Chain Lightning: This is Lightning Bolt as sorcery speed. This makes it a strictly worse card, but certainly not bad. If you've already filled your deck with Lightning Bolt and Firebolt and still want more, this card is something you should consider.
Summary: Great against Combo and Burn. Good against Goblins, MBCu, and WW.
Deck Spotlight: UW Blink
My favourite blink deck so far, this UW list has been making a splash in recent PEs, usually piloted by Dust_ aka Andrea Lassi for strong results. Last time I checked, he has taken a 1st place win with it and has also top 8’d on another occasion. You can watch Andrea discussing the deck in-depth over here: http://www.mtgoacademy.com/pauper-decktech-bluewhite-control/
Here we have a list that is quite capable of handling aggro with a healthy amount of lifegain from riftwatchers and crossroads, a roadblock in deft duelist, and counters to stop the nastier spells. All this is complimented by very strong card draw from the awesome synergy of mulldrifter and momentary blink, keeping your hand nice and full in the late game. Pestermites solidly live up to their name, annoying the opponent by delaying their alpha strikes or their ability to cast spells by tapping their lands (tapping an early karoo is especially painful). Guardian of the Guildpact is another underrated card these days, which can cause headaches to most decks you come across as it can only be removed by WW's Unmake, black control's Diabolic Edict or Innocent Blood, and UB's Agony Warp. Goblins can only pelt it with harsh language. All this leaves you with a deck that stomps on aggro and burn and is no chump against control decks, especially post-SB with access to all those Circle of Protections where it can easily stall the match long enough to drop it on the board.
I chose to talk about this deck so I could also sing my praises for the hands-down best reason to play UW, Momentary Blink. I’d go as far as to say that it’s one of the top 5 strongest cards in the format. It’s no wonder that it’s one of the most played cards in pauper history, being the key card in Orzhov Blink, Grand Entrance, Stars n’ Cogs, Cogs n’ Stripes, Battlefield Pauper, Blinksicle, and every other Blink deck that are basically all the same but people decided to give a separate name for.
Why is it so good? Well, it’s instant speed, meaning you can use it as a pseudo Negate against the majority of removal in the format, like Disfigure, Tendrils of Corruption, Lightning Bolt, Journey to Nowhere, Unmake, Agony Warp, etc. You can chump a fat creature and then blink your blocker, acting as a pseudo Fog too.
Even if we ignore the amazing benefits of instant speed here, it's still the best bounce spell in the format. I think a lot of people neglect the fact that most bounce cards puts the creature you bounced back into your hand. This beauty puts it right back into play for you without the need to pay the creature’s cost again, which is enormous tempo gain. Then for the cherry on top, you can use this card twice for built-in card advantage. Simply awesome.
Now thankfully, UW has more than enough creatures to abuse Blink to its fullest. Blink a spellstutter sprite and you can counter another low-cost spell. Blink pestermite and you’re either locking down lands or creatures. Riftwatcher gives you a healthy lifegain boost against aggro and burn, and makes the creature stay on the board longer. A solitary skyfisher on the board can even be saved from Diabolic Edict by blinking it and bouncing itself to your hand. You could also use a well-timed blink with skyfisher to re-use journeys by (ab)using the stack. And of course, the unquestionably best blink target, mulldrifter, conveniently fits in the colors too. A lot of goodness here.
The other slots for this deck are very easy fills; draw, counters, and removal are all things UW has a strong selection of. With all slots filled with good cards, there's no reason to splash a third color like black, which is a trend in some blink decks like Orzhov Blink. I really dislike the idea of splashing a third color in pauper in general, due to the unavoidable slowness and mana inconsistencies you'll run into. The exceptions to this, of course, are combo decks and green ramp decks, which do not rely on karoos or terramorphic expanse to mana fix. This deck is a great example of how dual-color is more than enough.
Although I like this deck, I do have some disagreements with some of the card choices. One card I’m not too thrilled about is Deft Duelist. She’s certainly not bad, but just not as good as you’d believe. You could say that she’s tough to block because the 2power first strike can kill most creatures in the format, and you’d be right, until your opponent drops a second creature on the board and double blocks the duelist, turning the combat into a 1for1 trade. This is a very likely scenario in pauper. The duelist is also praised for being a strong defense against decks like Goblins and WW. In fact, when talking about WW, Andrea Lassi said the duelist, "laughs at their creatures." While it's true the duelist can be a thorn in Goblin's side, they can easily skirt over the problem as soon as they play one of their eight goblin sledders, sacrificing one of their goblins to turn their 2/2 creatures into 3/3's to kill a blocking duelist, another likely scenario. And WW is actually the one that laughs at Deft Duelist, since Razor Golem, Shade of Trokair, Kor Skyfisher, Aven Riftwatcher, Order of Leitbur, and Benevolent Bodyguard all easily deal with her. Personally, I'd cut this card for more counters or draw spells.
Next up is a certain SneakyMcBluepants, aka Ninja of the Deep Hours. In my second article I discussed my dislike for my ninja, especially in decks without evasive beats or ways to protect your card-drawing bear once he's in play. Thankfully he's much better off here, with tons of evasive creatures to get him in play easily and counters to protect him. This is a big step up from his poor inclusions in decks like Rat Teachings and Parlor Tricks. When testing him in the deck though, I still didn't like him and ended up replacing him with Kor Skyfisher, which also provides the role of bounce but offers a far nicer 2/3 flying body. I guess it's up to personal preference here.
Finally, by Andrea’s own account, Storm is a bad matchup for this deck. I think an easy solution to this without devoting too many SB slots would be Hindering Touch. It doesn’t get played often these days, which is a shame, because nothing feels better than stopping the grapeshot they spent 5minutes of your time preparing with one simple spell. I wouldn’t recommend UB decks to run this card since hand disruption spells are just as good and are useful in other matchups too, but UW is really boned over here and hindering touch does the trick.
Let your tears flow, storm players! They’re a healthy part of my diet!
You Make The Play:
Here’s the second installment of what may become a regular feature of my articles. This artificial scenario was a collaborative effort by me and First Strike. Please be courteous and don’t post the answer in the comments section. I’ll have the answer posted in the following article.
The Scenario:
You are playing a UW control list similar to the one featured in this article’s “Deck Spotlight.” Your opponent, Jimmy, is playing MBC. It’s been a grueling first game that has nearly decked you both, and though you’ve been putting up a good fight, things are looking grim. Jimmy finished his last turn by playing crypt rats. His next turn he can burn away your remaining life with the rats, but if you're up to any funny business this turn he can still activate it for 1. To make matters worse, you know Jimmy runs four Corrupts maindecked and you’ve only seen one so far. With only three more cards in his library, you’re quite certain that after his next draw he’ll be casting one at your face and there’s nothing you can do to counter it.
It’s your turn. You draw Mulldrifter. You have one more card in your library, and looking at your decklist, you know it’s Deep Analysis. Your first main phase starts right now. Win this turn.
You:
Life total: 3
Useful cards in graveyard: None
Opponent:
Life total: 7
Lands: 24x Swamp (1 untapped)
Cards in hand: None
Cards in library: 3
Useful cards in graveyard: None
Doggie Style:
One last thing to wrap things up: congrats to fathom for piloting Dead Dog to 10th place last PE! I was told about this player while the PE was still underway and got to see a replay of him steamrolling a goblins deck 2-0. He ended up going 4-2. When I asked him what the losses were, he told me he went 1-2 against a goblins deck due to mana screw and lost to storm due to a mull to 5 and not seeing any discard cards. Hard luck, but I'm proud to see that my list is doing well.
Here's a revised list that I'm working on right now. Gone are the Rancors, making room for maindecked Festercreeps, which are strong against WW / Goblins / Elves / Storm that have been showing up last PE. Keep in mind the only reason to play the creep instead of Crypt Rats is because it destroys WW's prot black creatures, the maindecked Order of Leitbur and sideboard Obsidian Acolyte. If you have no fear of those cards and want a more powerful sweep, go for the rats.
The maindecked creeps added more room in the sideboard which I filled with more combo-specific hate (Okiba) and more Stinkweed Imps as an answer to this deck's weakest matchups, flyer-heavy decks like UWcontrol and Faeries.
I'm also still tweaking the madness / discard ratio, adding in two Brain Gorgers. 4/2 creatures are amazing and their only real poor matchup are against goblin decks. Just remember that if your opponent has a chump blocker, use the hounds / mongrels to play the gorger BEFORE the "declare blockers" step, or else you'll be chump blocked and the opponent will gladly sacrifice the already doomed blocking creature.
That's all for now! If you want a specific topic addressed in the future, feel free to make a request in the comment section.
Burst Lightning: Zendikar's update to 
Lightning Bolt: The king of burn is in the house! The new measuring stick of burn spells since replacing the longtime standard of Shock in M10, this removal spell wipes out 99% of the creatures in the meta, including those pesky 
63 Comments
Dr Anime,
As I told you in MTGO, I've been heavily running Dead Dog. I like it a lot. I made the following tweaks:
- Up to 24 lands. I'm not comfortable with 22. Instead I switched in 4 Tranquil Thicket, and evened out swamps and forests. As you noted, you only ever want 1-2 forest, but swamps don't go unused. I experimented with removing the Root Farms to lower the CIPT lands, but they're back in. Tranquil Thicket helps with Werebear, although I experimented with and eventually dropped it.
- I run 2 Imps. I like the Dredge 5, and I lean more toward control than aggro.
You were right about goblins...looking at the lists I feel I ought to lose to them, but I keep winning.
I'm having a lot less luck against combo. I've had a lot of bad luck with Thrull Surgeon being too slow, and I see you've removed them. Mostly I've been beating them (when I do) not with discard but by pressuring them to go off early and fizzle.
So I initially went 2-0 in 2-mans, then had an unfortunately 0-5 night. I realized after that I'd been on tilt and definitely should have won at least 1 of those, though. My overall impression is that it might not be the 100% best choice deck right now, but it is for me when I multiply "good deck" with "fun to play". And I play better when I play a deck I enjoy.
You should write something up about WW. You talk all about red today without mentioning that Searing Blaze is pretty sick. Maybe it'll make Pauper Boros not suck.
Thanks for the feedback. Other perspectives are always useful and appreciated.
I honestly haven't tried out the thickets, and I can't comment on them until I do. I'll get back to you on it. As I said last time, I didn't like the werebear since you're not hitting threshold in a timely manner, and some matches never.
I think I see an issue here though. Dead Dog is absolutely an aggro deck, and tweaking it for a more controlling slant will only set yourself up for disappointment. This is why cards like Mulch, Sakura-Tribe Elder, Civic Wayfinder, and the like all don't end up as good card inclusions. They're not bad cards, but they fit the more traditional control TE decks. If you want a controlling TE deck then ditch the aggro shell, add alot of land ramp / deck trimming with Greenseeker and the like, and throw in some finishers like Krosan Tusker / Twisted Abomination and Crypt Rats. That's a perfectly viable option as well.
The thing about Dead Dog is that it isn't a TE deck (otherwise I would just call it TE :P). It's an aggro deck that has some GY manipulation to give it more steam. Dredging / GY manipulation is not the main theme, but rather just another tool.
All that rambling basically is why I would not run the Imp maindeck. Over here, the brownscale serves two purposes: 1) lifegain vs. aggro 2) dredge so you always "topdeck" a creature to pitch if you have TE. It really doesn't matter that he's Dredge 2 or Dredge 5, you'll have a target to pick up anyway. I use the Imp purely as a way to combat flyers.
I can't say I've had an issue with storm. I almost always lose the first game, and then second/third game I hit them with 2-3 discard, they panic and fizzle.
Unfortunate to hear about the queue results though. What were your matchups? From my own playtesting I can confidently say this deck is very favorable at beating MBCu and goblins. I'll give it more playtesting, but storm has good too. I would NOT run this deck if there was a surge of UWcontrol, faeries, or heavy-flyer decks. I'll try my hardest to approach this with queue results instead of any bias, so expect another "off to the queues" section next article to deny/confirm my claims. The last thing I want to do is influence people to play a deck that isn't up to par. I could just ramble on the (proven) awesomeness of other decks like Teachings instead.
Next deck spotlight could be WW. I don't think it's a good meta call at the moment, but I could explain why.
I didn't mention Searing Blaze because it's not 1cc. It's certainly playable though.
When I said "You should write about WW" I actually meant WWK. There are a few impactful cards in there.
I'm running the Imps as basically 5th and 6th Brownscales. I admit they're basically the 59th and 60th cards, and I can't remember ever casting them, now that I think about it. I specifically remember once, and then regretting it...it's better in the yard, with a dog online. But once TE is on the board, they're gas at getting dudes into the yard. Every madness you bury gets flipped right onto the board. In fact if there was a creature that read "you can't cast this. Dredge 8" I would play it over the Imp, the way I've been playing it.
What I'm saying is the imps have been really helping me vs. say Goblins. They're all "trade 2/2's or sac dudes vs Scrabbler/Rootwalla" and I'm all "Play from my graveyard, ggs."
I should mention that I've universally lost in games where I started Imp'ing from the graveyard before I had TE online. I believe you commented on this last time.
I guess it's true what they say...Imping ain't easy.
Well crafted puzzle. I for one would like to see more of these.
Wow that scenerio you posted is bugging me, I really don't think there's any possible way to do it, but maybe that's the beauty of the exercise. The trouble is you only really have a total of like 5 power that can get through. Since damage no longer uses the stack, and since duelists have shroud, there's absolutely no way to keep your duelists alive. I can't see a way to keep more than 5 power of creatures on the field as valid attackers, so it doesn't really matter what you do to his blockers... what a puzzle :D
Hmmmmm.
Hmmmmm.
I think I see what you intended as the solution, but the opponent can stop it from qorking.
To fix the scenario, I would have the Spellsputter Sprite equipped with a Floating Shield set to black.
If you do that, there is an unpreventable solution to the puzzle.
Otherwise, the opponent can stop the scenrio by activating the Crypt Rats to kill the Death's Head Buzzard and eliminating most of your and ALL of his creatures except the Warren Pilferers.
Looking at the puzzle I do not see the win if the opponent did not f6. I know the answer lies in playing the journeys and bouncing the skyfisher to play them again and perm remove the blockers. But the problem is that the opponent will use the crypt rats as soon and either the crypt rats or the buzzard are targeted. The rats kill the dualists you can not save them since they have shroud, body guard 1 will target the buzzrd to prevent it from shrinking the team. The other body guard can save the sprite. I am not on my system know so can not test this, can the skyfisher attack after being blinked? I think it would have summoning sickness. Enen if it could you are left with 5 damage and opp at 6 life.
You can't bodyguard the Buzzard. You can only use it on creatures you control.
Well that makes it even worse since the buzzard will shrink everything killing the bodyguards and sprite give you a max of 3 damage.
I don't see a way around the Buzzard. Whenever you give priority to the opponent he can blow the rats killing the buzzard, which I don't see any way to prevent. This decimates your team at which point I don't see a way to do the remaining 6 damage necessary to win this turn as the stated goal requires.
I solved the puzzle...want to post answer, must stop typing...anyways its easy once you start looking past the obvious.
We definitely have the tools to get around the Buzzard problem, but I still don't see the solution thanks to summoning sickness and shroud - assuming the opponent plays correctly. I'll be curious to see the solution.
The win is by your opponent making a mistake(not F6'ing, a play mistake) and if your opponent has 10,000,000 life you would still win game.
Yeah, that doesn't work if the opponent responds to the spell or trigger, so I assumed it was a red herring.
My sincerest apologies everyone. There is in fact a problem with the puzzle. In the effort to add more red herrings to distract you, I neglected the fact that benevolent bodyguard cannot target creatures that you do not control. I added unnecessary complexity that eventually ruined the puzzle itself.
To make the puzzle solvable, assume that benevolent bodyguard can target ANY creature. If you work with that assumption, the puzzle has a clear answer.
Most people posting have been focusing on the wrong things, which is good. I'll ask that you please do not keep posting details about the answer though. The puzzle 100% works now and was confirmed from multiple sources.
Again, I'm very sorry about the bodyguard oversight.
Assuming the bodyguard can do so, it looks like the solution only takes 17 mana. It's fairly odd to have *more* lands than you need on one of these puzzles. Was that intentional?
The solution definitely works even if the opponent plays correctly, you just need to force her to act first... ;)
Well if you can bend the rules with targeting, blink his chittering, evoke mulldrifter, deck him with DA also works ;-)
Yep you also have to blink the skyfisher to get a crossroads back so the 3 life paid of flashback won't kill ya 1st.
Oops, I got the answer, posted it like a dufus, now deleted. :)
To post below: I left a step out, meant the Skyfisher, got ahead of myself.
Ummm, how exactly does 1 target their Kabira Crossroads with a Momentary Blink?
Could you clairfy? "benevolent bodyguard can target ANY creature." or it can give protection of the colour of your choice to any creature ie: "Sac this: chose a creature, it gains protection from the colour of your choice until end of turn"? (notice the lack of targeting in my phrasing)
(note to inneutral, no... just fyi) RoninX seems to have the right idea as always.
I believe that "ANY" means it can also target opponent's creature.
I think you're trying to ask if the bodyguard can target the Deft Duelist.
This is what I meant:
"Sacrifice Benevolent Bodyguard: Target creature gains protection from the color of your choice until end of turn."
So in short, no. All I did was take out the "you control" clause to make the puzzle solvable. This is the only change necessary.
On another note, I see that despite my two requests that no one post details of the answer, people decided to do so anyway. I assume that it was at least partially encouraged by my mistake when posting the puzzle. I really don't mind since you're not spoiling anything for me, but in the future, assuming a puzzle with no mistakes, would people rather not see the answer in the comment section or not care if they do or don't? I'm not sure I can even enforce a "no spoiler" policy, but I could try again.
If there wasn't an error I wouldn't have posted anything at all regarding the question, but from my experience with other "you make the plays" the only way to stop people from commenting on them is to either moderate the comments (ie, no one can see them unless you approve them), or lock them.
If you were holding a contest you could disqualify anyone who commented and say so in the rules then people who sent in the answer would win. Of course then the problem would be what to award correct answers and how to verify they weren't from the same people who answered in the comments. And of course then the problem is that it's nearly impossible with limited resources to actually verify that. I think it would have been smarter to allow comments with potential spoilers but not comment yourself on whether or not they were correct. That way you still get to write about the people who sent in entries correctly and also discuss how far off people were in the comments in your next article.
Well done article...however, who WOULDN'T love THAT sideboard! It has 17 cards ;) I often wonder why memory lapse isn't used in a pestering style deck, even more tempo and frustrating goodness...
Remember everyone, 8am PST THIS SUNDAY :)
Interesting puzzle indeed ! Nice article too.
There is a perfectly valid solution that doesn't mess around with bodyguard at all, you just have to remember that reducing an opponent's life to 0 is not the only way to win a game of Magic.
Edit: On second though, maybe that doesn't work. I guess I'll have to wait and see the solution.
I just want to know wtf my opponent tapped 23 land for last turn.
this dead dog is the nuts!!!!! i highly recommend playing it. as of now i have won 75% of my 2 man matches with the deck.
just top 8ed with this deck in the PE. i appreciate your creation of it
Good suggestion, Paul. I'll do that next time around.
Grats on the top8, Baldr! I'm honored that you ran with it. What build were you using, and what were your matchups?
All in all the art is amazing and like I said the story was beautiful and well put together in the offline story. The free roam was one of my favorite things, you can go from bush to bush just to power up your monsters and have fun catching new ones. It was definitely enjoyable! Loved this Evertale game on offline story. Not worth my time on online story. Now on instant play when you download from here!
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