The Power of Pauper: Tending the Gardens
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 diving back into Pauper decks with a look at the Golgari Gardens deck! In addition to that we'll be taking a look at Paupergeddon Pisa that occurred this past weekend as well some Challenge data! We've also got some changes upcoming to Pauper Leagues on MTGO to speak about.
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
Beyond the Garden
Diving deeper into various Pauper decks is pretty awesome, and as we move forward there's always a lot of really cool decks out there to showcase. This week we're highlighting a deck that has been making a number of top competitive event appearances. That deck is of course, Golgari Gardens.
Golgari Gardens is named primarily as such because of the primary presence of Khalni Garden in the deck. It's a midrange deck that utilizes pieces of removal and late game threats to control the board and slam shut on the opponent later on. Due to this, it runs a lot of various pieces of removal common to the format (Cast Down, Chainer's Edict, etc.) and it also runs a good number of spells like Deadly Dispute to draw cards with. Because a number of cards in this deck generate tokens (and there's also a sweet synergy between Golgari Rot Farm and Khalni Garden here) those tokens serve a lot of value to cards like Dispute to utilize as fodder for those spells.
Crypt Rats is typically a huge linchpin of this type of deck, as the deck plays so much removal that it can swing in with its creatures to lower the opponents life total before using the Rats to close the game out.
Right now this is definitely a very powerful and fun deck in the current pauper world, and it's a relatively inexpensive deck on the surface of around $50-$60. This makes it a fun attractive option as a Pauper deck to learn because it's so proactive and powerful. There are variations of this deck that also splash red for sideboard cards as well, making it a relatively flexible deck.
Paupergeddon Pisa 2023 6/17-6/18
This past weekend was the Paupergeddon event which took place in Stazione Leopolda in Pisa, Italy, organized by TO Dungeon Street. This is a two day event taking place over 12 swiss rounds plus a cut to Top 8. This event seemed to be quite popular, drawing 481 players to come play competitive Pauper. Wizards own Gavin Verhey was also in attendance at the event! You can find all of the information on this event and more over on the Paupergeddon Pisa Facebook page.
The Paupergeddon folks did post a metagame breakdown of the event overall.
All in all this actually did seem to be a pretty reasonable event in terms of metagame shares. Mono Blue Faeries seemed to be quite popular, as did Golgari Gardens. Affinity and Burn showed up here in good quantities as well. It would be nice to see a full data set of this type of event just because of sheer size.
Let's take a look at the Top 8. You can find the Top 8 decklists here.
| Deck Name | Placing | Player Name |
|---|---|---|
| Affinity | 1st | Roberto Francini |
| Altar Tron | 2nd | Tommaso Loss |
| Boros Synthesizer | 3rd-4th | Emanuele Navarra |
| Affinity | 3rd-4th | Mislav Dinarina |
| Affinity | 5th-8th | Filippo Spaggiari |
| Boros Synthesizer | 5th-8th | Andrea Mengucci |
| Mono Blue Faeries | 5th-8th | Andrea Beatrice |
| Boros Synthesizer | 5th-8th | Marco Casotto |
Lot of Affinity and Boros Synthesizer decks in this Top 8 for sure. Affinity did win this event in the hands of Roberto Francini.
Affinity is definitely as we will talk about later a deck with a lot of critical mass to it, and the more things that come about that enable this deck are only ever going to improve it for sure.
The Second Place finalist for the event was Altar Tron.
The biggest thing here is a card that came at the end of the Lord of the Rings spoiler season so it didn't quite make my set review of the set, and that card is Lembas. This card looks pretty innocuous at first, but it has a lot of power to it in that it shuffles back into the library when it is put into the graveyard from the battlefield. The fact that it also draws a card and scrys is very important too. Definitely expecting to see this card show up in a lot of places given how good it looks.
Pauper League Changes on MTGO Incoming
There are some upcoming changes to Pauper leagues that is coming up, as the current League structure will only run until July 5th, at which point a new price point of 6 Event Tickets or 60 Play Points comes to the platform. However, this does mean that the prize payouts are being adjusted as well. There's been a lot of discussion with this and community feedback provided to Daybreak on this change, and the level of discussion is definitely very open and accommodating.
You can find the announcement here. More details on the prizing change is to be provided in two weeks, but you can provide your own feedback on the MTGO Forums.
Pauper Challenge 6/17
The first Challenge event of the weekend was the Saturday event. This event had 62 players in it thanks to the data collected by the Castle of Commons Discord.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the datasheet here.
The most popular deck here was the Mono Blue Faeries deck, and while it had a great win rate, the Affinity decks certainly smashed it out of the park here. Gruul did not do so well here in this event despite being very popular, and a good range of other decks had solid performance.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Affinity | 1st | O_danielakos |
| Mono Blue Faeries | 2nd | Backoff |
| Boros Synthesizer | 3rd | billster47 |
| Affinity | 4th | LuffyDoChapeuDePalha |
| Golgari Gardens | 5th | Danielpena397 |
| Mono Blue Faeries | 6th | Aldreen |
| Burn | 7th | AMirrorDarkly |
| Mono Blue Terror | 8th | renaar |
Interesting range of decks here with some Mono Blue, Affinity, Golgari, and Boros decks. At the end of the event though it was Affinity that won.
Definitely a very straightforward and powerful list here. Affinity continues to show how good it is at roleplaying both control, midrange, and aggro all at once.
In Second Place we've got Mono Blue Faeries.
This is another deck where the list is just incredibly clean and straightforward. No frills here and there doesn't need to be. The game plan is powerful and proactive.
Also in this Top 8 we had Boros Synthesizer.
I really like this deck quite a bit personally. Seems quite fun to bounce things with Glint Hawk and Kor Skyfisher and get extra triggers with Seeker of the Way. Reminds me a lot of the Astrolabe era Jeskai decks of that time.
At the bottom of the Top 8 we had Mono Blue Terror.
This deck is exceptionally aggressive, leveraging countermagic to both fill the graveyard for Tolarian Terror and to protect its proactive game plan. Late game all those cards turn into a massive creature for Serpentine Curve.
Pauper Challenge 6/18
The second Challenge event of the weekend was the Sunday event. This event had 63 players in it thanks to the data collected by the Castle of Commons Discord.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the datasheet here.
Affinity was the most popular deck here, and it had a pretty solid win rate overall. Burn was also popular but it's win rate was less than ideal, as was Golgari's. Mono Blue Faeries did very well and Gruul bounced back from the day before.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Affinity | 1st | msskinbolic |
| UR Faeries | 2nd | Brivenix |
| Naya Ponza | 3rd | Alvatar |
| Mono Blue Faeries | 4th | Backoff |
| Jeskai Ephemerate | 5th | Captain_Tsubasa |
| Kiln Fiend Aggro | 6th | Gerschi |
| Gruul Ponza | 7th | Gift_given |
| Affinity | 8th | sandydogmtg |
Fairly varied Top 8 here. Good number of representative archetypes. At the end of the event, it was Affinity that smashed on through to the other side.
The critical mass of this deck is interesting. There are a lot of cards that make this deck powerful for sure. I do think the best and biggest addition to this deck besides the Bridges was Deadly Dispute. Just an absurdly powerful card.
In Second Place we have UR Faeries.
I like the power of using Skred here as board control. Seems very powerful.
Also in this Top 8 we have Jeskai Ephemerate.
This deck is really something and it feels like a deck I would play myself. I love the interaction with Cleansing Wildfire and the Bridges.
At the bottom of the Top 8 we have Kiln Fiend Aggro.
Woo! So aggressive and powerful this deck is. Chaining stuff like Manamorphose and free spells like Mutagenic Growth and Apostle's Blessing is so wildly cool.
Around the Web
- StompyMTG has a video on Mono Blue Terror! Check it out here.
- Card Market's Deck of the Week is Dimir Terror. Check it out here.
- TeasdaleMTG has a video on Gruul Ponza. Check it out here.
The Spice Corner
You can find this past week's 5-0 deck lists over here.
If you're not playing the full range of Circle of Protections in your sideboard, what are you even doing with your life?
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!
