It’s worth mentioning that at the time Cranial Plating was first banned, Ornithopter was not legal in Pauper (it was on MTGO but only at uncommon). As Alex says, [[Somber Hoverguard]] was the best Plating-bearer, and you couldn’t realistically be swinging with it sooner than turn 4, although you could easily hit for a third or more of the opponent’s life total when you did. Now Ornithopter is legal and you could do the equivalent with a Cranial Ram on turn 3.

I think between the mana cost and the equip cost(s), Ram is slower than Plating by enough that it’s worth a trial. I won’t be shocked or sorry if it gets banned, but I also won’t be surprised if it turns out to be safe.

Churn & Burn

16 Mountain
3 Fanatical Firebrand
4 Sawblade Scamp
4 Kessig Flamebreather
4 Firebrand Archer
4 Erebor Flamesmith
4 Shock
3 Improvised Club
4 Lightning Strike
3 Experimental Synthesizer
3 Thrill of Possibility
4 Reckless Impulse
4 Wrenn’s Resolve

Here I’m trying to give Burn a chance to dig its way out of late-game stalls. You’re still trying to count to 20 as fast as possible, but you’re doing it as a side effect of rummaging through your deck.

Monoblue Faeries & Ninjas

18 Island
2 Network Disruptor
4 Faerie Miscreant
4 Faerie Seer
4 Moon-Circuit Hacker
4 Ninja of the Deep Hours
4 Mantle of Tides
3 Aether Spellbomb
3 Blink of an Eye
4 Make Disappear
4 Disruption Protocol
2 Of One Mind
4 Hieroglyphic Illumination

A hyper-efficient blue tempo deck. Hasn’t changed much since the last time I posted it.

[[Judge’s Familiar]] seems like the most significant of these. It looks like the closest blue has to that ability right now is [[Spiketail Hatchling]], and the closest white has is [[Soulsworn Jury]].

I wouldn’t be shocked if [[Boros Elite]] or [[Slitherhead]] showed up in some decks. Those seem very cost-efficient.

[[Sprouting Renewal]] is potentially free, but the Sorcery speed probably dooms it.

Thanks for the tournament report! I hadn’t heard of this archetype before and it looks like a lot of fun; sorry you ended up with a disappointing record. I also have a soft spot for the Transmute mechanic, so it’s nice to see it making an appearance here.

I’ve been playing a poison/proliferate deck in Standard and one of its weaknesses is that it relies heavily on proliferate but only has 12 cards that can actually assign the first poison counter, and I often find myself mulling to five in search of one. Your deck looks to have only eight such cards (the Inquiries and Prologues). Do you find that that’s a shortcoming? How willing are you to keep a starting hand without an Inquiry or Prologue? Looking at Scryfall, I’m not sure there are many more good options in your colors. Possibly [[Pestilent Syphoner]]?

You said the deck has bad match-ups against counterspells and land destruction. Is there room in the sideboard for something like [[Spell Pierce]] or [[Disrupt]]? Then again, with all your depletion lands, maybe the difference between one mana and two (for Bring the Ending) isn’t really that significant.

Phantom Nomad, now that takes me back. There used to be a GW deck where you’d put [[Armadillo Cloak]] on things like Phantom Nomad and [[Guardian of the Guildpact]]. Great fun. Would love to see the Nomad get new life as a Young Hero.

This is a neat idea. What about replacing some of the [[Corrupted Conviction]] / [[Village Rites]] with creatures like [[Carrion Feeder]] or [[Viscera Seer]] or [[Lampad of Death’s Vigil]] ? You lose some card advantage but you don’t have to find another Village Rites before you can make your next sacrifice.

Cavern Harpy saw some play in Pauper in the early days. It was used to recur creatures like [[Ravenous Rats]], [[Phyrexian Rager]], [[Chittering Rats]], and [[Gravedigger]]. Ninjas may also have been involved. I think the strategy just got outclassed by other things as new cards entered the format.

Appreciate it! I’ve bookmarked this post so I can come back to it next time I’m thinking about switching.

Most of my sites see very little traffic, so I’m not worried about a lack of processing power, but I am worried about overpaying. When DO increased the price of their basic droplet a year or two ago, my reaction was that I’d already been paying for something I wasn’t getting full use out of.

Plus I occasionally see something that makes me think DO doesn’t have their act together. Like, the RSS feed for their status blog was broken for the better part of a year. They were still posting statuses, and they knew the feed was broken, it just took them that long to fix it.

On the other hand, their documentation and tutorials are great, which I definitely value. And, let’s be honest, I’m settled and comfortable and it would probably take something significant to motivate me to move.

A couple of my sites (including HouseDraft which I’ve linked here before) are hosted at NearlyFreeSpeech instead. It costs about $20/year for a mostly-static site, but the company seems to be run by grumpy, opinionated old sysadmins whom I hope I never have to ask for help. There’s a question in their FAQ that asks “Is your service easy to use?” and the answer is “No.”

I’m using Digital Ocean right now, and there are some things I like about them and some things I don’t. Mind if I ask your opinions of your old and new hosts?

I’m skeptical that [[Wind Drake]] plus looting is good enough in a world of [[Kor Skyfisher]]s.

Tron could cast [[Ulamog’s Crusher]] or some other giant creature and then cast and equip Brass Knuckles the next turn. Is that better than just casting another giant the next turn? Better enough to offset how sad you are when you draw the Knuckles without a creature?

Some kind of combo deck might be a more likely home for the Knuckles. I really liked this SaffronOlive deck from last year that used Brass Knuckles to combo with [[Metalwork Colossus]]. But that’s a rare, and I can’t think of anything in Pauper that could stand in for it.

Blood Aspirant seems like it has the best chance among these cards to find Pauper success. There have already been decks that combo kill with [[Disciple of the Vault]]. Maybe Aspirant plus [[Fling]] could provide some redundancy to that plan.