Note: TappedOut says that Tangle is not Pauper legal, it in fact is. It was printed as a Common in Vintage Masters
Welcome to my Pauper Turbo Fog deck list. This has been one of my most fun decks to build and play because it is a hyper control deck, but not in the usual manner of control. It only runs four Counterspell, and the rest of the control comes from combat control with the various Fog effects.
This deck is very simple, yet tons of fun. It does loose a little bit of the fun if you are playing online as you can't see the frustration growing when you cast Fog after Fog, but just know, they are getting peeved.
This deck will win via milling our opponent's library out with cards like Curse of the Bloody Tome and Jace's Erasure. The Erasure is the better option here as we are drawing a ton of cards every turn, but due to a lot of enchantment hate, and the speed of the format more than just four copies of a win condition are needed. The Tome will do work, but as I said, if you can play an Erasure over Tome do it.
The deck has a very simple and linear game play, with the only real tricky part being which Fog effect to play when, as each has benefits over the others. In this section I will go over each effect and what it does that the others don't and it will be up to you as the pilot of the deck to decide when to cast what.
Fog: The namesake of the deck. Many look at the simple Fog as a weak watered down version of the card that has been upgraded with better variants; however, the OG Fog fills a VITAL role in the deck. This is our only one mana fog effect. With this ability in hand we can tap our mana more freely or leave up mana for a Counterspell and still be able to Fog the field. Don't underestimate this little guy as he allows us to be more flexible in our mana expenditure.
Moment's Peace
: This card is an amazing Fog Effect against the control player who seems to have a counter for everything. Since this card has Flashback, if it gets countered we can still activate it's ability, sometimes not on the same turn as the Flashback costs three mana, but we will be able to cast it again eventually which is huge value since a simple counter cant stop us. Now as I said, be careful though because the Flashback is the most expensive Fog Effect we have so you do need to be mana conservative on your turn. If you get the first cast successful then rejoice, we get a two-for-one fog effect which is usually a pretty game changing opportunity.
Respite
: This card is a lifesaver, it has allowed me to come back from a game where I was knocked down to one life left. This card Fogs the field, but then gives you one life for each attacking creature, this is invaluable in our deck because I hate to say it, but sometimes we just don't have a Fog in hand and will take a hit or two, but we can usually take 10-13 damage before we should start to get worried. If you are still at 20 life when you cast Respite, it can put you so far ahead you will never have to worry about life for the rest of the match. This card gets bonkers against token strategy decks. Great Fog effect, gives us the resiliency we need against those turn two swing out aggro decks.
Tangle: Saving the best for last! This Fog Effect is, as I say, the Pauper Time Walk. This card Ice's the opponents field, not letting any attacker untap during their next untap phase. If the opponent swings out you now have a free turn to tap our casting draw spells or win conditions. The other great thing about this card is that after resolving one your opponent will have to think long and hard about swinging the whole team since they will lose an entire turn if you happen to have another Tangle waiting for them. Once we have our opponents in a Tanglephobia we have secured the game since their attacks will come in a lot less aggro than before. This card does lose a lot of power if our opponent has an untap engine, or are playing a Hasty deck.
Those are all of our Fog effects, learn them. Learn what situations are best for which effect. Need to leave up Counterspell mana, go for Fog. Want to draw a ton of cards one turn, Tangle so you can essentially have an extra turn. It is all up to the situation.
The rest of our deck is draw spells, a lot of which are at instant speed so we will leave our mana up so our opponents have no clue what to expect. And the last note about the deck,as you can see there are no creatures. Zip, zero. Not a one. This makes all of our opponents removal blank draws which is a great feeling against the MBC player or UB Control.
Enjoy Fogging the field every turn and making your oppoent want to flip their tables. If you like the deck feel free to drop a +1, or even better sleeve it up and take it for a spin and let me know how you like it. Any and all suggestions and comments are welcome. Thanks.
