The Power of Pauper: High Tidin'
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 HIGH TIDE in Pauper, and how that has been going the first week it's legal. MTGO also put a whole bunch of new Pauper Throwdown events on the client. These are just simple five round Swiss events. We're not going to cover the results of those here because that would be a bit much (you can find all of the info on them here), but we are going to cover the Challenges from last weekend.
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
High Tide - Is It Broken Yet?
One of the most talked about trial unbans from the Pauper Format Panel was of course High Tide! This card has never been legal before in the unified Pauper format (when the format unified both paper and MTGO) so it's curious to follow what is going on with this card. Is it truly broken? Is it turning the format in half?
Amusingly enough, it feels like the answer to this question at least in the first week is... no? The card has shown up in specifically one dedicated Combo deck, and has shown up a tiny bit as supplemental aspects to Mono Blue Terror (which feels very awkward) and Familiars (which seems less awkward given all the untapping that deck does). However, not many of them have been truly busted. Let's look specifically at the dedicated Combo variant.
One of the most important aspects of this deck is the usage of the "Splice" mechanic from the original Kamigawa block, specifically Splice onto Arcane. Splice is a weird mechanic, that when you cast another Arcane spell you can pay the Splice cost to add the Spliced spell's rules text to the Arcane spell you cast. Because this leaves the card with Splice in your hand, you can keep doing this or cast it normally if you need to. The primary Splice card in this deck is Psychic Puppetry alongside a bunch of Arcane spells to utilize it with.
The biggest aspect of a dedicated High Tide deck is getting to that sweet spot of four lands in play, and then being able to repeatedly untap lands to either cast more High Tide to generate more mana and then being able to draw a bunch of cards. In the case of Pauper, we don't have effects like Time Spiral or even effects like Cloud of Faeries (since that little one is banned) to repeatedly untap things, so we have to be a bit more creative. Utilizing the Splice of Psychic Puppetry off something like Ideas Unbound lets you draw three cards plus untap a land, which is really strong. I will note that as of the writing of this article, there is a bit of a bug with Splice onto Arcane and cards like Standard Bearer, etc on MTGO. Just be aware of this!
The win condition here is a bit more muddy though. Primarily the deck is using effects like Stream of Thought and looping them back and forth in order to completely mill the opponent out. We don't have a ton of great payoffs so this is certainly a thing.
The downside of this sort of dedicated type of combo deck however is that it is very susceptible to decks that can attack it if they need to. Counterspell is a good card versus this deck (even though they do have Muddle the Mixture sometimes). The deck doesn't have access to Legacy level things like Force of Will / Force of Negation, so if you are trying to beat this deck, I think you can very easily. This is one of the big reasons I do believe this deck will end up being just fine in the format. It is the first week, and things will be up in the air, but I do believe this will be a deck that can exist in Pauper, and it will be nice to have another deck in Pauper that can be a creatureless combo deck!
Pauper Challenge 32 4/4/2025
The first Challenge event of the new format weekend was the Friday event. This event had 55 players in it thanks to the MTGO website.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Grixis Affinity | 1st | LuffyDoChapeuDePalha |
| Boros Synthesizer | 2nd | oskiyaa |
| Grixis Affinity | 3rd | Mogged |
| High Tide Combo | 4th | seasonofmists |
| Jeskai Ephemerate | 5th | PieGonti |
| Walls Combo | 6th | Terminus0 |
| High Tide Combo | 7th | PNascimento |
| Goblins Combo | 8th | Hamuda |
So one thing that is apparent by this first Top 8 is that combo is very well represented. At least half of the Top 8 is a combo deck. The other thing to note is that Affinity taking a hit in the form of Deadly Dispute didn't really slow it down all that much, which honestly makes sense. This event also had a big breakout for High Tide, since two of those decks showed up in the Top 8 as well.
At the end of this event, Affinity was the winner.
Fanatical Offering and Eviscerator's Insight replacing Dispute is reasonable enough. I think for Affinity, having the game object of the artifact token is a bit more important than the mana aspect of the Treasure, but clearly Dispute was far and away a better card obviously. The addition of Prophetic Prism even as a singleton makes a bunch of sense as well. Luffy is also just a very good Affinity pilot, so is able to capitalize on everyone else trying to do new things.
In Second Place we had Boros Synthesizer.
It really has just been a hot minute since we've seen this deck, honestly. I think just in general Burn kind of crowded this deck out as the dominant Experimental Synthesizer deck of the format as well as Broodscale by simply just not having a good way to interact with that deck, but with Burn having lost Kuldotha Rebirth and Broodscale dead it seems like it might be okay for this deck to exist again. Not much has really changed, except some of the new lands like the Desert ping lands from Outlaws of Thunder Junction and Thraben Charm.
Also in this Top 8 we had Jeskai Ephemerate.
This is another deck that was slightly in the fringes for a while there, realistically I think again because of Broodscale's existence. This deck is one of the cooler interactions of cards in Pauper by using Cleansing Wildfire to blow up your own Bridges (which are indestructible) and ramp yourself. Galvanic Discharge is a neat and somewhat scalable removal spell if you can bank energy with it.
At the bottom of the Top 8 we had Goblins Combo.
Yet another deck that had functionally disappeared from Pauper largely due in part to Broodscale's existence. Broodscale simply being the best combo deck in the format made it hard to justify playing other combo decks. Obviously this deck loses Deadly Dispute but Eviscerator's Insight is actually really good due to the Flashback aspect.
Pauper Challenge 32 4/5/2025
The second Challenge event of the new format weekend was the Saturday event. This event had 63 players in it thanks to the MTGO website.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Mono Blue Terror | 1st | discoverN |
| Ephemerate Tron | 2nd | Hampuse1 |
| Dredge | 3rd | Natalino_91 |
| Elves | 4th | Shiib |
| Mono Blue Faeries | 5th | CrilaPeoty |
| Burn | 6th | TodouAlice |
| Dredge | 7th | GigChadSigmaMale |
| Turbo Fog | 8th | __Noob__ |
High Tide dissipated out of this Top 8 entirely, and wasn't even in the Top 32 at all. This overall looks pretty diverse AND we got something of a new form of a deck to consider. At the end of the event it was Mono Blue Terror that won.
Incredibly clean deckbuilding here. Deem Inferior is certainly relatively superior, which is great to see. This is a solid list. It's clear that the combo aspect of the previous day's event led to a greater response of Tempo/Control shells.
In Second Place we had Ephemerate Tron.
Prophetic Prism was originally banned for the sins of Tron, so it's no surprise to see Tron appear with it. Tron was largely absent through previous metagame shifts, and it is a deck that has been a long-standing part of Pauper. It will be interesting to see if Prism pushes Tron back to where it was at the time, but Energy Refractor has existed for some time now as well and Tron has been fine.
Also in this Top 8 we had a new take on Dredge.
This is kind of sweet and a fun new take on Dredge. Magmakin Artillerist is a sweet card when you're casting cards like Burning Inquiry, Faithless Looting, and Cathartic Reunion. This is a super sweet list, given that you can also turn a corner into Dread Return on Lotleth Giant. I love it.
At the bottom of the Top 8 we had Turbo Fog.
This was another deck that had largely utilized Deadly Dispute, but realistically Dispute was just the best version of the effect, where having now to play some of these other effects is reasonably fine. This deck already generates Treasures via Heap Gate, so that helps quite a bit.
Pauper Challenge 32 4/6/2025
The final Challenge event of the new format weekend was the Sunday event. This event had 77 players in it thanks to the MTGO website.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Burn | 1st | Bong0411 |
| Mono Blue Terror | 2nd | TSPJendrek |
| Goblins Aggro | 3rd | GiuxGobbo |
| Mono Blue Terror | 4th | pepeteam |
| Mono Blue Terror | 5th | pokerswizard |
| Bogles | 6th | QueMario |
| Mono Blue Terror | 7th | Luminati |
| Grixis Affinity | 8th | IAB_MaGiC |
Mono Blue Terror over compensated here to an absurd degree, taking up half of the Top 8. At the end of the event though, it was Burn that won.
Losing the entire Kuldotha Rebirth + Goblin Bushwhacker angle of this deck does do a lot to it, but it's still okay playing Experimental Synthesizer because that card is so good at generating card "draw" in red. Wrenn's Resolve coming back is also not surprising, since the deck needs more air to get to its meat.
In Second Place we had Mono Blue Terror.
Murmuring Mystic is a card that I really like in these kinds of shells, as a bit of a long game card when the Terror/Serpent aspects are defended against. Going wide with evasive threats is really good here.
Also in this Top 8 we had Goblins Aggro.
This deck is really just wanting to jam a bunch of Goblins and turn them sideways, and honestly it's a reasonable approach. What's nice about this kind of deck is that there's a firm amount of counterplay available (sweepers and the like) and ways to jam cards like Weather the Storm to push out of aggro range. It's fine to have something like this available it seems.
Further down the Top 8 we had Bogles.
Very clean-looking build of this deck here. Mask of Law and Grace is sweet as a way to beat red decks and also random protection from things like Krark-Clan Shaman or Crypt Rats.
My Video of the Week
My "What Does This Deck Do?" video this week was ALSO on High Tide, so you can check that out as well!
Around the Web
- Pauperganda has a video on White Infect. Check it out here.
- Caleb Gannon has a video on High Tide. Check it out here.
- TeasdaleMTG is playing some Goblins Combo. Check it out here.
- Our good friend Alex Ullman has some Pauper recaps. Check it out here.
- Kalikaiz has a video on High Tide Familiars. 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!
Mono Green Stompy!
Rakdos Affinity is super 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!
