About this article: This is a weekly report on the online pauper meta. The data it uses are from last Wednesday to this Wednesday. It looks at the data that Tom Scudder and I collect from a selection of dailies. We 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 picture and figure out how well each deck did in total. Now, this data is just for this week and just from the data we collects so it does ignore the other 3-1/4-0 results which means it is not perfect. Additionally, the conclusions in this article are 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 what to expect in the future.

This uses the data from the 6/4, 6/7 afternoon, and 6/7 evening dailies.

Burn? Burn. The deck has jumped up to be the king of the hill, knocking off MBC from its throne for the first time since Treasure Cruise was banned. In addition, it has become such a large part of the meta that it made MBC fall to only 12.18% of the meta. The red menace has been a real threat, but to what extent can it maintain its spot on top with slightly below average results? As long as MBC is a major deck, I expect Burn to stay as MBC cannot deal with the deck as it was able to handle W Tokens. Be ready for burn, in deck selection and especially in the board.

One of the biggest responses to Burn was a WR Tokens deck by MadarmeBK that did fantastic over the week. It used Conclave Phalanx, tokens, and burn to outrace Burn. The deck will be covered more in depth downwards on the page.

There is a big deck missing from these graphs – Affinity. The deck has slowly decreased in prominence, and it actually went below the 5% mark. This is one of the first times one of the 5 biggest decks – Affinity, Delver, MBC, Stompy, and UR Fiend – went below the 5% mark in over a month. Another interesting bit is how the “Other” group again grew in prominence. This means that it is very viable to play a smaller deck and get results. This is the second week in a row that this happened and I’m watching to see if it continues.

Through this graph, the decks with the best weeks are quite clear – Delver, Stompy, and UR Fiend. Esper Fae Combo had the most mediocre week it has had in a while, but still not too bad. The decks that did the worst are MBC and UB Angler. Burn had a week that is slightly below average, but not terrible. Nothing is too shocking here, but it is always an interesting graph to look at.

Thanks for reading! – Najay1

Winners

1. Stompy – After a down week, Stompy came back in force. Again the deck was not super popular at 5.88% of the meta, but it did great from those pilots. With a 57.14% cash rate and a 62.75% win rate, Stompy ran over a lot of the competition this week. At least part of this can be attributed to a strong matchup v. Burn and a weak matchup v. Affinity. Additionally, as rogue decks have started to make more of an impact on the scene, Stompy is able to make many of these easy matchups. I still like Stompy right now, although if Burn drops in popularity, so may Stompy’s results.

2. Delver – Interesting that Delver increased its popularity up to 8.82% – the highest in a while. I would expect this is because Gut Shot has not been as close to as popular as many thought it would be. I think that the popularity of Delver is very important in determining whether the card is worth a spot in the board and if it continues to rise, then I would expect more Gut Shots to come out. This could make for a cyclical pattern in the meta, which would be very exciting. Delver still ran well on the top tables with a 38.10% cash rate and a 60.00% win rate. Delver still looks to be a fantastic choice for the meta, and more people will continue to make that choice.

3. UR Fiend – UR Fiend also had a good week, but not as strong as either of above with a 38.46% cash rate and a 53.49% win rate. One of the main stories to see is whether Gut Shot will become a staple of the deck. 3 of the 7 decks reported by Wizards played the card, most of them as a 2-3 of card in the main. This could very much improve their results against Delver, which has never been a great matchup for them. Additionally, if MBC remains big in the meta, I doubt this deck can become too great.

Losers

1. Affinity – Affinity is here less so because of its popularity, but because of its lack of it this week. For the first week in a very long time, Affinity made up of less than 5% of the meta at 4.62%. Affinity’s share of the meta has slowly moved down and down throughout the DtK season and now into the current season. The deck was around 8.5% prominence consistently until 2 weeks ago and last week it dropped to 6.40% prominence. In addition to its shrinking popularity, the deck didn’t do great with an 18.18% cash rate and 47.22% win rate. Now there were only 11 Affinity pilots this week so be aware of high potential uncertainty in those numbers. Despite all of this, I do not expect the deck to shrink much lower in prominence. The deck is widely regarded as a top deck and it is well known among the Pauper community. The lower popularity does mean that it may be safe to prepare for less Affinity in your sideboard, at least for the upcoming week.

2. MBC – The now 2nd most popular deck in the meta, MBC made up 12.18% of all decks. This is the lowest it has been in a few weeks and comes directly out of the difficulty of facing burn. In the last season, MBC was 5-28 versus Burn and it does not have too many strong options to shore up the matchup. The best black life gain spell is Gary and that is already a 4-of. Other than that, the two main life gain spells are Corrupt and Tendrils of Agony, both bad versus Burn. Unless Burn goes back downwards, I do not think MBC will or should rise up again as evidenced by a 20.69% cash rate and a 44.68% win rate, both sub-par.

3. UB Angler – This last deck has become another very common force in the meta over the past few weeks. Making up 8.40% of the meta, UB Angler has exploded onto the scene very similarly to last season when it did the same things. Sadly, it is also putting up more sub-par results with a 25.00% cash rate and a 42.37% win rate, something of a trend recently. UB Angler has not had enough strong weeks to counter the amount of bad weeks that it has experienced and continues to struggle – especially with Burn being such a major part of the meta. Not a fan of this deck right now, but you must be ready to face it.

Deck to Watch For

Hexproof – In a MBC dominated meta, Hexproof would not seem to be a great option, but it has done surprisingly well with a 50% cash rate and a 66.67% win rate this week out of 4 tries (which isn’t very significant). The reason why Hexproof seems to be a contender is its strength against a lot of the other top decks. Burn is the most popular deck and Hexproof can easily beat that deck as it has built in lifegain, a faster clock, and doesn’t let Burn kill its creatures (although that usually doesn’t happen). Even though it isn’t great against MBC, it has serious game against Burn, Delver, and UB Angler – the 3 other top decks. If MBC stays down, Hexproof may end up surprising some people.

Brew of the Week

[d title=”RW Tokens by MadarameBK – June 9th, 2015 (Pauper)”]

Tokens Package

4 Battle Screech

4 Raise the Alarm

4 Squadron Hawk

3 Conclave Phalanx

3 Guardians’ Pledge

2 Veteran Armorer

Rebel Package

4 Ramosian Lieutenant

2 Aven Riftwatcher

1 Bound in Silence

1 Nightwind Glider

Burn/Removal

4 Lightning Bolt

2 Firebolt

2 Flame Slash

1 Journey to Nowhere

Other Spells

1 Faithless Looting

1 Prismatic Strands

Lands

4 Boros Garrison

4 Plains

4 Wind-Scarred Crag

3 Ancient Den

3 Great Furnace

3 Mountain

Sideboard

3 Pyroblast

2 Electrickery

2 Gorilla Shaman

2 Lumithread Field

2 Molten Rain

1 Prismatic Strands

1 Disenchant

1 Patrician’s Scorn

1 Relic of Progenitus [/d]

Here is the MTGGoldfish page. By far one of my favorite brews to come out recently, this deck really utilizes a card many had written off – [c]Conclave Phalanx[/c]. I’m using the latest list that madarameBK used as he made the list and knows it better than I do.

The deck is mainly 3 parts as split into above. The tokens package is the main part of the list and it creates the main aggro focus of the deck. The deck has lots of burn and removal to back up the aggression. Lastly, it has a rebels package (which some other versions do not have) centered around Ramosian Lieutenant for the search function. With that it can find cards valuable against various decks. Aven Riftwatcher is great against Burn and other aggro decks, Nightwind Glider can take down all of MBC’s 2/2s, and it can even get Bound in Silence for removal on demand.

This is an innovative list that was designed to take down the current meta and looks to be a fantastic meta deck. I’m not sure how it will fare in the future, but I love this deck for the upcoming week and expect it to leap in popularity.

Predictions

1. Burn will remain as the top deck, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see it decline a bit in popularity.

2. MBC and UB Angler will continue to have large followings, but will put up below average results.

3. The RW Tokens brew will find more success and potentially could be a breakout deck for the week.

4. UR Fiend will not have as strong of a week as it has the past two weeks.

Data

With thanks to Tom Scudder. Check out his Facebook and his Spreadsheet.

PCT Results

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