[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

[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

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 (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/43368...he-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

---

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!