So, How'd It Turn Out?

The pauper Commander event last last Sunday and I decided to go with Hallar in both games.

And...they did not go well!

One issue that I had was a misunderstanding of how Commander damage worked; namely, Hallar's trigger would NOT count as commander damage. So, that kinda sucked-but that one is on me. 

The other is that I underestimated the value engines people would be running; in both games there was a LOT of splash damage or heavily synergistic combos that did not leave a lot of room for me to develop my board. A little lifegain would have gone a long way, I think. But also some more out-of-the-box thinking in the way of disruption could've been good. What, I'm not sure. Because:

I also didn't do enough research, as it turns out. After the event, Rebecca pointed out to me that Moxfield has a Pauper Commander field and I could've used that to get ideas and hone the build. 

Because what I experienced were games where I just played "draw, go" and didn't get to do much of anything. I waited on creatures-maybe longer than I should have-in order to get kicker costs paid, and I kept drawing pump spells-which are nice but only really work if I'm attacking. 

And it wasn't until garbage time in the last game that I had more than two creatures on the table-an event that was fixed by someone's Crypt Rats. (I'm not upset by that-it was a good play).

However, I spent my time really not doing anything in the games and that just feels bad.

Finally, I think I just did not plan for flying creatures well enough. As with many limited formats, flying seems to be a HUGE ability here. In my first game, I was KO'd by an aura'd up 16/16 flying creature. How am I going to remove that at the common level? 

(Hint; Tranquil Path would've been awesome! But I didn't draw it.)

On the other hand: everyone else had a great time! And from what I heard/saw, the games were interesting and engaging. So I think it's just back to the drawing board for me, not: I hate this idea.

And maybe use a little time to do some research for Aryel, before that one gets taken for a ride. 

On the other hand: of the seven decks at the table, five had black. What I hope that means is that we are just trying to find out what works, with plenty of room to explore, and not that the best colors are rooted in black. The latter means that the metagame is already skewed and not as interesting. 

Two Paupers

 We'll start with Aryel, Knight of Windgrace 

Instant 1 Ardenvale Tactician // Dizzying Swoop 1 Raise the Draugr 1 Unmake 1 Rootborn Defenses 1 Demon's Due 1 Acrobatic Maneuver 1 Maximum Overdrive  1 Riot Control  1 Disenchant	Artifacts 1 Commander's Sphere 1 Orzhov Signet 1 Orzhov Cluestone 1 Whispersilk Cloak 1 Cliffhaven Kitesail 1 Tithing Blade
Enchantment 1 Hopeful Vigil 1 Knightly Valor 1 Pestilence	Sorcery 1 Smitten Swordmaster // Curry Favor 1 Call the Cavalry 1 Fell Horseman // Deathly Ride 1 Besotted Knight // Betroth the Beast 1 Return from Extinction 1 Diresight 1 Eriette's Lullaby 1 Risky Shortcut  1 Blood Tithe
Lands 12 Swamp 12 Plains 1 Sunlit Marsh 1 Silverquill Campus 1 The Fair Basilica 1 Path of Ancestry 1 Orzhov Basilica 1 Forsaken Sanctuary 1 Neglected Manor 1 Remote Farm 1 Hidden Necropolis 1 Peat Bog 1 Desert of the Glorified 1 Desert of the True 1 Mortuary Mire 1 Thriving Heath 1 Thriving Moor	Creatures 1 Knight of the New Coalition 1 Order of the Ebon Hand 1 Inspiring Captain 1 Benalish Cavalry 1 Benalish Knight 1 Parhelion Patrol 1 Leonin Skyhunter 1 Order of Leitbur 1 Skyhunter Patrol 1 Sigiled Sentinel 1 Attended Knight 1 Cadaverous Knight 1 Lost Legion 1 Argivian Cavalier 1 Barrow Witches 1 Locthwain Paladin 1 Relief Captain 1 Swordsworn Cavalier 1 Caravan Escort 1 Dauthi Mercenary 1 Ardenvale Paladin 1 Gryff Rider 1 Desperate Farmer 1 Cabal Paladin 1 Knight of Sursi 1 Devout Witness 1 Engine Rat  1 Grasping Thrull  1 Breathless Knight  1 Disciple of the Sun  1 Gravedigger  1 Eldrazi Devastator

Then we'll see what Hallar, the Firefletcher has to offer.

Instant 1 Colossal Growth 1 Falling Timber 1 Might of Murasa 1 Shivan Fire 1 Vines of Vastwood 1 Lifecrafter's Gift 1 Fissure 1 Overload 1 Lightning Bolt  1 Sulfurous Blast	Artifacts 1 Everflowing Chalice 1 Moss Diamond 1 Gruul Cluestone 1 Gruul Signet 1 Bumbleflower's Sharepot 1 Whispersilk Cloak 1 Armory of Iroas 1 Commander's Sphere
Enchantment  1 Bestial Fury	Sorcery 1 Grow from the Ashes 1 Reclaim the Wastes 1 Roil Eruption 1 Savage Offensive 1 Saproling Migration 1 Hull Breach 1 Tranquil Path  1 Elven Cache
Lands 12 Forest 10 Mountain 1 Gruul Turf 1 Racers' Ring 1 Rugged Highlands 1 Evolving Wilds 1 Terramorphic Expanse 1 Looming Spires 1 Sandstone Needle 1 Teetering Peaks 1 The Autonomous Furnace 1 Smoldering Crater 1 Hickory Woodlot 1 Khalni Garden 1 Slippery Karst 1 The Hunter Maze  1 Desert of the Fervent  1 Desert of the Indomitable	Creatures 1 Baloth Gorger 1 Gnarlid Colony 1 Gnarlid Pack 1 Goblin Bushwhacker 1 Krosan Druid 1 Mold Shambler 1 Oran-Rief Recluse 1 Skitter of Lizards 1 Torch Slinger 1 Viashino Branchrider 1 Longshot Squad 1 Citanul Woodreaders 1 Deepwood Denizen 1 Elvish Visionary 1 Generous Stray 1 Keldon Raider 1 Llanowar Visionary 1 Sarulf's Packmate 1 Seismic Monstrosaur 1 Yavimaya Elder 1 Bramble Wurm 1 Cactarantula 1 Hand of Emrakul 1 Krosan Tusker 1 Oliphaunt 1 Nacatl Outlander 1 Mountain Yeti 1 Wickerbough Elder 1 Aquastrand Spider  1 Panicked Altisaur  1 Pheres-Band Tromper  1 Spitfire Lagac  1 Anarchist  1 Zhur-Taa Druid

I've been testing these decks with Rebecca and Noah and they both have performed well! I'm not sure what might be the best of them, though I usually have a soft spot for RG decks, Aryel has been quite good-evasion, removal, good creature type to support. 

Maybe I'll get the chance to play both!

Pauper Commander Selection

Some friends of mine are getting together to do a pauper Commander day and I've been trying to pick a good Commander.

My current creatures under consideration are: 

Hallar, the Firefletcher 

Aryel, Knight of Windgrace

Eron, the Relentless 

Now, clearly one of these is not like the other. Of the Commanders, I think Hallar might be the strongest one, since it has an ability that pings all opponents, and +1 counters are pretty easy to add in Green. The plan is to do multiplayer games, so I'm encouraged to build my deck knowing that. 

Arvel might have the most synergy though: knights are very easy to produce in those colors and the removal suite is probably excellent. I feel as though this Commander would offer me a lot of resilience, and a typal theme is pretty easy to execute on.

Eron though...well, yeah it's not a great card but wouldn't playing a bunch of hasty red creatures be amusing? It's also so old school that I can't help but appreciate it and I could even go full scoundrel with Chandler and Joven.  

Note to future self; Do not do that.

As it turns out, I'd also misunderstood the assignment a little. I had thought that your Commander had to be an uncommon Legend-there are 380, so plenty of choices! But Matt pointed out that the Commander could be any uncommon creature. Which is WILD, as there are 4,999 of those. And that number seems small. 

Still, I'm sticking to my guns on this one.

Skittles

"Grenade Launcher isn't a common," my opponent said during testing.

Why sure it i-oh no. No it is not.

So that happened.

Fortunately, since this happened during testing and I didn't have to worry about having an illegal deck at the tournament. I tested with Crowbar but I wasn't entirely happy with that. Not unhappy but it's no Grenade Launcher.

So after a few more adjustments, this is what I went with:

Upgrades
3 Escape Plan
2 Kinetic Intensifier Whip
3 Improvised Shield
2 Basic Combat Protocol
3 Enforcement Batons
2 Erratic Lightning
1 Bashing Shield
2 Kinetic Converter

Actions
Repurpose 3
Ready For Action  2
Frag Toss 2
Head-On Collision 2
Defensive Formation 2
Battlefield Report 2
Brainstorm 3
Leap Into Battle 3
Escape Plan 3
Surprise Attack 3
Swindled 3

And I went 1-3.

First things first: I had a lot of fun in the games I played and I very much have a notion where to take this in the future. Just because I lost, doesn't mean I didn't have a good time! I learned a bunch and that is the most important thing.

Round One:
I was facing 5-wide team lead by Captain Impactor, with a heavy emphasis on bold. Game one I got run over. Game two I was able to stabilize but when even Private Tote is attacking for 11, that's just trouble.

Round Two:
I was facing a Dreadwing deck, supported by Bombshell! That was super cool and the matches were quite grindy, both of us eking out damage against the other. But I was able to hold off Dreadwing and eventually get the win. It was in this game that I was able to do things like one-shot Bombshell, something I couldn't do against the...not very defensive wide deck?

Sometimes, I do not understand this game.

Round Three:
This player was using Captain Astrotrain for damage and Sergeant Springer to draw a ton of cards. Against a two-tall team, I thought I had a shot, but I couldn't draw the cards I needed to heal, and I couldn't press any advantages. I figured out by game three that I had to take out Springer to keep the card engine from taking over, but the flips were not in my favor. Twice I flipped blues on attack, leaving my team vulnerable on the counterpunch-and leaving Springer with just one health left. One more orange pip and we untap with my two characters to his one but alas, that was not to be.

Round Four:
Another three wide team, this time using Optimus Prime-Freedom Fighter's innate bold ability to hit for a lot. Bold is a heck of a thing and it's helping me re-think how I build this deck. I was able to hit Optimus for eight in game two, letting me pull the victory out, but in game three I just couldn't get my deck going.

So what did I learn? In a big picture sense: I got distracted by shiny new cards (Reprocess, Defensive Formation) and forgot some basics that would've been a help. My biggest oversight was not including Forcefield in the deck, at least as a sideboard card. Bold attacks for 11 become a lot less scary when they hit for only four and I can heal one the next turn. But there were some specific things that I learned, too.

First: Repair Bay should've been in this deck, instead of cards with only black pips; as an orange card that heals the entire team, it fits perfectly. Second: I think I had too many white pips in this deck! Which is weird-the numbers say that generally one wants 9-11 white pip cards but I couldn't get consistent attacks and that might contribute. Third: more card draw (Incoming Transmission would've been fine) to assist Swindled could have helped, too. Finally, if there had been a way to incorporate New Designs, that would have been ideal. Card draw is huge (Kinetic Converter is excellent) but it needs to be followed up with pressure.

And that's it! Congrats to the winners and I'll have something better next time.

Beastmode

Here are the upgrades I've made to the deck for the tournament (updates in bold):

Upgrades
3 Grenade Launcher
3 Escape Plan
2 Kinetic Intensifier Whip
3 Improvised Shield
2 Basic Combat Protocol
3 Enforcement Batons
2 Erratic Lightning
1 Bashing Shield
1 Kinetic Converter

Actions
Repurpose 3
Ready For Action  2
Frag Toss 2
Head-On Collision 1
Defensive Formation 2
Battlefield Report 2
Brainstorm 3
Leap Into Battle 3
Escape Plan 3
Surprise Attack 3
Swindled 2

I leaned towards an aggressive build, eliminating Handheld Blaster for Grenade Launcher to increase the strength of the flips I would be making. Head-On Collision is there because I don't ever flip Raider Tailwind and Runabout's strongest attack mode is its bot mode, and a fourth copy of  Leap Into Battle is pretty good.

I also increased the green pip density for Raider Tailwind. Every little bit of offense or defense will help and while there isn't a ton of green pips, seven is still more than one.

The Sideboard is going to be
1 Stable Cover
1 Defensive Formation
2 Vaporize
2 Crushing Size
3 Crowbar

Motormaster, Stunticon Leader

Here's my reasoning:

Motormaster meets a critical point for my support character: it doesn't transform. Again: all the focus is going to be on Runabout and Runamuck for my flip actions, so the support card has to be solid as is.

And I chose Motormaster because of Private Sunrunner. Of the other Patrol teams, this is the only one who can do non-combat damage, which I think is a strong ability. While I expect the Air Strike Patrol to be a thing (they're the best Patrol at the moment) there aren't any real counters for what it does. I'm hoping to use the healing flips of Runabout to keep me in the game long enough to make an opponent's Raider Tailwind not matter.

But Motormaster takes a definite cut at Sunrunner's ability and that's what the sideboard is for.

Defensive Formation comes in vs the 4-5 wide decks, and if I can play it as my final action before they attack with two characters that would be ideal. Extra Stable Cover comes in against the black pip decks-I fully expect there to be a two-tall, heavy pierce deck. The characters and cards are there to support it, Raider Nova Storm can hit hard and I feel like it would be foolish to ignore the strategy.

Crushing Size and Vaporize are important because there are quite a few good Utility upgrades, especially ones that draw cards, and while Marshawn does a lot, it doesn't hit those very well or easily.

Crowbar is my wildcard at the moment: double pierce pips seem good against a heavily defensive deck. Is that a good idea? I don't know. But I'm not sure what else I should add in: more copies of Bashing Shield? Reprocess? I'm hoping to get a little testing in to help clarify things in time for Saturday.

Marshawn

I'm taking a quick break from Trypticon to write about a Transformers deck I'll be running this Saturday at the Red Castle Games event!

Raiders Runamuck and Runabout: a delightful pair from Siege I and the very first cards I stumbled on when my buddy Adam suggested making pauper decks. They have good synergy together and reasonable stats so I figured that I'd give this a go.

Turns out, just goldfishing the characters feels pretty powerful and I had room for a five star character! But while there are a lot of interesting places to go, I quickly narrowed the field because of two criteria.

First, an all Decepticon team would open up some cards that otherwise wouldn't be available to me. Second, as a flip-heavy deck, having a character that I didn't need or want to transform was important, since I need to spend those actions transforming Runamuck or Runabout.

With the initial build, Raider Road Hugger took the spot, because it has the highest health and power over the other characters. However, with the arrival of Siege II, Raider Tailwind may take that slot, because its health is one more and there are no car-affiliated battle cards at common. 

So I collected the Raiders and named the deck after Marshawn Lynch, because he's awesome.

Upgrades
Improvised Shield 3
EM24 IR Laser Launcher 2
Erratic Lightning 2
Spare Parts 1
Basic Combat Protocol 2
Enforcement Batons 1
Primary Laser 3
Security Console 1

Actions
Repurpose 3
Ready For Action  2
Frag Toss 3
Defensive Formation 2
Battlefield Report 2
Brainstorm 3
Leap Into Battle 3
Rapid Conversion 2
Surprise Attack 3
Swindled 2

As it turns out, using Raider Road Hugger appropriately is important, since attacking with it at the right time can give you more opportunities to flip the Battlechargers. However, there isn't a rule for doing so that I've noticed, yet. Sometimes, it should attack second but this is usually only true once everyone had has a chance to untap. Generally, Road Hugger attacks third because then you can sculpt the hand to provide it with the strongest possible attack, loaded up with Upgrades and Actions.

That said: the big help in this deck is Ready for Action. I am reluctant to add a third, since this is a mixed-pip deck. If it was heavy orange or blue, the piplessness would matter far less. However, without a lot of Bold or Tough, and without a focus on aggro or defense, eking every bit of color out I can matters. 

On the other hand, every time I get to untap one of the Battlechargers I feel as if  Marshawn is in a fantastic position to win the game. The extra turn step is huge. It's possibly worth testing, and definitely worth putting in the sideboard.

The cards with the green pips are in there mostly to swap out, in case I get an Improvised Shield in hand. There are also cards from Siege II to consider, Kinetic Converter and Kinetic Intensifier Whip being highest on my radar.

However, this is the casual version of the deck. There's a tournament on Saturday! That means I need to do two things: shape up this deck for a tournament and figure out a sideboard. Thursday, I'll show off what I came up with.