Want to learn more about the metrics I use in tracking the metagame? You can find an explainer here.
It’s been one week.
One week of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and in those days the metagame has shifted quite a bit. Now I am always one to preach that one week does not define a season but it has been quite a long time since the first week of a new season looked so drastically different from the weeks that came before. I won’t lie, it’s kind of nice to see things change.
It has been quite a while since Blue Terror wasn’t a top three most popular archetype on the weekend. I cannot remember the last time a non-red aggressive deck took that spot. Mono White Aggro, like death and taxes, will never go away. But this week, it asserted itself as a force moving forward.
As mentioned last week, Leonardo, Big Brother, has given Mono White a shot in the arm. The deck is already well equipped to make use of enters-the-battlefield effects thanks to Kor Skyfisher and the latest addition provides that effect while also piling on the damage. The new card gives Mono White another damage engine outside of force multipliers like Guardians’ Pledge. As seen with Madness Burn providing established assertive strategies additional sources of damage pushes them up the metagame ladder. While it was the most popular strategy, Mono White lagged behind both Elves and Madness burn in Adjusted Meta Score Above replacement (0.91 to 1.44 and 1.18 respectively) and in Winner’s Meta Share (11.36% compared to 11.8% and 11.49%), but that doesn’t detract from its meteoric rise from “fringe contender” to “top strategy”.
When we are talking about the top three decks from the last weekend we really are splitting hairs. Madness Burn had the best Top 32 to Top 8 conversion rate and the lone win while Elves had the best cumulative Swiss and overall records. All three of these decks are assertive in that they want to establish the rules of engagement and all have a Fundamental Turn that hovers around four (meaning that, uncontested, they will win by that turn). This presents a conundrum for midrange and control strategies.
While all three of these decks want to apply pressure they all do so in extremely different ways. A Moment’s Peace can buy you plenty of time against Mono White but is lacks the same utility against Elves and Madness Burn. Weather the Storm may buy you a turn or two against red but matters little else in the face of Leonardo or Nyxborn Hydra. Even Fiery Cannonade is struggling in a world where there are so many creatures with three toughness. Slower decks are going to have to get creative but I am not sure where they can turn to control the board since Toxin Analysis and Crypt Rats is ponderously slow and Krark-Clan Shaman does nothing against Battle Screech tokens.
And that’s not all. Tolarian Terror decks are still lurking in the Top 5 and Grixis Affinity is finding its way despite the scarcity of Utrom Monitor. The format is unsettled for the first time in a long time and that’s not a bad thing as it provides opportunity for new strategies and tech to emerge. One list that caught my eye this weekend because of innovation (and not success) is one I am dubbing Thorn Faeries. It takes your typical Mono Blue Faeries list but adds Contaminated Aquifer for Cast Down, Snuff Out, and Thorn of the Black Rose. It’s a tempo take on Dimir Faeries that lacks the control elements but I worry it lacks the closing power of the more typical Dimir builds and the consistency of mono blue.
Looking ahead I would want to be trying to slow the game down. Figuring out how to handle Burn, Elves, and White while not faltering against the rest of the format will be key moving forward. It could be CawGates (and similar decks’) time to shine again with Prismatic Strands, or maybe accelerating into a sweeper will actually pay off this time. What do you think? What are you going to be playing in the Leagues and Challenges this weekend?
Power Rankings
Dropped from rankings: Faeries, Golgari Gardens, Rally Red 10. Gruul Ramp (Not Ranked) 9. Dredge 8. Jund Wildfire 7. CawGate 6. Grixis Affinity (-4) 5. Bogles (Not Ranked) 4. Blue Terror (-3) 3. Mono White Aggro (Not Ranked) 2. Madness Burn (+2) 1. Elves (+5)
I want to take a moment to thank all my Patrons. I am going to do my level best to keep providing you with the kind of content that brought you here in the first place. If you are interested in supporting my work, you can sign up for my Patreon starting at just $1.
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Want to learn more about the metrics I use in tracking the metagame? You can find an explainer here.
The release cadence of 2026 means more season recaps than ever before. It also means that each season will be comprised of fewer Challenges. In the grand scheme of things this should not have a massive impact. The shift away from direct-to-Modern sets makes the inertia of Pauper’s card pool harder to overcome. Now cards can still make their presence felt (just look at Abandon Attachments out of Avatar: The Last Airbender) but barring something seismic the Pauper I write about today is likely to largely resemble the Pauper I write about in six months.
Lorwyn Eclipsed is a great example of what I mean. The set may yet bear more fruit for Pauper decks (I myself have attempted to run Rooftop Percher in Tron) but for now only one card has made its way into regular rotation: Burning Curiosity in Ruby Storm.
Ruby Storm borrows its name from the Legacy and Modern Ruby Medallion Storm decks that win via traditional Storm means. Pauper lacks both the payoffs and the eponymous artifact, but it does have access to Thornscape Familiar and Goblin Anarchomancer. That these are creatures matters quite a bit as it makes it reasonable to Blight the Burning Curiosity, yielding three new options. This allows Ruby Storm to see more cards, eventually using First Day of Class to enable a massive Seize the Storm token (or two) to win the game. First Day of Class has the advantage of adding +1/+1 counters to creatures which also reduces the gameplay cost of Blight.
Despite this upgrade, Ruby Storm did not break through in the Challenges with a grand total of three Top 32 appearances. It finished in the Top 16 more times than not, but failed to make Top 8. Given the small sample size the Adjusted Meta Score Above Replacement of -0.13 is more noise than anything else, but the low play rate could indicate that the deck is fragile. Having a kill mechanism that can be stymied by Snuff Out is not ideal. Moment’s Peace can buy two turns against the Ruby Storm which could give the opponent ample time to find answers.
While it doesn’t use cards from Lorwyn Eclipsed, Bant Gates came on to the scene relatively late in the season. The deck broke out over the past two weeks and has three Top 8 finishes (with a win) in three total Top 32 finishes. Small sample size to be sure, but it is worthy of note. The deck eschews the burst draw of Lorien Revealed for Open the Gates to draw a land early or get a Basilisk Gate late. The deck also has more opportunities to punch through with non-Guardian of the Guildpact creatures thanks to two copies of Rancor. Slightly more assertive than traditional CawGate, Bant Gates is a welcome iteration that shows what can be done with an existing card pool (we see you PreModern).
Tron – that is a deck featuring the UrzaTron suite of lands that wants to stick massive threats – has not been in the spotlight for quite some time. It still isn’t, but it’s slowly making its way back to on stage.The downshift of Bramble Wurm in Innistrad Remastered and the printing of Pinnacle Kill Ship in Edge of Eternities have given the archetype a shot in the arm. Wurm improves the deck’s ability to defend against flyers while also providing a solid life buffer while Kill Ship is just a fantastic removal spell that doubles as a threat.
These three decks were not top performers, just interesting developments. What follows are my rankings of the best decks over the past six weeks. I base my rankings on results, both Swiss and Top 8 inclusive, and how well the decks perform in relation to one another.
10. Faeries
Faeries was not a consistent top performer. It started off the season strong and then fell off until the February 21 Regional Championship Qualifier where the archetype took home the trophy. The deck continues to be a reasonable choice despite only getting marginal upgrades over the years as combining pesky threats and Ninja of the Deep Hours continues to be a winning strategy. This season Faeries saw its Winner’s Metagame share end 0.68% over its actual Top 32 share, combined with an Adjusted Meta Score Above Replacement of 0.35 tells the story of a deck that performed above expectations.
9. Dredge
Going into Lorwyn Eclipsed season people were concerned about Dread Return out of the Spy Walls deck, but their ire may have been directed in the wrong direction. The Balustrade Spy deck put up respectable results – three Top 8 finishes in 18 Top 32 finishes, but a final AMSAR of -0.06, combined with a Winner’s Meta Share 0.05% less than it’s actual Top 32 volume indicates a deck that performed slightly under expectations.
Dredge had as worse AMSAR than Faeries but had a better conversation rate to the Top 8, with eight such trips in 20 top 32 appearances. It also averaged a Top 16 finish and had a Winner’s Metagame share 1.05% better than it’s Top 32 meta share. It’s splitting hairs but I put Dredge slightly ahead of Faeries as we move on to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles season.
8. Jund Wildfire
When I started taking notes for this article I thought that Jund would have been higher up the rankings. The more I dug into the numbers the lower it ended up. With a dozen Top 8s and a pair of wins Jund has a top line that would make most decks envious. Yet it ended the season with an AMSAR of 0.29 – better than only two decks in my Top 10 – and a Winner’s Meta share 0.61% behind it’s Top 32 volume.
The book on Jund is that while it is a good deck, it has some very bad matchups. It can be built for most expected metagames but can struggle if it hits a rough road. The Eviscerator’s Insight/Ichor Wellspring engine is powerful but Jund is not a fast deck and can stumble if it faces down too much early pressure. Given some of the other decks we will be seeing in my Power Rankings, its low placement may start to make sense.
7. CawGate
CawGate was a deck that crept up the Power Rankings as the season went on. Eight Top 8s (and a win) in 32 Top 32 appearances gives us a 25% Top 8 conversion rate, which is about 4% better than expected given CawGate’s results. This can be read as a deck that did better later in tournaments thus improving its tiebreakers. CawGate overperformed by about 1.5 Top 8s (compare this to Jund, which overperformed by 6.7 Top 8 finishes), combined with an AMSAR of 0.31 gives Pauper a solid midrange control option.
Why do I have CawGate ahead of Jund? It’s largely based off of the past two weeks of events. Neither deck had numbers to truly impress but CawGate had slightly better results, both in Top 8 conversion and AMSAR, so it earned the edge heading into the next tournament cycle.
6. Elves
I wanted to put Elves higher on this list. Every time I went over tournament standings and voice in the back of my head that sounded an awful lot like my friend Paige would go “wow, look at those results” and most of the time they were right. Elves was in the top 5 most played archetypes five of the six weekends during Lorwyn Eclipsed season and ended the season with the fifth most Top 8 finishes (but had no wins).
Yet once the season ended Elves lost some of its luster. The deck took down 8.98% of the Top 32 metagame but this fell to 7.64% when looking at the Winner’s Metagame. The final AMSAR score of 0.29 is on par with Jund but lags behind six other decks in these Power Rankings. Elves is an explosive deck that has established itself as a force in the current Pauper landscape. As people adjust and we seen an increase in decks that pair creatures like Crypt Rats or Krark-Clan Shaman with Toxin Analysis we could see Elves stagnate or even take a step backward.
5. Golgari Gardens
Gardens is a perplexing archetype. There is not a consensus build and the moniker includes decks featuring Avenging Hunter and Accursed marauder main all the way down to decks that try to win with Crypt Rats. The three main decks I have excluded from this bucket include TurboSmog (a deck featuring multiple Fog effects that often wins through Stream of Thought), Cat Food (leaning on Cauldron Familiar as a recurring piece of material), and Gates (we know what Gates do, right?).
On the numbers, Gardens has 11 Top 8s and three wins. It averages a finish close to the Top 16 and it’s 5.8% of the Winner’s Metagame is nearly a full percentage point better than its 4.82% of the Top 32 metagame. The AMSAR score of 0.48 puts it nearly half a “win” better than the average Top 32 deck. While it lacks the raw power of Writhing Chrysalis it does not lean as heavily on Cleansing Wildfire in the early game which may give it an edge over Jund in these standings. This also gives the deck access to more slots for removal which it can use to stymie the more assertive strategies across the table.
4. Madness Burn
The second most popular archetype on the season with 80 Top 32 appearances and 19 Top 8 finishes, Madness Burn represents the true clock of Pauper. Uncontested the deck can easily win on turn four thanks to the efficiency of Lightning Bolt and the force multiplying power of Guttersnipe and Kessig Flamebreather. The secret sauce, however, is Sneaky Snacker. Combined with Fiery Temper the faeries turns every Grab the Prize into an absolute house. Madness Burn is easily capable of dealing 40 damage and can dance around Weather the Storm. When each Lava Dart represents eight damage it’s not hard to see why this deck is popular.
Then why is it so low? Madness Burn is hurt by its popularity and has the worst average finish of every deck in the Power Rankings. It has a number of placings in the bottom quarter of the Top 32 – compare its 10.42% of the Top 32 metagame to its 8.08% of the Winner’s meta – and is tied with Dredge for the worst AMSAR in these Power Rankings (0.26). Yet the deck cannot be ignored and failing to prepare to face it is a recipe for disaster.
3. Rally Red
Dan Paskins, David Price, and Patrick Sullivan are eating good. There is no shortage of viable red decks in Pauper and over the past six weeks Rally Red – a low to the ground aggressive deck that wants to flood the board before chaining Burning-Tree Emissary into Rally at the Hornburg – has been the best of the bunch. Seventeen Top 8 finishes with two wins in 60 Top 32 appearances is just the start of Rally’s accomplishments.
Rally has the third best average finish (behind only Dredge and our season silver medalist). It holds a Winner’s Metagame Share of 9.21% – 1.4% points clear of its Top 32 share. It has the third best AMSAR at 0.74 and has the third best Top 32 to Top 8 conversion rate, all while being the fourth most popular deck. Rally lacks the staying power of Madness Burn and suffers from sweepers and Moment’s Peace, but in a format where several decks take the first few turns to build out their board, attacking is still honest.
2. Grixis Affinity
Grixis Affinity made Top 8 in almost 42% of its Top 32 finishes. It made the decklist page 55 times over the course of the season and had an astonishing 23 Top 8s (along with a win). Now anyone who follows Pauper will tell you that much of the deck’s success rests on the back of LuffyDoChapeuDePalha, a player who seemingly makes every other Top 8 with the machine. If you take Luffy out of the equation the deck loses some of its luster.
But we aren’t going to do that. They are playing the tournaments and doing well. Grixis ended the season with an AMSAR of 0.89. Affinity has the best average finish outside of Dredge but also has more than twice the number of Top 32 finishes than the graveyard deck. Grixis Affinity remains a force in the format and ignoring it might get you within striking distance of the Top 8. Lacking a plan for it means a lot of near misses and Top 16 finishes.
1. Blue Terror
Twenty five Top 8 finishes. Five wins. A Top 32 metagame share of 11.85% and 13.02% of the Winner’s Metagame (which is 3.56% of the second best deck in that metric in Grixis Affinity). Blue Terror had the best AMSAR of 0.92. Simply put, Blue Terror was the best deck in Pauper over the past six weeks. And over Avatar: The Last Airbender season. And Spider-Man/Through the Omenpaths, Edge of Eternities, FINAL FANTASY, and Tarkir Dragonstorm season. Since the Kuldotha Rebirth ban, Blue Terror has been the best performing deck in the format.
In the past this would be a point where I might talk about action that needs to be taken. But that was before my role on the Pauper Format Panel. Today we can look at Blue Terror and examine it, point to the confluence of cheap cantrips, counter magic, and threats as part of the problem. Pulling on any one could weaken the deck but would not collapse it. Additionally the deck, while still sitting on top of the metagame, has had its lead slowly eroding a few percentage points at a time. And I also am hopeful that a new card can help to rein in blue just a bit.
Mono White Aggro had a respectable season with five Top 8 finishes and a win in 14 trips to the Top 32. The deck is able to get on board early and has the ability to hold its own against both red and blue decks. It’s also getting a new card from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in Leonardo, Big Brother. This card is a combination of Kor Skyfisher and Lava Axe for Mono White, giving the deck the ability to win from nowhere or apply pressure and netting a fresh card with a Thraben Inspector. Maybe I’m biased (I really like Mono White) but I am bullish on Plains moving into the next season.
There you have it – my Lorwyn Eclipsed season recap. Do you agree with my final Power Rankings? What decks do you think were unfairly left off my list? What questions were left unanswered? Sound off and let me know!
I want to take a moment to thank all my Patrons. I am going to do my level best to keep providing you with the kind of content that brought you here in the first place. If you are interested in supporting my work, you can sign up for my Patreon starting at just $1.
Can’t make a commitment to Patreon? I have a Ko-Fi where you can make a one time contribution.
Want to learn more about the metrics I use in tracking the metagame? You can find an explainer here.
Did you know there was a Pauper RC Qualifier on Magic Online last weekend? I clearly did not. To be fair, I’ve been stuck at my in-laws thanks to the blizzard and my focus has been split in several directions. So these results did not factor into my most recent Power Rankings.
Whoops.
Here are the correct Power Rankings for last weekend. Please note the changes are based not on my last post but on my post from February 17.
Power Rankings
Dropped from rankings: Golgari Gardens 10. Dredge 9. Madness Burn (-2) 8. Rakdos Madness (Not Ranked) 7. Faeries (-3) 6. Elves (+3) 5. Rally Red 4. Jund Wildfire (+4) 3. CawGate (+3) 2. Blue Terror (-1) 1. Grixis Affinity (+1)
I want to take a moment to thank all my Patrons. I am going to do my level best to keep providing you with the kind of content that brought you here in the first place. If you are interested in supporting my work, you can sign up for my Patreon starting at just $1.
Can’t make a commitment to Patreon? I have a Ko-Fi where you can make a one time contribution.
Want to learn more about the metrics I use in tracking the metagame? You can find an explainer here.
Do you have any idea how good it felt to put that header up top? Thank you Daybreak Games and Wizards of the Coast for reversing the decision to limit the number of decklists shared from Magic Online events.
Okay, back to the numbers!
The last weekend was absolutely a weird one for the Pauper Challenges. The Sunday event had several 1-5 records finish in the Top 32 which has added volatility to the data set. Again over the course of a season these aberrations tend to even out, but when taken in isolation the numbers can look a bit jarring.
Looking at the numbers it is clear that Grixis Affinity had the best weekend and it wasn’t really close. Seven Top 8s across four events, with a win, is fantastic. To do it in only a dozen Top 32 appearances would normally give me a reason to pause and to see if there was an underlying issue with the format. That being said given the number of Top 32 decks with more losses than wins (20 decks; over 15% of all Top 32 finishes) the success of Affinity loses a little bit of the shine.
Even with the noise to signal ration, the format continues to trend in a similar direction. Blue Terror, Grixis Affinity, and various Red decks are at the top with black based midrange forming a solid second tier. Basilisk Gate decks are making their presence known, firmly solidifying themselves as a strong option while Elves leads the way for hypermana decks.
Speaking of Gates I do want to call out the winner of the February 21 Challenge. This build opts to shave on stack interaction in favor of more closing power in Rancor and also trades Lórien Revealed for Open the Gates. While this may be a card access issue (Revealed is 10,000 times the cost of Open the Gates on MTGO), it speaks to the strength of the Gates package that even a lower-powered – and dare I say? – a more budget conscious build of the deck can still perform at a high level.
Looking into the final weeks of Lorwyn Eclipsed season I would still try to have a plan for the big three but you cannot simply ignore building out a board resilient presence that can survive the onslaught of black removal. CawGates looks well positioned at the moment but if you wanted to go rogue I could imagine a build of green ramp that places emphasis on Ward and Hexproof creatures to get the job done.
I want to take a moment to thank all my Patrons. I am going to do my level best to keep providing you with the kind of content that brought you here in the first place. If you are interested in supporting my work, you can sign up for my Patreon starting at just $1.
Can’t make a commitment to Patreon? I have a Ko-Fi where you can make a one time contribution.
Dropped from rankings: Rakdos Madness 10. Dredge (Not Ranked) 9. Elves (-4) 8. Jund Wildfire 7. Madness Burn (+2) 6. CawGate (+1) 5. Rally Red (-1) 4. Faeries (+2) 3. Golgari Gardens 2. Grixis Affinity 1. Blue Terror
Starting this week (and unless something changes), the amount of results we get from the Magic Online Challenges will scale with the size of the tournament and most Pauper tournaments will post solely the Top 8 finishers . If you are not happy with this change I would recommend that you let the powers that be know, but do so respectfully. I am not a fan of this and will do my best do continue to provide Pauper metagame information.
To further explore potential changes I am going to use the example of comparing the Top 8 performance of different archetypes to the Top 32 data I collect.
Let’s start with Blue Terror. This deck is at the top of my Power Rankings and also leads the way in Top 8 results with 18. Thus far in Lorwyn Eclipsed season Blue Terror has 15% of all Top 8 results. However it has 11.88% of the Top 32 metagame and 12.52% of my calculated Winner’s Metagame. These numbers, in context, tell a story of a deck that is popular but over-performs its relative presence in the format. If there is a reduction in the Top 32 data the full picture is obfuscated and all we see is a deck that is dominating in the Top 8.
Compare this to Grixis Affinity. Its 13 Top 8 finishes is 10.83% of the all Top 8s. That is the second most of any archetype this season. However Grixis Affinity is only 7.29% of the Top 32 metagame and 9.65% of the calculated Winner’s Metagame. Someone examining the Top 8 results could incorrectly postulate that Grixis is more popular than it actually is and over prepare for the matchup, only to find it less popular in the tournament than Madness Burn, Elves, and Rally Red.
To round this segment out let’s talk about Madness Burn. A dozen Top 8 finishes is good for 10% of all Top 8s which is roughly equal to its 10.42% of the Top 32 metagame. But it also has 8.51% of the calculated Winner’s Metagame. Yes, Madness Burn might be popular but these numbers tell a tale of a deck that makes it to the elimination rounds in part due to sheer numbers.
None of these vignettes tell the whole story and they all have to be examined in relationship to one another. The problem is that with potentially less data available, people may be going into these tournaments with worse information, make poor (or incorrect) deckbuilding decisions, and leave feeling like they did not understand the actual field of battle.
The previous four paragraphs talk about popular strategies. Decks outside of my Power Rankings comprise 27.08% of the Top 32 metagame and 22.9% of the calculated Winner’s Metagame. Combined they also make up 24.17% of the Top 8 finishers. These decks may not break through in the same way if not for being featured in the Top 32 decklist dump. Making Top 8 or 5-0 in a league is challenging (as it should be), but for people who are looking for something to work on – for an idea of something off meta that they can tune – the options for research are going to dwindle.
A model that reduces the overall information prioritizes innovation over iteration. Iteration here is the process of refining a deck, figuring out those final few slots to have an edge on the metgame. Innovation in a world with less salient data is going to be throwing new ideas at the wall in an environment where you can see the trees but not the forest, relying more on vague impressions of the landscape than a detailed map. A new deck might find a lane, but unless things align just so it could be lost to the data aether.
Any change will be hard for me. I have been tracking the Pauper metagame in a similar capacity since 2014. That’s almost a dozen years of data that have informed decisions and trends, a dozen years of muscle memory that have helped me navigate the world of Pauper.
Selfishly, this sucks.
I do not have the time to play multiple leagues a day to have even a vague notion of the metagame. I do not want to overcorrect for a run where I face red decks four times, only having it be dumb luck and then get my face mushed by a more representative sample. It stinks for me as a player and as someone who tries to help other people get into the format.
So where do I go from here? I am going to track the Top 8s (and any other data we get). I’m going to try and figure out the best ways to communicate this information. Swiss Record (Win+) and overall Win-Loss record (K-Wins) will still help give insight into how strong decks are in relationship to each other. But for the time being we’re going to be looking at trees.
I want to take a moment to thank all my Patrons. I am going to do my level best to keep providing you with the kind of content that brought you here in the first place. If you are interested in supporting my work, you can sign up for my Patreon starting at just $1.
Can’t make a commitment to Patreon? I have a Ko-Fi where you can make a one time contribution.
Want to learn more about the metrics I use in tracking the metagame? You can find an explainer here.
Another weekend of Pauper Challenges on Magic Online, another Sunday wondering just how good Blue Terror is. The deck has resided at the top of the Pauper food chain for quite some time and things aren’t looking to change any time soon. This weekend’s record helps to illuminate just how consistent the deck can be, with a K-Score average of 2 meaning the mean finish was one win over a break even record (4-2, for example). Blue Terror also had the best average Swiss record and the most Top 8s over the four events. But there is more to this deck than the record. Blue Terror is unique in the current Pauper metagame due in part to its design.
Blue Terror is a pure expression of a Tolarian Terror strategy. The deck, while perhaps not the only shell for the 5/5, provides one of the most consistent builds for putting it into play with protection. Dimir Terror exists but hardly has the same pedigree, and Izzet builds with the Terror pop up infrequently. Blue Terror is able to churn through the library to resolve cheap threats, all while having perfect mana to keep the opponent off balance. True removal is unwarranted as Sleep of the Dead or Deem Inferior do a fine job of clearing a path; why bother removing a creature forever if the opponent is just going to take lethal?
Compare this to the other strategic pillars of Pauper. If you want to reap the benefits of Artifact Lands you can run Grixis Affinity but you also have the option of Jund Wildfire. While Grixis has better numbers this season Jund is a far cry from a fringe player. Jund also has crossover with Golgari Gardens (and its derivatives) for removal based midrange decks. Interested in flinging Lightning Bolts at your adversary’s life total? There are three different mono red decks putting up results, not counting Rakdos Madness. Elves might be ascendant at the moment but if hypermana creature combo is your thing there’s always Spy Walls lingering in the shadows. All of this is to say that yes, Blue Terror is a good deck, but it also does not have other similar options peeling off potential pilots from its win share.
While this is all well and good from a theoretical standpoint it does not change the fact that Blue Terror has reasserted itself at the top of the metagame. Trying to defeat it means understand where the deck is at its weakest. It does struggle with a battlefield flooded with creatures as its removal is slow and far from permanent. Speaking of creatures, its cheap counters often miss that card type entirely – you can’t Spell Pierce a Kor Skyfisher after all. Blue Terror is, at its core, a tempo deck that wants to keep the opponent off balance before turning the corner to win. Stability in game plan – that is a deck with redundant cheap pieces that can be deployed around Terror’s defenses – can go a long way towards eating into some of that win share.
This can be both stifling and liberating. The format exists with very real parameters – can you get around Terror’s permission while surviving Red’s onslaught? Can you keep pace with the grind of Affinity and Gardens? Are you okay Just Losing to a combo deck? At the same time these parameters give plenty of room to iterate. Innovation might be a challenge, but refining current builds or expanding on existing cores can go a long way towards finding an edge.
In my job I often have to transition between supervising and advising different groups of students. The difference is subtle, but it exists. Supervising involves more guidance and instruction as to the job and rules. It is all about establishing the boundaries of acceptable and giving direction. Advising is when the group has an understanding of what they need to do and I exist more as a sounding board for their ideas. Translating this to the metagame, when something is established you can’t rewrite the rules of engagement but rather you have to figure out the ways to nudge things in your favor. Advising over supervising. Understand the flow of the metagame instead of trying to brute force it.
Power Rankings
Dropped from rankings: None 10. Rakdos Madness 9. Madness Burn 8. Jund Wildfire (-3) 7. CawGate (-1) 6. Faeries (-1) 5. Elves (-2) 4. Rally Red 3. Golgari Gardens (+4) 2. Grixis Affinity (-1) 1. Blue Terror (+1)
I want to take a moment to thank all my Patrons. I am going to do my level best to keep providing you with the kind of content that brought you here in the first place. If you are interested in supporting my work, you can sign up for my Patreon starting at just $1.
Can’t make a commitment to Patreon? I have a Ko-Fi where you can make a one time contribution.
Want to learn more about the metrics I use in tracking the metagame? You can find an explainer here.
It is tough to explain how excited I was for Lorwyn Eclipsed. The first half of the original Lorwyn block captivated me with its art and whimsy while Shadowmoor and Eventide include some of my all time favorite cards. A return to the plane, however abbreviated, had me eager to open packs. And open I did, because for the first time since Return to Ravnica I participated in a Two-Headed Giant prerelease event. I got to play Magic with my kid, a memory I am going to cherish for as long as I have it.
The set itself is amazing. The cards are beautiful and the mechanics play well. Lorwyn Eclipsed is fun. I’ve acquired plenty of cards for my various Commander decks and look forward to seeing them on the table for many months to come. When it comes to Pauper, however, the set is largely lacking. As of now only one card – Burning Inquiry – has seen regular play and that is in an archetype that, for the time being, is just on the right side of the competitive metagame – Ruby Storm.
Lorwyn Eclipsed is a set based largely around creature types – Elemental, Elves, Goblins, Kithkin, and Merfolk. Historically two of these – Elves and Goblins – have been viable kindred strategies. Given the large card pool, however, it takes quite a strong card to muscle its way into the regular Pauper rotation. Given that a pushed kindred common can wreak havoc on limited (just ask anyone who had to play against Sparksmith or Timberwatch Elf or Silvergill Douser), it makes sense that Lorwyn Eclipsed would have slim pickings for the format.
The result is a format that feels largely similar to the one played during Avatar: The Last Airbender season. While Ruby Storm has made its presence felt the top decks from the past two weeks look remarkably similar to those from months before. This is the resting state of a non-rotating format, but it can feel rather strange if one came to Pauper in the past five years. The snowball that began with Vintage and Modern Masters that grew into the avalanche of Commander Masters and Modern Horizons has dissipated. After half a decade of the format getting jostled every few months, the commons released have regressed to their mean. The result is a format that evolves slowly, giving the metagame time to settle.
The early going in Lorwyn Eclipsed season sees four decks all within about two percentage points of each other in the Winner’s Metagame. Grixis Affinity returns to the top of my Power Rankings. The midrange metalcraft deck has put up solid numbers in the first two weeks and has the capability to out-grind many other decks in the field. Blue Terror takes a step back, falling to the number two spot. The aggro-control deck is still a powerhouse but likely has been hurt by the increased presence of the third deck in the standings.
Elves has emerged as the most popular deck thus far, but trails both Blue Terror and Grixis Affinity by one Top 8 (six for Elves against seven each for the other two). Rally Red takes the fourth position, also with six Top 8 finishes. Taken as a whole the tor four decks can be seen as Midrange Control (Affinity), Aggro-Control (Terror), Creature Combo (Elves) and Aggro (Red).
This is a good spread for the top of any format. While “true control” (a Platonic ideal if ever there was one) may be absent that has more to do with the varied nature of Pauper than the lack of good options. Control decks thrive in highly established metagames when the answers line up well with threats. Despite Lorwyn Eclipsed being a continuation of Avatar, the ways people are trying to win matches of Pauper remain diverse. The lack of clean counterplay that can deal with a wide array of victory conditions. This has been a hallmark of Pauper and I do not see that changing anytime soon.
If I were playing this weekend I would probably speculate on the success of a midrange black deck. I would want something more assertive than a Gardens variant and would emphasize effects like Chainer’s Edict and Tithing Blade, while looking at Moment of Craving and other cheap removal options to try and survive. I would almost certainly be giving up ground to Grixis Affinity but believe you can build such a deck to have game against the other three top decks. This is just the way of things: there is no solution, so you take the wins where you can, understanding that you can’t win them all.
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So this is the new year and Pauper doesn’t feel any different. That’s to be expected considering from a non-rotating format. Yet, much like Times Square at noon on January 1st, there is a miasma lingering in the air. The calendar tells us that Lorwyn Eclipsed is right around the corner but the set, at least at first glance, does not seem to have a ton of offerings for Pauper. There are plenty of cards that could fit into existing archetypes and provide an upgrade (Midnight Tilling comes to mind), but the only option that stands out, to me at least, is Burning Curiosity as a powerful draw spell for red based Ritual style combo decks.
This is all a roundabout way of saying that come February Pauper is going to bear more than a passing resemblance to the format as we experience it today. After years of Commander and Modern focused sets sending waves through the metagame, the relative stagnant is all an odd combination welcome and strange.
Stability. What a concept.
Thus we find ourselves at the end of the second month of Avatar: The Last Airbender season. The first four weeks gave us a glimpse of a metagame that had adjusted to the absence of High Tide combo; the last four weeks has helped the metagame image crisp around the edges. The top-line, for me at least, is the point at which a best deck becomes a concern.
The deck in question is Blue Terror. It is not just that the strategy has been consistently at the top of the metagame, but rather the distance it is starting to put between itself and other options. In the second four weeks of Avatar, Blue Terror clocks in at 13.42% of the Winner’s Metagame and has an Adjusted Meta Score Above Replacement of 1.01. These numbers both improve on the first four weeks’ performance of 13.24% and 0.94. Taken in aggregate, Blue Terror is 13.34% of the Winner’s Metagame (around 4.4% ahead of second place in that metric) and has an AMSAR of 1.04 overall, 0.24 points clear of the next best performer. It is not just that Blue Terror has been a good deck, but also that it pulling away from the field.
Is this a problem? That is less clear. One of the biggest shortcomings of my measures is that they are aggregate – that is they take a set period of time and stack the results on top of each other. Blue Terror consistently does well in Magic Online tournaments. It would follow that these finishes, when taken together, would push the Tolarian Terror deck further up the ladder. I do make an effort to adjust for total metagame presence but that can only do so much. From my vantage point Blue Terror is a clear best deck in the format and has started to separate itself in such a way that it is worthy of scrutiny. Whether this additional attention will uncover a problem remains to be seen. Despite it’s strength the deck still averaged a Top 16 finish over the past month with a mean performance behind Madness Burn, Grixis Affinity, and CawGate (albeit those decks did not come close to matching Blue Terror’s 73 appearances in the Top 32).
If Blue Terror were the only deck I had my eye on that would be swell, but alas it is not to be. Sneaky Snacker is having a moment in several decks and the Dimir faerie is doing a lot of work holding up two different burn strategies. Madness Burn and Rakdos Madness combined for 18.57% of the Winner’s Metagame over the past four weeks – more than 5% ahead of Blue Terror. Rakdos Madness finished that span with four wins, an impressive AMSAR of 1.01, and had an average finish better than Blue Terror. Madness Burn lagged behind with an AMSAR of 0.35 but took down the finals twice. Combined these decks had six more victories than Blue Terror over the same span. Sneaky Snacker is less a resilient threat in these builds and more part of a powerful engine, turning the additional cost of cards like Grab the Prize into a free piece of material. Taken separately these decks are not worrisome but when looking at the whole picture they represent something that may require attention. Again this focus is likely to reveal nothing new but that does not mean the performances should be ignored.
There is something else that should be taken into consideration: Pauper is largely balanced. The discourse around the format has an overall positive tone. As someone who has been heavily invested and involved in Pauper for over 20 years (ouch, my knees) it is refreshing to not to have the noise around the game be overwhelmed with complaints. There are still areas for improvement – no format is perfect after all – but overall things are good, which is a nice respite.
Where does all of this leave Pauper heading into Lorwyn Eclipsed? The graveyard continues to be a focal point. Being able to proactively deal with the discard pile grows ever more important. But this can not come at the cost of developing your own board state as falling too far behind can be a recipe for disaster. Thraben Charm remains a key card moving forward but white based aggro and midrange has struggled to consistently break through; Mono White Aggro performs slightly worse than the average Top 32 deck. The lack of high impact cards from the latest set leads me to believe that when we look at the format in February not a whole lot will change.
But I’m ready to be surprised.
Power Rankings
Dropped from rankings: Azorius Familiars 10. Golgari Gardens (-8) 9. Rally Red 8. Spy Walls (Not Ranked) 7. Elves (+3) 6. CawGate (-1) 5. Jund Wildfire (+2) 4. Madness Burn 3. Grixis Affinity 2. Rakdos Madness (+4) 1. Blue Terror
I want to take a moment to thank all my Patrons. I am going to do my level best to keep providing you with the kind of content that brought you here in the first place. If you are interested in supporting my work, you can sign up for my Patreon starting at just $1.
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Want to learn more about the metrics I use in tracking the metagame? You can find an explainer here.
As has become tradition here, we are four weeks into a play season which means it is time to dig a bit deeper into the metagame. Today, instead of relying on the explainer linked above, I want to talk a bit more about what the statistics I track and how you can use them to inform your approach to playing in Pauper events. For this exercise we are going to be using a 2% cut off of Top 32 volume, which translates to roughly ten appearances over the course of the 16 tournaments.
Thirteen decks had at least ten appearances in the Top 32 over the past month. Blue Terror and Madness Burn were the two most popular and also are leading the field in Top 8 appearances. Win+ measures a deck’s performance against an X-3 record in the Swiss rounds. K-Wins takes all wins less all loses, Top 8 performance included. These are mere counting stats and without proper context do little to tell us about how well these decks are performing in comparison to each other.
Win+ is useful for understanding how well a deck does during the tournament itself. As a Win+ score approaches 1, a deck is more likely to be finishing in the Top 16. From the green column we see that Boros Snacker comes the closest to finishing in the Top 16, followed by CawGate and Golgari Gardens. However these decks combined only have four more Top 32 finishes than Blue Terror. This is where the blue column – Adjusted Win+:Volume comes into play. This metric corrects for how popular a deck is (or is now) in comparison. These numbers are deflated compared the unadjusted metric but still provide insight.
When looking at Swiss performance it is important to take both numbers into account. A smaller sample size should not render a finish moot, but the popularity has to be considered. Based upon these numbers, I would rank Blue Terror as the best deck for Swiss rounds, followed by Grixis Affinity, Golgari Gardens, Cawgate, and then Madness Burn.
Apologies for the small image – if you want access to the full spreadsheet you can sign up for my Patreon – but we are going to be focusing on K-Wins in this segment. Again, this measure takes into account Top 8 performance and measures all wins less all losses. Here as the number approaches 2 we are averaging a finish closer to the Top 8 than the Top 16. Once again, sample size can confound the data which is why the raw ratio (purple) has some outliers. Azorius Familiars, for example, might have a better average finish than Blue Terror but does that make it a stronger deck?
The yellow column corrects for presence. Again it should come as no surprise that Blue Terror is leading the pack but under the hood we are seeing some movement. Golgari Gardens jumps past Grixis Affinity when looking at the format from this metric. After those two I would probably places Rakdos Madness ahead of CawGate.
Here we travel to the other end of the chart where we get to some of the more “all encompassing” numbers. First in red is True Volume. This is what I commonly refer to as “Winner’s Metagame Percentage” and takes an average of the actual Top 32 presence, the percentage of overall Win+ points, and the percentage of overall K-Win points. This provides an general idea of how strong a given strategy is in the Challenge Metagame. In this measure we see that Blue Terror has started to pull away from the rest of the field while Madness Burn, Grixis Affinity, and Golgari Gardens form a solid second tier.
And finally there’s Adjusted Meta Score Above Replacement. Borrowing from baseball’s concept of Wins Above Replacement (or WAR), this is designed to see how good a deck is against an average (or replacement level) Top 32 deck. The Meta Score is based upon the Win+ and K-Win to volume ratio while the adjusted score is based upon the adjusted versions of those measures. Once more, Blue Terror leads the pack while Golgari Gardens and Grixis Affinity end up in the second tier.
So this is what I take into consideration when I explore the top of the Pauper metagame. The stronger a deck does in these areas, the more likely I am to give it more weight and push it up the Power Rankings, while also giving it more credence in what people should be considering when they hit the digital tables. So with all of that being said, here is were I see Pauper after four weeks of Avatar: The Last Airbender:
Power Rankings
Dropped from rankings: Boros Snacker, Dimir Terror 10. Elves 9. Rally Red (Not Ranked) 8. Azorius Familiars (-4) 7. Jund Wildfire (+1) 6. Rakdos Madness (-1) 5. CawGate (Not Ranked) 4. Madness Burn (+2) 3. Grixis Affinity 2. Golgari Gardens 1. Blue Terror
I want to take a moment to thank all my Patrons. I am going to do my level best to keep providing you with the kind of content that brought you here in the first place. If you are interested in supporting my work, you can sign up for my Patreon starting at just $1.
Can’t make a commitment to Patreon? I have a Ko-Fi where you can make a one time contribution.
Want to learn more about the metrics I use in tracking the metagame? You can find an explainer here.
The other day I was driving my child to a birthday party. Given the circumstances of alternate side parking I was also driving their friend and said friend’s father. My phone was connected to the speaker and my kid asked me to play “Everything is Alright“. The other father, misunderstanding the request, burst into Bob Marley. T on my commute to work I started to wonder about my taste in music. One friend described it as “depressed dad” music – punk and adjacent genres from the late 80s until today – but something occurred to me as a song ostensibly written for teenagers blared in my ears. The music I listen to describes dreams and the way things could be, even if they aren’t there yet.
This describes my relationship to Pauper over the years. Following the format for nearly two decades I always saw Pauper for what it could be – what it has recently achieved. A fully realized format that is played around the world. How cool is that? And yet there’s that dissatisfied part of my brain that pokes and prods, telling me that things could be even better. Why settle? Never settle.
Okay so a lot happened in the past few weeks. It was Thanksgiving in the United States and the several days out of the office meant my body slowed down enough to be hit with a nasty cold, which knocked me out for a few days. Since our last check in there have been eight Magic Online Challenges as well as the winter iteration of Paupergeddon and Brazilian Pauper Nationals. While the stats I collect and track come from Magic Online today’s discussion will pull from the totality of events.
We start with the re-ascent of Blue Terror. Over the past few weeks the deck has put up strong numbers on the digital client and leads the field with a dozen Top 8 finishes. It also notched a Top 8 finish at Paupergeddon. Cheap threats and countermagic remain a powerful combination. So much so that Dimir builds have started to crop up again, While some of these decks lean on both Gurmag Angler and Tolarian Terror, a few stick with a single large threat and instead pad out the deck with value like Abandon Attachments and Sneaky Snacker, Thorn of the Black Rose, or Murmuring Mystic.
The surge in Blue Terror has not knocked Golgari Gardens from its number two spot. The deck continues to perform well on Magic Online but was completely absent from the Top 16s of both major paper tournaments. The midrange archetype spans two man builds – one that leans more into green for Avenging Hunter and another that plays closer to “destroy all monsters” control – but the conceit of converting material into cards remains the same. Midrange decks thrive on established metagames and while the Magic Online meta is largely stable, the size and scope of tabletop events can often mean bringing the wrong set of answers which in turn can lead to these decks stumbling.
One deck which had a fantastic showing in the physical realm was Azorius Familiars. A deck that often exists on the fringe of the digital landscape due to the number of clicks needed to win the game, Familiars is a powerhouse. Using Ghostly Flicker or Ephemerate with Archaeomancer, the strategy can see a ton of cards while also creating a dominating board position thanks to Murmuring Mystic. The deck also can create an abundance of mana thanks to Snap. While more vulnerable to graveyard hate than the recently banned High Tide, a skilled Familiars player can maneuver around this angle of attack. That being said there are more copies of Bojuka Bog and Relic of Progenitus running around today than at any point in my memory and any graveyard combo deck has their work cut out for them.
The last deck I want to talk about is Spy Walls. Despite being the villain of the week often during the summer, the deck has largely fallen off. Online the deck has ten total Top 32 appearances in a dozen events and has a single Top 8 to its credit this season. Whether the success of Spy was a symptom of High Tide and the lack of the other combo deck has meant more focus can be placed on Dread Return decks or the deck just needs to adapt for a new metagame remains to be seen. I know I won’t be ignoring the graveyard anytime soon.
I want to take a moment to thank all my Patrons. I am going to do my level best to keep providing you with the kind of content that brought you here in the first place. If you are interested in supporting my work, you can sign up for my Patreon starting at just $1.
Can’t make a commitment to Patreon? I have a Ko-Fi where you can make a one time contribution.
NerdtotheCore 
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