My suggestion is: it'd be really hard to buy him particular cards, without knowing what formats he plays. With that in mind, I'd consider buying him an accessory, like a nice deck box or play mat. With that, you don't need to know so much about the game as much as his personality and what he finds cool. Like, maybe he likes dragons or nature or ferrets or whatever (the Starcitygames Creature Collection is good for this!)
- The artist Noah Bradley sells some amazing, striking playmats on his site.
- Originalmagicart.com has some playmats with licensed art that are a bit pricier (~$40).
- If you have a high resolution image, you could get a custom playmat on Inked Gaming...I know one guy who has a picture of his daughter on a playmat.
- You can also browse through playmats on eBay, though sometimes there you get unlicensed ones printed in China with less quality. Could be good if he's really into anime, though.
It's dangerous collecting all these links because now I want a new playmat myself...
So, what you should always remember is that players use shortcuts at their own risks. If they then create confusion or a situation of miscommunication, they are responsible for it.
Ex 1: Player A taps 3 swamps and says “pump”, pointing out at his Looming Shade. In response, player B plays Incinerate on the Shade. Even if A claims that he wanted to pass priority between each pump, he chose to use a shortcut (not making clear that he was passing priority), and then cannot come back on it. According to the second criteria of the intent test explained in Justus’ article, it is obvious that you can’t let A’s creature survive since, because of his shortcut (“sloppy play”), he now knows that B is holding an Incinerate in hand.
Another player said that if you say "Pestilence for 6," it's assumed you mean "I'm planning to activate Pestilence's ability, let it resolve, then activate it again, repeating this for a total of 6 times." And if you're opponent wants to break the sequence with something like Prismatic Strands, they have to say when they're doing so.
In such situations where it could matter, I advocate walking through the Pestilence activations one by one. I feel like if someone said "I Pestilence for 6" and tap all 6 of their lands, it'd be assumed that they hold priority and put all 6 activations on the stack, that could then be stopped by a single Prismatic Strands in response. I feel like this is an area where you should be as clear as possible what you're doing with the stack. What do you think is the most common interpretation of "Pestilence for X?"
They should cost more than the Planeshift Familiars. It's much more awkward to build a 3 color deck, where you want to have lots of the 2 side colors, but also push the middle color heavily since you want to get it's mana early for the familiars...compared to the simplicity of the mono deck. I'd cost them at 3 CMC, with stats around rate for a 1 CMC creature.
I also think it'd be nice if they had different stats.
0/3 or 0/4 for 2W, 1/1 Flier for 2U, 1/1 Deathtouch for 2B, etc...
However, we've just recently figured out that certain things we thought weren't online-legal are in fact online legal due to some obscure set which gatherer doesn't list (some of us old farts got introduced to scryfall by the newbies just last week). There'll be brewing with Flood and Energy Tap in the coming weeks, and it'll take us a short while to pick the cards up once we're happy with the builds, but we expect a local metagame shift soon enough if it turns out we can break some of the stuff that we haven't even considered due to thinking it was not legal.
Energy Tap and Flood are both legal due to the MTGO Treasure Chests, which is one of those weird random quirks of MTGO Legality. It also gives us some unique cards like Drafna's Restoration, and the W/B/G Monarch cards which are already so format impacting (but not the U/R ones).
I was wondering if we could get a thread to post local weekly or otherwise paper Pauper tournaments? The Legacy sub-forum has a similar thing, and I think it helps grow the paper scene for niche formats.
Also, in the Boston area, there's three different stores running regular Pauper tournaments:
Pandemonium Books and Games, every Thursday at 6:45 PM. MTGO Legality
Battlegrounds Saugus, (I think) the 1st and 3rd Sunday of each month at 1:00 PM (I don't know their schedule quite as well since I can't get out there as easily). MTGO Legality.
Lucky Goblin Games in Quincy, every Tuesday at 7:00 PM. Note, they allow Paper-only commons and have a janky internal ongoing banlist (Priest of Titania is banned, Hymn to Tourach/Sinkhole/etc are not banned yet).
Because I'm not sure if all cards from the Masques block were actually printed on MTGO as they printed the block mashed up into one, like they did with Tempest block.
Both Masques and Tempest blocks were printed on MTGO in full. They just did the "Remastered" sets later as well.
I was always in favor of a Shatterstorm downshift, just because there are tons of Tranquility effects at Common already. As someone who loves to play Enchantress, I always found it unfair!
I've experienced the same thing at my local meta...top tier decks like Delver being stomped by stuff like Naya Slivers, which went 4-0.
I think part of it is that most people are analyzing the Pauper meta purely based on the MTGO Challenges/Leagues, which is in some way an extremely insular meta. If the top players are only going to play Delver/Boros, then of course that's the only thing that's going to win.
There's also Burn in both Legacy and Modern, but that archetype wouldn't work in Commander at all. It also puts a lot towards a high tier Pauper deck, though.
...So the real reason I hate Foil isn't because of how dominant it is, it's because free spells break the game's rules and are unfun...
Just wanna say, I think this is an absurd metric. In a CCG, all cards break the game's rules to some extent. I mean, it's Magic's Golden Rule:
101. The Magic Golden Rules
101.1. Whenever a card's text directly contradicts these rules, the card takes precedence. The card overrides only the rule that applies to that specific situation.
Haste breaks the game rule of summoning sickness. Flash breaks the game rule of only playing creatures on your turn. Card draw breaks the rule of only drawing one card per turn. Etc, etc.
I respect the opinions of y'all ban-happy folks, but man, am I glad that y'all don't actually have any influence on the actual ban list of Pauper. The idea of banning so many cards you get to Mulldrifter and Spore Frog reads like a parody.
Also note: the most recent T8 of the Pauper Challenge had 3 Burn decks, 1 Boros Bully, 1 Boros Monarch, 1 Bogles, 1 UB Delver, and 1 UR Delver. So if you wanted to use a database approach based on the actual results of what's dominating vs. just whatever you don't like or don't think fits some vague, personal conception of what's "fair" or "fun" Magic, maybe Lightning Bolt should be banned before any blue cards.
(Was wondering if it could have a non-exert tap ability for colorless. Would that be too good or too complex? It would still be comparable complexity to Oasis Ritualist, which also has one non exert mana ability and one exert mana ability.)
IMHO that's totally fine. There are two allied color cycles like that already at Uncommon, one in Tempest (Mogg Hollows, etc) and one from Champions of Kamigawa (Cloudcrest Lake, etc). They haven't seen much use outside of, for me at least, Commander decks where I'm lazy about finding better duals.
Any condition you add and it either becomes too good or too complex.
This strikes me as a spot of intellectual laziness.
Mustshockland
Land
When ~ enters the battlefield, you lose X life.
T: Add B or R.
IMHO there's clearly a value of X where that card isn't "too good" for Pauper (a highly subjective criteria, anyways. We have Lightning Bolt and Seeker of the Way and Counterspell and do fine). I'd say it's 3 or 4, but if it was 7, 14, or even the thought experiment of 20, it definitely wouldn't be "too good" for Pauper.
You can search through playmats on stores like Coolstuffinc or Amazon.
Other sources of nice playmats:
- Gamermats.com has some sweet art by Jason Engle and other artists.
- The artist Noah Bradley sells some amazing, striking playmats on his site.
- Originalmagicart.com has some playmats with licensed art that are a bit pricier (~$40).
- If you have a high resolution image, you could get a custom playmat on Inked Gaming...I know one guy who has a picture of his daughter on a playmat.
- You can also browse through playmats on eBay, though sometimes there you get unlicensed ones printed in China with less quality. Could be good if he's really into anime, though.
It's dangerous collecting all these links because now I want a new playmat myself...
The Eidolon cycle from Dissension, ala Verdant Eidolon. Could be an awesome card advantage engine with looting, Last Rites/Delirium Skeins, or Tortured Existence. Also can have a bit of a combo kill with Vampire Hounds/Wild Mongrel and cards like Manamorphose. With Torex, they make a Putrid Leech or other gold creatures infinitely unkillable.
Many of the new Proliferate cards from War of the Spark, which I think are strongest with fading/vanishing creatures like Blastoderm.
Rather than Rhystic Cave, I'd really like to see Gemstone Mine downshifted for Pauper. Might already be legal in Modern, though.
In such situations where it could matter, I advocate walking through the Pestilence activations one by one. I feel like if someone said "I Pestilence for 6" and tap all 6 of their lands, it'd be assumed that they hold priority and put all 6 activations on the stack, that could then be stopped by a single Prismatic Strands in response. I feel like this is an area where you should be as clear as possible what you're doing with the stack. What do you think is the most common interpretation of "Pestilence for X?"
I also think it'd be nice if they had different stats.
0/3 or 0/4 for 2W, 1/1 Flier for 2U, 1/1 Deathtouch for 2B, etc...
Energy Tap and Flood are both legal due to the MTGO Treasure Chests, which is one of those weird random quirks of MTGO Legality. It also gives us some unique cards like Drafna's Restoration, and the W/B/G Monarch cards which are already so format impacting (but not the U/R ones).
I've been fascinated for a long time by the idea of a "Big CMC" Affinity deck with Myr Enforcer, Gearseeker Serpent, etc, and Energy Tap + Rush of Knowledge.
I came here to post about a charity Pauper tournament that's gonna get run next Saturday, on March 23, 2019 at the Medford, MA public library: https://www.facebook.com/events/1230030793831446/
Also, in the Boston area, there's three different stores running regular Pauper tournaments:
Both Masques and Tempest blocks were printed on MTGO in full. They just did the "Remastered" sets later as well.
I think part of it is that most people are analyzing the Pauper meta purely based on the MTGO Challenges/Leagues, which is in some way an extremely insular meta. If the top players are only going to play Delver/Boros, then of course that's the only thing that's going to win.
Commander is much more different, but you could put the core of a Legacy/Modern deck into a Commander deck.
For example:
Modern Death's Shadow, Legacy Death's Shadow
Modern Phoenix, Legacy Phoenix
Modern UW Control, Legacy Miracles
There's also Burn in both Legacy and Modern, but that archetype wouldn't work in Commander at all. It also puts a lot towards a high tier Pauper deck, though.
Just wanna say, I think this is an absurd metric. In a CCG, all cards break the game's rules to some extent. I mean, it's Magic's Golden Rule:
Haste breaks the game rule of summoning sickness. Flash breaks the game rule of only playing creatures on your turn. Card draw breaks the rule of only drawing one card per turn. Etc, etc.
What is "vanilla Magic," really? Nothing but Grizzly Bears and Volcanic Hammer? That sounds super boring.
I respect the opinions of y'all ban-happy folks, but man, am I glad that y'all don't actually have any influence on the actual ban list of Pauper. The idea of banning so many cards you get to Mulldrifter and Spore Frog reads like a parody.
Also note: the most recent T8 of the Pauper Challenge had 3 Burn decks, 1 Boros Bully, 1 Boros Monarch, 1 Bogles, 1 UB Delver, and 1 UR Delver. So if you wanted to use a database approach based on the actual results of what's dominating vs. just whatever you don't like or don't think fits some vague, personal conception of what's "fair" or "fun" Magic, maybe Lightning Bolt should be banned before any blue cards.
IMHO that's totally fine. There are two allied color cycles like that already at Uncommon, one in Tempest (Mogg Hollows, etc) and one from Champions of Kamigawa (Cloudcrest Lake, etc). They haven't seen much use outside of, for me at least, Commander decks where I'm lazy about finding better duals.
This strikes me as a spot of intellectual laziness.
Mustshockland
Land
When ~ enters the battlefield, you lose X life.
T: Add B or R.
IMHO there's clearly a value of X where that card isn't "too good" for Pauper (a highly subjective criteria, anyways. We have Lightning Bolt and Seeker of the Way and Counterspell and do fine). I'd say it's 3 or 4, but if it was 7, 14, or even the thought experiment of 20, it definitely wouldn't be "too good" for Pauper.