Modern Horizons 2 came out not to long ago and while the new set is getting the headlines now, the impact that Modern Horizons 2 had on the Pauper format is undeniable.  One of the decks it has made a splash in, is Boros Midrange. I did not know it at the time, but the new snow dual lands are indestructible, which makes for some quite interesting strategies.

The list we will be looking at today was Piloted by the player Punchilleno to a 1st place finish in the Pauper Challenge that took place on 6/5/2021. This is usually where I ramble on about some nonsense to try and make you all laugh, but instead, let’s just get right into the list!

Boros Midrange

by Punchilleno

2 Palace Sentinels 4 Squadron Hawk 4 Thraben Inspector 4 Lightning Bolt 4 Prismatic Strands 2 Rally the Peasants 4 Battle Screech 4 Faithless Looting 2 Firebolt 2 Flame Slash 3 Geomancer's Gambit 1 Journey to Nowhere 6 Mountain

5 Plains 4 Cleansing Wildfire 4 Rustvale Bridge 3 Slagwoods Bridge 2 Thornglint Bridge

Sideboard: 3 Ancient Grudge 2 Fiery Cannonade 4 Pyroblast 3 Weather the Storm 2 Dust to Dust 1 Forest

Thraben Inspector – One of the best 1 drops for any white midrange deck. It isn’t bad in combat and brings along a Clue token when it enters the battlefield. You can’t ask for much more.

Squadron Hawk – I love me a Squadron Hawk. If you mulligan, this is a great way to get back the extra cards you lost and it does add a good amount of power in the air to attack with. It also combos very well with Rally the Peasants.

Palace Sentinels – A very good creature for playing defense and makes you the Monarch. Does not surprise me to see a couple of copies here at all.

Battle Screech – This card might not look like much, but it helps you build an army of flying creatures extremely quickly and trust me, games can be over quickly afterwards. This card also combos with Rally the Peasants very well.

Prismatic Strands – One of the best white cards period in the Pauper format. It can be a counter spell to burn or damage based removal. It can be used as a Fog effect and it can also gain you a lot of card advantage because it prevents damage for a single color, what this means is that when doing some blocking against Elves for example, you use Prismatic Stands to prevent green, but since your creatures are white, their damage will still go through. The best part is that it has Flashback for a very low cost of tapping 1 untapped white creature. A really big thing this card does for your deck is that it prevents cards such as Electrickery and Fiery Cannonade from ruining your day.

Journey to Nowhere – Premium white removal, as it can take care of anything. I am sad to only see 1 copy, but you have to make cuts somewhere and I suppose it isn’t impressive against bounce spells, which is very possible to run into these days.

Rally the Peasants – This is your big finisher. Once you go wide enough and swarm the battlefield with creatures, Rally the Peasants usually just ends the game.

Lightning Bolt – We all know why this is here, let’s move on.

Firebolt – While Firebolt isn’t very impressive as it is only a Shock and it is at sorcery speed, Firebolt has Flashback, which means it can kill 2 different creatures and has good synergy with Faithless Looting.

Faithless Looting – This is arguably one of the best commons in my opinion. Not only does it dig you 2 cards deep, but it also has Flashback, which means you get to draw even more cards when you need to. This archetype wants to keep the water flowing down hill and this is a great way to achieve that.

Flame Slash – This deals with just about any creature in the format and it does it for 1 mana. It is a great way of clearing the board of a big problem creature for cheap so you can cost other spells in the same turn.

Cleansing Wildfire and Geomancer's Gambit – While yes, these are good against Tron, they have an even bigger purpose here. The new dual lands from Modern Horizons 2, have text on them that say they are Indestructible. This means that if you target them with either of these spells, not only do you mana ramp, but you draw a card as well. This makes it so you can thin your deck and flood the board with spells extremely quickly, which leads to much faster wins. I am a huge fan of this strategy and hope to see more of it from other archetypes as well.

The Manabase

You have 5 Mountains and 5 Plains as your basic lands. Then you have 9 dual lands from the new Modern Horizons set and that is it, no fancy stuff going on here, just a straight to the point manabase. You have some green dual lands because you have some green cards in the sideboard that are very helpful.

The Sideboard

Ancient Grudge – Grudge is a good flexible spell to have access to. It is pretty good against Affinity and it also is fairly good against Tron because you can hit their mana fixing artifacts, which stops them for playing most of their spells. I am sure there are more matchups Grudge can come in as well, but I am not sure you need 3 copies.

Dust to Dust – Dust to Dust isn’t a very popular sideboard card, but it is quite an effective answer against Affinity.

Fiery Cannonade – Board wipe spells are always a good thing to have access to. Just make sure you are careful because you must remember this also hits your own creatures.

Pyroblast – What do we say to the blue mage? Not today!

Weather the Storm and 1 Forest – Burn can be a tough matchup and this helps a lot with the matchup. I am sure that Weather the Storm can also be good in other aggro matchups as well.

Verdict and Conclusion

I think it is safe to say Modern Horizons has definitely made an impact on the Pauper format. This archetype was just 1 of the new decks that I have seen and I am sure there are many more to come.  However we've seen a lot of Squirrels, Artifacts and Delver with the set. 

I really like this deck. I love the mana ramp aspect and I like that it plays as a combo control deck that attacks from different angles. While this archetype does not look like it takes advantage of ramping its mana, it actually does. This deck wants to resolve many spells in 1 turn such as playing multiple removal spells, playing multiple Hawks or Battle Screeches and cycling through the library. I think this is just the beginning and look forward to seeing this archetype evolve over time.

Although 1 small issue I have is that I wish it had a few more threats instead of going all in on the Rally and go wide plan, but I am not quite sure what you would play. Guardian of the Guildpact however is a creature that comes to mind.

Do I think you should play this deck? Yes I do. I think this deck is great. It can play the control game against aggro, it can play the beat down game against control and it generally has cards to beat anything. Tron historically has been a rough matchup for Boros Midrange, but all of the land destruction spells should be a big help.

However, with all this being said, as always, do remember my words are not gospel. I will always encourage you to try a deck that bring you despite my personal feelings. Remember that results will vary and always remember to practice!

Would you like to compete in a free Pauper tournament with some great prizes? Head on over to Gatherling.com on Tuesday nights at 8pm EDT and play in our weekly Pauper Classic Tuesday's event! Join the chat #PCT to chat with us and feel free to find most of the competitors on Discord!

Thank you so much for reading. Best of luck to you in your next tournament and I’ll catch you all next time! However, I would consider playing some copies of Flaring Pain just in the case you think you will run into a good amount of Moment’s Peace.