An Analysis of Pauper Through the Last 23 Challenges

The Challenge Project

Each weekend at least two major tournaments happen in every format on Magic Online. Due to the entry fees and the prize pool, these events attract the best players and highlight the best decks and give the best indication of what is and what isn't working in the meta.

Wizards publish the results each Monday but unfortunately only the Top 32 lists, and they aren't grouped by archetypes. It isn't immediately obvious how much each deck won, and worse, we miss information on all decks that did poorly. In response, some people got together to start the Challenge Project, which notes every deck and player to generate the full data for the event. This takes quite some work and doesn't always happen or succeed. It isn't a perfect situation, but if I want to analyze the meta, I have to choose: Either I have all events but not the decks that did poorly or deal with full data but missing days. The latter arguably builds a better picture of the format.

If you followed my past work analyzing the Magic Online Leagues, you'll see that I'm using different naming conventions for this article. The Challenge Project applies a less granular categorization, and I stuck with it with only small adaptations.

Acknowledgements

I want to say thanks to PProteus, the manager of the Challenge Project, and all the players that contributed to the data collection: A_AdeptoTerra, Diego_Brando, Gn42, HeWhoIsInTheWater, Kirblinxy, and Walker735.

Metadata

Tales of Middle-earth

Tales of Middle-earth was extremely impactful with the printing of the land cyclers, especially , , and . Although heavy costed for the current format, these spells can turn themselves into lands, which means you can reduce your land count and use graveyard-dependent cards like and .

By far the most relevant was the blue spell as it helped nontempo blue decks match the card advantage of and /. Not by casting it, necessarily, rather you upped the density of spells and would have more live draws at more points this way. Decks like U/B Angler-Terror saw in Lórien Revealed a powerful addition, and it became the second most played deck among Challenges in that era. It only lost to Burn, which has been defining the meta ever since was downshifted.

• Check out this article for more information on U/B Terror.

The second most relevant card of this cycle was Generous Ent. Although it only slotted into one deck, Ponza, it was powerful enough to give the deck the bronze medal for popularity during that period. An issue with any land destruction build is that it easily runs out of gas. Ideally you want start on into to set up a or and then deploy something to finish the game like . But if any part of this plan fails, the oppont can catch up in land drops and stabilize. In those scenarios you don't want to topdeck a land or a ramp card, but what if you had something like ? It can cascade from an , it has a relevant body with reach, and it gives you Food to help stabilize against Burn decks. The card fit perfectly into the strategy and made it heavily popular, although the win rate didn't follow.

• Check out this article for more information on Ponza.

Lastly, some builds of Goblin Class Combo (also known as Moggwarts), started running the Troll of Khazad-dûm (and sometimes even ) alongside . As a general rule Pauper is averse to straightforward combo decks, and running specifically a creature combo in a format defined by Burn and is a tall ask. Nonetheless the deck got some decent results and resurfaced.

• Check out this article for more information on Moggwarts.

Commander Masters

When the set was fully previewed, there was so much excitement. Some downshifts would help fringe builds, for example Petal Festival gaining , or improve strategies that were losing ground, like joining W/U Familiars. It looked like there was a card for everyone. Ultimately for Affinity and for Terror decks ended up taking the spotlight.

The most popular decks of that era were still the same and in the same order: Burn, U/B Angler-Terror, Ponza, and the usual midrange Affinity, but the meta underwent changes. The Terror deck got the Cryptic Serpent upgrade and All That Glitters eventually slotted into Affinity.

Slowly a Monoblue Terror list started to arise, posting great results and even winning an event in the hands of the player discoverN. But for the rest of the month U/B and Monoblue Terror were both frequently played. Only by Wilds of Eldraine did we see the monocolored build being favored. This version is particularly good in a fast-paced environment: It doesn't have tapped lands and can deploy an early as the perfect tempo play to begin what'll end with or .

• Check out this article for more information on Monoblue Terror.

It wasn't all that obvious in which direction to take Affinity. Some builds remained Grixis, others went to Esper or Jeskai. It was only after August 12, when Mogged found an amazing white-blue-based based configuration and placed second in the Challenge, that folks started to drift this way. Sadly we don't have the full data for that Challenge.

The deck won the Challenges of August 20 and August 27. It was also the most popular deck on September 3 and put three out of six pilots into the Top 8. Glitter Affinity proved an extremely fast-paced menace running cheap spells like , , and to amass a huge number of artifacts over the first turns so becomes a hit kill.

• Check out this article for more information on Glitter Affinity.

Unfortunately we don't full data for four events, so we can't truly pinpoint the meta share impact of All That Glitters. In the events missing we can see that there were multiple copies of the deck among the Top 32. Again, either we have all days but without win rates and underperforming decks, or we have the full data but without a few days. Nonetheless I made the chart with the breakdown for the Swiss placements. The most interesting thing is how Boros Synthesizer got popular and snagged the most Top 8s and Top 16s proportionally.

Even though Boros Synthesizer converted 30.43% of its starts to Top 8 finishes, it also left 43.48% below Top 32, which is in line with the sort of play patterns this deck incentivizes. You can have aggressive starts with backed by cheap spells to trigger prowess or and finish the game with and . Ultimately I think the deck did really well because it started to incorporate into the main deck, which can hinder the development of U/B Angler-Terror and Monoblue Terror. It also helps that the deck is red-white thus can run and to deal with Affinity. Even just the regular burn spells are good enough to do a two-for-one trade against Glitter Affinity when it casts All That Glitters targeting a Frogmite or .

• Check out this article for more information on Boros Synthesizer. It dates from an older meta, but some insights are still relevant.

Wilds of Eldraine

The set brought for Monoblue Faeries and for Goblin Class Combo. However, their impact on the metagame remained modest. What truly shook the online meta was the delayed implementation of a card from Unfinity, .

Despite already being legal for tabletop play, the Goblin wasn't widely tested. With its online implementation we saw an uptick in builds shifting back to . The deck uses things like Rebirth and in tandem with burn spells for fast kills and gets card advantage from and /. It uses the Goblin as a ritual and an extra body to make the exiling and Bushwhacker turns even stronger.

• Check out this article for more information on Kuldotha Sticker.

In other news, Caw Gates returned to the spotlight! It featured among the most played and enjoyed an amazing Top 8 conversion, putting more than a third of its players there. This deck is a machine but needs a competent pilot and a lot of finetuning to deal with the meta. The and interaction eludes many players. On the surface it looks quite straightforward: You cast one Hawk, tutor the rest, cast Brainstorm, put two on top, and use a shuffle effect, which can be another Bird, to generate real card advantage. But the correct timing is important, and the deck also requires a lot of patience and cold blood overall. By the late game things like with can overcome most blockers to win the game. Last but not least, makes a crucial piece of the puzzle, not only for its embalm ability but because it can gain double digit life with a few activations of Basilisk Gate.

• Check out this article for more information on Caw Gates.

Monowhite Aggro was the surprise of this period. It kept good conversions for the Top 8, Top 16, and Top 32, but it wasn't a widely played deck. Does this mean players should pay more attention to it? I don't think so. White go-wide decks are a staple of Pauper, not for their power level, but because they creep through the cracks of the format and wipe the floor until the meta adjusts and shoves the deck away again. The combination of fliers in and with a battalion on the ground in and guarantees the deck has resilience and can keep enough creatures around until wins the game.

• Check out this article for more information on Monowhite Aggro.

One important observation concerns the atrocious results from Black Gardens. It was the fifth most played deck during that period but had the worst Top 32 rate of any deck, staggeringly! This is not to say there weren't good results, after all 11.76% of its pilots got a Top 8, and the deck won events like on September 16. However, playing it will most likely yield awful results.

• Check out this article for more information on Black Gardens.

Aggregate Charts

The following charts join together all the data discussed in the last sections. They are shown here as a way for the reader to navigate through all the time periods and their respective metagames, a way to explore and get more insight on strategies that weren't discussed in detail.

Final Considerations

The most popular and arguably best decks of the format (Burn, Affinity, and both Terror versions) all have cheap threats, cheap ways to go through the deck, and cheap pieces of interaction. It seems a deck has to be good on all three fronts lest the handicap be too much to bear. Look at Black Gardens and how it frequently stays below Top 32. It has decent draws and answers, but it lacks early threats.

Even Caw Gates follows that formula, in a way. It doesn't draw as much as Dispute decks but has the typical card selection from blue and better interaction. As far as threats go, it solves the issue decks like Black Gardens experience with , which turns any of its creatures into a big deal. It is also important to note that some sideboards include a full set of , , and , some even filling slots with or , like the list from Gn42 that I highlighted above or the ones from carrot_eater and BackOff, both in the Top 8 of the October 8 Challenge. These are perfect choices to beat Monoblue Terror, Kuldotha Sticker—cheap answers to deal with cheap threats. Dust is an exception due to its hefty cost, but it is being used to target Affinity's lands so it can't play the game.

Interestingly Ponza ticks these boxes but only if it curves well. improved the deck, but it is still too prone to variance. For the whole period more than half of its players placed outside the Top 32, yet the deck remains quite popular.

In short, decks that aren't hyperefficient won't have an easy time in the current format. Between threats that cost zero () or as little as one mana (, ) and catch-all answers that also cost one mana () exists an equilibrium in which only a few decks can take part.

---

Opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, not of Cardmarket.