Pauper Meta Report - Post LCI Meta Breakdown
Table of Contents
Two weeks post LCI
After two weeks since the release of Lost Caverns of Ixilan, we now have solid data on what the meta will look like for the rest of the year. In a single phrase: no changes.
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The decks that received the most buffs were Mono Red, with the addition of Goblin Tomb Raider, and Golgari Gardens, with Tithing Blade as their new toy. We will briefly discuss those cards individually.
Goblin Guide in Pauper
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For a long time, Goblin Guide has been a staple in mono red decks across many formats, including Legacy. It's a cheap but deadly creature that aims to deal damage the moment it hits the ground, before your enemy can deploy their defenses.
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In Pauper, Goblin Tomb Raider performs a similar job if you control an artifact, like Great Furnace or Lotus Petal, giving it haste and making it a 2/2. The most important part is not the stats, but Goblin Guide at least had the drawback of allowing your opponents to get lands from the top of your library. In Goblin Tomb Raider's case, it's a straight-up better replacement as long as you keep an artifact in play.
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In the format, there might be just a handful of creatures, like God-Pharaoh's Faithful, that can stop it in its tracks on turn one. While there are multiple creatures like Excavated Wall, your best bet is to run cheap removal to solve the problem for good.
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The problem with this is that now you need to worry about another one-drop in mono red outside of Monastery Swiftspear. While you can hold removal for one, chances are that you will miss it for the second. Still, so far, since decks are still relying on the good old "Eight Hydroblast" strategy in the sideboard, the impact of mono red in Pauper has been diminished. But from two weeks until now, we've seen a big resurgence in the archetype despite efforts to keep it in check.
Chainer's Edict got fired
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For a long time, Chainer's Edict was a core part of control decks as a way to deal with creatures like Tolarian Terror or Guardian of the Guildpact from taking over decks. However, it has recently been replaced by Golgari Gardens with the newly introduced Tithing Blade. While the flashback part of Chainer's Edict is good in long games, the synergies that Tithing Blade offers are much better. It not only pairs well with Deadly Dispute, but the flip side of Tithing Blade allows Golgari players to have a win condition when everything else fails. It also gives them a way to gain life on each of their turns, which is crucial for a deck trying to win by stalling opponents and preventing them from putting threats on the board.
Normally, this strategy would fail against some control metas. For example, if Tron was around with all its toys, Gardens would not be a playable deck. But since the field is just a bunch of aggro decks and some midrange ones, the deck packed with only removal is well-suited for it, making it a solid choice for any tournament.
Top Decks of the Week
Following Paupergeddon's steps, where Golgari Gardens put up very good results, managing to add two decks to the top eight, this week, the Saturday Challenge winner was the former Pauper champion cicciogire, with a version of the deck.
There was a debate on which matches you would add Relic of Progenitus these days, as you mostly rely on Duress and Tithing Blade against the Terror matchup, but other than that, this seems like a solid 75 for the deck.
Meanwhile, on Sunday, the winner of the challenge was Azorius Affinity, a deck that relies on luck and explosive starts to take over games as early as turn three or four.
It's worth noting that despite the hate, mono red was able to put twelve decks in Sunday's top 32 results and six on Saturday's, making it the most played deck on both days. So let's keep a close eye on it, as I think the best version of mono red is yet to come.
Deck of the Week Award
As I've stressed on previous occasions, the way to beat Gardens is to slam a Monarch and protect it at all costs, which is exactly what this deck does. It not only packs the best answers to mono red in the form of Hydroblast and cheap removal like Skred and Lightning Bolt but also has all the tools to outvalue Gardens. I am very happy to see the meta adapt and make room for other strategies as it shifts.
Wrap Up
I think Pauper has not changed much over the last year, and I expect it to remain the same for the rest of it, as I think there are no major set releases going forward for the rest of the year. This will give at least a month for the PFP to think if the format needs a change or if we will keep relying on new set releases and downshifts to take control of the Pauper, as it's been for 2023.
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