Now that Commander Legends and Double Masters have joined the format, we’re seeing an exciting new metagame emerge. Although classic Bogles is still the most popular deck here, many cards from the two new sets are seeing play. You can see the full list of decks on our Pauper tournament page.
Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur’s Gate and the newest Double Masters set have certainly had a potent effect on Pauper, and new cards are peppered throughout the decks for this Pauper season. However, this effect is somewhat subdued by what can only be called the UOL effect, to the extent that Monastery Swiftspear is only in two of the submitted decks.
One mechanic that popped out of Baldur’s Gate was Initiative, which essentially allows you to venture into dungeons every turn with a combat damage control exchange like Monarch’s. The Monarch mechanic has shown itself to be very powerful in Pauper, so it follows that Initiative would as well. The most exciting Initiative card for Pauper is Aarakocra Sneak.
It has evasion, beefy hindquarters, and blue mana in its mana cost, a colour that has historically suffered for Monarch cards. This one card has developed an entire new archetype; that of the awfully named “Raka” deck (it should be “Rako”—Raka are already a thing in Magic, look it up). There are two decks playing Aarakocra Sneak in this season’s Pauper league.
Izzet Faeries
The first is Arsteel’s Izzet Faeries, a good example of a deck that already had a presence in the metagame but was looking for a half-decent Monarch card. Other than two Sneaks, the deck remains clean and simple; faeries and ninjas for interaction, card draw, and eventually poking in for lethal. The deck plays snow lands for Skred, akin to Doom Blade except it can kill black creatures.
Jeskai Ephemerate
The other deck trying out the Sneak is Colgate’s Jeskai Ephemerate. It also happens to be the deck toying around the most with new cards from Baldur’s Gate. In addition to the now old-hat trick of targeting your own indestructible lands with Cleansing Wildfire for some cantripping ramp, the deck can now turn those same lands into chunky indestructible flying beaters with Kenku Artificer.
The gates provide excellent fixing and a payoff in Basilisk Gate, which is most effective when used on evasive creatures to get in damage. The choices for evasive creatures in this deck are Squadron Hawk, Mulldrifter, and Guardian of The Guildpact. Be careful, because at a short glance a Mulldrifter might easily be confused for an Aarakocra Sneak.
Bogles
The most prevalent archetype in the submitted decks was Bogles. Bogles remains a perennial favorite in UOL because of how fun it is to play, not play against. The four decklists vying in this league might shock cynics and critics of Bogles, those who argue that the archetype is stagnant and frustrating. In fact, Bogles players are practically digging into their bulk boxes for new goodies all the time.
Sefir is playing two copies of Lone Wolf in his sideboard for super-trample, and both Niv and Langleyfox have multiple copies of Freewind Falcon in their sideboards to help with the Monastery Swiftspear decks that didn’t make much of an appearance this season.
However, Langleyfox wins the innovation battle, adopting two Phyresiss, or Phyresi, in the main deck of his Bogles variant. All three of the above players are also playing Commune With Spirits, which is a nice little selection card but is hardly close to being as exciting as the other additions.
GRx Ponza
Two players have placed their hopes on Ponza this season, though with a slightly baffling variance between their lists. With Streets of New Capenna, Ponza received a new threat with fixing attached in Jewel Thief. This has allowed the archetype to branch out into new colours more easily (notably, blue). However, in a twist of fate and deckbuilding, Miguoftheowl’s three-colour decklist does not play Jewel Thief, whereas MathDolphin’s two-colour version does. Perhaps these decklists are a travesty of the archetype, or perhaps they are the result of deliberation and care. Only time will tell.
MathDolphin seems to have arrived at the conclusion that the Initiative on Avenging Hunter beats out the value of other 5-drops such as Entourage of Trest, Mulldrifter, and Owlbear, while Miguoftheowl has remained more conservative with his card choices, eschewing the most recent sets.
Boros Decks (Kuldotha, Bully, Heroic)
Within the last year the Boros colour combination has really come into its own. Three Boros decks, each dramatically different, have been submitted this season.
LINK DECKLISTS BELOW
The first is Kuldotha Boros by Becman. This is the artifact centred version of Boros, abusing Experimental Synthesizer’s overlapping synergy with Glint Hawk effects as well as Kuldotha Rebirth. The deck can be very aggressive but reserves a hefty dose of grinding power.
The second Boros deck is Dustrat’s Boros Bully. This deck has come a long way from its durdling Boros Monarch days, discarding Monarch entirely in favour of aggressive graveyard-based token beats. Faithless Looting will often be a one-mana draw two in this deck, discarding tried and proven classics Squadron Hawk and Battle Screech as well as Lunarch Veteran and Sacred Cat. With all of these creatures lying around, the deck can get ahead on mana with the help of Springleaf Drum.
Finally, Csquared08 submitted a Boros Heroic list. This archetype has been a player in other formats, notably Pioneer, but the Double Masters printing of Monastery Swiftspear and Tenth District Legionnaire have apparently made it worth battling through the terrible mana of a two-colour aggro deck.
GB Aristocrats
The prize for the most interesting deck of the season has to go to chesse20’s Golgari Aristocrats. The deck is able to go more aggressive than any similar deck of the past thanks to the downshift of Dreg Mangler in Double Masters. Interestingly, Dreg Mangler is the first three mana 3/3 with haste in the entire format. The deck seems to embody what may be the future of the Golgari Aristocrats archetype, focusing more on enabling above-curve threats as quickly as possible while weaning itself off of small-ball value.
In conclusion to this wild tour through the archetypes of the league, the new printings of powerful common threats have only begun a shift in the Pauper format. Pauper remains a bit of a rock-paper-scissors format due to the disproportionate amount of answers and interaction at common compared to the amount of threats at the same rarity. Sideboard cards in Pauper tend to be either devastating or useless, eliminating more involved and hate-vulnerable decks from competing. The path of least resistance thus remains in building a deck that can either draw as much interaction as possible or play as many threats as possible to try and wade through that interaction. Printings like Jewel Thief, Monastery Swiftspear, and yes, even Dreg Mangler are at the forefront of this sorely needed shift, but they explore the frontier at risk of robbing Pauper of its identity and timelessness.
