Fat Stacks and Super Tax

Pauper Attrition BR (Rakdos) Budget Control Death and Taxes Defender Enchant Enchantment Stax Wall

Balaam__

Enchantment (28)

• 4x Contaminated Bond
• 4x Laccolith Rig
• 4x Nettling Curse
• 4x Ragged Veins
• 4x Seizures
• 4x Sinister Possession
• 4x Vampiric Link

Land (20)

• 4x Bloodfell Caves
• 6x Mountain
• 8x Swamp
• 2x Witch's Cottage

Instant (4)

• 4x Lightning Bolt

Creature (8)

• 2x Gurmag Angler
• 4x Wall of Earth
• 2x Wall of Shadows

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Sideboard

Instant (8)

• 4x Cast Down
• 4x Dash Hopes

Sorcery (3)

• 3x Sign in Blood

Creature (2)

• 2x Wall of Diffusion

Enchantment (2)

• 2x Contaminated Ground

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Maybeboard

Enchantment (2)

• 1x Insolence
• 1x Parasitic Impetus

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I’ve found much fun and excitement in scouring through piles of old cards, picking an obscure (or just plain bad) card, and building an entire deck around it. While this typically nullifies any sort of competition caliber results, the upside is the refreshing challenge of playing something new and learning to make the most of it. Unfortunately that more or less limits the format options to Legacy, Vintage and Pauper—so I’ve chosen Pauper, being the tight-fisted miser that I am. Playing this deck won’t win you any tournaments, but you’ll have a lot of fun!

The Mana Base

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We’re in Pauper, so to my great dismay we cannot use the penultimate Rakdos land, Badlands. This is ironic, as the (potentially) laccolithic butte aptly named Devil’s Tower pictured above would look well at home in such a place. Alas, we have to look elsewhere to find sources of {B} and {R}.

•Basic swamps and mountains supply the bulk of our mana, skewed toward {B} at an almost 2 to 1 ratio.

•Bloodfell Caves offers a point of life in apology for entering tapped.

•Witch's Cottage can be held in reserve to resuscitate one of our paltry few creatures, should they meet an untimely demise owing to Deathtouch or removal or what have you.

Creature Bookends

We run a handful of creatures but they really only bookend our primary strategy. We have dire need of capable blockers in the interim while we strive to dogpile Enchantments on our opponent’s strongest creature presence, weighing them on the scales of taxation. Lastly, we may have need of a strong finisher at the end.

•Wall of Earth offers strong defense, rated at a burly 6 toughness for just {1}{R}. Use these two walls to stave off incumbent damage while we work on spamming Form 1040’s in our opponent’s direction.

•Wall of Shadows works wonders against some of the Pauper decks that are capable of spamming out big creatures fast. There’s something satisfying about blocking an exhumed Ruin Processor or delved-in Gurmag Angler with a puny 0/1 wall that just won’t die.

•Speaking of Gurmag Angler, it’s a fine way to close out the game should our Enchantments have been thwarted or otherwise nullified. A crippled opponent is an easy mark for a 5/5 cast quickly with Delve.

Enchantments Stacked Like Pringles

The name of the game is to stack excessively taxing Enchantment spells on our opponent’s creature(s) to the point where it’ll look like there’s a third library in the middle of the table.

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Stacks and Taxes Show

•Sinister Possession is our first line of defense. Most early game creatures are 1/1’s or 2/2’s, so cast this Enchantment secure in the knowledge that it doesn’t make much sense to try and swing for 1 or 2 when it means an automatic 2 point life loss for them.

•Vampiric Link is traveling to the same destination as Sinister Possession, but it takes a different route to get there. Attach it to one of the opponent’s creatures and for all intents and purposes it’s removed as a threat. Enchant anything our wall-type creatures can’t handle, like Flyers, Tramplers and Deathtouchers.

A Word of Caution: Show

Technically, damage will be dealt first; then life will be retroactively added to our total. Be mindful of relying on Vampiric Link to coast through battle damage when your life is low, lest you embarrassingly die from damage before the life points can be added.

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•Contaminated Bond is Sinister Possession all grown up. Same thinking applies: Is it really worth it to try and apply 3 or even 4 combat damage when the price is so high?

•Seizures is true taxation; just like real life it’s ‘pay for the privilege, or pay the penalty’. Either way, they pay.

•Ragged Veins really shines when we flash it in attached to a creature we intend to off through Laccolith Rig’s effect. Throw a Lightning Bolt at it for yet more bonus damage, and call it a day.

•When all else fails, put your faith in an Act of God to take care of harassing creatures.

Main Combo Engine Show

Right. So here’s where we transition from a blunderbuss method of taxing anything that moves to a much more discriminatory and direct manner of taxation.

•Begin by casting Laccolith Rig on whichever creature under the opponent’s control has the highest power. For the time being, this forestalls it as a threat. Once enchanted, it’s time to move onto the next step.

•Cast Nettling Curse on the laccolith rigged creature, which opens up our main strategy. Each turn aim to spend {1}{R} to force the enchanted creature to attack, which will trigger a mandatory 3 point life loss for its controller.

After forcing the attack, block it with whatever is available on our end—it doesn’t matter, since no combat damage will be assigned (this also handily skirts around potential detrimental hiccups like Deathtouch or Infect). Instead, once blocked we (as per Laccolith Rig) may have the enchanted creature deal damage equal to its power to whatever creature we wish. Simply choose a different creature under the opponent’s control that has a toughness less than or equal to the laccolith rigged creature’s power, and it’s erased.

Repeat this process as often as necessary until the opposing boardstate is a barren wasteland devoid of living things.

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With the right Enchantments stacked on the appropriate creatures, the opponent ought to feel the Sword of Damocles thrusting ever downward as their life points hemorrhage away.

TL;DR

•Cast cheap blockers to stifle early game damage (works wonders against aggro/white weenie decks).

•Put fat stacks of black taxes on all suitable enemy creatures. Spells like Sinister Possession, Contaminated Bond, and Seizures hamstring the vast majority of creature based decks and strategies.

•When the opponent puts a sufficiently powerful creature into play, aim to cast Laccolith Rig and Nettling Curse on it. Then force it to attack (draining at least 3 life), block it with whatever’s handy, then target a different creature with lethal damage as per Laccolith Rig. Rinse and repeat.

•Should our Enchantment gambit fail, our backup plan is to cast Gurmag Angler for cheap (since our Enchantments will most likely be in the graveyard and thus perfect Delve fuel) and clobber the opponent for 5 points of damage per attack.

The Sideboard

The Sideboard is comprised of some solid utility spells to compliment what we may lack in the main deck.

•Dash Hopes is a wonderful tool in our arsenal that is tax friendly. With an opponent already reeling from pay-to-play effects, they’ll think twice about paying 5 life to counter this counterspell.

•Cast Down is top contender for ‘The Best Removal in Pauper’; 4 copies, no question.

•Contaminated Ground is another method of taxing the opposing player into submission.

•Wall of Diffusion is another option for cheap and effective defense, with a side benefit of being able to block creatures with Shadow. Though typically irrelevant in most formats, Pauper does have quite a few Shadow enabled creatures so this characteristic could be a useful bonus.

•Sign in Blood is great for draw power or even just to squash the other player clinging to their last 2 life points.

”For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers.”

Top Ranked	Achieved #4 position overall 3 years ago Achieved #1 position in Pauper 3 years ago
Date added	3 years
Last updated	4 months
Legality	This deck is Pauper legal.
Cards	60
Avg. CMC	2.00
Folders	Pauper, Pauper Decks, Pauperz, An Unimaginatively Entitled Collection of Pauper Decks, Affordable and Good Commentary, decks legais, Planned decks, Pauper, pauper fun, Want