
Deck tech
A Problem at Pauper's Monarchy?
12/05/20 0 comments
Fall From Favor is the third most played card from Pauper in just two weeks, what exactly this could mean for the future of the format?

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Where exactly is Pauper right now ?

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Is the card that good ?
So, which decks are benefiting?
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So, What should I play ?
1) Play Monarch
This is the most objective: If you can't against them, join them. More necessarily, play with a deck that uses Fall From Favor in the best way possible. Playing Monarch is actually one of the best ways to counteract Monarch cards or decks because it all depends then on whoever has the best board position, most removals or the last Monarch card. If I were to pick a list today, I would probably tell you to play Dimir Faeries, but there are plenty of other options that goes from Mardu Monarch to the recent Gruul Ponza decks and you must define which one best suits your gameplay style. Furthermore, I honestly believe that the full potential for Fall From Favor interactions with other cards of the format has not yet been fully achieved yet, and we may see decks with the enchantment in the near future.2) Go-Wide
The best option to fight Monarch, in theory, is to play with "Go-Wide" strategies, but this strategy has suffered considerable damage with the inclusion of Fiery Cannonade to the format, so you have two options:A)
-> Play with decks that don't care about the Sweeper or manage to get around it efficiently. These decks includes Affinity, Boros Bully and Slivers.B)
-> Take advantage of that the metagame is gradually moving away from a format where the sweeper is essential in large quantities and use the classic [card] Burning-Tree Emissary) decks.3) Play decks that either ignore or interact favorably with the enchantment
Decks that use cards that have built-in protection like Bogles, or decks that can protect your creatures at instant-speed like Heroic are options that fit into this category, but aren't the only ones.Ad
4) Play Control
And by Control I mean pure, hardcore control, those that use very few or no creatures, see for example this list of Dimir Control that was fourth in the last Challange: Decks like this make the life of decks that try to capitalize on the enchantment more difficult, as they can accumulate more card advantage and control the table more efficiently, prolonging the game to the point where the opponent's resources become irrelevant.What can we expect from the future?
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What I believe that will happen
-> Fall From Favor will be banned from the format within the next 50 days.What might happen in 2021
-> If Monarch remains as a predominant mechanic after banning Fall From Favor, there will be an errata in the mechanic so that it no longer works outside of Multiplayer games + Banning the Urza lands. I don't particularly like this deliberate method of using the banlist or errata, but it is a possible scenario, if not probable. My problem with this kind of logic is how the format would behave later: You take out Monarch and Tron and that opens up space for other strategies to emerge and, as a consequence, other Card Advantage interactions or new "best decks" will emerge together, and soon there will be other cards that people will start to talk about banning. How long will health and satisfaction with this new format last before they ask to ban Bonder's Ornament, Spellstutter Sprite, Stonehorn Dignitary, Ghostly Flicker, Ephemerate or Fiery Cannonade?Conclusion
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