I recently got a chance to actually play my Pauper Ruby Storm deck.

Ruby Storm | Pauper | DataPusher, 3d place Paupergeddon Spring 2026

• Creatures (10)
• 2 Spider Manifestation
• 4 Goblin Anarchomancer
• 4 Thornscape Familiar

• Instants (17)
• 2 Electric Revelation
• 3 First Day of Class
• 4 Big Score
• 4 Manamorphose
• 4 Seething Song

• Sorceries (16)
• 2 Seize the Storm
• 2 Wrenn's Resolve
• 4 Glimpse the Impossible
• 4 Pirate's Pillage
• 4 Reckless Impulse

• Lands (17)
• 5 Mountain
• 4 Geothermal Crevice
• 4 Hickory Woodlot
• 4 Sandstone Needle

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Gruul Turf
• 1 Firebending Lesson
• 2 Pyroblast
• 3 Red Elemental Blast
• 1 Abandon Attachments
• 1 Flaring Pain
• 1 Origin of Metalbending
• 3 Weather the Storm
• 1 Waterbending Lesson

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"Ruby Storm" is kind of a silly name for this deck because it has no Rubies, and it doesn't win via the Storm mechanic. Of course, these Creatures get the Ruby Medallion-esque nod...

... and the deck's kill condition at least includes the word "Storm."

How does this deck work?

If you've ever played a Storm Combo deck in another format, Pauper Ruby Storm is not dissimilar. You kind of play out accelerators like Thornscape Apprentice, and then leverage them to cast your card draw spells and burst mana at a discount.

If you have enough resources, and you do a good enough job of chaining them together, you can quite literally play out all your Creatures (most of which will have Haste) and draw essentially your entire deck, all in a single turn. This will result in an overwhelming amount of power just from +1/+1 counters on your mana guys (more on that later), but you should have four Elemental tokens, all with 20+ power.

I know this because, again, if you do everything right, you'll draw either your whole deck, or enough of it that you can't really get unlucky or miss anything major.

Sometimes your opponent will have back-to-back-to-back-to-back Prismatic Strands and you'll run out of cards.

Sometimes you'll have gotten too fancy and used a Firebending Lesson on what looked like a key threat (meaning you weren't later able to Learn for an Origin of Metalbending).

But barring some specific answer draws by the opponent, if you get going, this deck tends to keep going. And if it's going, it'll get where it's headed. Where it's headed is four Elemental tokens (or at the very least, two) with 20+ power, Trample and Haste.

Ten Tips and Tricks for Playing Pauper Ruby Storm

That sounds all well and good, I'm sure. But you might be asking yourself just how automatic the path from your opening seven six [let's be honest, with this many Lands you probably had to mulligan] and that glorious lethal attack. Well here are ten tips, tricks, and observations that should help you on your way.

10. Order Matters

All the acceleration Creatures in this deck cost two mana.

Nominally.

I mean, often you'll have to cast Thornscape Familiar with , because that's what a Geothermal Crevice makes. But even though everything has a mana value of two doesn't mean that's what you'll actually pay.

Goblin Anarchomancer does, in fact, always cost two. However, if you already have a Goblin Anarchomancer in play, Thornscape Familiar only costs one. And if you have either the Goblin Shaman or the Invasion Insect in play, Spider Manifestation only costs one.

This matters a lot when you have so many double Lands.

For example, if you tap a Hickory Woodlot and a Sandstone Needle on turn three for , you can use the first for your Goblin Anarchomancer, the for Thornscape Familiar and the for Spider Manifestation.

But if you start with anybody but Goblin Anarchomancer first, you'll only get to play two spells instead of three.

9. You can use your card drawing just to make land drops.

There are some games, often sideboard games, and many games against low pressure decks or the color Blue where your best plan is to just hit your Land drops. Of course, this deck doesn't exactly play a lot of Lands. In fact, some of its Lands blow themselves up. Most, even!

You can get around this by using your card draw just to hit your next Land drop. You see, when you're discounting a Reckless Impulse with the express desire to hit your next Reckless Impulse, it's annoying to turn over Lands. But if you are just trying to out-resource someone with a fist full of interaction, sustaining Land drops for longer than they can will often be the harbinger of success.

I don't really think Pauper Ruby Storm has a great midrange "Plan B"... In fact many of its Plan A games end up with you just attacking with a ton of your Grizzly Bears. But it has a lot of card advantage that you can translate into traditional metrics, objectives, and KPIs, like Land drops.

I recently out-lasted a Mono-Blue deck because it stopped hitting Land drops before I did. At some point that meant that I would be able to cast more things than they would be able to Counterspell; and because all my mid-game cards are two-for-ones that implied I was eventually going to win (which I did).

8. You can also grind it out. Kind of.

The same stream of two-for-ones that you can use to hit all your Land drops can be used to just overwhelm your opponent's ability to interact.

The problems are threefold.

If you can resolve Pirate's Pillage or Big Score, that can be powerful (mostly because you are netting mana; you're not really doing that much on cards).

Outside of the mana you create, either via Treasures or extreme discounting and Spider Manifestation, both Big Score and Pirate's Pillage are merely card-neutral. You discard a card and cast the spell, and in return get two fresh cards. You're not typically getting ahead on cards.

Seething Song is problematic just because it's a non-card. This deck doesn't really have the Storm mechanic. So, if you play Seething Song into an expensive follow up, the opponent can just Counter the latter, and you end up losing the Seething Song also.

I don't sideboard 100% the same way all the time, but believe you me. I'm taking out Pirate's Pillage first, along with Seething Song, before I bring in six Pyroblasts and Red Elemental Blasts, and the Gruul Turf of course.

7. Success Can Look Like Failure in the Short Term

I only know about this line because I saw Andrea Mengucci do it by accident.

Here's a powerful card.

This card is 50% stronger, in its way, than a Wrenn's Resolve or Reckless Impulse. However, when you want to just hit your Land drops or try to grind it out, the two-mana versions are generally preferred. Why? Because the cards stick around for another turn if you don't cast them immediately.

If you already have two mana and you cast a Wrenn's Resolve, you can turn over two Lands and play one this turn, and one next turn. Great, right?

Not so with Glimpse the Impossible. In fact, Glimpse can be outright dangerous. I had a game recently where I flipped over two copies of First Day of Class. I wasn't grinding anything that game! Going off was going to be awkward, or at least ugly, no matter what.

Anyway, if you're just trying to hit a Land, Glimpse is stronger than Wrenn's Resolve & Co just because it turns over a third card. Three bites at the apple instead of two, yeah?

Anyway, sometimes you utterly fail and don't turn over anything you can do this turn. But, of course, Glimpse the Impossible has a little extra text:

At the beginning of the next end step, if any of those cards remain exiled, put them into your graveyard, then create a 0/1 colorless Eldrazi Spawn creature token for each card put into your graveyard this way. Those tokens have "Sacrifice this token: Add {C}."

Long story short, just try going off next turn! Even if you were just trying to grind or hit Land drops this turn. You can not only do so with essentially a free Black Lotus to start, but the Eldrazi Spawn Creatures are eligible for Waterbending.

6. The First Card I get with First Day of Class is often Waterbending Lesson

How do you even cast this?

Well, there are two ways. The most common is off of a Treasure. You can also make Blue mana with Manamorphose.

In either case, your Waterbending Lesson is often better than it looks. You want to cast First Day of Class before trying to "win this turn" in either case, and the other reasonable option is Abandon Attachments.

Abandon Attachments is great because it usually only costs one mana and it can help you keep going if you're in a pinch. Waterbending Lesson, though, can help you bulk up your hand. It's also really only net three (or even net two) mana because you have an active Spider Manifestation that will untap when you cast it.

And again, in the neighborhood of bulking up your hand, you can use Eldrazi Spawn tokens to keep all the cards. They can make mana even if tapped.

5. Order Matters! On First Day of Class, Too

Oftentimes you will have multiple things going on. It's possible to have cards in hand and cards in a "two-turn" pile from Wrenn's Resolve/Reckless Impulse and cards in a "this turn" pile from Glimpse and you might even have an Electric Revelation or two in the graveyard.

What should you cast from which pile when?

It's not usually the case that you should cast First Day of Class aggressively or immediately, especially when you are pinched on mana early in a sequence. You can be digging from Manamorphose with the intent of turning one mana (due to a "Ruby Medallion" Creature) into two, or just trying to find a powerful Seething Song so you can cast lots of things.

But at the point that you start revealing lots of Creatures - most especially Spider Manifestation - you kind of have to at least think about First Day of Class.

First of all, you need to cast First Day of Class before Spider Manifestation if you want to benefit from Spider Manifestation this turn. Secondly, one of the main ways this deck wins is by accumulating massive power for attacking, separate from the Elemental tokens.

Any Goblin/Insect you cast this turn is going to help discount your other spells, but if you're going to try to win, you will probably want them to be combat-eligible.

4. Net Mana and Profit

At two Ruby Medallions, most things cost . At three, almost everything costs . So, at some point Glimpse the Impossible (which is 50% stronger than Wrenn's Resolve) costs the same as it and Reckless Impulse. This should tell you which one you should cast next, when given the option.

But did you realize that at higher mana costs you can "keep going" without spending any mana at all, or even profit mana-wise? The four and five mana cards in this deck all trigger Spider Manifestation. So, if you have three Ruby Medallion Creatures and a Spider Manifestation, Big Score is "free" (though you still need something to discard). And if you have two Spider Manifestations, you actually gain mana.

This is incredible. Just make sure you have cards in hand to actually cast that Big Score. It's also cool when you're making your giant kill spell Elementals for "free" or even ending a sequence with untapped Spider Manifestations, ready to protect a lethal trampler with Origin of Metalbending.

Remember: When this deck goes off it can usually see every card in the deck if it wants to, and every Lesson in the sideboard. If you don't have Origin of Metalbending to protect your big guy, it was probably your fault.

3. Prioritize Cards in Hand

In the NBA Playoffs this year, turnovers are a big storyline. Teams with great offenses are losing games because they turn the ball over in positions that allow the opposing team to score. I saw a great player talking to a courtside reporter saying that they have to imagine that the ball is a million dollars. And every time they lose the ball, it's like losing a million dollars.

That's how I want you to think about each card in hand.

When you're going off with Ruby Storm it can seem like you're super rich. You are casting so many cards from exile. Your spells all cost . What can you lose?

The problem is that your hand itself can get thin. What happens when you keep turning over Lands with Glimpse or Impulse? You need your hand also. That's why Waterbending Lesson is quietly so important and Abandon Attachments - a card that revolutionized other archetypes like Dimir Terror - can be so unexciting.

At some point your options can be "bad" or "I lose bad" even when it seems like everything is rolling. You mean I get to discard Seething Song here? Thank goodness both Electric Revelation and the sacred cow of Seize the Storm have flashback. Sometimes they need to be sacrificed for the greater good of going off.

Every Big Score you turn over feels powerful. But the real gift is any Manamorphose you turn over. That transfers a card not from exile to play... But increases your actual hand size while increasing your mana.

2. The Electric Revelation that Got Me

Before we get to one really big misconception (which is that this deck doesn't really lose to graveyard hate), just make sure you keep an eye on when your opponent is interacting, and whether they're prioritizing an Electric Revelation in your graveyard.

Patrick O'Halloran-Gannon came back from Ireland to cost me the 3-0 at League this past weekend, and he did so with a laser-aimed Nihil Spellbomb. I ended up with three 3/3 Elementals when the dust cleared, but he was still alive, in part, because I couldn't keep going.

The reason? He knew he couldn't keep me down entirely even with double Nihil Spellbomb, but he made sure to get an Electric Revelation while reducing my Elemental size. This one card probably saved him that game.

Electric Revelation is an Instant. The reason you should pay better attention than I did is because you can often cast it in response to graveyard hate.

1. This Deck Doesn't Really Lose to Graveyard Hate

Here's the thing. When we first saw this deck on Princes of Pauper, our impulse was that it lost even harder to graveyard hate than other combo decks, like Walls Spy.

It turns out graveyard hate doesn't actually beat it. You might not have four 20/20 Elementals but if you cast all your First Day of Classes, any Elementals will be a 3/3 at least, plus however many Electric Revelations and Seize the Storms you have in exile, so like 7/7.

If you do a full go-off, you can have 28 power in Hasty Tramplers, not counting the +1/+1 counters on all your Ruby Medallions and Spider Manifestations. You can and usually should have overwhelming power, even through a Nihil Spellbomb.

That is flat-out incredible if you think about it.

The card that is annoying? Krark-Clan Shaman. Give them a Shaman and a Spellbomb and a Writhing Chrysalis to put you on a clock? You might manage to lose a game. You might manage to lose two.

LOVE

MIKE