Ideally I would like for many archetypes to be present and for most to have interesting matchups against the others, what decks would you recommend?
I was thinking 8 total, with at least 1 of each:
Control Midrange Tempo Aggro Combo?
Posted Dec 16, 2020, 4:35 PM UTC
Mine has the following: Burn Affinity/tog RG Madness Elves Slivers UR fairies/skred Monoblack UB control
You have a spectrum wide enough with this. Maybe some big mana/tron missing. Maybe can be put in place of one of the tribals.
Thank you for the suggestion, how are those matched between each other? Is there one that is particularly strong against all of the others?
And would you mind sharing the decklists if you have then handy? :)
Hi,
I haven't tested all of them enough. Mostly the matchups between UB control, monoblack, Elves and UR skred. The one that looks weaker is UB control, the rest are fine. The other 4 were added recently so no chance to play them much due to pandemics. I can share the decks, i have and excel list. Ps: no sideboards, i think its more interesting this way for playing with many friends at different levels: you live and die by your sword :)
Well... the thing you need to prize the most is internal balance. If all decks have equal chances against each other, you're golden.
Then you go with your flow. Want to build an archetype box? Or do you want to build a rainbow box?
Within rainbow you can work the first, allocating an archetype to a specific color. Don't be affraid to go multicolor since some decks have a primary color, like RW Monarch is a deck that is predominant in W but with a few R cards so you can use it as a W deck in that color pie slot. Work around all colors and you'll have 5 decks. After that you'll have three available slots. One is for Affinity, of course. Another for Tron. Then you'll have a single slot for a wildcard deck. I used mine for Sultai Tortex since it's a deck that can be played in paper more easilly than online.
It's pretty much that.
Thank you for your reply!
My issue is that I'm a terrible deckbuilder and know very little about pauper. I like your approach though, do you have a suggestion for those 5 decks?
I'm mostly interested in having different archetypes present, that way it can also work as an introduction to the format (for me) and to magic (for friends)
Internal balance is the most important, I don't care if all of the decks are non-competitive, as long as I have a battle box where most archetypes
Well, I would use the current metagame as a base. Look at the top8's of Challenges and see what decks are there.
A few staples are:
Affinity - can be your Artifact deck, just use the more linear version of it
Tron as another staple on its own
RW Monarch or White Heroic or the new White Taxes deck
UR Faeries or U Delver
Mono B Control or BW Pestilence (the less creatures version)
Burn or RDW
Stompy or GW Bogles
And for the last spot something unusual, like a combo or lock deck. The best lock deck is Tortex. Combo can be a UR Blitz or the Thetmos Priest build.
Don't forgot burn, mill and ratlock.
Zombies are super fun! It's not a top tier deck but it's definitely good enough, and can be either more aggro or more midrange depending on the build. I have a soft-spot for goblins/RDW as well.
Orzhov pestilence control is a pretty cool control deck: https://mtgdecks.net/Pauper/bw-pestilence-decklist-by-amoras27-1065974
I've steered clear of monarch cards in my paper decks when playing at home because they can make matches really one-sided in a not fun way. In the pestilence deck above, first-sphere gargantua is a good replacement for palace sentinels.
A nice mono-green ramp deck could be fun, or maybe golgari/gruul ramp.
I don't care about top tier tbh, I care more that the decks are internally balanced so one is not ahead of the rest in terms of power level (bad and good matchups within the gauntlet is perfectly okay: it just needs to be balanced).
I’ve been working on something similar but using Patrick Chapin’s Next Level Deck Building as a guide. I wanted something from each archetype but I have a bunch of linear decks XD Include one-land spy as a big spell combo deck to your gauntlet. It’s fun to play and can show friends a different side to Magic.
Some are definitely stronger than others, my current goal is to have enough play stats to rank them by their rating. When I get home tonight I can send you a current list by rating, which can help choose decks that are on a similar power level.
I would go for a competitive battlebox with the bests decks in the format, focusing in at least one deck per collor (sorry bad english)
1- Mono white heroic, 2- Mono U tempo , 3- mono G stompy aggro, 4-mono red burn combo, 5-mono black devotion midrange, 6- 5c Tron control, 7- temur affinity (artfacts), 8- boros bully tokens.
If u have more money , i would add too, 9- orzhov pestilence (creatureless), 10- gw auras, 11- slivers tribal, 12- ub delver Angler for graveyard shenanigans
In my battlebox i have all the decks, plus 13- zombies tribal, 14- ur skred monarch and finally 15- elves
Exactly why I built this website!
You should add a user login so that user can add it's own card collection can compare WHAT decks can build/have and what card he miss.
I've considered a service along these lines, however there are some great apps out there that provide similar services, such as deckbox, which I think allows you to upload your collection and yours decks to compare what you're missing. That's one long ass sentence.
I've run into your site on a few searches and I'm a fan! You should sell them as a whole kit, with a case and individual boxes and everything. I've got a buddy that runs pauper tournaments, and a complete battlebox would be an awesome 1st place prize.
Haha, thanks! I've definitely thought about that, just gotta perfect my woodworking skills đź‘Ť
Or get a 3d printer, it's actually a great idea if you live in the us
That's a great idea!
It's really easy to acquire mass amounts of cheap cards for this type of thing on Cardsphere. I acquired cards for my first 8-deck battlebox from Cardsphere for just over $100. Burn was like $40 of it. It's easy to upload decklists from PauperBattleBox.com to your Wants on Cardsphere and watch the commits roll in.
What's a commit there?
When another user commits to send you cards. It's a bit different than a typical store in that you list the cards you want and the price you're offering to buy them for and other users can accept your offers and commit to send them to you.
What a wonderful website! :)
How balanced are the Beginner box? I was looking for a series of decks that work as an introduction to the game for friends and my partner.
Apart from the blue Wizards deck, they are balanced in the sense that there isn't much stack interaction, so luck of the draw plays onto it more. It's mostly creatures turned sideways to win, and there are themes there to introduce players to color pie feel and mechanics (ramp, hand disruption, etc). Eventually these matchups turn into a top deck battle as there isn't much card advantage, and none of the decks will win by turn 4. The Wizards deck is probably too controlling and disruptive to teach with because it is doesn't let the opponent play Magic :) Cheers!
I always say this to people wanting introductory decks, pauper decks are not the best for that since rare and mythic cards usually are more intricate, interesting and flashy. Also pauper is a bit hard, not unlike other formats but I would recommend build something closer to casual pauper decks (not the ones that people have the most success with in tournaments) and adding some cool cheap non-common cards. Some rares are worth less than a lot of cheap commons and they have great effects!!
What a great ressource! I looked over the results on the battlebox and notice some of the decks won and lost fairly much (Midlife Orzhov 8-3, Reanimator 6-12 and Dragon Delve 1-7).
Is this simply due to random chance of matchups or are some of these decks worth replacing / upgrading with something more competitive?
Your website is so nice!! I'm finishing a full stack course and hope I can build stuff like that in the near future, do you get money from cardsphere or any ad?
Hey thanks, this was actually my first web project as well! You can definitely do it! I don't make any money from Cardsphere, we have an agreement that I can borrow their pricing data if I promote their site. Plus I'm a shill for them anyways. Let me know if you want some help someday!
Woah nice first project, mine is looking like it's going to be a website for my grandmother's family business but I don't have a clue how I'm gonna do that lol.
Would you like to talk more in discord? I wanna know what you studied to do that or if you are self taught and whatnot. Also you should really incorporate some "ads" for gatherling and cardsrealm, they make free pauper tournaments ( I say "ads" because I'm sure they can't really pay for that but it would be nice if you mentioned them)
Of course, I'll DM you.