On the Monday before the 31st, I decided I wanted to play in the Weekend Pauper Challenge. I had never played in a Premier Event before, and I hoped that a slightly smaller one might be more enjoyable for my first time. I was planning to play Mono Black Control, as this was the only deck I had built, but when I saw Doctor Anime's last article, and had a look at his Dead Dog list, I fell in love. I immediately built the deck and took it for a spin in a few 2 mans to get a feel for it. It just kept on winning. My record with it over the course of just one day was 12-3, and between the day before the PE, the day of, and the day after, my rating went up 163 points (and it wasn't all that low to begin with). The deck is just so absurdly powerful and consistent, that it feels like it can never lose. For those who haven't seen the list, here it is:

Dead Dog

Creatures  4 Basking Rootwalla  4 Wild Mongrel  3 Gathan Raiders  2 Brain Gorgers  2 Gorgon Recluse  3 Festercreep  4 Putrid Leech  4 Grave Scrabbler  4 Golgari Brownscale  4 Vampire Hounds  34 cards Other Spells  4 Tortured Existence  4 cards

Lands  2 Golgari Rot Farm  9 Swamp  7 Forest  4 Terramorphic Expanse  22 cards Sideboard  1 Festercreep  3 Stinkweed Imp  4 Duress  3 Okiba-Gang Shinobi  4 Augur of Skulls   15 cards

 (The decklist and image are courtesy of Doctor Anime's article which you can find here: http://puremtgo.com/articles/pauper-times-3-choosing-right-tools-part-1#comment-18590)

I'll be writing an article later to teach you more about the deck, but for this one, it's a tournament report for the Weekend Challenge, to show you how well positioned the deck is for the current metagame and to give you a feel for the different matchups, and of course, for my breathtaking color commentary.

Ready? Fight!

Round 1 vs. fearNfire with Esper Control

Dead Dog doesn't lose to control. Period. The games were not even close, as my guys were too big to Agony Warp and too big to block. He drowned under the horde of creatures.

Round 2 vs. dropyghost with UG Storm

This deck was, shall we say, suboptimal. in the first game he did nothing but play lands, all of which produced Blue, so I put him on some sort of control before I bashed him. In game 2 I got to see his combo, which involved putting Fertile Ground on his Simic Growth Chamber and imprinting Psychic Puppetry on as many Arcane spells as he could play to generate mana. The chain ended with double Grapeshot, but because of the higher cost of his spells compared to a normal Storm deck, he only put me to 4 and I cracked back for the win. Honestly, if you're playing a deck that has the same weaknesses as Storm, but is just worse, why not play traditional Storm?

+ = Just not good enough

Round 3 vs. onlyrunverynoob with G/B control

This was effectively a mirror match, as he was playing the slower build of Dead Dog from Doctor Anime's 2nd Pauper article. I think that matchup is pretty much unwinnable for me, as I can never kill him before he sets up a good sized defense, and then he starts recurring Penumbra Spider with Warren Pilferers and it was all over.

Round 4 vs. MakingSmartPlays with U/B Control 

See Round 1. He put up a brief fight with 2x Grim Harvest returning Ravenous Rats and Chittering Rats, but because of my turn 1 Tortured Existence accompanied by the 3 Grave Scrabblers I drew, this was still one sided.

Round 5 vs. Houzen with White Weenie

Houzen told me it was also his first time playing in a Pauper event, so this match would be "THE CLASH OF THE NOOOBS!!!" (that's not meant in any way to be a slight on Houzen. He was both courteous and skilled during the match and was certainly not of any lower skill level than my other opponents on the day). We traded the first two, and in the third, he got a nice draw, but for the fact that he only had one land. He drew a Secluded Steppe on his third turn, so he wasn't too far behind, especially due to his double Akrasan Squire draw. Thankfully, I found a Festercreep and was able to wipe his board while beating with Wild Mongrel and Gathan Raiders. He tried to recover with Stormfront Pegasus and Kor Skyfisher, but both of my creatures were too big for him to block, and I turned my guys sideway to take the win. 

Round 6 vs. Topbossultra with UW Blink Control

More control! More! More! As with the other matches, this one was not particularly close. He was able to hold me off in on e game with double Deft Duelist, but I eventually had enough cards in my hand to start swinging with Wild Mongrel, and built up to a huge alpha strike to take it.

5-1! I'm in! I'm in! Needless to say, I was very excited to have done so well in my first real Pauper tournament, but I still had another 3 (hopefully) rounds of top 8 in front of me.

Top 8 vs. Deluxeicoff with White Weenie

This was the closest match I've ever played. We traded the early games again, my win coming off of a fast start that just overpowered him, and his from doing what White Weenie does, play dudes and smash face. The last game came down to a stalemate situation: me with a Mongrel, Stinkweed Imp and 3x Grave Scrabbler, him with a Shade of Trokair and Razor Golem, with more than 5 lands untapped. I swung with everything, hoping that I would force enough damage through to take the game in the air with Stinky. All went according to plan, but he topdecked a Kor Skyfisher that was able to delay me for a turn by trading with the imp. After Dredging the Imp and replaying it, he was on 4 with only a Shade in play. I found a chumpblocker to allow me to swing with the Imp and went in. After 2 turns, he found another flier to trade with the Imp again. I was forced to dredge it back again for fear of dying to a massive Shade, but by the time I did, I was down to only 2 cards left in my library, due to the dredging of the Stinkweed Imps and Golgari Brownscales throughout the game to stay alive, and found myself one attack step short. This was a really great match, and could have gone either way up until the very end. Deluxeicoff played very well, going on the defensive to try and make me deck rather than trying to reduce my life total. Deluxeicoff also published on article on this site about his tournament, which you can find here: http://puremtgo.com/articles/pious-pauper. The article is very well written and I suggest you check it out if you want to hear more about this tournament. 

"Fair is foul and foul is fair. Hover through the fog and filthy air."

Deluxeicoff ended up losing in the top 4 to Storm, which ended up taking both of the top 2 slots. The full top 8 was:

1 Dead Dog (baldr7 aka me)

1 G/B Control (onlyrunverynoob)

1 White Weenie (deluxeicoff)

 2 Storm (kered and Papa_DZEN)

2 U/W Control (Anathik and Rancid) 

1 U/B Control (Shadow_Prince)

And that's the report! I strongly urge you to check out any future Pauper Challenges you have the opportunity to play in, as they are both fun, and have a friendlier atmosphere than many of the larger Standard tournaments online. Across the whole day, I only had one person whine to me, ad that was only about their luck, not criticizing me or my deck.

Huge props to Bubblewrap, a friend who helped me throughout the entire tournament by scouting out the field. I couldn't have made it to the top 8 without him. And of course Doctor Anime, who created the deck and therefore deserves a huge portion of the honor behind the top 8.

Thanks to everyone for reading, and I hope you try and catch my next article, which will be about the strategy and gameplay behind the Dead Dog, to teach you how to pilot the deck for yourself.