(Editor’s Note: This article was written prior to the September 4, 2021 Ban Announcement.)
Introduction
Hello everyone!
I have to confess that my relationship with Magic is in a very weird spot for me after the latest Organized Play announcements. I obviously love to play the game but my main drive was always to play my best and figuring out a way how to beat ther others in the upcoming tournaments. As a result I was always solely playing the format of the next event.
Now that I don‘t have that pressure anymore, I can finally get my hands on formats that I wasnt paying too much attention. I am not saying that I was playing Magic 24/7 before, but when you actually decide to sit and play with an upcoming GP you couldnt reallisticaly justify to play a random cube draft or a Pauper event. I have recently greatly enjoyed just casually playing Commander, Pauper or Premodern events. Not going to lie, I like the previous times better but this is also great!
Image Copyright: MAGIC: THE GATHERING
Another ironically good thing that this has all bringed is coming back to Magic Online. I was actually surprised how much I liked being back to the old interface. There is no doubt that Arena has a better graphic etc. but it usually requires your full attention so its hard to do other things while playing and it sometimes feels like a different game than the paper Magic we are all used to because of the rope. I like that I can take my full time to think about the decisive game-decisions during games and Magic Online is great for that!
I have recently highly enjoyed playing Pauper and my article today will be focusing on this somewhat unexplored format. There is obviously infinite games being played every day so “unexplored” might be sligtly overexaggerated but there is still a lot of room to try new things.
Getting to Know the Pauper Format
Tron
I was completely new to the format so I played a league or two with some random decks to get a “feel” for the format. The first deck I tryed was Tron:
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My reasoning was that in an underpowered format like Pauper, something so broken as tron lands must be insane, but things did not go my way: the deck was extremely difficult to play, especially for someone who had no clue of what was going on and 《Cleansing Wildfire》 seemed to be everywhere so I abandoned the deck quickly. Don’t get me wrong the archetype is propably good but it requires more experience to be able to win with.
Izzet Skred
I was looking for something easier and proactive and I remembered that Izzet Skred used to be one of the best decks since the beginning so that was where I went next:
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The deck was fine, I even won a match or two! But it didnt take me long to realize that I am just playing a worse version of what is apparently one of the best current decks: Dimir Ninja.
The decks are basically the same but black gives you acces to 《Snuff Out》 and 《Gurmag Angler》 which are both ridiculous cards and highly outperform anything that red offers. The only reason you might want to play red over black might be 《Pyroblast》 if the metagame becomes way too blue but I don’t think we are there yet.
Storm
As I was playing the leagues I came to realization that the “new” storm deck available in Pauper is actually kinda busted and it was propably the deck I played against the most:
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When I first saw the deck I was thinking that its just a random meme deck that someone cooked up and there is no way that it can compete with all the blue ninja decks running around.
Boy was I wrong – the deck is actually extremely resilient thanks to 《Galvanic Relay》 and can kill super consistantly as soon as turn 2! If you want to have any chance in any upcoming Pauper event you definitely need to keep this deck in mind and have your 《Echoing Truth》 ready!
Getting to My Own Deck
As I said in the beginning, the times has changed and therefore I am currently not trying to maximize my chances but rather have fun so I wanted to play something slightly under radar that would fit my style and I found something just for me:
Gruul Midrange
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As anyone who follows me knows, I am a great fan of midrange decks and this deck looked like a lot of fun!
Despite me saying that I primarly want to have fun I would also like to win some matches given the option and my main problem with this deck was that you were basically drawing dead to storm and you couldnt really beat 《Atog》 from Affinity either.
Fortunately there was a viable solution: The R/G deck already had infinite sources of other colors thanks to duals, 《Bonder’s Ornament》 and 《Cleansing Wildfire》 so you can just simply add another color and play blue for 《Hydroblast》 and 《Echoing Truth》. Don’t get me wrong the storm matchups is still bad but atleast you have a fightning chance.
Another great thing about adding blue is that you get to play a 《Mulldrifter》 which is a great upgrade to somewhat mediocre 《Owlbear》. This is my current decklist:
Temur Midrange
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Despite of what I said, the manabase obviously DID get slightly worse so I am playing full 4 《Bonder’s Ornament》 to hedge against that. The card has of course diminishing returns as the second copy is a lot weaker compared to the first one but I think that its powerfull enough to justify it anyways. I am still relatively early in the process so still unsure about many cards but the deck is blast to play and I definitely recommend it to anyone who wants to enjoy himself!
Temur Midrange: Sideaboard Guide
Affinity
vs. Affinity
Out
In
《Lightning Bolt》 doesn’t really kill anything and 《Bonder’s Ornament》 gets worse because they often bring in artifact destruction and you rarely have time to activate it.
Dimir Ninja
vs. Dimir Ninja
Out
In
You bring in 5 Blasts and the games get a lot more grindy postboard as you just exchange resources and therefore card that cycles and gives you speed like 《Explore》 is less needed.
Strom
vs. Storm
Out
In
You don’t really need the raw grinding power of 《Annoyed Altisaur》 and its super expensive and dosen’t let you hold up interaction so that and removal spells are the easy cut. I still think its fine to keep couple 《Galvanic Blast》 to shorten up your clock.
Elves
vs. Elves
Out
In
They actually have quite a bit of blue cards postboard so I like to bring in some 《Pyroblast》 effects. They usually lose the grindy game as their cards are underpowered if you can keep the creatures under control so I like to cut some expensive stuff to get more consistancy.
Tron
vs. Tron
Out
In
Theiy can actually get easily color screwed if you can 《Ancient Grudge》 their 《Prophetic Prism》/《Bonder’s Ornament》 so those are good for sure, the other cards are self-explanatory.
That will be all for today! I hope you have fun in Pauper and if you like the article consider giving me a follow on the social media!
Thanks for reading,
