Creature (23)
Enchantment (16)
Land (21)
Sideboard
Enchantment (4)
Creature (3)
Hi all,
Pauper is my favorite format, and I love playing fringe archetypes. If you're into playing decks that are different and will fly under the radar and still be able to perform well (unless you play Tron a bunch), then Renewal decks are perfect for you!
The basis of the deck is to play value creatures that have enter-the-battlefield effects, tutor our auras, and recur our enchantments. The main creatures the deck is built around are Auramancer, Monk Idealist, Heliod's Pilgrim and Angelic Renewal. These creatures do the majority of our work for us and keep our engine going. The rest of our creature package mainly revolve around prolonging the game until we can grind out our opponent, giving us card advantage, or just being a solid creature such as Guardian of the Guildpact and Squadron Hawk. So, let's break down our deck a bit more in depth, card by card. :)
CREATURES
Firstly, we have the twins Auramancer and Monk Idealist. These cards are functionally the same, but I will always go with more of the Auramancers because of that beautiful Rebecca Guay art. We play a ton of enchantments that we'll get into in a bit here, but it mainly combos with Angelic Renewal as an infinite blocker that we have to pay two mana for. We also have a bunch of other aura's and enchantments we can recur as well.
Next, we have Lone Missionary. Missionary is a great card to bounce with Kor Skyfisher and recur with Angelic Renewal if we're in a bind and need to gain some life. It's a very effective card that can easily gain us 8-16 life over the course of a game, which, in certain Pauper match ups, is a ton.
Kor Skyfisher plays a pretty nifty role here as well as it can bounce all of our permanents back to our hand. This is nice as the majority of our creatures have some sort of ETB ability, so we'll always love to replay it for value. It's also a solid beater as it's 1W for a 2/3 with flying, which in the lovely realm of Pauper is a great card.
Squadron Hawk has been going in and out of my lists recently. It's a great card but there are so many sweepers in the format right now with Electrickery, Echoing Truth and Echoing Decay that I'm debating on removing them completely, but for the time being and power sake, they're staying in. Hawk is a great card to refill your hand, shuffle your library, and flood the board. They're also prime candidates to place Ethereal Armor on late game when we've built our board up. For now, Hawk is a solid filler.
Heliod's Pilgrim is another great card as it can tutor up any of our auras in the deck, and we run quite a few. It's also a solid body for chump blocking and recurring with Angelic Renewal, so naturally the card fits perfect in a shell like this. One of the namesake cards of the deck for sure and I would never remove them from the deck.
Guardian of the Guildpact is a great card depending on your meta. Mono colored decks like Elves, Stompy, Goblins, and Mono-Blue Delver hate this card. He's great on offense and defense, difficult to remove, and helps us grind out the game in the later stages. He doesn't have a ton of synergy with the rest of our deck but sometimes we just need power, and Guardian does that for us.
And now we have my favorite card in the deck, and one of my favorite cards of all time, Mulldrifter! This card is an absolute house in this shell. Mulldrifter is a staple in almost every blue deck in Pauper, but not many shells abuse her power this much. It's always going to be better to evoke Mully in this shell because with Angelic Renewal out, she'll come back from the graveyard directly into play and draw you 4 cards for the price of 2U. In addition to huge card advantage, she provides the beats on offense as well as fliers are great in Pauper.
That for the most part sums up our creatures in the deck, so let's move on to the enchantment / aura package.
ENCHANTMENTS AND AURAS
The heart of the deck lies in the card Angelic Renewal, which is a super broken card when paired up with the right creatures. Renewal in this deck allows us to get card advantage, gain life, block infinitely, and many more interactions. It's always going to be a 4-of and should never be removed. An opening hand with Angelic Renewal and Mulldrifter is a ridiculous opening hand and when you play the deck, you'll get to see why.
Ethereal Armor is our first aura that we can tutor up and it's great in the later games to really close the game out quick. Usually played in Bogles and Mono-W Heroic, Ethereal Armor often gives our creatures +4/+4, +5/+5 and so on and so forth. Playing this on a Mulldrifter or Squadron Hawk late game is absolutely nuts and your opponent more than likely won't be expecting it at all.
Weight of Conscience in this deck is a better Journey to Nowhere which is a white staple in Pauper. Weight not only allows us to stop the creature from attacking, but it actually allows us to exile it completely by tapping two white creatures -- something we'll have plenty of with Squadron Hawk in the deck. Once you've exiled your creature, play your Auramancer to get Weight back and repeat the process. :)
Crystallization is a card I've been messing around with recently because it also, for the most part, permanently exiles that creature. Oblivion Ring and Journey to Nowhere can be bounced easily, but Crystallization makes it so that creature will just be exiled if it's bounced anyways. It's a solid removal option that always comes in clutch.
Oblivion Ring is always going to be in any white based enchantment deck, so we'll play a few copies of it as well. It's important sometimes to exile nonland permanents that aren't creatures as there are quite a few combo decks and artifacts in the format that rely heavily on key pieces that we can nab with O-Ring. Classic card, always worth putting into white midrange decks.
Gift of Orzhova has always been a favorite of mine and the art on it is also dope. This can be played on any of our creatures to really speed up the beat down, as it gives them flying, lifelink, and a +1/+1 counter. The lifelink is the best part here as we already have a ton of fliers, but sometimes we just need that extra life if we can't find our Lone Missionary quick enough.
Rhystic Study is a new favorite of mine in this deck and it can either be very good or very bad depending on when you draw it and the deck your opponent is playing. Early game this can really put the pressure on some decks as they don't want to give you too much card advantage, but they also want to curve out. If you're going for a more competitive vibe I would cut this card, but it's too fun not to play for me. Plus it's always nice to get more use out of my EDH cards.
And finally for auras we have Faith's Fetters, which is probably the best silver bullet aura in the deck and definitely comes in most during our time of need. It shuts off activated abilities, gains us life, and shuts off attacking and blocking. It's everything we need in an aura but it comes at a cost of 4 mana, which is why we only play one and love to tutor it up.
If you are a paper player, please play a few copies of Mana Chains. This card is insane and if played early can really ruin some decks. However, it's bugged on MTGO and doesn't work at all, so I didn't include it here.
Please note that there are literally HUNDREDS of auras to play in Pauper. Pick the ones that work best for you, in your meta. Pick the ones that you like the best, even if it's because you like the art. Personally, I love running a singleton Pacifism from Onslaught because I have a foil one for my Akroma EDH deck. Let your originality and creativity shine here. :)
LANDS
For our lands, we'll play some islands, plains, Azorius Chancery, Ash Barrens or Evolving Wilds, and Tranquil Cove along with a singleton Mortuary Mire to bring back a creature we need every once in awhile. Ash Barrens is the best option of the bunch but if you're in a pinch, Evolving Wilds works just fine. I usually run 20-21 lands depending on the auras I'm running in the deck.
SIDEBOARD
Standard Bearer and Prismatic Strands are staples for white sideboard cards in Pauper. Most decks even run these main board now, but we'll keep them in the side for the time being. Prismatic Strands comes in against any aggro deck and is an absolute insane card. I absolutely love this card and hesitated on buying it for the longest time because of the price, but I do not regret that decision at all. The same goes for Standard Bearer. There really are no cards like these in Pauper.
relic of the progenitus is always nice to play as it's a cantrip and shuts down some certain strategies. UB Teachings is a great deck in Pauper and relies heavily on flashback spells and using the graveyard for advantage. Tron also loves to use it's graveyard to recur things. Just be careful and don't crack it unless you have to, because we rely on our yard a bit too.
Dispel is pretty fun out of the side and a lot of decks don't see it coming because we play very few blue cards in the main deck, but this is a nice card to side in sometimes. Hydroblast works fine too because it's dual purpose, but it depends on your meta. If you have a lot of red in yours, play Hydroblast, otherwise keep in Dispel.
Seal of Cleansing is probably our best sideboard card as it can be constantly brought back with Auramancer and Monk Idealist to destroy our opponents if they're playing enchantments or artifacts. Affinity and Bogles absolutely loathe this card in our deck.
Pendrell Flux is a new one I'm testing out as a 1-of because I have a person who loves to play big creature decks, and this makes them think twice about whether or not they really want to keep it on the board of if they want to sac it. We can also recur it and tutor for it.
Lastly, we have two copies of Holy Light. I don't play white decks in Pauper without this card out of the sideboard. This card completely decimates Elves, Goblins, most of Delver, and a ton of other decks. No one expects this type of effect out of white, and I love playing it.
And for the most part, that covers the deck! You can obviously customize the deck as you choose, this is a toolbox deck at it's heart so there are plenty of options to choose from. If you do not like the blue package with Mulldrifter and a few enchantments, then you can always go in to black. There are a lot of great black enchantments such as Font of Return which is by far the nuttiest interaction of all time with Angelic Renewal and Auramancer, so I would 100% recommend trying those decks out too. I personally just love the blue version because it allows me to play some of my favorite blue cards and I can customize it and try a bunch of random stuff in it. Also, I have Unglued Islands and Plains, so I love showing them off. :)
I hope ya'll learned a bit about the archetype and if you enjoy playing fringe decks and interacting with cards in odd ways, this deck would be great for you. You can definitely cut the a ton of the cards from the deck if you're on a budget such as removing Prismatic Strands, Ash Barrens, and Standard Bearer. Relic of Progenitus spiked recently too, so you can cut that as well. That alone cuts a ton of money from the deck and probably puts it under ~$20.
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| Top Ranked |
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| Date added | 7 years |
| Last updated | 7 years |
| Legality | This deck is Pauper legal. |
| Cards | 60 |
| Avg. CMC | 2.72 |
| Folders | other peepers poopers, Pauper, Pauper Selection, Pauper Decks |
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| Views | 2737 |