Please note that there is now a follow-up survey in addition to this one regarding specific times and days of the week for our events. If you have a moment, please click here and let your voice be heard!
Earlier this week, I was discussing with Chris Baker the current
state of the two Player Run Events we run. These are free Standard
Pauper tournaments, with over $40 a week in prizes going to the winners
each and every week. Once upon a time, it wasn't unusual for us to see
over 60 unique players in a week; now, we're lucky if we get a quarter
of that. The question is, why?
So I am asking you, my
loyal readers, to participate in a short poll. Given the views on this
blog, I know only a small percentage of you regularly participate in our
weekly events. For the rest of you, I have a simple question I would
like you to answer: Why don't you participate in our events? Or, if you
do sometimes participate, what keeps you from participating more?
Why don't you participate (more) in the weekly free Standard Pauper events?
There are weekly tournaments? Never heard of them...0%
I'd play, but they just don't fit my schedule.0%
Sorry, but I'm just not interested in the format.0%
I hate the Magic Online client and refuse to use it.0%
I'm just starting out, and I don't feel like I'm good enough to compete.0%
It appears that yet another poll app doesn't work well with Blogger. The percentages are not displaying properly. However, the bar graphs seem to be correct based on the actual numbers I'm seeing offsite. Please keep voting!
New world order and a small card pool. I feel like I can't build a proper combo or control deck with the cards available. I stopped playing standard pauper when ISD rotated out.
For me it is the time investment. There is no time in my week where I can spend 3-4 hours on it. And I am a HUGE fan of the format! I advocate the format and report on the events every week. And sadly, I can't participate. I don't know that it speaks to the format as much as it does the tournament structure. With the leagues I can play one game and then wait for the pairings for the next week.
The time involved is what gets me too. I love the format and would love to play but committing three hours to play is rough. I always say to myself I will play in one of the PRE's as soon as time permits but haven't yet.
New world order has just killed the format. I feel like pretty much every card in the format is unplayable right now except, Treasure Cruise and Grey Merchant. Why play the format when I can just play any deck I want in regular Pauper. That being said I think the format is perfect for beginners to the game, but sadly the average person getting into MTGO is neither really a beginner to the game nor interested in Standard Pauper, Pauper, EDH and other various "casual" formats. The average person is going to play the Pro Tour formats.
I have two reasons I do not participate in the two weekly Standard Pauper PRE's the way I have religiously and lovingly participated in the past.
The first is that the new Magic Online client simply does not work. This is why I hate it. Because the new software basically stole something from me (from all of us!) that was working just fine, that I loved, and drove away my Standard Pauper comrades to the point where the community is now at a lowly fraction of what it was once successfully built up to be, which required years of hard work and dedication on the part of Standard Pauper players. Wizards has destroyed this.
The second reason is this: one month after contacting Wizards of the Coast to ask them why Standard Pauper is not listed on the Formats page on the official Magic: the Gathering website - and telling them that if this glaring error was not corrected within one month that the consequence would be the loss of my business as a customer forever - the problem has not resolved. My demands have not been met.
As a man of my word, I have no choice now but to hold myself to it:
I will NOT be a Wizards of the Coast customer in any way, shape, or form, until such time as Standard Pauper is listed on that page. Until such time as a couple hours of company time is spent to insert the couple hundred lines of meager code on that website to give the Standard Pauper community the recognition and respect it deserves.
And I highly encourage every other Standard Pauper player to do the same. Besides that, there are more important pursuits for me to pursue. Namely, my continued independent studies of Marxist philosophy, which explain why the upper-class @$$holes at WotC and every other corporation completely ignores the proletarian masses when they demand the respect and recognition they deserve.
I'm not even going to bother posting a final manifesto of sorts on my own blog. This comment will suffice:
F*$% Wizards of the Coast for treating us like $h*t for the last time.
They have completely decimated this format that was otherwise fun and enjoyable for years thanks to ignoring our respectful, reasonable requests to advertise its existence - as well as killing the possibility of Rarity-Resticted Casual/Competitive play thanks to their conspiratorial New World Order of crap card design, which doesn't exist to make playing Magic more fun - but to increase sales and profits, period.
As such, Wizards of the Coast deserves to be boycotted. Completely. The mutiny I said was necessary must now necessarily begin. I hereby declare that I am no longer a Wizards of the Coast customer, will no longer play or blog about playing Standard Pauper or any other Magic format, and finally strongly encourage everybody reading this comment to boycott this disrespectful, greedy, ignorant corporation by not purchasing any products they advertise and sell.
Fare thee well, Standard Pauper players. It's been real and this is heartbreaking. But WotC destroyed everything. It's their fault and their fault alone. Make them suffer the consequences by boycotting anything and everything Magic and WotC until they wise the f&$k up and treat their customers with the respect and recognition they rightfully deserve.
Unless you can get one of the top players from the Pro Tour to boycott Wizards of the Coast with you, I don't think your approach is the right one Cabel. To use a phrase: "You catch more flies with honey than vinegar."
Thank you for what you do. I play as much as I can, but life gets in the way in the pursuit of MTG but I won't give up as long as there's a place to return to. Once again, thank you and Chris Baker.
Hello and good afternoon i would really like to play in your events... my name in mtgo is cruentum_dei and i do have friends that would love to play too its just that its hard to find the time schedule of your events and they tend to change from time to time... i use to playbefore but i did lose track of them... if you want input on how to improve it im more than willing to help you :D give me a messege on mtgo... have a nice day :D
Hello and good afternoon i would really like to play in your events... my name in mtgo is cruentum_dei and i do have friends that would love to play too its just that its hard to find the time schedule of your events and they tend to change from time to time... i use to playbefore but i did lose track of them... if you want input on how to improve it im more than willing to help you :D give me a messege on mtgo... have a nice day :D
Ugh. I had a very eloquent post all written up. Then I tried to preview it and it went away...
TL;DR - I last played in 2012 SPDC. When I came back to MTG this year, I looked at the Modern format, saw I had half the cards for a dozen Tier decks. So I picked one and bought into it for a modest amount. I can go to FNM/weekly events with 25+ people now. So maybe other competitive players have done the same? Std. Pauper targets competitive players, so same audience. Modern offers less time deck brewing if you don't want to (no rotation), with a massive card pool if you want to brew. This is the draw for me to Modern anyway, may not apply for all.
SPDC used to reg at 8:30 and start at 9PM EST. Maybe too late but that worked for me and would still work now. So that being said about Modern, I would still play Standard Pauper when I could, if scheduled differently.
I love standard pauper. I want to play more. I just need to subscribe to this blog or something because I never know when there are events. What/When are the events? Let me know and I am in!!!
Currently two Standard Pauper PREs run every week. MPDC is on Mondays at 2pm EST, while SPDC is on Sundays at 2pm EST. To register for SPDC, create a Gatherling account at pdcmagic.com/gatherling and sign up for the event in your Player CP. To register for MPDC, login to Magic Online between 2-2:30 EST and go to channel #mpdc. Check this link for more details:
Hi, i used to play in many events (gonzalez_roberto in mol), but i hate the new client! so i stop playing since the release. Im back now, but i cant find the Peasant or Modern events...¿will they back?
Hello, me & my other 2 friends might join your tournaments, we started playing pauper just recently (BFZ release). There are weekly tournaments in our local store however only 4 ppl attending. So we are looking for possibilities where to start playing. We are at CET time zone, so not sure at what time are these tournaments taking place. martel.ba@gmail.com
I just started getting into these and found out trying to sign up for one is rather difficult. Theirs no FAQ on how to sign up. Other main issue is scheduling. There either in the middle of the week (which is lesser issue of the two) or in the middle of the day for me. If they were later at night this wouldn't be a problem but, I'm from the west coast so their pretty early in the day. I either have to wake up early for them or their early in the afternoon which I'm to busy to attend. Nights work best for me as a college student and I'm sure with many others who work or in school with similar free time.
I would actually love to participate in this. I've always thought this was super cool. My problem though is that I don't have an MTGO account and I don't want to get one. If we were to start playing the games on free to play sites like Untap.in I'd do it whenever I have the chance. As for promotion, I'd say you should bring awareness of this to the site tappedout.net. Around every spring there is a gigantic pauper standard tournament they do that has about 100 participants. If you were to get even just a tenth of that number you'd almost be doubling your event participation already. Hopefully my input will help you in the future!
0%
Just scheduling for me, both in terms of when the events happen and the amount of time they take.
ReplyDeleteIt appears that yet another poll app doesn't work well with Blogger. The percentages are not displaying properly. However, the bar graphs seem to be correct based on the actual numbers I'm seeing offsite. Please keep voting!
ReplyDeleteNew world order and a small card pool. I feel like I can't build a proper combo or control deck with the cards available. I stopped playing standard pauper when ISD rotated out.
ReplyDeleteFor me it is the time investment. There is no time in my week where I can spend 3-4 hours on it. And I am a HUGE fan of the format! I advocate the format and report on the events every week. And sadly, I can't participate. I don't know that it speaks to the format as much as it does the tournament structure. With the leagues I can play one game and then wait for the pairings for the next week.
ReplyDeleteThe time involved is what gets me too. I love the format and would love to play but committing three hours to play is rough. I always say to myself I will play in one of the PRE's as soon as time permits but haven't yet.
ReplyDeleteI really like Standard Pauper. I've been playing in paper for some months and now I'm thinking of playing online as well.
ReplyDeleteNew world order has just killed the format. I feel like pretty much every card in the format is unplayable right now except, Treasure Cruise and Grey Merchant. Why play the format when I can just play any deck I want in regular Pauper. That being said I think the format is perfect for beginners to the game, but sadly the average person getting into MTGO is neither really a beginner to the game nor interested in Standard Pauper, Pauper, EDH and other various "casual" formats. The average person is going to play the Pro Tour formats.
ReplyDeleteI would be able to do spdc if it moved back to the original 9pm gmt.
ReplyDeleteI have two reasons I do not participate in the two weekly Standard Pauper PRE's the way I have religiously and lovingly participated in the past.
ReplyDeleteThe first is that the new Magic Online client simply does not work. This is why I hate it. Because the new software basically stole something from me (from all of us!) that was working just fine, that I loved, and drove away my Standard Pauper comrades to the point where the community is now at a lowly fraction of what it was once successfully built up to be, which required years of hard work and dedication on the part of Standard Pauper players. Wizards has destroyed this.
The second reason is this: one month after contacting Wizards of the Coast to ask them why Standard Pauper is not listed on the Formats page on the official Magic: the Gathering website - and telling them that if this glaring error was not corrected within one month that the consequence would be the loss of my business as a customer forever - the problem has not resolved. My demands have not been met.
As a man of my word, I have no choice now but to hold myself to it:
I will NOT be a Wizards of the Coast customer in any way, shape, or form, until such time as Standard Pauper is listed on that page. Until such time as a couple hours of company time is spent to insert the couple hundred lines of meager code on that website to give the Standard Pauper community the recognition and respect it deserves.
And I highly encourage every other Standard Pauper player to do the same. Besides that, there are more important pursuits for me to pursue. Namely, my continued independent studies of Marxist philosophy, which explain why the upper-class @$$holes at WotC and every other corporation completely ignores the proletarian masses when they demand the respect and recognition they deserve.
I'm not even going to bother posting a final manifesto of sorts on my own blog. This comment will suffice:
F*$% Wizards of the Coast for treating us like $h*t for the last time.
They have completely decimated this format that was otherwise fun and enjoyable for years thanks to ignoring our respectful, reasonable requests to advertise its existence - as well as killing the possibility of Rarity-Resticted Casual/Competitive play thanks to their conspiratorial New World Order of crap card design, which doesn't exist to make playing Magic more fun - but to increase sales and profits, period.
As such, Wizards of the Coast deserves to be boycotted. Completely. The mutiny I said was necessary must now necessarily begin. I hereby declare that I am no longer a Wizards of the Coast customer, will no longer play or blog about playing Standard Pauper or any other Magic format, and finally strongly encourage everybody reading this comment to boycott this disrespectful, greedy, ignorant corporation by not purchasing any products they advertise and sell.
Fare thee well, Standard Pauper players. It's been real and this is heartbreaking. But WotC destroyed everything. It's their fault and their fault alone. Make them suffer the consequences by boycotting anything and everything Magic and WotC until they wise the f&$k up and treat their customers with the respect and recognition they rightfully deserve.
Peace,
- C
Unless you can get one of the top players from the Pro Tour to boycott Wizards of the Coast with you, I don't think your approach is the right one Cabel. To use a phrase: "You catch more flies with honey than vinegar."
DeleteThank you for what you do. I play as much as I can, but life gets in the way in the pursuit of MTG but I won't give up as long as there's a place to return to. Once again, thank you and Chris Baker.
ReplyDeleteHello and good afternoon i would really like to play in your events... my name in mtgo is cruentum_dei and i do have friends that would love to play too its just that its hard to find the time schedule of your events and they tend to change from time to time... i use to playbefore but i did lose track of them... if you want input on how to improve it im more than willing to help you :D give me a messege on mtgo... have a nice day :D
ReplyDeleteHello and good afternoon i would really like to play in your events... my name in mtgo is cruentum_dei and i do have friends that would love to play too its just that its hard to find the time schedule of your events and they tend to change from time to time... i use to playbefore but i did lose track of them... if you want input on how to improve it im more than willing to help you :D give me a messege on mtgo... have a nice day :D
ReplyDeleteUgh. I had a very eloquent post all written up. Then I tried to preview it and it went away...
ReplyDeleteTL;DR - I last played in 2012 SPDC. When I came back to MTG this year, I looked at the Modern format, saw I had half the cards for a dozen Tier decks. So I picked one and bought into it for a modest amount. I can go to FNM/weekly events with 25+ people now. So maybe other competitive players have done the same? Std. Pauper targets competitive players, so same audience. Modern offers less time deck brewing if you don't want to (no rotation), with a massive card pool if you want to brew. This is the draw for me to Modern anyway, may not apply for all.
SPDC used to reg at 8:30 and start at 9PM EST. Maybe too late but that worked for me and would still work now. So that being said about Modern, I would still play Standard Pauper when I could, if scheduled differently.
I love standard pauper. I want to play more. I just need to subscribe to this blog or something because I never know when there are events. What/When are the events? Let me know and I am in!!!
ReplyDeleteCurrently two Standard Pauper PREs run every week. MPDC is on Mondays at 2pm EST, while SPDC is on Sundays at 2pm EST. To register for SPDC, create a Gatherling account at pdcmagic.com/gatherling and sign up for the event in your Player CP. To register for MPDC, login to Magic Online between 2-2:30 EST and go to channel #mpdc. Check this link for more details:
Deletehttp://forums.pdcmagic.com/viewtopic.php?t=8528
Hi, i used to play in many events (gonzalez_roberto in mol), but i hate the new client! so i stop playing since the release. Im back now, but i cant find the Peasant or Modern events...¿will they back?
Deletejust starting out playing. so far enjoy it.
ReplyDeletewill check tournaments.
Thx for your work
Hello, me & my other 2 friends might join your tournaments, we started playing pauper just recently (BFZ release). There are weekly tournaments in our local store however only 4 ppl attending. So we are looking for possibilities where to start playing. We are at CET time zone, so not sure at what time are these tournaments taking place. martel.ba@gmail.com
ReplyDeleteI just started getting into these and found out trying to sign up for one is rather difficult. Theirs no FAQ on how to sign up. Other main issue is scheduling. There either in the middle of the week (which is lesser issue of the two) or in the middle of the day for me. If they were later at night this wouldn't be a problem but, I'm from the west coast so their pretty early in the day. I either have to wake up early for them or their early in the afternoon which I'm to busy to attend. Nights work best for me as a college student and I'm sure with many others who work or in school with similar free time.
ReplyDeleteI would actually love to participate in this. I've always thought this was super cool. My problem though is that I don't have an MTGO account and I don't want to get one. If we were to start playing the games on free to play sites like Untap.in I'd do it whenever I have the chance. As for promotion, I'd say you should bring awareness of this to the site tappedout.net. Around every spring there is a gigantic pauper standard tournament they do that has about 100 participants. If you were to get even just a tenth of that number you'd almost be doubling your event participation already. Hopefully my input will help you in the future!
ReplyDelete