At the beginning of 2021, UR Delver was topping the metagame. The recently printed Fall From Favor, which had been printed just over a month prior, was helping dominate the meta in hands of Ux Faeries and Delver, Jeskai Affinity, and even in the sideboard of Tron. Most every blue deck was making use of the removal spell, and it was shortly banned during the January 14th Ban Announcement.
Commander Legends continues to have a serious impact on the format after the banning of Fall From Favor. Other Monarch cards such as Azure Fleet Admiral and Crimson Fleet Commodore continued to see play. Allowing decks that weren’t in the colors for Palace Sentinels or Thorn of the Black Rose to have Monarch severely impacted the format.
After the January 14th bannings, Tron overtook Faeries as the top deck in one of the most diverse metagames the format has ever seen. Meanwhile, UB and UR Faeries continued to be top tier choices, along with RG Cascade and WR Bully joining the upper ranks.
Although most of the format was cycling through old decks that were once again a good choice in the metagame, RG Cascade is a different story.
It is very rare for an entirely new deck to become a tiered option in Pauper, though it’s begun to happen more frequently as Wizards of the Coast continues to print more high-powered supplemental sets such as Modern Horizons and Commander Legends.
In particular, RG Cascade got its namesake Cascade cards, Annoyed Altisaur and Boarding Party. Over the last six months, these decks have shifted to be Jund and dropping the land destruction package for more removal and a slightly different ramp package. The resulting deck looks something like this. Cascade proved to be a valuable tool against Ux Faeries, since Counterspell is not an effective answer for two impactful spells from a single card. Another new card, Sarulf’s Packmate also appeared in the deck as a fairly large cantripping creature.
Modern Horizons 2
On June 18th, the release of Modern Horizons 2 completely shook the format. The immediate frontrunners were Affinity featuring Sojourner’s Companion and the new indestructible artifact dual lands and Storm with Chatterstorm and First Day of Class replacing the banned Grapeshot and Empty the Warrens.
Myr Enforcer was already a powerful card in Affinity’s toolbox, and playing an effective eight copies meant that the deck could consistently drop a lot of power very early in the game. Additionally, it let the deck cut its splash color for a more consistent two-color mana base. Meanwhile, having eight indestructible lands meant that Gorilla Shaman, previously the best sideboard card in the matchup, was suddenly lackluster and replaced by Shenanigans.
Meanwhile, Storm was perhaps the true terror of the format. Although it would seem to be weak to Elecktrickery, having access to a playset of the also-new Galvanic Relay meant the deck was brutally powerful even in the face of countermagic and disruption.
Historically, the predator for Storm would be decks like Mono U Delver. However, since the banning of Daze and Gush, Ux Delver was no longer as well-equipped to handle the matchup. However, it still stood as the third most popular deck in the format at the height of Affinity and Storm.
A newcomer to the competitive scene as a result of Chatterstorm was Soul Sisters. Despite lacking countermagic outside of the occasional Mana Tithe, it sported a good matchup against Storm. With a full dozen “Soul Sisters” such as Soul’s Attendant, Chatterstorm would gain the player an incredible amount of life, while the new Celestial Unicorn finally gave the deck a proper payoff in the format. Suture Priest made it doubly deadly for a Storm player, as it was difficult to go off safely when each Squirrel token cost one life. Even still, Soul Sisters remained a fringe archetype.
Where We Are Now
On September 8th, Wizards of the Coast wisely decided to take action on the two-and-a-half deck format (the half being Ux Faeries) and banned Sojourner’s Companion alongside Chatterstorm. Although as a long-time Pauper player I enjoy having Storm around again, it absolutely needed to go. Affinity was the clear second best option by a mile, and also got a much deserved ban.
After the bans, UR Affinity swapped back to playing a third color, now sporting Black and featuring the new Deadly Dispute. Dispute effectively lets Affinity play “draw two” tribal with Ichor Wellspring and Thoughtcast. As a result, the deck can grind incredibly hard.
The extra focus on drawing cards and sacrificing artifacts brought back a very old Affinity card in Disciple of the Vault. Although Disciple hasn’t been a popular Affinity card for many years, the extra bit of sacrifice mixed in with Makeshift Munitions made it viable again, allowing Affinity to much more easily combo out opponents with Atog.
Affinity has continued to evolve since the bans, and now BR and Grixis variants are popular in the format. Blue is for a few sideboard cards (Hydroblast) and Thoughtcast, and new additions such as Blood Fountain and Wedding Invitation continue to improve the deck. Fountain provides an incredible amount of value in the late game and gives the deck more explosive potential by providing two artifacts for a single mana. Meanwhile, Wedding Invitation means that Temur Battle Rage and Fling now have a cantripping supplement to push Atog through blockers.
As a result of the Affinity-dominated meta, many decks are currently sporting 8-12 hate cards for the deck. RW Bully, one of the top decks in the format at the moment, has up to a full playset of Dust to Dust in the main deck with more hate in the sideboard. Gone are Gorilla Shamans since the new artifact lands such as Drossforge Bridge have reduced their effectiveness in the matchup. Now, exile-based removal spells like Revoke Existence are seeing play instead.
Although many Pauper players have been asking for a ban for the last several months, we are all left waiting to hear when the next ban announcement will be.
The Preliminary to End All Preliminaries
For two months, Pauper preliminaries failed to fire. On November 2nd, this set of results showed up in an MTGO Preliminary tournament. All four published decks consisted of lands and optionally Faerie Miscreant. For several weeks, MTGO had a severe bug with Miscreant that allowed it to always draw a card, even if there wasn’t another Miscreant already on the battlefield. In protest of the state of the format and the completely ignored bug, several Pauper players got together to fire a Pauper Preliminary to get the attention of Wizards of the Coast, and they succeeded. Faerie Miscreant was temporarily banned until a fix for the bug was implemented.
Wizards of the Coast also tried to use this as a reason to stop offering Pauper Preliminaries. In the same announcement, they stated they’d be removing both Pauper and Standard Preliminaries due to low attendance and difficulty firing. This never came to pass (and they removed it from the announcement later on), and now Pauper Preliminaries have been firing for the last three weeks. Perhaps people are having a more positive outlook on the format?
Looking Forward to 2022
Pauper isn’t completely ruined, despite the meta being incredibly heavy on Affinity. Over the last month, I’ve played more Pauper than I have since 2014 when my old LGS that ran weekly Pauper events closed down.
As long as your deck can hold its own against Affinity, you’ll be fine in the ongoing metagame. Modern Horizons 2 provided a major shakeup for the format, and although FIRE design may be problematic for most formats, Pauper is mostly sheltered from its effects since it’s limited to commons. Although a few cards slip through the cracks Pauper mostly remains intact.
There is currently more movement in Pauper than there has been in years. There are brand new decks cropping up every few months, and old decks are receiving much needed improvements to compete in the current age.
Pauper has continued to be one of my favorite formats in Magic for many years, and I wish it the best in 2022!
