Mtg when cast effect stack6/22/2023 ![]() ![]() It is very difficult to 1-for-1 Walls however, because it plays many redundant effects. This can lead to situations where the Walls player has overextended and it becomes very difficult to rebuild after a board wipe like this. The deck is especially susceptible to sweeper effects, notably cards like Krark-Clan Shaman which despite most of the creatures in the deck being 0/3 or 0/4s can often succumb to a bunch of artifacts sacrificed to wipe clean the board. Where Walls falls apart is often in the fact that it needs to mulligan to a functional game plan hand of both mana production and tutors or payoffs. There is additional redundancy afforded here by the tutor packages of Drift + Shield-Wall, but also generally cards like Vivien's Grizzly can be used to draw through the deck or cards like Third Path Savant to draw cards as well. Because of this, the deck typically wins the game by utilizing cards like Valakut Invoker (to repeatedly deal 3 damage to the opponent) or Secret Door (to repeatedly loop through Lost Mine of Phandelver to kill the opponent). For example, as long as Axebane Guardian is tapping for more than one mana, putting a Freed from the Real on it means that the Guardian can repeatedly untap for U and net mana each time, which allows it to make a lot of mana in short order. The way that this deck generally wins is by deploying its creatures to make mana as part of its game plan, and then leverage that mana into an "untap" effect such as Galvanic Alchemist or Freed from the Real in conjunction with a mana producing creature that produces a lot of mana. On the flip side of this, the deck plays mainly basic Forests for the sheer reason that it allows the deck to abuse the synergy between Quirion Ranger and mana producing defender creatures to make even more mana. This makes its hits off of both Winding Way and Lead the Stampede often much more explosive in nature since it can usually draw over half the cards looked at by these cards. ![]() Because of this massive redundancy in its mana producing creatures, the deck is afforded the ability to run very few lands. Walls functions on sheer redundancy, playing a ton of creatures that generally have the keyword Defender and also make lots of mana (examples being both Overgrown Battlement and Axebane Guardian). Having an additional tutor card that worked alongside the deck's existing tutor effect in Drift of Phantasms really boosted the deck's ability to not only assemble its combo pieces but have redundant ways of finding them as well. One of those was Winding Way from Modern Horizons as another version of Lead the Stampede, but the other was Shield-Wall Sentinel from Dominaria United. Walls as a deck has actually been around for quite a long time in the format, but there were several key printings that really enabled a lot of the deck's hyper redundant nature. We're going to look at some of the more predominant combo decks of the format, as well as some of the ways to play against them. This makes combo decks in Pauper very interesting and powerful fun options to play. The Combo decks that currently exist in Pauper do so because more often than not they are generally answerable on some axis of interaction by tools already in the format, whether that is via creature removal, countermagic, or simply racing the opponent's life total before their combo takes form (as many of the combo decks of the format, while reasonably fast aren't as fast as similar combo decks in other formats). ![]() Many of these cards that answer combo are often uncommon or higher in rarity, making it hard to have good ways to deal with strong combo. The major reasoning behind much of these bannings largely has to do with the fact that unlike other formats, Pauper does not have good anti-combo tools to deal with a good number of the format's stronger combo payoffs and engines. This includes cards such as Grapeshot and Frantic Search. Most of the cards on the banlist in Pauper are actually in some way related to some form of combo piece, combo payoff, or an engine card that makes combos function. Most formats in Magic: The Gathering have some form of combo based strategies in them, and Pauper is no exception to that either. Without further ado, let's dive right in! C-C-C-Combo! We've also got some Challenges from last weekend to talk about. Howdy folks! It's time yet again for another edition of The Power of Pauper! I'm your host, Joe Dyer, and this week we're going to be diving into the wide wide world of Combo decks in Pauper! There are plenty of wacky combo decks in this format, so it's fun to look at what those decks do and how they operate.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |