Paupergeddon Lecco 2023

Paupergeddon Lecco 2023: Report and spieghino

Chi vince gode, chi perde spiega

Table of Contents:

1. Introduction
2. History
3. Maindeck
4. Sideboard
5. Tournament
6. Last Words
7. Acknowledgments
8. Review history

Introduction

Paupergeddon Lecco, which took place 26 March 2023, was the biggest Pauper Tournament ever registered, counting 600+ players from all over Europe; the tournament, which took place at Palataurus, featured a 10 round swiss with a top8 cut. The event started at 9.30 AM, the swiss finished approximately at 11 PM and the last card in the final was slinged at 2 AM. I was good and lucky enough to be the last man standing, completing the swiss with a record of 8-1-1, and winning the 3 rounds of the top8. For clarity, we split top4 (prizes after splitting where something near 1.3k in MKM coupon, 3 Secret Lairs and some goodies) but we decide to play to declare the winner. In this brief blogpost, I’ll cover some points about the deck I played, Altar Tron, including deck building choices, match up analysis, sideboard strategies, and then I’ll quickly describe how the tournament rolled out, which archetypes I faced and how the games unveiled throughout the tournament.

History

The Altar Tron archetype made is timid debut right after the unified pauper announcement, where paper common and MTGO common where made playable for both the play modes, making one large shared card pool. The new additions, such as Ashnod’s Altar, ignite some interest in the combo deckbuilding community, but it took some time and MTGO tix to actually make the deck work. The idea of the deck is simple: deploy a large amount of 3/3 golems from Golem Foundry thanks to the big amount of triggers made possible from 2 Myr Retriever and Ashnod’s Altar. The first approaches get ideas from another combo Tron builds, Eggs Tron, which also play a combo plan with Golem Foundry, but it differs from the strategy; the first lists were based on midrange strategies, where the goal was to survive and draw as many cards as possible. In this early stage of development, two players stands among others for their brews: saidin raken, who tirelessly tried the deck on MTGO, and Giorgio Venditti, aka GiorgioCombo, a player from Italy that had great success with the deck in national paper tournament. The lists relied heavily on Fangren Marauder or Mystical Teachings package, and they went for the midrange/control journey for assembling the combo: at that time, the meta were slower, and only 4 copies of the myr were available, making the combo not particularly fast, so the strategy was based around drawing cards and survive thanks to Weather the Storm and Fangren Marauder, since the deck features lots of cheap and expendable artifacts. After finding GiorgioCombo decklist, I played his sixties with moderate success, letting me put a Top16 Paupergeddon Pisa result with a list that featured the afromentioned strategy. From there, nothing really has changed, and the new lists that on and off appears online were no different in the core but different from the support cards, ranging from less or more card draw, more or less utilities or specific metagame choices. The turning point for the archetype starts with the spoiler of Myr Kinsmith, a card that at first sight didn’t say much, since it’s a highly cost tutor for a very specific tribe that don’t have much fortune in Pauper, but it quickly became another key piece of the deck, since it has the ability to tutor Myr Retriever, which is the pillar of the combo, making the deck faster. With this new addition, Altar Tron can drop the midrangy strat of drawing cards for eventually assemble the combo, and start to have a more combo-oriented settings: its focus was shifted from ‘survive as long as possible’ to ‘kill as fast as possible’

Main

As introduced before, my deck’s choice was Altar Tron, which is a combo deck, based on the infamous Urza Lands that features Ashnod’s Altar + Myr Retriever synergy to make a large amount of artifacts etb triggers, a tremendously high storm count, an infinite amount of death triggers and so on. I chose this deck because I really like combo builds (if you want to play Aggro, play Heartstone) and I love artifacts. I also thought that the deck was a meta sleeper, since on MTGO it does not see much play, because platform’s time constraints and in-game click intensity.

I choose to build the deck based on few, well-defined pillars:

1. The build must be combo-centric: I was sure that the midrange strategy of the deck wasn’t optimized, and also it wasn’t particularly good, so I tried to create a deck that was entirely on the combo train (example:. Myr Kinsmith > Mystical Teachings);

2. Play cards that are good despite opponent’s deck or turn drawn: I opted to play cards that are weaker in power but are good every time they are drawn and are ok in every circumstance than spells that has more raw power but shines only in fringe spots (example: Ancient Stirrings > Faithless Loothing ). This choice was made since I wanted a deck that might survive the long run instead of a list with the purpose of spiking;

3. Do not try to beat sideboard strategy maindeck: I opted to not include cards in the main that are good vs. strategies that often come in after sideboard (es. graveyard hate), both for having leaner draws and also relax the deckbuilding decisions (example: Ichor Wellspring > Blood Fountain). If opponent is smart enough to make specific metagame calls in the maindeck, let be it, let’s play G2 and G3 then.

4. Minimize the use of colored cards maindeck: The combo is almost colorless, so the baseline of the deck has to be at most colorelss: support card that are colored have to be too good to not be included. (example: Deadly Dispute > Scrapwork Mutt > Reckoner’s Bargain)

5. Tron lands have to be 8th or 9th edition: BASED. (example: old layout Tron lands are not elegant);

6. Don’t try to win against every archetype and normalize losing, but always have a plan: for this part I’ll borrow the words from a Bryant Cook tweets, that sum ups perfectly my thoughts:

With the aforementioned statements in mind, let’s see the decklist my testing team and I came up with:

Below a brief description of cards choices:

Combo part:

4 Myr Retriever 4 Ashnod’s Altar

Here we have the combo package of the deck: since the deck aims to find all the combo pieces as fast as possible, it features the full set of everything. There are few arguments about the fourth Altar, but after extensive testing I realized that the Ashnod’s artifact is way more useful than any other spot card (such as Weather the Storm, Makeshift Munitions, Blood Fountain…), so I went for the fourth copy, and never regretted it.

Finisher:

3 Weather the Storm 4 Golem Foundry

The wincons are an endless army of 3/3 golem or infinite life: this lets us close the game against the 95% of the meta, because the vast majority of the decks played in Pauper win by combat, so an unlimited amount of blockers and a lot of lifepoints are enough to win on the turn after comboing off. In these settings, there’s no same-turn finisher cards such as Makeshift Munitions or Impact Tremors, since the decks that survives to the aforementioned combos are few and not so popular (at time of writing).

Draw:

4 Deadly Dispute 3 Ichor Wellspring

As draw engine we have the well known synergy between Ichor Wellspring and Deadly Dispute, that, as for now, is the best way to draw cards in Pauper. In early lists, I didn’t play this draw engine, but I relied on Scrapyard Mutt and Clockwork Fox, that were better combined with Ashnod’s Altar, but weaker on their own. I quickly changed my mind since I realized that there’s no better alternative than the infamous ‘Ancestral Recall’ duo.

Tutors:

4 Expedition Map 4 Ancient Stirrings 3 Myr Kinsmith

These cards make the deck very consistent, allowing a fast tron assemble and multiple ways to find combo pieces. I consider these cards as the core of the deck, making it so powerfull.

Support:

4 Chromatic Star 4 Chromatic Sphere 2 Energy Refractor

These cards help filter mana in order to play colored spells; When I was deckbuilding the deck, I started with only 8 chromatic artifact, but I quickly realized that at least 10 ways to make colored mana were mandatory, so i finally added 2 Energy Refractor for making the access of mana of any color more consistent.

Lands:

4 Urza’s Tower 4 Urza’s Power Plant 4 Urza’s Mine 2 Crystal Grotto 1 Forest

This is as straight as it appears: 12 Urzalands, 2 Crystal Grotto for mana of any color and a single basic in order to fight a possible Cleasing Wildfire.

Utility Lands:

1 Haunted Fengraf 1 Polluted Mire

These are lands that are tutored using Expedition Map when Tron is assembled and Crystal Grotto is already fetched: Polluted Mire is great for cycling a card off the map, and the fengraf is literally a tutorable spell that lets you make value off a creature in the graveyard and also helps deal graveyard hate at instant speed.

As for the maindeck, I think that there’s no room for improving: the slots for adding new cards are very tight if not existent, since all the pieces are well combined one another, and removing a single card will weaken others or also the entire strategies. The idea of the deck is to have cards that are good in any moment of the game: from turn1 to turn10, the average power of each card has to be maxed, so I preferred to avoid spike cards that are good only in certain match up or in certain spot.

Bonus: Single card discussion:

• Crop Rotation

In preliminary drafts I played 2 copies of Crop Rotation instead of Energy Refractor, but I quickly realize that mana of any color was too important; the green instant was great in assembling tron, but after that it becomes weaker, despite its good synergy with Haunted Fengranf. I thought about cutting Map or Stirrings for Crop, since they aim to the same kind of purpose, but Expedition Map is easier to cast, better in late game since it can tutor up better things, and it also enables the strongest starting hand with less cards ( two different tron lands + map vs two different tron lands + crop + green source). Ancient Stirrings shines in fetching the land trio and also in looking for combo pieces, so in every theoretical games I brainstormed the green sorcery was better than the instant counterpart. At the end, choices were made, also based on pros and cons are depicted in table:

	Expedition Map	Crop Rotation	Ancient Stirrings
Deckbuilding requirements	-	at least 18 lands	-
Casting	-	Colored mana	Colored Mana
Best scenario	2 urza’s	2 urza’s, land, color	Colorless in top5
Happy to play it	1-7 turns	1-3 turns	1-end of game

• Makeshift Munitions

In early draft, I played Makeshift Munitions as a 1 ofs for being able to win on the spot vs. decks that fog locks or list that can burn you out to death if you assemble the infinite golem combo instead of infinite life. I quickly realized that lots of my victory didn’t depend on munitions, so I cut it in favor of other cards that fit better in the strategy, defining the red enchantment as a sidebord card. This choice was strengthen by the fact that the list doesn’t feature the full set of Ichor Wellspring, which has a good synergy with it, and the fact that in this type of deck, the only role it fits is the finisher one, since the midrange plan is dropped, so action like sacrifice a myr with munitions to make a point of damage and returning another retriever won’t happen often, since in that spot you likely to have comboed off. Makeshift Munitions as a card doesn’t shine vs. faeries or other decks with small creature, since the primary function of our artifact is to filter color, and not being launched to opponent’s creatures.

• Blood Fountain

From the day1, I’ve not been a fan of the black artifact, since it requires a lot of effort and a very specific game moment to make it good: most of the time, it’s a 1B cards that discards one and draw one, and that’s not very appealing. In the previous build, where the plan was to be the value/midrange deck, the one mana artifact was a nice addition, but in this specific build it can be replaced with more impactful card, such as the third copy of Myr Kinsmith. Responding to the argument that is a good way to beat graveyard hate g1, it’s true, but Haunted Fengranf fits this role better, since it takes a land slot which is open, and it’s tutorable with Expedition Map, making the small artifact a better drawn in later turns. Responding to the argument that Blood Fountain can draw you the deck combined with Energy Refractor and Golem Foundry when comboing off, it’s true, but this scenario is very unlikely: this build runs only two copies of the filter artifact, and also having all the 7 pieces to draw the deck and kill is very hard and improbable. In a build with the full set of Energy Refractor, Makeshift Munitions and full set of all the combo pieces, can be a good addition, but good luck fit everything in a 60 cards deck.

• Faithless Looting

Faithless Loothing is just the worst version of Ancient Stirrings: the discard clause is very bad for the archetype, since it hasn’t a relevant number of cards that are better in the graveyard than in hand, and also with a low land count you’ll probably find yourself discarding spell that somehow you want to cast in later turns. In previous build with Mystical Teachings or Conjurer’s Bauble, there was a weak argument in playing some copies of this spell, but it’s hard to justify a slot for this card in recent and updated builds.

• Reckoner’s Bargain

Reckoner’s Bargain would take the 5-6th slots of Deadly Dispute, but more sacrifice clauses require more cheap artifacts to bin, and more black spells requires more fixing or dedicated mana sources: stated all these requirements, to me is not optimal to play a weaker version of Deadly Dispute that also requires some other structural fixes, so I’ll end up cutting the black draw engine.

• Foundry Inspector

This card doesn’t fit well in the deck since it does not add density or depth to the build, since it doesn’t solve a particular problem that the deck is facing or others similar issues: it’s just another piece to add for making infinite mana without Golem Foundry, but it is also more vulnerable compared to the three-mana artifact since it’s a creature with a mediocre body. It will probably be somewhat playable if the meta will shift towards more linear decks without lots of removal or burn spells; in all other cases, I think that this artifact is not worth a spot in the list.

• Dross Skullbomb / Conjurer’s Bauble

These cards all have the cons of Blood Fountains, except one pro that they are colorless, so they can be tutored with Ancient Stirrings: to me, this peculiarity is not enough to secure them a slot in the list. Conjurer’s Bauble has also the cons to be a ready-to-sacrifice artifact, that is good with Fangren Marauder, but again to me it doesn’t make the cut, since except for this fringe spot, it’s not a very good card in general (we’re not playing Eggs Tron).

• Bitter Reunion

This card is somehow similar to Makeshift Munitions in closing the game on the spot, and it also more useful if drawn before comboing off, since lets you grant a card for a cost of a spare land or a bad card (but this list doesn’t have any) in hand. However, this card has the same cons of Makeshift Munitions: it requires the assembly of 4 cards + it + a color source, and still lose to fog lock, which are one of the thing than the other option tries to beat.

• Impact Tremors / Reckless Fireweaver

These cards where my primary choice when I tested the deck on MTGO, since they are very good for closing the game under time constraints: they are a good choice becuase they don’t require a Golem Foundry, and lets you comboing off with Ashnod’s Altar + 2 Myr Retriever. I like the creature the most, since it can be seen as a 5th Golem Foundry, and it’s also good on his own, grinding life points for every artifact that enters the battlefield; Its downside is the fact that can be taken down by a removal spell and doesn’t have a very relevant body. On MTGO I play the Reckless instead of one Weather the Storm, but in paper where time is not a limit, I dropped it since the green storm instant is better in more spots, and it also can be evaluated as a wincon against a lot of the field and also, it opens up a slot in the sideboard.

Sideboard

• Anti Graveyard Hate

1 Ancient Grudge 1 Masked Vandal

These cards are used for the only purpose of removing Relic of Progenitus/Nihil Spellbomb of our opponents: the first spell can hit double relic, and the second one can be tutored by Myr Kinsmith.

• Anti linear strategies

3 Duress

We can’t do much against linear strategies such as Hexproof, Tribe, Cycle Storm etc., and each archetype requires ad hoc solutions: in order to have room for other more themed card, we figure out that the black sorcery might be the ‘catch all’ card that vs. all this type of strategies. It also has the upside to reveal hidden information that might become handy during later turns.

• Anti Swarm

2 Breath Weapon

Good vs all the decks that tries to swarm the board in the early turns, preferred to Krark-Clan Shaman since can hit flying creatures and does not require artifacts to sac.

• Lifegain

3 Fangren Marauder 1 Weather the Storm

The main purpose of these cards are to help us survive the early-mid game against too aggressive strategies, such as MonoR Kuldotha or Boros: Fangren is also a solid plan B when we take out the combo, resulting in a gameplan shift, making the build more grindy and midrangish, mainly based on the green monsters and Golem Foundry.

• Combo support

1 Makeshift Munitions

Combo piece that are brought in when we need to win in the same turn of the combo: it also has some minor utility against faeries decks (the main one is to take a counter) and is an out vs. other Fangren Marauders or other annoying creatures. Preferred to Reckless Fireweaver or Impact Tremors for its flexibility.

• Utils

2 Smash to Dust 1 Nihil Spellbomb

Smash to Dust is a premium card that is strong for his flexibility: can remove a Relic of Progenitus, can wrath a board of small creatures, and has the secret ability that is valuable against Defenders Combo. The black spellbomb is also a utility can be used against annoying graveyard interactions.

Bonus: Single card discussion:

• Krark-Clan Shaman

  The red goblin is a stellar sideboard card against specific decks, but it needs some requirements that this deck cannot offer consistently: multiple times the creature was only a 1/1 without ability, since I wasn’t able to sacrifice enough artifacts to make it work. I prefer a Pyroclasm effect in this build because, in my opinion, is a more solid choice, that can be also used to reach for flying creatures.

• Scattershot

  This is not the deck for Scattershot: in specific spot is a ‘catch all’ against Spellstutter Sprite deck, but in most of the other scenarios, is a way worse Breath Weapon. Has some synergy combined with Deadly Dispute, that enable multiple spell in the same turn, but which card is not good paired with the black instant?

• Nature’s Claim

  As hate for enchantment/artifact, we preferred Masked Vandal, since is tutorable; the green instant is faster, has fewer requirements and can be used in some fringe plays to gain life, but we evaluate more the ability to be fetched with Myr Kinsmith.

• Impact Tremors/ Reckless Fireweaver

  These cards contend the spot for the combo utility for the kill in the same turn, and we ended up in choosing Makeshift Munitions since is more flexible and, while in combo, can resolve some annoying creatures, and in general is a more powerful cards.

• Crimson Acolyte

  In multiple brainstorming session, we evaluate the white cleric as a solid way to contrast MonoR, but the creature has some problems: it takes too many sideboard slots, it’s offcolor, and sometimes the red deck win despite the presence of the protected creature. So in the end, we chose to resign to our destiny and cut the girl.

For those familiar with decklist in MTGO layout, this is the screenshot of the deck

Very bonus: Sideboard strategy

This is by no mean a complete or perfect sideboard list, but for the most part, is the best line my testing team and I figured out after playing the deck. We cluster the match up in few big categories, and then we apply some strategies based on that. The categorization is:

1. Full combo plan

   This plan is used against all the linear decks, where we need to optimize the combo in order to win as fast as possible. Since the vast majority of these decks don’t run any type of interaction, no hate card are brought in, and generic and cheap interaction spell are preferred (example: vs. Hexproof no Ancient Grudge vs. Relic of Progenitus, but 3 ofs Duress are brought in). In these match ups, time is the main actor, so the cuttable card are non-combo cards that are ‘slower’, and the only cards that are eligible are Ichor Wellspring / Energy Refractor / Deadly Dispute; we found out that it’s better to t2 Duress this type of decks rather than net a card with Ichor Wellspring. It seems odd, but any other cards in the list has a higher function or are optimized for the combo.

2. Hybrid combo plan

   This plan is used against midrange decks that runs tons of hate cards from the sidebord: the strategy is to trim some combo cards, like Ashnod’s Altar or Golem Foundry, in order to bring in other support cards that fits well vs. the deck we are facing (example: vs. Boros Fangren Marauder or Breath Weapon). This build will lead to longer matches, and more the game is taking, more time we have to draw combo spell, so we will eventually assemble the combo.

3. Fangren plan

   This plan is used against decks that runs so many hate cards that trying to finding the combo is a ‘zero sum game’, where no matter how hard we try, we won’t succeed to assemble all the combo pieces. The archetypes that are so dominant in post sideboard games are MonoU Faeries and parent builds, and some UB Terror decklists. The main goal is to win on the back of Fangren Marauder and/or Golem Foundry, trying to deal against counterspells and gy hate.

4. Control plan

   This plan is mainly used against MonoRed Kuldotha and parent builds, where we board out the main combo pieces for cards that are meant to gain life and do board control. This strategy was crafted after multiple games where games were too fast or too deep to be cleared with the combo, so it was better to explore new route in order to get the win.

Deck	Side in	Side out	Motivation	Match UP
Affinity	3 Fangren Marauder 1 Ancient Grudge	1 Ichor Wellpring 1 Myr Kinsmith 1 Weather the storm 1 Ashnod’s Altar	Fangren for survival mode	Favorable
Hexproof	3 Duress	2 Ichor Wellspring 1 Deadly Dispute	It’s one turn faster, we try to disrupt his plan. Fangren is slow in this matchup	Bad
Azorius Gates	1 Ancient Grudge 1 Masked Vandal 2 Smash to Dust	2 Ichor Wellspring 1 Golem Foundry 1 Weather the Storm	G1 very easy, G2 gl against counters / relic / d2d	Bad
Boros Gates	1 Ancient Grudge 1 Masked Vandal 1 Smash to Dust	1 Ichor Wellspring 1 Golem Foundry 1 Weather the Storm	It’s slow, removal for its Relic and no blunders on its d2d	Favorable
Boros Synth	3 Fangren Marauder 1 Weather the Storm 2 Breath Weapon	3 Ashnod’s Altar 2 Myr Kinsmith 1 Golem Foundry	Same sideboard for MonoR, but it’s slower and has no Raze	Favorable
Cycle Storm	3 Duress 1 Weather the storm 1 Nihil Spellbomb	3 Ichor Wellspring 1 Energy Refractor 1 Golem Foundry	????????????? idk	Bad
Dimir Terror	3 Duress 1 Ancient Grudge 1 Nihil Spellbomb	2 Weather the Storm 2 Ashnod’s Altar 1 Energy Refractor	Foundry is the main plan. If resolve DD on Ichor we’ll probably win	Favorable
Elves	2 Breath Weapon 2 Smash to Dust	3 Ichor Wellspring 1 Deadly Dispute	He’s faster	Bad
Familiars	3 Duress 1 Nihil Spellbomb	2 Ichor Wellspring 1 Deadly Dispute 1 Ashnod’s Altar	Depends on its sideboard	Bad
Flicker Tron	3 Duress 1 Makeshift Munitions 1 Ancient Grudge 1 Nihil Spellbomb	2 Ichor Wellspring 3 Weather the storm 1 Ashnod’s Altar	Depends on its sideboard	Medium
Goblin Combo	3 Duress 2 Breath Weapon 1 Nihil Spellbomb	2 Ichor Wellspring 3 Weather the Storm 1 Myr Kinsmith	It’s one turn faster, and also has disruption	Bad
Gruul Ponza	3 Duress	2 Ichor Wellspring 1 Weather the Storm	Nightmare in the most of the cases, but occasionally games can be stolen	Bad
Izzet/Dimir Faeries	1 Ancient Grudge 2 Smash to Dust 2 Breath Weapon	2 Ancient Stirrings 1 Weather the Storm 2 Ashnod’s Altar	Depends on the list	Medium
Jeskai Ephemerate	3 Duress 1 Nihil Spellbomb 1 Masked Vandal	1 Ichor Wellspring 3 Weather the Storm 1 Ashnod’s Altar	It has sideboard and recursion	Bad
Kiln Fiend	3 Duress 1 Weather the storm	3 Ichor Wellspring 1 Deadly Dispute	It’s 2 turn faster	Bad
Mardu Synth	1 Ancient Grudge 2 Breath Weapon	2 Ichor Wellspring 1 Weather the Storm	It’s slow, but has sideboard	Favorable
MonoU Faeries	2 Breath Weapon 2 Smash to Dust 3 Fangren Marauder 1 Makeshift Munitions	4 Ashnod’s Altar 3 Myr Kinsmith 1 Ancient Stirrings	Fangren plan, he has too much sideboard against artifact	Medium
MonoR Kuldotha	3 Fangren Marauder 1 Weather the Storm 2 Breath Weapon 2 Smash to Dust	4 Ashnod’s Altar 3 Myr Kinsmith 1 Golem Foundry	Depends on the openings, if Monastery + Raze we die, in other cases let’s play	Medium
MonoW Heroic	3 Duress 1 Weather the Storm	3 Ichor Wellspring 1 Deadly Dispute	It’s faster, but sometimes it dies on his own	Favorable
Naya/4c Gates	1 Ancient Grudge 1 Masked Vandal 2 Smash to Dust	2 Ichor Wellspring 1 Weather the Storm 1 Ashnod’s Altar	It’s slow	Medium
Orzhov Ephemerate	1 Ancient Grudge 1 Masked Vandal 2 Smash to Dust	2 Ichor Wellspring 2 Weather the Storm	It’s slow	Favorable
Tribe	3 Duress 1 Weather the Storm	3 Ichor Wellspring 1 Golem Foundry	It’s faster, survive first turns then it might be ok	Bad
Turbofog	3 Duress 1 Makeshift Munitions 1 Nihil Spellbomb	1 Ichor Wellspring 3 Weather the Storm 1 Energy Refractor	G1 is usually a guarantee loss, g2 g3 is better	Bad
Walls	2 Smash to Dust 1 Makeshift Munitions	3 Weather the storm	It’s 1 turn faster	Favorable
White Weenie	2 Breath Weapon	2 Ichor Wellspring	It’s slower than MonoR	Favorable
Boros Bully Gates	2 Smash to Dust 2 Breath Weapon	1 Ichor Wellspring 1 Energy Refractor 1 Ancient Stirrings 1 Myr Kinsmith	It’s kind of slow	Good
Slivers	1 Weather the Storm	1 Ichor Wellspring	Depends on the number of lords	Good
UR Serpentine	3 Duress	1 Ichor Wellspring 1 Weather the Storm 1 Energy Refractor	Similar to UB terror, depends on sideboard	Medium
Altar Tron	¯_(ツ)_/¯	¯_(ツ)_/¯	¯_(ツ)_/¯	¯_(ツ)_/¯

This table is the result of session of brainstorming with the testing team: for some matchups in and out might not be optimized. If you have suggestion or correction, feel free to dm me.

NB: Altar Tron sideboard strategy was intentionally left blank because tel sai.

Color pie overview

These are generic and long shot advices for generalize the sideboard not against specific cards or strategies, but against colors:

Color	Cards in	Cards out	Motivation
Blue	Duress	Energy Refractor Weather the Storm	The color doesnt’t make much pressure: card advantage is gold, since can break the 1-to-1 that counterspells make
Red	Weather the Storm, Fangren Marauder	Ichor Wellspring	The color is optimized for deals quick damage, but it’s not suited for the long run. The key is to buy time gaining life, and then try to win the late game.
White	Breath Weapon, Smash to Dust	Ichor Wellspring	The color swarm the board, so we need a way to deal against a small board as soon as possible; it also runs the best artifact removal, so eyes open
Green	-	-	The color is not so well represented, and the decks that runs it are very specific and feature different strategy. No generic advice is stated
Black	Duress	Weather the Storm	The color doesn’t have much hate cards, except from hand and land distruption. There’s no good direct answer for both, so card advantage is advised.
Artifact	Ancient Grudge, Smash to Dust , Fangren Marauder	-	There’s no decks that are full colorless, so the main takeaways is to side in artifact removal, and side out cards that are not very good against single cards opponent can play.

N.B: this is probably too generic, but before the event i did it so why not include it?

Match up ranking visual view:

This ranking may vary according to sideboard choices, player skill and overall luck. This chart is the result of my experience with the deck, so this ranking might not totally adhere with the reality of the meta and might be biased towards personal assumptions.

Tournament:

I’m doing a quick coverage of the games, highlight interesting games, decisions or fact that happened: it won’t be an in-depth, step-by-step commentary since I wanted to focus on the decklist and on the overrall strategies of the deck rather than specific matches I played; I also have the suspect that the pauper audience doesn’t really care about the descriptions of the game played written in tournaments report, but they are more happy to learn about the deck played.

Swiss: 8-1-1

Match ups:

1. Dimir Terror By Riccardo Cestari (my brother) 2-0

   Won first match on the back of double Myr Retriever that chumpblock their 5/5s and then I eventually close the game comboing off. Second match, thanks to Duress, I resolved a Golem Foundry that puts the game in midrange mode; in the early turn opponent skip some land drop, so i was able to quickly develop my board and race it.

2. Hexproof 2-0

   Lost the dice but I managed to go infinite life against his strong opening that would beat me one turn later: g2 was fast but my opponent kept a ‘slower’ t5 kill hand, but despite being on the draw, I managed to t4 kill him on the back of infinite golem.

3. Affinity 2-1

   G1 I combo off creating an infamous number of 3/3, but my opponent went to the double Galvanic Blast route + Makeshift Munitions for the kill. G2 G3 were similar, were i comboed off after some long Fangren Marauder grind.

4. Boros Synth by Diego Zaccagnini (top4) 2-1

   G1 I won effortless thanks to Weather the Storm, G2 he wrecked me with a very fast start, G3 he kept a strange one lander hand where he starts on the draw with Ancient Den Glint Hawk go, t2 skip land drop but played Relic of Progenitus. The game was strange since I didn’t find any colored source for some time, but this was mitigated by the fact that my opponent didn’t draw his second lands for multiple turns; In the end I was able to cast an Ancient Grudge that let me combo off almost full colorless.

5. MonoR Kuldotha by Francesco Quagliata (Elfman) 2-1

   G1 i steal the game with a very lucky draw where I gained infinite life gain on t4; in this game i also miss t3 Tron assemble after playing t1 Chromatic Sphere instead of Map. G2 he overwhelms me with creatures, burn spell and again burn, but G3 I saw Weather the Storm early in the game and no ‘dead card’ (such as Golem Foundry), and then at t5 I resolved a Fangren Marauder; after that i was able to win thanks to the green monster and multiple golem 3/3.

6. MonoU 2-1

   Lost to two Spell Pierce on early turns and a massive combats of Faeries and Ninjas soon after. G2 G3 I won thanks to Golem Foundry, Fangren Marauder and Weather the Storm despite multiple Spell Pierce in the early turns and lots of sideboard from my opponent. G3 was very strange, since I was able to pair two Fangren Marauder t3 and t4, and they coast to coast all the game, and after multiple chumpblock by my opponent, they finally made the last bit of damage.

7. MonoU 2-0 by Matteo Blasi (very strong player)

   G1 won thanks to Golem Foundry, G2 thanks of a well timely Breath Weapon. This match had some controversies since a judge was evoked in the winning turn, becuase I made two land drops in one turn, and that was entirely my fault. The judge call was made after I played early on a Urza’s land, and after lots of game actions I made another landrop in the form of Crystal Grotto, which made me scry 1 to the bottom. My opponent correctly called the judge, and we explained to him the situation, and he stated, after a quick conversation with the Head judge, to rewind the action (so no Crystal Grotto in play and the card on bottom goes on top), granting me a warning. In that spot, I then sacrificed Myr Retriever for a binned Expedition Map, fetched the Polluted Mire, and with that draw hit Weather the Storm, a 2/30ish out winning card. A small controversy arose because inbetween my losing position and the winning position a referee judgment were stated, so the outcome might be interpreted as biased towards a judge decision.

8. Affinity by Pietro Bragioto (my father) 2-0

   I went for the combo both g1 and g2, and despite a Negate from my opponent in the post sideboard game, i was able to win without particular effort.

9. Defender Combo 0-2

   I was 8-0 but my opponent was 7-0-1, so he needed to play: Defender Combo is one of the worst match-up for the deck, and despite my opponent’s deck was build strangely (he was playing Vent Sentinel as wincon), he wrecked me in both games.

10. RB Madness ID

    We were at table 2, and an intentional draw was summoned. My opponent (who made Top8) was on RB Madness.

11. Top8: MonoBlack Khalni Control 2-1

    I punted game1 where I failed to draw the Weather the Storm for infinite life, resulting in only an infinite army of golems, but he had a 4/4 Crypt Rats evoked off Initiative’s final room, so my Golems abruptly died each turn thanks to the rat activation; at the end I was trampled to death by his Avenging Hunter. Game 2 he mulled to 4 so I was able to quickly have access to the combo, since didn’t find lots of hate cards. In the last game, my opponent made a mistake, casting Deglamer on my Ashnod’s Altar and not on my Makeshift Munitions; I was able to sacrifice it with munitions and returning it to my hand thanks to a timely sacrifice of Myr Retriever. If he targeted Munitions, it would be a totally different game. In his defense, it was 1 am o’clock, and it was his only error in all the interactions we had in the games we played. Mistakes happen :)

12. Top4: Boros Synth by Diego Zaccagnini (the swiss one!) ID We split top4 and Diego let me play the final since he had to return home (an 8 hours trip he said), so he kindly gave me the opportunity to battle for the title. Thanks again, Diego!

13. Top2: Fog Tron by @AAdeptoTerra (my mother) 2-1 Like in fairy tales, I faced my friend and testing companion Alessandro, with his take on Flicker Tron; the final was a remake of Paupergeddon 2020, where in that spot he was gentle enough to concede for making Atogshift the winning deck; he surely was thirsty of revenge, since this time he wanted to battle. G1 I went for the combo but he fogged multiple turns until he managed to combo too thanks to 3 Urza’s Tower + Weather the Storm + Ghostly Flicker + Memnonic Wall + Rolling Thunder (one of the Tronest thing I’ve ever seen). G2 and G3 I was able to cast multiple Duress and Nihil Spellbomb, removing key pieces from his hands and graveyard; resulting me the Paupergeddon 2023 champion. Evvai! :)

Bragioto, AAdeptoTerra and me right before playing for top4. We all are in the same testing team!

Last words:

I had good luck all over the tournament, were I played my outs, and they happen (expecially vs. Hexproof, Burn and MonoU): I’m not Phil Hellmuth, so if luck weren’t a factor, I would lose everytime. The deck is a blast to play: it remembers the old Krark-Clan Ironworks time, and despite the fact that the power level is lower, I enjoyed every game I played with the deck, also the one I lost. As for the list, I’m quite confident that the maindeck is optimized: there is some arguments about Ichor Wellspring as a cuttable card, since is the worst t2 play and the first card to side out, but as I previously said, it has a very good synergy with Deadly Dispute, and I personally don’t suggest to play without it. Since the vast majority of my game were won on the back of Weather the Storm, if i have to make a change, I would probably suggest adding the fourth one to the maindeck, but I really don’t know which card to trim, and I fear that the fourth copy will weaken too much the deck against strategies that don’t threat the lifepoints, that are already the worst match up for the deck. Sideboard was specifically designed for Paupergeddon, so I won’t be surprised to see completely new cards added or removed in order to adapt it to local metagame: my suggestion is to not overplay too much out of color cards (for example, Captured Sunlight), since the deck can’t reliably afford to have much colored mana in every in-game spots.

Acknowledgments:

I would like to thank La Setta and the other players for helping me tune, brainstorm and discuss this deck, in particular:

• LDG for supporting me testing my deraged builds in its local shop and returning in impressions;
• Cossu for helping me with sideboard and general strategy postboard games;
• Stefano Fait for playing intermediate builds both online and on paper, confessing his impressions;
• Sdraio for sharing with me his take on the archetype, harden the concept of full combo builds;
• Matteo Acqua for his for never ending quest to make a deck that makes golem better and better;
• Symonet for believing in the list and actually sleeve up for the first time Tron lands;
• Sanpop for sharing his deckbuilding ideas and sideboard plans;
• Nicola Cordeschi for being IlFritto: without him, I wouldn’t probably succeed my third Paupergeddon: instead I would be doing some serious adult things, such as bank load or do the laundry (NO TIME TO PLAY)

That’s all, guys. If you have comments, suggestion, or questions about the deck, the tournament, whatever, feel free to DM me.

In lega uno sciacallo, al geddon un predatore.

Review history

2023-04-17 19:00:00: Updated Top8 game vs. MonoBlack Garden (thanks @JTruffaz) 2023-04-8 19:00:00 : First publication

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My articles will always be open source, free and reproducible. My writings will always be discussion material, and my opinions can be debated and refuted.