KEHMESIS WINS SEASON TWO WORLDS!

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Storm was a monster in the middle of the season, winning 2 of the first 10 titles. The deck has only appeared twice in the top 8 since then, in spite of a heavy presence in the swiss. Paupers adapted and brought hate in the form of Rain of Embers, Martyr of Ashes and Subterranean Shambler. But those piloting the storm deck were capable of adaptation as well, and the storm deck morphed to include not one, not two, but THREE separate strategies to combat the various archetypes in the format. The first hint of what storm would become came in UPDC 0.12; with Lulthyme piloting a control version of the deck to the top spot.

This version of the storm deck wins game one by using the overpowering combo of red mana acceleration + Empty the Warrens, making too many goblins too quickly for the opposing deck to deal with. The storm deck can "go off" as early turn three, as kehmesis did in the World Championship game one against Noridoom. After the first game, most decks have hate in the sideboards for this matchup, so kehmesis' deck brings hate of its own in the form of a highly advanced transformative sideboard. If the opposing deck is red and is bringing in Rain of Embers or the Shambler, the Storm deck can go for the Grapenuts plan and burn his opponent out rather than relying on the goblins for the win. When faced with discard or lifegain, the deck can transform into a powerful Izzet Control deck, controlling the game long enough to win with burn backed up by the nigh-unkillable Petrahydrox. Sideboarding against this deck is a game of Russian roulette, as the cards that are so vital against Empty the Warrens are blank cardboard against Grapenuts or Storm Control. So when kehmesis takes you to game two, you can just imagine him pointing his magnum at his opponent and asking, "Do you feel Lucky?" Well, do you? Punk?

Kehmesis has participated in SPDC for the entirety of season two, but his hard work has only translated into one finals invitation. When he finally fought his way to a top 8 in SPDC 2.15 he catapulted himself into the final dance by a scant 4 points. From his position as the 22nd ranked invitee he went on to become the World Champion! I had a chance to speak with kehmesis after the tournament.

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Congratulations on your win! Can you tell our viewing audience a little bit about who you are and how you came to play magic?

Sure thing, buddy.

My name is Max. I'm 27 years old. I live in Gatineau, Quebec, Canada. I work part time, play poker and write (in french).

I'm a very competitive person. It's not that I love to win, it's just that I really love a good challenge. That's why I play magic, it's the best and most challenging game out there.

Very true. How long have you been playing magic? What drew you into the virtual world of MTGO?

I started playing when exodus came out. My friends and I eventually quit when we started college, but we kept playing casually once in a while.

My friend Lulthyme got me into MTGO last year. I thought leagues were great. I especially liked the idea of not spending so much for my cards, as long as I won. But truth is, I didn't win all that much and my competitive spirit started taking over.

You’ve got to feed that monster! What did you do?

I started making rav-block constructed decks and then Standard decks when Time spiral came out. The first deck I worked on was Boros Deck Wins (I top 4'd a rav-block tourny with it when no-one knew it'd be possible to do so). When time spiral came out, I kept working on it on the T2 forums and that went pretty well as it became the dominant force pretty quickly. I did ok with it, but I'm more of a deck builder, I'm a poor pilot (yes! I can't even pilot a simple aggro deck!)

After the downfall of BDW and lots of tickets later, Lulthyme challenged me to a common only deck so that we could play together (he never had the budget for constructed play). The one who'd lose the 2 of 3 matches would have to make a new deck that'd beat the other and so on.

My first deck was orzhov discard/control and I kept beating anything thyme came up with. And when he did win, I'd adjust my orzhov deck to beat him again until Thyme did some research and found out about paupermagic.com and Ire. Funny enough, one of the most dominant deck was an orzhov discard deck.

I didn't start playing right away, but I kept looking at the site and Thyme would keep me posted on the community development. The fact that I could build countless decks with 2 or 3 tickets was really appealing to me, as it is to most people. I eventually got hooked, and here I am now.

Many thanks to you and LulThyme then for bringing the eventual champ into the fold! Can you describe your deckbuidling process for us?

Thyme is busy at the moment, but usually we work together to build decks or tune interesting decks other people came up with. I think my strength is coming up with ideas. Not just for decks, but for ways to deal with other decks. And Thyme is technically much stronger than me, a much better pilot and he has this incredible deck-tuning skill. We're both very competitive and I think we compliment each other very well.

For Worlds, I wanted to shape storm-control in a way that it could deal with its previous problems. Mark my words: Rain of embers is not the simple answer to storm decks anymore.

Kehmesis, thanks for your time!

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His shaping efforts secured him a 12-1 record for the evening, losing only a single game to land destruction all night long.

You can find out much more about this deck and its game plan here.

Congratulations to kehmesis on his incredible showing!

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Battling the champ for the title Thursday night was a Seer Dredge deck piloted by Noridoom. Perceptive paupers will no doubt recognize the name from numerous top 8s in both standard and euro PDC tournaments.

I faced Noridoom's deck in the Semifinals. It was absolutely brutal. Dedicated control decks just can't keep up with the pressure of 3 points of power coming at them each turn, to say nothing of the card advantage generated by the seer and grim harvest. The deck was an absolute beating against the Steam Machine, taking my pet deck down in two games. I talked to Noridoom after the tournament.

Tell me a little bit about yourself.

My real name's Rudra Upadhyaya (a Hindu name). I was born in Guyana, South America and have been living in NYC since I was 4. I'm 23 now and I'm finishing up my BA in Applied Mathematics at a SUNY (State University of NY).

How did you get into magic?

I first started playing paper magic about 6 years ago when one of my friends introduced me to it. I've been playing off and on ever since, but I really enjoy MTGO since it's less of a hassle compared to going to my local Magic store and it's a lot more diverse. I started playing MTGO about three years ago I believe and I'm extremely proud to say that I haven't spent any money at all online other than the 8th Edition Core Set I started with. My current collection consists of about 2000 cards and no Uncommons or Rares other than the ones that I've won which I'm always in the process of trading for tix to get more Commons.

Wow, that's impressive! How did you get into PDC? I noticed that you play both Classic and Standard; what do you think about the formats?

First of all, I hate to say it but I don't like Standard PDC all that much. The first reason is because the meta is kind of really weird but this is just a preference and its actually a good thing because that means there's a lot of room for rogue decks and unique thinking. The second reason being that I don't have any snow lands and a good number of 'good' cards require them such as Skred. What else can really compare to a card like Skred? The third reason is that there are some things you can't really handle in Standard or can only handle if you go out of your way.

I think the third reason why I dislike Standard is why I chose to play the deck I did. Let me elaborate. Take a warrens deck or a saproling deck. There are only about three ways to deal with an onslaught of tokens in Standard unless if I'm mistaken: Rain of Embers, Subterranean Shambler, and Martyr of Ashes. All three of these cards are Red so if you want to stop a token deck you HAVE to play Red in some form. In Classic, there are alot more ways of dealing with tokens like Nausea, Wail of the Nim, Echoing Decay, Crypt Rats, Echoing Truth, Death's-Head Buzzard, etc. The point is that your not limited to one color or one type of card and you have alot more ways of finding the card you need. I think this is one of the main reasons why Storm is a good archetype in Standard. You can't deal with it unless if your in Red, or if your making a real effort to stop it. This is one of the main reasons why Storm won Worlds and why I lost to it. I wasn't prepared for it and I didn't prepare for it although I had a little splash of Red. I didn't want to go into trying to destroy someone else's strategy and wanted to focus more on pushing my own strategy. My plan for Storm was to lose and that's exactly what happened.

Another thing that's hard to deal with in Standard is recursion. There are really only three cards that I see that can stop it: Shred Memory, Cremate, and Castigate. Notice how all three of these cards are in black. Also note that you realistically wouldn't play both Shred Memory and Cremate unless if your really trying to stop recursion with a passion. In Classic there are other things like Skullsnatcher, Liquify, Yamabushi's Flame, etc. I played Dredge to abuse the fact that it's hard to deal with in Standard.

How does Seer Dredge work?

The main card in the deck is Fa'adiyah Seer. By replacing the draw with a Dredge card, I can bring back something from my graveyard and I don't have to discard anything since I'm not drawing the top card of my library. When you normally play Dredge, you miss out on your card draw for that turn, but with Seer, I continue to draw normally and recur for free generating card advantage.

The powerhouse of the deck is without a doubt Shambling Shell. Not only is it a beat stick with 3 toughness, but it allows you to do combat tricks, makes your other creatures bigger, stops Guardian of the Guildpact and dredging for 3 isn't bad at all. Most importantly, it's reuseable.

Another good card is Grim Harvest. We all know how this card is good in the normal way, but in this deck it works a bit diffrently. If my deck is working right then I'll be dredging several times in a game. The Grim Harvest's ability to return to my hand creates further card advantage and makes putting cards into my graveyard a good thing rather than an additional cost of the ability. Late game, it allows me to return the best creature in my graveyard that's filled with choices. I usually play it early though just to create more pressure by getting another creature on the board. And I don't leave any mana open to pay its recover cost! Grim Harvest is only good if you have alot of mana out. Why would I want to keep leaving mana open and setting myself back in the early game? Most people don't realize this and go out of their way to try to get it removed from the game early on which makes no difference at all to me. Do whatever you want while I smash your face in. :)

Overall, the deck isn't always the easiest to play since you usually have multiple options and have to figure out which is the best. However, this also makes it a lot of fun to play. I think the deck has some minor holes like no major threats or cards that I'd really want to have in my graveyard. In other words, it would be better if there were some other flashback cards or threshold cards such as Crippling Fatigue and Werebear. In the end, it seems that everything still came together nicely since I managed to come in second place.

Well, it certainly worked against me! Congratulations on your high finish, and I hope to see more of you in Worlds Season 3!

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There you have it, folks the straight word from both World finalists. This tournament was the smoothest and best run that I've seen. I want to take a moment to thank Icarodx for his hard work that makes all of this possible. We wouldn't have SPDC without you! I also want to send a shout out to Polyjak, for his maintenance of both this blog and the Prince of Paupers clan, and his nearly infinite patience. Thank you!

As Noridoom alluded to, Season Two has had a wonderfully diverse and changing metagame. This creates a environment that is ripe for innovation, and every week sees skilled Pauper deck builders taking advantage of the characteristics of the format to create hitherto unseen decks or innovate existing archetypes to victory. All season long the unexpected has been the norm, the only constant change. Will this trend continue into season three? Will the new sideboarding plan of the Storm deck lead it to dominate the format? What changes will Future Sight bring us? The answers lie ahead, brave Paupers!

Onward to Season Three!