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This is Grandma! Well... four Grandma(s).
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Welcome to the Age of Grandma
Probably the most telling two-mana creature in the Pauper format is Sneaky Snacker, which coincidentally, is also in Black-and-Blue. Sneaky Snacker is a feature of both of my signature decks in the format (Dimir Terror and Mono-Red Madness) but we're not playing that particular 2/1 flying Faerie this week. We're going Grandmas.
Nope. No Persistent Petitioners synergies. No milling anyone for twelve. Forecasting Fortune Teller (aka Grandma) may be an Advisor, but in the unlikely event she's getting tapped... It's to deal one damage in The Red Zone. Instead, Forecasting Fortune Teller just provides a little dubious card advantage and three big, fat, toughness.
What's going on here?
Dimir Grandmas | Pauper | SpikeYou
- Creatures (10)
- 3 Gurmag Angler
- 3 Troll of Khazad-dum
- 4 Forecasting Fortune Teller
- Instants (18)
- 2 Eviscerator's Insight
- 2 Fanatical Offering
- 2 Reckoner's Bargain
- 2 Snuff Out
- 3 Defile
- 3 Negate
- 4 Cast Down
- Sorceries (3)
- 3 Lorien Revealed
- Enchantments (2)
- 2 Pestilence
- Artifacts (11)
- 2 Campfire
- 2 Nihil Spellbomb
- 3 Lembas
- 4 Ichor Wellspring
- Lands (16)
- 1 Island
- 9 Swamp
- 1 Bojuka Bog
- 1 Dimir Aqueduct
- 4 Contaminated Aquifer
- Sideboard (15)
- 1 Clear the Mind
- 1 Crypt Incursion
- 2 Dispel
- 3 Drown in Sorrow
- 1 Exclude
- 2 Extract a Confession
- 4 Hydroblast
- 1 Nihil Spellbomb
SpikeYou, aka Daniel Sweat (one of the top players in the NYC Pauper League), has put up multiple 5-0 results with Dimir Grandmas in the Magic Online Leagues in recent weeks.
I first saw the deck in action on a Tuesday night in the hands of Mike Evans, mastermind behind decksandthecity.org, a web app that will be the template for competitive reporting in Magic: The Gathering moving forward, and probably for years to come... And Daniel's collaborator on this new strategy.
But why this Human Advisor? What's up with Grandma?
"It's just a Thraben Inspector with three toughness," Mike told me.
I suppose Thraben Inspector is a Pauper-legal Magic: The Gathering card. And truth be told, I've probably lost to Thraben Inspector way more times than I can remember. But still... For two mana instead of one?
That's it? Um, why would I want to do that?
It turns out that 3 toughness might as well be a thousand toughness against a big chunk of the Pauper metagame. This is in fact important given that Writhing Chrysalis might be the best creature in the format (which only challenges for that title due to the 0/1 helpers that come along for the ride)... And the other eligible candidates - Sneaky Snacker, Refurbished Familiar, or Guttersnipe - all only have one or two toughness.
That third big butt point on Grandma lets you barf all over all these little aces (not to mention every 1/1 mana dork in the Elves deck) and yet keep your Pestilence in play. I'd say that's the whole reason, but it's really not.
What do we need with a second color? Just to get a third toughness? Can't we do better than this?
Well, yes and... Well, yes.
The full value of a Forecasting Fortune Teller is actually 
, not 
(you need to spend two more mana to draw a card with your Clue token). And for four mana, you might as well just cast a Guardian of the Guildpact, aka "the Pauper True-Name Nemesis." No one can really stop a True-Name Nemesis, and if what you're primarily interested in is keeping your Pestilence in play, Guardian of the Guildpact does a better job at 3 toughness than a creature that can actually be destroyed by damage.
The wrinkle, of course, is that Dimir Grandmas gets something out of being Blue, namely it might actually want to cast Lorien Revealed once in a while. Or, the way I do it, basically every game. Lorien Revealed is much, much stronger than Eagles of the North.
How does this deck play otherwise?
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In addition to Lorien Revealed, the Dimir deck has access to arguably the most consistent draw engine in the Pauper format. Ichor Wellspring plus "g-d anything" is like building your own Ancestral Recall. Sometimes you get two life, sometimes you're halfway to the next one.
This is another place that Forecasting Fortune Teller shines. Grandma's Clue token can turn into an extra card by itself... But it is potentially even more valuable as fodder for the Black card draw instants.
What are you doing with all these cards in hand?
Mostly killing creatures. And after sideboarding, ruining the opponent's day.
Defile is just one of the best creature kill spells you can possibly cast. It's basically Skred. Actually, it's better than Skred a lot of the time because some creatures are indestructible, don't take damage, and so on. Hook Defile up with Cast Down and Snuff Out, and you have a lot of dead bodies across the table.
Having so many point removal cards - and so many cards in hand from all the card drawing to feed that point removal - means that you are probably in a good position to murder every Tolarian Terror, Cryptic Serpent, or Gurmag Angler in an opposing Blue or Blue-Black deck.
The opponent is probably tearing through their own library with Mental Notes and Thought Scours, so even if you weren't the one with Campfire, you'd probably deck them if it came down to libraries, more often than not. But you do have Campfire. Both of its abilities are relevant in a variety of matchups.
I suppose if you really wanted to, you could close out games relatively quickly with Troll of Kazad-dum and Gurmag Angler, but why would you play in this direction intentionally?
Dimir Grandmas has so many tools for suppressing anything that is trying to win with creatures, and so much access to raw cardboard, you can kind of make the opponent try to kill you. And if they don't? Well... Somebody has to win, right? If it's not them, by default, it'll probably be you.
I like the way the sideboard can reposition Dimir Grandmas to meet so many different kinds of opponents. Against Elves? Drown in Sorrow is either 25% better than Arms of Hadar or twice as virulent as Suffocating Fumes.
Is the opponent trying to deck themselves with a Balustrade Spy and beat you with a reanimated Lotleth Giant? The main deck has tons of ways to stop this - Nihil Spellbomb, Bojuka Bog, or even just Negate - but the sideboard can double down on graveyard hate in multiple ways.
How hilarious is it going to be to "Counterspell" a Dread Return with Clear the Mind... and also draw a card?
Which leaves, of course, our favorite deck.
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Dimir Grandmas's Green cousin can absolutely wallop the poor Red Deck, because it plays even more Food in the main deck, and can sideboard in Weather the Storm. Dimir doesn't have that particular option, but at least it can bring in a set of Hydroblasts.
"Isn't Hydroblast like the best thing you can have against a Red Deck?" You might ask. It certainly is flexible, but you'd not have asked that question if you'd have ever read the text of the card Weather the Storm.
Red is arguably the best deck in Pauper, and can absolutely bowl the opponent over in a combo-like flurry of damage. A Hydroblast will certainly pair unparalleled flexibility with a price tag that can't be beat... but it's not like a Weather the Storm that will single-handedly answer a half-dozen spells.
I don't think that Dimir is necessarily lying down for Game 1, but it is challenging insofar that tapping your Campfire will not counter even a single unenhanced Lightning Bolt. On the other hand, Red is creature-poor enough that you should basically always have an answer for Guttersnipe. The mantra in Pauper should always be to keep your opponent from untapping with Guttersnipe in play, but Dimir Grandmas, in particular, has a bazillion tools to help accomplish that goal.
Anyway, this is the deck I'm planning to play tonight.
It's novel, and there aren't a lot of decks like it. I've seen MBC (i.e. "Mostly" Black Control) and Golgari Gardens with some similar card choices headlined by Defile, but it seems to me the idea of keeping a Pestilence around as the main method of restricting the opponent is the unique killer app for Dimir Grandmas.
With Campfire and Lembas keeping your own life total up, Pestilence can be a heck of a deterrent.
Wish me luck!
This will be my last at-bat before Pauper League Championships this weekend. I snuck in at 16th ;)
LOVE
MIKE
