The Power of Pauper: Affinity for Artifacts!
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 look at the current state of Affinity in the format with the more recent developments of divergences in the archetype. We're also going to be talking a bit about Gavin Verhey's video on the State of Pauper pursuant to the Banned and Restricted announcement this past week which had no changes. In addition to that we've got two Challenges to look at.
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
Affinity!
For as long as Pauper has existed, Affinity has been a part of the format and is long considered a major pillar of the format. Primarily this is due in part to the existence of the original Artifact lands (Great Furnace and friends) and then later on this was enhanced by the presence of the Modern Horizons 2 Bridge lands.
Affinity has undergone a multitude of changes over time, weathering a number of bans that have sought to correct issues the deck has presented over various periods of the format's existence. From losing things like Atog to Disciple of the Vault, Affinity has really weathered much in its lifetime.
For the most part up until this year, most builds of Affinity leaned heavily into colors of Grixis, due in part to cards like Deadly Dispute, Blood Fountain, and Makeshift Munitions. This led to lists like the one below being one of the more popular variants.
This has been a big part of Affinity's identity for a long time, but Commander Masters is where we have the divergence of the deckbuilding with the introduction of All That Glitters.
Azorius Affinity is a powerful divergence to the Affinity strategy, focusing less on a recursive board control strategy like Grixis and more of an aggressive threat strategy. It gives the deck another powerful angle and speeds up the power level of the deck overall.
However, both variants of Affinity seem to be competitive and both can do well right now. This divergence I feel is pretty good for the archetype overally, as having multiple options exist within a shell is usually more diverse in general.
The State of Pauper - Good Morning Magic
We had a State of Pauper video from Gavin Verhey and the Pauper Format Panel this week, due in part to the fact that we had a Banned and Restricted Announcement that announced no changes for all formats. While Pauper doesn't really operate on the same bandwidth as these BnRs do, the PFP and Gavin chose to put out a video anyways on the current state of the format.
Hats off to Gavin and team for putting this out regardless, they didn't need to do this and did so anyways despite what decisions are currently being made about the format. This kind of transparency in discussion is great. Check out the video below.
I want to comment on the fact that the format has indeed sped up, as Gavin indicates, and this is definitely true. There is certainly an element of faster determination of gameplay in the current format, and there's also a lot of balance on play/draw that makes things very rough right now.
I do think it is important for a format to have some clearly defined Tiers and best decks, but the four decks described as being on the top of the format right now definitely seem to crowd out a lot of decks, which in turn reduces diversity a bit as players scramble to decks that have some possible game against any number of those decks. I do still believe that there is a true arms race at the top of the format as each of these decks seek to outdo each other, and the biggest notion is that most of these decks all have access to blue and red Blast effects which makes them operate around each other circularly.
I disagree a bit with not banning anything yet, but I am also happy to wait to see if future additions to the format can impact the format in positive methods. I've always been happy to let metagame forces shape eternal formats, but I do think that the possibility of bringing down the overall speed of the format would have been good. To Gavin's credit here, noting that just hitting one card would possibly not have that much of an impact, so it would likely take multiple cards to really make that much of an impact.
Unbans are an interesting topic, as I do tend to prefer those as well, and it would be interesting to me to see cards like High Tide or Hymn to Tourach in the format. I don't believe that Prophetic Prism would be a positive unban though and it would definitely become usurped by Affinity I feel, which only boosts that deck further.
I also very much appreciate them calling out "Name Sticker Goblin" and the divergence this card presents between paper and MTGO gameplay. I do think it's nice that they are keeping an eye on the card overall and what it's impact is.
Again, big thanks to Gavin and the PFP for putting this out there. It's really nice to get this level of commentary on the format for sure.
Pauper Challenge 10/14
The first Challenge event of the weekend was the Saturday event. This event had 53 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 data sheet here.
Burn was the most popular deck in the event, but it's win rate was dragged down below 50% overall, despite having two Top 8 showings. Gates did very well here as did Azorius Affinity.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Jeskai Gates | 1st | MCScards |
| Familiars | 2nd | EhDM |
| Jeskai Gates | 3rd | twister66 |
| Burn | 4th | eduardojmp |
| Mono Blue Terror | 5th | Brivenix |
| Burn | 6th | gybird |
| Jeskai Gates | 7th | carrot_eater |
| Azorius Affinity | 8th | msskinbolic |
Definitely a lot of Gates and Burn in this Top 8, and at the end of the event it was Gates that won.
These lists are just very clean and have a lot of power behind them. Being able to play a creature and turn it into a game-ending threat is really good for sure.
In Second Place we had Familiars.
I can certainly appreciate how much Murmuring Mystic has impacted this deck. It's a good card for this deck for sure.
Further down the Top 8 we had Mono Blue Terror.
Seeing Boomerang in a deck list in 2023 is super cool. I am loving it.
Pauper Challenge 10/15
The second event of the weekend was the Sunday event. This event had no data, so we only have the Top 32 to go off of. Furthermore it seems like there was a flub in the posting of the data from Daybreak that it actually cut off who won the event and only published 2nd - 32nd. In fact, the source page on the MTGO website appears to be broken so I can't actually verify much of anything on this one other than what we have in Goldfish.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here. Let's take a look at the Top 7?
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Burn | Top 8 | Lennny |
| Grixis Affinity | Top 8 | LuffyDoChapeuDePalha |
| Mono White Aggro | Top 8 | jwaves |
| Jeskai Gates | Top 8 | carrot_eater |
| Walls | Top 8 | Aldreen |
| Jeskai Gates | Top 8 | Starlliege |
| Mono White Heroic | Top 8 | _against_ |
It's certainly weird that this happened, as we don't really have a good bead on this event overall so let's look at some lists. First up we have a lone Burn list in this Top 8.
Very straightforward and clean list here. The Autonomous Furnace as a draw effect is kind of cool for sure.
Also in this Top 8 we had Walls.
Solidly straightforward list here. I love Walls because it's such a fun deck to play and it's just got a lot of really interesting and goofy lines to it.
Also in the Top 8 we had Mono White Heroic.
Besotted Knight from Wilds of Eldraine is a new card here and it seems pretty cool. It creates an Aura on a creature and then later becomes a 3/3 if you need it to. Pretty cool. Also Shield of Duty and Reason is just the best card name.
Around the Web
- Scrybabies has a video on their favorite Pauper decks. Check it out here.
- Our good friend Alex Ullman has an article deep diving into Prismatic Strands. Check it out here.
- StompyMTG has a video on Prowess Burn. Check it out here.
- Kalikaiz has a video on Altar Tron. Check it out here.
- The Card Market video of the week is Turbo Initiative. Check it out here.
The Spice Corner
You can find this past week's 5-0 deck lists over here.
Turbo Glitters is pretty cool.
Also Turbo Initiative! Lot of Turbo going on here.
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!
