Every Wednesday Insight is taking a quick look at one of the top-performing, most peculiar, or simply sweetest Pauper decks among recent results. Two new cards made this strategy resurface to snag a Challenge Top 8 and a Top 16. Here's a great option to deal with all these red decks looming around!
Heroic is a mix between the classic go-tall Bogles deck and a White Weenie go-wide type of strategy. The creatures don't have the built-in protection of cards like . Instead each spell that targets or will add a counter. Don't worry about not having hexproof, as white has access to the best protection spells.
and add to the creature count and have utility outside of beating down. One of the big changes was the addition of and , replacing and . It was a bold choice because Deftblade is stock in all lists, a board control element that provokes either to kill a creature or to let another attack unimpeded. Skirge was mainly the anti- technology, though its lifelink also helped with Burn.
I don't think the Adventure spell is that good, and I'd rather have the Elite, but Keepguard is amazing: Card selection in white is hard to come by, and having it on a creature is one of the best things that could've happened to the deck. You also get a sizable boost for three mana, and due to the scrying you won't need to worry about missing the third land drop. and are the Auras that bring the most power to the board. The rest offer smaller buffs but trigger heroic and are used for their secondary effects, like the totem armor of . The extra body from makes Heroic much more resilient against effects than Bogles.
Still on the Bogles comparison, Heroic lacks trample effects such as or . Instead it has evasion through protection, for example and . Although these are mainly defense against or , you can also name the color of the opposing blockers and make the targeted creature effectively unblockable.
But be careful with Emerge Unscathed and ! If you give a creature protection from white, your Auras will go straight to the graveyard. The exception is with Benevolent Blessing as the card specifically states that it won't remove your enchantments. Sometimes it's still worth it, especially as you get to keep any +1/+1 counters. Just don't make the mistake of naming white as a color at the wrong time.
| Monowhite Heroic by _against_, 8th Place at Pauper Challenge, October 15
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Opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, not of Cardmarket.
