For Merlin, the color of magic may be green (cf. Matt Wagner's Mage), but in the latest two Pauper PEs, the color of magic is clearly blue.  Between the last two PEs, half of the finalists have been Mono-Blue Control (MUC) decks.  Of the remaining eight decks, six of them have included blue spells, including Storm, Affinity, Team America, and Blue/Red Aggro-Control archetypes.  While the June 18 deck did not include a single deck without a blue spell, the June 27 included two: a Goblin deck and a Black/White control deck. 

While observers of the June 18 PE can take solace in the fact that a MUC deck did not win, that honor went to an Affinity build.  Given the history of love and hate for affinity among players around for Urza's Saga, this may be a rather gloomy bright side.  The increased representation of MUC within the PE finals began in the June 11 PE with three top-8 finishes, but exploded to true dominance this week over the past two weeks.

Solace, however, is not available for the June 27 PE as MUC traded two top 8 positions for the overall win.  The domination of the Pauper format by a single archetype is not unusual for Pauper as Goblins and White Weenie have gone through periods of domination.  Even before the official PE, decks such as Mono-Black control dominated player run events (PREs).

There are a number of interesting tidbits from the deck lists of the top 8 from June 18.  From a deck construction perspective, Mulldrifter is nearly absent from the MUC builds (3 total among the five mono-blue control decks), but is a key cog to the UWr and UR control decks with four copies in each.  This is a significant evolution of the mono-blue control deck over what was being run months ago.  Errant Ephemeron is beginning to show up, which is a challenge for decks relying on Lightning Bolt or other burn spells for their removal.  What I find most interesting among the five mono-blue control decks, however, is that the newest card in the deck lists is Dispel from Worldwake.

The mono-blue decks from June 27 varied a bit as Mulldrifter counted in at two or more copies in the top two MUC decks, but was not included in the fifth place entry.  The second place finish for the week went to a Goblin deck that had to defeat a Storm deck and the third place MUC deck to reach the finals.  Electrostatic Bolt in the sideboard of the Goblin deck provides a nice answer to every creature MUC puts into play except Errant Ephemeron.

The preponderance of successful MUC decks caps a shifting metagame from aggressive, creature-oriented decks which peaked on June 5, 2010 with four Goblin and two Stompy decks in the top 8.  As Pestilence and Martyr of Ashes show up in the tournament in higher numbers, the viability of these blitz decks decreases.  Centering on flyers allows MUC to ignore Martyr of Ashes, and Pestilence is a late enough play to allow a counterspell deck to be prepared.  Given enough time, the metagame will shift to strategies which will challenge mono-blue control for supremacy.

On a completely separate note, I had a bit of spare time on Tuesday night and found time to tune into a round of TPDC matches.  For the most part, I hate watching other people play games as I would rather be playing myself, but I was doing other things and decided to tune into a match or two on the side.  I watched Doctor Anime win his first match and then tuned into a match in the second round between Anil and bluedragon123.

The match between Anil and bluedragon123 was a pleasure to watch for two reasons.  First, both were playing interesting decks with bluedragon123 using a four-colored deck featuring snow-covered lands, Skred, Mulldrifter, Duress, Krosan Tusker, and Wickerbough Elder (at least post-sideboard).  Anil had a blue/white blink deck that appeared to include full playsets of Journey to Nowhere and Oblivion Ring along with Momentary Blink to trigger Aven Riftwatcher, Kor Skyfisher, Sea Gate Oracle, and Mulldrifter, which at one point, lead to Anil pointing out that this was the first time he was able to combo Journey to Nowhere, Kor Skyfisher, and Momentary Blink to permanently exile an opposing creature.

That gets to the heart of what made the game a pleasure to observe.  Anil and bluedragon123 conversed throughout the game.  In an environment that is particularly sterile and requires no actual interaction between players (outside of the chat dock, each player is truly interacting with the changes in objects on their screen, not with the other player), these two players chatted about good plays, unusual plays, and the flow of the match.  I know this level of sportsmanship happens here and there, even in PEs, but as a spectator, the chat pulled me into the game as much as the gameplay.

Pauper is a straightforward environment.  It allows for deck construction using only cards that have been printed as common on MTGO (note that this means that some cards printed as common in paper Magic are not legal in Pauper and that some cards have been printed as common Online, but never in paper, and these are legal).  The banned list for Classic Pauper is very manageable and consists of exactly one card:

• Cranial Plating

The next Pauper Challenge Premier Event will be held:

• Saturday July 3, 2010 at 5PM EST

In addition to the Pauper Challenge, there are currently two player run events using the Classic Pauper format.  The first is the Tuesday Pauper Deck Challenge (or TPDC) which is held on Tuesdays at 7:30 PM EST.  The second is the European Pauper Deck Challenge (or EPDC) which is held on Thursdays at 3:30 PM EST.

Note that EPDC is on hiatus while a search for a new permanent host is underway for season 2.  If you are interested in volunteering to be the host, please check here.

The following table provides an overview of each event showing the number of players for each event and the deck archetypes that reached each round of the finals of these events.

The following pie chart illustrates the overall performance of the archetypes to reach the finals of each tournament.

The June 27 PE was one of the largest pauper events I have seen.  The number of archetypes among these three events is relatively flat compared to other weeks, but each event had two different archetypes in Top 2.  While MUC may be dominating, it is clear that there are other options that are working in pauper.

Before getting into a discussion of the metagame, here is a breakdown to the deck archetypes found in Classic Pauper.  While some archetypes are perennial top performers in these tournaments, other archetypes are more sporadic in the performance.  The list below identifies the most common archetypes in Pauper Classic.  This list will be updated as new archetypes enter the collective consciousness of Pauper Classic.  While many players will have a slightly different perspectives on why a deck fits into an archetype or not, these definitions will be used to breakdown the metagame for each week's tournaments.

The graphs provided indicate the number of decks of the archetype that reached the Top 8 of the week's Pauper Challenge PE.

• Affinity
  Using artifact lands and other low-cost artifacts, this deck casts Frogmite and Myr Enforcer cheaply and then uses Thoughtcast and Rush of Knowledge to keep a hand full of cards to build an insurmountable battlefield presence.  Affinity can be a single or multiple colored deck, but is always centered around blue.  With Springleaf Drum, the deck can easily support one or more splash colors providing it with the ability to use a handful of slots in the main deck and the entire sideboard to the best options to combat the field regardless of color requirements.

• Black/White Control
  This deck leverages these enemy colors to utilize powerful multicolored cards such as Castigate and Unmake to limit the opponents options.  The variations among these decks ranges from heavy discard to heavy creature control with a wide range middle points.  Most modern versions run Pestilence, Guardian of the Guildpact, and Wall of Hope, providing for extensive life gain to stymie many opposing decks.

• Blue/Black Control
  Starting with Agony Warp and including card draw, discard, counterspells, and creature control from these two colors, this deck typically attempts to control both spells cast and eliminate creatures that enter the battlefield.  There are two sub-archetypes of Blue/Black Control.  The first centers around Mystical Teachings and a large mana base to pull the most relevant instants from the deck at any time.  The second eschews Mystical Teachings to include more raw card draw.  The Mystical Teachings variation will occasionally include a third color, typically white but infrequently red, but still operates very similarly to the two-colored version.

• Blue/Red Aggro-Control
  This deck pulls in blue's card draw and Counterspell with red's direct damage (Lightning Bolt and Firebolt for example) to produce sufficient power to minimize the opponent's presence on the board and to keep a full hand.  The key card in the deck is Steamcore Weird which provides for a 1/3 blocker while often eliminating an opposing creature when it comes into play (potentially multiple times with due to Dream Stalker or Ninja of the Deep Hours).

• Esper Control
  This flexible archetype varies from build-to-build, but commonly includes Aven Riftwatcher, Mulldrifter, Disfigure, and Echoing Decay.  The deck seeks to trigger "enters the battlefield" effects and gain creature advantage through cheating creatures into play through Amrou Scout-like abilities or the saving and reusing creatures with Momentary Blink.  This deck leverages the strengths of blue's card draw and black's creature destruction with efficient white creatures and flexible sideboard options.

• Goblins
  A red deck featuring aggressive, low cost red creatures with a smattering of direct damage.  The deck can run as few as 18 lands and rarely runs more than 7 non-creature spells, leaving space for more than 30 red creatures with casting costs of 2 or less.  Goblins is a really a subarchetype of Sligh, but Goblins is the version you are most likely to see in Pauper, so this archetype is indicated as Goblins/Sligh (rather than Sligh/Goblins).  Typical inclusions are Goblin Sledder, Mogg Fanatic, and Sparksmith.  

• IzzetPost
  This control deck centers around three cards.  Cloudpost powers out Capsize with buyback and Rolling Thunder to significant amounts of damage.  While a significant portion of the deck is engineered to provide a mana ramp (Expedition Map to search for Cloudpost and Dimir Signet & Izzet Signet to increase mana production).  Card draw and enough counterspells and direct damage round out the deck to allow it to reach the mid-game when its strategy can take control of the game.

• Mono-Black Control
  This is a deck that is widely adaptable, as it leverages card draw (e.g., Sign in Blood and Phyrexian Rager), discard (e.g., Duress and Chittering Rats), creature control (e.g., Diabolic Edict and Disfigure), life gain (e.g., Corrupt and Tendrils of Corruption), and graveyard reuse (e.g., Warren Pilferers and Grim Harvest) to produce a deck that is greater than the sum of its parts.  This mono-colored black deck runs more land than either White Weenie or Goblins, but each Swamp drawn improves the effectiveness of Tendrils of Corruption and Corrupt.
  
   
• Mono-Blue Control
  The quintessential blue deck that runs a plethora of counterspells (including Counterspell) and card draw (such as Brainstorm and Think Twice) in combination with a few creatures (Mulldrifter and Spire Golem being the most common) to provide a methodical approach to outlasting and then defeating an opponent.  Some variations run a few bounce spells (such as Into the Roil) to deal with anything consistent that makes it through their counterspells.

• Red Deck Wins (or RDW)
  Red Deck Wins is an archetype that has existed in a wide variety of environments.  The deck uses a limited number of creatures to back a exhaustive range of direct damage spells.  Running as few as 16 land, the deck can draw into damage inflicting spells on a consistent basis.  Common inclusions in Red Deck Wins are Lightning Bolt, Spark Elemental, and Fireblast.  Kiln Fiend and Needle Drop show up in some variations for longer lasting threats and card draw, respectively.

• Slivers
  In pauper, this archetype is White and Green and centers around the Muscle Sliver and Sinew Sliver to produce very large, cheap creatures.  With Virulent Sliver, the deck has an option that allows it to win even against decks that gain a substantial amount of life.  Finally, the deck features Thrill of the Hunt to protect its creatures from direct damage and trades with blockers.

• Stompy
  Primarily a green deck, the Stompy archetype features a heavy preponderance of creatures and a low land count.  Where Sligh and Zoo contain direct damage and control elements, Stompy uses spells to increase the effectiveness of their creatures and end the game before an opponent can mount a concentrated defense.  Cards such as Giant Growth, Jungle Lion, Rancor, and Skarrgan Pit-Skulk are common inclusions.

• Storm
  This is the premier combo deck of pauper and comes in two flavors.  One variation uses only red and blue to produce its cascade of mana production and card draw leading up to its finale, while the other includes black in place of some of the blue card draw and some of the red mana creation.  Both versions ramp up to Empty the Warrens or Grapeshot as their finale.  The red/blue variation will run Goblin Bushwhacker to expedite a win condition via Empty the Warrens.

• Tortured Existence
  Inspired by the synergy between Tortured Existence and Madness, this archetype includes mono-black decks as well as black-green decks.  The deck features a variety of Madness creatures such as Gorgon Recluse and Grave Scrabbler alongside Dredge creatures such as Stinkweed Imp and Golgari Brownscale.  The reliance on Tortured Existence varies by build, but discard enablers such as Vampire Hounds and Wild Mongrel can provide additional discard mechanisms.  Able to produce a substantial number of aggressive creatures, this deck can eschew any form of control for an aggressive attack approach or include a measure of black control such as Nameless Inversion.

• Zoo
  This deck combines highly efficient creatures to (e.g., Basking Rootwalla and Boreal Centaur) with creature control that may come in the form of the flexible Lightning Bolt or more guaranteed creature elimination of Journey to Nowhere.  Variations include two-color Red-Green, Red-Green with a single Plains along with mana fixing such as Terramorphic Expanse (boosting the extremely efficient Wild Nacatl to its full potential), White-Green, and Red-Green-White.
  

Now that we have been through high level overviews and breakdowns, here are the first and second place decks from the week's Pauper events: 

Good luck navigating the currents of Pauper Classic and I hope this provides a useful resource for the overall environment.