Streets of New Capenna League Signups Still Open!
For the next few days, our Streets of New Capenna Pauper league is open for signups. If you’d like to play a unique, powerful, and super cheap format for free for prizes, check our Pauper league page for details or pop into the discord!
Please introduce yourself.
Hi! I’m ssch21, or “Huey” on the Untap Open League Discord Server. I’ve been on UOL for almost 5 years now on and off and I run the Solo Invitational and play in most UOL Leagues.
What deck did you choose for this league?
For this event I chose Moggwarts.
For the unfamiliar, can you describe the combo in brief?
So, the first step of my combo is to cast First Day of Class
. Next, I sacrifice Putrid Goblin
to Skirk Prospector
. This will make a red mana and trigger Persist on the Putrid Goblin. When it comes back, the First Day of Class will trigger, putting a +1/+1 counter on Putrid Goblin and the counters will cancel out. I can repeat this to make infinite mana.
Then, I can either sink that mana into a bunch of Flamewave Invoker
activations, or I can use Makeshift Munitions
, sacrificing Putrid Goblin and returning it each time.
Occasionally I’m forced to combo off without a win condition in hand, and in these cases I can use the Introduction to Prophecy
that I Learned for as well as a few other cantrips in my deck to try to dig towards a win condition. I can also use Goblin Matron
to be able to find Skirk Prospector, Putrid Goblin, or Flamewave Invoker.
Why did you choose this deck?
So, I played Jeskai Ephemerate in the finals of the last Pauper league before losing to Bogles. Given that Bogles was 1/4 of the meta last season I kind of wanted something that could race them better than Jeskai, although I do love that deck. Looking through some decks, I was honestly mostly drawn to Moggwarts because of the name. I checked it out and the deck looked cool so I loaded it up and ran through a few practice matches with it. I love how streamlined the deck is around Makeshift Munitions, with the pile of artifacts that draw cards going super well with it, and I was super excited to play it with Experimental Synthesizer
, which is one of my favorite new cards. Also, it gets to play Ancestral Recall
(any of the artifacts and Deadly Dispute
) , which I’ve heard is a good card.
What are the biggest challenges for your deck?
Well, for one, my only (maindeck) removal is my two copies of Makeshift Munitions. Munitions is fantastic, but it can be limited in what it hits and it needs a lot of fuel. It can also be awkward in some matchups: both of my Top 4 matches had enchantment removal maindeck as well as creatures that disrupted my combo. I needed Munitions to be able to answer these creatures, which meant I had to rely on it as a win condition instead of Flamewave Invoker. Because my opponent had enchantment removal, I couldn’t play Munitions out until I was ready to combo. That meant that preboard, in both of my Top 4 matches, I was completely without removal until the turn I was ready to win the game.
What is one play you made that might be considered tricky or unintuitive?
That’s a very good question and to be honest I don’t remember all of my matches super well so I don’t know if I have a great answer to it. I guess the best answer I have comes from my match against Arsteel and his mono white deck, in which I sideboarded in Sparksmith
. In general, I tend to hold back my First Day of Class until I can use it to combo off, but with Arsteel’s Icatian Javelineers
summoning sick and Suture Priest
in play, I decided to use my First Day of Class to give Sparksmith haste, kill the Javelineers, and protect itself for a future turn. Not the most unintuitive play ever, but I think most of my plays were relatively straightforward to be completely honest.
You’ve been on a recent tear to the top of the tables in our leagues, with multiple wins and Top 8 placements. What’s been the driving force behind this rise?
Honestly? I’m not entirely sure. I think part of it is that I’ve gotten to be a more careful player recently. In the past I would occasionally miss important lines or forget a trigger that I really needed, and I think I’ve been able to (mostly) correct that in my play.
Do you have your sights set on any particular deck for our next Pauper league?
There’s a good chance I’ll run Moggwarts back. I really like the deck. If I do, I think I might try out a maindeck Krark-Clan Shaman
as a target for Goblin Matron. The UOL meta can be a bit creature heavy, so having a tutorable board wipe that I can reuse with Unearth
seems pretty strong. Other decks I’m considering include Jeskai Ephemerate and UR Faeries.
With Double Masters 2 coming up, what are two to three cool downshifts you might want to see in the format?
Huh, that’s a hard question. To be honest I like where Pauper’s at right now a lot, and I hope it doesn’t change too much from where it is, although I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a few downshifts that make a big impact. I guess one thing I’d like to see is a bit more support for Reanimator decks? I’m a big fan of Reanimator in other formats and it could maybe be interesting to see, like Animate Dead
downshifted? That could be super risky, though, and I’m not really sure if I’d want to see it. I may also like to see Lightning Helix
downshifted.
Any parting thoughts or final words you’d like to get in?
Pauper leagues are always really fun, and I’d like to thank the people involved in running them. Huge shoutout to Colgate for hosting this season.
