This past Saturday was our October Pauper Monthly and one of the best metrics to see what the state of the Pauper format looks like at Owl Central Games. After 4 rounds of Swiss, our final standings held a clear cut winner. With an undefeated record, Owl Community member and Pauper brewer, Todd Murter, managed a near flawless 4-0 record, dropping only a single individual game (see the round by round records below.)
The deck he was playing is known as Orzhov Bounce or Glintblade, but has some new inclusions compared to the Orzhov Glintblade of a few years ago. The deck features the usual core components, such as Glint Hawk, Kor Skyfisher, and Tithing Blade, but also leans into some newer tech from cards like Dispatch (recently downshifted) and Giant’s Boulder (the Hobbit.)
Here’s what the Orzhov Bounce deck went up against on its way to that 4-0 record:
- Round 1 – Jund Wildfire – 2-0
- Round 2 – Pinger Tron – 2-1
- Round 3 – Rally Red – 2-0
- Round 4 – Spy Combo – 2-0
I got a chance to catch up with Todd and ask him a few questions about his deck. This was what he had to say about the deck, adjustments going forward, and just how impactful a card like Dispatch is to Pauper as a whole.
Dan: What about this deck is its strongest factor for the Pauper meta right now?
Todd: The strongest thing about Orzhov Blade in the current meta is definitely its flexibility. The deck is an artifact based ETB tempo deck; and it turns out there are a lot of niche and cool artifacts in the format to help build your deck around. Additionally White gives you some top tier flexibility with cards such as Thraben Charm, which provides a few angles of attack. We can use it as graveyard hate to stop Spy combo, we can use it as a removal spell a lot of the time for a creature; or we can also use it as a combat trick occasionally to snipe those pesky Nyxborn Hydras off of creatures and block or attack more favorably.
With some of the newly released sets and secret lair drops; we acquired a few new tools that really helped us juice this already solid deck.
For starters we were able to put 4 Giant’s Boulder in our deck which helps smooth out our mana and also helps us mulligan less due to the mana fixing and the scry 2 on ETB. This card also is a catch all in the late game to answer absolutely any problem permanent on the field.
Additionally the deck picked up the strongest card in the format, Dispatch. This card is clearly above and beyond reasonable power levels in this format, and I will continue to play it for as long as it remains legal. It is half the cost of the next best removal spell in the format, and has virtually no downside or drawback in the decks that want to play it.
Dan: What changes would you make to the deck going forward?
Todd: My biggest changes are that I think I would like to get another hard removal spell into the main deck (probably a cast down); and I also would like to get a prismatic strands in the sideboard. Strands is a really good card and can answer some unique win conditions from your opponents unexpectedly.
Dan: How much should white decks alter their lists to make including Dispatch a priority? Should other affinity lists prioritize including white for Dispatch?
Todd: Dispatch is the single best card in the format at this point. It is a 1 mana removal spell that exiles big threats with virtually no downside. So many decks in this format allow the ability to pick up threats from the graveyard such as Sneaky Snacker, Pulse of Murasa, Blood Fountain, etc, so it is so nice to be able to remove something from the game and not have to worry about it again.
Most decks in the format can play enough artifacts to make Dispatch strictly better Swords to Plowshares the vast majority of the time between artifact lands, clue tokens, blood tokens, treasure tokens, food tokens, and generic good artifacts that you are already playing in your decks. Tweak your decks to play the broken card if you want to win more games.
It’s clear to see that the “incidental” downshifts from the Zeta set will continue to have a major impact on Pauper. You can certainly expect to see more and more Affinity decks at the forefront of the meta as time goes on. Which deck will reign supreme? Only time will tell.
Make sure to join in all the Pauper fun at Owl Central Games. We regularly host a variety of Pauper events, including weeklies, monthlies, and larger big prize pool events, such as our last Pauper $1k. Check out all of our event offerings for more information and to preregister.
