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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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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?

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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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Oh, hello. I didn’t see you there.

Yeah…so it’s been a while since I’ve posted. March was a lot busier than I anticipated. Between my child’s birthday, a professional conference, and my tenth wedding anniversary I was busy. That was all before I found out I was going to need surgery. And then there was the small fact of the bans which had the potential to completely reshape the format. To put it bluntly, my mind was elsewhere. Given the nature of the surgery there’s a chance I may be slow to post in May but my sincere hope is that I am well enough to type out a few words now and then.

So where were we? Oh yeah…the first week of post ban Pauper…which is also the last week of Aetherdrift season. A historical footnote in that this format will only exist for a brief period of time before Tarkir Dragonstorm hits the scene. While there is no guarantee things will change with the next release I still isolated the results from the first weekend of April.

Why separate results by release cycle? Technically speaking each set of cards entering Pauper generates a new format. It is not that the rules change but rather the available interactions between the game pieces can be altered. While these shifts are often minor in nature they still exist and over time small shifts can push towards upheaval. In order to examine the format through this lens I have found that partitioning by set release (read: card legality shifts) to be helpful in understanding trends.

But what to do about this vestigial week? Only two cards have been added to the format while three removed, all before a new set which has some interesting tools at the ready. Completely ignoring the results serve no one as they could provide the baseline for what is to come. At the same point putting too much stock in these numbers may lead you down the wrong path for multiple reasons. Not only will next week’s format feature new cards but also this is week one after a massive shift. The banning of Basking Broodscale, Deadly Dispute, and Kuldotha Rebirth and the return of High Tide and Prophetic Prism altered the rules of engagement. The builds we are seeing may not be optimized and as the format continues to evolve we are likely to see some pretty significant changes in the way decks are constructed.

What, then, do the results say? The top two decks last weekend were Blue Terror and Grixis Affinity and this tells us two not entirely dissimilar stories. The performance of Blue Terror can be in part due to the unsettled nature of the new format. The dominant aggressive strategy has been taken down a notch which can give slightly slower decks a boost. In an open field the ability to present a threat and back it up with Counterspell would always be strong. When the deck also has the potential to stymie a new combo and win before the control deck can establish a foothold that’s a recipe for success. Blue Terror is not likely to be as strong moving forward but it put up solid results in this intercalary week.

Grixis Affinity, on the other hand, is just a good deck. Yes, it lost a step with the banning of Deadly Dispute but the core engine still exists. In an open field playing a known deck full of good cards is hardly a bad idea, especially as people figure things out. I am not sure how strong Affinity will be moving into Tarkir Dragonstorm season as builds evolve and configurations are cemented but I do not believe the Machine is going to fade into obscurity.

Blue Terror and Grixis Affinity were smart choices for an open field when two of the expected emergent decks were spell based combo and long game control. Both have access to disruption and the ability to apply pressure. Terror has better stack interaction while Affinity can do more to grind out games against Tron thanks to Makeshift Munitions. One reason I am unsure about these strategies’ positions moving forward is due in part to the uncertainty around High Tide and Tron.

If your knowledge of the Pauper metagame came exclusively from discourse circles you would assume that these two decks dominated the weekend. High Tide Combo can win on turn four and can lead to games where one player is taking all the meaningful game actions early. Tron is a beloved archetype that has returned and can lead to games where one player is taking all the meaningful game actions late. Yet despite digital ink spilled in various channels neither of these decks were dominant forces on week one. Rather their specters loom large because of the fear of what they might become. Given historical precedent this feeling is not entirely unfounded. The past can be a decent lodestone for getting your bearings provided the wider environment has not changed. Still, metagames take time to coalesce and trying to prognosticate the future based on a small sample size could be a fool’s errand.

Where does that leave things going into next week? You’re guess is as good as mine but I would not be surprised to see a small surge in Bogles or various combo decks as we move into Tarkir Dragonstorm season.

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

Aetherdrift has been out for a little more than a month and as has become customary it is time for me to check in on the overall state of Pauper on Magic Online. Over the past four weeks there have been 12 Challenges and one Showcase tournament on the platform. Overall, 45 different archetypes have made it to the Top 32 cutoff while 23 have at least one Top 8 appearance; 16 have at least two such finishes. For the purposes of today’s piece I want to look at the archetypes with at least 3% of the Top 32 metagame – in this case that means a minimum of 9 total appearances in the the Top 32. This leaves us with 10 total archetypes to cover but does leave a few outside the discussion zone.

Out of the decks that do not make the 3% threshold, five have won one of their tournaments: Altar Tron, CawGate, Mono White Aggro, Snacker Control/The Modern Age Faeries, and Turbo Smog. Outside of CawGate these archetypes have a proven record during Aetherdrift season but find themselves outside the top of the metagame. Altar Tron is a known quantity but has only recently burst on to the scene with Pactdoll Terror as a standard inclusion. CawGate has largely fallen out of favor but it – as with Turbo Smog – now has Coalition Honor Guard as a maindeck inclusion as a way to steal copies of Sadistic Glee. Mono White Aggro is a consistently strong choice that has never garnered the popularity of other decks. Finally the Sneaky Snacker deck likely suffers from being so close to the more established (and well known) Dimir Faeries. Looking ahead to the next few weeks I imagine that these decks will continue to improve their standing while still struggling to increase their overall metagame share.

The Deadly Dispute Decks

It’s impossible to talk about the current state of Pauper without talking about Deadly Dispute. The abundant of free material in Pauper would make Dispute one of the best draw spells available but combine that with cards like Ichor Wellspring and you have the bones of a backbreaking card advantage engine. Out of the ten decks that topped the 3% Top 32 threshold, four of them are running a Deadly Dispute engine. These four (Grixis Affinity, Golgari Broodscale, Jund Broodscale, Jund Wildfire) account for over 30% of all Top 32 decks (this number jumps to 39.17% when looking at the all archetypes). Looking at the Winner’s Metagame for the 3% cutoff the top four Deadly Dispute decks hold a 34.29% share; looking at the entire Winner’s Metagame Dispute decks occupy 43.77% of the total.

These numbers are a bit startling to behold. Nearly 40% of all decks that made Top 32 in the past month were running Deadly Dispute and the card is closing in on 44% of the Winner’s Metagame. It is clear that this engines is one of the best things you can be doing in the format to support your strategy. And to be clear Dispute is supporting aggressive strategies (Mono Black Aristocrats) but more importantly both combo and midrange control.

Let’s start with combo. Deadly Dispute is the supporting scaffolding for Broodscale Combo. The deck is able to stitch together its pieces in part because of the sheer number of cards it sees and Dispute plays a key role there. Broodscale can afford to take early turns off to set things up with an Ichor Wellspring or Khalni Garden in an effort to get the cards flowing. The Treasure that gets left behind also makes it easy for Broodscale to continue to churn until it can set up its Splinter Twin situation.

Then there are the midrange options. Grixis Affinity and Jund Wildfire are also able to produce an abundance of material to feed to the black draw spell. Whereas Broodscale uses these cards to dig for key components these decks just want to amass cards in order to overwhelm the opponent. There is no need to win fast when you have all the options and simply dragging the game out until Makeshift Munitions or Nyxborn Hydra get the job done.

While not a requirement Writhing Chrysalis does a fantastic job of bridging the gap from development to winning in decks that include the Eldrazi. That it also provides material for Dispute and friends is not nothing. You don’t need to run Deadly Dispute alongside Chrysalis but decks that do tend to do better when all is said and done.

The Counterspell Decks

Three different blue decks grace the top of the standings. Faeries – both Dimir and Mono Blue – make the cut as does Blue Terror. These decks all have various ways of saying “no” to key spells and being able to cut off Deadly Dispute at the knees that are Ichor Wellspring can go a long way to pulling ahead. These decks have a combined 15 Top 8s over the past four weeks, but not a win to their name. By comparison, Deadly Dispute decks (above the 3% threshold) have 39 Top 8 finishes and 8 wins.

What does this tell us? As good as Counterspell and its ilk may be it is entirely possible to just out value blue decks. Decks that are able to amass cards and pick off threats can pick off the mono blue threats and go card for card with Dimir Faeries in the latter stages of the game. Blood Fountain can sneak in early and provide a steady stream of Refurbished Familiars – which will always get its card – late. As strong as blue can be it is a step behind this next tier.

Dig Up Her Bones

Let’s take a walk to the graveyard with Dredge. A combo deck made possible by Dread Return, Dredge wants to fill its graveyard quickly until it can reanimate a sequence of Lotleth Giants to reduce the opponent’s life total to zero. The deck also has access to the scam plan of cycling a Troll of Khazad-dûm and bringing it back with Exhume. Dredge is putty up respectable numbers (six Top 8s in 18 total Top 32 appearances) but is likely succeeding in part due to the lack of graveyard hate running around currently. Dredge can sidestep a Relic of Progenitus but when it is facing down consistent pressure it could fold. Given that very few other decks at the top of the format are currently using their graveyard as a resource it follows that Dredge could have its moment in the sun.

It Bogles the Mind

Bogles tends to have a good first week. Occasionally it has some staying power into the second week. Rarely does it remain a top deck a month into the season. The second most popular archetype with 47 Top 32 finishes (11.3%), it has a solid 11 Top 8 finishes. However Bogles appears to lack closing power. It is feasting on the other aggressive decks in the metagame and thriving in the absence of Edicts, but it does suffer in the face of Krark-Clan Shaman carrying a Hunter’s Blowgun. There are ways around this – either a Mask of Law and Grace on your Bogle or a Temporal Isolation on the Shaman, but it still puts the pressure on Bogles to play a largely reactive card in a proactive deck.

You’re Still Seeing Red? You Should Get Your Eyes Checked

Yes, Kuldotha Red is still a top deck in Pauper. It has 50 Top 32 finishes and a dozen Top 8 finishes. That being said it has yet to win a tournament in Aetherdrift season. Kuldotha Red retains its turn four uncontested kill but when the prevailing combo deck in the format has a similar clock then things get tough for little red creatures that like to turn sideways. Considering winning fast is one of the best ways to disrupt Broodscale combo the deck often comes with multiple ways to gain life including Tamiyo’s Safekeeping main and Weather the Storm out of the sideboard. Toxin Analysis can turn Krark-Clan Shaman into a way to gain an ungodly amount of life and Reckoner’s Bargain can undo two turns of Red’s hard work. Red may continue to help define Pauper but it is definitely ceding ground to a specific Eldrazi Lizard.

From my vantage point, Pauper is currently midrange hell. There are a bunch of decks that are all jockeying to win turns five, six, and seven. These decks are well set up to survive to that point and delay the victory of the other decks aiming to secure the bag in the same time frame. If you are trying to find a lane outside of this your best bet is to try and win fast or go over the top and ignore the slog. Easier said than done.

Pauper Power Rankings – March 10 Edition

10. Dredge

9. Blue Terror

8. Jund Wildfire

7. Dimir Faeries

6. Faeries

5. Bogles

4. Grixis Affinity

3. Golgari Broodscale

2. Kuldotha Red

1. Jund Broodscale

I want to take a moment to thank all my Patrons. I am going to do my level best to keep providing you with the kind of content that brought you here in the first place. If you are interested in supporting my work, you can sign up for my Patreon starting at just $1.

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

Okay folks, this was the big one. The weekend of February 21 saw three Challenges and a Magic Online qualifier. That latter tournament, which took place on Saturday, was an eight round affair. The result is that we received a treasure trove of Top 32 data on the weekend which can help provide additional texture and context to the format as it exists for the duration of Aetherdrift season. As is fitting for the current setting, the current format is all about racing.

The top line of the weekend is that both Kuldotha Red and Broodscale Combo outperformed the field. The red deck was the most popular on the weekend with seven Top 8s out of 18 appearances in the Top 32. It also led the way with an Adjusted Meta Score Above Replacement of 1.56. Jund Broodscale was not far behind with six Top 8s (including a win) in 13 Top 32 appearances, ending with an aMSAR of 1.54. Golgari Broodscale had a dozen Top 32 finishes, including four Top 8s and a win although it lagged behind with an aMSAR of 0.81. These decks were far and away the best decks on the weekend with the next best archetype being Mono White Aggro (three Top 32 finishes, two Top 8s including a win) with an aMSAR of 0.30.

Like I said, the format is about racing. Kuldotha Red is a consistent turn four win uncontested while Broodscale decks are capable of winning on turn four (or turn three if the opponent does absolutely nothing). The wrinkle in this is that once Broodscale gets set up it can potentially win at any moment thanks to that deck’s ability to dig for key components. That means unless your deck can goldfish on turn four (and survive against red for that long), you are at risk of faltering against Broodscale unless you’re loaded up on interaction.

Of course it’s never that easy. Your removal has to line up just so in order to not die to red and the best removal spells against Broodscale (Snuff Out, Cast Down) look downright silly against the aggressive creatures and burn of Kuldotha. To borrow from folklore, Kuldotha is the hare and Broodscale is the tortoise, but it’s a tortoise than can occasionally find itself a pair of rocket shoes.

Here we see the windows of opportunity emerge. Turns 4, 5, and 6 are critical in that if you can survive to turn four you should have a plan to win on turns 5 or 6, unless you are loaded up on removal and interaction. There you can find your lane to winning the long game as we can see in the other winning deck from the weekend – Jund Wildfire. This deck can stall the game long enough that its removal and heavy hitters can get the job done.

This is one reason why I feel Writhing Chrysalis is so maligned in the discourse. While this creature can just die to removal, it does a ton of work in the metagame by being a critical brick wall on turn four. Because of this it can stymie many of the decks that try to do the work of winning the game on turns five and six, which can have a sizeable impact on the outcomes of those games. As someone who has been playing an off-meta aggressive deck, I have run face first into the Chrysalis a few times and understand why its annoying. But then again I also am figuring out ways around the Eldrazi.

Looking ahead I would keep an eye on the Pactdoll Black decks. These builds can leverage Grim Bauble and Blood Fountain with Pactdoll Terror, helping to blunt assaults while regrowing threats on a consistent basis. Whether or not these decks remain mono black remains to be seen but I think there is something to be said for the four drop making a spot for itself in the metagame.

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Aetherdrift has arrived. The first weekend of Magic Online Challenges are in the books. Three tournaments are in the rear view mirror and while nothing is drastically different from Foundations season, we still have a slew of new cards making their presence known.

As someone who deals in the data I would not put too much stock in these numbers. Two of the Challenges had multiple 2-4 finishers make it to the Top 32 and the early going numbers have Bogles as the most popular deck. While the slippery bois are hardly a bad choice I do not think they’ll be able to sustain these numbers as the season progresses. Rather we can approach this season much as we did the last one – focusing on the known best decks in the format. If you’re looking to get started in Pauper with the latest release here are some important pieces of knowledge.

The Bridges Connect

The Modern Horizons 2 Bridges are everywhere in the format. These cards help to power up multiple decks and strategies beyond their “natural” home in Affinity. This is due in no small part to the recent trend of printing cards that ask players to sacrifice a creature or an artifact. The result is that several decks in Pauper are built to fully leverage these lands. The most obvious of these decks is Affinity which uses the Bridges to vomit out threats while keeping the cards flowing with Deadly Dispute and Thoughtcast. Affinity never seems to run out of cards due to how many different ways it has to convert otherwise dead material into fresh cards. Many builds these days also have additional reach in the form of Makeshift Munitions which is happy to gobble up all those extra lands – both Bridges and the Mirrodin originals – to deal the final few (or final dozen) points of damage.

Many of these elements are repeated in various black midrange builds. Deadly Dispute has asserted itself as Pauper’s premier card advantage engine thanks to all the material available to grist the mill. While not every Dispute deck runs Bridges plenty do, including the ascendant Jund Wildfire. Cleansing Wildfire on a Bridge provides card neutral acceleration, making it easy for Jund to double spell or hold the fort off the back of Writhing Chrysalis. Both Affinity and Jund Wildfire have powerful end games so when you see a Bridge hit the battlefield you should be of the mindset of trying to end the game before they can set up their defenses.

Gotta Go Fast

Kuldotha Red remains the clock of the format. It is low to the ground and has nearly unmatched damage output. The recent advent of red card advantage has given Kuldotha the ability to keep pace in the mid game as well. Just as decks must be prepared for what the Bridges have in store for the long game they must be able to contend with lightning quick starts backed up by copies of Galvanic Blast and Lightning Bolt. Some of the pure defensive decks – the Moment’s Peace variants – have taken to running Campfire to give themselves a chance against the rest of the format once they manage to weather red’s starts.

Scaling the Walls

So what does that mean for the middle stages of the game? It should be anyone’s game but the reality is that portion is dominated by Broodscale Combo. Slapping a Sadistic Glee on a Basking Broodscale gives you unbound colorless mana. Once achieved it is possible to dig for a win with Eviscerator’s Insight until Nadier’s Nightblade is found and then it’s all over but the crying. The latest Pauper version of a Splinter Twin situation, Broodscale Combo cemented itself as a real threat in the last season. It can win as early as turn four but has no problem waiting to assemble a protected victory. Racing is possible but risky and while you can technically use removal to break up the combo Broodscale has countermeasures. The deck is not invulnerable but understanding how you are going to approach the matchup is going to matter quite a bit in the coming weeks.

Just Say No

And then there’s Counterspell and Spellstutter Sprite. These cards have not gone anywhere and are to be played around, Sequencing your spells in blue matchups is important and trying to get a read on what their interaction may be – whether it’s Spell Pierce, Dispel, or something else – can go long way in sneaking through threats. Of course that only matters if you’re up against a mono blue version, as multicolor builds can simply pick off creatures that manage to resolve.

Where does that leave Pauper? Honestly, in much the same place it has been for much of its recent history. The only new wrinkle is Broodscale combo and even it falters to removal – a common refrain in Pauper. For the foreseeable future these are the fights at your doorstep and the only question that remains is are you ready to battle?

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

Thirteen weeks.

The Foundation season on Magic Online lasted over three months. Technically the final few events took place under the auspices of Innistrad Remastered but that set only released a few cards into Pauper’s ecosystem. The result is a massive data set that can help shape the understanding of the format moving into Aetherdrift and the rest of 2025. While the metagame in Pauper moves slowly it does in fact move and we have seen some shifts over the course of Foundations.

Today we are going to look at the top performing decks from last season. I will be basing this on the measures I regularly track as linked above. For the season, the baseline Meta Score Above Replacement for the entire field was 0.56; the baseline Adjusted Meta Score Above Replacement was 0.11. This 0.11 number helps us to determine the delta for each individual archetype’s AMSAR score.

While the top two decks in Pauper were very close in performance, the best deck over Foundations season, in my estimation, was Grixis Affinity. The deck put up an impressive 37 Top 8 finishes but an absolutely staggering 11 victories. It averaged one Top 8 per Challenge and won almost 30% of all events offered over the past three plus months. This should not come as a shock to anyone who has played Pauper since Modern Horizons 3. Affinity as it exists today is not an aggressive strategy despite the presence of efficient threats. Rather it is a control deck with powerful removal and card draw that can occasionally apply a ton of early game pressure. The deck operates in part due to the Bridges which provide a stable mana base, discounts on Affinity cards, and regular fodder for Deadly Dispute. Taken together you have a deck that can operate at nearly any point in the game and has become one of the format’s bellwethers.

The other elephant in the room is Kuldotha Red. The most popular deck in Foundations season with 16.19% of the Top 32 metagame, it ended the quarter year with 14.98% of the Winner’s Meta. Despite 38 trips to the Top 8 it only walked away with one trophy. All told it had the second best aMSAR with a score of 0.67, only lagging behind Affinity’s 0.73. Red has been a stable part of the format’s top tier by presenting a lightning quick clock that is backed up with a decent amount of card flow. Experimental Synthesizer and Clockwork Percussionist provides the potential for a late game surge while the combination of Kuldotha Rebirth and Goblin Bushwhacker makes it easy to win from nowhere. Because of the deck’s strength it has become a known quality in the format and nearly every deck has to have a plan to survive the red wave in order to enact their own plan.

Broodscale Combo rounds out our pedestal, specifically the Golgari varietals. Alone the straight Black-Green builds accounted for 26 Top 8s and a pair of wins (aMSAR score of 0.45). Jund Broodscale was more popular (98 Top 32 appearances to Golgari’s 84) and had twice as many wins in the same number of Top 8 appearances. However Jund pulled in a aMSAR score of 0.34. When looking at the entire season, Jund started stronger but Golgari pulled ahead in the final weeks as the red splash decks moved more towards Jund Wildfire builds. But this is splitting hairs as the combo deck has become a force to be reckoned with in Pauper. Taking out a Basking Broodscale at instant speed has become increasingly important, leading to a surge in cards like Snuff Out and Snap, as well as the reintroduction of Flagbearer’s to Pauper’s competitive ecosystem to mess with Sadistic Glee.

Rounding out the top of the metagame for Foundations season are Counterspell decks. Blue Terror, Faeries, and Dimir Faeries/Sneaky Snacker Control put up solid numbers with Terro (27) and Faeries (26) leading the way in Top 8 finishes while Dimir was tied for third most Challenge victories (3, behind Affinity and Jund Broodscale; tied with Golgari Fog). These decks all want to leverage the strength of countermagic to just say no to some of the more egregious offenders in the format. Blue Terror tries to resolve a big threat early and force it through with tempo plays while Faeries is all about plinking in for damage. The Dimir builds tend towards the control end of the spectrum, relying more and more on the resilient threats presented by Murmuring Mystic and Sneaky Snacker. If trends hold I would predict that both Faeries and Dimir see success early in Aetherdrift season while Blue Terror tails off.

This table represents every archetype that had at least 2% of the overall Top 32 metagame. That’s 15 or 16 archetypes, depending on how you slice it. Only Kuldotha Red appears to be a real outlier with regards to popularity, even though it’s performance is lagging compared to other strategies. If I were buying stock in Aetherdrift season I would be bullish on Golgari Broodscale, Faeries, Dimir Faeries, Golgari Fog (also known as Turbo Smog), and Jund Wildfire. Wildfire has picked up steam as of late. The deck mashes Golgari Broodscale and Gruul Ramp into an efficient midrange machine that, true to the Jund of yore, gets to run all the good cards.

What are you looking forward to in Aetherdrift season? Will Magmakin Artillerist make waves or maybe Lightwheel Enhancements gives Heroic and Bogles a boost? Sound off in the comments, on reddit, or BlueSky for a chance to win one of five MTGO codes good for 120 Play Points courtesy of Daybreak games!

I want to take a moment to thank all my Patrons. I am going to do my level best to keep providing you with the kind of content that brought you here in the first place. If you are interested in supporting my work, you can sign up for my Patreon starting at just $1.

Can’t make a commitment to Patreon? I have a Ko-Fi where you can make a one time contribution.

Looking for another way to support my work? Click here for my TCGPlayer affiliate link. Any purchases through the link let the folks there know you like my content!