Mystical Teachings is a historic card in Pauper. Its first appearances were in an archetype that eventually led to one of the most notable bans of the early format: Cloudpost, where, not unlike Tron a few years later, the absurd amount of mana the land generated was used to lock opponents with Capsize.
Years later, the card would form its own Control list with Evincar's Justice and would be a core part of Flicker Tron decks until it was banned and subsequently unbanned. Now, the archetype returns to Pauper with a new, yet old, guise: Dimir Control in its purest form, utilizing a toolbox of Instants combined with Campfire to hold the game until it's completely stabilized.
The Decklist
Although the years have brought new developments, the essence of Teachings remains the same: hold the game as long as possible and win with Evincar's Justice once the game is stabilized. The choices have changed: Darkness, which has existed in Pauper for years, has become a necessity as the Metagame got way faster, while Cast Down and Deduce were considerable improvements brought by the 2023 and 2024 releases.
Campfire is, in part, the core of this strategy. Besides holding back aggro and delaying the High Tide combo-win, the artifact allows us to reuse the entire deck, including one or two copies of Teachings we haven't played with the Flashback cost to preserve our picks—and reintroduces a second win condition into the deck: the Troll of Khazad-dûm beatdown.
Maindeck
The card advantage package is the most important part of this deck. It's with them that we find the pieces we need for each game.
Mystical Teachings enables our toolbox. Besides finding standard answers like Cast Down and Counterspell, it also draws specific one-ofs like Diabolic Edict, Lose Focus, and Crypt Incursion, ensuring we have the right cards in different matchups.
Behold the Multiverse was once a Pauper staple but lost its place due to power creep. In Teachings, it works perfectly as a means of filtering the top and maintaining card advantage, while we can set it up as early as the second turn to cast it later in the late game.
Lorien Revealed allows us, along with Troll of Khazad-dûm, to run only 17 lands as it finds the turn's land drops early in the game while offering an efficient draw 3 as the game goes on.
Cast Down and Counterspell are staples of this color combination and cornerstones of the format's responses. There's no reason to run fewer than four copies of each in a Control list.
I never thought this moment would come, but Darkness is a core card for this deck in Pauper to keep Aggro decks running, especially Mono Red Rally and strategies like Elves.
Deduce is a more flexible version of Think Twice and offers two cards for four mana over the course of two turns in the early game or in the same turn in the late game.
Diabolic Edict is an instant-speed response against Bogles and creatures with built-in protection, while Suffocating Fumes provides a cheap sweeper against X/1 creatures that can also be recycled for extra draws.
Muddle the Mixture responds to instants and sorceries and functions as a pseudo-tutor for two-mana spells like spot removals. Lose Focus resolves any spell, but its main focus is to counter the Replicate trigger from Stream of Thought or the Cascade target from Boarding Party and Annoyed Altisaur.
Crypt Incursion is a maindeck answer to graveyards that also functions as an extra life gain against aggro in the late game.
Evincar's Justice is our main win condition and also our main sweeper. With Campfire, we negate the damage it deals while forcing an empty board and dealing two damage to the opponent each turn.
Innocent Blood deals with creatures with Hexproof in the same slot and also resolves Tolarian Terror or the opponent's one-drops early in the game.
Troll of Khazad-dûm's main function is to search for Contaminated Aquifer, but when we fully control the game, we can cast it to end the matchup faster. There are times when playing it on the sixth turn is a more effective ticket to victory than waiting until the opponent is exhausted, especially for Magic Online's clock count.
Campfire slows down Aggro's clock and also negates the damage dealt to us by Evincar's Justice. Another core function of the artifact is to prevent an easy defeat against High Tide or to force the opponent to play around the artifact, in addition to allowing us to reuse our spells for a second round of Teachings.
Nihil Spellbomb is the best answer to graveyards we have in the format today, being essential against Mono Blue Terror, High Tide, Spy Combo, and useful against Madness Burn or Jund Wildfire.
In addition to basic lands, two copies of Contaminated Aquifer can be found with our landcycling cards and complement the consistency in color access.
We also have the combination of Bojuka Bog and Dimir Aqueduct as another answer against graveyards in the maindeck, and Aqueduct guarantees extra land drops in a list with 17 lands.
Sideboard
Steel Sabotage is a well-targeted hate deck against Affinity and Wildfire that also functions as a one-mana Time Walk since we can return the Bridges to the opponent's hand. The 2-2 split with Annul is due to respect against Bogles' more explosive turns, especially on the draw, but you can include a full set of them if you prefer.
Hydroblast addresses the format's red Aggro and offers spot removal in matches where Innocent Blood isn't usually a good choice.
Dispel is our main answer against Mono Blue in all its variants, and it also works perfectly against Ephemerate lists.
Duress provides a flexible card against multiple matchups, offering valuable information on the opponent's cards while also removing a key piece from them.
An extra copy of Nihil Spellbomb is necessary for the consistency we need for a card we can't fetch with Teachings in matchups where we can expect explosive combos from the opponent or where we need to repeatedly deal with the graveyard to delay Mono Blue Terror's tempo plays.
Sideboard Guide
Mono Blue Terror
IN
OUT
Jund Wildfire
IN
OUT
Grixis Affinity
IN
OUT
Mono Red Rally
IN
OUT
Madness Burn
IN
OUT
Mono Blue Faeries
IN
OUT
High Tide
IN
OUT
Spy Walls
IN
OUT
Altar Tron
IN
OUT
Bogles
IN
OUT
Wrapping Up
That's all for today!
If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment!
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