Pauper is an eternal format so we never have to worry about rotation and we already have a wide metagame. However, we also like to brew our own decks and add to the format ourselves.
Much of the advice can be transferred to any constructed format for brewing your own deck. The good thing with brewing for Pauper over say Standard is the immense card pool so the format doesn’t solve itself within a few weeks. Some decks will remain strong but very few decks are all conquering.
So where do we start ?
The first thing to do is decide on what your style of deck will be or what you are looking to build around.
Recently my wife and I built our own decks:-
Mono Black Aggro
<click here> for full guide
Zoo Aggro
However, to summarise those articles for Mono Black Aggro we decided that Bone Picker is the best aggro card for Mono Black and then proceeded to build around it. To enable a turn 2 Bone Picker we needed to have enough removal to ensure we cast the Bone Picker. We added a support strategy of sacrifice spells and creatures that got bigger with sacrifices.
The Zoo aggro deck started as a borrowed net deck but it didn’t play well, apart from an interaction between Burning Tree Emissary and Horned Kavu. That was where we started from scratch looking for the best way to support these cards adding additional powerful two drops and ensuring the one drops came with value.
Now this is easier said than done, in a format with over 10,000 cards knowing every one is not practical but fortunately we have help.
Both Wizards of the Coast Magic Gatherer and Scryfall offer great options to search the history of Magic for suitable cards. I even use my phone’s Decked App for inspiration when no internet or have a flash of inspiration.
e.g. I need a 2 drop in these colours with haste.
e.g. I want a instant that returns a creature to the battle field.
If they exist, they should come up in your search engine.
https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Advanced.aspx
You should then have a deck list, make sure that you record the list, when you play don’t be afraid to take notes during rounds or after the event when you’ve had time to reflect. I personally like a spreadsheet where I record the changes and why though a text document works equally well.
This works as a permanent record and you can reflect on your changes over time, you might remove a card because of your local meta, you may wish to shore up a bad match up or maybe add a better card for a matchup.
Most games will give you feedback, even the ones where you have mana issues. Do you need to change the mana base around, have you too many comes into play tapped lands or even you need to lower your curve to survive early turns and draw out of mana screw better.
Mana in Pauper is quite unique if coming from a more recent format, whilst your average Standard deck may run 24 land or maybe more, Pauper spells are very efficient so 22 is usually fine and for many aggro decks it is even lower. We see 16 land decks regularly and there was a version of Elves that ran even less !
Remember there are no sacred cows, sometimes the card you want to brew around may actually be the weakest card, you may need to switch things around to support your strategy or even go in a new direction removing your pet favourite.
I like to keep all my Pauper lists as the format evolves, whilst I may unsleeve a particular deck I may look over old lists when new sets come out to see if a new card or downshift has the potential to fix previous issues.
My final advice on deck building, remember you are playing to have fun, ignore the trolls and if you want to reprise a fun draft archetype with better cards then do so, not every deck has to win an MTGO Challenge or 5-0 a MTGO league, it may be enough to just find a home for the foil creature you enjoyed playing in the past.
You will also find that LGS Pauper players may not seduced by the Online Meta, many will offer you suggestions and sensible feedback, not just play a better deck like Tron. Using the Aggro Zoo example from earlier in this guide, the first couple of nights Rachel played the deck it was very inconsistent but I chipped in with what I found difficult as an opponent and suggestions based from my longer time playing the game. The result was being beaten round 1 at the next LGS tournament on her way to eventual overall victory.
Happy Brewing and if you are ever stuck for advice, message me direct as I’d love to help.
On_Common_Ground 