I use a few different metrics when looking at the Top 32 metagame. The first is just Raw Volume. The second is Win+, which takes the sum of all wins at X-2 or better in the Swiss and assigns a score; Win+ is helpful in measuring a deck’s Swiss round performance. K-Wins takes all of a deck’s wins and subtracts its losses, Top 8 inclusive; this helps to give a measure of overall performance. The final pair is call Meta Score and Meta Score Above Replacement, which takes the average of Win+ and K-Win to try and position an archetype against its field. This number helps to provide the most robust image of a deck’s performance.
Lost Caverns of Ixalan has arrived and this past weekend Pauper got its first look at the new cards in a Challenge setting. Over in Italy, Paupergeddon Rome 2023 had 520 competitors on the first day. According to reports, various builds of red were the most popular archetype on Day One and Day Two but Black Gardens was the most popular deck in the Top 8 with three copies while Jeskai Glitters won the day. Once I get my hands on the official results I may have more to say on one of the most important tabletop Pauper tournaments of the year.
But what about Magic Online? There the metagame looks largely the same with Kuldotha Red starting the season as the most popular archetype in the Top 32. This makes sense as Kuldotha Red remains the clock of the format and it buoyed by Goblin Tomb-Raider. Traditionally aggressive strategies perform well in the earlier parts of a format cycle while players are still figuring out what new wrinkles there are to the meta. And while the second trip to Ixalan may not have the same impact as our relatively recent return to Kamigawa, things are certainly shifting.
Orzhov Glitter made it to the Top 8 on Saturday and had two additional appearances in the Top 32 on Sunday. The shell blends a Kor Skyfisher engine with All That Glitters Affinity, all charged up with Tithing Blade. Tithing Blade may come to define the next few weeks as it is both an effecient removal spell that can be rebought with Skyfisher and friends while also converting itself into a slow win condition. The fact that it also fuels Affinity and can be fed to Deadly Dispute gives this edict an edge over its in-slot competitors. From experience I can tell you that crafting two of these into a Consuming Sepulcher can buy you plenty of time and slowly soften up the opponent.
Supporting Tithing Blade in non-aggressive shells is similar to supporting Chainer’s Edict – making sure there are enough other removal spells to clean up what’s left behind. Where this is spot removal or sweepers, the Blade cannot get it done all on its lonesome. At the same time the Sepulcher cannot be a lone win condition given how prevalent artifact hate is in sideboard, which means it might be best paired with either the Initiative or Guardian of the Guildpact.
Beating Tithing Blade means going wide. Getting around single creature removal means running tokens or flooding the board in other ways, but that can play into a potential board wipe. Murmuring Mystic again appears as a linchpin in the format as a way to fight against Blade on all axes. At the same time a deck can ignore Blade and dominate the end game – Tron or Familiars anyone? – can render this card inert.
The immediate future may just see an increased polarization of the format. With Red and Glitter decks continuing to have a hold on the early turns of the game and other strategies trying to stall things out until their own action plans come online. Forcing the format towards its outliers could put stress on decks that seek to occupy the middle ground such as CawGate and Dimir Faeries. Of course both of these strategies can adapt to various environments so I would not count them out. That being said in the interim I would be doing my best to leverage Tithing Blade and looking to maximize the value I could extract from the newest option.
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