Three color has historically had a very difficult time in pauper, being more or less impossible for decks without Prophetic Prism. However, I believe that Augur of Bolas and Ash Barrens, along with Brainstorm, represent a shift in this dynamic. Greedy blue-based mana bases are now smoother than they used to be, and they can dig further for cheaper while presenting a more formidable defense in the early game.
This effect has been borne out by the transformation of Mono U Delver into UR Delver, so I'm trying it here with UB Flicker as a base. The addition of Red mana allows us to run the most efficient 1/2 CMC removal in the format in Flame Slash + Terminate
, and also enables running >4 Bouncelands, which combo with Brainstorm for a late game card quality engine.
I took inspiration primarily from 420dragon's Esper Familiars list, kungfutrees' UB Flicker list with Nightscape Familiar, and Janicestone's Grixis Flicker list from the Pauper Challenge. My list is intended to be a marriage of the three, featuring stronger removal and stack interaction relative to Familiars and UB, and a stronger combo turn relative to the Grixis list.
Mystical Teachings is my own addition. Flashback allows it to double dip on the cost reduction from Nightscape Familiar, and it provides greater consistency on sometimes game winning cards like Reaping the Graves. It also gives us more functional copies of Counterspell for protecting our combo turn against opposing control decks.
The main points of consideration for me at this point are -
Should I be running Snap? I had it in an earlier version, but took it out. I don't like that it sort of prices us into tapping out during our main phase, and it plays badly against counterspells. However, having access to it does make our combo much stronger, letting us bounce an opponent's entire board in conjunction with wall and flicker, or just generate a bunch of extra mana and reuse ETB effects.
How many edicts should I be running? I feel like running 0 is asking for trouble against Hexproof, Blitz and other go-tall decks. At the same time, Terminate is a pretty excellent spell, and I feel like the 4 flame slash are necessary against Affinity and assorted aggro decks.
