The Power of Pauper: PAUPERGEDDON
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 focusing solely on Paupergeddon Pisa from this past weeekend! We don't have much data from MTGO Challenges this past week, due to some maintenance issues with the decklists page on the MTGO site, so we're only focusing on Paupergeddon.
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
Paupergeddon Pisa 2024
Paupergeddon was this past weekend, and it was one of the largest Pauper events of all time. This event officially had 638 players and took place in Pala Todisco, San Giuliano Terme (Pisa). In terms of scale, this is absolutely amazing to see this many players coming together for one thing: PAUPER. This event even had Pauper Format Panel head Gavin Verhey and member Emma Partlow in attendance!
Much of the information on this event can found via Pauperwave's website, which lists both the Top 16 and Top 32 decks here and the Top 8 here. It was streamed with full coverage on Twitch over at the LegaPauperItalia Twitch Channel. This event is a two day, 12-round event with a cut to Top 8, and players must reach a certain record (X-2 or better) to make Day 2 (just like Grand Prix events of olden times).
We do have some data on metagame representation, shared from Twitter, for Day 1. Roughly 134 players out of the 638 made it to Day 2.
The biggest share here of a single deck was Grixis Affinity, which had a lot of really powerful cards added in Modern Horizons 3. However, right up behind it was Ponza, which also had a bunch of strong things added in MH3. Overall this is a pretty expected metagame for a truly large event post-new format.
Let's take a look at the Top 8 of the event.
| Deck Name | Placing | Player Name |
|---|---|---|
| Madness | 1st | Filippo Pezza |
| Gruul Ponza | 2nd | Giorgio Venditti |
| Grixis Affinity | Top 4 | Franco Cicchini |
| Goblins Combo | Top 4 | Lorenzo Aldegheri |
| Walls Cascade | Top 8 | Gabriele Borghetti |
| Madness | Top 8 | Andrea Imborgia |
| Burn | Top 8 | Lapo Bartoli |
| Broodscale Glee Combo | Top 8 | Salvatore Chiavazzo |
Honestly, this is a super varied Top 8 here. At the end of the event it was MADNESS that won.
This deck is showcasing one of the format's biggest new cards to show up in a big way, and that's Sneaky Snacker.
I initially thought this card looked cool and might see some play, but wasn't quite sure where. It turns out pitching it to cards like Demand Answers is just insane since it makes the downside of that card into an upside. It's proving already that it is one of the most powerful commons for Pauper from MH3.
In Second Place we had Gruul Ponza.
Ponza is yet another deck that got a HUGE bump in playable cards from Modern Horizons 3 and it's largely thanks to this card, which has been very contentiously labeled as one of the most powerful Limited Commons of ALL TIME.
The amount of value this card has wrapped up in it is absolutely insane. It gets big very quickly, it creates mana on cast to help cast future spells, and in multiples, it's just absurd. Oh and did you realize this thing has REACH. Yeah. This card and Malevolent Rumble has really proved that it is an absolutely powerful shell that can close games out very quickly. This deck being in the finals of the event led to a very interesting situation as players saw a card played against this Ponza deck that doesn't quite see a ton of Pauper play, but might going forward.
This card attacks the mana development of Ponza, because cards like Arbor Elf and Utopia Sprawl both look for FORESTS. So if you put this on a Forest enchanted with Sprawl, it actually makes the Sprawl fall off entirely! This is insanely cool.
This Top 8 also had a showing by Goblins Combo.
This is a rather solid list. This deck, while this specific list isn't playing it, gets a very interesting upgrade in MH3 in the form of the following card.
Primarily the Goblins Combo deck's biggest break point is that you can lose a creature in response to the first Persist trigger (killing your Prospector). With Siege Smash you can cast it first and as long as it is on the stack, split second prevents your opponent from responding. Since split second doesn't prevent mana abilities from being activated, you can activate Skirk Prospector in response and then trigger Putrid Goblin and make all the mana you need to do your thing. Pretty cool.
The bottom of the Top 8 was the Broodscale Glee Combo deck.
This deck is so cool. Utilizing the combo of Basking Broodscale and Sadistic Glee, this deck can easily go infinite with these two cards, especially since you can get extra spawn from creatures like Writhing Chrysalis. This is an absolutely sweet combo to have in Pauper. It gets to do some really powerful things but is still easily interacted with. Really cool.
Around the Web
- HeartyshowMTG has a video on Affinities. Check it out here.
- Bryant Cook has a video on Poison Storm. 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!
Golgari Broodscale is 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!
