Untitled Commander Series 3: Navigating the Narrows

How do you build towards narrow cards? This is the question that has enamored me since I was introduced to Commander. There’s nothing wrong with picking a legendary that offers multiple paths – I’ve have more than one deck where such a card is at the helm – but I also derive joy from finding a general where I have to scour the entire history of Magic to find cards that fit and only if you squint just right. This is where love is found. There’s a fondness for the weird legends, the ones that when you take it out of the deckbox, members of the pod may be met with a card that they had no idea existed. These options do not have to be old but instead they may just not measure up to the current crop of commanders.

The (technically correct) way to build towards a narrow Commander is to find 99 other pieces of cardboard that you like and shuffle them up. Thank you for coming to my lecture, please leave a five star review. If you actually want a deck that does something you have to be more selective. You need to examine the card selected and think of everything it can do and build out from there. Given the entire legacy of Magic, the slowly shifting nature of the Color Pie, and the need to keep limited environments fresh, it feels possible to build nearly any archetype in any color identity. All it takes is the ability to see things in the context of that history instead of only the past few years.

This is easy for me to say. I am a full fledged adult who has been playing Magic since Revised (for the record my “break” came before Ice Age). I also went accomplished much of my schooling before the era of the omnipresent internet (and well before the era of the useless internet) and had to do research in libraries using microfilm and other antiquated concepts. There were times in college when I would find a book in the stacks and pore over the bibliography to check the source material on the off chance it would be applicable to my current endeavor. This is the approach one must take when looking at Commanders that play to themes not heavily supported in color identity.

Crovax the Cursed {2}{B}{B} Legendary Creature — Vampire Noble Crovax enters with four +1/+1 counters on it. At the beginning of your upkeep, you may sacrifice a creature. If you do, put a +1/+1 counter on Crovax. If you don’t, remove a +1/+1 counter from Crovax. {B}: Crovax gains flying until end of turn. 0/0 Illustrated by Pete Venters Part of the Reserved List

While there is no central library for Magic there are plenty of sources. Scryfall and EDHRec both facilitate research. If you are able to search terms and find key cards in the former you can then see how people are applying that knowledge in the latter. This is my preferred way to use EDHRec as it can give me clues to cards that may have escaped my notice (being old means I can’t keep up with the cadence of new cards) while letting me leverage the pieces of cardboard that get stuck in my mind (looking at you Strands of Night). I want to show putting this method into practice using Crovax the Cursed.

From the first time I saw Crovax I was enthralled. The Weatherlight Saga was in full force and the story was being revealed in the cards and the pages of The Duelist. This specific card depicted the moment that Crovax lost his humanity. The text says it all: he counts as a Vampire. He has to constantly feed to maintain his strength. Pete Venters’ art is striking in his signature manner. The line work is phenomenal, especially when shrunk down to card size. The lighting, the red, the feathers of the fallen angel; all of it communicates the moment. By modern standards the card is not very good but that does not matter because of the feelings it evokes.

When cards get stuck in my brain I am always looking for other options that may end up working with them. Years after I first saw and built my initial Crovax deck, Unforgiving One was spoiled. I knew I wanted to play this card in Commander. It did not matter to me that the card was not especially powerful or that its thematic hook – Modified – was not exactly supported in black. The idea of conditionally bringing creatures back from the graveyard makes me smile and attacking is still honest. A copy was added to my collection even as I took apart the first iteration of Crovax.

Unforgiving One {2}{B} Creature — Spirit Menace (This creature can’t be blocked except by two or more creatures.) Whenever this creature attacks, return target creature card with mana value X or less from your graveyard to the battlefield, where X is the number of modified creatures you control. (Equipment, Auras you control, and counters are modifications.) 2/3 Illustrated by Fariba Khamseh

But the idea of Mono Black Modified continued to tickled the part of my mind dedicated to deckbuilding. The release of Tarkir Dragonstorm and its focus on different counters – not just +1/+1 counters – gave me the spark of inspiration I needed to pull the Vampire Noble back out. Flipping through my collection I saw cards that added all manner of counters to my army, from Charnel Serenade to Isareth the Awakener. The hook’s hooks were in me and I started to look for auras and equipment that would fit the bill. While I have not found auras that spoke to me, it does not mean I’ll leave Chorale of the Void on the outs forever. Thankfully, for my opponents at least, I decided to leave my copies of Grafted Exoskeleton and Phyresis on the bench. Nevertheless I had the hypothesis for my research.

Narrow decks are some of my favorite ones to build and maintain. Honing in on a select suite of cards while also being able to find new and novel ways to engage with the entire history of the game keeps things entertaining. It also makes these decks easier to update as new cards are released. Looking at a card file for black cards that care about counters provides a set of parameters where it is entirely possible no cards could be added to the deck for months at a time. What a relief!

Building Crovax with an emphasis on Modified meant he needed to be a threat. Crovax needs to get large to punch players in their mouth while surviving long enough to do it again (and again, hopefully). This is part of the allure. Being able to fling him at an opponent with Rite of Consumption is a reasonable endgame (I still can’t find my copy of Essence Harvest) and Surestrike Trident doesn’t force me to sacrifice my Commander while also leaning into the Modified theme. Looking at other ways to boost Crovax’s power, Blade of the Bloodchief fits perfectly turning each piece of fodder fed to Crovax into three points of power. Tarrian’s Soulcleaver might not care about Crovax’s vampirism but can grow him all the same. Ring of Xathrid is a fantastic option that not only can protect Crovax but also keeps him alive if I am unable to feed him enough.

Animation Module {1} Artifact Whenever one or more +1/+1 counters are put on a permanent you control, you may pay {1}. If you do, create a 1/1 colorless Servo artifact creature token. {3}, {T}: Choose a counter on target permanent or player. Give that permanent or player another counter of that kind. Design leads to progress. Illustrated by Aaron Miller

Caring about +1/+1 counters means I get to bust out one of my favorite trinkets: Animation Module. I am always trying to get this engine adjacent card to work and it shines here. When it is out on the board it turns Crovax’s upkeep cost into a scant one generic mana while also providing a pastiche of Proliferate. Animation Module cares about any +1/+1 counter being placed on a creature so actual Proliferate – Contagion Engine, Vat Emergence, and Vraska, Betrayal’s Sting – all find a home here as well. Now any of our creatures are able to grow tall.

What about going wide? As Unforgiving One cares about multiple creatures carrying enhancements, we need to look at options. Nikara, Lair Scavenger and Yathan Tombguard also want multiple creatures with counters and converts them into cards. Hagra Constrictor makes these creatures more difficult to block. Unspeakable Symbol is no Treasonous Ogre but it can convert life into damage. The three life is steep but does pay dividends in this build. Isareth and Charnel Serenade can bring these creatures back for one last rodeo as well, providing just enough of an oomph to make their finality clauses worth the cost of inclusion.

Noosegraf Mob is an odd duck. It comes in as a 5/5 but can provide a steady stream of bodies to block and feed to Crovax. There are plenty of ways to keep this zombie alive and spewing filth, from the equipment available to Mikaeus, the Unhallowed. It is also emblematic of cards in the deck that benefit directly from having +1/+1 counters placed directly on them – one only needs to look at Emperor of Bones or Fetid Gargantua to see what else can happen when you decide to feed your army of horrors.

The first time I played Crovax in its current rebuild it stumbled. Hard. Part of this was due to mana issues but a not so small part of the problem was the lack of relevant early drops. Bloodghast, Nether Traitor, and Reassembling Skeleton were slam dunks as they obliged the Noble. I had replaced more expensive card draw with Clattering Augur and Dusk Legion Zealot in an effort to speed up development. Still I needed more. The release of Edge of Eternities provided Timeline Culler as another persistent source of fuel. I leafed through my longboxes, found copies of Hangarback Walker and Marketback Walker as a smile spread across my face. Here were cards that could come down early. wanted to die, and worked with +1/+1 counters. It didn’t take much to convince myself of their worth

Now that I had all of these bonuses I needed to put them to good use. Retribution of the Ancients turns excess counters into creature removal and when combined with Mikaeus could help create a perpetually undying army. Retribution also enables the reactivation of an Adapt ability which can mean more cards from Fetid Gargantua or more hasted attackers from Emperor of Bones. Fain the Broker is a fiddly card that does a lot at a cost. However when there are counters to spare he can put it work.

Fetid Gargantua {4}{B} Creature — Horror {2}{B}: Adapt 2. (If this creature has no +1/+1 counters on it, put two +1/+1 counters on it.) Whenever one or more +1/+1 counters are put on this creature, you may draw two cards. If you do, you lose 2 life. When the night comes knocking —Kessig expression meaning “in dire times” 4/4 Illustrated by Michael C. Hayes

The fact that Fain can remove Finality Counters does not hurt and provides some redundancy with Nesting Grounds to help keep the creatures coming back for more. Both the land and the Broker also allow creatures to continue to Adapt (are you sensing a theme yet?).

Banshee's Blade {2} Artifact — Equipment Equipped creature gets +1/+1 for each charge counter on this Equipment. Whenever equipped creature deals combat damage, put a charge counter on this Equipment. Equip {2} ({2}: Attach to target creature you control. Equip only as a sorcery. This card enters unattached and stays on the battlefield if the creature leaves.) Illustrated by Bradley Williams

Then there’s Equipment. Loxodon Warhammer is a classic and helps to offset life loss. Ghost Lantern comes with Bind Spirit, leveraging both halves of the card. Lashwrithe not only makes a creature large but is also leaves behind a piece of fodder for Crovax. Banshee’s Blade is a neat card that leaves the counters on the artifact, meaning it can move its power around the board not unlike The Ozolith. There are other equipment that add counters to the creature itself – Armory of Iroas – but having one that is not contingent on its wielder surviving adds to the deck’s resilience.

This is my exploration of a narrow card that is anything but. I am not going to say that my Crovax deck is a world beater – if I wanted it to be stronger I would add another color. Skullbriar, the Walking Grave or Reyhan, Last of the Abzan or Grismold, the Dreadsower are all better decks for a +1/+1 counter theme that also come with green’s ability to multiply counters, and I have built each of these decks in the past. However each of them leaves something to be desired. These builds are, in many ways, prescribed. You can build any of these decks but how good are they without Hardened Scales and its ilk? There is nothing wrong with running these decks and leaning into the powerful options gifted by the additional color. But intentionally limiting yourself has more benefits than just bookkeeping – it can lower your threat profile.

Sitting down in any pod requires some level of assessment. Not only do you need to consider your position in turn order but you also must survey the other Commanders. If you are sitting in a regular group you understand more about your enemies but in open play you have to make snap judgements based upon known information. A card that screams +1/+1 counters at you is more likely to play with cards you have seen before and even if there are some minor differences the main thrust will remain the same. It is understood. If you take your Commander out and it is a narrow – or more likely worse – version of something of something established that can work in your favor. Your cards work in ways that may not be as easy to parse to the opponent’s providing an advantage. Playing cards that are present in fewer decks can also lead to being underestimated, which in turn can give you a chance to strike. At the end of the game this can lead to more enjoyment since everyone loves an underdog story.

If you are looking for something new for Commander night why not focus on something outside the box? Think to what card gripped you for the first time (of the fiftieth) and build with that in mind. You never know what relic you might uncover in your efforts.

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The First Two Weeks of Edge of Eternities

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

Normally when I start writing about a new season of Pauper Challenges on Magic Online I give the caveat that there’s not much to glean from one week of data. Two weeks in and we can start to see trends emerge. In my estimation here are the things you need to know about the shifting state of Pauper as you prepare for upcoming events.

Combo Summer?
4 Brainstorm 1 Deep Analysis 1 Gigadrowse 4 Hidden Strings 4 High Tide 4 Ideas Unbound 8 Island 4 Lórien Revealed 4 Merchant Scroll 1 Muddle the Mixture 4 Peer Through Depths 2 Pieces of the Puzzle 4 Preordain 4 Psychic Puppetry 2 Reach Through Mists 7 Snow-Covered Island 2 Stream of Thought Sideboard 4 Augur of Bolas 4 Disrupt 2 Gigadrowse 1 Muddle the Mixture 4 Snap

Combo in Pauper is a daredevil walking a tightrope. It has to be just powerful enough to be competitive without being so dominant that it warps the format. Recently we have seen Basking Broodscale combo prove to be too powerful while other stalwarts – like the traditional combo version of WonderWalls – falling shy of the top tier. The introduction of High Tide combo into the metagame has provided Pauper with a combo deck, that while strong, has yet to dominate in the ways its predecessors has. While there are other complaints about the deck – namely around the way it impacts tournament operations and the clock – purely based on numbers High Tide remains a reasonable inclusion in the format. It’s strength as a spell based combo deck has opened the way for other decks that operate on more familiar axes to succeed.

1 Avenging Hunter 3 Elvish Mystic 13 Forest 3 Fyndhorn Elves 4 Generous Ent 4 Lead the Stampede 4 Llanowar Elves 4 Masked Vandal 4 Nyxborn Hydra 4 Priest of Titania 4 Quirion Ranger 1 Sagu Wildling 4 Timberwatch Elf 2 Wellwisher 4 Winding Way 1 You Meet in a Tavern Sideboard 3 Deglamer 3 Heritage Reclamation 3 Nylea's Disciple 3 Spidersilk Armor 2 Viridian Longbow 1 Wellwisher

Elves, for all its little green creatures, is a combo deck. Operating on the principle of Hypermana, where every threat helps to progress you mana development to a top end, Elves snowballs quickly. The deck’s ability to deploy a large army for Timberwatch Elf or sink Priest of Titania mana into Nyxborn Hydra provides multiple angles of attack and the duo of Lead the Stampede and Winding Way means your hand is going to be well stocked. Elves excels at deploying these cards and, for the time being, has fewer board wipes to worry about thanks in part to High Tide and the other ascending combo deck.

I Spy Walls

Balustrade Spy and Dread Return have been tearing up Legacy for quite some time and while these cards have both been legal in Pauper well over a year it is only recently that a consistent version of the combo has emerged. Spy Walls takes the mana generation from WonderWalls – which relies on creatures – and adds a Balustrade Spy kill line with Lotleth Giant. The Walls line means the deck has a fail case of just casting the Giant as well as Sagu Wilding and Generous Ent. The deck is a testament to the power of Pauper while also presenting something novel. Discourse around the deck has been largely around its strength but, despite its high placing in the Power Rankings later in this piece, I feel much of the talk is wasted words.

4 Axebane Guardian 4 Balustrade Spy 1 Dimir House Guard 2 Dread Return 1 Elven Farsight 4 Forest 4 Gatecreeper Vine 4 Generous Ent 4 Land Grant 4 Lead the Stampede 2 Lotleth Giant 3 Masked Vandal 2 Mesmeric Fiend 4 Overgrown Battlement 3 Quirion Ranger 4 Sagu Wildling 4 Saruli Caretaker 1 Swamp 1 Troll of Khazad-dûm 4 Winding Way Sideboard 2 Accursed Marauder 1 Acorn Harvest 4 Essence Warden 1 Masked Vandal 2 Mesmeric Fiend 2 Mirrorshell Crab 2 Scattershot Archer 1 Swamp

Spy Walls is a good deck but it has multiple failure points. Like many other Pauper combo decks it is highly vulnerable to graveyard hate. Part of the reason for its success is that out of the three main “combo” decks seeing play these days, it is the only one that leans heavily on the discard pile. In fact, each deck operates in a different sphere – spells, creatures in play, creatures in graveyard. This divergence means that there are very few “universal” answers to the combo threat at the moment which in turn has added to the success of these archetypes.

Wiped Clean

Krark-Clan Shaman and Toxin Analysis formed the backbone of board control in Pauper for the past several months. Both Grixis Affinity and Jund Wildfire leaned heavily on this duo to take out threats and bolster their life total. Both of these decks are falling rapidly down the Power Rankings. The lack of a strong board control deck in the format has helped given rise to Elves and the struggles of black based midrange means fewer copies of Bojuka Bog and Nihil Spellbomb floating around which gives graveyard decks a bit more breathing room. While I do not think Grixis Affinity will return to its former glory, I am more bullish on Jund.

Grixis Affinity is a collection of good cards held together with Artifact themes. Over the past two years, commons have been pushed towards existing synergies and Artifacts have become more prevalent. As such there are more cards that care about “noncreature” cards while abilities like Affinity are far more rare. The threshold to care about Artifacts has dropped to a single inclusion. In order to get the benefit of a card like Fanatical Offering you do not need to dedicate your deck to it – you simply need enough spare material. Affinity style decks will continue to see play – Refurbished Familiar is a hell of a Magic card – but the need to push hard in construction just is not there anymore.

What about Jund? This deck is, by nature, reactive. It needs to be built to match a specific metagame and the landscape has changed. Jund absolutely has the tools to adapt but given the cycle of a format it will take a few weeks for the correct threats and answers to bu sussed out before Jund can climb the mountain again. While I doubt the deck will fight for the top spot in Pauper, it is likely to be a top five deck before the season ends.

I See What UU Did There

Blue Terror remains the best deck in Pauper. Faeries – a deck that struggled to find footing much of last season – has climbed four spots in the Power Rankings. This is a testament to the ability to say “no” with Counterspell and Spellstutter Sprite. In metagames where there is a wide array of problematic cards and multiple lines of attack, very little is as strong as shutting down a key spell. While Elves might be able to navigate around a single counter, High Tide needs to resolve a copy of its namesake while Spy Walls can fall flat if it took the wrong line in the face of countermagic. Terror has been at the top of Pauper for quite some time but Faeries is experiencing something of a resurgence thanks in part to a Jellyfish.

4 Brainstorm 4 Counterspell 4 Cryptic Serpent 2 Deem Inferior 1 Deep Analysis 4 Delver of Secrets 2 Dispel 16 Island 4 Lórien Revealed 4 Mental Note 3 Ponder 2 Sleep of the Dead 2 Spell Pierce 4 Thought Scour 4 Tolarian Terror Sideboard 4 Annul 3 Blue Elemental Blast 2 Envelop 2 Gut Shot 4 Hydroblast

Illvoi Galeblade is not a Faerie, and it certainly isn’t Spellstutter Sprite. What it is, however, is a flash flyer that leaves up mana for interaction while also setting up a Ninja and cashing in for a card later in the game. This little push has been enough to make Faeries a real factor in the format heading into the weekend. Faeries is always lingering at the edges, ready to strike, and its time seems to be near.

Looking ahead to this weekend I would be looking at something in the midrange camp that would have play against this wide field. Being the weirdo that I am I would be iterating on a Food Gardens lists that have added Nutrient Block to the mix while also having access to maindeck copies of Pestilence. These decks can gain gobs of life while also controlling the board. And who doesn’t love a chance to play Cauldron Familiar in a fair capacity?

2 Bojuka Bog 2 Campfire 4 Cast Down 2 Cauldron Familiar 1 Chainer's Edict 2 Duress 4 Eviscerator's Insight 4 Fanatical Offering 1 Go for the Throat 3 Golgari Rot Farm 1 Gurmag Angler 1 Heaped Harvest 4 Ichor Wellspring 4 Khalni Garden 4 Lembas 2 Nihil Spellbomb 4 Nutrient Block 3 Pestilence 9 Swamp 2 Temporal Intervention 2 Witherbloom Campus Sideboard 3 Drown in Sorrow 3 Faerie Macabre 2 Snuff Out 3 Troublemaker Ouphe 4 Weather the Storm

Power Rankings

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

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Untitled Commander Series 2: 99 + 1 Does Not Equal 1 + 99

Recently, after Commander night I was standing outside my local game store with a friend and regular podmate. We had just finished our third game of the night where the two of us were the last players standing. Piloting my Sek’Kuar, Deathkeeper Aristocrats deck, I was able to whittle him down from 60 life to zero in a single turn. But that isn’t what he brought up. Instead he remarked that my deck was able to function, even without my Commander in play. He brought up the first game of the evening which I had also won, where my Pia, Consul of Revival deck secured the victory without the eponymous card on the battlefield. Clearly this conversation stuck with me as you are reading the words on this page. But why?

Sek'Kuar, Deathkeeper {2}{B}{R}{G} Legendary Creature — Orc Shaman Whenever another nontoken creature you control dies, create a 3/1 black and red Graveborn creature token with haste. Karplusan legend told of an orc so cruel that he burned his own followers in rage—yet so revered that they rose from their pyres to serve him. 4/3 Illustrated by Jeff Miracola

Let’s back track a bit. First off, I am a dinosaur in the world of Magic. I have been playing the game since Revised was fresh on the shelves and my introduction to Commander – then Elder Dragon Highlander – came before the Kaalia of the Vast was a physical Magic card. Back then even the most well oiled machine felt like they were held together with duct tape and a dream. In the intervening decade plus, Wizards has learned how to design for multiplayer even as they continuously push the envelope. Now decks that come out of the box can reasonably hold their own against tried, tested, and tuned homebrews. And that box matters because of who is plastered on the front.

Today Commander focuses far more on, well, the Commander. If Magic can be about personal expression then selecting a legend that leads a deck in some way is an extension of the pilot. The centering of the Commander also alters the way the deck functions in practice. When the Commander is an integral part of the strategy, the other 99 cards not only must support the Commander but also exist to turn that one card into a threat. In modern Commander every deck is a Voltron deck.

Voltron is a nickname for a type of deck where you enhance your Commander with the intent to attack. Whether it’s +1/+1 counters, auras, or equipment, the idea is to turn your Commander into an engine of destruction. These decks can falter when their centerpiece is dealt with, as the surrounding architecture only holds up when the general is on the battlefield. Now I am not saying every new deck that rolls off the printing press completely falls apart without one key card but when I look at Commanders printed since 2020 many are so powerful that their absence can cause the deck to stumble.

What does this have to do with the conversation I had? Back when I was learning the ins and outs of the format the cards were, by and large, worse. A deck had to have a strategy that, while not separate from the Commander, had to function in someway without it in play. This was not because the card in the Command Zone was any less a piece of self expression or important to the deck, it was just that they were cards not designed to be a Commander. When I rolled up to my meetups in the 2010s with Sek’Kuar, Deathkeeper, I had to have a deck built to support a five drop Commander that had no inherent protection and did not win the game on its own. These cards were just another cog in the machine; not Liquid Schwartz.

Part of this may have to do with how I was introduced to the format. Back when I started it was possible to shuffle a Commander into its owner’s library. The so-called “Tuck Rule” meant that a card like Chaos Warp could more or less ensure your opponent would never see their most important card again, I remember snatching up every copy of Void Stalker I saw, believing that they were going to be a terror at the tables. The existence of this rule practically necessitated building in such a way that your deck could function without its centerpiece; a lesson I carry to this day.

Void Stalker {1}{U} Creature — Elemental {2}{U}, {T}: Put this creature and target creature on top of their owners’ libraries, then those players shuffle their libraries. Now you see it, now you’re gone. 2/1 Illustrated by Marco Nelor

A deck’s reliance on a Commander is nothing new but the sheer number of strategies that begin to crumble without that 100th (or in many ways, 1st) card led me to think about resilience. When I get to play Commander I want to make sure I actually get to play; I want to engage in the game and not simply put cardboard rectangles on to my playmat as the other three competitors jockey for position. More than that I want to be engaged with as many points in the match as possible. I do not want to be undone by a single counter, removal spell, or board wipe. It is rather quixotic to believe this will never happen, but that does not mean I cannot build in such a way to reduce the amount of time I spend as a spectator.

But how do I accomplish this?

Not to beat a dead horse but make sure you’re running enough mana sources. While not the mainthrust of this piece the best way to make sure you are involved in a game is to be able to cast the spells you draw. Look at your Commander’s mana value and include enough resources to be able to cast it at least twice from the Command zone. If your deck falls apart without the Commander than you are going to want to up this number to three, or maybe even four times to ensure you have access to a key element of your strategy.

Nether Shadow {B}{B} Creature — Spirit Haste At the beginning of your upkeep, if this card is in your graveyard with three or more creature cards above it, you may put this card onto the battlefield. 1/1 Illustrated by DiTerlizzi

Being able to play your cards is one way to be active in a game, but what do those cards do? Several months ago I wrote about layered engines but today I want to take a little more time to explore what that means in context. It all starts with the conceit behind the deck: What are you trying to do? How are you trying to win? While the answer to this questions can often start with the Commander there are other options. Perhaps you are infatuated with a tournament deck from another era or you really enjoy specific aspects of the game. For example, I have long been a fan of Nether Shadows – creatures that can bring themselves back from the graveyard.

Bloodghast and Reassembling Skeleton make me happy to the point where I accidentally ordered 16 copies of Tenacious Dead. Regardless I had built more than one deck around these cards even before Tormod, the Desecrator was released. Given the expansive history of Magic it is possible, even if it is not easy, to build a deck around any mechanical concept.

The goal of this is to look sideways and do research. It feels almost odd in this current moment when the idea of digging into source material and looking for synonyms or corollaries are becoming as antiquated as a rotary phone. At the same point it can be rewarding to see how the pieces can come together to create something greater than the sum of its parts. Rebell (who for my money is doing some of the best work on social Commander theory today) put out a video recently about a similar concept and I encourage you all to check it out. Returning to the Nether Shadow example, once a seed is planted a deck can branch out in multiple directions. There is the previously mentioned Tormod angle, where you generate value from cards leaving the graveyard. Of course they also need to get into the bin in some way so that can lead you down the path of self-mill, Buried Alive, or sacrifice engines. If you are sacrificing the creatures then Blood Artist effects follow and yes I know we just built a Syr Konrad deck but bear with me. Each of these different synergies are not discrete and isolated entities. There are ways to bridge them together so that if you aren’t able to fully execute one plan it is possible for you at least progress on another. Syr Konrad is a perfect example in part because it does so much that it can easily bridge the gaps. Ayara, First of Lochthwain is another card that can stitch together these engines as it wants you to put black creatures into play while also providing a way to get them into the graveyard.

It is not about any one thing your Commander does but rather about everything it can do.

Let’s look at my Sek’Kuar deck. While the list above is not exactly what I played in the game in question, the conceit of the deck is the same. Sek’Kuar is an Aristocrats deck that wants to leverage the Orc’s ability to generate material. That the Graveborn tokens are reasonable threats in their own right matters as well. The overarching theme of the deck is to sacrifice for value and while the main spout is the Orc from Coldsnap there are many other cards that make use of things hitting the bin. While these can work together they do not have to in order to march towards victory. Creatures dying might give you an Experience Counter with Meren of Clan Nel-Toth or force opponent’s to make a choice with Savra, Golgari Queen. They can plink in for damage with Blood Artist (and friends) or draw cards thanks to Smothering Abomination. Mazirek, Karaul Death Priest means everything that is sacrificed can become more strength on the battlefield for your shambling horde. If the coast is clear you can also loop Living Death with Phyrexian Altar or Pitiless Plunderer and Eternal Witness. It is not that any given Sek’Kuar deck can’t do all of these things but rather there is a thread – Sacrifice – that ties these pockets together such that progressing on one axis can move you forward on others, all towards the same end.

I put a high priority on being an active participant in games of Commander. To me this means building redundancy into decks and finding ways to progress a game plan even in the absence of the Commander. There has been more than one occasion where a spoiler drops for a card that should be entirely in my wheelhouse but my reaction is “I don’t want to build that”. Why? Because the Commander itself is so powerful that its absence would completely wreck my opportunity to engage in the game.

Hashaton, Scarab’s Fist is a card I should enjoy. It deals with Zombies; it does sideways reanimation; it doesn’t even exile the cards from your graveyard. This card is practically calling to me from the grave. And yet it exhibits many of the qualities of Commanders I avoid. When Hashaton is not on the battlefield the strategy can shift towards standard reanimator. Now don’t get me wrong, I love this style of play, but there are other decks that do a better job of scratching that itch.

Hashaton, Scarab's Fist {W}{B} Legendary Creature — Zombie Wizard Whenever you discard a creature card, you may pay {2}{U}. If you do, create a tapped token that’s a copy of that card, except it’s a 4/4 black Zombie. “I served the Scarab in an age long past, in another form, under another name. No matter their visage, I serve.” 1/3 Illustrated by Wisnu Tan

Hashaton demands discard outlets, which work well with this back up strategy but are required for your Commander to function. I think it’s actively a good thing Hashton does not have a built in way to pitch cards, but it then pushes the build to have enough of these cards to have one at all times. It is not that you cannot build a unique Hashaton deck that does things its own way, but rather every Hashaton deck is going to be doing the same thing, just slightly differently, and missing any one of the key pieces can turn the game into hoping you top deck the correct piece.

Another card that fits this mold for me is Meren of Clan Nel-Toth. If you’ve ever sat down against a Meren deck you know exactly what you’re in for. Sure the mixture of creatures might be different but at some point you are very likely to get locked under Spore Frog and hope against hope to draw the correct piece of interaction. Meren decks have a certain way they want to games to go and do everything in their power to try and stick to that path.

In these instances the decks don’t try to play the game but rather they are focused on enacting their game plan. While not Voltron in the strictest sense of the word they are honed in on doing the same thing and built towards that end. To be perfectly clear there is nothing wrong with decks of this stripe, but they do not appeal to me.

Gilgamesh, Master-at-Arms {4}{R}{R} Legendary Creature — Human Samurai Whenever Gilgamesh enters or attacks, look at the top six cards of your library. You may put any number of Equipment cards from among them onto the battlefield. Put the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order. When you put one or more Equipment onto the battlefield this way, you may attach one of them to a Samurai you control. 6/6 Illustrated by Lorenzo Mastroianni

Let’s examine the relatively new Gilgamesh, Master of Arms. This Commander screams at you to follow a path – Equipment. There are ways to let your toe leave the path with Reconfigure or the Living Weapon lineage, but Gilgamesh is going to demand a hefty deckbuilding price and as a result things may play on rails. This is not to say you can do something different with Gilgamesh but the more you deviate from the primary objective the greater the chance of non-games.

Voltron decks make demands while other Commanders provide options.

In a hypothetical Gilgamesh deck, once the Commander is removed once or twice what can the deck do? It requires a density of Equipment to function but there are only so many pieces of Equipment that double as a creature. Adding cards like Godo, Bandit Warlord, Valduk, Keeper of the Flame, and Brass Squire might provide redundancy but do so at a real cost. Returning to Sek’Kuar, the deck absolutely wants to have its namesake on the battlefield but the deck does just fine without the Commander. It is part of the plan, not the only plan.

Here we run into a conundrum. If your approach to the format is playing games with your friends or finding the right build for a particular mechanical execution then pivoting away from a particular legendary is just part of the experience. But what happens when you want to play a deck because of a specific character and their card pushes towards Voltron? How can you ensure participation in the game when so much hinges on the main character.

I talked about supplementing the plan in the case of Gilgamesh, but that does come with a cost. In that instance it may require several games of playing to figure out the right balance of hits and misses to ensure the ability to play the game. Beyond that you can look for strategies that intersect with the main thrust of the deck in an attempt to provide other avenues of success. If I were to build around this Commander I would lean hard on cards like Commander’s Plate and Darksteel Plate which go a long way towards protecting my key component.

Expecting these cards to be targeted at some point means redundancy is in order and thankfully red has access to Goblin Welder and Daretti, Rocketeer Engineer. Daretti plays nice with Gilgamesh in that it also wants to attack, encouraging a similar line of play. From here I would look at ways to generate Artifact material like Powerstones, which would provide a steady supply of tokens to trade in for the armory. Powerstones can pull double duty as they would make it easier to reequip cards later in the game as well. While this deck might not be the best execution of a Gilgamesh strategy it does open up the possibility of participating in the game once the main strategy is cut off.

Daretti, Rocketeer Engineer {4}{R} Legendary Creature — Goblin Artificer Daretti’s power is equal to the greatest mana value among artifacts you control. Whenever Daretti enters or attacks, choose target artifact card in your graveyard. You may sacrifice an artifact. If you do, return the chosen card to the battlefield. */5 Watermark: Desparked Illustrated by Borja Pindado

Legendary Creatures today are designed with Commander in mind. To that end they are crafted with the idea that someone will build a deck dedicated to make them work. The ceiling is high for sure, but in order to raise the floor more work has to be done to ensure that you get to engage in more of any given game. I’m not saying to take a completely different path, just to look for other routes to your destination.

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The Final Fantasy Season Wrap

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

In the three weeks since my last post, nine Challenges and two other major tournaments took place on Magic Online. As of this writing we are staring down the barrel towards Edge of Eternities. As Magic travels to the one place still free from capitalism we can use the information gleaned from the realm of…realms of FINAL FANTASY to understand where things might be going.

Pauper remains balanced. The results from the last three weeks show that while there are certainly decks that perform better than others. these archetypes are not such outliers as to cause major problems. The two decks at the top of the format – Blue Terror and Jund Wildfire – are there in part because they are able to deal with a wide variety of decks. These two decks have found themselves at the top of the heap for the duration of Final Fantasy season.

4 Brainstorm 4 Counterspell 4 Cryptic Serpent 3 Deem Inferior 4 Delver of Secrets 2 Dispel 16 Island 4 Lórien Revealed 4 Mental Note 3 Ponder 2 Sleep of the Dead 2 Spell Pierce 4 Thought Scour 4 Tolarian Terror Sideboard 4 Annul 3 Blue Elemental Blast 4 Gut Shot 3 Hydroblast
2 Blood Fountain 1 Bojuka Bog 2 Cast Down 4 Cleansing Wildfire 4 Drossforge Bridge 3 Eviscerator's Insight 3 Fanatical Offering 2 Forest 4 Ichor Wellspring 3 Krark-Clan Shaman 2 Lembas 1 Makeshift Munitions 2 Mountain 2 Nihil Spellbomb 2 Pulse of Murasa 4 Refurbished Familiar 4 Slagwoods Bridge 2 Swamp 3 Toxin Analysis 4 Twisted Landscape 2 Vault of Whispers 4 Writhing Chrysalis Sideboard 3 Duress 1 Krark-Clan Shaman 4 Pyroblast 1 Toxin Analysis 2 Troublemaker Ouphe 4 Vampiric Link

These decks have solid results on the season. Blue Terror accumulated four wins and 29 Top 8 finishes in 90 Top 32 appearances. It closed out the season with an Adjusted Meta Score Above Replacement of 1.33. Put another way, Blue Terror decks finished events with a record more than a win better than the average Top 32 deck when adjusted for metagame presence – this is the difference between a Top 32 and Top 16 finish, or a Top 16 and a Top 8 finish. A Win+ score of 0.82 tells us that Blue Terror’s average finish was approaching the Top 16 and a K-Win of 2.27 – over two – tells us that when the deck made Top 8 it tended to do well. Speaking of those 29 Top 8s, given Blue Terror’s Swiss performance it was on pace for around 23 such finishes and through the luck of matchups and tie-breaker math it appears to have over performed in that regard. All told the deck closed out the season with a healthy 13.77% of the Winner’s Metagame.

Jund Wildfire is the other deck at the top of the heap. Three wins and 22 Top 8 finishes in 74 Top 32 appearances is more than respectable. Jund ended the season with an aMSAR score of 1.1, only slightly behind Blue Terror. The midrange deck did better than Blue in the Win+ category, notching 0.86, putting it slightly ahead of the monochrome in Swiss standings; a K-Win of 2.3 seems to back that up. Jund was on pace for 20 Top 8 finishes and cleared that marker. Rounding things out the Cleansing Wildfire strategy held 11.58% of the Winner’s Metagame.

If the best two decks in the format play fair Magic, that is far from a bad thing. The spread between them in Winner’s Metagame share is not all that large, and the gap between Jund and the next deck on the list – Rakdos Madness – is just over 3%. There are four more decks with Winner’s Metagame shares within 3% of Rakdos (Madness Burn, Elves, High Tide, Red Deck Wins) and another a fraction of a percent behind that group (Grixis Affinity). It is hard to look at the format and everything that is viable and come away things are bad.

So how can one get an edge in something so balanced? There are still ways. First and foremost is trying to pack a way to handle large creatures. Tolarian Terror and Writhing Chrysalis remain the biggest threats in the format and both feature prominently at the top of the metagame (to say nothing of people trying Gruul Ramp builds as well as Dimir Terror and Izzet Control). Three of the other top decks are Lightning Bolt strategies – makes sense why decks would want access to either Weather the Storm or up to eight copies of an Elemental Blast – rounded out by Elves (and other hypermana decks) and High Tide. High Tide operates on an unique axis and requires specialized cards to combat. Elves can fall to the right mix of removal and much of the counterplay can also be applied to Overgrown Battlement decks.

1 Acorn Harvest 4 Axebane Guardian 4 Balustrade Spy 2 Dread Return 1 Elven Farsight 4 Forest 4 Gatecreeper Vine 4 Generous Ent 4 Land Grant 4 Lead the Stampede 2 Lotleth Giant 3 Masked Vandal 2 Mesmeric Fiend 4 Overgrown Battlement 2 Quirion Ranger 4 Sagu Wildling 4 Saruli Caretaker 1 Swamp 2 Troll of Khazad-dûm 4 Winding Way Sideboard 2 Faerie Macabre 1 Flaring Pain 1 Masked Vandal 2 Mesmeric Fiend 3 Nylea's Disciple 2 Scattershot Archer 2 Vitu-Ghazi Inspector 2 Weather the Storm

Except Spy Walls. A relatively new wrinkle the format, Balustrade Spy combo has been refined over the past few releases to be a legitimate contender. This new deck adds the Walls package to provide additional resilience in the form of being able to cast some large creatures. This additional angle is neat, but a well timed piece of graveyard removal could work wonders. Considering that some folks are eager to start looping Ghostly Flicker through Cryogen Relic, having access to reliable graveyard hate seems to be mandatory heading into the next season.

Power Rankings

10. Faeries (-2)
9. Mono White Aggro (-4)
8. Grixis Affinity (-2)
7. RDW (+3)
6. High Tide (+3)
5. Elves (+2)
4. Rakdos Madness (-1)
3. Madness Burn (+1)
2. Jund Wildfire
1. Blue Terror

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The First Four Weeks of Final Fantasy

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

Change is a constant. While it sometimes moves slow – as it did for much of Pauper’s history – it still takes marches on. Entropy is a natural state and to defy it is to swim upstream against the way of things. In Pauper the combination of a series of bans and a powerful release in FINAL FANTASY has resulted in a format that while familiar, has some striking differences. With four weeks of Magic Online Challenge data available, as well as the results of the latest edition of Paupergeddon, we can take stock of the format as it exists in the middle of 2025.

It is important to first understand the difference between the digital and tabletop metagames. Magic Online has two main avenues of competition: Leagues and Challenges. Leagues reward quick play-throughs and as such can lead players to choosing decks that have a high ceiling but a low floor. For some participants it is less about selecting the best option but rather the one that will give you the highest yield on your time. It’s not about taking the best shot but rather the most shots. Challenges (and other larger tournaments) instead reward picking consistently good decks. At the same time these events are not so long that the aggressive bias disappears but rather it is reduced. Magic Online also makes it rather easy to switch decks, which leads to players often cycling through archetypes in an effort to maximize enjoyment and success.

Compare this to tabletop, where players may be more locked in to their decks. Physical play can be a more social experience and smaller tournaments can be defined by what decks people have on hand. The larger tournaments – like Paupergeddon – do not take place in a vacuum and players have to draw their information from somewhere. That Paupergeddon cuts to Day 2, like the Grand Prix of yore, means that decks that are consistent (high floor, decent ceiling) have a real shot at making waves.

4 Faithless Looting 4 Fiery Temper 3 Fireblast 4 Grab the Prize 3 Guttersnipe 4 Highway Robbery 4 Kessig Flamebreather 4 Lava Dart 4 Lightning Bolt 18 Mountain 4 Sneaky Snacker 4 Voldaren Epicure Sideboard 4 Pyroblast 4 Red Elemental Blast 3 Relic of Progenitus 4 Searing Blaze
4 Alms of the Vein 1 Bojuka Bog 2 Chain Lightning 1 End the Festivities 4 Faithless Looting 4 Fiery Temper 4 Grab the Prize 2 Highway Robbery 4 Jagged Barrens 4 Kitchen Imp 4 Lightning Bolt 8 Mountain 2 Rakdos Carnarium 2 Razortrap Gorge 4 Sneaky Snacker 2 Swamp 4 Vampire's Kiss 4 Voldaren Epicure Sideboard 3 Duress 3 Electrickery 4 Extract a Confession 2 Nihil Spellbomb 3 Trespasser's Curse

The discourse in Pauper has largely been centered on High Tide but that is not where I am going to start. Rather I am going to talk about the Tier 1.5 competitive decks on Magic Online: Madness Burn and Rakdos Madness. Sneaky Snacker might be the most important red card in Pauper at the moment, powering up these strategies and providing a consistent source of damage. Combined these decks make up just under 17% of the Top 32 metagame and around 17.6% of the Winner’s Metagame. These builds want to turn the “downside” of Grab the Prize and Faithless Looting into an advantage but in doing so they increase their reliance on the graveyard and other synergies. The mono red builds lean on Guttersnipe which exposes them more to a well timed removal spell unlike Red Deck Wins – the descendant of Kuldotha Red. The more traditional red builds are 4.4% of the Top 32 metagame and 4% of the Winner’s Meta.

These decks are one of the defining attributes of digital play due to how fast they can churn through leagues. Even if they are not as powerful in a longer event they are still something to consider and are far from weak. Combined these decks have 21 Top 8 finishes and a pair of wins. The red decks are taking metashare away from each other and an increased reliance on permanents and creatures means decks packing removal are no longer carrying dead weight in the main deck.

4 Brainstorm 1 Deep Analysis 2 Disrupt 4 Hidden Strings 4 High Tide 4 Ideas Unbound 15 Island 4 Lórien Revealed 4 Merchant Scroll 4 Peer Through Depths 2 Pieces of the Puzzle 4 Preordain 4 Psychic Puppetry 2 Reach Through Mists 2 Stream of Thought Sideboard 3 Augur of Bolas 3 Dispel 2 Disrupt 2 Gigadrowse 1 Hydroblast 4 Snap

With that out of the way we can talk about High Tide. The deck is polarizing. While the win rate is nothing special the combo turn can often eat up the clock, leaving the person on the other side of the table doing nothing with the hope that the combo player does not find the win. On Magic Online this is less of an issue since each player has an allotment of time. Tabletop, however, has a shared clock where a protracted combo can leave precious little time to complete a match. All that being said High Tide has four Top 8 finishes in FINAL FANTASY season, with 4.95% of the Top 32 metagame and 5.7% of the Winner’s Metagame, good enough to be at the bottom of Tier 2.

2 Blood Fountain 1 Bojuka Bog 3 Cast Down 4 Cleansing Wildfire 4 Drossforge Bridge 2 Eviscerator's Insight 4 Fanatical Offering 2 Forest 4 Ichor Wellspring 3 Krark-Clan Shaman 2 Lembas 1 Makeshift Munitions 1 Mountain 2 Nihil Spellbomb 1 Nyxborn Hydra 1 Pulse of Murasa 4 Refurbished Familiar 4 Slagwoods Bridge 3 Swamp 2 Toxin Analysis 4 Twisted Landscape 2 Vault of Whispers 4 Writhing Chrysalis Sideboard 2 Breath Weapon 1 Cast into the Fire 1 Crypt Incursion 2 Duress 1 Okiba-Gang Shinobi 4 Pyroblast 1 Tithing Blade 1 Troublemaker Ouphe 2 Weather the Storm
4 Brainstorm 4 Counterspell 4 Cryptic Serpent 3 Deem Inferior 4 Delver of Secrets 2 Dispel 16 Island 4 Lórien Revealed 4 Mental Note 3 Ponder 2 Sleep of the Dead 2 Spell Pierce 4 Thought Scour 4 Tolarian Terror Sideboard 4 Annul 3 Blue Elemental Blast 4 Gut Shot 4 Hydroblast

The best decks in Pauper at the moment are Blue Terror and Jund Wildfire. Both of these decks have amassed fourteen Top 8 finishes; Blue Terror has four wins and Jund Wildfire has one. They are the most popular decks (11.46% of the Top 32 metagame for Blue Terror; 10.68% for Jund) and top the Winner’s Metagame as well (13.17% for Blue, 12.69% for Jund). Both of these strategies can present large threats and have the ability to disrupt the opponent either on the stack or in play. They also are able to pack reasonable hate for assertive red decks (Hydroblast, Weather the Storm) and High Tide (counterspells, Pyroblast). Blue Terror and Jund Wildfire also excel at utilizing their mana, either through chaining cantrips to resolve a threat or by accelerating with Cleansing Wildfire and sticking a massive Nyxborn Hydra.

Jund Wildfire has largely supplanted Affinity’s role as the metalcraft enabled midrange deck. The Cleansing Wildfire engine allows Jund to accelerate out threats and Writhing Chrysalis not only outsizes Myr Enforcer, but also fuels the second copy in a way that can make both creatures a more imposing threat. It is clear that Affinity can find success (six Top 8s, 6.82% of the Winner’s Metagame) but it is not the format defining threat it has been in recent history.

There are two other points I want to address from the Magic Online metagame. The first is the continued presence of Black Mage’s Rod. This little artifact is giving tons of decks reach that lacked similar access previously. While black based midrange is hardly a force in the digital realm we are seeing plenty of decks lean on the extra damage from the Black Mages as a way to apply pressure. Grixis Affinity has adopted the equipment as an additional source of damage and Gardens decks – that is black midrange splashing green – have also started to run the artifact.

4 Battle Screech 1 Eagles of the North 2 Guardians' Pledge 2 Idyllic Grange 4 Kor Skyfisher 4 Lunarch Veteran 3 Novice Inspector 17 Plains 4 Prismatic Strands 4 Raffine's Informant 1 Ramosian Rally 4 Squadron Hawk 2 Summon: Choco/Mog 4 Thraben Charm 4 Thraben Inspector Sideboard 2 Destroy Evil 4 Dust to Dust 2 Holy Light 2 Journey to Nowhere 3 Martyr of Sands 1 Palace Sentinels 1 Standard Bearer

The second point is the steady pace of Mono White Aggro. The strategy has put up six Top 8 finishes with a pair of wins with 5.21% of the Top 32 metgame and 6.17% of the Winner’s Metagame. Mono White has adopted Summon: Choco/Mog as a way to add damage to the board turn after turn and like Loyal Cathar of old it provides virtual card advantage with Kor Skyfisher. It is remarkable that a deck that is largely just power and toughness continues to perform in such a high power format but at the same time it is absolutely awesome that power and toughness still gets the job done.

But what about Paupergeddon? CawGate took down the massive event and out the top decks only Blue Terror made Top 8 at two copies. While the Azorius deck has not entirely vanished from the online metagame it has only three Top 32 finishes in the past four weeks. While some commenters have noted the favorable pairings the winner got along the way, no one ends up winning a massive event on luck alone.

So what does this all mean? Pauper is largely balanced. There is no competitive deck that is miles ahead of the others and the top of the metagame is within grasp of lower tiers. Overall things are in a good spot and players can be rewarded for paying close attention to the trends in the metagame, adjusting accordingly. As I head off for family vacation I am excited to see where things end up as we enter the final weeks of FINAL FANTASY and approach the Edge of Eternities.

Power Rankings

10. Red Deck Wins
9. High Tide
8. Faeries
7. Elves
6. Grixis Affinity
5. Mono White Aggro
4. Madness Burn
3. Rakdos Madness
2. Jund Wildfire
1. Blue Terror

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June 13-15 Pauper Weekend Recap

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

If I were more well versed in the games this is likely a spot where I would make a reference to the Final Fantasy series. Being the uncultured swine that I am you’ll have to settle for some retread of “it’s a new season in Pauper and the first weekend results do not tell us much”.

Except this time I actually have something new to add below the fold: a card from Final Fantasy has already made an impact. All that being said the metagame does not look drastically different from how Tarkir Dragonstorm season ended. This experience is familiar as Pauper rarely jump cuts to something new. Instead it takes time for the format to shift unless the new cards are so powerful they catalyze change.

It should be noted that after several weeks of larger challenges, these events were six round affairs. Saturday’s challenge had a relatively meager 42 players which is a a decent amount less than the 60 something we had seen for much of last season. That fact does not have any impact on the numbers presented above as these are merely cumulative; the size of a tournament will not impact the Top 8s acquired over the course of the season. What the number of players can influence, however, is how much cream rises to the top.

The longer a tournament, the less likely it is variance has an outsized influence. It is possible for a player to “run hot”. They can win every die roll, have amazing opening hands, have opponent’s that stumble. If you’ve played in a tournament setting you’ve likely been in one of these seats (if not both). This is one reason why I tend to look at information week after week – it can help to identify trends and separate the so called noise from the actual signal. Weeks such as this can be confounding when taken in isolation but given a long enough time span they are simple another suite of datum.

Coming out of week one of Final Fantasy I would put Blue Terror as the top deck in Pauper, continuing the trend from Dragonstorm season. Rakdos Madness has a strong weekend as well but falls into the next tier alongside Elves, High Tide, Jund Wildfire, and Madness Burn. At the top of the metagame we have a disruptive tempo deck built around singular large threats and then beneath that we have a midrange value pile, a go wide creature combo deck, spell based combo, and then a pair of decks that leverage Sneaky Snacker for damage and value. How does this relate to the breakout card of the set?

Black Mage's Rod {1}{B} Artifact — Equipment Job select (When this Equipment enters, create a 1/1 colorless Hero creature token, then attach this to it.) Equipped creature gets +1/+0, has “Whenever you cast a noncreature spell, this creature deals 1 damage to each opponent,” and is a Wizard in addition to its other types. Equip {3} Illustrated by Nino Is

Black Mage’s Rod has already had a huge impact on the format. It has helped to bring back Golgari Gardens and is earning slots in all manner of decks. While I believe Gardens (and other Black Control variants) are a natural home, I want to talk a bit about why this card is a perfect fit for Pauper.

First, it generates material. Whether you like it or not cards that bring a friend to the party have become a staple in a format with Fanatical Offering and Eviscerator’s Insight. While you may not want to sacrifice the Hero from the Rod that is an option that does exist. That this artifact brings a creature to the part matters for cards like Kor Skyfisher and Stickytongue Sentinel, providing a slow and steady stream of chump blockers. Time and time again cards like this have proven themselves to be potent. Being an artifact also means the Rod plays nicely with Refurbished Familiar and Pactdoll Terror.

What about the Wizard ability? Unlike Guttersnipe or Kessig Flamebreather, additional copies of the Rod will trigger previous iterations. This is, as they say, a big game. When your persistent source of damage has added synergy with the next persistent source it stacks the damage up high. Black Mage’s Rod part of the first wave of cards in black that feature the ability to passively deal damage just from casting spells. Now when you look at what black is good at in Pauper – which is casting card draw and removal spells – you start to see how the Rod can exert pressure on the format.

Going back to the top decks of the moment, black is decently well positioned to have some amount of game against them all. Black can cast Diabolic Edict effects to take down Tolarian Terror and other large threats; it has Drown in Sorrow and the combination of Crypt Rats and Toxin Analysis to wipe the board; Black can exile the graveyard with Bojuka Bog; it has discard for combo; Black can even splash green for Weather the Storm to survive an onslaught. Black has been a spellslinger color without a spout for quite some time and now the Rod (as well as Cornered By Black Mages) give the deck a way to convert those investments into a way to win the game.

Is there a chance I am too bullish on black? Absolutely – black based control is one of my favorite archetypes in the history of Pauper. That being said when I hop back into the queues my plan is to try various builds of Black Mage Gardens until I can find one that fits.

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The Calm After the Dragonstorm

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

If you’re reading this, Final Fantasy has been released into the wild. We are already seeing new cards make their appearance in 5-0 decklists and I am interested to see if any of these cards can break through in this weekend’s challenges. I am bullish on the set despite my lack of familiarity with the source material. Still it is important to have an understanding of Pauper moving into this new season and that is where this summary comes into play. I am going to be providing my takes on some of the top decks, along with some numbers that informed said takes. And for giggles and engagement, let’s make it this article resemble the Power Rankings.

8. Flicker Tron

When the Pauper Format Panel decided to reintroduce Prophetic Prism there were some concerns that the old control Tron decks would surge in popularity and create problems for decks trying to go long. The counter argument to this was that Pauper is significantly faster today than Tron’s heyday. For the time being, the latter is holding true. Flicker Tron made up 3.13% of the Top 32 metagame and 4.18% of the Winner’s Metagame, but it did rack up 12 Top 8 finishes and two wins. The deck wants to assemble its mana engine and then leverage that abundance to cast high impact spells, eventually getting the best of the bunch thanks to Mnemonic Wall and Ephemerate or Ghostly Flicker. The 0.47 Adjusted Meta Score Above Replacement places the strategy at about half a win better than an average Top 32 deck, which given the length of the season is a solid performance.

7. High Tide

High Tide was the other deck about which there were concerns when the eponymous card was added back to Pauper. Thus far, based entirely on numbers, the deck has proved to be decidedly fine. It has a 0.48 aMSAR (just in line with Flicker Tron). The deck was 4.24% of the Top 32 metagame and 4.99% of the Winner’s Metagame. The low delta here indicates that the deck performed moderately better than expectation but was hardly a breakout star. Nine Top 8 finishes and two wins round out a respectable season.

However that is not the entire story. High Tide decks can monopolize game actions and take up a ton of time in a match without having a deterministic kill. Based solely on numbers alone the deck seems to be well within the bounds of what is acceptable, and given the surge in popularity in Pauper Challenges over Dragonstorm season, the deck has not kept people away. At the same time where are folks who have made their feelings on the “time suck” known. For now I have it as the seventh best deck going into Final Fantasy season.

6. Rakdos Madness

The back half of the season saw Rakdos Madness as one of the more popular decks. With Fifteen Top 8 finishes, 3 wins, and an aMSAR of 0.53 Rakdos Madness was one of the ways people decided to establish a clock in the post Kuldotha Rebirth metagame. All that being said the deck underperformed it’s 8.04% of the Top 32 metagame with 7.27% of the Winner’s Metagame. Taken together we have a popular deck that while very good, might be a hair overplayed.

5. Elves

The numbers for Elves were buoyed by a very strong second half of the season. Seventeen Top 8s and 2 wins, Elves was 5.92% of the Top 32 metagame and 6.57% of the Winner’s Meta and finished with an aMSAR of 0.56. Elves found its lane and thrived, often putting games out of reach early and applying pressure with notable elf Crashing Drawbridge. The lack of Elves in the latest set should not so much to hinder the deck’s success but it would not shock me to see a surge in black strategies which may cause issues for this particular stripe of green mage.

4. Jund Wildfire

Good old Jund. An aMSAR of 0.58, 4.91% of the Top 32 metagame and 5.5% of the Winner’s Metagame; a dozen Top 8 finishes and not a single win. These are some real Jund numbers in that the showcase a deck that is better than fine but hardly anything to write home about. Yet as long as drawing cards and killing creatures is good, Jund Wildfire will find a place in the Pauper metagame (until it’s supplanted by a better black midrange deck).

3. Grixis Affinity

There really isn’t much to say about this deck that I haven’t said before, so here are the numbers: Fourteen Top 8s with two wins; 7.03% of the Top 32 metagame and 7.1% of the Winner’s Metagame; an aMSAR of 0.59. Grixis Affinity remains a top choice but it is entirely possible that the advent of Suplex will put a damper on the machine.

2. Red Deck Wins

The heir to Kuldotha Red, this is a separate deck than the Guttersnipe/Sneaky Snacker Madness Red. A whopping 23 Top 8 finishes with a single win, RDW was 10.38% of the Top 32 metagame. Its 9.57% share of the Winner’s Meta indicates that it performed slightly below expectations, even with a solid aMSAR of 0.65. Like Rakdos Madness, these decks can falter in the face of dedicated lifegain and that is something Pauper has in abundance. While RDW can still grind out damage late, it lacks the second gear provided by the now banned Kuldotha Rebirth.

1. Blue Terror

The best deck on the season. It was nearly a win better than the average Top 32 deck with an aMSAR of 0.96. It played largely true to expectation with 10.83% of the Winner’s metagame against 10.94% of the Top 32 metagame. 22 Top 8s; 4 wins. The deck put up real numbers. Later in the season we saw a return of Dimir Terror in an effort to one up the 5/5s and 6/5s with Crawl from the Cellar, but even then the mono blue version was hard to stop. All told Blue Terror might just be the deck to beat going into Final Fantasy season and so I have it at the top of my Power Rankings.

That’s where Dragonstorm season leaves us off. Do you have questions about any deck not listed here? What cards from Final Fantasy are going to make an impact in Pauper? Sound off and let me know what think. We’ll be back next week with our first look at the new metagame.

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    May 30 – June 1 Pauper Weekend Recap

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

    The calendar has turned from May to June which means we are that many days closer to Final Fantasy.

    Wow that feels weird to write.

    Anyway, there were three Pauper Challenges last weekend and if we are looking exclusively at the numbers the trends established over the last seven weeks of the season have held largely true. While I would not describe the progression of Pauper through Tarkir Dragonstorm as perfectly linear, there is a steady line of best fit.

    For example, 15 different archetypes made it to the Top 8 over the weekend with no single archetype taking down more than three slots (an average of one per Challenge). The two decks that hit the triple crown were Blue Terror and RDW – two of the more popular decks this season (but of note, not on the weekend). The recent tournaments also are showcasing Grixis Affinity’s slow descent from the top tier to merely a solid competitor (for the time being) and the steady rise of High Tide. One thing that I neglected to mention in my last post was the reappearance of Dimir Terror with its copies of Crawl from the Cellar, likely as a way to one up the Blue Terror players.

    This chart provides us with a better image of what actually did well over the weekend. Adjusted Meta Score Above Replacement (aMSAR) is a metric that looks at both Swiss round performance and overall wins, while adjusting for number of appearances. In this model an “average” Top 32 deck will have a score of 0.00 for a given weekend – a positive number means an archetype outperforms the average while a negative score indicates a strategy did not meet expectations.

    Blue Terror (aMSAR: 1.44) and High Tide (1.12) were the best archetypes on the weekend, setting themselves apart from the field. Given their Top 8 performances and Wins it makes sense that these two would get a boost in aMSAR as a Challenge Win is worth three wins in the formula for overall wins. Digging deeper, however, we see that Blue Terror was in a class by itself as the difference between it and High Tide was just a hair larger than the difference between High Tide and the next best deck – Elves (0.82).

    Blue Terror has been a steady presence in Pauper since the release of Tolarian Terror but it really took off with the downshift of Cryptic Serpent. The intervening years have provided additional tools, the most valuable of which may just be Deem Inferior – a card that can set the opponent back on development and can undo at least a turn’s worth of investment (if not more). Blue Terror also is able to run a suite if cheap countermagic which affords pilots the opportunity to stymie opposing strategies. Cards like Spell Pierce may lack impact late but if you’re presenting five and six power creatures on turns three then there is not exactly a lot of time left in the game.

    Blue Terror has also been one of the top decks all season long. The way I track the metagame affords me the opportunity to examine different archetypes both week over week and in aggregate. I divvy the seasons into four week chunks, which helps to identify trends, but I also will look at the sum total of results. Eight weeks in this is what the Challenge Metagame looks like for decks with above 2% of the metagame share (minimum 15 appearances):

    The columns I would like you to focus on are True Volume and aMSAR. The former essentially weights a deck’s performance and adjusts it’s presence depending on how well an archetype performs. Blue Terror might only account for 10.55% of the overall metagame but it slightly improves upon that number here at 10.84%. The True Volume/Winner’s Metagame gives a solid impression of what you can expect to see at the top tables. And the story is fairly consistent: Blue Terror is leading the way followed by old stalwarts Grixis Affinity and RDW with Elves hot on their heels.

    The next tier of the metagame is a scrum with High Tide, Jund Wildfire, Faeries, Bogles, and Flicker Tron all vying for Tier 2 supremacy. What stands out to me is how important Blue is in the current format. Three of the top seven decks are mono blue and Flicker Tron does lean heavily on blue spells to enact the endgame. Blue being good is nothing new and as such I would expect to see more Pyroblast decks moving forward. However one cannot simply carry a Red Elemental Blast into battle lest they be defeated by Elves or Jund Wildfire. The next crop of red decks need to have access to board control elements that can both go wide with Breath Weapon and tall to try and take out Writhing Chrysalis. This may mean dipping into another color for better removal as temporary answers like Stingscourger and Dead // Gone won’t cut the mustard. Even Journey to Nowhere might be lacking in a world with Nyxborn Hydra, but Feed the Swarm does look halfway decent in that specific situation.

    If I had my brewers hat on I would be looking at a Mardu Cleansing Wildfire list – one less focused on Experimental Synthesizer/Glint Hawk shenanigans. I would want to build a deck with cheap answers that could match my opponent’s offense with a speedy defense. These decks have not exactly excelled this season but that’s part of the fun in trying to make it work – finding the right mix of cards to attack the metagame. What deck do you think you’d bring to Pauper these days?

    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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    Catching Up on Dragonstorm

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

    Hello again.

    It’s been a hot minute.

    For those of you who don’t know, earlier this month I had some surgery. I thought that, in the run up to the procedure, I would be able to use writing as a distraction – a way to occupy my mind and keep focus away from my impending trip under the knife. I was wrong. I had no energy to look past anything but the operation. Once it was done and I was out of the hospital it took me time to get back into the swing of things. Turns out that have your insides rearranged is an exhausting experience and as much as I enjoy poring over Pauper decklists, the combination of my body and brain were focused on healing.

    But, just like my incisions, the urge to write has started to itch again. And so after a few days of playing catchup and getting back into the rhythm of my life (being a dad, going back to work, being aware of but not dwelling on the horrors). Looking at the past several weeks of major Magic Online Pauper tournaments has definitely provided insight into the format. Now since I usually write once a week, but have been gone for the better part of the month, I have decided to talk about the most recent events (the past three weeks) and how those trends vary from the first month of Tarkir Dragonstorm Season.

    First and foremost, Pauper looks balanced at least in the Challenge metagame. Over the past three weeks – which includes nine Challenges and a Qualifier – the top three decks in the format are all within spitting distance of each other in Winner’s Metagame Share: Red Deck Wins (the heir apparent to Kuldotha Red) at 12.86%, Blue Terror at 11.05%, and Elves (yes Elves) at 9.75%. These are also the three leaders in Adjusted Meta Score Above Replacement (0.84, 0.77, 0.74 respectively).

    2 Chain Lightning 4 Clockwork Percussionist 2 End the Festivities 4 Experimental Synthesizer 1 Fireblast 4 Galvanic Blast 4 Goblin Tomb Raider 4 Great Furnace 4 Kessig Flamebreather 3 Lava Dart 4 Lightning Bolt 14 Mountain 2 Thermo-Alchemist 4 Voldaren Epicure 4 Wrenn's Resolve Sideboard 4 Cast into the Fire 2 Gorilla Shaman 3 Pyroblast 4 Raze 2 Relic of Progenitus

    Compare this to the first four weeks of Dragonstorm season. The top three decks by Winner’s Meta Share were Blue Terror (10.53%), Grixis Affinity (9.51%), and RDW (9.33%). When looking at the aMSAR of these decks, Grixis led the way with 1.21 with Blue Terror behind at 0.92. RDW (0.53) was behind both Flicker Tron (0.58) and Faeries (0.57).

    4 Brainstorm 4 Counterspell 4 Cryptic Serpent 4 Deem Inferior 1 Deep Analysis 4 Delver of Secrets 1 Dispel 16 Island 4 Lórien Revealed 4 Mental Note 3 Ponder 1 Sleep of the Dead 2 Spell Pierce 4 Thought Scour 4 Tolarian Terror Sideboard 4 Annul 2 Blue Elemental Blast 4 Gut Shot 4 Hydroblast 1 Sleep of the Dead

    These numbers tell us a few things. First, the metagame is evolving and dynamic. There has been movement amongst the top decks and while many of them are no stranger to the top tier, no deck has a stranglehold on first place. The clustering of the top decks, with none of them topping 15% of the Winner’s Metagame also point to a format where no deck is dominant to a point of concern. RDW has been the most popular deck on raw volume but even those numbers come in under that 15% threshold. The competitive landscape is far from flat but not nearly as stratified as some previous iterations of Pauper.

    I would be lying to say I was not concerned about the repercussions after the actions taken by the Pauper Format Panel in March. While I am a member of the Panel and had a say in these decisions I still was wary of what the return of High Tide and Prophetic Prism would mean for overall format health. Much to my delight, both Flicker Tron and High Tide have integrated into the metagame and at this point do not present a problem based on numbers alone. I understand the experience of playing against these decks can leave something to be desired (one can look at my writings on the format during the height of Tron’s power for an example) but based on their results in the weekend tournaments things seem to be just fine.

    1 Bojuka Bog 1 Breath Weapon 1 Cave of Temptation 1 Conduit Pylons 2 Crop Rotation 4 Energy Refractor 1 Ephemerate 3 Expedition Map 1 Focus the Mind 2 Ghostly Flicker 1 Heritage Reclamation 4 Impulse 2 Island 2 Lórien Revealed 3 Mnemonic Wall 1 Molten Tributary 2 Moment's Peace 3 Mulldrifter 1 Murmuring Mystic 2 Mystical Teachings 1 Prohibit 4 Prophetic Prism 1 Pulse of Murasa 1 Remote Isle 1 Tangled Islet 1 Unwind 4 Urza's Mine 4 Urza's Power Plant 4 Urza's Tower 1 Weather the Storm Sideboard 1 Ancient Grudge 1 Blue Elemental Blast 1 Dinrova Horror 2 Envelop 2 Hydroblast 1 Lightning Bolt 1 Pulse of Murasa 2 Pyroblast 1 Red Elemental Blast 1 Remove Soul 1 Scattershot 1 Stonehorn Dignitary

    Flicker Tron made up 4.26% of all Top 32 decks during the first four weeks of Dragonstorm Season, improving to 5.3% of the Winner’s Metagame with an aMSAR of 0.58. For the last three weeks the former elephant-in-the-room made up only 1.88% of the Top 32 metagame and 2.87% of the Winner’s Meta, seeing its aMSAR score drop to 0.16. Taken together we see a deck that is certainly capable of strong finishes but is lacking in some ways. Whether the format has gotten too fast for Tron or too few players are iterating on it to find an optimal build or the metagame is dynamic enough that one needs to constantly tinker to present the correct 75 the outcome is that Flicker Tron has simply become another solid option instead of the clear best choice.

    High Tide, as a deck, has caused more hand wringing. Combo, when it has been good in Pauper, has typically found itself over the line. Storm and Broodscale decks are two examples of combo builds that pushed other strategies out of the competitive sphere. High Tide, being a spell based combo, shares some issues with both. It can be difficult to interact with on the combo turn and given the make up of the deck it can “win from hand”. Unlike many other Pauper combo decks, High Tide does not rely on the graveyard or creatures, further insulating it from counter-play. However the deck has merely been fine. In the first four weeks, High Tide was 3.98% of the total Top 32 metagame and dropped to 3.35% of the Winner’s Meta with an aMSAR score of 0.00 (this is roughly equivalent to averaging a Top 16 finish). The past four weeks have been kinder to the Islands, with 3.75% of the Top 32 metagame, 5.57% of the Winner’s Meta and an aMSAR of 0.57. It should be noted that this boost may be related to the 8-0, 3-0 run by MackSmith with the deck in the May 16 Pauper Qualifier. Taken together High Tide is in a similar spot to Tron – a strong option but currently not a dominant force.

    4 Brainstorm 1 Flood of Recollection 4 High Tide 4 Ideas Unbound 16 Island 4 Lórien Revealed 4 Merchant Scroll 2 Muddle the Mixture 4 Peer Through Depths 1 Petals of Insight 2 Pieces of the Puzzle 1 Ponder 4 Preordain 4 Psychic Puppetry 4 Reach Through Mists 1 Stream of Thought Sideboard 1 Blue Elemental Blast 3 Envelop 3 Gigadrowse 3 Hydroblast 2 Relic of Progenitus 3 Snap

    In my opinion, High Tide has actually been good for Pauper overall. As a spell based combo deck that avoids leaning on the graveyard, High Tide has opened up paths for other combo decks to succeed. While not nearly at the same level, Spy Combo, Dredge, and WonderWalls have seen some recent success and that doesn’t include the resurfacing of old friends Goblin Combo and Inside Out Combo. High Tide has attracted the attention of players which in turn has impacted the amount of hate for these other decks. While not a direct cause, the strength of High Tide may be related to the open lanes for other combo decks to reach the winner’s circle.

    So where does that leave Pauper going into this weekend? Overall it is in a good spot. Ideally you want a deck that has access to some number of sweepers to handle both Elves and RDW and at the same time you need access to disruptive elements. Grixis Affinity is also a factor even if it is currently trending down. If I had to pick one card to highlight it would be Pilfer. A solid backup to Duress, Pilfer is a relatively recent addition from Foundations that can nip problematic cards in the bud. The issue, of course, is figuring out the best shell and while Mono Black Control has put up a few results I think finding a second (or third) color could prove beneficial to the strategy.

    Power Rankings

    10. Bogles
    9. WonderWalls
    8. Flicker Tron
    7. Rakos Madness
    6. Jund Wildfire
    5. High Tide
    4. Grixis Affinity
    3. Elves
    2. RDW
    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.

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    April 11-13 Pauper Weekend Recap

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

    A new season is upon us with the release of Tarkir Dragonstorm. Due to the recent additions to (and subtractions from) the Banned List the format was primed to undergo a pretty significant shift. Despite this today’s Pauper bears more than a passing resemblance to the format from a month ago aside from the absence of Broodscale Combo and the presence of both High Tide and Control Tron. There’s more, of course, but so much of it is confounded by the available data.

    The first weekend of Dragonstorm season saw a disruption on Magic Online which canceled the Sunday Challenge. These things happen. That the issue took place on the first weekend is both a blessing and a curse when it comes to data collection. Relying on too small a sample size to draw conclusions can prove to be a mistake but losing early season data is not a hindrance in understanding a season long story. Why? Put simply in the first weeks of a format people are still figuring things out.

    The most popular deck on the weekend was just an update of Kuldotha Red while two of the decks tied for the second most appearances were known quantities from last season and are proactive. The final deck in a three-way tie for the silver was Flicker Tron – a deck with a known pedigree that had one of its biggest enablers reintroduced to the format. Given what I know about Pauper the decks we saw last weekend are likely to persist but their raw volume is likely to shift.

    Pauper moves slowly – it always has. However one thing that always tends to happen is that in the earliest stages of a new format – whether due to the removal or addition of high impact cards – is that decks with a clear gameplan rise to the top in the early goings. Red decks, Bogles, decks that present a clear and concise threat perform well as decks have to adjust their answer suite to the new normal.

    Let’s take a case study with Kuldotha Rebirth. This card, in concert with other factors, made one-for-one removal risky despite that style of card’s relative strength against Broodscale combo (to say nothing of the rest of the format). Now that Kuldotha Rebirth has been banned many red decks are pivoting back towards builds where singular creatures (such as Kessig Flamebreather) are more important. It should follow that cards like Doom Blade and Skred would go up in value.

    Except for the ascendancy of both Tron and High Tide. These decks are largely inoculated against creature removal because they were constructed in such a way to lack that vulnerability. This tension will likely remain for the foreseeable future which puts into context the deck that led the way in Adjusted Meta Score Above Replacement.

    Faeries had arguably the best weekend. A 60% conversion rate from Top 32 to Top 8 and a win all lead to a weekend leading AMSAR of 1.51. Faeries might not provide the quickest clock but it can put the opponent on the back foot. What it lacks in offense it makes up for in broad answers. Counters might not be the best in every application but they do have play against nearly everything. It follows then that Faeries could both stymie certain aggro strategies while having game against decks that eschew creatures. Again, none of this is new but it can be important to spell it out so we understand the field of battle.

    What does all of this mean for next week? I would expect a lot of the same decks to show up but given the recent league results I would hedge more against Tron and red decks. These builds have been fairly present and operate at two extremes of the format. Faeries absolutely remains a strong choice but it is unclear if something could slide in and come at the metagame from another angle.

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