This is my first pauper deck, and I am not overly familiar with the format, so any help with sideboarding/mainboarding would be appreciated. Thanks!
Intro:
Shortly after BFZ came out I heard about the combo revolving around Nettle Drone and Retraction Helix. Following this, I created an inevitably crappy eldrazi deck based on the combo. It was not reliable, and thankfully I chose to put it of its misery later on and totally scrapped the idea. A short time ago, a youtube channel called Manasource showed off a decklist for modern that was completely tied to this combo, and unlike my attempt, actually worked. I found myself wanting to rebuild my old crap deck, this time correctly. For uniqueness, I then chose to build it into a pauper deck, which keeps the core idea of the combo, but includes common replacements for otherwise unavailable cards. What you see here is the result.
The Combo:
At least one of three creature cards is needed for this deck to win. Nettle Drone,
Mirran Spy
(the two cards that earned the deck its name), or
Battered Golem
. You also need Banishing Knack or Retraction Helix, and a zero cost artifact. The combo can also be created in other ways with different cards in deck, one of which enables a turn four kill. This also ensures that the deck can play with slight alterations game to game.
Basic Idea:2 Nettle Drones -> Cast a Retraction Helix on one of them -> Use one drone to repeatedly bounce an artifact back into your hand an recast it. The second drone will be used to tap for potentially infinite damage to the opponent.
If you only have one drone, you cannot use its damage ability in conjunction with the ability given to it by Retraction Helix or Banishing Knack. Thus you need either its fellow drone,
Mirran Spy
, or
Battered Golem
out to be targeted with helix or knack. The combo can even be pulled off with only one of the three essential creatures if you have a Reckless Fireweaver,
Salivating Gremlins
, or my favorite, Elusive Spellfist. The latter two can swing with infinite attack plus evasion.
