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PER FAVORE NON PIANGERE, NON CI RIMANERE MAAAALE

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. The deck
3. The meta
4. Wrap up
5. Review history

Introduction

After quite some time I finally had time to play some pauper both online and irl, piloting my beloved Altar Tron, which I didn’t play much since Paupergeddon Florence. I didn’t grind a lot, because I played only a paper tournament, three LPTAA leagues and a bunch of MTGO leagues, but all of them were after the release of Commander Masters, which shook the format introducing new and busted cards that I didn’t have time to face yet. New decks emerged from the aforementioned releases: the most notable ones are UW Artifacts, MonoR Sticker and monoU terror, all of them gaining some powerful cards (that none asked for). After facing multiple times these decks, I have visualized how Altar Tron is positioned, and I wanted to write a quick update for write down some thoughts.

Spoiler: No good news :(

The Meta

Now the meta seems to be warped around few decks, which are:

1. MonoR Sticker
2. UW Glitters
3. MonoU/UB Terrors
4. Caw Gates

Obviously there are others contenders, such as RG Ponza, Boros Synth and BG Gardens, and depeding on where you play ( local leagues, irl tournaments, online), the meta change.

That being said, I faced multiple times these ‘new’ decks, and this is the conclusions I came up with:

• UW Glitter: This match up is highly unfavored, I didn’t win a single game against this archetype and the only matches I was able to take down were non-game where he didn’t draw nothing relevant and I quickly assemble tron + the combo. This match up concludes when ATG connects, no matter your plays. Record: 1-4

• MonoR Kuldotha: ‘Sticker Goblin’ gives the deck another busted opening, where a T3 goblin into whatever is just a match lost. MonoR historically was a 50/50 match up, but the addition of card draw and this ritual boi strengthrn the match up on monoR side. Altar now lose on average to t1 Swiftspear + multiple spells, t3 Sticker Goblin + whatever and/or combinations of these. Record: 2-5

• Terror: Cryptic Serpent is just a better Gurmag Angler, so the deck plays a more lean plan. Easier to play 5/5, better manabase and Delver of secrets lead to more problematic games. T1 delver + interaction is probably enough to win most of the games, and also fast 5/5 with protections are just unwinnable. One thing I noticed is that the match up is also influenced by the skill of the player: the more skilled is the player, the more Altar tron struggle to win. Record: 5-3

These three, most dominant decks rn, have strategies that are better, leaner and faster than Altar Tron plan: this is no good news.

TLDR:

Results aren’t stellar: on the time period of Paupergeddon Milan (one moth prior - one month after), I was on something lie 68% win rate combined paper and online.

The deck

The list I’m currently playing

My maindeck idea is to play it full combo, playing cards that tries to make fast Tron and assemble the combo as fast as possible.

Some card discussion:

• Candy Trail: At first glance I had big hopes on this card, and I played it a lot in my lists: it helps you to assemble tron and find good cards, but most of the time is more or less an updated version of ‘Introduction to Prophecy’.

• Rowan Grim’s Search: It’s the best option for make value and digging for combo pieces, it has a good synergy with Moments Peace and Myr Retriver and helps in the grindy match ups. It’s bigger weakness is that without bargain, is not such a great card. I was very reluctant to play it but a very good player friends of mine states that ‘It’s essentially Dig Through Time of pauper’, which convinced me instantly (not fully yet).

The sideboard is mainly composed by cards that lets you survive the early turns. Gigadrowse + Wizard’s Rocket is my wet dream and can be used to comboing off over multiple counterspells: I chose this set up because I think there isn’t space for a full set of Duress. Sideboarding is more or less the one described in my previous article of Altar Tron.

Wrap up

In conclusion, the new deck that emerges from the latest expansions are all bad match ups for Altar Tron, which puts the deck in a worst spot than in the previous meta.

Is the deck still viable? I really don’t know, since it continues to put good tournament placement both in irl tournaments and in LPI leagues in contrast of my paper and online results. Probably I’m not on the the optimal list route, but I’m refusing to play a deck with only 2 Altar in a ‘go fast or die’ meta and/or with a full set of a Rowan Grim Search where, most of the time, on T3 you are on the verge of dying (if not just dead)

The only hope is to have the metagame evolve on the midrange path, where decks get slower and more grindier for be better prepared in the later turns and sideboards increasingly aquire more Red elemental blast / Blue elemental blast in favor of artifact removal and/or gy hate.

My brain says that Altar Tron is not a viable deck anymore, but my heart tell me to still put works in it, both for the love for the deck and the fact that I don’t know how to play others decks :).

My advice?

Keep touching pallette (small artifact balls made of steel that cycle for a small amount of invested mana).

Review history

2023-10-03 10:00:00 : Some layout fixes 2023-10-02 18:00:00 : First publication

My articles will always be open source, free and reproducible. My writings will always be discussion material, and my opinions can be debated and refuted.

Cosa fa sto mazzo?

Table of Contents:

1. Introduction
2. Hamburger Storm
3. UG Arcane
4. Balena Combo
5. RG Familiar
6. Goblin Storm
7. Bonus: Altar Tron
8. Last Words
9. Acknowledgments
10. Review history

Introduction

In a week, there will be Paupergeddon Pisa 2023, which will be one of the biggest Pauper event of all time: it will lasts two days, and will feature the best italian pauper player and also international ones. I didn’t play much pauper recenlty, but on and off I tried multiple new brews, without focusing too much on Tiers. In this brief post, I would like to show some decks I played, with pros and cons of every list. PS: Today, The Lord of the Rings edition will be fully spoiled, so I won’t add decklists that features new cards, despite the fact that they will be playable at Pisa.

Hamburger Storm

Thanks to this post, I acknowledged the fact that you can go infinite with Ashnod’s Altar, Cauldron Familiar, Tortured Existence, Energy Refractor and two Bartered Cow, so I came up with this list:

The idea is to have a Tortex plan with cheap, intelligent creature that can advance the game in midrange mode; the idea is to dig the deck using draw engine such as Village Rite and Corrupted Conviction, playing the value game until assembling the one and only combo of Ashnod’s Altar, Energy Refractor, Tortured Existence, Cauldron Familiar and double Bartered Cow.

I made few leagues with this list tweaking the list (i started with a BG build), achieving not so terrible results ( double 2-3 and one 3-2), battling across a wide range of archetypes. PROS

1. If Tortured Existence resolves, most of the matches are over: Torturex Existence and Grave Scrabbler pair is insane for generating value, and against counterspell based deck these two cards and a bunch of other creatures in the bin are good enough to win the value games and close the match.
2. Every pieces synergies one another: every card has some sinergy with the other, creating a fun deck with multiple options. For example, Altar + Energy Refractor + Tortex lets you sac, add mana, and fetch creatures from your graveyard, Altar + Ghast make some sort of mana acceleration, Tortex + Scrabbler is a star value engine, Scrapwork + Cow grants you a card for free and a Cat resurrect from the bin, etc.

CONS

1. The combo probably needs too much cards in order to be playable: sometimes you just draw half your deck without be even close to all the pieces you need; in one game I draw like 40 cards in the quest to draw the last piece of the puzzle, without find it.
2. The creatures aren’t impressive in the long run: Shambling Ghast is very good in the first turns, but it devalues abrudtly in later turns.
3. Sideboard is a mess: I didn’t came up with a strong sideboard plan, since I’m not a very good monoblack mage nor a skilled tortex player, so I really had hard time figuring out what to bring in and out during the matches.

Addendum:

• This deck will probably be better thanks to the multiple food cards spoiled in the lotr edition; unforunately, I didn’t have much time for brewing!

UG Arcane

This version aim to be faster than the current SOTA version of UG Arcane, playing only cheap enchantment and no bounceland. This enables faster mana, but needs more cards in order to comboing off, so more slot in the deckslists are dedicated to enables and there’s less space for card advantage. The main combo is having a lands that produces 3 mana, and then proceed cast free arcane spells thanks to Psychic Puppetry: then use cards for generating mana (such as Dream’s Grip or Reach Through Mists) for playing other enchantment drawn and then finally playing Petals of Insight for infinite mana and as tutor for Stream of Thought, which will close the game.

A nice feature of this list is the fact that, with a land that produces 6 mana, Petals of Insight, Psychich Puppetry and a library that counts a number not divisible by three, you’re going to win the game, since you can rearrange the cards in your library as you want, so you can top a mana enchantment, an untap spell and another Petals of Insight, which will be enough to make infinite mana.

I played the deck a lot in the practice room on MTGO, and i also have a paper pauper tournament with it, finished with an unexciting 2-2.

PROS:

1. It’s fast: multiple times I win on turn4, and most of the time you can secure the game on turn5. Theoretical openings can also lead to a t3 kill: they are rare but possible.
2. It’s a strategy that is not very well known in the meta: this might yield to incorrect plays from the opponent or suboptimal sideboard strategies (multiple opponent will board in Relic of Progenitus, believe me).
3. It has the real KAMIGAWA BLOCK flavor: if you are an old-time player as me, childhood will hit you hard, and if you are not, you can enjoy one of the best artworks in the game.

CONS:

1. Sometimes, it fizzles: after multiple tweaks to the list, I reach the conclusion that sometimes, when you star comboing off, you are not sure to close the game, since this list relies heavely on casting multiple copies of Ideas Unbound: if you fail to draw it, you’re probably fall halfway through the combo without relevant pieces.
2. It fails against counter: while the list can resist to a single counterspells, multiple can be leave little to no chance of winning, since a lot of pieces have to connect in order to finally mill your opponent out. G2 G3 things are better with Gigadrowse, but starting with an almost secure loss in a game is not what I want in the long run of a big tournament.
3. Land destruction is a thing, and playing against it is a miserable experience.

Addendum:

• I playtested a version that uses Dawn’s Reflection instead of Fertile Ground and a full set of Preordain instead of other cards; it improves, but not in a very relevant way.

Balena Combo

I realized after burning multiple playpoints, that the combo Whale + Helix + Thoot is not that great, since it requires a setup turn (Balena doesn’t have haste) and it is too fragile, so I opted for a completely new approach, with Rites as wincon.

PROS:

1. Sometimes, you just win by overflowing the board;
2. It draws a lot.

CONS:

1. The combo Helix/Balena combo is just bad;
2. Keep7 dependent;
3. Lose to mass removal;
4. Single card power level is pretty meh.

RG Familiar

The idea of the deck is, on turn 3, play Familiar/Goblin paired with a ritual, and from there go big in value, both drawing cards or ramping; the finisher is First day of class casted multiple times with Ardent Elementalist and attack with multiple hasty creatures.

PROS:

1. Deck is faaaast
2. Deck win in an original way, playing cards that are optimized both for pre combo and post combo actions.

CONS:

1. The deck is removal prone: if a Familiar don’t survive, the deck is just a pile of cards.
2. Doesn’t play interactive spells..

Pinger Storm

This is my wet dream, but it’s probably it will remain so…. the combo is just too fragile, and no available card or combination of cards in the pool will replace Galvanic Relay.

PROS:

1. When it does work or your opponent has a counterspell/a removal/anything, the impression is to play such an unfair deck that you feel invincible, invulnerable, indestructible unconquerable, unbeatable, indomitable, unassailable, unyielding, unflinching, unbending, unshakeable, indefatigable, ineluctable.

CONS:

1. When it does not work, you are questioning yourself why you are wasting your time like that.

Bonus: Altar Tron

Not really changed from the last list: the main switches are related to MTGO limitations, such as no infinite life, no concession and things like that.

PROS:

1. Better vs. new list of Monored:

2. No innovation: no changes means that everything that I wrote about the archetype in my previous post still stands.

   CONS:

3. The Familiar match up is not that great:
4. MonoU match up is not well defined:
5. Carpal tunnel after few leagues on MTGO: I feel physical pain and moral pain since players make you fully comboing off before concede (hate the game not the player).
6. No innovation: I feel that the deck is slowing become boring: the playpatter are kind of the same, and the fact that the deck plays few interaction spells leads to fewer choices, so every games against a specific archetype tend to be the same.

Last Words

For Paupergeddon Pisa I’m testing off-meta decks, both for having an edge vs players that doesn’t know what are facing, and for having a customized deck that I like to play. I am not sure what to bring to the tournament, so feedback or suggestion are welcomed! :)

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the Storm Discord for the multiple deck ideas; despite not engaging much in the conversations, I’m lurking a lot :)

Review History

2023-06-12 12:00:00 : Fixes 2023-06-09 14:00:00 : First draft

My articles will always be open source, free and reproducible. My writings will always be discussion material, and my opinions can be debated and refuted.

Someday, someone will best me. But it won’t be today, and it won’t be ChatGPT.

Table of Contents:

1. Introduction
2. Approach
3. Code
4. Demo
5. Last Words
6. Acknowledgments
7. Review history

Introduction

Generative AI (GenAI) is a type of Artificial Intelligence that can create a wide variety of data, such as images, videos, audio, text, and 3D models. It does this by learning patterns from existing data, then using this knowledge to generate new and unique outputs. GenAI is capable of producing highly realistic and complex content that mimics human creativity, and in recent years it is used to fasten the human process of generating content. This specific kind of Artificial Intelligence lately has raised an enormous public interest, both for its possible applicability and its controversies. In this post I’ll jump on the AIGeneration train and use it for creating custom, never seen and totally plausible Magic the Gathering cards.

Approach

Which are the attributes that compose a Magic the Gathering card?

1. Title defines the name of the card
2. CMC defines the mana cost of the card; in the most common cases, it’s composed by a number, which refers to the colorless mana, and a mana symbol, which defines the colored mana needed to cast the spells. Sometimes the mana cost can have strange variations, such has hybrid mana costs, Pyrexian mana cost or even no mana cost!
3. Artwork defines the image of the card, it occupies the most space on the card.
4. Type defines the type of the card: most of the cards belongs to supertype such as Creature, Sorcery, Enchantment, Artifact, Land or Planeswalker, but multiple others were forged.
5. Symbol defines the symbol of the edition and the rarity of the card based on irs color (black for common, silver for uncommon, gold for rare and magenta for mythic rare).
6. Text defines the ability of the card: it can be non existent, almost non-existent or very long. The card may describe the in-game characteristic of the card and/or the lore of it.
7. Power/Toughness (P/T) are characteristics unique to creatures that defines how much damage the creature deal and how much damage the creature can suffer before being send to the graveyard.

In this blogpost, I’m going to briefly describe how generate all the aforementioned characteristic of a card using AI. In this application, we’re going to use an ensamble approch, using two models in order to render the card: ChatGPT for generating all the attributes of the card, and StableDiffusion for generating the artwork. As for the layout, we used a blank one that we’re updating with the generations.

Bonus: what’s ChatGPT?

ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot developed by OpenAI and released in November 2022. It is built on top of OpenAI’s GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 families of large language models (LLMs) and has been fine-tuned (an approach to transfer learning) using both supervised and reinforcement learning techniques. ChatGPT is a member of the generative pre-trained transformer (GPT) family of language models. The fine-tuning process leveraged both supervised learning as well as reinforcement learning in a process called reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF). Both approaches use human trainers to improve the model’s performance. In the case of supervised learning, the model was provided with conversations in which the trainers played both sides: the user and the AI assistant. In the reinforcement learning step, human trainers first ranked responses that the model had created in a previous conversation. These rankings were used to create “reward models” that were used to fine-tune the model further by using several iterations of Proximal Policy Optimization (PPO). ChatGPT’s training data includes man pages and information about internet phenomena such as memes, programming languages such as bulletin board systems and community discussion about multiple arguments strictly related to the web.

Although the core function of a chatbot is to mimic a human conversationalist, ChatGPT is versatile. It can write and debug computer programs, write business pitches, compose music, fairy tales and student essays, answer test questions (sometimes, depending on the test, at a level above the average human test-taker), write poetry and song lyrics, and, as demonstrate in this brief blogpost, generating Magic the Gathering cards.

Bonus: what’s Stable Diffusion?

Stable Diffusion is a deep learning, text-to-image model released in 2022. It is primarily used to generate detailed images conditioned on text descriptions, though it can also be applied to other tasks such as inpainting, outpainting, and generating image-to-image translations guided by a text prompt. It was developed by the start-up Stability AI in collaboration with a number of academic researchers and non-profit organizations.

Stable Diffusion is a latent diffusion model, a kind of deep generative neural network. Its code and model weights have been released publicly, and it can run on most consumer hardware equipped with a modest GPU.

Stable Diffusion uses a kind of diffusion model (DM), called a latent diffusion model (LDM) developed by the CompVis group at LMU Munich. Introduced in 2015, diffusion models are trained with the objective of removing successive applications of Gaussian noise on training images which can be thought of as a sequence of denoising autoencoders. Stable Diffusion consists of 3 parts: the variational autoencoder (VAE), U-Net, and an optional text encoder. The VAE encoder compresses the image from pixel space to a smaller dimensional latent space, capturing a more fundamental semantic meaning of the image. Gaussian noise is iteratively applied to the compressed latent representation during forward diffusion. The U-Net block, composed of a ResNet backbone, denoises the output from forward diffusion backwards to obtain a latent representation. Finally, the VAE decoder generates the final image by converting the representation back into pixel space. The denoising step can be flexibly conditioned on a string of text, an image, or another modality. The encoded conditioning data is exposed to denoising U-Nets via a cross-attention mechanism. For conditioning on text, the fixed, pretrained CLIP ViT-L/14 text encoder is used to transform text prompts to an embedding space. Researchers point to increased computational efficiency for training and generation as an advantage of LDMs.

Stable Diffusion was trained on pairs of images and captions taken from LAION-5B, a publicly available dataset derived from Common Crawl data scraped from the web, where 5 billion image-text pairs were classified based on language and filtered into separate datasets by resolution, a predicted likelihood of containing a watermark, and predicted “ aesthetic” score (e.g. subjective visual quality).

The text to image sampling script within Stable Diffusion, known as “text2img”, consumes a text prompt in addition to assorted option parameters covering sampling types, output image dimensions, and seed values. The script outputs an image file based on the model’s interpretation of the prompt. Generated images are tagged with an invisible digital watermark to allow users to identify an image as generated by Stable Diffusion, although this watermark loses its efficacy if the image is resized or rotated

Code

Here I’ll quickly describe the main parts of the process with a brief description of the approaches used:

Attribute generation

The card’s attribute are generated using ChatGPT queried with a very specific system prompt, asking the design of cards with very strict rules and defining all the requirements. In conjunction, an example card’s structure is passed to the model. Then, another prompt is declared, that defines the domain of the card generation: in this case, I’ll decide to use Harry Potter.

Artwork generation

The card’s artwork is generated simply using the card’s title; more complex approaches can be used, for example using a more detailed prompt.

Layout generation

Layout generation is as simple as it is: it has been used a blank card layout, where all the attributes are hot encoded inside. This method, which is very fast, is also very error-prone, but i wanted to be more focused on the AI part instead of this one.

Final Result

Card generated are totally fine and more or less follows the plot of the first books.

Card	Title	CMC	TYPE	TEXT	RARITY	CMC
	Hogwarts Letter	0	Artifact	When Hogwarts Letter enters the battlefield, search your library for a basic land card and put it into your hand. Then shuffle your library. 1: Put Hogwarts Letter on top of your library. Activate this ability only if you control a creature named Harry Potter.	Uncommon	0
	Firebolt	0	Artifact	Equipped creature has flying and haste. At the beginning of your ‘upkeep, if you control a creature named Harry Potter, untap Firebolt. Equip {3}	Rare	2RU
	Accio	0	Sorcery	Search your library for a creature card named Hedwig and put it onto the battlefield. Then shuffle your library. If you control a creature named Harry Potter, draw a card.	Rare	G
	Dobby, the Free Elf	0	Legendary Creature — Elf	Whenever a creature enters the battlefield under your control, you may tap or untap target permanent. If you control a creature named Harry Potter, creatures you control gain indestructible until end of turn.	Rare	1W
	Mirror of Erised	0	Artifact	{2}, {T}: Choose a creature you control. You gain life equal to that creature’s power. If you control a creature named Albus Dumbledore, draw a card.	Rare	3
	Petrificus Totalus	0	Enchantment — Aura	Enchant creature. Enchanted creature doesn’t untap during its controller’s untap step. If you control a creature named Hermione Granger, you may draw a card at the beginning of your upkeep.	Uncommon	2U
	Expecto Patronum	0	Instant	Exile target attacking creature. If you control a creature named Harry Potter or a creature named Hermione Granger, you may draw a card.	Uncommon	2UW
	Polyjuice Potion	0	Enchantment — Aura	Enchant creature. As Polyjuice Potion enters the battlefield, choose a creature type other than Human. Enchanted creature is the chosen type and has all abilities of the chosen type. If you control a creature named Ron Weasley, you may draw a card at the beginning of your upkeep.	Uncommon	1UB
	Sectusempra	0	Instant	Target creature gets -X/-X until end of turn, where X is the number of cards in your hand. If you control a creature named Draco Malfoy, Sectumsempra deals damage to that creature instead.	Rare	2B
	Whomping Willow	0	Creature - Treefolk	Defender, reach. Whenever Whomping Willow blocks or becomes blocked, it deals damage equal its toughness to target creature. If you control a creature named Neville Longbottom, Whomping Willow assigns no combat damage this turn.	Uncommon	3G

Demo

The code for the demos is available on Google Colab or as a Huggingface Space; as mentioned, in order to run the code and generate cards, you need to have a OpenAI token. ChatGPT is offered as a pay-per-use service, so every generation costs: the price is by no mean expensive, but it’s a good thing to have in mind while playing with the demo :)

Last words

TODO

Acknowledgments

While wandering across GitHub, I stumbled across @minimaxir work on exploring ChatGPT API, and while inspecting his code, I came up with the idea for this blogpost. Big thanks especially for his context and prompt engineering; without his repository, I would be in trouble, since I have little to no experience in it.

Review history

2023-05-15 18:00:00 : First draft

My articles will always be open source, free and reproducible. My writings will always be discussion material, and my opinions can be debated and refuted.

Chi vince gode, chi perde spiega

Table of Contents:

1. Introduction
2. History
3. Maindeck
4. Sideboard
5. Tournament
6. Last Words
7. Acknowledgments
8. Review history

Introduction

Paupergeddon Lecco, which took place 26 March 2023, was the biggest Pauper Tournament ever registered, counting 600+ players from all over Europe; the tournament, which took place at Palataurus, featured a 10 round swiss with a top8 cut. The event started at 9.30 AM, the swiss finished approximately at 11 PM and the last card in the final was slinged at 2 AM. I was good and lucky enough to be the last man standing, completing the swiss with a record of 8-1-1, and winning the 3 rounds of the top8. For clarity, we split top4 (prizes after splitting where something near 1.3k in MKM coupon, 3 Secret Lairs and some goodies) but we decide to play to declare the winner. In this brief blogpost, I’ll cover some points about the deck I played, Altar Tron, including deck building choices, match up analysis, sideboard strategies, and then I’ll quickly describe how the tournament rolled out, which archetypes I faced and how the games unveiled throughout the tournament.

History

The Altar Tron archetype made is timid debut right after the unified pauper announcement, where paper common and MTGO common where made playable for both the play modes, making one large shared card pool. The new additions, such as Ashnod’s Altar, ignite some interest in the combo deckbuilding community, but it took some time and MTGO tix to actually make the deck work. The idea of the deck is simple: deploy a large amount of 3/3 golems from Golem Foundry thanks to the big amount of triggers made possible from 2 Myr Retriever and Ashnod’s Altar. The first approaches get ideas from another combo Tron builds, Eggs Tron, which also play a combo plan with Golem Foundry, but it differs from the strategy; the first lists were based on midrange strategies, where the goal was to survive and draw as many cards as possible. In this early stage of development, two players stands among others for their brews: saidin raken, who tirelessly tried the deck on MTGO, and Giorgio Venditti, aka GiorgioCombo, a player from Italy that had great success with the deck in national paper tournament. The lists relied heavily on Fangren Marauder or Mystical Teachings package, and they went for the midrange/control journey for assembling the combo: at that time, the meta were slower, and only 4 copies of the myr were available, making the combo not particularly fast, so the strategy was based around drawing cards and survive thanks to Weather the Storm and Fangren Marauder, since the deck features lots of cheap and expendable artifacts. After finding GiorgioCombo decklist, I played his sixties with moderate success, letting me put a Top16 Paupergeddon Pisa result with a list that featured the afromentioned strategy. From there, nothing really has changed, and the new lists that on and off appears online were no different in the core but different from the support cards, ranging from less or more card draw, more or less utilities or specific metagame choices. The turning point for the archetype starts with the spoiler of Myr Kinsmith, a card that at first sight didn’t say much, since it’s a highly cost tutor for a very specific tribe that don’t have much fortune in Pauper, but it quickly became another key piece of the deck, since it has the ability to tutor Myr Retriever, which is the pillar of the combo, making the deck faster. With this new addition, Altar Tron can drop the midrangy strat of drawing cards for eventually assemble the combo, and start to have a more combo-oriented settings: its focus was shifted from ‘survive as long as possible’ to ‘kill as fast as possible’

Main

As introduced before, my deck’s choice was Altar Tron, which is a combo deck, based on the infamous Urza Lands that features Ashnod’s Altar + Myr Retriever synergy to make a large amount of artifacts etb triggers, a tremendously high storm count, an infinite amount of death triggers and so on. I chose this deck because I really like combo builds (if you want to play Aggro, play Heartstone) and I love artifacts. I also thought that the deck was a meta sleeper, since on MTGO it does not see much play, because platform’s time constraints and in-game click intensity.

I choose to build the deck based on few, well-defined pillars:

1. The build must be combo-centric: I was sure that the midrange strategy of the deck wasn’t optimized, and also it wasn’t particularly good, so I tried to create a deck that was entirely on the combo train (example:. Myr Kinsmith > Mystical Teachings);

2. Play cards that are good despite opponent’s deck or turn drawn: I opted to play cards that are weaker in power but are good every time they are drawn and are ok in every circumstance than spells that has more raw power but shines only in fringe spots (example: Ancient Stirrings > Faithless Loothing ). This choice was made since I wanted a deck that might survive the long run instead of a list with the purpose of spiking;

3. Do not try to beat sideboard strategy maindeck: I opted to not include cards in the main that are good vs. strategies that often come in after sideboard (es. graveyard hate), both for having leaner draws and also relax the deckbuilding decisions (example: Ichor Wellspring > Blood Fountain). If opponent is smart enough to make specific metagame calls in the maindeck, let be it, let’s play G2 and G3 then.

4. Minimize the use of colored cards maindeck: The combo is almost colorless, so the baseline of the deck has to be at most colorelss: support card that are colored have to be too good to not be included. (example: Deadly Dispute > Scrapwork Mutt > Reckoner’s Bargain)

5. Tron lands have to be 8th or 9th edition: BASED. (example: old layout Tron lands are not elegant);

6. Don’t try to win against every archetype and normalize losing, but always have a plan: for this part I’ll borrow the words from a Bryant Cook tweets, that sum ups perfectly my thoughts:

With the aforementioned statements in mind, let’s see the decklist my testing team and I came up with:

Below a brief description of cards choices:

Combo part:

4 Myr Retriever 4 Ashnod’s Altar

Here we have the combo package of the deck: since the deck aims to find all the combo pieces as fast as possible, it features the full set of everything. There are few arguments about the fourth Altar, but after extensive testing I realized that the Ashnod’s artifact is way more useful than any other spot card (such as Weather the Storm, Makeshift Munitions, Blood Fountain…), so I went for the fourth copy, and never regretted it.

Finisher:

3 Weather the Storm 4 Golem Foundry

The wincons are an endless army of 3/3 golem or infinite life: this lets us close the game against the 95% of the meta, because the vast majority of the decks played in Pauper win by combat, so an unlimited amount of blockers and a lot of lifepoints are enough to win on the turn after comboing off. In these settings, there’s no same-turn finisher cards such as Makeshift Munitions or Impact Tremors, since the decks that survives to the aforementioned combos are few and not so popular (at time of writing).

Draw:

4 Deadly Dispute 3 Ichor Wellspring

As draw engine we have the well known synergy between Ichor Wellspring and Deadly Dispute, that, as for now, is the best way to draw cards in Pauper. In early lists, I didn’t play this draw engine, but I relied on Scrapyard Mutt and Clockwork Fox, that were better combined with Ashnod’s Altar, but weaker on their own. I quickly changed my mind since I realized that there’s no better alternative than the infamous ‘Ancestral Recall’ duo.

Tutors:

4 Expedition Map 4 Ancient Stirrings 3 Myr Kinsmith

These cards make the deck very consistent, allowing a fast tron assemble and multiple ways to find combo pieces. I consider these cards as the core of the deck, making it so powerfull.

Support:

4 Chromatic Star 4 Chromatic Sphere 2 Energy Refractor

These cards help filter mana in order to play colored spells; When I was deckbuilding the deck, I started with only 8 chromatic artifact, but I quickly realized that at least 10 ways to make colored mana were mandatory, so i finally added 2 Energy Refractor for making the access of mana of any color more consistent.

Lands:

4 Urza’s Tower 4 Urza’s Power Plant 4 Urza’s Mine 2 Crystal Grotto 1 Forest

This is as straight as it appears: 12 Urzalands, 2 Crystal Grotto for mana of any color and a single basic in order to fight a possible Cleasing Wildfire.

Utility Lands:

1 Haunted Fengraf 1 Polluted Mire

These are lands that are tutored using Expedition Map when Tron is assembled and Crystal Grotto is already fetched: Polluted Mire is great for cycling a card off the map, and the fengraf is literally a tutorable spell that lets you make value off a creature in the graveyard and also helps deal graveyard hate at instant speed.

As for the maindeck, I think that there’s no room for improving: the slots for adding new cards are very tight if not existent, since all the pieces are well combined one another, and removing a single card will weaken others or also the entire strategies. The idea of the deck is to have cards that are good in any moment of the game: from turn1 to turn10, the average power of each card has to be maxed, so I preferred to avoid spike cards that are good only in certain match up or in certain spot.

Bonus: Single card discussion:

• Crop Rotation

In preliminary drafts I played 2 copies of Crop Rotation instead of Energy Refractor, but I quickly realize that mana of any color was too important; the green instant was great in assembling tron, but after that it becomes weaker, despite its good synergy with Haunted Fengranf. I thought about cutting Map or Stirrings for Crop, since they aim to the same kind of purpose, but Expedition Map is easier to cast, better in late game since it can tutor up better things, and it also enables the strongest starting hand with less cards ( two different tron lands + map vs two different tron lands + crop + green source). Ancient Stirrings shines in fetching the land trio and also in looking for combo pieces, so in every theoretical games I brainstormed the green sorcery was better than the instant counterpart. At the end, choices were made, also based on pros and cons are depicted in table:

• Makeshift Munitions

In early draft, I played Makeshift Munitions as a 1 ofs for being able to win on the spot vs. decks that fog locks or list that can burn you out to death if you assemble the infinite golem combo instead of infinite life. I quickly realized that lots of my victory didn’t depend on munitions, so I cut it in favor of other cards that fit better in the strategy, defining the red enchantment as a sidebord card. This choice was strengthen by the fact that the list doesn’t feature the full set of Ichor Wellspring, which has a good synergy with it, and the fact that in this type of deck, the only role it fits is the finisher one, since the midrange plan is dropped, so action like sacrifice a myr with munitions to make a point of damage and returning another retriever won’t happen often, since in that spot you likely to have comboed off. Makeshift Munitions as a card doesn’t shine vs. faeries or other decks with small creature, since the primary function of our artifact is to filter color, and not being launched to opponent’s creatures.

• Blood Fountain

From the day1, I’ve not been a fan of the black artifact, since it requires a lot of effort and a very specific game moment to make it good: most of the time, it’s a 1B cards that discards one and draw one, and that’s not very appealing. In the previous build, where the plan was to be the value/midrange deck, the one mana artifact was a nice addition, but in this specific build it can be replaced with more impactful card, such as the third copy of Myr Kinsmith. Responding to the argument that is a good way to beat graveyard hate g1, it’s true, but Haunted Fengranf fits this role better, since it takes a land slot which is open, and it’s tutorable with Expedition Map, making the small artifact a better drawn in later turns. Responding to the argument that Blood Fountain can draw you the deck combined with Energy Refractor and Golem Foundry when comboing off, it’s true, but this scenario is very unlikely: this build runs only two copies of the filter artifact, and also having all the 7 pieces to draw the deck and kill is very hard and improbable. In a build with the full set of Energy Refractor, Makeshift Munitions and full set of all the combo pieces, can be a good addition, but good luck fit everything in a 60 cards deck.

• Faithless Looting

Faithless Loothing is just the worst version of Ancient Stirrings: the discard clause is very bad for the archetype, since it hasn’t a relevant number of cards that are better in the graveyard than in hand, and also with a low land count you’ll probably find yourself discarding spell that somehow you want to cast in later turns. In previous build with Mystical Teachings or Conjurer’s Bauble, there was a weak argument in playing some copies of this spell, but it’s hard to justify a slot for this card in recent and updated builds.

• Reckoner’s Bargain

Reckoner’s Bargain would take the 5-6th slots of Deadly Dispute, but more sacrifice clauses require more cheap artifacts to bin, and more black spells requires more fixing or dedicated mana sources: stated all these requirements, to me is not optimal to play a weaker version of Deadly Dispute that also requires some other structural fixes, so I’ll end up cutting the black draw engine.

• Foundry Inspector

This card doesn’t fit well in the deck since it does not add density or depth to the build, since it doesn’t solve a particular problem that the deck is facing or others similar issues: it’s just another piece to add for making infinite mana without Golem Foundry, but it is also more vulnerable compared to the three-mana artifact since it’s a creature with a mediocre body. It will probably be somewhat playable if the meta will shift towards more linear decks without lots of removal or burn spells; in all other cases, I think that this artifact is not worth a spot in the list.

• Dross Skullbomb / Conjurer’s Bauble

These cards all have the cons of Blood Fountains, except one pro that they are colorless, so they can be tutored with Ancient Stirrings: to me, this peculiarity is not enough to secure them a slot in the list. Conjurer’s Bauble has also the cons to be a ready-to-sacrifice artifact, that is good with Fangren Marauder, but again to me it doesn’t make the cut, since except for this fringe spot, it’s not a very good card in general (we’re not playing Eggs Tron).

• Bitter Reunion

This card is somehow similar to Makeshift Munitions in closing the game on the spot, and it also more useful if drawn before comboing off, since lets you grant a card for a cost of a spare land or a bad card (but this list doesn’t have any) in hand. However, this card has the same cons of Makeshift Munitions: it requires the assembly of 4 cards + it + a color source, and still lose to fog lock, which are one of the thing than the other option tries to beat.

• Impact Tremors / Reckless Fireweaver

These cards where my primary choice when I tested the deck on MTGO, since they are very good for closing the game under time constraints: they are a good choice becuase they don’t require a Golem Foundry, and lets you comboing off with Ashnod’s Altar + 2 Myr Retriever. I like the creature the most, since it can be seen as a 5th Golem Foundry, and it’s also good on his own, grinding life points for every artifact that enters the battlefield; Its downside is the fact that can be taken down by a removal spell and doesn’t have a very relevant body. On MTGO I play the Reckless instead of one Weather the Storm, but in paper where time is not a limit, I dropped it since the green storm instant is better in more spots, and it also can be evaluated as a wincon against a lot of the field and also, it opens up a slot in the sideboard.

Sideboard

• Anti Graveyard Hate

1 Ancient Grudge 1 Masked Vandal

These cards are used for the only purpose of removing Relic of Progenitus/Nihil Spellbomb of our opponents: the first spell can hit double relic, and the second one can be tutored by Myr Kinsmith.

• Anti linear strategies

3 Duress

We can’t do much against linear strategies such as Hexproof, Tribe, Cycle Storm etc., and each archetype requires ad hoc solutions: in order to have room for other more themed card, we figure out that the black sorcery might be the ‘catch all’ card that vs. all this type of strategies. It also has the upside to reveal hidden information that might become handy during later turns.

• Anti Swarm

2 Breath Weapon

Good vs all the decks that tries to swarm the board in the early turns, preferred to Krark-Clan Shaman since can hit flying creatures and does not require artifacts to sac.

• Lifegain

3 Fangren Marauder 1 Weather the Storm

The main purpose of these cards are to help us survive the early-mid game against too aggressive strategies, such as MonoR Kuldotha or Boros: Fangren is also a solid plan B when we take out the combo, resulting in a gameplan shift, making the build more grindy and midrangish, mainly based on the green monsters and Golem Foundry.

• Combo support

1 Makeshift Munitions

Combo piece that are brought in when we need to win in the same turn of the combo: it also has some minor utility against faeries decks (the main one is to take a counter) and is an out vs. other Fangren Marauders or other annoying creatures. Preferred to Reckless Fireweaver or Impact Tremors for its flexibility.

• Utils

2 Smash to Dust 1 Nihil Spellbomb

Smash to Dust is a premium card that is strong for his flexibility: can remove a Relic of Progenitus, can wrath a board of small creatures, and has the secret ability that is valuable against Defenders Combo. The black spellbomb is also a utility can be used against annoying graveyard interactions.

Bonus: Single card discussion:

• Krark-Clan Shaman

  The red goblin is a stellar sideboard card against specific decks, but it needs some requirements that this deck cannot offer consistently: multiple times the creature was only a 1/1 without ability, since I wasn’t able to sacrifice enough artifacts to make it work. I prefer a Pyroclasm effect in this build because, in my opinion, is a more solid choice, that can be also used to reach for flying creatures.

• Scattershot

  This is not the deck for Scattershot: in specific spot is a ‘catch all’ against Spellstutter Sprite deck, but in most of the other scenarios, is a way worse Breath Weapon. Has some synergy combined with Deadly Dispute, that enable multiple spell in the same turn, but which card is not good paired with the black instant?

• Nature’s Claim

  As hate for enchantment/artifact, we preferred Masked Vandal, since is tutorable; the green instant is faster, has fewer requirements and can be used in some fringe plays to gain life, but we evaluate more the ability to be fetched with Myr Kinsmith.

• Impact Tremors/ Reckless Fireweaver

  These cards contend the spot for the combo utility for the kill in the same turn, and we ended up in choosing Makeshift Munitions since is more flexible and, while in combo, can resolve some annoying creatures, and in general is a more powerful cards.

• Crimson Acolyte

  In multiple brainstorming session, we evaluate the white cleric as a solid way to contrast MonoR, but the creature has some problems: it takes too many sideboard slots, it’s offcolor, and sometimes the red deck win despite the presence of the protected creature. So in the end, we chose to resign to our destiny and cut the girl.

For those familiar with decklist in MTGO layout, this is the screenshot of the deck

Very bonus: Sideboard strategy

This is by no mean a complete or perfect sideboard list, but for the most part, is the best line my testing team and I figured out after playing the deck. We cluster the match up in few big categories, and then we apply some strategies based on that. The categorization is:

1. Full combo plan

   This plan is used against all the linear decks, where we need to optimize the combo in order to win as fast as possible. Since the vast majority of these decks don’t run any type of interaction, no hate card are brought in, and generic and cheap interaction spell are preferred (example: vs. Hexproof no Ancient Grudge vs. Relic of Progenitus, but 3 ofs Duress are brought in). In these match ups, time is the main actor, so the cuttable card are non-combo cards that are ‘slower’, and the only cards that are eligible are Ichor Wellspring / Energy Refractor / Deadly Dispute; we found out that it’s better to t2 Duress this type of decks rather than net a card with Ichor Wellspring. It seems odd, but any other cards in the list has a higher function or are optimized for the combo.

2. Hybrid combo plan

   This plan is used against midrange decks that runs tons of hate cards from the sidebord: the strategy is to trim some combo cards, like Ashnod’s Altar or Golem Foundry, in order to bring in other support cards that fits well vs. the deck we are facing (example: vs. Boros Fangren Marauder or Breath Weapon). This build will lead to longer matches, and more the game is taking, more time we have to draw combo spell, so we will eventually assemble the combo.

3. Fangren plan

   This plan is used against decks that runs so many hate cards that trying to finding the combo is a ‘zero sum game’, where no matter how hard we try, we won’t succeed to assemble all the combo pieces. The archetypes that are so dominant in post sideboard games are MonoU Faeries and parent builds, and some UB Terror decklists. The main goal is to win on the back of Fangren Marauder and/or Golem Foundry, trying to deal against counterspells and gy hate.

4. Control plan

   This plan is mainly used against MonoRed Kuldotha and parent builds, where we board out the main combo pieces for cards that are meant to gain life and do board control. This strategy was crafted after multiple games where games were too fast or too deep to be cleared with the combo, so it was better to explore new route in order to get the win.

This table is the result of session of brainstorming with the testing team: for some matchups in and out might not be optimized. If you have suggestion or correction, feel free to dm me.

NB: Altar Tron sideboard strategy was intentionally left blank because tel sai.

Color pie overview

These are generic and long shot advices for generalize the sideboard not against specific cards or strategies, but against colors:

N.B: this is probably too generic, but before the event i did it so why not include it?

Match up ranking visual view:

This ranking may vary according to sideboard choices, player skill and overall luck. This chart is the result of my experience with the deck, so this ranking might not totally adhere with the reality of the meta and might be biased towards personal assumptions.

Tournament:

I’m doing a quick coverage of the games, highlight interesting games, decisions or fact that happened: it won’t be an in-depth, step-by-step commentary since I wanted to focus on the decklist and on the overrall strategies of the deck rather than specific matches I played; I also have the suspect that the pauper audience doesn’t really care about the descriptions of the game played written in tournaments report, but they are more happy to learn about the deck played.

Swiss: 8-1-1

Match ups:

1. Dimir Terror By Riccardo Cestari (my brother) 2-0

   Won first match on the back of double Myr Retriever that chumpblock their 5/5s and then I eventually close the game comboing off. Second match, thanks to Duress, I resolved a Golem Foundry that puts the game in midrange mode; in the early turn opponent skip some land drop, so i was able to quickly develop my board and race it.

2. Hexproof 2-0

   Lost the dice but I managed to go infinite life against his strong opening that would beat me one turn later: g2 was fast but my opponent kept a ‘slower’ t5 kill hand, but despite being on the draw, I managed to t4 kill him on the back of infinite golem.

3. Affinity 2-1

   G1 I combo off creating an infamous number of 3/3, but my opponent went to the double Galvanic Blast route + Makeshift Munitions for the kill. G2 G3 were similar, were i comboed off after some long Fangren Marauder grind.

4. Boros Synth by Diego Zaccagnini (top4) 2-1

   G1 I won effortless thanks to Weather the Storm, G2 he wrecked me with a very fast start, G3 he kept a strange one lander hand where he starts on the draw with Ancient Den Glint Hawk go, t2 skip land drop but played Relic of Progenitus. The game was strange since I didn’t find any colored source for some time, but this was mitigated by the fact that my opponent didn’t draw his second lands for multiple turns; In the end I was able to cast an Ancient Grudge that let me combo off almost full colorless.

5. MonoR Kuldotha by Francesco Quagliata (Elfman) 2-1

   G1 i steal the game with a very lucky draw where I gained infinite life gain on t4; in this game i also miss t3 Tron assemble after playing t1 Chromatic Sphere instead of Map. G2 he overwhelms me with creatures, burn spell and again burn, but G3 I saw Weather the Storm early in the game and no ‘dead card’ (such as Golem Foundry), and then at t5 I resolved a Fangren Marauder; after that i was able to win thanks to the green monster and multiple golem 3/3.

6. MonoU 2-1

   Lost to two Spell Pierce on early turns and a massive combats of Faeries and Ninjas soon after. G2 G3 I won thanks to Golem Foundry, Fangren Marauder and Weather the Storm despite multiple Spell Pierce in the early turns and lots of sideboard from my opponent. G3 was very strange, since I was able to pair two Fangren Marauder t3 and t4, and they coast to coast all the game, and after multiple chumpblock by my opponent, they finally made the last bit of damage.

7. MonoU 2-0 by Matteo Blasi (very strong player)

   G1 won thanks to Golem Foundry, G2 thanks of a well timely Breath Weapon. This match had some controversies since a judge was evoked in the winning turn, becuase I made two land drops in one turn, and that was entirely my fault. The judge call was made after I played early on a Urza’s land, and after lots of game actions I made another landrop in the form of Crystal Grotto, which made me scry 1 to the bottom. My opponent correctly called the judge, and we explained to him the situation, and he stated, after a quick conversation with the Head judge, to rewind the action (so no Crystal Grotto in play and the card on bottom goes on top), granting me a warning. In that spot, I then sacrificed Myr Retriever for a binned Expedition Map, fetched the Polluted Mire, and with that draw hit Weather the Storm, a 2/30ish out winning card. A small controversy arose because inbetween my losing position and the winning position a referee judgment were stated, so the outcome might be interpreted as biased towards a judge decision.

8. Affinity by Pietro Bragioto (my father) 2-0

   I went for the combo both g1 and g2, and despite a Negate from my opponent in the post sideboard game, i was able to win without particular effort.

9. Defender Combo 0-2

   I was 8-0 but my opponent was 7-0-1, so he needed to play: Defender Combo is one of the worst match-up for the deck, and despite my opponent’s deck was build strangely (he was playing Vent Sentinel as wincon), he wrecked me in both games.

10. RB Madness ID

    We were at table 2, and an intentional draw was summoned. My opponent (who made Top8) was on RB Madness.

11. Top8: MonoBlack Khalni Control 2-1

    I punted game1 where I failed to draw the Weather the Storm for infinite life, resulting in only an infinite army of golems, but he had a 4/4 Crypt Rats evoked off Initiative’s final room, so my Golems abruptly died each turn thanks to the rat activation; at the end I was trampled to death by his Avenging Hunter. Game 2 he mulled to 4 so I was able to quickly have access to the combo, since didn’t find lots of hate cards. In the last game, my opponent made a mistake, casting Deglamer on my Ashnod’s Altar and not on my Makeshift Munitions; I was able to sacrifice it with munitions and returning it to my hand thanks to a timely sacrifice of Myr Retriever. If he targeted Munitions, it would be a totally different game. In his defense, it was 1 am o’clock, and it was his only error in all the interactions we had in the games we played. Mistakes happen :)

12. Top4: Boros Synth by Diego Zaccagnini (the swiss one!) ID We split top4 and Diego let me play the final since he had to return home (an 8 hours trip he said), so he kindly gave me the opportunity to battle for the title. Thanks again, Diego!

13. Top2: Fog Tron by @AAdeptoTerra (my mother) 2-1 Like in fairy tales, I faced my friend and testing companion Alessandro, with his take on Flicker Tron; the final was a remake of Paupergeddon 2020, where in that spot he was gentle enough to concede for making Atogshift the winning deck; he surely was thirsty of revenge, since this time he wanted to battle. G1 I went for the combo but he fogged multiple turns until he managed to combo too thanks to 3 Urza’s Tower + Weather the Storm + Ghostly Flicker + Memnonic Wall + Rolling Thunder (one of the Tronest thing I’ve ever seen). G2 and G3 I was able to cast multiple Duress and Nihil Spellbomb, removing key pieces from his hands and graveyard; resulting me the Paupergeddon 2023 champion. Evvai! :)

Bragioto, AAdeptoTerra and me right before playing for top4. We all are in the same testing team!

Last words:

I had good luck all over the tournament, were I played my outs, and they happen (expecially vs. Hexproof, Burn and MonoU): I’m not Phil Hellmuth, so if luck weren’t a factor, I would lose everytime. The deck is a blast to play: it remembers the old Krark-Clan Ironworks time, and despite the fact that the power level is lower, I enjoyed every game I played with the deck, also the one I lost. As for the list, I’m quite confident that the maindeck is optimized: there is some arguments about Ichor Wellspring as a cuttable card, since is the worst t2 play and the first card to side out, but as I previously said, it has a very good synergy with Deadly Dispute, and I personally don’t suggest to play without it. Since the vast majority of my game were won on the back of Weather the Storm, if i have to make a change, I would probably suggest adding the fourth one to the maindeck, but I really don’t know which card to trim, and I fear that the fourth copy will weaken too much the deck against strategies that don’t threat the lifepoints, that are already the worst match up for the deck. Sideboard was specifically designed for Paupergeddon, so I won’t be surprised to see completely new cards added or removed in order to adapt it to local metagame: my suggestion is to not overplay too much out of color cards (for example, Captured Sunlight), since the deck can’t reliably afford to have much colored mana in every in-game spots.

Acknowledgments:

I would like to thank La Setta and the other players for helping me tune, brainstorm and discuss this deck, in particular:

• LDG for supporting me testing my deraged builds in its local shop and returning in impressions;
• Cossu for helping me with sideboard and general strategy postboard games;
• Stefano Fait for playing intermediate builds both online and on paper, confessing his impressions;
• Sdraio for sharing with me his take on the archetype, harden the concept of full combo builds;
• Matteo Acqua for his for never ending quest to make a deck that makes golem better and better;
• Symonet for believing in the list and actually sleeve up for the first time Tron lands;
• Sanpop for sharing his deckbuilding ideas and sideboard plans;
• Nicola Cordeschi for being IlFritto: without him, I wouldn’t probably succeed my third Paupergeddon: instead I would be doing some serious adult things, such as bank load or do the laundry (NO TIME TO PLAY)

That’s all, guys. If you have comments, suggestion, or questions about the deck, the tournament, whatever, feel free to DM me.

In lega uno sciacallo, al geddon un predatore.

Review history

2023-04-17 19:00:00: Updated Top8 game vs. MonoBlack Garden (thanks @JTruffaz) 2023-04-8 19:00:00 : First publication

My articles will always be open source, free and reproducible. My writings will always be discussion material, and my opinions can be debated and refuted.