Crashing the Party

Jason Moore

About Jason Moore

Jason Moore is 25 years old, and a resident of Los Angeles California. He began playing Magic seriously in 2010, and has developed a strong interest in MTGO and the Pauper format. He is one of the hosts of the podcast Pauper's Cage, and has covered Pauper on other websites and his YouTube page. His other interests include acting, writing and playing guitar.

Crashing the Party

Hello boys and girls! We’ve got a brand new set on the horizon, complete with new dual lands and a staggering five new guild mechanics. As a fan of the Boros color combination, I had high hopes for this set and its relevance to the Pauper format. As it turns out, Gatecrash leaves me more perplexed than anything. I say this because I’ve found that many of the Gatecrash commons are particularly difficult to rate. Ultimately, a lot of the cards I am going to talk about may prove to be duds, while others could become sleeper hits. 

Evolving Wild

We are going to start with the cream of the crop. Is it really surprising that blue would end up with the best (Pauper) card of the set? Not at all. Nor is the continuing trend of cheap aggressive beaters showing up in blue (a trend that began with Phantasmal Bear and Delver of Secrets). The next stage of evolution is here, and it’s called Cloudfin Raptor. I don’t think a 0/1 dork has looked this fierce since Steppe Lynx. Similarly to the Zendikar mainstay, this bird mutant does require some building around. With that being said, let’s look at Cloudfin Raptor’s selling points:

• Has two beneficial abilities
• May already have a home (in Delver Blue aka Mono U Fae)
• Could be the catalyst for a new deck (Mono U Beatdown) 
• Can outclass many fliers in the format

There is no doubt that this card is meant to fill an aggressive role. First of all, it’s cheap and evasive. Secondly, the evolve mechanic works well in creature heavy decks. Finally, it can get big. I think Raptor is a fine excuse for crafting an aggressive, creature-dense blue deck. However, I can also see the merits of placing this in preexisting Faeries lists, but I’m concerned about the clashing synergies between Raptor and Delver of Secrets (one card requires a high creature count, the other a high instant and sorcery count). While Faeries have proven to be a top contender in Pauper Daily Events, I’m not writing off the possibility of yet another mono blue incarnation to begin its first stage of evolution. 

If you are interested in throwing Cloudfin Raptor into the Faeries deck, this is where I would start:   

Versions:
Gatecrash (Foil)

I don’t have a sideboard yet, but a main deck like this could show up in Pauper Dailies soon after Gatecrash becomes available on MTGO. I can already see some pretty legitimate problems with putting Raptor and Delver in the same deck, though. For instance: with only 18 instants or sorceries, Delver is not going to flip as frequently as we’d like it to. We also have less room to play cards like Accumulated Knowledge (which I think should be utilized in most Faeries decks to begin with). Knowledge helps us refill later in the game when we aren’t dominating with tempo plays early. 

On the Raptor end of things, playing 12 1/1 creatures in our deck could lead to draws where Raptor remains a ½ for a number of turns. I’ve tried to mitigate this by playing only three copies of Raptor, and by playing Steamcore Weird and Spire Golem (which can continue to pump Raptor up to a ¾). We’re also down to an anemic 16 lands because we need room to accommodate both of our 1-drop creatures. The low land count makes Weird and Golem worse, but doesn’t affect the rest of the deck too negatively. 

I’m looking forward to testing Cloudfin Raptor. It just might be the key to letting me play blue while staying true to my aggressive roots. 

Order in the Court

There are a few cards in white that are worthy of discussion, namely Syndic of Tithes. The extort bear in particular has already seen consideration from both In Contention’s Reuben Bresler and myself. For that reason, I’m going to talk about another interesting white common. This one is called Court Street Denizen. While the Grey Ogre stats are far from exciting, its triggered ability is what really catches my eye. 

A traditional White Weenie build will get only one or two creatures to hit the battlefield per turn, but a dedicated tokens list can produce creatures much more frequently. With a Denizen on the table, this nets you free Feeling of Dreads and welcomed swings in tempo. Her ability allows you to alpha strike through otherwise antagonistic boards, or force opponents to make bad blocks with their remaining untapped creatures. 

Let’s take a look at the tokens brew I’ve built around Court Street Denizen: 

Versions:
Gatecrash (Foil)

I am actually pretty excited about testing this out. I didn’t consider at first how effective multiple Denizens are going to be in this strategy. Cenn's Enlistment is one of the best cards to synergize with Denizen, and fits the tokens theme quite well. The retrace mechanic is actually one of my favorites, since it turns late game land draws into party time! No more blanks. Ever. 

So let’s talk about the core tenets of the deck. Essentially we have small creatures and token producers, toughness boosters and repeatable pump effects. While you could go the mono white route with a deck like this, I definitely prefer having more protection against sweepers. Spidersilk Armor provides that protection, and keeps fliers away from our life total. I figure that if I’m going to splash green, there’s no reason I can’t throw a set of Rancors in to give the deck some teeth. The last green component is Travel Preparations, which also gets us out of sweeper range, but is just solid with tokens to begin with.

I’m not sure how the matchups will be, but I think creature decks in general are what we want to see. The clock isn’t consistently fast enough to outrace Storm, but white and green have plenty of sideboard options for that matchup. Control may actually struggle against a strategy like this, since Cenn's Enlistment is resilient to removal and countermagic. Rancor, Squadron Hawk and token producers are also able to generate card advantage in the wake of enemy spot removal. 

Let’s move on and see if we can find some other cards to work with. 

Street Level

It’s certainly been a while since the Pauper Goblins deck added a new recruit to its ranks. The most recent conscription was probably Goblin Arsonist, which only sometimes sees play (and as a one-of at that). Foundry Street Denizen may be the addition thirsty Goblins pilots have been waiting for. 

While the Goblins deck has no short supply of 1-drops, none of them can hit as hard early as this Gatecrash-ing 1/1. Barring countermagic, he will always be able to bash for 2 in the early turns. On turns when you play a Mogg War Marshall or a pair of 1-drops, he will then clock them for 3. Goblin Matrons also chain well to pump him, so he ends up doing a serviceable Goblin Cohort impression for most of the early game. The primary downside is the 1 toughness body, but at the end of the day, we’re playing Goblins and 1 toughness is practically all we’ve got. 

While not nearly as good as Mogg Conscripts or Goblin Cohort on average, Denizen could still be bludgeoning his way into Pauper Daily Events in the near future. Here is a Goblins list that utilizes him: 

Unfortunately we’ve had to cut some burn to make room for the Denizen. This means that our creatures are going to be even that more integral to reducing the opponent’s life total. I can’t say for sure if Denizen will make the Goblins strategy better or worse, but it can help give the deck a few more explosive starts on average.

Versions:
Gatecrash (Foil)

Frilled to Be Here

The last card I’m going to talk about is called Frilled Oculus. I think the card has potential, but I’m not sure what kind of shell to try fitting it into. At first glance a Simic beatdown strategy could work. Primarily blue for Delver of Secrets, but also playing Rancor and, of course, the Oculus. Alternately, some sort of Simic madness deck with Basking Rootwalla and Wild Mongrel may be worth trying out. With all that being said, let’s talk about the card specifically. 

First of all, it has the baseline stats of Maritime Guard, which is actually pretty annoying for some decks (Mono Black variants come to mind). Next, its activated ability (identical to Rootwalla’s) makes it into a 3/5. This body survives almost all of the creatures and damage-based removal in the format. It has the versatility of creating a fast clock, holding off an enemy attack and detracting the opponent from playing their burn spell. I’ve heard very little talk about the card overall, which I find a bit surprising. 

There are obviously some downsides to playing Frilled Oculus. It puts you in Simic colors, which you may not want in the first place. It also ties up your mana. A lot. The cost may prove to be too high, especially when the result is merely bashing for 3. 

At the end of the day, I will try brewing with Oculus, but I doubt that many others will.  

At the Gates

Gatecrash is fast approaching the realm of MTGO, so make sure that you are prepared! Here are some questions I'd like to know about from you awesome readers.

• How do you think Gatecrash will affect the Pauper format?
• Which cards from Gatecrash are you most excited about for Pauper?
• What kind of decks and topics would you like me to cover in the future?

Until next time, thanks for reading! Please enjoy the videos below. They feature the GW Tokens list described above, with one basic change (at least until Gatecrash is released on MTGO).

-3 Court Street Denizen

+3 Attended Knight

Take care!