What To Do About Magic Online, Part Two

Last time, I wrote a plea to the Standard Pauper community not to give up on Magic Online. My rationale is simple - to give up on Magic Online is (probably) to give up on Standard Pauper as a format.

Now there's no doubt things are pretty bad. The new client is buggy, crashes often, and has alienated a lot of players. Wizards is big on promises, but so far pretty short on deliver. So what should we be doing in the midst of all this turmoil? Here are my thoughts, starting with the simplest and moving up the scale of difficulty.

1. Keep showing up. This one's pretty simple. Keep participating in the Standard Pauper Player Run Events. MPDC and SPDC both run at 2pm / 7pm GMT on Monday and Sunday respectively. If you doing nothing else, just showing up and playing goes a long way to keeping the format alive.
2. Play casual games. With the online filter, there are lots of casual Standard Pauper players who for whatever reason aren't participating in our PREs. Make a point to get online every few days, look for Standard Pauper games in the Just For Fun room, and play a couple matches. Be polite to your opponent, and maybe even strike up a conversation afterwards. In this way, you can be a great ambassador for the format.
3. Submit feedback to Wizards of the Coast. At anytime you can submit comments or technical issues to WotC by using this form. Believe it or not, they do listen to their customers, even if they don't always do a great job of delivering. You can also contact Mike Turian, who serves as the Digital Product Manager. Click here to E-mail him directly.
4. Leverage social media. Seems like everybody is involved in some form of social media, so why not use it to support Standard Pauper? Whether it's Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, or something else entirely, let your friends know about this format that you enjoy so much. 
5. Create content. If you have decent tech skills, there's no reason you can't create your own Standard Pauper content. PureMTGO will allow anyone to submit articles for publication, and is always open to new authors. Write up a deck-tech, talk about your experience during a PRE, or even just promote the format in general. You could even earn some credits on MTGOTraders for your hard work!

I will finish off this series with a post about why Standard Pauper is worth saving. More on that next time.