Pauper Food Pestilence

by TheSwarmer on 17 October 2025

Main Deck (60 cards)

Sideboard (15 cards)


Instants (4)

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Deck Description

NOTE: Candy Trails should be Nutrient Blocks (1CMC food - when dies draw a card trigger, pay 2, tap, sac -> gain 3 life).

My take on a recent 5-0 as I demand that a pox-like black-based attrition deck be viable in pauper.

The idea is to take over the game with one the few cards that can do so on its own. Pestilence. To support this you have enough card advantage to go over more midrange-y strategies, enough incidental lifegain to have game against the burn decks, and Cauldron Familiar as your only win condition.

Duress to punch a hole through Terror and Mystic strategies, as well as to resolve Pestilence

How to Play

Die to Faeries, High Tide, and Rally Red. Obliterate Mono Blue, Familiars, and Elves, and try and have game against the rest of the field.

The main contentious choice is Innocent Blood which I elected to really nail Mono Blue. I also find that a 1 mana removal spell that kills Thermo Alchenmist and Kessig Flamebreather is needed as Spinning Darkness simply does not function without Defile.

In genral, you aim to put the opponent into 'check'. Where you have a Pestilence in play and enough catfood lying around to make sure it stays in play. In this boardstate you only need to not get burned out or lose your Pestilence and you will win, often with an explosive end of turn pestilence for 7 or more, untap, do it again, win the game.

The worst matchups are the ones that either prevent you from reaching this state (Faeries, Rally Red), don't care about this state (High tide, Poison Storm) or can burn you out before or after reaching this state (Madness Burn).

Deck Tags

  • Pauper
  • Golgari
  • Attrition
  • Control
  • Pestilence

Deck at a Glance

Social Stats

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This deck has been viewed 223 times.

Mana Curve

Mana Symbol Occurrence

002701

Deck Format


Pauper

NOTE: Set by owner when deck was made.

Card Legality

  • Not Legal in Standard
  • Not Legal in Modern
  • Legal in Vintage
  • Legal in Legacy

Deck discussion for Pauper Food Pestilence

Nineteen lands seems pretty slight with all the two-drops, activated abilities, and the fact that nine of them come in tapped. Maybe the cantripping mitigates that, but it would scare me.

1
Posted Thursday at 01:54

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Brilliant observation. I've gone back and forth on 20 vs 19. You must keep in mind that Golgari Rot Farm counts for 2 land drops, so it's a 22 land manabase if you squint at it hard enough, that and you have 22 ways of drawing extra cards. Nevertheless, the lists that went 5-0 did run 20 lands with Witherbloom Campus as a 2x

0
Posted yesterday at 01:10

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