Naya Gates Matchups - MTG Pauper Matchup Guide

Introduction

Naya Gates is a white-red-green deck whose lands do most of the talking: a pile of Gates fixes its colors and, through Basilisk Gate, turns any small creature into a game-ending attacker. It spends the early turns stalling with lifelink bodies and discard-draw-two spells, brings Sacred Cat and Sneaky Snacker back from the graveyard, and wins late by pumping one creature far past anything the opponent can block. It is a small slice of the field at 0.5%, but it has been punching above that share since midsummer: seasonofmists won the July 3 MTGO Pauper Challenge, _Batutinha_ took 3rd in the August 14 Challenge, and copies have kept posting 5-0 League runs and Challenge placements into mid-September.

The deck beats creature decks that try to win on the board with small threats and one-for-one removal, because its lifelink blockers blunt the early attacks and its creatures draw cards, leave tokens, or return from the graveyard, so trading removal into them rarely gains ground. It is favored against Blue Terror, Mono Red Madness, Elves, Grixis Affinity, Esper Affinity, Mono Red Rally, Dimir Terror, Dimir Faeries, Golgari Gardens, White Aggro, Madness Burn, Black Sacrifice, and Bogles.

It struggles against ramp decks that go over the top of a small board before the pump is online, and against combo decks that ignore the board entirely, since the tapped mana base starts a step slow and the kill needs several Gates in play before it threatens anything. It is unfavored against Monster Tron, Spy Combo, Jeskai Ephemerate, Jund Wildfire, Gruul Ponza, Familiars, and Gruul Ramp, and slightly unfavored against Flicker Tron and Mono Blue Faeries.

General Strategy

The plan is to survive the early game cheaply, bank more cards than the opponent while doing it, and then win with one enormous attacker. Most of the lands you play are Gates, and every Gate makes Basilisk Gate's pump bigger, so the deck gets stronger simply by making land drops. In the meantime Sacred Cat and Outlaw Medic block and gain life, Prismatic Strands shuts off a turn of the opponent's damage from one chosen color, and Pursue the Past, Melded Moxite, and Bitter Reunion turn the cards you do not need into cards you do. The single most important thing the pilot does is keep the board alive and the graveyard full until the Gates are numerous enough that Basilisk Gate activations end the game within a couple of swings.

The engine has two halves that feed each other. On the mana side, every Gate that enters raises the X on Basilisk Gate's sorcery-speed pump, so the same activation that makes a 4/4 in the early turns makes a 8/8 or bigger later. On the card side, the discard-draw-two spells (Pursue the Past, Melded Moxite, Bitter Reunion) each reach the third draw of your turn on their own once the draw step is counted, which is exactly what returns a pitched Sneaky Snacker from the graveyard to the battlefield. Malevolent Rumble stocks that graveyard with the Snackers and Cats it does not take, and Sacred Cat's embalm turns a buried Cat into a second white lifelink body.

A game runs in three phases. Setup is a Gate almost every turn with a cheap creature in front of it: Sacred Cat, Outlaw Medic, or a Sneaky Snacker that came back for free. Payoff begins once three or more Gates are down, when 's pump before combat turns a lifelinker into a 4/4 that swings the life totals by eight, or the flying Snacker into a 5-power evasive attacker. The close is a matter of untapped Basilisk Gates rather than raw Gate count, because each activation costs two mana plus tapping one Basilisk Gate: three Gates buy one activation, while six Gates with two Basilisk Gates among them let you stack two pumps onto for a 14-power flier that finishes in two swings. is the other combat finisher, growing off its own Spawn tokens while it soaks a pump.

The Cards

Basilisk Gate

The land that wins the game. It enters untapped and taps for colorless, and for two mana plus tapping itself it gives one creature +X/+X until end of turn at sorcery speed, where X is every Gate you control, itself and the tapped-entering Gates included. Because the activation is a land ability, creature removal and counterspells never take it off the table; only the body it targets is at risk. Sequence your lands so the tapped Gates come down first and this arrives when you want to activate: with Citadel Gate and Cliffgate down on the first two turns and Sacred Cat cast off the Citadel's white, a third-turn Basilisk Gate taps the two older Gates for the mana, taps itself, and sends the Cat in as a 4/4 lifelinker that deals 4 and gains 4. Multiple copies stack: each untapped Basilisk Gate you can pay for is another full pump on the same creature.

Citadel Gate

Citadel Gate, Cliffgate, and Manor Gate are the same land with a different fixed color (white, red, and green respectively); each enters tapped and lets you name a second color as it enters. They are what let a three-color deck cast Pursue the Past on the second turn and Writhing Chrysalis on the fourth, and every one of them raises X on Basilisk Gate. Name the Naya color your hand is missing; green comes almost entirely from Manor Gate and these choices, so a Chrysalis in hand usually means naming green early.

Sneaky Snacker

Role Assignment

Naya Gates is a midrange deck with high inevitability and a tempo-neutral start: it does not push damage early and it does not take the opponent's turns away, but if the game goes long enough it wins almost every time, because the Gates keep making the Basilisk Gate pump bigger and the graveyard keeps handing back Sacred Cat and Sneaky Snacker. Its interaction is a few removal spells (Lightning Bolt, Journey to Nowhere, and the modes of Thraben Charm) plus Prismatic Strands as a damage-prevention effect, so it answers a threat or a turn, not a whole plan. Every matchup is decided on the same few axes: raw speed against the tapped mana base, whether one-for-one removal ever gains ground against creatures that replace themselves, how much of the graveyard package the opponent can exile, whether the pump turn can be answered at instant speed, and whether the opponent's damage is colored enough for Prismatic Strands to prevent it.

Vs. Aggro. Against aggro you are the control deck, and comfortably so. Their plan is to win before the Gates matter, and your job is to make the early turns cost them cards: Outlaw Medic and Sacred Cat block and gain life, Lightning Bolt kills the one creature that would break through, and the removal they spend on your blockers buys them nothing because the Cat embalms and the Medic draws. The play that defines the role is Prismatic Strands on their biggest attack, naming their color: a whole turn of damage vanishes, you untap with the board intact, and the flashback threatens the same thing again by tapping an untapped white creature. Once the opponent has run out of gas, the pump turn ends the game on your schedule.

Vs. Midrange. Against midrange you are still the control deck, because the removal math favors you: their one-for-one answers trade with creatures that leave a token, draw a card, or come back, while their creature removal never touches Basilisk Gate. The defining play is patience with the pump. Let them spend removal on and , keep casting and to stay ahead on cards, and activate only on a creature the opponent cannot answer with mana open, ideally a returned that cost you nothing. The one thing to fear is graveyard exile: if they can strip the yard, your inevitability shrinks to whatever is on the battlefield, so deploy embalm and flashback before that window closes.

Play Patterns

Pitch Sneaky Snacker to Pursue the Past, Melded Moxite, or Bitter Reunion on your own turn, so the same spell's two draws bring it back. The discard always lands before the two draws, whether it happens as Pursue the Past resolves or on the entry trigger of Melded Moxite and Bitter Reunion once the permanent is already on the battlefield, so the Snacker is sitting in the graveyard when the trigger that watches for your third draw checks. On your own turn the draw step is the first draw, the spell's two draws are the second and third, and the Snacker returns tapped without costing a mana or a spell. That is why a first-turn Citadel Gate names red rather than blue: a Plains on the second turn casts Pursue the Past, the Snacker pitched to it is on the battlefield the same turn, and it attacks for 2 on the third turn. Casting the Snacker from hand instead would need blue and black from two separate Gate choices and attacks a full turn later at best. The trigger fires once per turn, on the third draw only, so a Snacker that dies after returning has to wait for the next turn's third draw; do not spend a second loot spell that turn expecting it back again.
Keep one untapped white creature at home whenever Prismatic Strands is in the graveyard. The flashback cost is tapping an untapped white creature, not mana, so the Strands in your graveyard is only as live as your least useful attacker. Swinging with everything removes the second damage-prevention effect at exactly the moment the opponent's biggest counterattack is coming, and it does so for whatever chip damage the last creature would have added. Sacred Cat and Outlaw Medic (and the embalmed Cat token) are the main-deck white creatures, joined after sideboarding by Guardian of the Guildpact; Sneaky Snacker, , and the tokens it makes cannot pay this cost.

Black Sacrifice

Carrion Feeder - emblematic card for this matchup — Read the Black Sacrifice primer →

Matchup - Favored

Black Sacrifice is the faster deck and has to win the race. Their one-drops and free sacrifice outlets get damage in while our Gates are still entering tapped, so the early turns belong to them, and being on the play matters more to them than to us. Speed and going first are the only edges they hold. Once Prismatic Strands, lifelink blockers and a removal spell on the right creature blunt their first big attack, their interaction (Shambling Ghast's death trigger and Accursed Marauder's edict, plus Snuff Out or Tragic Slip in a minority of lists) only trades one-for-one into creatures that draw a card, embalm back or return from the graveyard. They run out of fodder before we run out of blockers, our draw-two spells outclass their topdecked 1/1s, and a Basilisk Gate activation turns any surviving body into a threat they must answer. So we take the control role: stop the attacks, let card draw and recursion carry us, and close with the Gate rather than racing.

Spend early mana on Outlaw Medic, Sacred Cat and removal ahead of card flow, and aim the removal at the payoffs, Carrion Feeder and Mortician Beetle, rather than at fodder whose death leaves a token behind anyway. Lightning Bolt the Feeder while their board is thin, because every creature they sacrifice in response adds a counter before the Bolt resolves. When a creature is wearing Sadistic Glee, kill the creature rather than the Aura so both cards go at once; every death on either side, our chump blocks and our removal included, grows it, and Thraben Charm's destroy-enchantment mode is for the point where the enchanted creature has outgrown our damage-based removal. Keep a cheap nontoken creature beside anything we care about, since Accursed Marauder's edict lets us choose, and the Cat embalms back while the Medic draws a card. While Mortician Beetle is on the battlefield, keep Eldrazi Spawn as chump blockers instead of sacrificing them for mana or Writhing Chrysalis counters, because each sacrifice can grow the Beetle.

Hold Prismatic Strands for their big turn and name black, which covers every creature card they play, their black-green Insect tokens and Rite of Consumption. The best window is in response to Rite, so the creature sacrificed as its cost is lost for nothing, or after blocks so our blockers survive their black attackers. Only green Squirrels and red Mercenaries still deal damage, and the flashback copy, paid by tapping an untapped white creature, can name that color when it matters; remember that naming black also prevents our own Sneaky Snacker's damage that turn. Once their attack is blunted, close with Basilisk Gate and pick the target by what they can do in response: Sneaky Snacker flies over everything but Insect tokens and can't be targeted by Snuff Out, but dies to a Shambling Ghast sacrificed in response, while Outlaw Medic survives that trigger and gains life equal to its full pumped power even when a 1/1 chump-blocks it. A free sacrifice outlet next to an untapped Swamp can mean a morbid Tragic Slip, so activate while they are tapped out where possible.

Key Threats

Carrion Feeder is their main clock against our blockers. It can't block, so it exists only to attack, and every creature they feed it is a permanent +1/+1 counter; left alone it outgrows Lightning Bolt, beats Outlaw Medic in combat and becomes the creature they sacrifice to Rite of Consumption. The mistake it punishes is spending early removal on fodder: they feed the rest of the board to the Feeder, it attacks past our blockers as a growing threat, and the Rite that follows undoes our lifelink gains. Journey to Nowhere is the answer at any size, since exile ignores the counters, and if they sacrifice the Feeder in response they lose the counters anyway.

Rite of Consumption is how they finish us through a board our blockers had stabilized, turning a grown Carrion Feeder or a pumped Bloodthrone Vampire into damage to us and the same amount of life for them. It punishes tapping out with no Prismatic Strands mana and no untapped white creature for its flashback while our life total sits within their biggest creature's power: a Rite after combat ends the game. Because the creature is sacrificed as a cost, Strands naming black in response leaves them down that creature for nothing.

Mortician Beetle grows whenever either player sacrifices a creature, so the Eldrazi Spawn we sacrifice for mana or Writhing Chrysalis counters, and the creature Accursed Marauder makes us sacrifice, feed it just like their own outlets. Sacrificing Spawn freely while it is out stacks our counters on top of theirs and pushes it past Lightning Bolt. Alongside Carrion Feeder, it is where our early removal should go.

Tragic Slip is the instant that punishes a careless Basilisk Gate turn. A free sacrifice outlet turns on morbid whenever they want, so it kills the pump target in response whatever its size, wasting the mana, the Gate's tap and our attack for the turn. Only a minority of lists maindeck it, but nearly all carry more in the sideboard, so an untapped Swamp beside a sacrifice outlet is the signal to wait before activating.

Sideboard Plan

In:

3 Breath Weapon
2 Guardian of the Guildpact
1 Thraben Charm

Out:

2 Bitter Reunion
4 Malevolent Rumble

Breath Weapon comes in because every creature card and token Black Sacrifice plays starts with toughness 2 or less, so 2 damage to each creature at instant speed clears their board, while Outlaw Medic and Writhing Chrysalis survive it and the Sacred Cat and Sneaky Snacker it kills can come back.

Guardian of the Guildpact comes in because every creature card and removal spell in their deck is monocolored: Snuff Out, Tragic Slip and Shambling Ghast's trigger can't target it, and only their black-green Insect token can block or damage it, making it a blocker for their biggest attacker and a Basilisk Gate target their targeted removal can't reach.

The third Thraben Charm comes in as an instant with three live modes here: the damage mode kills Carrion Feeder or Mortician Beetle, the enchantment mode destroys Sadistic Glee, and the graveyard mode exiles their graveyard in response to Unearth.

Bitter Reunion goes out because against their one-drops a two-mana card that neither blocks nor gains life is too slow, and its haste ability rarely matters while we are the ones blocking; it goes ahead of Pursue the Past, which gains 2 life, and Melded Moxite, which later becomes a 2/2 Robot blocker.

Malevolent Rumble goes out because it is too slow against their curve: the card it puts in hand isn't a draw, so unlike Pursue the Past and Melded Moxite it doesn't count toward Sneaky Snacker's third-draw return, its 0/1 Spawn chumps only once, and sacrificing that Spawn for mana can grow Mortician Beetle, so all four make room for Breath Weapon and Guardian of the Guildpact.

Sideboarding moves this matchup strongly in our favor: we gain an instant-speed sweeper for their whole board and a pump target none of their removal spells can target, while their bring-ins, more Tragic Slip, more Snuff Out and Rotten Reunion, still answer one card at a time, and only Nihil Spellbomb exiles a whole graveyard at once.

Post-board Strategy

Breath Weapon is the card that swings the post-board games: it sweeps their 1-toughness board at instant speed while Outlaw Medic and Writhing Chrysalis survive, and the Sacred Cat and Sneaky Snacker it kills come back through embalm and the third-draw trigger. Cast it on their turn once they have committed creatures, and expect a response: two sacrifices take Carrion Feeder out of range with Mortician Beetle growing off each one, a single sacrifice saves Bloodthrone Vampire, Supernatural Stamina returns a creature, and the death triggers still leave Squirrels, Insects and Mercenaries behind. Clear the payoff with Lightning Bolt or Journey to Nowhere first when we can.

Guardian of the Guildpact blocks their biggest attacker every turn without dying, because every creature they play except the black-green Insect token is monocolored and can't damage it, and it becomes the best Basilisk Gate target: the Gate is a colorless source, so it can pump Guardian while Snuff Out, Tragic Slip, Spinning Darkness and Shambling Ghast's trigger can't target it. Their main answer is Accursed Marauder's edict, which many lists add more copies of, so keep a cheap nontoken creature such as Sacred Cat beside Guardian for the edict to take.

Their sideboard aims at our graveyard and our pump targets, so play around these:

Rotten Reunion, in every list, and Nihil Spellbomb, in many, can exile Sneaky Snacker in response to its third-draw trigger, a Sacred Cat before it embalms, or a Prismatic Strands before we flash it back. When they go after a graveyard Strands on their turn, flash it back in response if the prevention still helps that turn, and keep a copy in hand for the turn we have to survive.
More Tragic Slip and Snuff Out make Guardian of the Guildpact the pump target of choice; Outlaw Medic, Sacred Cat and Writhing Chrysalis are the creatures the extra free removal is for.
Spinning Darkness, in some lists, kills Outlaw Medic outright but kills Writhing Chrysalis only if we can't sacrifice a Spawn in response to put a counter on it; it can't target Sneaky Snacker or Guardian of the Guildpact.
Mesmeric Fiend takes Breath Weapon or Prismatic Strands out of our hand. Kill it only after its enter trigger has resolved: removing it while the trigger is on the stack exiles our card for good, which is exactly what they do themselves by sacrificing it to a free outlet in response to the trigger.