Pauper: Caw Gates Deck Tech & Sideboard Guide

Today, I bring you an article about Caw-Gates. A little late, I guess.

Caw-Gates is no longer as present in the meta, but I have a good excuse for taking so long: I played the Brazilian Pauper Nationals in November 2022 with the deck. And after 8 rounds, I took distance from it.

That distance is not because I regretted it or because the deck is bad. Quite the contrary, the deck is excellent, and the main reason is that I got exhausted, as it demands too much from the player and in a very long tournament, this leaves marks.

After saying something not so good, I emphasize that the deck needed the time it needed, and let's talk about the many good parts of it! For example, it's one of the best decks to play against the current Metagame, in addition to being great against Mono Red Kuldotha for gaining a lot of life and protecting itself well, it has counters and removals for Dimir Terror's creatures and a good game against Affinity, mostly post-side.

Caw-Gates came about by merging a few cards together. The Modern Age is excellent and as soon as it was released it was tested in many places and there seemed to be no place for it. But with the arrival of the Gates in Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate, mainly Basilisk Gate, and Sacred Cat, that already existed, a new and very competitive deck appeared.

We need to give a special mention to the Basilisk Gate which is one of the key pieces, as it makes perfect sense to think that any deck with several Gates in the mana base and some creature with lifelink or evasion, will be great alongside it!

Decklist

Our deck consists mainly of blue and white, but as gates can generate mana of “any” color, it is easy to use other colors to improve our list or interactions with opponents.

In the maindeck we use Black for Suffocating Fumes which is a great card, as in addition to being a mini-sweeper, if it is not useful in the game, we can recycle it.

On the sideboard, we run Red Elemental Blast, essential against any deck with blue.

Our initial posture turns out to be quite Control. We want some counterspells, build a mana base and sculpt our hand with some cantrips, little by little we are putting creatures on the board while protecting them.

Caw-Gates is very strong because it has an answer to almost everything it plays against, but for that, we almost always need to extend the game. The longer it takes, the more value we can get from our cards, and we try to dry up our opponent's resources, in addition to trying to put Basilisk Gate on the board with 2 possible creatures to use, either Sacred Cat or Guardian of the Guildpact. Remembering that with the Basilisk Gate and some gates in play, any of our creatures becomes a threat.

The Mulligan here is pretty important; knowing which starting hand to start with is essential to develop the game, the current meta is faster and not having any initial answers can be troublesome.

A starting hand that we dream of is having 2 or 3 lands and preferably Gates, having a creature like Squadron Hawk and not getting flustered. Sacred Cat at the beginning isn't good at most times, and having some counterspell + cantrip makes sure we will be able to protect ourselves and find more answers.

As I said in the last article, I will always use Metagame from Cards Realm to build the sideboard guides against the main decks of the moment!

vs. Mono Red Kuldotha

We're going to start with Pauper's most played deck and I think we have a good chance of winning this match, as we have everything our opponent doesn't want to see: protection, counterspells and life gain.

As I commented in the game posture, here we have to take care of our Sacred Cat which will be the main card in the game. The moment it enters the board and is protected, we will try to attack with it as 5/5, 6/6 and its lifelink will grant us the victory.

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Side out:

vs. Grixis Affinity

Our second side is against a very strong deck. If we drag the game, Affinity doesn't care at al and will certainly have as much or more resources than us.

A differential in this game are our creatures with flying, since this is our opponent's biggest problem, but for this strategy to work we need to deal with Makeshift Munitions, which is certainly our biggest problem in the game.

On the side, we have Affinity's most feared card: Dust to Dust, which can be lethal if played early.

Side in:

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vs. Mono Blue Faeries

While it's nice to see faeries playing such an aggressive meta, it's always tricky playing against them.

In this game we cannot be too slow, we need to have cards like Squadron Hawk and, of course, manage to get them into play. Knowing how to play around Spellstutter Sprite is essential here.

Still in Game 1, a card that people don't value much in this match and I really like is Prismatic Strands, even more if it brings us important trades. Also, knowing how to fit a Suffocating Fumes is priceless.

Side in:

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vs. Orzhov Ephemerate

Having written the last article about this deck, I feel that this game is not easy to play. Orzhov Ephemerate has plenty of resources, and we need to counter specific cards and watch out for the various removals as well.

On the other hand, the game tends to be very disputed, and we have enough creatures, and of course, the Cat + Basilisk combo to keep us going.

An important detail here is that we have no side against our opponent. As much as I've looked, I don't feel the need to change anything, but that's not a bad thing, I consider it a positive sign that we already have a good deck to play since Game 1.

vs. White Weenie

On the day I wrote the article, I was surprised to see White Weenie in the top 5 decks. Even though it's not a tier 1, this matchup is not that easy.

To play against it, we will need some essential things, change our stance and also create a board, put Cat + Basilisk in play soon, and leave it protected from Journey to Nowhere.

Our opponent's strategy is to play numerous creatures and keep attacking us and try to finish with Guardians' Pledge, that is, having Prismatic Strands and/or counterspells in hand will always be important.

Side in:

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Finishing another article, I say that this is a great deck, and will probably bring you great results. One note is that it is not simple to play, it takes an extensive training, as the deck has many decisions to make and many lines and plays to choose from - but if you do, you will be greatly rewarded.

If you have any questions or suggestions, just leave them in the comments, and I'll be back to talk about it!

Thank you very much and I hope you enjoyed the reading.