When we last left off, Affinity was at the top of the heap. Moving into the second four week chunk of Crimson Vow season with the December 11 and December 12 Challenges, there has been some movement but not enough to unseat the current top deck.
The biggest trends to be continued over this weekend revolved around Boros Bully and Delver. While Rakdos Affinity continues to assert itself as the go-to option for Atog these days, the other two archetypes mentioned had fairly good weekends of their own. Boros Bully continues to put up solid numbers – both the traditional and more token based build – including a Sunday win by former World Champion Javier Dominguez.
The rise of Delver is interesting as well. While the deck has never fully faded away, it has taken a backseat as of late to both Dimir and Izzet Faeries. Currently, Delver is performing slightly better than both of those options. This may be in part due to the mana base, as it is far more consistent than either of the two-color decks. It might also be related to the pressure of a first turn Delver of Secrets, as Affinity does struggle when put on the defense early. Regardless, Delver is back, which could open up a window for Kor Skyfisher based midrange.
I do want to take a minute to talk about the mono white aggressive deck that has come into vogue recently. It is very likely that this deck will supplant Stompy as the traditional aggro deck in Pauper, at least given the current metagame. While it lacks the “go tall” plan of attack that Stompy can employ, it excels at going wide. It can also churn through cards faster than other aggro decks with Thraben Inspector and Search Party Captain.
Looking to next weekend, I would be looking to have a solid game plan to beat Affinity but would focus more energy on Delver and Bully. These two decks look to be making up more and more of the metagame and at this point if you’re playing, you should believe you have a solid matchup against Affinity, or be playing it yourself.
NerdtotheCore 