This is a amazing article! I believe this is the level of writing and education that all of us should strive for. You have inspired me to dig deeper and provide even better content in my future work. Its been a long time since I actively wrote and so far I am having a blast. I am glad there are great writers in this site that motivate each of other with their work. Keep up the wonderful work!
Yeah, it's nice to have both our articles come out together. I thought my article was detailed until I saw Kuma's.
I really like the table as it helped me a lot in learning how to play the deck. As I mentioned, being able to see the routes to combo is one of the big learning curves when playing the deck.
Birthing Pod decks are a lot of fun and if you get a chance to play the deck I definitely would. Regardless, it's always useful to know about decks you might be facing down as it helps you to understand their strategy.
Great article. It's a good thing that you include that table as it clearly slows the variations and how dangerous this deck can become. I still didn't play with any Pod deck but this table gave me some ideas about the game play.
And its really interesting chance to read two great Pod articles on the same day (Kuma's and yours).
Very educative article. I still didn't play with any Pod type deck and now your article gives me a good reason to try it soon. I like to read the "accidental player" series of yours and hope more will continue to come.
It seems Innistrad block made a huge impact in the Pod decks due to including two instant finishers (Restoration Angel & Zealous Conscripts).
Nice article. The terminology you introduced does a good job of making the Pod archetype a bit more comprehensible.
Between those two, I think I like the look of the Bant deck better. I certainly enjoy Resto Angels and can't resist singleton copies of Elesh Norn in any deck that might be able to run it out there. I know you're the expert, but I personally would be unable to resist running a copy of Keiga in that list :)
What about Naya? Gives you the Resto Angel / Kiki-Jiki combo, and keeping all the benefits of running white. I know the combo is clunky in the sense that you can't get there from one creature and a pod in play easily, but it was good enough to see high level pro tour play. Resto Angel just looks so sweet in these lists, and Kiki-Jiki is great on his own merits in these lists for the same ETB shenanigans as Resto Angel.
M11 is my all-time favorite draft set. Or, I should say, it was the one where I was most successful and really felt like I had a great handle on the format. I can draft UW fliers all day, baby!
That Call of the Conclave promo looks really weird. At a casual glance it appears that the centaur has wacky green hair and is involved in a dance-off. The Gruul are probably #2 in love of dance parties behind Rakdos, so maybe that is a good evangelization tactic after all.
Don't the 8-person queues have the same EV as 2-person? 2 person is 4tix entry, 1pack payout (4:1). 8-person is 8x6=48 tix entry, 5+3+2+2=12 pack payout (4:1). It should be just as "almost impossible" to make a profit on the 8-person queues as the 2-person ones, even if it psychologically feels different somehow.
Personally I would prefer to see classic pauper 8 mans. Outside of the 1 daily per day in my time zone you cannot play it competitively. Obviously there are 2 mans but they are almost impossible to make a profit.
Wizards has introduced formats with a lower cost and a similar payout before, the most recent one I can remember was the first introduction of cube, when it payed out in regular packs.
The result was almost immediate, pack prices started to crash, and took a while to go back up afterwards, this is what led to the change in the payout for cube events.
The reason for this was sort of illustrated in the main article, Commons are just too common to be worth anything.
Even the most highly desired commons in standard are worth less than a buck, and that's the most popular format, with the highest demand for any playable card. A fringe format like Standard Pauper isn't going to add a drop in the bucket to these numbers.
Modern sets are just printed too much for the common cards to be worth anything. No matter how many new Standard Pauper players you might get, the drafters are opening so many commons that they will have far more cards than can ever actually be needed by players as play sets.
If you want further proof, look at the cost of cards for Classic Pauper. Even for cards that are played all the time and haven't seen print in years, it's the exception rather than the rule for a card to cost more than one ticket.
Delver has ~5-6 cards in the whole deck that cost over 1$.
Affinity has 2-3
Mono Green Stompy has 3-4
WW has 1 or 2
Why is that such a problem?
The MTGO card economy relies on a certain amount of trading between drafters, who want packs but not cards, and constructed players, who want cards but not packs.
When you have a constructed format that doesn't need to buy anything of value from drafters, you are adding more packs to the system, without adding additional demand for cards in those packs.
That's been a recipe for falling pack prices every time.
Having tried to play the format immediately post RTR (when there were 5 expansions in the set), I agree with this. The number of interesting commons in a standard format, particularly in the fall, is just too low to make for a good format imo.
also agree with grappling's economic point, I doubt this'll happen. They already decreased support for classic pauper in the last calendar update, I doubt they'll be adding a MUCH less supported format to the calendar any time soon.
Standard pauper seems a little too restrictive. Why two block rotation, not three? Why commons, not uncommons? Other than tradition, these breaks are mostly arbitrary. I think I would like it more if it expanded in one of these directions, especially just after the release of the fall expansion when the card pool would be very small.
I am happy whenever we get new options for Sanctioned Magic, but I really really doubt Standard Pauper will become a sanctioned format anytime soon. It goes against basically any of the recent history WOTC has shown. For 16 Players in a Daily Event WOTC takes in 96 tickets and pays out 35 packs. So WOTC is basically selling these packs for 2.74 in these events. Most of these packs either get drafted with, or sold to drafters. I would think this makes them less money, although maybe it causes some people to draft that would not otherwise, but I doubt that it is enough to make up the 1.26 WOTC is not getting from the store each time.
Most Constructed formats make up for these low pack prices by people needing to get singles, and therefore encouraging people to draft/open more packs. This is why Standard, Modern, Block get the most events. To see this even further look at the history of Pauper. It got sanctioned when they were releasing older sets like Mirage and Tempest were released and not selling very much compared to new sets. One of the draws of these sets became that you could open expensive commons due to them being used in Pauper. Look at how WOTC has treated Pauper since they were done releasing these older sets. They have cut 8-man queues and Premier events completely, and cut the amount of Daily Events nearly in half. What does Standard Pauper help sell? Are people going to open more new sets to get more of the commons that people that draft often have a hundred of?
I don't mean to be such a downer, the more options for competitive Magic for people the better I think. I just don't see how sanctioning Standard Pauper makes any sense from the actions of WOTC over the last few years. The only way I could think it would go with that at all is if they made it as a 2-man queue only format, so it is used to sell a pack basically.
These cards are really good. I am starting to collect this one. - Trident University
My cousin is really addicted with this one. I am actually learning how to play this one now. - Trident University
These are really intresting. Thank you for these videos. This will give me an idea how to do this. - Trident University
This is a amazing article! I believe this is the level of writing and education that all of us should strive for. You have inspired me to dig deeper and provide even better content in my future work. Its been a long time since I actively wrote and so far I am having a blast. I am glad there are great writers in this site that motivate each of other with their work. Keep up the wonderful work!
After our early forays into Std 2hg together you know how much I <3 the pod archetype. Nice to see you still carrying the torch for it too.
Yeah, it's nice to have both our articles come out together. I thought my article was detailed until I saw Kuma's.
I really like the table as it helped me a lot in learning how to play the deck. As I mentioned, being able to see the routes to combo is one of the big learning curves when playing the deck.
Birthing Pod decks are a lot of fun and if you get a chance to play the deck I definitely would. Regardless, it's always useful to know about decks you might be facing down as it helps you to understand their strategy.
Great article. It's a good thing that you include that table as it clearly slows the variations and how dangerous this deck can become. I still didn't play with any Pod deck but this table gave me some ideas about the game play.
And its really interesting chance to read two great Pod articles on the same day (Kuma's and yours).
Very educative article. I still didn't play with any Pod type deck and now your article gives me a good reason to try it soon. I like to read the "accidental player" series of yours and hope more will continue to come.
It seems Innistrad block made a huge impact in the Pod decks due to including two instant finishers (Restoration Angel & Zealous Conscripts).
Nice article. The terminology you introduced does a good job of making the Pod archetype a bit more comprehensible.
Between those two, I think I like the look of the Bant deck better. I certainly enjoy Resto Angels and can't resist singleton copies of Elesh Norn in any deck that might be able to run it out there. I know you're the expert, but I personally would be unable to resist running a copy of Keiga in that list :)
What about Naya? Gives you the Resto Angel / Kiki-Jiki combo, and keeping all the benefits of running white. I know the combo is clunky in the sense that you can't get there from one creature and a pod in play easily, but it was good enough to see high level pro tour play. Resto Angel just looks so sweet in these lists, and Kiki-Jiki is great on his own merits in these lists for the same ETB shenanigans as Resto Angel.
M11 is my all-time favorite draft set. Or, I should say, it was the one where I was most successful and really felt like I had a great handle on the format. I can draft UW fliers all day, baby!
That Call of the Conclave promo looks really weird. At a casual glance it appears that the centaur has wacky green hair and is involved in a dance-off. The Gruul are probably #2 in love of dance parties behind Rakdos, so maybe that is a good evangelization tactic after all.
Man, stompy with access to geist...yikes!!
Don't the 8-person queues have the same EV as 2-person? 2 person is 4tix entry, 1pack payout (4:1). 8-person is 8x6=48 tix entry, 5+3+2+2=12 pack payout (4:1). It should be just as "almost impossible" to make a profit on the 8-person queues as the 2-person ones, even if it psychologically feels different somehow.
Personally I would prefer to see classic pauper 8 mans. Outside of the 1 daily per day in my time zone you cannot play it competitively. Obviously there are 2 mans but they are almost impossible to make a profit.
This is really nice. I love this one as well. - Trident University
This is a beautiful character. Good job on this. I want her as well. - Trident University
I used to play this one. It is really fun though. - Scott Sohr
Yeah, this is the key problem.
Wizards has introduced formats with a lower cost and a similar payout before, the most recent one I can remember was the first introduction of cube, when it payed out in regular packs.
The result was almost immediate, pack prices started to crash, and took a while to go back up afterwards, this is what led to the change in the payout for cube events.
The reason for this was sort of illustrated in the main article, Commons are just too common to be worth anything.
Even the most highly desired commons in standard are worth less than a buck, and that's the most popular format, with the highest demand for any playable card. A fringe format like Standard Pauper isn't going to add a drop in the bucket to these numbers.
Modern sets are just printed too much for the common cards to be worth anything. No matter how many new Standard Pauper players you might get, the drafters are opening so many commons that they will have far more cards than can ever actually be needed by players as play sets.
If you want further proof, look at the cost of cards for Classic Pauper. Even for cards that are played all the time and haven't seen print in years, it's the exception rather than the rule for a card to cost more than one ticket.
Delver has ~5-6 cards in the whole deck that cost over 1$.
Affinity has 2-3
Mono Green Stompy has 3-4
WW has 1 or 2
Why is that such a problem?
The MTGO card economy relies on a certain amount of trading between drafters, who want packs but not cards, and constructed players, who want cards but not packs.
When you have a constructed format that doesn't need to buy anything of value from drafters, you are adding more packs to the system, without adding additional demand for cards in those packs.
That's been a recipe for falling pack prices every time.
The interaction is fast and interesting. If you love fast games, this is it. - O2 Media
Really nice cards. They put a lot of effort doing it. - O2 Media
The drawing on those cards is really impressive. Whoever made them should deserve the credit. Great imagination. - JustFab
I guess the conclusion is not the conclusion everyone have in mind. I never thought it would happen but it did. - JustFab
Having tried to play the format immediately post RTR (when there were 5 expansions in the set), I agree with this. The number of interesting commons in a standard format, particularly in the fall, is just too low to make for a good format imo.
also agree with grappling's economic point, I doubt this'll happen. They already decreased support for classic pauper in the last calendar update, I doubt they'll be adding a MUCH less supported format to the calendar any time soon.
Standard pauper seems a little too restrictive. Why two block rotation, not three? Why commons, not uncommons? Other than tradition, these breaks are mostly arbitrary. I think I would like it more if it expanded in one of these directions, especially just after the release of the fall expansion when the card pool would be very small.
I am happy whenever we get new options for Sanctioned Magic, but I really really doubt Standard Pauper will become a sanctioned format anytime soon. It goes against basically any of the recent history WOTC has shown. For 16 Players in a Daily Event WOTC takes in 96 tickets and pays out 35 packs. So WOTC is basically selling these packs for 2.74 in these events. Most of these packs either get drafted with, or sold to drafters. I would think this makes them less money, although maybe it causes some people to draft that would not otherwise, but I doubt that it is enough to make up the 1.26 WOTC is not getting from the store each time.
Most Constructed formats make up for these low pack prices by people needing to get singles, and therefore encouraging people to draft/open more packs. This is why Standard, Modern, Block get the most events. To see this even further look at the history of Pauper. It got sanctioned when they were releasing older sets like Mirage and Tempest were released and not selling very much compared to new sets. One of the draws of these sets became that you could open expensive commons due to them being used in Pauper. Look at how WOTC has treated Pauper since they were done releasing these older sets. They have cut 8-man queues and Premier events completely, and cut the amount of Daily Events nearly in half. What does Standard Pauper help sell? Are people going to open more new sets to get more of the commons that people that draft often have a hundred of?
I don't mean to be such a downer, the more options for competitive Magic for people the better I think. I just don't see how sanctioning Standard Pauper makes any sense from the actions of WOTC over the last few years. The only way I could think it would go with that at all is if they made it as a 2-man queue only format, so it is used to sell a pack basically.
I am all for Standard pauper Events as more chances to play is always good.