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...

Cabel's Critique of a New Release: Dragons of Tarkir - Blue Commons for Standard Pauper

Still working our way backwards, still writing as many words about these cards as possible, I'd like to note just why these criticisms are so strong (and so long!) before moving forward with the Blues.  See, there are plenty of set reviews out there.  But there are precious few that actually take the correct viewpoint.  Nearly all the major reviews out there from, say, the Magic Show or Limited Resources, are merely reviewing these commons from the standpoint of either drafting (which is also far too expensive for Paupers) or their usefulness in Money Magic constructed formats, especially Standard, Modern, and Legacy.

This is a problem.  And it causes these reviewers,  talented and professional card evaluators though they may be, to sadly miss the mark when it comes to the role these commons can play in a format built entirely around commons, nothing else of higher rarity,  completely within the confines of presently Standard-legal sets.  These restrictions (which are what breed creativity, right, Mr. Rosewater?) are what makes Standard Pauper what it is - and what makes it the most challenging, rewards, and, above all, affordable Magic: The Gathering format possible.

These cards deserve extensive criticism from this angle.  The fact that they are often passed over as "good in Limited, bad in Constructed, let's move on" just gives me the Blues.  Having said that, lets move on to the second-to-last entry in Cabel's Critique of Dragons of Tarkir with the "best" color in Magic...

BLUE

Ancient Carp

This card is a prime example of how those other reviewers that focus on Money formats lack depth when it comes to card critiques.  They'd quickly state this as being bad on it's face and say no more.  I agree it's bad, but let's go deeper.  First of all, we've already seen a vanilla 2/5 for 4U printed at common before (M11's Armored Cancrix, reprinted in M14), and so we can criticize this card as bringing absolutely nothing new to the table.  But most important, even that card was worse than the first creature with the same casting cost and power & toughness: Zendikar's Sky Ruin Drake's were identical and he also had flying.  Now that would have been good.

So, R&D: why a fish that functionally reprints a crap in a set named Dragons of Tarkir?  A common Dragon to replace the Drake creature type would have been perfect, especially considering the next plane we revisit after Tarkir is Zendikar itself.  But instead we get a damn fish.  This is inexcusable.  And to make that case requires some explanation in order to preemptively destroy any lame ass excuse Wizards might pull out of their butts trying to justify trash like Ancient Carp.

Cabel's Critique: FAIL


Anticipate

Now that's better.  I'm all about top-deck fixing as one of the most Blue things you can do.  We've seen these be very powerful in Standard Pauper before.  Indeed, cards like Ponder and Preordain end up being banned in Money formats because they're too good at finding the really powerful cards there.  So I can understand the development team being careful with the cast cost here.  Two mana is still a bargain, and instant-speed lets the Blue mage spend what she held up for counter magic at the end of her opponent's turn.  The art is attractive, the flavor text mentions one of the Five M's of Cabel the Pauper, and the one-word name makes use of a perfect candidate that's been waiting for something just like this for years.  I am pleased with Anticipate and couldn't be happier.

Cabel's Critique: WIN

Contradict

One of the precious few places to get a review of new cards for Standard Pauper is MagicGatheringStrat.  During their review, Contradict got laughed at and skewered.  That's fine, but I must respectfully disagree.  One of the reviewers asked "Why does it have to cost five?"  I can answer that: Because this is good.  Countering a spell and then drawing a card is a powerful effect.  It's even more powerful when we're restricting ourselves to only commons.  Dismiss is four mana because it is uncommon and has to deal with other uncommons as well as rares and mythics.  It might see print at common some day if we get rid of this "New World Order" garbage and get our power creep back.

But until that day, I'm willing to say that Contradict is the perfect counterspell for commons in Standard Pauper.  I'm reminded of the last truly great hard counter for five mana that was good enough to see play: Traumatic Visions.  We also saw Lost in the Mist in Innistrad block, which was not bad as a singleton in the Mill decks of the day.  In the present Standard Pauper metagame, I can see Contradict being perfectly acceptable one-of inclusion in the maindeck of a Mono Blue Control deck or even an extra copy in an Izzet Tokens sideboard for breaking the mirror.

Furthermore, for personal aesthetic reasons, the name is prefect given my dedication to Hegelian and Marxist dialectics, which have contradictions at their heart.  Top this all off with some gorgeous artwork of a dragon saying "no" that caused many to (foolishly) believe that Force of Will was going to be reprinted and I have to answer the question of whether this card is win or fail in a way the good folks at MagicGatheringStrat might not like, but it's the correct answer.

Cabel's Critique: WIN

Dirgur Nemesis

At this point in my lengthy critiques, it should be clear to you, dear reader, that I am not a fan of Megamorph.  The mechanic is bad to begin with.  It's not at all creative.  And nearly every creature that has been graced with it's lackluster presence it's a bad creature to begin with, being either overcosted or with irrelevant statistics and abilities, if not all three.  This sea serpent has all three failing qualities.  A 6/5 defender gets you nowhere in Standard Pauper no matter how many +1/+1 counters you place on it and there are plenty of better things to do at three mana than drop a vanilla, colorless 2/2 morph dude in the format.  This will not see play in Standard Pauper for good reason.

Cabel's Critique: FAIL



Elusive Spellfist

Here we have the an example of how the Prowess mechanic has evolved, slightly hidden from view as the keyword ability has been removed.  Instead of consistently giving a mere power and toughness boost, we are now allowed a range of extra effects instead.  As far as these go, making a creature unblockable is usually quite good in Standard Pauper.  Getting an extra power boost when already attached to a respectable toughness of three should be excellent.  I'm not sure the metagame is ready for a Blue mage to build around this card as a win condition given the other options currently available.  But the design is good enough to warrant this a second look after Theros block rotates.  Keep this Monk in mind when that time comes and he may end up performing quite well.

Cabel's Critique: WIN

Glint

Another nice mechanic that gets even more powerful when using only commons is Hexproof.  Some Standard Pauper decks ran a lone copy of a huge Hexproof dude as their sole win condition or a reliable backup plan.  Making a creature Hexproof at instant speed is pretty much synonymous with countering a removal spell, saving your creature.  Considering all this, Glint fails somewhat by providing a boost to toughness instead of power, saving your creature, what, twice?  Adding the ability to act as removal and counter at the same time would have made this card a clear winner.  Sadly, it's not that good.  It's merely okay.

Cabel's Critique:  TRICK


Gurmag Drowner

This is a rather difficult creature to evaluate.  Exploit seems like the power mechanic of the set.  Setting up your topdeck is something Blue can take advantage of.  Gatekeeper statistics have proven reliable in Standard Pauper.  However, this card essentially does not replace itself as any card advantage one would have gained is negated by having to sacrifice another creature.  Sacrificing this to itself does not seem like a good play, either, not when we consider the other card drawing spells and library manipulators available this late in the card pool.  Paupers will have to test this fellow out before declaring a winner or loser.  I'm giving a custom critique that leaves room for improvement but leans toward the latter.

Cabel's Critique:  SAC

Monastery Loremaster

Ugh.  Another inexplicably overcosted Megamorph creature that fails.  Yes, getting a spell back from the yard is usually pretty good.  Being able to grab a Planeswalker or Artifact might be cool in Money Magic, but those mythics don't exist in Standard Pauper.  Neither do any decent artifacts.  We've got access to the reasonable Mnemonic Wall for five mana, which provides nice stats for control decks.  But getting only a 4/3 with no evasion - no nothing! - after spending nine mana?  That's not going to work.  Using a copy or two of the Wall to get back your card-advantage-granting token-generators in blue will.  Not this.

Cabel's Critique:  FAIL


Mystic Meditation

Well this is interesting.  Another addition to Blue's set-up cards for burying your opponent in card advantage seems nice, but gives this guy lots of competition.  And if you're playing a creature light control deck, you'll be hard pressed to get that kind of value out of this baby.  Sorcery speed hurts here as well.  Will a creature-heavy blue deck be able to make use of this as it's only noncreature spell?  We'll have to wait and see.  Nice card name and artwork, though.

Cabel's Critique:  PITCH

Negate

Why do I spend time on reprints like this when critiquing a new set?  Because that makes the critique complete.  And my criticism here is very much the same as other reprints I've skewered, so I will take the time to repeat myself: if the card already exists in the metagame, then there is no reason to reprint it.  Negate is a good card, no doubt, a staple in Blue.  But we have access to this in M15 so this does not impact us or add anything new.  A new bad spell that riffs on this basic design would at least be more exciting even in disappointment.  Seeing the same damn thing over again is just boring and indicates creative laziness on the part of R&D.

Cabel's Critique:  FAIL


Ojutai Interceptor

Here is another slot that should probably have been filled with a common Dragon.  And yet another Megamorph card that is too costly to be of any use-value in Standard Pauper.  3/1 for 3U and flying is too expensive and aggressive for a Blue deck.  Everything other criticism I've already leveled at Megamorph has already been said.  I'll waste no more space before failing this entry.

Cabel's Critique:  FAIL

Ojutai's Breath

Many players might disagree with me, but I'm a fan of Crippling Chill and the whole tap-for-two-turns effect that Blue gets.  It buys a lot of time and tempo when used defensively or as an offensive measure to clear a path for your finishers.  In order to be good, it's got to be three mana or less or have some kind of extra value attached.  This is the ultimate upside beyond cantripping: you get to repeat the effect for free thanks to the return of the powerful Rebound mechanic.  This could easily get the Blue mage out of some very sticky situations and be just the ticket to victory, getting rid of two attackers or blockers two turns in a row for the cost we usually pay for doing it just once.  Enjoy this while you can; sets are going to rotate out faster than usual once we say goodbye to the old three-set-block paradigm.  That and by virtue of it's very block-specific name and rarely used Rebound mechanic, once this rotates it will likely be a very long time before we see it again, if ever at all.

Cabel's Critique:  WIN

Ojutai's Summons

I love cards that make tokens.  My favorite deck in the current Standard Pauper metagame has got to be the creatureless Izzet Control deck that uses Rise of Eagles and Flurry of Horns for its win conditions.  Getting two creatures out of one card is extraordinarily powerful in Standard Pauper.  This card has the potential to do two things: replace Rise of Eagles with a card that gives the exact same power and evasion as that card at one less mana (and these Djinn Monks are no longer susceptible to enchantment hate like the old bird tokens) or the existence of this piece might enable a mono-blue version of the Izzet control and tokens strategy.  And a Rebound spell that makes dudes just had to happen for my life to be complete.  That makes this my favorite Blue card in the set and a winner with an exclamation point.

Cabel's Critique:  WIN!

Palace Familiar

In order for Exploit to be a good mechanic, there need to be good creatures to exploit.  This owl would be a great card on it's face even if it didn't exist within this setting.  It's been a playable effect when we've seen it before on cards like Runewing in Return to Ravnica and Jeskai Sage has proven itself as useful in the WU Heroic build currently wreaking havoc on the MTGO environment.  Now we have Palace Familiar, a simple 1/1 flyer at a mere two mana that will die and will replace itself whether left to its own devices of Exploited for extra value.  One would be wise to obtain a playset.

Cabel's Critique:  WIN

Reduce in Stature

Don't be fooled into thinking this is some new mechanic.  In fact, it's the first time we see "becomes x/y" errata'ed in print as "has base power and toughness x/y."  This is a great development in design to make the rules a bit clearer to new players and veterans alike.  It's not a bad effect here, either.  I'm one who still maintains that Turn to Frog belongs at common, and perhaps with this new wording we may see that in it's proper place sometime later.  So more for the linguistic fix, the flavorful name and artwork, and the hope this gives me for the future of Standard Pauper, I'm giving this card my top rating.

Cabel's Critique:  WIN


Sidisi's Faithful

This is a thinking man's piece if I ever saw one.  There's not much to write home about in a 0/4 blocker for one mana.  But if you've ever been an aggro player and seen something like this drop on your opponent's first turn, you know the feel-bad I'm referencing.  This baby give the defensive player even more flexibility.  Unsummon is often overlooked as basic but can still be quite useful.  One can always Exploit this creature to itself to get that effect, possibly filling up your yard for later Delve purposes.  That flavor text is also preciously snarky.  But I'm not convinced that it's a win.  A 1/x for another mana would have provided even more flexibility and it may end up that the available instant and sorcery bouncers might set the bar too high for this for Standard Pauper to patronize.  At least I got a mixology/barkeeping reference out of him.  Other than that, I'm going to have to ask him to leave for not being cool enough for my exclusive establishment :-)

Cabel's Critique:  BOUNCE

Taigam's Strike

Once again, making a creature unblockable in Standard Pauper is generally quite good.  Pumping a creature is also best if the power boost is equal to or greater than your mana investment.  We have both elements here.  But then we run into some trouble if we wish to be truly critical of the card.  Sorcery speed hurts Strike's final evaluation.  Four mana up front is an awful lot for a pump spell, even if it does have Rebound.  At instant speed or at three mana, it would definitely be a different story.  If printed at three mana AND instant speed, we'd have a clear winner.  As it stands, it cannot be a winner.  Somebody is going to have to actually win with this card before I'm willing to re-evaluate it any better than merely passing.

Cabel's Critique: PASS


Updraft Elemental

It may not look like much, but we have a nice evolution in card design and a balanced entry in power creep here.  This is the first ever 1/4 flyer at common in blue for three mana.  And it's splashable at that.  Outside the range of Lightning Strike and able to block just about anything in the air all day, it may not be terribly competitive, but it cannot be terrible.  In fact, I like the opaque element in the artwork and the very Zen final question in the flavor text.  It's sheer brilliance in design from to bottom.

Cabel's Critique:  WIN

Zephyr Scribe

I wonder if I'm going to end up looting the dump boxed at the local card shop for copies of this Scribe.  Looting is very good in Limited, but Limited players are notorious for leaving the commons they draft behind when the night is over.  Being able to loot twice in a single turn is probably even better in a spell-heavy Blue deck.  But that one-toughness makes him very susceptible to removal.  Only time will tell if it's an enlightened choice for constructed or it's condemned to the bulk stock for eternity.

Cabel's Critique: LOOT



There you have your criticisms of all the Blue commons in Dragons of Tarkir.  Taken as a whole, it's a fair crop, with nothing too powerful and nothing too terrible as we saw previously in Black.  We've got only one color to go, the Whites, before my first extensive critique of a new set release is finally complete.

As always,  thanks for reading this far.  And if you think I've been overly critical, let me know in the comments.  Because at this point, even I think I need a break from excessive blogging!  So until next time, good luck & have fun while we wait for the set to drop.  Peace,

- C

Cabel's Critique of a New Release: Dragons of Tarkir - Black Commons for Standard Pauper

By the end of this blog, we'll be more than halfway through the darkness of a set review that might have gone too long.  But we've come to far to stop now!  Though the night looks darkest, we must get through Black, the color of despair...

Black! The dark of ages past!  Black!  The blog that ends at last!!

I guess I had to work in a Les Miserables reference that kind of belongs here.  Black is home to some pretty miserable design failures that are just plain disappointing as Magic cards.  Despite this fact, the black commons in Dragons of Tarkir are home to what many players have dubbed the best card in the entire set.  There's no new archetypes that present themselves as in Green and Red, but instead, existing black decks get plenty of new tools to solidify such things as UB Devotion as constant metagame forces.

So without further adieu, Cabel's Critique of a New Release: Dragons of Tarkir for Standard Pauper continues with...

BLACK

Butcher's Glee

This trick recalls two other from the past due to a two-word sentence: "Regenerate it."  These are both still legal in Standard Pauper:  Theros's Boon of Erebos and M15's Necrobite,  neither one currently played in the format,  probably because we figured out back in Innistrad block (where Necrobite debuted) that it looks good on paper, but  doesn't result in any competitive glee.  But this time, it's also a decent-sized pump spell that grants lifelink.  That's very helpful when trading up.  And if you're connecting to the dome, it's a six-point swing.  Still, at three mana, it teeters at the threshold  of what demanding Spikes deem "playable."  So I remain undecided.

Cabel's Critique: PASS


Coat With Venom

Here is another trick that also brings Necrobite mind thanks to the "deathtouch until end of turn" clause.  We've seen this before at common, on the aforementioned black spells and way back in Lorwyn with Lace with Moonglove.  Again, neither card saw competitive play in Standard Pauper.  But those were three whole mana.  At a single black, this is as cheap as they come.  And with a +1/+2 boost tacked on to it, it might even get there.  On the other hand, this is Black we're talking about.  In this color, your removal is usually better when it can operate when your board is empty.  I hate to repeat myself, but this is neither a fail or a win until we see what it can do.  I'll note that I am pleased with WotC's design team for having essentially sliced an old bad card in twain the way they have with these first two entries in the black Dragons commons.

Cabel's Critique: PASS

Defeat

Now that's what I'm talking about!  Just kill the creature already, no board required, no strings attached.  Well, except for that little limitation on how big a dude you can kill off. The Standard Pauper format is always awash in small dudes.  This takes out every major threat in the Heroic decks before they become unmanageable, all the tokens produced in White and the Izzet control build, and even hits the most powerful creature in the format, Gary himself.  Add to this an elegant single-word name that was just waiting to see print, an attractive piece of artwork, and flavor text that appears to have been lifted from Sun Tzu's "Art of War" itself and it appears we have a win-

-er...

...this is a Sorcery.  Not an instant!  This should clearly have been an instant.  But it's not.  For no good reason.  Oh, the agony of Defeat!  Why, Wizards, why?  You were so close with this one.  So damn close it's not even funny.  Had this been given the correct card type, it would have been one of the best designed black cards at common ever printed in Magic's history.  But R&D and Mr. Rosewater want to have their "New World Order" conspiracy, and that, fellow Paupers, is why we can't have nice things.

So I take back all the nice things I had to say about this piece.  The printing of this at bad sorcery peed instead of useful instant is a slap in the face I refuse to forgive.  Y'know what did here, Wizards?  You defeated your own purpose and you failed your customers.

Cabel's Critique: FAIL

Duress

Now discard of this nature belongs at sorcery.  And it's nice that we have this back in the Standard Pauper arsenal after rotating out post M14.  My guess is that we are going to see more cards that are traditionally from Core Sets beign reprtined in expansion now that Cores are being phased out.  We are very familiar with how incredibly good this card has been and always will be.  In the current metagame, it's fantastic against Izzet Control, which runs nothing but noncreature spells.  But it's not really a new design.  This puts me on the fence.  I'll have to make up a new category of criticism for this...

Cabel's Critique: BOARD

Dutiful Attendant

Finally, we have a clear winner that I can declare as a win right off the bat.  This is plenty good on its face for modern-day black recursion effects stamped on to a creature (now that Gravedigger has been foolishly moved up in rarity...more "New World Order" nonsense).  As the good folks at the MagicGatheringStrat Show mentioned in their awesome Standard Pauper set review (watch it here...do it!) this exists alongside the new Exploit mechanic.  And it really is the perfect creature to Exploit.  I fully expect this to see some play.  Even if I'm wrong it doesn't make the cut, I still maintain it's a fantastic design complete with a name that does not tie it to Tarkir, so we may very well see this return in future sets.  This is Magic perfection in ink on cardboard.  Finally!

Cabel's Critique: WIN

Flatten

Speaking of "New World Order" conspiracy, this should further dispel the idea that any such thing exists at R&D.  Two sets after Khans gave us the terrible, awful, expensive Throttle - good only in Limited - we get a reduction in mana cost that this effect deserves.  And unlike the failure (the agony!) of Defeat, this is an instant.  As decent removal should be.  It may not see much play or be a staple, but it could easily prove itself in the format.  Regardless of whether it becomes a Standard Pauper staple or another forgotten spell, the design is still fantastic and meets my high standards.

Cabel's Critique: WIN

Foul-Tongue Shriek

Warning: I'm taking this foul-tongued stuff quite literally because I'm a grown-up who will exercise my right to cuss when it's appropriate, and this card name makes it so.  So here goes ...

Damn, bitch!  Don't fuck with any Orzhov Tokens decks after this shit drops!  Your ass better have some permission to stop this life-swinging house or Black is  going to have permission to fuck you up!

Forgive me, I had to :-)  But I mean what I say: this piece might enable a token strategy in black the way Impact Tremors is going to enable a red tokens deck.  And if the two cares join forces in a Rakdos Tokens build?  That might be Magical Christmasland thinking, but the potential is there.  So with such a potentially huge swing for only one black mana and a bad ass name and artwork to go with it, I can't help but give this a top-notch review.  And have my fun doing it!

Cabel's Critique: WIN

Gravepurge

Returning all the way from Dark Ascenion comes Gravepurge, which itself was a flavorful renaming of Lorwyn block's Foodbottom Feast.  One can use this as it's always been used: get one dude back instantly, or stack your top deck with a bunch of deceased critters and grab the most important one first.  In a Gray Merchant metagame, this can easily bring your deck back from the dead (just be careful when deciding which spells to Delve out of your yard when you cast your Treasure Cruise!).  Couple this with some killer dragon-style artwork from the ever-talented Nils Hamm, and I'm giving this a win even if it is a reprint.

Cabel's Critique: WIN

Hand of Silumgar

First let me get my hands around that pronunciation.  Sil.  Um. Gar.  Okay, got it. Next, let me wrap my head around why design space is begin wasted on functional reprints that have no impact on the Standard Pauper metagame in the first place.  This is a Child of Night that isn't even a Vampire.  Or any manner of undead for that matter.  It's just a Warrior, and Warriors are trained in the art of combat.  It's your Clerics, Shamans, and Witches that get trained in magic, not fighter class variants.  The flavor isn't there and neither is the application for the format.  This card can talk to the hand.

Cabel's Critique: FAIL

Kolaghan Skirmisher

Ever since Walking Corpse debuted and finally gave Black its Grizzly Bear (even if they didn't name it Grisly Bear, which would have been the best way to do things) the color seems to have been getting 2/2's for 1B with even more tacked on.  This one lets you Dash it in for an extra mana.  And then have to Dash it in again.  Once again, I'm in agreement with the crew at MagicGatheringStrat: the casting cost and Dash cost should have been flipped here.

Cabel's Critique:  FAIL




Marsh Hulk

What IS this?  "Vengeance is his sole purpose?"  I don't THINK so.  The sole purpose of this card is to be a bad card.  So that players can understand that bad cards exist, I suppose.  Which is a poor excuse I will always vehemently disagree with: bad cards exist so that Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro's stock-holders can get fat and rich for doing no work while down-on-their-luck fans who open this in their packs feel even worse about the cards life deals them, dammit.   That is disgusting.  Absolutely disgusting and fucking insulting.  So it's not just a mere fail.  Instead, I'm giving this a proper authoritative communist's verdict, with no merciful show trial required.

Cabel's Critique: PURGE!

Mind Rot

Here's another constantly reprinted card.  It's already available in M15, as it should be in a Core Set.  In an expansion, however, this card and its blue cousin, Divination, is just wasted design space.  Laziness on the part of R&D.  Whatsamatter, guys?  Couldn't come up with anything that happens if a Dragon card is discarded?  Couldn't reduce the cost in exchange for some life loss? Or anything else acceptable to Black's philosophy?  Couldn't wait until the new no-cores, all-blocks schedule to give this back after a brief absence at the very least?  If you ask me, it's the design and development teams that are suffering from rotting gray matter.

Cabel's Critique: FAIL


Qarsi Sadist

That's better.  This is a creative and flavorful fellow.  There are plenty of black one drops than can outlive their usefulness for the Sadist to exploit.  A four point swing for only half the mana is no joke and I've always liked it.  And if it's a Dutiful Attendant you are exploiting, you just got some black-as-hell value.  Not a bad piece o art, either, and a very black piece of flavor text that brings up some interesting philosophical issues on martyrdom in collectivism for me.  Well done, sirs (but don't think this sacrifice earns you any redemption from your previous failures).

Cabel's Critique:  WIN

Reckless Imp

Now a 2/2 flyer in black for only three mana is always good.  To hell with whether it can block or not.  That just isn't Black aggro's thing.  But the ability to start swinging in with it on turn two is gold.  I'm tempted to sneak this into my the Demonic Duel Deck.  It's just perfect for it.  Maybe in the future we'll see it get a slot in a Divine vs. Demonic 2.0 update.  For now, this Imp makes me a happy overlord.

Cabel's Critique:  WIN





Shambling Goblin

For all my unyielding criticism of WotC R&D, I think it's clear by now that I will not hesitate to praise them if they've correct past design flaws.  This is one such example.  And what a correction it is!  Back in the day, your Festering Goblin would place you in a quandary if the only creature to give -1/-1 to was on your side of the battlefield.  Not so any longer with this decaying little dude.  This is the closest we'll get to the awesome Fume Spitter from Scars of Mirrodin, and since Exploit is a mechanic, it might be just as well that you cannot just sacrifice it to get the removal any longer.  And those beady yellow eyes?  Well, now.  That's the best Zombie Goblin my boring brown eyes have ever seen.  Well done, Wizards!

Cabel's Critique:  WIN

Sibsig Icebreakers

First of all, I have to say this: do we really need card names that recall heavily-marketed, over-priced chewing gum that loses its flavor faster than 88 miles per hour?  Think before you name a card, guys.  Think, McFly, think!

Apart from that, 2/3's for three are not the worst thing in Standard Pauper, but they're also not the best.  Having to discard a card of your own means you'll have to be careful and cast this only when it's the last piece in your grip...unless, of course, you just need to toss one last land to can cast that Treasure Cruise at fully-charged Ancestral Recall power.  So aside from the strange name (can Zombies walk and chew gum at the same time?) I suppose I'll be a benevolent dictator here.

Cabel's Critique: WIN


Silumgar Butcher

Expensive Hill Giant is expensive.  But wait!  The Exploit ability on this makes up for it.  Unless you're playing this card wrong and Exploiting it to yourself.  If Throttle was bad at instant speed, then sorcery speed almost-Throttle is terrible.  But if your opponent has been playing around your 1/1 deathtouch rats and snakes or you've got that Black Cat lying about while the enemy is hanging on to his trump card and hoping his 3/3 will get there?  Then you can ruin his day the way only a Black mage can.  It may not be awesome.  But paired with that impaled djinn, I can give a good Vincent Price evil laugh while playing this card.

Cabel's Critique: WIN

Vulturous Aven

At long last, we come to the cream of the crop.  Vulturous Aven might well be the best card in the set out of any color, period.  As Gwyned over at Writer Adept has observed, this is a very high toughness for a black flying creature.  As for me, I was an instant fan of Sign in Blood when it debuted in M10 and I've been using as many copies as I can ever since.  I mainly loved the fact that it could go to your opponent's face to win the game if necessary.  The later variations on Sign (Read the Bones and Bitter Revelation, both also available in Standard Pauper at the moment) removed this ability.  Though Vulturous Aven doesn't give us the option of going straight to the dome, we do get ourselves a 2/3 with evasion.  Which is even better.  And huge!

Now your Sign in Blood (at the expense of a mere 1/1 you've got lying around) can end up doing a lot more than two damage.  How much?  Depends on how much removal you packed into your black deck.  Imagine if you draw enough to clear this Vulture's path and end up dealing all the damage you need to win the game, then the match, then the whole tournament?  This is extremely likely.  By no stretch of the imagination.  That's why you're going to see Vulturous Aven being played in Standard Pauper for as long as it's legal.  And that's why it's the best damn card in the whole damn set.

Cabel's Critique:  WIN!

Wandering Tombshell

Well, how do you expect to follow an act like Vulturous Aven?  Turtles all the way down, man.  If I had no knowledge of Bertrand Russell, I'd get no enjoyment out of this.  And that still doesn't compensate for awful statistics that have no competitive applications.  Or the wildly unattractive monochrome artwork.  Sorry to end on a low note, but this is nothing to write home about at all, so I'll write no more.

Cabel's Critique: FAIL

After all that, I have to conclude that the Black cards in Dragons of Tarkir are somewhat of a mixed bag.  We've got probably the worst cards in the set here.   But that Vulture makes up for it.  And when playing competitively in Standard Pauper, I don't need to win everything outright to be happy.  Breaking even works for me, and Black breaks even in this set.  Not too great, not too bad.

We're almost done with the most extensive - and hopefully entertaining - set review for the Standard Pauper metagame.  After a break for the rest of the weekend, I'll return with the Blues and the Whites to finish things off.  I hope you're enjoying the series and please don't hesitate to share your thoughts on how ridiculously long and awful it is down there in the comments :-)  Have a good weekend and good luck & have fun, especially it you're heading to a Pre-Release event!  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