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Quick Context: A few months back I finished second at a Team Trios tournament here in New York City with my friends David Tao and Andy Levine. DTao is one of the best Vintage players in the world. I knew Andy loved playing Lantern in Modern (which had at the time just been "unbanned"); which left me on Legacy.

Fast forward though the Swiss and the elimination rounds and into the Finals. DTao performed as expected. Andy "took it seriously" and dumped Lantern for a Modern deck that simply didn't lose all day. Whereas Our Hero only won one match all day on Legacy. And it was in a match where both teammates won anyway. Why couldn't I clutch it up in the Finals?

We finished second.

Fast forward again. Our now widely adopted LGS (really a network of LGSs) Hex & Co. is running an even Team Trios event featuring Legacy again, but two different formats: Premodern and Pauper. As you probably know, Premodern is my favorite format in all of Magic: The Gathering, and I'd take literally anything over stupid Modern. For the third? It just turns out that Pauper is a great format.

This time around we don't have DTao ringer-ing on Vintage. But after our last go 'round, Andy and I decided I probably shouldn't be on Legacy anyway. Premodern? It is after all my favorite format.

However all evidence points to the fact that Andy is even better at Premodern than I am.

Which left Pauper.

What is Pauper?

Pauper is a refreshingly positioned Magic: The Gathering format where the only legal cards are those that have been printed with a common rarity in any official paper or digital set. It is an "eternal" format, meaning it draws from the entire history of Magic's card pool, creating a diverse and strategic gameplay environment that is often compared to a budget version of Legacy. Here in New York, it's also wildly popular compared to formats like... um... Standard.

Had to cancel the NYCIS Standard 4k today because only 6 people registered.

Pauper had 77
Legacy had 73
Premodern had 83
Limited had 33
Value Vintage had 16
Standard couldn't launch?

— Pactdoll Terror (@Jenn_the_Judge) August 10, 2025

The thought process here is that if I can get in enough reps at a good win rate - potentially just mastering one deck - I can plausibly play the Pauper seat. And if I can't... I'll just shift into Premodern. Which wouldn't be the worst. Just keep me off of Legacy, right?

One of the great things about Pauper right now is that it doesn't just have a viable Red Deck... It has a freaking great Red Deck. I mean great Great GREAT. The Pauper Burn deck is faster and more consistent than either the Premodern Burn deck or (RIP at this point) the Modern one. Part of that is just that the speed and answers in opposing decks is worse. Part is that if you ever untap with a Guttersnipe they're usually dead. A big part is that the combination of Lightning Bolt, Fireblast, and an unprecedented amount of deck touching means that your uncontested goldfish is basically turn four. And did I mention that Pauper still has Lightning Bolt?

One week in, this is what I've been playing:

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Burn | Pauper | Michael Flores

• Creatures (18)
• 2 Guttersnipe
• 4 Highway Robbery
• 4 Kessig Flamebreather
• 4 Sneaky Snacker
• 4 Voldaren Epicure

• Instants (16)
• 4 Fiery Temper
• 4 Fireblast
• 4 Lava Dart
• 4 Lightning Bolt

• Sorceries (8)
• 4 Faithless Looting
• 4 Grab the Prize

• Lands (18)
• 18 Mountain

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Faerie Macabre
• 2 Relic of Progenitus
• 1 Pyroblast
• 4 Red Elemental Blast
• 3 Searing Blaze
• 4 Smash to Smithereens

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I've been borrowing this deck from Rich Bucey, a friend from Premodern who is also getting into the Pauper format.

Rich's big innovation was putting in the fourth Fireblast. I have to say that six matches in, I haven't sided a Fireblast out yet. Weirdly, most of the decks you'll see online have only three Fireblast. Which is especially weird if you've ever played Fireblast in another format... But kind of not that strange in this particular deck because of all the digging.

You rip through your deck at a much faster rate than most Red Decks you might be familiar with. Which to some degree probably means, counterintuitively, that Rich is right and you should just play the fourth Fireblast. Looking at additional cards means that you'll see the lands you need, even though you only play 18. So if a regular person would just find a Fireblast all the Grab the Prize action will help you put a second Fireblast in your hand while ensuring that you have four Mountains in play the turn you want to cast them both. Which is, you know, etc. etc.

Speaking of Grab the Prize, the weirdest-looking card in the deck is Sneaky Snacker. You can't cast it normally. But the first time you discard it to Grab the Prize to deal your opponent four or five damage - and immediately put it back into play - Sneaky Snacker's value in the deck becomes apparent. It's like a Jackal Pup that they can't block, but can itself block indefinitely... While drawing a card or two!

Did I say "four or five"? I mean just discarding a card to Grab the Prize to deal two damage is really impressive by itself. But what makes this deck so consistently fast are the clunky Gray Ogres that wouldn't come close to seeing play in most other Constructed formats:

If you can untap with a Guttersnipe in play you will almost always win immediately. In fact, you'll often win the game the turn you play Guttersnipe, even if you don't have much mana left! That's not just because it nearly doubles the damage that a single card might otherwise do, but there are so many free spells in the deck you can cast a ton of them immediately.

For instance if you play Guttersnipe on turn four, play your fourth land, cast Faithless Looting (2), discard 2 Lava Darts (3 + 3), and dig into a Fireblast (6) that's 14 damage right there on only in actual lands tapped.

Anyway, this deck is extremely well built; but I do think it could bear some improvement (mostly around the details). Like, I think if you're going to play five Blasts you should start with four Pyroblasts. Just because you can trigger a Guttersnipe via a Pyroblast without a spell on the stack, which might help you win a tight game in a pinch.

I'm not sure what the right graveyard hate is. My guess is that Tormod's Crypt is a little better than Relic of Progenitus; but Faerie Macabre might be better than them both. I think you don't want to expose your graveyard hate to Masked Vandal if you can avoid it.

The last card I've been thinking of is End the Festivities. In fact, I've been taking notes on my matches to see how often I would have wanted an End the Festivities or two in my sideboard. Like so...

Tuesday, August 19

Round One - Elves

Key Cards: Winding Way, Nyxborn Hydra, Avenging Hunter

For my first round ever of Pauper I got what should have been an easy matchup in Elves. They have a bunch of Quirion Rangers, Llanowar Elves, and Priest of Titania (just like the Premodern version) and I have 4 Lava Dart starting.

Seems perfect, right? But there's a reason we actually play out the games I guess.

In Game 1 I kept one land with a Faithless Looting and two Voldaren Epicures... Losing four turns later with one Mountain still in play. Notably my opponent used Masked Vandal on my Blood tokens twice!

In Game 2 I got the opposite: Just super flooded. At one point I cast a Searing Blaze on a Wellwisher, but got introduced to the Pauper Elves tech. My opponent tapped Birchlore Rangers to make and Hydroblasted the Searing Blaze! I did some quick math. As much as it sucked, the right move was to Fireblast the Wellwisher, even though that would set me behind. He had a Pulse of Murasa (ouch) to get back the Wellwisher while gaining hella life, and that was that.

0-1

Would End the Festivities have been good? No. End the Festivities would have been great!

Round Two - Jund Artifacts

Key Cards: Cleansing Wildfire, Ichor Wellspring, Refurbished Familiar

Apparently, this is a good matchup for Burn? Excellent player, but seemingly a terrible matchup for Jund. He just drew cards a bunch and amped his mana, but didn't do anything to impede my offense.

1-1

Would End the Festivities have been good? Not really.

Round Three - Elves again

Key Cards: Same as above... You know, Quirion Ranger, Llanowar Elves, and Wellwisher

I managed to win this one 2-1 only, because I got jumpy around a Food token and kind of blew up all my lands without doing the math. Lava Dart lets you control the tempo of the game cost-effectively, and Guttersnipe makes for a combo-like level of non-interactivity.

2-1

Would End the Festivities have been good? Yes!

This finish didn't seem too bad, especially for my first Pauper event. And I don't think I could have won the screw-flood Elves match.

I followed up a few days later with a second local Pauper tournament. Pauper is slightly more popular than Premodern in NYC, easily attracting 30+ on a weeknight to Premodern's 20ish. But on the other hand it can command multiple Leauges a week, so...

Saturday, August 23

Round One - Black Sac

Key Cards: Carrion Feeder, Infestation Sage, Rite of Consumption

The Black Sacrifice deck is one of the iconic strategies of the Pauper format. Deadly Dispute might no longer be available, but there are a dozen other options that do (mostly) the same thing.

The deck is actually quite elegant, combining small two-for-one payoffs like Nezumi Linkbreaker with sacrifice outlets from Bloodthrone Vampire to Village Rites to accumulate value and power. I thought I could just chump block big guys but ended up losing the second game to a card I had never seen before:

This card asks you to sacrifice a creature as an additional cost. In Standard you can break up some of the "Fling" end games with removal, but not against Rite of Consumption.

Luckily, I was able to get the other two with a combination of burn and strategic chump-blocking. You would imagine that a Mono-Black deck would be stacked with point removal, but not in Pauper I guess? My Guttersnipe stuck. And we all already know what that means!

The third game I had three Sneaky Snackers in my opener along with a Faithless Looting. Hash tag truly blessed.

1-0

Would End the Festivities have been good? Kind of. Almost all of the creatures in Black Sac are 1/1 or 2/1 as a base. But they all either replace themselves or get bigger via cannibalism. So, I think that End the Festivities might be opportunistically good, but maybe not strategically or generically the hammer Our Heroes are looking for.

Round Two - Spy Combo

Key Cards: Balustrade Spy, Dread Return, Lotleth Giant

This opponent was Rich, my Burn benefactor! Learning a new deck... And a powerful one. The Spy Combo deck is very lean on lands, using cards like Generous Ent and Land Grant to get the few ones out of its library before going on a combo kill.

It also has a pretty good midrange beatdown mode. In one game, Rich just tried to race me with three Sagu Wildlings, which is just kind of annoying (even if they die to Searing Blaze).

Ultimately, I just got him before he got me.

Game 2 I didn't make a one or 2 mana play. All I did was cast Guttersnipe on turn three and hope I didn't die. I didn't. The Guttersnipe also didn't. And we know how that works in Pauper.

2-0

Would End the Festivities have been good? Not really. Spy Combo has some 1/1 creatures but they're stuff like Mesmeric Fiend that might not even be in the deck for Game 2.

Round Three - Mono-Red

Key Cards: Experimental Synthesizer, Galvanic Blast, Reckless Impulse

This wasn't really a mirror. His version of Mono-Red was more of a Red Aggro deck whereas mine can play like a Storm Combo deck or a grinding midrange deck depending on the texture of the game. Interestingly he has the more powerful single burn spell in Galvanic Blast. I didn't see Fireblast at all, but that's probably because his artifact lands make casting it precarious.

Game 1 we traded resources like Red Decks often will, running Epicures into one another and whatnot. On turn six I agonized over what play to make and finally settled on a Faithless Looting instead of setting up one of my 2 mana filter spells. This was fortunate because I drew into a Guttersnipe I could cast. Then I looked at what I had discarded (Lava Darts) and my hand (Fireblasts) and... And... He was probably pretty surprised at dying from 14 or whatever.

Game 2 he had the Great Furnace into double Goblin Tomb Raider. I didn't draw any burn spells that could really interact with a 2/2, so that one was quick.

Game 3 I sided my Kessig Flamebreathers back in. They seemed kind of slow to me, but at 1/3 they can block basically everything in the opposing deck. The Shamans rewarded my Sneaky Snacker-synergistic draw whereas his was a little clunky... Just a bunch of Synthesizers that never got full value.

Leading to my first ever...

3-0

Would End the Festivities have been good? Kind of, but not backbreaking. The best incentive here is probably Voldaren Epicure, but I was already winning the Epicure fights thanks to having Lava Dart.

So, I went undefeated in my second-ever Pauper event! And learned that, despite two Elves opponents in my first three matches, maybe End the Festivities isn't a non-negotiable if you know what I mean.

I'll be ready to win more than one match at Trios before you know it!

LOVE

MIKE