The Power of Pauper: The Current Pillars of Pauper
Howdy folks! It's time yet again for another edition of The Power of Pauper! I'm your host, Joe Dyer, and this week we're going to be talking all about what the current pillars of Pauper are, because they've definitely shifted a little bit, and it's a good time to get an idea of what the major players of the format are. In addition to that I've got some exciting news, as well as Challenges from this past week.
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
Some Crazy News Regarding TWITCH!
Before I get to the meat of this week's article, I did want to call out something cool that happened last week. I was extended to become a Twitch Affiliate! I'm doing a lot of reworking of things now at the moment, but this means more streams from yours truly! In fact, I will be starting on August 29th here to stream at 7:30 PM EST every Thursday! I may not always be streaming Pauper (although there's a firm possibility my first stream will be Legacy due to any possible bans on August 26th), but I will always be streaming something on MTGO!
You can find the announcement of my stream schedule here, and my Twitch channel here. Follow along for more info on when I am streaming!
The Current Pillars of 2024 Pauper
Pauper has definitely changed quite a bit in 2024, especially with the bannings and the release of Modern Horizons 3, so I figured this was a good time to talk about what decks are the current pillars the format are revolving around. What decks are there, and what are they trying to do? Think of this as an intro to current Pauper, for those newer to the format to understand what is happening right now.
So here we go, the big round-up of the current pillar decks of Pauper.
Affinity
Affinity continues to be one of the longest standing pillars of Pauper as a format, and that's largely because we still have cards like the artifact lands and things like Myr Enforcer legal. It is wild to consider how close we came to having an even more Affinity dominated format with Modern Horizons 3 if Cranial Ram had been legal upon release, but let's not think of those things. Modern Horizons 3 already did more than enough for this deck, giving it cards like Refurbished Familiar, and boy was that enough.
The play patterns of this deck are pretty straightforward. Play artifact lands and cards that make artifacts and then reap the benefit of 1 mana fliers that make your opponent discard and 7 mana 4/4s, in addition to 3 mana indestructible flying creatures. Oh and if you somehow manage to kill these things? They can just be recurred back with Blood Fountain.
It would take something extremely drastic for Affinity to stop being a deck in Pauper at this point, and more than likely that would mean the banning of all of the artifact lands.
Broodscale Combo
Talk about New Kids on the Block. This deck, while it's as new as it comes, has quickly risen the ranks to become one of the other most played decks of Pauper at the moment. The play patterns of this deck are also relatively straightforward. You want to put a Basking Broodscale on the board and attach Sadistic Glee to it, and then hopefully sacrifice an Eldrazi to get a +1/+1 counter on it, all while trying to protect it.
The deck generally plays a bunch of different ways to make Eldrazi Spawn tokens that can be sacrificed for free, and is currently split between two core versions: one in Jund that gets additional creatures that are just as absurdly good as Broodscale (thank you, Writhing Chrysalis), and a Golgari version that plays some additional ways to protect the combo and also a way to win without combat damage.
This is power beyond power, and it's a deck I do believe will have a target painted on it at some point.
Gruul Ramp
Speaking of Writhing Chrysalis, that card is so incredibly powerful that it changed an entire deck to focus more on a core strategy than what it was doing before. Gruul Ramp was formerly Gruul Ponza, and it got to play a bunch of cards like Thermokarst that destroyed lands. The basis of the deck was to ramp and blow up your opponent's lands so they couldn't beat what you were ramping into.
Turns out, just ramping is good enough when you can cast a four mana ramp spell that makes two mana when it's cast and GETS BIGGER when you use that mana. Chrysalis and Eldrazi Repurposer really changed the game for Gruul in general, bringing it up to the annals of being a very strong deck. The play pattern here is very simplistic, but sequencing is where the deck gets you. You want to ramp quickly, but you also want to be aware of your opponent's answers to your game plan.
I don't see Gruul ever going away as long as Chrysalis is around. That card is far too strong to ever stop seeing play.
Burn
It really feels like yesterday when the absolute best deck in the format was this deck. Monastery Swiftspear made this deck so powerful that it needed to be banned to bring it back into line.
And yet, Burn soldiers on like nobody's business, slinging Goblins and burn spells at your face and trying to get you deader than a doornail faster than you can say "Untap, Upkeep, Draw".
Terror Decks
Tolarian Terror is a pillar unto itself, because it allows for a number of very different tempo-style fair blue decks to exist. From Mono Blue to Dimir to Izzet, all of these decks have a strong game plan that usually means: disrupt the opponent and their game plan, and then play a 5/5 for U that has Ward 2 and end the game shortly thereafter.
Cards like Lorien Revealed and the like have only ever improved these decks, and the various color combinations provide some different options of gameplay. For example, black gains access to more flexible removal, while red gets access to scalable removal like Skred. Each one has its strengths and weaknesses.
Madness
Going into MH3, Madness on its own was still a very reasonable pile of cards. It had cards like Kitchen Imp and Fiery Temper and looked quite interesting. However, MH3 gave the deck Sneaky Snacker, which gives the deck a huge payoff for casting cards like Faithless Looting and Demand Answers.
This deck has a super straightforward game plan. Play cost-reduced effects that damage your opponent when you discard them, utilizing cards like Vampire's Kiss to make Blood tokens to have discard at any time, and then mop up with Snacker and friends. It's a cool take on the Burn package and a lot more fun.
Golgari Gardens
There are a bunch of decks in Pauper built around the myriad of "Draw Twos" in the format, the best of which is Deadly Dispute. Dispute enables so much power when paired with things like Ichor Wellspring, but it just allows a deck like Gardens to exist simply because it can use this card advantage to draw more spells that interact with an opponent's creatures, making it very difficult for them to win the game.
Eventually, Gardens sticks a strong threat like an Initiative threat or a Crypt Rats and just blows the game wide open that way. This deck is good because it very much just tries to do its best to interact with creatures, and Pauper is filled with creatures to kill.
Kor Skyfisher Decks
Kor Skyfisher is definitely one of Pauper's cornerstone cards that you can build entire decks around. The ability to bounce any permanent is quite strong when most of the permanents you want to bounce all have ETB effects or something similar. This has led to Pauper having a lot of decks that generally build around this card and to a lesser extent Glint Hawk. Having access to being able to repeatedly bounce and replay your busted cards like Refurbished Familiar or Tithing Blade is really strong.
There's a number of various ways to approach building these kinds of shells. Some are Mono White, some are Boros, some are Orzhov, and some even Mardu. They all have one thing relatively in common and that's that they want to play to the board and aggressively control their opponent's cards and threats while pushing towards game-winning cards.
Everything Else
There is a fair amount of many other decks below a lot of these main big decks of the format, and in that space, there's a ton of diversity and lots of various strategies. This article only scratches the bare surface of what is available to the format overall, but the fabric of the format continues to shift and change as many eternal formats do.
Pauper Challenge 32 8/16
The first Challenge event of the weekend was the Friday event. According to the MTG website this event had 61 players in it. There was no data for this event.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here. The Top 8 is below.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Burn | 1st | galeogiao |
| Grixis Affinity | 2nd | choutin |
| Golgari Gardens | 3rd | ezocratto |
| Jund Gardens | 4th | Pavelval |
| Burn | 5th | pokerswizard |
| Grixis Affinity | 6th | PedraStone |
| Jund Broodscale Combo | 7th | NMT_Sco94 |
| Golgari Broodscale Combo | 8th | TiagoFuguete |
Big four way split between Affinity, Gardens, Burn, and Broodscale here. At the end of the event it was Burn that won.
Very straightforward and clean list here overall. These decks are quick and can end a game very fast.
In Second Place we had Grixis Affinity.
Solid list here as well. Being all in on blast effects out of the sideboard is pretty interesting. Wild to only see one Gorilla Shaman, but with Broodscale around that card doesn't feel as strong.
Also in this Top 8 we had Jund Gardens.
Red seems like a solid enough splash here especially when you get access to stuff like Writhing Chrysalis. Fun fact, that card triggers for any reason you sac an Eldrazi, not just for mana, so whee at Deadly Dispute and friends making your creatures bigger!
Pauper Challenge 32 8/17
The second Challenge event of the weekend was the Saturday event. According to the MTG website this event had 48 players in it. There was no data for this event.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here. The Top 8 is below.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Jund Broodscale Combo | 1st | Muka33 |
| Grixis Affinity | 2nd | LuffyDoChapeuDePalha |
| Burn | 3rd | BuenosLoko |
| Jeskai Ephemerate | 4th | Foresterf |
| Dredge | 5th | toondoslav |
| Grixis Affinity | 6th | sandoiche |
| Grixis Affinity | 7th | choutin |
| Burn | 8th | CooperTheRed |
Quite a bit of Affinity here, but at the end of the event it was Jund Broodscale that won.
Oh hey look, more Writhing Chrysalis! Yeah, the card is that good, we get it. Cleansing Wildfire with the Bridges is another cute angle of this deck to make sure it has enough mana to go off.
In Second Place we had Grixis Affinity.
It's incredible how grindy this deck is sometimes. It can really just grind through about anything it seems. Toxin Analysis is also such a cool card.
Further down the Top 8 we had Jeskai Ephemerate.
This is a neat list. Galvanic Discharge and Tune the Narrative are super duper sweet, as is Jolted Awake. Really interesting to see the energy stuff work well in this format.
Pauper Challenge 32 8/18
The final Challenge event of the weekend was the Sunday event. According to the MTG website this event had 75 players in it. There was no data for this event.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here. The Top 8 is below.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Mono Blue Terror | 1st | discoverN |
| Golgari Broodscale Combo | 2nd | PauloCabral_Br |
| Bogles | 3rd | pokerswizard |
| Bogles | 4th | Gn42 |
| Madness | 5th | KnightsQueenVI |
| Grixis Affinity | 6th | LuffyDoChapeuDePalha |
| Dimir Faeries | 7th | TrivoTheGreat |
| Dimir Faeries | 8th | Beicodegeia |
Some neat decks like Bogles and Dimir Faeries here. At the end of the event it was Mono Blue Terror that won.
Probably the cleanest manabase I think anyone will ever see. Straight sixteen Islands. Deem Inferior is a neat new card for this deck.
In Second Place we had Golgari Broodscale.
Bloodrite Invoker as the kill here is always interesting to me. There's a number of different ways you can win the game, I wonder how long it takes before someone plays 1-2 of each one so they have a way to win either way.
Also in this Top 8 we had some Bogles action.
Malevolent Rumble is certainly one heck of a card, and it has definitely made Pauper more interesting since it works with literally every green deck in the format.
Around the Web
- TeasdaleMTG has a video on Mono Blue Terror. Check it out here.
- Heartyshow has a video on Elfball. Check it out here.
- Kirblinxy has a video on Pauper Matchup Analysis! Check it out here.
The Spice Corner
As League results are now spread out across the week, let's dig in and find something spicy!
Poison Storm is always cool, and there may yet be a video in the future on this one.
Wrapping Up
That's all the time we have this week folks! Thanks for continuing to support the column and join us next week as we continue our journey into Pauper!
As always you can reach me at all my associated links via my Link Tree! In addition I'm always around the MTGGoldfish Discord Server and the MTGPauper Discord Server.
Until next time!
