Playing Pauper: Five-Color Bogles
Welcome back to Playing Pauper! This week we have a handful of hexproof creatures and Auras to beat opponents down with invincible threats.
Check out the matches, then read the discussion below. If you enjoy Playing Pauper, subscribe to the MTGGoldfish YouTube channel! It helps us draw more people to the channel, and it helps you to never miss any of our great video content.
Five-Color Bogles Intro
Bogles vs Affinity
Bogles vs Sultai Morbid
Bogles vs Burn
Bogles vs Kuldotha Boros
Bogles vs Dimir Control
The Deck
As the deck name suggests, the two playsets of Gladecover Scout and Slippery Bogle are the most important creatures. They wear the power pumping Auras and are the way we win the game.
Sylvan Ranger and Heliod's Pilgrim help us tutor for relevant cards depending on our situation. Kor Skyfisher also shows up as an efficient threat that can retrigger the enter-the-battlefield effects of our creatures and some of our other cards.
While Ethereal Armor and Armadillo Cloak are among the strongest Auras in the deck, any two or three Auras piled onto a Bogle should be enough to turn it into a smashing machine. The deck also runs singleton copies of Fists of Ironwood, Moldervine Cloak, and Aqueous Form to tutor for.
Abundant Growth and Karametra's Favor help fix our five-color manabase while also adding to the enchantment count for Ethereal Armor. Dead Weight and Journey to Nowhere are the removal spells of choice.
The Sideboard
Electrickery works wonders against Mono Blue Delver and token decks.
Hydroblast is good against Red spells from decks like Burn, Goblins, and Temur Tron.
Scattershot Archer is another out against Delver of Secrets decks and can also shoot down Squadron Hawks easily as well.
Young Wolf protects against edict effects, such as Chainer's Edict.
Lone Missionary is good against most types of aggressive decks.
Standard Bearer is good against Burn, but is also brutal in the mirror match or against Stompy and other decks that want to pump their own creatures.
Tangle provides protection from large bursts of damage such as what may come from Izzet Blitz or token decks.
The Matchups
Most of the popular decks have zero main deck ways to get a Slippery Bogle off the table except in combat. Once you add trample + first strike or evasion, not even combat is an option. Instead, these decks have to race the hexproof creatures, and not every deck can effectively do that. Especially not with an Armadillo Cloak on our side of the battlefield.
Leave No Trace and Ray of Revelation are powerful sideboard cards that can wreck Five-Color Bogles, so it's hard to be as confident once game one is over.
Beating Bogles
- If your deck can't kill a hexproof creature, manage your attacking resources and chump blockers to find a way to win the damage race.
- Make sure your sideboard has Disenchant effects. There are just too many decks that you need them for.
- If you have a choice of what to destroy or discard or otherwise nullify, Ethereal Armor and Armadillo Cloak should always be the first cards you look to.
Conclusion
Five-Color Bogles is an interesting deck to pilot. If you look at some of the 5-0 lists, you'll see some minor variations from the list I tested. I wish there was more variations on control decks in the format, but variation on aggro decks keeps the format fresh as well. While a control deck has to account for trying to win a long game against such different game plans as Affinity, Tron, and Delver, Bogles is all about turning your creatures sideways.
Be on the lookout for more content and decks built around Eternal Masters cards coming up in the future. Thanks for reading, and I'll see you next time!
Submissions
Viewer submissions are open! I'll still be playing known decks occasionally, but I'll mostly be playing:
- Decks submitted by viewers
- Decks created from viewer challenges (e.g. build a deck around Horned Kavu)
- Decks created by Jake (especially ones comprised of cards from new sets such as Eternal Masters)
- Email me at pauper@mtggoldfish.com or Tweet to me @JakeStilesMTG with your decklist or challenge, and I'll give you a shout-out if I use your submission!
