Friend or Fodder ? That is the question.
What is up everybody, my name is -Sylex- and I'm back with the first installment of a Pauper deck series.
Lately, I've been brewing a ton of decks on MTGO. Pauper is the rogue brewer's paradise : being able to make some very competitive decks for such a low price is awesome ! The format is slowly rising in popularity and I really hope that someday we'll see Pauper being played at local stores.
The goal of the deck is very simple, here's a way to summarize it :
Step 1. Carrion Feeder/
Plagued Rusalka
Step 2. Expendable creature Step 3. ??? Step 4. Profit
Here I'll explain how each card functions and divide each one of them in categories.
Sacrifice Outlets :
Carrion Feeder : This zombie is what enables the whole strategy of the deck. It turns your otherwise ''meh'' creatures into real threats and acts as a removal magnet.
Plagued Rusalka
: Pauper is a format where a lot of creatures are very small. The ability to give -1/-1 to any creature is extremely powerful when enabled properly.
Plagued Rusalka
doesn't stack up counters like Carrion Feeder does but she completely dominates the board against certain decks, which is why I run 2 mainboard and 1 side.
Expendable Creatures :
Brindle Shoat
,
Sultai Emissary
,
Dripping-Tongue Zubera
: Once they die, theses creatures leave another body behind. They usually serve as fodder for Feeder and Rusalka but they can also be decent chump blockers when needed.
If you have 2
Dripping-Tongue Zubera
in play, sacrifice them both before their triggers resolve. You'll get 4 spirit tokens as a result since the 2 triggers will account that 2 zubera died this turn.
Value Creatures :
Viridian Emissary : This creature is a 2/1 body with a Rampant Growth attached to it when it dies. Theses are okay stats and this deck can make a profitable use out of the extra land.
Phyrexian Rager : This card fits in this deck as a way to get card advantage and a 2/2 body. It helps to get through the deck faster and it's an excellent target for Unearth in the late game.
Instants/Sorceries :
Unearth : This efficient spell has a lot of usages and all of them are great. The main one is to recur an expendable creature from the graveyard to get twice the value, especially with
Dripping-Tongue Zubera
. It can also bring back a sacrifice outlet when needed or if somehow the graveyard gets exiled, it can cycle itself.
Grim Harvest
: This card really shines when the games get long and both players run low on cards. The whole processus of bringing back a creature to your hand then recovering
Grim Harvest
takes time and a lot of mana to set up but once it gets going, it's nearly unbeatable.
Sprout Swarm : This card is kinda ridiculous. Against decks without counterspells, it singlehandedly wins the game with an endless flow of creatures. It takes some time to set up but it gets 1 mana cheaper each time you cast it ( The saproling token can pay for convoke ) and it's a frickin instant, which means you can play it on the end of your opponents turn.
Tragic Slip : In a deck built to abuse the ''when this creature dies'' mechanic, triggering Morbid couldn't be easier. for -13/-13 to target creature at instant speed is the best single targeted removal you can get in black by far
Conclusion :
Thanks for viewing my deck !
Pauper is a criminally underplayed format but I'm sure there's an audience who likes fresh new and crazy brews. It's weird to me because the format is perfect for low-budget competitive enthusiasts and casual players alike. I really hope that it becomes a larger Magic format and eventually, who knows, a popular sanctioned format.
If you guys would like to see more Pauper decks, please let me know in the comment section !
