Ever wanted to buy your entire deck in Pauper but the resources just don't add up? Don't worry I got you. This first deck started more as a bounce permanents to hand with cards like Boomerang and others. Soon I came to realize I'm just delaying my opponent but I'm barely getting by. So I switched my mentality, right now in pauper there's no land destruction to be seen except for Cleansing Wildfire which 99% of the time won't be used on our lands. Ramp is seen on the gruul midrange decks and not much else where so I've had this idea of just good old fashioned land ramp but with the Capsize twist that usually appeared on tron. Now that you now a bit of the history behind the deck let me guide you through this beauty:
Creatures:
- Arboreal Grazer -> Simple and effective. 0/3 body that helps us ramp while giving us protection on early threats.
- Murmuring Mystic -> This will be one way we can win the game, we will have more than enough lands on turn 4 or 5 to drop this and protect it against targetted removal.
Instants and Sorceries : As you can see this deck will be a very reactive deck you will more often than not be playing on your opponents turn
Counterspells : These allow us to safely put out our wincons, but you might be thinking "why not use Couterspell?", for the most observant viewers, you'll notice our mana base isn't exactly friendly on having two blue mana open on turn two. What we absolutly do need to have is the one green to play Arboreal Grazer. Later in the game Lose Focus can become a good mana dump to counter any spell.
- Lose Focus
- Spell Pierce
Utility : Now here's how you most likely will want to use Brainstorm in this deck, our ramp comes from spells wanting us to have lands in hand or draw them. Try and set up so you always play a land with a spell and at the beggining of the turn draw answers or more ramp. Suffice to say that Lorien Revealed is just an amazing overall card either if you are unfortunate enough to not have lands but also a good draw spell later in the game.
- Brainstorm
- Lorien Revealed
- Frantic Inventory
Ramp Spells: With the addition of Embrace the Paradox, the deck really gets a boost. Before this card the deck simply fell flat as you needed your draws with other ramp spells that either ramped you but left you without a follow up, or you would draw into another ramp spell but didn't tamp.
- Embrace the Paradox
- Explore
- Growth Spiral
WinCons : Now on to the best part. If you notice we can actually make our opponent get stuck on 4 or 5 lands for the rest of the game with Capsize. Now I know you might think it is a mana heavy combo but trust me we will have our Murmuring Mystic to capitalize on all our spells and even if they don't stick as soon as we have 12 mana, we will be able to bounce 2 lands per turn basically setting back their resources while we keep doing our thing. What about the Stream of Thought? Well this little fella will help us get back our importante pieces while also being a good wincon as we can constantly loop one with the other, while also milling our opponent in the process.
- Capsize
- Stream of Thought
LandBase : Not much left to be said here, you want to run lands that have the type Island/Forest so you can search them out with Lorien Revealed. You can switch Thornwood Falls with any utility land you find helpful, I think gaining life is always a good thing for us.
- Rimewood Falls
- Tangled Islet
- Thornwood Falls
**Sideboard: ** Honestly don't spend too much time overthinking this, you can costumize however you like to the meta inyour local game store, this is just a general list of perhaps what I would run and even then I didn't go super hardcore into this. All I have to say with this deck is the inclusion of Pelargir Survivor might be a good card against other control as it helps you cast your spells faster and later in the game is good to keep milling your opponent.
Final Thoughts: This deck might not be the most competitive I know, but the decks I like to make I always take into consideration a bigger factor than win rate... and that is "does it feel good?". What point is there to make a deck if you won't have fun playing it? The playtests I've had with it are a blast even if you didn't get to your final board but oh boy is it fun to draw so many cards. With that, I hope to get a few copies of Embrace the Paradox to build this deck since I have most of it already and if in the meantime you build this and take it to your locals, come back and tell us about it! Have fun!
