Sleeper decks of Pauper: Ruby Storm, Cat Combo, Dimir Tempo Faeries

While Pauper has a well-solidified metagame, grinders and brewers are constantly trying to find something new in the format. Fortunately, this environment seems to lend itself to innovation, especially thanks to the exceptionally low barrier of financial entry, hence allowing anybody to keep trying out different solutions to posed problems.

In today's piece, I want to talk about three 'new' decks that have become a bit more known and show proper potential despite, for some of them, having had all the pieces before.

Ruby Storm

The first deck I want to talk about is so-called Ruby Storm, borrowing the name from the Modern counterpart. The idea is strikingly similar, as you're trying to deploy a two-drop accelerant, of which you play any number between 8 and 12, and play a flurry of card draw spells and rituals.

There are 8 actual static discounters in Goblin Anarchomancer and Thornscape Familiar, with lists opting for some number of Spider Manifestation to increase the consistency on the two drops. While the format is quite interactive and it's not very reliable to assume your creature will survive, there are two key aspects of it to keep in mind. First, if it does survive, you have a shockingly high chance to end the game on turn three which hasn't been a feature of Pauper for quite some time (RIP Broodscale). Second, you can sandbag the creature in hand, play a couple of draw spells and just make land drops, and deploy your discounter on a later turn when the opponent least expects it. You can also resolve your two-drop and in response to the opponent's removal unleash your instant speed spells to get that discount value before the creature dies.

The deck is card-advantage-dense which makes it very deadly, since it *can* kill on turn three, but it can also grind very effectively. With 4-6 copies of the classic red Divination effects like Wrenn's Resolve and Reckless Impulse, you can sculpt your hand and generate value, all while the opponent is trying to hold up interaction in the hopes of not losing the game instantly. There are also bigger versions of those spells in Big Score, Pirate's Pillage, or Glimpse the Impossible that propel you very well towards victory.

You can't combo off just by drawing infinite cards and this is where Manamorphose and, surprisingly, Pauper-legal Seething Song come into play.  By generating copious amounts of mana, you can keep going and use your card advantage to get access to more rituals to cast more draw spells, etc.

Seize the Storm will create a huge Elemental token with trample (or two thanks to flashback) that is able to one-shot the opponent. Bolstered by a lesson package from Avatar and First Day of Class, this token will come in very hasty and very lethal.

Cat Combo

The second deck on the list is also a combo deck but of a completely different nature. It's considerably slower, it's artifact-based, and plays out way more like the old Modern KCI combo.

What you want to accomplish is to loop Cauldron Familiar endlessly with Ashnod's Altar, pinging the opponent to death. You can get a similar outcome by looping Myr Retriever with Molten Gatekeeper on board. Thanks to Altar providing mana, for every two colorless you make by sacrificing the cat you can play Lembas or Golden Egg (which have Food type), to bring back the cat, sac for two mana, play another Food, and keep going. It's even simpler and fully deterministic when you have two Myr Retrievers as you sacrifice one, return the other from the graveyard and use the two mana you just made to replay the second copy - you can keep saccing and replaying Retrievers and ping the opponent for 1 for every iteration of the loop with Gatekeeper in play.

The deck plays a ton of Food-type artifacts to fuel the Cat synergies, Retrivers for the second combo but also to return those Foods if need be, and Clockwork Fox to get even deeper into the deck while comboing.

There's also a full suite of card selection cards that work perfectly with what the deck is doing. Since most cards we want are both permanents and colorless artifacts, Malevolent Rumble and Ancient Stirrings fit absolutely perfectly into this almost Mono Green deck.

Last but not least, the deck utilises a rainbow tap manabase to fuel its versatile sideboard and being able to essentially play any cards we want.

Dimir Tempo Faeries

The last deck is a new innovation of mine. If you'd like to hear me ramble about it in video form, you can find it here.

While the idea of adding Snuff Out to a Fae shell is far from revolutionary, what seems to be is maintaining the plan that's associated with Mono Blue *and* having the black splash. Most Dimir Fae lists have 4 Faerie Seer and, sometimes, 4 Faerie Miscreant  - totalling 4-8 one-drops, with 3-4 Ninjas. I go much further, maxing out on Ninjas and having upwards of 12 one-drops, truly manifesting that Mono Blue playstyle. The reason is to still be able to have those punishing draws where you put the opponent on the backfoot immediately. Moreover, one of the biggest blind spots for Mono Blue is the lack of removal, which this shell is striving to fix.

Naturally, the biggest issue is the manabase with one of the most common criticisms being that you can't be a tempo deck with one drops while playing 4 taplands and 4 Loriens. While on paper I see the dissonance, with the way I've built the manabase most games will play out like Mono Blue with Islands being deployed early and that black sources coming in on later turns, not interfering with that proactive plan. It's not all roses, of course, and the manabase is definitely still the weakest part of the deck but if it wasn't - Dimir would be clearly the best choice. This is a balancing factor that disallows a powerful tempo deck from accessing very efficient removal.

If your meta sees creatures that Mono Blue typically struggles with like Elves, Walls, Kor Skyfisher - playing such a black version might be net positive for you.

Conclusion

There's still a ton to be uncovered in Pauper and I am excited to see what the future brings. What's particularly thrilling is that new cards don't have to enter the format for players to re-arrange the same pieces of the puzzle to get something new and fresh.

Let's keep on Paupering!