The Power of Pauper: A Look at New Pauper Decks
Howdy folks! It's time yet again for another edition of The Power of Pauper! I'm your host, Joe Dyer, and this week we're going to be taking a deeper look at some of the more powerful cards entering the format this week from Commander Masters and its downshifts. In addition to that we'll be talking about last weekend's Challenge events as well.
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
The New Toys of Pauper
Commander Masters is on Magic Online this week, and while we did a card-by-card review for the downshifts we didn't really touch on what kinds of decks these cards could see play in, so let's hammer in on some of the interesting strategies that we could see out of the new cards entering the format.
Self Mill Strategies / "Dredge"
There was a ton of Self Mill support in this set from a downshift perspective and a lot of Reanimator style cards. Things like Dread Return, Mire Triton, Crawling Infestation, and Lotleth Giant all have a very interesting way of creating a deck that can utilize these new cards for a Self Mill/Dredge/Reanimator style deck.
The first thing that comes to mind here is a more traditional Reanimator type shell with cards like Faithless Looting.
Dread Return also being an Exhume is interesting, and utilizing Dark Ritual to power it out seems pretty good. Combine this with cards like Oliphaunt and Troll of Khazad-dum being able to pitch to the graveyard for one mana, this seems like a really strong place to try this card.
Another interesting potential aspect of Dread Return is the usage of the card in the Two Land Spy deck, which uses Balustrade Spy, sort of like a Pauper "Oops! All Spells" style deck.
The power of this is that you can easily mill your entire library with Land Grant getting your lands out of the library so that you can Dread Return a Lotleth Giant (another new downshift) to just kill the opponent. Songs of the Damned really helps here because it will give you enough mana to cast whatever you need. Dregscape Zombie here does a surprising Narcomoeba impression so you can flashback Dread Return.
Of course, this can also see play in a list with Crawling Infestation as more of a "Dredge" strategy.
This list seems pretty strong, as Infestation creates creatures for Dread Return to flashback off of, and continuing to get back multiple Lotleth Giant seems quite good.
Affinity
Of course, one of the new cards in the format is All That Glitters, which definitely reinforces an Affinity aggro-style deck, but it's interesting that this card seemingly doesn't go in the existing Affinity shells because of the card's color. However, we can see some interesting things in playing Azorius (splashing into Esper) as a more aggressive fashion.
There's definitely some interesting things here. I think I'd also like to see new downshift Filigree Attendant as well which would be quite strong. Still, I do expect to see some form of Affinity-esque deck playing this card.
Sacrifice
There's a lot more Sacrifice support in the format here with cards like Blood Aspirant, but we're also seeing cards like Nadier's Nightblade coming in and also Mirkwood Bats from the Lord of the Rings set. There's some interesting support here for a sacrifice archetype.
Being able to make lots of Treasures and sac them while growing your Aspirants and also triggering both Nightblade and Bats is pretty cool. Sticky Fingers is super sweet here as more ways to generate treasures.
Control Cards
Azorius based colors got some interesting cards out of Commander Masters, with cards like Generous Gift providing solid removal and Murmuring Mystic providing a creature that generates go-wide strategies.
I really like this list. Ephemerate is really pushing some buttons here and having the control spells alongside Mystic is really quite strong. This is another list for Lorien Revealed where that card looks really good.
The Future
We'll see this weekend what happens right off the bat, but it would be fun to see some of these new strategies appear in the format and see how good they are for sure. It's going to be an exciting weekend for the first weekend for Pauper!
Pauper Challenge 7/29
The first Challenge event of the weekend was the Saturday event. This event had 49 players in it thanks to the data collected by the Castle of Commons Discord.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the datasheet here.
Burn was the most popular deck of the event with a little over 51% win rate. There was a lot of other decks spread across the deck with reasonable win rates. Dimir Terror did the worst here overall, and Golgari Gardens also did poorly.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Burn | 1st | twister66 |
| Jeskai Ephemerate | 2nd | ziofrancone |
| Affinity | 3rd | LuffyDoChapeuDePalha |
| Gruul Ponza | 4th | ItsSwiftyTime |
| Burn | 5th | Rudberg |
| Mono Blue Faeries | 6th | -sin |
| Jund Ponza | 7th | SanPop |
| Burn | 8th | Ed_Elric |
Lot of Burn here in this Top 8 with a smattering of other decks. At the end of the event it was Burn that won.
This is certainly a fairly stock list overall of Burn, focusing more on the power of both Reckless Impulse and Wrenn's Resolve to push through the deck. Very solid.
In Second Place we had Jeskai Ephemerate.
I like the look of this list very much for sure. Lorien Revealed is very powerful in this list for sure, being able to cycle for the two dual lands in the deck to fix its colors.
Also in this Top 8 we had Gruul Ponza.
Generous Ent has also very much found a place in these decks, as late game it can be cast and is a solid creature, but early game it represents a land you know you're always getting (especially if you're getting a Highland Forest). Very strong list.
At the bottom of the Top 8 we had Mono Blue Faeries.
Saiba Cryptomancer is really sweet. Seems like a very strong card that protects a threat but then can also be bounced with Ninjutsu to be recast.
Pauper Challenge 7/30
The second Challenge of the weekend was the Sunday event. This event had 63 players in it thanks to the data collected by the Castle of Commons Discord.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the datasheet here.
Burn was again the most popular deck here with a solid win rate as well. The rest of the event had a very reasonable spread with only Mono Blue Delver having a really bad win rate overall, and Dimir Terror doing much better here.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Kiln Fiend Burn | 1st | Lorwy |
| Dimir Terror | 2nd | xfile |
| Burn | 3rd | Tweedel |
| Golgari Midrange | 4th | _against_ |
| Dimir Terror | 5th | NimblestMongoose |
| Affinity | 6th | Andrea94 |
| Gruul Ponza | 7th | LasVegasChaos |
| Poison Storm | 8th | renaar |
Interesting Top 8 here for sure. At the end of the event the winner was Kiln Fiend Burn.
This deck differs from standard Burn in that it plays a lot of cards that trigger Kiln Fiend and also protect it, like Apostle's Blessing and stuff like Temur Battle Rage. Very solid looking list.
In Second Place we have Dimir Terror.
I think this has certainly become the most stock list of Dimir Terror around, and it's very strong indeed. Not much fat here, just all lean mean deckbuilding.
Further down the list we had an interesting Golgari Midrange variant.
This reminds me a bit of Golgari Gardens, but it doesn't have the same aspects of that deck and actually shares more core ramp cards with Gruul Ponza. Both land cyclers here seem exceptionally strong overall.
At the bottom of the Top 8 we had Poison Storm.
This list is so cool. I dig everything it's doing. I'm pretty happy that we've seen plenty of new decks coming out of newer sets in the format for sure.
Around the Web
- A great video on Altar Tron. Check it out here.
- This one is in Spanish, but it's a videon on Mardu Faultgrinder Reanimator. Check it out here.
- The BEST Mono Black Control deck in Pauper in 2023. Check it out here.
- Pauperganda has a video on Mono Green Pauper. Check it out here.
- Turn 1 Trolls!
The Spice Corner
You can find this past week's 5-0 deck lists over here.
INSIDE OUT.
Wrapping Up
That's all the time we have this week folks! Thanks for continuing to support the column and join us next week as we continue our journey into Pauper!
As always you can reach me at all my associated links via my Link Tree! In addition, I'm always around the MTGGoldfish Discord Server and the MTGPauper Discord Server.
Until next time!
