Pauper: Black Mage Gardens - Deck Tech & Sideboard Guide

Black Mages are currently the most important mechanic in Final Fantasy for Pauper. Motivated especially by Black Mage’s Rod and Cornered by Black Mages to create tokens that interact with non-creature spells, establishing new variants of known archetypes, while other players experiment with innovative decks around this new mechanic.

One of the archetypes that gained reinforcements with this theme was Golgari Gardens, which takes advantage of most of the cheap spells in the list combined with Pactdoll Terror to increase the pressure it exerts on the opponent.

This list is a new version of the already known Golgari Gardens since Pactdoll Terror changed the structure of this archetype to be even more artifact-based. Final Fantasy brought the Black Mages with Black Mage’s Rod and Cornered by Black Mages to the plan proposed by Terror since Aetherdrift: to generate card advantage and respond to the opponent while gradually damaging them outside of combat.

Our first turns are composed of setups: we want Khalni Garden or Blood Fountain on the first turn, for Black Mage’s Rod, Ichor Wellspring or Refurbished Familiar on the next turn and, from there, start sculpting our proactive line as we respond to what the opponent plays. Between Crypt Rats and Cast Down, we have ways to deal with both go wide decks and archetypes with bigger threats, allowing us to extend the game until we can play Pactdoll Terror and/or start extracting value from the Draw 2 effects.

Maindeck

The win condition.

Pactdoll Terror, in addition to the 3/4 body that represents a decent clock on empty boards, also interacts with the wide range of artifacts we have in the list. Even without Deadly Dispute, Terror remains one of the best additions to the black midrange in Pauper this year, and if Final Fantasy is anything to go by, it should continue to be that way.

Black Mage’s Rod offers both an artifact, a token to sacrifice with the Dispute effects, and another ping effect that stacks with Pactdoll Terror to end games faster. It is worth mentioning that any creature equipped with it receives this ability, so we can even attach it to Pactdoll to double the triggers when we play artifacts like Blood Fountain or Fanatical Offering, which creates an artifact token.

Cornered by Black Mages can be seen as a creature that, when it comes into play, the opponent sacrifices a creature. This token also has the same ability granted by Black Mage’s Rod, so it adds to the total damage dealt by other cards.

The artifact plan also involves Refurbished Familiar and cards to speed up its casting, such as Blood Fountain and Ichor Wellspring.

Blood Fountain offers ways to recover Refurbished Familiar and Pactdoll Terror in longer games, or reuse Crypt Rats after sacrificing it to clear the board.

Ichor Wellspring replaces itself in its controller's hand when played, and has a dozen interactions with the artifact sacrifice effects we have on the list, allowing us to draw three cards for two mana.

The sources of card advantage. They all have the same condition: sacrificing an artifact or creature to draw two cards. What differentiates them and consequently creates the 3-3-2 splits are the additional effects.

Eviscerator’s Insight guarantees extra draws in longer games, since we can use it from the graveyard by paying the Flashback cost, while Fanatical Offering puts another artifact in play to be sacrificed while triggering Pactdoll Terror. Reckoner’s Bargain guarantees an important life gain, which complements Weather the Storm in Games 2 and 3 against Aggro.

Crypt Rats is our main way to deal with go wide decks and works as another win condition if the game goes on for a long time, as long as we have more life than our opponent and are out of Lightning Bolt or Galvanic Blast's range.

Suffocating Fumes deals with Faeries, Elves and even Bogles while also providing “extra draws” in games where it is not needed due to Cycling. Depending on your Metagame, it is possible to replace a copy of it with Snuff Out.

Cast Down is our unconditional removal against bigger threats like Writhing Chrysalis and Myr Enforcer, or even Pactdoll Terror in the mirror.

Nihil Spellbomb is a good Graveyard hate that we can use in the maindeck while offering another “extra draw” in the list, in addition to having several interactions with our other cards.

Toxin Analysis as a one-of works with a Black Mage tokens to gain life with the spells we cast for a turn, but its main function is to target Crypt Rats to gain an absurd amount of life while clearing the board, or destroy all creatures for two mana.

Troll of Khazad-dûm is another target for Blood Fountain and increases the consistency of our access to green by searching for Haunted Mire with its Cycling ability.

Since we have cards that care about artifacts, Vault of Whispers is an obvious inclusion to increase the consistency of casting Refurbished Familiar for the lowest possible cost and triggering Pactdoll Terror for free.

Khalni Garden provides a blocker and/or fodder for the DIspute effects for the virtual cost of one mana, since the land enters tapped. Bojuka Bog has the same condition, but to exile a graveyard, useful against Dredge, Tolarian Terror, and several lists that run Blood Fountain.

Golgari Rot Farm reuses the ETBs from the lands above and guarantees the next turn's land drop, while Haunted Mire can be fetched with Troll of Khazad-dûm to gain access to green, which is especially relevant in post-sideboard games.

Sideboard

Weather the Storm is the best way to hold Aggro decks in the current Metagame, and we can often punish the opponent for overextending with a high Storm count. It is effective, but we need to interact with the board and the opponent's alternative plans to make the "extra turns" really count.

That's where Drown in Sorrow comes in. Most Aggro decks today are go wide, so a three-mana sweeper can delay enough of their turns for Crypt Rats to deal with the second sequence of creatures, or for us to stabilize with our threats.

Duress is our usual answer against decks that have plenty of spells that we need to respond to. These include Mono Blue/Dimir Terror, Affinity, Jund Wildfire, Bogles, among others.

Troublemaker Ouphe has interactions with the number of tokens we create to exile artifacts. It works as removal against Myr Enforcer and Refurbished Familiar and also deals with Bridges while leaving a 2/2 body on the board that we can reuse with Blood Fountain.

Campfire grants extra life gain against Aggro and has the function of “locking” the High Tide combo until the opponent manages to deal with the artifact. Players know how to play around this artifact with Gigadrowse and Bounces, but it usually, together with Duress, offers enough turns for us to win before they close the combo.

Madness Burn

IN

OUT

Synthesizer Burn

IN

OUT

If the opponent uses Sneaky Snacker:

OUT

Mono Blue Terror

IN

OUT

Jund Wildfire

IN

OUT

Mono Blue Faeries

IN

OUT

Grixis Affinity

IN

IN

OUT

Bogles

IN

OUT

High Tide

IN

OUT

Elves

IN

OUT

That's all for today!

If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment!

Thanks for reading!