The Power of Pauper: Hot Fuzz
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 are wrapping up on our Bloomburrow set review. There isn't much left, but we'll look at what we can to see if there's anything cool. In addition to that we've got some Challenges to discuss from last week as well as a Showcase Qualifier.
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
Hot Fuzz - Tonight Only! Bloomburrow!
We're finishing up with our time in Bloomburrow, so let's get right to the rest of the cards that we need to look at. There isn't a lot, as we covered a good brunt of the stuff last week. As always if you find something I missed, please let me know!
Diresight
Sort of like Read the Bones, but surveiling 2 is so much more powerful than scrying 2 for a lot of different decks. This could see play in some mono black shells.
Savor
A removal spell attached to a Food token is quite interesting. Having more Food support in general might make it interesting for decks being able to leverage Cauldron Familiar as a win condition.
Sazacap's Brew
The "Gift" mechanic is interesting of itself, in this case you're giving an opponent a 1/1 tapped token, but this is also an instant speed 1R draw two for discarding a card which is always good in Pauper. This one has the upside of being also able to pump a creature by +2/+0 if you promise the gift, so it's castable both at instant speed during your opponent's turn and also on your turn to swing.
Steampath Charger
Offspring is also a really interesting mechanic. You can either get a straight 2/1 out of this or get a 2/1 and a 1/1 that both do the thing when they die. This feels a little underpowered overall so I'm not sure this actually goes anywhere.
Sunshower Druid
Growing a creature for G and gaining life is intriguing, especially with the next card I'm about to discuss. This might be an interesting card to look at.
Stickytongue Sentinel
Green gets a Kor Skyfisher. Honestly this one is probably the most playable out of the set that I've seen. Being able to bounce something like an Avenging Hunter, replay it and further the Initiative seems kind of gas. Three mana is a weird spot for this, but like, it's also green so things like Utopia Sprawl and Wild Growth are a thing. 3/3 with reach is also a really strong set of stats, not to mention this could be played in GW shell with Skyfisher and other cards like Sunshower Druid.
Pauper Challenge 32 7/19
The first Challenge event of the weekend was the Friday event.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here. There was no data for this event. The Top 8 is recorded as below.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Golgari Gardens | 1st | AlessandroPiraccini |
| Mono Blue Terror | 2nd | OmnipotentOlive |
| Mono White Aggro | 3rd | FerMTG |
| Grixis Affinity | 4th | Zenith777 |
| Golgari Gardens | 5th | fondaparinoux |
| Broodscale Combo | 6th | Kampo |
| Mono White Aggro | 7th | PedraStone |
| Grixis Affinity | 8th | Beicodegeia |
Definitely an interesting Top 8. Golgari and Mono White had good representation here. At the end of the event it was Golgari Gardens that won.
Very solid looking list overall here, fairly stock to what this deck wants to do. A lot of the current format is centric on creatures (with new decks like the Broodscale deck) so Gardens tends to thrive in those kinds of metagames.
In Second Place we had Mono Blue Terror.
Really strong looking list here. Out of Air in the sideboard as a Counterspell that's somewhat flexible to creatures is pretty interesting.
Also in this Top 8 we had the Broodscale Combo deck.
This version is interesting because it feels like a mix of all in on the combo + midrange-y somewhat. I don't like that there's no way to clear the way and protect the combo main deck though.
Pauper Challenge 32 7/20
The second Challenge event of the weekend was the Saturday event.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here. There was no data for this event. The Top 8 is recorded as below.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Mono Blue Terror | 1st | discoverN |
| Turbo Fog | 2nd | Hampuse1 |
| Gruul Ramp | 3rd | Captain_Tsubasa |
| Dimir Terror | 4th | O_danielakos |
| Mono Blue Terror | 5th | Brivenix |
| Mono Blue Terror | 6th | azatoyellow |
| Golgari Gardens | 7th | yuxiaoyu |
| Golgari Gardens | 8th | __Noob__ |
Fair amount of Mono Blue Terror in this Top 8, and it in fact won the event.
Incredibly straightforward and clean list here. Deem Inferior is kind of sweet as a cost reduced bounce spell if you cast enough cantrips. Sleep of the Dead is also pretty cool.
In Second Place we had Turbo Fog.
Very well designed list here. I like Accumulated Knowledge here, it seems quite strong.
Also in this Top 8 we had Gruul Ramp.
Gruul without the Ponza is neat. It frees up a bit more space for cards like Eldrazi Repurposer and stuff. Writhing Chrysalis still seems like an absolutely insane card.
Pauper Challenge 64 7/21
The final Challenge event of the weekend was the Sunday event.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here. There was no data for this event. The Top 8 is recorded as below.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Grixis Affinity | 1st | KingHairy |
| Elves | 2nd | DobleP |
| Mono White Aggro | 3rd | billsive |
| Grixis Affinity | 4th | PedraStone |
| Madness | 5th | floyza |
| Mono Blue Terror | 6th | helvetti |
| Golgari Gardens | 7th | Soon |
| Grixis Affinity | 8th | Walker735 |
Grixis Affinity had a reasonable event here, and it in fact won the overall event.
Solid looking list here. Sneaky Snacker keeps floating in and out of this deck and I'm not sure how good it really is, but it's looked good when I've seen it directly played.
In Second Place we had Elves.
Very sweet looking deck. I like the ability to leap into having Valakut Invoker in the sideboard as a way to leverage all the mana.
Also in this Top 8 we had Mono White Aggro.
Nice and clean here. Eagles of the North finally seeing some play as a cycler that can be cast late game is nice. The fact that it gets Idyllic Grange for when you want it is nice.
Pauper Showcase Qualifier 7/20
This weekend was also the Pauper Showcase Qualifier event! This event is an invitation only event that feeds from the Showcase Challenges and Last Chance events. The winner of this event receives a Regional Championships invitation and an invitation to the MOCS. As such the fields on these are quite small at only around 29 players total.
You can find all of the decklists for this event here. There was no data for this event. The Top 8 is recorded as below.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Izzet Terror | 1st | SpockVidaLoka |
| Grixis Affinity | 2nd | BERNASTORRES |
| Burn | 3rd | karatedom |
| Burn | 4th | Nammersquats |
| Broodscale Combo | 5th | ItsSwiftyTime |
| Familiars | 6th | ARCII |
| Turbo Fog | 7th | RitualSinkhole |
| Broodscale Combo | 8th | CounterTopGarchomp |
Very interesting Top 8. Both Burn and Broodscale Combo ate up 4/8 of the Top 8, but it was Izzet Terror that came out victorious in the end.
This is certainly a solid list. Also, Fanged Flames in the sideboard is really sweet. Being able to exile something and having it not hit by a blast effect is cool.
In Second Place we had Grixis Affinity.
This is more straightforward and what we've come to expect out of Affinity as of late. I keep wondering what life would have looked like with Cranial Ram though. Probably far more broken, for sure.
Further down the Top 8 we had Familiars.
This is a pretty solid looking list. No Murmuring Mystic, just leaning on what the Familiar shell allows you to do so that you can just win over on life on your opponent. Pretty slick.
My Video for the Week
I managed to get on stream last week and play some Pauper! We played some Golgari Broodscale Combo on stream. Deck was fun to play for sure. Check out the VOD below.
Around the Web
- Alex Ullman has a brief set review of Bloomburrow. Check it out here.
- TeasdaleMTG has a video on Golgari Tokens. Check it out here.
- Casting Commons has a new episode! 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!
Gates with Powerstone Engineer.
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!
