Classic Pauper Faeries

After using my original faeries deck a couple of times in MTGO, I noticed that I tend to lose to decks that were using older cards, meaning those that have Classic Pauper builds, instead of just Standard Pauper. Since MTGO at the moment doesn't distinguish between pauper types, I decided to upgrade my deck in order to be competitive to these "Type 1" decks. Here's my latest build:



// Lands
22 [ALA] Island

// Creatures
4 [10E] Cloud Sprite
4 [LRW] Spellstutter Sprite
4 [LRW] Pestermite
3 [MOR] Latchkey Faerie
4 [BOK] Ninja of the Deep Hours
4 [LRW] Mulldrifter
4 [DS] Spire Golem

// Spells
4 [IA] Counterspell
4 [9E] Mana Leak
3 [10E] Unsummon

// Sideboard
SB: 4 [IA] Hydroblast
SB: 3 [SC] Hindering Touch
SB: 4 [ALA] Relic of Progenitus
SB: 4 [MOR] Negate

Being unfamiliar with older cards, I based some of the card selections on decklists I found on PDCMagic.com. I still made some personal modifications though, partly due to my preferred play style -- most, if not all, of the decks I found are pure Mono Blue Control -- and I didn't want to play such a "serious" deck in pauper (I think it defeats the purpose). Also, some of the card selections of pauper net decks are actually quite expensive. For example, Exclude (the Remove Soul with a cantrip) is currently at 3.5 tix each. Prohibit (the conditional counterspell) is at 1 ticket each.

The sideboard, while improving, still needs some work though. I still don't know what to put in the place of the Relics and the Negates. I'll only learn this from experience though, so I guess it's time to go back online, and play some more pauper. :)

Pauper Magic @ MTGO

In a nutshell, Pauper Magic is "commons-only" Magic. That means no mythic rares, no regular rares, not even uncommons. Just your plain old commons -- the ones you never use and just rot inside your card boxes, or wherever it is that you store your Magic cards.

I've been wanting to give it a try for the longest time -- to give myself a break from the Bitterblossoms and Cryptic Commands of "normal" competitive Magic -- and with its increase in popularity and support lately (having been supported officially as an actual format in Magic Online), I finally decided to give it a try.

Obviously, it is a very cheap format... but until I built my first Pauper deck, I never really imagined that it was THIS cheap. I mean, for less than three tickets (2.9 to be exact), I managed to purchase my whole deck (via Cardhoarder.com)! That's less than 150 pesos!

Here's the deck that I built:



// Lands
22 [ALA] Island

// Creatures
4 [10E] Cloud Sprite
4 [LRW] Spellstutter Sprite
4 [SHM] Briarberry Cohort
4 [LRW] Pestermite
4 [MOR] Dewdrop Spy
3 [MOR] Latchkey Faerie
4 [LRW] Mulldrifter

// Spells
4 [10E] Remove Soul
4 [LRW] Broken Ambitions
3 [10E] Unsummon

// Sideboard
SB: 4 [MOR] Negate
SB: 4 [LRW] Faerie Trickery
SB: 4 [10E] Cancel
SB: 3 [ALA] Relic of Progenitus


It's mono-blue faeries. I've always wanted to play a blue aggro deck -- and with the control elements of faeries, this is actually a perfect deck for my playstyle. The sideboard though is so-so. I don't really have any idea about the Pauper metagame, so I just squeezed in a couple of blue cards that I know"might" be useful.

To my surprise, the deck actually performed pretty well. Or should I say, VERY well. After a couple of games in the Casual Room, I managed to beat a few decks, only losing to a mono red burn deck (which is the weakness of the faerie deck). In fact, I even tried to play in a 2-Player Pauper tournament (which is basically just a single match, and whomever wins it gets a pack), and I won! The pack turned up to be crappy -- Brilliant Ultimatum was my rare -- but I was just happy to have won something... from 150 pesos worth of cards. :)

My previous attempt at MTGO was a bit of a disappointment -- I never really pursued it due to budget constraints -- but with Pauper Magic, I'm actually sure that I will be back to play. It's fun, it's cheap, and it's new. :) In fact, let me just publish this blog post, and I'll be back right now. ;-)

WG Little Kid Aggro on MTGO

It took me the whole night, but I finally created a Standard deck in MTGO. I built the WG "Little Kid" Aggro deck featuring the WG hybrid cards and Shield of the Oversoul.



// Lands
22 [SHM] Forest - 0 tix

// Creatures
4 [10E] Llanowar Elves - 0.6 tix
4 [LRW] Wren's Run Vanquisher - 0.5 tix
4 [SHM] Safehold Elite - 0.32 tix
4 [LRW] Imperious Perfect - 1 tix
3 [SHM] Heartmender - 3 tix
4 [SHM] Wilt-Leaf Cavaliers - 1 tix
4 [SHM] Kitchen Finks - 2 tix
4 [SHM] Wilt-Leaf Liege - 12 tix

// Spells
4 [SHM] Shield of the Oversoul - 0.6 tix
3 [10E] Overrun - 1.5 tix

TOTAL - 22.52 tix, or ~1,100 PhP

It's really amazing how large the disparity is between MTGO and paper Magic. If I built this deck from scratch in real life, just the 4 Lieges would cost 1,400 PhP -- more expensive than the WHOLE DECK in MTGO.

However, just like I mentioned earlier, it took me the whole night to build this deck. I had to scour the various bots and other users in the Trading section to get the best deals. Note that the Vanquishers actually cost more than the Llanowar Elves. LOL. I just couldn't find a cheaper price for black-bordered mana elves.

Anyway, I think this is enough as a starting deck for me in MTGO. It's definitely not Tier 1, but it can hold its own against Tier 2 decks. It's a LOT of fun to play, it's a really good starting point in learning how to use MTGO in general, and it will help me a lot in making an informed decision on whether to pursue MTGO for real or not.

Now I just need to hide my credit card, so I won't be able to use it for the next 6 months. LOL.

Hello MTGO

I installed Magic Online III onto Voldemort last week... and I have to admit, despite taking 8 hours to download and install, it is really getting me to think...

PROS:

1. I can play at any spare time that I have, at the comfort of my own home -- no need to pay for gas to drive to Galleria, or to get an MRT ticket to Ortigas.
2. Cards are a lot cheaper in MTGO -- Good staple cards are still expensive (Tarmogoyfs cost around 30 tickets or around 1,300+ PhP), but uncommons and even some of the good rare cards are a lot cheaper than their paper counterparts. Imperious Perfect is just 2 for 1 ticket (~25PhP each). Wilt-Leaf Liege is just 3 tix (~140PhP). Lands are also at 3, sometimes even 2 tix each (~90PhP). You get the point.
   
3. It's a lot easier to find people to play with -- You wanna play Standard? Just create a game, and within seconds, another player will come to join you. You wanna draft? Just get 3 packs and 2 tix, and you're good to go.
4. Rules enforcement -- The biggest difference between MTGO and other free MTG software (ie. MWS). No more debates as to how certain triggers stack up, or how certain card interactions affect the game. Everything just happens, as they should.

CONS:

1. A brand new investment to an empty card pool -- I just tried to draft SHA-SHA-SHA last weekend, so basically my binder just consists of those 45 cards, plus the initial set of cards that I got free from the 9th edition starter kit. My most (and only) "expensive" card at the moment is a Mystic Gate, which I even have a hard time selling at 3 tickets. (Note: 1 ticket = $1)
2. Making a new investment means I have to, at least, partially say goodbye to my paper magic collection. *sob sob*
3. Playing against someone over the Internet is no match to actually seeing your opponent face-to-face. You don't see their violent reactions when they topdeck... or their sad faces when they lose... or their jubilant faces when they win.
4. Magic is a CARD game. But the fact is, in MTGO, you don't actually get to HOLD the cards.

Oh yeah. This is really making me think. Perhaps as a "middle ground", I'll just draft every now and then (maybe once a month) in MTGO. That's something that I never get the chance to do in real life, and it's something that I really had fun doing last weekend.

But I have to admit, I WAS seriously computing the amount I would need to build a decent Standard deck in MTGO last night. And from my computation, a fair investment of 1,500 PhP would get the job done (spent on a GW Aggro or a mono-red deck).

Hmm... should I take the plunge?