Last time we played Pauper, there was a [scryfall]Vizkopa Guildmage[/scryfall] on the field. I had thought about using her as well, but didn’t want to step on anyone’s toes, so I didn’t. Still, this could be a truly repressive deck, so I thought I’d just design one, since this seems like an interesting choice for a general. However, this is Pauper and that means we don’t have that much room to maneuver.
Historically, in Magic, two drop creatures are usually the most efficient. There’s a reason people play maindecked [scryfall]Spell Snare[/scryfall]s in Modern. Some examples: [scryfall]Snapcaster Mage[/scryfall], [scryfall]Tarmogoyf[/scryfall], [scryfall]Spirit of the Labyrinth[/scryfall], [scryfall]Meddling Mage[/scryfall], [scryfall]Putrid Leech[/scryfall], [scryfall]Scavenging Ooze[/scryfall], [scryfall]Pack Rat[/scryfall], [scryfall]Dark Confidant[/scryfall], [scryfall]Baleful Strix[/scryfall], [scryfall]Thalia, Guardian of Thraben[/scryfall], [scryfall]Arcbound Ravager[/scryfall], [scryfall]Quirion Dryad[/scryfall], [scryfall]Lord of Atlantis[/scryfall] and its ilk, [scryfall]Young Pyromancer[/scryfall], [scryfall]Precinct Captain[/scryfall] and so forth. This is only what I can come up with from the top of my head. Sure, there are creatures with other casting costs, which are definitely good, but two just seems to be the sweet spot.
What can we do with this information? Well, the title of this post says pretty much: if all our creatures are of the same casting cost, we can bring them all back with [scryfall]Immortal Servitude[/scryfall] and since we don’t want to go too high on the curve, two is a good spot to put all our creatures in. So, now the question is, what do we use here. Since I tend to go with monocolored decks, we can choose either white or black as our color. So, the first step is figuring out all the creatures we can use use in standard:
[scryfall]Purphoros, God of the Forge[/scryfall] deals damage to opponents when a creature enters the battlefield under your control. Also, it can pump the power of all your creatures. Just a quick look over at all the red cards available in standard and we can find plenty of help here.
I tend to win some booster packs each week, so I generally have some at home. The joy of opening them wears of quite quickly, so what you should do instead is use them for something to get extra value. Classic options are drafting and sealed, but there’s also the newer Wizard’s Tower, which is becoming more popular.
And then there’s Solomon draft.
Back in the 50s, there was a workshop to decide what the field now known as artificial intelligence should be known as. For a long time, computational rationality was the forerunner, but in the end, we have what we have now.
Of course, I can’t really say that this decision affected much, but how much more does something like “artificial intelligence” spark the imagination then “computational rationality”. Would we have 2001: A Space Odyssey? Terminators? Asimov’s robot series? Deep Thought?
So, I couldn’t leave this topic to yesterday’s [scryfall]Bloodbraid Elf[/scryfall] as I felt I could do more with a [scryfall]Centaur Battlemaster[/scryfall], a card I’ve grown very fond of in Theros limited, although our relationship is sometimes strained as I’ve [scryfall]Spark Jolt[/scryfall]ed and even [scryfall]Shredding Winds[/scryfall]’d my own battlemaster to grow it. But hey, its won me quite a few games, sometimes basically oneshotting an opponent.
So, what can I do with one in EDH?
To keep our EDH games fresh, we decided to take a break from the normal games and go for Pauper next week, maybe for longer, you never know (as we don’t really plan these out). Some of the players are very excited about this and I find it hard to contain myself with my deck ideas.
The rules are simple: You can choose any uncommon creature to be your general and the deck is the normal EDH singleton deck, except that each card has to a common (or has been printed as common at some point, such as [scryfall]Doom Blade[/scryfall], which used to be common, but was moved into uncommon in M14). The number of potential generals is huge compared to the number of legendary creatures, so this is going to bring some diversity, but on the other hand, most uncommon creatures are still pretty simple and don’t necessarily have that flashy abilities or stats.
After contemplating most of the guildmages (from both Ravnicas), [scryfall]Centaur Battlemaster[/scryfall], [scryfall]Shipwreck Singer[/scryfall], [scryfall]Krosan Warchief[/scryfall] and many others, I went with [scryfall]Bloodbraid Elf[/scryfall].
So, yes, [scryfall]Sylvan Primordial[/scryfall] got banned. I do get why, but I still don’t really like it. Its a card that can do a lot of damage, but there are others.
Sorry about the downtime. Fucking Internet. As if taking over our site actually accomplishes anything. Although, they can’t know that and the whole process is probably automated, so from their point of view, no harm done. Whereas from out point of view, downtime, bit of panic, lots of frustration and maybe even unexpected expenses.
I’m telling you this partly because Lauri felt he might have to take out the plugin which lets me show the cards. I don’t know why, really, but since its in his hands… This just means that some posts might look really awkward in the future, including this one.
In other news, I didn’t do very well at the prerelease. Blue was definitely the right choice, as the two matches I lost were against blue decks (actually, blue-black, which I was playing as well), but I just wasn’t at top form. I dropped out at 1-2 after three rounds, because there was a competing offer of some boardgaming. The thing that put me over the top on this decision went as follows: I had [scryfall]Arbiter of the Ideal[/scryfall] in play, but due to me being on the phone at the same time, I missed the Inspired trigger, which meant I missed putting [scryfall]Prescient Chimera[/scryfall] on the table for free on the following turn, I got only a swamp and then drew a [scryfall]Tromokratis[/scryfall] instead of being able to put that on the board for free. It even got countered.
Generally I don’t like to drop out, because I go to these events to have fun playing, but that mistake was so severe it would have eaten at me and I just didn’t have the chance to reset.
.. but I did come up with topic for today and its not about missing triggers.
Recently it was announced that the former Team Star City Games (the professional MtG team sponsored by the largest reseller of MtG-related stuff in the world) had switched to being sponsored by Channel Fireball, which already had its own team. One of the results of this change was that the team no longer had a name and this age of social media, they went out and asked people what name they should use. They got some fairly good answers, such as ProsBloom, which I would have enjoyed (it being another iconic combo from the early days of magic, just like [scryfall]Channel[/scryfall] and [scryfall]Fireball[/scryfall]).
Then there were answer like [scryfall]City of Traitors[/scryfall], [scryfall]Act of Treason[/scryfall] and [scryfall]Dark Betrayal[/scryfall].