I was able to drop by the Standard Pauper tournament held at Nth Dimension: Comics and Games last Saturday and was very happy to see ten new faces and participants in this event. It was nice that my good friend Zea had been bringing her buddies whilst teaching them the basics of the game. That time, she brought one friend and promised me that she’d be bringing more to the next tournament.

It was a four-round tournament and I saw a few deck builds that were competitive and well-thought of. Examples were Black White Vampires, White Red Dinosaurs, and the Mono Blue Tempo deck. I brought one for my friend Robee which I tutored last week the Green White Tokens and Convoke deck. She was not yet fully aware of the play style but it was a start that she learned something new aside from the basics.

Here below is the ranking after the Swiss rounds and the tournament winner, Quinnie.

It was a special Black Saturday last April 15 as the MTG Iloilo community held the Magic Open House. The event was sponsored by Wizards with Welcome decks for the new players and casual goers and for the Learn-to-Play sessions. They also sent Rei some foil full-art basic lands to be given to the participants of the Standard tournament. I have also announced that there will be a Standard Pauper tournament.

The event started around noontime and since most of the players were on vacation, I’d expect lesser attendance this time. Good thing though that the Pauper regulars like the Carbo brothers were there to join the tournament. I had to participate this time as the total number of players falls on an odd number and I would want to avoid giving players byes so that they’d enjoy playing every round. Ten participants would mean four rounds of gameplay and so the top finishers were Mono Black Vehicles, RG Aggro, and Blue Red Prowess Burn. Aether Revolt booster pack prizes were then distributed to the winners.

I also got to teach two new players that are friends of Zea, another Pauper player. I gave them two Welcome decks and taught them the basic gameplay with the same teaching pattern as I did at last year’s Asia Pop Comic Con in Manila. I do hope they learned a lot after that short game.

Lastly, here are the pics of the scenes of the event I have uploaded to the MTG Iloilo Community page:

The surge of the peeps that have shown interest in the Magic: the Gathering trading card game has made me decide to return to the Standard Pauper tournament series. It was a good thing for them to experience the tournament scene at the entry-level.

After creating the MTG Iloilo Pauper Facebook group with my friend Arthur, I then surveyed them on when would be the best time that they will be available for a Standard Pauper tournament. The majority voted on Saturday morning and so I immediately set the schedule to be this week’s Saturday, April 8th. I gave them the details of a free tournament entry for first-time participants and will be having card pack freebies as well as foil promo cards for each of them. My colleague Franco also donated a few Rare cards and promo foils.

Saturday morning arrived and I was running late as I needed to drop by LBC first for the package that I will be sending to a buyer in Manila. After that, I instantly went to Rei’s place and saw the new players there as well as some of the tournament regulars that we Pauper players had before.

Eight players signed in for the tournament and after three rounds of gameplay, here are the top 3 finishers:

1st, Zea (Blue Red Tempo)
2nd, Jared (Red White Aggro)
3rd, Andrew (Blue Red Artifacts)

Here are some of the scenes during the course of the MTG Standard Pauper tournament. Click here.

Overall it was a successful event and the players really enjoyed the experience. We have planned to have another one this coming Black Saturday (as it is Holy Week already) and hopefully we can gather more players and more interesting builds in the format.

That is a wrap. Until the next post.