Playing Pauper: Kuldotha Boros
Welcome back to another week of Playing Pauper! This week, we introduce Thraben Inspector and Angelic Purge to Kuldotha Jeskai and remove the Blue portion of the deck entirely.
Check out the matches, then read the discussion below. If you enjoy Playing Pauper, subscribe to the MTGGoldfish YouTube channel! It helps us draw more people to the channel, and it helps you to never miss any of our great video content.
Kuldotha Boros Intro
Kuldotha Boros vs Goblins
Kuldotha Boros vs Temur Tron
Kuldotha Boros vs Burn
Kuldotha Boros vs Five-Color Bogles
Kuldotha Boros vs Dimir Teachings
The Deck
The creatures in the deck are quite small but make up for it with a strength-in-numbers approach. Thraben Inspector doesn't mind getting recast with Kor Skyfisher and also generates an artifact for Glint Hawk or Kuldotha Rebirth.
Ichor Wellspring and Prophetic Prism are included for being great to recur with Glint Hawk and Kor Skyfisher, while also being good to sacrifice to Kuldotha Rebirth. The Bonesplitters are there to beef up the creatures and speed up the clock, given that most of our creatures are small.
The removal in this deck is powerful, varied, and works well whether exiling a nonland permanent or dealing four damage to the opponent to end the game.
The Sideboard
Bojuka Bog is good against graveyard decks and is also an uncounterable answer to a graveyard full of Accumulated Knowledge and Mystical Teachings.
Electrickery works well against both token decks and Mono Blue Delver.
Flame Slash cleanly kills four-toughness creatures, such as the ones hanging out in Affinity. Gorilla Shaman kills all of Affinity's lands.
Pyroblast is a must-have against the heavy-Blue Pauper meta.
Circle of Protection: Red is basically an instant win against Burn or Goblins.
Lone Missionary is sideboarded in against any type of aggressive deck, and it can be recurred with Kor Skyfisher.
Kor Sanctifiers provides an additional Disenchant effect versus Affinity and Bogles.
The Matchups
Against aggro decks, Kuldotha Boros has plenty of removal and creatures to block. The repeatable card draw pulls Kuldotha Boros ahead in the late game and makes these matchups generally skewed in our favor.
Against control decks, our deck can sometimes have a fast enough start to overwhelm and enough card draw to outpace the opponent's resources.
Beating Kuldotha Boros
To beat Kuldotha Boros or its variants, keep the following in mind:
- The creatures are small. Even a 2/2 will block the Goblins and Thraben Inspectors on the ground.
- Due to having eight artifact lands, Bonesplitters, and Clue tokens, boarding in Gorilla Shaman against Kuldotha Boros is pretty great.
- Beware the burn. Protect your life total since a Galvanic Blast or two can go a long way.
- Since Blue mana isn't a concern, Ichor Wellspring is much more important than Prophetic Prism. Keep that in mind when stopping threats with Duress and Counterspell.
Conclusion
While I like Thraben Inspector and don't mind the Angelic Purge inclusion, I really miss the Mulldrifters from Kuldotha Jeskai. Kuldotha Boros is a faster version of the deck, but doesn't really become enough faster to warrant the change in mana base and the exclusion of its most powerful card.
I'd like to see other Kuldotha Boros list ideas that try to make the deck more aggressive, but I don't think it will gain much popularity in its current state.
Submissions
Viewer submissions are open! I'll still be playing known decks occasionally, but I'll mostly be playing:
- Decks submitted by viewers
- Decks created from viewer challenges (e.g. build a deck around Horned Kavu)
- Decks created by Jake (especially ones comprised of cards from new sets such as Shadows over Innistrad)
- Email me at pauper@mtggoldfish.com or Tweet to me @JakeStilesMTG with your decklist or challenge, and I'll give you a shout-out if I use your submission!
