The Power of Pauper: Burn, Baby, Burn! Clockwork Inferno!
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 how Duskmourn is already impacting Pauper. In addition to that we've got some Challenges to look at as well as an update on Challenge prizing on MTGO.
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
Burning Up Duskmourn
Duskmourn: House of Horror is here and Pauper is already feeling the burning effects of this set's release. Primarily the biggest contributor to that? Clockwork Percussionist.
This card was quickly identified as being a very strong card for Burn decks of the format. It's low low investment of one mana that may result in seeing another card is quite good overall and it's hard to pick a good moment to get rid of this thing. Having haste is also very good for a threat like this, since it gets to come down and attack while also being able to replace itself on the back end if it dies.
Due to the wording of "end of your next turn", sometimes you can snag this thing in the end step and make it so they can't easily do anything with the card they pull from it, but this card is just one tiny cog of all the cards this deck plays to go wide and win the game.
Being an artifact creature is also a bit of an upside, since many decks are playing enough cards to enable sideboard effects like Unholy Heat with this card in the mix. This is a very strong card and has made its presence felt in the overall metagame, pushing on the metagame with Burn. If you're in the trenches, keep an eye on this one because it is certainly a very powerful card.
Challenge Prizing on MTGO - Update
We have an update on the changes made to Challenge prizing that we reported on a while back. Daybreak has considered a lot of community feedback on this and implemented some further changes to help address that feedback. You can find the full list of changes on their weekly blog post here.
Pauper Challenge 32 9/27
The first Challenge of the week was the Friday event. This event had 36 players according to the decklist page on MTGO's website. There was no data for this event.
You can find all of the decklists for this event here. The Top 8 is below.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Burn | 1st | DobleP |
| Burn | 2nd | Cabezadebolo |
| Burn | 3rd | SuperCow12653 |
| Mono Blue Terror | 4th | jundilion |
| Dimir Terror | 5th | Hamuda |
| Jund Broodscale | 6th | MTGMoneyMaker |
| Gruul Ramp | 7th | _Shatun_ |
| Jund Broodscale | 8th | RubensNetto |
Lot of Burn up top, and in fact the finals was Burn V Burn with the winner being... Gruul! No wait, it was Burn.
The same list down to the card here in the main deck. As we noted earlier, Clockwork Percussionist is doing much work in this deck. The sideboard does have some intriguing things like Unholy Heat and even Smash to Smithereens in the Second Place list.
Also in this Top 8 we had Mono Blue Terror.
This is a very solid-looking list. I like Deem Inferior in these lists. It looks quite powerful.
Pauper Challenge 32 9/28
The second Challenge of the week was the Saturday event. This event had 38 players according to the decklist page on MTGO's website. There was no data for this event.
You can find all of the decklists for this event here. The Top 8 is below.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Bogles | 1st | LasVegasChaos |
| Gruul Ramp | 2nd | Ignotus97 |
| Izzet Terror | 3rd | carrot_eater |
| Burn | 4th | wcl |
| Burn | 5th | Walker735 |
| Dimir Terror | 6th | O_danielakos |
| Jund Broodscale | 7th | TrueHero |
| Azorius Familiars | 8th | Gregoriusil |
Pretty interesting Top 8 here. At the end of the event it was Bogles that won.
Malevolent Rumble continues to very much impress me in Pauper, due in part to just how powerful it is at digging, but also generating a body or mana if need be is very strong. Nabbing any permanent card is huge to decks like this.
In Second Place we had Gruul Ramp.
Very straightforward and very powerful, this deck does so much and continues to look like a great deck to have available in Pauper.
Also in this Top 8 we had Izzet Terror.
I really like this list. Getting to play both Bolt and Skred is something else for sure. Murmuring Mystic also just looks like a great card here.
Pauper Challenge 32 9/29
The final Challenge of the week was the Sunday event. This event had 53 players according to the decklist page on MTGO's website. There was no data for this event.
You can find all of the decklists for this event here. The Top 8 is below.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Azorius Familiars | 1st | Gn42 |
| Grixis Affinity | 2nd | ziofrancone |
| Burn | 3rd | therock988 |
| Burn | 4th | Lollopollo2001 |
| Bogles | 5th | LasVegasChaos |
| Bogles | 6th | BERNASTORRES |
| Madness Burn | 7th | Mogged |
| Burn | 8th | maribves |
Lot of Burn but at the end of the event it was Familiars that won!
Pretty strong looking list here. Just being able to gain infinite life in general is a good way to win the game.
In Second Place we had Grixis Affinity.
Despite this deck still being in the top of the format, I feel like I'm seeing it less and less. I do think Refurbished Familiar in the long run trended pretty fairly for this deck and the format in general. Sure we have infinite more time to consider and analyze this, but it feels like it is here to stay for a while.
Further down the Top 8 we had Madness Burn.
Dark Withering as a Madness-Doom Blade is pretty sweet, not going to lie. This deck is pretty cool overall.
Around the Web
- TeasdaleMTG has a video on POISON STORM with new card Meat Locker // Drowned Diner. Check it out here.
- Kalikaiz has a video on UG MILL. Check it out here.
- Our good friend Alex Ullman's final month of writing for Channel Fireball is this month of October. Here is his most recent article on Pauper.
- StompyMTG has a video on Madness Burn. Check it out here.
The Spice Corner
As League results are now spread out across the week, let's dig in and find something spicy!
This Rakdos Aristocrats style deck is kind of sweet.
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!
