Welcome to Pieces of the Puzzle. This is a personal favorite of mine because it combines 2 of my favorite cards into 1 deck: Lightning Bolt and Counterspell. Both of these cards are instants so our main draw engine is Pieces of the Puzzle, the namesake of the deck. Pieces of the Puzzle lets us reveal the top 5 cards of our library. We may choose up to 2 instants and sorceries and put them into our hand and the rest in our graveyard. Because the potential of this spell can be very powerful, we have made a deck entirely of lands, instants, and sorceries. This is a super controlling deck. It is very slow and will usually only win when you have exhausted all of your opponents resources. This is a very hard deck to pilot but feels rewarding when you make all the right decisions. With that being said, let's break down the deck.
The Draw Spells:
4x Pieces of the Puzzle - The namesake of the deck. A lot of the time this can be a 3 for 1 in terms of card advantage. Our deck contains 38 instants/sorceries meaning that there is a 94.4% chance that we get at least 2 instants and sorceries to pick from (99.5% that we get at least 1). But the real value comes in when we can put a relevant spell in our graveyard as well. Examples of this include Firebolt, Deep Analysis, and Accumulated Knowledge. It also increases our graveyard size for Swirling Sandstorm. This is one of our main card advantage spells.
4x Accumulated Knowledge - This is our other main source of card advantage. This spell gets more and more powerful as the game goes on. This is exactly what we want because our goal is draw the game out as long as possible. The first time we cast this spell it is pretty bad. 2 mana to cycle. The second time we cast this spell it is 2 mana to draw to cards at instant speed. This is actually pretty good as it is better than Night's Whisper or Sign in Blood. The third time we cast it, it is objectively better than any other draw spell in pauper. The fourth time we cast it, it might even be better than Ancestral Recall.... eh not really because it still costs 2 mana. But still, 2 mana to draw 4 cards is insane. You might want to consider sideboarding this out against any heavy graveyard hate.
2x Deep Analysis - Paying 4 mana to draw 2 cards is pretty bad. But 2 mana and 3 life to draw 2 cards is actually pretty good and on par with some of the other good draw spells in pauper (Night's Whisper, Sign in Blood). While in our hand, this is probably the last card we want to cast due to the inefficiency. At the very least cast this with at least 2 mana open to counter your opponent's next play. But in the graveyard, we can fire this off at almost any time. This is a great option to put in the graveyard with Pieces of the Puzzle. And there will be situations when it is okay to discard this to hand size. We have plenty of other efficient draw spells so we are happy to keep this at 2 copies.
4x Preordain - This is the draw spell that glues the whole deck together. While preordain is not strictly card advantage, it does provide virtual card advantage in the form of scry 2. We can dig very deep with Preordain. This allows us to smooth out our draws, letting us hit land drops when we need to and find action spells when necessary. Most of the best opening hands involves having at least 1 copy of Preordain.
The Permission:
As always with counterspells, do not just counter every spell because you can. Counter spells that put your opponent ahead in card advantage. Counter creatures that present a fast clock on your life total. And counter spells that make you lose the game. As you play this deck more and more, you will figure out which spells need to be countered and which spells can be let through. Remember that we have plenty of instant draw spells that we can play if our opponent does not play a spell that needs to be countered.
4x Counterspell - The classic counterspell by which all other counter spells are compared to. We are running plenty of Islands and dual lands so we will not need to worry about leaving open double blue most of the time. I do not have much to say about this card other than it is good and you will be happy with multiple copies in your hand.
2x Devious Cover-Up - This counterspell also serves as our alternative win condition. Devious Cover-Up lets us put the best 4 cards in our graveyard back into our library. By having 2 in the deck, we ensure that we never run out of cards in our library, and the concentration of spells in our deck is high. Usually we do not actually win by milling out our opponent. Instead we develop enough card advantage that winning becomes trivial. 4 is a lot of mana to counter a spell so use it later in the game when most developing resources have been traded.
1x Dispel - Dispel is actually pretty good in pauper. Almost every deck runs at least some sort of instant spell. The most played instant spells in pauper include Lightning Bolt, Counterspell, Dispel, Deprive, Tragic Lesson, and Ghostly Flicker. A lot of times, this serves as the trump card in a counter war. Unlike most other counter spells, fire this one off whenever an opportunity presents itself (unless you know for certain they are running counter magic).
1x Miscalculation - We are running one copy of Miscalculation to force our opponent to at least think about it during our matches. In the early game, we can snag almost any spell our opponents play. In the late game we can just cycle it for another card. Like Dispel, if we see an opening, fire it off.
The Removal:
4x Flame Slash - For 1 mana, we can deal 4 damage to any target. This is our most efficient piece of defensive speed. 4 damage hits almost everything in the format other than Ulamog's Crusher, Gurmag Angler, and Gearseeker Serpent.
3x Lightning Bolt - The most iconic removal spell. 1 mana to deal 3 damage at instant speed. What more can you ask for? We are running only 3 copies because hitting our opponent for 3 damage is usually unnecessary. In addition, Devious Cover-Up lets us keep recycling Lightning Bolts so we could have more copies available to us if we need to.
3x Firebolt - Firebolt is another card that works great with Pieces of the Puzzle. Like Lightning Bolt, it can deal direct damage to our opponent but that will not happen very often. Because it is slow, we will only run 3 copies.
2x Fire / Ice - Fire / Ice is an amazingly flexible card. We can ping 2 small creatures or kill one bigger creature. Ice is interesting because it can provide us tempo. During development, if our opponent plays a land and passes turn, we can Ice our opponents on their next upkeep to tap down a land. Many times this will result in a Time Walk because they have at most the same amount of mana as they did last turn. Ice has other tempo utilities such as tapping a big creature or just drawing a card for no value. You will often find a use for this card in some capacity.
1x Swirling Sandstorm - What a strange card. This is the only real board wipe legal in pauper. Also, this is a spell that does nothing when cast if you have less than 7 cards in your library (beware of this because your opponent can wipe your graveyard at instant speed and this will effectively counter this spell). Dealing 5 damage to all ground creatures is huge and can win games all on their own. Obviously this card is bad against decks with flying creatures (U/R faeries, Soul Sisters, etc.) so this will need to be boarded out in certain matchups.
The Win Condition:
3x Flurry of Horns - In a super control deck, a win condition is actually pretty trivial. It almost does not matter what the win condition is. At this point in the game, you are sitting on 3 counterspells and your opponent has 1 card in hand. You just need a way to actually seal the deal. Flurry of Horns was chosen as the win condition of choice for a couple of reasons. For one, Flurry of Horns is a sorcery and therefore can be targeted with Pieces of the Puzzle. In addition, we get 2 minotaurs. Our opponent will usually have to 2 for 1 themselves in order to clear 1 Flurry casting. Finally, Flurry of Horns by itself offers a 5 turn clock. Most of the time this clock can be reduced by 2-3 turns due to Firebolt and Lightning Bolt. This is important because of Burn. It is important to have a threat against a deck that can win very quickly and is not interactive. Because of all these reasons, Flurry of Horns is our win condition.
The Sideboard:
As always, adjust your sideboard to your local meta. Presented here is a universal sideboard.
2x Curfew - Because we will almost never have creatures on the board, Curfew essentially reads "Your opponent returns a creature they control to their hand. This is useful against Reanimator, Bogles, and U/B Delver.
3x Electrickery - A small board sweep. Play this against token strategies. Good against Soul Sisters, Goblins, Stompy, U/R Faeries, etc.
1x Flairing Pain - If our opponent successfully resolves a Circle of Protection: Red against us, we actually cannot win without Flairing Pain. Tron has been known to run COP Red so keep a weary eye for any deck that has access to white mana.
2x Gorilla Shaman - Ahh the only spell that is not a land or instant/sorcery. This is a fantastic card against Boros Metalcraft and Affinity. It is too good not to run.
3x Hydroblast - Hydroblast is great against any deck running red spells. For example Goblins, Burn, and Affinity.
3x Pyroblast - A necessary card against blue control decks. For example U/B Delver, The mirror match, Tron, etc.
1x Swirling Sandstorm - Just another copy for decks that get wrecked by this card, such as Stompy, Elves, Goblins, etc.
Final Thoughts:
The best card in the deck award goes to Pieces of the Puzzle. The deck is built around this card so naturally it glues the whole deck together. Like I mentioned earlier, this is a very hard deck to pilot correctly. You have many decision points and the choices have a profound influence on the rest of the game. You will thoroughly enjoy piloting this deck and you will become a true control player.
