March of the Machine Pauper Season Recap

Once again we come to the time between seasons. March of the Machine was the headlining set for eleven weeks with eighteen Challenges and two Showcase events. Going into this stretch there were fears around the strength of red and the potential for Azorius Familiars, now with Meeting of Minds, to assert itself as a true metagame force. So what happened? Let’s dig in.

Above Average

So much of the work I do in examining the publicly available Challenge data is done to try and get a better idea of what is happening in the Pauper metagame. Challenges provide a consistent source of information about what sort of strategies are rising to the top of the format. Top 8s and Wins are important but they fail to tell the entire story. Over the years I’ve worked on other measures to try and better understand what else is going on in the actual games and recently developed a statistic that measures an archetype against the average Top 32 deck. Borrowing from baseball I call this the Meta Score Above Replacement and I am able to track an archetype’s mean and cumulative performance. Here are the average and cumulative scores for every archetype with at least 5% of the total top 32 volume.

1. Faeries: 1.26 average aMSAR; 6.29 cumulative aMSAR
2. Grixis Affinity: 0.97 average aMSAR; 4.71 cumulative aMSAR
3. Black Gardens: 0.94 average aMSAR; 4.46 cumulative aMSAR
4. Bogles: 0.74 average aMSAR; 3.29 cumulative aMSAR
5. Dimir Terror: 0.55 average aMSAR; 3.19 cumulative aMSAR
6. Reckless Burn: 0.65 average aMSAR; 2.4 cumulative aMSAR
7. Gruul Cascade: 0.56 average aMSAR; 1.3 cumulative aMSAR

This list provides a good snapshot of what has happened during the past nine weeks. Faeries was a consistently good performer, roughly six “wins” or so better than the average deck in the Top 32 over the course of the season. But it’s a testament to the deck to see exactly how much better, on average, it has been than the other contenders. The other thing that stands out in this list is where red has ended up, but more on that later.

This score is useful for comparing decks over the course of a season but it also can contrast decks from different seasons. How good was Faeries this season compared to the best decks from other seasons? I hope to find out and plan on launching Patreon goals to go back an explore Pauper’s past.

Seeing Red

Going into March of the Machine, there was some concern about the strength of red. Monastery Swiftspear was already tearing up Magic Online on the back of Reckless Impulse and Wrenn’s Resolve was another iteration of the effect. These decks were already incredibly consistent and the concern was that more draw would push them even further up the power rankings.

That isn’t exactly what happened. Make no mistake – red is still very good. But the addition of Wrenn’s Resolve has provided enough fuel for the strategy to bifurcate into the more token based Kuldotha Red and the Thermo-Alchemist/Kessig Flamebreather based Reckless Burn. Combined these strategies were just over 15% of the Top 32 metagame. Kuldotha Red fell one appearance short of making the 5% cutoff but ended the season with a cumulative aMSAR of 0.68, so even if these two archetypes were stacked on top of each other they still wouldn’t jump ahead of Dimir Terror.

Red has largely been contained. The metagame has adjusted to its persistent presence with strong defensive measures and a healthy dose of incidental lifegain. Blocking has gone up in value and decks that can absorb damage before feeding the speed bump to a Deadly Dispute or Reckoner’s Bargain have done rather well all things considered. Monastery Swiftspear can still apply a ton of pressure and lead to games that end before they really begin, but by and large red decks have not been the threat they were perceived to be back in April.

Something Familiar

The other big story going into the season was the potential for Azorius Familiars to have its moment. The deck has long been held back by the limitations of the Magic Online interface as it requires quite a few clicks to go through each iteration of an Archaeomancer loop. Meeting of Minds was supposed to make it easier for the deck to succeed as it reduced the manual dexterity needed to pilot Familiars to victory. Early on in March of the Machine season this seemed to be true. And then people started leaning on Thermokarst.

Arbor Elf and Utopia Sprawl into Mwonvuli Acid-Moss is a powerful start and can slam the door on several game plans. That these decks can also top out on the Initiative gives them a good place to put that mana in case there’s no reason to destroy lands. Gruul Cascade was a fairly popular deck in the back half of the season but suffers at the whims of variance. When its draws line up well it can feel like an unstoppable force but it can also fall flat, which helps to explain its middling Meta Score. Still, Gruul’s presence, on top of other decks that apply pressure early, has limited Familiar’s opportunities.

Meet You in the Middle

I think the biggest story of this season is the return of black midrange. Black Gardens – a midrange Golgari deck that pairs removal with Deadly Dispute for efficient card draw and the potential for Avenging Hunter at the top of the curve. But when you break it down and peel back the layers Black Gardens is just a descendant of Mono Black Control. The fact that creatures are good thanks to Monastery Swiftspear and Affinity means that a deck based around keeping them off the battlefield can go far. Initiative again is the glue holding it together as it provides a persistent advantage once the board is clear.

Black Garden is not the only midrange deck to find success in March of the Machine season but it is the best of the bunch, at least so far. Basilisk Gate strategies largely fell by the wayside in May as people iterated on Golgari Rot Farm. At the same time Jeskai Ephemerate has returned to the fold perhaps due in part to its reliance on Bridges giving inherent resilience to Gruul Cascade.

Odds and Ends

• Affinity had a fantastic season with six wins in 20 Top 8 appearances. This may change once Cast into the Fire hits the digital client but I doubt Affinity is going anywhere.
• Bogles remains a viable option even if it is consistently underappreciated. The high variance strategy can sometimes just steamroll people and if Black Gardens takes a step back the slippery ones could improve their standing in the metagame.
• Boros Synthesizer had a pretty weak season overall with five total Top 32 appearances (and a single Top 8) but it had a breakout at Paupergeddon in Pisa. I would expect to see more of this deck in the first few weeks of the next season.

I want to take a moment to thank all my Patrons – both old and new. 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, rewards for my Patreon start at just $1 and every little bit helps.

Can’t make a commitment to Patreon? I now have a Ko-Fi where you can make a one time contribution.

Looking for another way to support my work? Click here for my TCGPlayer affiliate link. Any purchases through the link let the folks there know you like my content!