Dime a Dozen #14: Gatecrash Spoilers in Pauper

Posted on January 22, 2013 by Jason Moore

You are currently browsing comments. If you would like to return to the full story, you can read the full entry here: “Dime a Dozen #14: Gatecrash Spoilers in Pauper”.

 

  1. Just wanted to remind everyone that the full spoilers were not available at the time I wrote this article. Also, the last two decklists are not showing up properly on my browser (Safari) for some reason.

  2. I love the evaluations. The old Pestilence deck was simply brutal against most of the meta. I disagree on the extort mechanic. I don’t believe it is fast enough to provide value to the deck. Castigate is far more effective in the deck, as is duress. But I haven’t played pauper in a while so the meta might have changed.

    The raptors could potentially become a dominating force in the right control decks. I played a simic deck once which I had been told was named ‘Lower Level Blue.’ It had Coiling Oracle, Elvish Visionary and tons of counterspells. I usually killed with dorks like Spellstutter and the like. I would love to see a simic inspired pauper deck on here.

    I have only found this site today, but already I am hooked. Thanks for this article.

  3. systemic – Thanks for the input! I never said that extort would go into the Pestilence deck, however. I’m not seeing Cloudfin Raptor being a good fit within a control deck, since they don’t typically play a large number of creatures. Glad you’re liking the site, please continue to check out our content!

  5. Frostburn weird seems better than porcelain legionnaire in mono u aggro imo. It makes the creature base less weak to electrickery and has 4 toughness to dodge disfigure, firebolt, echoing decay, etc. Also with so many one drops and fliers ninja of the deep hours seems like it deserves a spot.

  6. Donzo – Good points! Frostburn Weird might be a better fit for the deck. I’m a little less enthusiastic about Ninja, what would you cut for him?

  7. Good points about syndic of tithes. I was thinking of ways of getting him into the war falcon build though, because he seems good with 1/1′s. I agree that he isn’t that good early game because you can’t afford to sink mana into him, but mid game (right around when a cloudpost deck is stabilizing) it seems like top decking a 1/1 and dropping it with extort would be pretty good. You definitely don’t want multiples of him in hand, and you definitely only want him after you have 3 mana. Maybe he could be a 2-of? Maybe 1 copy of veteran armorer and 1 copy of leonin skyhunter could be taken out for it.

  8. Also, I like him over suture preist in the post matchup because the opponent plays so few creatures that the preist’s ability is often not relevant, plus he has a 2/2 body.

  9. Michael – Syndic does seem better than Priest in the Cloudpost matchup. I think having multiples of him would pay off later in the game though, no?

  10. I’m impressed with the analysis so far, the evolve mechanic seems to be the one best suited for affecting pauper decks, extort less so. I think, as you said, it is too slow and mana dependant. You need card advantage AND enough mana to really abuse it, and and I’m not sure if there are any good draw-spells or similar for it to work. Otherwise it’s just a nice gimmick, but should lose all the same to storm/post.

    If I understand evolve correctly, you need to have either power OR thoughness to boost the creature, so I don’t think you will be stuck with a 1/2 flier all too long, especially with Frostburn Weird in the deck :)
    As for ninja, I don’t think it has a good spot in that deck, cause it does not fit with the overall theme the deck has.

    off topic: Love your pauper drafts. Can I interest you in playing/posting a storm combination sometimes? I always see you playing against them, and the mechanic of “when to go off” strikes me as very hard and I often fail at it. A little insight on storm would be most welcome!

  11. EdwardGein — I appreciate the support. I will eventually get to Storm, though I don’t have much experience piloting those kind of decks. Any variant in particular you’re interested in?

  12. Having multiples of him in the war falcon build makes you want to hit 4 mana so that you can pay for the double extort triggers when you drop a 2-drop. It seems like by that point cloudpost may have moved their life total far enough away from the red zone to just not care about what you are doing, but I could be wrong. Hitting a 1 drop with 2 of them on board and 2 mana would definitely be possible though.

  13. Just want to make a honorable mention of Devour Flesh. It’s basically Diabolic Edict with a medium-sized downside (sometimes even a smallish upside) and it doesn’t cost you 10-12 tix to acquire a playset.

    Devour Flesh 1b Instant Common
    Target player sacrifices a creature, then gains life equal to that creature’s toughness.

  14. Michael – As mentioned in the article, I don’t particularly like Syndic in the War Falcon build. You’re not wrong about Cloudpost, but that’s already the deck’s worst matchup so card choice shouldn’t necessarily be made with them in mind. They’re gonna hate on us no matter what we do.

    hiveking – Thanks for the mention!

  15. If you wanted to try out the ninja I would cut a snag, stitched drake, bonesplitter and curse from the md. Ninja might not be optimal in this deck, but he has good synergies with man o war, the 8 one drops, spellstutters, vapor snags, and the spire golems (Late game when you can recast them for 0-1 mana). That alone merits trying him out in my opinion.

  16. as we basically talked about in game I couldn’t agree more with the odd lack of gate interactions.. I would have put money on having something a bit more substantial to it and I’m curious to see what if anything the Delver players decide to do with the Raptor because its great, but where do you find room for it? lol

  17. Donzo – I will probably try him, but I’m just not really sold on the idea. There is the benefit of playing a Spire Golem to pump Raptor, returning Golem with Ninja and then playing it to pump Raptor again I suppose. It also wouldn’t hurt to have another “must kill” creature in the deck.

    JustSin – These Ravnica sets just have a ton of stuff going on in them, so there probably wasn’t much room to really emphasize gates. Gates are essentially a device in limited to help players fix their guild colors and splash some stuff. As far as playing Raptor in Delver, you’ll just have to wait for my next Blackborder article (I have no shame)…

  18. Hey Jason, went ahead and put together your pestilence list without the gates.

    Obviously, the mana is a lot worse, so thats going to be great once gatecrash comes out.

    I went ahead and cut the Augurs, they just didn’t seem to be doing much. I put in a couple Auramancers as you suggested, and they have been sweet. They let you preserve your life total by using dead weights a little bit more aggressively early. It gets a little awkward if you don’t have a wall with pestilence + sign in blood and rager.

    I also through in a couple duress and a faiths fetters main. Duress helps out against control and can potentially hit a rolling thunder. The fetters hasn’t been excellent, but its an out to crusher, tutorable with guard, and adds a little more life gain. Its super awkward with pestilence at times though.

    I cut an Abomination for the fetters, but I think the deck does want three, the card performs on both modes. You always need lands, and he definitely closes games where you can’t find a guardian.

    Storm is …yeah.

    Definitely looking forward to evolving the deck with the guildgates. I realize the deck was made with them in mind, and boy will they help! I hope you get the time to follow up on it.

  19. WindDrake – That’s awesome that you’ve been testing the deck! Thanks for the notes. Do you think I should do some videos with the deck when Gatecrash comes out?

  20. Definitely. I don’t how well it will do, but the deck is a blast to play.

    I would definitely enjoy them.

  21. I love these articles. I can’t wait to see what kind of stuff that can be pulled off now that wizards put the ban hammer down on grapeshot, EtW, and invigorate. Things like guildgates and more multicolor strategies might actually be playable. I’m looking forward to an article with your thoughts on the bans, I think your BG deck gets a lot stronger now, not sure if anything from gatecrash makes it in there though.