niabock's picture
By: niabock, Derek Evanoff
Aug 10 2011 9:36am
5
Login to post comments
2480 views


 Welcome. Today I bring news of a really fun event happening this weekend. The PDC community has run many alternate events over the years. Sometimes as off-weeks in normal series events or as an entire series by itself (the now defunct ALTPDC). For many, these events are among the most fun of any player run events. One of the most interesting formats of these events is the Auction of the People. In the past, Wizards has run this format at the Magic Invitational allowing the winner to create a card and be featured in the cards art. The format works as follows:

  • A number of decks are created before the event. There is usually some theme or restriction imposed on the deck building process such as making the decks tribal, or using cards from each letter of the alphabet, or using cards all from the same artist.
  • There needs to be 1 more deck than the number of players. So if you have 16 players you would need 17 decks. If you have 32 players, instead of building 33 decks you could split the players into two pods and each would use the same 17 decks. 
  • At the start of the event, a player nominates a deck to put up for auction.
  • Players bid starting hand size and starting life total to win the right to play the deck in the event. Bidding starts at 8 cards / 25 life given to the person who nominated the deck. Cards are worth more than life, so a bid of 6 cards / 23 life is higher than a bid of 7 cards / 3 life. The highest possible bid is 0 cards / 1 life. Bidding continues until no one else bids. The highest bid 'wins' the deck.
  • At this point another deck is selected and the process repeats until everyone has a deck.
  • Once everyone has a deck, the players assemble the decks and the event plays out like a normal tournament except each player starts each game with the life total and hand size that they bid.

PDC has run a number of auctions over the years. In June 2010, ALTPDC ran an auction where the decks had to contain at least 1 card from every set Invasion up to Rise of the Eldrazi. That's 32 different sets. Deck building was definitely a challenge, as some of those sets would just have nothing to offer the archetype you were trying to build. Another auction was held for the ALTPDC season 5 championships. The TOP8 was an auction using previous winning decks from that season. I actually won that event with an unusual deck earning this sweet trophy:

The deck was from a pauper core set constructed event. Yes, it played a full 4 copies of Sacred Nectar. Strangely, no one wanted to bid the deck away from me.

A sub-type to the Auction of the People format is the Millar Auction. The Millar Auction, instead of having players submit decks based on some criteria, takes a playset of each common in a set and builds decks out of them. You can build 60 card decks and end up with 13 decks or build 40 card decks and end up with 17 decks. Every card has to be used 4 times and cannot be used more than 4 times. The goal when building the decks is to make all the decks playable but vary in power level from very good to mediocre. The varying power levels should be balanced by the auction process. The better decks should receive more bids and thus have a starting handicap vs the mediocre decks that will get less bids. 

Auction Tips

So hopefully you now have an idea of what the Auction format is. I have played in several of these events and have picked up a few pointers I'd like to share. These are just my opinions and how I approach the auction process.

#1 Come Prepared - At the very least, look over the decks that will be put up for auction. Pick out 4-5 that you think you would like to play. Do not pick all the highest powered ones. You want to pick 1 or 2 of the weaker ones that may play well with a large starting hand. If you have more time, playtest several of the decks with varying hand sizes. See how low you think you could go and still feel the deck would function well. In a previous auction, I playtested an affinity deck that was very good with a 5 card hand and ran decently with a 4 card hand. Testing showed that going to 3 cards just wasn't an option. I did bid all the way down to 4 cards on that deck but lost to someone who went down to 3. As I predicted, it didn't work out too well for them. If you have the time to test you can find the breaking points of the better decks and know when to call it quits when bidding.

#2 Bidding - When bidding, watch how much you up the bid by. Losing a few starting life is not that big of a deal. Losing cards is. I've seen far too often people will take a bid at 7cards/20life and jump down to 6cards/25 life. Bid off more life first. When you start approaching 10 life, maybe then think about moving down a card. Remember, the odds that you'll have to mulligan go up the fewer cards you start with. For most decks, dropping to 5 cards is the lowest you'll want to go. For your life total, you'll want to look at how much burn is in some of the decks as well as how quickly you'll be able to block or remove attackers to see how low you can bid your life down. In some decks it's possible to bid your life low, between 5 and 10, whereas in some slower decks you'll need 15+ to even have a chance.

#3 The Last Bidder - The last person to receive a deck gets the choice between the last two remaining decks with a bid of 8 cards / 25 life. While it is a bonus to get the lowest bid, you should also be getting one of the weakest two decks. Even though the decks are weaker, 8 card starting hands should not be under-estimated. You will rarely have to mulligan and with 25 life you have a nice cushion to buy yourself time. Because of this people will often try to get this last bidder spot. The problem when attempting to do this though is you'll let the last few decks before the end go very cheap. Essentially, giving those people before you really good deals on decks that are better than yours. You should weigh the current bid vs waiting for the last spot. Often taking a slightly stronger deck, even at 7 cards will be better than taking the weaker one at 8.

#4 Creature Count - This will obviously vary by the chosen deck requirements, but for Millar often choosing a deck that plays a lot of creatures will increase your chances of doing well. Removal is often sparse amongst the decks, so being able to simply overwhelm your opponent is a viable way to beat the better decks. Take note of how many creatures are in each deck and also how many have some type of evasion.

The Pauper M12 Millar Auction Event

Sunday, August 14th ALTPDC will be holding a Pauper M12 Millar Auction event in /join PDC at 1:00pm EST/6:00pm GMT. Make sure to show up early or at least on time. Unlike some events, once the auctions start you will not be allowed to join late. Don't worry if you don't have all the M12 cards yet. Cards will be loaned out as needed for this event. Just be a stand-up person and return the borrowed cards at the end of the event.

You can view all 17 decklists here and there is a link at the bottom to download all the deck files so you don't have to assemble them by hand. Take a look through the decks and pick out a few you'd like to play. The actual number of decks used will vary by attendance, which is why it is a good idea to pick out several. I have went through the list and without doing any playtesting, here is my current Top 5 + sleeper pick:

Top 5

  1. Griffindor!
  2. Bloodthirst
  3. Let Me Tap That
  4. The Rock
  5. Quack

Sleeper

  1. Mill U

One last note. This always comes up at every auction event so I'd thought I'd add it in here. To make it so you can set your starting hand and life totals you just need to check the "Allow Starting Handicaps" box above "Allow Watchers". At the start of the game, it will ask each player to select their starting hand size and starting life using the up/down arrows similar to the ones you get when casting X spells.

That is all for me. The past Pauper Millar events have been really great so I hope you'll consider attending. If you have any questions just let me know.

- Nia

2 Comments

Good article. I will try to by victorBike at Thu, 08/11/2011 - 03:09
victorBike's picture
5

Good article. I will try to take part on the event on saturday afternoon and never played auction...you have resolved some questions that i had in my head ;)

Sunday Victor :) by JMason at Thu, 08/11/2011 - 11:32
JMason's picture

Sunday Victor :)