Tuesday, October 7, 2014

More Card Legality Issues in Standard Pauper

A couple months back, I wrote about a persistent error with the Standard Pauper filter on Magic Online. Essentially, the problem was that the filter would show certain cards as legal for Standard Pauper, but wouldn't actually let you join a match with those cards in your decklist. All of the offending cards were reprints that at one point were Commons, but were now Uncommons in Standard, and thus not actually Standard Pauper legal.

But now the bug has taken an unexpected turn. As was first reported on this post over at pdcmagic.com, these cards no longer prevent you from joining a Standard Pauper match. Without any fanfare or announcement, this bug has just added 11 cards to the format. Here's the full list of cards:
So, in regards to MPDC (as well as its sister tournament SPDC), what should our policy be regarding these cards? On the one hand, these 11 cards are technically not Standard Pauper legal, as they are NOT printed at Common in the current Standard set. On the other hand, by prohibiting them, we return to the days prior to the implementation of the Standard Pauper filter, where players were required to police every match for cards that weren't legal. More often than not, this punished new players, forcing them to take a match-loss for an illegal card. Not exactly a great experience.

I will be mulling over this situation for the next week or so. Thursday, I will post some of my thoughts on the matter. In the mean time, I'd love to hear what you guys think about the situation. Let me know in the comments below. Thanks for reading!

5 comments:

  1. Just wanted to point out that I already wrote a fix for this problem in Gatherling. I wrote a format editor and deck authorization checker for Gatherling. The only problem is Jamuraa at PDC Magic apparenty hasn't updated PDC Magic with this code yet.

    I created a mock tournament on Gatherling.com to show you the effects. Here is a copy of a deck I tried to submit using the above listed cards:

    http://www.gatherling.com/deck.php?mode=view&id=25561

    There are also many other enhancements and bug fixes that my team and I have authored but haven't yet been included at PDC Magic. For example the Ratings System has been rewritten to show your actual ranking that is updated after every tournament.

    So you may want to request from Jamuraa that this extra code be included at PDCMagic.com ASAP which will help you solve this problem. Or if you would like to, I can arrange an exhibition tournament for you and your MPDC brethren to run a tournament from Gatherling.com so you can see this fix and the others in action. All you have to do is ask and I will get things set up.

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  2. I don't think you understood my post. The problem isn't with Gatherling. It's with the Standard Pauper filter on Magic Online. Gatherling is working just fine as is now.

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    1. No I understand that the problem is with the client. And any hardcore Standard Pauper player is going to be fine, cause they will know these cards are illegal, even if they are being allowed by the Standard Pauper format in the client.

      Like you point out, that the problem is with casual and new players who will have to take a match loss because they didn't know these cards were illegal. I am assuming that the client is showing these cards as legal during deck construction also. So a new player might use them thinking they are legal.

      A way around this is through gatherling. Let me explain more: On Gatherling.com all players are required to submit a deck before the tournament begins. Anyone who doesn't, isn't given a pairing. Because of this, when a player enters their decklist before the event begins, they deck authorization tool will then inform him/her that there are illegal cards in the deck. Thus giving the person a chance to correct the deck list before the event begins and avoiding a match loss.

      I wrote this tool before there was a Standard Pauper filter. Back in the days when everyone just used the Standard filter. Once I published this tool, no one on Gatherling.com ever got a match loss from an illegal card again.

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  3. I would love to see WotC just fix the bug so there's absolutely no confusion. That's obviously the most simple solution - as a community we shouldn't have to do anything to fix it. If that doesn't happen anytime soon then Dabil's solution seems reasonable.

    @Gwyned - something I've noticed about MPDC vs SPDC is that you allow players to start playing even if they haven't reported their decklist yet. I'm used to playing IRL where we are required to "hand in" the decklist before Round 1 so we can hold them to their decklist. The lists are also all published immediately after the event finalizes - so the lag of not seeing all the lists is taken away. Combine Dabil's idea with a more strict "you must enter decklist before the event starts" and there should be less confusion on the legality of everyone's lists from before the tournament even starts.

    @Dabil - I like the idea of accurate ratings/rankings through PDC. Make it happen!

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  4. Same thing in Classic Pauper. Hymn to Tourach is working for those decks. Which is totally busted.

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