The Power of Pauper: A Check In on High Tide
Howdy folks! It's time yet again for another edition of The Power of Pauper! I'm your host, Joe Dyer, and this week we're going to be taking a peek at what High Tide seems to be up to lately. In addition we've got some Challenges to discuss.
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
High Tides Ahead Matey!
We got an update last week from Gavin Verhey as part of the Pauper Format Panel about the current status of High Tide!
I appreciate the transparency always from the Pauper Format Panel on these things, because it's great to see them continually working hard on the format at large. I think pushing back any decisions is a good idea to see where the deck is at, but is the deck truly problematic? We have seen that this deck is a good deck, but is it actually pushing things out of the format or overpowering?
From my view of things I don't think this deck is riding that line yet. Yes, it shows up in 5-0's. Yes it has had some Challenge Top 8's, but a lot of decks in this format fall into very similar categories. Where High Tide gets the rap from is all in its play patterns. The deck is sometimes rather slow to get off the ground, and it does sometimes have some challenges and intricacies getting across the finish line, to the point where you can sometimes fizzle out and do nothing after taking a lot of game actions.
For a number of folks, this is seen as a bad thing. Decks in other formats such as Modern have been dealt with like this for things such as Second Sunrise or Krark-Clan Ironworks (although I would argue the latter had more to do with the arcane rules knowledge that most players would not know offhand to play the deck) being slow and having finicky play patterns.
For a number of other folks, this deck is a good thing. Spell-based combo never had this much of a presence in Pauper prior to the unbanning, outside of Poison Storm (which is a super sweet deck anyways), and many people enjoy that there's an interesting and intricately challenging deck in the format that isn't just "creature makes infinite mana" (There's a lot more nuance to those decks of course, but you know what I mean).
Just looking through most of the recent results, it seems like most of the Challenge results and whatnot are solely in the hands of a few pilots, and those pilots tend to repeat performances. These pilots have put in the work and the repetitions, and their persistence is paying off. We don't really know without investigating deeper how many times these players have had bad days or bad leagues due to the deck just not functioning well.
The last time we had this discussion, Gavin had stated in their video that the deck's overall win rate versus many other decks was abhorrently low. Many of Pauper's more popular decks simply beat up on this deck. If you're playing Counterspells, it's pretty awesome since this deck cannot play them pre-board really. It has to really focus its game plan on the combo and spells that untap permanents. Hitting a key piece is great. Conversely, even if you're not playing counterspells, there are tons of decks that simply kill the opponent before they can get online (since the deck is slow), or they delay things so much with land destruction and whatnot that the deck falls apart.
So then, if this deck truly isn't doing well against a lot of other decks in Pauper, does it really need to be banned? For me personally, I don't think so. While I do think it's important to consider numerous factors in bannings and play patterns certainly is one of those, I find that the patterns of High Tide aren't nearly as bad as people would make it out to be, and when combined with the fact that we know it has a poor win rate against other decks, I don't really see a case to ban it.
That being said, the PFP has always been great about sharing with us their thoughts and the data driven analysis behind those thoughts, and I do expect we'll get a great update come later this month into October that can discuss just how this deck is affecting Pauper.
Pauper Challenge 32 8/29
The first Challenge event of the week was the Friday event. This event had 49 players in it thanks to the MTGO website.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Burn | 1st | SaculSueahtam |
| Madness Burn | 2nd | Ed_Elric |
| Mono Blue Terror | 3rd | discoverN |
| Mono Blue Terror | 4th | Lennny |
| Dimir Terror | 5th | NMT_Sco94 |
| Mono Blue Terror | 6th | Xto2 |
| High Tide Combo | 7th | Tyerube1618 |
| Gruul Ponza | 8th | LBBL |
Quite a bit of Terror here, both Mono Blue and Dimir. At the end of the event however it was Burn that won.
This is incredibly aggressive, relying on mana acceleration like Burning-Tree Emissary and Manamorphose to push ahead and get other bodies into play and then use stuff like Rally at the Hornburg and Goblin Bushwhacker to make that final push.
In Second Place we had Madness Burn.
It feels like the return to the more traditional Rakdos variant with black's cadre of Madness "Burn" spells has happened. The mono red variant seems to have largely died off. It's incredibly interesting when split variants of decks like this occur.
Also in this Top 8 we had Gruul Ponza.
Likewise, for a while there it was straight up Gruul Ramp that seemed to have taken over as the predominant midrange pile, but Ponza has been back now for a hot minute and seems to be doing well. With Tron and High Tide around, destroying lands makes a lot of sense.
Pauper Challenge 32 8/30
The second Challenge event of the week was the Saturday event. This event had 56 players in it thanks to the MTGO website.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Madness Burn | 1st | Ed_Elric |
| Grixis Affinity | 2nd | LuffyDoChapeuDePalha |
| Madness Burn | 3rd | Bubberio |
| Mono Blue Terror | 4th | Coachinho |
| Ephemerate Tron | 5th | Alleyezonme |
| Jund Wildfire | 6th | _blaze66 |
| High Tide Combo | 7th | PNascimento |
| Elves | 8th | Shiib |
This is a fairly solid looking Top 8. At the end of the event it was Madness Burn piloted by the same player who got 2nd in the previous event as the winner.
There isn't much else to be said here. The deck's construction is powerful and aggressive and it executes its game plan well. There's no need to have frills at all. Dark Withering in the sideboard however is a super sick effect.
In Second Place we had Grixis Affinity.
It definitely feels like Affinity as well took a huge dip, even with a printing like Cryogen Relic around. I think losing Deadly Dispute was a pretty big hit to the deck, but it's gotten some great new cards too like Black Mage's Rod which is super sweet.
Further down the Top 8 we had Ephemerate Tron.
Oh the days of Ghostly Flicker on Mnemonic Wall and Stonehorn Dignitary. Oh, the utter frustration of your opponent just simply being unable to attack you... ever.
Pauper Challenge 32 8/31
The final Challenge event of the week was the Sunday event. This event had 67 players in it thanks to the MTGO website.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Mono Black Sacrifice | 1st | Natalino_91 |
| Mono Blue Terror | 2nd | Purgatory_01 |
| Mono Blue Terror | 3rd | Luminati |
| Bogles | 4th | Fireava |
| Dredge | 5th | marzaboi |
| Madness Burn | 6th | outZEROo |
| Gruul Ponza | 7th | Ixidor29 |
| Mono Blue Faeries | 8th | Lepap |
Fairly interesting Top 8. At the end of the event it was Mono Black Sacrifice that won.
Oh this is cool, and so incredibly aggressive. Perigee Beckoner is a super sweet new card from Edge of Eternities. Warp definitely seems way more interesting than initially thought.
In Second Place we had Mono Blue Terror.
Very straightforward and cleanly built here. You know when you see 2-ofs and stuff, that the deck builder has done some real math on things.
Also in this Top 8 we had Dredge.
Just like we talked before about split variants, it also seems that the red version of this deck has also sort of disappeared. But to be honest, we did get another four copies of Satyr Wayfinder in the form of Town Greeter, which is really good and helps make the consistency of this deck a lot better.
Around the Web
- BUNNY POWER.
- The Common Coldsnap has a new episode. Check it out here.
- Bryant Cook is ZUBERRRRRRING. Check it out here.
The Spice Corner
As League results are now spread out across the week, let's dig in and find something spicy!
MONO GREEN AGGRO.
Poison!
Wrapping Up
That's all the time we have this week folks! Thanks for continuing to support the column and join us next week as we continue our journey into Pauper!
As always you can reach me at all my associated links via my Link Tree! In addition I'm always around the MTGGoldfish Discord Server and the MTGPauper Discord Server.
Until next time!
