The Power of Pauper: The Midnight Guard
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 going over a sweet old school combo deck featuring Midnight Guard! In addition to that we've got some Challenges from last week to cover. My set review for Aetherdrift is next week, so if there's any cards you'd like to see me cover, please let me know in the comments below.
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
Gond Calls For Aid!
Outside of more unique decks in Pauper, the vast majority of combo decks in the format rely solely on the usage of creatures. Creatures are the bread and butter engines of nearly every combo deck in the format. This particular combo has existed for quite a long time actually, but it's popularity has dwindled quite a bit in recent years as other combo decks have cemented themselves in the format. The combo is with the cards Midnight Guard and Presence of Gond.
This combo should be pretty self explanatory. You enchant Midnight Guard with Presence of Gond and then tap to make a 1/1 Elf. That then untaps the Guard, and you get to repeat this as many times as you want. This gets you a very large number of 1/1 Elves that you now have at your disposal. But all those Elves don't have haste and can't attack! That's where Bitter Reunion comes into play, since it can be sacrificed to give all your creatures haste until end of turn in order to swing.
The other core of this deck is playing a lot of similar cards that we see in most Pauper decks. Things like Deadly Dispute, Malevolent Rumble, and Duress. This allows for the deck to not only find the combo pieces it needs to assemble the combo, while also being able to protect the combo. The deck is very similar in nature to the Broodscale decks, but does cost a bit more up front to get going since both pieces of the combo cost three mana to put into play.
Regardless, this is a neat deck and does some very unique things. You can even implement a card like Mirkwood Bats or Molten Gatekeeper to win off the combo by just creating the tokens. This makes for far less clicking on a platform like Magic Online and for quicker games.
Pauper Challenge 32 1/24/2025
The first Challenge event of the week was the Friday event. This event had 45 players in it according to the MTGO website.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here. The Top 8 is below.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Grixis Affinity | 1st | LuffyDoChapeuDePalha |
| Mono Blue Terror | 2nd | outZEROo |
| Burn | 3rd | PNascimento |
| Dimir Faeries | 4th | cicciogire |
| Walls Combo | 5th | Luddrox |
| Mono Blue Terror | 6th | discoverN |
| Mono Blue Faeries | 7th | VingadorMTG |
| Burn | 8th | vini_torres |
This is a fairly reasonable Top 8 here. At the end of the event it was Affinity that won.
This particular pilot always tends to be on the cutting edge of technology for Affinity in general, as its mostly all they play. The newest piece of tech seems to be Hunter's Blowgun which seems to be a rather interesting card in general. Giving things reach on your opponent's turn, but then deathtouch on your turn is quite neat. The reach is ultra relevant for the amount of things like Faeries showing up, and slapping this equipment on a Bridge land turned creature by Kenku Artificer is very cool.
In Second Place we had Mono Blue Terror.
Incredibly clean looking list overall here. There's no frills here, just good old fashioned straightforward tempo deckbuilding.
Further down the Top 8 we had Walls Combo.
This is a deck I have built in my set of paper Pauper decks and was one of the first decks I built when getting back into the format (I at one point was the bad guy who had Jeskai Astrolabe built). It's a super fun deck and plays a lot like old school combo Elves out of Legacy. It's got a lot of intricacies and mana math, and that makes it fun.
Pauper Challenge 32 1/25/2025
The second Challenge event of the week was the Saturday event. This event had 40 players in it according to the MTGO website.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here. The Top 8 is below.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Golgari Broodscale | 1st | SpockVidaLoka |
| Dredge | 2nd | ff7 |
| Madness Burn | 3rd | MisterTwin |
| Familiars | 4th | ChaoticMTG |
| Mono Blue Faeries | 5th | VingadorMTG |
| Burn | 6th | ZeNonato |
| Jund Broodscale | 7th | magikninni1312 |
| Burn | 8th | medvedev |
Another solid looking Top 8. Good spread of decks here. At the end of the event it was Golgari Broodscale that won.
Shambling Ghast has certainly worked its way in to become a big part of this deck's game plan. It makes sense. It's a versatile card that works well with both Deadly Dispute and Eviscerator's Insight. Modal effects are always very flexible and I love seeing this one see play.
In Second Place we had Dredge.
Dredge is another deck I'd like to maybe eventually build for my own set of Pauper decks. It's a much more interesting deck in Pauper and Dredge is a strategy that I enjoy in other formats as well. I love the inclusion of Fang Dragon here in the sideboard as a sweeper that can also be milled and reanimated for a 6/3 flier.
Also in this Top 8 we had Familiars.
Oh neat! This is more like Jeskai Ephemerate Familiars, given that it's playing the core stuff from Ephemerate like Cleansing Wildfire and Bridge lands. However, it also gets to play Skred which is sweet. I am digging this one for sure.
Pauper Challenge 32 1/26/2025
The final Challenge event of the week was the Sunday event. This event had 58 players in it according to the MTGO website.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here. The Top 8 is below.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Poison Storm | 1st | Skpchino |
| Gruul Ramp | 2nd | Broa |
| Familiars | 3rd | Gn42 |
| Gruul Ramp | 4th | JuaKi |
| Burn | 5th | PNascimento |
| Jund Broodscale | 6th | Borbs |
| Golgari Broodscale | 7th | HobbyHorstorian |
| Glintblade | 8th | TiagoFuguete |
Some different decks here, coupled with Gruul and some Broodscale. At the end of the event though it was Poison Storm that won.
It's great seeing this deck not only see play but winning a Challenge event. It's a really strong deck and a lot of fun to play due to how unique it is, being a combo deck that doesn't need to play creatures to win.
In Second Place we had Gruul Ramp.
I think it's pretty safe to say how much Writhing Chrysalis and Nyxborn Hydra have really changed Gruul as a deck. Long gone are the days of blowing up lands with Thermokarst. Now we're just winning with giant monsters, the way Gruul intended.
At the bottom of the Top 8 we had Glintblade.
It's always interesting to see just how cards that are considered core to the format interact in other shells. In this case, it's primarily Deadly Dispute allowing cards like Thraben Inspector/Novice Inspector to allow for further card draw. The core of Kor Skyfisher and Glint Hawk is really slick when you can bounce stuff like Refurbished Familiar and run your opponent out of cards.
Around the Web
- TeasdaleMTG has a video on Goblins Combo. Check it out here.
- ONLY GOOD CARDS. NO BAD CARDS.
- David Royale has a video on Pauper Glaze Fling. Check it out here.
- TeasdaleMTG does have another video on new downshift Seize the Storm. Check it out here.
- Bryant Cook has a video on Mono Black Cycle Storm. Check it out here.
- Pauperganda has a video on GRUUL. 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!
BLACK BURN.
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!
