July 28th Pauper Challenge Winner's Metagame

We are a month into Core 2020 season and more importantly a month into the unification of Pauper. Despite the the fact that Modern Horizons looks to have had a more profound impact on the format, we can start to draw some conclusions about where things are and where they are going. The July 28th Pauper Challenge provides a helpful guide for the current terrain.

Jeskai Blink is starting to emerge as the best three-color Arcum's Astrolabe deck. Rather than leaning on Trinket Mage, the deck sings thanks to Ephemerate and the interactions with Mulldrifter and Archaeomancer. The combination of these cards gives the deck powerful late game, that, if it get get there, feels unbeatable. Seeker of the Way and Aven Riftwatcher can help buy time. The winner of yesterday's challenge - Heisen01 - opted for the former. They also decided to include Custodi Squire as a way to treat the graveyard as a toolbox. Heisen01 also maindecked two copies of Mystic Remora, which makes a ton of sense in a metagame that has gone Ephemerate and Astrolabe happy. Even if it never draws you a card it can buy you time to get those tools the hard way: during your draw step. 

Heisen01 took out Elves in the Quarterfinals and a mirror - albeit without Remora and Squire - in the Semifinals. They then secured victory by defeating Goblins.

But let's talk about Goblins. I am a huge fan of the deck (and the list I used in week one of the Pauper Premier League placed 12th in the event thanks to Sneaky Robot) and punninglinguist took a slightly different build all the way to the Finals. Punninglinguist beat Red Deck Wins in the Quarterfinals and then Hellsau on Flicker Tron in the Semifinals. It is that Semifinal victory that deserves note. Hellsau's deck is designed to beat aggressive strategies. It packs four copies of the combat phase blanking Stonehorn Dignitary main and two copies of Moment's Peace in the 60 (and four copies in the 75). Needless to say, Hellsau hates attacking. And yet Goblins got there. Goblins, thanks to Goblin Grenade, has quite a bit of reach - that is once it gets the opponent low enough it can simply start pointing burn at a life total. Unlike other Tron decks, Hellsau chose not to run Weather the Storm so outside of Pulse of Murasa it had no way to gain life at instant speed (outside of blinking a Lone Missionary). Although Goblins fell to Jeskai Blink in the finals, the fact that it could race a deck that dedicated one-tenth of its maindeck to besting beatdown is heartening.

And that is where things are. The current metagame has three distinct camps: Flicker Tron decks, Astrolabe Value decks, and Linear Aggro. While little has to change week-to-week for the first two buckets, Linear Aggro has to constantly adapt. While Stompy might be best one week, Heroic could be best the next, only to be quickly replaced by Goblins or Red Deck Wins. And that is to say nothing of decks like Affinity or Hexproof which can also snipe wins.

The question remains: is this as good as Pauper can be? While there exists a variety of cards seeing play, the number of viable engines has been reduced. To be clear, I am not calling for a ban of any one card, but rather want to see other engines be viable. The Astrolabe and Mnemonic Wall cores should be competitive, but so should Monarch (only appearing in three Top 32 decks) and Tethmos High Priest. Pauper might be good right now but I believe it can be better. Now that the format is officially recognized I am eager to see what Throne of Eldraine has in store. 

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!

July 21 Pauper Challenge Winner's Metagame

On July 21st, it was right to be the Beatdown in the Pauper Challenge. Stompy and Heroic met in the finals and although Stompy was crowned the winner, it appears that the finalists split. This was in the wake of yet another event where Arcum's Astrolabe value decks were everywhere. It appears that when decks take time off to play with trinkets, creatures can do some work on a life total. 

That's only part of the story. As Astrolabe decks have become a plurality of the metagame it makes sense that decks start gunning for them. That is, in order to beat the best you have to adjust to their weak points. The Jeskai Faeries deck in the Top 4 was able to use Spellstutter Sprite as a way to foil commonly played cards out of the Astrolabe decks including the namesake card, Ephemerate, and Skred. Sprite does not need friends to get the job done in these situations. Another deck, just outside the Top 16, took a different approach and paired Ingot Chewer with Ephemerate to nab multiple Artifacts on one 3/3 body. 

While decks can (and should) prepare for the mirror, there's something to be said for putting butts in seats. The Astrolabe decks do take time to set up and can have a hard time dealing with multiple threats - or one sufficiently large threat. Heroic and Stompy make sense as a way to attack these until a Stonehorn Dignitary shows up. With only two decks in the Top 32 running the rhino it was a good day to trample some birds. Still, the meta will adjust. It is almost trivially easy for these decks to run Weather the Storm - no non-Tron Astro deck ran the card this week - and build up a high enough life total that combat will not matter.

Looking to next week, black removal seems decently well positioned. Chainer's Edict and its ilk do rather nicely against Lagonna-Band Trailblazer, while not being completely dead against Stompy and Red Deck wins. Disfigure and Defile are still good cards and they allow you to potentially dodge some of the hate being throw Arcum's Astrolabe's way. Whatever you do, though, be sure to have a plan to beat the Tron Flicker Loop endgame.

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!

July 14th Pauper Challenge Winner's Metagame

The July 14th Pauper Challenge had 24 copies of Arcum's Astrolabe in the Top 8 and another 16 copies in the Top 16. The card is everywhere. If you want some more of my thoughts you can check out this thread on Twitter. 

Blue Astro Tron won the Challenge and also finished just outside the Top 8. The deck has taking the old Ghostly Flicker engine and supplemented it with Ephemerate. Ephemerate is fantastic with Mnemonic Wall as it can get back a spell on the first half and then wall can get back the instant on the Rebound. This shrinks the engine and gives the deck an added layer of resiliency and inevitability. It also conveniently keeps a key card out of the graveyard to ignore common hate like Relic of Progenitus.

Arcum's Astrolabe has completely remade Pauper in its image. While the four of the five Tron decks run the card (and have similar lock plans for the late game), there are 12 Jeskai based midrange value decks that all lean heavily on the card to help keep seeing new cards and stitch together their mana.

Previously I had said that the rise in these decks has also given Affinity a shot in the arm. Aggressive decks like the Machine can take advantage of the set up time and prey upon slow starts. It appears as if these decks have adapted, both in construction and play style. As such Affinity did not crack the Top 16 this week. There were four aggro decks in the Top 16 - two Stompy, a Hexproof, and a Red Deck Wins.

Are people not being aggressive enough? That is a legitimate question. Playing the value game is fun and Astrolabe decks are great at seeing a ton of cards. More aggressive decks should be seeing play as a check on these strategies but they need to figure out a way to content with Weather the Storm and Moment's Peace.

Two events in and we are looking at the metagame as sorted by total Win+ - that is wins above a 4-3 record. Jeskai Trinket and Affinity are the moist popular decks, with Stompy not for behind. That being said if you combine various control Tron decks, that macro becomes the second most popular archetype. Any deck currently looking to attack the meta should have a plan to go under Tron but also be able to fight the multicolor Astrolabe decks. While I've had some success with Goblins, that deck can falter in the face of Boros. Zombies may be an answer as Shepherd of Rot is a quick clock, but may struggle in the face of Weather the Storm.

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!

The July 7th Pauper Challenge Winner's Metagame

While we have reached the official end of Modern Horizons season, what with the advent of Core 2020 and the Unification, the impact of the straight-to-Modern set continues to be felt in Pauper. One only needs to look at the July 7th Challenge results to see that at the moment it's Arcum's Astrolabe's world and we're just living in it. There were 14 copies of the Snow Artifact in the Top 8, and another 16 in the Top 16. The ability to fix your mana and draw a card is just that good.

Actually, it's probably better than that. The Astrolabe engine, whether paired with Glint Hawk and Kor Skyfisher, or with Trinket Mage (in Tron builds), or all three, provides a fairly steady stream of cards. On July 7th every there was a clean break from 16th to 17th place: everyone in the Top 16 went X-2 or better. Out of all those decks there were 30 copies of Astrolabe to help keep things moving. Combined, there were six copies of Palace Sentinels and Thorn of the Black Rose.

Let's put that into context. Previously Monarch was one of the driving forces in Pauper. It was a steady stream of card advantage that was hard to stop and easy to defend. A free card every turn is barely good enough in the face of Arcum's Astrolabe (at the moment). Combine that with the card's ability to subvert the mana system and it makes sense that this card is omnipresent.

It also makes some sense as to why Affinity is resurgent. After a long while on the sidelines the machine is back on top. Winning this Challenge (and last week's Playoff) the archetype is putting up some gaudy numbers. No doubt aided by the London Mulligan helping to ensure smoother draws, the deck has the ability to Just Win thanks to Fling and Temur Battle Rage. Skred is great at killing a 4/4, but much worse at killing 8 of them. The result is the Affinity is climbing the ladder and is ready, willing, and able to steamroll anyone who takes too long to set up.

Given all of this I think Gorilla Shaman is well positioned next week. At the same time I think Tron decks should be packing Shattering Pulse - Ancient Grudge is fine but barely replaces itself in the wake of Astrolabe and Prophetic Prism - and decks that can support Spell Pierce probably should add some copies. Stopping the first Astrolabe can be key in slowing down these decks and that cannot be understated.

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!

The June 30th Format Playoff

The second Pauper Playoff took place on June 30th. These playoffs qualify high finishers for a Championship, which in turn will qualify a player for the Magic Online Championship Series.

The Playoff was won by Affinity, which was one of two decks not running Arcum's Astrolabe in the Top 8. Affinity has had a strong season with two other Top 8 finishes. The strategy has experienced a resurgence in the wake of the recent bans. Affinity has always been a powerful option but when there are too many cheap counters running around it loses some luster. Now with the advent of Blue Elemental Blast one wonders if Affinity will see its stock decline since there will be more sideboard hate for Atog, Fling, and Temur Battle Rage.

The story of this playoff, and really the format since the release of Modern Horizons has been Arcum's Astrolabe. Not only has this card easily slotted into existing Kor Skyfisher strategies, it has also allowed these decks to expand their metagame share. At half the price of Prophetic Prism, Arcum's Astrolabe is a one mana cantrip that nearly any deck can run that has the upside of fixing your mana. While it does come with a very real cost - that is a slot in your deck - the upside is massive, especially when paired with Skyfisher and Glint Hawk. On top of all that it is not hard to get value out of Astrolabe since once it hits the battlefield it immediately replaces itself. The end result is that this card has become a format staple and is pushing Pauper in a specific direction.

The mana system is integral to the way Magic works. If you want to have better mana you need to run fewer colors. While various non-Basic Lands help to mitigate this almost all of them (as of late) come with a cost. Arcum's Astrolabe changes the nature of mana in Pauper in that as long as you have Snow-Covered Basics, you can cast nearly anything. The consequence of this is that Arcum's Astrolabe decks are started to resemble each other. They are becoming three and four color "good stuff" decks and are taking up a decent chunk of the metagame. Non-Astrolabe decks are relegated to linear strategies - Affinity Burn, Elves, Stompy - and are creating a metagame of beatdown against value. 

If Astrolabe is the current focal point of the metagame what can be done? Qasali Pridemage is a decent card but asks quite a bit when it comes to mana cost, as does Tin-Street Hooligan (unless you are yourself an Astrolabe deck). Hearth Kami and Torch Fiend might be good enough but then you are leaving yourself behind. It might be that Spellstutter Sprite is just the answer we are looking for, provided it can stay on the board long enough to matter.

All of this may be for nothing. The recent addition of all commons means that Mystic Remora is coming to play. An early Remora could put a damper on the plan of "recast Astrolabe to get ahead". And we are still early enough in Modern Horizons' life-cycle that an answer may be uncovered.

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!