Pauper Deck of the Week: Sticking Sticker Goblins

Every Wednesday Insight is taking a quick look at one of the top-performing, most peculiar, or simply sweetest Pauper decks among recent results. Were we all sleeping on this? A card with the sticker mechanic is making its rounds across the format and is all the rage on Magic Online these days!

For Pauper, Burn and Red Deck Wins are practically the same. They seldom exist independently. If the metagame is hostile to go-wide strategies, folks will play more of a Burn build, otherwise they will rely more on a creature game plan. The overlap includes variants of , plus some amount of or , and the all-star . Now the infamous from Unfinity was implemented on Magic Online, and it is time to go-wide! Using its capabilities, huge boards will pop up as early as turn three, just waiting for s and a kicked to win the game.

When building a deck with sticker sheets, you'll need to choose ten out of 48, and when sitting to play, you'll randomly select three, which may look like too much variance for a competitive deck. But once you select the optimal stickers, you have a 30% chance of generating six mana, a 40.83% chance of generating five mana, and a 29.17% chance of generating four mana on the first cast. Successive castings will have to use another name sticker, and you should expect to generate four mana. Just remember, the stickers only leave if the card goes to a hidden zone!

The current online implementation of the card feels a lot like the tabletop experience, offering practically the same rate of mana for the same casting. However, you only know the amount after the Goblin enters the battlefield and if it survives. This makes it harder to plan the turns. The upside is that you end up with more mana if you cast multiples.

If you are still not convinced, check out these screenshots from a game played by Gn42, trophy leader for the last two seasons of the Magic Online Pauper Leaderboards. He starts turn three with two exiled by a cast last turn. He then makes a third land drop, summons two ________ Goblins, proceeds to play out his whole hand, including a and a kicked , and attacks for 15!

Beginning of turn three
Beginning of turn three
End of turn three
End of turn three

Also consider watching this gameplay video by saidin.raken. It is a great showcase of the deck's range because he had a good spread of matchups.

Sticker Kuldotha by saidin.raken, 5-0 in Pauper League, September 20
Main DeckSideboard
  • 4
  • 4
  • 4
  • 4
  •  
  • 2
  • 4
  • 4
  • 4
  • 4
  • 2
  • 4
  • 1
  •  
  • 1
  • 4
  • 14
  • 3
  • 3
  • 3
  • 2
  • 2
Optimal Sticker Sheets
Sheet Number Sticker Names Mana Generated by Each Name
1 3, 4, 3
5 4, 2, 1
12 4, 3, 3
13 5, 3, 2
18 4, 3, 3
21 3, 3, 2
23 2, 1, 4
30 3, 6, 2
36 3, 5, 1
45 2, 3, 4

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