Italian Pauper Open Series #2, report&decklist – 17/05/2020 (ENG)
Italian Pauper Open Series 17/05/2020 – Report
Welcome to Magic Titans pauper enthusiasts!
This Sunday the second edition of the Italian Pauper Open has been played; this online tournament, played on MTG Online, is organized by Lega Pauper Italia and sponsored by Magic Titans, Dungeon Street and ShivanAlteredArt.
31 Players fought by the skin of their teeth through five turns of swiss and the final top eight.
Among the participants there were many of the best Italian players, like cicciogire, A_AdeptoTerra, SanPop and SulleyCrusher, plus two very special guests:
saidin. raken, well known for his results with UW Familiars (this is his YouTube channel), and deluxeicoff, famous for many original brews and owner of the Pauperganda YouTube channel.
Considering that, due to time zone, they played during the night, a gigantic thank for their participation is absolutely due!
Last but not least, on the Lega Pauper Italia twitch channel you can find the record of the live streamed during the whole tournament, in which you can find:
- Turn one Faithless Looting, Turn two Exhume into Ulamog’s Crusher by Rakdos Ranimator;
- UW Priest deck, created by Entropy, which score the first place in the swiss rounds;
- Slivers mirror, an absurd matchup;
- Red Deck Wins that win by turn four vs Izzet Faeries.
These and many more highlights can be found in the video!
After the five rounds of swiss, the top contenders are:
Once again, thanks to our sponsors and full entry fees in prizes, the prize pool is absolutely gorgeous!
The winner, after its top 8 placement at the first edition, is Cariddis, well backed by his pointy ears buddies. In addition to the prize cardmarket coupon, he wins a playset of Van Gogh’s Starry Night style artworked Ponder!
Here are the top 8 lists:
1° – Cariddis – Elves
2° – ilVez – Mono W Heroic
TOP4 – SulleyCrusher – Flicker Tron
TOP4 – Pompelmus – Mono Black Control
TOP8 – fhrow – UW Priest
TOP8 – thesoulforged – Red Deck Wins
TOP8 – apocryphus – Boros Bully
TOP8 – GhostRecall – Rakdos Reanimator
| Maindeck: (60) 4 Bloodfell Caves 7 Mountain 7 Swamp 4 Ulamog’s Crusher 4 Dragon Breath 4 Hand of Emrakul 4 Thrill of Possibility 4 Merchant of the Vale 4 Exhume 2 Shred Memory 2 Stinkweed Imp 4 Faithless Looting 4 Desert Cerodon 3 Duress 3 Greater Sandwurm | Sideboard: (15) 3 Electrickery 3 Shenanigans 2 Nihil Spellbomb 1 Duress 3 Red Elemental Blast 3 Eternal Thirst |
Now let’s give a better look to the tournament details and meta share:
As we can notice, around 40% of the players opted for linear aggressive strategies and, in general, almost the 80% of the decks can rely on an aggressive plan. The other 20% of the meta is divided in control and combo decks. Well, to play pauper in these day you have to be prepared to be aggroed, so you can choose to be faster than your opponents or to have adequate answers to their strategies.
Once again the most played deck is Affinity but, despite five players piloting it, none of them achieved a top finish. The second most played deck is Mono Black Control, and one of them made it to the top eight. Good number also for Boros decks (Monarch and Bully variants); the rest of the metagame sees both other tiers, such as Tron and Izzet Faeries, that niche and less known decks, such as Cyclestorm, Compass Control and UW Priest. Honorable mentions for slivers, deck of choice for two players.
For those who like playing something different by the usual tiers, here are some interesting decks which didn’t make to the top 8 but deserve some attentions:
Compass Control, brewed and played by deluxeicoff
Jeskai Kuldotha, played by ziofrancone
Cyclestorm, played by Iacca95
Thanks again to Lega Pauper Italia for organizing the event, to Raik for the graphics and to the sponsors for the awesome prizes! We wait for you in June at the third edition of the Italian Pauper Open series!
See you next time, as always on Magic Titans!