Pauper: Boros Bully Deck Tech & Sideboard Guide

I'm Tiago Fuguete, and the deck we're going to talk about today has been producing good results and is great for competitive play at the current Pauper.

Boros Bully has always been a strong and great deck for tournaments and even more competitively. It is an Aggro with good answers and protection for its creatures. The list always goes through some update, but currently, it is well positioned due to the other famous decks in the Metagame, where Boros Bully ends up having a good or even game against them.

In the list I'm playing, I've been using some cards in the main deck that weren't very common, but that the Metagame "forces" us to run and ended up improving many games. I end up seeing many decks like Affinity, Burn, Faeries, Elves and Goblins Combo and our maindeck is prepared to play these matchups.

Our Decklist:

I will highlight some cards and explain the reasons to run them in more decks.

Cards like Lunarch Veteran // Luminous Phantom and Sacred Cat will help us against Burn and aggro decks, we have Electrickery that will be excellent against Faeries, Elves and on the mirror, and Prismatic Strands against Goblins Combo. Of course, we have Dust to Dust against Affinity.

I have to confess that I wrote and deleted this part several times because the strategy is not just to put several birds on the board, protect yourself with Prismatic Strands and cast Rally the Peasants, winning many times in just one attack. It would be simple, but that's not quite how it works.

Our deck seems simple, but we have to know when to act, we have to be careful with sweepers, and we have to know how to spend our resources at the right time.

I don't particularly like opening a handful of lands with Faithless Looting and discarding and drawing other cards right on turn 1. I won't say it's wrong, but it's not my favorite choice. I like having information on what I'm playing against, and maybe in the future I'll want to discard something I can reuse for "free" if it's in the graveyard.

Squadron Hawk is one of the best cards to have in your starting hand, especially if you're on a Mulligan. If it resolves, in addition to a creature with flying on the board, we will "draw" three other creatures.

One card that surprised me positively was Thrilling Discovery. The addition of 2 more cards that give us a draw and can discard improved the odds of finding the right answers. I believe this is the main mechanic we have on the list these days, as the deck has 6 cards that can be drawn and discarded and 22 cards that can be used from the graveyard.

Still talking about discarding and drawing new cards, let's look at Dust to Dust in the maindeck. There are numerous Affinity variants, and it is present in every tournament. For being a strong contender, it made me make room for answers right on the main deck (as well as another one on the sideboard).

If the game is not against Affinity, we can just discard it. But if you don't like the idea, it's like a flexible slot to swap for some other card of your choice.

vs. Affinity

We are well-prepared prepared for the main deck with our Dust to Dust, but that doesn't mean it will be easy because as a friend says: "you have it, but is it in your hand?". This means that, to win or increase our odds, we have to use it right away, and if possible, right at the start of the game.

Affinity has a card that is incredibly troublesome for us, Makeshift Munitions, which, in addition to interacting with their rocks to draw cards, kills our creatures right away. In this case, I try to make as many creatures as possible so that they start to spend lands as well and by the time we play Dust to Dust, they will be far behind in the game.

Post-side against any deck that has red, we'll have to watch out for Fiery Cannonade. Against Affinity, it is no different. Keep your Prismatic Strands ready whenever possible.

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vs. Faeries

Here I'm going to consider it a good game for us because we managed to do what few decks do against faeries: creatures with flying. With this, we avoid as much as possible that the opponent goes for Ninjutsu.

The difference here will be the sweeper that we need to be careful about because Dimir has Echoing Decay and/or Suffocating Fumes, and from Izzet has Electrickery and/or Fiery Cannonade. What's the difference? Against Dimir, we only have Parapet as an answer, and against Izzet, we have Prismatic Strands.

We have Electrickery in the main deck, which is a great card against Faeries. We also have 2 cards that our opponents will do their best to counter, especially if they don't have a sweeper: Squadron Hawk and Battle Screech as, in addition to stopping the faeries, it will also be our way to keep attacking and win the game.

One card I miss in the deck, especially against Dimir, is Journey to Nowhere, since it is our best answer against Gurmag Angler.

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vs. Elves

This matchup was good for us, but with Jaspera Sentinel, things got complicated, as this creature blocks ours incredibly well. So, we have to go by quantity and try to win in just one

swing and Rally the Peasants.

We have 2 cards to help us: Electricery to attempt to clear the opponent's board and Prismatic Strands to protect us from attacks, giving us time to develop our game.

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vs. Gruul Ponza

This game is very tense and will depend a lot on the speed of each deck. For Bully, the ideal is to play as many creatures as possible as quickly as possible and avoid giving the opponent time to establish their board, but at the same time, we have to be able to keep the lands in play.

Although our deck has many low-cost creatures, we also want to resolve several high-cost cards like Battle Screech to create 4 creatures with just one card and to cast and recap Rally the Peasants, trying to finish the game as soon as possible.

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vs. Boros Bully

The mirror match is a tricky game, where having cards like Squadron Hawk at the beginning and Battle Screech on turn 4 will be essential. But always imagine that your opponent can make the same play, which is why we've included a maindeck Electrickey.

I usually imagine this mirror with a locked board, the two players protecting each other with Prismatic Strands and trying to generate more resources with lootings. It is at this time that, due to some carelessness from either player, Electrickery can end the game.

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This is another deck that I highly recommend you play. It's fun, strong and will bring you good results. I say this with experience from playing many tournaments and leagues with it, even going 5-0 with that same list.

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.