October 26 and October 27 Weekend Recap

First, I want to apologize for the delay in this post. I was out doing coverage of Grand Prix Phoenix this past weekend and let me tell you: two cross country flights in the span of 84 hours is not good for getting back on a schedule.

Regardless, there were two major Pauper tournaments this weekend - an 8 Round PTQ and a 7 Round Challenge. The results were not surprising but there was something that stood out immediately to me upon viewing the decks that performed well.

When you look at the PTQ results, they conform to what many believed the format would look like in the wake of banning Arcum's Astrolabe. Stompy and Boros Monarch were two of the best performing decks on the day, with Monarch taking the Blue Envelope - while other former format staples put up respectable numbers. These were top decks that lost the least after the ban.
At the same time some fringe strategies showed up in the shape of Dimir Teachings and Mono Black Aristocrats. It is heartening to see fringe strategies perform well in the PTQ as this event attracted a larger player base and one not as well versed in the nuances of Pauper. If these decks perform well under these circumstances then they may have merit as legitimate strategies. As always, however, there needs to be more than one result to identify a trend. And in the case of Teachings, a slightly different (read: 80 card) build made it back to the elimination rounds on Sunday.

The Challenge results sit in stark contrast to those presented above. Setting aside the fact that the PTQ was more than twice the size of the Challenge, no deck in the Top 32 took home more than four slots. In the Challenge, Boros Bully and Boros Monarch each put seven players into the Top 32. There was less overall diversity of archetypes but that in it of itself is not a bad thing. In fact, nothing about the Challenge results are inherently "bad".

Yet I couldn't shake a funny feeling about them during my flight home.

And I think this is why. Boros Monarch and Stompy were the best performing decks on Saturday. If the metagame had reacted rationally I would have expected to see an increase in Tron (true) and an increase in decks that prey on Tron (also true). At the same time, the sheer volume of Boros laid in stark contrast to the diversity of the PTQ. 

And I think it may have something to do with the population of players. The PTQ attracts both Pauper stalwarts and people trying to qualify. Compare that the the Challenge, which is made up almost exclusively are hardcore Pauper regulars. With such a closed metagame in mind it can become easier to game the system and attempt to predict what the known quantities will be running. The metagame is not as varied as as such packing specific cards becomes more attractive.

In turn this can explain the allure of Boros. Red and white have access to some of the best sideboard cards in Pauper - Red Elemental Blast/Pyroblast, Gorilla Shaman, Prismatic Strands, Standard Bearer - and having access to these cards, especially in a relatively closed system, can give you a sizable advantage over the rest of the field. Of course this can create a feedback loop where if this is known, then it actually could be beneficially to not run in lockstep with the loop.

On Sunday that did not take place. In a single event, players were attracted to the powerful options provided by Wind-Scarred Crag. As the metagame moves further away from Jeskai it will be interesting to see if people will look for the exploits in the system or continue to trod the same paths again and again.

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