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!