The Power of Pauper: Snack Time!
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 looking at the impact of Sneaky Snacker sofar in Pauper. In addition to that we've got a bit of an update on MTGO decklists and because of that we do have one big event to talk about in the form of the Pauper Showcase Challenge from this past weekend.
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
Snacking on Pauper
We've had Modern Horizons 3 now for a few weeks to a month, and one thing is abundantly clear. Sneaky Snacker is a supremely powerful looking card.
Snacker is a very interesting card because on paper a 2/1 flier for UB doesn't seem so insane, but that recursive ability is just a lot better than it sounded on paper, especially when you factor in all the interesting two mana card draw options in Pauper. Just for example...
Pauper has very little shortage of effects that cost two mana and draw two cards while asking for some sort of additional cost to do so. With Sneaky Snacker this cost becomes a sudden upside. You can sacrifice Snacker to a Deadly Dispute on your opponents turn after blocking with it and then get it right back after Dispute resolves, while also getting a Treasure. Demand Answers allows you to pitch a Snacker and draw two and get it right back.
Now this only works really once per turn and that's a really important distinction to make, because once you've drawn your third card any future Snackers won't trigger, so you can't resolve for example Demand Answers pitching something else, draw a Snacker and then pitch that to another Demand Answers. That won't work at all because of how very specific Snacker's trigger is.
Snacker though has worked its way into several very interesting lists, one of the best being Madness Aggro.
Snacker provides a really interesting outlet for this deck, giving it a way to put threats into play at instant speed on your opponent's turn that also fly. It's a cool place for this card and makes this deck even more interesting.
I've also seen Snacker in a few Dimir Control lists, which is cool.
The Modern Age is a sweet way to trigger Snacker, since you can draw and pitch it as part of resolution of the triggered ability and then trigger Snacker, which is really cool. This seems like a fun card in the Terror shell since it combos with Brainstorm at instant speed and stuff like Thought Scour + Mental Note.
Snacker seems like a strong card in the format, but it doesn't seem super overpowered. It seems quite fun and a great addition from Modern Horizons 3.
MTGO Decklists are Back! Well... Sort of...
It's been a few weeks without Magic Online decklists and now they're back! Unfortunately there are some changes to how this is now working, and the changes are not great to see. You can find the full announcement here.
For a while now (since the end of 2023) we've had a lot of data from MTGO as we had all Challenge lists and all League 5-0 lists. This has made watching the metagames from Challenge to Challenge much better and more open as players were able to see on equal footing what was doing well and what was not. This change goes back to a pre-Daybreak Games way of doing things that Wizards of the Coast was famous for by being more discrete with data.
I can't really fault Daybreak for this. It really isn't a stretch to see that Wizards stepped in and asked for this change to be made, and personally I don't like it from the standpoint of having a more open understanding of formats. Wizards is already undergoing plenty of criticism and scrutiny about managing various formats. I don't think this makes things any better from that point of view either.
I certainly hope that Wizards takes time to review community sentiment on this situation as most of the feedback I've seen thus far is pretty unhappy with these changes. If you have specific feedback about this you want to provide, provide it directly to Wizards (not Daybreak, because as seen on the Discord, they know already what community sentiment is).
Pauper Showcase Challenge 7/6/2024
This past weekend was a Pauper Showcase Challenge event! With decklists being back we at least have the Top 32, but obviously there was quite a nice turnout for this event. These events feed into the Showcase Qualifier at the end of the season with the Top 8 receiving an invitation to that event. That event feeds into the MOCs and the Regional Championships.
MTGO player Kirblinxy posted a breakdown over on their Twitter of the event.
The biggest thing to note is that players definitely flocked to the Gleezard (Broodscale Combo) deck quite a bit, but it's overall performance in the event was not super insane, as it was tempered quite a bit by the meta call of Golgari Gardens being a powerful strategy versus creature based things, despite the fact that Gardens only had 5 players it did very well. Affinity and Ponza both did somewhat medium it looks like, while the Madness decks looked quite good.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here. Let's look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Golgari Gardens | 1st | OlavoJusMTM |
| Izzet Terror | 2nd | SpockVidaLoka |
| Burn | 3rd | PauloCabral_Br |
| Broodscale Combo | 4th | othavirium |
| Golgari Gardens | 5th | gartuyzz |
| Kiln Fiend Aggro | 6th | IvernOP |
| Gruul Ponza | 7th | Liv_BR |
| Grixis Affinity | 8th | Nammersquats |
Quite an interesting Top 8, and as noted Gardens did very well, converting 2 of its 5 players to the Top 8 and one of those into the winner.
If you're expecting to play against a bunch of creature decks (and looking at the metagame this was accurate), Gardens is a great deck for that sort of metagame. It absolutely annihilates creature-based strategies because the deck is pretty much just removal-heavy combined with a lot of cards that draw more cards. Multiple 1B Draw Two effects abound in Gardens because it plays a lot of cards it can sacrifice to those effects. Combine this with multiple effects that destroy creatures outright, sacrifice effects, and the like, this is a good place to be for this kind of event.
In Second Place we had Izzet Terror.
Very solid looking and straightforward list here. Seeing Perilous Landscape show up is interesting since it seems like its primarily for fetching only and may never end up being cycled. Curious how that will play out but it is nice to have another fetch effect to work with Brainstorm.
In Third Place we had Burn.
Really straightforward list as well. Burn didn't really get much from MH3, but it's nice to see that the strategy of windmill-slamming fast aggro creatures and burn spells never goes away fully.
In Fourth Place we had Broodscale Combo.
The Green/Black lists for this deck are intriguing for sure. They are more combo-focused, leaning on cards that protect your combo (Snakeskin Veil and Tamiyo's Safekeeping is highly interesting) and also offer ways to win without attacking (i.e. Gravitic Punch is hilariously cool). This is a super fun take on the deck for sure.
Around the Web
- TeasdaleMTG has a video on Slivers in 2024! Check it out here.
- StompyMTG has a Mono Blue Terror video. Check it out here.
- Alex Ullman has an article on Gates in a Ponza metagame. Check it out here.
The Spice Corner
let's dig in and find something spicy!
Infect 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!
