A Sanderson Christmas Gift

So last week was pretty miserable. I was sick, the weather was awful, and I neglected just about everything in my life, including this blog. Sorry about that. So to make up for it, I'll have three blog posts this week - today, Wednesday, and Friday. Enjoy!

As most you are probably aware by now, I am a huge fan of Brandon Sanderson. In fact, I'm one of those uncommon people who loved his work before he ever got chosen to finish off Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. If you've never heard of him before, that's fine. What you need to know is he is a very successful fantasy author and a huge fan of Magic the Gathering.

In his recent blog post about what happened this year and what projects are upcoming, he mentioned at the end that many of his readers ask for some tangible way to show their appreciation. Brandon had a really cool suggestion (and of course it's Magic related), so I thought I would share it with all of you:

So, I’ve given it some thought. I maintain that I really do not need you to send me anything. But if you must, I figure you could do this. Dig out or buy a foil Magic card from the Kaladesh set or its sequel coming out in January. Try to pick one that strikes you, or matches you in some way.

I’m building a foil cube of that set—and though even the common foils look great, they only cost around $.25. (Don’t feel you have to give me rares or mythics—I’ll actually need five of each common, three of each uncommon, and fifty of each basic land—so commons and lands are totally needed.) Like I said, try to pick one that matches you somehow, not one that is famous, as this is better if they’re randomized so I get some of each.

Take the card, and sign or write your name on the back side (the side that says “Magic: the Gathering”) with a felt-tip pen or Sharpie, so you don’t dent the front. Tell me where you’re from, write me a message, or tell me something about yourself. Whatever you feel like saying.

Then, stick the card between two pieces of cardboard (or slip it in a card case) and send it to me to me at:

Dragonsteel Entertainment, LLC
PO Box 698
American Fork, UT 84003

I’ll put them all together, protect them in protective sleeves, and then take them to conventions so we can play games with them—and everyone can glance at the backs of the cards and see what you wrote. That will make a pretty cool keepsake for the year for me, but won’t (hopefully) cost you more than a buck or two for the card and the postage.

What a cool opportunity to not only show your appreciation for his work, but also be immortalized as part of his own personal Magic cube. I'll definitely be looking through Kaladesh and Aether Revolt to find the perfect card (a Common, of course!) to send to him as thanks for the hundreds of hours I've spent engrossed in his books. And if you've never read of his stuff, I strongly encourage you to check it out!

See you next time.

Warcry in Eternal

If you’ve been reading my blog for any length of time, by now you probably know about my enthusiasm for Eternal, a relatively new digital CCG by Direwolf Digital. Although I was a major Hearthstone fan for a while, I find that Eternal has all of the same elements that attracted me to that game, but does them better. And by better, I suppose I mean more like Magic.

So what makes Eternal special? Zachary Barash, of Hipsters of the Coast (whom I have quoted in this blog before), wrote an article this week highlighting on the key mechanics of Eternal called Warcry. Warcry is a relatively simple mechanic. Whenever a unit with Warcry attacks, the next unit or weapon in your deck gets +X / +X, where X is equal to the unit’s Warcry number. Unlike Magic, these changes persist even when the card is no longer in play, effectively permanently changing that card until the end of the game. Additionally, the top unit or weapon can get multiple Warcry triggers over the course of play, accumulating until you draw it.

Barash identifies four reasons why this is such a good mechanic:

1. It’s simple. Warcry is easily understood. You attack, your next unit gets bigger. Since most units only have Warcry 1, each attack with that unit makes the next one have one additional power and health.
   
2. It encourages attacking. All other things being equal, you want to be attacking. This mechanic gives new players the incentive to do just that. It rewards them for doing what they should be doing anyway, effectively teaching good playing habits.
   
3. It provides advantage over the course of a game. Warcry is a great equalizer for aggressive strategies. Your units keep getting larger over the course of a game, making them relevant longer. And at times, this advantage is significant enough to even make it worth throwing away a unit on an ill-advised attack, simply because it will give a corresponding advantage later.
   
4. It creates great moments. Often the fun in card games is the big, flashy moments. Warcry helps create those. There is something quite compelling about swinging in with a massive unit for a very cheap cost created by multiple Warcry triggers. It allows you to suddenly win out of nowhere, or win a game you were almost certainly going to lose.

Eternal is free on Steam right now. And while it’s still in closed beta, it’s quite polished, and well worth checking out.

Follow-Up on Self Assembler Ban

So as I announced last week, this week Self-Assembler was banned in both of our Standard Pauper tournaments. At least at MPDC, I had several players thank me for the decision and strongly urged me to continue the ban for next week. Now, it's important to remind my readers that this was not a decision to ban the card entirely. Instead, this was a fact-finding expedition, an experiment if you will, to see how the metagame would shift without having Self-Assembler appearing in every deck. So, what did the metagame look like this week?

By and large, it didn't really seem that different, at least accordingly to my quick examination. Blue, Black, and Green continue to be the dominant colors, split closely among Dimir, Simic, and Sultai. Izzet also made an appearance, in both a typical build and one splashing Black. There was also an Orzhov Artifact build and a Golgari build as well. I did see a few new cards among the decklists, including Dukhara Scavenger and Kessig Dire Swine, but overall I didn't really see anything that felt like it would have been bad had Self-Assembler still been a possibility.

On the other hand, it's clear to me that, if nothing else, Self-Assembler has been having a psychological effect on our player base, making them feel like the format is stale or revolves around who can resolve the first Assembler the soonest in a game. If removing this card from the metagame, even if temporarily, makes people feel more encouraged or excited to play, then that alone is a pretty good reason to exclude it.

However, I would love to see some conclusive evidence that the format is able to grow and evolve without the presence of Self-Assembler. For now, my recommendation would be to continue to ban Self-Assembler, at least for the next two weeks, after which we go on our Holiday Break. That will give us more time to get a better sense of what's going on in the card's absence.

So how did this week feel differently to you? I'd love to hear about it below. Thanks for reading.

What To Do With MTGO Traders Gift Certificates

As most of you are aware, prizes for Monday Pauper Deck Challenge are sponsored by MTGO Traders, a fantastic online store that sells cards and tickets for Magic Online. MTGO Traders has been a long time supporter of the format and is the premiere online seller for Magic Online. They have amazing customer service, competitive prices, and a great staff. Definitely use them for all your Magic Online needs!

After you place in the Top 4 in one of our events, you will receive an initial Email from me as host confirming that your information has been submitted to MTGO Traders. Within 48 hours (and often much faster), you will receive a second Email, this one containing a gift certificate code which can be redeemed just like cash on their site.

But you might be asking, what should I spend my gift certificates on? After all, since most cards in the format can be purchased for a couple of pennies, with even the chase cards being less than a quarter in almost every case, it won't take long at all for you to own a playset of every card in the Standard Pauper format and still have money to spend. So what can you do?

1. Bling out your collection. Take your favorite archetype and then purchase foil copies of every card in the decklist. While this isn't for everyone, many players take great satisfaction in owning a premium copy of their favorite cards or deck.
   
2. Invest in another casual format. While you would have to take home the trophy every week for our prizes to support playing most competitive Constructed formats, classic Pauper is much less expensive and thus well within reach. By dropping a few dollars here and there, it wouldn't take long at all to collect many of the staples of that format. Mormir also used to be a popular choice, but I am unaware if it is still officially supported.
   
3. Fund a Limited habit.  Rather than investing in cards themselves, you can instead purchase credit on MTGO Trader's family of automated bots. While you can't directly buy tickets, you can purchase booster packs and then use those to play your favorite Limited formats. This can be a great way to reduce the cost of regularly drafting to be much more manageable.
   
4. Convert them to cash. If you amass a significant amount of gift certificates, you can also actually convert them to cash, although the process is somewhat involved. First, once again you need to purchase credit on MTGO Traders' bots. Second, spend that credit on valuable singles. Third, sell those singles back for tickets. And finally, sell the tickets back to MTGO Traders for Paypal credit by messaging their online seller. While you do lose a percentage from these transactions, the fact that you can actually cash out your winnings is a pretty good deal.

So what do you spend your MTGO Traders gift certificates on? Let me know in the comments below. See you next time.

Weekly Metagame Updates Might Be Too Much...

So for about the last five months, I've been dedicated my Thursday blog post to a weekly update of the Standard Pauper metagame, analyzing the data from our weekly Player Run Events to create a snapshot of what's going on. But as I sat down tonight to write today's update, I realized that the whole process feel like it's become pretty stale.

Why I am feeling this way? Possibly, this is simply because this is one of the longer stretches between the release of new sets due to the holiday season. Similarly, while there are still some interesting innovations going on, for the most part the metagame has become pretty stable, with similar decks making the playoffs each week. I suppose it's even related to the whole debacle with Self-Assembler, which most people agree is having a negative effect on the metagame as a whole. But for whatever reason, I think the time to write these weekly updates may be at an end.

Now that's not to say I won't be writing future metagame updates. But I think that once a week is probably too often. So how often would be ideal? Honestly, I'm not sure. If you have an opinion on the matter, I'd love to hear it! For the moment, I would think a monthly snapshot would probably be sufficient.

Also, I will probably take a break as well from my weekly Standard Pauper Deck Tech videos over on PureMTGO, at least until after the holidays. It takes a lot of time and energy to create those, and I don't want to burn myself out keeping up with the need to publish one every week. Probably twice a month would be a more healthy frequency. But here again, if you have some thoughts on that, I'd enjoy hearing them. Let me know in the comments below.

Thanks for bearing with this somewhat introspective and rambling post today.

Is It Time To Ban Self-Assembler?

Almost exactly a month ago, I wrote about the growing concern that Self-Assembler would be bad for Standard Pauper. Right from the start of the season, many players were calling for the card to be banned. Since that time, the card has been played in nearly every winning deck in our weekly tournaments, while attendance has been on a slow but noticeable decline.

So, in consultation with Chris Baker and rremedio1, the co-hosts of SPDC, we have decided to temporarily ban Self-Assembler for next week's events. The goal will be to collect data on how this shapes the metagame and gauge player reaction to these changes. It's also worth noting that to really collect some good data, we'll probably have to extend the ban for several weeks, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. To recap: Self-Assembler will be banned in SPDC on Sunday, December 4th and in MPDC on Monday, December 5th.

Also, for whatever it's worth, I offered my players this past Monday a single ticket bounty if they would drop Self-Assembler from their decklists and still make Top 4. Although one of the four players is having issues with Gatherling and as such I don't yet have that list, none of the other three players took me up on my offer. That alone says something significant about the perceived power level of this card. It might be time to change my mind on this card.

The Week of November 20th in Standard Pauper

Happy Thanksgiving to all my readers in the United States. Even though it's Turkey Day, after falling way behind last week, I wanted to make sure I got my weekly Standard Pauper metagame update out in a timely fashion this week, so here we are. Attendance continues to be on a slow decline, and it's hard not to think that the growing frustration with Self-Assembler isn't somehow too blame. More about that in a bit. Anyway, neither SPDC nor MPDC had enough players this week to cut to a Top 8, so there are only eight deck that survived into the playoffs. Let's take a look.

Esper Artifacts was the big winner this week, accounting for half of the decks in consideration. Moromete's build took 2nd place in both events this week, with both Storm_blade and JackSlagel finishing in the Top 4 with similar builds. Interestingly enough, Storm_blade's build tried to have it all, splashing into Green for a lone Pulse of Murasa, with two more in the Sideboard as well as three copies of Root Out. But in all four decks, it's the recursion value generated by Aviary Mechanic and Ironclad Slayer that makes these decks so good.

First place in SPDC this week was won once again by DrChrisBaker playing MonoRed, which utilizes its aggressive creatures and Madness cards like Fiery Temper to push through for damage while quickly refueling with both Cathartic Reunion and Tormenting Voice. But the deck also includes the controversial Flame Lash, a card that is very difficult to get online unless one is willing to invest in the Planeswalker deck for Kaladesh.

Meanwhile, first place in MPDC went to AlwaysFace's Sultai Control, which adds Black to the mix of the more typical Simic Big Stuff deck popularized by littlefield and Storm_blade to give the deck not only a significant removal suite but also some potential for sacrifice synergies as well. This newest iteration included Prophetic Prism, a card that is increasingly popular thanks to its ability to cycle, turn on Artifact synergies, and fix for colors all at a very reasonable cost.

The other two entries completing the eight decks in the playoffs was littlefield's aforementioned Simic Big Stuff and an Izzet Spells deck piloted by frycek.

Not surprisingly, all these decks included a full playset of Self-Assembler. While I personally am still unconvinced that this card deserves to be banned, I do think its presence is discouraging a lot of players from participating. To that end, as I announced at MPDC this week, I think we should implement a one-week ban on the card and see what difference that makes in the metagame. I will be reaching out to DrChrisBaker and rremedio1 to coordinate our efforts so we can get data from both tournaments. More on that as soon as I have confirmation on the temporary ban.

Special thanks to this great community that keeps this format alive! You guys are the reason that I'm still playing this game!