I took out the High tides, as they just weren't doing enough for the deck. Benthic Giant, while an awesome win condition, is just too slow. I prefer using the Golem as an earlier/cheaper form of defence, which can later start to do damage. I also added 3 Ponders and an extra land to compensate for less ramp. Now my combo should be slightly more consistent. I'm thinking of taking out Ocular Halo for more draw power and also taking out Banishing Knack completely in favor of Sigil of Sleep. Any thoughts/opinions on these?
The new list is looking pretty good! I probably would go with Sigil of Sleep over Banishing Knack. Most matchups it's creatures you need to worry about, so a permanent Sigil of Sleep would be better than a one turn Banishing Knack.
Some thoughts... Is it better to have creatures with built in untap, and then add the pinging via aura, or is it better to have creatures that ping and then add untap auras and effect-upon-damage auras to them? I'm thinking that your creatures do very little without auras on them, the auras are redundant in multiples, and you basically must set yourself up for a 2-for-1. How about prodigal clones and freed from the real, sigil of sleep etc instead? Splash for deathtouch? Trinket mage and viridian longbow? I'm just trying to widen the box a bit here more than think outside of it - what would be the best possible implementation of a machine gun concept?
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I really wish it was possible to have it the other way around. Having access to Prodigal Sorcerer, Zuran Spellcaster, Rootwater Hunter and Thornwind Faeries just in Blue would be amazing. Unfortunately, I've only ever seen 1 card grant an untapping ability that can be used like Horseshoe Crabs', and that's Freed from the Real. So while I would have lots of pingers to choose from, finding enough cards to create an abusable untap ability would be much harder. Anything I missed?
Well Freed is only one nice thing you can add to pingers, and Drift of Phantasms tutors for it and the pingers. Ophidian Eye and Sigil of Sleep are also very nice. You could also add green for Nightshade Peddler and Snake Umbra, among other things.
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Yes, those are all cards that are also great in the Crab version. And yeah, Drift of Phantasms can tutor for any piece, but it basically costs me a turn to do it, which is kinda slow. I'd love for there to just be another untapping aura available.
I'll test and see if the pinger version is better. I think I'll keep it mono-blue for now. I don't think I'll have a choice to run Phantasms in the deck, though.
So after taking another look at our options, the pinger version really seems hard to build.
There is just not enough proper untap in pauper - most are peasant.
There are some options, although most of these require building around: Immobilizing Ink requires you to discard a card to untap your creature...so it would only work properly with e.g. Quicksilver Dagger. I would also consider throwing Madness Cards in that mix (Especially Fiery Temper). Sinking Feeling is even harder to build around, requiring you to slowly kill that creature...and with slowly I mean instantly, because they really don't have that much toughness. Might work with green, though...Burst of Strength, Gerrard's Command, Savage Surge, and possibly Hunger of the Howlpack are all great options to untap the cards in that cycle.
On the Horseshoe Crab version, have you considered the self-untapping creatures like Merrow Levitator?
Might work great with cards like Gitaxian Probe.
The only card that works efficiently is Freed. Including any of the other untapping cards you mentioned would be way too complicated and inefficient.
What I've realized with some testing however is that the pingers are actually fairly strong on their own and in multiples, unlike having multiples of Crab and pili-pala. With just two pingers in play, I can start killing almost anything in play while I dig for Freed. It might actually be a good idea to switch abilities, since I just rely less on comboing cards. More testing to come.
Yes, the primary advantage of the pinger version is that your other combo pieces aren't redundant after you assemble combo. I haven't tested this but here's a simic list I've been toying with. It uses Trinket Mage for mana fixing and for getting Viridian Longbow, letting you run fewer dedicated pingers.
So what this is, is actually a typical blue control deck using pingers and auras as a draw engine and win condition, while using that same engine to clear the board from threats. Daze is rather good here since we should expect instant speed removal/counter on our t4 when we try for FftR/Eye/Umbra, letting us reuse an Island in case we would have missed our t4 drop. Lots of possibilities for modifications, maybe green recursion, specialised trinkets for your meta or sigil of sleep. A mono blue version is possible but I don't see why you'd want to deny yourself the added oomph from peddler/umbra. Let me know what you think!
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So after taking another look at our options, the pinger version really seems hard to build.
There is just not enough proper untap in pauper - most are peasant.
There are some options, although most of these require building around: Immobilizing Ink requires you to discard a card to untap your creature...so it would only work properly with e.g. Quicksilver Dagger. I would also consider throwing Madness Cards in that mix (Especially Fiery Temper). Sinking Feeling is even harder to build around, requiring you to slowly kill that creature...and with slowly I mean instantly, because they really don't have that much toughness. Might work with green, though...Burst of Strength, Gerrard's Command, Savage Surge, and possibly Hunger of the Howlpack are all great options to untap the cards in that cycle.
On the Horseshoe Crab version, have you considered the self-untapping creatures like Merrow Levitator?
Might work great with cards like Gitaxian Probe.
If you're looking for Uncommons there's always Pemmin's Aura. It does the same job as Freed from the REal and it has the added benefit of turning the crab into some extra combat damage. But this is only going for Peasant of just a casual deck.
So after taking another look at our options, the pinger version really seems hard to build.
There is just not enough proper untap in pauper - most are peasant.
There are some options, although most of these require building around: Immobilizing Ink requires you to discard a card to untap your creature...so it would only work properly with e.g. Quicksilver Dagger. I would also consider throwing Madness Cards in that mix (Especially Fiery Temper). Sinking Feeling is even harder to build around, requiring you to slowly kill that creature...and with slowly I mean instantly, because they really don't have that much toughness. Might work with green, though...Burst of Strength, Gerrard's Command, Savage Surge, and possibly Hunger of the Howlpack are all great options to untap the cards in that cycle.
On the Horseshoe Crab version, have you considered the self-untapping creatures like Merrow Levitator?
Might work great with cards like Gitaxian Probe.
If you're looking for Uncommons there's always Pemmin's Aura. It does the same job as Freed from the REal and it has the added benefit of turning the crab into some extra combat damage. But this is only going for Peasant of just a casual deck.
That is exactly why I said what I said.
We are building a pauper deck here, and all the good untappers are uncommon.
No need to elaborate these, as they are not relevant to us in any way...
Yes, the primary advantage of the pinger version is that your other combo pieces aren't redundant after you assemble combo. I haven't tested this but here's a simic list I've been toying with. It uses Trinket Mage for mana fixing and for getting Viridian Longbow, letting you run fewer dedicated pingers.
So what this is, is actually a typical blue control deck using pingers and auras as a draw engine and win condition, while using that same engine to clear the board from threats. Daze is rather good here since we should expect instant speed removal/counter on our t4 when we try for FftR/Eye/Umbra, letting us reuse an Island in case we would have missed our t4 drop. Lots of possibilities for modifications, maybe green recursion, specialised trinkets for your meta or sigil of sleep. A mono blue version is possible but I don't see why you'd want to deny yourself the added oomph from peddler/umbra. Let me know what you think!
Interesting Decklist! However, I think that mono-blue has everything we want that could be done with green (almost as well), using Ophidian Eye and Sigil of Sleep instead Peddler and Snake Umbra. Sure, one doesn't completely destroy the creature, and the other doesn't protect from a 2-for-1, but it simplifies the deck a lot by being mono-coloured. I'd play like 14 Prodigals, ophidian eyes, sigils, freed + tutor and plenty of cheap counters. Oh, and I also found this : Frozen Solid. Seems absolutely perfect! Get rid of a pesky creature and destroy it in 1 hit whenever you get your pinger.
I feel like the deck should be performing a lot better than it is, and I can't really understand what's wrong. I've tested versus Black aggro and WW, and tend to lose pretty consistently. Icatian Javelineers are such a pain to fight against. It seems whatever I do, my opponents have more removal than I do counters and pingers, and I can never stabilize early enough to stymie the pressure. It seems like paying 3 mana for a 1/1 is just really slow. Have I just been unlucky? What would you change to the deck? I wish there was a way of accelerating into the pingers.
Do you find that you can win with this deck? I made a similar deck off Hankyu and found I could never get things like this to work? I suppose the ping cards are more effective in pauper, is that true?
How is High Tide not a rare? That seems like a great card!
Pauper is a creature format (mostly). Recurring damage is extremely powerful, as you can see in cards like Cuombajj witches and Desert. Pingers are no exception. The problem is that they're very weak and slow. But when you can finally get a pinger to stick and clear the board, winning becomes very easy. Dealing damage at the end of the opponents' turn makes it so that they often die in 3-5 turns, depending on available mana. So, given the minimum of four turns it needs to set up, this deck can definitely win. What's satisfying is that when it wins, it's a crushing win. SO satisfying.
I've shelved the idea for now, as there doesn't seem to be any interest, and I need to give it a rest in order to get rid of my tunnel vision. It's just too weak to removal.
High tide is extremely abusable. You should check out the high tide deck another poster made. It's still on the first page I think.
Do you find that you can win with this deck? I made a similar deck off Hankyu and found I could never get things like this to work? I suppose the ping cards are more effective in pauper, is that true?
It can be quite effective even outside of Pauper at the Casual table. I had mentioned previously about a friend's U/R Pinger deck and it was rather strong. Really it depends on the meta but as Obermeir pointed out, creatures are a big wincon for this format.
I've shelved the idea for now, as there doesn't seem to be any interest, and I need to give it a rest in order to get rid of my tunnel vision. It's just too weak to removal.
I am interested still, but I feel my thoughts on this list have hit a brick wall. The deck has seen some pretty drastic changes while still having the same idea, but I can't really think of how to push it forward without feeling like taking a step back... Sometimes shelving a deck is the best thing to do for it in the long run.
old thread, but this deck is very close to what i have been working on. loved the Pila/Muddle synergy and added it to my own. but, i am having a big problem against MonoBlack Control. using the current meta and testing MBC vs this deck. i always come up short. what kind of sideboard options would people suggest to either make this deck work vs MBC or perhaps a whole new plan for the deck. the closest i have come to beating MBC (as myself) is to swap in a sort of turbo-mill sideboard. creatures go away 4x Jace's Erasure and 4x Curse of the Bloody Tomb are in. would love to NOT have to change the direction of the deck just to make it work better vs. MBC.
You know, I was just thinking about bumping this thread myself today, actually! What a coincidence!
The reason I got to thinking about this archetype again was because I got owned by it online just a couple weeks ago. The beauty of it was that the list was very was very different, and I actually had no idea what he was up to until it was way too late. Sometimes I thought I was playing against Delver, other time just MUC or Esper Familiars on a bad start. It was just Ponder, Preordain, draw spells, counters and land drops until BAM, I was dead. I'm going to go through my games and try to piece together his list.
Vanishing does not work the way you think it does. Phasing is a... unique ability, to say the least. It exceptionally does not trigger comes into to play or leaves play abilities. The creature is simply there, then it isn't. It retains all memory of its previous existence, like it never left. So you would not get triggers from Mulldrifter, unfortunately.
EDIT: here's an approximate reconstruction of his deck based on what I saw.
I'm pretty that has to be all the cards in his deck, but the numbers of each can vary. It seems wrong to only have 2 Treasure Cruise, but I saw a mix of it, Gush and Compulsive Research, so I really don't know what to think.
ahh, yes... correct... Vanishing would not work with Mulldrifter (a.k.a come into play effects). damn, i should have realized that.. bah.. thanks!
thanks for the list. i am going to play with that one.
currently i have lite green/blue. Sedge Scorpion with a Viridian Longbow has cause a couple games to end up with my opponent simply resigning. also Moment's Peace has been great in the sideboard.
i am going to keep up with this deck. i will post my results as i start to come up with the "final version".
If you are, make sure your playgroup allows cards that are banned in the Online Pauper version. Treasure Cruise just received ban there a couple weeks ago. I'd probably replace them with two more Gush I think. The deck tends to get all of its land drops, so returning a few is really not a problem.
Ah yes, a guy I play against sometimes played that combo. His version was BG and it was all about deathtouch, first strike and the Fight mechanic (on top of the Longbow). It took time to get going, but was hard to stop once it did.
Heh, I've always loved Tim decks. One of my first pauper builds is below. It's horribly inconsistent, but at least the auras can be placed on the Looters and fliers (it doesn't rely expressly on enchanting the Thornwinds). I might have actually posted this elsewhere here:
The new list is looking pretty good! I probably would go with Sigil of Sleep over Banishing Knack. Most matchups it's creatures you need to worry about, so a permanent Sigil of Sleep would be better than a one turn Banishing Knack.
A series of seven articles using Magic to explore the very stuff of the Universe!
"At least for those who can play cards, their present incarnation is not quite wasted."
[Click here for the articles!]
UGTurboFogGU
BRSacrificial AggroBR
16The Paper Pauper Battle Bag16
EDH
BRRakdos, Lord of PingersBR
GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
UB Ramses OverdarkUB
Sig by Ace5301 of Ace of Spades Studio
A series of seven articles using Magic to explore the very stuff of the Universe!
"At least for those who can play cards, their present incarnation is not quite wasted."
[Click here for the articles!]
I'll test and see if the pinger version is better. I think I'll keep it mono-blue for now. I don't think I'll have a choice to run Phantasms in the deck, though.
UGTurboFogGU
BRSacrificial AggroBR
16The Paper Pauper Battle Bag16
EDH
BRRakdos, Lord of PingersBR
GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
UB Ramses OverdarkUB
Sig by Ace5301 of Ace of Spades Studio
There is just not enough proper untap in pauper - most are peasant.
There are some options, although most of these require building around:
Immobilizing Ink requires you to discard a card to untap your creature...so it would only work properly with e.g. Quicksilver Dagger. I would also consider throwing Madness Cards in that mix (Especially Fiery Temper).
Sinking Feeling is even harder to build around, requiring you to slowly kill that creature...and with slowly I mean instantly, because they really don't have that much toughness. Might work with green, though...Burst of Strength, Gerrard's Command, Savage Surge, and possibly Hunger of the Howlpack are all great options to untap the cards in that cycle.
On the Horseshoe Crab version, have you considered the self-untapping creatures like Merrow Levitator?
Might work great with cards like Gitaxian Probe.
Cockatrice is still going strong over at http://www.woogerworks.com[/B]
Ghostly Battlefield
The Winner is Judge [2]
Chasay, Caller of Fire
Skaab Corpse Looter
[B]This Winner is also Judge [0]
What I've realized with some testing however is that the pingers are actually fairly strong on their own and in multiples, unlike having multiples of Crab and pili-pala. With just two pingers in play, I can start killing almost anything in play while I dig for Freed. It might actually be a good idea to switch abilities, since I just rely less on comboing cards. More testing to come.
UGTurboFogGU
BRSacrificial AggroBR
16The Paper Pauper Battle Bag16
EDH
BRRakdos, Lord of PingersBR
GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
UB Ramses OverdarkUB
Sig by Ace5301 of Ace of Spades Studio
4 Simic Guildgate
3 Seat of the Synod
1 Tree of Tales
14 Island
PINGERS (12)
4 Trinket Mage
1 Viridian Longbow
7 Prodigal clones
4 Freed from the Real
3 Nightshade Peddler
4 Snake Umbra
2 Ophidian Eye
BLUE GOODSTUFF (13)
4 Counterspell
3 Daze
4 Preordain
2 Ponder
So what this is, is actually a typical blue control deck using pingers and auras as a draw engine and win condition, while using that same engine to clear the board from threats. Daze is rather good here since we should expect instant speed removal/counter on our t4 when we try for FftR/Eye/Umbra, letting us reuse an Island in case we would have missed our t4 drop. Lots of possibilities for modifications, maybe green recursion, specialised trinkets for your meta or sigil of sleep. A mono blue version is possible but I don't see why you'd want to deny yourself the added oomph from peddler/umbra. Let me know what you think!
A series of seven articles using Magic to explore the very stuff of the Universe!
"At least for those who can play cards, their present incarnation is not quite wasted."
[Click here for the articles!]
If you're looking for Uncommons there's always Pemmin's Aura. It does the same job as Freed from the REal and it has the added benefit of turning the crab into some extra combat damage. But this is only going for Peasant of just a casual deck.
That is exactly why I said what I said.
We are building a pauper deck here, and all the good untappers are uncommon.
No need to elaborate these, as they are not relevant to us in any way...
Cockatrice is still going strong over at http://www.woogerworks.com[/B]
Ghostly Battlefield
The Winner is Judge [2]
Chasay, Caller of Fire
Skaab Corpse Looter
[B]This Winner is also Judge [0]
Interesting Decklist! However, I think that mono-blue has everything we want that could be done with green (almost as well), using Ophidian Eye and Sigil of Sleep instead Peddler and Snake Umbra. Sure, one doesn't completely destroy the creature, and the other doesn't protect from a 2-for-1, but it simplifies the deck a lot by being mono-coloured. I'd play like 14 Prodigals, ophidian eyes, sigils, freed + tutor and plenty of cheap counters. Oh, and I also found this : Frozen Solid. Seems absolutely perfect! Get rid of a pesky creature and destroy it in 1 hit whenever you get your pinger.
UGTurboFogGU
BRSacrificial AggroBR
16The Paper Pauper Battle Bag16
EDH
BRRakdos, Lord of PingersBR
GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
UB Ramses OverdarkUB
Sig by Ace5301 of Ace of Spades Studio
4 Prodigal Sorcerer
4 Thornwind Faeries
4 Zuran Spellcaster
3 Drift of Phantasms
4 Freed from the Real
2 Frozen Solid
2 Ophidian Eye
2 Sigil of Sleep
4 Counterspell
1 Prohibit
4 Turn Aside
4 Ponder
4 Desert
18 Island
I feel like the deck should be performing a lot better than it is, and I can't really understand what's wrong. I've tested versus Black aggro and WW, and tend to lose pretty consistently. Icatian Javelineers are such a pain to fight against. It seems whatever I do, my opponents have more removal than I do counters and pingers, and I can never stabilize early enough to stymie the pressure. It seems like paying 3 mana for a 1/1 is just really slow. Have I just been unlucky? What would you change to the deck? I wish there was a way of accelerating into the pingers.
UGTurboFogGU
BRSacrificial AggroBR
16The Paper Pauper Battle Bag16
EDH
BRRakdos, Lord of PingersBR
GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
UB Ramses OverdarkUB
Sig by Ace5301 of Ace of Spades Studio
How is High Tide not a rare? That seems like a great card!
-stampedepress.com
I've shelved the idea for now, as there doesn't seem to be any interest, and I need to give it a rest in order to get rid of my tunnel vision. It's just too weak to removal.
High tide is extremely abusable. You should check out the high tide deck another poster made. It's still on the first page I think.
UGTurboFogGU
BRSacrificial AggroBR
16The Paper Pauper Battle Bag16
EDH
BRRakdos, Lord of PingersBR
GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
UB Ramses OverdarkUB
Sig by Ace5301 of Ace of Spades Studio
It can be quite effective even outside of Pauper at the Casual table. I had mentioned previously about a friend's U/R Pinger deck and it was rather strong. Really it depends on the meta but as Obermeir pointed out, creatures are a big wincon for this format.
I am interested still, but I feel my thoughts on this list have hit a brick wall. The deck has seen some pretty drastic changes while still having the same idea, but I can't really think of how to push it forward without feeling like taking a step back... Sometimes shelving a deck is the best thing to do for it in the long run.
anyone have any suggestions?
thanks ahead of time.
Vanishing
then i started thinking about all the other nice things that could be done with this..
vanish a Mulldrifter at the end of opponents turn... mmm... nice.
Welcome to the Pauper Forums!
You know, I was just thinking about bumping this thread myself today, actually! What a coincidence!
The reason I got to thinking about this archetype again was because I got owned by it online just a couple weeks ago. The beauty of it was that the list was very was very different, and I actually had no idea what he was up to until it was way too late. Sometimes I thought I was playing against Delver, other time just MUC or Esper Familiars on a bad start. It was just Ponder, Preordain, draw spells, counters and land drops until BAM, I was dead. I'm going to go through my games and try to piece together his list.
Vanishing does not work the way you think it does. Phasing is a... unique ability, to say the least. It exceptionally does not trigger comes into to play or leaves play abilities. The creature is simply there, then it isn't. It retains all memory of its previous existence, like it never left. So you would not get triggers from Mulldrifter, unfortunately.
EDIT: here's an approximate reconstruction of his deck based on what I saw.
4 Delver of Secrets
3 Spire Golem
2 Mulldrifter
4 Horseshoe Crab
Artifacts (2)
2 Viridian Longbow
Dig/Draw (16)
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
2 Preordain
2 Compulsive Research
2 Treasure Cruise
2 Gush
4 Counterspell
2 Deprive
Lands (23)
23 Islands
4 Echoing Truth
2 Memory Lapse
I'm pretty that has to be all the cards in his deck, but the numbers of each can vary. It seems wrong to only have 2 Treasure Cruise, but I saw a mix of it, Gush and Compulsive Research, so I really don't know what to think.
UGTurboFogGU
BRSacrificial AggroBR
16The Paper Pauper Battle Bag16
EDH
BRRakdos, Lord of PingersBR
GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
UB Ramses OverdarkUB
Sig by Ace5301 of Ace of Spades Studio
thanks for the list. i am going to play with that one.
currently i have lite green/blue. Sedge Scorpion with a Viridian Longbow has cause a couple games to end up with my opponent simply resigning. also Moment's Peace has been great in the sideboard.
i am going to keep up with this deck. i will post my results as i start to come up with the "final version".
again, thanks for the info
Ah yes, a guy I play against sometimes played that combo. His version was BG and it was all about deathtouch, first strike and the Fight mechanic (on top of the Longbow). It took time to get going, but was hard to stop once it did.
Glad I could help!
UGTurboFogGU
BRSacrificial AggroBR
16The Paper Pauper Battle Bag16
EDH
BRRakdos, Lord of PingersBR
GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
UB Ramses OverdarkUB
Sig by Ace5301 of Ace of Spades Studio
20 Island
4 Counterspell
4 Impulse
4 Looter il-Kor
4 Negate
4 Sigil of Sleep
4 Spire Golem
4 Thornwind Faeries
3 Ophidian Eye
3 Spellstutter Sprite
2 Echoing Truth
2 Neurok Stealthsuit
2 Unstable Mutation
1 Blight Sickle
1 Cloud of Faeries
1 Condescend
1 Intervene
1 Mana Leak
1 Mind Stone
1 Mycosynth Wellspring
1 Pristine Talisman
1 Prohibit
1 Silver Myr
1 Spell Pierce
1 Spellstutter Sprite
1 Wayfarer's Bauble
I'm likely going to give up and turn it into a Faerie/Ninja/Delver netdeck.
2) Use the right number of each card.
3) Know your probabilities.
4) Print your deck lists; make yourself and your judges happier.