I forgot to add. Let's not forget, if you get taken under 1 life while platinum angel is in play, if platinum angel gets removed in any way (bounced, exiled, destroyed), you lose.

On the other hand, sphinx stops most rushes dead in their track, and each turn they let it stay in play is another 6 life buffer for you. That 6 life buffer stays with you even after the sphinx is removed (and it's a bit more difficult to remove than platinum angel.

I've actually stopped a rush by a dredge deck with sphinx alone (and the ancient grudges/ingot chewers couldn't do a thing about it). Most might think that dredge deals too much damage even for sphinx to defend and assault against, but dredge players I've faced were often far more conservative the 2nd and 3rd game (worried about turn 0 leylines, or ravenous trap, extirpate, tormod's, etc, so they sideboard defensively and take what normally would be slower/suboptimal hands, sans bazaar even, even when i don't have my gravehate in hand and only bluff to have it).

llanowar sentinals is my favorite pauper creature, they are quite good, and 3 toughness blocks most things and lives

If you are interested in 100Singleton coverage I would advise you to got to mtgoacademy.com

To be a bit more constructive, I'd encourage checking out the old articles on this site for Kaleidoscope (admittedly a dead format now); not only did they give a progressive sense for the format and how it evolved over time, but they had more cogent, format-specific explanations of why certain cards are good (e.g., Oversoul having protection from essentially all the removal in the format) and a lot of analysis of the specific decks that were winning PEs.

Well, in perspective, when he was let go the client had about 800 or 900 players peak on V3, whereas V2 had 2000+ players before the change.

V3 now has 2200+ peak players during non-release times, and like 3000-ish during releases.
It's safe to say that if V2 was making money at 2200 players that V3 should be able to at least match that at 3000 players. I hope anyway.

yes stupid independent minded fingers left out a few letters there. 'isn't online' was what was intended.

the set was Urza's Destiny. Just one of many reasons the whole cycle was considered ridiculously broken.

There's nothing too lacking in the format itself. I just don't like how everyone plays the same cards (for the bulk) because of how few cards there are. I'm not too passionate about the format but I did spend a good amount of time thinking about how to enter the format so I just shared some of my findings. It's not a terribly fun format to play because of how mid-ranged decks go into attrition mode easily (making it very tiring to play out).

I first started out just throwing 5c cards with a ton of multicolored lands and moved into building around archetypes such as jund where I slowly got the gist of how the format works.

My main objective of this article was to show how to approach the format rather than looking at the cards too specifically because most people know more or less how standard rolls. To reiterate, the way to approach the format is to identify the threats and removals and design decks specifically to play effectively against and around them because they greatly define the format.

This contrasts greatly to how one would make a deck in standard where you make a consistent deck to do something. That doesn't work in this format unless you go for the more aggressive route and throw in creatures that beatdown fast.
Most decks that people play tend to be slow (I think I need to clarify the word slow here. Decks in this format goldfish to turn 7-9 so that's much slower than decks in other formats) because they need time to setup the mana base. I guess the slow/fast thing needs to be supplemented by the proportion of std singleton decks which is about 1 fast deck to 5 slow decks.

Color combination is the best classification I can give because of how decks have yet to settle down into their final form. Although everyone plays the same cards (the good ones), there is quite a big room for customization. I also need to say that 4-5 colored decks and shard decks make a majority of the metagame.

Additionally, mono-colored decks are not too fantastic because of the lack of cards available for them (since alara reborn was all gold and a ton of cards in the other alara sets are also gold).

In the end, most interpretation of what is good or threatening to people varies with each people which is the reason for varying lists of what people play, even for the same archetype after excluding the main skeleton. There is room for customization according to how one values the cards in the format.

Jund is a living example of this. Various people play with various styles. Some more aggressive builds run Madrush cyclops and shambling remains (which adds pressure but not speed to games), some slower decks run ant queen or some hydras. Doom blade, earthquake or even deathmark can be found in some maindecks even though they can potentially be blank cards. It's very difficult to say one should do this/that at this point in time. This article has a bunch of cards that one might want to take note of when making a deck.

Unfortunately, most standard lists don't translate well into standard singleton so they have to be made from a color based skeleton and filled up from the inside. There aren't that many cards to choose from but there is definitely enough cards to make what you want (to some extent).

I'll try to do another one in time, with games and analysis. Thanx for the feedback.

Actually, according to one singleton op I played who gets it out consistently through tutors, Rhystic Study, is not as helpful as he had hoped it would be often just acting as a non-selective icy on a mana source. Replenish, seems like it would be good. (Pretty sure it is online though. :))

Very good post, thanks a lot.

I have to agree with Mr. Leicht that this article felt lacking in several spots. I've actually considered dipping my toe into Standard Singleton, but sadly this article didn't really tell me anything useful about the format one way or the other, didn't tell me how Singleton really differs from normal Standard, and didn't even say anything about 'regular' Standard that hasn't been said a dozen times over by now. A few cherrypicked examples:

'Because of the small card pool, the number of possible archetypes is very limited.
Here are the common types of decks you will encounter: 4/5 colored decks, 3c Shard-based decks, 2c allied colored decks, Mono colored decks'

One, that virtually exhausts the possibilities anyway (the only other color possibilities are 2- and 3-color non-allied decks) so it's not terribly informative; and two, those aren't archetypes at all, they're just color combinations. Jund is drastically different from Esper or Grixis control, U/W control is drastically different from G/W aggro, and yet that breakdown lumps them together (into 3c and 2c decks, respectively).

'Decks in this format go two ways: either fast or slow.'

Again, this is a statement that looks self-evident (isn't a deck that isn't fast slow almost by definition?), but then just two paragraphs later you even contradict yourself! 'Most people play mid-ranged decks...' Wouldn't those be the decks that are neither fast nor slow?

'Needless to say, the most popular deck is Jund, coming from standard's point of view that it is the best deck around'

I already know that Bloodbraid Elf is a great spell, but that's a moot point here. How does Jund change in a format where instead of eight powerful Cascade spells in your deck and nearly two dozen two-for-ones, suddenly you only have two cascaders and a small handful of card advantage spells? What cards that don't make the cut in normal non-singleton Jund suddenly become crucial to fill out the deck's slots? These seem like they'd be the critical questions for anyone looking at exploring Singleton either by porting their favorite Std deck to it or otherwise, but this article doesn't even touch on them.

And finally, by far the most important:

'I hate the format but you might not.'

If you actively dislike the format that much, then feel free to write a guide about what's wrong with Standard Singleton, what you feel like it needs, what you'd recommend instead; but why are you trying to give us a guide to a format that you hate? Write articles about things you're passionate about!

fascinating.... an interview all to do with something that is long gone. who cares.

half of it i didnt understand. you have annoyed me and now i add your name to my list of people i dont like