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Rise of the Eldrazi has finally went online and let me tell you, I haven't been this excited for an expansion in a long time. The theme gives me a great fantasy War of the Worlds vibe in a good way, the level up mechanic is super sweet for limited and gives a nod to D&D, and the cards are fun without being ridiculous -- for the most part at least, coughcoughEmrakulcoughwheeeze.

Cards are short on supply until the prerelease events start firing, but already if you waltz over to Tournament Practice you'll see many players trying out new ROE-centered decks in Block and Standard. I haven't seen too much ROE being splashed into Pauper decks yet, but I'm sure that will change after more people own the cards. I've been doing some dabbling however. I've got two casual decks to share, then a competitive one.

RG Eldrazi Spawn

First an ROE-emphasis Eldrazi Spawn deck. The goal is to try to make a straightforward and consistent deck that maximizes the Spawn tokens, instead of something very risky like the Eldrazi Exhume style. Basically, take the best Eldrazi Spawn generators and find a good purpose for those tokens, be it mana accel, giant fatty drops, something.

Step #1: The Spawn Generators:

First thing's first, we need good eldrazi spawn generators. Let's take a look at all the ones that are in Pauper:

Many of these cards are unexciting in Pauper since we have better alternatives. Compare Growth Spasm to Kodama's Reach, Spawning Breath to Lightning Bolt, or Brood Birthing to Rite of Flame. Though I really like the artwork, Essence Feed and Dread Drone are just plain bad. But there's some good ones here, namely these three:

I'd say those are the best spawn generators. Each one leaves a fatty creature to directly affect the board state, and in a sense they're all "mana efficient" at it as well. So to play them, we're in GR.

Step #2: Finding a Purpose

Now comes the hard part. We need good ways of using these tokens so we can justify playing this type of deck in the first place. WOTC clearly wants us to use them with stuff like Broodwarden and Hellion Eruption, or to accelerate into powerful Eldrazi cards. We have two Eldrazi, but we also have a staggering pool of commons to sort through and find creative uses for the tokens.

This is where the deck can go from "okay" to "great." Here's some that I thought of:

Hand of Emrakul is an obvious choice. Sacrifice 4 tokens, get a 7/7 beatstick with Annihilator 1. This is worthwhile in my book, but keep in mind that you might not always have 4 tokens out which can get annoying. His big butt makes him difficult to kill, you really need White removal like Journey to Nowhere or Unmake to deal with it, or Black's Diabolic Edict, though the latter will be more difficult to pull off with so many creatures and tokens. However, I will NOT run him. Why? Because another option that we already have in Pauper is already ten times better -- Kavu Primarch.

Kavu Primarch can also be a 7/7 beatstick. In fact, it would cost you the exact same amount of mana to cast Kavu Primarch as it would to cast Hand of Emrakul with the four token shortcut. The difference here is that while Hand has Annihilator 1, Primarch has an infinitely more consistent and flexbile mana cost. Don't have enough to play him as a 7/7, or just want to squeeze in an extra spell during your turn? Play him as a 3/3 for a major discount. Or even free. Yeah, he fits very well here. Move over, Eldrazi god-things!

Is the Primarch not enough beatdown fun for you? How about Siege Wurm? Less flexible, a bit more expensive, but it comes with Trample which is a very important ability for fat creatures to really put some pressure on the opponent.

Hissing Iguanar is another great inclusion. Just for using the tokens normally, you're turning them all into an extra 1 damage to the opponent. The damage adds up fast and fits well in an aggressive RG deck.

With a sacrificed token, Primal Growth basically gives you two lands for 2cc (3cc to cast plus a token worth 1cc, but both lands enter play untapped). In this deck, that's much stronger than a usually better card like Kodama's Reach.

Rancor turns every wimpy 0/1 token you make into a bonafide killer. It gives your fatties Trample, and that includes mister 7/7 Primarch, who really doesn't like being chump blocked by 1/1's. If you don't have Rancor, Bonesplitter would still be good on the tokens.

Thorn-thrash Viashino is likely going to be a 6/6 that can Trample. That's pretty good. I think I'd like Siege Wurm more though.

Violent Outburst turns your wimpy 0/1's into wimpy 1/1's and cascades into hopefully Nest Invader. 1/1's with no evasion aren't generally something that I'd like to attack with. Pass.

Echoing Courage turns those tokens into 2/2's. To me this feels a bit too situational, and you really want an army of these tokens to make this card worthwhile for an aplha strike. Pass.

Raid Bombardment lets you suicide your tokens to ping your opponent. Compare this to the Iguanar, which lets you suicide your tokens while making them do something useful. Pass.

Step #3: Filling It Out

Alright, now to fill out the rest of the deck. This is what I propose:

You're in red so you might as well be running their two best burn spells, so in goes LB and Firebolt.

Essence Warden might be regulated to SB if there's no room, but she's a game winner against aggro and burn since all those tokens will trigger lifegain.

Every deck likes card draw, but not all of them can afford it. This deck can afford it. Citanul Woodreaders keeps the steam up and that should never be underestimated.

Rolling Thunder is yet another amazing red removal, capable of blowing out your opponent's board or just burning his remaining life total.

Vines of Vastwood makes sure your fatties survive, but also gives you some nice combat tricks.

Colossal Might just looks really fun. I think Vines is overall a stronger card, but slapping Colossal Might on any creature for massive trampling damage sounds very appealing.

Step #4: Putting It Together

When assembling the deck, I noticed that there was a lack of 2drops. That means I could easily add some Gruul Turf with no issues, probably even a 4th too. This gives the deck lots of mana and no worry of missing land drops, which means Primal Growth or any other land fetch is likely unnecessary.

Other than that, I think it's looking pretty nice. You've got beaters, mana accel, card draw, and the best removal spells in the format. Best of all, it doesn't revolve around one gimmicky card interaction like Exhume, thus not crumbling to a single Journey to Nowhere.

Unfortunately, I couldn't test this deck out myself. I never got my hands on a playset of Nest Invader in time and wanted to push this article out before I had to leave. Some playtesting might reveal a few needed tweaks, but I believe that the overall concept is sound.

RG Defender

Next deck is pretty silly. The idea came from this thread. Germ suggested a UR deck built around Vent Sentinel. Put tons of defenders in the deck, then burn the opponent away after you lock down the board.

I thought the deck concept was super fun and different. I think swapping the blue out for green would be much more powerful however. With green you have access to some really powerful walls that beg to be in GR: Tinder Wall, Wall of Roots and the exceptionally insane Overgrown Battlement. Having access to very powerful mana ramp will let you unload your hand quickly, and if that hand is carrying Citanul Woodreaders, all the better! It also makes Rolling Thunder that much more powerful and viable alternative win-con.

The deck wants to win by locking down the board with beefy defenders and removing any threats with amazing burn spells, then finish the job with Vent Sentinel or a pumped Rolling Thunder. Simple and hopefully effective.

I won't give a step-by-step approach on building this deck, but here's my build:

Winning with a Defender deck?? Awesome. I ended up doing some games in Tournament Practice and discovered that it's surprisingly quick at killing opponents:

Lethal Rolling Thunders taking the game on Turn 7, even through constant removal.

Plain Ol' Vent Sentinel beatdowns work too, winning by Turn 7 as well.

Vent Sentinel, Overgrown Battlement, and Rolling Thunder are definitely the key components to the deck. This makes the playset of Citanul Woodreaders crucial to drawing into those pieces and letting you win faster. Things happen fast with this much mana acceleration. Overall I'd say this deck is like a more aggro-tuned Izzetpost deck, more capable of handling a fast creature onslaught and wins through lethal burn damage faster. The downside is that it's much more vulnerable to removal-heavy control decks, since it's rather light on card draw and the key pieces are vulnerable creatures, not lands like in Izzetpost. Oh, and you don't beat Storm, ever. Like I said, casual fun! Maybe it has potential in Standard Pauper?

UW Trinket Blink

Alright, now to talk about my current competitive pet deck. Trinket Blink falls under the great big umbrella of Momentary Blink decks called Grand Entrance. I've already talked to death about Momentary Blink decks and how they've shaped the Pauper format since its inception so I won't repeat myself here. You know it's a good archetype already.

Trinket Blink decks, as the name suggests, focused its build around Trinket Mage. The idea is to fetch a whole bunch of useful 1cc artifacts like Bonesplitter or Viridian Longbow. Generally these decks splashed black for an Orzhov Blink feel with cards like Ravenous Rats and Blind Hunter, or red for great burn spells, especially Pyrite Spellbomb.

I became interested in this archetype recently when people suggested that I run Trinket Mage in the UG Entrance deck and instead of just fetching lands with it, add a mini toolbox of cards to fetch to make the deck more powerful. The more I played around with this idea, the more I realized that it is indeed quite strong when done correctly. It was very apparent that UW uses Trinket Mage much better, not only because of the mighty Blink but also because the toolbox was fleshed out even further with the inclusion of Court Homunculus. Not too many lists were running the Homunculus, which I found strange, since a fetchable 2/2 for 1cc is an amazing bargain and turns the Trinket Mage into a mini Ranger of Eos.

So I decided to build Trinket Blink. I tried both the red and black splashes, but both felt clunky. Going tri-color really messes up the consistency of Pauper decks if you're just relying on lands to fix your mana. Trinket Blink is in a fairly unique situation that Trinket Mage and Chromatic Cantrips can fix the mana for you, but the downside to this is that you're wasting valuable deck space just running enough of them, and it doesn't fix the problem entirely.

In the end of my playtesting I was left wondering, "Is splashing a third color worth it?" I think back when these decks were built, the answer was "yes." For a long time the perception of UW was that it didn't have enough good cards to play Blink at its maximum potential, thus people splashed into red/black to fill the deck with more goodies. But times change. Zendikar block is fully released and we've received three huge boosts to UW: Bounce and a terrific creature in Kor Skyfisher, amazing removal in Journey to Nowhere and finally the newest inclusion to the group, Sea Gate Oracle.

Is UW now good enough to run Trinket Blink without any third color splash? Yes, absolutely. After much testing and tweaking from Tournament Practice games and 2man queues, this is my current build:

This deck draws cards. Tons of cards. Trinket Mage usually fetches another 2/2 to play on the board or a splitter to break through defenses, but the real beauty here is the longbow, which lategame simply wins by attaching it to multiple creatures each turn for sick damage. Longbow likes to sit on an Oracle in general. Sea Gate Oracle is like a mini-Impulse and is superb at helping you dodge excess lands. Mulldrifter is, well, Mulldrifter. All of these can be abused and abused some more by Momentary Blink, which puts your card draw over the top while also protecting your dudes from targeted removal. I don't think I've ever run this much card draw in one deck. It's amazing watching everything go off.

The inclusion of Glassdust Hulk may seem odd at first. Those are there as alternative win conditions when the board is locked down, even the fly-zone. You plop him on the board and you can consistently activate him each turn to make him an unblockable 4/5. Now throw Bonesplitter on him. 6/5. You can even activate him multiple times before attacking. He ends stalemates in a hurry.

The Good:

Aggro decks beat control just by winning before control can stabilize. Midrange and control decks, however, usually win through card advantage. Trinket Blink runs a ridiculous amount of card advantage, moreso than any Teachings deck that I've come across. If you play smart and make the most out of your Blinks by baiting removal before using it then everything falls into place. I'd say this matchup is favorable but not overwhelmingly so. Getting land flooded will almost certainly spell doom, especially if the opponent has drawn a Mystical Teachings and starts fetching each EOT due to your inaction. Post-sb Deep Analysis helps too.

Goblins is another good match, but again not an auto-win. You have strong blockers that gain you life and keep your hand filled, a recipe for success against aggro. Things can still go sour, however, if they hit a nut draw while you have a slow hand that doesn't kick in until turn 3. That's Goblins for you, we're all used to it by now. Post-SB Holy Light and Lone Missionary raises the odds further in your favor.

WW is easiest match of the bunch. Shade of Trokair is the only major worry about this deck. You need to find a Journey to Nowhere to deal with him. Thankfully, you have tons of card draw to find one and no Benevolent Bodyguard is going to stop it since you can ping it away with your Longbow. You can also ping away the Order of Leitbur in the same manner. Post-sb, bring out the Capsules to destroy Golems and their Journeys.

The Bad:

I haven't actually tested against Elves or Slivers but I could imagine both matchups being bad.

Well, Elves doesn't look terrible. You've got the Longbow for pinging, Journey to take out the important elves, and finally post-sb Holy Lights for mass wipes. Not too shabby I guess.

Slivers is another beast altogether though. They get big, fast. Journey is a fine answer again, but the other removal available won't cut it. If I cared enough about this match then I'd probably run a single fetchable Runed Stalactite to have a far beefier "Sliver" on my side defending. But with Slivers almost non-existent in the meta, I think I'll pass on that.

The ???:

White and Blue are two of the three colors that can actually beat Storm, the last color being Black. Blue does it with counters, Black with hand disruption, and White with damage prevention on top of lifegain and board wipe. Either way, you have to invest a whole bunch of your sideboard to beat Storm consistently. This is why I call Storm the most powerful, format-warping archetype in Pauper.

Anyhoo, I could only get a handful of games played against Storm decks. The first game is an auto-loss, but post-sb White gives the deck a hard counter to Grapeshot with Benevolent Unicorn and equally backbreaking Holy Light to Warrens. Games come down whether or not you have an answer to what they try and finish you off with, so aggressive mulling is advised. If you have both cards ready then you've won. I need to record more results before I can say if this is favorable or not, it feels 50/50 right now.

Now that we've got the deck analysis out of the way, let's see it in action. Some of these replays will feature various tweaks to the deck that I tried before settling on the build posted above, like Loenin Squire maindeck, or Hydroblast and Dispel in the sideboard. 2man queue results ahoy!

Off To The Queues:

G1 vs. BW Pestilence (MikeMcD)

I've been running into quite a few Pestilence decks in the queues lately. With such a strong ability at locking down the board against decks low on enchantment destruction, I'm not surprised. Being invested in Black and White also lets them have a strong matchup against Combo, if they decide to invest enough sideboard slots for it. This is definitely a deck to keep an eye out for.

Mike wins the roll and goes first:

We both keep our hands. I have some nice land-thinning expanses, a Mulldrifter that I will likely be able to hardcast right on time, and an early 2/2 bear in case my opponent is aggro.

Mike starts things off by hitting me with two back-to-back Castigates, taking my Mulldrifter and Squire. I develop my side of the board with Aven Riftwatchers and Kor Skyfishers, but Mike drops the Guardian of the Guildpact and Pestilence combo early. At this point I can't win, since I have no way of dealing with either the Guardian or Pestilence. I put up a fight anyway and keep dropping creatures each turn with ridiculous card draw, but with the board being wiped clean each turn, there's not much I can do.

Sideboard:
-1 Viridan Longbow
-1 Journey to Nowhere
+2 Dispeller's Capsule

G2

Now I actually have a fetchable answer to his board lock. My seven hand only has one land so I turn it away and get this:

A turn 1 answer to his board lock and a way to fetch a second one, yes please! I keep this hand and Mike keeps his seven. I feel it's important to play the Capsule turn 1 instead of the Expanse, because last match he showed me maindecked Duress.

I start drawing a bunch of lands for the first couple of turns while Mike Castigates my Trinket Mage. I draw Sea Gate Oracle, which picks up a Mulldrifter, while my opponent plays Wall of Hope and Guardian of the Guildpact. I Journey to Nowhere his Wall and start racing the Guardian, dropping an endless stream of creatures from my card draw.

Mike puts out another Guardian and Wall, but I keep dishing out the flying beats. Eventually I draw Glassdust Hulk, which lets me push through his defenses and even stop the Guardians cold in their tracks. No amount of removal can stop my board domination at that point.

G3

Mike keeps his hand while I open up this:

Stuff to do and land to make it happen, an easy keep.

This match was over in a hurry. Every turn brought me more ahead of my opponent in terms of card advantage and the board quickly morphed into the same scenario that happened in game two. The below picture prompted a concession from Mike.

G1 Vs. UB Teachings (Skwiskar664)

My opponent goes first and keeps his seven while I look at this:

Honestly, not a great hand. It has far too much land with little action, especially if the Oracle is hit with removal before I can protect him with Blink. Still, I figure that I'm going second, dropping a first turn land-thinner, and then have the Oracle to dig for something to do for turn 4. I keep.

Things look alright at the beginning when I draw Trinket Mage and Mulldrifter, but then quickly sour as I draw too much land while my opponent sits comfortably with four mana and counters anything I try to place on the board. I guess I had it coming with my choice not to mull, but my opponent's hand was particularly wicked as well.

None of my few spells stick and Twisted Abominations on his end finish the job.

Sideboard:
-3 Aven Riftwatcher
-1 Viridian Longbow
+4 Dispel
For sideboarding with my current list, I bring in +3 Deep Analysis instead. It's actually much stronger than Dispel here.

G2

My opponent mulls to 6 while I ponder this hand:

 

At least one of the Leonin Squires will be played turn 2 as a vanilla bear, but with Trinket Mage hopefully resolving turn 3 and fetching a Court Homunculus, the second Squire might be lucky enough to fetch the Homunculus when it dies. On a side note, these sort of situations was a big reason why the Squires got cut for Lone Missionary instead, which boosts the matchup versus Goblins / Storm / Burn further as well.

With me going first and my opponent dropping CIT lands for his first two turns, I get to cast my first handful of creatures undisturbed and really that's all you need to win this one. Winning that first game dice roll really is more important than some people realize.

G3

The shuffler presents me with this:

As long as I hit that third land, I'm golden. Oh, and if my opponent doesn't have a counter for all my starting creatures, that would be sweet too. I keep and so does Villain.

My opponent spends the first turns tapping out for Chittering Rats and Deep Analysis, so my first creatures slip through without an issue. Villain eventually mops up most of my creatures with removal, but I'm still keeping up with the card draw and applying pressure.

Eventually my Mulldrifter equipped with Bonesplitter finishes the job, winning the match for me.

G1 vs. Goblins (kaloyanpetkov)

I win the roll and crack open this:

This is a business hand. I keep, so does Kaloyan.

My opponent's first turn Mogg Conscripts is Journey'd, but he quickly builds up his side of the board and Lightning Bolts my Oracle. I throw as many creatures as I can in front of his angry green men, who are occasionally pumped by Song of Blood for +3/+0 beats, but eventually I start bouncing my Aven Riftwatchers multiple times to keep my life total nice and toasty. Eventually my air force takes the game.

Sideboard:
-1 Bonesplitter
-2 Glassdust Hulk
-2 Mulldrifter
-1 Momentary Blink
+4 Holy Light
+2 Lone Missionary

G2

Kaloyan keeps his hand while I mulligan to six and stick with this beauty:

Things start off alright. I mean sure, my opponent has a Mogg Fanatic to deal with my Missionary and he's plopped two Intimidator Initiate on the board, but I'll just stall with lifegain anyway and then remove them with Journey or Holy Light. That was the plan at least.

That plan was shot as soon as Gorilla Shaman showed up. Why? Well, look at my unfortunate lands in this particular scenario.

Well, the game went down the drain after that. Oh, and guess what my next card was!

Proof that the shuffler has a sense of humour!

G3

My opponent mulls to six while I keep this hand, for it is both delicious and nutritious:

I drop the Longbow on turn 1, but Kaloyan puts down a Cohort, Sledder, aaaaaand Gorilla Shaman. With the sledder down, I can't kill it off with Holy Light and it snags the Longbow before its taken by a Journey.

Villain kept the heat up until around turn 8, sparking smiths and whacking bushes along the way, but eventually peters out while my hand stays full of steam and the match is won.

Conclusion

Trinket Blink is strong. It can hold off hyper-aggro decks with lifegain but still has more than enough card advantage to deal with control decks. Being able to fetch anti-artifact and enchantment hate also is a huge boon against a wide variety of decks, from Pestilence to Affinity. It's strange and unfortunate that I did not run into Storm in the queues to post as an example, but with a playset of Benevolent Unicorn and Holy Light, that matchup shouldn't be a huge problem with some smart mulligans.

If I had to choose a deck to run in the next PE, it would likely be this one. That won't be happening for a couple weeks, however, and I won't have any new articles in that time either. I'll be in Japan (briefly) and in South Korea for that time, boozing it up and backpacking. If any of you have ever seen a Korean Starcraft tournament video; you know when they zoom on that one white guy in the audience? I'm gunning for that position baby!

I have something special when I get back though. Until then, thanks for reading!