Welcome to Season 3 of Weekly Pauper Recap! This time around, i will only be playing 25 matches per week. I came to the conclusion that playing more matches (and consequently playing more decks) makes for better content, so i’m switching back to 50 matches per week for the rest of the season. (Note that i’m playing Friendly Leagues because i dislike waiting for matches.) I won’t be playing one of the Intriguing Decks every week, but i’ll try one of them every now and then.
Metagame Recap
(google spreadsheet with the complete data)
For those unfamiliar with my grouping conventions, Mono Red is Burn + RDW; Boros is an aggregate term for Monarch, Bully and Kuldotha variants; Orzhov encompasses all the Orzhov midrange decks; Flicker & Marauder Tron refer to lists with Ghostly Flicker & Fangren Marauder, respectively; Faeries is UR Faeries + Mono Blue Delver; UB Control is everything from UB Alchemy to Teachings; creature combo means Tribe and Izzet Blitz. Check out the Google Spreadsheet linked above for more detailed data.
Why are there two charts? Because i’m playing twice as much! From now on, i’m treating each week’s matches as two seperate blocks of 25 matches. I think this is a decent middle ground between overreacting to recent developments and ignoring them. I’m going to post the mid-week chart to twitter (@JonLX) each week. My analysis will mostly focus on the second chart, but i’m including both for completeness’ sake.
The top five decks are still the same and still make up for a little over half the metagame. However, this week, all the decks that are usually at roughly 4% managed to reach the 5% threshold to be included here.
In other words: Nothing has changed.
Faeries, which was on the rise shortly before and after winning the Challenge a couple weeks ago, has started declining again. UB Delver is on a downward trend as well. That might be due to the recent surge of W/x midrange decks. One theory i have that might explain the diversifying metagame is that there are simply more individual players entering the League. I could have tracked this, but i didn’t, so this remains just a theory.
Elves looks like a very good deck, until you remember that Burn exists. I struggle with Elves pretty much regardless of what i play, but even when i try to lose with Burn, i fail to do so. Of course, this also has to do with the fact that i never prepared for Elves until now. With the way the metagame currently looks it’s on my radar though, so i’ll see how i fare when i am prepared.
What would i play right now? To be honest, i am completely lost. I don’t currently have a deck i particularly like, but i’m also not playing UB Delver for now and i played UR Faeries so much in the past that i quickly lose interest in the deck whenever i pick it up. However, those two are still great choices in my mind.
Tron seems mediocre with all the Burn, creature combo and Elves around – that’s almost 30% of the metagame being really bad matchups. But to be fair, i tend to pick Dinrova over Dignitary Tron and the latter might just be better positioned right now; it certainly is better against Priest Tribe, which seems to have become the default choice for creature combo players.
Speaking of Priest Tribe, the deck is still great. As i always say though, i think it’s only a good choice if you have a feel for the deck and i seem to have lost mine. I suspect Boros Bully might be a decent choice as well, but i need more time on the deck to say for sure.
What I Played This Week
(Orzhov Pestilence by Amoras27, 25th in the 24/03/19 Pauper Challenge)
I’m going to be blunt; this deck seemed incredibly mediocre, constantly producing hands that don’t do anything until turn four or five. In most matchups that aren’t Burn, i also felt like i could never win without resolving Pestilence. I am not going to play this deck again.
(Boros Bully by Mathonical, 2nd Place in the 17/03/19 Pauper Challenge)
There are some things i dislike here (0 Lightning Bolt, for example), but the deck is definitely solid. Four copies of Prismatic Strands ranges from mildly annoying to straight up unbeatable for most decks. This list felt very rough, but i’m interested to see where i end up with this. I am going to play this deck again.
I like playing Boros Monarch when i don’t have to play against Burn, Tron or the mirror. Conveniently, those are the three most popular decks right now. Cool. This list also doesn’t quite have enough for the Burn matchup to consistently win (along with losing to Tron), so out of the three matchups i don’t enjoy playing with Boros Monarch, one is bad, one is annoying and one much grindier than i would like. If i’m not having fun, at least i want to win a lot. I don’t think this deck would currently accomplish that for me. I most likely am going to play this again, but not right now.
(Burn by FranMtg, 5-0 from two weeks ago)
I am not going to play Burn again. It’s not bad, but it isn’t good either. And it is not fun for me at all.
Changes from previous list:
Maindeck:
-1 Augur of Bolas
-1 Shadow Rift
+1 Shimmering Wings
+1 Preordain
Sideboard:
-1 Shimmering Wings
-1 Gut Shot
+1 Augur of Bolas
+1 Seal of Cleansing
Okay, moving on to a deck i actually enjoy playing.
In the 75, i only made two changes. I knew i wanted an extra cantrip because i’m constantly looking for either white mana or creatures, which Augur does not help much with. I only really like Augur against decks with Edicts and not only is UB Control declining again, Obsidian Acolyte + Tethmos High Priest is pretty good against them anyway, especially when they constantly have to worry about Tribe.
In general, i really like the dynamic of this deck; i often run out Tribes with no intention of going for the combo, but it forces my opponents to keep up removal and/or countermagic at all times. Every now and then, my opponents catch on, but some of those games i end up drawing into the combo naturally and collect free wins.
Seal of Cleansing is in the sideboard mostly for Viridian Longbow out of Elves, but i have also blown up some other enchantments with it. To be honest, i’m not sure it’s needed, but it’s a nice tool to have.
I can’t say if cutting the third Gut Shot was wrong. I never played against Faeries with this configuration and i only bring two copies max against everything else anyway.
I would like to continue playing this because i really enjoy what’s going on here, but i ran so badly this week (and also didn’t play particularly well) that i think i need to take a break for a while.
Changes from previous list:
Maindeck:
-1 Moment’s Peace
+1 Quicksand
Sideboard:
-4 Circle of Protection: Red
+2 Inside Out
+1 Moment’s Peace
+1 Quicksand
These changes were actually really good. Shootouts to reddit user Li_Fi_ for suggesting Quicksand to deal with Ghitu Lavarunner, this really made a big difference in my matches against Burn. I won multiple games because i was able to crack Expedition Map for Quicksand and not be helpless against Lavarunner.
Inside Out is there for Thermo-Alchemist. I cast Teachings for it once, but otherwise it didn’t come up. I’ll keep them in the deck for now, but i might cut them if it continues to not be relevant. Lignify could be another option to deal with Alchemist and Lavarunner. Lignify also has the benefit of dealing with the occasional Firebrand Archer while not being all that much harder to cast than Inside Out. It might absolutely be the better option against creature combo as well.
Intriguing Decks
(Orzhov Monarch by lampalot, 6th Place in the 31/03/19 Pauper Playoff)
I played something very similar to this about a year ago and i really want to pick this up again. You might need an extra copy or two of Okiba-Gang Shinobi, but i absolutely think that this deck has the potential to not get destroyed by Tron. It’s also one of the better decks against Burn, which is always a nice thing.
(Grixis Control by alicodendrochit, 5-0 from this week)
Forbidden Alchemy to fuel Swirling Sandstorm is an idea i also had earlier this week. I wanted to add Sandstorm to Tron, but this seems like a better path to take – by not being Tron, you free up quite a few slots for extra removal and countermagic. This makes you worse against W/x midrange and Tron, but it helps against Burn, Delver, Faeries and creature combo. I will probably try this out before playing a Tron brew, but if this doesn’t work out and i still feel like there is potential, i’m going to take URb Tron for a spin.
That’s it for today. Thanks for reading, see you next week!
theweeklywars 