How about 20?

Today, let’s take a look at a Pauper deck I put together a while back.

The Setup

Other artifacts that let us cycle through our library are Terrarion, Ichor Wellspring, Kaleidostone, and Courier's Capsule. Pyrite Spellbomb can also cycle, but it also serves as a way to shoot down opposing creatures that threaten to end the game too quickly. Being the versatile Spellbomb it is, it can also help finish off opponents, such as when you have two Scrapyard Salvos and the Spellbomb will make the ninth artifact in your graveyard (Pyrite your opponent for 2, then double-Salvo for 9 and 9).

Finding special room for bad cards in crazy Johnny decks is pretty exciting. Obviously, this deck is built around Scrapyard Salvo, but discovering that it’s actually a great place for Jace's Erasure was pretty awesome. We’ll be drawing a lot more cards than usual with all these artifacts’ triggers, and if we mill ourself with the Erasure, it can ramp up our Scrapyard count quite quickly.

Since we’re milling ourself and want a bunch of artifacts in our graveyard, it seemed to be a reasonable call to throw in a play set of all the colored-mana-producing artifact lands. With so many cheap spells and so much card-draw, a lower land count is fine. The only issue is that perhaps a blue- and red-focused mana base may be a better choice considering the lack of spells of any other color, but the Chromatic cards and their friends will help with that, and I just decided to go all-in.

The Endgame

Okay, fine—let’s generate some redundancy. Unfortunately, there is no common card with as much raw, untethered power as the amazing 3-mana red sorcery from New Phyrexia. Artillerize can help, though. It deals 5 damage at instant speed for 4 mana, and like Pyrite Spellbomb, it can keep us alive when necessary. (I once took out an Ulamog's Crusher for the low, low cost of only 6 mana, two Pyrite Spellbombs, and an Artillerize with its sacrifice!)

The final piece of this puzzle is Heliophial. Playing with sunburst is always exciting, and the mana filtering—notably Kaleidostone—should make it relatively easy to channel the mana of all five of Mirrodin’s suns into this hefty device.

Now that our utility belt is full of crazy contraptions to conjure, let’s pore over the list.

"Pauper Scrapyard"

• Spells (40)
• 4 Artillerize
• 4 Scrapyard Salvo
• 4 Jace's Erasure
• 2 Heliophial
• 3 Ichor Wellspring
• 3 Kaleidostone
• 4 Chromatic Sphere
• 4 Chromatic Star
• 4 Courier's Capsule
• 4 Pyrite Spellbomb
• 4 Terrarion

• Lands (20)
• 4 Ancient Den
• 4 Great Furnace
• 4 Seat of the Synod
• 4 Tree of Tales
• 4 Vault of Whispers

Buy This Deck

Goldfishing

When building a noninteractive combo deck, I always like to goldfish some. Goldfishing is playing a game wherein your opponent is a goldfish . . . who isn’t good at Magic and doesn’t actually play anything. It makes me feel powerful beating up on fish, okay?

It’s also just a good way to test your deck and see how quickly it can win if uninterrupted. Let’s load up Magic Online and take a look.

Turn one: Great Furnace, Chromatic Sphere

Turn two: Draw Chromatic Star, Seat of the Synod, Jace's Erasure

Turn three: Draw Terrarion, trigger Erasure (mill Courier's Capsule), cast Chromatic Star through Chromatic Sphere, draw Pyrite Spellbomb, trigger Erasure (mill Jace's Erasure), cast Chromatic Star through Chromatic Star, draw Tree of Tales, trigger Erasure (mill Seat of the Synod), Tree of Tales, Terrarion

Turn four: Draw Scrapyard Salvo, trigger Erasure (mill Chromatic Star), cast Courier's Capsule through Terrarion, draw Ichor Wellspring, trigger Erasure (mill Ichor Wellspring), Chromatic Star

Turn five: Draw Great Furnace, trigger Erasure (mill Vault of Whispers), Great Furnace, activate Courier's Capsule through Terrarion, draw Seat of the Synod, trigger Erasure (mill Artillerize), draw Scrapyard Salvo and Ancient Den, trigger Erasure twice (mill Kaleidostone and Chromatic Star), Ichor Wellspring, draw Jace's Erasure, trigger Erasure (mill Great Furnace)

Turn six: Draw Ichor Wellspring, trigger Erasure (mill Jace's Erasure), Seat of the Synod, Scrapyard Salvo the goldfish for 13, Ichor Wellspring, draw Ancient Den, trigger Erasure (mill Kaleidostone)

Turn seven: Draw Artillerize, trigger Erasure (mill Vault of Whispers), Ancient Den, Scrapyard Salvo for 15

Ending hand: Pyrite Spellbomb, Pyrite Spellbomb, Ancient Den, Jace's Erasure, Artillerize

Ending battlefield: Great Furnace, Great Furnace, Tree of Tales, Ancient Den, Seat of the Synod, Seat of the Synod, Chromatic Star, Jace's Erasure, Ichor Wellspring, Ichor Wellspring

All that drawing of cards and filtering of mana, though, still only produced a win on turn seven. I imagine there’s an optimal draw that can produce a win sooner than that, but there are certainly decks in the Pauper format that are much quicker.

While I certainly wouldn’t be ashamed to bring the above list to the Just For Fun room on Magic Online (and in fact, I’ve been playing it occasionally since New Phyrexia came out!), I set out to see if I could make a more resilient list. It’s not necessarily faster, but its mana is more consistent, and it has a few tools to try to survive a bit longer. (Oh no! Interaction!)

"Pauper Scrapyard 2"

• Spells (39)
• 4 Artillerize
• 4 Lightning Bolt
• 2 Swirling Sandstorm
• 4 Scrapyard Salvo
• 2 Kaleidostone
• 3 Ichor Wellspring
• 4 Chromatic Sphere
• 4 Chromatic Star
• 4 Courier's Capsule
• 4 Pyrite Spellbomb
• 4 Terrarion

• Lands (21)
• 4 Island
• 6 Mountain
• 1 Ancient Den
• 1 Tree of Tales
• 1 Vault of Whispers
• 4 Great Furnace
• 4 Seat of the Synod

Buy This Deck

This deck may be the best Jace's Erasure deck. Instead of having to achieve around forty-five triggers (when trying to mill out an opponent), we only have to achieve around ten or fifteen (to put a bunch of artifacts in our graveyard alongside the ones that arrive there naturally), and even that is made easier through all the cantripping of the deck. However, this card was still the most all-in of the deck, trying to make a big Scrapyard Salvo as quickly as possible. As this version is moving away from that a bit, the Jace's Erasures came out.

In their place are Lightning Bolts. They’re not artifacts, but they just do their job so well. They can keep us alive by taking out pesky attackers, and they also deal a big 3 to the opponent, taking off some of the pressure from the other burn spells. Since most of the artifacts in the graveyard will now be the ones that arrive there on their own, the necessity for artifact lands is lessened. Therefore, I put in a bunch of Islands and Mountains to make the mana better.

I could see the sideboard having some more Swirling Sandstorms and some Executioner's Capsules. Other builds for the deck that might be neat to see one day might include cards such as Myr Enforcer, Mind Stone, Izzet Signet (and/or friends), Conjurer's Bauble, Mnemonic Wall, or even Scroll of Avacyn (can you find room for any Angels?).

For my part, I expect I’ll continue playing the first list. The Heliophials are a bit clunky, and I do like me some Swirling Sandstorm, but come on! Sunburst! We’ll see I guess.

Until next time, I’m Andrew saying, “Don’t be a squealstoker.”

Andrew Wilson

@Silent7Seven

fissionessence at hotmail dot com