NerdtotheCore

I’ve had the opportunity to jump into a few league runs over the past few days and while my results are not where I’d like them to be (read: I’ve been losing more than winning), I have been learning a lot about the current lay of the land. Late Saturday night I posted the above statement, fully understanding that it would be inflammatory and dare I say it – click bait.

But I stand by it. Which leads to this post brought to you by the Sunday scaries.

If you hang out in the #MTGPauper Discord I manage for any amount of time you will no doubt come across conversation about the current prevalence of both Affinity and Kuldotha Red. The discussion focuses on play patterns, relative strength, and how often these decks seem to come up in both the League and Challenges. While neither of these decks have win rates that exist far outside the realm of “reasonable” they still are the target of ire.

Affinity is a monster of a deck which packs several draw twos, free threats, potent recursion and some serious reach. Kuldotha Red is another beast which leverages low to the ground threats with Monastery Swiftspear and an impressive burn package. The fact that both this decks are good has made them incredibly popular which means the variance one would expect to encounter playing against them is reduced due to sheer volume. In one run I face an Affinity deck three times in a row and even though they stumbled twice, I did not win a match in part because the variance was evenly distributed.

There’s something else at play here. The proliferation of power red “draw” like Experimental Synthesizer and Reckless Impulse has increased the consistency of hitting land drops outside of blue decks. Previously one of blue’s strengths was that it could use Preordain to run a low land count and still make critical drops during the early stages of the game. Experimental Synthesizer gives non-blue decks a chance to hit land drops more regularly giving increased strength to low land count red decks and strategies reliant on specific lands like Basilisk Gate.

I cannot understate this enough: red decks have an increased consistency of hitting key cards.

Something that has come up a lot in discussion is that you can no longer stumble and missing land drops is death. As someone who has played a ton against Delver and other Spellstutter Sprite strategies this is nothing new, but it feels dissonant when it happens against a deck packing a ton of Mountains.

So what can be done? At a player level it is all about being more consistent so that you do not stumble. This might mean running your own sculpting or a more robust mana base so that you can hit your own land drops and not fall behind in that regard.

At a format level, this is a tougher nut to crack. How does one balance for popularity as opposed to power? If a deck is popular and over the line then it is clear but what about when a strategy is above average (we’re talking in the 52-55% win rate, not 60% here)? Does it matter if the deck is popular or fringe in volume? Taking action based on raw volume is a risky path as you’d be playing whack-a-mole.

This is not meant to be a defense of Affinity or Red, and me posting this does not take away from the very real feelings of people who are taking a break from Pauper because they are not enjoying the format. What it is meant to be is insight into my observations and the thoughts currently rattling around in my braincase.

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.

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!

Things have been hectic. When I wrote about Pauper mana bases over two months ago I anticipated the series becoming a regular feature on this here blog. Turns out life had other ideas and time was at a premium. But now as work slows down and I can find my footing once more now seems a good as time as any to tackle a subject that’s been rattling around in the ole’ brain case for a while.

Until recently Pauper was a format about accruing value over time. Cards like Preordain and its ilk would improve card quality while Ninja of the Deep Hours would allow you to pull ahead. Mulldrifter was the gold standard of burying your opponent in card advantage for years – so much so that before Ephemerate players would try to extract more value with Undying Evil – but the past few years has changed the nature of card advantage in Pauper.

First came the Monarch and really, Palace Sentinels which provided a steady stream of fresh draws. After that we got new forms of card draw in the shape of Deadly Dispute and then a game breaking in the Initiative. Now it was easier than ever to go up on resources and in many cases, it was also less of a challenge to deploy them. The decks that were able to pull ahead in this race could do so at an improved rate which further exposed an aspect of how games of Pauper play out: it can be very hard to catch up once you are behind.

How does one catch up in a game of Magic? If you are facing down an onslaught of creatures then Wrath is what you need; stuck in a control mirror and Sphinx’s Revelation can pull you ahead; midrange slogs can come down to who has a the better Planeswalker engine online.

An aside: The introduction of Planeswalkers, and therefore designing for an environment where they exist has had a profound impact on Pauper and the need for cards to have an immediate effect. This is a subject for its own post but it definitely merited mention here.

Pauper does not have access to these effects at the same clip and so for quite a lot of the format’s history the aggressive decks tried to race before the avalanche of cards put a stop to their advance.

Let’s start with engines – cards that convert one resource into another. Without access to true Planeswalkers Pauper had to rely on fragile ways of grinding out the long game. Tortured Existence is a fan favorite and Grim Harvest had its time in the spotlight as a way to recur threats. These were slow ways for creature based decks to keep up with card flow but compare this to something like the original Elspeth which could just continue to spit out tokens – one can pull you to parity (or even ahead) without nearly as much work. There are plenty slow engines in Pauper that can help win the game, but they are few and far between (Cenn’s Enlistment and Tilling Treefolk come to mind) but often times these are just worse than drawing more cards. The Monarch and Initiative also fill this role but come with the risk of giving that same advantage to your opponent.

Instead, the easiest way to try and pull ahead on the board is to, well, draw more cards and deploy them. As the card pool grows then more efficient cards will continue to be printed which in turn makes pure card draw that much better. Unlike other formats with powerful engines there are few incentives to actually play a value engine (damage engines are another story altogether).

What about card advantage battles? Deep Analysis remains one of the best ways to try and pull ahead. If the front half is countered there’s always the Flashback. But compare this to something like Magma Opus – Deep Analysis can help you claw back into a game but lacks the oomph to pull you ahead all on its own. This is part and parcel for Pauper as the effects are smaller by design. The result is that once you are behind on cards it can be extremely difficult to pull yourself back into a game. Consequentially it means that it is often correct to be as proactive as possible so that you do not find yourself in a space where you have to play catch up on cards.

This pushes the format towards cheap two for ones and lower curves. The ability to accrue more cards and then deploy them is a recipe for success. It follows from this that the Monarch was such a success for so long – free card draw and cheap spells was a winning combination until the Initiative came along and didn’t even ask you to cast a spell to garner an effect.

Until recently, board wipes in Pauper were not hugely impactful. Crypt Rats and Pestilence could keep a board clear at a heavy price and Electrickery was stellar and handling smaller creatures. Then came Fiery Cannonade, which put threw a real wrench into the works for traditional aggressive strategies. Still, some of these decks tried to go bigger and it worked (after a fashion). The lack of true board wipes meant cards like Moment’s Peace and Stonehorn Dignitary held value for their ability to hold back hordes. In these cases the control deck would need time to establish the win but if they were too far behind it could all be for nought.

I saved this one for last because currently it is not exactly the case anymore, at least when it comes to one style of board wipe. Krark-Clan Shaman has emerged as a real player in this area thanks to its ability to clear the ground (literally) and leave behind an army of Myr Enforcers and the like. The issue at hand is that unlike a board wipe in a traditional midrange or control deck, Affinity has the tools to easily reload and deploy threats almost immediately after wiping the board.

Another aside: It should start to be clear that Affinity is a deck that can do it all. It packs a ton of efficient card draw and cheap spells so that it can easily pull ahead. It has access to a few engines thanks to Deadly Dispute and Blood Fountain and as we already discussed a fantastic way to wipe the board. Affinity is a capital “B” Beast.

So what does this all mean? Outside of Affinity most decks rely on card draw to come back from behind. Basilisk Gate is a low (mana) cost damage engine that brings along a deck building restriction. However the reward for being able to turn it on is massive enough to plan around. Annoyed Altisaur has the capability of catapulting decks from behind to ahead provided it comes down early enough in concert with Arbor Elf and Utopia Sprawl. Other decks try to buy time with the aforementioned Stonehorn Dignitary, Moment’s Peace, or Prismatic Strands.

So what does this all mean? Where in other formats there are multiple options to pull ahead or come from behind given your deck’s overall game plan, Pauper has relatively few.

• Pauper largely lacks board wipes, so time becomes an important resource
• Engines are mostly inefficient aside with a few exceptions
• Cheap card draw, threats, and answers are abundant so simply “drawing more” is a valid plan

While this last point can be extrapolated to other formats as well (one only needs to look at the busted card that is Expressive Iteration), the lack of other high impact incentives – whether that be Planeswalkers or prison-like pieces – also helps to push Pauper into a place where the best bet to getting ahead is to start there.

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.

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!