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"You want to try Terror?"
Rich tapped me on the shoulder as Round One was going to start. I had let's say some spotty attendance through October, so my chances of making the League playoffs cutoff might be tenuous. I had of course brought my beloved Mono-Red Madness deck - complete with changes I haven't even told you about yet! - but hey, what the heck.
Blue Terror | Pauper | Rich Bucey
- Creatures (10)
- 2 Murmuring Mystic
- 4 Cryptic Serpent
- 4 Tolarian Terror
- Instants (22)
- 1 Dispel
- 2 Spell Pierce
- 3 Force Spike
- 4 Brainstorm
- 4 Counterspell
- 4 Mental Note
- 4 Thought Scour
- Sorceries (12)
- 1 Deep Analysis
- 2 Deem Inferior
- 2 Sleep of the Dead
- 3 Ponder
- 4 Lorien Revealed
- Lands (16)
- 16 Island
- Sideboard (15)
- 2 Tormod's Crypt
- 3 Blue Elemental Blast
- 3 Hydroblast
- 3 Gut Shot
- 3 Annul
- 1 Dispel
Blue Terror is basically the most popular deck in Pauper, and for good reason: it's one of the best. It exists in a uniquely Pauper place: The cards are kind of all awesome. Brainstorm and Counterspell! Lorien Revealed... Just like the Modern players!
Even the threats are great: Tolarian Terror is just a heck of a Tarmogoyf. In this deck it's often just one mana; and you get a 5/5 with Ward. Tolarian Terror is substantially better than Cryptic Serpent (even if they look similar). Cryptic Serpent might be a little bit bigger, but tops up at 
instead of . It's like twice the mana! This probably isn't obvious, but when you've played a lot of cheap card drawing and filtering spells ("cantrips") it really ends up being 100% difference in effective mana cost.
Rich also asked me if I wanted to look at the deck before I shuffled up for Round One. "It's set up a little bit different..."
I had seen a Terror deck before! I'd played against Terror! How different could it be?
It turns out: Kinda different.
Again borrowing from bigger (or at least more expensive) formats, Pauper's Mono-Blue Terror players have historically finished their threat suites up with Delver of Secrets. Not here!
Rich traded in the casino high roll of "first turn Delver-flip it with Counterspell" with a pair of 4-drops: Murmuring Mystic. Murmuring Mystic gives the deck a very different flavor. You no longer have the potential for as explosive a start... but the ability to go very long and very wide gives Terror one of Pauper's most unstoppable end games.
Notably: The Delver version of Blue Terror was kind of kold to a resolved Generous Ent. At 5/7 the very commonly played Ent could contain - and kill - any of the big threats; with Reach, it could gobble up any Insectile Aberrations that tried to fly in.
But with Murmuring Mystic in the mix, you can chump block Generous Ent, and just go around it for basically as many cards as you have in hand. This is an ingenious innovation, and I think one that changes the position of what was already one of Pauper's best decks.
The reason all this works - four- and even 7-drops with only sixteen basic Islands - is that Terror is built on the old Comer Xerox model. Essentially for every 2 mana cantrips in this deck (something like nineteen in this deck, counting Lorien Revealed), you get to pretend you have another land. So, this one plays more like 25+ lands, rather than sixteen. This principle has heartened many a mage with one Island and a Ponder in his opener... but with Lorien Revealed (which "guarantees" your second Island immediately), Xerox strategies have never been more consistent.
The only thing that limits Blue Terror relative to Control decks from other formats is its removal. Obviously, no decks in Pauper have access to Day of Judgment or Wrath of God types (rare since Alpha)... but Deem Inferior also kind of sucks. The Modern Horizons sets have raised the ire of Pauper players for changing the format, and Deem Inferior is certainly on the list of things that have been injected into it. But if it's me... I deem Deem Inferior as kind of inferior. Sorcery speed... often kind of expensive... not any kind of a permanent solution to a card you actually want to stop. If I play this deck more, I'll likely go back to old favorite Vapor Snag (WHICH AT LEAST DEALS DAMAGE)... But for this go around, Rich had Deem Inferior in the deck.
Sleep of the Dead is also not perfect, but it's at least cool for a deck with 4 Thought Scour and 4 Mental Note. Terror has incredible closing speed once you've stabilized. You don't need to necessarily kill creatures so much as get blockers out of the way: And this card does it, essentially for free.
On to the League games!
Round 1 - Giovanni with Grixis Ninja Affinity
This deck combines cheap artifacts, Ninjutsu, and the Affinity mechanic as a potpourri of wildly powerful and fast mechanics. Creatures like Ninja of the Deep Hours are impressive coming in on turn two... but aren't 5/5.
I got Game 1 in unexciting fashion and sides like this:
for
My thought here was that the Blasts are more efficient... sometimes. Affinity (and certainly Ninjutsu decks) aren't spending a lot of mana for their spells so "tax" Counterspells aren't doing anything.
Giovanni beat me in the second, on the play.
For Game 3 I made the additional swap of one Deem Inferior (really pretty Inferior, even against a Myr Enforcer) for a Dispel.
In Game 3 I was on the play and Annul'd a Springleaf Drum. Giovanni later told me that was the whole game. He didn't get land screwed, but his deck is three colors... and without the Drum, never had one of them.
Dispel was key because even if a Blast wasn't always the best, Black removal is a thing... and sometimes you WILL catch them having to spend two Galvanic Blasts on one giant threat. Making Dispel really effective.
1-0
Round Two - Rye with Golgari Food
Food is a deck that's really grown on me. Rye beat me in a $4k last summer when I was on Madness Burn and he'd probably do it eight times out of ten. The deck is just perfectly suited to contain Burn (so So SO many cards are just "Food"), and has all the Weather the Storm after sideboarding.
In this matchup it also has a great foil to giant guys: Cauldron Familiar to block! Rye had Nihil Spellbomb to slow me down and Bojuka Bog as a random hammer, so I'd have to be careful with my cantrips.
But at least it wasn't the Burn disadvantage.
I ended up getting this one 2-1 also.
I sided:
For
I honestly played pretty badly. I ran out a second giant x/5 when Rye already had Pestilence in play, and tried to kill an indestructible animated land.
But when you're drawing so many cards, your deck can carry you. Well, Rich's deck.
2-0
FINAL ROUND - Rich Bucey with Madness Burn
The belt match... Against my benefactor.
We split the first two (refrain on the day). Resolved Tolarian Terror is just hard to burn away. I joked Rich didn't give me the full complement of Blasts because he knew this match was coming... he got Game 2.
On that note:
For
So, there we are: Game 3.
I'm ahead, but definitely dead to his infinity cards if he lands a Guttersnipe.
"How many cards in hand?"
"Just one."
"Lemme see..." Ryan Crites, who finished first in the League last season (and welcomed me to the format with an 0-1) taps me to flash my one card to him.
"Of course."
"Well here goes," says Rich. "Guttersnipe."
"Counterspell."
"OF COURSE!"
Of course.
I need a turn or two at that point, but Tolarian Terror takes me over the finish line. Rich is rassin' frassin' at how close the match was. But, of course, I'm alternating between "Well you made the deck" and "You didn't even give me all the Blue Elemental Blasts."
3-0
Terror was incredible.
Burn is obviously my first love in this format (as with so many) but I'm really liking the combination of card power and deck touching. You really feel like you're making decisions with this deck, and the ability to Counter Target Spell means you can potentially beat anything. Hey! I even beat Rye playing like a donkey.
Highly recommend.
And an additional recommendation...
Rich and I just started a new Pauper-focused podcast. If you're an old Barbarian Class fan, I recycled that RSS feed. If you like Pauper I think you'll love it. If you don't (yet)... I hope you will!
LOVE
MIKE
