NerdtotheCore

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

A lot happened last weekend in the world of Pauper but whether it matters or not remains to be seen. As with all results, a single weekend does not always mean there’s a changing of the guard. Does the complete lack of Faeries and the meager performance of High Tide this weekend mean those decks are gone for good? Does the strong showing by Azorius Familiars means that it is currently the deck to beat? I like to think you know the answers to these questions but just in case, neither of those statements hold water.

Pauper is a non-rotating format with a ton of inertia. Without an infusion of new and powerful options the metagame is unlikely to shift rapidly. Rather what we are seeing is a blip – a small course correction given recent results. When we get to the power rankings two decks have dropped off – Aristocrats and Faeries – but that does not mean they are non-factors. Perhaps their adherents moved to other decks or simply had different plans. The surge in Dimir Faeries tells us that Spellstutter Sprite hasn’t lost any luster, but maybe removal was more important last weekend.

More than any other format I’ve played outside of Limited, current Pauper is defined by how you’re answering threats. In some cases you can very easily trade time for board presence with a Snap or Deem Inferior. Other times you need to Snuff Out a Writhing Chrysalis until your opponent’s adjust to Gixian Infiltrator and suddenly your key card is left stranded. If you want to identify what’s happening in Pauper at any given time, looking at the removal is a good place to go after examining the archetypes.

What does last week tell us? In the end, not much. The format was more hostile to spell based decks at large, but that gave space for creature based strategies like Gruul Ramp to surge. I would expect a regression next week as things settle for the final few weeks of the season.

Power Rankings

Dropped from rankings: Aristocrats, Faeries
10. Azorius Familiars (Not Ranked)
9. Elves (-2)
8. Dimir Faeries (+1)
7. Madness Burn (-2)
6. Gruul Ramp (NR)
5. High Tide (-2)
4. Grixis Affinity (-2)
3. Rakdos Madness (+5)
2. Jund (+3)
1. Blue Terror

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

We’ve made it four weeks through Spider-Man/Through the Omenpaths season. Traditionally this is where I check in with the format as opposed to recounting what happened in the previous week. So let’s do that by examining what I consider to be the ten best decks in the format over the past month.

Power Rankings

10. Faeries (-2) – 7 Top 8s; AMSAR: 0.21

Faeries remains a stalwart of the format. Despite a recent surge in the popularity of Dimir Faeries, the mono blue version continues to put up solid results. The game plan of sticking evasive creatures and turning them into ninjas, all while backed up with counterspells, has stood the test of time. Faeries might not be the flashiest deck in the format but it gets the job done.

9. Dimir Faeries (-3) – 3 Top 8s; 2 Wins; AMSAR: 0.23

How can Dimir Faeries be above the other two decks considering it has worse seasonal metrics? Recency bias. While Dimir Faeries might be lacking in raw numbers it has come on strong over the past few weeks and is gaining popularity. The ability to play a traditional Faeries game with access to removal is potent, especially if you manage to fit in a threat like Murmuring Mystic or Gurmag Angler to help turn the corner.

8. Rakdos Madness (+2) – 2 Top 8s; AMSAR: 0.31

Another well established archetype that tries to turn the downside of Faithless Looting and similar cards into an advantage. Rakdos Madness can pile on the damage and has adopted Swarm, Being of Bees/Wekhdu, Midnight Hunter as another threat, giving the deck more options to flash this out or to access it post combat with Mayhem.

7. Elves (Not Ranked) – 7 Top 8s; 1 Win; AMSAR: 0.37

Elves has restablished itself as a real player in Pauper. The deck is capable of spitting out a ton of creatures and present a lethal combination involving Timberwatch Elf. Elves also has adopted Avenging Hunter as another top end threat which makes sense considering the deck is quite capable of gumming up the board to defend the Initiative.

6. Aristocrats (-4) – 6 Top 8s; 1 Win; AMSAR: 0.38

Aristocrats – or Black Sac – is a mono black aggressive deck that leverages sacrifice outlets and creatures that leave behind material to generate massive threats. The deck strategy has been on the fringes of Pauper for quite a while and has broken out this year thanks to Perigee Beckoner. With two copies of the Beckoner, Aristocrats can generate an unbound number of death triggers and an arbitrarily large Carrion Feeder. It is this additional gear that has boosted the deck from jobber to contender.

5. Madness Burn (+2) – 9 Top 8s; 1 Win; AMSAR: 0.5

What happens when you cut the black cards from Rakdos Madness and replace them with Guttersnipe and more burn? You get the best red deck in the format. Madness Burn can pile on the damage and when it is doing the thing a single Lava Dart can represent nearly a third of a starting life total. Things get scarier when Guttersnipe is joined by Kessig Flamebreather or two, turning any one damage spell into a Fireblast level threat.

4. Jund Wildfire – 10 Top 8s; 1 Win; AMSAR: 0.5

The Midrange Deck of the format, Jund Wildfire is just a collection of good cards. Stitched together with a Cleansing Wildfire engine, the deck runs solid threats, top tier removal, and can even have maindeck Duress as a treat. It’s hard to describe this deck as anything other than Jund and while it is falling back to the pack just a bit it is still quite capable of Jundin’ them out.

3. High Tide – 8 Top 8s; 1 Win; AMSAR: 0.53

I wrote my piece on High Tide last week so I will not rehash it here. Suffice to say the deck is quite good but hardly Storm levels of broken. It remains a polarizing strategy due to the fact that some decks are simply incapable of presenting meaningful interaction. In it of itself this is not a bad thing, but the list of decks that fit this bill may be too long.

2. Grixis Affinity (+3) – 11 Top 8s; 2 Wins; AMSAR: 0.93

The only reason Affinity is not higher on this list is because it has only recently put up strong numbers. It is also hard to separate the deck’s success from the pilot that is LuffyDoChapeuDePalha, who has put up the vast majority of Top 8s and wins with Grixis Affinity. Make no mistake – the control deck is powerful – but like any control deck it takes some time for the metagame to settle before it can present the proper answer suite.

1. Blue Terror – 11 Top 8s; 1 Win; AMSAR: 0.87

Tolarian Terror better watch out – Grixis Affinity is coming for its crown. Blue Terror can present a quick threat and protect it with counterspells. Blue Terror’s threats are some of the largest available in Pauper and rarely come at full price. Whether or not this strategy can stay on top remains to be seen, but it almost certainly isn’t going anywhere any time soon.

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.

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

It is impossible to tell the story of last weekend’s Magic Online Pauper Challenges without addressing High Tide. The deck made eight total appearances in the Top 32 and five of those ended in the Top 8 (including a win). Gavin Verhey of Wizards of the Coast and the Pauper Format Panel announced that the update on the format had been moved to November to align with the other Banner and Restricted List updates. This announcement is supposed to decide the fate of High Tide – whether it is banned once again or allowed to persist. The anticipation is palpable and if you are following the discourse then you probably know how people feel about the deck. Almost no one feels it is oppressively strong in the metagame and yet many people want the deck neutered in some way because of how it impacts tournaments.

High Tide is non-deterministic. When the deck goes for it there is a high chance of success but it is not guaranteed, which means the correct play in a tournament setting is to hope the Tide pilot fizzles; that they run into a sequence of cards that opens the window for you to take one more turn and hope they don’t go for it again. The High Tide combo turn can be a plodding ponderous thing that requires constant attention and tracking. The Professor recently featured such a turn as a part of the closing credits of his Shuffle Up & Play series and if you have a quarter hour to spare you can check the turn here. Yes, this is played for laughs and yes, there are pilots who can move through the operations more quickly. That does not take away from the reality that these kinds of moments exist and can wreck havoc on a tournament’s timeline and participants enjoyment (beyond the agony of defeat).

What about the deck’s performance? It is merely above the curve. Over Tarkir Dragonstorm season High Tide had an Adjusted Meta Score Above Replacement of 0.48 – about half a win better than an average Top 32 deck in that span. It’s mean finish was just outside the Top 16 and it had two wins in nine Top 8 appearances. But there’s another stat I measure that I don’t break out often – Expected Top 8% against Actual Top 8%. Given a deck’s average Swiss performance we can estimate how often the deck should make the Top 8. In Tarkir Dragonstorm season High Tide should have made the Top 8 in 23.85% of its Top 32 appearances, or 9.06 times. While the strategy didn’t meet the fractional mark, it played true to form.

In Magic X FINAL FANTASY the deck made the Top 8 ten times with two victories. It had an AMSAR of 0.45 (in line with Dragonstorm) but this time averaged a finish in the Top 16. It had an expected Top 8% of 31.25%, or ten appearances. Once again, High Tide merely performed to its mean. It isn’t until Edge of Eternities that we see the deck bump itself to another level. In the most recently completed season the strategy ended up with an AMASR of 0.43 and again, had an average finish just outside the Top 16. However it had 19 Top 8 finishes and two wins. Given its overall performance High Tide should have ended with a Top 8 conversion rate of 24.48% – around 15 trips to the elimination rounds. It over-performed in this metric to the tune of 7.19%, earning around four additional chances to play more Magic.

Now those numbers might seem gaudy, and they are in isolation. However if we look at two of the more popular and successful decks in the format, we see another story. Blue Terror had around a dozen Top 8s above expectation during Edge of Eternities season; Jund Wildfire had around eight more opportunities to win the trophy. Yes, High Tide has been good, but when taken in the context of the metagame that has been where the deck tops out. Even in the current season (three weeks in) it has the third best AMSAR of 0.62 (behind Blue Terror and Aristocrats) and us currently performing about two Top 8s above expectation.

On the numbers, the deck does not appear to be an issue. That being said there are things these statistics do not tell us. They do not tell us how many people opt out of the deck due to clock considerations nor how successful the deck is in tabletop play. They do not tell us how many rounds go to time or past (active player finish your turn and then there are five additional turns does not come with a hard cap on minutes). We do not know how many people have zoned out, miserable that they couldn’t grab a bite to eat because there was an iota of a chance they could pull out a win if and only if the opponent couldn’t find the key card.

I don’t have an answer for you today, but I want to know what you think: what do you think should happen to High Tide?

Power Rankings

10. Rakdos Madness (Not Ranked)
9. Rally Red (-3)
8. Faeries (+1)
7. Madness Burn (-2)
6. Dimir Faeries (NR)
5. Grixis Affinity (-1)
4. Jund Wildfire (-3)
3. High Tide (+5)
2. Aristocrats (+1)
1. Blue Terror

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.

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

Two weeks into the Spider-Man/Through the Omenpaths season and things are starting to take shape. Of course the shape of the format bears more than a passing resemblance to the end of Edge of Eternities, which in turn looked awfully similar to the final days of FINAL FANTASY. Considering Pauper is a non-rotating format with a massive card pool this phenomena isn’t that much of an outlier, but it still warrants some discussion.

Like many other non-rotating formats, Pauper has been at the whim of sets that have bypassed standard. The Modern Horizons trio have had an outsized influence on the makeup of the metagame and the basic land cyclers from The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth continue to hold manabases together with duct tape and a dream. These sets were printed directly into Modern, which means they could have a higher power level. It would make sense that these cards would have a wider impact. Universes Beyond – the sets that take place outside the Magic multiverse were supposed to skip Standard which in turn gave a faint glimmer of hope that Pauper could experience some more regular churn.

Pauper is almost always in a tenuous balance between a stable and a stagnant metagame. Once a card file becomes fully integrated into the format, things settle until the next release. Occasionally a Standard level release would inject life into an archetype or bring something entirely new to the table, but more often than not such shifts came with sets designed with larger formats in mind. Universes Beyond, initially, was a boon in that it promised regular infusions of stronger options. Regardless of the realm which the cards came from, the hope was for game play that could would be novel more often.

But now Universes Beyond passes through Standard. And there are more Standard legal releases than ever. While this means more potential options to shake up Pauper that is not the likely outcome. Pauper is more likely to get additional role players than cards that spawn new archetypes or change the nature of existing decks. As a result things are largely going to feel the same from cycle to cycle, even if there is new art for a given effect.

It feels like, these days, if you are critiquing some element of the 2026 release schedule you’re not really speaking to the Magic audience. The folks I feel most for are people who enjoy and engage with Standard as their format is set to develop at a pace that has not yet been seen. For me, I just wish we had more time with each set and world. Iterating on mechanical themes gave chance for one or two to slip through and while we still see cross set synergy, things don’t often fit together nearly as well.

As for the Pauper of today, Blue Terror remains a terror. It was far and away the best performing deck on the weekend. Jund Wildfire, despite a pair of Top 8 finishes, actually performed worse than the average Top 32 deck with an Adjusted Meta Score Above Replacement of -0.27. Don’t worry – other format staples such as High Tide (-0.34) also found themselves in the red. I never place too much stock in a single week, especially in a cycle when not much has changed. If anything I would be working towards trying to have a good matchup against Blue Terror and figuring out the rest from there. I would also be keen on having a strong defensive game considering the rise in both Aristocrats and Madness Burn over the past week.

Power Rankings

10. Spy Walls
9. Faeries (Not Ranked)
8. High Tide (-5)
7. Elves (-3)
6. Rally Red
5. Madness Burn (+4)
4. Grixis Affinity (+1)
3. Aristocrats (+4)
2. Jund Wildfire (-1)
1. Blue Terror (+1)

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.