The Power of Pauper: Tron-Doll Terror
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 talking about some new developments in Altar Tron with Aetherdrift cards, as well as two paper events! In addition to that we've got some Challenges from last week to look at. I was out for a week due to MagicCon Chicago, so now we're back!
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
The Terror of Tron
We've had Aetherdrift on Magic Online now for a few weeks and while many decks are trying out sweet cards like Grim Bauble, there was one card I reviewed that I thought looked neat, but couldn't put a finger on what deck could play it, and that's Pactdoll Terror.
Anytime an effect has a "whenever this or another enters" I usually believe that there's a great opportunity to make a deck that utilizes that effect. We've seen this obviously with stuff like Nadier's Nightblade in Broodscale and just in general these effects are very powerful. One deck that exists that doesn't see much play on platforms like MTGO that can easily utilize this is Altar Tron. Historically, Altar Tron's issues on MTGO have mainly resulted in a lot of clicking to make the game end, but Pactdoll Terror seems to change that dynamic completely.
Altar Tron works off the basis of using Ashnod's Altar alongside Myr Retriever to loop and make a bunch of mana. Usually the win condition here is pushing all of that mana into Golem Foundry, but often this takes a ton of time to click through on MTGO. Pactdoll Terror means that you only have to loop for as much life as your opponent actually has, and that often means that you're going to be able to get through that loop in a nice timely fashion.
Tron in general has been exceedingly MIA from the Pauper metagame for some time, with only scant performances from things like Ephemerate Tron here or there. Altar Tron is generally nonexistent and shows up more in paper events because of the timing issues, but I feel like the addition of Pactdoll Terror does mean that we'll see more and more of this deck on MTGO going forward. I for one am curious to give it a shot, as it looks very fun!
Northern Pauper Open 2025
This past weekend was the Northern Pauper Open over in the UK at the Novotel Leeds Centre. This event was organized by PauperDan. This was a six round Swiss event, but it didn't seem like there was a cut to Top 8 from MTGMelee (if they did do a Top 8, it probably was done outside of Melee). This was a 61 player event though, so that's super sweet.
You can find all of the decklists for this event here. The best I could find of the Top 8 decks was via MTGDecks in my research, so that's below.
| Deck Name | Placing | Player Name |
|---|---|---|
| Elves | Top 8 | Steelix1994 |
| Mono Blue Terror | Top 8 | Vesped |
| Grixis Affinity | Top 8 | Ejvarriale |
| Grixis Affinity | Top 8 | Jamiewilson1995 |
| Dimir Faeries | Top 8 | Mtgkicks |
| Walls Combo | Top 8 | Zephryy |
| Jund Broodscale | Top 8 | Willcairns |
| Mono Blue Faeries | Top 8 | Phid |
Seems like a reasonable Top 8 here. The winner supposedly was Elves according to all the research I could find.
Elves has definitely received a good amount of upgrades over time, and Nyxborn Hydra seems to be one of the best ones of all.
Inaugural Upstate NY Pauper Open 3/1/2025
Last weekend was also a sweet paper event up in Walworth, NY at the K2 Brothers Brewing location. The Inaugural Upstate NY Pauper Open was a legitimate Pauper 1.5K event with the attendance they had (72 players attended) and it seemed like it was an amazing time. The event was run by the Upstate NY Pauper group (you can find them here).
You can find all of the decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
The most popular deck of the event was Jund Broodscale Combo, and it looked like it had a really solid win rate (close to 60%). Burn, Cycle Storm, and Elves was also very well represented. Both Burn and Cycle Storm had less than 50% win rates despite some good finishes by strong pilots. Grixis Affinity also looked strong.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | Player Name |
|---|---|---|
| Jund Broodscale | 1st | Paige Smith |
| Dimir Control | 2nd | Eric English |
| Elves | 3rd | Mitch B |
| Walls Combo | 4th | Ben Yett |
| Burn | 5th | Michael Gilpin |
| Grixis Affinity | 6th | David Graziano |
| Golgari Broodscale | 7th | Colin Chilbert |
| Gruul Ponza | 8th | Zach Loucks |
This is a really good looking Top 8. Great diversity overall. At the end of the event, it was none other than Paige Smith (member of the Pauper Format Panel) who won on Jund Broodscale.
This is a very strong looking list overall. The singleton Evolution Witness is great as a way to keep getting back cards if you can trigger it with a Sadistic Glee. Broodscale continues to prove it is a really good deck in Pauper, so not surprised to see it do well here. Congrats, Paige!
The Second Place winner was Dimir Control.
The more midrangey Control aspect of this deck is really neat, but also being able to leverage some tempo elements with Spellstutter Sprite and Sneaky Snacker is really sweet. I like this one a lot. It's very strong.
Pauper Challenge 32 2/28/2025
The first Challenge event of the week was the Friday event. This event had 56 player 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 | LuffyDoChapeuDePalha |
| Jund Broodscale | 2nd | Hamuda |
| Bogles | 3rd | QueMario |
| Mono Blue Faeries | 4th | Mirozel1 |
| Mono Blue Faeries | 5th | VingadorMTG |
| Burn | 6th | papaRMSKY |
| Dredge | 7th | marzaboi |
| Mono Blue Terror | 8th | RUCetFort |
Very interesting Top 8 here. At the end of the event it was Grixis Affinity that won.
This is a very strong looking list. I am digging Hunter's Blowgun in these lists. It seems like a really sweet card.
In Second Place we had Jund Broodscale.
I think the Jund versions of this deck have officially coalesced into this version. No need to be cute with Cleansing Wildfire in this deck. Just need to implement some of the tech from Golgari and splash in Chrysalis and Munitions to be good.
Also in this Top 8 we had Dredge.
Very solid stock list here, but the one piece of sweet tech in the sideboard is copies of Tainted Strike. Want to get your opponent dead quickly? INFECT.
Pauper Challenge 32 3/1/2025
The second Challenge event of the week was the Saturday event. This event had 52 player in it thanks to the MTGO website.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Altar Tron | 1st | 3vildr4k3 |
| Grixis Affinity | 2nd | LuffyDoChapeuDePalha |
| Jund Broodscale | 3rd | CounterTopGarchomp |
| Walls Combo | 4th | HouseOfManaMTG |
| Dredge | 5th | Lollopollo2001 |
| Golgari Broodscale | 6th | Kampo |
| Jund Broodscale | 7th | Ed_Elric |
| Burn | 8th | papaRMSKY |
Fair number of Broodscale lists here, but at the end of the event it was Altar Tron that won.
We talked about this list as the main focus of this week's article, but it's nice to see that it's making some results in the Challenges too. Pactdoll Terror could be the best card for this archetype in a long time.
In Second Place we had Grixis Affinity.
This is the same list and pilot that won the previous Challenge. Not much else to say but this pilot is a really strong Affinity pilot and their dedication to the archetype sure shows.
Also in this Top 8 we had Walls.
Masked Vandal is a sweet main deck inclusion in this list. It deals with a lot of little things across the format. I like this list a lot. It's really strong.
Pauper Challenge 32 3/2/2025
The final Challenge event of the week was the Sunday event. This event had 65 player 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 | TiagoFuguete |
| Mono Blue Faeries | 2nd | John1111 |
| Jund Wildfire | 3rd | Nador6 |
| Burn | 4th | alscec |
| Jund Broodscale | 5th | outZEROo |
| Mono Black Aggro | 6th | MarshFlats |
| Bogles | 7th | PNascimento |
| Jund Broodscale | 8th | LucasG1ggs |
Really solid looking Top 8 here. At the end of the event it was Grixis Affinity that won.
Seems like Affinity has been on a real tear lately. The Top Three of the format continue to revolve around each other so I'm sure there will be some cycling happening at some point on this one.
In Second Place we had Mono Blue Faeries.
Very solid looking list here. Also, the sideboard copy of Sunken City! Superb!
Further down the Top 8 we had a sweet Mono Black Aggro list.
Oh this list is really slick. Being able to leverage cards like Mortician Beetle and Carrion Feeder is super cool.
Around the Web
- Pauperganda is playing some Hot Wheels. Check it out here.
- Bryant Cook has a video on Poison Storm. Check it out here.
- TeasdaleMTG has a video on Altar Tron. Check it out here.
- Casting Commons has a new episode. Check it out here.
- Kalikaiz also has a video on Altar Tron. 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!
Has truly been a hiot minute since I saw Tortured Existence!
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!
