Gush
and Gitaxian Probe
have long been banned but that doesn’t stop players from trying to get this deck to win. At one time in the Pauper meta, this was one of the best decks. It was fast and could easily play a good control game. We don’t see the deck often much anymore, but if you like this deck, there may be some hope.
Today we will be looking at a pretty sweet list from the 5-0 dump from 2/16/2022 and the list was piloted by the player nickdebe. This list is interesting because its sort of a hybrid between UW Ephemerate
control and Tireless Tribe
combo. Without further wait, let’s get right into it!
Tireless Tribe – The creature for which this deck is named after. This little guy might not look like much, but he can pack quite the punch. There is a combo used with this card that I will discuss later, making it all make sense.
Mulldrifter
– You are a blue control deck, check. You have Ephemerate
in your deck, check. You like drawing lots of cards? Seems Drifter ticks all the right boxes.
Augur of Bolas
– Ah yes, Augur, everyone's favorite creature in blue after Mulldrifter. I am not sure how I feel about this card since you have a lot of creatures you want to get, but you also have a lot of spells you want and this is a good blocker in the early game. I am just not a big fan of Augur in such a creature heavy deck, but that is personal bias.
Archaeomancer
– You play Ephemerate and are a control deck. This creature serves a big purpose in helping you fight the long game as a control deck. Doesn’t surprise me to see it in this archetype. It also helps you get back some combo pieces later in the game if they made their way to the graveyard.
Stonehorn Dignitary
– Every aggro decks nightmare and your way of stalling for as long as it takes.
Tethmos High Priest
– Thanks to Ultimate Masters, this card became Pauper legal and in this deck is quite useful because it helps you return a dead Tireless Tribe. You only have 1 copy because you only need 1 in play and it is basically the 5th copy of Tireless Tribe. This means you don’t actually play it until you need to and can use it in the same turn.
Inside Out
and Shadow Rift
– Here are your combo win conditions for the deck. The plan of the deck is to make your Tireless Tribe have a huge amount of toughness, then you cast Inside Out to switch its power and toughness to swing in for the win. Shadow Rift is great because there are virtually no creatures with Shadow in the format being played at this current time. Another really cool thing to note is that they both draw a card so you can just cycle them away if need be.
Ponder
and Brainstorm
– Ponder
is the best for combo decks as you are looking for specific cards and it digs 3 cards deep or shuffles for a redraw. Brainstorm is good here because it puts cards into your hand and you have a decent amount of shuffle effects.
Circular Logic
, Dispel
and Counterspell
– We only see 1 copy of Counterspell here because you aren’t really a control deck that wants to fight a long game and buy time, however 1 copy is still good to have since you have Archaeomancer
shenanigans. Logic is great because in this archetype it is basically a 1 mana Counterspell with a Tireless Tribe in play and Dispel is hands down one of the best ways to get your combo through for the win. I like the number of copies this player chose for each card.
Deep Analyses
– Great card to have as it can draw a good amount of cards. The main thing is it has Flashback.
Epehemerate
– You have plenty of shenanigans to use this card with and at the very least it can save your Tireless Tribe from removal.
The manabase isn’t anything special as you want to be straight to the point without any real gimmicks. You have Azorius Chancery
as your dual land because it helps you mulligan less hands and then you have 6 fetch lands in the form of Terramorphic Expanse
and Ash Barrens
. The rest are just basics. You don’t want too many come in to play tap lands because you don’t need them as most of your spells don’t have huge color requirements and you can’t afford to slow yourself down. Remember, you are a combo deck first and foremost.
As a note for the main deck. One card you could play is Muddle the Mixture
. Muddle can be a Negate
or it can fetch up a combo piece. I would like to see a copy added to the deck.
The Sideboard
Stonehorn Dignitary – Need extra help against aggro decks? Problem solved.
Dust to Dust
– Say no to your Affinity overlords on this day.
Echoing Truth
– This one is interesting as it can be good in many situations. It isn’t ground breaking tech, but it can be good against a lot of different archetypes.
Gut Shot
– This has a lot of uses in the format. A card you need to watch out for that this helps with is Standard Flagbearer
.
Hydroblast
– Say not today to the red menace!
Journey to Nowhere
– In case you need a removal spell. I will be honest though, I am not exactly sure what 1 copy of this will do in the long run, but having this instead of say the 4th copy of Dust to Dust is a good idea as it is flexible and can help against other matchups.
Prismatic Strands
– One of the best Pauper cards of all time period.
Seeker of the Way
– This one is interesting as I am not quite sure what the plan is. I suppose against Burn it is good because you can cast a good amount of spells and swing in for a lot of Lifelink. In the grand scheme of things though, I am not exactly sure this should be here and should maybe be something else. That is my personal opinion.
Verdict and conclusion
For those of you who love this archetype, I am happy to say this archetype still lives on. For those of you who are big fans of the Izzet Blitz archetype, this is a great deck to pick up. While the archetypes aren’t really the same, they play a little bit the same way.
At one time in the format, Tireless Tribe combo was one of the best decks in the format and was regularly putting up good results. However that was when Gush and Gitaxian Probe were legal and we don’t have those options anymore, so that means this archetype has lost some of its speed, it has lost some of its ability to be proactive and the format has also changed quite a bit since that time.
Gitaxian Probe was a huge help to this deck because having that extra information was fairly critical. The deck can still win without it, but it does make things a tiny bit harder.
I don’t have enough data or the knowledge of this archetype to truly say why I think this deck isn’t played much anymore. However, I think the biggest reasons are Gush and Probe being banned have a big thing to do with it. There are also just better options out there that are much less of a glass cannon and more reliable/consistent in my opinion.
Do I think you should play this deck? I think for leagues it is fun to mess around with, especially if you were a big fan of the deck or still are a big fan. For the challenges however, I am sure it can spike a result or 2, but you are better off playing something else in my opinion. This deck doesn’t have the speed to be a fast combo deck anymore and doesn’t play enough control cards to be a good long game control deck. Personally I would look elsewhere for the challenges, but that is just my opinion.
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 I 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!
