to get rid of whack color screw and provide a little extra gas to guild-based aggro decks.

What do you think?  Is raising the curve with a non-threat only going to hurt an aggro deck, or is this a better option than our "Shimmery" functional reprint...that...isn't too functional in this deck style?  Or just share you favorite color-screw-induced bad beats story :-)  Thanks for reading and have a Wacky Wednesday!  Peace,

- C

Standard Pauper Carte du Jure: Gods Willing

I mentioned during the Post-Tournament Post that the MVP of my Aura Boros Aggro was without-a-doubt this one:

Gods Willing - Theros

MTGO Traders - Gods Willing - 0.02 Tix

Gods Willing got me through my toughest match of the night, Round One against long-time Dimir Control player moromete.  This fellow always comes up with the meanest blue and black control decks every time the card pool shifts, and then has good sense to pilot them like the Red Baron.  I knew my deck would face the fiercest competition possible right off the bat and if I could make it past this, I was in good shape.  And his Esper list had even more options to destroy me.  But I had white, too.  I had Gods Willing!

In key moments in both games, this card solidified my path to victory more than any other. First it staved off an early Voyage's End, which meant I not only saved my guy but got to scry into more aggression instead of my opponent scry'ing for more answers.  Second, it invalidated a Grisly Spectacle when all he had to block my lone dude were other black creatures, allowing me to safely unload my pump and swing for twelve lethal points.  These were the most pivotal of several examples of Gods Willing consistently saving my butt all night.

This is why I saw early on that Gods Willing is the glue that really keeps an Aura-based Boros deck together.  Almost any Aura deck will want it and it has great applications as a surprising singleton in control.  I expect Gods Willing to remain one of the tricks to watch out for as long as Theros is in Standard.

That's the Card of the Day for this Tuesday.  There's more White cards and Boros Aggro to follow all week.  Thanks for reading, good luck & have fun!  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

 

Standard Pauper Carte du Jure: Court Street Denizen

Because why not mix up the languages for my intended international audience?  Anyway, Court Street Denizen is a great first Card of the Day for a White-themed week.  This girl is just chock full of flavor:

Court Street Denizen - Gatecrash

MTGO Traders - Court Street Denizen - 0.02 Tix

So much thematically related to White's philosophy and place in the color pie are shown here, it's hard to tell where to begin!  We've got two signature creature types, a trigger that hones in on the color's communal nature, and a tap-down ability that is another very white ability.

And what about that revealing flavor text?  That's a pretty direct statement of color pie philosophy that rarely appears on a card. This a great example about the weighty philosophical issues that Magic's color pie can represent, which is a testament to the power of a game design tool that is at once logical and aesthetic.

All that and, hey, she doesn't look he'd do too bad in a Standard Pauper deck.  Let's see if she shows up in Boros, Azorius, or White Weenie deck at today's tournament.  Good luck & have fun.  Peace,

- C

PS: I'm also happy to report that my first article in the revived Standard & Pauper series has been published on PureMTGO!  I Hope you enjoy reading those, too.

Monday Matchup: White & Boros Aggro

Welcome to the first full week of blogging on Cabel the Pauper!  This is also the final entry where I will establish the schedule for this week.  Monday is the beginning of the new week and is also the day of the Monday Pauper Deck Challenge Standard Pauper tournament.  So before that starts at 2:00, I'll get up the Card of the Day, let you in on what the themes will be this week, and share a few pre-tournament Standard Pauper thoughts.

Color(s) of the Week:  White

Old School White Symbol, Baby!

Just like the first partial week on the blog saw a Red theme, I'll have a prismatic standard bearer to keep the blog focused starting each Monday.  This does not mean we're going from red to blue to black to white to green and back again every five weeks.  Not by a long shot.  I count thirty-one total color combinations, not counting colorless, which should allow me to offer a decent variety.

Seeing as how I've been writing about Red for days now, it's only fitting I switch it up.  We'll get started right at the beginning for this week and just go with White as the weeks' color on Cabel the Pauper.  I'm still in establishment mode so I'll skip a basic description for now.  But note that for the future I'll be getting even more specific and move on to focusing on just one aspect of the color, guild, shard, or wedge being considered.  For now, white-in-general is our color on Cabel the Pauper.

Moving on, I'll also establish a Standard Pauper deck to focus on all week, usually the one I'm working on most and about to play in MPDC.  You know, so that everybody can sideboard against me specifically and continue my epic losing streak :-)

Deck of the Week: BOROS AGGRO

And this week I am still working on Boros Aggro.  I know I've already written about me playing such a deck, but hear me out.  I am the type of guy who keeps plugging away when it comes to winning games of Magic.  If I truly believe a deck has the potential to win but I end up losing, I'm not one to drop the project and move on immediately.  I go back to the drawing board, do more tweaking and playtesting, sometimes even consider an entirely new angle, and try, try again.

Last week I focused on the Battalion and Unleash aspects of Boros and did not make the cut to Top Eight.  I've been checking out other Boros lists that have and tried to keep the core cards from those builds.  Might as well use what works! But I've also taken note that this deck archetype can go several different directions.  And it has been successful in each of them.  Here's a quick run-down:

First, you have your basic Boros Aggro build, or at least the build that established the decks potential when rhysticy won MPDC 23.03 with a creature-heavy list.  The key innovations I see here is the use of Madcap Skills to push through even more damage along with two key copies of God's Willing and less than a playset of burn spells.

The pure beatdown approach was first attempted in the first event of the season by PRObosczcz with his Humans-style Boros build based around the tribal synergy of Cavalry Pegasus.

Finally, there was Gamelen's major revision by adopting a Boros Tokens strategy one week ago.  I'm always interested in decks that make tokens so I'll be keeping my eye out for improvements to the deck.  I'll definitely be giving it a spin later this week after my experiment with my own approach to Boros.

Which is what?  Well, you'll just have to stop by tomorrow for my tournament report after MPDC.  Or, just come to the tournament and play some friendly but competitive games of Standard Pauper with me and a host of other great folks to duel with.  Hope to see you there!  Thanks for reading, good luck & have fun!  Peace,

- C