Poison Storm at FNM (2023-10-27)

Decklist

I netdecked a more "foggy" Poison Storm decklist from this kalikaiz video and only did minor modifications, because I either did not have all the cards or liked the versatile Muddle the Mixture more than the quite expensive Steady Progress. I also added Echoing Truth in the SB because I was expecting a Kuldotha-heavy meta and we always have that one Bogles guy...

My list can be found on Moxfield

Context

Overall we had a great turnout at the attic in Fürth: 18 players showed up - some for their first Pauper games ever!

The matches

Round 1 against UR Pinger Burn

Game 1 started fine - I got down a lot of depletion lands and a Pentad Prism and an Everflowing Chalice. I proliferated a bit and drew cards, but I did not find anything to poison them and finally fizzled out while they slowly chipped away with their pingers. One thing that's always fun with Poison Storm is that most opponents have to read all your cards when you play them for the first time, because no one has played against the deck.

Sideboard:

IN 3 Annoints, 1 Weather, 2 Arrows

OUT sorry, I did not write it down

Second game my deck worked like it should: I removed an early pinger with Annoint, poisoned them, gained a lot of life with Weather and slowly proliferated them to death. The one spice they had was Gargadon which they suspended early. But I kept a Annoint in my hand and had enough poison to remove it when it finally entered the battlefield and they tapped out.

Most players at the attic play reasonably well and understand the deck after game 1 even if they've never played against it. This was also the case here: In Game 3 they put two pingers down early and then just stacked their hand with countermagic and waited. I had to blow a depletion land early to pay for a Spell Pierce and later on all my proliferation/card draw got countered thus I was dead in the water.

Result: 1-2 -> L

I would've been more happy against a MonoR Pinger burn honestly, because the blue gave them access to a lot of countermagic which I could not get around enough to stay in the game in game 3.

Round 2 against MonoU Delver/Serpentine Curve

Game 1 I instantly made a mistake in keeping a hand that had no blue mana because I wanted to rely on the Pentad Prism I had. But surprisingly my opponent also looked at Poison Storm as a choice for the FNM before the evening and thus knew that countering the Pentad Prism was a good idea and so did just that. Still, Moment's Peace put in a lot of work in this game and my line (100% stolen from kalikaiz) of playing it on their upkeep got a few ooohs and aaahs over the evening. But in the end I could not recover from the lack of blue and lost the game to two flipped delvers and a Tolarian Terror.

Sideboard:

IN 2 Annoint with Affliction, 2 Bring the Ending

OUT 2 Everflowing Chalice, 2 Muddle the Mixture

Game 2 they also did the good ole blue thing: they played an early delver and then stacked their hand with countermagic and slowly chipped away at my life total while never tapping out and then countering all the card draw/proliferation spells. I never drew my own BtEs, but at least I got to remove a 14/14 Serpentine Curve token with Annoint which felt good.

Result: 0-2 -> L

Round 3 against UB Terror

Game 1 I got a really good starting hand: All mana colors, a Prologue, some Proliferation. The opponent had to read all my cards again, and didn't really know what to do, e.g. they milled me a few times with Thought Scour. Also Weather the Storm and Moment's Peace helped me survive long enough to get them to 10 poison.

Sideboard:

IN 2 Serrated Arrows, 3 Bring the Ending

OUT 2 Muddle the Mixture, 1 Deep Analysis, 2 Everflowing Chalice

Game 2 I never drew my own countermagic, they never tapped out but kept countermagic on hand always and thus I never got to really do anything. They also attacked me on the artifact vector with Steel Sabotage from their SB.

Game 3 started okay, but then I flooded out. I had to cast a crappy Weather the Storm solo to gain 3 life to put me out of lethal range (I would've been at 1 after attacks) but then they had a Unexpected Fangs and thus won the match.

Result: 1-2 -> L

Round 4 against Boros Synthesizer

The FNM already had a winner after game 3 (Elves, of all things!) but as everyone wanted to continue playing we all played an unofficial Round 4.

Against Boros Synth I mulled to 5 in Game 1. My opponent had never seen or heard of Poison Storm and thus had to read all the cards again. As he had no meaningful interaction I happily did my things and easily got him to 10 poison. I resolved so many Vivisurgeon's Insights that the mull to 5 was quickly forgotten. I also used Moment's Peace to get some time - I actually transmuted Muddle to find it in a pinch!

Sideboard:

IN 1 Weather the Storm, 3 Arms of Hadar

OUT 1 Everflowing Chalice, 1 Deep Analysis, 2 Muddle the Mixture

The idea behind Arms of Hadar was to clear his board and leave him stranded. Again I had to mull to 5. This time I wasn't as lucky because he understood that Chalice and Pentad Prism are the MVPs of my deck often and he kept Cast into the fire ready to remove my first Pentad Prism which really hurt my mana. I prolonged the game with multiple Weathers but did not get him to 10 poison in time. Sadly I never saw the Arms of Hadar in any of the games...

Game 3 I was already quite tired and made a few mistakes I think: I should've sideboarded again to get more countermagic in against his Cast into the fire (and maybe Pyroblast, too, but didn't see any) and get rid of at least 1 or 2 more Chalices. But I just kept the same cards from game 2. We were already quite close to timeout and I tried to fog him out to at least get the Draw after he again removed a Prism and a Chalice with Cast into the fire. In the end it was the last turn in timeout, I was at 4 life, I fogged him again. Then he used all his mana but one Mountain to crack an Experimental Synthesizer. He needed a Galvanic Blast - everything else in this deck would be not enough damage or too expensive to cast. We both looked at his library as he flipped his top card with the last possible action of the match... and revealed a Galvanic Blast! This was so crazy that we I couldn't even be mad. He was really happy that he got at least one W out of the evening and I was happy for him, too.

Result: 1-2 -> L

Final thoughts

When the deck works it is a lot of fun: Drawing cards, flipping dice, seeing the opponent slowly realizing that the poison counters go up and up and they can't do a thing - really great. Also the evolution with Moment's Peace in the Main Deck is great: All games I won either Peace or Weather put in a lot of work. Being able to find those with Muddle in a pinch is also a plus.

But: The deck is too easy to disrupt I think: Either with countermagic against your Proliferation/card draw or with artifact hate against the important artifacts. Last time I brought it two months ago I also lost to land destruction, which is another way the deck gets hosed. I ended up going 0-4 overall which was a bit frustrating albeit having a lot of fun and getting quite a few nice comments about the Poison Storm deck.

And obviously the deck is not that easy to play, and I'm not a good Magic player (yet?). Someone like kalikaiz might have sneaked in a W or two, but the problem at least in our local meta still stands: All my 3 official rounds were against blue decks heavy on the counterspells, and as you don't pressure them on the board they can just sit back and wait for me to do anything and then counter it while slowly chipping away.

I'll shelve the deck for now and will probably switch to a creature-heavy deck for next month just to play something different and less fragile.