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Broken City School of Magic: Croz-an Grip – Perfecting Pauper

And just like that, the format was forever changed. Wizards of the Coast decided that players had had enough and it was finally time to cut the head off of the format’s boogeyman. Maybe we should have seen it coming. Players had been complaining for a while about the sheer power level of the deck in comparison to the rest of the format. I was just very surprised that Wizards decided that we had finally reached levels of brokenness not seen since [card]Cranial Plating [/card].

It should be obvious by now that I am referring to WOTC’s decision to ban [card]Frantic Search[/card] in Pauper. Rest in peace [card]Temporal Fissure[/card] Combo, you were one of the most fun, intricate and rewarding decks I’ve ever played. There’s no time to mourn though, the Pauper metagame must be discussed.

Pauper is a format that was launched on Magic Online in December of 2008 after outcry from various people who wanted to see support for the format. Pauper is a constructed format played with a minimum 60 card deck and 15 card sideboard. The unique thing about Pauper is that the only legal cards are cards that have been printed at the common rarity on Magic Online. The latter part is extremely important to keep in mind when deck building because it means that a card like [card]Hymn to Tourach[/card] is illegal. It was printed as a common in paper Magic in Fallen Empires, but only released on Magic Online in Master’s Edition I as uncommon, therefore it isn’t legal. On the other hand, [card]Trinket Mage[/card] is legal despite being an uncommon in Scars of Mirrodin. It was printed previously as a common in Fifth Dawn on Magic Online. Any card that has ever been printed as a common on Magic Online is legal despite any future or past reprinting at other rarities.

There are many reasons why people choose to play Pauper:

It’s a fairly inexpensive format to get into
A deck comprised of all commons will usually cost very little to build and it’s very easy to own multiple decks.

New set releases have a greater impact than any other format
As the majority of any new set will be made up of commons. The new Mirrodin block alone has had a huge impact on Pauper. Infect is becoming a very popular aggro deck, [card]Glimmerpost[/card], when combined with [card]Cloudpost[/card], has created fast mana ramp decks and Phyrexian mana spells like [card]Gitaxian Probe[/card] and [card]Porcelain Legionnaire[/card] are showing up in various decks.

The format is diverse and powerful
This isn’t the type of format where you can just durdle around with some leftover commons from your most recent draft deck and expect to win. You’ll be torn a new asshole by decks casting 20 copies of [card]Empty the Warrens[/card] or get charred by a combination of [card]Lightning Bolt[/card], [card]Chain Lightning[/card], and [card]Fireblast[/card] before you can even play your fourth land. Having said that, it is a healthy format with various types of viable combo, aggro and control decks competing against each other.

It’s fun to play
Isn’t this the core reason why we play magic? Pauper is a great format for brewing, with new cards always popping up, and as a bonus, Pauper Daily Events on Magic Online can usually get as many participants as any other formats, and your cards never rotate.

Now that I’ve hopefully piqued your interest, it’s time to start thinking about possible deck choices. The great thing about Pauper is that if you try something out and don’t like it, you probably didn’t invest too many tickets to begin with. As far as what the strongest deck in the format is, if you had asked me a week ago my snap answer would have been [card]Temporal Fissure[/card] Combo.

[Deck title=Temporal Fissure Combo – Pauper]
[Creatures]
4 Cloud of Faeries
1 Mnemonic Wall
4 Mulldrifter
4 Nightscape Familiar
2 Sea Gate Oracle
4 Sunscape Familiar
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Compulsive Research
3 Deep Analysis
1 Foresee
4 Frantic Search
4 Snap
3 Temporal Fissure
[/Spells]
[Lands]
3 Azorius Chancery
3 Dimir Aqueduct
3 Evolving Wilds
6 Island
2 Plains
1 Swamp
4 Terramorphic Expanse
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
3 Hydroblast
3 Lone Missionary
3 Prismatic Strands
3 Spell Pierce
3 Vedalken Outlander
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

This deck would take its first couple of turns playing lands, Familiars and sculpting it’s hand before “going off,” as all combos do. It would use the interaction between cards like [card]Frantic Search[/card] with the Ravnica bounce lands to create extra mana as a player was cantripping through their deck until they would cast enough copies of [card]Temporal Fissure[/card] to bounce every permanent their opponent controlled. How did it win? Well if your opponent didn’t rage concede on the spot, you would eventually beat down with your board full of creatures, regardless of how small they were.

With Temporal Fissure Combo out of the picture, aggro should become a lot more prevalent in the format. They still have to account for [card]Empty The Warrens[/card] decks, but as long as your deck has access to blue, black or red, you can hate it out easily with [card]Echoing Truth[/card], [card]Echoing Decay[/card], and [card]Seismic Shudder[/card]. The card that I’m personally interested in trying to make work is [card]Pestilence[/card]. Pestilence is probably in the top 10 of most powerful commons ever printed, but it’s never really had a home in Pauper. It might be it’s time to shine though if the format is going to consist of goblin tokens and a bunch of small creatures. Keep it in mind as we take a look at the format’s strongest decks.

[Deck title=Storm Combo – Pauper]
[Spells]
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Chromatic Star
4 Dark Ritual
4 Empty the Warrens
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Grapeshot
2 Ideas Unbound
4 Lotus Petal
4 Manamorphose
4 Ponder
1 Preordain
4 Rite of Flame
4 Sign in Blood
[/Spells]
[Lands]
4 Ancient Spring
4 Geothermal Crevice
1 Irrigation Ditch
4 Sulfur Vent
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
2 Careful Study
2 Deep Analysis
2 Disfigure
4 Duress
2 Echoing Decay
1 Goblin Bushwhacker
1 Shred Memory
1 Swamp
[/Sideboard]
[/Deck]

This takes over as the de-facto combo deck with Temporal Fissure Combo gone. The deck’s plan is to sacrifice all of its lands and then hope to chain enough rituals and card draw spells to perform a lethal [card]Grapeshot[/card] or overwhelm with goblin tokens. The only reason that this deck will never be top dog is because it’s a lot easier to hate out 1/1 goblin tokens then it is to hate out having all your permanents bounced. You also only kill with [card]Grapeshot[/card] maybe every 1/5 wins. That’s why every list should play at least 1-2 [card]Goblin Bushwacker[/card]s in the main from this point forward. It’s the best way to ensure that you don’t go all in on a turn only to have your tokens killed by [card]Echoing Decay[/card].

[Deck title=Affinity]
[Creatures]
4 Atog
4 Carapace Forger
4 Disciple of the Vault
3 Frogmite
2 Krark-Clan Shaman
4 Myr Enforcer
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Chromatic Star
2 Fling
4 Galvanic Blast
2 Relic of Progenitus
4 Springleaf Drum
2 Terrarion
4 Thoughtcast
[/Spells]
[Land]
1 Darksteel Citadel
4 Great Furnace
4 Seat of the Synod
4 Tree of Tales
4 Vault of Whispers
[/Land]
[Sideboard]
2 Duress
3 Gorilla Shaman
4 HydroBlast
2 Krark-Clan Shaman
4 Pyroblast
[/Sideboard]
[/Deck]

Pauper Affinity is one of the best aggro decks in the format. Because of the lack of [card]Shatterstorm[/card] or [card]Hurkyl’s Recall[/card] effects in the format, it’s a very difficult deck to hate out. The majority of the decks losses are to its own poor mana base. This is one of decks that benefits from Temporal Fissure Combo leaving the format.

[Deck title=Mono Black Control – Pauper]
[Creatures]
4 Chittering Rats
4 Crypt Rats
4 Lilianas Specter
3 Ravenous Rats
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
3 Corrupt
3 Duress
2 Echoing Decay
2 Grasp of Darkness
4 Sign in Blood
2 Spinning Darkness
3 Tendrils of Corruption
3 Unearth
[/Spells]
[Lands]
1 Barren Moor
22 Swamp
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
3 Augur of Skulls
1 Choking Sands
2 Disfigure
1 Duress
1 Echoing Decay
3 Perilous Myr
4 Rancid Earth
[/Sideboard]
[/Deck]

There are many different versions of Mono-Black Rat Control. All versions follow the same basic idea of pecking away at their opponents hands with discard spells until killing with a lethal [card]Crypt Rats[/card] activation or [card]Corrupt[/card]. It’s fairly resilient and always difficult to play against just because of the potential hole you could be put in by them chaining [card]Chittering Rats[/card]. Be especially careful when playing against this deck because there are many versions that will play [card]Okiba-Gang Shinobi[/card]. If you’ve never been ninjistu’d by it before, there are times when it can be absolutely devastating.

[Deck title=Greenpost – Pauper]
[Lands]
4 Cloudpost
4 Glimmerpost
10 Snow-covered Forest
4 Tranquil Thicket
[/Lands]
[Creatures]
4 Aurochs Herd
1 Fangren Marauder
4 Fierce Empath
1 Krosan Tusker
4 Overgrown Battlement
3 Ulamogs Crusher
2 Vine Trellis
4 Wall of Roots
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
2 Crop Rotation
2 Expedition Map
4 Mwonvuli Acid-Moss
4 Reap and Sow
3 Thermokarst
[/Spells]
[Sideboard]
2 Gleeful Sabotage
2 Mire Boa
4 Mold Shambler
2 River Boa
4 Serrated Arrows
1 Thermokarst
[/Sideboard]
[/Deck]

This deck is a good example of [card]Cloudpost[/card] in action. You can create fast mana to ramp into land destruction spells to push your mana advantage further until you can cast a big fatty. [card]Auroch’s Herd[/card] is the green [card]Squadron Hawk[/card]. This is a deck that I expect to see some changes from, as land destruction was better suited to a Temporal Fissure Combo-dominated format, and that aspect could be removed for better cards.

[Deck title=U/R Cloudpost Control – Pauper]
[Creatures]
2 Mulldrifter
3 Steamcore Weird
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
1 Capsize
4 Compulsive Research
2 Condescend
1 Deep Analysis
3 Flame Slash
3 Lightning Bolt
2 Mana Leak
1 Mysteries of the Deep
2 Mystical Teachings
1 Negate
4 Preordain
2 Prohibit
3 Prophetic Prism
1 Rolling Thunder
1 Shattering Pulse
1 Staggershock
[/Spells]
[Sideboard]
3 Stone Rain
4 Earth Rift
2 Hydroblast
1 Ancient Grudge
2 Gorilla Shaman
3 Pyroblast
[/Sideboard]
[Lands]
4 Cloudpost
4 Glimmerpost
7 Island
6 Mountain
2 Terramorphic Expanse
[/Lands]
[/Sideboard]
[/Deck]

This is a U/R Cloudpost Control deck of Luis-Scott Vargas’ creation. It’s one of the cooler decks in the format with various different interactions built around [card]Mystical Teachings[/card]. This is an extremely grindy deck though, and games will go extremely long with it. It doesn’t have a whole lot of win conditions other than [card]Rolling Thunder[/card] or chaining burn together. This deck was originally built to prey upon Temporal Fissure Combo and now with it gone, it feels like the deck, especially the sideboard, should be overhauled to be more of like the premier control deck of the format.

There are more than 10 other decks that I could touch on, but I feel like this is a very good start as far as giving an understanding of what the Pauper format is about. I didn’t even touch on any of the [card]Squadron Hawk[/card] decks, Tribal goblin and burn decks, or  [card]Wild Mongrel[/card] decks. It’s something that people should experience for themselves and that’s why I recommend trying the format out for yourself. With the banning of [card]Frantic Search[/card], now is the perfect time to get into Pauper. It’s the perfect time to step in and innovate. This format will only continue to grow in popularity and missing out would be a shame.

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