This Week in Pauper: Feb 11- Feb 15

Welcome to the Big Leagues

    During this season of MPDC we've seen a steady stable of players taking top four honors.  The names have become familiar and their achievements well documented.  These crafty deckbuilders and precision players were brought together this Monday for the MPDC season 19 championship, better known as MPDC Worlds.
    This season consisted of 18 weeks and players are awarded points based on how they perform; three points for a game win, 2 points for a bye and 1 point for a loss.  Only the top players are invited to the MPDC worlds and this how the top eight contestants fared this season:

Name-Season Points

Chipp-103
pk23-89
joekewwl-87
Malum-87
ellmaris-87
Froggery-79
PROboszcz-74
Adner-74

   Congratulations to all of this season's players, I'm sure we'll be seeing these names at the top of the leader board in season 20.



MPDC Worlds

    Pulling double duty as both player and host, Malum took the season 19 championship on Monday with his Izzet deck RDW.  Red/Blue has been a major contender in the past weeks and as I mentioned in last week's recap, this particular version is controlling, timely and most importantly flexible.  It can go from a burn deck to counter deck during sideboarding and loses nothing in terms of effectiveness and never seems to stumble for mana.  The most intriguing aspect of this deck to me is its cavernously low CMC of 1.69.
    In pauper we are generally used to seeing and average card cost between 2 and 2.30.  Sometimes a particularly fast red deck or highly efficient WW will come in somewhere around 1.90 but it's rare.  To see Malum's deck with nothing but 1 and 2 mana casting costs, its hard to imagine ever coming up short on mana.  Even with only three on the table this deck is able to cast two spells per turn, if not three!

    Joekewwl piloted a deck full of +1/+1 counters called Selesnya Beats to a second place finish.  This deck uses the ever popular Travel Preparations as well as Common Bond (sounds like a great name for a pauper clan)  and Trusted Forcemage to pile on the counters.  This deck uses lifegain in order to play a little catch-up when needed against more aggressive decks and uses Ranger's Guile and Primal Huntbeast for some creature protection to keep the creature count in its favor against decks with heavy removal.

    Garlan came in third in the worlds with a tried and true season 19 White Weenie deck, the only WW in the top eight.  This is one of the most creature heavy decks I've ever seen, featuring 35 efficient creatures.  The reason this deck is so popular and has won or placed highly in so many standard pauper tournaments is the tenacious efficiency that it holds.  Creatures like Attended Knight, Loyal Cathar and Doomed Traveler are all two for one's and Loyal Cathar and Doomed Traveler must be killed twice. Along with being cheap to cast,  this deck infuriates removal heavy decks the most because they simply cannot gain card advantage.

   Pk23 finished fourth against pauper's best competition with USA control, a fusion R/U deck that spashes white for Pacifism and Keening Apparition.  Pk has used this deck for the last couple weeks with good success due to the decks combination of card draw, graveyard shenanigans featuring Archaeomancer and Stitched Drake and gains card and creature advantage with Mist Raven and Ghostly Flicker.  This deck has a little bit of everything, making it tough to find answers with such good card draw to search for the best card for each situation.  It's only drawback may be that it's a little too slow against Selesnya and WW but it's still one of the most effective decks out there when run in capable hands such as pk's.



PK Standard 2.05

    


    Selesnya stood tall in last week's Pauper Krew tournament hosted by FabioS.  White mana was represented in 78% of decks and W/G was the color combo of choice.  However, it was Rakura's W/U deck, Picture Perfect Pancakes that took the trophy.
   The deck doesn't seem to be able to get on the board and running very quickly but when it does it's able to control the skies with the ever present threat of Seraphs as well as a highly efficient Gryff Vanguard which is able to replace its self when it is inevitably taken out by the removal heavy decks it is certain to face.  Getting a card back in return is nothing to laugh about, unless you're piloting the deck and draw another Gryff  or that critical Pacifism.
     It's the deck's non-creatures that have me intrigued however.  Forbidden Alchemy may be the all-star of the deck with it's ability to dig deep in search of the exact spell you need for a crucial situation.  Feeling of Dread is a highly underrated card that more W/U decks should consider running.  Being able to tap down two creatures before your opponent attacks then untapping and tapping down two more to swarm in for the kill can be a huge blowout.  Not only that, just keeping the flashback stowed away for late game use is often a great tactic.  So many other flashback cards with a much higher flashback cost see regular play in standard pauper that I'm surprised that so few decks have been running this potent card, though use has picked up lately.
    The deck's sideboard is immensely hateful of enchantments and deservedly so.  With so many Ethereal Armors and Pacifisms running around enchantment hate is a slam dunk strategy in the current meta.
    Heavy Mattock is an interesting selection.  It's a card that is easy to dismiss when looking for good ways of pumping creatures due to it's relatively intensive mana cost.  It can really slow a deck down when you need to cast creatures on turns three and four, but opt instead to cast an artifact which you cannot yet equip. The reason this card works well in this deck, though, is that it's a Human heavy deck and there is virtually no artifact removal in the current meta.  Being able to board this card in and throw it onto any of your evasive flyers can be a huge swing.  Furthermore, it's time to admit that the days of great artifacts like Sylvok Lifestaff are over.  Three is probably on the upper end of doable for casting cost these days and two is about as good as you're going to get for an equip cost, at least for any card worth playing.

    Andres1995 posted a second place finish with his deck, Junk Midrange.  This is the popular W/G/B Centaur Healer deck with great black removal.  I think the card that tips the scales in this deck's favor is Sign in Blood.  With such prolific lifegain this deck doesn't think twice about taking a couple points off for two cards when it's trying to grind it out in the late game.
   Ogre Jailbreaker seems like a card that just doesn't have what it takes to go in this deck, but a 4/4 for four without a double mana cost is just on this side of playable, however I wonder if there are not better options for the four slot in this deck.
    As great as I think Feeling of Dread is I would cringe at casting it without being able to recuperate it later for its flashback cost.  But, when you need to tap down two Seraph's or that one last pesky Centaur Healer this card will do the job even without getting full value.

    In addition to having a provocative and creative deck name, Ellmaris took his Blue Selesbians to a top four finish with what I consider to be the most interesting deck in the tournament.  I have long been wondering when Elgaud Shieldmate was going to make her appearance in standard pauper, as this card can be an unstoppable weapon against heavy removal.  It's not always a main board option but when it's in a deck with evasive creatures like Deathcult Rogue and Spire Tracer it can wreak havoc.
    Normally I abhor the kind of creature enchantments that this deck runs because the creatures they enchant are far too easily removed, leaving their controller open for multiple two-for-ones.  However, with Shieldmate holding down the fort and other hexproof creatures like Rubbleback Rhino and Primal Huntbeast in the mix the enchantments become nearly impossible to remove, forcing the opponent to side in a pile of white enchantment hate when they would rather be playing more proactive killers.  Believe me, it's one of the most frustrating feelings to have a hand full of removal and watch a bunch of pumped up unblockables sneaking in for damage that piles up in a hurry.



Overview

   With no SPDC last thursday my main observation about the meta game in standard pauper is that decks are moving away from highly aggressive, mana friendly archetypes into more controlling, mana intensive ones.  We are seeing a lot more decks with non-creatures outnumbering creatures and more decks with curves topping out at five CMC.  Decks don't seem to be as quick off the draw and much more geared toward holding a board state by clogging the lanes of traffic or more notably lifegain.
    Lifegain is a strategy that hasn't seen much in standard pauper in quite a while and it's thrown a new stick into the spokes.  Aggro essentially becomes a useless strategy in the face of cards that use life gain not as their sole function, but as an added on bonus to already playable cards.  It would take quite a fast deck indeed to overcome such incidental lifegain, as evidenced by the fact that no decks in the top four of PK Standard contained red and even though four of the top eight decks in MPDC contained red, none of those decks can be considered aggro decks. In addition, PK Standard had no WW finalists and MPDC had only one.  
    Maybe aggro is not aggro enough right now or maybe it will take a highly creative, ultra-aggressive deck to turn the tables on the current meta.  Until next time, may the shuffler be with you.