Last week featured at least two big Pauper events in the Midwest (of which, I attended and played in BOTH!).
RIW had 30+ for Weds night Pauper and NRG Indianapolis also pulled more than thirty teams for a Team Trio Event (Legacy / Modern / Pauper). It’s safe to say Pauper is heating up, as is the weather! Finally….
It’s wild to me that in order to find a comparably large Pauper event to RIW’s weekly game I had to drive 4.5 hours to a convention event! RIW is the best Pauper game night in town, hell, maybe even in the whole midwest.
If you’re looking for a large Pauper event, we play every Weds 6PM at RIW Hobbies & Games in Livonia, and average 30-40 players. The prize support is pretty stacked for a $5 buy in.
I played Elves at the shop on Weds and went 3-1 taking home $30 in Store Credit and FINALLY earned my first Pauper Point of the season.
Kyle @Boggememes was also in attendance and 3-1’d with Jund Wildfire. In the first round he played against a youngster who was attending his first ever constructed event! Imagine playing in your first event and facing off against a Pro Tour Finalist. So cool!
So, a pretty good showing for the veteran mages in the room….
Speaking of downright great showings, congratulations to our 4-0 players, River (Elves) and James (Red Madness).
| River Gallaty |
James Bechtol |
| ELVES |
RED MADNESS |
| 4 Elvish Mystic |
3 Guttersnipe |
| 1 Fyndhorn Elves |
4 Kessig Flamebreather |
| 4 Llanowar Elves |
4 Sneaky Snacker |
| 4 Quirion Ranger |
4 Voldaren Epicure |
| 4 Masked Vandal |
4 Faithless Looting |
| 4 Priest of Titania |
4 Grab the Prize |
| 4 Timberwatch Elf |
4 Highway Robbery |
| 4 Avenging Hunter |
4 Fiery Temper |
| 1 Sagu Wildling |
3 Fireblast |
| 4 Generous Ent |
4 Lava Dart |
| 4 Nyxborn Hydra |
4 Lightning Bolt |
| 4 Winding Way |
18 Mountain |
| 4 Lead the Stampede |
|
| 1 Vines of the Vastwood |
|
| 1 Gingerbread Cabin |
|
| 12 Forest |
|
| SIDEBOARD |
SIDEBOARD |
| 4 Monsterous Emergence |
1 Cast into the Fire |
| 3 Vitu-Ghazi Inspector |
2 End the Festivities |
| 3 Faerie Macabre |
4 Pyroblast |
| 1 Deglammer |
1 Red Elemental Blast |
| 2 Rooftop Percher |
3 Relic of Progenitus |
| 2 Viridian Longbow |
2 Searing Blaze |
|
2 Smash to Smithereens |
Here’s Judge Trevor’s breakdown of what made up the “other” category:
Elves was the most played deck in the field last week and 4-0’d! I think Elves are great. 🙂
Red Madness also 4-0’d and was a great deck choice in an Elf-heavy metagame. James crushed my 4-0 hopes in two “not close” games. I’m 0-6 in tournament games with Elves vs Madness. It’s REAL BAD for Elves. 😣
“The meta is very diverse right now, which is a good thing. Having such a diverse meta allows for tier 1.5 and tier 2 decks to take down big events given they can avoid their worst matchups. It also means that every deck is going to have a bad matchup or two out there. Good players often try to mitigate this by playing decks that have a lot of 50/50 matchups and hope to win on simply playing better than their opponents, which makes me question why we don’t see more Counterspell decks in the meta than we do.” –JASON GOLEMBIEWSKI
PAUPER GAME-CHANGERS WITH GARY SMITH
Magic: The Gathering’s Tireless Tribe combo is back—but it no longer resembles the traditional Azorius shells players have grown accustomed to. The archetype has evolved into a Boros midrange-combo hybrid, gaining both consistency and resilience thanks to new additions from Secrets of Strixhaven.
The set has already had a noticeable impact on Pauper combo strategies as a whole. Decks like Cycle Storm and Altar Tron have adopted powerful new engine pieces such as Page, Loose Leaf, but the real story here is what cards like Spirit Mascot and Pursue the Past have done for Tireless Tribe.
Spirit Mascot gives the deck another legitimate avenue to victory outside of the traditional Tireless Tribe and Sneaky Snacker combo kills. More importantly, it provides the archetype with the kind of secondary game plan it previously lacked, allowing the deck to function more effectively in longer games and through disruption.
Pursue the Past is equally important for the deck’s consistency. By effectively giving the archetype access to eight red-white “draw two or three, discard one” effects instead of four, the deck is far better at assembling its pieces without relying heavily on cantrip chains. Older blue-white versions of the deck often found themselves with only half of the combo assembled, forcing players to dig aggressively for the missing piece. With cards like Eidolons and Spirit Mascot serving as legitimate backup plans, the Boros build is capable of applying pressure while still threatening explosive combo turns.
The results have already started to show online. The archetype has quietly climbed to become the second most-played combo deck on MTGO, currently sitting at roughly a 1.8% metagame share.
What also separates this build from older iterations is the amount of interaction it can comfortably play without sacrificing consistency. Between Prismatic Strands, Lightning Bolt, Lightning Axe, and Thraben Charm, the deck is well-equipped to fight through aggressive starts and disrupt opposing strategies. Combined with a sideboard packed with flexible interaction, the deck has the tools to compete across a wide range of matchups while still maintaining the explosiveness that made Tireless Tribe a Pauper staple in the first place.
“For those that don’t know RIW has a stream every Wednesday night @ twitch.tv/riwhobbies and I had the pleasure of running the stream and coverage these last two weeks to cover for DeMars while he tested for NRG Indy. It was definitely a difficult but rewarding adventure. The difficulty is making sure all aspects of the stream are running as intended but the rewarding part was the opportunity to have a front row seat to the feature matches watching great players and decks while testing my knowledge of the game and format. Also it was a blast interacting with chat and I am sure DeMars would agree so if you can tune in and chat feel free.” –MICHAEL RUSSO
Much thanks to Russo for doing an awesome job calling games on the Twitch Stream these past few weeks. I’ll be back on the mic this Weds and can’t wait to see what people have cooked up for this week!
Also a big thank you to everybody who helped me get ready for Pauper in Indianapolis.
