Hey everyone!
I’m trying different Pauper decks to both get a feel for the format and looking to find that one particular archetype that strikes my fancy. Today I’m going to discuss a deck that has brought me success, Mono Blue Terror.
I went 4-0 at a recent Wednesday Pauper Weekly Event at RIW Hobbies with the following list:
Photo credit: Mtggoldfish.com
Photo credit: Mtggoldfish.com
There was another attendance record broken with thirty-seven players. Pam once again gave out a free pack of Modern Horizons 3 to everyone to celebrate. A great set to pick as it’s jammed with Pauper staples. I won sixty dollars of RIW store credit and two points toward the end of year invitational; not bad for a $5 entry.
The competition at the Wednesday Pauper event is no joke. Here’s who I played:
Round 1: John Piazza playing White Weenie (won the last big Pauper event with Gruul Monsters)
Round 2: Nickolas Frost playing Devoted Pizza Combo (top 8ed last big Pauper event with same deck You can find a walkthrough here)
Round 3: Gary Smith playing Ruby Storm (Placed 2nd at the first big Pauper event)
Round 4: Aaron Ziaja playing Boros Synth (played well to start out 3-0 in a stacked field)
I won the round three feature match against Gary Smith on Ruby Storm. In case you missed it, the twitch replay can be found here. Reminder to use your free monthly Amazon Prime Twitch sub on RIW’s channel to help support competitive Magic content. Ad breaks are annoying and I watch all of the Pauper streams so it’s well worth it. If you don’t use it each month you lose it.
There were plenty of Pauper ringers in attendance I didn’t face and they didn’t all do well. Plenty of different faces at the top of the standings because the talent pool is so deep.
Mono Blue Terror has some appealing qualities. I can keep most hands with one, two, or three lands; it’s rare to mulligan as cantrips can help smooth out draws. Speaking of draws, Pauper can be a grindy format, but Blue Terror gets the game over with quickly if all goes according to plan. Even if you aren’t a Blue Terror expert the power of the namesake creature is high and can win some games even with suboptimal play. Despite some free wins there are plenty of opportunities to improve win percentages with practice.
Pauper is a very open format at the moment. Blue Terror’s proactive nature ensures you have game against even bad matchups.
THE MAINDECK
Four Tolarian Terror and four Cryptic Serpent are the primary threats. The redundancy of eight beefy threats makes it worth the requirement of putting plenty of instants and sorceries into the deck.
The big question in Blue Terror today is if Delver of Secrets fits into the deck. I have been a big fan of Delver in Pauper because a 3/2 with flying can dominate the battlefield and attack from a different angle without needing the graveyard. It scales well into the late game; a turn 8 Delver still requires an answer.
I’ve liked Delver in nearly every matchup without Refurbished Familiar. This works out well because I want Murmuring Mystic and Dispel against black midrange decks. I would also cut it against Dimir Terror as they can hard cast Sneaky Snacker to block.
It’s possible to play two maindeck Murmuring Mystic and two additional spells in place of Delver, but I don’t like that approach in game one. I find myself keeping excess Islands to cast the powerful four-drop, but I would prefer to be lean against an unknown opponent. A strong Mental Note mills two spells in the early game, but hitting two Islands is also great value.
While there are plenty of counters in Blue Terror, it can be difficult to close the game acting as a control deck. Tapping out for Murmuring Mystic against combo can immediately lose the game while Delver is able to be cast early to apply pressure and hold up mana for counters.
There are many turns I will delay casting a Tolarian Terror or Cryptic Serpent to hold up a Counterspell. Blue Terror is bad at removing permanents, but is good at counting them.
If I were to maindeck Murmuring Mystic it would likely be a single copy alongside four Delver of Secrets.
There are plenty of cantrips in Blue Terror and they play very well with Delver.
Thought Scour and Mental Note are the primary engine spells. It’s possible to play a Tolarian Terror on the second turn, but it requires the perfect start of two Thought Scour effects milling four instants or sorceries. They can also be used more methodically with Brainstorm to put two unwanted cards on top and then mill. Thought Scour (and Deep Analysis) can target the opponent while Mental Note can only mill yourself; this can be relevant against opposing Terror decks.
Brainstorm is very powerful in this deck because of the Thought Scour effects, Lorien Revealed, and Ponder. The old adage is “the best Brainstorm is never cast,” but Blue Terror can end the game quickly making that less relevant in certain matchups.
Each cantrip can be played aggressively to dump spells into the graveyard or defensively to prevent drawing excess lands. I like to play this deck for a longer game because most Pauper decks can use cards in hand to stave off damage in the form of chump blockers.
I’ve liked trimming a Mental Note after sideboard as the game slows down and I am more likely to mill a creature in the form of Murmuring Mystic. It feels solid to board out multiple Mental Notes against Golgari Gardens as you need every threat.
Ponder has synergies in Blue Terror, but puts fewer cards into the graveyard so I don’t play the full playset. It can combo with Thought Scour and Mental Note if you don’t like all of the top three cards. It can also set up a Delver of Secrets flip, like Brainstorm.
I’ve been happy with Consider to put more cards into the graveyard. The way to get Terrors out faster is to make one spell worth more than one instant or sorcery in the graveyard. Ponder doesn’t do this, but Consider can.
Lorien Revealed is similar to a cantrip except it goes to the graveyard and always draws an Island. I’ll ideally fire off other cantrips ahead of Islandcycling as I might want to hard cast. Drawing three cards for five mana is a good deal, especially when I already have a battlefield presence to keep the opponent from getting aggressive.
Four Counterspell ensures you can interact with any deck. It’s hard to overstate the power of playing Counterspell in Pauper.
Spell Pierce is a solid singleton, but playing multiples makes it more likely to flood in the late game. It can counter key sorceries such as Dread Return and Lead the Stampede or protect Tolarian Terror because ward taps more mana.
Dispel is close to Hydroblast in matchups where it’s good and I wouldn’t play fewer than three copies in future tournaments. A downside of Dispel is some decks don’t play instants at all making a second copy in the maindeck risky. Pauper is a very open format so I want to keep my answers generic.
The high diminishing returns of Spell Pierce and Dispel have led me to the maindeck Deprive. It’s a card I’ll sideboard out in most matchups in favor of a more narrow and efficient counter, but it serves as a versatile answer in game one against an unknown opponent. The drawback of bouncing an Island means I want to cast Deprive in situations where I won’t be making a land drop otherwise or after I deploy Counterspell. It has been solid so far.
Sleep of the Dead is a spell that encourages milling. I will spend my early turns Brainstorming Sleep of the Dead on top of the library to mill as escape is where it shines. During the late game you can escape Sleep a couple times to clear the way for a lethal attack.
It’s stock to play two copies of Sleep of the Dead, but is lackluster in plenty of matchups. Don’t be afraid to board out a Sleep as your opponent attacks your graveyard in games two and three.
The second Sleep is much worse than the first because having it in a stocked graveyard grants the ability while additional copies don’t do anything. Moving forward I’m going to try one copy.
I have tried a Snap over the second Sleep of the Dead because I’ve noticed plenty of matchups where a key two-drop creature cannot be countered on the draw. Sunscape Familiar, Devoted Druid, Priest of Titania, Kessig Flamebreather, and others are difficult to remove on the draw, but Snap can bounce and provide mana to counterspell when it’s redeployed.
I can also use Snap to save my creature from removal or use it as a free spell to get more instants and sorceries in the graveyard early. It’s also not a commonly played card so the opponent will have a hard time respecting it as a possibility. Ward 2 on Tolarian Terror only triggers by an opposing spell or ability. Snap wouldn’t make my final list, but was a cool experiment.
Force Spike can also help address problematic threats on the draw, but I don’t like cards that can be played around so easily. Terror can play a later game, but Force Spike forces an aggressive strategy.
Deep Analysis was the more effective mill reward. Blue Terror is an aggressive deck without tap lands making your life total high in most matchups. The opponent typically takes a defensive stance so you can refill and continue the aggression. Two was excellent and hard casting for four mana is fine on an even battlefield.
Deem Inferior isn’t amazing, but the drawback of playing one color is the sparse options for removal. On a normal turn it will cost three mana to cast as the reduction counts the draw phase. It works well with Brainstorm as Deem Inferior costs just one mana after drawing the three extra. The most common target for Deem Inferior so far is Circle of Protection: Blue.
THE MANABASE
I prefer Blue Terror to Dimir because sixteen Island makes the deck more consistent. Dimir plays about ten Island and six lands that enter tapped. Some spells cannot be cast without first enduring a tap land. Each turn you develop a tap land is one fewer cantrip that can be cast to get a Terror on the battlefield.
Snuff Out can break the paradigm of tap lands delaying Tolarian Terror, but it’s only good against certain creature decks. Red aggro decks are popular and four life is a big cost.
Since we’re playing a clean sixteen Islands there isn’t much else to talk about other than my preferred art:
Ice Age is near and dear to me because it helped me learn how to read when it was released. For this reason I also have Ice Age Counterspell, Brainstorm, and Hydroblast in my deck.
SIDEBOARD
Five Hydroblast effects are on the lower side compared to other Blue Terror decks sporting the full eight. While eight would be good against Rally Red and Red Madness I prefer to have a more versatile sideboard.
I can augment the Hydroblast effects with Dispel and Envelop. Dispel notably counters Pyroblast effects after sideboard and is also the best interaction in the Blue Terror mirror. Moving forward I would like to try four Hydroblast effects as Red Madness is already a good matchup and the fifth doesn’t swing Red Rally to be a positive matchup.
Envelop not only counters the rummage effects out of Red Madness, but also hits Lead the Stampede, Winding Way, and Dread Return against Spy Combo. It’s also possible to Envelop or Spell Pierce a Land Grant if you know it’s the opponent’s only source of mana. Think of it as graveyard hate that can be boarded in against a variety of decks. I’ve seen Tormod’s Crypt, but it’s not an instant or sorcery and decks will become less reliant on their core game plan after sideboard.
Gut Shot is for Elves, Black Sac, and Faeries, but not much else. The damage isn’t worth it against red decks as most threats have at least two toughness that matter. The value of Gut Shot is that you can accelerate out a Tolarian Terror or Cryptic Serpent faster while stopping a key threat deployed in the early game like Priest of Titania or Ninjutsu Enabler. Gut Shot is notably lackluster against White Weenie even though it’s a creature deck that isn’t focused on damage.
While Gut Shot is narrow, the matchups it’s boarded in against are unfavorable and could use the help.
Annul helps against Affinity and Bogles which can be tough matchups. I can also board in a couple Annul against Glint Hawk decks or White Weenie where Journey to Nowhere can exile my big monsters.
Relic of Progenitus is the most troublesome sideboard card I expect to face outside of Pyroblast effects. Annul, as well as the maindeck Spell Pierce, can stop Relic on the play.
Murmuring Mystic comes in against non-combo decks once your graveyard is under attack and need a pivot threat. I can deploy Tolarian Terror and Cryptic Serpent to bait removal and then use Mystic as a haymaker once the battlefield has been depleted. Mystic is harder to protect at four mana.
I peppered in some small changes here and there, this is my current list:
Photo credit: Mtggoldfish.com
Photo credit: Mtggoldfish.com
