Zandl's Standard Pauper Challenge

Deck Challenges

zandl

10 April 2013

2524 views

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The good zandl is back at it again! He’s calling out for your assistance! He needs your Pauper decks! He wants (Well, … alright. No first-person speech this time around. I promise.) Whether you’re a newbie, on-and-off casual player, or grizzled ancient, your Pauper deck-building skills will soon be put to the test.

I humbly welcome you to and invite you to compete in…

Zandl’s Spring 2013 Standard Pauper Challenge

So come along, friends, and journey with me through the decorated halls of Pauper Challenges past. The road ahead will be packed to the brim with hordes of Centaur Healers, Skyknight Legionnaires, and Ethereal Armors. It will no doubt be a treacherous, if not foolhardy, endeavor. But should you remain at the end of your quest and stand alone atop the momentous pile of singed and mutilated Axebane Guardians and Seraph of Dawns, you will be crowned the Spring 2013 Standard Pauper Champion!

Come, and read through the good zandl’s witty, sophisticated banter as he depicts each bone-crunching battle from which Magic Champions are forged!

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Well, hopefully that got your attention. I was running out of flashy words to throw down. Now we can move to the soul-crushingly boring rules and guidelines, as well as general Challenge information.

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What you will need to do:

1. Choose your colors!

This is a Standard Pauper Challenge that will test your deck-building skills within two colors of your choice. Decks must be exactly two colors! Mono-color decks and decks with three or more colors will not be accepted! If you’d like to know how Hybrid-mana cards, land, and color identity play into this rule, keep reading.

2. Build your deck!

That’s not plural. You have just ONE (1) deck to give to this Challenge. Not one per color, Sparky. ONE. Total. When you submit your deck, be sure that it’s in the colors you want. Please read and follow the deck-building rules (found below) very carefully. My Anger doesn’t like to be awakened.

3. Submit your deck!

Once your deck has a fancy, color-and-Pauper-reflecting name, head on over to my fanciful submission page, Spring 2013 Pauper Challenge Submissions, and leave a link to your deck in a comment.

The deadline for submitting your deck is 11:59pm MST (Mountain Standard Time) on Sunday, April 14.

Revisions of decks will be held to the same deadline as deck submissions. Anything submitted after that time will be turned away, as I will start playing the decks together shortly thereafter.

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What I will do:

1. Assemble your deck on Cockatrice!

Once all of the submissions have been collected, I will add each deck onto my Cockatrice account.

2. Set up a giant bracket for all submissions!

Unlike the last Pauper Challenge, I won’t be setting up individual brackets for each color (or, in this case, each combination of colors). There would be ten brackets and that would just lead to inefficient and rather inconclusive results. This way, everyone has a fair shot but it takes a more skillful hand to build a deck. Using a random number generator, I’ll be setting up the bracket with each deck facing a completely random opponent.

3. Play your deck on Cockatrice!

I’ll whip open the Cockatrice Local Playtester, load up two decks, and assume the roles of both players. From there, I’ll play the matches out making all rational decisions that a skilled player would make. Sorry, but it's just not realistic to think we all could set up a bracket, have everyone get Cockatrice, download the most recent updates, agree on when to play, play the correct decks, follow all the guidelines and rules, and accurately report back to me, all in a timely manner. It just can't happen.

Matches between decks will be based off the brackets and will be in a best-two-out-of-three format, much like your average FNM. There will be single-elimination rounds, narrowing down the decks until only one remains. For simplicity’s sake, these decks will NOT be played in a Swiss format.

At the end of a large amount of matches, I will post a follow-up article with game highlights and information on how each deck did, as well as the pairings for the next set of matches. And simply because I’m a benevolent-ish kind-of guy, I’ll make it amusing to read. Generally speaking.

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What you could WIN:

As with last year’s Pauper challenge, prizes will be doled out in the form of Feature Tokens credited to your account! When you click "Feature" on one of your deck’s pages, it uses up a Feature Token (assuming you have one) and the deck becomes part of the "Featured Decks" tab on the homepage for 24 hours. This is a great way to get a ton of feedback on a deck or simply show any visitor to the site for 24 hours what you’ve been working on.

• Currently, KrazyCaley, yeaGO, and myself are all in cahoots and we’re figuring out a realistic prize-allotment system. Fear not, however! Prizes will be sufficient for even the stingiest and most barnacle-encrusted of Magic players.

In addition to this, either the top eight or the top four deck lists (havent decided yet) will be included in a sort of "challenge wrap-up" article and will be broken down for analysis and whatnot.

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Deck-building rules:

For the love of all that is good and holy, please follow all of these rules and guidelines while building your deck. By the submission deadline, if your deck doesn’t meet the following requirements and limitations, it will not be accepted.

1. You can only use Standard cards!

You may only use cards from the following sets:

• Innistrad
• Dark Ascension
• Avacyn Restored
• Magic 2013
• Return to Ravnica
• Gatecrash

2. You can only use commons!

Being a Pauper challenge, you may NOT use Mythics, Rares, or Uncommons. Only Commons. Being a STANDARD Pauper challenge, you may only use cards that exist as Commons in Standard sets. Oblivion Ring and Rancor, most notably, are legal in eternal Pauper formats due to the fact that they were originally released as Commons. But in Standard, they only exist as Uncommons, making them impossible to use.

3. You can only choose cards within two colors.

If you wanted your deck to be both Blue and Green for its two colors, you may include such cards as Ivy Lane Denizen, Stitcher's Apprentice, and Bioshift. You may not use cards like Primal Visitation, Essence Backlash, or Frostburn Weird.

• Hybrid-cost cards that are Commons are okay to use, but both colors found in each one’s mana cost must match the colors of your deck.
• Color Identity, normally only used in EDH/Commander, will not be a factor in deck-building guidelines. If your deck is Blue and Green, you may use Disciple of the Old Ways. As long as only Blue mana symbols and Green mana symbols exclusively make up all the mana costs of your spells, I couldn’t care less what mana symbols are found in your cards’ rules text.
• Lands are colorless, as they have no mana cost. All Common lands in Standard are okay for use in all decks. (And don’t forget about our Common dual-lands in Standard!)

4. Sideboards will not be used!

Don’t build one! For time and simplicity’s sake, sideboards will NOT be used in the Challenge.

5. You only get 8 colorless artifacts!

You may only have up to 8 colorless artifacts in your deck, and only Common ones, of course.

6. Decks must be exactly 60 cards!

Not 59 or 61. 60 or bust!

__________________________________________________________ That’s about all I have for you at this time. If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to ask me either here or on my profile. Once again... The deadline for submitting your deck is 11:59pm MST (Mountain Standard Time) on Sunday, Aprilt 14, 2013. It’s probably a good idea to go through and read all the commons in Standard for the colors you choose, or to help you determine which colors to build with. Cards that might be best used as soda-can coasters in Standard Constructed might be massive, game-breaking bombs in Pauper! Think outside the box, don’t underestimate any Common, and try to imagine the specific Commons and types of strategies people may use.

Remember - Your deck could be pitted against any other Standard Pauper deck. You don’t want to build your deck to be too narrow, but having a clear focus is an attribute of every successful Magic deck in history.

Make me proud, Pauperteers!