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By: Malum, David Wills
Mar 25 2013 2:53am
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Hello there, here is a little bit of information about myself as the author of this article.  My name is David Wills, and I currently reside outside of Houston, Texas.  I started playing magic 20 some odd years ago, and two  years ago started playing MTGO.  Though I do not have a large budget for MTGO, I build up my collections through a buying and selling method, as well as enjoying a good player run events known as “PRE" in short.   I know there can be a lot of PREs to choose from but my current goal is to raise awareness about Peasant, a Pauper based format. 

    On MTGO my name is Malum.  If you think you have seen that name before it maybe be due to the events I host for both Peasant "PEZ", and Monday Pauper Daily Challenge "MPDC".  I am not a writer, and in fact I suck at writing. My lovely wife Jennifer will be helping me in this regard. But enough about me, let me direct you to the reason you are here reading this article today.

    This article is an introduction to the "PEZ" format, so do not expect all this in every article.  As for the future of this series, I hope to focus more on the differences between Peasant and Pauper as well as their similarities.  However I want you to know for now.

WHEN:
Registration officially opens at 7:30 EST, closing promptly at 8pm EST. Matches start shortly after.

 

 

Sunday night PEZ a nice way to round out the weekend. And so you know what is expected of PEZ 

 

 

DECK CONSTRUCTION
Peasant starts off much like Pauper's all-commons format, but with two exceptions:

  • Although most of the deck must be made of commons, Peasant allows 5 uncommons in the deck + sideboard. (So you can have 3 uncommons like Serra Angel in the main deck and 2 uncommons like Chill in the sideboard.) 
  • Unlike Pauper Magic which uses Online rarities, Peasant uses Paper-printed rarities as shown in Gatherer. Every card is legal at its lowest commonality of any printing online OR offline. So if you want to use Hypnotic Specter as one of your 5 uncommons that's acceptable, even though it was never an uncommon online. See here for all cards that have lower offline rarities than online.

That here is linked to Gatherer.

Now this may seem a bit odd, as I get constant questions about what is legal and what the rarity of certain cards.

Goblin Grenade ,   Is Common

Hymn to Tourach  Is Common

Library of Alexandria , Is Uncommon

Bazaar of Baghdad , Is Uncommon 

For a full list, you would need to check with Gatherer.com as it is a great resource. 

Now I know there are certain uncommons that are format breaking and to help keep Peasant fun and cost effective we have our own banned list.  

Banned Cards: 

The following cards are not allowed.

 As you can see all the cards banned in Pauper are banned in PEZ,  as well as a few select others.

Now you might be wondering what is the reason for playing in PEZ.  Well it is fun!  Also, there are prizes if you're into that kind of thing.

 

PRIZES
Top 4: The top 4 players receive gift certificates from MTGOTraders.com which may be used at your convenience.(In appreciation we encourage everyone to consider MTGOTraders whenever buying singles, and to put "Pez" in the shopping card field for "how did you hear about us?")
[list=1]

  • 7 credits
  • 4 credits
  • 2 credits
  • 2 credits(Players in the top 4 must ensure the host has their email in order to receive their MTGOTraders gift certificate.)

     


    5th - 8th: Players finishing 5-8 will be awarded cards from the host's supply (subject to availability).


    Door prize: The host may award a door prize to a random participant who plays through all swiss rounds but didn't make the top 8 cut.

 

 

 

MTGOTRADERS.COM  Love these guys give them all the love you can and then some they have helped the PRE community greatly their generosity makes so many free tournaments possible.  

 

I know now you are thinking how to I play in PEZ, well I am hoping you are thinking that.

 

REGISTRATION:
To register, log in to Gatherling and look for this event under the "PREREGISTER FOR EVENTS" section of the Player CP. Registration should be open no later than 7:30 EST. Gatherling will immediately confirm for you if you are registered. Do not be late however, it closes promptly at 8. If you think you may be late, check the site early to see if registration is open. Or try to contact the host. You must have a decklist in gatherling before the event begins in order to receive a pairing. Uncommons must be listed in your Comments section.

 

In game, type "/join Pez" in any window. It will open up the Pez chat room where you can see announcements and chat with other players. Then also /join Pez_results, which is where you will post the results of each match.

 

Please note that that is www.pdcmagic.com/gatherling not the other one.  

 

So what can you expect in a PEZ event?  Here are a couple of the decks for you to get an idea.

 

 

 

Goblins goblin grenade

 

Seems like a Pauper players' usual build until you get down to the Spells and Sideboard that is where the Uncommons are seen.  

Goblin Grenade  This card is high risk high reward and sadisteck took the reward.  This card is also Common for PEZ so that left the sideboard for some uncommon hate.  This is one of the most common cards you will see in PEZ that is not allowed in Pauper. 

Circle of Flame  This is aggro hate at its finest and 4 in the board is just brutal in the right match up.

Blood Knight  WW hate plain and simple 

  

Here the Uncommons frankly are not the stars, and that is fine in this case.  For as long as I have seen PEZ played traditional, Pauper decks have done well.  In fact we have had events won by decks that do not have a single uncommon.  However do not Expect this to always work out as you might get hit by a deck or card that simply wrecks standard pauper decks.

 Let's take a look at a deck that can not exist in Pauper. This deck did not make top 8 in the first event of the season however if you ever got to play it it can be a very fun lock on the game. 

 

Slide Astral Slide

Slide uses a lot of come into play effects combined with card draw and recursion... This deck Slobbers value.

Astral Slide  The heart of this deck.  This enables your control engines.  It also enables you to kill any token remove blockers and save your creatures from removal.  This card is a tool belt Batman would envy.  if you get two or three of these out and some decks won't be able to keep up with you.  

Eternal Witness  This card is a one of that just grabs anything you could want from the graveyard it sees a lot of modern play because it is just that good.

This deck is all about the uncommons.  It takes a little while to start jamming but it is really fun to play. 

Conclusion 

I hope this can shed some light on the Peasant format as a fun filled fringe format.  I will try and write this regularly and showcase the top deck and one special deck each week.  I will also work my hardest to provide interviews with the winners and try and add a video or two of match play.  Thanks for reading, and feel free to contact me or leave a comment.

 

9 Comments

Bazaar of Baghdad!! Good by CottonRhetoric at Mon, 03/25/2013 - 05:17
CottonRhetoric's picture

Bazaar of Baghdad!! Good thing Narcomoeba and Dread Return are also uncommon or that could get pretty nuts.

Hey Malum, welcome to the by Kumagoro42 at Mon, 03/25/2013 - 06:16
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Hey Malum, welcome to the writing side of PureMTGO!

You might want to check your formatting, though, at some point you switched to small font and you never came back (making this hard to read for miopic/lazy people like me). There's also issues with spacing and bullet listing. Oh well, practice makes perfect, right? :)

On the subject of Peasant, I just have a hard time with formats that the editor doesn't support. One thing is saying, "these 10 cards are banned", and you can look out for them; another is saying, "these 4,000 cards are allowed, these 8,000 aren't, and there's no automatic system to sort them out". I'd be driven crazy trying to figure out if my opponent is cheating, or if I'm cheating without even knowing it.
But if you need a signature to ask WotC to add a Peasant filter in the editor, you can count on me. I like the "5 star players" concept better than just the Silverblack pool.

Thank you by Malum at Mon, 03/25/2013 - 10:59
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Thanks for the Comment Cotton I know Dredge seems like it could be a breakout deck in the format though I have not seen it happen yet.

Thanks Kumagoro I do love your articles and a big supporter of Tribal Apocalypse. I did not even notice the font size change, that is something I will have to improve upon.

I wanted to say this on the case of possible cheating decks have to be registered before the event begins and the gatherling we use will not list the uncommons with the main deck instead placing them at the bottom. This always confuses new players a bit but it makes verifying for the host and cohost very easy also all decks are fully published after the event so everyone can see them. I have seen cases where people have come to me with concerns about an opponent but it is usually just a confusion of the Rarities we use.

A Peasant filter would be awesome, but we just got a great Standard Pauper filter I amnot gonna be greedy atleast until the new client comes out.

Didn't even know this format by howlett23 at Mon, 03/25/2013 - 17:35
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4

was still around, good reminder...just out of curiosity...why 5? Why not 4 or 8 or even 6 (2 sets of 3), etc. Is there something unique about 5, or was it just a random number or is it mathmatically based on percentage draws, etc.?

Good Question by Malum at Mon, 03/25/2013 - 18:55
Malum's picture

Honestly I do not know. I started as host in season 7 of Peasant And that is what had been used before. But I like it as it allows more then just one set of uncommons even if it is just a one off.

Ok by howlett23 at Tue, 03/26/2013 - 08:21
howlett23's picture

Thanks for the reply...I was just curious, no biggie. If my work/kids/class schedule ever loosens up, I'm going to try and make an event or two, thanks again for the article and decklists.

Looking forward to seeing you by Malum at Tue, 03/26/2013 - 09:06
Malum's picture

Looking forward to seeing you I understand schedule issues. Take care and good luck

Peasant by TheOrangeMitten at Mon, 04/01/2013 - 11:29
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Peasant has been around for a long time, much longer than pauper.

We were originally going to make PDC a Peasant Deck Challange, and that is what it was originally was posted as, but the fact we could not limit it down to 5 uncommons and have someone cheat as aforementioned by another poster. Peasant was growing in popularity as a fringe format at the time, but died out soon after I think because of some of the uncommons that people really disliked. This was right after darksteel came out, and skullclamp was everywhere, as was brainfreeze, and I think tendrils was starting to popup.

I suggested all commons, then we playtested it. It took a week or two before the other people involved in testing also agreed commons was easier logistically as well. Fecundity was also something in testing that appeared to be just bonkers.

Tharionwind looked up peasant in a thesaurus and then coined the format pauper, with Pauper's Deck Challenge.

I like the idea of Silverblack more than pauper, because of it is actually introducing alot more to a format. Most peasant decks are pauper decks, with some uncommons. Some new decks appear, though they are mostly combo decks I would imagine, but I haven't really looked into the peasant metagame, so my thought there could definitely be way off base.

Great Article by Flucus at Sun, 04/14/2013 - 19:59
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5

Thanks for featuring my deck Malum! :D

I'd just like to say that it's still being tweaked, and the sideboard has been changed quite a bit since that event. But it's a blast to play, and dueyutah hates it, so that's an extra bonus :P