NerdtotheCore

January 31-February 2 Pauper Weekend Recap

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

Aetherdrift is coming up in our rear view mirror but on Magic Online there are still a few more Foundation events. Technically these final Challenges fall under the umbrella of the Innistrad Remastered release, but given the short window between the sets and the minimal impact I have grouped the last two “seasons” together. As it stands the format is continuing to settle in its lane, sustaining the trends that have provided a relatively diverse – if stagnant – metagame for the past three months.

Once again a small Challenge left the results with several Top 32 finishers finding themselves with losing records. Over the course of the season these results wash out and help to paint a more complete picture of the format; over a single weekend they can exacerbate and highlight the spread from best to worst. The top decks on the weekend should not surprise anyone with Faeries leading the way with a 1.33 adjusted Meta Score Above Replacement and 14.15% of the Winner’s Meta (4.77% above Top 32 Volume). Dimir Faeries also had a strong showing with an aMSAR of 0.81 and 9.15% of the Winner’s Meta (1.09% above Top 32 Meta) and Kuldotha Red bounce back from a recent dip (aMSAR of 0.71; 12.96% Winner’s meta with a delta of 1.5%).

These results are continuing the story that’s been told about the format over the past few weeks. Broodscale combo isn’t going anywhere (Jund Broodscale with an aMSAR of -0.04; Golgari with an aMSAR of 0.60) and along with Kuldotha Red and Grixis Affinity (aMSAR of -0.23) help to define the format. As these decks have settled, Spellstutter Sprite decks have figured out the best suite of spells to help constrain these. As the various Faeries builds have taken hold, other blue “tempo” style decks have fallen back, opening the window for a few builds that try to win the long game (Golgari Fog, Jund Wildfire).

But again, this feels rote and routine. The game play in the current format reward deep matchup knowledge and picking up on the subtleties of how the opponent is piloting. There is plenty of skill in the play itself but there is also an emphasis on pattern recognition. Whether this is a consequence or a corollary, this leads to Pauper feeling on rails at times. The format lacks access to some effects that appear at higher rarity and can swing the momentum just by resolving. Even the Initiative, which absolutely turns the game on its ear, plays on a very prescribed path. The games are skill intensive, yes, but that also means they can be mentally exhausting and if all you’re doing is playing league after league it can grow wearisome.

This takes us to Aetherdrift. The next release does not rise to the level of a Modern Horizons 3 but it does have a few gems. Importantly the set presents cards that seem tailor made for existing fringe archetypes while also providing at least one card that has the potential to spawn something entirely new.

Lightwheel Enhancements {W}

Enchantment — Aura

Enchant creature or Vehicle

Start your engines! (If you have no speed, it starts at 1. It increases once on each of your turns when an opponent loses life. Max speed is 4.)

Enchanted permanent gets +1/+1 and has vigilance.

Max speed — You may cast this card from your graveyard.

Illustrated by Yeong-Hao Han

Lightwheel Enhancements features the new “Speed” mechanic. Cards with Start Your Engines move your speed to one and then once on each of your turns (including the turn your Speed starts), you can advance it when an opponent loses life. Once your speed reaches four you have achieved Max Speed. Here that means you can cast a cheap Aura from the graveyard. Lightwheel Enhancements seems like a slam dunk for both Bogles and Heroic. Heroic often opts for Sentinel’s Eyes which has the same in-game effect but has Escape, which means over a long enough game it will run out of fuel for recasts. All that this Aura asks of you is to have dealt damage three turns. Importantly it does not have to be in play for you to advance your Speed so playing this on turn two can move you to second gear and then things really get rolling.

I like this in Bogles a tad more because the deck has easy access to Creosote Heath – the ping Desert from Outlaws of Thunder Junction. Heroic can lean into this a bit with cards like Gut Shot but I have a feeling Enhancements is just going to be a more honest card in that build. That being said a copy or two of this in Heroic means that you have a way to build pack from nowhere, provided you have a creature that can stick around.

Spectral Interference {1}{U}

Instant

Counter target artifact or creature spell unless its controller pays {4}.

“So many fears. Let’s make them all come true.”

Illustrated by Steve Ellis

Spectral Interference deserves a mention if only because it hits two important card types at a tax greater than Mana Leak. I am not sure if this one can supplant the other non-Counterspell counters in Pauper, but given the current metagame it might. Right now both creatures and artifacts are rather important so it will always almost always have a target. Is that enough? Probably not but it would not surprise me if this one showed up occasionally.

Chitin Gravestalker (Aetherdrift #79)
Chitin Gravestalker {5}{B}

Creature — Insect Warrior

This spell costs {1} less to cast for each artifact and/or creature card in your graveyard.

Cycling {2} ({2}, Discard this card: Draw a card.)

The Speedbrood doesn’t differentiate between salvage and carrion.
5/4

Illustrated by Slawomir Maniak

Chitin Gravestalker is big. It is a reasonable body once you start discounting it, which should not be hard in decks like Affinity, Dredge, or Cycle Storm. In the latter two this card represents a nice juke, providing a way to apply pressure outside of Plan A. The biggest thing holding this card back is the four toughness. Unlike Gurmag Angler and Tolarian Terror – two other five power creatures that can come in for a discount – Gravestalker dies to Galvanic Blast. While this is not entirely bad – it does fuel future Gravestalkers after all – it is a knock on the card. That won’t be enough to consign it to the bench but it will struggle to live up to its discount five power brethren.

Grim Bauble {B}

Artifact

When this artifact enters, target creature an opponent controls gets -2/-2 until end of turn.

{2}{B}, {T}, Sacrifice this artifact: Surveil 2. (Look at the top two cards of your library, then put any number of them into your graveyard and the rest on top of your library in any order.)

Illustrated by Wero Gallo

I wrote a bit about this card last week when I got the chance to show it off for the first time. Since then there has been a small (very small) surge in Kor Skyfisher decks so I am hopeful this weird little guy will get a chance to shine.

Maximum Overdrive {1}{B}

Instant

Put a +1/+1 counter on target creature. It gains deathtouch and indestructible until end of turn.

Compared to the Fuel Wars on Gastal, this Grand Prix is a thrilling vacation.

Illustrated by Javier Charro

Did Broodscale Combo really need that much help? This card does it all. It protects your Eldrazi Lizard from removal while also kickstarting the combo by putting a +1/+1 counter on it, thereby gifting you an Eldrazi Spawn. It also costs black mana so you can hide your ability to “go off” by tapping out of green. Maximum Overdrive has the potential to overhaul how Broodscale decks operate in game which can just give them yet another angle of attack.

But wait, there’s more! This card also combos with Crypt Rats and Krark-Clan Shaman. This is yet another way to turn those cards into more robust board wipes. Giving up on the lifegain from Toxin Analysis does matter but in matchups where having a second go with your Wrath effect matters this card may just make the cut.

Pactdoll Terror (Aetherdrift #99)
Pactdoll Terror {3}{B}

Artifact Creature — Toy

Whenever this creature or another artifact you control enters, each opponent loses 1 life and you gain 1 life.

“And you’re telling me this was designed for children?”
—Sita Varma
3/4

Illustrated by David Astruga

I hate the art on this card. That being said I am excited for Pactdoll Terror in Commander, but also as a potential spout in artifact combo decks. The life loss is a gain over cards like Reckless Fireweaver, meaning that stray Prismatic Strands no longer delay your victory. Being black it also dodges Snuff Out which is not nothing. Four mana is a hefty price tag but decks like Altar Tron could easily afford this if they were so inclined.

Magmakin Artillerist {2}{R}

Creature — Elemental Pirate

Whenever you discard one or more cards, this creature deals that much damage to each opponent.

Cycling {1}{R} ({1}{R}, Discard this card: Draw a card.)

When you cycle this card, it deals 1 damage to each opponent.
1/4

Illustrated by Madeline Boni

Okay now we get to the good stuff. Magmakin Artillerist is a house and could easily spawn a new archetype while shoring up some stalwarts. This card fits neatly into Cycle Storm where it doubles up on Drannith Stinger while also potentially saving on mana. By triggering off of any discard, Artillerist allows Cycle Storm to Reaping the Graves all of its creatures back and then move to the discard step. As long as this Pirate lives, going back down to seven will result in your opponent taking a ton of damage.

Then there’s Ophidian Eye. A three mana blue Aura with flash, Ophidian Eye does not trigger off of combat damage. That means given a discard outlet and enough cards in your library, these two cards can deal a lethal amount of damage. Given the relatively low cost of the cards involved and the fact that blue has cheap interaction this combo is almost certain to make waves. Going Grixis provides you with cost reduction in the form of Nightscape Familiar and redundancy in Unearth. I am excited to see what builds show up and adding another combo to the fold could serve to change Pauper’s current landscape.

Beastrider Vanguard {1}{G}

Creature — Human Knight

{4}{G}: Look at the top three cards of your library. You may reveal a permanent card from among them and put it into your hand. Put the rest on the bottom of your library in any order.

“She knows what I’m thinking before I do. That is what true partnership means.”
2/2

Illustrated by Andrey Kuzinskiy

Beaststider Vanguard strikes me as an interesting mana sink. In decks like Broodscale Combo an unbound amount of mana (and Energy Refractor) means you can dig for a permanent based win condition (say Makeshift Munitions). Five mana is a lot but at the same time when you have an unbound amount of mana being able to ransack your library is far from a bad thing.

Silken Strength {1}{G}

Enchantment — Aura

Flash

Enchant creature or Vehicle

When this Aura enters, untap enchanted permanent.

Enchanted permanent gets +1/+2 and has reach.

Illustrated by Olivier Bernard

I am not a fan of the “Gotcha” Slot. You see it occasionally in decklists – a one-of that when you draw it at the exact right moment can have an outsized impact on the game. This is usually something like Mana Tithe, which makes for fantastic screenshots but given a large enough sample size end up being a waste of a slot. It is not that singleton copies are bad, but when they are so narrow and do not have synergy with your overall gameplan then they might drag your deck down at times. All of that is to say Silken Strength seems like a halfway decent “Gotcha” card in Bogles that works on both offense (with Ethereal Armor) and defense (surprise blocker).

That’s my take on Aertherdrift. What cards did I miss? What commons are you for and what decks are you looking to brew up? And tell me why it’s a mistake to be a Heroic main in the new season.

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January 24-26 Pauper Weekend Recap and Aetherdrift Preview

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

I imagine I have a few new visitors today so I won’t bury the lede. I want to thank Wizards of the Coast for sending me this preview content so I can share it with you all. Allow me to introduce Grim Bauble!

Grim Bauble continues the tradition of having cheap artifacts with meaningful enters the battlefield triggers. While Kor Skyfisher and Glint Hawk decks are not at the top of the metagame currently they do pop up from time to time. Grim Bauble provides a solid piece of material that can partner with Tithing Blade to help keep the opponent’s board under control. It also is a perfect piece of fodder for Deadly Disputer and its ilk, and given that it is almost certain to see some amount of play. At one mana it is a reasonable part of a Trinket Mage tool box if those decks ever come back into vogue. Finally it can bin itself with its final ability, helping to curate your next set of draws. As someone who has played his fair share of Omen of the Dead, that ability is not just trinket text.

I’m excited to try out this card once it hits the streets with Aetherdrift. Thanks again Wizards for the free preview.

Okay,but back to the Pauper metagame. The past few weeks have been interesting, at least on Magic Online. The platform has been experiencing a decent amount of lag as of late, which is impacting the ability of some players to fully participate in events. Pauper Challenges have suffered, with attendance dipping somewhat low. Whether this is due client issues or dissatisfaction with the format is not known. Regardless, rather than examine one week of data I took the last three weeks of Foundation season (including the first weekend with Innistrad Remastered legal) and compiled that for today’s discussion.

Rather than focus on the entire Top 32 metagame, I wanted to look at decks that comprised at least 2% of the total field. One deck clocked in with 1.95% at five appearances so it made the cut as well. I’ll be discussing some of the other stats as we discuss the archetypes, but for now I want to focus on two columns in the chart below: Vol % (that is, presence in the Top 32 metagame) and True Vol (a weighted measure that takes archetype performance into account). There is a third, unlabeled column, which shows a deck’s True Vol less it’s Vol%. In other words it measures if a deck under or over performed relative to its presence.

Let’s start with the True Vol/Winner’s Metagame. From this snapshot things look relatively healthy. Kuldotha Red is a bit higher than one would like a deck to be but it isn’t lapping the field. Faeries is closing in on 11% of the Winner’s Meta with four other archetypes clustered around 7% and 8%. Comparing this to the last four week check in (December 13, 2024 – January 5, 2025) and there is a stark difference, with Kuldotha Red taking down over 19% of raw volume and over 17% Winner’s Metagame. That bucket has one more weekend of data so it will be interesting to see if this trend continues. In this moment, however, it appears Pauper is trending back towards a more balanced top of the format.

There is another potential indicator of stability and health – the strong performance of Faeries. Spellstutter Sprite decks, while a constant in Pauper, have not been able to sustain their top tier status in quite some time. Rather these decks tend to start seasons off slowly and pick up steam over time as the proper answer suite is uncovered. Faeries performed admirably over the first four weeks, with 4.95% of the total metagame, bumping up to 5.44% of the Winner’s Meta, all while taking down seven Top 8s. In the second four weeks the deck ticket up – 5.11% of the total meta, 5.68% of the Winner’s Meta with another seven Top 8s, including a win. This last batch (again, only three weeks) sees a huge surge in popularity (9.38% of the Top 32 meta) and no lag in performance (10.91% of the Winner’s Meta), this time with eight Top 8 finishes.

Faeries upward trend indicates that not only is the format settling in some capacity, but that it is doing so in a way that can be attacked with interaction. This may be due in some part to the strength of Golgari Broodscale, which while holding fast at 6.25% of the Top 32 metagame has increased its share of the Winner’s Meta from 7.61% over the previous four week chunk to 8.75% of the last three weeks. As combo decks improve then decks that can disrupt them go up the power rankings. Faeries is well suited to the task, especially against Broodscale. Spellstutter Sprite gets around Duress (a common piece of interaction) and counterspells are not deterred by Snakeskin Veil.

Of course this leads us to the fact that Broodscale Combo continues to be a force in the metagame. The deck is capable of winning early and has the tools to grind to the midgame until it goes in for the kill. Interactive decks might be a solid choice here but other people are opting to just completely ignore the combo potential and try to win without caring what their opponent is doing. Dredge was only 3.13% of the Top 32 metagame but jumps to 5.48% of the winner’s share, netting four Top 8 finishes including a win in the past three weeks. Not listed above is a Poison/Proliferate “Storm” deck which went 9-0 on its way to a Challenge victory on January 26. Even if it is not dominating the landscape Broodscale is still doing a lot of work to define the meta.

So where does that leave us? Things are settling. They might even look okay on the surface. But digging deeper we are starting to see there are issues. The format does appear healthy by certain metrics but as we peel away the layers we see the balance is precarious at best. What happens in the next few weeks will do a lot to tell us where things are heading.

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Untitled Commander Series 1: Mavinda, Student’s Advocate

Every so often I decide it’s time to attempt writing about Commander again.

When I started playing, Magic was not a social event. I made acquaintances through the game but I viewed Magic as a way to prove myself at an endeavor. As I got older, however, Magic morphed into a way to just hang out. Compared to other adult activities it’s (relatively) easy to get a few friends together or head down to the Local Game Store to get sling some cardboard. I get to relax, shoot the shit, and just enjoy playing Magic.

It’s nice.

So what has been the hold up with putting my thoughts on Commander down on digital paper? I’ve been writing about Magic in some capacity for the better part of two decades. My long standing view is that Commander is a deeply personal format and everyone has their own approach. The way I see things may not hit home for a wider audience. The internet might say there is a “right” way to engage with Commander but the reality of the situation is drastically different. There is no one true way to play the format other than the one you and your podmates agree upon for that specific game. So much of the run up to that is about how you, as an individual, feel. Who is at the helm of your deck? What cards do you include – or exclude – and why? Which Basic Lands are you running and what is that story? There is no matchup data to pore over nor metagame to attack. There are simply people playing cards and looking for stories. How, then, can you write about something that means drastically different things to the various pairs of eyeballs that may read your words?

For the longest time I left it alone. I would try to write about Commander but it felt forced; the words rang hollow. A few weeks ago something changed. I was winding down from the day and excited about a deck I had just built: Mavinda, Student’s Advocate. For some reason I thought it was 2012 and decided to search the internet for anything written on the card. I found almost nothing. Sadly it made sense. These days there are so many Legendary Creatures printed that there’s no reason to write about all of them.

Given the current state of Magic content and the attention economy it tracks that only those cards that would reasonably get clicks should have dedicated articles. In that moment I realized that if no one was writing the kind of Commander content I wanted to read then I might as well do it myself. While I may not be able to write something that resonates with everyone the things that matter to me may well matter to other players. If that is the case then there is absolutely no reason to not share my thoughts.

The question then is what matters to me? It circles back to the social aspect of the format. My first experience with Commander was being invited out to Wizards of the Coast to play in the inaugural Magic Online Community Cup due to my work on the Pauper format. I had heard of EDH and decided to put a deck together on the off chance there would be an opportunity to play. I built a Darigaaz, the Igniter deck out of the cards I owned. I went to Wizards, helped win the Community Cup, and played my first game of EDH.

I was hooked. The format captured everything I loved about the my initial exposure to Magic. It combined the sense of discovery in finding weird cards with the puzzle of putting a deck together. I remember sitting at a table in Renton and relishing the feeling of just playing against people with nothing on the line besides a good time. I returned home and rifled through my collection to build another deck. At this time in my life I felt isolated. I was in my mid-20s living in the suburbs and working at a college while most of my friends were having their early adult years in New York City. It was not a far drive but my schedule did not afford me the opportunity to make many social calls. A 2011 change in job meant I could move back home to Brooklyn and EDH – now Commander – helped me to find new friends as I reconnected with my past. Time moved forward and then I was in my 30s, then my 40s. Playing the Magic became an important way to get me to engage with different people and often to get out of my own head.

These days Commander provides me a way to be social. The format also gives me an avenue where I can be creative in deck construction and play with cards that make me happy. It lets me tinker and refine, exploring new ways to make things work. Over the years I had to revise my expectations of games given my background in one-on-one play. Despite my affection for some cards it is often more enjoyable to leave them out if they can create a game that no one wants to play (looking at you, Grave Pact). Instead I found a philosophy that paired enjoyable game play with focused deck construction.

Every deck has an objective – they are all trying to Do the Thing. I realized that I derived enjoyment from decks that were trying to Play the Game. Winning the game was a secondary achievement. This conceit has become a major through-line in how I think about Commander, from the kernel of a new list to the compiling of cards itself to how I approach different pods. When I am concepting a new build I find it important to identify what the deck is trying to do and then build in such a way that allows me to engage with the game meaningfully towards that end. If I get to play the game an execute at least a portion of that gameplan, I can walk out of a match feeling as if I did something regardless of when I lost my final point of life.

Why do I feel the need to highlight this? In part I think it is because the recent deluge of options for the Command Zone have left multiple strategies with a “Best in Class” option that can do it all. The Commander is not only a way to win the game but also the main engine of progression – of moving the game plan forward. Lack of access to this card can often collapse a deck. The recent Omo, Queen of Vesuva comes to mind as one such example since that deck can cease to function without access to its Commander’s ability to make Everything Counters matter. I bring this up because building a deck that falters if a single card is absent can often lead to games where it feels like you do nothing. Constructing your deck so that it can work without the Commander and positively hum with it can make for an overall more enjoyable play experience.

Mavinda, Student’s Advocate is no one’s idea of what a Commander form the 2020s should be. She hearkens back to an era when Legendary Creatures were not designed with four player games in mind but rather a card where having multiple in play for a 60 card game might be an issue. Still I find something cool about her. If you are willing to work for it she can provide a steady stream of value “drawing” you an extra card each turn from a stocked graveyard. The buyout of eight generic mana to get around her targeting restriction means that in a pinch she can go after your opponents as well.

To best leverage her ability, Mavinda asks you to run cheap spells that target creatures you control. White heavily supports two paths that follow this route. The first is Heroic and Valiant: targeting your own creatures in an effort to make them large enough in combat to win. Here you want cards like Illuminator Virtuoso to ensure your improvement stick around as +1/+1 counters. Taking this route can mean looking for artifacts like Runechanger’s Pike to do some heavily lifting as white lacks both the force multipliers of red (Temur Battle Rage) and straight pump of green (Become Immense). Kaya’s Onslaught is fun but struggles to get the job done on its own. In the end I took a different path because boosting a creature’s stats ran counter to my vision of Mavinda.

Instead I focused on blink effects. While it is possible run both themes in the same 99 they can be at odds. Cloudshift can protect your creature but it would also erase the mountain of counters. Cards like Acrobatic Maneuver and Scrollshift also provide a save but they draw a card for good measure. The extra card helps move the game forward, digging deeper to find a way to win. The focus on flickering my own creatures encouraged me to run otherwise paltry bodies that replace themselves: Helpful Hunter, Spirited Companion, and Wall of Omens to name a few.

It also led me down a path of including some other engines that deal with cards entering (and leaving) the battlefield from old stalwarts Sun Titan, Reveillark, and Karmic Guide to the more recent Welcoming Vampire and Enduring Innocence. The resulting deck can do something at nearly every stage of the game and build towards a victory.

There is another reason I decided to focus the blink version of Mavinda and it did not become clear until after my second game with her. Sitting down to play the game is great but being able to fully participate is what leaves me feeling satisfied. I may not win but as long as I get to do something I feel like I got value out of my time. At the same point I build decks towards an overarching theme – they are not simply collections of cards but rather there is a plan. However many of these plans take time to set up and not every game provides the opportunity for their full realization. My solution is to build in layered engines that progress me towards my endgame. I did not realize it until recently but friends have longed described my decks as “Rube Goldberg machines”. The pieces all fit together so when they click I am able to do something that is far more than the sum of the parts. Mavinda is a fantastic example of this put into practice.

One of the through-lines of my build philosophy is maximizing the value of cards in play, whether that is through using them to regularly draw cards or by sending them to the meat grinder of a sacrifice outlet only to bring them back. I am naturally drawn to Aristocrats strategies – that is decks that want creatures to die for some effect – in part because they take an investment and convert it into something else. In the case of Artistocrats, a dying creature can become a point of damage with Zulaport Cutthroat or an extra card with Grim Haruspex. That’s awesome but it is something on top of what was already achieved – the creature itself. Mavinda does something similar with its spells – it already gets one use out of a Scrollshift but getting to use it a second time and draw even more cards means each actual card is worth several “cards” over the course of a game.

Taken together this means that every action is part of the overall plan. Each spell is a small step forward that provides the opportunity to engage with the other players and the battlefield while also advancing my game in a way that leads me in the direction of a win without catapulting me there. But in order to do this in Mavinda I need to build out a board. Mavinda is not a spellslinger deck that wants to amass spells and cast them in a flurry. Rather the deck needs permanents in play to generate maximum value from those same permanents being flickered to either draw cards or protect them from removal.

Once Mavinda has established a large enough board presence the deck can go about victory in any number of ways. It can plink in for damage turn after turn with whatever evasive threats it has at its disposal. It can go for value plays with cards like Sun Titan or Emeria Shepherd. Evangel of Heliod can generate an army of 1/1s that can swarm past defenses. Or it can find the cards I put in the deck to help win the game: Cathar’s Crusade or the combination of Reveillark, Karmic Guide, and Blasting Station.

We now open the door to another aspect my deck building philosophy. While some folks frown on any infinite combo I find including these engines as a way to close out the game has merit. While the play itself is meant to be enjoyed, part of any Commander game is determining the winner. Being able to jockey for position throughout the course of turns only to assemble a specific suite of cards can be exciting. What I personally do not enjoy is trying to race towards a those same game pieces as I find it anticlimactic. To this end I also make it a point of answering honestly when asked about the contents of my deck. My go-to line with Mavinda is: Yes, I do have unbound combos that can end the game, but they involved creatures and artifacts – and I will tell you when I play out the pieces when asked. Part of a good game of Commander, to me, is everyone being on the same page. Someone seeing Blasting Station, Karmic Guide, and Reveillark for the first time may not fully understand what is about to happen does not make for the best experience. Being honest and forthright with “this is when you have to kill my creature” makes it a lot easier to be invited back and to play the same deck another time.

Back to layered engines. What does this mean at the micro level? As mentioned I prefer this style of deck building because it allows me to always feel like I am “doing something” over the course of a game while also progressing my own plan. It breaks down to that the vast majority of cards in the deck need to work with other cards at various stages of the game. In Mavinda that means a heavy focus on cards that enter the battlefield but also figuring out other cards that care about said game actions.

Starting the build with Mavinda and the idea of “blink” effects at the top of mind led me down the path of cantrip creatures. White has plenty of those these days but lets go back to one of the first: Wall of Omens. On its own Wall of Omens simply replaces itself which does not seem like much. In Mavinda it makes for an excellent early target for Cloudshift. Wall of Omens also works with white’s persistent card draw like Welcoming Vampire and Enduring Innocence. I’ve opted against Mentor of the Meek in this build in part because I have found a need to leave my mana up once Mavinda is in play and overtaxing that resource can leave me low on reusing spells – it stops me from Doing the Thing. Wall of Omens also works perfectly with Reveillark, as does every other cantrip creature in the deck.

These creatures are all relatively small – three mana value or less – and that means the stalwart Sun Titan has a home here. Sun Titan is a fine blink target as well which pushes us further to the one circle Venn Diagram of “blink” and “recursion”. Karmic Guide and the aforementioned Reveillark also work here, as does Emeria Shepherd at the top of the curve. Shepherd also has the advantage of giving value to late game land drops. These creatures also help to reanimate some key creatures that also flicker such as Flickerwisp in the case of Sun Titan and Felidar Guardian, Restoration Angel, G limmerpoint Stag, and Salvation Swan outside of Sun Titan’s wheelhouse. Salvation Swan a card where if other Birds emerge as good options for the deck I may bias towards them in the future, but I am just as likely to cut Swan in favor of a less restrictive creature.

Considering how much this deck cares about creatures entering the battlefield, Panharmonicon made the cut. While the cards themselves can keep the game moving forward this artifact can help send the deck into overdrive while also helping the deck catch up if it lags too far behind. Extra card draw or blinks or recursion are always welcome and when you’re recycling Ephemerate Panharmonicon is just piling the value higher than a plate at an all you can eat buffet.

Considering how valuable a robust board state is to the strategy I needed to find ways to save my team from removal. Again I look towards to Commander to find options that meet the requirements. Divine Resilience, Eerie Interlude, and Clever Concealment all contain the magic word of target which means I get to go back for seconds without laying out eight additional mana. Bathe in Light stops damage based sweepers while also having the out to push damage past blockers in certain scenarios.

While this deck can function without its Commander in play everything works better when Bird Mom is around. As a result I tried to pick interaction that had some synergy. Wrath of God was going to make the cut regardless in part because I have a sick 8^th Edition Foil. Dusk//Dawn fits because of the relatively small size of the creatures in the deck while Fell the Mighty has the all important word “target”, which means I can cast it without the tax from the graveyard with Mavinda. Sunblast Angel is a board wipe on a body that can conveniently be flickered. Outside of Wrath of God these cards all play nice with Mavinda while also allowing me to play the game and progress my gameplan mostly by delaying my opponent’s victory.

Mavinda has few defined victory condition by design. I built this deck to play the game with winning as consequence rather than a goal. Still there was intention behind selecting the ways to close things out. Karmic Guide, Reveillark, and Blasting Station get the job done quickly, but Blasting Station, Evangel of Heliod, and Emeria, the Sky Ruin does the same work, albeit at a much slower rate. Cathar’s Crusade can bolster the team while Monastery Mentor helps to go wide and push damage. The deck does not to race towards these cards but rather to finds them over the course of the game. A big part of playing this way is finding the various paths to eliminating your opponents.

How fast does Mavinda Do the Thing? That depends on your perspective. In some sense it can achieve it as early as the second turn by resolving a Spirited Companion, but if you want to get technical it will take until at least turn five to blink one of these value creatures with Mavinda in play, and then buy back the spell. Now if we’re talking about Doing the Thing – Victory Edition, well that is going to take quite a bit more time.

How is Mavinda perceived at the table? Thus far it seems to elicit positive reaction. It is an under the radar Commander that does not just steamroll the table. Instead it requires that you have put in some work to get the most out of her presence on battlefield. The combination of blink spells with Flickerwisp and friends means that you can play politics even if you are not going to pay the Iron Price for some spells. Cloudshift on Glimmerpoint Stag can remove a lethal attacker and curry favor.

I hope part of this resonated with you. I hope that, if you found this article and read it, that part of it tickled the lizard part of your brain and made you happy. Part of the joy of Commander is finding people who see things the way you do, and also who come at the game from obtuse angle.

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January 10-12 Pauper Weekend Recap

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

Due to some issues on Daybreak’s end, only two Challenges were able to fire this past weekend. Neither of the Challenges were particularly well attended, with Friday’s featuring two players with 1-5 records making the Top 32. These finishes tend to have a confounding effect on singular weekend data, decreasing the number of overall wins in the pool which in turn makes the decks at the top of the metagame appear potentially stronger than their actual performance. For example, Kuldotha Red may have been the most popular deck in the Top 32 last weekend, but it performed…well…I’ll just show you.

Adjusted Meta Score Above Replacement seeks to measure how well an archetype performs compared to the average Top 32 deck in a given weekend, adjusted for the number of appearances in the Top 32. It is normalized to the most popular deck in the field on a week to week basis. Kuldotha Red, with five more finishes than the next archetype, was tied for 10/11 out of 15 over last weekend. Dredge, with two total Top 32 finishes (both of which were in the Top 8, including a win) was technically the best performing archetype with numbers that are mind boggling and also an outlier.

Data is only as good as the context in which it is presented. I could easily post an image of my shocked face, double pointing at the image on Dread Return declaring “THIS DECK IS BACK FROM THE DEAD” with the subheading “Is Pauper on its way to the grave?” to get clicks, only to tell you that despite the numbers I wouldn’t recommend Dredge next week. Oh to operate in the attention economy.

So what is the full context of last weekend? Small Challenge field obfuscate actionable data. Given the field size and overall number of wins we end up information that we cannot easily use to predict how the metagame may react. In other words I cannot in good conscience make a recommendation in part because there is not real basis for said declaration.

And that in it of itself is another problem. I have used this space to talk about the relative health of Pauper. There are multiple decks you can pilot to success and despite the format being a bit top heavy things are largely in balance. The best decks in the meta jockey for position and help to keep each other in check. While things vary from week to week the flavor is starting to become stale. Is a format really healthy if people aren’t excited to play it?

To be clear I am not saying this is the case. There could be any number of reasons people are not trying their hand in these events. At the same time it has been hard to ignore the slow decline in participation. Could there be correlation to dissatisfaction with Pauper? Possibly. It could be that other formats are better than they have been in quite some time and people are playing other tournaments. Cube is more readily accessible these days and could prove an attractive diversion. Or maybe you’re like me and after a week of working at a computer the idea of sitting in front of one for your free time sounds about as much fun as walking barefoot in the snow after a hot shower.

Regardless, the low numbers have caught my attention. And if the trend continues then it could be indicative that despite all the good there is in Pauper that it might be time for a change. Just because something is stable and balanced does not mean it is good; just because something high powered is strong in the format doesn’t make it inherently bad.

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Checking the Foundation

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

Foundations season is well underway with eight weeks of Magic Online Challenges in the rear view mirror. At the same time, Pauper can feel as if it has been in the Modern Horizons 3 release cycle since that set debuted. Depending on how you look at things the metagame appears to be rather diverse but at the same time there are a relatively narrow band of things you can do. This coupled with the relatively slow metagame churn of the format has left some dissatisfied. Today I want to take stock of where things stand and try to identify where things might be headed.

First, my usual caveats. Yes, I am a member of the Pauper Format Panel. That being said the opinions I express here today are my own and are not representative of the Panel. While this information may (or may not) be similar to some of the points I make in our discussions, do not take them as gospel. Rather, these observations are just my take on things.

I know this chart is small, but I will do my best to highlight the relevant numbers as they relate to this discussion. Over the past two months and 23 Challenges, 49 different archetypes have made the Top 32 of the Challenges. Some of these are minor variations (a Goblins focused build of Kuldotha Red for example) or hybrids (a mashup of Affinity and Dimir Faeries). However only 14 archetypes clear 2% presence in the Top 32 (minimum 15 appearances) and only six clear 5% (37 appearances). The metagame, therefore, appears to be concentrated on a few top decks with “fringe” builds only occasionally making waves.

Today I want to focus on the “True Volume” column. This number attempts to measure how prevalent an archetype is as it relates to its strength. For example, Kuldotha Red took up 16.44% of the total Top 32 metagame but when looking at its relative performance it dipped slightly to 15.98% of the True Volume, or Winner’s Metagame. Looking at the raw numbers, only two decks stand out in this regard – the aforementioned Kuldotha Red and Grixis Affinity at 15.89% True Volume. These are the only two discrete archetypes that clear 10% for Foundations season.

Astute readers will no doubt discern that I am up to something. Despite Kuldotha Red and Grixis Affinity being the two archetypes with the best performance, the metagame includes several strategies that share core elements and gameplans. There are multiple Basking Broodscale combo decks spanning the Goglari and Jund color combinations, and no fewer than three different versions of Tolarian Terror decks (Mono Blue, Dimir, and Izzet). When we look at these larger strategically similar buckets we end up with a composite that is less a mosaic:

Broodscale Combo (Golgari, Jund): 16.7%
Red (Kuldotha, Goblins, Galvanic Blast Burn): 16.37%
Tolarian Terror (Mono Blue, Dimir Terror, Izzet Control): 16.34%
Affinity (Grixis, Rakdos, Faerie-Affinity): 16.15%

All told these four game plans occupy 65.56% of the Winner’s Metagame. Depending on your perspective this is either fantastic (a non-rotating format with four viable top tier strategies across seven sub-archetypes) or less than ideal (their dominance is squeezing out other potential builds). The more time passes the more I am in the latter camp in part because of how much ubiquity there is amongst multiple archetypes.

Let’s take Affinity, for example. This strategy often features the Artifact Lands, Deadly Dispute, and Galvanic Blast. If you look at the red strategies they also heavily lean on artifacts to enable Galvanic Blast. Broodscale decks run Deadly Dispute and some Jund varieties run the Bridges to accelerate with Cleansing Wildfire. Moving away from combo most midrange Golgari and Jund decks also run a Deadly Dispute package, with one build also running Bridges and Cleansing Wildfire. While there are four main buckets, there are, in some ways, three things to do – Red, Terror, or Dispute. This may be a reductive exploration but at the same time it is reflective of the top of the competitive metagame.

How many things should one be able to do in a non-rotating format? In my opinion three is too few and four is not quiet there either. If the top of the format only comprised say, half of the Winner’s Metagame it would allow for further development of Tier Two (and below) strategies that could potentially gain a foothold and find success. It is not necessarily that there are too few things to do but rather that these elements are clearly a lap or two ahead of everyone else. After the Big Four the next best macro-strategy in Pauper revolves around Spellstutter Sprite and it comes in at 8.43% of the Winner’s Metgame, and then it’s another massive drop off to Mono White Aggro at 4.2%.

Part of this is the nature of commons. Unlike Pioneer, Modern, and Legacy there fairly few singularly powerful cards around which you can build an archetype. The Initiative and Monarch both exist but have moved into a support role rather than a focus of the format. Instead of leaning on individual cards Pauper decks are built largely on layered synergies which means that the best packets will often rise to the top. The format has plenty of options but given the landscape means that the Big Four are the best things one can be doing at the moment.

Seeing as the upcoming releases are Innistrad Remastered and Aetherdrift, the chances for a Modern Horizons 3 level shake up are slim. Standard Legal sets rarely have a massive impact and neither Time Spiral Remastered nor Ravnica Remastered did much to nudge the metagame. It is possible that the only way to things to change would be for a forced rotation via cards being added or removed from the banned list. That being said it is also possible that the next two sets will buck the trend and make waves so nothing is set in stone.

There, of course, is another issue. While the format is currently rote in many ways it is balanced. Pulling or pushing on one of these core decks too strongly could upset that and cause another series of issues. Words similar to these have been written before and the solution is never obvious or prescribed. All this being said it is hard to ignore what recently happened with Modern and the massive shakeup – and excitement – that flowed from the changes to that format’s card pool.

What could be done? Lots, to be sure and I am not going to speculate on individual cards for the reason previously discussed. Still the question that lingers on my mind is how much would need to change for there to be emergent strategies? There are tons of established decks available that could assert themselves if an opening existed, but would they keep Pauper exciting or would the discourse return to this point in six months’ time?

What steps would you take with the format? Do you believe anything should be done? What cards are in your sights? Would you take a minimalist or maximalist approach to things?

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December 13-15 Pauper Weekend Recap

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

Well, I’m back.

For those of you who don’t follow me on social media I was out of commission last week with a case of Shingles. I’m on the mend and have finally updated my metagame tracker. In summary, Kuldotha Red was the best deck the weekend covering December 6-8, Grixis Affinity was the deck to beat for the first month of Foundations season, and Jund Broodscale had a relatively gaudy set of results December 13-15. And honestly, this all tracks. These are three of the better strategies available in Pauper and to have them all put up solid results over those given time spans is to be expected.

Expectations. That’s a word that’s going to come up a lot in this piece. Yesterday the Pauper Format Panel released an update video where we announced that there would not be any changes to banned list at this time. The reaction has been mixed, which should not be a shock. As a non-rotating format, Pauper is constantly being pulled between the past and future, with old cards providing the inertia for the momentum of new releases. In my opinion, Pauper is doing a solid job of synthesizing these two extremes, producing a format that pulls from the entire card pool. I will be the first to concede that there have been some strategies that could stand to take some time out of the spotlight, but given everything Pauper is in a pretty good spot.

A lot of the discourse in the wake of the ban (lack of) announcement has centered on a few cards. There is the Basking Broodscale–Sadistic Glee combo, a strategy some feel is too good while others see it as crowding out other potential combo decks. While Broodscale combo is good it is not significantly above the power curve of the format. Additionally it provides the format with a sustainably competitive combo deck for the first time in several years. Is Broodscale pushing other combo builds to the fringes? Yes, but the reality is many were already there in the first place.

Another target of ire is Deadly Dispute. The treasure left behind by the draw spell is more than a little bit of value and some feel that this discount at the register has pushed the black spell – and the associated card advantage package – over the line. While Grixis Affinity does benefit from Deadly Dispute, it also is doing a ton of work helping to support black based midrange, and having strong black midrange decks available in the format is usually indicative of healthy metagame. These decks naturally prey on creature strategies and their viability means that attacking and blocking matters on some metric. Would removing Dispute from the format in favor of Reckoner’s Bargain or Fanaticial Offering remove this view from Pauper’s landscape? Potentially, but there’s a similar chance the decks would just take a step back and we can debate that another day.

The finally topic of conversation centered around Writhing Chrysalis. The bane of Modern Horizons 3 Limited has proven to be a real threat in Pauper. It comes down early and can quickly get itself out of Galvanic Blast range while also proving a challenge for Skred. It also dodges Hydroblast and while it does fall to Cast Down, Snuff Out, Journey to Nowhere, and a litany of other removal spells it often leaves behind material. That the Chrysalis also blocks flyers means that cards like Glint Hawk – format stalwarts – are finding themselves on the outside looking in. There is a population of players that feel Chrysalis is too good for the format and needs to be banned. It has crowded out a significantly number of creatures while also rendering certain removal spells less effective.

In my opinion, the presence of Writhing Chrysalis in the Pauper metagame is a good sign. Despite everything, Chrysalis largely comes down to being a mountain of stats. It attacks and blocks, often above rate for the mana invested into it, while also providing a sticky threat. That is, it can leave behind some materail that has limited utility, but if not answered it will stick around. Like other massive creatures before it (Gurmag Angler, Tolarian Terror) and creatures that dictate their plane of battle (Kor Skyfisher), Chrysalis helps to set the parameters for what sort of singular threat is reasonable in the format.

Let’s go back to Kor Skyfisher as an example. This card has been vital to the format for years as both a creature with power and toughness and as part of a card flow engine. For years if you wanted to win in the air, and were not planning on going wide, your creature had to line up well with Kor Skyfisher. Going wide still worked since you could always go around a singular Skyfisher. The roles are currently inverted, with Chrysalis keeping singular Skyfishers at bay while bird tokens enhanced with Guardians’ Pledge doing the heavy lifting.

Now none of this is to say that Chrysalis may not prove to be over the line eventually. Currently, however, it represents a push towards midrange. A threat that can dominate on its own if left untouched but one with available interplay. There are spells that handle the Eldrazi and many of them already see play. That being said sometimes regular shifts in the metagame, where formerly middling strategies emerge as contenders, can prove to be unsettling, especially if things were unchanged for so long.

That, more than anything, may be at the root of some gripes. The latest format defining creature did little to bring old decks back to prominence and instead gave us multiple varieties of Jund.

Is that such a bad thing?

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November 29 – December 1 Pauper Weekend Recap

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

How important is stability in a non-rotating format? This is a question I ask myself often these days as I examine the Pauper metagame on a week-to-week basis. I know I am not the only one who pores over the latest published decklists, looking for something new or exciting, only to be met with the same groupings of cards time and time again. But my personal disappointment is not a determining factor in the overall health of the Pauper format.

The three Challenges that took place from November 29 to December 1 were small, even by recent standards. In two of the events, players with 1-5 records made the Top 32. This is not giving me pause as late November into December usually heralds a dip in participation thanks to the American Thanksgiving holiday leading right into the Winter Holiday season. The smaller field helped to highlight the concentration at the top of the metagame, with four macro-archetypes (Grixis Affinity, Kuldotha Red, and Golgari/Jund Broodscale) combined to hold more than 58% of the Top 32 metagame and 50% of all Top 8 slots awarded (although Jund Broodscale did not contribute to this latter achievement). Kuldotha Red ended up having the best weekend, ending Sunday with a 19.16% of the Winner’s Metagame (compared to 12.5% of the overall Top 32) and an Adjusted Meta Score Above Replacement of 0.89. While Affinity had the second most impressive Winner’s Meta Share (16.4%), this represented about a 4% decline from it’s Top 32 share.

By my measure, the second best performing deck on the weekend was Faeries. Straight up Mono Blue Faeries. With an AMSAR score of 0.7, it improved upon its 4.17% Top 32 meta share by over 5% to close Sunday with 9.28% of the Winner’s Metagame. Faeries is the deck that just will not go away, and with good reason. Faeries might never reclaim the status of “Best Deck in Pauper” but it is always going to have game by virtue of being an aggressive Counterspell shell. Faeries can apply damage, draw cards, and keep the opponent off balance. Unlike Blue Terror the deck also does not have to spin its wheels just to resolve a threat. Yes, Tolarian Terror might end games quickly once it arrives but by that point Faeries may have already dealt five damage and seen three extra cards.

Faeries is a stable choice in Pauper. It is a deck that has a great chance of being competitive in a given environment, provided a skilled pilot and proper deck construction. We have seen this phenomena repeat with decks such as Elves (which has undergone a significant makeover in the past six months) and Bogles (which has had less work done -but still some – over the same span of time). Stability in a format means solid choices only lose some of their expected value over time and can reward experts that understand the nuances of different matchups. While it may be boring for people preoccupied with content and dynamism (and I count myself in this camp), having a known suite of threats and predators in a given pool means that plans can be made specifically to combat said threats and predators.

Stability in non-rotating formats is good because it helps to set the rules of engagement for tournament play.

At the same time stability can go too far. When things are too stagnant than the cycle becomes routine. For competitive endeavors this is not the worst thing but when that same exercise is supposed to provide enjoyment then perhaps a problem can arise. One could make the cast that Pauper has crossed this line with Grixis Affinity and Kuldotha Red remaining the two best decks for the better part of two years. Granted these decks are not at the apex of the power experienced at their heights, but they still are at the top of the metagame.

That being the case there is a significant amount of churn at bronze and beyond. The various Basking Broodscale combo decks have emerged as real contenders while Tolarian Terror decks remain strong choices. As mentioned, Faeries decks (both mono blue and Dimir) have been putting up strong results recently and Elves has emerged as a relevant archetype once again. Gruul Ramp was ascendant for some time before regressing to the mean. Rakdos Madness was a surprise contender, almost disappeared, and then reemerged. And this list does not include various Basilisk Gate decks as well as Mono White Aggro. There exists a large variety of viable things to do.

All of this is to say that despite the fact the top of the metagame looks largely unchanged from a macroarchetype perspective, the format is far from static. While it may be disheartening to see different iterations of Deadly Dispute package showing up time and time again, that the cards can express themselves in different strategies is far from a Bad Thing. Rather it provides the foundation for potential future decks to pull from previous successes as a way to break through and spike a result.

What does this mean for next week? The same as the weeks before – have a plan for Affinity and Red. Protect your life total while also being able to disrupt a long game in some capacity. Interaction for Broodscale is key but comes in multiple stripes so figure out what works best for your strategy. And don’t forget to figure out how you’re going to handle an army of 5/5 monsters breathing down your neck.

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November 22-24 Pauper Weekend Recap

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

Normally these posts focus on the Magic Online Pauper Challenges, and specifically the Top 32 results from these events. While there was a period where I looked at the entire metagame from Challenges, this was due to Daybreak publishing every decklist. That practice has ended and for better or worse I get to return my focus to a smaller suite of lists. This week, however, I would be remiss if I ignore the results of the recent Paupergeddon event in Rome where four Basking Broodscale combo decks made the Top 8, including taking both spots in the finals.

Here are the familiar caveats for anyone who has been following me for the past few years. The opinions I am about to express are mine. They do not represent the views of the wider Pauper Format Panel and should not be taken as such. Rather this are my observations on the current state of Pauper. Do not read too much into what follows.

Back to our regularly scheduled program. Broodscale Combo has become a real force in the format. There are three main varieties of the deck: a straight Golgari build, a largely Black-Green build that adds Writhing Chrysalis, and a Jund build that also adds Cleansing Wildfire, Krark-Clan Shaman, and Makeshift Munitions to the mix. Collectively the combo has been gaining ground in the metagame culminating in Jund Broodscale coming in third in my final Duskmourn Power Rankings (Golgari Broodscale placed fifth).

The Broodscale combo has, by my measure, three things going for it. First it is objectively powerful. As early as turn three it can generate an unbound amount of power and toughness. If left unchecked this means lethal damage, sometimes before the opponent could potentially resolve a Phyrexian Rager. Second, the combo is compact requiring only two cards. Yes, you can win with out elements such as Gravitic Punch, Makeshift Munitions, or Rancor, but the core of the combo can still get the job done and requires two pieces. That both of these card types are easy to find in green, while black does a good job of getting creatures back from the bin, and you can add the asterisk of resilience to this bullet. Finally, the combo is cheap. Ignoring secondary spouts the entire mana investment of the cards themselves is three. While technically you need an additional two mana to get the ball rolling that is not always the case, especially if you have spare Spawn strewn about. Taken together this represents a combo that is definitely straddling The Line of what is healthy for a competitive format. To be clear this is not to say that Broodscale Combo is too powerful for Pauper but rather the confluence of all these factors means it might present a problem for the metagame in the long term.

In the wake of Rome there has been quite a bit of discussion about what, if anything, needs to be done. Outside of the combo pieces themselves I see two cards getting the lion’s share of attention: Writhing Chrysalis and Deadly Dispute. The Chrysalis is a powerful card, no doubt, but at the end of the day it is a stat monster. The scourge of Modern Horizons 3 limited has a lot going for it. Reach means it can block creatures with flying and Devoid is actual text here, turning off Hydroblast. They also stack nicely, with the Spawn from any Eldrazi helping to make these spiders giant. At the end of the day Chrysalis just represents another creature that is larger than what has come before. The abundance of removal available to Pauper means that an answer may be uncovered soon. For example, I have had some success experimenting with Temporal Isolation as of late. I started running this card as a way to tax Crypt Rats and Krark-Clan Shaman, but it does a fine job against monsters as well.

That brings us to Deadly Dispute. For the past few years this card has been just out of focus when discussing the power surge in Pauper. A two mana draw two that asks you to sacrifice a creature or artifact might seem like a big ask – one worth a Lotus Petal cash back rebate – but in reality the additional cost is negligible. From Khalni Garden to Blood Fountain, there is a ton of material available, much of which is free and as such Deadly Dispute becomes effectively a one mana draw two. Even if you choose to invest a piece of cardboard, like Ichor Wellspring for example, you end up with another card worth of value. While cards like Fanatical Offering and Reckoner’s Bargain are similar, Dispute gets all the press because it comes with a free piece of Treasure. Given that Pauper has gotten faster over the years and is now more mana efficient than ever, that Treasure is worth its weight in gold.

Deadly Dispute is representative of a shift towards that efficiency. For many years the standard for accruing significant card advantage was Ephemerate and Mulldrifter. For a total investment of 2UW and two cards you would get +4 cards and a 2/2 flyer on layaway, all at sorcery speed. In order to reap the full rewards, however, it would take at least two full turn cycles (more if you cared about attacking). Compare this to Ichor Wellspring and Deadly Dispute. For a net mana cost of 2B you invest two cards (one of which already replaced itself) and get two fresh looks, for a net of +2 cards at instant speed. That this can be broken up over multiple turns is a huge advantage over the comparatively ponderously slow Ephemerate lines.

Non-rotating, or eternal formats, trend towards efficiency over time. I encourage you all to read this piece by Lawrence Harmon which does a fantastic job explaining this phenomenon. Given a long enough timeline all formats with a fixed starting point, that lack a pruning, will naturally drift towards running the most efficient – or best – version of a given effect. Sometimes the desired game action comes with a hefty mana investment – like The One Ring – but there are ways to subvert that or prolong games to a state where the overwhelming advantage can take over. Pauper might have taken longer to get on this train but currently it is traveling downhill as well. The decline of Mulldrifter based card advantage started with the introduction of the Monarch, which took time but made the card draw free. The Monarch gave way to the Initiative, which had a fixed set of one mana spells but cast them for you with some play to the sequencing. Now we are seeing Pauper focus on “draw twos” for minimal mana, with Thoughtcast and Experimental Synthesizer joining Deadly Dispute in this pantheon. Every time Pauper takes another step towards in this direction it requires a realignment of the rules of engagement.

What does that look like? I am not entirely sure at this moment. The current metagame is likely trending in the right direction, but this also helps to underscore the frustration with the prevalence of both Grixis Affinity and Kuldotha Red. These two decks have been top tier strategies for quite some time and they remain there in part because they are so efficient. These decks are able to enact their game plan on minimal mana and are able to easily run the latest “best in slot” option. Blue Terror also falls into this camp as do both Broodscale Combo and Writhing Chrysalis.

There is a way to stall the boulder rolling downhill, and that is the intervention of bans. While it cannot remove a format from the slope it can help ease the fall. If the Pauper Format Panel decides that things, as they currently exist, are not sustainable then it would be time to act. As mentioned before you’re not going to get any behind-the-scenes insight from me on this point. That being said it will be interesting to see how other decks solve for this new emerging reality of Pauper. What cards do you see as going up in value and what strategies exist that could break through?

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November 15-17 Pauper Weekend Recap

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

The first week of a new season of Magic Online Pauper Challenges is always filled with hope. Hope that the new set will shake things up – even a little – and help to dislodge the top decks. This wellspring is usually quashed relatively quickly. It is a rare occurrence indeed that a new common upsets the apple cart. Foundations is not exception to this rule. Much like previous non-Horizons, non-Masters releases, the set has brought relatively little to the party in its debut. Similar to previous “First Week” breakdowns, a familiar face has risen up bearing the beacon of hope for a change…but I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Mono White Aggro is not a complete unknown in Pauper. It has been one of the better underplayed decks for much of the past year, routinely cropping up to Top 8 a Challenge and put up a consistent 5-0 in the League. The deck wins via combat, usually in a go-wide manner with multiple small creatures backed up by Guardians’ Pledge. It can leverage its superior attacking and blocking capability to turn Prismatic Strands into a one sided board wipe while also using the staple to protect its own life total.

The deck had a rather obscene showing this past weekend with five total Top 32 appearances and a whopping 80% conversion rate to the Top 8. Based upon overall record it would make sense to see two copies of Mono White in the elimination rounds, not four. Mono White made up 5.21% of the Top 32 metagame and increased upon that share to 8.64% of the Winner’s Metagame. It had the third best Adjusted Meta Score Above Replacement with 0.38. For a comparison, the deck achieved 1.36% of the Winner’s Metagame during Duskmourn season with a cumulative AMSAR of -0.12. As for the final week of Duskmourn, Mono White did not make a Top 32 appearance.

Now let’s be clear – comparing one week of events to seven is not apples to apples. At the same time it is a bit of a stark contrast. So what gives? While not a massive innovation, Suture Priest has gained popularity over the past few months as a soft answer to Basking Broodscale combo. Most Broodscale decks will have an answer to the Phyrexian somewhere in their list, but if it buys time for a lethal attack then the Priest was well worth the price of inclusion. Thraben Charm is also a well positioned modal spell which gives Mono White a little more punch. A below rate creature removal spell that also take out graveyards or problematic enchantments hits several key elements in the format. All of this seems to be enough to make Mono White a reasonable, if not exciting, option.

So what led the way over the first weekend of Foundations? Grixis Affinity was the most popular deck on the weekend with 15 appearances in the Top 32, along with three Top 8 finishes and a win. An AMSAR score of 0.98 placed it about a win better than the average Top 32 deck. That being said a Win+ ratio of 0.60 places it firmly in the Top 16 for a mean finish (Mono White had a raw Win+ ratio of 1.2, which is a hair better than a Top 8 finish; the adjusted Win+ ratio for Mono White was 0.4, so just a bit behind Grixis).

I do not want to prognosticate too much about what next week might hold, mostly because not much has changed. Grixis Affinity remains a top choice while Kuldotha Red and Tolarian Terror builds are not far behind. Jeskai Ephemerate had a pair of ninth place finishes, and the deck might pick up steam if it can find the right mix of answers. Two decks found a spot for new cards, with Gruul Ramp picking up Bushwhack and the Sunday winning WonderWalls Combo deck adding Squad Rallier to the mix. Dwynen’s Elite has also been making appearances in Elves builds. Pilfer has perhaps had the largest impact, giving black midrange and combo a way to defend their game plans. None of these updates are going to usher in a new era of Pauper but they could nudge things.

Given everything here is what I would be looking at heading into the weekend. First and foremost have a plan for Grixis Affinity. This does not mean loading up your sideboard with Gorilla Shaman and its ilk. Instead, Grixis Affinity should be treated like Kolaghan’s Command Grixis Control from 2018 era Legacy. It is a value deck that leverages low effective mana costs to build an advantage turn over turn. Grixis Affinity excels at efficiency and has enough card advantage to power through to a midgame. Getting under this deck and sidestepping its resiliency is key to keeping them off balance. In this way the success of Mono White, which tools to apply consistent pressure, makes sense. The key, therefore, will be having a strategy that can get under Grixis while going over the top of Mono White. Flaring Pain looks to be a key sideboard card this weekend and if you can figure out how to make Kiln Fiend and Crackling Cyclops sing then you may just have an edge of the format for the next series of events.

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Duskmourn Season Recap

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

And if the Second Foundation had our backs I’d be sleeping a little bit better tonight

The Ergs – “Second Foundation”

Confounding. That is the word I keep coming back to when I discuss Duskmourn season. After seven weeks we have finally escaped Magic’s most haunted house and now enter the new world of Foundations. While the latest set is not likely to have a massive impact on Pauper (Patrons can check out my set review here; it is also available as a one time purchase) it nonetheless allows us to turn the page on a series of Challenges that in many ways left me perplexed.

Historically it was rare when someone with a losing record would finish within the Top 32 of a Pauper Challenge. These events, while not as popular as other offerings on Magic Online, would attract a large enough crowd to ensure that at worst an even win-loss record would find itself in 32nd place. This season seventeen of the twenty-two Challenges featured a negative win-loss record in the Top 32. Now over a long enough timeline this does come out in the wash but in isolation it does give me a bit of pause. We can (and will) get to the numbers later but for now I want take a few guesses as to the “why”.

First and foremost earlier this season Daybreak announced a change to the prizing structure of Challenges. While this has been walked back some the tournaments no longer produce the same expected value in prizing. Whether we like it or not this absolutely factors into some players choice to participate. If you only have so many hours in the day and the material reward entering an account is part of the calculus then it makes sense that some players would take their temporal investment elsewhere. To be clear I am not trying to make a value judgement of people who grind events for the value. Motivation is personal and whatever pushes folks to participate and as long as they do so within the bounds of good manners they’re a-ok in my book.

Another factor could be the state of Pauper. While the format itself appears healthy there are some who do not feel that to be the case. Pauper is in a decent spot with the best decks not that far ahead from those in the second tier. That being said the top of the format is largely stable. The best decks for the past seven weeks are not entirely dissimilar from the best decks over Bloomburrow season and Modern Horizons 3 season before that.

When does stability turn into stagnation? That seems to be the root of some of this dissatisfaction. Grixis Affinity and Kuldotha Red, for example, have been two of the best decks in Pauper for over two years. Other decks have emerged as contenders but the aforementioned duo have been a constant presence. In some ways this is good for Pauper as it gives the competitive landscape a North Star by which their can orient their positions in the metagame. At the same time queuing into the same decks day after day, week after week – for years mind you – can get tiresome. That being said I believe Pauper is in a period of stability rather than stagnation. Yes, the veteran strategies remain strong but recently there has been a proliferation of builds based around other engines that have proven themselves to be true contenders.

Now – say it with me – correlation does not equal causation. It is possible that these factors, and others, have contributed to the smaller Challenge fields. It is also plausible that these variables have had some-to-no impact. I am not here to point fingers but rather to provide potential explanations as it serves the results of the events.

Speaking of those results, the smaller Challenge sizes seem to have been a boon to Kuldotha Red. Spoiler alert – the deck tops my end of season Power Rankings. The deck ended Duskmourn season with an Adjusted Meta Score Above Replacement of 0.87 – up from 0.51 during Bloomburrow. Kuldotha Red took up 17.61% of the Top 32 Metagame and 18.81% of the Winner’s Metagame. If these numbers were to sustain that would indicate a problem. That being said Kuldotha Red is trending downwards, with 20.1% of the Winner’s Metagame over the first four weeks as opposed to 16.92% over the final three weeks of the season.

Grixis Affinity had a strong -if not as impressive – season with a final aMSAR of 0.6. At 10.8% of the Top 32 metagame and 12.07% of the Winner’s Metagame the deck falls far more in line with what we have come to expect for a top deck in the format over the past few seasons. This is a step back from the deck’s Bloomburrow production with aMSAR of 1.09 and 14.13% of the Winner’s Metagame, but still indicative of a deck that belongs at the top.

So this brings us back to the confounding elements. Kuldotha Red got to add Clockwork Percussionist to the mix which was definitely a boon, but likely not enough to push Red to the levels it achieved. Taking everything together it is plausible that Red was able to take advantage of the smaller Challenge sizes as well as a boost in popularity to improve its standings. As seen in this video, the player collected data shows that Kuldotha Red has a sub 50% win rate. It seems reasonable, then, that Red is probably closer to its Bloomburrow performance than its Duskmourn showing. In other words, it remains an important, and perhaps defining, part of the Pauper metagame while not being so utterly dominant as to warp the format.

So had does the rest of the format take shape with these two on the medal stand? Broodscale Combo remains a contender, with both Jund and Golgari builds occupying spots in the Top 8 of the season. These decks are able to win from multiple angles and, considering the variety in their construction, can keep opponents guessing on exactly how they will execute the victory formation until it is too late.

Tolarian Terror decks also performed well during Duskmourn season. Blue Terror, Dimir Terror, and Izzet Control all find themselves in the Top 8 of the Power Rankings. Blue Terror continues to provide a quick clock while keeping opponent’s off balance while the two color varieties can play a slower game backed up with removal. Fast 5/5s remain a good way to end games in Pauper, even in the face of aggression.

Where does that leave things heading into Foundations season? Right now I would not hedge too much against Kuldotha Red. Don’t get me wrong as it remains a top deck in the format. Having a reasonable plan – whether its blocking, life gain, or Fogs – is a must. After that it is all about having a relatively compact win condition. Notably absent from the best decks this time around are decks like Elves and Gruul Ramp, both of which need a critical mass of mana to work. It would not surprise me to see Elves surge a bit with Dwynen’s Elite making its debut. Another thing to consider are the sweepers in Pauper – damage based removal is making a big push at the moment. Because of this it would not be a shock for midrange aggressive white decks to return to the fold, especially those that have the ability to survive the current crop of Toxin Analysis fueled Wraths.

Duskmourn Season Power Rankings

8. Golgari Fog

7. Dimir Terror

6. Izzet Control

5. Golgari Broodscale

4. Blue Terror

3. Jund Broodscale

2. Grixis Affinity

1. Kuldotha Red

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