Welcome to Season 3 of Weekly Pauper Recap! This time around, i will only be playing 25 matches per week. I came to the conclusion that playing more matches (and consequently playing more decks) makes for better content, so i’m switching back to 50 matches per week for the rest of the season. (Note that i’m playing Friendly Leagues because i dislike waiting for matches.) I won’t be playing one of the Intriguing Decks every week, but i’ll try one of them every now and then.

Metagame Recap

(google spreadsheet with the complete data)

For those unfamiliar with my grouping conventions, Mono Red is Burn + RDW; W/x Monarch encompasses Boros Monarch, Kuldotha Boros, Boros Bully, Orzhov Monarch and Orzhov Pestilence; Flicker & Marauder Tron refer to lists with Ghostly Flicker & Fangren Marauder, respectively; Faeries is UR Faeries + Mono Blue Delver; UB Control is everything from UB Alchemy to Teachings; creature combo means Tribe and Izzet Blitz. Check out the Google Spreadsheet linked above for more detailed data.

Why are there two charts? Because i’m playing twice as much! From now on, i’m treating each week’s matches as two seperate blocks of 25 matches. I think this is a decent middle ground between overreacting to recent developments and ignoring them. I’m probably going to post the mid-week chart to twitter (@JonLX) each week. My analysis will mostly focus on the second chart, but i’m including both for completeness’ sake.

So, about that metagame. The top three decks still haven’t changed; Mono Red is still in the 15-20% range, Boros and Orzhov combined are still in the 10-15% range and Tron, surprisingly, has cracked 10% again – i expected it to continue getting closer to 5%. Faeries is clearly ahead of UB Delver and UB Control now that more players have started dropping Delver in favour of grindier cards like Fire // Ice and don’t see it as an inferior version of UB (which the Delver version is, in my opinion).

While the top decks have been stagnant for a while now – everything that’s currently over 5% of the metagame has been for the entire season – the format as a whole is diversifying. Even within the top decks, the split between Boros and Orzhov is becoming more even, to the point that both decks individually are above 5% at this point.

What would i recommend right now? Not Tron. As much as it beats up on all the black decks that are currently in the metagame, it is really bad against Burn and Ninja of the Deep Hours. The Faeries matchups overall are certainly manageable, but Ninja specifically is a problem and i wouldn’t want to rely on my opponents not drawing a four off.

Orzhov, which has been picking up a lot of steam lately, seems like a good choice – against pretty much everything that isn’t Tron. The issue here isn’t that Tron is an unfavourable matchup, the issue is that Tron is a terrible matchup. Unless your Tron opponents are stumbling hard, you’re not winning. That’s not where i would want to be. But all the other matchups are good enough that i still wouldn’t fault anyone for playing Orzhov. The same is true for Boros, by the way. I’m not sure which deck is favoured between Boros and Orzhov, but my guess is that it’s close and i could live with that.

Tribe is also a good choice. If you have a good grip on the deck. But if you do, chances are you’re already playing Tribe. If you have someone to test with (or some Play Points to spare), by all means, learn the ins and outs of Tribe. You might learn that the deck isn’t for you, but even then, you’re still going to learn some valuable lessons for your matches against Tribe.

My final choice is, as always, Faeries. And i actually don’t specifically mean UR right now. There’s a chance that Mono Blue is better positioned (i believe it’s the better deck against Orzhov and Mono Black Control). One advantage that Mono Blue has over UR is that it’s much leaner and doesn’t rely as much on metagaming. UR has more choices to make with regards to its removal split and silverbullets while Mono Blue has a stronger proactive gameplan with Daze, Snap, Delver and what is possibly the best mana base in the history of Magic.

What I Played This Week

(Tron by PauloCabral_Br, 5-0 from two weeks ago)

I’m going to be blunt here: I can’t remember being more disappointed with a Magic deck.

I only played one league with this deck. I lost to Boros and UB Control for my first two matches, which i think is unacceptable for a Tron deck. Sure, it can happen with any Tron deck, but this very much felt like an issue with this specific list; Ulamog’s Crusher just doesn’t outclass other decks. They will cast Journey to Nowhere or Chainer’s Edict or Doom Blade or whatever and move on with their life.

Another issue i had with the deck is Compulsive Research. I don’t think the effect of Compulsive Research is much better than Forbidden Alchemy on average, but Alchemy comes with flashback, which makes a tremendous difference in control matchups. Maybe my approach to Tron is wrong, but i generally expect to be flooded and use my flashback spells to pull ahead. This approach has served me well so far, but it didn’t work with this list. That might be a problem with the list, with me, or both.

Anyway, i changed up the list and tried again:

(deckstats.net link)

Changes from initial list by PauloCabral_Br:

Maindeck:

-3 Ulamog’s Crusher

-2 Compulsive Research

+1 Dinrova Horror

+1 Mnemonic Wall

+2 Forbidden Alchemy

+1 Ghostly Flicker

Sideboard:

no changes

These changes aren’t drastic by any means, but they did make a big difference.

I had a much better experience with this list, not losing any Tron or control mirrors and beating up on W/x Midrange as i’m supposed to. However, this list has the same issues as any other Tron deck: Burn, creature combo and Ninja of the Deep Hours.

I think sideboard slots are devoted to the right matchups here, but i’m not sure playing off-colour cards is the best solution against aggressive decks. Circle of Protection: Red is obviously an amazing effect against Burn, but i have still only won half the games i’ve had it in my opening hand because of how hard it is to cast, especially when they have Smash to Smithereens and Molten Rain to disrupt your mana. If Blue Elemental Blast or Flash Flood were legal, i would max out on those instead, but alas, that’s not possible and we need another solution. If you have suggestions, i’m all ears.

As an aside, Reap and Sow is amazing against midrange and control decks, but i need more testing before i can say if that offsets how much worse than Elvish Rejuvenator it is against Delver. It probably does though. A great idea by PauloCabral_Br!

(deckstats.net link)

Changes from previous list:

Maindeck:

-4 Flame Slash

-1 Swirling Sandstorm

+1 Electrickery

+1 Fire // Ice

+2 Lightning Bolt

+1 Firebolt

Sideboard:

-2 Gorilla Shaman

-1 Electrickery

-1 Swirling Sandstorm

+2 Relic of Progenitus

+2 Viridian Longbow

My changes were mostly bad and ended up costing me. Flame Slash is so much better than Lightning Bolt. Cutting all copies of Swirling Sandstorm from the 75 isn’t reasonable. I haven’t decided on Fire // Ice yet, but i liked the maindeck Electrickery. Firebolt seemed okay and i need more time with the card to make up my mind. I don’t think Sandstorm is needed in the maindeck, but i want them in the 75 – i thought i wanted Viridian Longbow for the mirror and thought i would cover Elves and Stompy with that as well, but it turns out i don’t actually need Longbow in the mirror so i’m back on Sandstorm for now.

Not having Gorilla Shaman against Affinity doesn’t hurt too much – if you have Flame Slash in your deck. Gorilla Shaman was more of a luxury slot anyway; i think the deck only needs 71 cards to cover the most important things and then has four slots left to devote to matchups that are decent but not great. Those slots are mostly between Gorilla Shaman, Curfew and Relic of Progenitus, but i’m sure there are other contenders.

Overall, the deck is as good as ever, but that also means it’s hard to play and needs to be adjusted for the metagame you expect to face. My biggest issue was Lightning Bolt over Flame Slash, but i also thought i maybe could’ve had another land in there.

(deckstats.net link)

Changes from initial list by Entropy263:

Maindeck:

-2 Augur of Bolas

-1 Dispel

-1 Terramorphic Expanse

+2 Circular Logic

+2 Island

Sideboard:

no changes

I also changed the basics to Snow basics because i actually played UR this week. This doesn’t make a big difference for most players.

I’m starting to get used to this and i think it’s the real deal – not that i’ve thought badly of Tribe before, but Tethmos High Priest and Seeker of the Way give the deck some crazy resilience.

The deck wins roughly one in five games on its own, regardless of matchup. Another 30% are up to you to not mess up (i personally manage to throw games a lot). The next 30% are up to your opponents to not mess up (which they also often do; Tribe is hard to play against with all the things you have to keep in mind). The final 20%, the deck loses without any help from either player. Or something like that. These numbers aren’t accurate and only serve to illustrate my impression; they can also vary wildly depending on matchups. Please do not take this at face value.

I started doing much better once i cut some Augurs, but i always want more lands than seemingly everyone else, regardless of deck. I also seem to like Augur much less than everyone else in most decks.

Entropy263 went to 3 Dispel / 1 Circular Logic the last time i watched his stream. He cut the fourth Shadow Rift if i remember correctly. I liked 2 Circular Logic so far. Sometimes i’m kicking myself for having Circular Logic over Dispel, but i have also lost multiple games because i had Dispel and couldn’t counter sorceries or enchantments. I think the split is fine as is, but sometimes i wouldn’t mind a copy of Apostle’s Blessing somewhere in the deck. I’m not sure what i would cut though.

Intriguing Decks

(Elves by WingedHussar, 13th Place in the 24/03/19 Pauper Challenge)

I feel like it might be time for me to try out Elves again. If nothing else, it might help me with not messing up every single time i play against the deck. Probably i just don’t get the deck at all and i will neither figure out how to win with it nor how to not lose against it (the two are related, of course).

(UR Flicker by cl1ffy81, 5-0 from this week’s League results)

Calling this UR Flicker when there’s only one copy of Ghostly Flicker is a bit of a misnomer, yes. I’d imagine this plays similarly to how i play Faeries, which is a playstyle i enjoy. This deck might go a little too much in the direction of UB Teachings, which is a deck i can only enjoy for shorter stretches than most other decks. Either way, i like the way this looks, but this is exactly the kind of deck i always think i should try out but never pick up (i have featured this archetype before but i haven’t actually played it yet).

That’s it for today. Thanks for reading, see you next week!

j