Pauper Prints: Meme-orial Day Soldiers
So, this was something I randomly thought up while I was BBQing and well, it actually works! I ended up going 3-2 in back-to-back friendly pauper leagues with it. Why is this awesome you ask? Because before I added the Palace Sentinels and Prismatic Strands, this deck was under two tix! If you want that variant, drop those five cards and add Sworn Companions and Azorius Arrester and see if you can 3-2 as I did with my first league.
So, how does this deck work? We are abusing some fun soldier synergy and tribal effects! We are running Thraben Inspector as our only one drop creature and we are fine with that since he is actually a soldier. He's not only a one-two body, but he also cantrips in a slow roundabout way with that clue token he makes. In the two drops, let's start with Kor Skyfisher, a classic card to combo with our Inspectors so that we can get a second clue out of them. We also have a fun combo with the Skyfisher, but we'll come back to that in a bit.
Next, we have Ballyrush Banneret, which enhances that combo we mentioned and also allows us to have some truly explosive turns while helping justify only running nineteen lands. The last of our two drops is Veteran Armorsmith which gives a bit of heft on our soldiers, even allowing them to eat a bolt if we manage to get two on the board. From there, we have three different three drops. We have Veteran Swordsmith, the attack twin of our Armorsmith and where a good chunk of our damage is going to be coming from. Blade Instructor might seem like a bit of an odd choice, but if we can get a few attacks off with it, not only are we attacking with a three power creature, we are also pumping some of the team too. The last three drops are also what our combo hinges on and lets us close out games a lot easier. That said, we don't NEED it, and it isn't that great without the support to abuse it, hence we're only running two. I am referring to Court Street Denizen. So, not only are we getting to tap down blockers for basically free when we cast a creature, if we have a Kor Skyfisher in hand, we can play it, return it to our hand, and get the tap down, which we can repeat however many times our mana allows us. Which is why Ballyrush Banneret is so nice to have with it, because it makes our Skyfisher only cost one white!
Topping off the curve we have a pauper all-star, Palace Sentinels to give us the monarchy while giving us a decent body that is also a soldier. Now we are technically running a six drop creature, but we will almost never use it that way. Gempalm Avenger is almost always going to be cycled to pump our team and give us first strike. A great way to close out the game if we can go wide enough. From there we have two combat tricks in Take Heart and Arrester's Zeal. Summary Judgment is our only mainboard removal. Prismatic Strands help keep us alive. Lastly, Cenn's Enlistment builds our board and dumps extra lands to late game.
In the sideboard, we have two Lifelink and Seeker of the Way to help against burn and high aggro match ups. A Fragmentize and two Expose to Daylight answer enchantments and artifacts. Shield of Duty and Reason answer mostly Bogles and Green stompy but occasionally are useful against decks that happen to run good green and blue creatures. Journey to Nowhere provides extra removal. The obligatory two Relic of Progenitus stop graveyard decks. Lastly, two Parhelion Patrol deal with small flyers, such as the blue delver decks and the Boros decks.
Now, to clarify, this deck is still VERY rough, so don't take the decklist as gospel. Work with it, experiment and try to find the balance that works for you. Remember, it can work fairly well without the Palace Sentinels and Prismatic Strands so if you want, you can make your decklist for under two tix.
