Bogles on Pauper's current meta - Interview with Gustavo rEPTILIUM_

Bogles recently showed up on a Challenge Top 8, on October 18th, to be precise. Bogles appeared on the second and third positions of the event.

Gustavo, rEPTILIUM_, was one of the players who made it to the top 8 on this Challenge, being on the third place with the following list:

Let's hear Gustavo's opinion about Bogles and what he thinks about the last changes on the format.

You have played with Bogles in a long time, so you probably have a well built vision about the deck's situation on the current meta. Do you think that the meta got better for Bogles after its main changes on the format: Mystic Sanctuary and Expedition Map bans, and the addition of Cast Down and Abrade?

Yes in some parts and no in some other. Mystic Sanctuary used to win games, it was a card that generated counter locks and draws that accelerated and generated resources for the answers that the deck has against Bogles.

There was a time with a lot of Mono Black decks, right after Cast Down's downgrade, but it actually wasn't bad for Bogles. On the opposite, MBC has many dead cards in this match, and the players even reduced the number of edicts to have some slots for Cast Down.

Yes, the match agains Tron is more complicated. I think Wizards made a mistake on banning Expedition Map. I'm in favor of a more assertive ban to weaken the deck and balance the format.

Which cards would you ban on Tron?

Nothing too radical. There are people who ask for the land bans. I'm in favor of banning Ghostly Flicker, Ephemerate and Bonder’s Ornament. That would be Tron Monday :)

Currently there are two Challenges a week, one on Saturday and another on Sunday. Do you see any particularities on each one of them? Players who always play in one or the other? A bigger difficulty level in one of them? Is there something like that?

Yes, I see some differences. On Sundays I notice more players from other formats coming and playing Pauper, and they end up chosing safer lists, such as Tron, UB Faeries and Boros, or more linear lists, such as Burn and Bogles.

On Saturdays, the number of players is lower. The chance of finding a different list is bigger. I see less Trons.

I can't tell about a bigger difficulty level. It is very relative, it depends on the pairings. The players of other formats may not know Pauper much, but they usually play really well.

*By analyzing your matches, we saw that you faced RDW, UB Faeries and Tron mostly. Could you talk a bit more about these matches?

R1 - Victory - Burn

R2 - Defeat - UB Faeries

R3 - Victory - RDW

R4 - Victory - UB Faeries

R5 - Victory - RDW

R6 - Victory - Tron

Top 8 - Victory - Stompy

Top 4 - Defeat - Tron

RDW

On this match there are two ways, that will depend on how is your hand. Usually, or you play a lot of bodies to have an advantage on the battlefield, or you play a really big creature with Armadillo Cloak and guarantee the race with evasion. Lifelink on Main Deck and Crimson Acolyte after siding are great on this match.

UB Faeries

On this match the two first turns are determining. That's why I am used to betting on aggressive mulligans. Winning G1 is also really important to guarantee that if there is a G3, I will be on play, since UB's advantage goes higher when it has two open manas on Bogles' turn 2.

After the first 2 turns, I always try to play more than one spell each turn, to make sure that one of them will enter.

It's a very complicated match. I think UB Faeries takes the advantage, 65% I would say.

Tron

Tron is a complicated match. On this challenge I faced the player kasa two times, winning the swiss and losing on Playoff.

Tron has the advantage, and if the player knows how to pilot the deck, has experience on knowing which hands to keep and understand the way to follow as the match goes on, the winning chances of Tron are really high, as Bogles doesn't interact much on this match.

On swiss, for instance, the player took fifteen minutes to win G1, but could have made some choices that would make him win faster. I won G2 and G3 really quick, but if he had controlled one of the matches, would probably have lost due to time.

The match has more interactions after sideboarding, what is yout plan after G1?

My plan is faith. Who plays Bogles can't be an atheist.

All jokes aside, the plan is being as fast as possible, and if you can't finish by attacking, try finishing with Ram Through or Essence Harvest, maybe with Dispel's aid as a backup.

I usually side in 7 cards: 2xEssence Harvest, 2xDispel, 1xShenanigans and 2xFaerie Macabre. Most of the times I remove 1xSentinel's Eyes, 1xLifelink, 1xKruphix's Insight 1xArmadillo Cloak, 1xCartouche of Solidarity, 1xSilhana Ledgewalker and 1xThriving Heath. For those who don't like removing creatures, I recommend removing the second Armadillo Cloak.

That was perfect, Gustavo! Congratulations on your great result and thank you very much for answering our questions about the event and about the deck's condition on the meta :)