1st Place in Week Eight of the MPDC League

A week ago the MPDC League shifted over to the Mono-Colored format, which means today I have our first weekly champion's decklist to discuss. Our 1st place winner this week is Luc3k, who made the choice to play Black, no doubt in part to its powerful removal, Graveyard recursion, and hand disruption. In this particular case, Luc3k also chose to utilize Vehicles, which continue to be a potent addition to any deck. Let's take a look at his list:

This deck relies on several smallish creatures that are cheap to cast and thus pair well with Vehicles, including a full playset of Bone Picker, Night Market Lookout, and Dhund Operative, and two each of Gravedigger, Skymarch Bloodletter, and Seekers' Squire. These, in turn, help keep both Sky Skiff and Renegade Freighter crewed and in the action, and much of the time are the deck's primary win conditions. Supporting this strategy is a combination of removal (Walk the Plank, Fatal Push), hand disruption (Harsh Scrutiny, Duress), Graveyard recursion (Gravedigger, Supernatural Stamina), and just a touch of card draw from Live Fast. Throw in 18 Swamps and 4 copies of Cradle of the Accursed, and you have a surprisingly efficient and streamlined deck, capable of handling a variety of different archetypes.

The Sideboard allows you to swap out less useful cards to bring others upto a full playset, including additional copies of Harsh Scrutiny, Gravedigger, Duress, and Live Fast. It also has additional removal from Die Young, a tiny board-sweeper than can dramatically change combat in Make Obsolete, and a lone copy of Cartouche of Ambition. With these additional options at your disposal, the deck can easily compensate for your opponent's specific strategy and counteract it accordingly.

Luc3k was actually one of three players to go 4-1 in the first week of this format, narrowly edging out Red_Demon3 and br_laern, both of whom were piloting a White Weenie strategy. Congratulations to all three players on their great finishes last week.

Finally, let me remind you that last time I put out a call for writers to create content related to the MPDC League or Standard Pauper. Would love to have your voice added to the conversation. Contact me if you are interested.

Thanks for reading and see you next time.

Writers Wanted!

Last time, I wrote about how much I love the Standard Pauper community. But I think one of the biggest challenges we're facing right now is that we are a community without a home.

PDCMagic used to be the defacto destination for all things Pauper. But with the transition to the most recent version of the MTGO client, much of the casual crowd went elsewhere, and soon thereafter Wizards made the decision to cease supporting in any official way several casual formats, including Standard Pauper. Various blogs and sites tried to take up some of the slack, but in the end, none of them have endured.

Back when we started Silverblack Tribal Wars in the MPDC League, Polyjak wrote a great post over at PDCMagic talking about the possibilities of the format. But I have no idea if anyone even saw it. I didn't even realize it was there until the League had moved on  to the Mono-Colored format. Which was a shame, because what he wrote was quite good and would have sparked some excellent discussion. Go ahead, follow this link and give it a look.

So here's what I want to propose. Next time anyone has an urge to write something about Standard Pauper, send it my way. Right now, my blog seems to be the only place where at least some of our community are regularly gathering. I would love to open up this space for anyone who has something to say. There's no reason why it has to just be my voice here. Maybe somehow this space can, at least in part, be a place where we as a community can discuss what we're playing.

What do you think?

MPDC League: Silverblack Mono-Colored Rules

This current week is the last week of the Silverblack Standard Tribal format for this season of the MPDC League. Starting on Monday, November 27th, the format for the league will switch to Mono-Colored. This format forces players to include one, and only one, color among the five colors of Magic for your deck. So today I want to quickly go over the Deck Construction rules for this variant.

The overall rule for Mono-Deck is very straightforward: Your entire deck, including Sideboard, can only contain cards with a single color (or are Colorless). But, of course, the devil is always in the details. So let's talk some specifics:

1. Colorless cards (including ALL Lands and Artifacts) CAN be played freely in any deck, as these cards do NOT have a color. While this isn't true for all Magic cards, it is true for all of the Commons and Uncommons in the current Standard set. Note that this means that Lands that produce multiple colors of mana, such as Cinder Barrens, ARE still considered colorless.
2. Permanents that are multi-colored are NOT legal, as they contain more than one color. This not only includes cards like Ahn-Crop Champion but also split-cards like Appeal // Authority. See CR 708 in the official rules, which clearly states that split-cards are the colors of both parts of the card prior to being cast.
3. An activated ability including a particular color has no effect on the color of that permanent. For example, Aegis Automaton is a legal card EVEN IF you're not playing White, Avid Reclaimer is legal IF AND ONLY IF you are playing Green, and BOTH Desert of the Fervent and Hashep Oasis ARE legal in any deck.

As always, if you have any questions, feel free to contact me at gwyned at gmail dot com. Looking forward to another great week ahead!