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By: PiDave, Dave
Mar 23 2011 10:12am
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Hi everyone, welcome back to the usual MPDC Metagame update! I hope you're enjoying reading this series as much as I'm enjoying writing it. If you're a veteran Pauper player you should know about the events I'm babbling about; if you're not, well, I can point you (as usual) to the MPDC Season 12 Master Document and the MPDC Player Primer, two excellent writings from our beloved host, gwyned.

Out of the intro, on with this week's results:

Gatherling Entry -- Winning deck thread on pdcmagic.com -- Buy winning deck on mtgotraders.com

Bant Tokens are swarming everywhere: they take the 1st place, the 2nd place as well as two Top8 spots. This deck is practically choking the metagame, contributing to the massive 87,5% presence of Aggro decks. The most impressive thing about the Bant list is that it actually lost two consecutive matches in the swiss rounds to SuperGrooveRock's 4CC variant, the only control deck to reach Top8. People seem to have forgotten the absolute predominance of the past season's Control decks or maybe they are so tired to see 4CC and Esper around that the Tokens are actually a gust of fresh air. After what I witnessed last night I tend towards another hypothesis: people are trying to explore other decks because they're tired of both the Aggro and the Control decks. And maybe this is why we find two interesting decks in the Top4: the first one is the very same UG Infect that jeffdmk piloted to 2nd place last week and the second is kakoiku's latest brew, an amazing GRW Ramp deck that gets this week's spotlight because it's made of pure awesome:

 

 

 

Snow White and the Seven Giants
Top 4 by kakoiku in MPDC 12.03 (4-2)
Creatures
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Wildheart Invoker
3 Dawnglare Invoker
3 Shatterskull Giant
2 Sylvan Ranger
16 cards

Other Spells
4 Ogre Resister
4 Tangle Mantis
4 Viridian Emissary
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Prophetic Prism
4 Staggershock
12 cards
Lands
8 Forest
4 Evolving Wilds
3 Mountain
2 Plains
2 Smoldering Spires
1 Swamp
20 cards

Dawnglare Invoker

 

 

The name is also awesome. It basically is a "ramp" deck: Llanowar Elves, Viridian Emissary and Sylvan Ranger provide the mana boost in the early game; the mana is then funneled into the absolutely unusual activation costs of Wildheart Invoker and Dawnglare Invoker; the two Invokers pave the way for an impressive alpha strike finalized by Tangle Mantis, Ogre Resister and Shatterskull Giant.

The deck includes efficient removal tools like Lightning Bolt and the perfect anti-hawk solution, Staggershock. Prophetic Prism is here to fix the mana and, since it auto-replaces itself when cast, to provide a little Card Advantage to the deck (although, with the lack of Kor Skyfisher it will serve this purpose just once per game).

Smoldering Spires is another pretty unusual choice that blends well with the theme of the deck. Talking about the mana base, let's take a graphical look at it:

 

Oddly enough for a ramp deck, the curve appears to stop at 4 Converted Casting Cost; however, since the activation cost of the two Invokers is the real objective of the ramp it should actually end at 8. Quoting kakoiku's from his own comments on the deck's Gatherling entry, "the mana base is very tight". Even with all the land fetching and mana producing creatures the deck only has 20 lands (!) and that alone is a marvel of "manabase engineering". I know I'd probably be mana-hosed 4 games out of 5 if I ever tried to run 20 lands in a tri-colored deck. Very impressive.

The sideboard is an interesting mix of spot removal (Burst Lightning), artifact hate (Manic Vandal), alpha-strike prevention (Fog) and the (again) unusual but probably most efficient anti-Squadron Hawk removal: Wrap in Flames. A lone Shatterskull Giant closes the lot, just in case some more brawn is needed.

After three weeks the trend graphs start looking like actual graphs and not just a dot or a straight line:

As you can see Bant Tokens have a firm grasp of the lead with 3 consecutive best placements; however, since its usage is on the rise, the combined performance is actually degrading. I know this might look odd but that's exactly what I had in mind when I thought about the formulas to use on the graphs: a deck should not be able to take the lead on the others just by sheer force of numbers.

It's all about Quality vs. Quantity.

Normally I would end the article at this point, and the last sentence feels indeed appropriate for my usual closure. Anyway, this week I actually entered the tournament with my pet deck (UW Control, you can check it out on its gatherling page) and almost worked my way to the Top8. Almost. Let me tell you how it went from my point of view:

Round 1, vs. xcaliburx with RB Kiln Fiend

Game 1

I'm extremely nervous, like a little girl to his first day of school, but the first game starts well with a decent opening hand. He drops a turn 2 Kiln Fiend that meets my first Journey to Nowhere, then I proceed to cast enough threats to go past his removal defenses, wary to play too many Squadron Hawks at once and keeping always enough mana up for the counterspells (bluffed or real, the effect is almost the same). I counter a Sign in Blood and since he's out of answers the game ends after some turns with a Squadron Hawk and Calcite Snapper barrage. At the end I still had a handful of answer in my grip. Way to go!

Game 2

I start with a mulligan to 5 (first hand is a six-lander, the second a one-lander). Hard start, but I have a nice opening hand with all my colors, one Journey to Nowhere and a promising Sea Gate Oracle. He drops again a turn 2 Kiln Fiend which meets again my semi-removal). I draw a land and follow with the Oracle that shows me a much-needed Squadron Hawk. He fails to play anything for a couple turn and I reach the ideal position with 3 mana up for counterspells and enough to cast a Hawk each turn. I beat him down with my creatures until he removes almost all of them. I draw a Kor Skyfisher and cast him with Dispel backup. He Doom Blades the flying Kor but meets my backup and the flyer sticks. Next turn he tries to Searing Blaze it but I disagree with a Stoic Rebuttal. I Foresee into another Skyfisher and another Foresee, drop the bird and still beat him down. With the second Foresee I get a Calcite Snapper and another removal. I close the game a couple of turns later, still with a handful of answers.

Matches 1-0, Games 2-0

Round 2, vs. fliebana with WUR Control

Game 1

This is a difficult matchup, a war of attrition to the first resolved Foresee. I manage to counter 3 of his own and then proceed to drop one of mine to get ahead in the game. We trade a couple of turtles but I never really lose tempo and I manage to seal the game with my Hawks.

Game 2

The second game starts pretty much like the first one, with a lot of land-go turns that become soon enough something like the namesake caw-go. We trade creatures, hawk for a hawk, turtle for a turtle, but in the end I land a couple of Foresees and dig for enough critters to beat him down while overwhelming his removal with sheer numbers and counterspells. It was a very good, very challenging game.

Matches 2-0, Games 4-0

Round 3, vs. jeffdmk with UG Infect

Game 1

The worst matchup ever. My deck is too slow, his deck is too explosive. I lose the first game in a few turns to his infectious creatures without ever having a chance to block him out of his game with counters and we move on to...

Game 2

I really have no sideboard option against UG Infect. I totally forgot to take this deck into account when planning the sideboard so I ended up including two Divine Offerings instead of two simple Unsummons in my list. However he's totally mana screwed and never sees any Island for the whole game. I somehow manage to resist to his green creatures and I claim the game for the tie.

Game 3

I should post a video about this one: Turn 1 Island, Turn 2 Forest, tap out to drop Blight Mamba, Turn 3 Forest then Distortion Strike. I decide to let it resolve, counting on a kicked Vines of Vastwood for 5 poison counters. Big mistake: he has TWO Groundswell and I'm toast.

Matches 2-1, Games 4-2

Round 4, vs. Griisu with Boros Bombardment

Game 1

The first game is very close, I remember a very long, very close first game that I lost to the best topdeck after quite the struggle. I was beginning to feel very tired at this point and my memories are a little too blurry.

Game 2

Another long game, it went on for 15+ minutes. I was behind for the most part of it...I remember countering at least 3 of his Kor Hookmaster to prevent his flyers to reach me while I had my defenses up thanks to the usual Hawks and Skyfishers. I managed to bring it to the late game where, with a good amount of card advantage (thank you (Sea Gate Oracle), thank you Foresee), I finally have the critical mass to start chipping away at his lifepoints with Kor Skyfishers and (Calcite Snapper)s. It ends after 20 turns, with me having just 3 and a half minutes on the clock for game 3. Oh well.

Game 3

3 and a half minutes of my deck going berserk in pure aggro mode. I sided out all of my counterspells and put in all of my creatures. It didn't work, but it was kinda fun.

Matches 2-2, Games 5-4

I end up in 11th position with a pretty decent performance considering my long absence from the competitive playground. I really love my deck, I choose UW control because I think it has a chance against the dreaded Bant Tokens and the other control decks (4CC, Esper). Anyway, I never crossed path with them so we'll probably never know: this comeback was kind of a one-shot thing.

And on this bombshell, I'm out!
Until next time!
- Dave

 

2 Comments

even though I'm not able to by mootown2 at Thu, 03/24/2011 - 02:47
mootown2's picture

even though I'm not able to make it to the tournaments, I enjoy keeping up with the idea of "standard pauper" so thanks for the articles

help a wannabe out - why is there a lone swamp in a deck where I don't see any need for black mana?

Thanks for your feedback! by PiDave at Thu, 03/24/2011 - 02:57
PiDave's picture

Thanks for your feedback! :)

About the single swamp: I really don't know. Maybe it was in to activate a Nihil Spellbomb that was in the sideboard...Or maybe even to bluff some black removal after fetching it with Emissary or Ranger.

P.S. @Everyone:
Sorry for mixed font thing, I'm sure I misclicked something when I submitted the article. I usually work directly in HTML but had to make a few corrections with the rich-text editor at the last moment. :S