Want to learn more about the metrics I use in tracking the metagame? You can find an explainer here.
Hello there.
It’s been a while.
Now that the Magic Online decklists are back to being published, albeit in a reduced fashion, we can start exploring the Pauper metagame once again. While the lack of full Challenge lists is not ideal, the goal of this series has always been to look at the top of the Pauper metagame in an effort to understand what strategies are consistently performing well. The lack of complete data, while a hindrance, does not mean the end of analysis. Historically the analysis of the Top 32 I have done largely lines up with the format at large. That is not to say this is perfect information or is as robust as it was in week’s prior, but if you are looking for an understanding of competitive Pauper, I believe this remains a good place to start.
I have a set of Power Rankings going live on ChannelFireball this week but that article does not really take this last weekend into account. Still I don’t feel that it is too “Shhh, Spoilers” to tell you both Kuldotha Red and Grixis Affinity are near the top of my chart. Both decks remain popular options that can just get people dead. The closing power of Galvanic Blast cannot be understated – this card just gets people dead. Whether it is supported by the additional burn and Goblin Bushwhacker powered beats of Kuldotha Red or the slow grind of Refurbished Familiar and Blood Fountain in Affinity, Galvanic Blast decks continue to find themselves well positioned in Pauper.
That’s nothing new.
This weekend, however, showed off two interesting trends that might be worth exploring. With the full caveat that only two Challenges fired this weekend – the Friday and Saturday 32 player minimum events – I want to highlight two decks that made their presence felt.
First, let’s talk about Gruul Ramp. This deck is not entirely new as players have been cutting the land destruction package from their Arbor Elf/Utopia Sprawl decks for quite some time. Last weekend only one such deck made the Top 8 and it decided to do its own thing instead of blowing up lands. Normally I would see this as an outlier but then similar decks, cutting the mana denial package, started to crop up in the Pauper League Results.
Gruul Ramp lacks the free wins that Thermokarst and Mwonvuli Acid-Moss provide. By cutting these cards, however, the deck no longer has dead draws in the late game or against any of the decks that are running Bridges as a significant part of their mana base – 26.56% of the Top 32 decks last weekend. The addition of Landscapes to decks also reduce the efficacy of land destruction as these cards can sit in play and help cast spells until a key moment. In exchange Ramp gets to run cards more tailored to specific metagames and increase its threat count. Whether this build overtakes Ponza in the long run remains to be seen, but I would be bullish on monsters over Stone Rains.
Mono White Aggro is not a new deck and has been putting up sporadic results for quite some time. The deck got a huge shot in the arm with Thraben Charm which helps to give the strategy more flexibility. Now it can pack creature removal and graveyard interaction all into one card, while also having a maindeck out to Makeshift Munitions. Mono White also excels at leveraging Prismatic Strands as both an offensive and defensive weapon and Raffine’s Informant gives the deck an easy way to get it into the graveyard. Battle Screech and Guardians’ Pledge can end games and between eight copies of Inspector effects and Militia Bugler, the cards flow with ease.
Mono White had the best Adjusted Meta Score above replacement this weekend with a robust 1.70. Now this comes with a fairly big caveat of only two such decks made the Top 32 all weekend (although both ended up in the Top 8 and one won the Saturday Challenge). Grixis Affinity had a solid 0.68 with Kuldotha Red bringing home the bronze with 0.44. For a weekend with relatively few data inputs this metric is not the best. So what happens when we look at winner’s metagame share?
Kuldotha Red leads the way by a significant margin with a robust 23.04% of the winner’s meta (down from 28.13% of total volume). Grixis Affinity clocks in at 16.54% (up from 15.63% of the Top 32 field) while Mono White’s winner’s share was 12.42%, almost doubling it’s 6.25% Top 32 volume.
There is, of course, something else going on in Pauper. The era of Modern Horizons 3 is the best by creature based combo decks in a way that hasn’t been seen in quite some time. The first four weeks of the cycle had the combo version of WonderWalls perform at an incredible clip – it had the second best AMSAR for the month at 0.56 – while Inside Out Combo put up solid results as well. The other story is Basking Broodscale combo. When paired with Sadistic Glee the lizard creates an unbound loop which can kill in all manner of ways from Makeshift Munitions to Nadier’s Nightblade to an attack with Haunted Cloak. None of these decks lean on the graveyard the way Goblin Combo has in the past and are somewhat resilient to the readily available board wipes.
So next week I would recommend running a deck that can fully leverage Snuff Out. While a single removal spell is not going to be able to beat all the top decks and lingering combo builds, Snuff Out remains an incredibly powerful card that currently lacks a competitive home (only one Golgari Gardens deck made the Top 32 last weekend and it had 2.04% of the Winner’s Metagame over the first four weeks). Gardens may not be the most well positioned deck for the upcoming week but playing a heavy removal Orzhov or Dimir deck isn’t totally outside the bounds of what is reasonable.
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