Pauper Challenge: Black Results

Deck Challenges

zandl

25 August 2012

3040 views

Black results!

Round 1 results:

winning player (games won) vs. losing player (games won)

CrimsonKing69 (2) vs. Chibisukei (1)

King's Vault Skirges, when combined with all of the sac-outlets, Undying cards, and Soulcage Fiends, led to two victories after a rough first game of being pounded on by 3 Blistergrubs.

zaddos (2) vs. LordofStensia (0)

zaddos's combo of Vault Skirge + Exalted creatures led to two swift wins with lots of life.

STG (2) vs. rushtowait (1)

Essence Harvest is a very powerful card if used correctly, and Shade creatures, like Liliana's Shade or Drifting Shade, make it incredibly potent. Also, I found that Shade creatures are much better than sac-to-pump creatures, like Bloodthrone Vampire or Devouring Swarm.

eleriumavenger (2) vs. drnuss (1)

Despite some initial mana issues for eleriumavenger in the first two games, his creatures were simply bigger than the others once they hit the board and we far harder to contain than drnuss's creatures. And Virulent Wound is amazing.

Ocheyo (2) vs. Azure124 (0)

Ocheyo's deck was just better at keeping the pressure on beyond the fifth and sixth turns than Azure124's deck. That's really all that decided this match.

bleath02 (2) vs. geeksheek (0)

Both decks were rather efficient at annihilating each other for the first few turns, which quickly led to a top-deck war in each game. bleath02's top-decks involved Duty-Bound Dead and Vault Skirge, with more than enough mana to Regenerate. This resilient defense and flying/lifelink/exalted combination, paired with the eventual draw of Dark Favor, won both games.

Jokernaught (2) vs. ReymondKira (1)

Jokernaught's hand-disruption spells played a large part in his deck's victories. ReymondKira's hands were all more than keep-able, but Distress on the play really hurts, especially after a Duress.

Human_Rogue_21 (2) vs. landgrafb (1)

Human's surprising amount of life-gain and massive amount of removal kept landgrafb's deck at bay for the majority of the match. Of course, Maw of the Mire when your opponent is stuck on 3 lands gives you a huge boost.

Ramylae (2) vs. cooknathan (0)

Ramylae's deck brought out the creatures and cooknathan's deck's lack of removal became glaringly apparent past the fourth turn.

Nightmist (2) vs. dimas9 (1)

The rather high mana curve of dimas9's deck ultimately led to some shaky mulligans and a few missed land-drops. Also, Haunted Fengraf as a 4-of kept throwing off the tempo for spells that required two Black sources.

TheGutterPup (BYE)

Round 2 pairings!

Out of fairness, I'm enacting a personal rule. If a player has received a Bye in the bracket he/she plays in, they aren't eligible to receive any other Byes. I think we can all collectively agree that this is fair.

Human_Rogue_21 vs. Jokernaught
TheGutterPup vs. bleath09
STG vs. CrimsonKing69
zaddos vs. Nightmist
eleriumavenger vs. Ocheyo
Ramylae (BYE)

Round 2 results:

winning player (games won) vs. losing player (games won)

Human_Rogue_21 (2) vs. Jokernaught (0)

Human’s deck simply had too much life-gain and Joker’s deck couldn’t keep up. Once Mark of the Vampire got on Tormented Soul in both games, there was really nothing that could’ve been done. And Flensermite’s presence confused me.

Bleath02 (2) vs. TheGutterPup (1)

This match just came down to TherGutterPup’s deck’s mix of normal and Infect damage not being coherent enough to follow through.

CrimsonKing69 (2) vs. STG (1)

STG’s deck got out some pretty ferocious threats, like Liliana's Shade with Mark of the Vampire and a bunch of lands open. However, the sheer volume of creatures from Crimson’s deck just overwhelmed it the point of dealing 15+ damage a turn, making a 10/10 Lifelink Shade not good enough.

zaddos (2) vs. Nightmist (0)

Once again, zaddos’s deck’s combination of Flying, Lifelink, and Exalted worked wonders. It's what handily won both games. In the second game, zaddos’s deck kept a one-land hand, but still had a Vault Skirge and 3 Exalted sources by the third turn.

Ocheyo (2) vs. eleriumavenger (1)

Undying Evil + Bloodthrone Vampire + Soulcage Fiend/Perilous Myr is a ridiculous combination. In game 3, Ocheyo was at 8 Poison with lethal on its way, top-decked a Bloodthrone Vampire, and dealt 11 damage to eleriumavenger in one turn, winning the match. Bloodthrone Vampire isn’t always the best card, but it clearly has the potential to be amazing in certain scenarios.

Ramylae: BYE!

Round 3 pairings!

Ramylae vs. zaddos
Ocheyo vs. CrimsonKing69
Human_Rogue_21 vs. Bleath02

Round 3 results:

winning player (games won) vs. losing player (games won)

zaddos (2) vs. Ramylae (1)

Skeletal Grimace on a fatties is hard to deal with. While Blistergrub with Mark of the Vampire + Duty-Bound Dead got there in the first fame, Ramylae couldn’t draw a Tragic Slip or trigger Morbid in the second or third game to get around Regeneration.

Ocheyo (2) vs. CrimsonKing69 (1)

King’s lack of life-gaining cards became strikingly apparent when Ocheyo’s deck began flooding the board with Soulcage Fiend and Perilous Myr to target with Undying Evil and sacrifice to Bloodthrone Vampire. King’s 4x Bone Splinters *would’ve* worked well, but Ocheyo had a ton of removal which prevented King from maintaining board-presence.

Bleath02 (2) vs. Human_Rogue_21 (1)

Vile Rebirth was the star of the show, flashing in blockers and stopping recursion/Undying at the same time. Human_Rogue_21’s deck had the Power, but not the life-gain. 2x Mark of the Vampire just wasn’t enough to come up regularly. A lone Searchlight Geist with 2 Skeletal Grimaces started smackin’ some fools, but Bleath’s more consistent sources of life-gain simply negated it.

Round 4 pairings!

Ocheyo vs. zaddos
Bleath02: BYE!

Round 4 results:

*winning player (games won) vs. losing player (games won)*

zaddos (2) vs. Ocheyo (1)

Game 1: Ocheyo’s Bloodthrone Vampire sacrificed at least 4 different creatures after a massive hail-Mary swing and dealt 15 damage in one turn.
Game 2: Ocheyo’s life got too low before getting a real board-presence. Unfortunately, Soulcage Fiend is a poor creature to have out once you’re sitting at 3 life.
Game 3: zaddos started with a turn-1 Vault Skirge, followed by 2 Duty-Bound Dead with a handful of removal. zaddos got up to about 30 life before Ocheyo started drawing more removal and nothing could be done that would Turn the Tide from that high of a life total.

Black Bracket Finals!

zaddos vs. Bleath02

We’re finally here. After several hours’ worth of plugging in decks and playing them against each other, we’re now at the finals for the Black bracket.

Game Deets

Game 1: Duty-Bound Dead + Mortis Dogs + Undying Evil is a very effective combination, especially since Mortis Dogs is out of normal Tragic Slip range. These factors led to zaddos winning this game.
Game 2: Vault Skirges hit the board early for both players, but Bleath02 had the upper hand in removal for the accompanying Duty-Bound Deads in the form of Dead Weight (ironically named?). However, when both decks were down to a top-deck war, more Vault Skirges popped up for zaddos than did for Bleath02, followed by Skeletal Grimace for added protection. Half a dozen more turns of unblockable, aerial attacking left zaddos at 24 life and Bleath02 at 0.

So our Black bracket champion is…

zaddos

Congratulations! You now have 2 piping hot Feature Tokens, a Round Robin tournament with the other champions, a game against my personal Black Pauper deck, and eternal internet glory to look forward to! Thank you to all of the people who submitted a Black deck to this Challenge! You’re helping to make this Challenge a TappedOut tradition! Now on to our *next* color in the tournament:

Blue Pauper Tournament Pairings!

knightinkarma vs. Pseudonym394
Gennair vs. Jarrod_0067
jmb072608 vs. Jokerx71
tehboss vs. toastytoast
fireteam vs. Virlym
Be on the look-out for the next article around the middle of next week. Good luck!

This article is a follow-up to 2012 Standard Pauper Challenge The next article in this series is Pauper Challenge: Blue Results