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Pauper Topdeck Manipulation

Pauper Budget Combo Cycling RG (Gruul)

Balaam__


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Instant (2)

Sorcery (1)

Creature (1)


Like a lousy magician at a children’s party, our intent is to manipulate the top card of our deck to elicit an astonished reaction.

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To supplement mana gleaned from traditional lands, we have a few tricks up our sleeve which give us a little boost.

•Basic Forests and Mountains give us the bulk of our and .

Fyndhorn Elves tap for a . Why these particular mana dorks? Because I’m sick of seeing Llanowar Elves and Elvish Mystic. Variety: It’s that simple.

Tinder Wall makes a nice Turn 1 drop that acts as a capable blocker, and then when we’re in need of some red mana we can sacrifice it for .

Burning-Tree Emissary isn’t really ramp per se, but I’ll still list it here. Since we get when it enters the battlefield, it’s basically a free 2/2 blocker.

•Neither Valley Rannet nor Wirewood Guardian are true ramp either, but they’ll both allow us to track down a basic land of which we may be in need. More on these guys below.

Phase II sees us looking to dump cards bearing a high cmc into our graveyard. Cycling is the perfect method to do so, since we don’t lose card advantage. We get to inter a card while replenishing our hand with a draw. Cycle cycle cycle!

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Valley Rannet, as mentioned above, offers great utility as far as filling gaps in your mana base is concerned. It also boasts a hefty 6 cmc—cycling it gets it into our graveyard and ready for Phase III.

Ridge Rannet, Jungle Weaver and Wirewood Guardian all offer a whopping 7 cmc and are waiting to be cycled for .

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Enter: Phase III. With our graveyard loaded with high cmc cards, it’s time to come full circle and get them back on top of our library.

Reclaim is the greater of our two topdeck spells, owing to it playing at Instant speed. Play it on either player’s turn to stack the deck in your favor.

Salvage is a bit on the pricey side (especially for Pauper), but it’s the only other exact duplicate of Reclaim I could find. Well, it’s Sorcery speed, but aside from that it’s precisely what we’re looking for. Return a particular Instant or a mana intensive creature card to the top of your library for a mere .

Now that we know for sure what our topdeck draw is (since we put it there), we just need a way to abuse that knowledge. Thankfully there are two Pauper legal spells that flourish due to topdeck omniscience.

Thunderous Wrath is, for us, top tier creature removal or direct damage that eclipses even Lightning Bolt. Rarely would we not have at least one available, so we’ll be playing this card for its Miracle cost 100% of the time. We’ll inevitably draw it as our first card draw on a given turn, so that’s 5 damage right there, and then when returned to the top of our library for our next turn that’s another 5 damage—half the opponent’s life total in two successive turns.

Erratic Explosion is the primary method of abusing the insight into our preloaded topdeck. With one of our high-costed cyclers waiting patiently on top of our library, casting Erratic Explosion will cause us to draw it, carving a 6 or 7 point chunk out of our opponent’s life total. A few turns of that and it’s lights out.

•Generate mana with Fyndhorn Elves, Tinder Wall, Burning-Tree Emissary and Valley Rannet/Wirewood Guardian.

•Cycle mana intensive creatures (or Thunderous Wrath) into our graveyard, then topdeck them with Salvage and Reclaim.

•Cast Thunderous Wrath for its Miracle cost, or cast Erratic Explosion and reveal a high-costed creature for massive damage output.

Avoid Fate is great at thwarting attempts to derail our strategies.

Pyroblast is strong in the format, what with the wealth of decks heavily reliant on and it’s bounce/counterspells. We definitely want to be able to push damage through when the time comes, so the ability to counter a counterspell is invaluable.

Artifact Blast beats up Tron and Affinity decks like nobody’s business. Well worth a sideboard slot.

Apostle's Blessing can stifle removal, ensuring our smaller mana making creatures don’t die off before we can make use of them. We’ll have to pay the Phyrexian mana, but that’s not a big deal.

”From the beginning I foretell the outcome, And from long ago the things that have not yet been done.”

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46% Casual

54% Competitive

Revision 1 See all

(2 years ago)

+3 Apostle's Blessing side
+4 Artifact Blast side
+4 Avoid Fate side
+4 Pyroblast side
-4 Teach by Example main
+4 Tinder Wall main
Top Ranked
  • Achieved #2 position overall 1 year ago
  • Achieved #1 position in Pauper 1 year ago
Date added 2 years
Last updated 1 year
Legality

This deck is Pauper legal.

Cards 60
Avg. CMC 2.95
Folders Pauper, Future Brew, other idea, .Pauper
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