Getting Ready for WORLDS

It's hard to believe, but the 34th season of our two weekly Standard Pauper tournament comes to an end early next week. This will also be the last event where the Commons from Dragons of Tarkir and Magic Origins will be legal. As a result, next time I'll take a look back at what proved to be the top hits from those two sets. But for today, as we get ready for the final events of the season, I wanted to set aside my normal Thursday state of the metagame and instead talk about what you should be prepared to face as you enter the capstone events on Sunday and Monday.

1. While they are by no means the only contenders, the most important decks in the metagame right now are Izzet Spells, Simic Eldrazi, Pulse Control, and Tremors. If you're just looking to pick up a strong deck and run with it, you're best bet is to pick one of these.
   
2. Even if you're not playing one of those four decks, it would be wise to understand each of them. You should be familiar with the cards they play and the basic strategy for each archetype. If you're looking for help in this area, you can check out my Deck Techs for each of these decks.
   
3. Removal is going to be key in almost any match-up. But not just any removal will do. You want:
•  Instant speed, cheap removal to help deal with early critical threats like Thermo-Alchemist.
• Unconditional removal later in the game to help deal with the Eldrazi big hitters (Eldrazi Devastator, Ruin Processor, and Wretched Gryff). 
• Beating token strategies is also best accomplished by having access to Red for Boiling Earth, even if you can only find room for it in the Sideboard. 
• Finally, having the ability to exile creatures with Touch of the Void can also be an excellent way to sidestep Graveyard recursion.
  
4. I'm not seeing many players using hard counters, but I also think that this might be a great way to get an edge, since most people won't be playing around them. While everyone is including Negate and Turn Aside, especially in the Sideboard, Spell Shrivel is something that will catch a lot of people by surprise.

I doubt there's a deck that can do all of that, but if there is, that's what I'd play this coming week. Hope to see you on the other side of the virtual table soon!

The Week of September 11th in Standard Pauper

After a week hiatus from my weekly blog entry, today I'm back with another metagame update for Standard Pauper. As always, I'm looking at the decks that made it past the cutoff in our two weekly Standard Pauper events (SPDC on Sunday and MPDC on Monday) and identifying trends, cards to watch out for, and any other information that seems relevant. This week only MPDC had enough players for Top 8 (just squeaking by with the minimum of 15), so we're only looking at 12 decks this time around. So let's get started!

SPDC was all about Izzet Spells, which claimed three out of the four spots, including both the 1st and 2nd place trophies. While these two decks weren't identical, they were very close, and I would say that DownByTheRiverside's build is more or less the stock version of this archetype. Izzet didn't fare nearly as well in MPDC, accounting for only one of the Top 8 decks, but that could simply be because only two out of the fifteen players chose that particular deck.

The first place trophy in MPDC in fact went to bibbob playing the Tremors deck, which as you may recall is a Gruul build that wins using a combination of tokens and Impact Tremors as well as a bunch of burn spells. This deck has a decent matchup against Izzet Control, but bibbob was the only player among both tournaments to select this deck. But apparently it was the right choice!

Moromete took 2nd in MPDC with a different variant of the 4 Color Pulse Control deck that took first place two week's ago, which is much closer to a Temur deck that splashes Black for Vulturous Aven and a few additional removal spells post-Sideboard. It also looks to have simpler color requirements overall, making it a bit easier to play.

The rest of the decks included two Top 8 finishes by chula and olstyn with an Orzhov Auras build, a repeat of Storm_blade's winning deck from last week, two Dimir decks (one a Control build by beatnik bobby, while the other a Midrange Flyers by rremedio1), and one unknown deck, since this player neglected to actually enter his decklist.

With the the online release of Kaladesh only about a month away and the subsequent rotation in Standard, the metagame is about as diverse as I've seen it, with winning decks found using all five colors in running the full spectrum between Aggro and Control. Izzet Spells continues to be the most important deck overall, so whatever you choose to play, it's important for that matchup to be winnable. But otherwise, there is certainly quite the variety of decks to choose from, with no other deck clearly rising above the others. This is definitely one of my favorite things to see in the Standard Pauper metagame!

If you're interested in more information about these decks, I encourage you to check out my Standard Pauper Deck Tech series over at PureMTGO, where I normally feature the previous week's 1st place deck from MPDC. Thanks for reading.