The first quarter of the 2025 RIW PAUPER CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES is a wrap, and I’m excited to report on the league’s progress!
For those unfamiliar with the Pauper Championship Series, it’s a year-long MTG Pauper League that encapsulates all of the weekly and larger quarterly Pauper events. Player’s results and progress are tracked and the shop will be hosting a Pauper Invitational (based on points) at the end of the year to crown a 2025 RIW Pauper Champion. Here’s how it works:
Last weekend was the first of the four quarterly events and RIW was excited to host 60 MTG Pauper Fans for the first large event of the series for 2025.
Thanks to everyone who came out and made this a special event. It was great to see so many familiar faces (as well as some new ones) in the field slinging Pauper.
Welcome back Scott (from Knoxville) and Adrian Grey Marsden Pauperganda, who made the trek all the way from California.
TOP 8 & METAGAME BREAKDOWN
Congratulations to the Top 8 players! Here’s what they played:
1st Nick Norman – Sadistic Glee 10 Points
2nd Chris Shavers – UB Faeries +8 Points
3rd Dustyn Nogueria – Sadistic Glee +4 Points
4th Gage M – Mono Red + 4 Points
5th Colin Kaupauf – Dimir Terror + 2 Points
6th Joseph Arms – Gruul Cascade + 2 Points
7th Jason Blackwood – Rakdos Madness +2 Points
8th Nikolas Frost – Sadistic Glee +2 Points
The Finalists! Congrats to Nick Norman and Christopher Shavers!
RIW PAUPER CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES #1 META BREAKDOWN
9x Faeries (UB & Mono U) = 15%. T8 Conversion rate = 11%
8x Broodscale (BG & Jund) = 13%. T8 Conversion rate = 38%
8x Terror (UB, U & UR) = 13%. T8 Conversion rate = 13%
5 Grixis Affinity = 8%. T8 Conversion rate = 0%
5 Kuldotha / Burn = 8% T8 Conversion rate = 20%
3 Rakdos Madness = 5%. T8 Conversion rate = 33%
3 Dredge = 3%. T8 Conversion Rate = 0%
19 “Other” (2 or less copies. 15 archetypes) = 32%. T8 Conversion rate = 5%
The most important number in this Metagame Breakdown is the 38% Top 8 Conversion Rate by Broodscale Sadistic Glee decks. 38% is a HUGE number!
I’ve done a lot of meta analysis over the years, for a variety of formats and websites, and I would feel very comfortable saying that Broodscale Glee dominated at this event.
I haven’t played in a while, so I have no skin in the game personally, but I have been doing play-by-play for the RIW Pauper Twitch Stream and got a chance to chat up a lot of the players in the event about the upcoming B&R. Consensus opinion among the Pauper Experts in the field was that they are expecting to see some B&R action in Pauper on the 31st.
It will be interesting to see what action, if any, will be taken come the end of the month.
One thing I can say is that Broodscale Glee defined the first quarterly MTG Pauper Event of 2025 and all of us at RIW look forward to seeing how the rest of the season will play out!
Be sure to mark your calendars for our upcoming events. The next big quarterly event in the RIW Pauper Championship Series is Saturday, May 24th:
As always, every Wednesday at 6pm you can join us in store or on twitch to keep up with weekly Pauper league play.
I’d be interested in hearing the reader’s thoughts on the upcoming B&R announcement for MTG Pauper. What do you think will change in the format, if anything?
