Competetive Fog-Tron Toolbox [Pauper]

Pauper Control GWUB Tron TurboFog

oeliberti

Instant (15)

• 1x Condescend
• 1x Dispel
• 2x Ephemerate
• 4x Ghostly Flicker
• 1x Impulse
• 2x Moment's Peace
• 2x Mystical Teachings
• 1x Prohibit
• 1x Pulse of Murasa

Sorcery (1)

• 1x Compulsive Research

Land (21)

• 4x Cave of Temptation
• 1x Forest
• 2x Island
• 1x Plains
• 1x Seat of the Synod
• 4x Urza's Mine
• 4x Urza's Power Plant
• 4x Urza's Tower

Creature (15)

• 2x Dinrova Horror
• 3x Mnemonic Wall
• 4x Mulldrifter
• 2x Sea Gate Oracle
• 3x Stonehorn Dignitary
• 1x Trinket Mage

Artifact (8)

• 4x Expedition Map
• 4x Prismatic Lens

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Sideboard

Instant (13)

• 4x Blue Elemental Blast
• 1x Dispel
• 1x Gut Shot
• 1x Moment's Peace
• 4x Red Elemental Blast
• 1x Shattering Pulse
• 1x Weather the Storm

Creature (2)

• 1x Lone Missionary
• 1x Stonehorn Dignitary

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Maybeboard

Instant (4)

• 1x Crop Rotation
• 1x Fiery Cannonade
• 1x Flaring Pain
• 1x Impulse

Sorcery (1)

• 1x Clear the Mind

Land (1)

• 1x Thriving Isle

Creature (1)

• 1x Augur of Bolas

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Update due to the banning of Prophetic Prism (in case of an un-ban: re-do...)

Screw Prophetic Prism, Prismatic Lens works aswell.

Update due to the banning of Expedition Map (in case of an un-ban: re-do...)

Like all others Tron-players, i have to figure ou which cards to put in for Expedition Map - and of course there can be no adequate substitude. I think about putting in 3 copies more of Impulse plus a Crop Rotation, or maybe a full playset of the least. Maybe a playset of Ancient Stirrings is the best substitude. We'll see...

I finally decided: out 4x Expedition Map, 1x Trinket Mage & 1x Seat of the Synod for 4x Ancient Stirrings, 1x Ash Barrens and 1x Forest.

This an adapted build from The Professor from the Tolarian Community College and my own version of Fog-Tron.

Overall, Urzatron is one of the best decks in the pauper meta and often played as a controlly fog variant - i adepted the current meta decks a little to my favor and this is the result. Playtests so far are very nice and do have a high win rate, tho it can be a little hard to pilot and i really dont recommend this deck to beginners.

Check out my other Pauper-Decks (still including Prototypes/Ideas): Show

{B}: Mono-Black Ponza [Pauper Prototype]

{R}: Mono-Red Storm [Pauper Prototype]

{U}{B}: Chittering Control [Pauper Prototype]

{W}{G}: Another Bogles Deck [Pauper]

{B}{G}: Persistocrats [Pauper]

{W}{U}{G}: Competetive Fog-Tron Toolbox [Pauper]

{W}{B}{R}: Mardu Monarch - but control [Pauper Prototype]

Introduction - Meta-Game

Pauper is full of amazing decklists. There are pretty nice archetypes for nearly everyone and most of them have a suprisingly high powerlevel. Plus, it is so much fun to play this format.

A few popular archetypes i want to mention here are:

• Aggro decks (Mono blue, Boros, Mardu, Simic Elves, Dimir Delver, Mono Green...)
• Mono red Burn
• Bogles (=Simic Auras or Auras Hexproof, my list: Another Bogles Deck [Pauper])
• Affinity
• Control (mostly in Dimir i would say, my list: Chittering Control [Pauper Prototype])
• Combo (Tireless Tribe or Persistocrats for example, my list: Persistocrats [Pauper])
• Tron, in many variants

What we see here are mostly creature-based decks! Some few decks are more likely spellslinger decks, or we have "typical" control decks with lots of spells and a big finisher like Gurmag Angler. Due to the card legality per se in pauper, combo decks are not that common, just because there are not that many combos possible with the (usually) common cards.

And what exactly does that mean further and what conclusion do we get?

• It means the most decks you face in pauper will try to win with creature-based combat damage - that can be with a few big finishers or within a more go-wide strategy with more but normally smaller creatures like Elves for example. The most "annoying" yet very competetive beatdown decklists play the bogles. Those pesky little hexproof creatures are hard to remove and grow very huge very fast - very scary! (and we are even one of the very few decks that will handle the Slippery Bogle without any edict-effect, believe it or not)

• A little less decks will try to burn your life with spells (btw black can do this very well too in this format).

• And even less decks will try to combo off with infinte combos or with a massive unblockable Tireless Tribe.

I want to close this first impression with my following statement:

This decklist right here, the Fog-Tron Toolbox, can handle every single deck and archetype it will face!

Booya.

Philosophy of this List

I'm just telling you guys how exactly i see and understand this deck.

First, this is a toolbox deck. As you can see there are many single copies of certain cards, that is what makes this deck so flexible. It also means, you will either draw some silver bullets or good value cards or you tutor for them.

You can see clearly blink synergies - every creature in this deck has an etb and we play some spells for frequent and redundant use of the etb. Those will protect us, draw us a lot of cards so our hand is always filled with the fuel we need and therefore let us use our tools out of our toolbox deck. Also one of the most important card in many pauper decks and in this here too, talking of Prophetic Prism, will draw us a card while filtering our mana.

This tron deck plays also as a controlly fog variant you can say. Tho you can't see a single copy of the basic Fog, you need to think and see a little more outside the box (no pun intended). What more leads to a "fog", which says nothing more than: "You can't hurt me with combat damage"? Stonehorn Dignitary of course. You should very early in the game be able to establish some "soft locks" by constantantly casting plus blinking this great Rhino. Okay, or you just use/draw/tutor for the better Fog named Moment's Peace...

Last but not least we come to the heart of this deck and its infamous archetype - the manabase for Tron or Urzatron. The whole deck philosophy and all the tactics and plays i mentioned above are only that strong and powerful (and do work that well) because of our Tron-lands. Once we established our 7-mana-out-of-3-lands plan it's really hard to stop this deck. We play 8 filter cards plus some basic mana which is absolutely enough to generate the colour we need out of the plenty of mana the Tron-lands provide. This big mana we get pretty fast in the most games really keeps our plans alive. We are always capable to interact, to fog, to tutor, to blink and to draw more fuel!

With this deck you absolutely do not play along any mana-curve! Don't let the actual mana-curve fool you, we play tron and we play big spells early!

Card Breakdown

• Tron

Speaking of the Tron manabase we of course use a playset of each of the Tron-lands, Urza's Mine, Urza's Power Plant and Urza's Tower. These lands will give us so much mana we will then filter with a playset of Cave of Temptation and, while of course not being lands but another filter, a playset of Prophetic Prism, which will work as cantrips too. Four basic lands are rounding off our colour pie, one copy of Seat of the Synod is kind of an emergency plan if and when we're really missing the chance to generate blue mana - this land can be a target for the Trinket Mage, which appears as a single copy too.

• Artifact support

The infamous and already mentioned Prophetic Prism is an important filter and an important cantrip. Speaking of blink synergies it appears even stronger. A playset of Expedition Map is significant in every Tron deck, regardless of the format. This will fetch the Tron-lands we are eventually missing.

• The creatures

All of our creatures provide strong enter-the-battlefield-effects which will give us manifold advantages. Always remember: we will abuse any etb we need in the actual part of the game by blinking it repeatedly! This is crucial!

Dinrova Horror is a finisher in our deck. It has both a nice 4/4 body to eventually beatdown the opponent and, more important, a game-winning etb.

Mnemonic Wall is an allrounder in many decks and give us back our most important spells. An important loop is to cast Ghostly Flicker on it to grab the Flicker itself instantly back from the yard while blinking another second permanent which will give another advantage. Game-winning too.

Mulldrifter as the only creature-playset - because it is one of the best card in the format. It can be able to beatdown too (evasive) but more important provides crucial carddraw. You even can react on the evoke trigger by blinking it, when it re-enters it will stay and the evoke is no longer a thing.

2 copies of Sea Gate Oracle are enough to "by the way" and eventually repeatedly generate card advantage.

Stonehorn Dignitary is one of the key-cards speaking of fog and to lock-down the enemy game plan. Sideboard-in the fourth copy against fast creature decks for more effectiveness.

Trinket Mage is our "fifth" Expedition Map when really needed and can even fetch blue mana as mentioned above when needed.

• The actual Toolbox

Condescend is a versatile counterspell in tron, big mana is usually no problem. It can even be just a Scry 2 for {U}, very helpful.

Dispel provides a cheap counterspell against instants that are important for the opponents decks.

Ephemerate comes with 2 copies which can both blink 2-times. Totally fits the etb-effects on our creatures.

Ghostly Flicker is clearly oe of the best spells in the deck and comes as a playset. It can blink 2(!) permanents(!) and brings so much synergy to the table.

Impulse is always nice card-advantage.

Moment's Peace can fog 2 times and is a very important spell too. Its fits the theme, protects us long enough to end the game, is fetchable... et cetera!

Mystical Teachings is a very good card for a toolbox-deck. We go through our toolbox and find our highly needed tool. The Teachings can grab us anything we require!

Prohibit is another versatile counterspell in the format.

Pulse of Murasa is card i do really like and we can use it to grab a land or a creature from the yard back to our hand. The 6 life are pretty nice too.

Compulsive Research is another very welcomed card-advantage.

A small peroration at this point:

If you never played a toolbox-deck by yourself i really recommend you to try. For the more unexperienced player a decklist like this may look a little weird but i promise you it brings so much fun and you are almost always able to play magic, to interact, to bring some big impact to the game - especially with this deck here!

And one more note here: this is a deck you never give up with! There will often be a situation that looks hopeless but it feels like this deck has always an answer!

Sideboard

Besides the single copy of each Stonehorn Dignitary (against fast creatures) and Lone Missionary (against burn) the remaining 13 sideboard-cards feed the toolbox!

There are 9 spells in the very cheap counter-magic category. One more copy of Dispel for {U} and a playset each of Blue Elemental Blast for {U} and Red Elemental Blast for {R} brings very effective counterspells against certain archetypes. While Red Elemental Blast is obviously for heavy control- and even mirror-matchups the Blue Elemental Blast is a nice counter for burn, affinity and eventually boros or other red-heavy deck-lists.

Another copy of Moment's Peace can provide more protection and therefore time against fast creature decks.

Gut Shot can be a nice turn 1 play against a mana dork or an early Delver of Secrets  , slowing the opponent down.

Shattering Pulse is obviously against affinity but can be helpful in mirror-matches too.

Weather the Storm is against burn. There will be midgame turns against burn decks where you will take a lot of direct damage to the face and the opponent, willing to win, casting his whole gas he can. Just negate it with a Weather the Storm and you maybe get even more life back than you've lost.

Top Ranked	Achieved #39 position overall 3 years ago Achieved #1 position in Pauper Pauper 3 years ago
Date added	4 years
Last updated	1 year
Legality	This deck is Pauper legal.
Cards	60
Avg. CMC	3.03
Folders	pauper decks i wanna play, Pauper, Pauper Decks, .Pauper, new, Pauper Decks, Pauper, Pauper Decks to Buy, Pauper, Great Decks