The Off-Meta Pauper: 5 Under the Radar decks to try out!

Almost every Magic: The Gathering format suffers from the same issue: eventually, the Metagame settles and the best engines and cards take over the format, defining what does or doesn't see play in the competitive environment. This shift can happen relatively often, or an environment can stagnate for months or even years until a substantial change in tournaments occurs.

Pauper sits somewhere in the middle. On one hand, the same mechanics have dominated the format for a long time: artifact decks leaning on Fanatical Offering and the like with Ichor Wellspring, Mono Blue Tempo and Mono Red Rally have been at the top for over a year, and a dozen strategies remain stable between Tier 1 and Tier 1.5 using well-established lines—Faeries with Ninjas, Glint Hawk / Kor Skyfisher with ETBs, Utopia Sprawl with Arbor Elf, Brainstorm with Lorien Revealed, among others—giving the impression that nothing else can exist.

In this article, we look at the other side: decks that manage to put up results in Leagues and occasionally in Challenges without relying on the same foundations as the rest of the format. Some are classic archetypes that have declined or had to reinvent themselves in recent years, while others are emerging decks from new releases!

Why go for infinite combos with Myr Retriever or lock the game with Stonehorn Dignitary when we can make 1 + 1 + 1 = 7 and drop bomb after bomb? Gruul Tron trades micro-interactions for a straightforward, linear game plan of playing high-cost threats with efficient ETBs to take over the match.

The archetype was originally conceived back in Commander Legends with Maelstrom Colossus, but gained traction with Generous Ent in Lord of the Rings and has picked up one tool after another over the years: Expedition Map was unbanned, Boulderbranch Golem provided a versatile threat, and Bramble Wurm keeps any aggressive deck from getting too far ahead.

Heroic has been in Pauper for years and is still known as the most accessible entry-level archetype in the format. It's a linear, multicolor Aggro deck focused on landing a creature with Heroic or one that can protect itself, then stacking Auras, Ethereal Armor, and protection spells to let it carry the game in a few attacks.

The latest addition to the deck is Skyward Spider, whose Ward 2 makes spot interaction extremely punishing and turns any protection spell into positive Tempo, since most of them cost one or two mana. This line has recently been complemented by Armored Armadillo, whose Ward also offers some protection, and its pump ability turns it into a threat in longer games.

Most Familiars lists run the Azorius combination with Sunscape Familiar and God-Pharaoh's Faithful for infinite life. Player Nilsfit recently went 5-0 in a League using the Dimir variant with Nightscape Familiar to enable loops with Archaeomancer and close out games with Cornered by Black Mages.

Grim Bauble and Cryogen Relic are additions from recent years that interact positively with Ghostly Flicker and allow for greater board control while setting up the combo. Despite being one of the most exciting "off-the-radar" decks in recent weeks, it's worth noting just how click-intensive Familiars as a combo deck is on Magic Online, demanding a lot of patience and time to execute the loops.

Speaking of click-intensive combos, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles established a new loop in Pauper involving Devoted Druid, Banishing Knack / Retraction Helix, and Guac & Marshmallow Pizza.

The interaction works with a Devoted Druid that doesn't have summoning sickness and has been targeted by Banishing Knack to return permanents to their owner's hand. We tap Druid to generate mana, cast Guac & Marshmallow Pizza, Druid gets +2/+2 and untaps. We tap Druid again to return the Pizza to hand and put a -1/-1 counter on Druid to untap it, repeating the loop.

The result is a Devoted Druid with infinite power, leading to infinite mana, infinite bounce, and any other creature on the board also reaching infinite power. From there, just swing for lethal. This deck is even more exhausting to play on Magic Online, but once the loop is established, it becomes easy to shortcut in paper tournaments, and it wouldn't be surprising to see it make an appearance in some events in the coming weeks.

Gruul Storm follows a more classic spellslinger combo line, even though all relevant cards with the Storm mechanic are banned in Pauper. It runs eight red cost reducers to turn spells like Manamorphose, Glimpse the Impossible, and Big Score into positive or neutral mana value, allowing multiple spells to be sequenced in the same turn while sculpting the hand.

To finish the game, the deck runs the combination of First Day of Class and Seize the Storm to create one or two tokens with power and toughness equal to the number of spells in its graveyard, with Trample and Haste, forcing the opponent to have multiple removal spells to avoid losing in a single turn.

That's all for today!

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

Thanks for reading!