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By: longtimegone, That Guy
Aug 29 2014 12:00pm
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So, it seems that I and many others may have been a bit too quick to call the code on the Pauper format, as the beeping machines have all sprung back to live and the patient seems to be taking its first tentative breaths once more!

At least for 3 days a week.

But that’s a great start, and I’ve heard from people at WotC that they are looking at expanding the Pauper format offerings as we go on from here.

So, we have now had our first weekend of Pauper “dailies”, and what can we say about the beast now that it has shambled back from beyond the grave? Let’s see what the weathergoblin can tell us:


The first thing to note is that while there are certain pillars of the format that you need to plan to run in to every event, the format was still a solid 1/3rd rogue decks, making rogue the largest group.  This may well be part of why MBC remains so well positioned in the meta, it tends to do a very good job of dealing with random rogues with its existing toolbox.

After that, we see the two usual suspects, MBC and Delver fighting it out for 2nd and 3rd, with MBC taking it quite handily this week. Goblins came in just barely behind delver, so live is looking pretty good for our little green men. Rounding out the major meta, we see a reasonable amount of CyclopsFiend, and just enough Tron to continue to justify LD in your sideboard.  

For those curious about the decks that make up that big purple slice o’ pie, I’m starting up the Rogues Gallery, where I will post the numeric breakdown of the Rogue group each week and include links to the decks for those that want to take a closer look.

Stompy 2
Hexchant 2
Izzet Delver 2
Golgari Tortured Existence 2
Burn 2
Familiar Storm 1
Kuldotha Boros 1
WW 1
Nylea's Flames 1
Izzet Control 1
UB Teachings 1
Affinity 1
Trinket Control 1
Mono White Tokens 1

Featured this week from the Rogues Gallery, we see an infinite damage combo that’s been hiding under a rock for a while. 

 

You can probably see what's going on here, but the idea is to ramp mana with defenders like Axebane Guardian and Overgrown Battlement , cast Freed from the Real on one of them to generate infinite mana, and use it to power infinite untaps to ping your opponent to death with Viridian Longbow.


As for our own local PCT metagame, we see a fair bit of similarity. 1st 2nd and 3rd are all the same apart from MBC and Delver trading places.

My favorite new thing from this week's event was an all in mono W tokens deck, running not only 4x Battle Screech from MMA, but everyone’s most beloved/hated m15 common, Triplicate Spirits. This deck went undefeated in the swiss rounds before getting knocked out in the first round of the top 8, against MBC. I didn’t see the match, but I do see 3 main deck Crypt Rats, so I’ve got a pretty good idea of what happened.  If I was going to take this deck out, I’d seriously consider adding Prismatic Strands to the sideboard to protect against what few sweepers the Pauper format does have. 

White Tokens by Plainswalker83
 
Creatures
4 Doomed Traveler
4 Soul Warden
3 Soul's Attendant
4 Stonybrook Schoolmaster
15 cards

Other Spells
4 Battle Screech
4 Fortify
4 Gather the Townsfolk
4 Guardians' Pledge
4 Raise the Alarm
4 Triplicate Spirits
20 cards
Lands
21 Plains
21 cards

Triplicate Spirits

 

Finally, we have the winner of this week’s PCT event, Perilous Affinity by Mikeyk159, going undefeated against every opponent except white tokens. 

 

That's all for this week, get out there and play in those dailies!