Do you want to play Pauper?
Yes.
Do you want to get super fast kills and make gigantic monsters way ahead of curve?
Yes, I want to do that. I want to do that all the time.
Then we have a decklist for you…
Pauper Rage is a decklist we’ve found that is based off of an old Standard deck. I’ve personally built this deck in Paper and have played it many, many times. It’s extremely fun and has the potential for out-of-nowhere kills.
Mono-Red Pauper Rage
Lands (18) 18 Mountain Creatures (15) 4 Akroan Crusader 4 Foundry Street Denizen 4 Satyr Hoplite 3 Kiln Fiend Instants and Sorceries (16) 4 Lightning Bolt 4 Titan’s Strength 4 Brute Force 4 Assault Strobe Enchantments (12) 4 Dragon Mantle 4 Hammerhand 4 Infectious Bloodlust | Sideboard (15) 3 Smash to Smithereens 4 Pyroblast 2 Molten Rain 2 Apostle’s Blessing 2 Electrickery 2 Curse of The Pierced Heart |
Now I’ll explain the choices for this deck, and why I picked these cards over others.
Maindeck
This guy is a total powerhouse. One red mana for a 1/1 isn’t that great, but the added heroic ability that puts a 1/1 soldier with haste onto the battlefield every time you target him with a spell makes him amazing. This guy can flood the board with soldiers in just one turn. There is also an obvious synergy with Foundry Street Denizen, as every soldier that enters the battlefield gives it +1/+0 until the end of the turn.
Although the Denizen is not the strongest card in this deck, it gets the job done. With every other creature that enters the battlefield giving this guy +1/+0 until end of turn, it’s easy to see how much damage this little guy can get in. His synergy with Akroan Crusader also makes him swing more as the board gets flooded with tokens.
This card may not seem that powerful at first, but once you play with it, you’ll realize its sheer power. This crazy satyr gets bigger with each spell that targets it (which is about half of this deck). The satyr can get out of hand if it’s not taken care of quickly; simply put, it’s one of the best one-drops in this deck.
This insane Elemental has the capability to end games in one swing; it gets +3/+0 for every instant or sorcery you play. It doesn’t even have to target it! This card basically doubles the value of every pump spell in the deck, and, combined with an assault strobe and one other pump spell, can swing in for twenty on its own. Now that’s what I call aggro.
Simple card. Gives a creature +3/+3 until end of turn. Simple and efficient, a play set should be automatically included in this deck.
A classic: one Red mana for 3 damage to any target. This card is good to kill off a pesky creature or hit your opponent for the last few points of damage (as well as triggering Kiln Fiend). It’s is simply amazing and easily fits into this deck.
This is a simple pump spell that gives your creature three more power. This pump spell does sacrifice a little survivability for one scry, but any card filtering in Red is always good. This card is amazing at dealing heavy damage while simultaneously filtering your next draw.
This card is simply insane. For one Red mana, you can give your creature double strike. This, combined with either Titan’s Strength or Brute Force, usually spells out “GG” for your opponent.
This card may not seem that good at first glance, but it’s actually one of the key pieces to this deck. Red cantrips are very hard to find, and being able to use one that also triggers heroic is simply amazing. The added ability of dumping excess mana to give the creature more power is very helpful, as well.
Although it’s not one of the most damaging pump spells in this deck, Hammerhand can usually allow your insanely large, pumped-up monster to swing at your opponent without the fear of being blocked by any pesky creature. The added haste and +1/+1 counter it gives is also extremely helpful, as it makes your creatures bigger and disrupts your opponent.
This card is extremely important in this deck. Giving your creature +2/+1 is good on its own, but the added ability of functionally replacing itself once the attached creature dies means the card is close to a Red Rancor, and everyone who has ever played against a Rancor will tell you that it’s a huge pain to deal with.
Sideboard Cards
Extremely good against any Artifact deck (especially Affinity); this both destroys your opponent’s Artifacts and hits them in the face.
This card can be used against almost any Blue deck. It does it all: counters spells, destroys permanents, and basically everything you could ever want.
This card has very narrow usage, but it’s great when we can bring it in. Used mainly against Urza-Tron decks, this card destroys their important lands and deals damage to them, as well.
This card can be used against any deck that can consistently kill or bounce out creatures. It’s also brought in against any deck that can provide enough blockers to disrupt you.
It’s vital that you bring this card in against any kind of token strategy. One overload with this card can completely clear a board and let you swing for the win.
This card is what we bring in against control decks. Nobody expects an enchantment to be played in a Mono-Red deck, but this does a lot of work.
In conclusion…
This is a very fast, aggressive, and explosive deck that has potential for extremely powerful plays that your opponent will have a hard time disrupting. If you like extremely aggressive, powerful decks that can go off very quickly, but can also last for long games, then you might want to try Mono-Red Rage.
LooseWire
"He wished for knowledge, but not for the will to apply it" - Cunning Wish
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