Hello again friends! Here at my Pauper Flophouse of fun I bring you a variety of sweet Pauper decks and give them some quick and dirty brawls in the leagues. Hopefully showing off what the decks can do, having some sweet games and making suggestions on how to make things even better. Let’s go!

What a Time to Be Alive. When Vintage Masters brought a common reprint of Peregrine Drake, Nothing Was the Same. When combo players ousted by the bans of Cloud of Faeries and Storm cards saw it, they said “Hold On, We’re Going Home” and returned to the format. Drake made Headlines with it’s Fancy combos, and has remained Successful ever since. Some people say that it’s Too Good, but honestly there hasn’t been Too Much of it in my experience. In the last 8 or so Leagues I’ve played, I’ve only seen it once that I remember.

I do think, as mentioned previously, that I think it’s the best deck in the format all-round. And while well represented at the 5-0 tables, it’s hardly everywhere? Why? Possibly the main reason is that the combo is actually pretty annoying to perform yourself. So fair everyone I’ve played against (while I’m on Drake) has exhibited the Worst Behaviour and made me go through the whole combo every time. Now, I Take Care not to time out, and I haven’t yet, but it is annoying to have to click 500 times or whatever when they are totally dead. Even if the deck was the Best I Ever Had, I often prefer it when I’m Goin’ In on some Fireblast deck instead just because it doesn’t take Forever.

So yeah, if Pauper had so many tournaments played in real life, I would expect more people to be Fed Up with it. I could see it getting banned at some point, but the mitigating factors of everyone being fast, preparing for it, and the not-overwhelming numbers of it mean it’s not too terrible for it to be legal either.

Let’s look at these matches, then talk more. Gotta get those youtube Views right?

Playlist

So okay, clearly the deck is not unbeatable. Whether from pilot error (the bad sideboarding in match one was All Me) or draws that match up poorly against enemy threats, you can beat Drake. We also talked about why the deck is good for a bit before, so let’s jump to card choices.

The maindeck of UR Drake is pretty tight at this point, with little variation, (ignoring the other variants like Drake Tron) but it’s not completely uncustomisable (particularly the sideboard), so let’s look at the variables:

Rolling Thunder/Cinder Hellion: These different-looking cards fulfil the same role – killing the opponent a bit faster when you get the combo going. I prefer not to use them, but they do change how some match ups play out. Opponents too focused on the Pryoblasts and Graveyard hate can leave themselves vulnerable.

The removal: Whether your deck is good game one against Drake can vary wildly on the removal they pack. Playing 4 Flame Slash can be hard times for Affinity, just as extra Firebolt make attrition matches harder. Even Electrickery is potentially maindeckable the more Elves and Bogles there are in the metagame.

More counterspells: maybe you play at a time of day when there are nothing but Drakes and Mulldrifters as far as the eye can see. In this situation, changing a couple of the removal spells to False Summoning can make a big difference.

So that’s about it for the maindeck barring sweet miser cards. To be fair, with all the card drawing in the deck, you are more likely to make a noticeable impact on your matches by adding 1 card than in a deck like say, Stompy, where you see few cards per game. What sideboard cards should you play exactly? Well, let’s see:

Okay, that’ll do. I’ll probably do more matches with this deck in the future, but what will be next?

Stephen ‘Jecht’ Murray, Over and out.

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