This Week in Pauper 3/25-3/29

Lets Cut a RUG

    This week in standard pauper was controlled by identical RUG decks.  At least for this week Boros took a nap, control decks dominated the top 4 and despite that red was in the middle of it all.  Lets take a closer look at the decks from last week's tournaments.  

MPDC 20.05

    Moromete took first place in this week's mpdc hosted by Malum with his RUG deck entitled You Take No Mushroom.  This is a deck that really abuses what's called the "Flicker engine".  Which means that it uses Ghostly Flicker to great advantage.  Nearly all of the creatures in this deck have enter-the-battlefield effects(ETB effects), which you would love to use over and over again.  Not only does Flicker allow this, but  Archaeomancer allows you to go back and pick Flicker out of the graveyard for even more abuse.  

    The deck features the best in red removal and one card choice that seems to be getting more popular, Harvest Pyre. I'm not so sure this is actually a good card as much as it is the best choice if you're not running black.  It's upside is that it scales up for any creature, but in a deck like this where your graveyard is just a second hand of cards you may not always have enough cards in the yard that you can throw away.  

    I must admit my guilty pleasure is killing creatures.  I don't even care if it doesn't get me any closer to winning, I'm just sadistic and it brings a smile to my face.  That's why I have a special affinity for FlxEx's Mono Black Control. The tandem of Bloodhunter Bat and extorting with Basilica Screecher is enough to get the job done when you are carrying so much removal. Obviously running out of steam is a concern with this deck, but Sign in Blood and Altar's Reap go a long way toward remedying the trouble and Gravepurge and Haunted Fengraf seal the deal.  

    I agree with FlxEx's deck comments.  Liliana's Shade is maindeck and I wouldn't even include Ravenous Rats.  If there was ever a deck to get maximum value from a bad card like Shadow Slice, this is it.  Though it still may not make the cut without any protection and so much easy blue bounce and Negate's running around.  

Adner's Grixis Control finished in the top four and with an interesting deck that looks like it may create a positive feedback loop powerful enough to produce infinite energy.  Imagine this play: Ghostly Flicker an Archaeomancer to get a Gravepurge to draw and play an Archeaomancer to bring back a Gravepurge into a Bloodhunter Bat... sure it takes a lot of mana but not nearly as much when you've got a couple Goblin Electromancers out.  

  This deck has a lot of answers and still has a lot of room for tuning to the meta game so it should be an interesting archetype to see some deckbuilders muddling with in the future.  One card in this deck that I can't give enough praise to is Prophetic Prism.  Without the card it would take luck of the draw to get the right land, with it you're on easy street.  

SPDC 19.20

    Panamimed played an identical RUG control deck for the win in this week's spdc hosted by Jamuraa.  There are a couple more points I'd like to add about this deck that I didn't mention in the mpdc version.  First, Pillar of Flame is a bomb, and the best red art in a long time in my opinion. Let's call it Shock +.   It's been good since it's introduction, but it's become a required four-of if you're in red. 

    Second, as mentioned in Panamimed's comments, this deck does have some vulnerabilities to big dumb dudes.  Green is the obvious choice and the hexproof deck we haven't seen a lot of recently seems like a good matchup, but there is also the often overlooked Trusted Forcemage that can bring a lot of creatures out of removal range for this deck. Not only that, blue can only bounce the Forcemage, not remove it.  Which means it can be reset, often for more favorable pairings.  The use of big creatures and control are not usually synonymous, but if RUG control becomes a main archetype they could see a lot of play.  Personally I think R/G bloodrush is an archetype waiting to be exploited, one that could give control in general a headache.  

    Yokai was runner up this week with Junk Control, a deck featuring the aforementioned big creatures.  Borderland Ranger and Abundant Growth are the cards that help this deck get there in a big way.  It's got enough hard removal to make you cringe and creatures like Ogre Jailbreaker and Sentinel Spider are often out of reach of red's removal.  The only choice I'm not sold on is Keening Apparition.  It's great as a sideboard option but I don't see this as a maindeck creature with so many other two drop options in these three colors.  

    The bomb of this deck is Sentinel Spider. This is one of, if not the only playable five drop I've seen in the standard pauper environment since Emrakul's Hatcher and the halcyon days of Rise of the Eldrazi.  4/4 is a great body.  Reach...? Ok now we've got a hell of a defender.  Wait... vigilance?  You mean I can attack too?  It's always tempting to want to play these five and six mana creatures wizards puts at common in each set but this is the only one to actually make the cut in a long time. Wizards tends to have long vision and I wouldn't be surprised if they are trying to surprise us with a series of constructed worthy, high-mana, common creatures over the next several years.  Perhaps each set we may see one, which would be exactly one more that we are used to seeing.  

    Pootmachine T4'd with his deck An Okay Izzet Deck.  Izzet control made somewhat of a return this week, though it never truly left.  It's a competitive archetype and will see play until RtR rotates so not much more can be said.  With this particular build I would say play four Essence Scatter, you won't regret it.  If big, dumb creatures make a splash you'll wish you had.  

    

Final Thoughts

        Caught up in the color combinations and the ease of casting these colors that Return to Ravnica has brought us it is easy to forget that mono-colored decks still have a place in the current metagame. We have seen two different iterations of mono black and a competitive mono blue build since the release of RtR and I believe there are many more out there waiting to be exploited.  While double mana costs like WW or RR may not be enticing to the two or three color deck(although they've seen a lot of play) they can often be of greater than normal value to mono color decks.  

    Mono blue and mono black are two colors that may do better on their own than they would as a pair.  With such great removal from black, and the great mono black decks we've seen, and with blue's penchant for counters, bounce and a new found use of aggressive creatures, I believe that both of these colors are ripe for the picking when it comes to forgotten mono-color builds.  In fact, I wouldn't be surprised to see a mono-green ramp or even mono-red burn make a few T4's before it's all said and done.  Until next time, choose your colors wisely.