Classic Pauper deck advice

[Damnosus]

Hello folks, I am just looking for some advice on some pauper decks that I have made for a local tournament here. I know that this is probably a format that most people do not play, but any advice would be most welcome!

Here are the two lists:

Deck 1:

2x Cloud Sprite
2x Cloud Pirates
4x flying men
4x Cloudskate
4x spiketail hatchling
4x Rishadan Airship
2x pestermite
2x fencer clique
3x mulldrifter
4x unstable mutation
2x brainstorm
2x portent
4x boomerang
2x Foresee
17x islands
2x Remote Isle

Deck 2:

4 Silhana Ledgewalker
4 Wild Mongrel
4 Phantom Tiger
4 Guardian of the Guildpact
3 Llanowar Elves
3 Nantuko Vigilante
2 River Boa
2 Mire Boa
4 Armadillo Cloak
4 Faith's Fetters
4 Rancor
2 Terramorphic Expanse
2x Secluded Steppe
2 Tranquil Thicket
3 Selesnya Sanctuary
6 Plains
7 Forest

[cRUMMYdUMMY]

Pauper formats are generally dominated by creatures. So you might want to take a look at some of the mono or dual colored creature based decks the established or Decks to Beat forum and try replacing the cards with commons.
Now this is obviously not going to work with some decks that have key cards. However, for some decks like mono red burn, you can probably copy almost the exact deck list. Another good deck to run is some variant of Affinity, minus the Ravagers. The decks you posted look more like some Type 2 deck that randomly found some Extended cards and decided to put them in.

[Waikiki]

I've made a spring tide deck with commons only. Replace brainfreeze with grapeshot and go infinite with capsize/faery. Consistantly going of on turn 4.

[Willoe]

In commonkill/pauper is it very important not to play subpar archetypes because of the lack of real hate cards that you can play. All in all, play established archetypes. Those are:

Regular decks:
WW: regular WW with a lifegain theme to beat burn. A sample decklist could be:

4 Martyr of Ashes
4 Aven Riftwatcher
4 Augur il-vec
4 Soul Warden
4 Honorable Scout
4 Temple Acolyte
3 Teroh's Faithful


4 Sunlance
4 Holy Light
4 Mana Tithe


4 Strip Mine
17 Plains

MUC with Spire Golems and a lot of counters

A sample decklist could be:
4 counter spell
4 repeal
4 mana leak
4 force spike
4 exclude
4 spellstutter faerie
3 spire golem
3 illusionary forces
3 mulldrifter
3 manowar

4 mishras factories
20 islands

MBC with Duress, Hymn, kill could be Twisted Abomination
A sample decklist could be:
4 sicken
4 hymne
4 phyrexian rager
4 crypt rat
4 spinning darkness
4 cremate
4 snuff out
4 dark ritual
4 twisted abomination
4 consume spirit

4 factories
16 swamps

4 nauzea
4 skittering skirge
4 coumbaij witches
3 duress

Burn Regular burn, that's all. It's the best deck in the format IMO.
A sample decklist could be:
4 Forgotten Cave
17 Mountain

4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Keldon Marauders

4 Lava Spike
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain Lightning
4 Rift Bolt
3 Shard Volley

4 Incinerate
4 Fireblast
4 Flame Rift

9-land stompy a lot of fun to play. Aggro decks can hardly compete.
A sample decklist could be:
http://essentialmagic.com//decks/View.asp?ID=578282

High Tide Combo Kaervek's Tourch, Grapeshot and Empty the Warrens can be used as kill conditions. I play Grapeshot with Shrieking Drake as a singleton that acts as a mana flood preventer as well as a storm jacker.
A sample decklist could be:
http://essentialmagic.com//decks/View.asp?ID=576287

UBR Affinity we have no B&R list in my meta so this is a viable archetype. Pretty straight with artifact lands and Cranial Plating.
A sample decklist could be:
http://essentialmagic.com//decks/View.asp?ID=582286

Wee Dragonauts aggro-control this is my favorite as it kills insanely fast as well as it beats lifegain too. The clock is simply too great. Like thresh, you'll never end in topdeck mode (well, almost never).
A sample decklist could be:
4 Wee Dragonauts
2 Errant Ephemeron
2 Keldon Halberdier

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
3 Serum Visions
2 Impulse
4 Daze
2 Counterspell
2 Incinerate
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain Lightning
2 Fireblast
1 Psychotic Fury

9 Island
7 Mountain
4 Terramorphic Expanse

UW Bounce: I have never played this but I heard it's pretty good.
Sadly, I have no decklist.

As I have no more time, I can't comment on your two decks. Sadly, I think they are suboptimal. It's very hard to create an awesome deck in Pauper/Commonkill. So far, I've only made 1: Wee Dragonatus aggro-control. It simply wins too many games :)

-willoe

[Damnosus]

Thanks for the advice so far. A couple of things though:
Why all of the strip mines/mishra's factories? According to http://ww2.wizards.com/gatherer/ both cards are at best uncommons and thus illegal. Additionally, for this tournament, all restricted or banned common cards in normal extended, legacy, and vintage formats are banned in this format (so no strip mine).

The mono blue deck was my attempt to recreate the old archetype Blue Skies in common form. It is for a friend as he does not have any cards (but he still wants to try playing in the tournament). Thus yea I agree it is not optimal (especially with only limited testing).

The G/W deck however is a port of a relatively common archetype found in the online "Classic Pauper" format. I know it has won some major tournaments before so I wanted to try it out. I did a little bit of changing to include the Rancors (as the online version simply does not have cards that old). Thus is it really all that suboptimal?

In the future I think I will attempt to go with something different, but for now, especially as the tournament is pretty soon, I would just like to work on these (but thanks bunches willoe, those decks have given me some new ideas :laugh: ). Any further advice is much appreciated.

[Willoe]

Even though the Gatherer is an official source at looking up cards, it misses a couple of things. Before a set I can't remember right now, cards were printed with C1, C2, U1 U2 and U3 rarity (I think). C1 was considered as common and C2 U1 and U2 were considered uncommon and U3 was considered Rare or so I think. The important point is that if a card has been printed just ONCE as a common, it's legal. See, Mishra's Factory was common in 1 version and is therefore legal. The same is true for other popular cards like Strip Mine, Maze of Ith and a couple of other cards from Dark, Legends and Antiquities.

The fact that cards that are banned by DCI are banned in commonkill is a wierd rule. I seriously don't understand why Strip Mine is SO much better than Wasteland. We can't stifle fetches in commonkill or wasting away nonbasics, Strip Mine is completely fair and just destroys more than two color decks. Three color decks like UBR aggro-control (don't have an updated list right now) are ruthlessly powerful. Discard, burn, counter, and beefy finishers makes it out for a deadly deck that only folds to mana-srewing. Strip Mine also improves your affinity matchup as well. Screwing the opponent so he cannot play that Atog (yes, Atog is legal as well as Ornithopter) is very important. With Mine banned, Plating would have to be banned as well I think. I cannot prove anything of this statement, though.

I think that the formats we play are different. I play Commonkill, which only follows the common-only rule, and there is no banning list. Therefore, Frantic Search in High Tide Combo are also allowed. In fact, without Frantic Search, Commonkill High Tide would be complete jank. Thank god it's not.

Onto the deck. You have to get away to get around mass removal. Cards like Evincar's Justice can ruin your play. Even though they aren't played much as many people don't know, they act as Damnation against your deck. Even though Commonkill MBC is soooo boring to play, it's very good at crushing weenie decks. Therefore, I recommend making the deck to UW bounce. It's goddamn annoying that I can't find that decklist, but I'll promise, I'll post it ASAP. The deck skeleton is:

4 Sage of Epityr
4 Icatian Javelineers

4 Whitemane Lion
4 Galina's Knight

4 Man-O'-War
4 Wormfang Drake

2 Silver Drake

4 Rune Snag
4 Mana Tithe
3 Foresee

3 Terramorphic Expanse
10 Island
10 Plains

SB:
4 Echoing Truth
3 Blue Elemental Blast
4 Disenchant
4 Oblivion Ring

The list just seems odd. A friend of mine has a very fast deck that also contains synergy between CiP effects, Whitemane Lion and Wormfang Drake. All in all, Wormfang Drake is an excellent finisher that doesn't die to lightning bolt.