The Power of Pauper: Upstate NY Pauper Open II
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 taking a look at the Upstate NY Pauper Open II event held recently. This article is a little late so we get one more Challenge to look at than normal. This is to somewhat account for the fact that this particular article won't have one this next week because I will be in Seattle for a convention.
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
Update NY Pauper Open II
This past week on 8/9/2025, the Upstate NY Pauper Open series continued its 2025 series of events held in the heart of downtown Rochester, NY. This event series started earlier this year and has been continually gaining steam in the area. In fact this event had 69 (nice) players overall, which is great to see. We were able to pull together some data from their event off SpiceRack so we can take a look at a larger Pauper event in general.
You can find all of the decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Both Burn and Jund Wildfires were the most popular decks of the overall event. Burn's win rate looked quite good at a solid 53.66%, while Jund had a sub 50% win rate overall. The big hitters here were Mono Blue Terror, Azorius Gates, and even Madness Burn, with decks like Mono White Aggro and Cycle Storm being on the low end of win rates. It's worth noting too that below the cutoff, one of the decks that people have been eye'ing a lot of lately is High Tide, and it had exactly one pilot who had a 40% win rate.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | Player Name |
|---|---|---|
| Mono Blue Terror | 1st | Eric English |
| Burn | 2nd | Matthew Bunko |
| Mono Black Sacrifice | 3rd | Aaron Caskaddon |
| Azorius Gates | 4th | Brian Reagan |
| Azorius Gates | 5th | Joshua Fry |
| Elves | 6th | Mitch Brown |
| Gruul Ramp | 7th | Ryan Goodman |
| Azorius Familiars | 8th | Jacob Alstadt |
Honestly this is pretty interesting. Gates is great, and some solid representation across multiple spectrums. At the end of the event it was Eric English on Mono Blue Terror that won.
This deck is probably the cleanest-looking deck in Pauper, with all of its really clean mathed out copies of cards. When you see two ofs, you know at some point the math has been done on that card being important and also showing up appropriately.
In Second Place we had Matthew Bunko on Burn.
You could also theoretically refer to this as a Mono Red Synthesizer, but it's essentially still the current face of Burn in the format. It's a good-looking deck, to be honest. Rally at the Hornburg has replaced our Kuldotha Rebirth, which, if you can chain this into Bushwhacker, is quite good.
Pauper Challenge 32 8/8/2025
The first Challenge we have to cover is the first Friday event. This event had 61 players in it thanks to the MTGO website.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Spy Combo | 1st | Fragoel2 |
| Jund Wildfire | 2nd | _blaze66 |
| Mono Blue Terror | 3rd | discoverN |
| Madness Burn | 4th | Blvcky |
| High Tide Combo | 5th | Mikhathara1994 |
| Spy Combo | 6th | totemsilence |
| High Tide Combo | 7th | TamakiHunter |
| High Tide Combo | 8th | LikeAFerro |
Fair bit of High Tide here, which I'm sure has caused some commotion. At the end of the event though, it was Spy Combo that won.
This deck has a lot going for it, and it continues to look quite powerful every time I see it. Let's just seriously hope they never print any common MDFC Lands.
In Second Place, we had Jund Wildfire.
I honestly might have to build this deck. It looks like so much fun, but that also means buying a bunch more copies of both Breath Weapon and Weather the Storm! :D
Pauper Challenge 32 8/9/2025
The second Challenge we have to cover is the Saturday event. This event had 39 players, thanks to the MTGO website.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Mono Blue Terror | 1st | discoverN |
| Dimir Terror | 2nd | hetare_ane |
| Elves | 3rd | sai199orz |
| Elves | 4th | Shiib |
| High Tide Combo | 5th | LikeAFerro |
| Jund Wildfire | 6th | _blaze66 |
| Grixis Affinity | 7th | Mogged |
| Mono Blue Faeries | 8th | Banduz |
Fairly interesting Top 8 here, actually. At the end of the event, it was Mono Blue Terror that won.
Very straightforward and clean list here. Sleep of the Dead is a sweet card that, even if you mill it with Mental Note or Thought Scour, you can recast it later on with Escape.
In Second Place, we had Dimir Terror.
Another super straightforward Terror list, but in Dimir this time. Its cool getting to play cards like Extract a Confession, to be honest.
Pauper Challenge 32 8/10/2025
The third Challenge we have to cover is the Sunday event. This event had 67 players in it thanks to the MTGO website.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Mono Blue Terror | 1st | discoverN |
| Elves | 2nd | QueMario |
| Spy Combo | 3rd | THERABBINS |
| Mono Blue Terror | 4th | Gn42 |
| Burn | 5th | WingedHussar |
| Mono Blue Terror | 6th | gazmon48 |
| Mono Blue Terror | 7th | boytriton |
| Madness Burn | 8th | MisterTwin |
Lots of Mono Blue Terror in this Top 8, and it in fact won the event by the same pilot who won the day before.
discoverN just too strong it seems for multiple formats, but especially here.
In Second Place, we had Elves.
Sagu Wildling is a card I've seen a lot of lately, and it's just a really strong card. Being a pseudo ramp spell that also can be a 3/3 flier AND a gain 3 life is pretty good, and it's even better if you bestow your Nyxborn Hydra on it.
Pauper Challenge 32 8/15/2025
The final Challenge we have to cover is the second Friday event. This event had 53 players, thanks to the MTGO website.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| High Tide Combo | 1st | Cachorrowo |
| Izzet Faeries | 2nd | Brnvx |
| Mono Black Sacrifice | 3rd | MarshFlats |
| Spy Combo | 4th | totemsilence |
| Izzet Terror | 5th | SpockVidaLoka |
| Mono Blue Terror | 6th | Purgatory_01 |
| High Tide Combo | 7th | Tyerube1618 |
| Spy Combo | 8th | medvedev |
Quite an interesting Top 8 here. At the end of the event, it was High Tide that won.
Definitely a lot of talk going around about this deck since the extension of High Tide on trial unban. I still think the deck is fine to exist in this space. It has a bunch of moving parts, and sometimes those parts don't line up well.
In Second Place we had Izzet Faeries.
This is nice and clean and looks like a lot of fun. Getting to play Fire // Ice is a good time always in my opinion.
Around the Web
- Pauperganda has a video on Infect. Check it out here.
- Our good friend Alex Ullman has an article on the first two weeks of EoE. Check it out here.
- Kalikaiz has a video on FAMILIARS. 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!
INSIDE OUT.
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!
