An introduction to Standard Pauper

Content
1. Who is Dan?
2. What is Standard Pauper?
3. Why should you play Standard Pauper?
4: Where can you play Standard Pauper?
5. Where can you learn more about Standard Pauper?

1. Who is this Dan character anyway?

Hi! I am Dan. I am a Magic writer for puremtgo.com and mtgostrat.com as well as a video maker for the MagicGatheringStrat YouTube channel. In the upcoming weeks, I will write a series of blog posts for mtgolibrary, starting with this one. I have several subjects I would like to address, but I am also open for requests.

The best way to reach me is my twitter at @MagicGathStrat or by sending me a PM on youtube.com/magicgatheringstrat

Today we are going to talk about Standard Pauper.

2. What is Standard Pauper?

Standard Pauper is one of the most recent formats to become available on Magic Online. It was allowed into the list of formats you can select when starting a new game quite recently and it is not yet supported by any sanctioned Magic Online events.

It is a community supported format and it is the hope of many players that this will become a tournament sanctioned format like Classic Pauper (also known simply as "Pauper") did become due to community support once.

In Standard Pauper, like Classic Pauper, you can only play commons. The catch is that you can only play commons that are Standard Legal. Today that would be commons from M14, Theros and RTR block. If a card has been printed at common but not is not printed as a common in the Standard legal sets, it can not be played in Standard Pauper (Doom Blade comes to mind).

 3. Why should you play Standard Pauper?

Unlike the formats that have sanctioned tournaments, Standard Pauper is always far from solved. There is plenty of room for brewing and a suprisingly large number of decks are possible. There has been times when the format has been more or less broken, but right now, just after rotation, it is wide open. You could even say that the format challenges new brewers to try to break it.

The format is insanely cheap. Even the top decks can be bought for less than two dollars. As there are tournaments that are free that pay out prices (see below), Standard Pauper is the best way to get into Magic Online for close to nothing. In fact, you could get cards from the freebots, enter a Standard Pauper tournament and, at least theoretically, go infinite never paying a single cent.

4. Where can you play Standard Pauper?

You can play Standard Pauper in any of the practice rooms on Magic Online. If you are running the old client, I recommend opening a table in both the "Just for Fun" and the "Tournament Practice" room and then play at whatever table fills first after closing the other. That is probably the fastest way to get a game started, unless you are a member of a clan that supports Standard Pauper (which is something I could address in a later blog post).

If you want to play tournaments, you will find a player-run event (PRE) on Mondays and Thursdays at pdcmagic.com. These events are free but still pay out prices to the winners, which means they are a great way of getting started on Magic Online.

5. Where can you learn more about Standard Pauper?

The aforementioned site pdcmagic.com is the heart of tournament Standard Pauper.

Mtgostrat has several writers that write about Standard Pauper. Learn more here: http://mtgostrat.com/?s=%22Standard+Pauper%22

There are two podcasts that has Standard Pauper as part of their repertoire. They are Pauper to the People (more casual) and Just Another Magic Podcast (more competitive). You can find them both on Itunes or on mtgostrat.com.

Just Another Magic Podcast: http://mtgostrat.com/?s=Just+Another+Magic+Podcast
Pauper to the People: http://mtgostrat.com/2013/10/6321pauper-to-the-people-128-take-2/

Pauper to the People also has a forum where Standard Pauper is discussed: http://www.paupertothepeople.proboards.com/