My wife Rachel and I both love Pauper so much so we can both be found scouring the web for ideas of which new deck to play, with Pauper being cheap to play we regularly will try out new decks. My collection dates back to Fallen Empires but I did have a period out of the game from Stronghold to Kamigawa.

Rachel found a sweet deck utilising Horned Kavu and creatures with time counters like Blastoderm and Keldon Marauders. Our first testing night showed the list we were using had many issues but the one combination that we both liked was Burning Tree Emissary followed by Horned Kavu.

This deck is mainly Rachel’s brew with me contributing ideas and testing feedback. Having a partner who not only plays Magic but can bounce ideas off is such a benefit. It’s quite refreshing being asked “Anywhere got an event on we can go to today/tomorrow ?”

Creatures

• 4             Wild Nacatl
• 4             Kird Ape

Our one drops were solid working well off our lands.

• 4             Jund Hackblade
• 4             Horned Kavu
• 4             Burning Tree Emissary
• 3             Naya Hushblade

We wanted to maximise the impact of our Burning Tree Emisarry’s so I thought Jund Hackbkade would be nice as it could gain haste and be larger, by happy coincidence Rachel saw Naya Hushblade in the same binder so added it to the mix.

2             Frenzied Arynx

Frenzied Arynx rounds out our creatures as Riot is a fun mechanic and we’d experienced good results on Arena Pauper with it. Many games finish early so we can cut the quantity and concentrate on the two dop density.

Spells

• 2             Vines of Vastwood
• 3             Rancor
• 3             Skred
• 3             Colossal Might
• 4             Lightning Bolt

We changed the land for Snow Covered and added Skred as sometimes we would face a blocker we couldn’t get past e.g. Gurmag Angler or Eldrazi.

Land

• 4             Ash Barrens
• 7             Snow Covered Forest
• 8             Snow Covered Mountain
• 1             Snow Covered Plains

Originally we tried Rugged Highlands and Gruul Turf but they tended to slow down our Kird Apes and Wild Nacatl’s. We swapped them for Ash Barrens to ensure we could get a land we needed and also replaced a Mountain with a Plains to be tutored up to make our Wild Nacatl’s 3/3 which is much more useful in a format with many 3 toughness creatures like Augur of Bolas for blocking.

Sideboard

• 3             Ram Through
• 3             Pyroblast
• 3             Electrickery
• 3             Flaring Pain
• 1             Red Elemental Blast
• 2             Gorilla Shaman

The deck is fastest enough to establish a board against control with enough Haste creatures to break through. We’ve had several winning records and positive results against a gauntlet of meta decks and local home brews.

If you like aggro decks then this is certainly a fun one that can explode out to victory.