The Power of Pauper: The Wildfires Burneth
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'e going to be taking a peek at a deck that's been burning up some events in Pauper as of late. In addition we've got some Challenges from last week to discuss. Next week (outside of any possible B&R announcements) we will be talking about Tarkir: Dragonstorm so if there's any cards from that set that you wish to have me review, please let me know!
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
Junding the Jund Way
Pauper has been very interesting since Modern Horizons 3 released, filled with quite a bit of decks in which three primary strategies (Affinity, Gleezard, Burn) have all kind of risen to the top. What ends up being really cool in these scenarios is how this can lead to decks forming or appearing that poke holes in the weaknesses out of either one or more of these strategies. That's where Jund Wildfires comes in.
This deck is very much functionally a mishmash on paper of various powerful cards in Pauper, many of which are from Modern Horizons level sets. New powerful cards like Writhing Chrysalis and Refurbished Familiar sit on top of a shell that is made up of a bunch of pillars of the format, like Deadly Dispute and Cleansing Wildfire. However, the deck also gets to play in the space of using the Affinity core with new threats like Nyxborn Hydra to great effect.
What we get out of this is a deck that feels very Jund. It's got removal for trading on creatures, and it has its own creatures for beating down the opponent. It can establish a card advantage engine via Monarch and absolutely hold down that status with all the various powerful blockers. It has a ramp engine with Cleansing Wildfire and the MH2 Bridge artifact lands, one of the firmly more interesting use cases of those lands. It has a slight Affinity slant with being able to deploy out Refurbished Familiar and typical Affinity cards like Blood Fountain.
This is a really sweet deck that's formed out of the current metagame. The deck is able to answer parts of the top decks with its proactive and powerful game plan, but that game plan is really just "be a midrange pile of cards", which is pretty awesome.
The downside of this deck is that it is a Deadly Dispute deck, and should anything ever happen to that card, it does get rough for it, but I think that's true of any of the Modern Horizons cards in the deck as well. This deck is looking great because it does have strong pressure on the current top decks of the metagame, and that in of itself makes it interesting. If you're looking for something truly midrange-y to play this is something to consider.
Pauper Challenge 32 3/21/2025
The first Challenge event of the weekend was the Friday event. This event had 51 players in it thanks to the MTGO website.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Grixis Affinity | 1st | discoverN |
| Grixis Affinity | 2nd | LuffyDoChapeuDePalha |
| Dimir Faeries | 3rd | viashinoperuano |
| Bogles | 4th | PedraStone |
| Jund Broodscale | 5th | Hamuda |
| Jund Wildfire | 6th | Adrowo |
| Dimir Control | 7th | barff |
| Burn | 8th | ho-oh |
Very interesting Top 8. At the end of the event it was a pair of Grixis Affinity decks that matched up. Let's look at the winning list.
The weird balance between what is flexible in these lists and what isn't is interesting. There's definitely a very defined core of cards you need to play, but then some minor flex spots here or there, but not much.
Let's look at the Second Place list.
As we can see there is a fair amount of flexibility however in the sideboard. Each of the top decks here have some very different sideboard planning which is pretty intriguing.
Also in this Top 8 we had Bogles.
Still incredible surprised the speed aura from Aetherdrift isn't seeing any play in this deck. Feels like a shoe-in as additional copies of Sentinel's Eyes. Mask of Law and Grace is a sweet little aura though.
Pauper Challenge 32 3/22/2025
The second Challenge event of the weekend was the Saturday event. This event had 43 players in it thanks to the MTGO website.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Grixis Affinity | 1st | outZEROo |
| Burn | 2nd | Brasatore |
| Grixis Affinity | 3rd | Luddrox |
| Dredge | 4th | galeogiao |
| Mono Blue Faeries | 5th | Banduz |
| Madness Burn | 6th | Niederschatten |
| Burn | 7th | yesicabyalexisf |
| Mono Blue Faeries | 8th | MisterTwin |
Fair amount of Burn, Fae, and Affinity. At the end of the event it was Affinity that won.
I love the utter flexibility of Extract a Confession. It can bypass people flashing in a creature to protect their big threat if you can collect the evidence, but it's also just castable as a regular edict. Very sweet.
In Second Place we had Burn.
Most lists here haven't been playing the impulse draws like Reckless Impulse but I do think they are quite strong here.
Further down the Top 8 we had Madness Burn.
I am digging the copies of Highway Robbery here. Plotting it for a future big turn can be incredibly cool. Grab the Prize continues to showcase how good it is in this deck by combining the natural game plan of the deck in discarding cards and doing damage.
Pauper Challenge 32 3/23/2025
The final Challenge event of the weekend was the Sunday event. This event had 57 players in it thanks to the MTGO website.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Turbo Fog | 1st | __Noob__ |
| Dredge | 2nd | toondoslav |
| Jund Wildfire | 3rd | acir |
| Glintblade | 4th | Hoarse_Duck |
| Grixis Affinity | 5th | Misplacedginger |
| Mono Blue Faeries | 6th | TSPJendrek |
| Burn | 7th | boom_bust |
| Burn | 8th | PNascimento |
Very reasonable Top 8. At the end of the event it was Turbo Fog that won.
Okay, Respite is an oldie but a goodie. That's an incredibly fun way to gain life out of a big swing.
In Second Place we had Dredge.
I really love that there's a deck out there for Dread Return. I really want to build this deck in paper, because it is so much fun.
Also in this Top 8 we had Glintblade.
It continues to not be very surprising how much Deadly Dispute shows up in this format. Even in a deck that's not even in some main colors, we still have Dispute kicking around. It just goes to show much how its intertwined with the current fabric of Pauper.
My Video of the Week
I put out another edition of "What Does This Deck Do?" and this time we're focusing on Poison Storm. Check it out below.
Around the Web
- PostestasNecis has an interesting video on Pauper bannings. Check it out here.
- Pauperganda has a video on Mono Black Affinity. Check it out here.
- Kalikaiz has Jund Ping 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!
Just flat out Mono Green Aggro. Love it.
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!
