Urza's Legacy is looming over the horizon and it promises to bring some nice cards for Pauper players to enjoy. But which cards are worth picking up? Here's my list shopping list of must-haves from the expansion.

Urza's Legacy:

1) Unearth: This is the card that I'm most excited for. I've already gushed about the card in an earlier article, but the card is simply so good that I must sing its praises once more. Why is it so good? Because it's the best, and I do mean best graveyard recursion for 3cc creatures in the format, no question. For a mere 1cc you've put a 3cc creature directly into play. You just saved two mana. None of the "gravedigger" creatures are remotely as good as that. Now, what are the implications of saving 2cc to replay a creature? Let me give you an example: You're piloting an MBC deck and you're up against Goblins. It's turn 3 and you have a hand with Chittering Rats, Phyrexian Rager, Unearth and some swamps. You play Chittering Rats and put your opponent back a card. On his turn he swings with a bunch of 2/2 goblins and you block/trade with your rat. Next turn you play another swamp, Unearth Chittering Rat and play Phyrexian Rager. You just produced two more 2/2's onto the field, the opponent is behind yet another card and you drew a card. Now what if that Unearth was Gravedigger? Instead of producing two 2/2's on turn 4, you only produce Gravedigger, with Chittering Rats going back to hand. The Goblins player isn't behind another card and you didn't draw another card.

There's an enormous difference in the tempo swing of the first scenario. That type of difference in the speed of your potential plays can make the difference between winning and losing -- not just against hyper-aggressive aggro decks like Goblins, but any deck. And it cycles! Why they made a good thing that much sweeter by adding the cycling ability is beyond my comprehension, but I won't argue about it!

So, what decks will want to play Unearth? The most obvious candidate is MBC, the removal king of old, which runs Chittering Rats, Crypt Rats and Phyrexian Rager as excellent targets for the card.

MBC will also have access to a new creature in M11 that can potentially make it to the party as well, Liliana's Specter. The card reads:

Liliana's Specter - 1BB
Creature - Specter
Flying
When Liliana's Specter enters the battlefield, each opponent discards a card.
2/1

Basically it's MBC's Shrieking Grotesque. It's a very nice upgrade to Ravenous Rats because body lets it trade with more creatures in the format and the evasion gives the deck more offensive outlets. This is what I intend to play when both come online:

MBC

by Doctor Anime

Creatures 4 Chittering Rats 4 Crypt Rats 4 Phyrexian Rager 4 Liliana's Specter 16 cards Other Spells 4 Disfigure 4 Sign in Blood 4 Tendrils of Corruption 4 Corrupt 4 Unearth 20 cards

Lands 22 Swamp 2 Bojuka Bog 24 cards Sideboard 4 Diabolic Edict 4 Duress 4 Distress 3 Okiba-Gang Shinobi 15 cards

I can't wait until M11 rolls around to try stuff out, so as soon as Unearth hits I'll be testing Okiba / Edict maindecked instead. My prediction is that Unearth will make MBC work a little faster, which will let it stabilize earlier against aggro and allow it to apply more pressure to overwhelm the blue-based control decks that have shunted it out of the limelight for so long. Will this be enough to bring it back into competitive play?

Another nice application of Unearth that I plan to test is MBCu. Here the trifecta of double rats and rager can be complimented with Sea Gate Oracle, a fourth target for recursion. Blue also brings other wicked cards to play with, including Mulldrifter, Agony Warp, Soul Manipulation, Probe and Deep Analysis.

Where else can Unearth show up? BRHusk? Dead Dog? I don't know, but I'm all ears for ideas.

2) Rancor: We have it online, but when it's distributed in Legacy then the price will actually be reasonable! Huzzah! This card is simply awesome. It turns all your wimpy creatures into threats that can trade with your opponent's beefier dorks, and pushes out a ridiculous amount of extra damage for its tiny cost. Anything with Green and is aggro-ish will love Rancor. Get a playset!

3) Cloud of Faeries: I think Pauper Faeries is in an awkward stage of development right now. We have the almighty Spellstutter Sprite, which is easily the biggest reason for running the archetype in the first place, followed by a strong entourage of Pestermite and Latchkey Faerie that help power out the tribe. After that, however, the good faerie candidates plummet from there. For this reason the more successful Faerie decks cut down on the tribal cards as much as possible and instead go for an MUC hybrid, running solid counters, the always superb Spire Golem, and then some mixture of Ninja of the Deep Hours / Fathom Seer / Mulldrifter / Think Twice to round the deck out with card draw. But you still need a decent Faerie ratio in the deck, so evasive vanilla 1/1's like Cloud Sprite and Zephyr Sprite still make the cut in most lists, even though they make terrible topdecks in the mid-lategame. This is why I'm excited about Cloud of Faeries. It's essentially a "free" vanilla faerie after turn 2 which helps power Spellstutter and Latchkey early on without wasting precious mana, but if you draw one in the lategame when you don't need it you can just cycle for something else. That's definitely a step up from Cloud Sprite in my eyes and should be an easy swap. Any monoblue Faerie deck will absolutely want this card.

4) Frantic Search: No, we don't have High Tide in pauper, but this card is good regardless. Like Rewind and the other "untap your lands" blue cards, Ravnica Karoos turn your "free" spell into one that actually mana accelerates. Cloudpost decks that run the Locus plus Karoos can really speed up their decks this way. The decks that will benefit the most from this card, however, are ones that want to discard cards. Dredge and Madness decks will make the most out of their discards, so UB might soon become better than GB for graveyard manipulation. Threshold decks, notably UG Deep Dog, can use this to fill their grave in a hurry as well. And of course, Combo decks that use land enchantment to mana ramp will love this card, like the poor neglected Psychic Puppetry decks and the recently emerging UB Eldrazi Exhume combo. Frantic Search is definitely a card to keep an eye on.

5) Miscalculation: A less powerful Mana Leak that can be cycled when that type of countermagic turns bad in the lategame. Does that make it better than Mana Leak? Maybe, but I don't play with Leak much anyway so I'm not as excited as some other folks might be about this. 6) Thornwind Faeries: A tribal, way sexier Prodigal Sorcerer that will compete with Pestermite and Latchkey Faerie for the 3cc slot. Pestermite is undoubtedly the best of the 3cc bunch, but Thornwind might still be good enough to fit here as well. 7) Crop Rotation: We only have one really good land to abuse this card with in Pauper and that's Cloudpost. Crop Rotation can make Cloudpost decks go faster. Since you're in green to run this card, you can also run mana generating elves so that sacrificing a land isn't a big deal.

8) Ghitu Fireslinger: At first glance I think of this card as a lousy Steamcore Weird. However, there is one application where it could prove useful, such as a Boros Entrance deck like the one I posted a while ago. White has two excellent ways of creature bounce: Kor Skyfisher and Whitemane Lion. RW also has a bunch of excellent creatures with ETB effects: Aven Riftwatcher, Keldon Marauders and Goblin Bushwhacker. Ghitu Fireslinger could fit here as a mini-Flametongue Kavu, being bounced back to hand with Skyfisher and Lion instead of paying the echo cost all the time. Worth a test at least. 9) Intervene: Yet another U counterspell with a narrow application, just like Spell Pierce and Dispel. Decks that really need to protect their creatures but don't have mana to spare, like RU Fiend, may want to test this out.

Some More Deck Lists to Chew On:

Last time, I showed off some post-ROE decklists that I brewed before heading off to South Korea. On my return, I went back to work to tinker with new deck ideas and update some old ones. The results of some of them have been quite promising. This time I'll show off the two best of my new batch, while sweeping away the rejects into the deep dark corner of failure. Some day I'll break you, Graft.deck. Some day...

Dark Skies:

Dark Skies is the name of UB Faerie decks in Pauper. All the versions of this deck that I've seen ran it as a typical aggressive Blue Faeries deck that splashed into black for removal spells like Disfigure, Diabolic Edict, or Doom Blade. This trade-off never seemed entirely worth it to me. By splashing black, you're automatically moving into a clunkier manabase and ditching the potential to use one of the biggest reasons to stay MonoU, Spire Golem. After some testing with the standard aggro build of Dark Skies, I felt the MonoU version was stronger and ditched the deck. If I wanted to splash black in a Faeries deck, I'd need better incentives than just a few 1for1 removal spells.

Then a card struck my curiosity. I overlooked it initially, but as I was building up a new UB deck, it just seemed like the perfect fit. How lucky of me to actually try it out; I was floored by just how powerful it really was! The undervalued gem that I speak of is Dreamspoiler Witches:

The reason why I overlooked this card in the past was because I thought it was a little overpriced. If it cost 3cc instead of 4cc, I said to myself, it would have been a perfect inclusion in Dark Skies. At 4cc though, it just looked too slow to make a difference. I was so wrong. Dreamspoiler Witches may look overpriced in a void, but you can only appreciate its power once you place it in its proper niche, a deck that can disrupt the opponent long enough for the Witches to kick into overdrive. And UB, with its combination of instant speed counters, removal and draw is perfect for Witches to slip right into. Here's the deck that I'm currently working on:

Dark Skies

by Doctor Anime

Creatures 4 Spellstutter Sprite 4 Pestermite 4 Dreamspoiler Witches 12 cards Other Spells 3 Disfigure 1 Grim Harvest 4 Agony Warp 1 Diabolic Edict 4 Counterspell 4 Think Twice 1 Oona's Grace 1 Echoing Decay 4 Mystical Teachings 1 Soul Manipulation 23 cards

Lands 2 Dimir Aqueduct 4 Terramorphic Expanse 1 Bojuka Bog 11 Island 6 Swamp 24 cards Sideboard 4 Duress 3 Dispel 4 Hydroblast 2 Serrated Arrows 2 Deep Analysis 15 cards

Price: $12.85

Think of it as Faeries making sweet, sweet love to Teachings. But don't dwell on that imagery too long. Scary stuff.

Anyway, this is a late-game control deck with spunk. You keep the board manageable with your crazy amounts of disruption, then roll around in sheer brokenness once the Witches have landed. There are so many good things I can say about this unassuming 2/2's ability. Nearly everything in this deck can trigger it, which means that you're going to be pumping out loads of value from your Witches. And what do these piddly -1/-1's do, you ask? Well, they stack perfectly with the removal spells, letting you kill Kor Skyfishers with a single Disfigure, or turn your opponent's attackers into 1/1's and get killed by your blocking 2/2 faerie, or even wipe the board while you're leisurely restocking your hand with Think Twice and Mystical Teachings. It's really ridiculous when you sit down and play it.

Spellstutter Sprite is particularly brutal card advantage against Goblins.

Overall I'd say this deck is surprisingly powerful and a worthy spin on the usual Teachings build. In this deck, Mystical Teachings isn't just fetching instants, it's also actively killing stuff with Witches, or even fetching faeries! This deck needs more testing, but if there's interest then I'd be happy to have a follow-up with queue results in a future article.

Steam Machine

In my second article I mentioned a UR Control deck designed by kehmesis (or Boin?) and introduced my version of it. Just as a refresher, here is the list:

Steam Machine

by Doctor Anime

Creatures 3 Martyr of Ashes 4 Steamcore Weird 3 Izzet Chronarch 3 Mulldrifter 13 cards Other Spells 4 Firebolt 4 Lightning Bolt 1 Skred 1 Train of Thought 4 Counterspell 2 Muddle the Mixture 3 Remove Soul 1 Seismic Shudder 2 Compulsive Research 2 Rolling Thunder 24 cards

Lands 4 Izzet Boilerworks 6 Snow-Covered Mountain 9 Snow-Covered Island 4 Terramorphic Expanse 23 cards Sideboard 3 Deep Analysis 2 Exclude 3 Hindering Touch 1 Martyr of Ashes 4 Hydroblast 2 Negate 15 cards

At the time, the list worked fine. It was meant to beat aggro with the best, fastest removal available, including one of the best board wipes in the format in the form of Martyr of Ashes, while still having the blue card drawing chops to take on Teachings decks. I had a strong record with it in the 2-man queues and was confident enough to even take this list to my first ever Pauper PE, which only netted me two losses due to some wicked bad luck and didn't make it to top8 due to tiebreakers. Afterwards I shelved the deck and moved on to other things.

With ROE, however, I've come back to this list. Why? Because of this card:

Yes, Staggershock turned out to be very good. In my article reviewing the best burn spells, I explained why the two strongest burns red had for the longest time were Firebolt and Lightning Bolt. As I predicted in my ROE analysis, Staggershock isn't quite as good as Firebolt, mostly due to the fact that if it's countered then you don't get a Rebound effect while you can still flashback a Firebolt, though admittedly the instant speed is very nice. But there's no reason not to run Lightning Bolt, Firebolt, and Staggershock all at once. In fact, this is quickly becoming a popular thing to do, opening the doors for a new wave of red control decks. Much like Crypt Rats, Tendrils of Corruption, and Corrupt formed the Unholy Trinity of black removal, Staggershock, Firebolt, and Lightning Bolt are quickly becoming a sort of Burning Trinity.

Now coming back to Steam Machine. Back when I was playing the deck we only had two great red burn spells. But running enough red spells is vital if you want to play Martyr of Ashes, and you really do want to play that hot bombshell with Goblins racing down opponents at speeds most of us are already familiar with. So I ended up running Izzet Chronarch because he was red, even though the card was worse than a 4th Mulldrifter. Now I can fill up on red with a playset of Staggershock instead. A definite improvement!

There was also another new ROE card that I've been very impressed with: Sea Gate Oracle. His ability is simply amazing in practice, and the 1/3 body has always been relevant, especially against decks like Goblins. I knew that I wanted four of them in this deck and promptly cleared some room for it.

Finally, with the increased amount of removal at my disposal, this means there's even less of my opponent's creatures attacking... or blocking. I up'd the number of ETB creatures I run, which begs for a method to bounce them back to my hand for re-usability. Yup, Ninja of the Deep Hours ends up being awesome here and was an easy inclusion.

When everything comes together you get this:

Steam Machine v2.0

by Doctor Anime

Creatures 4 Steamcore Weird 4 Sea Gate Oracle 4 Mulldrifter 3 Ninja of the Deep Hours 15 cards Other Spells 4 Firebolt 4 Lightning Bolt 4 Staggershock 1 Train of Thought 4 Counterspell 1 Muddle the Mixture 1 Hurly-Burly 1 Rolling Thunder 1 Oona's Grace 21 cards

Lands 3 Izzet Boilerworks 6 Mountain 11 Island 4 Terramorphic Expanse 24 cards Sideboard 2 Deep Analysis 3 Dispel 2 Pyroblast 4 Martyr of Ashes 4 Hydroblast 15 cards

Price: $14.05

It's been working like a charm in practice and far more streamlined than the first build. The number of singleton cards may seem odd at first, but let me explain: Muddle the Mixture is acting as a toolbox here for those singletons. It's almost like a "second" card for any of those silver bullets. One of the best of these silver bullets is Train of Thought, which acts as an uncounterable blowout lategame against control decks. The only non-fetchable single card is Oona's Grace, which amazing as a 1of but you never want more than one due to the nature of the Retrace mechanic.

Goblins melt away like butter!

From testing, aggro in general is highly favorable and this includes the mighty Goblins. Against Control it comes down to protecting a ninja with counters and then burning a path to victory. This is surprisingly easy to do, especially if the opponent doesn`t have any lifegain, just aim the burn spells at the dome and win. Post-sb boosts you significantly as well, with Deep Analysis offering extra draw and Pyroblasts combined with Dispels to halt their pesky removals and countermagic. Game one against Storm is rough but post-sb you have many tools at your disposal for disrupting their combo. A usually strong option is to deny their red mana with a combination of Hydroblast, Dispel, Counterspell, and Muddle the Mixture to make them fizzle out, while Martyr takes care of any tokens.

I would say that currently the hardest deck to beat is BW Pestilence -- if you don't counter Guardian of the Guildpact, then there's no way that you can remove it from the board, and if Pestilence lands as well then it's game over.
 

The key to beating lategame control is to drop down threats with mana still ready for your countermagic.

I took the list to a recent EPDC tournament and placed second, eventually losing to BW Pestilence. There's potential here.

Long Road to Victory: UW Cogs

Last article, I showed off my latest creation, my version of the UW Blink archetype. I've been playing the deck extensively and have been achieving great results with it in queues and in tournaments. Here's my finalized list:

UW Cogs

by Doctor Anime

Creatures 4 Aven Riftwatcher 4 Court Homunculus 4 Mulldrifter 4 Sea Gate Oracle 4 Trinket Mage 3 Kor Skyfisher 3 Lone Missionary 2 Glassdust Hulk 28 cards Other Spells 4 Journey to Nowhere 4 Momentary Blink 1 Bonesplitter 9 cards

Lands 5 Plains 4 Ancient Den 4 Island 4 Seat of the Synod 4 Terramorphic Expanse 2 Azorius Chancery 23 cards Sideboard 4 Holy Light 4 Benevolent Unicorn 2 Dispeller's Capsule 2 Deep Analysis 2 Prismatic Strands 1 Viridian Longbow 15 cards

Price: $11.25

It's been working wonders in the queues, quickly converting all my tickets into a large stack of M10 boosters -- which unfortunately is dropping in price. Come on M11!

Cogs has also been doing well in tournaments. During the following Pauper PE after my last article, a player named empanadillahumana piloted the list got into the top8. Congrats! Then in this EPDC tournament I went undefeated with Cogs in the Swiss and won my first game in the top8 before having to leave to pick up a friend from the airport. I also participated in two Pauper PE's with the list myself. The first one I ended up going 5-2 in, both losses being 1-2's, one match loss being a poor mulligan choice on my part while the other was just sour luck. I ended up 10th spot, missing out on the top8 due to tiebreakers. In the second PE I just had some tremendously bad luck and went 4-3, earning me a big sum of nothing for my troubles. I hope fortune smiles on me next time I queue up with it.

If anyone is interested in piloting the deck themselves, here's some information on the matchups and how I board:

Goblins:
-1 Bonesplitter
-2 Glassdust Hulk
-4 Mulldrifter
+4 Holy Light
+1 Viridian Longbow
+2 Prismatic Strands
Easiest matchup. I'm 6-0 against Goblins in the queues. Ridiculous! I've never piloted a deck outside of WW that can post such results, usually being 2-0 wins to boot. Post-sb just wrecks them even more.

Burn:
-2 Journey to Nowhere
+2 Pristmatic Strands
Okay, I take it back. Goblins isn't the easiest matchup. Burn is! Seven lifegainers that can be abused with Blink means they're going to have a crazy time trying to burn you down. Queue the victory music as soon as you see the turn one Lava Spike.

WW:
-3 Lone Missionary
+2 Dispeller's Capsule
+1 Viridan Longbow
Game one can be mildly annoying if they draw all their Order of Leitbur and Shade of Trokair while you can't find any Journey to Nowhere. Even then, you can still race with flyers while using chump block + blink shenanigans. Post-sb the capsules destroy Razor Golem and their Journeys while Longbow pings away any X/1 they run, including Benevolent Bodyguard and Leitbur. Overall, it's a great matchup.

Storm:
-4 Journey to Nowhere
-3 Kor Skyfisher
-3 Mulldrifter
+4 Holy Light
+4 Benevolent Unicorn
+2 Prismatic Strands
Game one is a loss unless you curve out perfectly and force them to go off turn 4 and they fizzle out. Post-sb is where you pull out all the stops. Generally a Unicorn and Holy Light in hand means you win. Sometimes, however, they'll still have an answer to your hate and beat you anyway. Because of this, I'd say the matchup is about 50/50 and not much better than that.

BW Pestilence:
-2 Journey to Nowhere
+2 Dispeller's Capsule
Game one you don't have an answer to Pestilence lock-down and are likely to lose. Post-sb the Capsules ruin their day and you'll likely win it from there. If this matchup is worrisome for you, try to find room for a third Dispeller's Capsule in the SB and that should rule out any chances of losing.

Any Lategame Removal-heavy Control Deck:
-2 Aven Riftwatcher
+2 Deep Analysis
(-4 Riftwatcher +2 Deep +2 Strands if they're URburn Control)
To win this matchup you must understand this: Momentary Blink is your most important card against removal. This means it takes priority over your other actions. If you're applying pressure with creatures against your opponent and you have Blink plus other things in hand, always always keep mana ready for Blink if you suspect that your opponent has removal. Do not tap out to play a Mulldrifter and then lose all your creatures to removal spells. Seriously, keep Blink ready at all times! Do this and you will likely win. I stress this because I see too many people not using Blink properly and then getting terribly outplayed. Once you get the hang of that, heavy removal decks become quite favorable matchups.

UW Faerie Blink:
-3 Lone Missionary
+2 Deep Analysis
+1 Viridian Longbow
I've run into a couple UW Blink decks so far in the queues and tournaments. They don't run my list, but instead run stuff similar to the one I mention here. These UW decks win by racing down the opponent with flyers. Unfortunately for these decks, they can't do this because my list locks down the fly zone easily. So now the board is locked down and it's anyone's game, right? Not quite, because I run Glassdust Hulk, and he has a habit of becoming unblockable and swinging with a Bonesplitter while all they can do is Blink their Aven Riftwatcher to delay the inevitable. I have yet to lose this matchup. Just don't be stupid and keep a Blink ready in case they try and take Hulk out with Journey.

MUC:
-4 Aven Riftwatcher
+2 Deep Analysis
+2 Dispeller's Capsule
Now we come to the one decisively bad matchup for this deck. Things are just terribly stacked against you here. MUC thrives against slow decks that can't apply enough pressure before the iron curtain of countermagic locks down the board. This deck can sneak a 2/2 Court Homunculus or two, maybe even a Lone Missionary, but that's about it. Then there's the problem of Spire Golem. It's almost impossible to kill. You can do so with Bonesplitter, and I have yet to fail to sneak it into play to harass my opponent, but every game it has been eventually Echoing Truth'd back to hand despite them usually running two copies of the card. Echoing Truth also gives the middle finger to Journey to Nowhere, the only real removal you've got. Post-sb you have a little more ammo with Dispeller's Capsule but it's hardly enough.

This matchup could get much, much better with a playset of Dispel in the sideboard, but I'm tight on slots and can't justify putting it in. This might change if MUC becomes more popular.

Summary:
Goblins and Burn are nearly freebies for the deck. WW and UW Faerie Blink are very favorable. Removal-heavy control decks and Pestilence are favorable. Storm feels 50/50 due to a bad game1. MUC is very unfavorable. The deck definitely needs practice to play correctly. It often puts you in situations where the right answer is not obvious unless you have the experience.

Is Cogs a good meta call right now? With MUC highly represented in the past two PEs, I'm not sure. I'd likely run it if Spire Golem representation went down in the future.

That's It For Now!

Hope you enjoyed this article and the new lists that I've shown. If you're tired with playing the same ol' Goblins and Storm then give those a shot. Thanks for reading!