Pauper: RUG Gates Deck Tech & Sideboard Guide

Since Basilisk Gates addition to Magic Online it has been a force to be reckoned with. Some players said it should be banned when the initiative was banned as it will completely warp the format. That hasn't happened, but it does create interesting deck building and all are fairly competitive shells.

The most common archetypes you will know is Caw Gate and 4-Color Gates, which is a GW shell splashing other colors it sees fit.

Today we are looking at Temur Gates , a Midrange brew that utilizes the powerful Green & Blue options that synergize with Gates. I've been testing this color combination a lot since the release of March of the Machine.

The aim of most Basilisk Gate decks is to play on an off curve game plan, and play to the board.

What this does for the board state is allow you to stabilize against archetypes like Faeries & Affinity. You can then use the inevitability of Basilisk Gate to buff any creature, to kill your opponent.

Taking a look at the card choices, shows you how we are leaning into the strength of this strategy.

The Manabase

Basilisk Gate is the payoff and the reason to be playing gates. Every creature that can attack is a threat. The opponent has to be concerned about everything on the board, no matter how small. This scales up to incredible numbers when in multiples.

Heap Gate isn't really a payoff as such, but it gives you something to do with your mana when flooded. Also is just a Shimmering Grotto at worst. Finally, being an untapped land that adds to your gate count is nothing to turn your nose up at.

The rest of the gates are to be your main source of color fixing, they are pseudo three color lands at any given time before being played. Planning out your land drops and colors you play is very Important and can be game defining in some instances as most of your lands enter tapped.

The Creatures

Arboreal Grazer is the heart of the deck. It really allows you to keep up with your opponent. Hitting land drops to cast your three and four drops on time. Having reach and being an 0/3 is wonderful against faeries.

Hard Evidence is the blue Thraben Inspector. It blocks and attacks if needed. What this allows you to do is draw a card when you have excess mana or need to dig for more action.

Gatecreeper Vine fixes your mana by getting other gates/basics and is Basilisk Gate copies 5 - 8. This card has excelled my expectation in any green gate deck I have played.

Saiba Cryptomancer is one of the cards I was really excited to test when March of the Machine came out. This card has over performed in every way with this deck. It does three significant things: it is a protection spell, similar to Apostle’s Blessing in Kiln Fiend.

It’s a creature that is protected with Hexproof, so it provides a reliable place to put your Basilisk Gate Activations. Finally, It has Flash, why this doesn’t seem all that relevant on its own being a Flash 1 / 3 lets you block relevant creatures like Ninja’s out of Faeries, but also allows you to push extra damage out of nowhere by casting end of turn.

Duskshell Crawler may look out of place, but allows you to give any creature you have previously protected with Saiba Cryptomancer or even Duskshell Crawler to allow pushing trample damage through with Basilisk Gate. Trample and Inevitability are the two main points to look at when playing this gate deck, and more ways to grant Trample on a creature is appealing to me.

Sea Gate Oracle is the best defensive blue card to hand. It blocks really well and also replaces itself. Not all our card choices are flashy and exciting. Sea Gate Oracle gives you card selection and something to do with your mana early. I believe this slot needed to be a three drop blue card for curve considerations and to give a minimum amount of blue creatures to allow us convoking Meeting of Minds for free.

Jewel Thief is our Guardian of the Guildpact in none white gate decks. A creature that is good at attacking on its own without Basilisk Gate, but can just take over the game when you combine it with the gate pay off.

Saruli Gatekeepers is a necessary evil. With all the Red Aggro decks around, it is a must-have to consider those matches when building your own deck. Gatekeeper is a creature which leans into your game plan well. Also providing you significant life gain allowing you a chance to stabilize against the Red Menace.

Mulldrifter is a type of card you need very little excuse to include in your mainboard. You are a creature-based Midrange deck that needs to gain card advantage, Mulldrifter is your card. We aren’t doing anything flashy like Ephemerate or Ghostly Flicker, but it does what we need it to do.

The Spells

Flame Slash may seem like an interesting choice, but the card seems really well positioned right now, especially as a poor man’s Galvanic Blast. I know it doesn’t go to the face, but it does allow you to kill all the Four Toughness Creatures we care about, like Myr Enforcer, Spire Golem and Saruli Gatekeepers. Being a sorcery can be an issue, but overall the card seems much stronger as a removal spell, it seems better positioned than Lightning Bolt in my opinion.

Smash to Dust and similar cards like Suffocating Fumes are in a strange position currently. With Kuldotha Rebirth on the downward trend, there is less reason to focus 1 damage effects. However, the second most played archetype is Faeries. With the recent shift of the Red Menace being more like traditional burn, it can be conflicting to put these types of effects in your deck. Smash to Dust can have useful game against Affinity, Walls and has some game against burn, as it can kill Thermo Alchemist.

Meeting of Minds, a new card from March of the Machine that I find is a great card draw spell when your deck is full of Creatures to help you cast it for free. It's a great card to help dig for Basilisk Gate. Being an Instant allows you to keep options open, like casting Saiba Cryptomancer, sacrificing a clue or casting Meeting of Minds.

The game plan for this deck is fairly straightforward. Ensuring you hit your land drops, and playing creatures on time. These creatures should provide a board stall, allowing you to gain the inevitability that you need to end the game.

For this reason, you ideally want a hand with at least three lands, Jewel Thief, Arboreal Grazer and any other creature.

What this hand allows you to do is keep playing land drops, progressing your game plan or playing irritating creatures that hopefully prevent your opponent's game plan.

Looking at the sideboard, you can see cards I have considered against the metagame.

Red Elemental Blast is a fairly easy card to include in the sideboard, as it is a good catch all. It can be useful to ensure a threat resolves, to counter a Counterspell. It can also kill or Counter a Tolarian Terror in a heartbeat.

A small note: there is a small difference between Pyroblast and Red Elemental Blast. Pyroblast can target a none blue spell or permanent. This is useful in decks that want triggers from casting spells, or that care about the graveyard in some way. This is not any of those. There are cards that are prevalent in the current metagame, Coalition Honor Guard and Standard Bearer are cards typically used by the Cawgate or the Jeskai Gates Archetype. This means that if you want to kill a The Modern Age // Vector Glider I prefer to use Red Elemental Blast because it prevents it from being redirected.

Blue Elemental Blast is a common card used to fight the red decks. Alongside Gatekeeper, I find it a good game plan against the more burn heavy versions we have seen since March of the Machine. The same is true as above with Hydroblast, and why I prefer Blue Elemental Blast.

Gorilla Shaman is my affinity hate of choice. This is mainly because with Relic of Progenitus and Flame Slash, having a creature with repeatable effect is just what I believe this deck needs to try and attack affinity.

Relic of Progenitus is a solid graveyard hate effect as it is versatile and it replaces itself when needed. The card is strong against dedicated graveyard decks whilst having uses against archetypes with small synergies like Sacred Cat and Prismatic Strands.

Smash to Dust I believe is a better all round sideboard card, especially when sideboard space is a real issue. It is a Shatter, Electrickery and a Tunnel all in one card. Admittedly, the Former effects are the main reason to have this card but the Tunnel effect does come up.

Now looking at the typical decks you would verse in the pauper metagame.

Vs Mono Red Burn

IN:

OUT:

This is a match up where they can steam roll you very easily, your game plan is slowed down with all the taplands. I have skimped on sideboard cards, in the hope that Saruli Gatekeepers and Blue Elemental Blast give you enough time to get the win.

Vs Mono U Faeries

IN:

OUT:

Gatekeepers isn't really needed in this matchup, even though they are quite an aggressive deck if they need to be. Hard Evidence is fairly weak overall as it can't be relied on due to being a token. Smash to Dust and Red Elemental Blast are fairly obvious inclusions against the mono blue deck full of 1/1s.

Vs Dimir Terror

IN:

OUT:

Again, fairly straight forward sideboarding, Flame Slash is one of the weakest cards and Gatekeepers isn't needed against non-red decks.

Relic of Progenitus is a good Graveyard hate spell to slow them down. Red Elemental Blast is a great option overall as a clean answer to Tolarian Terror and helps you push through a spell of yours through a Counterspell.

Vs Caw Gates

IN:

OUT:

Hard Evidence is overall not a great card in this matchup and Saruli Gatekeepers doesn't line up well against the opponent's threats.

Arboreal Grazer is key at preventing early chip damage from Squadron Hawks. Red Elemental Blast is useful to get a spell to resolve through a Counterspell, but there aren't many Blue spells, so Three seems enough. Smash to Dust is a great way to kill Squadron Hawk and Sacred Cat in one go.

Vs Affinity

IN:

OUT:

Relic of Progenitus is to minimize the effectiveness of Blood Fountain. The rest of the cards are generic artifact hate. Gorilla Shaman is really good at limiting how much mana they have access to being able to destroy the Mirrodin artifact lands.

Smash to Dust is a useful kill spell to be able to destroy a Myr Enforcer.

As this is a deck I have been toying around with since the release of March of the Machine. I have tried a variety of cards and considered even more. This list above is the one I have most success with, but let's look at other alternative card choices that could be considered when building this deck with your own flair.

Coiling Oracle is a card I played in the earlier versions of the deck. The idea is this card can be played early and replaces themselves or keeps hitting land drops. However, I found that it is too difficult to cast early with all the basics and off color land drops, along with being an incredibly weak body that I cut it from my future lists.

Elvish Visionary in similar comparison to Coiling Oracle above it replaces itself and is something to cast early, whilst being easier to cast. I found overall it was too underwhelming to cast and not really required.

Lightning Bolt and other removal spells I deliberated over for quite a while. Considered Bind the Monster and Unholy Heat as well, but ultimately they weren't as versatile as I would have liked.

Guardian of the Guildpact is one that I really want to include in the deck. Even though it is a white card with the new command legends gates it is incredibly easy to splash a card to fix a problematic match up. My main reason for omitting it from my decklist is that a lot of the other archetypes seem prepared for Guardian of the Guildpact with Chainer's Edict, Agony Warp and Terminate.

Treating the deck similar to the UW and GW archetypes that already exist, this deck leans heavily on Basilisk Gate and, to me, is a breath of fresh air.

The deck, like a lot of others I have tried, has a lot of Flair to be able to put the pilot spin on it. The final color could easily be any other color as it is just removal and sideboard cards. But I am sure that Saiba Cryptomancer Meeting of Minds and Jewel Thief is the core of the deck and other gate decks should use this more.