Pauper challenge: white results

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zandl

4 November 2012

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White results!

I’m deeply sorry for my absence. I could tell you all about my school and work projects over the past month, but, pfft! You wanna read about some Magic shtuff. But before we begin, let’s break back to my favorite font of “Old English Text MT” for a brief moment of false religious fanaticism.

Lo, and the good zandl spake, “Remaineth faithful in the good zandl and ye shall revel in the Green, rampy glow he has emitted-eth.”

Or, y’know. Other ye olde words and phrases.

ptburnham – (deck seems to have been removed)
thomaspaine - my awesome pauper challange deck
sealion - Sea Lion's Standard Pauper
Wolfsage13 - Manifest Destiny
Mpz5 - Whitewash
Tyqar - Paupercraft Monowhite
MetaphysicalxProdigy - Retaliation (Mono-White Pauper)
torridus - Monowhite Pauper
Kravian - pauper-pitchfork-palapalooza
BlunterCube - the-poor-mans-white-weenie
TristanTaylorsVoice - Zandl's 2012 Pauper Challenge - Bad News Bears
birdseed - zandls-pauper-challenge-white
bhrusson0 - Pauper White
madams5 - White pauper

Round 1 results:

winning player (games won) vs. losing player (games won)

sealion (2) vs. ptburnham (1)

ptburnham’s deck had plenty of creature control but lacked a real win-condition to take the game over once the board was contained. sealion’s board would get stalled out, but either he would draw the answers or ptburnham would run out of resources.

Wolfsage13 (2) vs. thomaspaine (0)

thomaspaine’s deck had a strange mix of Infect damage and normal damage. Also, Bonds of Faith is only so effective against a deck that is mostly non-Human.

MetaphysicalxProdigy (2) vs. Mpz5 (0)

War Falcon is a machine in Pauper. It is REALLY strong. Giving it Exalted bonuses just makes it even better. Also, Seraph of Dawn is very powerful. She has a big butt and gains you life. Add Exalted to *her* and now you have a powerhouse. Take these two creatures and Exalted and match them up against a deck of mostly 1/1 bodies and the match goes quickly.

Tyqar (2) vs. torridus (1)

I was really hoping that someone would see the potential in a Pauper Metalcraft deck, even with the 8-colorless-Artifact limit. Cards like Ardent Recruit and Auriok Sunchaser are amazingly powerful in Pauper if you can pull off three Artifacts, which is quite easily done with Master's Call, as it really counts as two.

Kravian (2) vs. BlunterCube (0)

BlunterCube’s deck honestly contained too many high-cost spells and the removal was scarce and only handled single targets. These two factors led to an easy win by a board-swarming deck, like Kravian’s.

TristanTaylorsVoice (2) vs. birdseed (1)

TristanTaylorsVoice’s deck is packed to the brim with Arrest, Pacifism, Gideon's Lawkeeper, and other forms of creature control. It turns out that a deck with lots of creature control works exceptionally well against a deck with only combat tricks for its removal.

madams5 (2) vs. bhrusson0 (0)

bhrusson0’s lack of removal, aside from the expensive Rebuke, means that a board-swarming deck with lots of board-pumping spells (like Guardians' Pledge and Break of Day) will likely gain the upper-hand very quickly. Add in combat tricks from madams5 and you have the exact story of what happened in this game.

Round 2 pairings!

TristanTaylorsVoice vs. Kravian
madams5 vs. sealion
MetaphysicalxProdigy vs. Tyqar
Wolfsage13: BYE!

Round 2 results:

winning player (games won) vs. losing player (games won)

TristanTaylorsVoice (2) vs. Kravian (1)

The inevitable problem with spells like Gather the Townsfolk and Captain's Call is that their value is decreased the later in the game they’re cast. While they *can* be good when cast as soon as possible, the tokens they generate don’t do a whole lot against First Strike or creatures with Flying. The benefit from attacking with a 1/1 is minimal and the benefit of blocking is minimal, as well.

sealion (2) vs. madams5 (1)

madams5’s deck only has 1 Flying creature (a playset of Chapel Geist) and only 1 other than can get into the air (Doomed Traveler). While Chapel Geist is really good against all of these 2/X Flyers in White Pauper, you kinda need to see it or you take some massive air damage. That being said, sealion’s starts with double Leonin Skyhunter in the second and third game easily snagged the victory.

MetaphysicalxProdigy (2) vs. Tyqar (1)

The first game made the match look promising for Tyqar, but the occasional trouble of finding Metalcraft can be devastating for an entire deck built around that mechanic. The equipments (Sylvok Lifestaff and Flayer Husk) can be effective on their own, but without Ardent Recruit and Auriok Sunchaser receiving their Metalcraft bonuses, they are 1/1 vanilla creatures getting vanilla P/T buffs. Meta’s fast deck quickly seized the opportunity to overrun the missed Metalcraft triggers and did more damage than Tyqar could come back from.

Wolfsage13: BYE!

Round 3 pairings!

TristanTaylorsVoice vs. Wolfsage13
sealion vs. MetaphysicalxProdigy

Round 3 results:

winning player (games won) vs. losing player (games won)

TristanTaylorsVoice (2) vs. Wolfsage13 (0)

Game 1: TristanTaylorsVoice’s deck won on turn 6 with a rather large army, a Pacifism or two, and double Guardians' Pledge for the coveted style-points bonus known simply as “The Face-Melter.”
Game 2: Yet another huge army from TristanTaylorsVoice with a mix of Flying and First Strike and a couple Pacifisms and Arrests made life relatively easy. Wolfsage13’s deck has a lot of the same elements as Tristan’s, but I feel as though Tristan’s is more streamlined. Both are good decks, but one had to win.

MetaphysicalxProdigy (2) vs. sealion (0)

Game 1: Seraph of Dawn is a force to be reckoned with. It’s an amazing blocker and hits for 2 damage and gains 2 life in the air. Even for 4 mana, that’s a bargain in Pauper. Give it some Exalted triggers and combat tricks and it suddenly becomes rather difficult to lose.
Game 2: sealion’s removal was mostly absent from this game and his Humans (which would otherwise have a lot of synergy with each other) began to be picked off, one at a time, through combat tricks following perfectly logical attack declarations, Righteous Blow, and Gideon's Lawkeeper. Also, sealion’s life-gain seemed good on paper before playtesting, but it never amounted to more than simply stalling out a loss. I think, in White, once you find yourself down by 2 or 3 creatures on the board, it’s very difficult to fight your way back even with extra time from a buffed-up Golden Urn.

White Bracket Finals!

TristanTaylorsVoice vs. MetaphysicalxProdigy

Game Deets

Game 1: View this screen-cap: FML, Pauper White. For those of you playing at home, check the deck sizes on that image. Yeah. The game went THAT long. It really only came down to top-decking enough Flying creatures for Player 1 (TristanTaylorsVoice) to break through the stalled-out battlefield.
Game 2: In a dramatic turn of events, the second game in the final match-up was incredibly fast. TristanTaylorsVoice’s deck ran in guns a-blazing with Porcelain Legionnaire and 3x Sylvok Lifestaff. Drawing almost exclusively creature-control cards after that ensured that MetaphysicalxProdigy couldn’t do a whole lot without drawing the perfect set of cards.

So our White bracket champion is…

TristanTaylorsVoice

Congratulations! You now have 2 piping hot Feature Tokens, a Round Robin tournament with the other champions, a game against my personal White Pauper deck, and eternal internet glory to look forward to!

Also, congratulations to MetaphysicalxProdigy for making second place! One Feature Token will be awarded to your account within a day or two of this article’s posting.

Post-bracket thoughts…

War Falcon is amazing. Going from that into Leonin Skyhunter, Porcelain Legionnaire, or Gideon's Lawkeeper sets the stage for a swift and decisive victory.

Seraph of Dawn + buffing Auras/Exalted/combat tricks is incredible. 4 Toughness in the air was outstandingly relevant in the White bracket, where most of the Flying creatures die to 2 Power. And life-gain in Limited/Pauper formats is always at least somewhat relevant.

Zealous Strike/Moment of Heroism are terrific – in moderation. Make sure you have enough of the creatures to use these spells on (and hopefully more than just 1/1 bodies and defenders, mind you) and you can completely sway the control of a game in one attack.

Righteous Blow decided games. The ability to Shock anything that moved was invaluable to most decks. Also, most of the creatures in White Pauper have 1 or 2 Toughness. Righteous Blow is also the perfect counter to combat-trick targets.

Flying/First Strike seemed to be the way to go, especially when supported by Exalted and creature tapping abilities, as with Gideon's Lawkeeper. Cards like Pacifism and Arrest were great, too, since they’re really just removal spells unless your opponent is running rogue Enchantment destruction or Faith's Reward/Stave Off.

Thank you to all of the people who submitted a White deck to this Challenge! You’re helping to make this Challenge a TappedOut tradition! Now on to our next color in the tournament:

Red Pauper Tournament Pairings!

nsgreiner vs. nanoomega
shuflw vs. JamesHughes
jminute14 vs. dmint
exarkun809 vs. MTNman
Zickzag vs. Jaya_student
Demarge vs. justen

This article is a follow-up to Pauper Challenge: Blue Results The next article in this series is Pauper Challenge: Red Results