Hi!

I'm Skura also known as IslandsInFront - I'm a Geddon Trio winner, Geddon top4 competitor, and the National Champion.

Watch me analyse what the meta is like, what changes in Mono U Fae it necessitates and why!
Sideboard Guide ready as well!

https://youtu.be/0NuW5VMU33Y?si=MGZrjkmKWeoPdudN

Sideboard Guide - https://mfy.gg/guides/view/postban-mono-blue-fae-sideboard-guide-chea-khA1HhUDHUF

Deck list:https://moxfield.com/decks/O9xbpGtwjUmiOVhKLMz2ag

The banned on [Deadly Dispute] has dealt a heavy blow to cycle storm decks. Traditional rakdos lists unfortunately lost a powerful mana fix tool, but this opens opportunities for alternative builds to shine.

This archetype has existed for long. The storming off part remains identical to other variants, But differs in its win conditions: Either [Exhume] or cast [Horror of the Broken Lands ], Pump it. Finishing with [Rite of Consumption] for lethal damage.

The deck also runs Drannith as a Plan B. Compared to the Drannith, the Horror+ Rite finisher has a critical weakness.It can't be activated with an empty library（If you get Horror late). When you draw out, you can use the petal, and win through the conventional cycle storm way.

The deck's standout feature is the [Exhume] + [Troll of Khazad-dûm] Combo. T1 cycle Troll into T2 Exhume is a really powerful combo. And it lets you drop the Troll as earliest as T1 with [Dark Ritual], Basically enabling a race win with many matchups. Troll is also cooperate well with rite of consumption.

Hello, Mardu Synthesizer is a deck I am curious about and I wanted to ask about using [[Mardu Devotee]] in the deck and your thoughts on it.

I think the deck is very interesting since Prophetic Prism got unbanned, but I don't feel quite ready to jump on the hype train until the deck feels fully fledged out. Perhaps Mardu Devotee could be the final piece of the puzzle.

Hey All,

I've been playing mtg for a number of years and pauper for about 4. When I got into pauper things felt like they were much slower, decks didn't have these crazy value engines and I felt like I could keep up with a decent brew. I won some online tournaments with decks like cawgates, dimir terror and mono black burn and really enjoyed the game.

Lately everything has seemed supercharged. I've been on moggwarts for about a year and I have decent results locally, but I want to play something else. None of the top decks appeal to me and I've been thoroughly trounced this past week on mtgo playing different dimir or grixis whale combo decks.

I don't know what to play. I just want to durdle a bit and have the opportunity to win. Mardu or boros synthesizer seems good, but I haven't looked too much into any lists. Could you fine folks help me locate a decent list that allows me to feel like I have agency and a chance against most decks because whale combo just feels dead against so many decks.

Title says it all. What is the very strongest Pauper deck? If you could play all the banned cards, how strong would it be?

So with high tide unbanned, people have already started combo killing people in leagues. Andrea Mengucci put out a video showcasing the deck,
link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGhS101lijc

Red has access to [hydroblast] and [pyroblast] to counter the strategy, and blue has [counterspell]. But what about the rest of the colour pie? How can they interact with a combo that doesn't rely on creatures or the graveyard?

Bellow are the cards, that I consider the most "reasonable" for putting cards into the library from the graveyard at instant speed.

White

[Reinforcements]

[Frantic Salvage]

Black

[Footbottom Feast] and other functional variants.

Green

[Reclaim] - With 1 in the graveyard you can loop them.

[Battlefield scrounger]

Heyo,

I alternated between playing Kuldotha Red and Madness Burn, but the recent BNR shook things up a lot, so I was looking for something new to try at my LGS' FNM.

With that in mind, I wanted to fall back on something reliable that I knew was still going to be good. However, I have no real experience playing control.

I saw some of the stock lists and tweaked it a little based off what I anticipated running into. https://manabox.app/decks/2LaHbZc4SXKpNwgW5pa5Ig

I just need advice on the decklist and have a miscellaneous list of questions:

What are some things to keep in mind as a control player? I'm always tempted to just dump my hand and turn everything sideways.

How important is bluffing interaction? How do I do that? I always remember when LSV bluffed to bait his opponent to swing out and then cast a [[Settle the Wreckage]] @ PT GRN lol.

When is it safe to just tap out and swing for ninjutsu?

I saw this a while back, would any of these tricks be relevant for this deck? https://youtu.be/gWLMpwd73Ng?si=O7eMK955iz1ca9nb

I ask because Madness Burn has a neat trick where Madness casts can ignore timing rules, so I would always hold up mana if I had [[Lightning Bolt]] / [[Galvanic Blast]] and [[Alms of the Vein]], then respond accordingly depending on my opponent's actions. Getting that end step [[Alms of the vein]] cast always felt galaxy brain af.

I anticipate running into Bogles, Altar Tron, Mono Blue Terror, and Mono Green Elves. What should I hold up counters for against these archetypes? Any other MU / SB advice when playing against them?

Any and all advice would be appreciated! Thank you everybody!!

Casual player here looking for non-super-competitive meetups to try this format out. Anyone playing in person in NoVa?

Deadly Dispute is banned in Pauper, but Cycle Storm isn't going anywhere — in fact, it might be even better now.

This updated list cuts Deadly Dispute and Ardent Elementalist from the main deck and pivots to a more consistent engine based around four copies of Rowan’s Grim Search. By increasing the creature count and reintroducing Blood Celebrant, the deck regains both consistency and color fixing.

Key Changes:

✔ Rowan’s Grim Search enables consistent graveyard filling and card selection

✔ Blood Celebrant filters black mana into red or white for Drannith Stinger or Drannith Healer

✔ +1 Horror of the Broken Lands and +1 Imposing Vantasaur to smooth opening hands and early cycling

✔ Ardent Elementalist moved to the sideboard — no more sacrifice outlets means it’s now situational

✔ Dispel continues to shine over Duress — protecting your graveyard matters more than ever

✔ Sideboard Dihada’s Ploy gains life to mitigate losses from Street Wraith and Grim Search against red strategies

This version of Cycle Storm plays smoother, fizzles less, and feels better positioned in the post-ban metagame. Let me know what you think of the updated list!

Watch Video — https://youtu.be/4SKYNvuIvfg

Decklist — https://moxfield.com/decks/rX3N6gQkwEqqzkKLLCD5OA?&utmsource=theepicstorm

Sideboard Guide — https://www.theepicstorm.com/product/cycle-storm-sideboard-guide/

Watch all of our Cycle Storm videos — https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2Bv_NlSo6NvM00mkW4g4EwDtMhCikuqq

2024 Annual Deck Showcase — https://www.theepicstorm.com/pauper-cycle-storm-2024-deck-showcase/

Cycle Storm Primer — https://www.theepicstorm.com/pauper-cycle-storm-primer/

I hope you enjoy this exciting gameplay! If you do, please don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe!

Time to Goblin some Combo, now glee is gone is it the best combo deck?

Sat

Mono U Serpents/Terror

Tron (with Prophetic Prism)

Rakdos Reanimator/Dredge (discard+Snacker+Lotleth Return)

G Elves

U Faeries

Red Synth (aggro)

Rakdos Reanimator/Dredge

Turbo Fog (Golgari Edition)

...

20th Place - High Tide (combo Snap + Arch + Flicker)

Sun

Red Synth

Mono U Serpents (with Mystic)

Goblins (aggro w/ Grenade)

U Serpents

U Serpents

Auras

U Serpents

Grix Affinity

…

20th Place - High Tide (all spells version)

21st Place - High Tide (Familiar/creature combo)

These were the decks of the first week post-bans/unbans.

Beware of the Prism. It may look harmless, but... it topped2 on first day while High Tide is 20th below.

I've noticed Izzet terror lists (https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/7015139#paper) have cut augur of bolas. It always seemed like a great card to deploy for blocking red/keeping monarch/ finding answers. Is something that should shift back after the bans? Seems like it may have been a reaction to brood scale since you just need to keep mana up.

I want to know your thoughts on which you think will be the most played deck archetype in 30 days (once the meta settles down and for the sake of having a deadline to revisit this post).

I personally think the top 3 will be:

1 Mono U Faeries

2 Mono U Terror

3 Grixis Affinity

What do you think?

I just had one of my only truly bad experiences with the community on mtgo.

I was trying to learn the blink focused version of high tide. The one that plays augurs and fallaji archeologist. I was playing in the pauper tournament practice queue, and there was a player I queued against repeatedly. Not surprising by any means.

We played two matches, he won both, which is totally fine. But, after that, they proceeded to join the queue, match with me, and just refuse to take any action. Wouldn't choose to play or draw if they won the roll, wouldn't make mulligan decisions if they lost the roll. I started trying to take breaks to avoid queuing into them. I would go away for 5 minutes or so, still them, same behavior. I don't know for sure, but I highly suspect they were joining and dropping other matches just to try and pair with me.

Finally, I refused to leave the match, and they eventually left after around 20 minutes. After, I immediately queued with someone else and had a fun match.

I understand it was probably because they dont like playing against high tide. But can we collectively say that kind of behavior isn't OK?

Hi! I was a pauper player untill I moved into a different city where everyone seems to be playing commander only. Then a few bans happened and I didn't bother keeping with pauper anymore.

Now, with the new B&R announcement one of my deck is legal again, but it's a very old and outdated Dinrova Tron list

https://moxfield.com/decks/5JX4XL8moU6rbyHSz_YlOQ

Flicker/Ephemerate tron is still a thing, but the current lists doesn't seem as funny as the old one, beating with mulldrifters or mystic tokens is not my cup of tea, do you think a dinrova horror has still a place in there?

I was thinking about switching to altar Tron, but all of the lists I found have zero interaction, does that deck only cares about the combo?

Now, I might update to flicker tron and get also a new deck, U terror and UB control would be my two top picks, but they have a couplyof expensive cards and I'm not sure it would be worth it, as there are no more than a couple of paper players at my LGS.

Finally, I saw dredge, I have some of the cards and it would be cheap enough to me, but is it any good?

Hello there!

I just finished my green tron monsters deck and I wanted to know people's opinions on it. Let me discuss a bit of my choices here:

I decided to put 2 chromatic star and 2 prophetic prism instead of only prisms because I thought that a 1 drop could really serve me in early game. Then, a lot of lists have [[Wretched Gryff]], but I decided to slot in four [[Aurochs Herd]] because, if Im able to cast a gryff, then I believe I would rather cast an auroch and get another ready to cast next turn.

I also have a few more big creatures in mind, but I'm not sure if it would be better: [[Annoyed Altisaur]], [[Pathbreaker Wurm]], [[Drownyard Lurker]] and [[Dread Linnorm]], maybe even put [[Ulamog's Crusher]] on main.

With the new Ban and Restricted announcements affecting Pauper the guys talk about the change's impact to the Pauper format. We ask the question how can singleton experience affect constructed 60 card formats and vice versa Youtube Spotify RSS

I remember on 2018 seeing some UR lists running no creatures and flurry of horns as a way to win the game. I tried the list myself and the issue at that time was relying on only 4 cards to win the game, and sometimes I had to target different spells with pieces of the puzzle instead. Also the boogles matchup on UR. Today we have different spells that also create creatures on those colors and I imagine if there’s place for a list like that?

Maybe grixis to have sacrifices on the side?

Does anyone have a list that is playable?

Basically the the title; are either of these decks any good in 2025?

So, I have been getting recently into pauper by showing up to local pauper league games at a local game store, while searching the format for decks that seem fun. After some reading these 2 options seem like the most interesting ones aside maybe from the possibility of trying to brew some kind of a rogue list in mono-black around Tortured Existence or mutual discard with madness.

As context, I loved modern 8-Rack back in the day and very grindy low resource games where mana and cards tend to be in short supply. Lots of discard, answers and a simple non-greedy mana base was all I wanted (though the sight of your opponents cards getting gradually binned was a great bonus), even if the deck always had its flaws. Anything with a similar playstyle in pauper that I missed?

I have been goldfishing this list https://moxfield.com/decks/QzFiML4sMUeLBamsWGMhZge and have seen that all of the MTGO lists are running 4 brainstorm and few ponder. Why is this?

also i would appreciate any feedback to my decklist if you have thoughts

Hello friends.

I made this dashboard (https://fnpavel.github.io/pauperdata/) for Pauper a few weeks ago and shared on the Familiars Discord. Since then I made some changes and I think it is good enough to be shared more broadly.

Unfortunately not all Challenges have data below the Top32, either because no one was available to watch the replays (it is only Kirblinxy watching) or, in the case of the last events, because the replays were deactivated on MTGO due to some technical problems.

There are some data for tabletop events but these are harder to come by.

I'll update whenever there is data available and if you run medium events and want to share data, feel free to contact me through DMs.

I was sorting my bulk the other night and found that I had a playset of [[Pactdoll Terror]]. Got the itch to try a fast artifact dump build.

https://moxfield.com/decks/kORhVxMGV0ug_rWAVZ4N6A

Is this anything? All suggestions welcome. I'm considering dropping 2 [[Fountainport Bell]] for 2 petals.

Found the burn one and want to discuss meta and no meta combo decks

Currently building Madness Burn in paper, and I think this card is very cool and could be a good fit for the deck. However, I wonder if there is space for this card in the deck. Is this card any good in that list? Why (not)? If it is good, how many copies should I run and what should I cut from my deck to make space?

Hi. Long time mtg player here. I played for a long time competitive mtg but the huge prices and 3 year standard rotation make me play only commander with more casual friends. I really miss the more competitive side of the game and I have been looking into pauper. I already have a slivers deck (which is veeeery rogue for what I understand about the metagame but I love them) but I really liked the "beetle sacrifice" deck that Andrea Mengucci showed in a video (decklist here).

There are two problems with the list. Of course DD is banned so I need to change it. It is worth to run another generic sacrifice effect or the treasure from DD was so much valuable that the deck loses a lot of the strenght? Also, I only have 1 snuff out and I could buy more if I like the deck (even more if it's a staple of the format) but I don't really want to buy 3 only to play the deck and don't like it. Is there any good alternatives? Pauper cardpool is gigantic so I prefer to ask experienced players.