Hello everyone! My name is Corrado, and this is my Top 16 report from the Damnation Main Pauper event! The archetype I chose to play was Gruul Ramp.
The Deck
Let's start with the decklist: I've been practicing with this deck for 2-3 months in my local league in Santa Margherita Ligure. When I first got into Pauper, I decided to build RG to have a deck that wasn't too low tier and offered a solid, consistent strategy.
Let's start with the decklist: I've been practicing with this deck for 2-3 months in my local league in Santa Margherita Ligure. When I first got into Pauper, I decided to build RG to have a deck that wasn't too low tier and offered a solid, consistent strategy.
My limited experience in the format also influenced my choice. Having only played in my local scene, I didn't feel ready to bring decks with more explosive potential but more complex dynamics in such a short time, so I preferred to play something I already knew.
Regarding card selection, beyond the individual card choices themselves, I tried to further enhance the deck's consistency by including as many 4-ofs as possible. This increases the chances of drawing solid hands that can execute our plan as quickly and efficiently as possible: ramping and emptying our hand.
So we have 4 [card]Arbor Elf[/card] (Alfio to friends), 4 [card]Utopia Sprawl[/card], 4 [card]Wild Growth[/card] as pure ramp spells, 3 [card]Generous Ent[/card]
and the single Oliphaunt are the 4-of fixers, and 4 [card]Malevolent Rumbler[/card]
is our draw spell, to be used with extreme care since we're not playing a deck that generates card advantage, so we need to learn the right timing to cast it.
We continue with 4 [card]Eldrazi Repurposer[/card] and 4 [card]Writhing Chrysalis[/card], which are transitional drops that fit perfectly between turns 2 and 3 and aren't dead in the late game, especially Chrysalis! Then we have 4 [card]Avenging Hunter[/card], 4 [card]Boarding Party[/card], and 4 [card]Annoyed Altisaur[/card], which are our big threats: 4x of all three, especially [card]Annoyed Altisaur[/card], which is a card that has seen less play recently.
I personally preferred to keep it precisely to avoid reducing the overall power level: someone more familiar with the format might have noticed the absence of [card]Jewel Thief[/card], caused by my desire not to "dilute" the deck too much with more mediocre drops.
Following this same choice, I decided to play 17 lands, with the 17th being [card]Wooded Ridgeline[/card], a red land fetchable with [card]Generous Ent[/card]!
The last 3 open slots became 1 [card]Nyxborn Hydra[/card], only one because cascading into it is awful but it's a respectable drop in itself, and a solid 2 [card]Colossal Dreadmask[/card].
I won't even tell you about cascading into it off [card]Annoyed Altisaur[/card]...
In the sideboard, 2 [card]Gorilla Shaman[/card] and 4 [card]Deglamer[/card] to hate on artifacts, 4 [card]Weather the Storm[/card] to handle red-based Aggro, 2 [card]Relic of Progenitus[/card] to hate on graveyards, and 3 [card]Fiery Cannonde[/card] (I didn't have [card]Breath Weapon[/card]s...) to resolve some complicated matchups.
Moving on to Matchups, here is the history of encountered archetypes with results: [card]Utopia Sprawl[/card]
- Red Aggro : 2 - 0
- Jund Glee : 1 - 0
- Golgari Glee : 2 - 0
- Gruul Ramp : 0 - 1
- Grixis Affinity : 0 - 1
- Jund Garden : 1 - 0
The Tournament
The tournament, of course, doesn't start on turn 1, but with the sound of the alarm clock! I manage to win the game against the pillow, lose the one with the scooter that refuses to start, but in the end Fabione and Davide manage to pick me up, and we set off for Pisa. The Commando, consisting of 2 vehicles with 7 Ligurians armed with many dreams, few expectations, and terrible intentions, reaches Pisa and prepares to begin: 5 of us for Pauper and 2 for Legacy, now it's time for turn 1.
1) FREE MATCH W 1-0
Indeed, my opponent didn't show up, and after 10 minutes, I won the round, had some lampredotto and beer. I had lunch with all the calm in the world while my colleagues cursed me, and I prepared for round 2. BETTER LUCKY THAN GOOD
2) Gruul Ramp L 1-1
Game 1 won easily, Game 2 was complicated but saw my opponent emerge victorious, Game 3 where the deck died in my hands, 5 empty draws left me too far behind, game and match to the opponent. Smells a bit like karma coming back. WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND.
3) Red Burn W 2-1
Aware that the run was still alive, I didn't lose heart, but I lost G1 to a full-blown aggression. In G2, my opponent mulliganed to 4, putting up fierce resistance but not enough, and in G3, they saw Altisaur cascading into Pirate cascading into Weather. Fire tamed and fortress secure. FIRE DOOR
4) Jund Glee W 3-1
Now, on this particular Match-Up, I'd like to dwell for a second. It's true, we don't have any kind of interaction with their combo, especially in our list, but that doesn't mean we have no way of winning, quite the opposite. The Jund version, playing the Shaman + Toxin combo, manages our board better, while the Golgari version goes all-in on the combo, which leads to two somewhat different behaviors.
Against Jund, we'll need to be consistently aggressive but without overextending our hand. If they play Krark-Clan Shaman
+ Toxin Analysis and we have nothing to immediately recover with, we risk giving them the necessary time to combo off more comfortably. Against Golgari, however, the match is literally about who mulligans better. We'll look for fast and explosive hands, while they'll be looking for as many combo pieces as possible so as not to give us time or room to maneuver.
In our case, I won G1 with my opponent cleaning the board only once but it wasn't enough; I lost G2 to their excessive advantage, while in G3, my explosive start didn't give them time to react. AGAINST ALL ODDS
5) Golgari Glee W 4-1
I knew the room was full of Glee, I knew it wasn't an easy matchup for me, I didn't know I'd find them back-to-back. I won G1 despite my opponent drawing practically half their deck: they didn't find the combo, I found the end of their life points. G2 was a complete shift in gears, and they comboed off on turn 4 with me almost helpless. In G3, I knew that going first, I had to find a hand that left no breathing room, and after a mulligan, I found a hand that played Chrysalis on turn two, Altisaur on turn three, and a quick Pirate on turn four to close it out. Too much for my opponent. I'LL BREAK YOU IN HALF
6) Red Kiln W 5-1
My opponent's deck was very peculiar: a Red Aggro that used many small spells and creatures that triggered effects when instants or sorceries were cast. However, nothing that could worry my enormous beasts, so I won G1 and G2 without taking a hit in a few turns. I SEE THE LIGHT
7) Grixis Affo L 5-2
I sit down and immediately my spider senses detect danger: we are facing an experienced and prepared player. The match would prove me right; I lost G1 and G2, barely touching the ball in G2. For the rest, he took me and boxed me up like an Amazon order. Kudos to him. I NO LONGER SEE THE LIGHT
8) Golgari Glee W 6-2
At this point, we're at the eighth round, and fatigue is starting to set in, especially for me, as my last tournament with more than 6 rounds was before Covid. Ugh. I grit my teeth, but when I see the black-green Glee version again, the temptation to open them up and unleash profanities as if they were zero-cost spells is truly immense.
It must be said that not only was I in difficulty, but so was my opponent. I won G1 after a couple of turns where I probably came very close to dying to the combo, while in G2 my opponent mulliganed a lot without finding anything concrete, and I managed to close it out before things got complicated.
Having won, I know that the last match will decide my presence in Top 16, Top 32, or neither. I feel increasingly tired and respond with even more determination. UNTIL THE F***ING END
9) Jund Garden W 7-2
When my opponent started playing Jund-colored lands in G1, I blanched, thinking about how I had managed to dodge and defeat every Glee so far, knowing it couldn't always happen. My opponent won G1 by going into total control, but I noticed that, despite seeing about half his deck, I hadn't seen any Glee combo pieces. Sus.
G2 is where I really felt the collapse. In a very complicated game where my priority in my head was always to have one more piece than my opponent without overexposing myself, I FORGOT to have the initiative and for 5/6 turns I didn't advance in the Undercity. It was only 1 turn before I managed to close that I noticed this detail, but precisely thanks to excellent board management, I managed to win G2 and reset my brain for the last game, which would decide the whole day.
G3 was quite similar to G2, but I was angrier and more focused. In this game too, we continued to trade resources for many turns, but when at a certain point, with a fairly even situation (clean board, 1/2 cards in hand each, endless lands), I regained the initiative by playing Avenging Hunter
I realized that in 2/3 turns I could bring the game, match, and day home, and so it was. WE'RE BACK BITCHES
The two losses were enough to ensure my exclusion from the Top 8, but I should still place within the top 16/32 based on rating. However, we were all exhausted, and my colleagues would have come the next day too, so I let them pick up the prize, and only once in the car did I see the final placement: 13th place, 4th by rating at 21 points, Top 16 confirmed!
An exhausting day and an experience I had missed for too long, just a little regret for having given in so much mentally in the last 2/3 turns, but all in all, I managed. And now, to conclude!
PROPS:
- To Fabione's holy card, patron saint of Pauper!
- To Boose and the entire Damnation organization, always on point!
- To the lampredotto at lunch!
- To the Riviera Commando: Fabione, Davide, Diste, Leo, Simo, and Diego, ready for the next mission!
SLOPS:
- To my old man's brain that's losing its touch...
And that's all! See you next time, guys!
