MPDC 35.03

I'm back from some more PDC action! I tweaked last week's deck.

Main Deck:

4 Catalog
2 Drag Under
4 Convolute
25 Island
2 Exultant Cultist
4 Just the Wind
4 Wretched Gryff
4 Deny Existence
4 Stormrider Spirit
4 Tezzeret's Ambition
3 Turn Aside

Sideboard:

4 Negate
1 Dispel
4 Revolutionary Rebuff
2 Sleep Paralysis
1 Turn Aside
3 Select for Inspection

I took out the Ingenious Skaabs as I realized that most of my spells are reactive so I can't really pump them at will. Also the deck isn't about playing a Skaab on turn 3 but more about taking control of the game and winning in the late game. I also drafted more Tezzeret's Ambition so I'm going to run 4 this time around. Turn Aside also went main deck as I always seem to side them in anyway. I took out 2 Drag Under because they seem to be too slow and replaced them with 2 more Wretched Gryffs. Let's see if I can improve on last week.

MPDC 35.02

Here's my second attempt at PDC. In the first tournament I ran a monowhite beatdown build but I always felt like I was barely in the games so this time around I decided to run a deck with a little more longevity:

4 Catalog
4 Drag Under
2 Ingenious Skaab
4 Convolute
25 Island
2 Exultant Cultist
4 Just the Wind
2 Wretched Gryff
4 Deny Existence
4 Stormrider Spirit
1 Select for Inspection
2 Revolutionary Rebuff
2 Tezzeret's Ambition

4 Negate
1 Dispel
4 Fogwalker
4 Turn Aside
2 Sleep Paralysis

Monoblue Control! I would play more Select for Inspections but I haven't drafted any yet. I initially wanted to play UR Thermo-Alchemist but to my surprise I only had 2 even though I drafted decks around the card. The buying bots must have took them. So as I was building the deck I noticed that I barely had any red cards anyway so I cut the colour completely and ended up with this. I cobbled this together half an hour before registration started so I didn't playtest it at all. I just ran solitaire a few times to see what the hands would look like. I ran 25 lands because hitting every land drop is crucial in decks like this. Today MPDC is packed so it'll be a cut to Top 8. Going 2-1 will probably be the bare minimum to even have a chance. Let's see how I do.

MPDC 35.01

Welcome to the first PDC event I'll be documenting! PDC stands for Pauper Deck Challenge and it's an all common format. MPDC (I believe the "M" stands for Monday, which is the day it's held) is Standard PDC format. The tournament is 3 rounds of Swiss followed by a cut to top 4 or top 8 depending on the number of players

This is what I ran this week:

4 Borrowed Grace
4 Lunarch Mantle
3 Ironclad Slayer
4 Steadfast Cathar
4 Angelic Purge
3 Unruly Mob
4 Dauntless Cathar
4 True-Faith Censer
4 Fiend Binder
23 Plains
1 Strength of Arms
2 Spectral Reserves

2 Inspiring Captain
3 Desperate Sentry
1 Ironclad Slayer
3 Expose Evil
2 Spectral Reserves
4 Ironwright's Cleansing

The decklist is essentially block format. I haven't drafted enough Kaladesh to have playsets for constructed. I use to run Pacifism but they rotated out.  I didn't have time to adjust the deck so the Slayers aren't really that good. I put the Ironwright Cleansing into the deck because of Kaladesh. Ideally I'm updgrading to Fragmentize when I get a playset. I also only had 1 Strength of Arms and I felt that the curve was low enough that I could get away with 23 lands.

Freebies from Freebots

In order to expand my collection I am going to rely on generosity of 2 of the major dealers. MTGOTraders and Cardhoarder both have freebots that will provide 64 free commons every month. They may not be the best commons or even legal in standard but they will help me grow the collection during this project. Sometimes cards will get reprinted and all of a sudden become relevant again, so maybe this will help me with PDC.

Unfortunately I'm still trying to navigate around the client and have not mastered all the functionalities (the last time I played it was version 3 and I was able to run the program on Windows XP). I'm not sure if there is a way to record what was given or received in a trade unless it's done by hand. At least for this month I won't be documenting what I got from the freebots. Trust me, what I got wasn't exciting but I need to start getting playsets in case I need them in the future. Hopefully I can find a way to track everything so that there's more accountability.

Having said that, I'm also looking for a way to track the collection. Does anybody know any programs that can help me present the collection neatly in the blog? Right now I'll be exporting the CSV file, hopefully there's a better way to show the collection.

- ThePaperboy