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Deck Overview: Pauper Grixis Torch

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I spent a good amount of time looking at Standard, Modern and Legacy decks looking for something sweet and new to write about. This week, I ended up feeling a lot like Mr. Garrison on the episode of South Park in which all of the kids get prescriptions for Ritalin.

And then all go and see a Phil Collins concert.
And then all go and see a Phil Collins concert.

What I'm saying is, decklists from this week were pretty boring. Dragons of Tarkir will be here to shake things up before long, but for now there's a pretty neat Pauper innovation that I found while doing my weekly decklist research. User 420Dragon posted a 3-1 result in a Pauper Daily with this list, showing slightly more creativity in deckbuilding than in screen name selecting:

The combo here isn't anything new. The deck targets Cloud of Faeries while controlling either two bouncelands or a Nightscape Familiar and Mnemonic Wall with a Ghostly Flicker to buy back the Flicker, untap some lands and slowly net an arbitrarily large quantity of mana. These combo is usually featured in an Esper shell, using Sage's Row Denizen to mill your opponent to death, while this list uses Kaervek's Torch to just burn them out.

What I like about this take is that Kaervek's Torch is so much more of a card than Sage's Row Denizen is before you assemble your combo. Your combo can even rebuy your spent Torch on its last iteration with Mnemonic Wall to boot. I also like having access to Lightning Bolt as a way to better interact with other decks, including Bolting your opponent's Denizen in the "mirror". The ability to just burn opponents out in games when all you can muster is Form of the Mulldrifter beatdowns is definitely a non-zero upside.

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