Hey everybody,

A while back now I posted a UW Trinket Mage deck with faeries and ninjas. I got a lot if great suggestions, and I thought some of you may be interested in an update,so here is the list I’m currently working with:

https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/uw-trinket-2/?cb=1518710426

Rather than playing closer to a tempo game, the deck is now a lot slower, but has a much stronger late game card advantage engine, with [[Mulldrifter]] and [[Palace Sentinels]] taking the place of [[Ninja of the Deep Hours]].

Again, if you have questions, comments or suggestions, please let me know.

I’ve seen people suggest to sideboard out Preordain, Ponders, etc. I don’t think you want to be doing that. Though it may not look that way, Preordain and Ponder are inherently powerful. They are among the most powerful cards in Pauper. They are most likely stronger than whatever powerful sideboard cards you want to side in, even in the relevant matchups (and are almost certainly stronger than the other cards in your maindeck).

One way to understand their power is to notice that a non-cantrip card’s effectiveness changes depending on the context, even within one game:

• A land can be your best draw when you are mana screwed, or your worst draw if you are mana flooded.

• A counterspell can be your best draw when you are ahead on the board, or the worst draw when you are behind.

• A creature can be your best draw when you need to apply pressure, or your worst draw when there are already big blockers on the board or when you need to interact with whatever busted thing your opponent is doing.

• Even against Affinity, Gorilla Shaman is frequently going to be terrible when they have Darksteel Citadels and you are getting beaten down by Myr Enforcers, or when you have no lands or no red source, or when you already have another Gorilla Shaman.

Preordain and Ponder, however, can not only become the card that you need — but they can become the card that you need at exactly the right moment. This is very powerful. If we rate a card’s power from 1-10 by context, Gorilla Shaman is frequently going to be a 1 against Affinity, and it probably averages out to be a 7+. Preordain, Ponder, etc., are probably never going to be worse than a 3, and very likely average out to be better than 7+. I mean, just consider that Preordain, Ponder, etc. can become a Gorilla Shaman when Gorilla Shaman is good, and can shuffle away Gorilla Shaman when it’s not.

Another way to look at Preordain, Ponder, is to compare them against cards like Demonic Tutor and Vampiric Tutor. Demonic Tutor and Vampiric Tutor are both banned in Legacy and restricted in Vintage, and I’ll assume that people find them very powerful. However, I don’t think Preordain, Ponder compare poorly to Demonic Tutor and Vampiric Tutor at all:

• If you have to find a very specific card, the chance to find a 4-of in your top 4 cards is around 25%, and the chance to find a 8-of is around 50%. (If you include redraws like more cantrips, you can obviously push the percentage to be even higher.)

• Frequently, the difference between the best card in your deck and the 2nd best card in you deck is small, so you are happy with a wider selection of cards, and the difference between Preordain and Demonic Tutor becomes small. For example, when you just need any threat to apply pressure, or you just need any removal spell to remove a troublesome creature, or you are trying to assemble a combo and have no combo pieces yet.

• Being able to see 2 cards at once for Preordain, and 3 cards at once for Ponder is very powerful. For example, imagine a scenario where ninja is the best card in your deck if you also have a faerie, but a terrible card without a faerie. Because you can’t guarantee to draw a faerie, using Demonic Tutor to fetch a ninja is not very good. However, if you see a ninja with Preordain or Ponder, and also see a faerie (or a cantrip), you are now able to take ninja, the best card in your deck. In other words, because of synergy, pairs of cards are more than the sum of their parts. Selecting the two best cards together is much, much better than selecting the best card in your deck separately twice.

• (Also, if you’re lucky, Preordain and Ponder can sometimes just become Demonic Tutor + Vampiric Tutor for U, since you can just take the best card in your deck, then put the 2nd best card on top :).)

So if Preordain, Ponder look like weak, unexciting cards at first glance, compare them to Demonic Tutor and Vampiric Tutor and hopefully, you’ll see that they are in fact extremely powerful cards. (In fact, Preordain and Ponder are probably just stronger than Demonic Tutor and Vampiric Tutor in Pauper, but that is due to the nature of the format.)

Finally, many decks are frequently constructed with Preordain, Ponder, etc. in mind. Cutting them messes up a lot of ratios. Delver, Blitz, Tribe, etc. have low land counts, low creature counts, and low interactive spell counts. They rely on Preordain, Ponder, etc. becoming the right card at the right time to function. If you cut Preordain, Ponder for supposedly good sideboard cards, I think you’ll in fact find that these decks will no longer be able to implement their game plan.