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By: JXClaytor, Joshua Claytor
Dec 23 2011 2:11am
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You will have to accept my apologies this week.  I planned on revamping the format to this article from one that was gossip and news related to one that had a little bit of Magic strategy involved.  I still plan on making that change, but when I sat down to record some of my pauper games, I found that I had no idea how to work my recording program and really wanted to get a microphone again before I started to post videos.  With that, the dream of starting my mtgo collection again was put on hold.  I did however spend a little over twenty two dollars to buy a pauper deck and I've been messing around with that. 

I forgot how fun pauper is!  SpikeBoyM (Alex Ullman when he is big timing over at starcitygames.com) first introduced me to the format when I took over the site years ago and I played in a lot of Player Run Events, but the competition was just not there for me when I started to play pauper.  With the two man queue and daily events going on for the format, I decided to try it out again.  I surfed over to mtgonline.com and looked up the recent 4-0 lists and found one that I decided was the greatest thing since sliced bread (What is the greatest thing since sliced bread?  I've wondered that one for a while.  If I had a say I think that the greatest thing since 1928 would be the Internet, but whatever.) It is a blue black red control deck that uses Mystical Teachings and Forbidden Alchemy to find a lot of silver bullet cards for a wide variety of matchups.  I picked the deck up from mtgotraders.com for something like twenty two dollars (Pyroblast and Hydroblast took up most of the money in this deck.)  I played some games in the tournament practice room to get a feel for the deck and joined a Daily Event with visions of winning packs. 

I promptly went 0-2 drop. 

Pauper is hard.  I lost to the mirror match in round one.  We went to three games, and I forced game three after casting a turn four Ulamog's Crusher that went unanswered in game two.  Game three my opponent cast more Earth Rifts than I did and I could not stay in the game.  Round two I got crushed by White Weenie.  I had forgetten that cards like Benevolent Unicorn existed.  The sort of horse was problematic for me to say the least. 

Anyways let's take a look at the deck. 


Other stuff happened in the world of Magic recently.  There were some bannings (Players and cards!) some rules changes (and then unchanges!) and some set announcements!  (The last set of Innistrad block will be like Rise of the Eldrazi) 

Let's start off with the oldest news first.  Alex Bertoncini was politely asked to take an eighteen month vacation from Magic.  He was placed on the suspended players list after a long investigation and an article by Drew Levin that showed up on Ted Knutson's blog.  This article had video evidence of cheating at worst and sloppy play at best.  A twitterstorm happened soon afterwards and terms like witch hunt were thrown around by respected players of the game.  Starcitygames announced that they would be donating his prize to Child's Play after they retroactively created a policy to allow them to donate prizes won by players under an active investigation. 

I love the Starcitygames move, but believe it should have been in the policy to begin with.  Personally I am happy that I play a lot more MTGO than I do paper magic.  Cheating like this has no place in our game.  It cheapens the experience for those that play and it can ruin a lot of peoples enjoyment of slinging cards.  

Wild Nacatl and Punishing Fire were both banned in Modern.  Wild Nacatl will be viewed in the same light as Kird Ape in regards to bans I feel one day.  To me it does feel weird that it caught the ban.  Punishing Fire I believe had to go.  I'm not sure about Modern's future, but I hope it becomes a healthy format like Legacy.  A lot of kinks have to be worked out still, eventually everything will be worked out I just hope that a PTQ season does not get ruined because of it. 

The tournament penalty guidelines were changed recently, and I had a lot to say about them but apparently there are revisions to the tournament guidelines and everything has been reverted to the October 2011 IPG.  I'm a judge, I'm not a good judge, and this stuff confuses me.  For more information you can go here.

http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75842/28790499/January_2012_IPG_Revisions?pg=1

The third set of Innistrad Block was announced.  It's called Avacyn Restored.  It will be drafted by itself.  There will be no double faced cards.  It will be a large set.  The set releases in paper on May 6th 2012, and will more than likely come out on MTGO in the middle of November of the same year.  (It's a joke.)  

While I was writing this it was announced that there would be changes in the premier play part of Magic in 2012.  For this I want to say thank you Wizards of the Coast for listening to the players!  Thank you to the players that wrote in with complaints, concerns and solutions!  So what is changing?  Well for starters, it appears as if Planeswalker Points will not allow a qualification to the Pro Tour anymore.  That will of course start in May with Pro Tour Barcelona.  Competitive points will be split up to seasonal (which determine byes for Grand Prix events) and Yearly (which determine invites to the Magic World Cup Qualifiers.)  FNM Points still matter for the FNM Championship (I think this will be discontinued soon.  Just a hunch here.)  Professional points are important for the Pro Tour Players Club Level.  

Multipliers are changing for FNM (from three times to one!) Premium Tournaments (from three to one) and Public Events at Grand Prix (from five to three).  World Magic Cup Qualifiers have a multiplier of five.  

The World Magic Cup is the answer to the amount of people disappointed about losing the team competition from Worlds.  I think this is going to go great! 

There will be three World Magic Cup Qualifers per country.  The winner of each will be part of the World Cup team.

For more information (because let's face it this stuff is pretty new) go here.

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg%2Fdaily%2Fother%2F122311a

You can also check out what Helene Bergeot has to say about the changes here. 

www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx

Quick Hits. 

2012 Magic Online Championships have been announced.  The next Magic Online Championship will be held in 2013.  You can check that announcement here.
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/other/12202011c

Wizards also let you in on what you need to know about proxies.

http://www.wizards.com/WPN/News/Article.aspx?x=20111214_CounterfeitAnnouncement

Tweet of the Week

 
 
As a casual, non-competitive player, the new OP changes are still great purely from a fan's perspective.
 
 
The only thing I dislike about the announcement is the World Cup Qualifiers. They're three single-slot Nationals, which seem hard to fly to.

Obv major props to WotC, but also major props to everyone that wrote in and lent their voice. This was only possible because of you.

If you are going to discuss the changes to OP on twitter make sure you use the hashtag #mtgop

Ten things I think I think this week.

This is going to be a list of the ten cards that I consider my favorites of the year.  That means they were printed this year I reckon.

10.  Phyrexian Vatmother
9.  Jace, Memory Adept
8.  Midnight Haunting
7.  Animar, Soul of Elements
6.  Inkmoth Nexus
5.  Green Sun's Zenith
4.  Galvanic Juggernaut
3.  Forbidden Alchemy
2.  Beast Within
1.  Dungrove Elder 

Yep Galvanic Juggernaut is in my top ten.  It was my favorite card in my prerelease pool.  What were your favorite cards of the year?

With that said, I'm going to sign off for the night.  A lot of stuff happened so check out the links and share your thoughts with us! 

Thanks for reading! 

4 Comments

Welcome to pauper (again) :) by deluxeicoff at Fri, 12/23/2011 - 11:04
deluxeicoff's picture
4

Welcome to pauper (again) :) The "Big post" deck you mention is pretty strong, but I see it time-out as often as I see it win. Also, many think Capsize is a lock vs. non-island lands...it isn't obviously. Many a time a flashed back lavadart, fireblast, q.ranger etc..., can shut the post player off from their bouncing fun.

Are those cards seeing play by Paul Leicht at Fri, 12/23/2011 - 11:06
Paul Leicht's picture

Are those cards seeing play though? I love Q Rangers but it seems like one of those cards that was more great in the past than now. Is there a deck for it? Fireblast is great in gobs/rdw etc but not so much outside of pure red. Lavadart...is that even played?

Lavadart is played in some by ScionOfJustice at Fri, 12/23/2011 - 12:30
ScionOfJustice's picture
5

Lavadart is played in some storm builds.

The article itself by laughinman at Fri, 12/23/2011 - 14:43
laughinman's picture
5

was good, but the inrtoductionary pun was mindblowing.