I had expected that Formidable Green would be the deck of choice of most players on this week’s Standard Pauper event and my prediction was right. Almost half of the attendees (three players) played the deck because of its efficiency and consistency in its aggressive start.

I piloted Golgari Delve and referenced the list from this blog post on Writer Adept and I sorted the matchup with Green aggro by adding more Deathtouch critters in the sideboard. I switched the singleton Duress to Rakshasha’s Secret as the latter is more effective in discarding two relevant spells from the opponent’s hands in the late game.

Here is the tournament summary:

My first-round matchup was against a Black Red brew deck that is sort of a good matchup against mine because almost all of its creatures have Deathtouch. He also has spells like Fall of the Hammer to kill my fatty Delve creature and late-game gas with Gravepurge. I barely won Game 1 because he ran out of gas but in the second game, he got the board stalled and I died in a library burn. The decider game was also very grinding, us trading creatures while I dug through my library with Commune and Scout the Borders. I eventually overpowered him as he slightly got consecutive land draws while chipping on his life with Sultai Scavenger.

The second Round was versus Formidable Green. I overcame him in both games as I was able to set up with Delving and fight off his relevant creatures while he was not aggressive enough in the early game.

The third and final Round was a draw with another Formidable Green player.

My final record was 2-0-1 and I was quite impressed despite that Round 1 matchup which I think was unwinnable.

Here are the Top 3 finishers of the tournament:

MtG Iloilo Tournament Results
Wednesday Night Pauper (May 20, 2015)
Top 3:
1st, Mark Ian (Golgari Delve)
2nd, Mao (Formidable Green)
3rd, Christian Paul (Rakdos Deathtouch)

8 players, 3 rounds gameplay