April 7 Pauper Challenge Winner's Metagame Breakdown

Back at it! Last week was the first Pauper Playoff on Magic Online, which I wrote about here. Because the Playoff was not an open event - that is it was invite only - I am not counting it in the Ravnica Allegiance season standings. There was no such limit on the April 7th Challenge so let's dive right in.

Dimir Delver won and also had three copies in the Top 8. It earned a third of all Win+ points on Sunday and also made up over 25% of the Top 32 field. I have not been talking about overall format health as much as I would like because it always sparks controversy. While Gush decks are a dominant force it is not only Gush that contributes to their power ranking. The combination of Gush, Augur of Bolas, and powerful cantrips help to push blue decks over the top. 

At the same time Gush is the single most broken card out of the bunch. It is effectively free on mana and can actually net a resource. Combined with Foil it can create a turn where the blue player has complete control over what takes place, often at no mana investment. 

The argument against blue cards often comes down to Gush, Augur of Bolas, and Foil. I think Foil is safe as it is hardly a backbreaker without Gush to fuel it. Augur, on the other hand, gets a lot of credit for "holding aggro down". I think that's a crock.

The cut off for counting in the power rankings this week is 7 appearances. The shaded area are decks that have made the Top 8 but do not meet the minimum threshold.

Augur of Bolas is very good. As a 1/3 body it can block a wide array of creatures. It can also dig you towards the very best cards in your deck (Gush, et al). By itself it's an annoying road block for beatdown. But it is hardly the only thing holding Stompy and its ilk back. Prismatic Strands and Moment's Peace do much more to thwart beatdown strategies than Augur of Bolas. These cards take the place of removal spells in some decks in order to buy time to establish control of the game. When combined with persistent forms of card advantage - whether that is the Monarch or a Ghostly Flicker loop - the window for aggro to succeed becomes incredibly small. So small in fact, that the archetype has all but vanished from the most competitive sphere.

On that note, yes, these results only track Magic Online. They do not take into account the various local metagames. That being said the data, over a decent stretch of time, seems to indicate the metagame is become stratified.

This chart tracks every Top 8 - counting the Playoff - going back to the release of Ravnica Allegiance. At no point over the past three months have one of these macro-strategies not appeared in the Top 8 of a Challenge. On one occasion they accounted for every member of the Top 8. Despite the prevalence of Gush decks for the entirety of the season to this point, the blue decks are on an upward trajectory while their predator - Monarch decks, are on a downward slope.

Here's another chart. It tracks the same data as above except it takes the two macro-archetypes and stacks their results. Only twice over the past 12 weeks were these decks merely 50% of the Top 8. Three times they took 6 slots - on March 10th you were either Monarch or Gush or you weren't in the Top 8.

Gush and Monarch are just the two best things you can be doing in the format right now and it is not very close. Look back at the seasonal chart. What's the third best archetype right now? It isn't Tron - it's Burn. Burn has 8 Top 8 appearances and two wins. Out of 88 possible Top 8s, Gush has 36 and Monarch has 27. That leaves 25 Top 8s to be divvied up amongst every other archetype.

War of the Spark represents a new philosophy of pushing the power level of certain commons. This is not a repudiation of New World Order, which tries to limit board complexity at common (a la Samite Healer or Sparksmith) but rather a way to give commons some staying power. Take Vivien's Grizzly for example. This card is powerful in that it can refill your hand, but it does not add another layer to surveying the board when it comes to combat or position. And even with these cards - and Modern Horizions - on their way, I am not sure enough can be printed to inject some diversity into Pauper.

There are many who think that this is fine. That as a non-rotating format Pauper should have a clearly defined suite of best decks. I don't disagree that at any given moment something should be the best deck. At the same time, I wish that over a three month span there was a littler more variety as to what the best deck could be on a given day.

2019 is going to be a banner year for Pauper. I want to continue to be at the forefront of the metagame. If you like the work I do, please consider becoming a Patron. Thank you!

Common Design: The One with Two Urza's Saga Cards

Time for another entry in my series on potentially powerful Pauper cards. Today I want to start with a card that has gotten a lot of press, in no small part because of one Gavin Verhey.

Over the past several years I have stumped for a three mana sweeper in Pauper on several occasions. When the format was dominated by Stompy and Delver the idea of a single card that could handle a large army of small creatures was incredibly attractive. This was before Palace Sentinels took its play as a pillar of the format. But let's try and return to early 2017.

The baseline size for an aggressive creature in Pauper is 2/2. Beatdown decks build their CVs on their ability to flood the board with these creatures and overwhelm the opponent. The release of Burning-Tree Emissary made it incredibly easy to end the second turn with between six and eight power. At the time the best sweepers were Electrickery and Evincar's Justice which put the aggressive decks at a significant advantage. 

The result of the offensive onslaught was that decks turned to cards like Moment's Peace and other damage prevention effects to survive the early game. Slower decks had a hard time packing the correct removal to take out larger threats while containing an early army. As a consequence, traditional aggressive decks almost completely vanished since they could not come out ahead of the Fog parade. The hope was that a card like Steam Blast would provide control decks with a way to stall Stompy and the like while not leaving them vulnerable to larger threats since they could run supplemental removal.

Now the pendulum is at the other end of its arc. Beatdown is barely a factor for multiple reasons. Prismatic Strands and Moment's Peace make it very difficult for attacking to work while Stonehorn Dignitary shuts down the combat phase entirely. Augur of Bolas, Kor Skyfisher, and Palace Sentinels are all fantastic blockers and eat 2/2s for breakfast. The thing is I still think a card like Steam Blast would be good for Pauper in the long run as a check on these strategies in the future.

That presents another problem. The format has moved past 2/2 creatures and now needs efficient three power creatures for beatdown decks to make a comeback. So if Modern Horizons brings Steam Blast, what else could it bring? My hope is for Albino Troll.

Albino Troll has a series constructed pedigree. As a 3/3 for 1G it is a solid threat that comes with an Echo cost. Is a turn two 3/3 good enough to eat up your third turn? Maybe. If you run Burning-Tree Emissary into Albino Troll? That's a lot more palatable. 

Both of these cards - Albino Troll and Steam Blast - are fairly simple and elegant. They could serve a vital role in Modern Horizons limited while also bolstering Modern. And both are perfectly reasonable to be printed at common in a Masters style set.

2019 is going to be a banner year for Pauper. I want to continue to be at the forefront of the format. If you like the work I do, please consider becoming a Patron. Thank you!

March 24 Pauper Challenge Winner's Metagame

The March 24 Pauper Challenge was won by a new twist on a familiar face. Izzet Delver took home first place in a manner of speaking. The winning list had two copies of Delver of Secrets and opted to include some tweaks on the removal suite in the form of Fire // Ice and Harvest Pyre. Neither of these are brand new innovations, but taken together they provide a fresh take.

When looking at the event itself, Sunday was fairly diverse. Sixteen different archetypes made it to the Top 32 and 12 archetypes had a finish of five wins or better. That speaks to a level of diversity that has not been seen in a while. Gush decks still took 37.5% of all Win+ spots while Monarch took just over 29% of the Win+ scores - so two of the pillars combined for 66.6% of all Win+ points awarded. 
This begs the question - is Tron still a pillar? 
Tron decks have long been struggling to keep up with the other powerhouses of Gush and Monarch. In recent weeks it has been less successful than Elves and Hexproof. Tron has the problem of not being a card advantage engine itself but rather a facilitator. That is, Tron enables you to do broken things rather than itself be broken.
Let's be clear -the amount of mana three Tron pieces produces is well above the curve, but that is a three card combo. Compare this to Gush or Monarch, both of which are far more self-contained in their ability to pull you ahead in a game.
Tron is still a powerful option but because it is a means to an end and not an end itself, it is lagging behind the other game breakers in the format.

For Ravnica Allegiance season, the minimum to be considered for the Power Rankings is six total appearances. It should be noted that the lone Stompy deck from March 24 finished  the Swiss in the Top 8 but the pilot then either disconnected or dropped from the event, placing them ninth. Taking that into consideration, Stompy is actually in the black when it comes to T8 Delta.

Dimir Delver and Boros Monarch remain at the top of the heap but Boros Bully is continuing its climb. Delver, plain old mono-blue Delver, is coming on strong as well. Orzhov Monarch had a rough week, however, with two appearances on a 4-3 record. 

This weekend is the first Pauper Playoff, which qualifies the top finishers for the Pauper Championship. Here is my take on what to expect:

• Dimir Delver will be out in force. However I also expect these decks to be largely geared to beat other Dimir Delver decks. The best performing versions will likely be tuned for the mirror while not giving up too much against the field.
• I think Boros Bully will be more popular than Boros Monarch. I think that Bully has more free wins thanks to Rally the Peasants draws and is an attractive option.
• Pestilence is well positioned if (and only if) you can survive to turn five. That is going to be a big ask.
• The PProteus style of Hexproof - that is no natural white sources - could have a banner day.
• Don't sleep on Burn. It has had several down weeks and if people do not pay Lightning Bolt enough respect, well, they get hit in the face with Lightning Bolt.

2019 is going to be a banner year for Pauper. I want to continue to be at the forefront of the metagame. If you like the work I do, please consider becoming a Patron. Thank you!

Common Design: Roar of the Wurm

We’re brushing off the dust and flashing it back. Let’s take a look at Roar of the Wurm and whether or not it could be a reasonable common in Modern Horizons.

You can check out this post to look at my guidelines. Needless to say, New World Order won’t matter much in a set built to impact Modern. 

Roar of the Wurm was a constructed caliber card back in its day. While a seven mana 6/6 is definitely on par for a common, a conditional four mana version is...well also on par for common these days. 

Ignoring Gurmag Angler for a moment - since that card costs one mana in reality - there are two cards we should look at when examining Roar of the Wurm: Walker of the Grove and Canker Abomination. Both of these touch on the different sides of Roar.

 Walker of the Grove can provide you two creatures, both of which are overpriced. The front half - 8 mana for a 7/7 - isn’t exciting. Similarly a 5 mana 4/4 is just average. Considering there are 4/4s four four mana available that do not see play, Walker is just not going to cut it. What it does showcase, however, is R&D’s willingness to print two-for-one creatures at common in Masters style sets. Walker is also a split card - it is either a 7/7 that leaves behind a 4/4 or it’s just a 4/4. Roar of the Wurm is similar in that you can try to cast the 7 mana version first, but then you have to invest more mana in the second half. The goal should be to get the cheaper version first.

This is where Canker Abomination becomes relevant. It is a conditional 4 mana 6/6. Sound

familiar? Roar of the Wurm fills the same role provided it has found its way into your graveyard. The difference here is that Canker Abomination could be smaller while the Wurm token will always be a 6/6. The point of this exercise was not to judge Roar of the Wurm against these existing commons - Roar is miles better - but rather to provide context as to whether Roar of the Wurm could be released as a lower rarity.

And I think the answer is a resounding “Yes!”. If you can get this card into the graveyard you can get a perfectly reasonable threat on turn four that just so happens to be incredibly vulnerable. Not only will the token die by conventional means, but it also falters in the face of the stiff breeze of Unsummon. Combine all of these factors with the supposedly higher level of Modern Horizons and I would be surprised if Roar of the Wurm wasn’t in the set.

2019 is going to be a banner year for Pauper. I want to continue to be at the forefront of the format. If you like the work I do, please consider becoming a Patron. Thank you!

From Scorpions to Skeletons

On -1/-1 Counters in Commander

When I first saw The Scorpion God I knew I had to build a deck around it. It was a big enough Commander to be a threat on its own, it drew cards, and it did one of my favorite things in all of Magic - it got itself back from the graveyard. 

I set about working on a deck that was part -1/-1 counters, part discard themed. With Archfiend of Ifnir I wanted to leverage cards like Tortured Existence and Nihilistic Glee as engines. As if The Scorpion God was not an engine unto itself. Regardless, I liked the idea of discarding for value and it appeared to be on theme with the Raise Dead clause on my Commander of choice. 

In the planning phase I ran into a small problem - a way to put the activated ability of The Scorpion God into overdrive. This involved making an unbound amount of mana and jumping through hoops with cards like Marsh Flitter, Phyrexian Altar, Ashnod’s Altar, and Nim Deathmantle. Despite the number of cards to get my mana going it still seemed worth it so I put the 100 together and took it to my local game store. It won its first outing, using Nim Deathmantle and Ashnod’s Altar with Puppeteer Clique to constantly rebuy Spore Frog out of a green player’s graveyard until I could steal a Blood Artist and drain everyone out of the game. 

I played the deck a few more times after that but it ceased feeling exciting - or even good. 

What happened? The deck was ploddingly slow. The Scorpion God is a five mana creature that then requires three mana to do anything. To set up a victory formation took a ton of time and a Rube Goldbergian level of pieces. I think in Commander it’s possible to succeed if you want to take either of these paths, but selecting them both means running countermeasures a la Counterspells - a decidedly blue specialty.

The Scorpion God sat on my shelf, unused, for quite some time. I kept thinking about ways to rebuild a -1/-1 counter deck but wanted to avoid Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons. I already had two black-green Commander decks and really did not want to add another. 

Also, I like being weird.

I’ve been playing Magic since 1994 and in that time I have had experience with plenty of cards. I tend to gravitate towards older Commanders that people may not have seen or are narrow in application. Part of this is nostalgia - I love playing with old cards that do things slightly differently. Another part of it is that I really, I mean really, enjoy it when my opponent’s have to read my cards multiple times to understand what the heck is going on. So this led me to Skeleton Ship.

Skeleton Ship is not what one would call a good card. It is a five mana 0/3 that requires you to control an Island. It does not do anything when it hits the battlefield, instead needing to survive an entire turn cycle before mattering. The low profile can be a benefit if playing in a pod where the average power level of the Commanders are, in a word, higher. 

Still, Skeleton Ship doesn’t require you to attack, not does it require any additional mana investment. Instead all you need to do is tap it to get your -1/-1 counter. And here is where blue shines in comparison to red. First, blue has access to multiple Proliferate effects - from Viral Drake to Tezzeret’s Gambit to Inexorable Tide - so one counter never stays one for long. Blue also gives the deck access to countermagic and card draw. As mentioned before, my -1/-1 counter deck needed time to set up and these defensive measures help to buy that time.

Blue also gives the deck access to Fatestitcher effects. While Magewright’s Stone and

Umbral Mantle are good, being able to use Thassa’s Ire can turn extra mana into more dead things - which goes very nicely with Demon of Dark Schemes and Necroskitter. The un/tap theme also helps the deck with one of its few unbound combos thanks to Nest of Scarabs and Intruder Alarm.

I haven’t had a chance to take the deck out for a spin but I’ll be putting up a decklist later today. In the meanwhile I want to know: what ostensibly “worse” Commander do you run and why?






So the decklist took a little longer to get up than I expected, but here you go!

Commander
Skeleton Ship

Lands
9 Island
6 Swamp
Bad River
Bojuka Bog
Cabal Coffers
Choked Estuary
Darkslick Shores
Desert of the Glorified
Desert of the Mindful
Dimir Aqueduct
Dimir Guildgate
Dismal Backwater
Dreadship Reef
Ifnir Deadlands
Jwar Isle Refuge
Memorial to Folly
Salt Marsh
Submerged Boneyard
Tainted Isle
Temple of Deceit
Underground River

Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Watery Grave

Planeswalkers
Liliana, Death Wielder

Creatures
Aphetto Alchemist
Captain of the Mists
Carnifex Demon
Deadeye Tracker
Demon of Dark Schemes
Draining Whelk
Enclave Cryptologist
Fatestitcher
Graveblade Marauder
Harvester of Souls
Massacre Wurm
Midnight Banshee
Necroskitter
Puppeteer Clique
Sidisi, Undead Vizier
Sepulchral Primordial
Thief of Sanity
Thrummingbird
Tideforce Elemental
Viral Drake
Core Prowler
Grim Poppet
Mindless Automaton
Solemn Simulacrum

Instants
Counterspell
Dismiss
Exclude
Fuel for the Cause
Soul Manipulation
Vraska's Contempt

Sorceries
Beacon of Unrest
Black Sun's Zenith
Liliana's Influence
Spread the Sickness
Tezzeret's Gambit
Toxic Deluge

Artifacts
Astral Cornucopia
Cauldron of Souls
Contagion Clasp
Contagion Engine
Dimir Signet
Everflowing Chalice
Magewright's Stone
Mimic Vat
Sol Ring
Spawning Pit
Trigon of Corruption
Trigon of Thought
Illusionist's Bracers
Skullclamp
Swiftfoot Boots
Thornbite Staff
Umbral Mantle

Enchantments

Black Market
Blowfly Infestation
Crumbling Ashes
Grave Betrayal
Inexorable Tide
Intruder Alarm
Nest of Scarabs
Shadows of the Past
Thassa's Ire

2019 is going to be a banner year for Pauper, but I want to bring you Commander content as well! If you like the work I do, please consider becoming a Patron. Thank you!

March 17 Pauper Challenge Winner's Metagame

After a few weeks on the decline, Boros Bully took the top two spots in the March 17 Pauper Challenge. The go wide version of a Boros Garrison - Palace Sentinels deck had two pilots in the Top 32 and the only undefeated player on the day. The two Top 8 finishes helped to push Bully further up the Ravnica Allegiance power rankings.

A lot of innovation over the past few weeks has been centered around Gurmag Angler. Being able to answer a singular large threat has become paramount in the format. While Gurmag Angler is the standard for what amounts to a large threat in reality this is anything with more than two toughness. Palace Sentinels, Stormbound Geist, Guardian of the Guildpact - these are all sizable threats that have a direct impact on the game. And when looking at the recent spat of answers - Curse of Chains springs to mind - they are about stopping these threats.

But what happens when you can go wide? What happens when your threats are resilient?

We are starting to see a shift in the way Pauper players are posing threats. Boros Bully has not had a good season (compared to previous performance) to this point. However the ability to go wide has proved valuable. But there's another way to fight the good fight against removal.

Zombies and Azorius Blink are both based on resilient threats - that is creatures that can either dodge removal or can be easily recurred. The recent advent of Tethmos High Priest in Tireless Tribe decks follow a similar thread - you can stop me once but can you stop me three times? The answer, at least for now, seems to be no. I've been having my own success with Black-Green Aristocrats, a deck built around converting dying creatures into victory.

4-1 in the #MTGPauper Comp League with BG Aristocrats. Beat Burn 2x, Boros Monarch, WB Pestilence. Lost to Zombies.

Loam Dryad is a house. pic.twitter.com/KjpPxAkjfk

— Alex Ullman (@nerdtothecore) March 18, 2019

On the season, the threshold for the power rankings has moved to 6 total appearances.

The interesting thing about this new spat of resilient decks is that they are not as easily blanked by Moment's Peace. Azorius Blink can gain just as much value as a Ghostly Flicker Tron deck while Boros Bully has access to Flaring Pain. Even Zombies can stick a Shepherd of Rot and go to town. So what is a good answer to these decks? At the moment, it might just be Stonehorn Dignitary based Tron decks, but even that could be a stretch if Burn comes back.

Despite not making the Top 8 this week, Dimir Delver stays in the number one spot. It remains the best deck by a fairly significant margin but multiple Monarch variants are coming for its crown. Hexproof is also climbing the standings but I wonder if a pending shift in removal could stop its rise. 

There's five more weeks until War of the Spark and while the Pauper metagame is very much stable at the moment, there could be changes coming. We'll just have to wait and see.

2019 is going to be a banner year for Pauper. I want to continue to be at the forefront of the metagame. If you like the work I do, please consider becoming a Patron. Thank you!

Common Design: Baleful Strix

Years ago I started a series on this blog where I looked at various cards through the lens of design and ask: is this a common? My discussion centered on a few key elements about the card.

• Support casual play
• Support limited play
• Viable for high level constructed
• Color Identity
• Serve as an entry point into Magic
• Adheres to New World Order

With Modern Horizons on, well, the horizon, I wanted to revisit this series with an eye on potential downshifts. Modern Horizons will feature some entirely new cards as well as reprints of cards that are not currently legal in Modern. Similar to Masters sets, Modern Horizons will get to set aside the complexity limits that come with New World Order. That does not mean we are suddenly going to get Planeswalkers at Common, but it does mean we are going to get more Sparksmiths than Thermo Alchemists. Being an advanced product, I am also going to care less about serving as an entry point into the game.

Masters sets have also pushed against the normally acceptable power levels for a common. One only needs to look to the massive impact of cards from Modern Masters 2017 and Ultimate Masters to see commons that live well above the curve. Considering that commons have a large role in supporting limited environments it stands to follow that if the power level of the set is high then the commons will have to follow. Modern Horizons looks to be one such set. With that out of the way let’s get to the first card.

Hello gorgeous. Baleful Strix is what one Michael J. Flores would call a hell of a Magic: the Gathering card. Coming from the second Planechase, the card has become a staple in Legacy and one of my favorite cards to run in Commander. It isn’t that Strix does any one thing exceptionally well, but rather does quite a few things at an above average clip.

Baleful Strix is the kind of card I would love to include in a Cube because of how many archetypes it could enable. It has artifact synergy and the fact it replaces itself means it slots into sacrifice based strategies. Evasion means it can peck in for damage while deathtouch makes it a threat deterrent. Strix can also serve as a signpost for what Dimir is about in an environment. All in all, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Strix was part ant with all the heavy lifting it does.

So Baleful Strix can do work in Limited, does quite a bit for kitchen table constructed, and has a Legacy pedigree. It also makes perfect sense in its color combination. It is a small flyer (blue) with deathtouch (black) that has some card advantage stapled to an enter-the-battlefield trigger (both). It’s also simple enough that it could be a common in a set like Modern Horizons. However, given that it appeared as a rare in Eternal Masters and the online-only Vintage Masters, this probably will not be the case.

And that’s alright with me. As much as I like this card, giving blue-black another tool in Pauper is a real case of the rich getting richer. Dimir is already one of the more powerful color combinations in the format and giving it another solid two drop is only going to further stratify the competitive scene. On top of this, aggressive strategies are already struggling mightily and injecting a creature with deathtouch that replaces itself won’t help the issue.

So as much as I want the Strix to be in the mix...I hate myself so much for trying to figure out this rhyme I’m just going to end this post.

2019 is going to be a banner year for Pauper. I want to continue to be at the forefront of the format. If you like the work I do, please consider becoming a Patron. Thank you!