Removal At Common

This past week Marshall Sutcliffe of Limited Resources fame wrote an excellent article for Wizards entitled "Doom Blade Days." (You can click on the title to read the original article, which I definitely recommend). In it, he tracks how removal has changed at Common all the way back to the Shards of Alara block, which actually is around the same time that I started getting involved in Standard Pauper. I have long maintained that of all the sanctioned formats of Magic the Gathering, Standard Pauper is probably closest to Limited, due to that format's dependence on Commons. Marshall's analysis is spot-on, and has strong implications for Standard Pauper.

Back in the day, Doom Blade was one of the premiere cards in both Limited and Standard Pauper. It was Instant speed, cheap, and almost unconditional, save for its inability to target Black creatures (which, incidentally, also boosted the power level of Black in general). Today, it has by-and-large been replaced with cards like Flesh to Dust, which are Sorcery speed, expensive, but at least remain otherwise unconditional. In Red, there has been a similar shift, moving from the excellent Lightning Bolt to the reasonable Lightning Strike but trending more and more towards cards like Bring Low. Oblivion Ring, Journey to Nowhere, and even Pacifism have all gone by the wayside.

In his article, Marshall traces how this has affected Limited, and these effects are mirrored in Standard Pauper.

1. Auras are playable. Gone are the days when auras were almost unplayable. Now, with removal being more expensive and Sorcery speed, it is much easier to stick and get a card's worth of value out of many of these enchantments.
2. Combat tricks are better. Interestingly enough, as removal has decreased in power level, combat tricks have increased accordingly. Cards like Gods Willing and Feat of Resistance are very strong.
3. Bounce and 'Detain' effects are almost as good as removal. Especially in a tempo-based archetype or when attached to a creature, this has become the go-to method for interacting with your opponent's creatures early in the game. 
4. Defensive creatures and Deathtouch are also more widespread. Typhoid Rats, Lagonna-Band Trailblazer, and others have moved from fringe to playable.

Gone are the days when most Standard Pauper decks include 12-16 removal spells. This has allowed the format to diversify, and shifted the balance away from Control decks always dominating the format. Overall I would say this has been a healthy shift for the format. It will be interesting to see whether this trend continues.

What do you think of this shift in removal at Common? Let me know in the comments below.

Simplicity

As part of my job, I get a chance to speak into the lives of teenagers. This week, I am going to be sharing with them about the ancient spiritual practice of simplicity. You see, we live in a culture that glorifies busyness and hurry. Despite all our technology (or perhaps because of it), most people have less downtime and more stress than ever before. And this is particularly true for teenagers, who face enormous pressure to distinguish themselves academically, socially, and/or athletically. So today I thought I would share with my readers 10 practices related to the discipline of simplicity:

1. Buy things for function rather than for status.
2. Reject anything that will take control of you.
3. Develop a regular habit of giving things away.
4. Don't give in to the pressure to obtain the newest, the biggest, or the best.
5. Enjoy things without having to own them.
6. Get outside and enjoy nature as often as you can.
7. Don't purchase things you can't pay cash for.
8. Let your words be honest and plain-spoken.
9. Don't participate in things that exploit others.
10. Don't get distracted from the most important things in life.

I think we could all use more simplicity in our lives. And yes, that is a deeply ironic statement.

To Delve or Not To Delve

Of all the mechanics in Khans of Tarkir, it appears that Delve is making the biggest splash in just about every format. While Treasure Cruise is taking up most of the headlines, all of the Delve cards at Common are playable in Standard Pauper, and thus it's important to think about how best to utilize them.

Early on, I saw several decklists that were running cards like Necromancer's Assistant or Satyr Wayfinder to quickly dump a bunch of cards into the Graveyard to enable casting these Delve spells as quickly as possible. The problem with this strategy is that these cards tend to not be very good, and thus are generally only good for filling the Graveyard quickly. And if your opponent responds by countering or removing that early Delve creature, you've invested a lot of time and resources into something that your opponent was able to answer with only a single card.  Even a simple bounce spell is good enough in these scenarios, since you will rarely be able to recast the creature until several rounds later.

(BTW - this is why Treasure Cruise is easily the best of the Delve cards. Assuming your opponent doesn't counter it, you get an immediate payout for your investment).

A far better way to get maximum value out of Delve is to instead play a bunch of cheap but effective spells that quickly fill up your Graveyard while still having a solid impact on the virtual battlefield. Removal and combat tricks obviously shine in this role, but card draw also works well in this role.

Additionally, all other things being equal, don't just burn through all the cards in your Graveyard at the first opportunity. Wait until you can pay for most of the cost using mana, and utilize Delve only to shave off a few colorless from the cost. Not only does this help mitigate against the effects of having the creature immediately removed; it also saves resources for the next Delve spell as well.

Most of the time, it probably pays to be patient. Sure, you'll win some memorable games where you drop a Turn 4 Hooting Mandrills and your opponent never draws an answer. But more often than not, a good opponent will be able to punish you for such recklessness.

If you've had some experience with Delve in Standard Pauper, let me know in the comments below. Thanks for reading.

Why Should I Play Magic Online?

I had an interesting realization today concerning Magic Online and my sometimes ambivalent attitude towards playing it. For the first time in a while, I logged into the client, constructed a deck, and sought to find a match in the Just for Fun room. It's gotten to the point where I almost never get on except for Mondays for MPDC, but I had both the time and interest, so I thought I would try it out.

I only played a single match, got bored, and logged out.

So I asked myself the question: Why? Why wasn't I more motivated to play?

Here's what I realized: Magic Online provides no external incentive for me to do so. I'm not trying to compete in sanctioned events (in paper or online), so there's no incentive to practice for those type of events. I'm not trying to compete in the Magic Online Championship Series, so I don't need to try to earn Qualifier Points. In fact, the game itself provides me absolutely no reason why I should play.

Now this isn't to say that I don't want to play. I have plenty of internal reasons why I play on Magic Online. But the point is, all these motivations are all internal to me. And if I'm not motivated to play for my own reasons, there is no other factor in the equation.

Which brings me to my point. The fundamental problem with Wizards of the Coast in regards to Magic Online is this: They see no reason to provide motivation for you to play. Magic the Gathering is a hugely successful enterprise. People all over the world love to play it. And so they created this software that allows you to play it online. But to them, that's where their responsibility ends.

You love it. You can play it online. So we expect you to do so.

It doesn't matter if it's buggy. It doesn't matter if it's aesthetically pleasing. It doesn't matter if it's easy to use. You should love the game, and that should be motivation enough to play. Wizards of the Coast doesn't believe (or at least, doesn't demonstrate the belief through their actions) that they should have to do anything more than allow you the opportunity to play.

If you think about it, it's a pretty arrogant attitude. Unfortunately, it seems like they are right. They are making money hand-over-fist with Magic Online, with no end in sight. As long as Magic the Gathering is successful, Magic Online will follow suit. And people will continue to play and spend their hard earned entertainment dollars.

So why should you play Magic Online? The only logical answer is that you love Magic. If you don't love it already, I can't see any reason why you would play.

Is Treasure Cruise Broken?

Of all the cards that entered the world with the release of Khans of Tarkir, none has generated more discussion than Treasure Cruise. It has seen immediate and widespread play in both Modern and Legacy, to the point where many are predicting that this Common will be banned in Modern within the new few months. Interestingly enough, from the albeit limited research I've done on the subject, it  has seen significantly less play in Standard.

So what does this mean for Standard Pauper?

First, what is it about Treasure Cruise that makes it potentially so good? This, at least, is easy to answer:

When Treasure Cruise becomes (a Sorcery speed) Ancestral Recall, it is officially broken. Which leads us to the next question.

Second, what does it take to push Treasure Cruise to that point? With a casting cost of 7U, you need a reliable means of dumping a whole bunch of cards into the graveyard quickly while simultaneously actually getting value out of said cards. In Modern and Legacy, this is being accomplished two ways:

1. Fetchlands - Play a land, sacrifice it, and bring a different land into play. This thins your deck, improves your mana, and places a card into the graveyard. 
2. Cheap spells - Cast a bunch of spells whose converted mana cost is 2 or less. Typically these are burn spells, counters, or card filtering.
3. Synergy creatures - Play efficiently costed creatures that synergize well with castings lots of cheap spells or otherwise interact with the graveyard.

So, for our final question, can these strategies be effectively utilized in Standard Pauper? This is not so clear. For the first item, the only Fetchland at Common is Evolving Wilds, which isn't reliable enough. For the second, the format certainly has lots of cheap spells, as illustrated by the Red Deck Wins archetype. And for the third, both Akroan Crusader and Jeskai Windscout come immediately to mind, with other Heroic cards being possibilities.

But whether this is good enough or not remains to be seen.

What do you think? Is there a viable archetype that can push Treasure Cruise to the point of being broken in the format? Let me know in the comments below.

Traveling Home; No Post Today

I am traveling home today, so there will not be a Tuesday post. Considering the insanity that is my life after being gone for almost a week, I also make no promises I will be able to catch up with a bonus post later this week. But at the least the rest of this week's posts should appear as scheduled.

What is Casual?

Not that long ago, players on Magic Online used to argue about the question, what is casual? There was an entire "room" on the online client named the "Casual Room," and so players would argue about what kind of decks were and were not appropriate for play in that room.

Of course, in that setting, Casual didn't have anything to do with the power level or expense of the decklist, or the attitude of the player. No, Casual simply meant that games didn't affect your rating (of course, unless it was a sanctioned game, this was true for games in other rooms as well). Eventually, this room was renamed the "Just For Fun" room, and this seemed to end most of the arguments.

Fast-forward several years, and Hearthstone enters the digital gaming world. It features only four different gaming modes, and one of those is called Casual. And I, like many others, have complained about the numerous players who seem to be playing tournament-caliber decks in this gaming mode. But as it turns out, once again Casual means something very different. Here's what I recently learned about this gaming mode:

Every time you play a game in Casual mode, the game attempts to pair you against a Casual opponent of equal skill. But how does it know who is such an opponent? As it turns out, you have a hidden MMR (Matchmaking Rank) that is updated with every game you play in this mode. This rating is completely invisible and is not affected by anything else, including the cards in your deck or your rating in other modes of the game.

Further, depending on the pool of players also seeking a Casual game at the same time, you could easily end of paired against an opponent with a much higher or lower MMR than you, if such a match is the closest that is available. 

In this sense, it's not even Casual in the way that Wizards of the Coast defines casual. It is ranked play - it's just that neither you or your opponent can see the ranking. Frankly, I'd just as soon they take a page from Magic Online and just call it something else.