Common is probably the most interesting rarity in Magic. While ostensibly reserved for the kind of inoffensive chaff that won’t tip the balance of Limited too hard, it’s also the sole entry point to Pauper for any given card. Cards that fail to make an impact even in Draft often find their way to surprising success in that format. Take this week, for example. Squad Rallier, a late Limited pick at best, has made its way into a serious MTG deck in Pauper. If you glossed over any foil copies of this card during your Prerelease, you may want to dig them out now.
Squad Rallier In Pauper Walls Combo
Specifically, Squad Rallier is showing up in MTG Pauper’s Wall Combo deck. Briera96 took a list running the card to a 5-0 finish in a Pauper League just yesterday. Sometimes called Defender Combo, this deck is all about generating infinite mana and sinking it into various outlets. To do this, it makes use of two creatures that generate mana based on the number of Defenders you control: Axebane Guardian and Overgrown Battlement.
With 24 Defenders in the deck, these cards can easily generate huge amounts of mana with their tap abilities. This mana can then be used to untap the generators, thus creating an infinite mana-positive loop. Two cards in the deck let you do this, these being Galvanic Alchemist and Freed From the Real. If you’re using Battlement as your generator, you’ll also need Orochi Leafcaller to filter your mana.
Once you’ve got infinite mana, the deck can utilize it in a number of ways. Valakut Invoker and Secret Door can just end the game on the spot, and Third Path Savant can draw you cards until you hit one of those. The key to these creatures is that they have activated abilities with no tap requirement. As long as you have mana to spare, you can keep activating them.
This is where Squad Rallier comes in. Like these other key creatures, it packs an activated ability with no tap requirement. This means it can activate as many times as you want once you have your combo assembled. Its effect is surprisingly potent in this list, too. Since it lets you dig for creatures with low power, it can grab you pretty much any creature in this Defender-heavy deck.
Digging Deep
In fact, scratch ‘pretty much:’ Squad Rallier can grab every single creature in Wall Combo. Even the non-Defenders, including mana dorks like Avacyn’s Pilgrim, fall under its two-power-or-less purview. This means that, like Third Path Savant, as soon as you bring this card together with infinite mana you can end the game on the spot.
This card has some notable advantages over Savant that make it a worthy new inclusion too. First of all, its ability doesn’t draw you cards, which means it won’t deck you out. This was pretty unlikely anyway given how many potential finishers the deck has, but it’s worth noting regardless. Second, its ability is a lot cheaper than Savant’s. You’re never really paying seven mana to draw two until you have infinite mana online. You can easily pay three for Rallier’s ability in the early game, however, and dig for your combo pieces.
This makes Rallier both a combo enabler and a payoff once you get there. It’s good early, and it’s even better late. On top of that, it’s actually a decent body on the board, especially in this deck. When most of your creatures have no power, a 3/4 feels very nice indeed. It’s unlikely you’ll ever want to risk attacking with Rallier, but the fact that you have the option is great.
As a consistency booster for Wall Combo, Squad Rallier is a fantastic pickup from MTG Foundations. Briera96 is only running a single copy in their deck, but that’s honestly enough. Every other mana outlet in the deck is run at one copy too. Keeping Rallier at one also lowers your chances of bricking on the ability early, since it can’t grab other copies of itself.
A Mover In The Meta?
So Squad Rallier is a good addition to Wall Combo, that much is clear. Is it good enough to propel the deck into the upper echelons of Pauper, however? That’s a much trickier question to answer. Right now the deck commands a meta share in the sub-1% range. That’s not great, and there are a lot of established strategies standing between it and Pauper glory.
Quite a few of these are rival Combo decks. Basking Broodscale Combo has quickly risen in popularity since Modern Horizons 3, and now represents one of the best in the format. The combo line here is more specific than that of Wall Combo, but it’s also much faster if you draw your pieces early. Wall Combo, comparatively, needs a lot of setup.
That’s a problem in Pauper, because the best deck right now is good ol’ Mono-Red Burn. With most of the best burn spells in the game, and a serious crop of powerful Goblins, this deck can rush down anything that gets in its way. Wall Combo can hold off some of its aggression with cheap Defenders, but its also liable to die to direct damage before it can assemble its pieces. Lightning Bolt can also remove both of your main mana generators, which can really put a dampener on your day.
Overall, while Rallier is an ideal fit for Wall Combo, it doesn’t really solve any of its problems in the current meta. The deck is still very slow, and vulnerable both to Aggro and faster Combo builds. Keep an eye on this one, however. Once a critical mass of Defender support hits, it could be a real force in the format.
