A lot of new decks showed up throughout 2021 in Pauper. I can’t showcase every odd deck that achieved a 5-0 or got a result published, but I wanted to pick a fistful that I thought were particularly notable. There are a few Honorable Mentions before I get into the list, to start off.
Honorable Mentions
Relay Tron
Using Foundry inspector along with a pile of artifacts that only cost one mana and draw a card lets this deck plow through its library, gaining life with Fangren Marauder, building storm for Galvanic Relay, and eventually winning with Disciple of the Vault. It’s a sweet Eggs-style combo deck that is spicy to see in the format, especially with Fangren to help combat the popular Affinity deck.
The first published list I found along these lines was by Hampuse1, who got 31st in the November 27th Pauper Challenge. Entropy263 played the deck a little bit more, and achieved 11th in another Challenge and a League 5-0 decklist. However, the lack of other results kept it from making my final list.
Jund Cascade
Jund Cascade has fallen off the map in the last few months, but it was putting up consistent results earlier in the year. It uses a ton of relatively new cards, such as Boarding Party, Annoyed Altisaur, and Sarulf’s Packmate to produce a lot of card advantage. To survive to those late game cards, it runs a ton of removal, as well as a few ramp spells like Llanowar Visionary and Cleansing Wildfire.
Although it’s a powerful deck, it disappeared from the current metagame, trailing off sometime in October. For this reason, it’s left in the honorable mentions.
RG Cascade Ponza
Similarly to the Jund Cascade decks, Ponza Cascade is based around the Commander Legends Cascade spells, Boarding Party and Annoyed Altisaur. However, it’s a much more explosive deck, relying on faster acceleration such as Arbor Elf + Utopia Sprawl. Instead of relying on removal to disrupt the opponent, it’s looking to keep the opponent on the back foot by destroying lands with Mwonvuli Acid-Moss and win with large Cascade creatures before they can recover.
This deck was completely replaced by Jund Cascade after Modern Horizons 2 introduced the indestructible Bridge duals, like Drossforge Bridge. These encouraged playing additional colors to combo with Cleansing Wildfire for additional ramp, and land destruction was far from an optimal strategy when many decks began playing multiple indestructible lands at a low cost. Just like Jund Cascade, it’s left in the honorable mentions. Unless the Bridges are banned, I don’t see this deck coming back any time soon.
Now, it’s onto my top 7 new decks from 2021!
7th: Grixis Familiars
In late September and early October, Entropy263 (same guy from Relay Tron up above) was working on another Galvanic Relay decklist. Familiars is traditionally a UW Combo/Midrange deck with Sunscape Familiar and Mulldrifter, but this list takes a more combo-focused route. The main addition is Galvanic Relay, which can provide a lot of card advantage when going through the deck’s loops. It maintains the same combo of Snap on Ardent Elementalist with a Nightscape Familiar to make it cheaper, and izzet Boilerworks to produce additional mana. With one Familiar and two Boilerworks it can produce infinite Storm count for a huge Galvanic Relay. A second Familiar produces infinite mana as well. Its eventual win condition is Compulsive Research
On top of that, it runs the classic Ghostly Flicker + Ardent Elementalist combo to produce infinite ETB effects with another Elementalist or an Augur of Bolas, provided they have enough mana.
Although UW and Grixis Familiars seem like they would have far too many moving parts to come together consistently, you really have to play against them to see what the deck is capable of. It comes up at seventh on this list because the only player to have put up results with it is Entropy263, but it made it beyond the Honorable Mentions because it won the October 10th Pauper Challenge!
6th: Storm
Storm terrorized the format for nearly three months, powered by Chatterstorm with First Day of Class for an immediate combo kill. Class also provided protection from cards like Electrickery and even Fiery Cannonade if cast in multiples, as tokens enter one at a time, then gain their counters before the next Squirrel token joins the fray.
The natural predator to Storm is supposed to be counterspell decks, but the addition of Galvanic Relay means that the deck has far more resilience against counterspells. Additionally, Daze has been banned, and with it the fast clock provided by Delver of Secrets was also on a downturn.
I would rank Storm higher on this list at its peak, but due to being banned a few months after joining the format, it’s only in 6th.
5th: White Weenie and Soul Sisters
Although Soul Sisters wouldn’t have made the list on its own, I’m electing to group them together because I want to be able to showcase both lists.
Soul Sisters is first, since it was definitely the less successful deck compared to White Weenie. In the past, there had been decks based around the lifegain provided by Soul Warden and Soul’s Attendant, but none had ever been particularly successful. In part, this was due to there being no life-gain payoffs in Pauper such as Ajani’s Pridemate This changed with the printing of Celestial Unicorn.
In the end, this was clearly still a metagame deck based around making life difficult for Storm by gaining insane amounts of life against a Chatterstorm. It’s possible with an Affinity banning that we will see more of this deck, or even a WB version featuring Marauding Blight-Priest. If it weren’t for that potential, it wouldn’t be on this list at all.
White Weenie was a flash in the pan for about a month during November and early December. It was a very aggressive deck that looked to utilize powerful white creatures with Guardians’ Pledge to blitz the opponent down. It also made use of some great new cards, Search Party Captain and Cathar Commando, for grindiness and artifact or enchantment hate, respectively. It was also able to use Icatian Javelineers, a powerful white one drop, to help combat Faeries.
However, as I mentioned, the deck was a flash in the pan. It made this list at #5 due to how successful it was during that time, with multiple Challenge top 8’s.
4th: UW Evoke
This deck was popularized by SnapBolt, a Pauper content creator on YouTube. I highly suggest catching some of his videos playing the deck on his channel.
This deck is based around Evoke + Ephemerate. Ephemerate is well known as a Pauper powerhouse with Archaeomancer to return two spells in a turn cycle (including Ephemerate), but it is also utilized with Mulldrifter and Soul of Migration. This allows the deck to get multiple ETB effects and save the creature in response to the Evoke trigger.
Tying the synergy together is Angelic Renewal. Renewal into Mulldrifter or Soul of Migration effectively lets you do the Ephemerate trick a turn earlier by spreading the mana across multiple turns. Although not every list runs Renewal (some opt for Augur of Bolas to help vs Aggro decks), it’s a very sweet piece of tech in the deck.
All-in-all, it’s a sweet UW Midrange deck. It put up results over a long period of time, and although it’s dried up in the last month, I expect that we will see more of the deck in the future, particularly if Affinity finally eats a banning.
3rd: Moggwartz
MoggWartz is similar to ChatterStorm in that it uses First Day of Class as a combo piece, in this case with the Persist mechanic in the form of Putrid Goblin. Previous Persist combos used Ivy Lane Denizen, but costing four mana and being far more restrictive kept it from ever being a truly competitive deck.
By utilizing Skirk Prospector, Putrid Goblin with Class produces infinite mana which can be used to kill with Flamewave Invoker. Goblin Matron ties the deck together well, as a tutor for most of the combo that can also be sacrificed to Skirk Prospector for mana.
It started off with the release of Strixhaven in April, when it got a few decent results. It didn’t break the format, and it fell away when MH2 brought the much better combo deck, ChatterStorm, in June. In July, MoggWartz got a significant upgrade in Deadly Dispute, which allowed the deck to play Ichor Wellspring and go further on its sacrifice theme for card advantage while digging for combo pieces. Then, when Chatterstorm and Sojourner’s Companion were banned in September, MoggWartz was given time to breathe and people realized just how strong Dispute is in Pauper.
It’s now a tier 1-2 deck in Pauper and uses Makeshift Munitions as a potential kill option that fits the sacrifice theme. I’m excited to see the deck continue evolve in Pauper, and it definitely belongs near the top of this list.
2nd: Cycle Storm
Cycle Storm isn’t exactly a “new” deck, but it’s been heavily reworked by the team over at TheEpicStorm. Bryant Cook is a well-known Storm and combo player, and his work with Cycle Storm took it from a fringe deck to being a tier 1-2 deck in the format.
Several key innovations took place during this time:
- The manabase got reworked. Gone are the awkward dual lands. No more Land Grant for Forest, please! There were many different manabases floating around, some trying to support casting Drannith Stinger or Drannith Healer naturally. By going to straight Black and Blue, it’s a much faster and more consistent manabase.
- As an extension of number one, it’s picked up Blood Celebrant to provide as much color-fixing as needed once the deck has successfully begun its combo.
- Dihada’s Ploy joined the deck as a way to regain life lost by Street Wraith and Blood Celebrant as well as buy time against any aggressive decks.
- Mystical Teachings is effectively additional copies of Reaping the Graves, the critical card advantage spell of the deck. It can also tutor out Dihada’s Ploy, Songs of the Damned, and in a pinch, various sideboard cards.
- Lastly, Repository Skaab is now in the deck to return critical spells like Reaping the Graves. It can also be returned by Reaping since it can sacrifice itself to its Exploit.
I don’t think this deck is even close to the original Cycle Storm deck (take a look at this 2020 CFB article!), and thus gets second place on this list for new decks from the last year, despite Cycle Storm having technically been around for two years.
1st: Jeskai Wildfire
Jeskai Wildfire is a Flicker midrange deck like UW Evoke, but instead it plays more powerful interaction spells such as Fiery Cannonade and Lightning Bolt. Additionally, to provide more speed it runs Cleansing Wildfire with the Bridge duals like Rustvale Bridge to provide a cantripping Rampant Growth. There’s the Archaeomancer + Ephemerate loop, Mulldrifter, Augur of Bolas to provide more cards and stall vs aggro… Overall, it’s a very well rounded deck.
I wish I had more to say about the deck, but it’s very good. It’s currently one of the top new decks in the format, and that earned it the number one spot on this list.
What do you think? Are there any spicy decks that I missed? What decks might be lurking in the background, waiting for an Affinity ban? I’m looking forward to the coming months in Pauper, and hope that we continue to see new decks show up in 2022!
