Our recent AFR Pauper League was taken down by a past Modern and Legacy champion, Temur4Life! The dependable UB Faeries carried him to a victory over Sefir on UG Fogs in the final. I was able to ask him a few questions after his first Pauper League win in UOL.
Why did you select UB Faeries for your deck this season? What have you played in the past and why didn’t you play that?
Prior to this season, I had not played Pauper in around 2 years. I decided to look at what decks were doing well in MTGO Challenges, and I noticed that UB Faeries was regularly putting 6+ decks into the top 32 of these events. I have a bit of a soft spot for fair blue decks (funnily enough, the first Pauper deck I ever played was UR Faeries), so I figured that UB would be right in my wheelhouse.
What was your hardest game or match you played?
My one match loss this season was to you (Arsteel) on White Weenie. Not having mainboard ways to deal with a resolved Guardian of the Guildpact was rough, and you playing around Suffocating Fumes made it hard for me to know when I wanted to use it. I definitely think I could have won the match if I had played and sideboarded slightly differently, but I guess I can’t expect to play perfectly with a deck that has so many decisions to make.
What changes would you make to your deck in the future? Is there anything new from the Innistrad sets that you have your eyes on for your deck or for Pauper in general?
I liked how my deck performed for the most part. Behold the Multiverse was probably the most medium card in the list; I think the deck probably generates enough card advantage to make a four mana draw 2 unnecessary. Other than that, most of the changes that could be made would be meta calls, and I don’t know enough about the Pauper metagame to figure out what changes would be good.
As for new cards…Reckless Impulse is a really interesting option as an efficient draw 2 for proactive red decks. Maybe it makes Blitz better or something? I really don’t know.
There is a lot of discussion going on right now about the power of Affinity. Do you think anything from that deck (or another deck) needs to be banned?
Full disclosure: I have not played against Affinity since MH2 came out. I don’t know if anything needs to be banned, but if anything needs to be banned from Affinity specifically it’s probably the artifact guildgates. Historically, Affinity has been held back somewhat by terrible mana, so having lands that fix your mana, can be sacrificed to Atog, and are immune to Shatter effects is a huge buff.
Pauper is not one of the most popular Magic formats. What do you like about Pauper that has gotten you to keep playing it?
I really enjoy how grindy Pauper games tend to be. Grindy games can certainly happen in formats like Modern or Legacy, but in my opinion the high power level of individual threats makes these games the exception rather than the norm. In Pauper, the threats are kind of awful, resulting in a lot of back-and-forth gameplay that I find quite refreshing. I’m not sure if I would want every format to be like Pauper, but I’m glad that Pauper exists.
What do you expect to play in the next season of Pauper?
I’m not sure if I’ll be playing next season, but if I do then I would probably run back a variant of Faeries. I could also try to pick up Affinity since apparently that deck is good, but I have no idea how to play it.
Thank you for talking with me, and congratulations!
Thanks for interviewing me!
Our VOW Season Pauper signups are currently live! if you’re interested in participating, check out our Get Started page or head to our Pauper page to get signed up, which also has last season’s decklists. Signups close December 19th!
