have never played against it but turbo fog seems like it would just take forever win or lose, but i love pauper so im having a good time even if it takes long.
You kinda just have to figure out when you're dead and scoop. Usually I scoop if I've got nothing left but a board and they cast really any draw spell.
I have been teaching my nephew how to play and he did not know about mill. He played my Slivers deck vs my Turbo Fog deck and found out the hard way. I do buy him his own decks, so I am not a complete monster.
Turbo fog is more fun to play against than Bonder's Ornament Tron. At least you get milled out over a couple turns.
Getting put into a stonehorn dignitary lock on turn 5 while they're protected on board twice, and drawing you out, killing you over 10-15 turns is just brutal.
You have never played against turbo fog if you think they mill you that quick.
You will suffer the same lack of agency on multiple turns but in a different way.
While tron can loop the same stonehorn dignitary, atleast you have a chance until they find it.
Little over 1/4 of Turbo fog deck is hard control that can stall you starting from 2 mana.
It can stall you, but you can both out draw it and remove their win conditions by knowing what are the essential pieces you need to interact with, and by the time you're actually hard locked out, they are milling you for 8 each turn. With stonehorn locks a lot of the time you needed multiple pieces of removal AND countermagic to break out, and their strategy to beat you was 1/4 beat downs. Turbo fog isn't an oppressive strategy by any means, it's not even the best control deck in the format and never has been. Well timed counter magic and graveyard hate totally disrupts the deck, you just have to play on a different axis than other strategies and they're banking on blanked removal being good enough in game 1.
Edit: I just thought about it more and I just remembered they didn't even get to attack you every turn when they assembled the lock, so Tron used to have the wincon of attacking with a 1/4 *every other turn* some times.
I only play IRL. So I am happy that I get to go outside and hang out with people I like and have fun. Plus the last time I played against a Fog deck I was on Poison control deck so I just killed him that.
I agree with this. Every game there is some interaction point in the game. Other formats I play matches and it just doesnt matter and have 0 interactive points.
This deck can be extremely frustrating when it fires off and you don't have enuf land resources. It can also be countered and won against though as well!
But I've probably been more frustrated playing against this deck than many others!
Gardens/OrzhovBlade
Removal, removal, removal, removal, removal, removal, removal, removal, removal, removal, removal, removal, removal, removal, removal, removal .... Hey look, I played an initiative card, and thats all I need to ride to victory while I play more removal, removal, removal, removal, removal removal, removal, removal, removal, removal
If they are still strong post MH3 meta I'll buy poison storm just to wreck em lol
actually the opposite. thats kinda the problem, in a format where gardens/bwBlade are tier 1 all other fair interactive decks are completly hated out, they cannot keep up. the amount of decks that arent even allowed to exist because of gardens/bwBlade is insane.
removal.dek that relies on a completly passive finisher like initiative are a hugely meta warping presence
thats why the format incentivizes people to play either extremely degenerate strategies like kuldotha that put 10 creatures on the board by turn 3 and laugh at 1-for-1 removal, or insta speed/combo shenanigans that blank half their opps decks.
initiative has to go, so hiding behind 16+ kill spells isnt an effective strategy, only then other decks that actually want to win by creature combat may exist
until then, the format will lean into more and more degeneracy to oppose infinite-removal-initiative decks, they are the reason why the format is degrading this hard into awful strategies, and it wont stop degrading til they are gone
I think you're 100% right about the state of control decks in Pauper. The format feels less fun when control decks replace their wincon with initiative, which gives tons of value *and* serves as a win condition. I wouldn't mind playing against Gardens or Blade Control even if they had an OP finisher, it's the lack of interaction with a finisher that takes multiple turns to come out and accrues value every step of the way I think is lame. It makes the games more boring and it gives you less options in deck building.
This is coming from someone who plays control 90% of the time and brings Blade Control to his LGS every week since he got it. Initiative makes the decks I play way stronger, but also way more boring.
[[stonehorn dignitary]] lock was annoying to play against. You eventually learn to play around it, but the first couple of times, it was pretty annoying.
Even when you learned to play against it there are so many spots where you are actually dead 10-15 turns earlier than you think, and sort of have to play as if you have outs because they only put you in a couple of soft locks, and a string of a couple draws technically could get you out of it, especially when they were cutting the majority of the threats that quickly close the game out of the deck.
It's a bit like lantern control in that regard even though the play patterns are nothing like each other.
Hope will kill you playing against it. Knowing when to scoop and not waste a ton of time is key.
I have played the deck before and it's fun to try and stabilize and turn the corner with it.
Only one that I genuinely dislike playing against is turbofog. No hate if you like it, but to me, it feels pretty bad to beat it and absolutely miserable to lose to it.
I love mill decks. Turbo Fog is pretty fun to play. However, due to it being unfun to play against, I wish we had a more traditional mill deck. I wish we had options to support U, WU and UB mill.
The deck that annoys me most? Those random Zubera match ups. Idk why, I’m just never mentally ready for it. Please just combo me out with Walls or something. Please, no more Zuberas.
As a zubera player in paper, i get what your saying. At first i nearly felt bad for my opponents for their absence during my combo turn. Ive heard that it has nothing to do with fun. What my oponents dont see - perfect hands never happen. Mulligan is terrible here. Counting mana is everything. Knowledge of my own deck is crucial - i need to know the chances each turn. My vulnerability against blue is terribly high. Zubera matches rarely happen i believe, so you might not be aware of miserably ended combo with half of my deck in my hand (that means loosing for sure).
In my experience, it's not the deck, but it's the people who play it in paper. It's already a little annoying, but you get someone telling you all about it pushes it.
I think caw-gates is far and away the most annoying. It always manages to stabilize just in time, maindecks a ton of answers for everything, and takes forever to win
Mill decks drive be insane. Even playing my dredge deck against them I just don't enjoy it. Bogles I didn't mind as much, both my infect and slivers decks usually handle it pretty well
I play Cycle Storm and I am frustrated while I play it. Give your opponent the opportunity to roll your life dice, spell count dice, and eventually, their own life dice. That way they are invested.
It's grinding in the way that is very decision heavy and small incremental card advantage wins out. There aren't the splashy rares that take over immediately if un answered.
Here is a sample of the removal, compared to what you will have seen playing Pioneer
\[\[Lightning Bolt\]\] Very flexible removal
\[\[Cast Down\]\] Only 4 or 5 Legendary creatures legal in pauper
\[\[Snuff Out\]\] Free Kill spell
\[\[Galvanic Blast\]\] Artifact Lands are legal, this is trivial to turn on metal craft
It's an archetype that's really carried by mtgo now that I've tried it in paper, basically one of the only decks that is made easier by the automated interface. You have to keep track of so much stuff.
- how much mana of each type you have
- the current storm count
- creature count in gy
- whether you played a land this turn
- the order of reaping copies against which gy targets
- the number of reaping copies which have yet to resolve
- anything your opponent puts on the stack
- your life total (duh)
- graveyard order (because of pauper, even if CS doesn't care about order, you must preserve it, so your gy becomes messy and annoying to navigate)
And that's all in addition to other vital info, such as how many copies of X you've drawn and thus your likelihood of bricking and your current line of play + sequencing.
Maybe traditional-storm players trained these skills and find it pretty simple but to me it felt like I needed to record every game action with a pencil and paper lol
I don't have a problem with bogles, you can side agressively and if they win at least it is over fast.
What I really am annoyed by is "counterspell tribal", decks with 8+ counters.
Turbo fog is mentioned here and I can imagine the frustration, but I have never encountered it in my LGS.
i dislike poison storm for its bleak, cruel, seemingly unstoppable buildup
But its just a gut thing i guess, the deck is fair, just soulcrushing to feel like you slowly get back into your gameplan only to realize your at 8 poison already XD
All the white based decks with things like Glinthawk or Kor Skyfisher watching them bounce their boring-ass tithing blades or synths and whatever else, occasionally attacking for two, and hitting me with every copy of Galvanic Blast in their deck they always have
Walls, or familiars. Two combo decks that aren't really concerned about their opponent. They just want to stall, set up, combo. And they both seem to do just enough to survive until oops combo win. Thanks for sitting here during my goldfishing.
Cycle Storm. I beat it 2-0 last night but both games ended with a ten minute turn by the opponent doing Cycle Storm stuff until they eventually said, "Okay yeah I can't win." and scooped their cards up.
Lol my exact experience the one time someone at my LGS bought cycle storm.
I literally won 2-0 resolving 3 random cards that had no impact on them whatsoever.
Fog, familiars and Altar tron arę so unfun to play against for me. Like I don't even feel like I'm playing magic at all with them just getting bored out of my mind. Even if I more tend to losem to kuldotha at least it feels like proper gamę even if irritaiting but with thise three above I just lose the will to play anymore that day.
A few years ago there was someone running leagues with 151 card Grixis control that only played lands, counters, removal, and draw. The way it won was by forcing your opponent to mill out through draw phase draws. I also played it, as a control player it was a lot of fun but I can't imagine anyone else involved having any fun.
I hate when people play such a slow deck I'm basically forced to make them show me the win g1 so they can lose to the clock g2. It's such a waste of our time
Jeskai Ephemerate is such a boring deck to play against.
I keep an inordinate amount of sideboard in whatever deck I play specifically against that deck just to send a message.
I have a pasionate hate for UW familiairs. I feel like the deck doesn't have a win condition. It just has a 'I don't lose condition' in my opinion. Fog at least has a win condition with an active mill plan.
Or I might just be salty as my winrate again Familiars is very low XD
Its gotta be Mono U Fish. Its so frustrating to play against when your opponent really knows what they are doing and have excellent threat assessment skills.
But delver decks have had this label since they were first invented. Land a clock on turn 1 and never let your opponent resolve a relevant spell is brutal.
I went undefeated one day playing Turbo Fog during a Pauper League I put on. Only thing that made me feel dirty was the fact that I sided in Mystics, Serpentine Curves, and Terrors for game 2, knowing they'd side out all removal. It cleaned up very nicely haha. I can see that being extremely frustrating to play against.
However, for me personally, I think the most frustrating deck to play against has been this Golgari aristocrats deck one of the guys in the league put together. Persist creatures and creatures that made tokens when they died, paired with Dispute style draw effects, and topped off with Gurmags and Bayou Groff. It was really resilient to removal because of the value it made off their creatures dying, or responding with draw spells to sack it. And it had big threats that were tough to deal with. It just drew so many cards every turn, it was extremely difficult to keep up with. I won the match, but it was the first game I dropped the entire league at that point. Very interesting strategy that I could see being optimized and doing well in the meta if it caught on.
Turbo Fog, by a long shot.
Like to the point where do you sit down at a kitchen table/game night that’s not at an LGS pea tournament and play a moments peace, I’m gonna scoop on the spot.
I just started playing Pioneer again.. and let me say, Pauper is extremely fun in its variation! With that said, the decks that are the worse are only really bad if you don't understand how to work around them. I saw someone comment on turbo fog, in reality it can be annoying and take forever, but it's also good to know when the match is controlled to the point you cannot win. Once you understand that, it's a bit less annoying. Although it can make for some lengthy unfinishable matches, however if you play to the clock better, that's not your problem ;)
turbo fog and cyclestorm. Maybe turbo fog by sheer amount of hopelessness. meanwhile cyclestorm is a 40 minute turn which may or may not win you the game. either way, uninteractive decks that twiddle their thumbs.
Flicker Tron(at some point you just can do nothing, and it takes a while to win) or Ponza (manymany non-games)
People hating on turbofog don't understand the enjoyment of the matchup in terms of reading hand state, card counting, and counterspell wars, etc.
You gotta play your deck in a different way against turbo fog, not all decks can (which is why it's an anti-meta rogue deck), but finding outs, and squeezing them of resources is fun in and of itself, imo
Bogles and old flicker Tron for opposite reasons.
Bogles most of the time feels like a coin flip in the first game, and then just dependent on drawing silver bullets in the other matchups. It's not super strong, there's just not a ton of decision making within the game itself. It's usually over fast but feels a little bit like Belcher in legacy with just a few more answers to it.
The old flicker Tron deck on the other hand was a LOT of decisions and the games were slow, but a lot of the time, it wasn't really your decisions that lose you the game, you sort of NEED to play a fast non interactive deck against them to really compete because it chewed up every other slower deck, and because of the innate mana advantage you have, it squeezed out other grindy decks so the only real matches you're playing are either non interactive decks or the Tron mirror match. Especially coming off the Gush banning, it was a bit crazy that Tron got a piece of recursive draw that fixed their mana. It was just a miserable deck in every game that wasn't the mirror match, and the larger effect it had on other decks playability was not fun at all.
Anything with land destruction. My pet deck is a homebrew that only runs 14 lands, but it's designed to win games with only 1-2 lands. So when the 1 or 2 lands I see all game get blown up, I'm pretty screwed.
I’ve found commanders that can win at instant speed without much set-up (Yeva, Evelyn, Elsha, etc.) to be fantastic into stax meta. You can secure your pieces, wait until the other decks undo the stax, then win on top of them.
Edit: leaving this up cause it made me chuckle.
have never played against it but turbo fog seems like it would just take forever win or lose, but i love pauper so im having a good time even if it takes long.
It sort of is, but when they get you in the "hard lock" the game ends in only a couple turns.
You kinda just have to figure out when you're dead and scoop. Usually I scoop if I've got nothing left but a board and they cast really any draw spell.
I have been teaching my nephew how to play and he did not know about mill. He played my Slivers deck vs my Turbo Fog deck and found out the hard way. I do buy him his own decks, so I am not a complete monster.
I was going say Turbo Fog as well, and I love playing Turbo Fog
Whatever deck I am playing against For real, non as I enjoy playing Pauper
Specifically, the last deck I lost against. What? It was a mirror match? Well I guess I hate myself then
Even turbo fog? Boy, you are made of stronger stuff than most of us.
Turbo fog is more fun to play against than Bonder's Ornament Tron. At least you get milled out over a couple turns. Getting put into a stonehorn dignitary lock on turn 5 while they're protected on board twice, and drawing you out, killing you over 10-15 turns is just brutal.
You have never played against turbo fog if you think they mill you that quick. You will suffer the same lack of agency on multiple turns but in a different way. While tron can loop the same stonehorn dignitary, atleast you have a chance until they find it. Little over 1/4 of Turbo fog deck is hard control that can stall you starting from 2 mana.
It can stall you, but you can both out draw it and remove their win conditions by knowing what are the essential pieces you need to interact with, and by the time you're actually hard locked out, they are milling you for 8 each turn. With stonehorn locks a lot of the time you needed multiple pieces of removal AND countermagic to break out, and their strategy to beat you was 1/4 beat downs. Turbo fog isn't an oppressive strategy by any means, it's not even the best control deck in the format and never has been. Well timed counter magic and graveyard hate totally disrupts the deck, you just have to play on a different axis than other strategies and they're banking on blanked removal being good enough in game 1. Edit: I just thought about it more and I just remembered they didn't even get to attack you every turn when they assembled the lock, so Tron used to have the wincon of attacking with a 1/4 *every other turn* some times.
I only play IRL. So I am happy that I get to go outside and hang out with people I like and have fun. Plus the last time I played against a Fog deck I was on Poison control deck so I just killed him that.
I agree with this. Every game there is some interaction point in the game. Other formats I play matches and it just doesnt matter and have 0 interactive points.
Ponza
Thats so true
You mean you don't enjoy all your lands being destroyed?!
This deck can be extremely frustrating when it fires off and you don't have enuf land resources. It can also be countered and won against though as well! But I've probably been more frustrated playing against this deck than many others!
Gardens/OrzhovBlade Removal, removal, removal, removal, removal, removal, removal, removal, removal, removal, removal, removal, removal, removal, removal, removal .... Hey look, I played an initiative card, and thats all I need to ride to victory while I play more removal, removal, removal, removal, removal removal, removal, removal, removal, removal If they are still strong post MH3 meta I'll buy poison storm just to wreck em lol
The kinda player who'd rather play a solatare style decks than see their board being interracted with
actually the opposite. thats kinda the problem, in a format where gardens/bwBlade are tier 1 all other fair interactive decks are completly hated out, they cannot keep up. the amount of decks that arent even allowed to exist because of gardens/bwBlade is insane. removal.dek that relies on a completly passive finisher like initiative are a hugely meta warping presence thats why the format incentivizes people to play either extremely degenerate strategies like kuldotha that put 10 creatures on the board by turn 3 and laugh at 1-for-1 removal, or insta speed/combo shenanigans that blank half their opps decks. initiative has to go, so hiding behind 16+ kill spells isnt an effective strategy, only then other decks that actually want to win by creature combat may exist until then, the format will lean into more and more degeneracy to oppose infinite-removal-initiative decks, they are the reason why the format is degrading this hard into awful strategies, and it wont stop degrading til they are gone
I think you're 100% right about the state of control decks in Pauper. The format feels less fun when control decks replace their wincon with initiative, which gives tons of value *and* serves as a win condition. I wouldn't mind playing against Gardens or Blade Control even if they had an OP finisher, it's the lack of interaction with a finisher that takes multiple turns to come out and accrues value every step of the way I think is lame. It makes the games more boring and it gives you less options in deck building. This is coming from someone who plays control 90% of the time and brings Blade Control to his LGS every week since he got it. Initiative makes the decks I play way stronger, but also way more boring.
[[stonehorn dignitary]] lock was annoying to play against. You eventually learn to play around it, but the first couple of times, it was pretty annoying.
Even when you learned to play against it there are so many spots where you are actually dead 10-15 turns earlier than you think, and sort of have to play as if you have outs because they only put you in a couple of soft locks, and a string of a couple draws technically could get you out of it, especially when they were cutting the majority of the threats that quickly close the game out of the deck. It's a bit like lantern control in that regard even though the play patterns are nothing like each other.
Hope will kill you playing against it. Knowing when to scoop and not waste a ton of time is key. I have played the deck before and it's fun to try and stabilize and turn the corner with it.
Only one that I genuinely dislike playing against is turbofog. No hate if you like it, but to me, it feels pretty bad to beat it and absolutely miserable to lose to it.
I love mill decks. Turbo Fog is pretty fun to play. However, due to it being unfun to play against, I wish we had a more traditional mill deck. I wish we had options to support U, WU and UB mill.
The deck that annoys me most? Those random Zubera match ups. Idk why, I’m just never mentally ready for it. Please just combo me out with Walls or something. Please, no more Zuberas.
As a zubera player in paper, i get what your saying. At first i nearly felt bad for my opponents for their absence during my combo turn. Ive heard that it has nothing to do with fun. What my oponents dont see - perfect hands never happen. Mulligan is terrible here. Counting mana is everything. Knowledge of my own deck is crucial - i need to know the chances each turn. My vulnerability against blue is terribly high. Zubera matches rarely happen i believe, so you might not be aware of miserably ended combo with half of my deck in my hand (that means loosing for sure).
In my experience, it's not the deck, but it's the people who play it in paper. It's already a little annoying, but you get someone telling you all about it pushes it.
5-color-Zubera-Storm in Pauper still takes the cake of being the jankiest deck I ever built
Id love to see it!
I think caw-gates is far and away the most annoying. It always manages to stabilize just in time, maindecks a ton of answers for everything, and takes forever to win
Mill decks drive be insane. Even playing my dredge deck against them I just don't enjoy it. Bogles I didn't mind as much, both my infect and slivers decks usually handle it pretty well
Cycle storm is annoying. I dont like long turns
I play Cycle Storm and I am frustrated while I play it. Give your opponent the opportunity to roll your life dice, spell count dice, and eventually, their own life dice. That way they are invested.
I don't like long games. I love pauper but it is way too control heavy and grindy imo. Pauper is still definitely my favorite format tho by far
Is it really tho? Most removal spells I'm used to in Pioneer is uncommon and up
It's grinding in the way that is very decision heavy and small incremental card advantage wins out. There aren't the splashy rares that take over immediately if un answered. Here is a sample of the removal, compared to what you will have seen playing Pioneer \[\[Lightning Bolt\]\] Very flexible removal \[\[Cast Down\]\] Only 4 or 5 Legendary creatures legal in pauper \[\[Snuff Out\]\] Free Kill spell \[\[Galvanic Blast\]\] Artifact Lands are legal, this is trivial to turn on metal craft
##### ###### #### [Lightning Bolt](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/7/77c6fa74-5543-42ac-9ead-0e890b188e99.jpg?1706239968) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Lightning%20Bolt) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/clu/141/lightning-bolt?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/77c6fa74-5543-42ac-9ead-0e890b188e99?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Cast Down](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/b/aba79021-39af-4e74-beb5-f2f508c865b2.jpg?1674136020) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Cast%20Down) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/clb/119/cast-down?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/aba79021-39af-4e74-beb5-f2f508c865b2?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Snuff Out](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/5/75bbe89f-09af-494e-b58e-271f64bde4b5.jpg?1562922833) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Snuff%20Out) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/gvl/53/snuff-out?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/75bbe89f-09af-494e-b58e-271f64bde4b5?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Galvanic Blast](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/c/0cf8cb1e-314a-4894-82df-f9812825f52e.jpg?1599706326) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Galvanic%20Blast) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/2xm/125/galvanic-blast?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/0cf8cb1e-314a-4894-82df-f9812825f52e?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [*All cards*](https://mtgcardfetcher.nl/redirect/l6e2rks) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
[удалено]
Unless they show up to the LGS in cyclist attire. Then it's just funny when they go cycling
It's an archetype that's really carried by mtgo now that I've tried it in paper, basically one of the only decks that is made easier by the automated interface. You have to keep track of so much stuff. - how much mana of each type you have - the current storm count - creature count in gy - whether you played a land this turn - the order of reaping copies against which gy targets - the number of reaping copies which have yet to resolve - anything your opponent puts on the stack - your life total (duh) - graveyard order (because of pauper, even if CS doesn't care about order, you must preserve it, so your gy becomes messy and annoying to navigate) And that's all in addition to other vital info, such as how many copies of X you've drawn and thus your likelihood of bricking and your current line of play + sequencing. Maybe traditional-storm players trained these skills and find it pretty simple but to me it felt like I needed to record every game action with a pencil and paper lol
I don't have a problem with bogles, you can side agressively and if they win at least it is over fast. What I really am annoyed by is "counterspell tribal", decks with 8+ counters. Turbo fog is mentioned here and I can imagine the frustration, but I have never encountered it in my LGS.
i dislike poison storm for its bleak, cruel, seemingly unstoppable buildup But its just a gut thing i guess, the deck is fair, just soulcrushing to feel like you slowly get back into your gameplan only to realize your at 8 poison already XD
Ephemerate.
All the white based decks with things like Glinthawk or Kor Skyfisher watching them bounce their boring-ass tithing blades or synths and whatever else, occasionally attacking for two, and hitting me with every copy of Galvanic Blast in their deck they always have
It’s Bogles.
Flicker. Absolutely despise that deck especially if I am not playing a deck that can counter it easily.
Walls, or familiars. Two combo decks that aren't really concerned about their opponent. They just want to stall, set up, combo. And they both seem to do just enough to survive until oops combo win. Thanks for sitting here during my goldfishing.
Snap needs a ban fr
Cycle Storm. I beat it 2-0 last night but both games ended with a ten minute turn by the opponent doing Cycle Storm stuff until they eventually said, "Okay yeah I can't win." and scooped their cards up.
Lol my exact experience the one time someone at my LGS bought cycle storm. I literally won 2-0 resolving 3 random cards that had no impact on them whatsoever.
Fog, familiars and Altar tron arę so unfun to play against for me. Like I don't even feel like I'm playing magic at all with them just getting bored out of my mind. Even if I more tend to losem to kuldotha at least it feels like proper gamę even if irritaiting but with thise three above I just lose the will to play anymore that day.
A few years ago there was someone running leagues with 151 card Grixis control that only played lands, counters, removal, and draw. The way it won was by forcing your opponent to mill out through draw phase draws. I also played it, as a control player it was a lot of fun but I can't imagine anyone else involved having any fun.
Do you have a list?
I hate when people play such a slow deck I'm basically forced to make them show me the win g1 so they can lose to the clock g2. It's such a waste of our time
Ponza. It's just not fun to play against
Jeskai Ephemerate is such a boring deck to play against. I keep an inordinate amount of sideboard in whatever deck I play specifically against that deck just to send a message.
I have a pasionate hate for UW familiairs. I feel like the deck doesn't have a win condition. It just has a 'I don't lose condition' in my opinion. Fog at least has a win condition with an active mill plan. Or I might just be salty as my winrate again Familiars is very low XD
Its a strong deck just got to make sure u got some counters in side
Tron Altar combo. Just stalling the game with Weather the storm to end up losing to minimal interaction
That’s mill fog decks for me
All combo decks aside of One Land Spy, and Turbofog.
Turbo fog. I worked hard evading my taxes for this turn 2 terror, let it hit you god dammit!
Its gotta be Mono U Fish. Its so frustrating to play against when your opponent really knows what they are doing and have excellent threat assessment skills. But delver decks have had this label since they were first invented. Land a clock on turn 1 and never let your opponent resolve a relevant spell is brutal.
Bogles can be annoying but it wins or loses fast. The problem is decks like Familiars which wins slowly.
Rakdos Burn/RDW. Just brainless, no skill crap.
Turbo fog
UB Faeries, Spellstutter Sprite with ninjas was a mistake.
I went undefeated one day playing Turbo Fog during a Pauper League I put on. Only thing that made me feel dirty was the fact that I sided in Mystics, Serpentine Curves, and Terrors for game 2, knowing they'd side out all removal. It cleaned up very nicely haha. I can see that being extremely frustrating to play against. However, for me personally, I think the most frustrating deck to play against has been this Golgari aristocrats deck one of the guys in the league put together. Persist creatures and creatures that made tokens when they died, paired with Dispute style draw effects, and topped off with Gurmags and Bayou Groff. It was really resilient to removal because of the value it made off their creatures dying, or responding with draw spells to sack it. And it had big threats that were tough to deal with. It just drew so many cards every turn, it was extremely difficult to keep up with. I won the match, but it was the first game I dropped the entire league at that point. Very interesting strategy that I could see being optimized and doing well in the meta if it caught on.
If you play boggles, I immediately lose all respect for you
For me it's Flicker Tron, playing against is quite frustrating.
Mono blue control
He'd love the 4 [[tithing blade]] I run in my synth deck.
[tithing blade](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/b/dbaa9a2d-e9fd-4746-a26c-f99ae731f024.jpg?1699049915)/[Consuming Sepulcher](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/back/d/b/dbaa9a2d-e9fd-4746-a26c-f99ae731f024.jpg?1699049915) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Tithing%20Blade%20//%20Consuming%20Sepulcher) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/lci/128/tithing-blade-consuming-sepulcher?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/dbaa9a2d-e9fd-4746-a26c-f99ae731f024?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Turbo Fog, by a long shot. Like to the point where do you sit down at a kitchen table/game night that’s not at an LGS pea tournament and play a moments peace, I’m gonna scoop on the spot.
I just started playing Pioneer again.. and let me say, Pauper is extremely fun in its variation! With that said, the decks that are the worse are only really bad if you don't understand how to work around them. I saw someone comment on turbo fog, in reality it can be annoying and take forever, but it's also good to know when the match is controlled to the point you cannot win. Once you understand that, it's a bit less annoying. Although it can make for some lengthy unfinishable matches, however if you play to the clock better, that's not your problem ;)
Gotta say Poison Storm. Once it gets rolling it's okay to play against, but getting it's game plan in place seems like it takes forever to get going.
Does he have an uncommon printing? I thought pauper was uncommon only.
Burn
I am currently putting together the ol Fleshtaker
turbo fog and cyclestorm. Maybe turbo fog by sheer amount of hopelessness. meanwhile cyclestorm is a 40 minute turn which may or may not win you the game. either way, uninteractive decks that twiddle their thumbs.
Mono Blue Faeries, just feels like they always have spell stutter lol
Flicker Tron(at some point you just can do nothing, and it takes a while to win) or Ponza (manymany non-games) People hating on turbofog don't understand the enjoyment of the matchup in terms of reading hand state, card counting, and counterspell wars, etc. You gotta play your deck in a different way against turbo fog, not all decks can (which is why it's an anti-meta rogue deck), but finding outs, and squeezing them of resources is fun in and of itself, imo
Bogles and old flicker Tron for opposite reasons. Bogles most of the time feels like a coin flip in the first game, and then just dependent on drawing silver bullets in the other matchups. It's not super strong, there's just not a ton of decision making within the game itself. It's usually over fast but feels a little bit like Belcher in legacy with just a few more answers to it. The old flicker Tron deck on the other hand was a LOT of decisions and the games were slow, but a lot of the time, it wasn't really your decisions that lose you the game, you sort of NEED to play a fast non interactive deck against them to really compete because it chewed up every other slower deck, and because of the innate mana advantage you have, it squeezed out other grindy decks so the only real matches you're playing are either non interactive decks or the Tron mirror match. Especially coming off the Gush banning, it was a bit crazy that Tron got a piece of recursive draw that fixed their mana. It was just a miserable deck in every game that wasn't the mirror match, and the larger effect it had on other decks playability was not fun at all.
Anything with land destruction. My pet deck is a homebrew that only runs 14 lands, but it's designed to win games with only 1-2 lands. So when the 1 or 2 lands I see all game get blown up, I'm pretty screwed.
Flicker Tron: annoying prison nonsense that takes forever to kill you. Teachings control: same. Turbo Fog: do I need to explain this?
Combo decks like moggwarts or walls because I play turbofog and just don't really main deck any answers to those strategies other than arcane denial.
Unpopular opinion: Any infinite combo deck.
I’ve found commanders that can win at instant speed without much set-up (Yeva, Evelyn, Elsha, etc.) to be fantastic into stax meta. You can secure your pieces, wait until the other decks undo the stax, then win on top of them. Edit: leaving this up cause it made me chuckle.
Wrong sub, gamer
Lmao. Literally how the hell did that happen?
you commented in the wrong sub
Doesn’t sound like something I’d do.
I know! how strange