End of the MPDC Leader Season 4

I sent out the following as an email to everyone who has participated in the MPDC League over the past few months. But I had several of those emails bounce back, and I know that there are others who did not participate in the league but might be interested in future events and such. So I am reposting this here in hope of getting it in front of as many people as possible.

This is the final week of Season 4 of the MPDC League. We will be taking a break for the winter holidays and will resume following the online release of Rivals of Ixalan on January 19th.

1. If you have any ideas or requests for future formats, please [comment below] and let me know. Specifically, should we return to Standard Pauper, stay with Silverblack, or do something else entirely?

2. If you won a prize but have not yet received it (including Door Prizes), please [send an email to gwyned at gmail dot com] with your username and which week(s) you are missing, and I will get that taken care of as soon as possible. If the prize(s) includes tickets, it would be helpful to let me know when would be a good time for us to connect online so I can trade them to you.

Thanks so much for your participation in the MPDC League. Wishing you the best in the coming New Year!

Last but not least, I sent out a request for anyone interesting in writing content about the MPDC League or Standard Pauper. Well Luc3k did just that, and I will have his article up on Saturday. Be sure and check back then!

MPDC League Season 4: SilverBlack!

First, a quick disclaimer: I spent the last couple months finishing up my job, and I am now unemployed. For various reasons, this has led me to not be blogging or playing Magic very much. Maybe at some point I will write more about that. But for now, blog updates are going to be very infrequent. My apologies. So with that out of the way...

I am happy to announce that there will be a Season 4 of the MPDC League. Honestly, when I first saw the full card gallery for Ixalan, I was pretty disappointed with the new batch of Commons. So disappointed, in fact, that I'm not even sure it's worth posting a Standard Pauper review of the set. But after consulting with joekewwl, we decided that the best option would be to expand the cardpool in some way.

So for Season 4 of the MPDC League, the format will be Standard SilverBlack. SilverBlack is the common term for allowing all Commons and Uncommons. At one point there was at least one Player Run Event using this format, but as far as I can tell, it is no longer running. Therefore, this seems like a great option to help make up for a somewhat lackluster crop of cards.

Additionally, we are also going to experiment with two short segments of the league with additional rules. For weeks 5-7, we will be doing Standard SilverBlack Tribal, which means that at least one third of the cards in your deck must have a shared creature subtype. Then, for weeks 8-10, we will be doing Standard SilverBlack Monocolored, which means that every card in your deck must either be Colorless or share the same single Color. The exact schedule can be found on the schedule page, along with the new rules for card legality.

Let me answer a few questions regarding this season:

1. Why SilverBlack? Why not just stick with Standard Pauper? In addition to my disappointment with the Ixalan Commons, participation in the league has dropped as of late. Expanding the cardpool seems like a great way to revitalize interest and breathe new life into the league.

2. Doesn't adding Uncommons make decks a lot more expensive? Actually, the cost of most Uncommons isn't much more than the Commons. There are a few Uncommons with a price closer to a dollar each, but most of these are cards that have limited availability online and thus more expensive due to their demand by those trying to redeem sets.

3. Will WotC be offering additional prizes this season? As of right now, we do NOT have any sponsorship from Wizards of the Coast for this season. Thus, the booster packs we awarded during the first three seasons are not part of the prize package for Season 4.

If you have any additional questions, feel free to comment below. I'm looking forward to getting this season started this coming Monday. Hope you will join us!

Season 2 of the MPDC League Begins

So Season 2 of the MPDC League officially started today. As I announced previously, this season will be a short, five-week series rather than a full ten-week series, with the hope that this will make it feel less oppressive to try and catch the early front-runners. Splitting up up like this did mean I had to essentially split the end-of-season prizes between the two seasons,  but overall I think this change will be for the best.

I know several people have requested that I make it easier to view and interpret the results from the Scoreboard each week. I'm sure someone better acquainted with Google Forms might be able to edit the spreadsheets to make it easier to read, but unfortunately I don't know of any way of doing this rather than having to manually edit the spreadsheet constantly, which isn't something I have the time to accomplish. The easiest thing to do is just download a copy to your own computer and then edit it in your own spreadsheet software. If someone can provide me with a better solution, I'd be happy to work on improving this.

I also know that many of you would like more posts about how the metagame is shaping up, and that will be something I will be writing about each Monday going forward. Sorry that I wasn't really able to do that last season.

Finally, all of the prizes (except for the 10 tix owed to afreeAk) have been distributed now from the first season. If you're still missing something, please contact me (gwyned at gmail dot com) and let me know.

Thanks so much! Looking forward to a great Season 2. Maybe I'll even get to play soon!

MPDC League Season One Results

The first season of the new MPDC League is now in the books. You can view the results of the final week here, or check out the tabulated totals for the entire season. While these totals are still preliminary while I double-check them for accuracy, it would appear that afreeAk is our Season One Champion! Also, if you don't mind, take a minute and check to see that you received the correct total points.

Joekewwl and I have been trading Emails about the current state of the league, and to that end I have a few ideas for what I would like to try.

First, with approximately 10 weeks between the release of Hour of Devastation and Ixalan, I would like to try two five week leagues rather than a single ten week one. It has been noted that the number of participants has been slowly declining over the past few weeks, and part of the rationale behind that is probably an inability to be able to catch the top players. Resetting the scoreboard more often should help alleviate that.

Second, since Season One ended a week earlier than was originally scheduled, I have an extra booster pack of Hour of Devastation from that week. Rather than throwing it back into the prize pool, I thought it would be great to give it away as a Door Prize to one lucky player who didn't finish in the Top 8 for the Season. I will be announcing the winner of the Door Prize later this week, so keep an eye on this blog, the main MPDC League page, and my Twitter.

Third, speaking of Hour of Devastation, the names of the 1st place players from each week of Season One of the MPDC Leagues will be distributed to Wizards of the Coast this week. I am unsure when these will be distributed to the 1st place winners, but they will automatically appear in your collection once this has happened. Once I have a clear estimate of the timing, I will announce that here.

I believe that's it for today. Thanks to everyone who participated in the league. Get out there and purchase your HOU Commons, because they will be legal for Season 2 of the MPDC League, which starts a week from today!

MPDC League Update

It's well past time for another update regarding the ongoing MPDC League. With the online release of Hour of Devastation next Monday on Magic Online, this will be the final week of Season One of the MPDC League. As has been the case with MPDC for a long time, we will pause the event for one week to allow player's time to purchase the new cards and get familiar with them before resuming the league on Monday, July 17th. Keep an eye on the main page and on my Twitter feed for any additional updates as they happen.

Overall I have been quite pleased with this first season. Going in I had no idea if this would prove to be popular or if the workload would be manageable compared to the time investment of running a six hour event once a week. I'm pleased to say we've had well over 500 matches played in the league since the second week of May, representing 35 different players. While not everyone has played all five matches every week, we've also seen a solid core of players that not only play their maximum number of matches each week, but also contribute by playing extra matches to help out those who haven't reached their maximum yet. Let me extend a big thanks for all of you who have gone the extra mile to help make this event a success!

Starting next season, I will be blogging more about the league metagame and will be adding trophies each week for the first place finisher (similar to how we have in the past). While I'm happy to tackle the trophies myself, if anyone is interested in creating them, please drop me a line (gwyned at gmail dot com) and let me know! I also realized today that we have not been distributing the Door Prizes for each week. At this point I think we will just forego those for this season and start that up for next season. My apologies for the oversight!

If you have any feedback or ways you think we could make the league better, please comment below or feel free to email me (gwyned at gmail dot com). And thanks for your continued support of Standard Pauper!