July 8-12 Pauper Recap

Want to learn more about the metrics I use in tracking the metagame? You can find an explainer here.

It is impossible to describe the feeling of watching Pauper explode. Over two decades ago I was sitting in my college apartment, logging into Magic Online to play in a player run event. This past weekend over 1200 people played Pauper for high stakes in two major tournaments, across two continents, while I watched the results trickle in on stream.

It was something special.

Starting where we usually do, the Magic Online Challenges provided a contrast to the tabletop metagame. The most popular, and also most successful deck across the five (yes five, they’ve added a Challenge to Wednesday) was Madness Burn. This held true across every event (15.63% of the Top 32 on Magic Online, 12.3% of the Day 1 metagame at Paupergeddon, 10.2% of the Metagame in Baltimore). The deck also accumulated six Top 8s and a win on the weekend.

Not just on Magic Online, across all three events.

While Magic Online can provide a steady stream of datum there are limitations to the platform. The League structure -that is the place where a majority of play takes place – reward playing through leagues quickly and having an above average success rate. Red decks excel at playing fast and “just winning”. If players are more practiced with a deck due to leagues, are comfortable with it, and just want to play, it makes sense that any variety of red is a good choice to win back your entry fee.

This makes red decks a known quantity, which means decks will come prepared. As the number of participants increases and rounds get added, more opportunities arise for sideboard cards to matter and for variance to turn against the Mountain mages. To be clear – red decks are not bad choices, but their success can often be exaggerated when looking at partially closed systems. Magic Online is not hermetically sealed but the quirks of digital play do have consequences.

Naya Gates, or Snacker Gates, is another example of this wrinkle. One of the most popular decks in Magic Online over the past few weeks, the strategy was absent from the elimination rounds in both tabletop events. The latest take on a Basilisk Gate strategy leverages Bitter Reunion and Pursue the Past to rebuy Sneaky Snacker for yet another avenue to grind. And yet this deck did not crack the top of Paupergeddon or Paupergenesis. Whether this is due to the development timeline of the strategy or an indication of something else – a product of an inbred Magic Online metgame for example – is difficult to say at this time as we simply do not have enough information.

Moving over to Paupergeddon, the two day tournament concluded with Jund Wildfire hoisting the trophy, defeating Mono White Aggro in the silver medalist’s first loss on the weekend. Rounding out the Top 8 was another copy of Jund Wildfire, two copies of Rally Red, a Cycle Storm. one copy of Monster Tron, and a Tron build that wanted to win with Black Mage tokens from FINAL FANTASY. Jund continues to be a strong deck and in a field as wide open as Paupergeddon a midrange strategy that can prey on creatures while also packing disruption was well set up to succeed. A hearty congratulations to Jan Plachy on their hard earned victory.

Paupergenesis had a different structure. While Paupergeddon spanned two days and 14 rounds of Swiss with a cut to Top 8, Paupergenesis was eight rounds of Swiss with a cut to a Top 16 where each half acted like a Top 8 before the winners of each bracket faced off in the finals. The structure was due to time consideration but still produced an exciting tournament (shout out to my friends Brian Coval and Paige Smith for making it to the Top 8) where Dimir Terror triumphed over Azorius Familiars in the Finals. The remaining decks in the Top 16 include another copy of Azorius Familairs, two Dimir Faeries, two Spy Combo, Elves, Golgari Gardens, Grixis Affinity, Gruul Tokens, Jund Wildfire, Jesaki Ephemerate, Mardu Synthesizer and Rally Red. Congratulations to Christopher Jacobs, who won the event with Dimir Terror (not WonderWalls).

There was something interesting about both of these events: the second place finisher in each are both metagame menaces that always manage to fly under the radar. Mono White Aggro is the best non-red aggressive strategy in Pauper, build to grind out cards with Inspectors and Kor Skyfisher, pick off problems with Thraben Charm, or outright win the game with Guardians’ Pledge or Leonardo, Big Brother. Azorius Familairs is, as a friend of mine said this weekend, the deck is basically Pauper’s version of Amulet Titan. It is a deck capable of some incredibly broken things where one if Familiars’ greatest advantage is that it is challenging to play and as such flies under the radar.

Another thing of note this weekend was the relative success of combo strategies. Cycle Storm made the Top 8 of Paupergeddon and two copies of Spy Combo made the Top 16 in Baltimore. If you include Elves and Azorius Familiar as combo-adjacent decks, that’s six of the 24 decks in the elimination rounds (or 25%) that fit into the combo bucket.

So what does this all mean for next weekend’s events? Midrange did well over the weekend but that is hardly the entire story. This massive bucket included both aggressive slants, controlling decks, and combo inclusive builds. Outright aggro in the red sense seemed to have a rougher go while combo did rather well (with two additional decks in the Paupergeddon Top 16 and five additions to the archetype in the Top 32 of Paupergenesis). For next weekend, then, I would recommend picking a deck you like. One you know inside and out and instead of trying to game the meta, game the deck. Tune it to within an inch of its life to try and gain any edge. And then do it again next week.

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.