Recently, I was invited to be a part of Tolarian Community College's Shuffle Up and Play gameplay series! Playing alongside The Professor, Andrea Mengucci, and fellow Pauper Format Panel member Gavin Verhey was an absolute blast. As part of this episode, I brought twelve different paper decks with me - all of which I owned - and most saw some play. As a result, I opted to spend last week talking a little about each deck in my regular weekly piece right here on CoolStuffInc.

While the article covered several notable decks from throughout the format, it was hardly what I'd call a perfect examination of the metagame. After all, I personally only own twelve decks plus a duplicate to loan to new players. Meanwhile, the MTGGoldfish page for Pauper (at the time of writing) lists 57 individual decks, though some have similar archetypes among them.

Today, I want to take a look at ten other cool archetypes - some top tier, others less so - to try giving a broader examination of what Pauper has to offer. As such, think of this as a companion piece to last week's article. Let's jump in and start checking out a bunch of sweet decks filled to the brim with commons!

Spy Combo

Spy Walls | Pauper | Ctian, 2nd Place MTGO Pauper Challenge

• Creatures (41)
• 1 Troll of Khazad-dum
• 2 Lotleth Giant
• 2 Quirion Ranger
• 3 Avenging Hunter
• 3 Gatekeeper Vine
• 3 Masked Vandal
• 3 Wall of Roots
• 4 Balustrade Spy
• 4 Generous Ent
• 4 Overgrown Battlement
• 4 Sagu Wildling
• 4 Saruli Caretaker
• 4 Tinder Wall

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

• Lands (5)
• 1 Swamp
• 4 Forest

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Acorn Harvest
• 1 Flaring Pain
• 1 Masked Vandal
• 2 Faerie Macabre
• 3 Mesmeric Fiend
• 3 Scattershot Archer
• 4 Nylea's Disciple

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For years, One Land Spy has been the brunt of jokes among Pauper players. The deck was laughably bad, as it was not only quite easy to hate out, but the deck often just folded to itself. Essentially, you'd play with one land in your deck, use Land Grant to find it, and then flip your deck over with Balustrade Spy to go for a killing blow using rituals and fast mana cards to cast your spells. It was the worst deck that players loved to play.

Over the past year, though, players have been experimenting with new ways to build the deck. This comes in the wake of several new innovations. Lotleth Giant and Dread Return in Commander Masters allowed decks like Cycle Storm and Dredge to find new life. Additionally, the printing of Generous Ent and Troll of Khazad-dum made it easier than ever to cycle for a land while filling your graveyard to fuel Lotleth Giant to land a killing blow. Now, Sagu Wildling's appearance in Tarkir: Dragonstorm made it easier than ever to find lands out of your deck.

This caused Spy decks to change how they were built drastically. Now you could run multiple lands for consistency since it was easy to find them all with the numerous redundant search effects. Additionally, rather than using clunky rituals, you could utilize other mana ramp effects and other game-ending threats in case you couldn't execute the core Spy plan. This has led to multiple versions of Spy including Spy Walls (as seen above), Spy Elves, and even some more Midrange-style Spy lists. It's an incredibly powerful deck and absolutely represents one of the best things you can be doing in the meta right now.

Rally Red

Rally Red | Pauper | JuaKi, 9th Place MTGO Pauper Challenge

• Creatures (22)
• 2 Gingerbrute
• 4 Burning-Tree Emissary
• 4 Clockwork Percussionist
• 4 Goblin Bushwhacker
• 4 Goblin Tomb Raider
• 4 Voldaren Epicure

• Instants (10)
• 1 Cast into the Fire
• 1 Fireblast
• 4 Galvanic Blast
• 4 Lightning Bolt

• Sorceries (9)
• 1 End the Festivities
• 4 Rally at the Hornburg
• 4 Reckless Impulse

• Artifacts (1)
• 1 Experiment Synthesizer

• Lands (18)
• 14 Mountain
• 4 Great Furnace

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Cast into the Fire
• 1 Red Elemental Blast
• 2 End the Festivities
• 2 Faerie Macabre
• 2 Relic of Progenitus
• 2 Searing Blaze
• 2 Smash to Dust
• 3 Pyroblast

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If there's one thing you can always trust Magic players to do, it's finding the best ways to build Red aggro decks. Following the banning of Kuldotha Rebirth, players lamented whether or not Kuldotha Red could survive. For quite a while, it didn't and the typical Red aggro deck defaulted to Madness Burn, which itself has gone through various changes over the past year.

However, in recent months, players have come up with this cool new take on what is more or less the previous Kuldotha lists: Rally Red. In many ways, the deck looks fairly similar to how Kuldotha Red did, just with copies of Rally at the Hornburg in place of Kuldotha Rebirth. This provides a cheap way of making multiple tokens and benefits from giving them haste. Despite costing more than Kuldotha, it still manages to get the job done.

The core of the deck, as you can imagine, is to play cheap aggressive threats and beat face as quickly as possible. This happens thanks to several other hasty threats like Gingerbrute, Clockwork Percussionist, Goblin Tomb Raider, and kicked Goblin Bushwhackers. Additionally, Voldaren Epicure provides solid chip damage while also providing an artifact to turn on your Tomb Raiders. Most notable, though, is Burning-Tree Emissary. With this you can chain together cheap threats and then cast either a Bushwhacker or Rally at the Hornburg to go for a massive swing to take opponents down.

It may look a little different from classic Kuldotha Red, but it certainly carries on the deck's spirit.

Mono-Black Sacrifice

Mono-Black Sacrifice | Pauper | Hamuda, 1st Place MTGO Pauper Challenge

• Creatures (32)
• 2 Accursed Marauder
• 3 Bloodthrone Vampire
• 3 Shambling Ghast
• 4 Carrion Feeder
• 4 Infestation Sage
• 4 Mortician Beetle
• 4 Nest Shambler
• 4 Nezumi Linkbreaker
• 4 Perigee Beckoner

• Instants (7)
• 3 Corrupted Conviction
• 4 Village Rites

• Sorceries (4)
• 2 Rite of Consumption
• 2 Unearth

• Lands (17)
• 17 Swamp

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Accursed Marauder
• 1 Unexpected Fangs
• 2 Cast Down
• 2 Drown in Sorrow
• 2 Reaping the Graves
• 2 Rotten Reunion
• 2 Sylvok Lifestaff
• 3 Mesmeric Fiend

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Mono-Black Sacrifice represents one of the more recent brews to put up a real tournament resume in Pauper. Decks like this have existed for quite some time, with players trying to make use of cards like Carrion Feeder, Mortician Beetle, and Bloodthrone Vampire. However, it never really quite seemed to come together until recently with Edge of Eternities.

That set brought with it a sweet new common: Perigee Beckoner. If you warped in a copy, you could sacrifice another creature and bring it back. What made this extra enticing, though, is the fact that you could then warp in a second one with its enters ability targeting the first one. You then sacrifice that Beckoner, it comes back, and its ability targets the second one you played. This allows you to repeatedly sacrifice both creatures infinitely, allowing your copies of Carrion Feeder, Mortician Beetle, and Bloodthrone Vampire to become huge. You can then swing for massive damage or else use Rite of Consumption to throw the creatures at your opponent's face.

The cool thing about this deck also is how cheap it is. You can pick up a copy for roughly $30, give or take, making it easily one of the cheapest competitive options available to Pauper players today. As you can tell by this list, it's even good enough to win a Pauper Challenge on Magic Online so it's definitely a solid option if you just want to see what the format's about.

Familiars

Azorius Familiars | Pauper | ChaoticMTG, 1st Place MTGO Pauper Challenge

• Creatures (19)
• 2 Murmuring Mystic
• 3 Archaeomancer
• 3 Mulldrifter
• 3 Sea Gate Oracle
• 4 God-Pharaoh's Faithful
• 4 Sunscape Familiar

• Instants (14)
• 1 Ghostly Flicker
• 1 Glorious Gale
• 1 Negate
• 2 Ephemerate
• 2 Prohibit
• 3 Meeting of Minds
• 4 Snap

• Sorceries (8)
• 4 Lorien Revealed
• 4 Preordain

• Lands (19)
• 2 Snow-Covered Plains
• 8 Snow-Covered Island
• 1 Glacial Floodplain
• 1 Mortuary Mire
• 3 Contaminated Landscape
• 4 Azorius Chancery

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Circle of Protection: Blue
• 2 Envelop
• 2 Last Breath
• 2 Negate
• 2 Ride's End
• 2 Stonehorn Dignitary
• 3 Hydroblast

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Familiars has been a classic of Pauper for many years. As the name of the deck would imply, the core behind it involves playing copies of Sunscape Familiar to make the cost of your spells cheaper across the board. When you combine these with cards like Ghostly Flicker and Snap, it allows you to generate ridiculous amounts of mana as well as buying back spells with the help of Archaeomancer.

Doing this provides you with the capability of gaining significant advantage in numerous ways. While the obvious aspect is card draw, you can also create tons of bird tokens with Murmuring Mystic or gain obscene amounts of life with God-Pharaoh's Faithful. Once you've controlled the board enough and have set yourself up in an effective manner, you can go in for the kill.

There are numerous different builds of Familiars that do largely the same thing but can end the game in a variety of ways. This has made the deck quite resilient and secretly one of the best decks in the format for years. It's worth checking out if you want to try something that is truly unique to the Pauper experience.

Golgari Gardens

Golgari Gardens | Pauper | NickNorman, 6th Place MTGO Pauper Challenge

• Creatures (9)
• 1 Avenging Hunter
• 2 Thorn of the Black Rose
• 3 Crypt Rats
• 3 Troll of Khazad-dum

• Instants (21)
• 1 Pulse of Murasa
• 1 Spinning Darkness
• 2 Eviscerator's Insight
• 2 Reckoner's Bargain
• 3 Snuff Out
• 4 Cast Down
• 4 Defile
• 4 Fanatical Offering

• Artifacts (12)
• 2 Campfire
• 2 Nihil Spellbomb
• 2 Tithing Blade // Consuming Sepulcher
• 3 Ichor Wellspring
• 3 Lembas

• Lands (18)
• 10 Swamp
• 1 Haunted Mire
• 1 Witch's Cottage
• 2 Bojuka Bog
• 4 Khalni Garden

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Last Rite
• 1 Moment's Peace
• 2 Drown in Sorrow
• 2 Faerie Macabre
• 2 Troublemaker Ouphe
• 3 Duress
• 4 Weather the Storm

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For many years, Mono-Black Devotion was a fan favorite in the Pauper format. Heck, it was my first Pauper deck I played when I tried getting serious with the format. It hasn't been good in quite a long time, but that hasn't stopped people from trying to make it work. Then at some point, players looked at the deck and asked "what if we added another color for some better threats?"

This concept birthed Golgari Gardens - effectively a Mono-Black Control (or, more accurately, Midrange) deck that utilizes Avenging Hunter as a finisher with its Green mana. Additionally, the deck gained a lot of prominence from utilizing the Deadly Dispute variant spells. With Dispute now banned, it leans on similar but lesser cards like Eviscerator's Insight, Reckoner's Bargain, and Fanatical Offering more heavily. With the likes of Ichor Wellspring and the tokens made by Khalni Garden to generate card advantage.

If you enjoy removal-heavy Midrange decks with solid card draw engines, give this one a try.

Esper Affinity

Esper Affinity | Pauper | Kirblinxy, 8th Place MTGO Pauper Challenge

• Creatures (16)
• 4 Glint Hawk
• 4 Kor Skyfisher
• 4 Myr Enforcer
• 4 Refurbished Familiar

• Instants (7)
• 1 Eviscerator's Insight
• 1 Suffocating Fumes
• 2 Thraben Charm
• 3 Cast Down

• Sorceries (4)
• 4 Thoughtcast

• Artifacts (13)
• 1 Nihil Spellbomb
• 2 Blood Fountain
• 2 Grim Bauble
• 2 Navigator's Compass
• 2 Tithing Blade // Consuming Sepulcher
• 4 Cryogen Relic

• Lands (20)
• 1 Bojuka Bog
• 2 Goldmire Bridge
• 3 Ancient Den
• 3 Mistvault Bridge
• 3 Vault of Whispers
• 4 Razortide Bridge
• 4 Seat of the Synod

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Arms of Hadar
• 1 Dispel
• 1 Nihil Spellbomb
• 1 Suffocating Fumes
• 2 Duress
• 2 Navigator's Compass
• 3 Dust to Dust
• 4 Hydroblast

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Speaking of solid card draw engines, how about this Esper Affinity deck? While the name is certainly accurate in that the deck utilizes multiple affinity cards (Myr Enforcer, Refurbished Familiar, Thoughtcast), it draws its lineage from another deck entirely. Cards like Glint Hawk, Kor Skyfisher, Cryogen Relic, and more give the deck a very classic Boros Monarch-style of play, though here it's actually based on Orzhov Glintblade.

Glintblade builds are known for using cards like Tithing Blade, Grim Bauble, and Blood Fountain to remove problem creatures and generate advantage. These decks gained a bit of power with the printing of Refurbished Familiar but couldn't quite cross the gap. With the printing of Cryogen Relic in Edge of Eternities, though, the deck evolved to take on cards like Thoughtcast and Myr Enforcer to pack that much more of a wallop. The deck has been putting up some pretty solid numbers, so if you enjoyed Boros Monarch/Synth decks in the past or want a different kind of Affinity to play with, give this one a shot.

Altar Tron

Altar Tron | Pauper | LucaAshok, 6-0 MTGO Pauper League

• Creatures (9)
• 1 Myr Kinsmith
• 4 Myr Retriever
• 4 Pactdoll Terror

• Instants (8)
• 1 Fanatical Offering
• 1 Heritage Reclamation
• 2 Weather the Storm
• 4 Eviscerator's Insight

• Sorceries (3)
• 3 Malevolent Rumble

• Artifacts (23)
• 1 Blood Fountain
• 1 Golem Foundry
• 2 Energy Refractor
• 3 Ashnod's Altar
• 4 Candy Trail
• 4 Chromatic Star
• 4 Expedition Map
• 4 Prophetic Prism

• Lands (17)
• 2 Swamp
• 1 Polluted Mire
• 2 Conduit Pylons
• 4 Urza's Mine
• 4 Urza's Power Plant
• 4 Urza's Tower

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Campfire
• 2 Duress
• 2 Heritage Reclamation
• 3 Moment's Peace
• 3 Relic of Progenitus
• 4 Red Elemental Blast

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Last week I ended my article by talking about Flicker Tron, a classic of Pauper gameplay. While Flicker Tron is the version of Tron most players will know, it's far from the only deck utilizing the classic land package. Altar Tron acts as a sort of combo deck taking advantage of the huge mana the Tron lands produce to spit out tons of artifacts in order to generate a kill.

How exactly does the deck kill, you might ask? It relies on a fairly simple combo involving Ashnod's Altar and two copies of Myr Retriever. With Ashnod's Altar, you can sacrifice a Myr Retriever. This gets back the second Myr Retriever in your graveyard and the mana generated by Ashnod's Altar allows you to cast that second Myr Retriever. You can now loop these infinitely.

While it won't generate you infinite mana, it does generate infinite triggers. With Pactdoll Terror, it provides an automatic kill. If you don't have access to Pactdoll Terror, though, Golem Foundry can generate infinite tokens. You can either use these a turn later, or sacrifice those tokens to the Altar to actually set up infinite mana, which you can then use to cast more spells and churn through your deck.

It's a fairly silly build, but is yet another incredibly unique way to win in Pauper. If you want to do something flashy and creative, give this deck a whirl.

White Weenies

White Weenies | Pauper | KidRenan

• Creatures (25)
• 1 Eagles of the North
• 2 Novice Inspector
• 2 Summon: Choco/Mog
• 4 Kor Skyfisher
• 4 Lunarch Veteran // Luminous Phantom
• 4 Raffine's Informant
• 4 Squadron Hawk
• 4 Thraben Inspector

• Instants (11)
• 1 Ramosian Rally
• 2 Guardians' Pledge
• 4 Prismatic Strands
• 4 Thraben Charm

• Sorceries (4)
• 4 Battle Screech

• Enchantments (1)
• 1 Journey to Nowhere

• Lands (19)
• 17 Plains
• 2 Idyllic Grange

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Standard Bearer
• 2 Destroy Evil
• 2 Holy Light
• 2 Journey to Nowhere
• 4 Dust to Dust
• 4 Martyr of Sands

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Pauper boasts numerous forms of aggressive strategies, but one that players love to play has to be White Weenies. This classic Magic archetype has gained a ton of prominence over the last few years. For quite some time, it was little more than a fringe deck thanks to the lower viability of threats. Since the printing of cards like Raffine's Informant, Novice Inspector, Thraben Charm, and Summon: Choco/Mog, though, it's gained quite a bit of popularity.

The deck is quite simple and straightforward. Play a bunch of cheap White creatures and swarm the board. From there, use effects that pump the board and hit your opponents for massive life swings. The likes of Prismatic Strands and Thraben Charm can help slow your opponents down to ensure you can close out the game, with the latter offering some solid versatility as well.

The deck is another cheap and easy to grok list. That makes it a great deck to pick up and play at your local Pauper events, though it may come and go as one of the better decks in the format.

Gruul Ramp/Ponza

Gruul Ramp | Pauper | Mokemi, 4th Place MTGO Pauper Challenge

• Creatures (30)
• 2 Boarding Party
• 2 Nyxborn Hydra
• 2 Sagu Wildling
• 4 Arbor Elf
• 4 Avenging Hunter
• 4 Bannerhide Krushok
• 4 Eldrazi Repurposer
• 4 Jewel Thief
• 4 Writhing Chrysalis

• Instants (4)
• 4 Ram Through

• Sorceries (3)
• 3 Malevolent Rumble

• Enchantments (7)
• 3 Wild Growth
• 4 Utopia Sprawl

• Lands (16)
• 2 Mountain
• 14 Forest

• Sideboard (15)
• 3 Breath Weapon
• 4 Deglamer
• 4 Relic of Progenitus
• 4 Weather the Storm

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Another longtime favorite of the format, Gruul Ramp became a popular deck soon after the release of Commander Legends. This set brought with it the likes of Boarding Party and Annoyed Altisaur, which players ramped into play quickly. This was possible thanks to playing Utopia Sprawl and Wild Growth on singular Forests that you could then untap with Arbor Elf for massive mana. The deck would also utilize land destruction spells, earning it the nickname of Ponza.

In the years since, the deck's threats have only gotten better. Jewel Thief and Avenging Hunter gave it a stronger set of threats for a time. Then when Modern Horizons 3 came out, cards like Eldrazi Repurposer, Bannerhide Krushok, Nyxborn Hydra, and the mighty Writhing Chrysalis all became staples of the deck. Right now, lists aren't using the Ponza package, though it was a popular way to play the deck following the unbanning of High Tide and Prophetic Prism.

The deck's popularity and power have declined a fair amount in the months since however. It still makes for a fun deck that's relatively affordable in paper, making it yet another fun deck to try the format out with!

Jeskai Ephemerate

Jeskai Ephemerate | Pauper | Jace_MTG, 5-0 MTGO Pauper League

• Creatures (11)
• 2 Mulldrifter
• 2 Murmuring Mystic
• 3 Archaeomancer
• 4 Augur of Bolas

• Instants (21)
• 1 Breath Weapon
• 1 Cast into the Fire
• 1 Destroy Evil
• 1 Negate
• 1 Ride's End
• 1 Union of the Third Path
• 2 Ephemerate
• 2 Lightning Bolt
• 3 Skred
• 4 Brainstorm
• 4 Counterspell

• Sorceries (8)
• 4 Cleansing Wildfire
• 4 Lorien Revealed

• Lands (18)
• 1 Snow-Covered Mountain
• 1 Snow-Covered Plains
• 4 Snow-Covered Island
• 1 Glacial Floodplain
• 1 Volatile Fjord
• 2 Perilous Landscape
• 4 Rustvale Bridge
• 4 Silverbluff Bridge

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Breath Weapon
• 1 Cast into the Fire
• 1 Destroy Evil
• 1 Negate
• 1 Thraben Charm
• 2 Campfire
• 4 Hydroblast
• 4 Pyroblast

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Last but not least is another classic, Jeskai Ephemerate. This one has a decent amount of similarities to Familiars in that you're controlling the board and use flicker spells to help close out the game. Many cards will look familiar, but this deck plays out quite a bit different compared to Familiars.

Unlike Familiars, this deck relies heavily on the likes of removal spells and counter magic. In this way, it acts as much more of a true control deck in the classic sense of the term. Additionally, it uses various indestructible bridges in conjunction with Cleansing Wildfire to ramp itself and set up for when you can lock down the game and shut your opponent out. Additionally, while you'll often kill your opponent with Bird Illusion tokens or Mulldrifters, this deck's inclusion of Lightning Bolt allows you to win by repeatedly buying back the card with flicker spells. Then you can simply bolt your opponent's face over and over again to win the game.

This deck has fallen out of favor quite heavily. These days its results largely amount to the occasional 5-0 on Magic Online rather than winning any major tournaments. However, it remains a fan favorite with tons of players eager to give it a chance to try making it work well.

That wraps things up for this Pauper format overview! Naturally, there are quite a number of decks I didn't cover this week or last week. In many cases, this is due to various decks being riffs on other existing archetypes. For example, last week I covered Mono-Blue Terror so while I didn't want to cover similar lists, it's important to note that the comparable Dimir Terror and Izzet Terror builds also exist.

All this is to say that there is a ton to explore in Pauper well beyond what I've written about here. I am continuing to pick up quite a number of lists. While it's not hard to gain easy access to the whole format online, it can be a bit more challenging in paper when you need 20+ copies of a single card! But that makes it worth it to try assembling so many great decks for paper play at an affordable rate.

Pauper is full of great decks and awesome gameplay experiences. Find an event near you and give it a shot!