Cheapskate formats.

[Hoax]

So if anybody here plays any of the player run event formats I could use people to test the more esoteric ones with (the Heirloom and SilverBlack formats mainly). I've managed to get 2 tickets twice but in every other event I've just gotten shit on playing things that don't work because I can't test them beyond playing solitaire.

Also I think Pack Rat can work in Standard Heirloom and I really want to figure that deck out.

Standard is still out of the question expensive and I'm way more interested in playing these player events and working towards classic pauper and modern decklists with the bot credits and tix they give out.

[schild]

Link to the rules of these formats and I'd be happy to help you break them.

[eldaec]

Heirloom is cheap cards only, based on current trading price. Legal cards here:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/lv?key=0AuUE2oGUbNrpdEhWQzJXQnY3TDJPUjlxWWhHQkdoV0E#gid=0

Silverblack is commons/uncommon only.

[Hoax]

Basically what Eldaec said, but they come of course in classic, modern and standard flavors.

For example in Modern SilverBlack, I play mono-G infect because Invigorate isn't legal so the deck doesn't cost that extra $40 that Classic pauper infect does in order to be the best version. But you get lots of little upgrades like pendleheaven, dismember instead of hornet's sting, access to the uncommon infect creatures (rot wolf and necropede mainly) etc.

That deck has already won me bot credits and a ticket.

But the standard versions of SilverBlack, Pauper and Heirloom without any test partners just feel like a stupid exercise mainly because I don't consider myself to be any good at building decks.

Fuck Heirloom though until they fix this site:
http://jpdefault.comuv.com/heirloom/

Which let you import a .txt file of a deck and it would check if all the cards are legal. I'm not about to search the google doc for every card..

But if/when its back I'd love to here ideas for making Pack Rat, Increasing Savagery or Spelltwine work in Standard Heirloom any of those would be fun as fuck I'd imagine.

[schild]

Man. These are weird fucking formats. Are there any links to any tournament results where I could see some sort of evolved meta?

[Hoax]

It gets stranger:

Friday, Nov. 16th Alternate Format - Standard Heirloom Rainbow Stairwell

Deck construction rules:

All decks must be exactly 60 cards.

36 Spells:
1 card of each converted mana cost 1 through 6 for each color and artifacts.
So you should have one 1cc red spell, one 2cc red spell... up to one 6cc red spell. Then the same for the rest of the colors and artifacts.

No gold cards, no multi-color hybrid cards, and no split cards. No spells with X in the casting cost.

Extra costs/alternate costs and Flashback costs are fine, only the CMC in the upper right matters. So Think Twice would be counted as a Blue 2cc card.
 
24 lands: Non-basic lands can be used (if they are Standard Heirloom legal), but you can only use 1 copy of a non-basic land.

No sideboards are allowed.

That is probably the strangest I've seen, I won't enter it but lulz.

***

Here's the metagame for Standard Heirloom so far:
Last Week's Results/Decklists
The Week Before

Hardly an established meta obviously, both weeks have been won by pretty straight forward decks and the t8 has been no surprise filled with GW. Against a meta of mostly GW I think that plan a should be bring four Nighthawks and removal.

[Thrawn]

That...seems terrible.  If it's actually "standard" it also seems like everyone is going to have nearly the same deck.

[eldaec]

To be fair if you play a normal standard PE the top 8s are just as homogeneous. There are at least 5 archetypes there.

[Ingmar]

Wow, Heirloom is way too much to keep track of. Formats with easier rules of thumb for legality for me only I think.

[Hoax]

That...seems terrible.  If it's actually "standard" it also seems like everyone is going to have nearly the same deck.

That does seem terrible, heirloom in general is pretty terrible and it isn't something I would have bothered with but it let me play pack rat and that was pretty exciting. All of the standard versions of anything at this point are pretty boring because you only have RTR, no doubt it will get better as the other two sets are added.

Its definitely the deck builder's cheap format, things like tempered steel, grand architect control, emeria control, etc. You can make some pretty odd decks.

Wow, Heirloom is way too much to keep track of. Formats with easier rules of thumb for legality for me only I think.

One could get used to it and when the site that you can just export decks into and it checks all the cards at once is running I can stand it but using a google deck to check every card's legality is a joke.

[eldaec]

Standard also has all of the Innistrad block and the 2013 core set at this point. Block constructed is limited to RTR.

Heirloom in general isn't so bad, the banned cards are fairly intuitive. Rainbow stairwell otoh (that's where the whole 1-6 cmc in each colour nonsense comes from) is freaky shit only interesting to people who like to show off their eidetic memory of 5 year old card sets. The games themselves can be fun, but in the same way momir is fun.

That said, I'd stick to pauper and silverblack if I were you.

Or drafting.

[Ingmar]

I think Silverblack probably strikes the right balance of space to play around with and not costing a million dollars, for me.

[Hoax]

I have never been any good at building decks but there is zero meta out there for Standard SilverBlack yet so whatever, I almost don't want to post for fear of the mocking. But the event is on Saturday and I'd like to do good in these ones since they are a convenient day/time.

Here's the meta report from the only event of the season so far.

Its any common or uncommon in standard, no ban/restrictions.

Here are my two options, either BG labor of love playing cards I like trying to copy some stuff going on in proper standard or just making a 20/20/20 red deck.


The red deck:

PS I tried to find a formatting tool that would give image links for cards and all that jazz but didn't turn anything up. Sorry about that.

[Ingmar]

I think it would be worth trying to cram Reckless Waif into the red one. It's like a worse red delver!

[Hoax]

I think it would be worth trying to cram Reckless Waif into the red one. It's like a worse red delver!

The thing is I'm not even sure that forge devil isn't better t1 against GW since it kills arbor elf/avacyn pilgrim and most importantly it kills a centaur's herald before they can generate a token. Against any deck on the UW or Esper plan with pumped soul tokens I think Waif is probably potentially stronger but not by a ton.

Also forge devil can kill a Delver before he flips, which is better than having a shitty delver imo. They can also snipe blood artists which should be being played more in a format where games are so heavy in grind it out creaturefests.

As for it being better than Cackler, just no way in my mind. I'd much rather have a for sure 2/2 than a sometimes 3/2 even in a format where there are too many 3 toughness guys though I suppose that could possibly be wrong.

[Ingmar]

I'm thinking it might actually be more reliable than the Neonate. For every game where the Neonate gets big and hard to deal with there's going to be one where it just attacks into a Fencing Ace or something and dies.

EDIT: Speaking of which I think Fencing Ace/Ethereal Armor looks pretty sexy in Silverblack. Working on a list still. Probably U/W with Spectral Flight and Invisible Stalker? G has Rancor though...

[Hoax]

Aura lists wold be amazing but a lot of the GW midrange decks were running 3 keening apparition md and ray of revelation sb which hosed all that pretty fast. Might work for one event though in SilverBlack if people didn't board against it..

[schild]

I feel like Lingering Souls, Intangible Virtue, Favorable Winds, Azorius Charm, and shit like that is the way to go.

4 Gather the Townsfolk
4 Lingering Souls
4 Midnight Haunting
4 Favorable Winds
4 Unsummon
4 Lyev Skyknight
4 Essence Scatter
3 Think Twice
2 Phantom General
2 Skymark Rock
2 Feeling of Dread
10 Plains
8 Islands
4 Transguild Promenade
(Alternative Landbase - 4 Evolving Wilds, 9 Plains, 8 Islands, 1 Swamp)

Something like that.

Edit: The sideboard would be like a pile of Erase, Blazing Torches, Purify the Grave and other laser-focused hosers.

[schild]

Speaking of Cheapskate. I went to a sealed PTQ today. Went 7-0-1 in Swiss. Drew into top 8. Proceeded to get mana fucked.

And I really wanted to go to a sealed pro tour :(

[Hoax]

In case you guys were curious I took the red deck because I'm lazy and I had been drinking because football.

People were on the lookout hardcore for token lists either GW populate or UW spirits like Schild suggested. It is really strong. As a result people were trying to run a defender deck w/ hover barrier (0/6 flyer) and Angelic wall (0/4 flyer) with a mill wincon.

So I beat a newer player playing random GW stuff in rnd1 free. Then played that horrible walls deck that didn't really seem thought out yet in rnd 2. Round three was a mirror and I lost the die roll and shuffler was unkind (mulled from unplayable 7's into 3 mountain 3 brimstone volley in game 1 and 3).

Sadly turnout was low so they only cut to top4 but I was in top4 and I got the mirror again, back to back, they need double jeopardy or something this time I 2-0'd him with strong hands versus him getting mana screwed in g2.

That put me into the finals, the other semi was between mono green beatdown (best green creatures + hunger howlpack + rancor + slitherhead = win) and a interesting take on what to do with lingering souls since its the best uncommon in standard.

It was also of course piloted by probably the best player who plays in all these cheapo events. The deck was 4cc control running basically every decent to good flashback card and the two flashback enchants: the one that you draw a card when you flashback and the one that shocks when you flashback. There were ofc Augurs and I think maybe 2 Delvers but they weren't very important to our games.

That matchup was poo. He had bounce and burn and izzet charms doing both and I needed to beat him through all that before turn 6 or he could flashback at least a spell a turn and kill a guy. I couldn't.

So g2 I tried siding into the all burn plan, which could have been money with luck because I sided in 4 thunderous wrath for luck and drew none in my seven. But I died when he was on 6 life.

His deck was way cooler than mine though so that's justified, if there is a way to give people replays or whatever and someone was curious I can do that.

[Ingmar]

People choosing walls as their anti-spirit token start seems odd with Electrickery in the format.

Edit: hmm Izzet Staticaster and Golgari Charm too.

[Hoax]

The tokens typically don't even come into play as 1/1's thanks to Intangible Virtue, the various generals or Favorable Winds so Electrickery wont get you anywhere.

Somehow though the token decks didn't show good results though I think if there had been a top8 instead it might have been different as they are probably consistently strong though clearly RDW can beat them.

I still can't find a standard pauper deck that doesn't make me hate playing the game.

I've been trying Junk midrange but that isn't my style. I think I'll try to make a monoblack deck and see if it can compete thanks to the pumper guy from RTR, list(s) upcoming as I'll need something to play by Thursday.

*edit* Or maybe RW tokens, that list is the kind of all in stuff I can get behind.

[Ingmar]

Ah I thought the crusade effects were rare, doh.

[schild]

They were when they were called Crusade =D

[Hoax]

I'm totally going to end up playing UR with Delvers and Stitched Drakes again in standard pauper even though that deck does not feel powerful at all.

-I cannot stand the GW midrange'ish deck, too slow, too many creatures, too many boring plays.
-I tried to figure out if mono black could be a thing, I don't think so, its insanely weak to flyers, basically meaning you need to hold the removal in case they play a flyer because if they do you're just dead. The RTR pumper is very strong and probably needs to be featured more in the Junk deck but there is too much shit on the ground in the format and the deck just doesn't have any quality creatures beyond the Shade, everything else is garbage compared to white creatures and the blue zombies perhaps with Dimir Guildgate UB zombies will do cool things.

I'm trying to get White/Red token aggro to work and I'll revisit the junk list and see if I can make it something I like playing more but otherwise I'm playing Delvers, again, in a format where Delvers are completely uninspiring.

[Ragnoros]

Ok. Hex has me itching for Magic cards now. But I just blew my budget on the pro tier. So Pauper is go!

http://www.mtggoldfish.com/metagame/pauper

As can be seen above, roughly 70% of the format is Delver Fairies, Affinity, Stompy, and Post variants (often with Temporal Fissure).

Stompy is pure agro, win thanks to rancor + pump on hard to deal with threats.
Affinity is the midrange deck which plays the biggest guys in the format (4/4) for 0.
Delver is the tempo deck, with early flyers backed up with bounce and counterspells to keep the game played by your rules.
Post is control with a side of storm. If it gets to turn 5-6+ it wins, and often does thanks to glimmerpost.

All that seems to change week to week is the ratios. A month ago Delver was on top, so affinity stepped up with its huge threats and hand dumping. This brought post to the front, as their end games beats midrange. Now stompy is taking the lead as they can beat post before they get setup. The guy in the link below lays it all out.

http://www.mtgoacademy.com/anything-but-a-new-month-in-review/

Thoughts?