Pauper: Mardu Affinity Deck Tech & Sideboard Guide

I'm Tiago Fuguete, and today we're going to talk about another version of Affinity. That's right, in addition to Grixis and Rakdos Affinity, the Mardu combination () proved to be very consistent and powerful for the Pauper Metagame.

Here's our list:

As you can see, our deck is a mix of two decks: Affinity and Boros.

The Affinity part we already know, counting with creatures with affinity like Myr Enforcer and Frogmite that come into play rapidly with the addition of Blood Fountain, and the good part of Boros with creatures like Glint Hawk and Kor Skyfisher, as well as one of the best cards that has entered Pauper in recent sets, Experimental Synthesizer.

After these examples, we cannot fail to mention two cards that are the engine of this deck, drawing cards. They are Reckoner's Bargain and Deadly Dispute.

An important item to mention here is the deck's weakness. Like all Affinity variants, Dust to Dust is strong against us, even more so because our deck has 3 colors and our lands are essential, especially at the beginning of the game.

Our posture must be to go for the beatdown. We need to develop our board with mana rocks to help with affinity, and also draw cards by sacrificing them for Reckoner's Bargain and Deadly Dispute. This allows us to have more and more plays to make, in addition to piling creatures on the board and cards in hand.

About the mulligan with this deck, it's important to have the notion that it's a 3-color list, so we know that we need to land drop for a few turns and that we can't have a locked game.

In the post-side, we have to be careful with the mulligan strategy, if we are going to try to play around removal on our lands or if we will try to get something from the sideboard.

vs. Grixis Affinity

This is not a mirror. Although the two decks are very similar, ours has a big difference: the creatures with flying (Glint Hawk and Kor Skyfisher), which will interact very well with Experimental Synthesizer and this can give us a good advantage when the game gets stuck.

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vs. Boros

This matchup is good and bad at the same time. Both decks have a very similar base.

The good part is our Myr Enforcer, who forces 2-for-1 on most occasions to be dealt with.

Post-side can be pretty bad for us due to some cards, like Dust to Dust, Revoke Existence and Gorilla Shaman.

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vs. Bogles

This is one of the worst matchups for us, since in Game 1 we have few interactions.

But post-side we have Chainer's Edict and this card will be our best chance, and we can also use some cards like sweepers to increase our odds.

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vs. Rakdos Burn

Playing against the new Burn is always complicated, but I don't think this matchup is too bad for us, as we have two excellent things going for us. They are too many creatures to set a clock and Reckoner's Bargain, which can give us the time we would need to win.

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vs. Faeries

This game I think is good for us. Maybe Izzet Faeries is a bit worse post-side because of Gorilla Shaman and Shenanigans, but if it's Dimir, we won't suffer from artifact hate.

But our plan against both will be the same: try to populate the field with creatures to avoid suffering from the Monarch and attack whenever possible.

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To finish this article, I emphasize that this deck is excellent. I say it properly because I went 10-0 in a row in two Pauper leagues, plays any match well, has an answer to almost everything and is not complicated to play, so I highly recommend it.

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

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