Pauper: Post-Ban Format Tier List

At the end of March, Pauper underwent one of the most significant changes the format has ever seen, with the banning of three cards that defined the competitive scene: Basking Broodscale, Deadly Dispute and Kuldotha Rebirth, in addition to Prophetic Prism and High Tide returning to the tables and online matches.

With just over a month since the interventions, the format's Metagame has stabilized, and it is clear which strategies are most successful in competitive results, which archetypes are on the rise, and which new decks have been born or returned to the format.

In this article, we present a Pauper tier list based on the results of each archetype after the Banned and Restricted update.

Mono Blue Terror

Mono Blue Terror was the biggest beneficiary of the Pauper bans at the end of March. Now, a little over a month after they occurred, we see a Metagame that is partly composed of the archetype's position in the scenario as an efficient Tempo strategy, originally created to deal with a much faster environment in which it needed to defend against Kuldotha Rebirth and the Basking Broodscale combo.

The result is that it is one of the best decks in the format today. Cheap and efficient answers, a clock capable of winning the game in four turns and the classic presence of Delver of Secrets pressuring the board from the beginning of the game make it a safe choice for any environment, and ready to respond to most of the main Pauper competitors today.

Madness Burn

In the absence of interaction between Kuldotha Rebirth and Experimental Synthesizer to ensure pressure and breathing room in the same slot, Madness Burn has become the most resilient variant of damage decks in Pauper. The combination of a constant clock with Sneaky Snacker added to several micro-interactions that generate virtual card advantage put it in a favored spot in the current Metagame, including the addition of options that adding a second color offers in the Sideboard.

Madness also has the advantage of being difficult to respond: it attacks in many angles and in different ways between them, which invalidate linear responses and causes situations where the opponent is forced to play bad cards against one half of the deck because they are good against the other half.

Synthesizer Red

Mono Red has lost a lot of power without Kuldotha Rebirth, but it remains the most popular Pauper deck in Magic Online Leagues and an archetype that you need to respect to some degree if you intend to play in a tournament.

Today, it is closer to the traditional Burn versions, mixing cards like Kessig Flamebreather and Lightning Bolt with some aggressive low-cost creatures like the combination of Goblin Tomb Raider and Clockwork Percussionist, and it is still the main definer of the format's speed, despite not showing the best results in tournaments outside of Leagues.

Grixis Affinity

Grixis Affinity remains Pauper's most versatile midrange deck after the banning of Deadly Dispute. While the spell's manafixing has been essential, the archetype can maintain an efficient three-color shell with Modern Horizons II's Bridges, and the combination of efficient draws between Reckoner's Bargain, Fanatical Offering, and Thoughtcast provides ample capacity to keep the resources flowing while finding the right answers for each circumstance.

Affinity remains the logical choice when expecting longer tournaments and benefits from the reduction in targeted hate that the rise of Mono Blue Terror has brought to a format that no longer tends to run four copies of Dust to Dust in the sideboard as often.

Gruul Ramp

Gruul Ramp also didn't suffer from the interventions in March, but its position was compromised by the mix of archetypes at the top of the Metagame that don't allow it to grow easily — especially the rise of Mono Blue Terror, in addition to its notorious difficulty in dealing with non-interactive strategies.

However, it is still a solid choice for the format when facing Faeries, Affinity, Synthesizer Red, and even Jund Wildfire, not to mention the advantage it has in being an answer against Flicker Tron, which grew in the Metagame after the unban of Prophetic Prism.

Mono Blue Faeries

Faeries had returned to the radar as another answer in the previous Metagame, where it had a favorable matchup against Broodscale Combo and Kuldotha Red, and remained relevant after the bans as an efficient Tempo strategy that can even serve as an answer against Tolarian Terror lists.

The Mono Blue variant is not the only one available in the format, but it is the one with the most consistent results, caused by the increase in speed that the one-color mana base allows when compared to the Dimir or Izzet versions.

Jund Wildfire

Jund Wildfire is the closest thing to Goodstuff that we have in Pauper: a stack of the best cards of the format together in a single deck. It takes the heart of Affinity with Refurbished Familiar and Krark-Clan Shaman — the best sweeper of the format — and mixes it with the combination of Writhing Chrysalis — the best creature of the format — and Nyxborn Hydra.

It currently competes with Affinity for the best Midrange slot in the Metagame, compensating for the absence of Thoughtcast by combining Cleansing Wildfire with Bridges, and exchanging some micro-interactions and Sideboard responses from blue for the possibility of using one of the most efficient creatures Pauper has ever had, in addition to guaranteeing Weather the Storm in the Sideboard as an easy win button against red decks.

Elves

Another archetype that was absent during the last seasons — mainly due to its poor matchup against Basking Broodscale —, Elves returned as a competitor in Pauper thanks to the rise of blue Tempo strands in Tier 1, which have always been one of its most favorable matchups and put it in a privileged position in the Metagame today.

It cannot be ignored that it still faces problems in the current scenario since cheap two-damage sweepers arrived in the format, and has difficulties against Krark-Clan Shaman, Drown in Sorrow or Breath Weapon, while it is favored against red decks if they don't run many copies of End the Festivities for the early game.

Flicker Tron

Absent from the format since Bonder’s Ornament was banned, Flicker Tron is back on Pauper’s radar now that Prophetic Prism has granted it easy access to colored mana while consistently maintaining the old 1 +1 +1 = 7 math, which has always placed the archetype in a privileged spot in the Metagame.

Tron maintained its Toolbox-Lock-Control shell, using several spells that can be reused with the combination of Ghostly Flicker and Mnemonic Wall, now having Murmuring Mystic as part of the win conditions.

Despite the good results, the archetype is not as well-positioned in the Metagame today for reasons similar to those of other strategies that require a level of setup in the first turns: there are very aggressive decks or very efficient Tempo strategies that easily prey on it, not to mention Gruul Ramp being a bit more favored right now.

Bogles

There are some non-interactive strategies that solidly permeate Pauper's Tier 2 today. Among them, Bogles is the most straightforward and consequently the most popular.

The combination of powerful Auras with dhard-to-interact creatures takes advantage of an environment where there are other strategies that are just as linear as yours, and where removal like Chainer’s Edict or Extract a Confession is not usually worth maindeck slots.

However, like many other linear strategies, Tempo and disruptive decks in the format are your biggest enemies: Bogles can’t easily recover from a dozen Counterspells and Spell Pierces.

Dredge

As a graveyard-based combo, Dredge faces the challenge of dodging and playing around all the hate that is originally aimed at Tolarian Terror variants, and still produces good results due to the mix of speed and consistency that the combo of Dread Return with Lotleth Giant offers.

Dimir Terror

Dimir Terror has adopted a small Faerie package with Spellstutter Sprite and sometimes Sneaky Snacker to take advantage of interactions with looting effects and play around removal and counterspells, but the loss of a turn and a half or two turns makes it less effective in competing with the monocolored versions. It is a viable option for slower Metagames against traditional Midranges, and also has the tools to deal with Big Mana.

Boros Synthesizer

Boros Synthesizer initially benefited from the format's slowdown and losing one of its worst matchups to bans, but soon faced the challenge of dealing with both Tron and Gruul Ramp in better positions than it, in addition to not having a very favorable matchup against Mono Blue Terror or the tools to adapt against Madness Burn — not to mention the almost free win that High Tide has against it without an excess of hate dedicated to this matchup.

High Tide

High Tide is legal in Pauper for the first time in history and has already developed its own combo archetype with Psychic Puppetry and Stream of Thought.

As one of the hardest decks to pilot in the format today and also one of the most click-intensive, it's only natural that its position in the Metagame isn't the best it could be, based on the online tournaments. On the other hand, we still don't have enough sample size to evaluate the potential of High Tide in large-scale tabletop events — and in the current circumstances, it appears that the archetype faces enough answers with assertive pieces like Pyroblast, Duress and Relic of Progenitus.

Walls Combo

Walls Combo is another non-interactive strategy that benefits from the low cadence of Midranges that are more dedicated to dealing with the board today and can play “over” of the fairer archetypes and Tempo lists, but it is less efficient and fast than other non-interactive strategies, in addition to having almost all the advantages that Elves — better positioned today — have.

Mono White Aggro

Mono White Aggro has lost a lot of ground after bans took away two games that highlighted it as a meta call, but it is still the most efficient list in running cards like Thraben Charm and Dust to Dust to answer some of the most popular strategies in the current Metagame.

Dimir Faeries

The two-color variants of Faeries are viable options today, but they stand out when the environment is more attrition-oriented or when we need more comprehensive answers to specific matchups. Today, trying to play two-color against the Mono Blue Terror's clock means considerably delaying some turns where it can take advantage of its mana efficiency, making these variants less popular right now.

Izzet Terror

Izzet Terror leaves aside the Tempo shell in favor of a pure Control strategy with Monarch cards like Azure Fleet Admiral and Crimson Fleet Commodore, turning Tolarian Terror into a late-game win condition instead of forcing one or more copies of it onto the board on turn three.

Turbo Fog

With different variants between Simic, Golgari and up to four colors, Turbo Fog offers a Control option that preys on non-interactive Aggro decks or those that rely exclusively on combat damage to end games. It can pull some results, but it lacks efficiency against some of the main competitors and enough popularity to have more solid results in Challenges.

That's all for today!

If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment!

Thanks for reading!