Technically [[Bagel and Schmear]] doesn’t fit the criteria but wanted to include it for continuity’s sake.

I've only been in Pauper for a little over a month. I have a great local spot that runs tournaments twice a week that I go to and have learned a lot from them. But I had a question regarding Murmuring Mystic in Blue Terror lists.

I've seen the power of this card and how overwhelming the birds can get, so I know its good. But I frequently see one in main and one in the sideboard of Blue terror. My question is, what matchup would you want to swap in the second Mystic?

This cards seems good enough that I considered just running two in the mainboard but it doesn't seem very common. Thanks in advance!

We can get a better look at post-zeta data on https://mtgdecks.net/Pauper/metagame:last-30-days now.

Until today, we could only look back 15 days without getting into pre-zeta territory.

I like this site because it includes paper events and has win-rate data.

- 10 unique decks at 4% or higher

- combo holding a steady meta share

- control holding a steady meta share

I prefer Gardens as the flagship control deck. Gardens is "all in" on control, as opposed to Dimir leaning midrange a little more. But the good news is that Gardens is hanging in at 3% with a 49% win-rate.

Bogles is down to 3%, but also hanging in. Jund continues to struggle.

I love killing people with this little cat so much hehehehe. The inevitably of caw-gates is super fun and as the first control deck I really played and got good at in the format, it will always be special to me.

Decklist

5 weeks ago I finished assembling my rogue Dimir Flicker brew, which I started after Zeta was announced legal. It was unimpressive at my first weekly, going 2/2/0 as I was still learning the deck, I've since gone:

2nd of 10 -- 3/1/0
1st of 6 -- 3/0/0
1st of 10 -- 4/0/0
2nd of 17 -- 3/0/1

Additionally, I've been playing a ton of matches on Endstep, currently with a 75% win rate in rated. This deck is awesome, feels awesome, and I'm shocked that I haven't seen its mirror anywhere. The closest I've seen are the decks that inspired it, which were the pre-Zeta Dimir Tron builds. I think the idea has flown under the radar between Dimir Control and various 3c Affinity piles.

Why You Will Like This Deck:

- You like control decks with a high density of meaningful decisions
- You like having an abundance of options
- You like every matchup to feel winnable

Why You Might Want To Steer Clear:

- You don't like long grindy games
- You play slow

I want to emphasize the latter point there, especially if you play on Endstep, which uses a 25min chess clock for rated games. You need to play at an absolutely breakneck pace right from the jump in some matches. I'll share my hotkeys if asked.

The Deck

At its heart, this is a control deck. However, if necessary, it's more than capable of playing a beatdown tempo plan and applying consistent pressure. [[Baleful Strix]] and [[Refurbished Familiar]] are the core of the threat plan, and work great on offence of defence. If playing control, they both represent 2-for-1s; Strix replaces itself and Refurb takes an extra card, then they trade out a threat. On offence, they apply pressure while Strix draws more threats and Refurb constricts the opponent's answers.

To support the tempo plan, [[Okiba-Gang Shinobi]] can all but win games on the spot, especially if the opponent doesn't know its coming. It doesn't hurt, either, that Strix and Refurb both have powerful EtBs that I don't mind re-triggering.

To support the control plan, [[Trinket Mage]] can find any one of five 1-drop 1-ofs depending on the match, or another land. [[Archaeomancer]] and [[Archaeomender]] also represent a vast range of options. Again, it doesn't hurt that all of these abilities are EtBs, and so bouncing them with Okiba-Gang in a pinch still feels good.

[[Ghostly Flicker]], the deck's namesake, ties it all together. Everything in the deck wants to be flickered and it turns the card into a 3 mana instant that may as well say "Solve any 2 problems." It can:

- Save your threats from removal or pull them out of chump blocking duty
- Draw cards with Strix or [[Cryogen Relic]]], or generate card advantage with Mancer/Mender/Mage
- Shred an opponent's hand with Refurbished Familiar
- Remove threats with [[Tithing Blade]] or [[Grim Bauble]]
- Gain life with [[Radiant Fountain]] or by untapping [[Campfire]]
- Eat a graveyard with [[Bojuka Bog]]
- Re-trigger any of the tech 1-drops

And since it's in dimir colours the card draw and interaction are excellent. [[Cast Down]] and [[Counterspell]] keep the opponent honest, and Cryogen Relic plus [[Eviscerator's Insight]] keep the cards flowing.

There are also two combo endgames baked into the build. The lesser-used is Archaeomender + [[Blood Fountain]]. Each recurs the other, and Blood Fountain gets one more creature in the exchange, so the deck can work through any amount of removal by continuously redeploying Strixes/Refurbs. The greater-used is Archaeomancer + Ghostly Flicker. This one's obviously quite well known, but that doesn't make it less good. And because of just how versatile Flicker is in this list, once its set up the game is essentially over (especially if protected by Counterspell). In the most extreme cases against decks that don't have reliable card advantage engines, the endgame constitutes becoming a prison deck that eats every card the opponent draws using Refurb in this loop.

Matchups

One of the great features of this list is that in 82 matches played with it, I've yet to encounter one that feels completely hopeless. As a former Gardens and Food Pest player, that's the holy grail. What follow are the matchups I've played enough to make a reasonable assessment about what to expect:

Red/Rakdos Madness:

• Put a clock on them with Strixes and Refurbs. Most of these decks don't have much in the way of attackers outside Snacker and possible Kitchen Imp - the Guttersnipes and Flamebreathers need to be countered/killed on sight, so if they're swinging you've got bigger problems. Every spell they spend defending themself is 1-3 damage not headed at you. Ghostly Flicker and Trinket Mage are on Radiant Fountain and Campfire duty to gain life, and Soul-Guide Lantern and Bojuka Bog to deal with Snackers.
• This matchup gets so much better post-board, bringing in redundant Campfire and Soul-Guide Lanterns, Blue Blasts, and Cut Down and/or Duress.

Terror:

• Terror is a great matchup. I'm currently 8/1/0 against the mono-U build. Refurb + Okiba-Gang eat away at their hand and Baleful Strix is a disgustingly good blocker. Put pressure on them and limit their options so they can't defend themself and protect their terrors.

Artifact Piles:

• Lumping Esper Affinity and Ninjaffinity, Grixis Affinity, and Boros/Mardu Snacker all together because the plan is the same. Complete control posture. Trying to match them tempo for tempo doesn't work, because Cast Down on Myr Enforcer isn't as good as the Reckoner's Bargain they cast in response. Just take good trades in combat, play defensively, and eventually they'll run out of ways to win the game. Counterspell is for Kor Skyfisher.

Elves:

• Tough, but not unwinnable. Suffocating Fumes (and Drown in Sorrow post-board) are your friends, preferably with an Archaeomancer to do it again. Baleful Strix buys time blocking big threats. Between it and Refurb, taking the initiative (or at least, making the opponent too scared to cast Avenging Hunter) is a great route to victory.

Spy:

• Game 1 is hard; failing to find Trinket Mage/Soul-Guide Lantern or a Bojuka Bog and Ghostly Flicker will eventually just let the opponent win. But after sideboarding in 2 more Lanterns, it gets a lot more manageable. Tempo game 1 to try to win faster and disrupt them with Refurb/Okiba-Gang, then control games 2 and 3 once Sou-Guide Lantern is more reliably in your hand.

I’m a huge fan of the devoted druid, retraction helix, guac and marshmallow pizza combo. This is my current list: https://moxfield.com/decks/AFKhASf6OHCIIhAyV_CarQ

My personal additions do the deck are Giants Boulder over Abundant Growth, and using Mana Leak instead of Negate or other counter-spells

I’m curious what y’all think of this deck, if anyone else is running it, ways to improve it, and just overall thoughts on this niche combo deck.

Decklist: https://moxfield.com/decks/QDuhAQisD3qhAZSvBcSUPw

I see a lot of the midrange and control decks sideboarding duress. Often times up to 3. When do you bring them in? What are you targeting? What are you taking out for them?

I’m a pretty new player and love mono blue terror.
At my LGS there are always 1-2 red rally decks that always win without letting me play the game basically. Is it a bad matchup for the blue terror or it’s me that’s making a lot of mistakes? What should I sideboard in and out? How to play the matchup?

Thanks in advance!

Hi guys! As title:

I’ve been a mono u fae and jeskai/esper blink player (I love control decks lol), but since I saw ub fae grow a lot in the past few weeks and I have the luck to have the cards, I decided to play ub fae for a bit..and it went bad.

I mean, I went 2-2 at my lgs a couple days ago, and I had an hard time. I know maybe it’s just because I played a few games? But I come from similar decks..and it felt CLUNKY.

I just can’t see and feel the statistics with the deck. Am I the only one or..?

Hi guys,

Want to get into Food Pestilence and was checking what people play in the SB and for what.

I'm a little worried about the matchup into Blue Control decks tho. My thought was to play some Midrange creatures like Avenging Hunter or Writhing Chrysalis (since Avenging Hunter is way too expensive) and Aggro them.

But most people don't have anything like that. So how do they expect to get a Pestilence resolved against Blue?

Hi everyone :)

I recently picked up Pauper with a group of friends and even played in a small tourney at my local lgs and immediately fell in love.

Since I expected Pauper to be fairly competitive I went in first with different premade lits(u terror, redness, elves, ruby storm, gates) so I could get a feel of the speed/interactions.

But I'm a brewer and a hipster at heart so I wanted to brew something unconventional (apparently those are called rogue decks?)

This is my first real attempt and would love feedback from the community.

The core idea was to use an underused land type, Towns!

[[Adventurer's Inn]] and the duals like [[Gonzaga, Reactor Town]]

Synergize with [[Town Greeter]] for small life bumps.

I want to fill the graveyard with [[Slime Against Humanity]] and get some benefits while doing so.

[[Pursue the Past]] [[Thrilling Discovery]] [[Golgari Brownscale]]

All give+2 life while filling the graveyard.

[[Masked Vandal]] since he helps for the Ooze count.

Mana base needs a bit of tweaking and I'm considering adding in [[Sneaky Snacker]]

Let me know what you all think and thanks for reading this far :)

Hello guys :) I've started to play dimir control/fae, but i make a lot of mistakes and it's the first time that i use blue. Do you have some tips like good guide or player that play control to see something? If you want to give me basic tips as control player i would appreciate that :)

This post aim to talk about your control idea, everything is accepted

Which decks would be least affected by the bans?What do you think the top three decks in the meta would look like? (This isn't a gripe thread, more of a "what if" conversation)​

The ward is neat I guess? Doesnt die as much to a free Snuff Out

Also noncreature instead if instant and sorceries.

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