In the world of MTG, there are seemingly endless combos for players to build around. Even the commons-only Pauper format is home to plenty of powerful combo strategies. In fact, this week, a brew centered around a forgotten two-card synergy 5-0d a Magic Online Pauper League out of nowhere. Capable of presenting both a fast kill and a grindy backup plan, this unique archetype is worth keeping on your radar.
Infinite Elves Combo
This Five-Color Combo deck’s easiest path to victory is to assemble the two-card combo of Midnight Guard and Presence of Gond. The goal is to enchant Midnight Guard when it’s not summoning sick, so you can immediately tap the Human to create a 1/1 Elf token. Because Midnight Guard then untaps when the Elf enters, you’re able to generate infinite tokens if undisrupted.
At minimum, this combo sets up lethal the following turn. With the support of Bitter Reunion, however, you have the luxury of giving all of your Elves Haste and attacking immediately. This way, you don’t get blown out by a sorcery-speed sweeper like Drown in Sorrow. If you add Lunarch Veteran into the mix, you even have the potential to gain infinite life.
As strong as this combo is, though, it can be vulnerable to opposing removal spells. There’s no worse feeling than going to enchant Midnight Guard only for your plans to get blown up by a removal spell in response. Luckily, this deck features some much-needed protection effects with Blessed Hippogriff‘s Adventure and Prismatic Strands. Thanks to the consistency added by these cards, the deck can pop off a lot more than you might initially think.
A Solid Plan B
Notably, while this deck does lean on the combo to close a lot of games, it’s still capable of winning fair fights. Against removal-heavy strategies, Sneaky Snacker does a lot of the heavy lifting. Repeatedly bringing this Faerie Rogue back from the graveyard is incredibly easy with Bitter Reunion, Faithless Looting, and Pursue the Past.
All the while, these rummaging and looting effects continue to sculpt your hand and dig for your strongest cards. This includes Writhing Chrysalis, which provides a stream of blockers, a mana advantage, and quickly outsizes most damage-based removal spells. As good as this Eldrazi is at buying you time until you assemble your combo kill, it also hits hard, especially in multiples.
This deck’s dual approach makes the deck surprisingly difficult to gameplan against. By pressuring your opponent with Sneaky Snacker and Writhing Chrysalis, they may end up being forced to burn removal spells. This only makes it more likely you can put together a combo kill. On the flip side, if your opponent exhausts all of their disruption trying to stop a combo kill early, Writhing Chrysalis and Sneaky Snacker have a better chance to seal the deal.
An Interesting Position
Overall, thanks to this deck’s multiple angles of attack, you have a lot of agency over how you want games to play out, depending on the matchup. Against fast combo decks like Spy Combo, jamming Midnight Guard and Presence of Gond as quickly as possible is often your best bet. At the same time, though, when playing versus slow decks like Golgari Gardens, you have more time to spend durdling and digging for protection spells.
Where this archetype struggles, however, is against tempo decks that feature a healthy mix of pressure and interaction. Mono-Blue Terror, for example, does a great job putting huge creatures into play on the cheap with Counterspell backup. To add insult to injury, Blessed Hippogryff’s Adventure spell doesn’t even protect Midnight Guard against Deem Inferior.
Even against Mono-Red Madness, where your protection spells and Prismatic Strands shine, beating fast draws backed up by Lightning Bolt and Fiery Temper isn’t always easy. Considering that Mono-Blue Terror and Mono-Red Madness are the two most played Pauper decks according to MTGGoldfish, Midnight Guard Combo is fighting an uphill battle. Still, even if the deck isn’t top tier, it’s nice to see Midnight Guard finally earn some time in the spotlight.
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