About this article: This is a weekly report on the online pauper meta. The data it uses are from last week Wednesday to this past Wednesday. It looks at the data that I collect from a selection of dailies. I watch the replays on MTGO to figure out how each person did, not just the 3-1s and 4-0s that Wizards publishes. This allows us to see the whole iceberg and figure out how well each deck did in total. Now, this data is just for this week and just from this data, so it does ignore the other 3-1/4-0 results which means it is not perfect. Additionally, the conclusions in this article are just based on this week, and as the meta is fluid, the top decks shift. This is intended to see what decks are performing well this week and is not necessarily a reflection of the deck’s overall strength.

This article uses data from the 8-1 evening (using this one in order to increase the sample size as I have not look at the data for a few weeks in order to catch up), 8-9 evening, and the 8-11 dailies.

Since I last wrote, Magic Origins has been released and it appears to have not had a very significant effect on the format. The card that looked the best was [c]Aerial Volley[/c], but it has not been utilized that much so far, which is interesting as Delver is dominating the format. I certainly look for it to start making more appearances in the upcoming future. The main card that has showed up is [c]Faerie Miscreant[/c] in a small amount of Delver decks. Now Delver is already the best deck in the format, and the most popular, as evidenced by the graphs below.





As seen, Delver has by far the most decks, and it is doing well with those entries. If you want to win in today’s metagame, you have to beat Delver. This is presumably one of the reasons why MBC had a decent week as it has a strong matchup versus Delver. In addition, Stompy had a fantastic week and that was also in part to its strong matchup versus Delver. Delver can change to be a bit more creature heavy, with the addition of a card mentioned earlier, [c]Faerie Miscreant[/c]. The card allows the deck to have more cantrips and turns [c]Spellstutter Sprite[/c] into a much less conditional counter, all while pecking away in the air.

[d title=”Delver by Brivenix”]

Creature

2 Spire Golem

4 Cloud of Faeries

4 Spellstutter Sprite

4 Ninja of the Deep Hours

4 Faerie Miscreant

4 Delver of Secrets

Instant

2 Snap

2 Gush

4 Counterspell

2 Vapor Snag

2 Mutagenic Growth

Sorcery

4 Ponder

4 Preordain

2 Gitaxian Probe

Land

16 Island

Sideboard

2 Serrated Arrows

3 Stormbound Geist

3 Coral Net

2 Dispel

2 Annul

1 Steel Sabotage

2 Hydroblast [/d]

This version relies more on the counter potential of Spellstutter and it allows for a much quicker gameplan with more aggressive starts. In addition, it is able to buy it back with [c]Vapor Snag[/c] and [c]Snap[/c] for more counters. This version of the deck is still not the most popular, although it is new, but it does look to be promising enough to be worthy of consideration. When Delver needs to shift to be more aggressive, this is one way the deck can do it. On the other hand, it gives up a lot of late game power without the full set of [c]Spire Golem[/c] and no additional counters past [c]Counterspell[/c]/Spellstutter Sprite. Interesting deck to watch develop.

In terms of the future, I’m not sure how often I’ll be able to get to the dailies and how much will be released by Wizards (if any data at all), so that all remains to be seen. The era of the dailies are over for now though, and I’m sure Pauper will be fine moving on.

Enjoy, and thanks for reading! –Najay1

Winners

1. Delver – Stats: 18.06% Prominence; 46.34% Cash Rate; 56.20% Win Rate. Before leaving, Delver was running the show as the best deck. It has only grown more dominant. Even though I would say Stompy had the better results, Delver was able to do it with about 3 times the pilots! Even as public enemy number 1, Delver was still running over the competition. The main thing that needs to happen is that you need to be ready to face, and beat, Delver. The deck doesn’t look to be going anywhere. Very strong deck.

2. Stompy – Stats: 6.61% Prominence; 46.67% Cash Rate; 60.38% Win Rate. This is the deck with some of the best hate to the deck above. Not only that, it didn’t have a bad matchup against Delver to start with. Not only all of that, but it also has a great matchup with the deck below. Overall, the deck is just very strong against some of the other top contenders in the field and is able to do quite well especially at the top tables. This is certainly a deck I would look to as a strong contender and one that could gain the most coming out of Origins.

3. Esper Fae Combo – Stats: 5.29% Prominence; 41.67% Cash Rate; 58.54% Win Rate. Even though Delver is the most popular deck in the format, this is the deck generally gets a lot of buzz. Part of that is that it is not an easy deck to just beat with silver bullet cards, but it not a very popular deck and you do not see it too often when testing in the tournament practice room. Despite all of that, the way to beat the deck is simple, be faster than them. Simple as that. Yet, for many decks that isn’t possible to sideboard into. This deck still looks like a strong choice with enough practice, but it probably will not gain too many followers.

Losers

1. Burn – Stats: 4.85% Prominence; 9.09% Cash Rate; 44.74% Win Rate. This deck has not done too well for a while. Still it gets a decent amount of play, although it did not hit 5% this week and I would not be surprised to see the deck drop even further. Quite simply it is a metagame deck for when it has strong matchups versus the top decks, and that is not currently the case. Not sold on this deck at all right now.

2. UB Angler – Stats: 8.81% Prominence; 15.00% Cash Rate; 38.33% Win Rate. One of the more interesting decks as of late, it has been a lot more turbulent than some other decks. I think people are really attracted to playing the deck because the like the style and how different the deck is from many others. Despite all of that, it has not put up the best results in a while. I would be surprised to see this deck really break out any time soon, yet it is still one to look at as people mess with the deck.

3. UR Fiend – Stats: 7.49% Prominence; 17.65% Cash Rate; 48.28% Win Rate. I think this was mainly a bad deck for UR Fiend. The deck put up a decent win rate, about average, but it was not able to put up too many decks into the winners circle. Luckily, as the dailies change to 3 rounds, I would expect it to have to face less strong competition at the top which could mean that it is able to put up more top results.

Deck to Watch For

RW Rebels – This is a deck that has floated around for a while. It really popped up as a meta deck to counter the influx of Burn, but now it has established itself as a strong way to get things on the battlefield around counters. Luckily, counters are in right now with so much Delver and this deck could see another strong wave of success. As a toolbox, it can also adjust a bit more than other decks to changes in the meta. Really interesting deck right now.

Brew of the Week

Temur Freed Combo – This is a very different type of combo deck that I really didn’t give too much credit to at the start. These types of decks have been around for a while and they have never really gained any traction. This one has not only been more successful, but it has done it a decent amount of times to be considered legitimate. I am definitely looking for more people to be pick up this deck in the near future.

Data



PCT Results – The PCT is a weekly tournament hosted on Gatherling.com by LongTimeGone. It occurs Tuesday at 8 pm est.