Pauper: Orzhov Pestilence Deck Tech & Sideboard Guide

Today's deck is a different version from the "traditional" Pestilence decks that only runs Guardian of the Guildpact and the Monarchs Palace Sentinels or Thorn of the Black Rose as creatures.

In this version, we use many creatures, and they are:

The reason so many creatures are trying to take advantage of the effect they have when they come into play, or to give them the time we need to control the game. And with the current Metagame, I feel this list is a bit better than the traditional versions.

Other cards that I leave as a differential are the number of removals, with 4 Chainer's Edict, 4 Cast Down and 1 Suffocating Fumes and of course 4 more Pestilence, that gives our deck its name.

Another very interesting addition are the Gates:

There are 8 gates to use Basilisk Gate on Guardian of the Guildpact or any other creature, speeding up the game after being controlled.

One note about adding the Gates is that for them to enter, other lands had to leave, such as Kabira Crossroads, Radiant Fountain and Scoured Barrens which were the life lands. With their departure, we had to choose creatures that supply this life that we don't gain, even more in a Metagame as aggro as today. That's why we've included Dawnbringer Cleric and Lone Missionary that "replace" this lifegain.

Other interactions include using Kor Skyfisher: two cards that make this game possible are the Spare Supplies that when it enters draws a card — and when Kor Skyfisher enters you can return Spare Supplies to your hand, cast again and draw another card. Another one of my favorites is Omen of the Dead which says that when it comes into play you return a creature from your graveyard to your hand — if a Kor Skyfisher has died you will be able to get it back, cast Kor Skyfisher and get Omen of the Dead back to your hand and have this endless loop.

About mulligan with this deck, I believe it's something that happens very little. We have 22 lands, and plenty of cards that draw another card, so you can almost always try to play with your starting hand, but of course if you know your opponent's deck, you'll want to "choose" a better hand and that can cost you some mulligan.

About the posture in the games, we have to keep in mind that our deck is slow, so we're going to use creatures to block, take resources from draws, kill our opponent's most problematic creatures until our game is stable, which is achieved by having a Guardian of the Guildpact and Pestilence.

vs. Faeries

Let's start by talking about a good match. This game has everything to be good for us and the reasons are simple: we have many flying creatures that get in the way of Ninja's plan, we have many removals and if we manage to cast Pestilence the game is practically over.

But don't be fooled, a good game is not a won game — care must be taken to cast spells that can be countered and spells that we want to resolve, the famous "playing around".

We don't have much sideboard for this match because I don't think you need much more than what you already have in the main deck, but a Suffocating Fumes is always good.

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vs. Mono Red Aggro

Our deck has many weapons to play this game, being made with that in mind. Our biggest problem here are the tapped lands, since they can cost us the game.

On the post-side we have even more ways to deal with them and that's why I think it's a good match.

An observation I want to make here is to know how to mulligan and keep a good hand, not too slow and preferably with not too many creatures. It is important to have more removals in this matchup.

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vs. Ponza

If there's a match that's bad for us, it's this one. Even though our deck has a good amount of lands (22), taking the LDs will leave us far behind and if we don't manage to develop the game, it will be late.

Here's the difference to the traditional version because it has more discards and that could help a lot, but I feel that we can't change our deck just because of this match, as it can get in the way a lot in other games. On the post-side, we even have Castigate, but I still don't think it's enough to deal with so many disruptions.

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vs. Burn

This game is always complicated and here it got even more since, as I said at the beginning, I'm using the Gates and with that, we don't have the lifegain lands. But we have Dawnbringer Cleric, Lone Missionary, Inspiring Overseer, so as complicated as this match is, we still have a lot of chance to win.

On the post-side, I don't even need to comment on Circle of Protection: Red, which can simply win the game or avoid our defeat as much as possible.

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vs. Orzhov Pestilence

This is a mirror that I don't know if you'll find it so easy, even more with the model of using the Gates, but like every article I end up putting the mirror.

If the mirror is against the creature-based version, it can be tedious to play, since our plan will be the same and the game can be extended for too long. The best card in the match is Palace Sentinels with a protected board, this will definitely be the big difference.

But if it's against a traditional list, which will try to kill all our creatures, the best cards in the match are Kor Skyfisher and Omen of the Dead, the better interaction against decks with many removals, since it adds some kind of inevitability of having them run out of removals before we run out of threats.

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Ending another article, I say that this deck is good against what is good, and average or bad against the rest. It's a deck that I play a lot and I really like it, I suggest you to give it a try.

Any questions or suggestions, just leave it here in the comments, and I'll come back to talk about it!

Thank you very much, and I hope you enjoyed the reading.