The original Ravnica Block is one of the most beloved in the game’s history. I personally was not playing back in 2005 when the block’s first set Ravnica: City of Guilds was released, but as a Pauper player I can recognize the impact it’s had on many popular decks to this day. Cards like Compulsive Research, Stinkweed Imp and Gather Courage are regularly seen in decks like Cloudpost, Tortured Existence and Mono Green Stompy respectively. Ravnica‘s multicolor theme also brought bounce lands (such as Izzet Boilerworks) and Signets into the fold, both of which see some play in two-color decks. Needless to say, the upcoming Return to Ravnica has a lot to live up to. Though it will take a while to realize the set’s full impact on Pauper, I am certainly optimistic. Compared to Magic 2013, Return to Ravnica has a lot more potential to impact the format. In this article, I’m going to look at (and build with) three cards, and a new cycle of lands to boot!
Electric Funeral
Depending on your perspective, Electrickery is either very exciting or very disheartening. In my eyes, it’s the best mono-colored spell in the set, and goes into multiple Pauper sideboards by default. Post loves this card. Loves it! Goblins, in the right matchup, does too. How often do we see a card that’s that good? Pyroblast? Lightning Bolt? In other words, not often.
The overload mechanic makes this strictly better than Seismic Shudder, which has up until now seen a lot of play against Empty the Warrens combo decks, swarm aggro, and hexproof creatures. In UR Post it makes the mainboard due to Mystical Teachings, and is perfectly fine as a spot removal spell for R when needed.
This also hits fliers, making the creatures in White Weenie and Faeries even more miserable. Goblins now has a “sweeper” that doesn’t affect its own guys. No more holding back creatures and slowing yourself down to avoid an impending, self-inflicted wrath. It’s actually pretty surprising how much of an upgrade this card is over Seismic Shudder, Hurly-Burly, Rain of Embers, etc. Goblins and Storm mirrors become much different now that this card exists, as resolving one of these could be the Pauper equivalent to miracle-ing a Bonfire of the Damned. Damn!
As an aside, this card (like a lot of cards) is great with Archaeomancer and Mnemonic Wall effects. Use it as a spot removal or sweeper early, then sweep again later in the game. Here?s an update to my UR Post deck with Archaeomancer.
Archaeology Class by Jason Moore
|
| ||||||||
Archaeomancer and Mulldrifter are important to the deck, but problematic to have multiples copies of in your opening hand. Though Mulldrifter is usually played as a 4-off, I think 3 is about where I want him for this list. The single Ulamogs Crusher is a way to close out some games in a much more expedient fashion, and was suggested in the comments section of my previous videos for this deck. Having Ghostly Flicker and counters in the main also helps to keep him alive and crushing.
Not much else has changed from my pervious draft of the deck, though I have gone down to 1 copy of Ghostly Flicker. I can’t say for sure that this is correct, but having 3 Archaeomancers to bring it back from the yard seems adequate.
The Right to Bear Armor
Well it’s not looking like White Weenie got any love from Return to Ravnica, but who can complain when the last block and three core sets were so good to us? White still has a card with a good deal of promise, and that’s Ethereal Armor. A very cheap aura that gets better as the game goes on, this card does a lot. It can dodge Dazes and Condescends, get a hexproof guy out of sweeper range, and help said hexproof guy win in combat. It basically has the potential to circumvent and nullify the inherent weaknesses of all hexproof creatures. Playing a lot of enchantments becomes mandatory with this card. Here’s an idea of where to go with it:
Bant Auras by Jason Moore
|
| ||||||||
This concept is pretty rough. For one thing, the mana can stutter early, preventing an ideal Turn-1-guy, Turn-2-aura-opening. It might be best to stay out of blue, though Spectral Flight can be very good for the cost. Twenty-two lands allows us to play enough sources of each color, with which Abundant Growth also helps out. Growth replaces itself and adds to the enchantment count for Ethereal Armor as well.
The creature base is very straightforward: play the cheapest hexproof guys around. Turn 1 hexproof guy into Turn 2 Ethereal Armor or Spider Umbra immediately gets them fighting into other creatures or out of sweeper range.
The gameplan for Bant Auras is extremely non-interactive. Racing is typically going to occur, which Armadillo Cloak excels at. Along with Ethereal Armor and Spectral Flight, Cloak is the primary win condition and gets disgusting in multiples (since the instances of gaining life trigger separately, it ends up being much better than lifelink usually). Journey to Nowhere adds to the enchantment count and lets you interact with the opponent just enough if they’ve got a really troublesome threat or defender on the board.
Spider Umbra allows the deck to interact better with fliers, and can save a creature in more desperate situations. It’s also very cheap, which is key to an aura-themed deck (that historically is used to overdosing on three drops).
Grisly Bears
Now we move onto the multicolor dynamic of the set, which as far as I can tell, is really only exciting because of one spell and half of a land cycle. Grisly Salvage is reminiscent of Ancient Stirrings and Mulch, and works well in the limited environment if Scavenge decks end up being viable archetypes. In Pauper it looks quite good. Not only does it replace itself, it also stacks the yard, giving you virtual card advantage and the ability to sculpt your gameplan at instant-speed.
I’m not sure which graveyard strategy works the best with this card (between Tortured Existence, Songs of the Damned and GB “Dead Dog”), but I feel like starting out with a Tortured Existence shell can’t be too far off the mark. In Tortured, it fills the role that Faithless Looting plays in Rakdos variants, though it puts even more in your yard for less of a cost and has some added versatility. It can sometimes pick up a land if you really need it to. This seems fine in Songs (though I’ve never piloted that deck) since it can help you find Crypt Rats, or just stack your yard and then cycle the guy that you actually do grab. The only problem lies with the potential binning of Songs copies, so it might not see a lot of play in that deck overall.
Golgari Tortured may come back into favor thanks to this card, with Gnaw to the Bone as a truly devastating trump versus aggro that also goes really well with Salvage.
Grisly Existence by Jason Moore
|
| ||||||||
This is a list I’m very much interested in testing and tweaking. Like Cloudpost, Grisly Existence takes some time to set up, plays some controlling cards and cultivates a fearsomely oppressive late game.
The creature base is pretty dynamic, with many creatures synergizing with each other. Carrion Feeder is one of the deck’s win conditions, as he gets huge in the late game once the Existence engine is online. He also does some nasty things with Mesmeric Fiend, giving you a Castigate and pseudo-reinforce effect all in one. Simply sacrifice the Fiend with its enters-the-battlefield trigger on the stack. That way, its leaves-the-battlefield trigger will resolve first, permanently exiling something from the opponents’ hand. Feeder also lets you get Stinkweed Imp in the yard to start dredging, or Perilous Myr to shock stuff (Myr is the most powerful thing to do with Feeder here, so be sure to recur both more often than not. once you have Tortured Existence running).
The single Crypt Rats is another win condition since Gnaw to the Bone will ensure your life total is much fluffier than your opponent’s. The Rats can also keep you alive against Empty the Warrens combo players. Stinkweed Imp is a fantastic card, and possibly the best black creature in Pauper. Great at holding off attackers, filling up the yard, and as discard fodder for Tortured Existence.
Grave Scrabbler is a very powerful part of this deck’s gameplan. It generates card advantage by returning two creatures to your hand with a Tortured activation and puts a 2/2 body on the field. Having multiples early is not helpful at all, however, so 3 copies seems to be ideal.
Undertaker and Viscera Seer both exist for the purpose of redundancy. Since Grisly Salvage can sometimes force you to put copies of Existence in the bin, Undertaker is a good backup plan (though slightly slower). It also can discard any card, so excess lands or unneeded instants end up coming in handy. Seer does all the tricks that Carrion Feeder can but is not very threatening as an attacker.
A pair of Echoing Decays serves primarily as a defensive measure against Empty the Warrens. They can also kill a lot of creatures in the format, and potentially generate a great deal of value. Gnaw to the Bone makes linear aggro strategies miserable, as they only have a narrow window to beat you before the absurd amount of life gain kicks in.
A Gated Community
You may have noticed something peculiar in each of the aforementioned decks’ mana bases. That’s because thanks to Return to Ravnica we now have the Guildgates! Pauper players have been clamoring for a land like this for a long time, and now we’ve got them (well, five out of ten of them anyway). The color combinations we currently have at our disposal are Azorius, Selesnya, Izzet, Rakdos, and Golgari. The most critical of these has to be Izzet, followed by Selesnya. Post is already just about the top dog at the moment, and arguably gets better with these lands.
Let’s first talk about their benefits over fetches (Evolving Wilds, Terramorphic Expanse) and bounce lands. A fetch has the same speed as a gate, but only gets you access to one color (think about times where you have to choose which color you want under difficult circumstances). Fetches are better with Zendikar‘s landfall mechanic, but gates are usually going to be better otherwise. I suppose the gates could be worse against land destruction, but I don’t think that’s too big of a factor in this format. Now, onto the bounce lands. The bounce lands don’t get online until Turn 3, and if played on 2, keep you from resolving a 2-drop. Sometimes bouncing a land is wanted, but having a Turn 1 gate is more important in a format so full of Turn 1 and Turn 2 plays. I like them more than bounce lands on paper, and they also have a relevant sub-type (maybe?). The other five yet to be released are Orzhov, Boros, Dimir, Simic, and Gruul. Of those I’m most excited for Boros and Gruul, though I think Dimir will see the most play if nothing about the format changes too drastically.
Honorable Mentions
One of the earliest cards to be spoiled for Pauper was Goblin Electromancer. It’s difficult for me to really predict how competitive this little guy is going to be. As of right now, I don’t see a home for him simply because there are not a great deal of instants or sorceries that could benefit from having a colorless taken out of their casting costs. He bears similarities to Etherium Sculptor and Ballyrush Banneret, and neither of those cards see play either. I think it has to do with the fact that the format is already very fast, and most good decks are playing cheap spells to begin with. This guy may pop up, but I’ll be damned if I can say where. Perhaps Storm, perhaps Post, perhaps even in the Wee Dragonauts decks? Your guess is as good as mine.
The last card I have my eye on is Chorus of Might, but I don’t think it will be good enough ultimately. Elves tends to be a strategy I like to dabble in, but Pauper builds are, for whatever reason, something I’ve stayed away from. These decks like to dump a lot of elves early, Distant Melody into more cards and… dump even more elves from there. Chorus of Might unfortunately clogs up the deck’s number of 4-drops, but also could provide an additional win condition. It reminds me a bit of Timberwatch Elf, minus the need to have a guy go unblocked.
Chorus of Might does have a few downsides that really inhibit its potential, especially its converted mana cost. To cast this, you will sometimes need to leave elves untapped (and therefore not attacking). And how much damage does this card need to deal to be worth including in the deck? Stompy can deal 4 damage for G, and Infect can deal effectively 8 damage for zero. Regretfully, I think that this new green instant is probably just bad, comparatively.
As far as other honorable mentions, there aren’t any. Moreover, I think this set has a very dangerous side to it. I feel that Pauper brewers are going to want to play a lot of cards from the set that are suboptimal (when compared to other options). This is just a sneaking suspicion, but not totally unfounded. Various color combinations will be explored thanks to Return to Ravnica, which is certainly not a bad thing, but please beware: a lot of these other commons are just too expensive and/or don’t do enough.
End Step
Let me know if you agree or disagree with my analysis of the set and why. What kind of decks are you looking forward to? Which of the aforementioned deck ideas do you think I should explore? How big of an impact do you think the set is going to be in the grand scheme of classic Pauper? I look forward to hearing all of your ideas. Thanks for reading!
You can find Jason
co-hosting the Pauper’s Cage podcast
on MTGO as BambooRush
on Twitter @dimecollectorsc
and on Youtube at youtube.com/dimecollectorsc
Isn’t Ancestral Mark good for the Bant Aura deck? and Rancor?
Really enjoyed this article Jason – a lot to unpack and contemplate.
I completely agree with your suspicion that Return to Ravnica might be a dangerous or trapping set for Pauper players. Brewers will get all excited over the Gate lands and try to shake up the format with either new multicolored decks, or existing decks with overzealous splashes until people realize that the Big 3 Pauper decks are still just better (UR Post, Storm, Delver).
UR Post just gets better and more consistent with Return to Ravnica and will likely become more popular an dominating than it already is. I think you are right that addition of Electrickery is pretty huge. The flexibility of it being a 5th Flame Slash (albeit mini sized) or a cheap Rolling Thunder is so sweet, and the sweeper overload effect is so much powerful than I initially thought when that card was spoiled. There are so many X/1 that are crucial to almost every deck in Pauper. I was doing a mental inventory how many things this kills and it’s staggering when you think about it
Vs Delver: Unflipped Delver, spellstutter sprites, cloud of faeries, etc
Vs Storm: gives you another key out to Empty the Warrens
Vs Monowhite: Benevolent bodygaurd, Icatian Javelineers, squadron hawks, standard bearer, etc
Vs Infect: Blight Mamba, Ichorclaw Myr, Blistener elf, etc
Vs Stompy: Quirion Ranger, Skarrgan Pit-skulk, Silhana ledgewalker, Young Wolf, etc
And the list just goes on and on. I think Electrickery is going to be one of the most important Pauper cards we’ve seen in a while.
Your Grisely Existence Deck also looks really sweet. Seems like such a synergistic and interesting deck to play as opposed to so many pauper decks right now that are just smash-go and boring. I really hope some graveyard deck is viable and good, but I’m very worried they just won’t quite get there. I hope so badly that I am wrong though. Gnaw to the Bone is such a fun card to play – the Innistrad spider spawing archetype in Innistrad was my favorite thing to draft ever and it was just so satisfying to completely turn races by gaining like 14 life out of nowhere.
My real concern with the Grisely deck is that it’s just going to be to slow out of the gates – it seems like the removal might be to slow against aggro decks like stompy, infect, or monowhite. Unless you have one of your 2 Echoing decay, you won’t have removal until turn three or four, and your gnaw to the bone probably will come to late if at all to stabilize. I hope its good but I just have my doubts.
I also hope the Bant Auras decks is horrible for the sake of the format. It just seems like it would lead to the least interactive and fun games of magic ever. Either I win because I’m faster or he doesn’t get enough auras out, or I lose because he gets an Armadillo cloak or 2 going and I can’t interact with his board whatsoever. I think pauper needs more variety of gameplay, and this just isn’t helping.
Alex – Thanks for reading. Mask could be fine, but it is filling the same role that Ethereal Armor does in the deck, so I wouldn’t play both. It’s also another three-drop, and I think playing too many of those is a common trap with these auras decks.
Rancor I don’t like, because Cloak already provides trample, and you want your auras to boost the toughness of those tiny hexproof people.
Concord – You made a lot of good observations. I would add War Falcon to your list of Trickery victims though. Seems like White Weenie would be greatly rewarded by utilizing my Veteran Armorer tech these days!
I think UR Cloudpost benefits from the consistency of running Izzet Guildgate enough to warrant more than one maindeck.
Otherwise I don’t think this set will have any major effect on Classic Pauper.
As I’ve tried brewing a million different Synergy/Midrange/Non-Cloudpost Control decks, I feel that there are four Macro archetypes that form the pillars of the format: Aggro decks, Disruptive decks (Delver and Mono Black), Cloudpost (UR being the best due to Earth Rift) and Storm.
Building a new mid-range deck that is disruptive enough to not autolose to Storm decks means you generally can’t race / contain the aggro decks. (Which are in my experience the most populous type of decks.)
If you are both defensive and disruptive enough to hold a decent percentage against both Aggro and Storm, then congratulations, you are a Cloudpost deck!
Or you are a non-’Post control deck that autoloses to Cloudpost (second most popular deck type in my experience) and has a bad matchup against the Disruptive decks.
I really think that Cloudpost has to be banned before any real change happens in Pauper…
I dont think Electrickery is better then Seismisc Shudder.
You cant use Muddle the Mixture to tutor it up.
Ramela – Thanks for sharing your thoughts! I do think it’s possible to play a midrange decks that deals with aggro (by going slightly over the top of them: Simon Goertzen has a cool video about this concept in the context of Sealed), though Post would almost certainly be the most difficult archetype to beat from there.
bilo – I haven’t really seen people doing that, especially when they have Mystical Teachings as a better option.
Bilo, another plus side for Electrickery is that you can transmute Dizzy Spell for it.
“I also hope the Bant Auras decks is horrible for the sake of the format … it would lead to the least interactive and fun games of magic ever.” Concord
Come on… You think Bent Aura is the least interactive and fun? Seriously?!
Storm -> Yeah… The famous turn 1 or turn 2 kill. Where you can at most interact with one of their cards per turn… And it won’t make a difference, in fact they will laugh at your pity attempt to stop their storm while increasing the storm count by one… If you do not have a good sideboard card in your hand, or in play (as suture priest) you’re toast.
Infect -> Even more lucky based than Storm, but it can be pretty consistent and you have to fight against a mechanic that DOES NOT have defenses. Infect bypass lifegain, they have a trillion cards with trample and untargetable… It was so consistent that players used the deck to farm dailies, even without having fun…
Cloudpost -> I agree with ramela that cloudpost should be banned. Enough said.
Blue/delver decks -> So many “free” cards, all the fairies, gush… The only interaction you will have will be your spells being countered. And in the end you get chewed in a slow painful death to a 3/2 flying – 1 mana cost. Or the game will drag for several minutes to end in a semi-infinite combo like flicker-draw or capsize-buyback.
Black -> You can interact a lot. But you will be very frustrated with the insane discards and the ‘make your opponent to practically lose a turn due to un-draw”. So, interactive yes. Fun? no.
White weenie/Affinity/Burn/Goblin/Stompy -> Very interactive and can be a fun game in a lot of cases…
Now,
Aura Bant -> Can be pretty unfun for the opponent if you draw the right cards and end the game in turn 2. But you need more lucky than Infect and Storm for that! There’s a thousand ways for the opponent to interact with you: Counter the right spells – like ancestral mark and (now) Ethereal Armor, do good blocks with creatures, destroy your enchantments…
Pauper has some very overpowered decks that are ruling the metagame, and I do not think that a strong Aura Bant deck will make things worse… It will add diversity, and will give a breath of fresh air for the opponent!
I’ll let you guys in on a secret: Spreading Seas is good.
I don’t think the Aura Bant deck is the diversity I want added to the metagame. I agree with most of your points Alex Matto -> that there is several other decks that are less or equally not interactive than the Aura deck. Certainly Storm and Infect are very difficult to interact with, but I disagree with your definition of “fun” decks to play or play against.
In my post I should have clarified the statement “least interactive and fun game” because those can be two very different things. I think playing against storm decks can be fun because it really tests your sideboard and while it can be luck based, I like playing mono black control which is a fun matchup vs storm where you are trying to disrupt the combo at the right time which can be really interesting and interactive. Certainly storm is not fun to play against for other decks though, like white weenie that just has to pray to draw a suture priest or some other sideboard tech.
I guess I am just used to the crappy non-interactive decks by now and I don’t like the idea of adding another non-interactive deck where they get one guy to stick on turn 2 or 3 that is a 5/5 hexproof and its just GG. You are right though Alex – there are a lot of not fun or interactive decks that dominate the metagame now and I completely agree Cloudpost should be banned to shake things up.
Another awesome article Dime. I have a question for the MTGAcademy site though… why do the cards look like they were scanned? This also happened in Michael’s article.
Hi Gabo,
It’s because at the time of authorship, the full visual spoiler was not available on Daily MTG. But I made them look better now.
Muddle the mixture gets rolling thunder, where Teachings does not. Muddle is better than Dizzy Spell because Shizzy spell is not a card. I do still like Electrickery. It is strictly better than every other option as Jason nicely illustrated above. Muddle won me games as a counter and as a muter. Happily I don’t have to worry about that because I am not chasing the post dragon any longer…
Ban Cloudpost Wizards! Everyone unite and contact wizards today!
Gnarlesbury – Thanks for the comments, we’ll see how Post affects the metagame from here. I’m pretty sure the Dizzy Spell comment was a joke. I also think that Teachings is still a better/more versatile option. Getting Capsize/whatever instant you need affects the game much faster than tutoring up a Turn 20 win condition at sorcery speed. I’m not saying the card is bad, but it clearly sees 15x less play than Teachings does.
Thanks for replying Jason. I agree with you that teachings is needed in the deck. I used to run 1 muddle and 2 teachings. If I happened to draw teachings, a lot of times one of my fetch targets was muddle… It was rather durdly but it was a straight line to the win. I believe every deck that runs rolling thunder should have one muddle. It has won me countless matches, and especially mirror matches where the mana gets big fast. Whether you need a counter or an uncounterable tutor, muddle’s your card…
Gnarlesbury – That’s pretty interesting. Any thoughts on which of these decks I should try out once RTR is available online?
One thing that came to mind for me is axebane guardian and horncaller’s chant. I’ve seen some mono-green post decks that play overgrown battlement and wall of roots, then ramp into things like reap and sow, ulamog’s crusher, and aurochs herd. Horncaller’s chant provides the same power as a crusher, but pushes through damage with trample and is also not as vulnerable to spot removal. Axebane guardian provides colored mana and could make splashing red for something like kaervek’s torch easier.
hehe I see many post haters here, huh ? hehe
Jason, i ever like your thoughts, posts, etc, ever a good job. For you guys that think cloudpost should be banned: we have at least 1 side card against the cloudpost land for each color but no for white. Green come with Thermokarst( which isnt for a Infect that end a post deck easy or a stompy that have many protection for his guys). So, with that said, we can see blue with Spreading Seas. Red with Raze, Stone rain, Molter Rain etc. Black with choking sands, rancid earth, icequake. Now we have white( white weenie ) deck that doest have a answer for the land, but can easy use crimson acolyte to try protection( which could easy be shut up by post’s arrows, but just saying ), not to mention the benevolent bodyguard. I actually win a urpost deck in a champ IRL here in my city with my weenie falcon deck, even after electrickery comes out, i was 2 prismatic strands main and 2 side, backed by crimson acolyte, ops…
Posts decks have a big problem with: Infect, unless you got a curfew and blue mana on turn 1-2 and not face 2 or even 3 guys ona infect field plan…, Storm, we can see that Storm is not a good match for post at all, sometimes a post player doest have his red mana before a turn 2 prism, or even if he got a prism ;/ Post decks not tend to play more than 5 counters usually, so is hard to counter the key storms draws/cancripts, not to mention that sometimes, counter is not enough. So Delver, Delver is okay match, but not at all too, if you see delver flipping fast, backed by daze, counter or even by your mana getting screwed, you just die LOL. So we’ll see Stompy, Stompy i have a good experience against it, with my own urpost. Sometimes( and it happens not a lot, but enough to make you sad against it) You face a turn 1 Nettle Sentinel, turn 2 Silhana and turn 3 you kill a Sentinel or just a Young Wolf, and he droop a Hunger of the Howlpack on his Silhana and you cant kill all his board to make a happy Curfew ^^ ( assuming you have Curfew in sideboard ^^)
Soo, you big post haters, stop crying!!! And try to play MTGO with no tears hahahaha
Thank you Jason Moore for ever make a good job, and again, keep doing it!!!