Pauper with awesome mana!

A while back I wrote an article for mtgoacademy.com about why aggressive decks in Pauper are generally mono-colored and control decks usually play 2, potentially 3 cards at absolute most. Recently I’ve been working on my peasant (rareless) cube as well and I’ve noticed that mana fixing goes significantly later than it does when I draft regular cubes because the best fixing available is the karoos, shard lands, vivids, and signets. In a regular cube I’ll snap up a fetchland first pick without hesitation if the pack is only average. In the pauper and peasant cubes I’ve played though I can routinely wheel a shard land because they simply aren’t all that insane. After the third draft or so where I consciously tried to draft the multi-colored good stuff cube deck and failed despite having infinite fixers, I began to seriously contemplate the effects of adding better lands to my cube. Shortly thereafter I thought back to my old article on constructed Pauper and began to wonder even more.

There are myriads of awesome common cards and insane strategies that fall by the wayside due to the lack of mana fixing available in pauper. I briefly discussed the idea on a recent episode of the Pauper to the People podcast that I guest-hosted, and these are some of the cool deck ideas we brewed using Pauper card legality and access to any land:

Boros

Zoo

Uxx Delver Tempo

Big spell control with Urborg/Cabal Coffers

Rock/junk decks with Volraths Stronghold

4/5c Control (likely Teachings)

Goblins adding Wasteland and Port

All of these deck ideas flew out of our minds in about three minutes, and I’m sure there are a plethora of other ideas that people can brew up given some time and thought. In order to encourage brewing for this format, I will be running a league event this summer where all Pauper deck construction rules must be followed, except when it comes to the lands.

Details still have to be worked on but it will happen. This format seems awesome to me and hopefully to lots of you as well. I would like feedback on a few areas though.

First of all, what lands should be allowed? When I discussed the idea on Pauper to the People, the issue was pointed out that people play pauper because it’s cheap, and adding things like duals and wastelands defeats that purpose. This is a valid concern, and depending on feedback from everyone I might consider making only modern-legal lands available to help cut down on the very expensive lands while still allowing great quality of mana-bases. Another option is running the league through a forum where a fixed number of rounds are played with fixed pairings based on record so the competitors could use whatever medium they’d like to play matches.

Any other suggestions on how best to run the event are welcome, and please post in response to this if you’d consider playing so I can gauge potential interest and hopefully get this off the ground!

-          @Grant_champion

-          Pitlord on MTGO

Ps. We need to think of a cool name for this format! Post any naming suggestions you may have too!  

Sale List!

I can't remember my email or password associated with my MOTL account, so while I wait for one of my friends who's a mod over there to get back to me, I figure mise post the list here first and pimp the hell out of it on social networks. Here's the list, let me know in comments here or on your social media outlet of choice if you want to buy anything!

1.     Prices listed are per card.

2.     Cards are generally in NM to EX condition unless noted. Willing to provide scans of anything upon request.

3.     Payment via personal Paypal, money order, or concealed cash only.

4.     U.S. buyers only.

5.     Shipping costs will be determined by buyer preference.

Plain envelope + toploaders - $1

Padded Envelope + toploaders - $2.5

Delivery Confirmation and insurance optional, extra costs apply

6.     I am not responsible for lost or stolen mail.

7.     I understand I appear to be a new seller but will not send cards first, will send after payment received or go through 3^rd party.

Eternal Staples

Timetwister (UL) - 250

Mana Crypt - 60

2 Lion’s Eye Diamond - 39

4 Polluted Delta – 38

2 Dark Confidant – 37

Wasteland – 35

Tolarian Academy (SP) – 19

Survival of the Fittest – 18

Vampiric Tutor (6th) - 15

Bloodstained Mire (Chinese) – 14

Umezawa’s Jitte – 14

Yawgmoth's Will - 12

Demonic Tutor (RV) – 9

Tinker – 4

Sol Ring (SP) - 3.5

Mana Vault (RV) – 3

Mystical Tutor (MI) (played) - 2.5

Lotus Petal (played) - 2

Foils

FOIL Grim Monolith – 105

FOIL Life From the Loam - 28

FOIL Iona, Shield of Emeria – 26

2 FOIL Trygon Predator – 17

FOIL Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon – 13

FOIL Anowon, the Ruin Sage – 3

2 Ghostly Prison (FNM) – 3

Modern/Standard Cards

Elspeth Tirel – 16

Seachrome Coast – 13

2 Tooth and Nail – 10

2 Gifts Ungiven – 7.5

Sower of Temptation – 7

Solemn Simulacrum (MRD) – 6

2 Blood Moon (CH) – 5.5

Black Sun’s Zenith – 5

Nissa Revane – 4.5

2 Garruk Wildspeaker (M10) – 4

Basilisk Collar – 3

Glissa, the Traitor – 2.5

Rootbound Crag (M10) – 2

2 Restore Balance – 2

3 Chameleon Colossus – 2

3 Pithing Needle (M10) - 2

Slaughter Pact - 2

Pyromancer Ascension – 1.5

2 Magus of the Arena – 1.5

Older/EDH/Other

Grove of the Burnwillows – 8

2 Sylvan Library (4th) – 7.5

Firestorm – 7

Concordant Crossroads (CH) – 4.5

Nevinyrral’s Disk (4^th) – 4

Winding Canyons – 4

Darksteel Colossus (M10) - 3.5

Phyrexian Processor – 2.5

3 Scapeshift – 2.5

Underground River (5^th) – 2

Memory Jar - 2

Reg Shield Sphere – 1

Basalt Monolith (RV) – 1

Rerowth (4^th) – 1.5

Chain of Vapor - 1

Teferi’s Isle – 1

Hivis of the Scale – 1

Crystal Vein - .75

2 Mystic Remora - .5

Unrestricted Magic

I was recently bemoaning the loss of 5-color as a semi-real format a few years ago. The format to me was always a blast to play and I enjoyed it a hell of a lot more than I've ever enjoyed EDH, which has become the big deck format of choice. I've also recently been getting back into EDH and often argue about the nature of having a "casual" format that allows for such broken interactions and plays. All of that arguing got me thinking though about whatthe most broken cards and combos in the game are. Someone else, I believe it was Stephen Mendendian, once wrote an article about unrestricted Vintage to highlight the most powerful cards and strategies in the game. The article was interesting but in my opinion kind of failed at highlighting much besides how quickly a metagame revolving around chalice of the void would evolve in such a format. With the ability to compose a mana base almost entirely of zero cost artifacts and the ability to focus on only a few spells in limited colors were limiting factors in exploring the truly broken.
So, as a thought experiment I think an unrestricted 5-color format would actually be far more interesting. For anyone unfamiliar with 5-color, deck construction requires 250 (now 300, but 250 seems better for now). It also requires that at least 20 spells of each color be played, with split or gold cards counting as any one of their colors, but not each. For example, Vindicate could be either a black slot or a white slot but not both.
Now that deck construction principles and some background have been laid out, let's get broken!
First off is the mana. 100 mana sources is equivalent to 24 in regular construction, which is a good baseline. Black Lotus and Sol Ring are the most obvious inclusions, along with some number of moxes, likely the full 20. That's 28, leaving around 60-70 slots for other options. City of Brass i.s an auto-include land, and Mana Crypt is also almost certianly worth it for more fast mana. Mana Vault I feel is more debatable and will be omitted for now. For lands I think having more variety than City, duals and fetches is likely wrong. The blue fetches are auto includes, and I think something along the lines of a 30-30 split for fetches and duals is fine, trimming down on the number of tradionally underpowered color combination ones like W/R and G/W.
With the easy part done, we move onto what style of deck we wish to play. Ithink something along the lines of Vintage Tezzeret control is almost certianly going to be the best approach. Time Vault is my vote for best win condition, using Blightsteel to actually get the kill. As such the deck I would build would focus mostly on tutors, combo pieces, draw spells, and a smattering of counterspells and other assorted solution cards.
If anyone is interested, I may actually come up with a list and post it, but right now its still just a budding idea.
My real question though is what other people think. What's the most broken approach to a large deck format with a completely open cardpool? Am I overeating Time Vault as a wincon? Would Oath be worth including in a list concept like mine? Is combo-control what you would even want to be doing? Or would highly focused Flash list be too fast for it to matter? What about just regrowing Time Walks over and over until you find a win? What are peoples thoughts and ideas on breaking magic wide open with 250 cards? Let me know what you'd play.

In Defense of Modern Jund

I'm excited for Modern to finally become a real format. I love eternal formats, and I actually rather enjoyed the most recent Extended format before they neutered it into awfulness. Modern seems to be wide open and awesome, so what do I do to start testing? Obviously, I get lazy and decide quickly on gaming with Jund.
Early articles and tweets, especially from @Gavinverhey, who ran a series of Overextended events and is a leading authority in Modern as a result, tend towards Doran, Junk, and Bant decks as the leaders of the midrange pack. Jund, they argue, is just a pile of cards with no synergy and in this format the sum of the parts isn't good enough.
Actually, I agree. Viewed in the context of its Standard and limited Extended existence, Jund is underpowered. Sprouting Thrinax simply wont get the job done in Modern, nor will Bituminous Blast. Loading up on three drops and removal only gets you so far, so in some respects I agree Jund is fairly mediocre. However, the deck has a very powerful core and plenty of slots to adapt to the demands of Modern. After all, a deck that starts with
4 Confidant
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Bloodbraid Elf
3-4 Blightning
Cant be all that bad, right? That's an awful lot of value, and also an awful lot of room left to customize. Of course other things like some number of Maelstrom Pulses and Lightning Bolts are likely to make just about every list, but beyond that there's plenty of space for things better than Thrinax.
One option is to include the greatly hyped Punishing Fire / Grove of the Burnwillows combo, likely with Kavu Predator. Jund could also incorporate the Melira/persist combo without too much problem, while having a solid beatdown/card advantage backup plan.
At this juncture I'm not sure which direction will be best for Jund, and I'll be testing several configurations in the coming weeks to figure out just that. Don't discount Jund just yet. With the ability to play many of the defining midrange combos in Modern and having the excellent backup plan of just cascading into Blightning, Jund may still have what it takes to compete in the newest format.

Band of the day: American Armada. Fast, loud, and fun straight forward punk rock. Great energy and super fun to listen to whenever you need a boost.

What to expect

Alright, I'm assuming most of you are here almost entirely for the Magic: The Gathering content (unless you're @nerdtothecore). That said, I do listen to a TON of music, mostly punk and folk, that will get a post here and there. That said, the focus of the blog will be on Magic strategy and deck discussion. As I do with my articles, I'll be focusing on the Pauper format mostly, probably with some draft videos thrown in, and maybe content on whatever format I'm randomaly playing at any given moment. Posts will probably vary from full-length comprehensive video articles to a few random ideas or thoughts on things I'd like to test or see. Hopefully, You'll stick around, enjoy some free content, and leave some sweet feedback for me. Thanks.

Red City Radio and others

Testing my first post for the new blog while I wait for video to compress so I can put it on youtube and get some Magic content on this bitch. Anyways, three sweet new albums I want to talk about.
First up is the new Rise Against, Endgame. It's a solid offering, though it pretty much sounds like Appeal To Reason part II, which may or may not be a bad thing.
Next up is The Rebel Spell - It's a Beautiful Future. One of the few street-punk style bands I still listen to, The Rebel Spell never disappoints when delivering overtly political messages in a fast and loud punk rock style.
Finally, Red City Radio has their first full-length, The Dangers of Standing Still, and it ROCKS. Super sweet gruff punk rock for fans of everything on Red Scare. Terrific album and reminds me a lot of one of my favorite bands, The Menzingers.