It's time for week three of thee Pauper Premiere League, sponsored by CoolStuffInc.com and Wizards of the Coast! Last week had a number of wild and exciting matches. Some were over in an instant and others were a game of back and forth tug-of-war that took quite a while to finally close out. You can check out all of the fun in the playlist below, along with the videos from week one!

For this week, we have a whole slew of players ready to battle down. We've got Brian DeMars, Emma Partlow, Chris VanMeter, and Adam Yurchick (who players may know as MTGO grinder Condescend). You can check out their player profiles, as well as the profiles of each player in the league, right here. We've got some plodding control decks (though none as epic in scope as Brian Coval's Sultai Teachings list from last week) and high-octane aggressive lists, so we'll have some absolutely fantastic matches!

If you're not sure how the whole event works, you can find the full details of the league in the original announcement here. The fun starts tonight at 9PM EST, so make sure you follow the CoolStuffInc Twitch Channel so you can get notified when we're ready and raring to go! So with that, let's see what the players are bringing this week!

Why Brian chose Mono-Black Control: Mono-Black because it's my favorite deck. It was the deck that got me back into the format two years ago and it's a deck that I help keep tuned up in the RIW Pauper gauntlet. It's fun to play and the games are typically interesting. I can't ask for much more out of a pet deck.

Why Emma chose Mono-Blue Delver: Folks may know me as a Modern specialist and there may have been some assumptions that I'd play a strategy that is viable in Modern as well as Pauper, such as Tron or Bogles. However, I wanted to take the opportunity to try something different and try Mono-Blue Delver! Modern Horizons brought us some sweet new cards in Moonblade Shinobi and Faerie Seer, and I'm a sucker for unconventional Blue strategies in Magic!

Why Chris chose Burn: I kept getting absolutely browned by Burn in the leagues. Had a ton of 3-2s with 2 losses to Burn, so I figured I'd light up the group and hopefully be a little below the radar.

Why Adam chose Astro Jeskai: I've always avoided Glint Hawk and Kor Skyfisher, but with Arcum's Astrolabe printed - and Gush banned - it's clear they are now the best card drawing engine in the format. I've long wanted to play a White-Blue "CawBlade" deck with Trinket Mage as the pauper's Stoneforge Mystic but it was never good enough. Now that something like it is here I'm definitely going to play it. The deck has the combo of Ephmerate and Archaeomancer to win the late game so I've reluctantly cut Bonesplitter, and it's hard to really call it CawBlade at this point, but I love pushing Trinket Mage with an assortment of silver bullets in the sideboard.

With the decks all laid out, let's check out our schedule for the week!

As you can probably tell, we're doing things a little different this week. The first thing you might notice is that unlike the last few weeks, these matches feel a little less shuffled up. That's because one of our participants, Brian DeMars, is actually playing in Mythic Championship IV just a few hours after the league! Like the absolute madman he is, he'll be battling out first in each of the three rounds and we'll be playing the matches based off of that. I myself wish him the best of luck in the Mythic Championship as well and hope to see him hoist the trophy after a wild run of Pauper!

The next thing you may notice is that rather than just going with "Commentator 1" and "Commentator 2," we're trying some roles. While the roles may blend a little as the natural course of conversation and commentary can go, we hope to add a little more focus to the discussions as a result of this addition. The Play-By-Play role is the person who will be explaining what is happening on the board state in the moment. The Color Commentator adds additional insight into the ongoing gameplay, decks, and potential options based on our players' hands.

With all these exciting things happening who are you excited to see take it down tonight? We still have yet to see a true 3-0 record to date. Will we see one tonight? Who do think has the best shot at it? Let me know and we'll see you tonight at 9PM EST! We can't wait to see you there!