This week's Midweek Magic event on Arena is Historic Pauper and I am planning to play a bunch of it. It doesn't cost anything t o enter, and you can change decks as often as you like, so I'll be playing a couple of different things -- decklists in the comments. I'd love to add more lists to my repertoire, so please share anything interesting you've got!

New to Pauper

What if anything would you change about this deck?

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/6028246#online

Poison Storm at FNM (2023-10-27)

Decklist

I netdecked a more "foggy" Poison Storm decklist from this kalikaiz video and only did minor modifications, because I either did not have all the cards or liked the versatile Muddle the Mixture more than the quite expensive Steady Progress. I also added Echoing Truth in the SB because I was expecting a Kuldotha-heavy meta and we always have that one Bogles guy...

My list can be found on Moxfield

Context

Overall we had a great turnout at the attic in Fürth: 18 players showed up - some for their first Pauper games ever!

The matches

Round 1 against UR Pinger Burn

Game 1 started fine - I got down a lot of depletion lands and a Pentad Prism and an Everflowing Chalice. I proliferated a bit and drew cards, but I did not find anything to poison them and finally fizzled out while they slowly chipped away with their pingers. One thing that's always fun with Poison Storm is that most opponents have to read all your cards when you play them for the first time, because no one has played against the deck.

Sideboard:

IN 3 Annoints, 1 Weather, 2 Arrows

OUT sorry, I did not write it down

Second game my deck worked like it should: I removed an early pinger with Annoint, poisoned them, gained a lot of life with Weather and slowly proliferated them to death. The one spice they had was Gargadon which they suspended early. But I kept a Annoint in my hand and had enough poison to remove it when it finally entered the battlefield and they tapped out.

Most players at the attic play reasonably well and understand the deck after game 1 even if they've never played against it. This was also the case here: In Game 3 they put two pingers down early and then just stacked their hand with countermagic and waited. I had to blow a depletion land early to pay for a Spell Pierce and later on all my proliferation/card draw got countered thus I was dead in the water.

Result: 1-2 -> L

I would've been more happy against a MonoR Pinger burn honestly, because the blue gave them access to a lot of countermagic which I could not get around enough to stay in the game in game 3.

Round 2 against MonoU Delver/Serpentine Curve

Game 1 I instantly made a mistake in keeping a hand that had no blue mana because I wanted to rely on the Pentad Prism I had. But surprisingly my opponent also looked at Poison Storm as a choice for the FNM before the evening and thus knew that countering the Pentad Prism was a good idea and so did just that. Still, Moment's Peace put in a lot of work in this game and my line (100% stolen from kalikaiz) of playing it on their upkeep got a few ooohs and aaahs over the evening. But in the end I could not recover from the lack of blue and lost the game to two flipped delvers and a Tolarian Terror.

Sideboard:

IN 2 Annoint with Affliction, 2 Bring the Ending

OUT 2 Everflowing Chalice, 2 Muddle the Mixture

Game 2 they also did the good ole blue thing: they played an early delver and then stacked their hand with countermagic and slowly chipped away at my life total while never tapping out and then countering all the card draw/proliferation spells. I never drew my own BtEs, but at least I got to remove a 14/14 Serpentine Curve token with Annoint which felt good.

Result: 0-2 -> L

Round 3 against UB Terror

Game 1 I got a really good starting hand: All mana colors, a Prologue, some Proliferation. The opponent had to read all my cards again, and didn't really know what to do, e.g. they milled me a few times with Thought Scour. Also Weather the Storm and Moment's Peace helped me survive long enough to get them to 10 poison.

Sideboard:

IN 2 Serrated Arrows, 3 Bring the Ending

OUT 2 Muddle the Mixture, 1 Deep Analysis, 2 Everflowing Chalice

Game 2 I never drew my own countermagic, they never tapped out but kept countermagic on hand always and thus I never got to really do anything. They also attacked me on the artifact vector with Steel Sabotage from their SB.

Game 3 started okay, but then I flooded out. I had to cast a crappy Weather the Storm solo to gain 3 life to put me out of lethal range (I would've been at 1 after attacks) but then they had a Unexpected Fangs and thus won the match.

Result: 1-2 -> L

Round 4 against Boros Synthesizer

The FNM already had a winner after game 3 (Elves, of all things!) but as everyone wanted to continue playing we all played an unofficial Round 4.

Against Boros Synth I mulled to 5 in Game 1. My opponent had never seen or heard of Poison Storm and thus had to read all the cards again. As he had no meaningful interaction I happily did my things and easily got him to 10 poison. I resolved so many Vivisurgeon's Insights that the mull to 5 was quickly forgotten. I also used Moment's Peace to get some time - I actually transmuted Muddle to find it in a pinch!

Sideboard:

IN 1 Weather the Storm, 3 Arms of Hadar

OUT 1 Everflowing Chalice, 1 Deep Analysis, 2 Muddle the Mixture

The idea behind Arms of Hadar was to clear his board and leave him stranded. Again I had to mull to 5. This time I wasn't as lucky because he understood that Chalice and Pentad Prism are the MVPs of my deck often and he kept Cast into the fire ready to remove my first Pentad Prism which really hurt my mana. I prolonged the game with multiple Weathers but did not get him to 10 poison in time. Sadly I never saw the Arms of Hadar in any of the games...

Game 3 I was already quite tired and made a few mistakes I think: I should've sideboarded again to get more countermagic in against his Cast into the fire (and maybe Pyroblast, too, but didn't see any) and get rid of at least 1 or 2 more Chalices. But I just kept the same cards from game 2. We were already quite close to timeout and I tried to fog him out to at least get the Draw after he again removed a Prism and a Chalice with Cast into the fire. In the end it was the last turn in timeout, I was at 4 life, I fogged him again. Then he used all his mana but one Mountain to crack an Experimental Synthesizer. He needed a Galvanic Blast - everything else in this deck would be not enough damage or too expensive to cast. We both looked at his library as he flipped his top card with the last possible action of the match... and revealed a Galvanic Blast! This was so crazy that we I couldn't even be mad. He was really happy that he got at least one W out of the evening and I was happy for him, too.

Result: 1-2 -> L

Final thoughts

When the deck works it is a lot of fun: Drawing cards, flipping dice, seeing the opponent slowly realizing that the poison counters go up and up and they can't do a thing - really great. Also the evolution with Moment's Peace in the Main Deck is great: All games I won either Peace or Weather put in a lot of work. Being able to find those with Muddle in a pinch is also a plus.

But: The deck is too easy to disrupt I think: Either with countermagic against your Proliferation/card draw or with artifact hate against the important artifacts. Last time I brought it two months ago I also lost to land destruction, which is another way the deck gets hosed. I ended up going 0-4 overall which was a bit frustrating albeit having a lot of fun and getting quite a few nice comments about the Poison Storm deck.

And obviously the deck is not that easy to play, and I'm not a good Magic player (yet?). Someone like kalikaiz might have sneaked in a W or two, but the problem at least in our local meta still stands: All my 3 official rounds were against blue decks heavy on the counterspells, and as you don't pressure them on the board they can just sit back and wait for me to do anything and then counter it while slowly chipping away.

I'll shelve the deck for now and will probably switch to a creature-heavy deck for next month just to play something different and less fragile.

What WOE cards are you guys most excited about? Personally I am really curious about the Young Hero Role cards: [[Besotted Knight]] and [[Return Triumphant]]. The Young Hero Role seems really strong with cards that can consume +1/+1 counters, such as [[Experiment One]], [[Festercreep]], [[Shinewend]] and [[Phantom Nomad]]. Also great with Modular cards.

Seems like a neat little deck.

A classic combo that I've personally never seen in action. There is something about combo decks in Pauper that feels unappealing to me.

When I brought up Pauper in my local MTG discord, some players said that Pauper was too linear and much like two ships passing in the night and that's why they don't think it's such an interesting format. They mentioned they played Pauper once and realized that they had no interaction at it was merely a game to see who could combo off first.

I guess I have a bone to pick with that take on the format which leads me to steer away from combo decks. My local area is extremely Commander-dominated, which I think warps the players' perception of how to win a game of magic.

In commander you mostly need to win big by doing insanely busted things. The other day, a friend of mine who hasn't played Pauper was looking at my [[Reality Acid]] deck, which is a control deck that wins slowly with [[Kor Skyfisher]] and [[Mulldrifter]] beatdown, and he struggled to understand how the deck was meant to win. There were no huge bombs or combos to "win big" with, so to him it felt like a deck that was "going nowhere".

I think seeking that kind of big win experience can draw a Commander player towards mostly combo decks in Pauper, thus playing into the perception that Pauper is just linear decks passing in the night.

Decklist

I saw this deck on a lemmy-like social media platform that shall not be named, and fell in love with it. I think this is a really cool and tight package. The cards work together super well and you get to draw so many cards that it feels very consistent. I play [[Annihilating Glare]] instead of [[Lash of the Barlog]], but I'm otherwise mostly on board with the card choices (some minor substitions for cards I don't own, such as the artifact lands).

My local meta isn't super competitive (it's mostly just me and a friend who borrows my brews) so I haven't tested its mettle against really powerful decks, but it feels like it has game against a lot of decks. I've been toying with with the idea of using [[Dark Ritual]] to speed up the deck, which I think we could get away with since the deck draws so many cards and uses mostly black mana. I've also considered [[Crack the earth]] but I suppose that's more of a sideboard card against decks that play very few permanents such as turbo fog or something.

I think [[Reckoner's Bargain]] should be considered over [[Nasty End]] since sacrificing an artifact is much easier, but an extra card off the ring bearer is of course pretty sick. Not sure if one should play [[Lightning Bolt]] over [[Cast into the fire]]. That feels like a meta dependent choice. I feel that in my janky meta there is very often something you can kill with Cast into the fire, and it's worth it.

Andrea Mengucci plays Thoralf Severin in a friendly, but fierce match. I like the good vibes and excellent video production from the video team at Cardmarket.

Here are some of mine:

[[Cavern Harpy]] – So much ETB shenanigans!

[[Sultai Emissary]] – Nice value card and possibly a really cool payoff if you have something good on top of your library.

[[Moldgraf Scavenger]] – Pauper Goyf??

Sounds like the project succumbed to burnout and fatigue, which I certainly sympathize with.

[[Brass Knuckles]] [[Windrider Wizard]] [[Blood Aspirant]]

Fun little article about what makes Lembas so good in Pauper

I wanna build some more pauper decks, preferably off-meta ones. I already have a kiln fiend and sliver deck but I want to build more. maybe something white, like mono-w heroic or green aggro/stompy.

18 Island
2 Network Disruptor
4 Faerie Miscreant
4 Faerie Seer
4 Moon-Circuit Hacker
4 Ninja of the Deep Hours
2 Mirrorshell Crab
4 Mantle of Tides
3 Aether Spellbomb
3 Blink of an Eye
2 Make Disappear
4 Disruption Protocol
2 Of One Mind
4 Hieroglyphic Illumination

To be fair, the Pauper Midweek Magic events are not a competitive environment; there are a lot of just-for-fun decks and random stuff thrown together in the hope of squeezing out 3 wins. Still, this deck works great and I'd take it to a tournament if there were any.

Card thoughts:

By the mid-game you can usually cast Of One Mind for one mana, since all the ninjas are humans and the rest of the creatures aren't. It's a great rate, but the card's not essential to how the deck functions, so feel free to replace it with anything.

The Mirrorshell Crabs are probably too cute. In ~40 games I've yet to cast them as creatures, even when I've had enough mana. I'll probably replace them with the other two Make Disappears next time. Still, they do some things other counters can't: the channel ability can counter other abilities, and is difficult to counter itself since it's not a spell. The Crabs might be good in the sideboard if you're playing Bo3.

Other ninja decks I faced seem to like Lantern Bearer in the cheap flyer slots, since its flip side can eventually allow the ninjas themselves to fly. I like the idea too, but I'm running Network Disruptor instead to provide a couple more artifacts for Disruption Protocol, which is a fantastic counterspell. Disruptor's ETB ability isn't amazing but it's definitely relevant sometimes.

Mantle of Tides is incredible in this deck. It lets your X/1s block, it helps you cast Disruption Protocol, and it turns Hieroglyphic Illumination into a combat trick. (You have to pay the full 4 for Illumination on your opponent's turn, but on your own turn, just cycling it is sufficient.) Note that Mantle's trigger isn't optional, but you can have it target the same creature that's already equipped.

No Lonely Sandbar, Mystic Sanctuary, or any other tapped lands for two reasons. First because you absolutely must play untapped lands on your first two turns in order for the deck to get underway. Second because as long as you can keep drawing cards, you can keep spending a lot of mana, even in the late game. You're usually not sad to play your sixth or seventh Island, provided it wasn't the only thing in your hand.

Mulligan decisions: most hands that have two islands, a 1/1 flyer, and any other spell are probably good enough to keep.

This archetype is one of my favorites in actual Pauper, and I'm thrilled that a substantially similar list can be built on Arena.

Would love to see other people's ninja lists, or whatever else you're playing in Historic Pauper.