Unfortunately I tend to misspeak while in the midst of a game, as multiple+multiple thoughts are being processed in my head while trying to both play and communicate to the viewers. I should have said something along the lines of “it turns out the decision worked for me this time.”

You are welcome to take issue with things I say, but be warned that you’ll use up a lot of time if you do it on a regular basis (since I’m not always going to say exactly what I mean during the games). Thanks for sharing. Hope you keep checking out the videos!

Let’s look into this a bit deeper. You are forced to make a decision (getting Death Spark) and the result depends on unknown information (the card that you draw.) Theoretically, if you had infinite time, you can analyze the probabilities and arrive at the decision that will give you the best odds of success. You obviously can’t do that in the match, but that’s not important, the important thing is that one choice is objectively better than the other. The thing is, the correct choice is always the same, REGARDLESS OF THE ULTIMATE RESULT. You can make the wrong choice and still win, or you can make the correct choice and still lose, because Magic has an element of randomness to it. The important thing is to evaluate if you made the correct choice based on the information you had at the time, rather than just assume you did because it happened to work out for you. Here is a link to a great article about this topic, that I recommend everyone read: http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/chasing-victory-being-results-oriented/

Joshua – Hey man, I appreciate the kind words. There are a lot of really good primers for the format online that offer up a number of established decks to look into. It’s very hard for me to recommend a deck to someone without knowing their goals or their playstyle. Feel free to contact me via PM or on MTGO if you’d like to talk more.

First off, I just wanted to say thanks for doing these videos. You have quickly become one of my favourite players on MTGO and I greatly enjoy watching your videos, and you commentate very well, breaking down your decisions and explaining what is going on.

I’m relatively new to Pauper, in fact you’re one of the first people I have ever seen play it, and I was wondering if you had any recommendations on where to start? What is a good “starter” deck for regular Constructed players, but perhaps ones who have not broken into the format yet.

Cheers,
Josh

When he plays terramorphic into island you can put him on the following decks:

UR Post
UB Post
UB Control (rat teachings or trinket mage)
Esper Storm
UR Storm

He then drops a mountain. When the mountain comes down the list is down to UR Post and UR Storm. Neither of these decks have targets for a bolt other than his dome so you should be using chain lightning to the face (leaving you with lightning bolt in hand).

His next turn he uses lava dart which confirms that he’s storm and not post. Play sledder instead of matron and attack for 4 holding up bolt. The bushwhacker you got from the matron was totally unnecessary for winning the game anyway – he’s at 7 after the attack and you’ve got another creature in hand and a burn spell – that alone is lethal and it has the benefit of hiding that it’s lethal. He’s dead unless he empties and if he does empty the bushwhacker doesn’t win the game either. In addition, this constrains his use of probes – probe you twice and you can bolt him to the face for the win (he was a 3 when the game ended). Did it matter? Hard to say. Assuming he stays at 5 life by probing one time he might or might not have drawn the bushwhacker off of the 2nd probe. Even if he did draw it off the 2nd probe you were dead anyway if you don’t draw burn or a martyr (your attackers aren’t getting through). Of course, he might have drawn the empty off of the 2nd probe because he knew you had lethal and had to try to win / survive. If that’s the case then you win the game.