May 26th Pauper Challenge Winner's Metagame

On Sunday, May 26th, the first Pauper Challenge after the banning of Daze, Gitaxian Probe, and Gush took place. There were 64 players in the event - a moderate increase from the previous few weeks but not enough to push the tournament to seven rounds. There were 21 distinct archetypes in the Top 32. If you instead want to group decks together in "macro" archetypes, such as all three Tireless Tribe builds in one bucket, all Ghostly Flicker Tron decks in another (and so on), you still end up with 15 different archetypes posted. You have to go back to December 2nd, 2018 to see a Top 32 with 21 different archetypes. 

This is of course a single point of data. One event after a ban is not a trend unto itself. While these results look promising, none of the bans will matter if in a month's time the format has codified around a few best decks that are again miles better than everything else. 

That being said, these early results are incredibly promising. The absence of Gush left a power vacuum that could have easily been filled with Monarch or Tron strategies. While both of these were popular (4 dedicated Monarch decks; 7 Tron decks) neither put up numbers that look alarming. It may be the absence of Daze might be the thing that helps keep these decks under control. The lack of a "free" stop on the second turn means decks like Rakdos Reanimator and Project X have a chance to combo off earlier. That is incredibly important in keeping turn four decks like Tron and Monarch in check.

The rise of these combo decks would be worrisome except for the fact that they are incredibly fragile. Rakdos Reanimator can be pulled apart rather easily with a timely Duress or a Doom Blade. Project X is a convoluted deck that involves a sacrifice outlet, Ivy Land Denizen, and Safehold Elite. And even then it needs to either attack or have another piece in play - Falkenrath Noble - to end the game. Having a rotating cast of combo decks, each easy to answer, but requiring a different suite of cards to do so, could be good for keeping the format dynamic and shifting from week to week.

The other big takeaway from this week is that blue cantrip decks are far from dead. Dimir Angler, featuring Ponder, Brainstorm, and Augur of Bolas opted to include Accumulated Knowledge. All told, the Nemesis standout was in four decks - three in the Top 16.

There's only one more challenge before Modern Horizons hits Magic Online. When that happens, everything is sure to change again. Given what we've seen of the set so far, Pauper is in for a wild ride.

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!

May 19th Pauper Challenge Winner's Metagame Breakdown

This is going to be a slightly different recap. Considering that Daze, Gitaxian Probe, and Gush have been banned the format of the past four weeks no longer exists. During the last four weeks - the first with War of the Spark - conversation about format health has gotten heated at time. May 20th loomed large and the anticipation this time around was, at least for some, worth the wait. 

The May 19th Challenge was another six round affair. Two of the decks in the Top 32 finished with 2-4 records. The Top 8 had six Delver-Gush decks and two Monarch decks. Out of every deck to finish 4-2 or better, one didn't run Gush, Monarch, or Tron. 

This was not an outlier. Week after week the same decks were putting up results. The same strategies time and time again proved themselves to be better than the rest. 

And the field shrunk. One of the big strikes against looking at Challenge data is that it takes an extremely select subset of players and extrapolates trends. Given one or two events, results are simply pinpoints. Looking over the better part of seven months - that is when the trend appears. 

Many in Magic find joy in playing a deck of their choosing to a positive result. This segment of players may understand they are going  in ad a disadvantage but they do not care because the chance still existed. In Pauper that chance was nowhere to be found. 

With only four weeks of data there is not enough information to really understand what took place during War of the Spark season: Part I. But here's how the Top 8s from the four challenges went down:

Out of 32 Top 8 slots, Dimir Delver took 10. Gush took 17. 

Where do we go from here? The Blue Monday bans show that Wizards is paying attention. The bans also give us another indication of what Wizards wants Pauper to be: a format where people have to spend mana to cast their spells.

Magic as Garfield intended.

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!

May 12 Pauper Challenge Winner's Metagame Breakdown

The May 12 Pauper Challenge is in the books. Another 6 round affair, the creature light version of Orzhov Monarch won the event. There were three copies of Dimir Delver in the Top 8 and two Monarch-less versions of Boros Bully (Author Note: I originally published that these two lists featured Palace Sentinels).

There is not a ton to talk about this early in the season. The White-Blue Tron deck looks similar to the old Temur Tron decks with a bit of a palette swap. These Izzet Delver decks are still shaving copies of Delver of Secrets. Aggressive strategies remain largely dead.

So rather than rehash the same talking points I've been writing about for the better part of half a year, I wanted to talk about how we talk about Pauper.

In a word, the discourse around the format sucks. And I bear some of that responsibility.

I want to be clear - the folks out there making content do a good job. I think that Mike and Adrian of Color Commontary, Kendra, Deluxeicoff, and everyone else (sad to see you go Jeff) who produces Pauper content does good work. The issue, as I see it, is talking about the format outside of these pieces.

First, an admission. Despite my best efforts, I know that at times I act as a gatekeeper to this format. Not in a way that intentionally excludes people but by doing something far more insidious. Someone will come to me excited about a Pauper deck and my gut reaction is always to talk about its role in the metagame. 

That can be incredibly deflating to someone who would otherwise be excited about playing Pauper.

I can do better. At the same time I do not want someone to go into things unprepared. 

Like I said, I can do better. I will do better.

The community can do better as well. The discussion about the format in many public forums can devolve into personal attacks. Looking at some threads on r/Pauper I see the same individuals using insults to try and make their points. Talking about Pauper in these spaces means understanding that the chance exists that instead of talking about Magic, the writer is going to become the subject. 

Why would anyone want to go into a space to talk about Magic only to be met with insults?

To be clear - not everyone in these spaces acts this way. Many are supportive of people posting their ideas for decks and try to help them tune their brew. There are people proudly displaying battleboxes full of Pauper decks and as-foil-as-can-be decks. While these posts may not be for me I think it is completely awesome they exist.

I am worried about the future of Pauper. I worry about the health of the format and what happens if it goes unchecked. I worry about the declining participation numbers on Magic Online and the appearance of a stale metagame. I worry that if the community at large does not take a big step forward, if it does not focus on welcoming new faces instead of infighting, then none of this will matter.,

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!

May 5 Pauper Challenge Winner's Metagame Breakdown

The May 5th Challenge results present a unique challenge. Due to a backend issue we were only provided the Top 16 decklists from Sunday. While just fine on its own, it makes it difficult to add it to my seasonal spreadsheet. 

So I won't.

Instead I will use these numbers when it comes to tracking Top 8s at the end of the season, but won't factor them into any other calculations. It's not a perfect solution, but it'll have to do.

Anyway, let's take a look at the breakdown:

So Dimir Delver won the day (while going undefeated in the Swiss) and there were a grand

total of four decks that did not lean on Gush, Monarch, or Tron. I don't want to put too much stock into these results as we are missing the rest of the Top 32, but it does conform to what we have been seeing as of late - there were 6 Gush decks, 4 Monarch decks, and 2 Tron decks. This spread of the top archetypes resembles what we saw last season with Gush ahead of Monarch ahead of Tron. Additionally, there were no cards from War of the Spark in any of the Top 16 lists. While it is still early in the set's life cycle, two different cards have posted in 5-0 League lists - Guild Globe and Sky Theater Strix. Hopefully they catch on in the challenges as well.

So two weeks into this season and both Challenges were six-rounds affairs. Both were won by non-combo Gush decks. Seeing Monarch bounce back this week is somewhat reassuring but does nothing to shake things at the top. 

There are still a few weeks left to go before Modern Horizons and I am still holding out hope to see War of the Spark make some waves.

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!

April 28 Pauper Challenge Winner's Metagame

It's anew season! War of the Spark has hit Magic Online and with it a whole slew of new commons. Let's see which ones made waves on April 28!

Oh.

The headline here is that there were 32 copies of Augur of Bolas in the Top 8. Every deck in the Top 8 ran 4. There were 13 copies of Dimir Delver in the the Top 32, 8 of which finished in the Top 16. Nine of the decks with a 4-2 record or better were Dimir Delver. If you've followed me you know that I believe that Gush is a problematic card and warrants a ban and that to balance this the Monarch needs to go as well. But there is a vocal contingent that believes Augur of Bolas deserves to get the axe instead. The numbers from Sunday ask us to take a look at the merfolk and examine the merit of the argument.

Augur of Bolas gets a lot of credit for the decline in aggressive strategies. It is not just the fact that Augur is a good blocker with three toughness, but also that it can find a removal spell and help to keep the board clear. In this mode, Augur stops two creatures - the one it kills and the one it blocks. Unlike Elvish Visionary Augur doesn't die to a stiff breeze. Coming down on turn two makes it that much harder for a deck like Stompy, loaded with 2/2s, to push through early damage. That is to say nothing of when Augur finds a card like Daze and helps to choke the aggressive deck on deployment. 

None of this is inherently false. Augur sees play because it is an excellent 2-for-1 and helps you find key cards. There is no doubt that the ubiquity of Augur has contributed to aggro's struggles. But it is not the lone culprit. At the same time that Augur came to prevalence, Palace Sentinels hit the scene which pushed Prismatic Strands from a sideboard all-star to a maindeck card. The presence of Strands in the main 60 has also put a dent in aggressive decks ability to win games. Similarly Tron decks gained access to a Dinrova Horror endgame. Horror-Ghostly Flicker became on the best ways to utilize Tron mana and surviving to that point became a high priority. As such these decks adopted additional copies of Moment's Peace as a way to buy time. No one of these would be enough to spell the end of beatdown but combined they do more than enough to make attacking a losing prospect.

Augur of Bolas does have one attribute that the triumvirate against beatdown otherwise lacks - it is blue. Blue decks - specifically Delver decks - were weak to Stompy and other beatdown decks until the advent of Augur of Bolas. The ability to block and draw a piece of interaction gave Delver decks access to a piece of defense they previously lacked. 

The problem with this is less that Augur of Bolas is a blocker and less that it draws a card, it's more the cards it does draw. One of the allures of Augur of Bolas is that it does a great job of drawing other extremely powerful cards - that shouldn't be a strike against Augur but against the cards it draws. To be clear, Augur of Bolas finding a Skred or a Snuff Out might be a powerful play but it is within the realm of the overall power of the format.

Finding Gush, or Ponder, or Preordain however is another story altogether. Augur of Bolas does a fantastic job of finding other powerful blue cards which in turn do an excellent job of finding other powerful cards. Augur is often the first step on this road to card advantage but it is the only one that sticks on the board, sneering at a Burning-Tree Emissary. It is evidence hiding in plain sight that attacking is for losers.

Does Augur of Bolas deserve a ban? Maybe, but it isn't where I would start. Augur should be a 2-for-1 as those are the backbone of Pauper. If part of the problem is the fact that Augur of Bolas digs for broken cards, let's make the first step taking out one of the most egregiously powerful cards available in the format.

Gush, I'm talking about Gush.

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!