1st Place in MPDC 35 WORLDS

Yesterday was the capstone event for Season 35 of Monday Pauper Deck Challenge. Thirteen players battled it out for the prize of becoming the Season 35 Champion, and when the dust had settled, AlwaysFace took 1st place with his Esper decklist, which I believe was the same list that moromete had also piloted to 1st place two weeks prior. Interestingly enough, the player Julion also ran this list and finished in Top 4 this week. So clearly this deck has something going for it. Let's take a look at the list:

Esper

1st Place MPDC 35 Championship

Creatures 4 Aviary Mechanic 4 Desperate Sentry 4 Thraben Inspector 4 Wretched Gryff 3 Pilgrim's Eye 1 Ruin Processor 20 cards Other Spells 4 Grasp of Darkness 4 Oblivion Strike 4 Prophetic Prism 4 Take Inventory 2 Complete Disregard 18 cards

Lands 7 Swamp 5 Plains 4 Evolving Wilds 3 Island 2 Mortuary Mire 1 Unknown Shores 22 cards Sideboard 3 Negate 3 Dead Weight 2 Turn Aside 2 Dukhara Scavenger 2 Vampire Envoy 2 Complete Disregard 1 Fragmentize 15 cards

Unlike the Orzhov Enchantments deck that has performed so well this season, this Esper build forgoes the Aura-based removal spells for a more typical suite of spells, including Grasp of Darkness, Oblivion Strike, and Complete Disregard (as well as both Dead Weight and two more completes of Complete Disregard in the Sideboard). The deck has two major synergies its playing off of. First, it can recur its value cards like Prophetic Prism and Thraben Inspector with the Aviary Mechanic. Second, it can utilize the Emerge cost on Wretched Gryff to good effect, gaining an additional creature off of Desperate Sentry or just get rid of something like a Pilgrim's Eye once it is no longer relevant. It also includes a full playset of Take Inventory for more card advantage, and a lone copy of Ruin Processor as a finisher.

From the Sideboard, it can improve its matchup against Control with permission spells like Negate and Turn Aside, recur its creatures while putting another big threat on the board with Dukhara Scavenger, or gain Life with the decent blocker of Vampire Envoy. And in addition the aforementioned extra removal spells, it also includes a singleton Fragmentize as a nod to the other strong Enchantments and Artifacts in the metagame.

Overall this looks like a very strong deck with lots of decent options to gain advantage over your opponent. And it certainly will be interesting to see what changes, if any, Aether Revolt brings to this archetype. In any case, congratulations once again to AlwaysFace for his victory as the Champion of Season 35!

MPDC Season 26 Champion

Another season of Monday Pauper Deck Challenge is in the books, and with it we bid farewell to the Return to Ravnica block in Standard. I can't think of a better way to close it out than to highlight the championship winning decklist from MPDC Season 26 WORLDS: 4CC ETB, which stands for Four Color Control Enters the Battlefield. And it just so happens that the deck is built around three of best Commons from Return to Ravnica block: the Gatekeepers! Let's take a look at the list:

4CC ETB

1st place by MyGalaxy in MPDC 26 WORLDS

Creatures 4 Centaur Healer 4 Cloudfin Raptor 4 Keening Apparition 4 Saruli Gatekeepers 4 Sunspire Gatekeepers 4 Ubul Sar Gatekeepers 24 cards Other Spells 4 Gods Willing 3 Peel from Reality 3 Sign in Blood 2 Font of Return 1 Zephyr Charge 13 cards

Lands 4 Simic Guildgate 3 Azorius Guildgate 3 Evolving Wilds 2 Dimir Guildgate 2 Forest 2 Orzhov Guildgate 2 Selesnya Guildgate 1 Golgari Guildgate 1 Island 1 Plains 1 Swamp 1 Transguild Promenade 23 cards Sideboard 4 Revoke Existence 3 Duress 3 Negate 2 Shrivel 2 Pillar of Light 1 Zephyr Charge 15 cards

It's pretty easy to see what this deck is trying to accomplish! Recurring the Gatekeepers (as well as the Centaur Healer) with both Peel from Reality and Font of Return creates some amazing card value. While the metagame saw its share of aggressive strategies, this list ensures that it can live long enough to get this value with eight different sources of Life-gain! It also has great game against Enchantment-based strategies, with 4 Keening Apparition in the main and another 4 Revoke Existence in the board. Throw in Gods Willing to protect those creatures, Sign in Blood for card draw, and even a one-of Zephyr Charge to sneak all of those ground based creatures past your opponent's defenders, and you've got quite the game plan! Congrats to MyGalaxy on his unique build and his excellent piloting skills in taking this deck undefeated through the entire tournament!

I can't wait to see what new archetypes emerge with Khans of Tarkir. And maybe you'll be the one to pilot one of those new archetypes to victory in the capstone event of Season 27 of MPDC, which starts next Monday, October 20th. Don't miss it!

MPDC End of Season 24

And so another season of Monday Pauper Deck Challenge draws to a close.

We had our end of season championship event yesterday, and attendance was one of the highest I've seen for a WORLDS event. The decision to change from an invitation-only double-elimination format to an open-to-all Swiss / Top 8 cutoff seems to have been the right choice.

First, congratulations are in order to our Season 24 Champion Torreth, who piloted the Crouching Cipher Hidden Strings deck to victory with an impressive 8-0 run.

Second but equally impressive, Mundisv accumulated the highest total of Season Points for this season, and as such will walk away with a booster pack from Journey Into Nyx, courtesy of Standard Pauper enthusiast and personal friend joekewwl. Joekewwl also manages the prize pool and Top 8 prizes throughout the season, so I want to extend a special thanks to him.

Third, for myself I had a quick Round 1 loss in the event, but managed to win my next three matches. My tiebreakers were pretty weak, however, and I ended up only placing 11th overall, shut out from the Top 8 cutoff. I thought my own version of the Hidden Strings deck performed quite well, but I can't argue with the success that the original list has achieved.

Fourth, as always, I am grateful to MTGOTraders.com for their sponsorship of this event. They have been very generous with prize support for our event, and even contribute additional funds for each of our end-of-season events. They have amazing customer service, a great line of bots on Magic Online, fair pricing, and a quick response time. I highly recommend them for all your Magic Online needs.

And finally, thanks to each and every person who played in this season of MPDC. Standard Pauper wouldn't exist today without this great community, and I take great pride in being part of it. Here's to another great season!

Special Standard Pauper Singleton

Yesterday, we had the capstone event for MPDC Season 23, known as Worlds. This is a big deal, as it marks the end of the current metagame and the addition of a whole new batch of Commons to the format. If you're interested in the results, you can view them here.

The winner of the event was smawatts, who won with a fairly typical Mono Black build. He also did a video-cast of the entire event, which you can view here.

Anyway, the custom is to take a week off after Worlds to allow our players to get their hands on the new set of cards without having to pay the ridiculous mark-ups that are typical of release week for a new set on Magic Online. In fact, this season I intentionally built in this buffer, such that Born of the Gods doesn't even hit stores until Monday (although some will be available beforehand thanks to the pre-release events).

But rather than taking a week off, I decided this time we'd do something special. This coming Monday, February 17th, I will be hosting a special Standard Pauper Singleton event. If you're not familiar with Standard Singleton, it's an online-only format that makes all cards except Basic Lands Restricted - which means you can only play one copy of each. You can read all the details here.

Why Standard Singleton? Well...

• It's new and different. Variety is a good thing. This alone would make it worth it.
• It forces you to play cards that don't get played. 
• It makes the metagame wide open, giving deckbuilders the chance to show off their skills.
• It's also an existing format on Magic Online. We're just stipulating that you additionally have to play only Commons. Back before we had a Standard Pauper filter, every game of Standard Pauper was played this way.

So, I hope you'll join me next Monday for this special event. Later this week, I'll post some thoughts about what I think you should consider when building a deck for this event. See you next time!