Rich: Wait. Now that we have all these copies of Writhing Chrysalis, what seven cards are we siding out?

Me: Eight.

Rich: No. We only have three Avenging Hunters. Isn't it seven?

Me: You're going to side in the Writhing Chrysalis and not the Mountain we just added to the list? It's eight cards.

Rich: Okay! Eight! What eight cards are we siding out then?

Me: Don't worry about it. You weren't using those sideboard cards anyway.

And we kind of weren't.

Playing With Walls Spy

If you're unfamiliar with Walls Spy, here's the quick-and-dirty:

This deck has very few Lands. It in fact has more cards that search up Lands (Generous Ent, Land Grant, Troll of Khazad-dum, etc.) than Lands. Ideally you pull all the Lands out of your deck by turn four and then cast a Balustrade Spy for with at least two other Creatures in play.

As you have no Lands in your deck, the Spy flips over the whole thing, including at least one Lotleth Giant and one Dread Return. You Flash back the Dread Return, put the Lotleth Giant in play, and point its trigger at the opponent for 20+ damage.

Lots of things can go sideways (you draw both your Giants, the opponent points a Cleansing Wildfire at the one Swamp in your deck, the dastardly craven across the table has a Prismatic Strands in the graveyard) so games can be a lot more complex than A, B, C, Kill Ya... But that's where the fun comes in, and that's why we play the games.

In general, Spy is super powerful thanks to eight consistent card drawing spells. It can also go over the top on conventional resources thanks to Overgrown Battlement and the surprisingly capable Generous Ent, and it keeps the opponent honest due to the speed of a potential kill as early as turn three (which can help keep the rounds short).

In short, it's a fantastic choice for a long tournament.

Golgari Walls Spy | Pauper | Mike Flores, First Place NYCIS Trios Tournament

• Creatures (40)
• 2 Quirion Ranger
• 2 Elves of Deep Shadow
• 4 Saruli Caretaker
• 4 Overgrown Battlement
• 3 Wall of Roots
• 3 Masked Vandal
• 2 Mesmeric Fiend
• 4 Sagu Wildling
• 2 Troll of Khazad-dum
• 4 Generous Ent
• 3 Gatecreeper Vine
• 1 Avenging Hunter
• 4 Balustrade Spy
• 2 Lotleth Giant

• Sorceries (14)
• 4 Land Grant
• 4 Winding Way
• 4 Lead the Stampede
• 2 Dread Return

• Artifacts (2)
• 2 Lotus Petal

• Lands (4)
• 3 Forest
• 1 Swamp

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Avenging Hunter
• 2 Faerie Macabre
• 4 Nylea's Disciple
• 4 Vitu-Ghazi Inspector
• 1 Masked Vandal
• 2 Mesmeric Fiend
• 1 Flaring Pain

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This is the version I used to win the Pauper portion of the NYCIS Trios version two months ago, based on Rich's NYCIS Pauper Top 8 deck from right after I got out of surgery.

Back in May, I won almost every match that mattered in Trios (including avenging a Round One loss to Jund in the Finals) but used almost none of my sideboard.

I definitely cast the Flaring Pain once, but two Mesmeric Fiend were as likely to go out as come in; Masked Vandals, sure; especially considering Jund and Grixis , but a bazillion anti-Red cards? I ended up thinking they were kind of pointless.

We got to the point that in testing we'd always start Walls Spy with a Nylea's Disciple in its opening hand to see if that turned the matchup in sideboarded games.

The only trouble is that Walls Spy mulligans so much, plus we generally had Spy going first (assuming Red had won Game One) and half of the time it could just win outright instead of spending four mana on a stupid 3/3. Why did I have so many anti-Red cards in my Trios deck?

How the Weekend Went

Joshua Howe won the Saturday warmup $1K with a Walls Spy deck sideboarding a Mountain and some usual Red cards, like Gorilla Shaman. I thought they were a little fancy but I did love Writhing Chrysalis and the Mountain itself (because we planned to pivot so hard into the midrange plan after sideboarding).

I didn't play a fifth Land at Trios because I assumed that was for cowards, but if you're going to play a ton of five drops in your deck (and one of your goals is to just cast Generous Ent over and over) you might not be able to do that with only four physical Lands in your deck.

You see, if you're getting into a midrange fight, the opponent might just kill your Overgrown Battlement, so being able to deploy overweight five- and six-drops becomes cumbersome, or even impossible. So, the fifth Land (now a Mountain) becomes an enabler for midrange rather than the craven backup for when the opponent kills your one Swamp (the old usage).

Writhing Chrysalis sang to me for a couple of reasons. First, it's just a powerful Creature on rate. While it's not Sneaky Snacker, Writhing Chrysalis is showing up in a wide variety of new places -- Elves, Naya Gates, and now apparently, Golgari Walls Spy sideboards -- lending card advantage and texture to sometimes hyper-focused strategies.

It can block multiple Creatures, get big itself, or accelerate out a Generous Ent the following turn. You can make an Avenging Hunter and actually search a Land out of your deck for once.

But it really, really, excels against any Blue deck. The Devoid standout can block hella Tolarian Terror or prove a terror itself for little 1/1 Flyers. Writhing Chrysalis gets value even if they counter it, so it tends to matter whenever the opponent meets your speed and fury with permission.

Paupergenesis Proper

This is what I ultimately registered for Paupergenesis (by far the largest Pauper tournament ever held in the Western Hemisphere):

Golgari Walls Spy | Pauper | Mike Flores, 22d Place (6-2) Paupergenesis 2026

• Creatures (40)
• 2 Quirion Ranger
• 2 Elves of Deep Shadow
• 4 Saruli Caretaker
• 4 Overgrown Battlement
• 4 Wall of Roots
• 3 Masked Vandal
• 2 Mesmeric Fiend
• 4 Sagu Wildling
• 2 Troll of Khazad-dum
• 4 Generous Ent
• 3 Gatecreeper Vine
• 4 Balustrade Spy
• 2 Lotleth Giant

• Sorceries (14)
• 4 Land Grant
• 4 Winding Way
• 4 Lead the Stampede
• 2 Dread Return

• Artifacts (2)
• 2 Lotus Petal

• Lands (4)
• 3 Forest
• 1 Swamp

• Sideboard (15)
• 3 Avenging Hunter
• 2 Faerie Macabre
• 4 Writhing Chrysalis
• 1 Masked Vandal
• 2 Mesmeric Fiend
• 1 Flaring Pain
• 1 Jack-o'-Lantern
• 1 Mountain

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The key difference from the previous version:

• -1 Avenging Hunter
• +1 Wall of Roots

The additional consistency of a fourth Wall of Roots was welcome main deck and became the go-to first card to side out in many matchups.

In this deck at least, Avenging Hunter is a dubious inclusion in the abstract; though I admit I may be the only one who feels this way. It's great when it's great, but it rarely gets value on first venturing into the Undercity in this deck, plus it can sometimes prove a liability if the opponent can seize the Initiative.

The sideboard is very different, obviously. In addition to taking out all the anti-Red cards, we played one Jack-o'-Lantern, which Rich showed me even before we added a basic Mountain.

If you mill your entire deck with Balustrade Spy, you will probably mill both Flaring Pain and Jack-o'-Lantern. In matchups where you need Flaring Pain to beat Ethereal Haze or Prismatic Strands, you will also need a Red mana to cast it. A Jack-o'-Lantern already in the graveyard will ensure you can do that, provided you have a spare mana.

There are other ways to get Red, of course, like Saruli Caretaker or the Mountain we just added, but Jack-o'-Lantern does it in an inherently Walls Spy-synergistic way.

Tournament Weekend Highlights

6-2 for 22d at #Paupergenesis

Top 16 was a clean cut at 6-1-1.

— Michael Flores (@fivewithflores) July 12, 2026

I kind of wanted to win the largest Pauper tournament ever held on non-Italian soil but fell a little short this time.

That said, I'm happy with how I played for once. I think I picked the best deck for me and executed well the entire day... even if I lost one-half too many games to make the Top 16 break.

Here are some highlights from the weekend:

Round Two: PrincessEternity, on Rally Red

You can watch this match in its entirety on Twitch.

I was a little worried about this match. First off, it was a Feature Match, and nobody wants to lose in front of 3,210 strangers. But more importantly, I had gone from eight fast anti-Red cards in my sideboard to... let me see here... zero. Still, I got PrincessEternity in two.

Round Eight gave me another matchup with Rally Red (when I mistakenly thought I was playing for Top 16), and won that one in two games as well, despite going second and starting on five cards in both. Love Spy. Love Spy's ability to mulligan and recover.

Round Three: ResidentOmen, on Ruby Storm

I assumed Ruby Storm was a bad matchup for Spy because it's just a hair quicker. Walls Spy needs a little luck to go off on turn three, but Ruby Storm can go off on turn two with probably less luck. Neither deck does a great job of killing the other deck's utility Creatures, but Storm is so fast Spy can't afford to even think about going midrange in sideboarded games.

Our Hero ended up winning this one in two, in part on the back of a third-turn kill in Game Two. But I realized Spy actually has a potential advantage over three games, because it can play four Mesmeric Fiends in up to two of them (see ya, Masked Vandal).

Fast combo versus fast combo, but we have a Thoughtseize that we can also sacrifice to flash back Dread Return whereas they have to rely entirely on speed.

Round Five: Nathan K, Spy Mirror

I went 13-5 in games, which was the fifth-best game win percentage out of 256 players, and fewer Swiss losses than the majority of the Top 16. Sadly, the Top 16 cutoff was not assessed on game win percentage.

That said, Round Five Nathan defeated me for my lone 0-2 loss. I kept seven in both games whereas he mulled to five in both. I kept operable Lands-and-spells hands but managed to draw both my Dread Returns in each game, which put me at a massive disadvantage speed-wise.

I actually solved this in Round One by over-drawing to Lead the Stampede, discarding Dread Return to hand size, and going from there. I would have had to take off an entire turn and draw enough extra cards to go over eight in hand to pull this off against Nathan... And you don't have time to do that in the Spy mirror.

In Game One I could still have raw-dogged BalustradeSpy and just Spy'd Nathan, which would have been a hilarious way to win (I drew Land Grant).

In Game Two I saw he had double Mesmeric Fiend from Land Grant, so even though his fiver sucked otherwise, he was going to Fiend my Balustrade Spy, and I was never going to see it again.

So, I Spy'd him just to get an attacker on the battlefield. This put his Land #3 into the graveyard. Because he had no Walls, I didn't think he'd be able to do much but cast the two Fiends. Meanwhile I was whacking away with a 2/3 Flyer and eventually a Sagu Wildling.

Unfortunately, my well-intentioned Spy put over 20 Creatures into Nathan's graveyard, along with Dread Return. When he eventually drew a Gatecreeper Vine he could cast, that made for a Lotleth Giant that was big enough to exactly match my poor single Dragon trigger.

Nathan won out and made the cut to Top 16.

I guess I also won out? But finished 22nd.

Final Thoughts

Decks-wise I don't think I would have changed a thing. Paupergenesis was incredible overall, and I'm excited to see the format continue to grow. All props to Jenn the Judge, and to the countless players who thanked me for my many articles and The Princes of Pauper over the course of the weekend.

Every player who killed one of my fellow Spy brethren with a Sazacap's Brew brings a tear of joy to my heart, and it almost felt like every listener we had was sharing the room with Rich and me.

Until next year!

LOVE

MIKE