Nice article. I always thought that this site should provide links that put all of the cards in a shopping cart if the reader ever saw a decklist and wanted to buy it.
I'm not sure if it's just my bad luck but every time I've tested this deck, I come against other white decks, making Sunlance useless. Wouldn't Unmake or Temporal Isolation be better?
You know, I wasn't gonna post back b/c TheDwarf's response was acceptable to me. They are fine - however there are some "problems" I have with the lists.
For example, MBC has only 3 Crypt Rats, Teachings running only 3 of its namesake card, and Affinity (which is going for the combo-kill since 4 Rush of Knowledge) has only 3 Disciple of the Vault. GSK - Sign in Blood seems to work in theory, but it doesn't work in actual play. Those are just a few of the misgivings I have about the lists presented. But however, since the focus of the article is NOT about how to properly build a Pauper deck and rather, just sample decks of archetypes found within Pauper and the "relative" cost of building them, I'm "fine" with the builds since TheDwarf adequately responded that some were from top eight, testing partners and some adjusted for budget builds.
Interesting read, and I like the idea of replacements you provided. Some of these are top eight list, but some either aren't competitive or haven't been competitive in a very long time. Check out www.pdcmagic.com they list each week top deck in there events, and I believe they also track the competitive events as well in there forum.
Sure, some of the best decks out there have really expensive pricetags, but just putting money into your deck doesn't make it great.
I think when you're buying or trading for cards, you really need to look at the splash impact of those cards.
For instance Sword of Fire and Ice and Sword of Light and Shadow are currently selling for $7.50 and $5.50. Together that may seem like a pretty large investment for only two cards but adding those two expensive cards allows you to play several cheap cards in your deck as well.
The swords significantly boost the strength of elves, soldiers, or goblins which are all comprised of a couple of $2 cards and 10-25 dirt cheap commons and uncommons. Also buying the swords allows you to play Steelshaper's Gift, Stonehewer Giant, Godo, and Empyrial Plate without too much problem.
Compare that to buying a Baneslayer Angel. The only cards that the angel really improves are creature search cards which are already fairly expensive (Eladamri's Call). With the angel you can't really spread the cost out over several cards in your deck. Angel is high priced, but it doesn't help fill out your deck the way the swords do.
Another example is with dual lands. I think you can make a very strong mana base for a 5-color green deck using only 2 fetches, 4 duals and a Bosk. (Windswept Heath, Wooded Foothills, Tropical Island, Bayou, Savannah, Taiga, and Murmuring Bosk.) (I know, that's still about $90. However that's still a lot better than all the fetches and all the duals and all the Ravnica Duals.)
The trick is then you can use all of the super cheap forest cyclers and forest search cards (Valley Rannet, Three Visits, Nature's Lore, Wood Elves, Yavimaya Dryad, etc) AND you can take advantage of all the forests in your deck with more dirt cheap cards like Reach of Branches, Battlewood Oak, Blanchwood Armor, Scryb Ranger Treefolk Harbinger, etc....
The point is that the cost to benefit ratio of a given money rare is much more than simply the price of the card.
In fact, I think I'm going to write an article about that....
Top 8 lists. Test partners. And some are added just because they are more "budget". Just point the one that you don't like and more recent, optimal build. If it's better than some of the decks that I post as example I'll change it.
First, why are you calling Pauper "MTGO only format"? It's been around for long before it appeared on MTGO.
And second, I don't know about the other weekend challenges but the Pauper Challenge has ~90 players every time.
And last but not least, for some reason my comment triggered the spam filter (why?) so here I'm trying to get it to post. Why isn't there a "Contact us" feature on the main page??
didnt' realize the above posts were pretty much the same comment i put haha. but now that i read them.. i agree this article wasn't that good. the only concept that was kinda cool was saying making your decks consistent other than that. i want my 4 min. back. too much complaining about how the format costs too much money. it's not that bad really. also the game plays were horrific - at least you admit you're not a good player b/c i was like what play did he just make? and yes i was wondering.. he has krosan grip, when do you think he's gonna use it on the top?
Recognizing when you are on tilt in Magic is not actually a useful skill. It's useful in poker because you can leave the game at little or no cost.
From personal experience I'm not a big fan of the "bringing yourself back" section either. I think it's make believe. If the person had the ability to bring themself back from tilt they would not have gone on tilt in the first place. I know of no one who truly goes on tilt, then goes back to purely rational in 60 seconds. I know plenty of people who don't go on tilt very often. However, even these people don't recover from tilt much faster than hothead. They don't have magic powers, if they get a call saying their parents died in a game they can't go back to expert play in 2 minutes, that's pure fantasy. Going on tilt is the mistake, the answer isn't going back to a rational state of mind in record time, but instead not going on tilt in the first place.
My advice to people to people is not to focus on anything except correct play. Not winning, doing damage, trick plays, etc. Just correct play, regardless of what game you are playing. If your opponent gets a nut draw and crushes you this shouldn't tilt you because you didn't make a mistake. The only thing that should tilt you is incorrect play on your part, which is a good reason to get mad...
I try to avoid piling because that leads no where but I do try to play with as many good cards fit the colors I am supporting to give myself a "toolbox" to work with. But to do that effectively I really need more tutors. The problem with that of course is lack of focus. I agree Monodecks are a better bet for mana consistency (but I have still experienced flood/screw a lot with monocolored decks and with no discernable pattern. So there is no guarantee there.
Also I find those kinds of decks to be less enjoyable to play with so I don't play with them in casual which makes practicing for tourneys a nonevent. I am not blaming that on the decks but really Bant with full domain is a lot more fun to play and while harder is more satisfying to win with. Which means needing more money cards which leads to the problem I face. So perhaps, head down, dogged determination with a 1-2 color deck with a focused tribe or theme will work better. At least until someone comes along with a deck that just rips it to shreds.
@Anon#1 (for lack of a better name): That is why I labeled it the way I did on the front. Also though it is a complaint I do note some caveats.
@Anon#2: Precisely.
@Lord Erman: Again, Precisely.
@Archgenius: You make some good points about effective spending. The biggest problem is that when you are this far behind the 8-ball you need to be super selective and yet have so many choices, many of which seem good at the time and turn out later to be only mediocre or less than you thought because of what most people main deck. For example, I found through much trial and error that Krosan Grip is a must have for green to kill things like Sensei's Divining Top etc before the card advantage gets out of hand (Though that doesn't guarantee it wont come back). But it is rather mediocre against decks that don't play much else in the way of enchantment/artifacts. Scroll Rack is also a card I initially thought would be overwhelmingly good but in the final analysis have to concede it can be rather like brainstorm if you have a bad shuffle and no way to reshuffle. So the card selection is much narrower vs the majority of good decks than it would appear at first. In fact I am not really certain what is the best strategy to take yet for the next round. I will need to read up more and think hard about it. I look forward to reading your article in the meantime.
If your building with a budget in mind you need a consistant and strong gameplan to aim for.
RDW, Elves and Black based control are 3 of the most budget friendly decks in the format mostly because they don't require a ridiculously expensive mana base to operate (which really is where most the cost of decks is hidden).
Cutting alot of cost out of your mana base generally means your raw card power will be slightly lower than that of your opponents (you cant dip easilly dip into other colours for these perceived better cards), but having a focused and strong gameplan can overcome this disparity because most "good stuff" decks dont have any real gameplan outside of lay a bunch of good cards and hope im a better player (god knows what they do in the mirror match).
Build around a monochromatic idea and i think you will likely find you have more success than just piling your best cards together and calling it a deck.
The 60 card standard singleton format which you called Standarton, was officially named Standard Singleton in a very recent post by WOTC_MIKE. They heard the comments loud and clear from some of the MTGO's more prominent players.
Actually yes, I get the same message. He says that good cards make a difference and the difference is far bigger in this format than any other as this is another Eternal format with really powerful cards.
So it's actually a good warning to those with a limited cardpool and limited budget who want to enter the format not to have fun but mainly to win prizes & tournaments. They might think that just because it only requires 1x each card, it might be easier to win but it's not and this article shows it.
Our match result was corrected, so you got your point ;)
You are too kind in saying I made no serious mistakes in our match, if I ever finish my report then I think you may change your mind.
good games and gl in the rest of the tourney.
You can't see the ratings of the other players anymore, did you know that?
Nice article. I always thought that this site should provide links that put all of the cards in a shopping cart if the reader ever saw a decklist and wanted to buy it.
I'm not sure if it's just my bad luck but every time I've tested this deck, I come against other white decks, making Sunlance useless. Wouldn't Unmake or Temporal Isolation be better?
You know, I wasn't gonna post back b/c TheDwarf's response was acceptable to me. They are fine - however there are some "problems" I have with the lists.
For example, MBC has only 3 Crypt Rats, Teachings running only 3 of its namesake card, and Affinity (which is going for the combo-kill since 4 Rush of Knowledge) has only 3 Disciple of the Vault. GSK - Sign in Blood seems to work in theory, but it doesn't work in actual play. Those are just a few of the misgivings I have about the lists presented. But however, since the focus of the article is NOT about how to properly build a Pauper deck and rather, just sample decks of archetypes found within Pauper and the "relative" cost of building them, I'm "fine" with the builds since TheDwarf adequately responded that some were from top eight, testing partners and some adjusted for budget builds.
I'm shutting my "trap" now.
Every time there is an article with multiple decklists someone has to complain. Shut yer trap, the decklists are fine.
Interesting read, and I like the idea of replacements you provided. Some of these are top eight list, but some either aren't competitive or haven't been competitive in a very long time. Check out www.pdcmagic.com they list each week top deck in there events, and I believe they also track the competitive events as well in there forum.
WOW great work!
Don't you get a $15 credit for this article? Buy the 2 swords.
Sure, some of the best decks out there have really expensive pricetags, but just putting money into your deck doesn't make it great.
I think when you're buying or trading for cards, you really need to look at the splash impact of those cards.
For instance Sword of Fire and Ice and Sword of Light and Shadow are currently selling for $7.50 and $5.50. Together that may seem like a pretty large investment for only two cards but adding those two expensive cards allows you to play several cheap cards in your deck as well.
The swords significantly boost the strength of elves, soldiers, or goblins which are all comprised of a couple of $2 cards and 10-25 dirt cheap commons and uncommons. Also buying the swords allows you to play Steelshaper's Gift, Stonehewer Giant, Godo, and Empyrial Plate without too much problem.
Compare that to buying a Baneslayer Angel. The only cards that the angel really improves are creature search cards which are already fairly expensive (Eladamri's Call). With the angel you can't really spread the cost out over several cards in your deck. Angel is high priced, but it doesn't help fill out your deck the way the swords do.
Another example is with dual lands. I think you can make a very strong mana base for a 5-color green deck using only 2 fetches, 4 duals and a Bosk. (Windswept Heath, Wooded Foothills, Tropical Island, Bayou, Savannah, Taiga, and Murmuring Bosk.) (I know, that's still about $90. However that's still a lot better than all the fetches and all the duals and all the Ravnica Duals.)
The trick is then you can use all of the super cheap forest cyclers and forest search cards (Valley Rannet, Three Visits, Nature's Lore, Wood Elves, Yavimaya Dryad, etc) AND you can take advantage of all the forests in your deck with more dirt cheap cards like Reach of Branches, Battlewood Oak, Blanchwood Armor, Scryb Ranger Treefolk Harbinger, etc....
The point is that the cost to benefit ratio of a given money rare is much more than simply the price of the card.
In fact, I think I'm going to write an article about that....
Yes, why don't you show us your optimal builds?
Top 8 lists. Test partners. And some are added just because they are more "budget". Just point the one that you don't like and more recent, optimal build. If it's better than some of the decks that I post as example I'll change it.
Pauper format isn't officially supported by WotC in paper magic and there is no official banned and restricted list for it.
First, why are you calling Pauper "MTGO only format"? It's been around for long before it appeared on MTGO.
And second, I don't know about the other weekend challenges but the Pauper Challenge has ~90 players every time.
And last but not least, for some reason my comment triggered the spam filter (why?) so here I'm trying to get it to post. Why isn't there a "Contact us" feature on the main page??
didnt' realize the above posts were pretty much the same comment i put haha. but now that i read them.. i agree this article wasn't that good. the only concept that was kinda cool was saying making your decks consistent other than that. i want my 4 min. back. too much complaining about how the format costs too much money. it's not that bad really. also the game plays were horrific - at least you admit you're not a good player b/c i was like what play did he just make? and yes i was wondering.. he has krosan grip, when do you think he's gonna use it on the top?
you say you can get by cheaply in 100cs, yet you continuously rant to your opponents that you're too poor to afford good cards. weird.
Recognizing when you are on tilt in Magic is not actually a useful skill. It's useful in poker because you can leave the game at little or no cost.
From personal experience I'm not a big fan of the "bringing yourself back" section either. I think it's make believe. If the person had the ability to bring themself back from tilt they would not have gone on tilt in the first place. I know of no one who truly goes on tilt, then goes back to purely rational in 60 seconds. I know plenty of people who don't go on tilt very often. However, even these people don't recover from tilt much faster than hothead. They don't have magic powers, if they get a call saying their parents died in a game they can't go back to expert play in 2 minutes, that's pure fantasy. Going on tilt is the mistake, the answer isn't going back to a rational state of mind in record time, but instead not going on tilt in the first place.
My advice to people to people is not to focus on anything except correct play. Not winning, doing damage, trick plays, etc. Just correct play, regardless of what game you are playing. If your opponent gets a nut draw and crushes you this shouldn't tilt you because you didn't make a mistake. The only thing that should tilt you is incorrect play on your part, which is a good reason to get mad...
I try to avoid piling because that leads no where but I do try to play with as many good cards fit the colors I am supporting to give myself a "toolbox" to work with. But to do that effectively I really need more tutors. The problem with that of course is lack of focus. I agree Monodecks are a better bet for mana consistency (but I have still experienced flood/screw a lot with monocolored decks and with no discernable pattern. So there is no guarantee there.
Also I find those kinds of decks to be less enjoyable to play with so I don't play with them in casual which makes practicing for tourneys a nonevent. I am not blaming that on the decks but really Bant with full domain is a lot more fun to play and while harder is more satisfying to win with. Which means needing more money cards which leads to the problem I face. So perhaps, head down, dogged determination with a 1-2 color deck with a focused tribe or theme will work better. At least until someone comes along with a deck that just rips it to shreds.
where did you get these suboptimal lists?
@Anon#1 (for lack of a better name): That is why I labeled it the way I did on the front. Also though it is a complaint I do note some caveats.
@Anon#2: Precisely.
@Lord Erman: Again, Precisely.
@Archgenius: You make some good points about effective spending. The biggest problem is that when you are this far behind the 8-ball you need to be super selective and yet have so many choices, many of which seem good at the time and turn out later to be only mediocre or less than you thought because of what most people main deck. For example, I found through much trial and error that Krosan Grip is a must have for green to kill things like Sensei's Divining Top etc before the card advantage gets out of hand (Though that doesn't guarantee it wont come back). But it is rather mediocre against decks that don't play much else in the way of enchantment/artifacts. Scroll Rack is also a card I initially thought would be overwhelmingly good but in the final analysis have to concede it can be rather like brainstorm if you have a bad shuffle and no way to reshuffle. So the card selection is much narrower vs the majority of good decks than it would appear at first. In fact I am not really certain what is the best strategy to take yet for the next round. I will need to read up more and think hard about it. I look forward to reading your article in the meantime.
If your building with a budget in mind you need a consistant and strong gameplan to aim for.
RDW, Elves and Black based control are 3 of the most budget friendly decks in the format mostly because they don't require a ridiculously expensive mana base to operate (which really is where most the cost of decks is hidden).
Cutting alot of cost out of your mana base generally means your raw card power will be slightly lower than that of your opponents (you cant dip easilly dip into other colours for these perceived better cards), but having a focused and strong gameplan can overcome this disparity because most "good stuff" decks dont have any real gameplan outside of lay a bunch of good cards and hope im a better player (god knows what they do in the mirror match).
Build around a monochromatic idea and i think you will likely find you have more success than just piling your best cards together and calling it a deck.
The 60 card standard singleton format which you called Standarton, was officially named Standard Singleton in a very recent post by WOTC_MIKE. They heard the comments loud and clear from some of the MTGO's more prominent players.
Actually yes, I get the same message. He says that good cards make a difference and the difference is far bigger in this format than any other as this is another Eternal format with really powerful cards.
So it's actually a good warning to those with a limited cardpool and limited budget who want to enter the format not to have fun but mainly to win prizes & tournaments. They might think that just because it only requires 1x each card, it might be easier to win but it's not and this article shows it.
LE
Yep, the math is right. The lands and the rituals are really expensive :( Also Lotus Petal is 2$ :)
Pretty sure the writer realizes this.
But it does accurately portray the experience of a person new to the 100 card singleton format.