MTG Salvation

Oh that's great, maybe I'll pick up a copy and try it out sometime. Thanks for the tip. I find it really hard to make cuts in my land base now, though. I feel like I've hit the limit on my non-basic land count. I've even been cutting a bit into my non-lands to make room...

I played Blast Zone for a couple games and took it right out again. It's just too much work to get it going and it often just sits in play as a colourless land that might as well have been a forest a lot of the time.

Field of the Dead, on the other hand, is amazing. The sheer number of bodies it makes for free once you have an engine going is really incredible. I've since cut to 2 Snow-Covered Forests and gone back to the non-snow basics to have different named basics, which can be really great with something like Evolving Wilds, making 2 zombies. Even as few as 5-7 zombies can really turn a game around with very little investment in the mana base.

Lotus Field has also been a great performer. getting the double sac without casting a spell is great, Hexproof has been relevant (to my surprise), it gives me the green sources I've desperately been craving... I even had a game where I played it and immediately untapped it with Garruk Wildspeaker to ramp myself up 6 mana in a turn.

Hidden Spider is sometimes a pretty risky card because it gets eaten by Spellstutter Sprite very easily from turn 2 and on, and very late in the game, they can afford not to play their fliers to not activate the enchantment. It's far and away the best flyer-hate spell if you land it on turn 1, though. Otherwise, get ready for a counter war.

If you look at some of my recent videos versus delver, you'll see me having great success with Penumbra Spider, with the opponent stone-walled by this unkillable monster.

I got completely smooshed by Hidden Spider just a couple days ago.

I also really like playing Penumbra Spider. At 4 mana, it can be hard to cast, but it's hard for a Delver player to have 4 faeries for Spellstutter Sprite, so they absolutely need a hard counter for it. I gums up the board very effetively and needs a combination of removal and combat to really get rid of, making it almost a 4-for-1 in many cases.

We just keep getting cool lands set after set!

What do you think of Field of the Dead? Seems very easy to get 7 different lands in play, and pooping 2/2s constantly for every land drop can add up quick in this deck.

Lotus Field seems pretty strong for our deck, getting rid of the biggest drawback of Lotus Vale of requiring untapped lands. And it has Hexproof. Seems sweet!

Cryptic Caves is probably not good enough for our deck, though I could see it being a powerful card in other Commander lists.

Quote from killer_eye »

hi guys! i've read that tron is a bad matchup. i play in paper and haven't got a chance to play a lot against tron. can you share what do we need to look out for and what are good sideboards against them? i only knew ulamog, pulse of murasa for ulamog and nothing else thanks!

note: sorry i know there are different versions of tron, but i'm really lost about that archetype

Here's a video of me taking down one of the more difficult builds of Tron for Turbo Fog:

You should also take a look at the primer on the first page. In the section "Matchups" look for "Tron" and you'll see my analysis for the different archetypes and sideboarding suggestions.

In essence, you'll need at least 2 pieces of hate to really deal with them effectively. Usually a counterspell and something to exile (or both with Faerie Trickery) will get rid of important pieces and get rid of their late-game engine.

Targeting and exiling Ghostly Flicker is usually a good idea, since this is the piece they run fewer of, though Mnemonic Wall also appears as a 2-3-of in their maindeck. It can be difficult to fight them with either of these cards in their hand/play as well as countermagic of their own, since they trade 1-for-1 and then get their card back and start grinding you down.

There's also the matter of juggling with the fact that they are beating you down with Mulldrifters and Dinrova Horrors, which means you can't only focus on their flicker plan post-sideboard. They also run Pyroblast/REB.

With careful playing and some lucky milling at the right time, you can get them.

That's all good for Murasa Tron (the one that is mostly UBG colours), but what about Temur Tron URG?

This matchup is much, much easier. Their main win condition is a fast Ulamog's Crusher and Fangren Marauders as well as Rolling Thunder. This sounds like it would be a horrible matchup for us, but it's actually the opposite. This deck basically has so few relevant cards in it that by the time they run out a threat, we are ready with multiple layers of countermagic and all set to beat them. They run very little counters of their own, mainly Condescend. Pyroblasts in the sideboard, but this matchup lets us sideboard out more fogs, so it's easier to fight with more deck space as a U(g) Draw-Go deck.

Hope this helps!

I'm having a ton of fun with Unstable Mutation and Sunken City right now in a Faerie-heavy build.

Ashnod's Altar should be popping up somewhere in a combo deck. It's still a bit early to tell what will stand out.

I think your deck would be all set to go with your proposed changes. I would go with 2 Stream of Thought and 1 Weather the Storm in the maindeck rather than Echoing Truth.

Hi Break84,

The deck looks fine for the most part, but I do have a few comments.

The first and most important thing: If you care about the Ban list, you should remove Gush, as it was banned a few weeks ago.

With Jhessian Thief being you only creature, it will most likely die to all the removal you opponent will have rotting in their hand. Turbo Fog is traditionally a 0-creature deck (though I have won on the back of a Krosan Tusker before), and it has a lot of incentive to stay that way. Part of the strategy is not only denying victory through combat, but also causing a type of card advantage through blanking cards in the opponents' deck.

Have you tested Betrayal? It may not be as effective as you think at drawing you cards. The opponent will most likely stop attacking with the creature (unless they can use it to win), making it more like semi-effective removal.

Call to Heel in the sideboard also has me scratching my head a bit. You're going to use this more often on your opponents, so why let them draw? I feel like there would be better bounce cards to run, like Snap, Snapback, Echoing Truth or Capsize.

Otherwise, you should check out the new toys we've been given in the last two sets, namely Weather the Storm and Stream of Thought. They really push the deck to new limits and lend themselves to very interesting deck-building!

I thought this would be a good place to post this page I found on TappedOut as I was uploading a bunch of my decks there. It's a great resource for anyone looking to find/compare PDH lists.

Check out the Pauper EDH Deck Compendium

Desert is the #1 inclusion in this deck. In my testing in the past, this land really meant the difference in a lot of matchups.

I'm also considering playing Forked Bolt over Arc Lightning (not that I couldn't have done this before in paper, but the new changes still give me that new-card smell).

I tried Crown-Hunter Hireling for a while. While it provides good card advantage, it's not a win condition unless the opponent is consistently taking the crown from you.

Quote from DontShootImNoob »

Well, I'm certainly sad to hear the forum is closing down! Though it looks like someone might be buying/taking of the site?. Glad I got to throw something into the fray beforehand, and thank you so much for your thoughtful response. I've spent a lot of time on forums over the years and, sadly, they're all starting to fade away... these kinds of thread make me happy. And, yes! My username is the same on MTGO We've probably faced off before. Feel free to add me as a friend and send a message

Well, that's certainly a strange announcement. This is likely going to fracture the community even more. I'll definitely be maintaining my primers here, but I will also move over to MTGNexus to try and foster a great Pauper Community there.

I'll definitely add you on MTGO. Thanks!

Quote from DontShootImNoob »

You're right, though, Pieces of the Puzzle doesn't get lands. But, with a higher land count you're more likely to draw them naturally and you can safely fit in more Pieces of the Puzzle. Bonus, because Pieces of the Puzzle drops cards into the graveyard (and the only non-instants and sorceries in the main deck are lands) Pieces of the Puzzle mills unwanted lands. I think the more you play Pieces of the Puzzle the more you'll love it. Getting to choose two from a fog, a good draw spell (sometimes another Pieces of the Puzzle, a counterspell, and a wincon just feels great. Added bonus, no Accumulated Knowledges in your graveyard? Bin them with Pieces of the Puzzle and play the others you have. With five mana you look at 5 cards, choose 2, draw 2. Gross.

There's no denying that Puzzle is a great card. In a deck with little to no Jace's Erasure, it's one of the best draw spells to choose from. Among late game options, it's probably the best. It's like a fat Impulse. I just don't think I can justify 4 copies given that it's a sorcery, costs 3 mana and doesn't get lands in my 18 land deck. It's still worth running at least as a 2-of in my deck, though. Thanks again for the great suggestion!

Quote from DontShootImNoob »

Stream of Thought and Jace's Erasure Split: I should test with one Jace's Erasure. I haven't done that justice. Pieces of the Puzzle doesn't get it but with the Brainstorms in your list it's easier to activate. I've always been partial to Curse of the Bloody Tomb, though. That's another one to mess around with.

I feel even better running a single copy of Erasure because I can fetch it up with Muddle the Mixture. I'm not quite ready to give up on Muddle yet, especially since it fetches Erasure, Weather the Storm, Moment's Peace and a third or fourth Accumulated Knowledge. Maybe with less draw triggers, Curse would end up pulling more weight, and would allow me to get away from brainstorm and fetchlands and lean more heavily on Impulse and friends. We'll see.

Quote from DontShootImNoob »

Faerie Trickery and other exiling denial: I haven't tried Faerie Trickery, no. I couldn't think of another thing I really wanted to counter that wouldn't be hit by other, cheaper counters, and since No Escape is one blue instead of two and gives you a scry. I thought... why not, haha. That being said, I haven't once countered a Ulamog's Crusher, so maybe it's not good. Could even be better as a Syncopate.

Quote from DontShootImNoob »

Delver matchup: Yeah, you're right; the sideboard is light there. I haven't been facing UR Delver as much as I'd like (Though I did watch a video on Spell Slam's channel where he played the UW version and crushed a buddy of mine I play with in paper, haha. He was so tilted!). I'm going to go down the Echoing Truth and up an Aerial Volley. Perhaps even down one Weather the Storm for a second Aerial Volley. 4 in the 75 seem like too much with all the card draw and you only need one to beat Burn! All comes down to meta with how the meta evolves, though.

This game:

I could really tell he was tilted in the second game. He had the right idea to wait for Clear the Mind to come up, but it was so late in the game that I just had way too much countermagic to fight back. Tell your buddy I'm sorry! I legitimately felt bad playing this deck because it was such a horrible grind for everyone.

When it comes to burn, I think we would need multiple Weather the Storms to be able to beat them, but shuffling copies back in certainly helps. I'm just afraid that with Thermo-Alchemists, Ghitu Lavarunners and Curse of the Pierced Hearts, they just have too much constant damage for us to handle. Penumbra Spider certainly helps in that matchup as well. Desert will probably play a role there too.

Quote from DontShootImNoob »

One last thing I forgot to mention before: Respite: If you're playing the version that doesn't want to flash back Moment's Peace because you'd rather shuffle it back in, it might make sense to play a split of Moment's Peace and Respite.

Again, this has all been really helpful. Thank you both for your thoughts! Apparently we've only got 6 days to make this a Tier One deck, LUL

Respite could definitely be due for a comeback. Maybe I would replace 1 Moment's Peace and 1 Fog for 2 of them. Good call!

Quote from rogerandover »

Hi guys. Just wanting to say that I really appreciate all the recent discussion in this thread. I love this archetype, but I rarely play pauper so my experience with the deck is very limited, and that's why I love that you share yours! Thanks a lot.

Anyone happens to play on cockatrice?

Thanks for chiming in! That's what forums are for! This is the best place on the internet to talk about Turbo Fog and improving our game!

I used to store all my decklists there to test them out before buying cards, but as I got busier I ended up cutting out that part of the process and working mostly on MTGO for deck-building. I never actually used it to play against people.

... Fantastic! Thank you so much for the detailed post. I learned a lot by reading it! I'm especially impressed at your formatting, given that this is your first post on MTGSalvation (which is unfortunately closing in 6 days )


First off, Is your username the same as your name on MTGO? If so, I think I've watched you play a couple games or maybe we've actually played each other. Your name is very familiar. Maybe some 5-0s in the leagues?

Okay, the deck: I'm glad I took the time to read all of your explanations for each card, because some of it really wasn't obvious to me at first. Thanks again for taking the time to write this up!

Overall, I think the proportions of the deck are pretty decent and follow along with how I like to play my versions of the deck.

The only thing I think you definitely should reconsider is your land count. I've recently dropped to 18 and have felt pretty good about it. I even run 3 Deserts! I'm a pretty greedy guy, though... This makes room for more card draw, which helps you make land drops in the early game and also fuel you in the late game. It's an adjustment, but one well worth it.

1 Weather the Storm in the maindeck is very much worth it. Even after only a couple games, this is a card I want to see and shuffle back into the deck frequently. It's extremely easy to gain 9-12 life with it, and it becomes game-winning with more copies. I'm wondering if it might not be worth including more of them in the maindeck in exchange for actual fogs. This is matchup and meta dependent, however.

I like your comment on Stream of Thought. It seems we have to make some choices in terms of actual playability of our win conditions at this point. I'll post my updated list after this, but I'm now at a 2:2 split between it and jace's Erasure, but I'm starting to think that maybe 3:1 in favour of Stream is probably better. Erasure certainly helps provide faster wins and only having one copy means we don't rely on it.

An idea I've been toying with in my mind because of Stream of Thought has been to run Take Inventory in the place of cards like Deep Analysis. Shuffling copies 3 and 4 back into the deck is just so good with Accumulated Knowledge that maybe having an extra set of similar cards would be worth it. What do you think?

Otherwise, I think I will replace my Deep Analysis for two copies of Pieces of the Puzzle This card definitely seems strong enough, though it doesn't help with land drops. 4 copies seems like a lot because of that reason.

The sideboard is where things get really interesting for me. I had not heard of Rust. Rust seems like a great card, when you explain it the way you did. I will have to try Rust. Rust will certainly catch people off-guard. Rust is also only 30 cents.

Rust.

I did not consider No Escape in Turbo Fog. I am not totally convinced that it should be played over Faerie Trickery, if you're looking for that kind of effect. The mana cost certainly helps its case. Have you tried Faerie Trickery instead?

I tried Faerie Macabre for a while, if I remember correctly. It never seemed to be enough to stop the Tron deck. It's a decent answer, but doesn't really solve the problem. I'll have to take another swing at it sometime.

Dispel v. Counterspell is always a tough call for me. I tend to miss the classic answer in matchups where I wouldn't bring in Dispels, like MBC and Elves. I'll stick with my split for now just for the flexibility of Counterspell.

What artifacts and enchantments do you need to deal with using Return to Nature?

With the new meta currently being shaped, I am expecting the death of Delver as an archetype. Desert is being bought out and will be seeing regular in any manabase that can afford it (and some that can't). That being said, I still am running 2 Aerial Volley and 2 Penumbra Spider, which is taking up a lot of room in my sideboard that maybe isn't necessary anymore. Maybe Aerial Volley could go, but Penumbra Spider is still a decent answer to fliers and is a great blocker in general. I'm a bit torn here. You don't seem to have a sideboard plan versus Delver aside from Dispels. How do you manage?

I feel the need to thank you a third time for your writeup. It's not every day that I get such a great, well-researched contribution like this in the forum, which makes me even more melancholic that it's being shut down.

With my small amount of testing so far and with your writeup, here's how I'm seeing my current deck:

MH1 is great and all, but changing the legality of over 400 cards has changed the game quite a bit for me. I'll be playing maindeck Deserts for years to come. This card is broken and will be the demise of Delvers and Faeries for years to come.

Merchant Scroll will also be making a splash for me. I think it's a great way to fetch up our card draw or countermagic.

This is like Christmas came early. This fixes the biggest problem that Pauper was facing.

I for one am very excited to jam Desert into all my decks. The Delver deck is dead.

Ashnod's Altar is going to cause some problems. I could see this card being banned.

Goblin Grenade is going to make Goblin tribal viable again. It will also fit into many other decks...

Darkness is already climbing in price. I recommend everyone playing online pick them up ASAP.

I will finally be able to mess around online with Unstable Mutation and Sunken City.

Red Elemental Blast and Blue Elemental Blast will ease the market off of Pyroblast and Hydroblast, some of the most ubiquitous sideboard cards in Pauper. They were prohibitively expensive online, but there are a lot of copies of REB and BEB.

Big news!

Wizards has finally done it. Pauper is now a sanctioned format both online and in paper.

Not only this, but there is one unified ban list for both, which adds all the cards that previously were not available online into the format. That's something like over 400 cards.

This is likely to change up Pauper in some way. Things like Merchant Scroll, Desert, Darkness, Ashnod's Altar, Sunken City, Goblin Grenade, Flood, Crown-Hunter Hireling (if they publish it online), Feldon's Cane, Unstable Mutation, Red Elemental Blast, Blue Elemental Blast and many more are going to make their way online!

This also means that cards like Chainer's Edict and Battle Screech, which were originally only commons online, should also be considered legal in paper (if that was a issue or anyone).

I can't express how happy I am with this change. This is a great day for Pauper and for Magic: the Gathering.

Link to the Prof's video: Prof's Video

Link of cards added to the online pool: New cards to MTGO