So are Snow Covered Basics and Arcum's Astrolabe the most played cards in Pauper right now or what?
Every deck I see is jamming the Astrolabe and Snow Lands. I foresee it warping the Meta at some point.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Playing since 1994: Currently MAGS (HomeBrew),Standard & Pauper (Pioneer and Modern are degenerate trash formats)
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
Yea snow really has warped the format currently but I also foresee it getting corralled in the next set or two as we are now a format that has competitive potential.
..... then lower Shatterstorm to common. Its not uncommon to see 5 or 6 snow lands out with 2 or 3 Astrolabes and 2 or 3 Prisms and nothing else on the board. Before long the only creature deck out there will be Bogles as control and removal forces everything else out.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Playing since 1994: Currently MAGS (HomeBrew),Standard & Pauper (Pioneer and Modern are degenerate trash formats)
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
It has warped the Metagame around it. It lets decks play out of color spells (in conjuction with Prophetic Prism) with literally ZERO downside. It doesn't need to be in Pauper unless there is a card printed to keep snow-lands or artifacts in check at 1 cmc or less.
Playing since 1994: Currently MAGS (HomeBrew),Standard & Pauper (Pioneer and Modern are degenerate trash formats)
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
But that IS the problem then. A smaller slice of cards get played, the cardpool thins. It gets run even more and the process snowballs. (pun intended)
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Playing since 1994: Currently MAGS (HomeBrew),Standard & Pauper (Pioneer and Modern are degenerate trash formats)
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
I think I am just going to go with a list of 4 of the top spells in the format and snow lands and call it a day.
Something like
16 Snow-lands
4 flex land slot
4 Astrolabe
4 Prisms
4 Glint Hawk
4 Skyfisher
4 Mulldrifer
4 Bolt
4 Preordain
4 Counterspell
4 Skred
4 Seeker of the Way
Sideboard
4 Electrickery
4 Hydroblast
4 Pyroblast
3 Relic of Progenitus
Pretty much what the format will be going to.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Playing since 1994: Currently MAGS (HomeBrew),Standard & Pauper (Pioneer and Modern are degenerate trash formats)
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
I finally bought into pauper on MTGO and astrolab seems really good. Hopefully it gets a ban but I guess we'll see. Maybe I just don't know the format enough
I finally bought into pauper on MTGO and astrolab seems really good. Hopefully it gets a ban but I guess we'll see. Maybe I just don't know the format enough
It is really good. Too good by my estimation. Pauper needs a better mana base, not an mana fixing 1 cmc artifact that replaces itself and is easily abusable card draw in about 75% of the decks in the format as they jam in Hawk and Fisher.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Playing since 1994: Currently MAGS (HomeBrew),Standard & Pauper (Pioneer and Modern are degenerate trash formats)
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
On the one hand, that's fourteen very distinct decks, which indicates a very diverse metagame. On the other, you have eight different decks running Astrolabe, which suggests that it's warping.
However, I believe that of the eight decks on this list running Astrolabe, none of them exist solely by virtue of Astrolabe. They are all decks that could function quite well without them. And the decks that don't run Astrolabe don't seem to be built specifically to counter it. Most of them have some form of artifact removal in the sideboard, but that's just common sense. And non-Astrolabe decks obviously still have a fighting chance. Downshifting Shatterstorm to deal with Astrolabe is chainsaw surgery.
Now this is of course a relatively small sample size. But I believe that a card needs better reasons to be banned than just 'It's played a lot at the moment.' Definitely worth watching, but I don't believe it currently affects the meta to the point that a ban is warranted.
One of the more interesting uses of Astrolabe on that list is the Affinity deck that cut nearly half of its artifact land base in favour of snow lands for the splash.
On the one hand, that's fourteen very distinct decks, which indicates a very diverse metagame. On the other, you have eight different decks running Astrolabe, which suggests that it's warping.
And another few decks from that list are running snow-lands. (For what reason I couldn't tell) But it would appear they could jam in Astrolabe easily.
Even though there may be "more" decks. In reality LESS cards are being played at the competitive level. Its just different combinations of the same top cards in the Meta. Same old boring Hawk and Fisher, same old boring Skred, same old boring control strategy. It will get worse with time. It needs a ban and Pauper needs a better dual land as its replacement.
As for singular artifact removal its pointless against Astrolabe. Its card disadvantage and half the time it gets bounced and sits in your opponents hand rendering artifact hate useless.
Once everyone figures out you can start to run Weather the Storm maindeck with Reaping the Graves to recur Hawks and Fishers basically in any colors you want. It will be a few decks with the same strategy and games (not matches) that take an hour to play.
The card has to go.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Playing since 1994: Currently MAGS (HomeBrew),Standard & Pauper (Pioneer and Modern are degenerate trash formats)
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
Honestly, looking at these lists, compared to what it was a few months ago, I'd rather have the current meta than what we had pre-Daze/Gush ban, with Tireless Tribe and Ux control decks dominating the meta. What's especially salient is that we now have several different aggro decks that are uniquely positioned to prey on Astrolabe decks that don't hit critical mass until the fourth or fifth turn. I'd say it looks like a very healthy balance of control and aggro, with some combo sprinkled in.
As for your fear of Weather the Storm and Reaping the Graves maindeck, only three decks run Weather the Storm as a sideboard card, and only one of those runs more than one copy. And there's a lone copy of Reaping the Graves floating around in the sideboard of the Astro-Mardu list.
Overall I don't believe that Arcum's Astrolabe is a problem. Sure, it's a popular card, but a card needs to do more than popular to justify being banned. There's plenty of strong independent decklists that don't need no Astrolabe. Plus, it seems like every week there's at least one or two rogue decklists being piloted to 5-0 finishes, which means that the meta has plenty of room for niche decks that are run well. Last week we had Sultai Defender Combo. This week we had Mono-Green Infect and Mono-Black Aggro. I think looking at the meta purely in terms of Astrolabe vs. no Astrolabe does a huge disservice to the diversity of the meta right now.
Personally I think Ephemerate and Ghostly Flicker need a ban. Astrolabe could stay then I suppose. Either that of WotC need to start printing more resilient or removal resistant creatures at common as the format only seems to be able to support a few creatures and that is it. I would like to see Hymn to Tourach unbanned but it could create some real feel bad moments if it rips away the only 2 lands an opponent has. So maybe it should stay that way.
Playing since 1994: Currently MAGS (HomeBrew),Standard & Pauper (Pioneer and Modern are degenerate trash formats)
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
I can see how banning flicker cards could be good because they make for frustrating games - however, that would also kill a lot of decks like UW control...I like astrolabe because it allows for multicolour decks, so I wouldn't bann it.
I think we are going to see a ban tomorrow. (Or at least I am hoping so.)
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Playing since 1994: Currently MAGS (HomeBrew),Standard & Pauper (Pioneer and Modern are degenerate trash formats)
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
I grow more bored of Pauper every day with the same old decks and same old cards.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Playing since 1994: Currently MAGS (HomeBrew),Standard & Pauper (Pioneer and Modern are degenerate trash formats)
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
I have. I brew all the time. Problem is unless you brew from a certain subset of threat cards in the Meta, the deck won't be competitive plain and simple. There aren't enough threats in the format to brew anything competitive outside of certain cards and that makes the format stale for me.
I see an emergency ban is coming the 21st. Hope it includes a Pauper ban.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Playing since 1994: Currently MAGS (HomeBrew),Standard & Pauper (Pioneer and Modern are degenerate trash formats)
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
IMO the state of Pauper is garbage now and the only people still playing it are those that are delusional enough to think it's fine.
In my 4-5 years of playing X-Wing and my 1.5 years of playing Pauper, there is always a vocal group of players that enjoys abusing degeneracy and not having to obey any of the core rules of the game. They dig their heels in and after a while they make up the majority of people that are still playing.
When I played X-Wing, certain things would have upwards of 60% meta shares and people still would still refuse to acknowledge that there was a problem.
Wizards did the right thing by banning Gush/Probe/Daze, but they didn't go far enough and hit Ghostly Flicker/Displace. And then they threw gasoline on the fire (twice!) with Ephemerate & Astrolabe, and Mystic Sanctuary.
The double flicker cards are too abusive.
Mystic Sanctuary, even without flickers, is probably still too good with deprive.
Astrolabe in and of itself isn't broken, and I agree that just because it's played in everything doesn't mean it's ruining the game, however because of it the best Pauper deck will always be a 5 color good stuff pile. No matter what they ban, the best deck in pauper will always be: 20~ lands, 4 astrolabes, maybe 4 prophetic prisms, and whatever the best 8 cards in Pauper are.
A whole format distilled down to 8-9 cards. That's not an increase in format diversity, that's a reduction. One of the defining characteristics of Pauper was that you were generally limited to 1-2 colors. Now you just play whatever you want which means that, for example, every removal spell that's not Skred or Lightning Bolt is now unplayable garbage. Every creature that's not Seeker of the Way or Kor Skyfisher is garbage. Every fog that's not Prismatic Strands is garbage. Etc.
Also, I don't put much weight on the few dozen people that play this format online. No one really takes this format seriously and you can get pretty far with a fair deck facing others who also have mistakenly played fair decks. So it doesn't really mean much to me that MBC or whatever occasionally places high. It's still playing second fiddle to these abusive flicker decks.
A whole format distilled down to 8-9 cards. That's not an increase in format diversity, that's a reduction. One of the defining characteristics of Pauper was that you were generally limited to 1-2 colors. Now you just play whatever you want which means that, for example, every removal spell that's not Skred or Lightning Bolt is now unplayable garbage. Every creature that's not Seeker of the Way or Kor Skyfisher is garbage. Every fog that's not Prismatic Strands is garbage. Etc.
You hit the nail on the head. Astrolabe also shows up in everything as well. Its the #1 card played in the competitive meta. I'd be okay with its ban as long as we got a slightly better land base to play with at common. Fact is diversity of cards will shrink until as you say there are only a few cards being played competitively. Thats a recipe for dull if you ask me.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Playing since 1994: Currently MAGS (HomeBrew),Standard & Pauper (Pioneer and Modern are degenerate trash formats)
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Every deck I see is jamming the Astrolabe and Snow Lands. I foresee it warping the Meta at some point.
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
Heat Wave
2RR
Sorcery
Destroy all Snow-Covered Lands
..... then lower Shatterstorm to common. Its not uncommon to see 5 or 6 snow lands out with 2 or 3 Astrolabes and 2 or 3 Prisms and nothing else on the board. Before long the only creature deck out there will be Bogles as control and removal forces everything else out.
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
Arcum's Astrolabe needs a ban in Pauper.
It has warped the Metagame around it. It lets decks play out of color spells (in conjuction with Prophetic Prism) with literally ZERO downside. It doesn't need to be in Pauper unless there is a card printed to keep snow-lands or artifacts in check at 1 cmc or less.
It has to go!!!
A good read if you have the time below
https://www.coolstuffinc.com/a/kendrasmith-07172019-the-problem-with-arcums-astrolabe
More evidence as how it is warping the format...
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/format-staples/pauper
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
But that IS the problem then. A smaller slice of cards get played, the cardpool thins. It gets run even more and the process snowballs. (pun intended)
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
Something like
16 Snow-lands
4 flex land slot
4 Astrolabe
4 Prisms
4 Glint Hawk
4 Skyfisher
4 Mulldrifer
4 Bolt
4 Preordain
4 Counterspell
4 Skred
4 Seeker of the Way
Sideboard
4 Electrickery
4 Hydroblast
4 Pyroblast
3 Relic of Progenitus
Pretty much what the format will be going to.
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
It is really good. Too good by my estimation. Pauper needs a better mana base, not an mana fixing 1 cmc artifact that replaces itself and is easily abusable card draw in about 75% of the decks in the format as they jam in Hawk and Fisher.
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
18 decks went 5-0. The archtype breakdown of those is as follows:
Astro-Boros (including variants): 3
Jeskai Ephemerate: 2
Affinity: 1
Azorius Blink Combo: 1
Blink Tron: 1
Bogles: 1
Burn: 1
Elves: 1
Izzet Delver: 1
Mono-blue Delver: 1
Mono-green aggro: 1
Mono-red Aggro: 1
Mono-white Heroic: 1
Sultai Defender Combo: 1
Rainbow Tron: 1
On the one hand, that's fourteen very distinct decks, which indicates a very diverse metagame. On the other, you have eight different decks running Astrolabe, which suggests that it's warping.
However, I believe that of the eight decks on this list running Astrolabe, none of them exist solely by virtue of Astrolabe. They are all decks that could function quite well without them. And the decks that don't run Astrolabe don't seem to be built specifically to counter it. Most of them have some form of artifact removal in the sideboard, but that's just common sense. And non-Astrolabe decks obviously still have a fighting chance. Downshifting Shatterstorm to deal with Astrolabe is chainsaw surgery.
Now this is of course a relatively small sample size. But I believe that a card needs better reasons to be banned than just 'It's played a lot at the moment.' Definitely worth watching, but I don't believe it currently affects the meta to the point that a ban is warranted.
One of the more interesting uses of Astrolabe on that list is the Affinity deck that cut nearly half of its artifact land base in favour of snow lands for the splash.
And another few decks from that list are running snow-lands. (For what reason I couldn't tell) But it would appear they could jam in Astrolabe easily.
Even though there may be "more" decks. In reality LESS cards are being played at the competitive level. Its just different combinations of the same top cards in the Meta. Same old boring Hawk and Fisher, same old boring Skred, same old boring control strategy. It will get worse with time. It needs a ban and Pauper needs a better dual land as its replacement.
As for singular artifact removal its pointless against Astrolabe. Its card disadvantage and half the time it gets bounced and sits in your opponents hand rendering artifact hate useless.
Once everyone figures out you can start to run Weather the Storm maindeck with Reaping the Graves to recur Hawks and Fishers basically in any colors you want. It will be a few decks with the same strategy and games (not matches) that take an hour to play.
The card has to go.
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
Again, about half the decks (nine out of twenty-one) run Astrolabe. However, we are once again looking at a very diverse meta:
Elves: 2
Jeskai Ephemerate: 2
Tireless Tribe: 2
Astrolabe Affinity: 1
Astro-Mardu: 1
Bogles: 1
Burn: 1
Classic Affinity: 1
Dinrova Tron: 1
Familiars: 1
Izzet Delver: 1
Mardu Pestilence: 1
Mono-Black Aggro: 1
Mono-Black Midrange: 1
Mono-Green Infect: 1
Mono-Green Stompy: 1
Mono-Red Stompy: 1
Mono-White Heroic: 1
Honestly, looking at these lists, compared to what it was a few months ago, I'd rather have the current meta than what we had pre-Daze/Gush ban, with Tireless Tribe and Ux control decks dominating the meta. What's especially salient is that we now have several different aggro decks that are uniquely positioned to prey on Astrolabe decks that don't hit critical mass until the fourth or fifth turn. I'd say it looks like a very healthy balance of control and aggro, with some combo sprinkled in.
As for your fear of Weather the Storm and Reaping the Graves maindeck, only three decks run Weather the Storm as a sideboard card, and only one of those runs more than one copy. And there's a lone copy of Reaping the Graves floating around in the sideboard of the Astro-Mardu list.
Overall I don't believe that Arcum's Astrolabe is a problem. Sure, it's a popular card, but a card needs to do more than popular to justify being banned. There's plenty of strong independent decklists that don't need no Astrolabe. Plus, it seems like every week there's at least one or two rogue decklists being piloted to 5-0 finishes, which means that the meta has plenty of room for niche decks that are run well. Last week we had Sultai Defender Combo. This week we had Mono-Green Infect and Mono-Black Aggro. I think looking at the meta purely in terms of Astrolabe vs. no Astrolabe does a huge disservice to the diversity of the meta right now.
https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/does-jeskai-snow-need-a-ban-in-pauper/?_ga=2.227132509.1763854602.1569184902-1364081632.1515284317
Personally I think Ephemerate and Ghostly Flicker need a ban. Astrolabe could stay then I suppose. Either that of WotC need to start printing more resilient or removal resistant creatures at common as the format only seems to be able to support a few creatures and that is it. I would like to see Hymn to Tourach unbanned but it could create some real feel bad moments if it rips away the only 2 lands an opponent has. So maybe it should stay that way.
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
Counters
Removal
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
I grow more bored of Pauper every day with the same old decks and same old cards.
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
Brew something? It shouldn't have to be tier 1 for you to have fun...
limited - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vkfx2kA8gok&feature=emb_logo
limited - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3RYiZJFCK0
limited - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j18HlKybrm8&feature=emb_logo
standard - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiAEzfAgpbI&t=1s
standard - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vNr_4ubfMg&t=1s
standard - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJcwpxraL-g&t=1s
modern - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8MyVNLVYNw&t=1s
modern - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-M5ffoArnY&t=1s
modern - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_yQEBOPi_w&feature=emb_logo
extended - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLpUB9zpyr4&feature=emb_logo
I see an emergency ban is coming the 21st. Hope it includes a Pauper ban.
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
In my 4-5 years of playing X-Wing and my 1.5 years of playing Pauper, there is always a vocal group of players that enjoys abusing degeneracy and not having to obey any of the core rules of the game. They dig their heels in and after a while they make up the majority of people that are still playing.
When I played X-Wing, certain things would have upwards of 60% meta shares and people still would still refuse to acknowledge that there was a problem.
Wizards did the right thing by banning Gush/Probe/Daze, but they didn't go far enough and hit Ghostly Flicker/Displace. And then they threw gasoline on the fire (twice!) with Ephemerate & Astrolabe, and Mystic Sanctuary.
The double flicker cards are too abusive.
Mystic Sanctuary, even without flickers, is probably still too good with deprive.
Astrolabe in and of itself isn't broken, and I agree that just because it's played in everything doesn't mean it's ruining the game, however because of it the best Pauper deck will always be a 5 color good stuff pile. No matter what they ban, the best deck in pauper will always be: 20~ lands, 4 astrolabes, maybe 4 prophetic prisms, and whatever the best 8 cards in Pauper are.
A whole format distilled down to 8-9 cards. That's not an increase in format diversity, that's a reduction. One of the defining characteristics of Pauper was that you were generally limited to 1-2 colors. Now you just play whatever you want which means that, for example, every removal spell that's not Skred or Lightning Bolt is now unplayable garbage. Every creature that's not Seeker of the Way or Kor Skyfisher is garbage. Every fog that's not Prismatic Strands is garbage. Etc.
Also, I don't put much weight on the few dozen people that play this format online. No one really takes this format seriously and you can get pretty far with a fair deck facing others who also have mistakenly played fair decks. So it doesn't really mean much to me that MBC or whatever occasionally places high. It's still playing second fiddle to these abusive flicker decks.
Ignoring what Magic players say isn't the answer, it's listening to what they have to say and doing the exact opposite that's correct.
You hit the nail on the head. Astrolabe also shows up in everything as well. Its the #1 card played in the competitive meta. I'd be okay with its ban as long as we got a slightly better land base to play with at common. Fact is diversity of cards will shrink until as you say there are only a few cards being played competitively. Thats a recipe for dull if you ask me.
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."