The Hawkeye's Bow and Seeker of Skybreak combo will be legal in Pauper, and a preventive ban will not happen at least until June 30. In an announcement made by Gavin Verhey, the Pauper Format Panel stated that it intends to evaluate the results of the first week to decide whether the interaction between the two cards is powerful enough to ruin the Metagame's diversity.This means players need to be ready. After all, Hawkeye will be the hot deck in the first week of Marvel Super Heroes, starting June 23, and several variants of it have already appeared on social media and private message groups. We even published an article with five different variants in which the pieces can fit.Therefore, we present the other side of the spectrum: how to prepare for the Hawkeye Combo and which cards in each color are the best suited to handle it.What you need to answer the Hawkeye ComboThe combo consists of two pieces for three mana: a 2/1 creature that needs a Haste enabler to win the game immediately, or to survive an entire turn cycle, and a one-mana equipment with a cheap equip cost.Ideally, the answers we want need to follow some criteria.- Interact at instant speed to prevent an insta-win.- Have a low cost so you are not forced to spend several turns holding an answer, or to be able to play more than one of them in the same turn in response to a protection spell.- Deal with artifacts on the opponent's turn while having other functions in the Metagame to improve our matchup coverage.Both pieces can be protected by Tamiyo's Safekeeping, but Snakeskin Veil and similar effects protect only Seeker of Skybreak. Avoid Fate is a less popular option, but one we need to keep in mind for instant-speed removals — and the best answers involve interactions on the opponent's turn.Since this combo is easy to insert into various strategies, we also need to consider linearity. An Abrade will be more efficient than Natural State in a Gruul list because, besides answering both pieces, it also interacts with other lines the opponent's list might have. The selection of flexible cards can also vary depending on the opponent's deck: an Elves list with the combo will be better answered with Cast into the Fire, while a Walls deck has more important targets for Abrade.Universal AnswersThere are two cards capable of answering Seeker of Skybreak that fit into any list, regardless of color.Gut Shot is probably the most popular and reliable because it has no cost or concession to be played, while Viridian Longbow can "lock" Skybreak as long as the opponent does not have protection and can also repeatedly handle X/1 creatures.WhiteThe challenge in white is that Dust to Dust, the traditional answer from White Weenie and other white archetypes for artifacts, is terrible against Hawkeye's Bow on the combo turn. If Hawkeye becomes too popular, it may be necessary to diversify this category of answers a bit more, even if it means having a worse matchup against Affinity.Thraben Charm is already a staple and can answer Seeker of Skybreak at instant speed. Cathar Commando is part of a common category, but it is the only one with Flash, allowing it to put another body on board and a way to answer Hawkeye's Bow at a relatively low cost without giving up proactivity.On the Sideboard, some White Weenie lists resort to Sunlance to complement their removal. It may be necessary to swap this slot for Last Breath. Fragmentize is the cheapest Sideboard answer for Hawkeye's Bow, and if we enchant Seeker of Skybreak with Spirit Link, the opponent will not be able to perform the combo.BlueBlue already has a wide range of well-known answers between Counterspell and Hawkeye's Bow is an easy target for Steel Sabotage, Annul, and Hydroblast. Another important element, even for non-Faerie decks if the combo becomes very popular, is the possibility of treating Spellstutter Sprite as a Snapcaster Mage for Mental Misstep, preventing the artifact from resolving the same way we used to play it during the Modern Horizons era to counter Ephemerate and Arcum's Astrolabe.Skybreak is a slightly more difficult piece. Blue has Curse of Chains, Sleep of the Dead, and similar effects to lock it, as well as bounces like Snap, but none of these are as efficient as Gut Shot in most cases.The big challenge for the color will be dealing with the rest of the combo's home. Elves is already an unfavorable matchup, Walls may not be great either, and lists with Writhing Chrysalis tend to be troublesome. Mono Blue might struggle against the environment where the deck fits, and Dimir/Izzet lists could grow due to the breadth of answers.BlackBlack has the opposite problem to blue: it handles Seeker of Skybreak very well since there is no shortage of one-mana or even free removal that deals with it, but it only has Divest as an answer for Hawkeye's Bow.Due to protection spells, Snuff Out might become even more important, while Defile, Fungal Infection, and Disfigure may be necessary in some quantity in the 75 to have more low-cost answers to the combo. Suffocating Fumes also matters if the only protection spell is Tamiyo's Safekeeping.Like Spirit Link, Vampiric Link permanently locks the combo even if Skybreak stays on board, but it seems redundant in black.RedRed can answer both fronts of the combo.Lava Dart becomes more important in Burn lists to hold off Skybreak twice with the same card. Abrade and Cast into the Fire stop the combo on both fronts and have other functions in the Metagame. Krark-Clan Shaman forces the opponent to play around it if their deck is heavy on artifacts. Siege Smash doubles as a pump spell and removal for Hawkeye's Bow with a card that cannot be responded to.There is also Artifact Blast, a red stack interaction that counters an artifact spell for one mana. It is too linear, but there might be a situation where trying to resolve the combo on board becomes too difficult due to an excess of protections.GreenGreen, in part, has the same problem as blue. It handles Hawkeye's Bow, but it may struggle to answer Seeker of Skybreak.At instant speed, Deglamer and Heritage Reclamation are the most efficient cards, with Natural State (or Nature's Claim, if you play Infect) costing less to destroy Hawkeye's Bow. In rare situations where Bow enters before Skybreak, Masked Vandal and Troublemaker Ouphe are already common staples for dealing with artifacts.Dealing with Seeker of Skybreak is a problem, but besides Gut Shot, Hornet Sting is a one-mana green removal spell for X/1 creatures, and Ram Through sees play in Ramp and Bogles lists to destroy creatures on board and/or remove blockers.What are the best answers to the Hawkeye Combo?The ideal answer may vary depending on which version of the combo proves most efficient. An Elves list requires, besides cheap spot removal, some number of cheap sweepers to handle the go-wide Aggro plan B.A Temur/Gruul Midrange or Ramp version can be slowed down with a Gut Shot, but you probably want cards like Abrade or Snuff Out to have answers against larger threats. All-in combo lists require more cheap, targeted interaction to play around protections, but they are likely more vulnerable to Counterspell and Spellstutter Sprite.The first week of Marvel Super Heroes in Pauper will be quite chaotic as players try to find a way to break the new combo. It will feel like speedrunning. After all, if Challenge and League results show significantly high dominance, we will have the second fastest ban in Pauper's history, at just one week.If you play one of the Challenges in launch week, prepare accordingly, broaden your range of answers for a few variants, and keep an eye on emerging lists to know what you might have to face. If the combo seems broken, there will already be hundreds of people complaining on Twitter.Despite the warning of a possible ban on June 30, the date does not inspire much confidence. There are only seven days between Marvel's release on Magic Online and the ban date, and it would take numbers similar to the Turbo Initiative era to confirm, in just one week, that Pauper has broken again. This means the combo needs to be so powerful and have such a well-defined home that it consistently makes up more than 50% of the Top 32 in Challenges.The judgment on the Hawkeye Combo, given the short exposure time, risks being based solely on social media reaction. If the numbers do not match expectations and claims, I hope the panel has the discernment to make a decision even if it is unpopular.
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