Great article Spike, I look forward to an interesting series examining Paupers top tier (that's the plan right?). Regarding that top tier, I think you're just about on the money, but I'd skip the Burn deck. In my observations it has consistently under-performed, and unlike something like Teachings or UB it's hard to see that there is much room for improvement in the stock list.
Thank everybody for your comments, and I didn't take black because personally I don't like W/B combination of colors in this format, although it would be nice mono white with doom blade deathmark splash, but anyway thank you very much.
You could've had the perfect tempo deck had you fully committed to it. Adepts only get better in multiples, so I'm not sure why, after picking up 1, you didn't just move into it.
I like limited walkthroughs, and its always nice to see another perspective on the only format I even play anymore. Your walkthrough style is fine, but a few screenshots of interesting board positions, even cropped pictures of starting hands that get kept/shipped, would go a long way towards strengthening your work. Pictures are the car chases of magazines, its what keeps people paying attention long enough to absorb the plot(the point) your trying to get across. Writing in the digital format is difficult; internet readers have a lot of info jockeying for their attention. Look at the successfull authors on this site and you'll see lots and lots of pretty pictures. Also, read the article titled "Playwright" on this site.
I agree with the other posters about committing to blue too early. Blue is a very strong color, but that also means your going to fight over it. You went into it when you still had solid picks in the color you needed to cut off, and had some other strong picks in black and green later on. Not sure UW was your best choice. Definitely W/X or even W, but I think the blue was scraped together here.
I do hope to see more articles by you, hopefully next week. Thanks for posting this.
Hey fun article! Cool pics and graphics throughout. I especially like the usual suspects. Lots of decklists to look over and it's a little long but hey, that just means I get to kill more time at work :)
I agree with the other comments. Fairly good for a 1st article.
In the future I would like a bit more visual difference. Maybe some screenshots or card examples. Its not very encouraging to see 50 lines of text beneath :)
As well as ChardOne, I am seriously confused by your move into blue. There were absolutely no good cards in that color compared to black - and even green.
Anyways, keep up the work! Its nice to hear about someone else' drafting stategies.
Good to see you writing again Alex. Perhaps you could revisit your BR Husk deck utilizing the new common, Act of Treason. It's still a good deck, and I think it deserves a revisit. Keep slingin' commons!
I seriously wonder why you are bothering with blue cards. The ones you ended up running are pretty weak so it seems like you took that Glacial Fortress and felt the need to justify it. In the case of a lot of your blue picks there's an equal or better white card to take. Hawk vs Adept for example.
Why are you rare drafting crappy Leylines? Both times there were valid cards to hate on that help you more than adding a 25 cent card to your collection. Giant Spider, Mind Rot or Harbor Serpent (with you insisting on playing islands...).
I'm curious to hear other opinions on the P3 P1 pick. 7 is awfully high on the curve for a white deck not decidated to the control path with good blue support. Or with green ramp, I guess. Would anyone else have looked long and hard at the Doom Blade to go along with the Assassinate and Deathmark that I would have taken earlier. Ending up in a nearly mono-white aggro deck with a small black removal / mind rot splash.
To Paul,
I have seen the chess comparison before and can agree with your points on that. The reason I went with Poker is because I am good at the game, and find the Jund manabase analogy to straight/flush cards as a key point. If you compare 2 Jund decks, all things being equal except the manabase, the one with the better manabase will win more frequently. Perhaps a better example is to compare it to 7 card stud where if you had a 10J of spades in the whole with a 8 of spades up, but there were 2 9's and a q of spades visible on other players' up card. The value of the 3 spades and possible straight draws goes down significantly, even if your chance to pair up doesn't.
I do also see merit in running 1 DoJ mainboard, but against aggro I was simply dropping bigger creatures and removing their little ones. Post board I never found myself searching too hard for a DoJ drawing 5 or 6 off the back of fall. I was playing the deck heavily last night and it was losing mostly to control decks since one threat at a time without haste usually didn't cut it. I would like to know your thoughts on how to improve the control matchup pre-board.
To Westane,
I absolutely love Rounders and watch it as often as possible.
the point of 2x Jace 2.0 vs a deck or Dredge vs a FoW is an interesting one. I think you may be right that in the long run the Jace's may be the way to go, however in the short term if I can make 30-40 tickets by re-buying them later (they are already hovering at or under 80) then that is simply playing the markets (as my editor as classified board price guru would say). If you had done the FoW analogy and bought 1 at 105 and now could buy 1.5 with the same amount of tickets you may be kicking yourself.
Welcome back Alex. I really like reading your stuff and hope you are getting back into writing about pauper on a more consistent basis.
Very nice, honest article. After reading it and absorbing your advice, what did the rest of the Rats deck look like? That core is quite intriguing. I play primarily TPDC, a little more laid back and lacking tons of MUC Fae and Goblins than 2-mans and PEs. So something like this is appealing to my eyes.
I can see the reasoning behind the 3x DoJ in the board, as they essentially change how you'll play the deck.
I actually really enjoyed this article, then promptly dow-... borrowed that movie from a friend. This is actually something I've fought with for a long time, and still have issues. My UW deck is finally complete, so now I find I'm off on other expendature avendatures (C wat i did thar?)
I think arguing Paul's point on 2x Jace vs 4x "other staple" has some merit, so I'm gonna.
Say for the price of 2x Jace, The Mind Sculptor you could instead by Jund. The whole deck. All of Jund, no expense spared. To many people this is the way to go, obviously, as you're taking an entire deck over a pair of high end staples. But wait, you hate Jund, and you want to play Control, moreover you find you're terrible with Jund! I'm describing EXACTLY what I did just recently by the way. If you're intent is to build your way up to a deck that you want to play, expensive or otherwise, I think it's important to not be swayed by alternative bargains.
Right now I'm looking to start getting into Legacy, which is VERY costly for a control player. I've been constantly arguing with myself to the tune of, "I can buy all of Dredge. I can buy all of Alluren. Or I can by a single Force of Will." That single Force of Will really is what I should do, as it's my first stepping stone in what will be my most expensive venture into the format, and will allow me to play just about whatever I want with minimal sacrifice, and eventually none.
Quite the honest article! I think we all are guilty of shoving a deck through - only looking at the slamdunks, not the overall percentages...blinded by it being 'our creation'.
Pauper is so vast, it amazes me the format is as healthy as it is. I wish there were no rogue, as I, like many others, attempt to make decks that JUST beat the metagame - and then I walk into rogue round 1 and lose :( Good times so long as were playin' pauper :)
Even though I did horrible in season 1 I did enjoy playing in the league. I definitely learned what powercreep means as I played the med123, urza cards and had no removal and no bombs (other than FOW but that is not a good card in sealed by itself). Bombs tended to always win against me and the Realm Razors everyone had was a game end for me every time.
I'm a fairly new player, just started a year ago and I did learn a lot by playing in the league. I will definitely be back for the 2nd season. With Core sets I expect to see UW fliers all over the place just like M11 sealed.
Thank you Flippers for organizing this. Good times :)
Yea I was a little confused as well.
From the intro to pick 4, you used "I" but starting from pick 5 to the end of the article you used "We" and "Our". Very confusing.
Still a great first article tho, I enjoyed reading it, thanks!
First of all welcome to Pure. I think the poker comparison has been made for well over a decade as some of the games luminaries have gone from the pro tour to the world series with nary a blink (cf: Jon Finkel, and Dave Williams among others.) I agree that playing with incomplete deck lists where you have to sub in other cards for the optimal choices is probably a crippling effect if you play tourneys. Playing casually though you will find that most decks do not run 4x each good card. In fact singleton copies are the flavor du jour. Also I think poker is not an idea comparison for this aspect of the game. More analogous would be chess which is the other game M:TG is compared to often.
In chess, starting off sans a piece is done to give weak players a chance against stronger players. This is a type of skill test too as a really good player may find themselves less hampered than you would imagine playing without their queen. To the point that the weaker player may find it harder to beat them. But for most chess players losing your queen without compensation is probably going to lead to either check mate or just a plain resignation as the odds continue to slide away from you. Overall playing with less than your ideal amount of cards leads to a different type of deck than you would normally have.
I do think if you are given a choice between 2 x Jace and 4x a bunch of other staple rares/mythics choice B is the way to go. Jace x2 may powerup your UW control deck but you will sometimes struggle when you don't draw into it. Unless you can somehow tutor for it. (Again this is more an analogy than actual since there is only Diabolic Tutor in standard which is arguably a bad card because of its cost and the fact that its a third color.)
I have to ask since this article is about deck completeness, how is it you are running only 3x Doj? Seems to me it would be better for you to run 1 main and 3 in the sideboard than simply just have 3 in the sideboard.
Some fun decks there. I am most definitely guilty of duplication. (Favorite old TPS trick= Vesuvan Shapeshifter + Thelonite Hermit.)Though I tend to not abuse the upkeep as much as perhaps I should. I have done Paradox Haze + Thallids as a tribal deck but it was not so great vs the more inevitable tribes. (Elves, Zombies, Goblins, etc.) I do think UG is a great color to do token combos in and especially with Paradox haze. I also had a suspend deck until I finally sold off Jhoira at her high (Not very btw.) Just wasn't playing with her as much and needed something else. Also I played alot vs Flippers_Giraffe's Flipem deck. I don't think he included hazes though,going for the mono-red version.
Great Graphics by the way. All in all a fun article. :D
I don't know what happened to me but I swear i'm not that bad, well most of the time I'm not that bad! But thanks for your commentary I'll improve it the next time :)
Great article Spike, I look forward to an interesting series examining Paupers top tier (that's the plan right?). Regarding that top tier, I think you're just about on the money, but I'd skip the Burn deck. In my observations it has consistently under-performed, and unlike something like Teachings or UB it's hard to see that there is much room for improvement in the stock list.
No affinity.. surprising...
Wow, by my quick count over 200 packs.
Very impressive.
Thank everybody for your comments, and I didn't take black because personally I don't like W/B combination of colors in this format, although it would be nice mono white with doom blade deathmark splash, but anyway thank you very much.
You could've had the perfect tempo deck had you fully committed to it. Adepts only get better in multiples, so I'm not sure why, after picking up 1, you didn't just move into it.
I like limited walkthroughs, and its always nice to see another perspective on the only format I even play anymore. Your walkthrough style is fine, but a few screenshots of interesting board positions, even cropped pictures of starting hands that get kept/shipped, would go a long way towards strengthening your work. Pictures are the car chases of magazines, its what keeps people paying attention long enough to absorb the plot(the point) your trying to get across. Writing in the digital format is difficult; internet readers have a lot of info jockeying for their attention. Look at the successfull authors on this site and you'll see lots and lots of pretty pictures. Also, read the article titled "Playwright" on this site.
I agree with the other posters about committing to blue too early. Blue is a very strong color, but that also means your going to fight over it. You went into it when you still had solid picks in the color you needed to cut off, and had some other strong picks in black and green later on. Not sure UW was your best choice. Definitely W/X or even W, but I think the blue was scraped together here.
I do hope to see more articles by you, hopefully next week. Thanks for posting this.
Hey fun article! Cool pics and graphics throughout. I especially like the usual suspects. Lots of decklists to look over and it's a little long but hey, that just means I get to kill more time at work :)
I agree with the other comments. Fairly good for a 1st article.
In the future I would like a bit more visual difference. Maybe some screenshots or card examples. Its not very encouraging to see 50 lines of text beneath :)
As well as ChardOne, I am seriously confused by your move into blue. There were absolutely no good cards in that color compared to black - and even green.
Anyways, keep up the work! Its nice to hear about someone else' drafting stategies.
Good to see you writing again Alex. Perhaps you could revisit your BR Husk deck utilizing the new common, Act of Treason. It's still a good deck, and I think it deserves a revisit. Keep slingin' commons!
I seriously wonder why you are bothering with blue cards. The ones you ended up running are pretty weak so it seems like you took that Glacial Fortress and felt the need to justify it. In the case of a lot of your blue picks there's an equal or better white card to take. Hawk vs Adept for example.
Why are you rare drafting crappy Leylines? Both times there were valid cards to hate on that help you more than adding a 25 cent card to your collection. Giant Spider, Mind Rot or Harbor Serpent (with you insisting on playing islands...).
I'm curious to hear other opinions on the P3 P1 pick. 7 is awfully high on the curve for a white deck not decidated to the control path with good blue support. Or with green ramp, I guess. Would anyone else have looked long and hard at the Doom Blade to go along with the Assassinate and Deathmark that I would have taken earlier. Ending up in a nearly mono-white aggro deck with a small black removal / mind rot splash.
To Paul,
I have seen the chess comparison before and can agree with your points on that. The reason I went with Poker is because I am good at the game, and find the Jund manabase analogy to straight/flush cards as a key point. If you compare 2 Jund decks, all things being equal except the manabase, the one with the better manabase will win more frequently. Perhaps a better example is to compare it to 7 card stud where if you had a 10J of spades in the whole with a 8 of spades up, but there were 2 9's and a q of spades visible on other players' up card. The value of the 3 spades and possible straight draws goes down significantly, even if your chance to pair up doesn't.
I do also see merit in running 1 DoJ mainboard, but against aggro I was simply dropping bigger creatures and removing their little ones. Post board I never found myself searching too hard for a DoJ drawing 5 or 6 off the back of fall. I was playing the deck heavily last night and it was losing mostly to control decks since one threat at a time without haste usually didn't cut it. I would like to know your thoughts on how to improve the control matchup pre-board.
To Westane,
I absolutely love Rounders and watch it as often as possible.
the point of 2x Jace 2.0 vs a deck or Dredge vs a FoW is an interesting one. I think you may be right that in the long run the Jace's may be the way to go, however in the short term if I can make 30-40 tickets by re-buying them later (they are already hovering at or under 80) then that is simply playing the markets (as my editor as classified board price guru would say). If you had done the FoW analogy and bought 1 at 105 and now could buy 1.5 with the same amount of tickets you may be kicking yourself.
Anyway thanks for the comments, keep 'em coming.
Welcome back Alex. I really like reading your stuff and hope you are getting back into writing about pauper on a more consistent basis.
Very nice, honest article. After reading it and absorbing your advice, what did the rest of the Rats deck look like? That core is quite intriguing. I play primarily TPDC, a little more laid back and lacking tons of MUC Fae and Goblins than 2-mans and PEs. So something like this is appealing to my eyes.
I can see the reasoning behind the 3x DoJ in the board, as they essentially change how you'll play the deck.
I actually really enjoyed this article, then promptly dow-... borrowed that movie from a friend. This is actually something I've fought with for a long time, and still have issues. My UW deck is finally complete, so now I find I'm off on other expendature avendatures (C wat i did thar?)
I think arguing Paul's point on 2x Jace vs 4x "other staple" has some merit, so I'm gonna.
Say for the price of 2x Jace, The Mind Sculptor you could instead by Jund. The whole deck. All of Jund, no expense spared. To many people this is the way to go, obviously, as you're taking an entire deck over a pair of high end staples. But wait, you hate Jund, and you want to play Control, moreover you find you're terrible with Jund! I'm describing EXACTLY what I did just recently by the way. If you're intent is to build your way up to a deck that you want to play, expensive or otherwise, I think it's important to not be swayed by alternative bargains.
Right now I'm looking to start getting into Legacy, which is VERY costly for a control player. I've been constantly arguing with myself to the tune of, "I can buy all of Dredge. I can buy all of Alluren. Or I can by a single Force of Will." That single Force of Will really is what I should do, as it's my first stepping stone in what will be my most expensive venture into the format, and will allow me to play just about whatever I want with minimal sacrifice, and eventually none.
I am always impressed by the sheer volume of decks you put out. You most spend a lot of time playing!
Sorry I had to bail on that game last night. Kid was having nightmares. I'm pretty sure I could not have stopped you though.
Quite the honest article! I think we all are guilty of shoving a deck through - only looking at the slamdunks, not the overall percentages...blinded by it being 'our creation'.
Pauper is so vast, it amazes me the format is as healthy as it is. I wish there were no rogue, as I, like many others, attempt to make decks that JUST beat the metagame - and then I walk into rogue round 1 and lose :( Good times so long as were playin' pauper :)
Here's the packs cracked in the first league in no particular order as I dont have time to sort them out while at work!
Shards of Alara - 13
Apocalypse - 2
M10 - 7
Shadowmoor - 12
Weatherlight - 1
Lorwyn - 16
Worldwake - 11
Zendikar - 1
Rize of the Eldrazi - 23
Ravnica - 4
Dissenssion - 3
Champions of Kamigawa - 11
Betrayers of Kamigawa - 1
Planar Chaos - 6
Alara Reborn - 11
Morningtide - 8
Tempest - 6
Eventide - 9
Time Spiral - 9
Conflux - 4
Coldsnap - 4
Guildpact - 3
MED 1 - 4
MED 2 - 1
MED 3 - 1
Urza's Saga - 3
Zendikar - 1
Visions - 1
Mirage - 1
Urza's Legacy - 14
Future Sight - 1
Shards of Alara Block - 4
Exodus - 1
Stronghold - 1
Odyssey - 1
Judgment - 1
Torment - 1
Even though I did horrible in season 1 I did enjoy playing in the league. I definitely learned what powercreep means as I played the med123, urza cards and had no removal and no bombs (other than FOW but that is not a good card in sealed by itself). Bombs tended to always win against me and the Realm Razors everyone had was a game end for me every time.
I'm a fairly new player, just started a year ago and I did learn a lot by playing in the league. I will definitely be back for the 2nd season. With Core sets I expect to see UW fliers all over the place just like M11 sealed.
Thank you Flippers for organizing this. Good times :)
Yea I was a little confused as well.
From the intro to pick 4, you used "I" but starting from pick 5 to the end of the article you used "We" and "Our". Very confusing.
Still a great first article tho, I enjoyed reading it, thanks!
Good to see you writing again, missed reading your articles!
I once targetted Ink-Treader Nephilim with a kicked Rite of Replication. I probably qualify as a duplicator.
the maindeck is missing dragon's breath, centerpiece of the exhume deck
WB Alex! :)
First of all welcome to Pure. I think the poker comparison has been made for well over a decade as some of the games luminaries have gone from the pro tour to the world series with nary a blink (cf: Jon Finkel, and Dave Williams among others.) I agree that playing with incomplete deck lists where you have to sub in other cards for the optimal choices is probably a crippling effect if you play tourneys. Playing casually though you will find that most decks do not run 4x each good card. In fact singleton copies are the flavor du jour. Also I think poker is not an idea comparison for this aspect of the game. More analogous would be chess which is the other game M:TG is compared to often.
In chess, starting off sans a piece is done to give weak players a chance against stronger players. This is a type of skill test too as a really good player may find themselves less hampered than you would imagine playing without their queen. To the point that the weaker player may find it harder to beat them. But for most chess players losing your queen without compensation is probably going to lead to either check mate or just a plain resignation as the odds continue to slide away from you. Overall playing with less than your ideal amount of cards leads to a different type of deck than you would normally have.
I do think if you are given a choice between 2 x Jace and 4x a bunch of other staple rares/mythics choice B is the way to go. Jace x2 may powerup your UW control deck but you will sometimes struggle when you don't draw into it. Unless you can somehow tutor for it. (Again this is more an analogy than actual since there is only Diabolic Tutor in standard which is arguably a bad card because of its cost and the fact that its a third color.)
I have to ask since this article is about deck completeness, how is it you are running only 3x Doj? Seems to me it would be better for you to run 1 main and 3 in the sideboard than simply just have 3 in the sideboard.
Some fun decks there. I am most definitely guilty of duplication. (Favorite old TPS trick= Vesuvan Shapeshifter + Thelonite Hermit.)Though I tend to not abuse the upkeep as much as perhaps I should. I have done Paradox Haze + Thallids as a tribal deck but it was not so great vs the more inevitable tribes. (Elves, Zombies, Goblins, etc.) I do think UG is a great color to do token combos in and especially with Paradox haze. I also had a suspend deck until I finally sold off Jhoira at her high (Not very btw.) Just wasn't playing with her as much and needed something else. Also I played alot vs Flippers_Giraffe's Flipem deck. I don't think he included hazes though,going for the mono-red version.
Great Graphics by the way. All in all a fun article. :D
I don't know what happened to me but I swear i'm not that bad, well most of the time I'm not that bad! But thanks for your commentary I'll improve it the next time :)