The Power of Pauper: Cute and Fuzzy!
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 starting on our set review for Bloomburrow! In addition to that we've got some Challenges to discuss from this past week.
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
The Common Animalfolk
The world of Bloomburrow is nearly upon us, with all of its cute animals and neat creature types. This set has a TON of mechanics, and I couldn't even begin to list them all out or we'd be here for a while. We're going to take a look at what looks interesting now and then follow up with the rest next week! If there's anything you think I've missed here let me know and we'll finish it all up then.
With that said, let's look at some cards.
Agate Assault
Cast into the Fire sees play at one less mana, and yes while it can deal one to two targets (and is an instant yes), being able to hit something for four and exile a creature or exile an artifact even at Sorcery speed seems quite good.
Banishing Light
Now this is a downshift that seems interesting. While we already have effects like Oblivion Ring and the like, it's always interesting to me when they add more of the same effect due to redundancy. I don't know if this will do anything, but the implication of multiple of this effect at this mana value is intriguing.
Barkform Harvester
A 2/3 with Reach for three generic seems like a good stat block on rate. I don't think the activated ability would get used much but the Changeling aspect is neat.
Bumbleflower's Sharepot
Artifacts that make other artifacts are always interesting. This one can be converted into a destruction effect too much like Unstable Obelisk. The tradeoff obviously is that Obelisk taps for mana, but costs more on rate to activate.
Cache Grab
Even without the Squirrel aspect, the milling of four cards and getting back any permanent seems really good especially in things like Dredge. This is one I could definitely see trying out.
Carrot Cake
Artifacts that make tokens again are quite good, and this one does it when it ETBs and when you sacrifice it, which is pretty cool, given that you don't have to necessarily sacrifice it to the Food ability to get this, but rather you can feed it to Deadly Dispute or Fanatical Offering.
Early Winter
Even the extra modal effect on this doesn't make this good I feel. Too costly overall unfortunately.
Junkblade Bruiser
Expend is a weird mechanic that really promotes casting multiple things a turn. Getting a 7/6 with trample for just spending four total mana on a turn is reasonable though.
Mind Drill Assailant
Repeated surveil is kind of a neat effect, and getting a 5/5 out of it eventually is kind of cool with the Threshold attached. Not sure where this goes but the repeatable surveil is nice.
Nettle Guard
Valiant is sort of a fixed Heroic in a sense. This card is neat, because it sort of reminds me of Cathar Commando. It can blow up artifacts/enchantments, or become a full 3/3 if need be.
Tempest Angler
Blue/Red Kiln Fiend in a sense? Neat.
Rabbit Response
THE PUNS.
Pauper Challenge 32 7/12
The first event we have on the books from last week is the Friday event. There was no data for this event.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here. The Top 8 is below.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Grixis Affinity | 1st | PedraStone |
| Orzhov Midrange | 2nd | _a.c.a.i_2007_ |
| Burn | 3rd | Mahers |
| Gruul Ramp | 4th | Captain_Tsubasa |
| Burn | 5th | sebastianpozzo |
| Azorius Gates | 6th | ezoccratto |
| Burn | 7th | Muka33 |
| Grixis Affinity | 8th | LuffyDoChapeuDePalha |
Very Burn heavy Top 8 it seems, but at the end of the event it was Grixis Affinity that won.
I like this list quite a bit. Maindeck Nihil Spellbomb seems like a strong game plan right now. I also really like Cast into the Fire in the sideboard.
In Second Place we had Orzhov Midrange.
This is a solid looking list. Refurbished Familiar looks really strong here and easy to enable with all the Inspectors and artifact lands.
Also in this Top 8 we had Gruul Ramp.
We talked a bit in our article about Ponza about how this deck could have just dropped the Ponza elements, and well here we are. Eldrazi Repurposer looks really strong.
Further down the Top 8 we had Azorius Gates.
Thraben Charm seems like an incredibly powerful card in this deck. Simply being flexible enough to be an enchantment removal + graveyard hate, but also being able to potentially clear blockers is quite good.
Pauper Challenge 32 7/13
The second event of the weekend that we know about was the Saturday event. There was no data for this event.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here. The Top 8 is below.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Mono White Aggro | 1st | Kirblinxy |
| Golgari Gardens | 2nd | AliEnWaRe_ |
| Mono White Aggro | 3rd | Pavelval |
| Grixis Affinity | 4th | PedraStone |
| Azorius Gates | 5th | twister66 |
| Burn | 6th | Mahers |
| Izzet Terror | 7th | SpockVidaLoka |
| Broodscale Combo | 8th | seasonofmists |
Quite an interesting Top 8 here overall. At the end of the event it was Mono White Aggro that won.
Finally kind of starting to see land cycler Eagles of the North as a play in Pauper, which is kind of cool. This deck is strong and sleek and very aggressive for sure.
In Second Place we had Golgari Gardens.
This deck continues to always look so good to me. It's certainly a deck I'd be interested in building, as it doesn't seem that super expensive.
Also in this Top 8 we had Izzet Terror.
Very straightforward list here for sure. Not much new stuff at all here.
At the bottom of the Top 8 we had Broodscale Combo.
I really like this variant since it has things to attempt to protect the combo much better, like discard from Duress or protection from the hexproof spells. It's a sweet deck and I like the alternate win condition of Bloodrite Invoker.
Around the Web
- TeasdalteMTG is trying out Zombies in Pauper. Check it out here.
- Alex Ullman has a recap on this past weekend's events. Check it out here.
- Bryant Cook has a sweet new Cycle Storm video. 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!
KILN FIEND.
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!
