***CONSIDERATIONS***
Before we get in to the match-ups, let's analyze the cards that we play.

For starters, we have our creature package. [[Dusk Legion Zealot]] is a cheaper version of [[Phyrexian Rager]]. Rager, before RIX, was a pauper staple for almost every black deck. Since Zealot's release, I've decided to make the change over to him rather than Rager, mainly due to him costing 1CMC less. However, this is a bit of a non-bo with [[Cuombajj Witches]], so if you're a huge fan of the Witches, then [[Phyrexian Rager]] is probably a better fit for your deck. I do like Rager and Zealot by no means is strictly better, I just feel that he fits better in my deck as I prefer the lower curve.

[[Crypt Rats]] is such an incredible card and has raised in price a fair amount over the past few weeks as Pauper has become a more popular format. The rats are very necessary as they're a way to sweep the board of midrange creatures and small creatures alike. A rat where x=5 will change around virtually any game you're playing. They work well in our deck as the threats that we do play can often dodge our own rat sweep.

[[Chittering Rats]] is another fantastic card as it allows us to keep our opponent off of their tempo by bouncing a card from their hand back to the top of their library. Playing these in succession of one another when your opponent is low on cards is back breaking and there's nothing more frustrating for your opponent than drawing the same dead answer multiple times.

[[Gray Merchant of Asphodel]] is an all-star in the deck as it not only drains our opponent for huge amounts of life, but it also gains us that back. Since we are not an aggressive deck and don't play any counter magic, we're going to take a lot of damage over the course of the game. Gary helps us fill in the gap while simultaneously draining our opponent. If you play with [[Cuombajj Witches]] in the main, Gary can drain for insane amounts when combined with [[Chittering Rats]] and [[Pestilence]].

[[Gurmag Angler]] is the last creature we're going to play and he's a pauper staple in black. We play a ton of low mana spells, chump block frequently, and cycle quite a few cards so our graveyard fills up quickly. It's not uncommon to be able to have a T4 Gurmag Angler if you choose. Most lists run 2, I've bumped it up to 3 because he's been that great for me as a closer.

SIDEBOARD

In our sideboard we run [[Cuombajj Witches]] and [[Okiba-Gang Shinobi]]. The Witches are great in certain match ups, terrible in others. I like bringing them in against such as Elves where [[Dusk Legion Zealot]] doesn't really help us too much. The Witches are a resilient threat that pings out your opponents as well as yourself. I do love them, but given the way the meta has been shaping up with more midrange threats in Kuldotha Boros and Delver, I've moved the Witches to the side for emergency.

[[Okiba-Gang Shinobi]] is a fun little card that tears your opponents hand apart, especially when they're least expecting it. There's nothing better than attacking with a 1/1 Zealot, using Ninjitsu to flash in your Shinobi, and watching your opponent discard their hand. Not a necessary card at all, but it's great in control matches and against Tron.

Now that we've gone over our creatures, let's talk about our instants, sorceries, enchantments, and lands!

[[Dead Weight]] is in essence a permanent [[Disfigure]] that operates at sorcery speed. The main reason for this card to be in the deck is it's a 1 mana removal spell, and it adds the devotion for Gary. It's a solid card and is a dual threat in our deck.

[[Disfigure]] is prime removal in pauper where most creatures don't really venture out of the 2-3 toughness zone. It is a great early game threat and shuts off [[Delver of Secrets]] completely. It also does work against Stompy and Elves where their key cards always have < 3 toughness.

[[Duress]] is a card that usually sits in the sideboard, but I've found them very advantageous in the main as pauper is a format flooded with overpowered spells such as [[Ponder]], [[Brainstorm]], [[Preordain]], [[Gush]], [[Daze]], [[Lightning Bolt]]... you get the gist of it. Most decks in the format run a decent amount of non-creature spells which we don't want to be played against us, thus, Duress is a solid fit. Worst case scenario is that you hit nothing and it becomes Gurmag Angler fodder shortly after.

[[Chainer's Edict]] is my favorite removal spell at the moment as Mono-White Heroic has recently become a huge part of the meta game. A strategically placed Edict can completely negate their plan of using protection from color spells as edict doesn't target the creature, it targets the player. It can be a hit or miss as they do sometimes have small tokens or other supporting creatures, however, we have other removal for them. Edict is also a staple in black in my opinion because it takes care of ANY creature regardless if they have hexproof, are a 99/99 Elvish Vanguard, or if they have protection from black. It also can be flashbacked for 7 mana, which, as crazy as it sounds, happens very frequently in this deck.

[[Sign in Blood]] is perfect in mono-black as we're never going to have an issue casting it. [[Night's Whisper]] is strictly better, however in this deck it doesn't make a difference. Pay 2, draw 2 is what black control is all about. I've seen most lists running 2 or 3, but I prefer the full 4 in the main board because I'm all about the live fast, die young plan with this deck. We want to get as many of our removal spells online as quickly as we can, and Sign in Blood does that perfectly. Plus, it has some pretty dope art whether it be the promo version, or the regular version.

[[Victim of Night]] has also been some all-star removal in the deck. It hits a vast majority of the format as vampires, zombies, and werewolves aren't super popular. It does not hit [[Gurmag Angler]] though, and that can be a real issue at times. I originally had [[Geth's Verdict]] here, but I prefer this as it doesn't give our opponent the option to sac a token rather than a big threat.

[[Oubliette]] is a card I only recommend playing online as the paper price is not at all worth the cost of the card. You can get the entire deck for the cost of one Oubliette. Regardless, Oubliette is a solid card in pauper as it is a dual threat in our deck by adding devotion for Gary and it's an exile spell in black, which doesn't happen very often! [[Unmake]] is a budget option here, and if you're playing in paper, I highly recommend using [[Unmake]] instead.

[[Tendrils of Corruption]] is a fun little 2-of and is one of our flex slots in the deck. There are times where you'll have 9-10 swamps out, so this spell not only removes nearly every creature in the format, but it also gains you a ton of life.

Lastly, we have [[Pestilence]]. Pestilence has been hit and miss for me so far. In some match ups it is absolutely amazing, and in others, completely useless. It can either be a 4 mana board wipe that disappears, or you can pick off your opponents creatures strategically with it. As we are a black devotion deck we have no issues ever dumping 3-4 black mana into it to clear a board. Once again, Gary benefits greatly from this enchantment and the two even work harmoniously on board as you can pay 3 mana each turn and Gary won't die, but your opponents board will.

SIDEBOARD

In the side we have another copy of [[Duress]], a copy of [[Raven's Crime]] which does a ton of work against Heroic and control decks as we can pitch our excess lands to continuously rip apart their hand. [[Nihil Spellbomb]] is a good way to clear out graveyards and draw a card in the process. You can use [[Relic of Progenitus]] here however I prefer Nihil as it's a one way wipe, and we use our graveyard for Delve and tracing cards decently often. A second copy of [[Oubliette]], two copies of [[Doom Blade]] for some additional removal if necessary, three copies of [[Nausea]] ([[shrivel]] is strictly better however I like the art of [[nausea]] better and don't mind the sorcery speed), against go wide strategies and token decks, and that sums up the side!

Also, I want to give a shout out to [[Thorn of the Black Rose]] in paper, because being the monarch is great and we definitely use the extra card draw. I don't play it online because at 12 tix each it's a bit ridiculous, but in paper for a quarter, please play this card.

Let's get on to a bit of match-up analysis against the current top 5 decks in the meta according to Mtggoldfish. I'll briefly hit the game plan for MBC, why we're favored or unfavored, and how I would side board.

IZZET DELVER

Well, Delver is a bit of a difficult match up with 4 [[Spellstutter Sprites]] and 4 [[counterspell]] usually being played, and in the side there's usually an [[Annul]] or two which hurts our enchantments, but I wouldn't say the U/R version is super difficult.

We have answers to all of their threats very easily and we have the option to board wipe frequently. Their only means to countering [[Pestilence]] is by actually using [[Counterspell]], which isn't always easy to leave mana up for in this match up as we're constantly trying to destroy their creatures. This is a match up where you want to be on the play all the time and you will suffer greatly on the draw as being able to go Swamp -> Pass -> Disfigure on Delver is great for us. Skred is pretty useless here unless it can be used on an Angler, so that's usually going to be a dead card in their hand as we don't block fliers well anyways. Our key cards in this match up are going to be [[Crypt Rats]], [[Pestilence]], and all of our spot removal. We have to keep them off having Delver flipped and be very weary of [[Spellstutter Sprites]] and counter magic. Play around that and game 1 should be fine for you.

SIDEBOARD

IN: +1 Duress, +1 Oubliette, +2 Doom Blade

OUT: -1 Chainer's Edict, -1 Gurmag Angler, -2 Tendrils of Corruption

Game two is the same plan, but since you're more than likely on the draw, you need to be extra careful of a T1 [[Faerie Miscreant]] into T2 Spellstutter Sprite countering a [[Sign in Blood]] or [[Dusk Legion Zealot]]. Play around Sprite and Counterspell once again and try to land a big [[Pestilence]] and they'll usually fold. [[Pestilence]] destroys delver decks so much to the point that I'm about to put a second one in my side.

FIVE COLOR TRON

Well, fuck. It's tron. We're a control deck. No bueno. Key thing here is to try to stick a bunch of Gary's but it's rough because Tron will just counter it, and attacking with our shitty little creatures is going to be bad because they're more than likely just going to fog or blow the board up. Tron is a tough match up and if you're not playing a version of the deck which is heavy on land destruction or discard spells, you're going to have a bad time. I'm honestly not even going to go into this match up because it really is just a lost cause playing Tron as another control deck.

SIDEBOARD

IN: +1 Duress, +1 Raven's Crime, +2 Okiba-Gang Shinobi, +2 Nihil Spellbomb

OUT: -1 Pestilence, -2 Crypt Rats, -3 Disfigure

Pray you can blow up their graveyard and stick down threats, otherwise [[Mnemonic Wall]] and [[ghostly flicker]] are going to ruin your life.

KULDOTHA BOROS // BOROS METALCRAFT

I absolutely love this match up. They play a ton of red removal which doesn't really do much to us and [[Galvanic Blast]] doesn't hit our Anglers and once Gary hits the field he's done his job, so that's always a step up. They do play a bunch of recursive threats so as long as we can keep removing their threats, they'll have a difficult time against us. [[Prismatic Strands]] is a card which gives a lot of aggro decks trouble, but against us it's pretty much a dead card in their hand until we start the beats with Gurmag. This match is up is in all honesty pretty easy for us. They'll play their creatures, we'll remove them until it's time to swing and kill. Basic control stuff.

SIDEBOARD

IN: +1 Duress, +1 Raven's Crime, +1 Okiba-Gang Shinobi

OUT: -1 Pestilence, -2 Dusk Legion Zealot

We bring in hand disruption here to get rid of their spells because the creatures aren't super imperative here. They're a midrange deck and we're super favored against midrange strategies.

MONO-BLUE DELVER

Mono-blue delver probably one of our toughest match ups. They snap and vapor snag away our Anglers and their creatures in response to removal spells. They play a ton of counter magic and out tempo us fairly easily. We need to land a [[Pestilence]] in order to pick off their creatures and somehow land a few creatures of our so we don't lose our pestilence.

This match is very difficult but definitely winnable, you just have to draw skillfully. ;)

IN: +1 Duress, +1 Raven's Crime, +1 Oubliette

OUT: -1 Gurmag Angler, -1

ELVES

And for our final match up, we have Elves. Elves is a match up that can either go very well, or very wrong. Game 1 we NEED to hit our crypt rats because Elves can recover from spot removal very quickly and very easily with [[lead the stampede]] being downshifted recently. Crypt Rats absolutely destroys Elves and there's literally nothing they can do against it. Game 1 I would honestly say Elves are slightly favored, because they have way more threats than we can take care of. It's very easy to beat though, as a ton of new pilots have been overextending with Elves from what I've seen and when they do that it's as simple as one Crypt Rats and they're done for.

SIDEBOARD

IN: +3 Nausea

OUT: -2 Duress, -1 Oubliette

After boarding, this match up is ours unless we draw poorly. A well-timed [[Nausea]] or [[Shrivel]] and Elves is pretty much done for. Be careful for [[Spidersilk Armor]] and [[Magnify]] as these slow down our plans slightly, but I wouldn't say they're very helpful either as Crypt Rats is such a ridiculous card.

Outside of the top 5, we're definitely favored against decks such as Heroic, Bogles, Affinity, and are very weak against UB Control / Teachings, other Tron decks, burn is a very tough match up, Soul Sisters weirdly enough if you ever play it can be a tricky match up, Slivers can be rough... So, a lot of fringe decks are tough match ups, but your biggest concerns are definitely Tron, control mirrors, and Mono-Blue Delver specifically.

So, I've talked about how rough of a match up Tron is and seeing as that is also a control deck, why should you play this deck over Tron if you're a spike?

Consistency, resiliency, and flexibility.

Tron is definitely a more controlling deck. It fogs, counters, wipes, recurs tons of threats, and beats down better. However, Tron is very susceptible to aggressive decks, which we are much better at. In an unknown meta, many players react with something they're familiar with: Aggro strategies. Red Deck Wins, Elves, Stompy, Bogles... Tron can struggle against these decks if they can't get their colored mana online, or if they're just too slow.

Mono-Black Control never has an issue with consistency, mana, or stopping threats. We play more removal spells than most decks can power through, and we also play some big bodies at the end of our curve that help us chump and attack each turn.

The deck is also easier to pilot and is a great deck for beginners in the format, as the buy-in is very, very low. Tron is a difficult deck to perform with if you've never played with it as it definitely has a higher learning curve and you must know when and what to fog, when and what to counter, and when to blow up the world.

MBC on the other hand, while still a skill intensive deck, does not have as high of a learning curve and if you are looking to break into the format, is a perfect deck for you. I have never played a control deck in any other format and I have fallen in love with this deck and in the 5 leagues I've ran with it so far I have gone 5-0 three times and 4-1 twice, losing against the lovely mono-blue Delver deck. In paper my record with it is currently 15-5, losing almost all my match ups against my local Tron player.

Hopefully this helped a bit and isn't such a cluster to read, I'm not the best at writing these things but I'm definitely looking to spread the word of Pauper. I've seen quite a few other Pauper posts here recently and I'm so excited that more Spikes are interested in the world of Pauper because I feel really is a fun, challenging, and wide open format. Many players regard to Legacy as the most skill intensive and interactive format and I feel that Pauper is very close to both of those. Games are still sometimes decided by who draws better, but for the most part, Pauper is a format about threats and answers and when to deploy them.

Please ask me all of your questions in regards to Pauper, it is a format I've been very interested in for the past year as it's the format I've played the most and have the most experience in. I primarily played Elves until [[Lead the Stampede]] was reprinted but since then I've abandoned my pointy eared friends online and moved to MBC because I don't really like playing decks that are super popular and planned for. I love seeing people say "oh fuck" when you play two swamps and [[Chainer's Edict]] hexproof [[Slippery Bogle]].

Thank you all in advance, and I look forward to your questions! Also, please let me know if any of the information here is somehow incorrect as it's pretty hard to proofread with Reddit's text box.

           


                                            ***CRITIQUES***



[–]Space_Dye_Vest [score hidden] 12 hours ago*
Why is Night's Whisper strictly better than Sign in Blood given SiB can also target opponents? It's the other way around.

I think you sugarcoated a bit too much how truly strong MBC is. You say it doesn't have problems with consistency and flexibility and that you can tailor it for the expected metagame, and that is obviously true, yet MBC is worse at doing so than other midrange decks because shoehorning narrow spells to combat certain strategies will give you dead cards in other scenarios (e.g. Echoing Decay to fight Battle Screech, then you draw it against Tron). This is the inherent risk with running narrow cards of course, however not having cantrips nor a draw engine to convert chaff into new gas (e.g. Compulsive Research, Faithless Looting) hurts MBC's consistency. It's quite known by this point that MBC often has to line up its narrow spells one after one to generate favorable incremental advantage and thus victory in the long run. When this does not happen, you find yourself in dire straits, e.g. holding a Chainer's Edict after the opponent has resolved Battle Screech or a Disfigure with a Thermo-Alchemist. Yes, this can be said about reactive cards in general--that you need to align them properly--, however in my findings black spells are much more likely to hit-or-miss than, say, red ones, although potentially of wider range.

The deck also tends to flood out in the later game.

Another thing that is flat wrong in my opinion is replacing Rager with Zealot. If anything, Zealot wants to play alongside Phyrexian Rager to supplement an otherwise not-top-of-the-line card advantage section of the deck. Also, I wouldn't say that the deck has no problem in dealing with lifeloss, as the absence of gainlands and Radiant Fountain puts you in a scenario where you need to rely on slow and clunky ways to gain life like Tendrils and Gray Merchant while losing life to due to your own spells and opponent beating you down. Anyone who has tested MBC a bit will have found themselves unable to cast Sign in Blood or Rager due to risking Bolt or getting lethaled the turn after.

This is not to disrespect your detailed post, however a bit more of critical and objective eye doesn't hurt when it comes to focus on a deck's strength and weaknesses. MBC has an excellent manabase for a midrange deck but many, many holes in power-level. As you highlighted, it might struggle against Tron, U and UR Delver, UB and Burn, which is largely what Leagues are now about. Boros is also not a very easy matchup as you deem it to be I believe (I genuinely wonder how many games you played to provide such opinion). If anything, MBC thrives when the metagame gets filled with Elves, Bogles, Heroic and Tribe, i.e. the next wave after fair decks take over for a while that's usually seen in metagame cycles.

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[–]SleakesRakdos [score hidden] 3 hours ago
I used to play MBC before the format got faster and these all hold true. I find the OPs following statement to be largely misinformed, or just plain disregarding the actual meta:

It has game against every deck in the format and is by far one of the most consistent decks to boot. Not only is it consistent, but it's very reactive to your meta game.

MBC's strength has always been preying on decks that try to 'go tall' as it can pack many edict effects. Post-Drake though I haven't been able to play MBC with any success, regardless of what cards get slotted in or out specifically for the reason that some cards just brick in certain matchups and MBC has no way (like UB does) to filter or fetch specific cards it needs. Yes, MBC can have good games against certain decks, but it requires topdecking repeatedly, or that everyone be playing the listed decks that thrive in 'fair magic' situations (Elves, Bogles, Heroic)

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[–]SixesMTGGolgari [score hidden] 3 hours ago
MBC also works well against delver if you have main deck witches. A 2 mana pinger is huge. It does very well against heroic due to the sweepers and edicts. As you mention, it does great against Elves, Bogles and generally has a lot of game against decks that flood out creatures (RDW, Stompy depending on the build, random decks using Lead the Stampede).

It also does better against current tron builds than the older (and generally more redundant) ones. Temur tron had a lot of redundancy with the expedition maps, eggs, lifegain from fangren marauder and the unbeatable rolling thunder finish. Murasa tron (especially the newer builds with just 1-2 pulse, 1 teaching, 0-2 maps, no crop rotation, 1 ghostly flicker) is much more likely to get stalled by a choking sands or a good discard hit and also much more likely to get a key piece of the loop exiled by a duress/wrench mind into bojuka bog/relic/spellbomb. This transition to a toolbox with main deck electrickeries and a lot of fogs has made the deck stronger against aggro and non-black midrange but weakened it against MBC in particular due to the discard.

The deck is also perfectly viable in midrange mirrors. You have crypt rats to answer Battle Screeches and the like, you have Gary to win a damage race and you have your own monarch (or just attacking creatures) to steal monarch.

The last point about MBC is that it has always been very good at crushing random rogue decks. The combination of discard, 2 mana pingers, card advantage and slamming a big Gary tend to keep many of the weird and wonderful strategies in check.

What we are left with is a deck that has recently seen it's good matchups get more numerous (Elves and Heroic in particular) and its worst matchups get better (Tron) and less prevalent (there is less UB control running about than there was 8 months ago).

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[–]MrPewpyButtwhole [score hidden] an hour ago
Yea I was surprised to see no mention of the witches is his write up. With elves and delver being everywhere, I wouldn't leave home without em.

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[–]croninhos2MIR [score hidden] 10 hours ago
My experience playing UR Delver into MBC is completely different.

Delver is just not relevant here, UR delver isnt going to a ride a single delver to a win. I often just let it die to removal.

Skred though is amazing and very versatile, it kills witches which are a pain for UR Delver, it kills Anglers, it lets you answer Gary's ETB, it clears the way for ninja.... Skred specially allows the UR player to save counterspell for the relevant cards (which are Pestilence and Crypt Rats, though Wrench Mind and Chittering Rats are annoying as well). Its a great card

I think UR Delver is decently favored in this mu. I also never seen people play Annul.

Another thing that made me raise an eyebrow is Boros

Boros seems like a tough mu as well for MBC, specially with no monarch guy. Sure, Galvanic doesnt kill Anglers, but they play Journey to Nowhere anyways. They can just kill everything on your board and grind you out with Monarch.

MBC also hurts itself quite a lot, so Boros burning you out is always a possibility as well.

I dont play Boros myself, so maybe I'm wrong, but are you sure these experiences arent just you being the better player and making the games seem much easier because of that?

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[–]OthesemoThat Puzzle Guy [score hidden] 4 hours ago
I definitely agree with UR. UR's value creatures are generally just cheaper and stronger versions of MBCs, and it runs less maindeck removal. As long as you have interaction for the few cards that matter, you should be able to just grind them out.

One big aspect of that is that MBC naturally floods in long games, whereas Delver can use Gush and Brainstorm to draw into more action.

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[–]MTGCardFetcher [score hidden] 17 hours ago
Raven's Crime - (G) (SF) (MC)
Wrench Mind - (G) (SF) (MC)
Duress - (G) (SF) (MC)
Okiba-Gang Shinobi - (G) (SF) (MC)
Chainer's Edict - (G) (SF) (MC)
Victim of Night - (G) (SF) (MC)
Disfigure - (G) (SF) (MC)
Dead Weight - (G) (SF) (MC)
Doom Blade - (G) (SF) (MC)
Nausea - (G) (SF) (MC)
Shrivel - (G) (SF) (MC)
Echoing Decay - (G) (SF) (MC)
Crypt Rats - (G) (SF) (MC)
link - (G) (SF) (MC)
Dusk Legion Zealot - (G) (SF) (MC)
Phyrexian Rager - (G) (SF) (MC)
Cuombajj Witches - (G) (SF) (MC)
Chittering Rats - (G) (SF) (MC)
Gray Merchant of Asphodel - (G) (SF) (MC)
Pestilence - (G) (SF) (MC)
Gurmag Angler - (G) (SF) (MC)
Delver of Secrets/Insectile Aberration - (G) (SF) (MC)
Ponder - (G) (SF) (MC)
Brainstorm - (G) (SF) (MC)
Preordain - (G) (SF) (MC)
[[cardname]] or [[cardname|SET]] to call - Updated images

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[–]HelixR [score hidden] 12 hours ago
Nice read! Im not a pauper grinder at all, but heres my question: i own a paper mono b control deck with a decklist pre-DLZealot (not able to post it atm, but i believe its the exact same as the list in The Mana Source's primer on youtube, with pestilence instead of oubliettes). How should I transform that list into a better one with DLZ and maybe other spells?

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[–]Where_The_Sauce_At [score hidden] 8 hours ago
If you're going to go DLZ, just pull your Witches out of the MB.

You can either replace with a discard package or a damage package.

Or you can double down and include Ragers for twice the draw

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[–]HelixR [score hidden] 6 hours ago
Thanks. My first guess would be that, but I am a bit unsure about discard (ravens crime/wrench mind) and in what way. I do mot have a typical metagame to worry about, so I would like to make this deck able to have as much chance possible to beat any possible deck (wide approach). Gusss ill just try your approach and see how it goes from there.

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[–]Host-the [score hidden] 6 hours ago
I appreciate you spending the time and energy to write this up. I am looking forward to more and more pauper content appearing over time! We need more in depth posts. One thing is, from my point of view, playing tron vs MBC is pretty much a bye. Maybe its just because of playing the "stock lists" of MBC, but it generally can't stand the card advantage of tron.

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[–]JovianJewels[S] [score hidden] 5 hours ago
Definitely! But if you’re playing Tron, you’re a bad human. :D

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[–]SixesMTGGolgari [score hidden] 6 hours ago
My current list is more oldschool. It runs the full 4 witches because they are phenomenal against delver (killing faeries is the key point, though unflipped delvers are also good targets), especially the mono-U delver that can't really remove witches (even UR needs to have enough burn, though). The other decks in the format that have been on the rise are elves or other green creature based decks due to lead the stampede (witches are great here) and heroic that uses 1/1 creatures as edict protection so witches+edicts are great.

At least for the online pauper league meta, I've found the witches build to be better than the builds with main deck wrench mind, in large part because many midrange and tron matchups run enough artifacts that wrench mind isn't good (and it's obviously terrible against aggro).

As for DLZ, it's less of an advantage when I'm already running witches, so I leave the ragers in (a 2/2 is significantly better than a 1/1).

The key thing I am struggling with is whether or not to find space for a couple anglers. The big fish can be pretty great and I think I need to rearrange my list accordingly.

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[–]JovianJewels[S] [score hidden] 5 hours ago
Would you mind sharing a list?

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[–]SixesMTGGolgari [score hidden] 5 hours ago
https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/13-02-18-tCq-mbc/

That's my current list. I am likely going to rework the board and main a little. Something along the lines of moving 1 crypt rat to the board and remove the unearth for 2 anglers. Then I can remove 3 choking sands from the board to make space for the crypt rats and maybe 2 okiba gang shinobis or 1 shinobi and a third thorn.

Edit: The cartouche of ambition is main because it has a huge impact on game 1 against burn or RDW as well as a bunch of aggro decks. It also gets better with anglers, so I want to keep it there.



[–]Space_Dye_Vest [score hidden] an hour ago
Isn't Witches a must-include? They alone do so much. Besides being an incredibly annoying card for Delver as you mention, they behave like a The Abyss against Elves and nearly give the deck a bye in the Tribe matchup. Witches pinging smaller critters also allow Chainer's Edict to hit the big targets (e.g. against Cartouche of Solidarity) and they complement Disfgure in taking down Skyfisher and Thermo-Alchemist. Honestly at a second thought I just believe they do so much that replacing them with DLZ can't be the right thing to do. DLZ works in a shell that can reuse its trigger multiple times, which implies splashing a second color for Flicker, Skyfisher, whatever value generating card.



[–]SixesMTGGolgari [score hidden] an hour ago
Absolutely.

It's by far my main issue with the OP's write-up. The biggest reason to play MBC is that you get a turn 2 1/3 pinger. That alone destroys a ton of decks in pauper. It's also phenomenal with a Cartouche of Ambition, both because it's out of bolt range and because you can just ping at will and still gain life.

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[–]-Xto2- [score hidden] 28 minutes ago
Appreciate the work you put into this but I also have some doubts about the actual strength of the deck. One thing I can say for sure is that Boros Monarch is definitely not a super easy matchup for you. I am on Monarch for some time now and my current record vs MBC is 25-7. I know that the matchup is obviously not so lopsided but I cannot see having less than 50% with Boros.