[Everything goes Pauper] What would you play?

[MPL]

I am holding a Pauper tournament for the first time next week and I still don't know what I should play. We decided that for our first tournament, we would basically allow all cards and we'll see what happens.

I took a look at the MTGO Classic decks, but there are a lot of strong cards that are not available online, like Hymn to Tourach or Chain Lightning.

So what do you think would be my best bet? Affinity is looking good, but maybe some combo deck could work, even though I am not very fond of combo decks in general. Frantic Search and friends could be used for a nice high tide deck, but you can't play Brain Freeze.

As you can see, I am still pretty confused, so maybe someone either more experienced with the format or more capable in general could give me some hints or suggestions.

PS: I won't go and buy some sinkholes :tongue:

[DrJones]

Look at which common cards in the format have no proper answer.
Look at the very few cards able to empty the board in the format.

Make a deck playing cards in the two above categories.

[Sims]

I am holding a Pauper tournament for the first time next week and I still don't know what I should play. We decided that for our first tournament, we would basically allow all cards and we'll see what happens.

I took a look at the MTGO Classic decks, but there are a lot of strong cards that are not available online, like Hymn to Tourach or Chain Lightning.

So what do you think would be my best bet? Affinity is looking good, but maybe some combo deck could work, even though I am not very fond of combo decks in general. Frantic Search and friends could be used for a nice high tide deck, but you can't play Brain Freeze.

As you can see, I am still pretty confused, so maybe someone either more experienced with the format or more capable in general could give me some hints or suggestions.

PS: I won't go and buy some sinkholes :tongue:


Chain lightning is playable online in classic, but you are correct that Hymn is not, so Hymn will be available to you in real life and I'm not sure honestly what deck would play it off hand. Not many of the black based control decks play discard main except Pestilence playing unburden, and sometimes that cycling is key.

Affinity, if you're allowing cranial plating, is going to be nutbusted. The deck is very strong online, if a bit draw dependant, but gets much better when you are swinging turn 2 with a 6+ power frogmite.

Storm is good, but again it's draw dependent. No real tutors so you've gotta chain enough cantrips and rituals together to, hopefully nail double grapeshot. ETW is viable but usually with that deck double grapeshot is your best bet. You could even maindeck the goblin bushwacker and go for ETW -> bushwacker to haste and pump the team.

If you are expecting a lot of jank and aggro you can play something like B/W Pestilence or MBCu.. Pestilence playing off the power of it's namesake in combination with wall of hope, aven riftwatcher, and kabira crossroads to offset life loss to the pestilence, and cards like Guardian of the Guildpact as a difficult to answer threat that keeps pestilence on the board. MBCu is exactly what it sounds like... black control deck that splashes blue for Mulldrifter, Sea Gate Oracle, and Agony Warp. Play Crypt Rats as a sweeper and Unearths to get most of your creatures sans drifter back. Edicts, Doom blades, Tendrils of corruption as removal, etc..

You've got a lot of options in pauper, though some strategies are just better than others. I'd say if you expect a lot of jank aggro, play Pestilence as it punishes most of those aggro decks. If you're expecting people to play controlling decks... I'd look more towards possibly affinity, or just coming up with some homebrew jank of Goodstuff. Just don't get so greedy with your manabase that you lose games to not being able to properly colorfix.

[Willoe]

Every common card is legal?

I'd play Affinity. Cranial Plating is just too good, even for Pestilence decks. Even further, I'd go with a straight-forward build:

4 Vault of Whispers
4 Seat of the Synod
4 Great Furnace
4 Darksteel Citadel

4 Glaze Fiend
4 Frogmite
4 Myr Enforcer
4 Disciple of the Vault
4 Atog
4 Ornithopter

4 Bonesplitter
4 Cranial Plating
4 Lotus Petal
4 Springleaf Drum
4 Thoughtcast

I threw this list together in one minute. Cranial Plating is so good that you want to fully exploit it. While it's true that Pestilence owns you, you should be able to get them in the red zone by then (Pestilence booms the board at turn 5, at best), and then Pestilencing the board will be dangerous for themselves if they want to still be alive from the self-damaging parts of the activations.

I do in fact think that Affinity with Plating unbanned is the best deck in the format. You got amazing speed and a relatively stable manabase with lots of colorless casting costs as well as 8 pieces of mana fixers. That virtually gives you 12 sources of each colour of mana.

Darksteel is in there to fight Gorilla Shaman. I do however think that a playset of Ancient Dens would be better because of the sideboarding possibilities that access to white mana gives you:

-Benevolent Unicorn/Prismatic Strands/Standard Bearer/Coalition Honor Guard/Safe Passage against Storm, namely Grapeshot Storm. Temporal Fissure can't really be handled except with the use of Flagbearers, but that's just the way it is. Not that I think the Fissure storm decks will occur even though they are extremely powerful.

-Journey To Nowhere/Oblivion Ring/Faith's Fetters to lock down problematic permanents.

-Circle of Protection: Red against Burn/RDW.

If I were to put in Ancient Dens, I'd play a sideboard like this:

4 Safe Passage - against Swirling Sandstorm, Grapeshot, Goblins and other hyper-aggressive decks

4 Pyroblast - because blue decks are many - and scary

4 Circle of Protection: Red - Burn will be played, and it's gonna butcher you unless you play at least some kind of hate

3 Hydroblast/Echoing Truth - Can't really decide what's better: Fighting Swirling Sandstorm or Empty the Warrens. Perhaps fighting them both is better, so the sideboard will have to contain both cards. Here's my attempt:

3 Safe Passage
4 Pyroblast
3 Circle of Protection
2 Hydroblast
2 Echoing Truth

---

So in conclusion, this is what I would play. It owns other aggro, most control and owns combo often. Easily the best deck in the format I think. With some tweaks, it can become even better. Alara Block gave the deck a lot of new possibilities, and with Cranial Plating unbanned at the tournament, it gave the deck its best card back. I think it's like unrestricting Burning Wish in Vintage: Just what once-powerful decks need to become competitive again :smile: (While it's true that Affinity is rather powerful without Plating, Plating makes it tier 1: Smashing for like 10 on turn 3 is just unfair)

[MGC_player]

High Tide combo does work. There was a guy on the Wizards forums, Royk I believe is his name, that actually had a viable High Tide list. It was in a Spring Tide shell, but instead of Brain Freeze, he used Oona's Grace and Mnemonic Wall to make the person deck themselves by card draw.

U/R storm list could easily be good too.

[MPL]

I built a MWS version of MBC today afternoon and it seems to be pretty good and very stable. I have Pestilence and Rats to emtpy the board, I can play Hymn and, being monocolored, I don't have to run a slow or unstable landbase.

That's how my first sketch looks like:

// Lands
24 Swamp

// Creatures
4 Augur of Skulls
2 Twisted Abomination

// Spells
1 Consume Spirit
1 Brush With Death
4 Corrupt
4 Sign in Blood
4 Pestilence
4 Duress
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Wayfarer's Bauble
4 Tendrils of Corruption

Hymn, Augur and Duress should hurt other control decks a lot and slow down combo, creature based decks should be easy with Pestilence and the other removal spells that gain life. Sideboard would contain Crypt Rats and some removal for annoying creatures like Guardian of the Guildpact, like Innocent Blood and Diabolic Edict.

The deck is not perfect and there are many cards that seem worth a slot, but I don't know what I'd cut.

Nevertheless, Affinity does appear stronger. Plating simply is busted. I'd build it like this:

// Lands
4 Seat of the Synod
4 Darksteel Citadel
1 Great Furnace
2 Ancient Den
2 Tree of Tales
4 Vault of Whispers

// Creatures
4 Myr Enforcer
4 Somber Hoverguard
4 Arcbound Worker
4 Frogmite
4 Disciple of the Vault
4 Glaze Fiend

// Spells
4 Cranial Plating
4 Thoughtcast
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chromatic Star
3 Welding Jar

Willoe, why would you play Springleaf Drum instead of Petal or Star? You need creatures for it and it's slower than Petal and Star is nice with Fiend and Disciple. Ornithopter instead of Worker is interesting, it should enjoy carrying Platings. Your sideboard looks really nice, I think I'll use that :)

As for storm and Tide, I think the lack of good tutors and my personal lack of experience with combo decks render them unplayable. I'd rather watch others fizzle and sideboard against them.

[Willoe]

Willoe, why would you play Springleaf Drum instead of Petal or Star? You need creatures for it and it's slower than Petal and Star is nice with Fiend and Disciple. Ornithopter instead of Worker is interesting, it should enjoy carrying Platings. Your sideboard looks really nice, I think I'll use that :)

I play Petal. Springleaf Drum is chosen over star due to the acceleration it gives the deck. Here's an example:

T1: Land
T2: Land, Springleaf Drum, Frogmite, tap Frogmite to produce U, cast Thoughtcast

or

T1: Land
T2: Land, Ornithopter, Springleaf Drum, land a Frogmite, tap the land and the ornithopter to cast a 2cc spell/Myr Enforcer (5 artifacts on the board), let the 2cc spell be Cranial Plating.

While it's true that Chromatic Star fixes your mana and cantrips which is indeed powerful, Springleaf Drum acts almost like a timewalk/massive mana boost. Adding up the affinity count while be able to produce/fix your mana´is simply great. Also because you can land it turn 1:

T1: Land, Drum, Ornithopter, tap to play Bonesplitter, Frogmite
T2: Land, Cranial Plating,tap to equip Frogmite, beat for 8
T3: Land, another Plating, equip and swing for 20

^ is an optimal hand and it involves drawing 2 of the needed cards, but still, being able to do so is pretty broken I guess.

Springleaf Drum contributes to many broken plays. I love the card, but if you got the time, go goldfish and see how it works wonders in most situations. The only downside is that it's a terrible topdeck. But that is true for like half of the deck, and that is Affinity's weakness: You have to be able to win with your opening grip relying as little as possible on the rest of your deck.

The list contains 24 creatures (40 % of the deck), so that shouldn't be a problem. If the board gets wiped, you're going to lose anyway I guess.

[Gocho]

Pauper Burn and Goblins worked very fine in the MTGO Pauper Classic old times. If you go to a tournament with an undeveloped metagame, they are my first choices. Both decks crushed after good sideboard choices.

Storm Combo, Mono Black Control and Slivers worked very fine too.

You can search old and new lists in the pdcmagic.com forums.

[Willoe]

Pauper Burn and Goblins worked very fine in the MTGO Pauper Classic old times. If you go to a tournament with an undeveloped metagame, they are my first choices. Both decks crushed after good sideboard choices.

Storm Combo, Mono Black Control and Slivers worked very fine too.

You can search old and new lists in the pdcmagic.com forums.

Won't Slivers have terrible matchups against High Tide, Pestilence/Crypt Rats and Storm? If that is true, (I have never played a Slivers deck) I wouldn't bring Slivers to the tournament mainly because I guess there will be a lot of High Tide Combo.

[kicks_422]

IIRC, Sliver deck in Pauper usually just use Green and White - which are very good colors in Pauper.

Pauper Storm is very nice though.

[MPL]

The Goblin list seems very fast indeed. Having access to 8 1mana 2/2s and 4 2mana 3/3s is very nice and Goblin Bushwacker is a strong finisher. I can also play Goblin Grenade for further reach.

As for the meta, I don't expect a lot of storm decks. It is after all a fun tournament and I think a lot of people will turn up with some kind of junk deck based on creatures or monocolored control lists. Combo decks require some time to get the list right and even more time to get a feeling for the deck. Goblins or Affinity will kill in 4 rounds and the limited opitions for combo don't permit playing errors.

God, this is difficult. MBC, Affinity and Goblins are my final three I guess :)

[Willoe]

IIRC, Sliver deck in Pauper usually just use Green and White - which are very good colors in Pauper.

Pauper Storm is very nice though.

http://polyjak.tumblr.com/post/433684046/enter-the-battlefield

Green wasn't being played at all in this event. Even though the article is somewhat old, it does indicate that green is a rare choice in tournaments due to the following, which I assume are the main reasons:

-No creature removal
-No card advantage
-Lack of evasive creatures
-Lack of counterspells
-Lack of versatile sideboard hate

While it's true that white gives you creature removal, the lack of being able to create card advantage in a reasonable way is just too much of a flaw in the white-green decklists. You will then have to rely on hyper-fast aggro, but I don't know if Slivers is hyper-fast. What if your Sinew/Muscle Sliver gets removed? You'll then have to beat face with, at best, Grizzly Bears. They'll then get zapped by Steamcore Weirds, Rolling Thunder, Arc Lightning, Swirling Sandstorm etc.

The way I see it, Slivers is a suboptimal choice to bring to a tournament. Also because white and green have no possibilities of dealing with EtB-creatures, because removal of those will lead to card disadvantage (You would have to use counterspells to trade 1-1). Believe me, blink-style Mulldrifter aggro-control will be a dominant deck in the metagame, and you will have to be prepared for that.

Affinity, on the other hand, provides amazing sideboarding possibilites. Pyroblast counters i.e. Steamcore Weird, Izzet Chronarch, Mnemonic Wall and most importantly Mulldrifter, just to give some examples. Also, destroying a Faerie in response to Spellstutter Sprite's trigger is cool as well.

---

I must say it again, go with Affinity. It is the best deck in a Pauper format where every common is legal. It has no really bad matchups, I think:

-Too fast for control and most versions og aggro-control like Parlor Tricks, Cogs and Stripes, BlinkDrifter etc.
-More aggressive than other aggro
-Too fast for most combo. Post-board, a lot of amazing sideboard possibilities.

Oh, and Cranial Plating will most likely be banned next week :smile:

---

What do you guys think are the best hate cards against Affinity?

[DarthVicious]

I am holding a Pauper tournament for the first time next week and I still don't know what I should play. We decided that for our first tournament, we would basically allow all cards and we'll see what happens.

Technically wrong forum for this sort of thing, but I'll bite.

I'd play monoblack, period. Aggro, Control, A/C, doesn't matter. Pestilence sounds good.

[Apex]

Just check out the pauper PEs from the online meta, and see whether there are anything that you like to play. There are practically no difference between the offline pauper cardlist and the online pauper cardlist, I think only something like Sinkhole and Hymn to Tourach are not available for online pauper.

Right now the DTB are MUCFae, goblins, storm, green stompy, and MBC, with MUCFae taking the top slot at almost every PE. It's probably the best deck in the format right now, and I suggest you play that.

[Sims]

Just check out the pauper PEs from the online meta, and see whether there are anything that you like to play. There are practically no difference between the offline pauper cardlist and the online pauper cardlist, I think only something like Sinkhole and Hymn to Tourach are not available for online pauper.

Right now the DTB are MUCFae, goblins, storm, green stompy, and MBC, with MUCFae taking the top slot at almost every PE. It's probably the best deck in the format right now, and I suggest you play that.

Except that even MUCFae has bad matches, they just don't show very often because they lose to the other decks (I'm looking at you Kiln Burn)

It's also hilarious that MUC dominates the PE's when most of the PRE's are run by Pestilence, MBC, affinity, storm, and other slightly more off beat decks like Battelfield Pauper and Kodama's Thunder. If every common is legal i'll echo the sentiment that affinity is probably your best bet, backed by strong boarding desicions. Else go with either Orzhov Pestilence or MBC/MCBu. For an underdeveloped, just starting, metagame I would feel there is likely going to be a lot of burn and that's a bad match for MUCFae, so I wouldn't really put that in my list of possibilities until you see how the tournament meta fleshes out.

[Willoe]

Just check out the pauper PEs from the online meta, and see whether there are anything that you like to play. There are practically no difference between the offline pauper cardlist and the online pauper cardlist, I think only something like Sinkhole and Hymn to Tourach are not available for online pauper.

Right now the DTB are MUCFae, goblins, storm, green stompy, and MBC, with MUCFae taking the top slot at almost every PE. It's probably the best deck in the format right now, and I suggest you play that.

Where can I find some lists from the major events? It's actually interesting that you say that Green Stompy is being played as a DTB.

The cards that are not available to the online Pauper community include Snap, Frantic Search and Clod of Faeries. That leaves out High Tide combo, a strong advantage that perhaps allows less combo-hating aggro like Green Stompy. But that's just speculation.

While it's true that more and more cards will be available online, the fact that Hymn To Tourach will almost never be legal strengthens combo and weakens MBC. Therefore, I believe that there will always be major differences between playing online and playing with actual cardboard.

---

Also, can anyone find matchup analysis data for an Affinity deck? (Not the old lists from when Plating was legal, recent data). That would be much appreciated!

[MPL]

I must say it again, go with Affinity. It is the best deck in a Pauper format where every common is legal. It has no really bad matchups, I think.

Yes, I will :) Thanks a lot for all your comments and the effort you made. As you said, I also think there's quite a difference between paper pauper and online classic. Next to Cranial Plating, I think Goblin Grenade could potentially push Goblins over the top. It should be as fast as Affinity and way too fast for the other decks.

[Willoe]

Yes, I will :) Thanks a lot for all your comments and the effort you made. As you said, I also think there's quite a difference between paper pauper and online classic. Next to Cranial Plating, I think Goblin Grenade could potentially push Goblins over the top. It should be as fast as Affinity and way too fast for the other decks.

Goblin Grenade is a glass cannon. It should only be used for the final reach to the opponent's dome or if the opponent has a gamebreaking dude in play. The 2 for 1 risk that comes with Goblin Grenade makes it only a mediocre card, I think. Getting the 'Nade countered by a Spellstutter is no fun. But nevertheless, it's a powerful finisher.

[ddt15]

I play High Tide. This is my list:

4 High Tide
4 Merchant Scroll
4 Frantic Search
4 Snap
4 Cloud of Fearies
4 Ponder
4 Accumulated Knowledge
4 Ideas Unbound
2 Muddle The Mixture
3 Chromatic Sphere
2 Grapeshot
1 Brainstorm
1 Impulse
1 Tolarian Winds
1 Echoing Truth

17 Island

-sb-
4 Blue Elemental Blast
4 Annul
4 Gigadrowse
3 Deep Analysis

[MPL]

Interesting. I didn't know Merchant Scroll was common. I usually use MagicCards.info as my search engine for cards and it's listed as an uncommon in Homelands there. That cards surely makes High Tide decks a lot better than my version that had to draw High Tide or die.

Now I want to build a version with Framed!

[Apex]

Where can I find some lists from the major events? It's actually interesting that you say that Green Stompy is being played as a DTB.

The cards that are not available to the online Pauper community include Snap, Frantic Search and Clod of Faeries. That leaves out High Tide combo, a strong advantage that perhaps allows less combo-hating aggro like Green Stompy. But that's just speculation.!


They are all on the Wizards website, on the mtgo section.

Here's a link to the most recent one: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Digital/MagicOnlineTourn.aspx?x=mtg/digital/magiconline/tourn/1414884

And Urza's Legacy just came out, so we do have Cloud of Faeries and Frantic Search, both at common. It's the High Tide that's an uncommon, that's a bummer.

But yes, if Cranial is unbanned, take Affinity. It's ridiculous with 4 Cranials.

Otherwise, I still think MUCFae is a good choice. I wouldn't put it past many players to dig up those lists, particularly since they are right there on the mothership's website. It's a good deck too, and doesn't have that many bad matchups, so if you are good at magic, you should be fine piloting it.

[Sims]

Where can I find some lists from the major events? It's actually interesting that you say that Green Stompy is being played as a DTB.

The cards that are not available to the online Pauper community include Snap, Frantic Search and Clod of Faeries. That leaves out High Tide combo, a strong advantage that perhaps allows less combo-hating aggro like Green Stompy. But that's just speculation.

While it's true that more and more cards will be available online, the fact that Hymn To Tourach will almost never be legal strengthens combo and weakens MBC. Therefore, I believe that there will always be major differences between playing online and playing with actual cardboard.

---

Also, can anyone find matchup analysis data for an Affinity deck? (Not the old lists from when Plating was legal, recent data). That would be much appreciated!

Actually just a few nit picks. Fallen Empires is not online and High Tide was printed as uncommon in masters edition, so high tide is not a legal online pauper deck. Snap, Cloud of Faeries, and Frantic Search however are online and legal as urza's legacy came out last month.

MGA/Stompy is an aggressive and winning deck online. Some decks just can't deal with shilana ledgewalker with rancor, groundswells, and briarshields. Edict you say? Not when they play Khalni Garden and a bunch of other cheap dudes like Quirion Ranger, Nettle Sentinel, Rogue Elephant, and Pit Skulk.

[Aggro_zombies]

How good is storm combo? I've got almost all of the cards for it, so I think I might pick up what I'm missing since it seems like a neat way to just goldfish a lot of the decks in the format. What's its fundamental turn? 4 or so?

[Apex]

Yeah, turn 4 is about right. You do get the occasional third turn kill from some decks, but they happen rarely.

Also, there is another deck that's not possible to make online, but pretty good offline, MBA, where you get Hymn + Sinkhole. That could provide some problems for the storm deck.

Also, the pauper storm deck isn't very consistent, just letting you know, and there are a lot of hate cards from the board that just ruins your deck, cards like Benevolent Unicorn (http://magiccards.info/mr/en/208.html), Holy Light, the blasts, Echoing Truth/Decay, and general discard effects. It's actually pretty fragile.

[Gocho]

Won't Slivers have terrible matchups against High Tide, Pestilence/Crypt Rats and Storm? If that is true, (I have never played a Slivers deck) I wouldn't bring Slivers to the tournament mainly because I guess there will be a lot of High Tide Combo.

High Tide wasn't a deck when I play Slivers, because we don't have the Urza's Saga cards.
Anyway, Storm and HT kill you with a single Grapeshot (Goblin Storm kill you with Empty the warrens, but I only face them 2 times) you have Prismatic Strands and Holy Light to fight them.

A good hand of GW Slivers could kill at 4th turn on the play with 4 Slivers vs Storm:
T1: Land, cc1 Sliver (1/1)
T2: Land, Pump Sliver (2x 2/2), attack for 2: 18
T3: Land, Pump Sliver + cc1 Sliver (4 x 3/3), attack for 6: 12
T4: Keep mana for Prismatic Strands on Grapeshot, attack for 12, win.

It isn't easy, because you need 7 exact cards from the 9 you draw, but happens a lot of times.
If the cc1 is the flanking one, your opponent can't kill your critters at combat.

The bad matchups were when you can't reach the 20 damage fast. If your hand is slow or you mulligan to 5, for example, you're going to loose...

[ddt15]

High Tide is imo strictly better than regular storm combo. It has more consistency, more tutors, more draw power and goes off turn 3-4. It also has no problems dealing 30+ dmg with a single Grapeshot (which you have 2 of) so life gain is pretty much useless against it.

If you play Framed! I bet you can get a consistent turn 3 kill, sometimes even turn 2.

[Aggro_zombies]

High Tide is imo strictly better than regular storm combo. It has more consistency, more tutors, more draw power and goes off turn 3-4. It also has no problems dealing 30+ dmg with a single Grapeshot (which you have 2 of) so life gain is pretty much useless against it.

If you play Framed! I bet you can get a consistent turn 3 kill, sometimes even turn 2.
Life gain seems less of an issue than damage prevention spells like Benevolent Unicorn and Prismatic Strands, which force you to run Flaring Pain in the sideboard for white decks.

What is the "High Tide" deck? How does it work without Turnabout and Reset? It doesn't seem like Snap/Cloud of Faeries/Frantic Search would be enough.

[Eldariel]

Life gain seems less of an issue than damage prevention spells like Benevolent Unicorn and Prismatic Strands, which force you to run Flaring Pain in the sideboard for white decks.

What is the "High Tide" deck? How does it work without Turnabout and Reset? It doesn't seem like Snap/Cloud of Faeries/Frantic Search would be enough.

It's way enough. I tested an untuned High Tide list on ML (running Eternal Pauper with paper rarities and releases) and it was good enough for us to ban Tide. It's consistent turn 3; it's amazing how much Frantic Search does to a deck acting as both, digging (you have excess lands) and mana acceleration. Heck, turn 2 kills weren't unheard of (only Frantic Search loses any potency that way). Between Merchant Scroll (Frantic Search & High Tide being the targets almost always), all the U cantrips and company, the deck is ridiculously consistent and as you're running Snaps anyways, Benevolent Unicorn does nothing and Prismatic Strand...well, you can have Flaring Pain if you care (you mostly just draw your deck, it's trivial to find singletons) or just counter it.

What I ran:
// Lands
16 [UG] Island

// Creatures
4 [UL] Cloud of Faeries

// Spells
2 [FD] Serum Visions
4 [TE] Lotus Petal
4 [SOK] Ideas Unbound
4 [UL] Snap
4 [FE] High Tide (1)
4 [UL] Frantic Search
4 [TO] Deep Analysis
4 [M10] Ponder
4 [5E] Brainstorm
2 [TSP] Grapeshot
4 [HL] Merchant Scroll

And yeah, it was a 100 times better than the Pauper Storm, which is also pretty incredible for the format. Benevolent Unicorn slows down Grapeshot (forcing Pauper Storm to run removal or Flaring mostly), but it does nothing about EtW for which you really need Holy Light. Being able to only run 4 of each...well, chances of having both are low while with Storm's draw power, playing both is often possible. But Pauper Storm has some consistency issues and isn't all that fast. High Tide just blows it out of the water in every possible way and outside Sui Black doesn't have any natural predators (and against mono-black, there is a blowout Disrupt; not to mention, MD Brainstorm & Deep Analysis).

And yeah, Sinkhole and Hymn, make for a really solid basis for a mono-black deck...other than its creatures suck monkey, which means it really has huge trouble against red. Also, with offline cards Goblin Sligh & straight Burn become much better thanks to Chain Lightning & Goblin Grenade. Flame Rift is relevant for burn too. Online it lacks the critical mass but offline all the cards are there, and with Smash to Smithereens and Martyr of Ashes, the Affinity MU isn't all that bad, really. You can board heavily for it if need be. And yeah, Affinity is obviously a topdog even without Cranial (Flingatog is brutal and you still have Disciples, free guys and company; you may want Duress tho). In other words, I find mono-black to be a solid deck in a vacuum, but it seems like red is a bit too strong for it.

[Aggro_zombies]

Wait, Merchant Scroll was a common? Holy shit!

[Eldariel]

Wait, Merchant Scroll was a common? Holy shit!

Yup.


And few decks I forgot to mention:
- UW Blink is a strong, natural control-deck in the format forming a natural foil to red (on average gaining ~10+ life over the first 4 turns as it wants while laying blockers and trading value) with Mulldrifter/Blink draw engine, access to Deep Anal and all the normal draw effects. It is a great home for all the Faerie-effects too.
- Some strong Gush-deck exists though I didn't manage to build one. It's damn obvious that between Daze and the basic blue counters that a blue tempo-deck should be fairly good. And Gush should be good there. Splashing while maintaining Gush's functionality is obviously an issue though and might keep the deck down.
- UG Madness should be doable. You have Mongrel/Rootwalla/Moeba/Deep Anal and the natural Daze & al. and the possible black options ('cause Basking Rootwalla Madnesses in just fine without green mana, though losing Mongrel would suck).

[MPL]

Would you replace the Serum Visions with Preordain if you played the deck again?


- UW Blink is a strong, natural control-deck in the format forming a natural foil to red (on average gaining ~10+ life over the first 4 turns as it wants while laying blockers and trading value) with Mulldrifter/Blink draw engine, access to Deep Anal and all the normal draw effects. It is a great home for all the Faerie-effects too.

I played UW Trinket Blink in an Extended pauper tournament lately and enjoyed it very much. I only lost to Storm Combo, because I had to mull twice and was then stuck on 2 lands and made a few play mistakes in the other game, but I fear the deck would be too slow for the Classic / Paper meta.

I built Affinity for the time being and am now pondering about my sideboard. Blue Elemental Blast seems like a natural fit, but somehow I don't like white in the SB for Unicorn and the damage prevention spells. I'd rather play red for Krark-Clan Shaman for Warrens and Red Elemental Blast as my swiss army knife. Mabye Welding Jar against Burn or removal heavy decks and as Eldariel said, Duress.
I don't think I need something against Martyr of Ashes or Swirling Sandstorm as they only hit non-flying creatures and I run Ornithopters, Somber Hoverguards and Glaze Fiends, so it shouldn't be that bad. Rats and Pestilence are too slow to keep up I think, especially as they hit my opponent too.

[ddt15]

What is the "High Tide" deck? How does it work without Turnabout and Reset? It doesn't seem like Snap/Cloud of Faeries/Frantic Search would be enough.

There are different takes on it this is my list:

4 High Tide
4 Merchant Scroll
4 Frantic Search
4 Snap
4 Cloud of Faeries
4 Ponder
4 Accumulated Knowledge
4 Ideas Unbound
2 Muddle The Mixture
3 Chromatic Sphere
2 Grapeshot
1 Brainstorm
1 Impulse
1 Tolarian Winds
1 Echoing Truth

17 Island

-sb-
4 Blue Elemental Blast
4 Annul
4 Gigadrowse
3 Deep Analysis

The main differences are to run;
Accumulated Knowledge or Deep Analysis or both. Obviously good vs discard, they can also be discarted to Frantic Search.
Brainstorm or no. Obviously good against discard, but doesn't shuffle your deck. I run one because sometimes you need it but could easily be something else.
Muddle the Mixture or no. I use it because it can tutor up pretty much anything in the deck, (most notably Merchant Scroll can't get Ideas Unbound and this can).
Capsize->infinite mana->Oona's Grace or Grapeshot kill. Grapeshot is just easier imo.

Frantic Search is basically a Turnabout that also digs through your deck. Framed! would make this deck lolbroken. Then you don't even need the Fearie/Snap engine.

[Apex]

I don't like Grapeshot in High Tide. You essentially run 1 dead card in Grapeshot, and 3-4 subpar filter effects in Chromatic Stars.

Instead, you can just get infinite mana, Capsize all your opponent's permanent, reset your board position so you can continue the infinite mana generation, go to 2nd main to get rid of his floated mana, and Oona's Grace him over and over again for the win. You need to run 2 Mnemonic Walls though, which are perfectly fine in a deck that can generate a bajillion mana.

So running that kill, gives you like 2-3 more slots for better filter effects like Preordain.

[Aggro_zombies]

I don't like Grapeshot in High Tide. You essentially run 1 dead card in Grapeshot, and 3-4 subpar filter effects in Chromatic Stars.

Instead, you can just get infinite mana, Capsize all your opponent's permanent, reset your board position so you can continue the infinite mana generation, go to 2nd main to get rid of his floated mana, and Oona's Grace him over and over again for the win. You need to run 2 Mnemonic Walls though, which are perfectly fine in a deck that can generate a bajillion mana.

So running that kill, gives you like 2-3 more slots for better filter effects like Preordain.
How do you get enough lands in hand to retrace the Grace that much? Don't you need to hit him for 50 or so?

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

I don't think you retrace Oona's Grace, just go infinite mana, Grace them, play Mnemonic Wall for Grace, Capsize the Wall and continue the fun.

[Apex]

Yeah, Snap + Wall with 3 High Tide effects is infinite mana. Which might sound like a lot to ask for, but it's actually pretty easy to do once you get going.

Once you have that, you can just use the infinite mana to bounce Wall to get back whatever you have in your graveyard, and make your opponent draw their library by recurring Oona's Grace over and over again with Capsize and Wall. You can use Deep Analysis too, but I find that sometimes I exile Deep Analysis pretty fast, so instead, I just stuck a single Oona's Grace, which can be Scrolled for, in the deck. Grace is also never a dead card, since you can just cycle lands for 3 mana once it's in the yard.

I think it's better than the Grapeshot kill, as you get to play with no Chromatic Stars (which are weak filter effects), and don't need Grapeshot, which is pretty much a dead card in your hand while you are digging.

[MPL]

If anyone is interested how our small tournament went, here's a short recap: I did play Affinity and lost all but 1 game :) I played against MUC, Burn, Slivers, some GB Madness variant (not quite Dead Dog, a known pauper deck) and Goblins. To my surprise the MUC deck won the tournament, only losing to the GB Madness deck as he simply revived everything over and over again and the MUC player forgot to put some graveyard removal into his sideboard.

Overall, I was pretty disappointed with my performance, yet I don't think I made that many play mistakes. I can't blame all my losses on bad luck and maybe I should have mulliganed one or two hands, but the deck really didn't like me at all. Either I go stuck with no blue mana and drew only blue cards or I simply drew lands and Petals / Drums only.

Well, whatever. It was a fun tournament and I did have fun playing. Next time I'll play the High Tide deck (a friend said he'd borrow me 4 Ideas Unbound and forgot them, so I had to stick with Affinity), maybe that works out better.

[Willoe]

Good to hear everything worked out fine! Sad to hear you went 1-X.

That's not your fault, shit happens with Affinity once in a while. I tried to goldfish on MWS yesterday and I had like eight turn 6+ kills in a row! Overall, I think the deck is super strong, but occasionally, your library consists of sixty pieces of trash as you draw the cards in it. That could be fixed with card draw and/or cantrips, but then the deck would look completely different.

Can you grab the MUC list and post it here? I'm really interested!

Oh, and what build did you play yourself? If you could post the list I'd be a happy Pauper-nerd :smile:

[MPL]

I played this:

// Lands
4 Seat of the Synod
4 Darksteel Citadel
4 Great Furnace
1 Ancient Den
4 Vault of Whispers

// Creatures
4 Myr Enforcer
3 Somber Hoverguard
4 Frogmite
4 Disciple of the Vault
4 Glaze Fiend
4 Ornithopter

// Spells
4 Cranial Plating
4 Thoughtcast
4 Lotus Petal
4 Springleaf Drum
4 Bonesplitter

// Sideboard
SB: 3 Welding Jar
SB: 4 Red Elemental Blast
SB: 4 Duress
SB: 4 Blue Elemental Blast

I wanted to play white in the SB, but the 3 Ancient Dens I missed didn't arrive in time (still haven't), so I couldn't. It didn't hurt that much, because I wasn't hit by sweepers at all, but it could have bought me the turn I often needed. The deck did allow for some busted starts (17 damage turn 3 anyone?), but I simply couldn't get consistant draws. The main problem was the blue mana. I cut a Hoverguard for an Ornithopter, but even then I was stuck with 2 or more blue cards in my hand with no blue mana a few times. As I ran 7 blue cards and 11 cards which can produce blue mana, I don't know what I did wrong.
That's also the reason why I didn't play Atog as I didn't want to add any cards requiring colored mana.

If anyone has any comments on the deck or suggestions how to make it better, I would really appriciate any help. As said before, I don't know what I did wrong and that leaves little room for improvement.

The MUC deck:

// Lands
4 Quicksand
19 Island

// Creatures
4 Spire Golem
4 Pestermite
3 Ninja of the Deep Hours
4 Spellstutter Sprite

// Spells
4 Counterspell
4 Condescend
2 Essence Scatter
4 Exclude
2 Echoing Truth
4 Think Twice
2 Remove Soul

// Sideboard
SB: 4 Faerie Trickery
SB: 4 Force Spike
SB: x Annul
SB: x ???

Ninja of the Deep Hours was awesome. Counter something, draw a card, counter something else or EOT, tap blocker with Pestermite and next turn get a card and Pestermite back. Even attacking with Spire Golem, ninjaing and playing the Spire Golem for free again to block was cool. It also has to be said that the MUC player made quite a few play errors at first and had to develop a feeling for the deck during the tournament, so his performance could have been better.

Finally, I'd like to ask you, Willoe, where do you usually discuss decks or get information on pauper? As you say you are a pauper-nerd, you have to have some sources :) Except for PDCmagic, I don't know any valueable website.

[Zombie]

It's worth noting that while High Tide is insane and the Mnemonic Wall kill especially so, it should be run only in an unprepared metagame. Pauper as a format has no outs to Faerie Macabre, to which a Mnemonic Wall kill falls with ease unless you run something like Vision Charm as a substitute kill from the board. Without a mill-based out, you have to run 5 pieces of targeted draw to be able to win with certainty, and even then have to be very careful with your Snaps and Capsize. The Grapeshot kill may be worse overall, but the hate is much easier to combat.

I echo the sentiment of running Affinity or High Tide if they're available fully powered - the decks are just insane. Hymn-powered black decks can also take surprisingly many to school: They're almost as powerful as Teachings decks, but have much faster and more stable mana, which makes protracted play much less exhausting. Hymn Black and Teachings are the format's Jund - monsters that can be built to beat practically anything, with the trick being correct metagame prediction.

Some of my decks, maindecks only:

UR Teachings:

//Creatures
4x Martyr of Ashes
4x Mulldrifter
3x Calcite Snapper
3x Sea Gate Oracle

//Other permanents

//Spells
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Staggershock
3x Terminate
1x Seismic Shudder

4x Counterspell
3x Mystical Teachings
1x Rewind
1x Mysteries of the Deep
1x Grim Harvest

//Lands
6x Island
5x Mountain
1x Swamp
4x Terramorphic Expanse
3x Izzet Boilerworks
1x Halimar Depths
4x Veinfire Borderpost

A versatile, powerful monster that can take on most decks. Annihilates small creature decks and Storm like nobody's business. Creatures are either impossible to kill or cantrippy bastards not worth killing. Mana is BAD and requires a lot of thought to play correctly, and the deck is overall slow as hell. Calcite Snapper, Martyr and Staggershock clean house in traditional matchups with Grim Harvest providing an excellent lategame, while the countersuite and Martyrs make Storm cry. UR also has stupid amounts of hate available from the sideboard. You could easily formulate an all-purpose board about 12 cards of which could double as Storm hate. Pyroblast and Dispel are hawt.

For more power and mana woes, the deck can be fitted with Sprout Swarm (-Mysteries, Halimar, Boilerworks, +Swarm, Forest, Evolving Wilds or something), which, based on limited testing, is absolutely insane.

High Tide:

//Mana:
4x High Tide
4x Cloud of Faeries
4x Snap
4x Frantic Search
2x Dream's Grip

//Draw:
4x Merchant Scroll
4x Impulse
4x Ponder
3x Preordain

4x Ideas Unbound
4x Words of Wisdom
1x Compulsive Research

//Kill:
2x Mnemonic Wall
1x Capsize

//Land:
15x Island

Not much to see here. Mnemonic Tide in all it's ridiculous glory. The Dream's Grip may look odd, but they are necessary in smoothing out the mana. High Tide as a deck has a problem of having an awful lot of two-drops and is screwed if it ever ends up with a single mana in the pool. The Grips help with that and can double up as disruption (untap land, tap opponent's land, skip to second main, resume insanity. Isn't it nice not having to care about mana in your pool?)

Again, to be run only in an unprepared meta, because Faerie Macabre rapes you so bad it's not funny.

Yesterday, I was at a friend's place and played with and against this with my Teachings list and standard Storm builds.

Discard:

//Creatures:
4x Ravenous Rats
4x Augur of Skulls
4x Dauthi Slayer

4x Liliana's Specter
4x Chittering Rats
4x Crypt Rats

//Spells:
4x Dark Ritual
4x Unearth
4x Sign in Blood
4x Hymn to Tourach

//Land:
20x Swamp

Simple, straightforward, stable, powerful, light to play. The deck is pretty self-explanatory: Apply pressure, keep pressure, you just won. Not a terrible fan of the Augurs myself, but the rest of the build is solid.


EDIT: And someone was wondering what Pauper Stompy looks like. Here's a list that Top8'ed in Magic Online's weekly tournament recently. Obviously no M11 yet on MODO:

Monogreen Stompy

//Creatures:
4x Jungle Lion
4x Nest Invader
4x Nettle Sentinel
3x Quirion Ranger
2x Rogue Elephant
4x Safehold Elite
4x Skarrgan Pit-Skulk

//Other spells:
4x Bonesplitter
4x Gather Courage
4x Groundswell
4x Rancor

//Lands:
16x Forest
3x Khalni Garden

//Sideboard:

4x Gleeful Sabotage
4x Hidden Spider
1x Khalni Garden
2x Shinen of Life's Roar
4x Thermokarst

[MPL]

The Teachings deck looks awesome. If we ban High Tide, I'm gonna give it a try as it's full of stuff I like, like Mr. Turtle. The black deck though seems to lack a bit of oomph. Can it seal the deal fast enough before your opponent can topdeck his way out of the discard aftereffects? Maybe one could replace the Augur with something like Bonesplitter to make the Specters and Slayers a tad more dangerous. With Duress and maybe more creature removal in the SB, the deck appears to be able to handle a lot of different decks.

[Zombie]

That's what I thought at first, too. "Where's the removal? You're playing non-sui black without Corrupt? Is this man insane?". Then I played it. The gist of it is, your opponent doesn't recover, period. I may not be a fan of the Augurs, but they do ensure one thing: Every hand has plentiful discard. The deck basically just shreds the hand. No need for speed when the opponent can't do a freaking thing apart from 2-for-1:ing himself. The deck also contains reach and pest control in the form of Crypt Rats. It may not look like much, but the power definitely is there.

[MPL]

To borrow ideas from the Rat Pack deck, do you think it would improve the deck if one was to replace Dauthi Slayer who seems to be a tad off the concept with Skullsnatcher? He hits for two too, hopefully costs one mana less, prevents graveyard sheningans as long as they are not at instant speed and let's you reuse your ETB creatures. Also, more rats!

[The_Red_Panda]

Why isn't pauper in the alternate format development section? It seems like it has a decent following here.

[Zombie]

To borrow ideas from the Rat Pack deck, do you think it would improve the deck if one was to replace Dauthi Slayer who seems to be a tad off the concept with Skullsnatcher? He hits for two too, hopefully costs one mana less, prevents graveyard sheningans as long as they are not at instant speed and let's you reuse your ETB creatures. Also, more rats!

Nah. The Snatchers might be decent, but (IMHO) they're just too vulnerable. They don't generate CA, can only safely attack at an empty board, and take collateral damage from EtW hate. Just not worth it. The Slayers can't be pinged to death and provide reach. Much better. Order of the Ebon Hand might be suitable, too.

[MPL]

We are having another one of these tournies and as High Tide has been banned, I thought I'd try the black deck. When I was looking through the cards though, I realized that the deck simply rolls over and dies to a resolved Kor Skyfisher. The only card in the deck that can handle one are the Crypt Rats which also kill your whole team in the process.

Am I thinking too much about a card that might never be played against me, but which is rather popular with people playing white, or how should I handle it? The problem is that it only costs 2 mana, so chances that I force them to discard it are rather low too.

Also, if someone has some experience with MBC / Discard, what are bad matchups for the deck? The decks I can think of appear to be at least reasonable as discard hits every deck (except Madness decks I guess).

//EDIT: Zombie, am I right if I assume you are Dreamer Insane on the PDC boards? I was looking at some Teachings lists and that name popped up with your list. Can you tell me what you would change if you were to play in a meta without combo? Seismic Shudder gets the boot, but I don't know if the Martyrs hold their weight against creature based decks like Slivers or Goblins. My guess would be yes, but I would like to hear your opinion as you have obviously put more thought into the deck than me.

[Zombie]

Martyrs do wonders, yeah, but I'm starting to lean towards plain ol' UB Teachings because of the mana. If the black is heavy enough, you can play Crypt Rats for sweep, and Echoing Decay and Wail of the Nim do the token hate. You lose the wonderful reach of the burn but the stability and speed of the mana are just too good to skip.

Something like Doctor Anime's list at the end of the article here (http://puremtgo.com/articles/pauper-premier-event-analysis-july-25-2010) would be pretty close to my tastes, although I'd swing the removal more heavily into targeting stuff. You know, 4 Disfigures, some Agony Warps etc. Some Innocent Blood/Edict is good, of course. The second Exclude is probably overkill, though the card IS insane. I don't know if -1 Teachings, -1 Exclude, +2 Sea Gate Oracle is correct, but it could very well be worth a try.