Every now and again, a cool, forgotten piece of MTG tech makes a resurgence out of nowhere. That is exactly what happened in Pauper this weekend, as one player boasted a 5-1 record in a 64-player event by including a Frilled Deathspitter, an 8-year-old dinosaur, in their deck.
Adding Another Combo to Tireless Tribe
At its core, this deck is designed to execute one of two different combo kills to end the game. The first focuses on Tireless Tribe, which is nothing new to the Pauper format.
By combining the Tireless Tribe with Inside Out, you can easily set up a surprise 20+ damage attack. You can even use Escape Tunnel to make Tribe unblockable, letting you win past a hoard of pesky blockers.
Where this deck gets really spicy, though, is with Frilled Deathspitter. This Dinosaur serves as an entirely separate combo piece, allowing you to deal infinite damage with the help of Guilty Conscience and Loran’s Escape.
See, once Deathspitter is enchanted and given Indestructible, all you need to do is have it deal damage to the opponent or any of their creatures, and Guilty Conscience will trigger. By then sending damage to Deathspitter itself, you’ll trigger the creature’s Enrage ability and create an infinite damage loop.
It might seem a bit weird to combine these two non-overlapping combos together, but there are some benefits to doing so. Loran’s Escape is already solid protection for Tireless Tribe against opposing removal spells, so adding it as a combo piece is low-cost.
There are also scenarios where Tireless Tribe doesn’t get the job done, such as against a deck with Moment’s Peace, but Deathspitter still works since it’s noncombat damage. Even beating a big Weather the Storm can be tough for Tireless Tribe since you might run out of cards to discard to buff it, but Deathspitter’s damage is infinite.
There is a real risk that you draw all the wrong combo pieces, failing to assemble either combo, but this deck is designed with that in mind. Pursue the Past, Thrilling Discovery, and Abandon Attachments all let you discard redundant combo pieces in search for the ones you need.
These discard outlets also enable Sneaky Snacker, giving the deck an alternate fair gameplan. Because they are all multicolored, you can even discard and rebuy Sandstorm Eidolon or Aurora Eidolon to generate long-term card advantage.
Appealing to Different Matchups
Thanks to this deck’s flexible approach, you have game in a lot of different matchups. On one hand, Tireless Tribe lines up quite well against burn spells out of Mono-Red Madness and Mono-Red Rally.
After all, up until your combo turn, you can simply discard a card to get Tribe’s toughness out of range of Lava Dart or Lightning Bolt
Lightning BoltLightning Bolt deals 3 damage to any target.. Meanwhile, this one-drop serves as an elite blocker, buying you time against potential Goblin Bushwhacker starts.
Given that Tribe can threaten lethal with the right hand as early as turn two, the combo also has a lot of appeal against other combo shells like Golgari Spy and Ruby Storm. These decks tend to be light on disruption, and your best draws are faster than theirs.
Meanwhile, against decks that rely on life gain or preventing combat damage, such as Golgari Gardens and Turbo Fog, Deathspitter is your strongest path to victory. The presence of Sneaky Snacker even protects you against Tithing Blade and other Edicts, which is a big deal.
Unfortunately, even with Loran’s Escape in the mix, beating decks with tons of cheap disruption is very hard. The combination of counter magic and Snuff Out from Dimir Control, for instance, is really hard to overcome. Faeries is also a matchup you’d prefer to avoid, since you have little resource against Spellstutter Sprite getting repeatedly bounced.
Given how popular these decks are following the arrival of Baleful Strix to Pauper, this shell certainly faces an uphill battle. Still, there’s a lot to like if you can dodge these matchups, and there’s no denying this multi-combo shell can be super fun to play.
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