It is extremely cheap to cast
It survives Flame Slash
It can block Myr Enforcers and Carapace Forgers all day
Experience has shown us that the 4/4s of Affinity are extremely effective against the other aggressive decks in Pauper (Stompy, Delver, Burn, Goblins etc) and it seems likely that Gurmag Angler does this job even more efficiently.
I talked to master brewer jphsnake and he said: "I'm thinking that Gurmag Angler is going to rock pauper nowadays, and I think that playing and being able to beat it is key, and I think that one deck that I really enjoyed testing was Mono-black land destruction with anglers, sac-lands and rituals to support the angler beatdown. It tends to rock sometimes, and suck sometimes because it's a LD deck, just pray that your opponent isn't flooded."
And he even showed me the deck list.
Here it is.
4 Chittering Rats
3 Crypt Rats
4 Gurmag Angler
4 Lilliana's Shade
3 Twisted Abomination
4 Befoul
4 Choking Sands
4 Icequake
4 Rancid Earth
3 Bojuka Bog
4 Peat Bog
15 Swamp
4 Dark Ritual
Sideboard
4 Chainer's Edict
4 Coumbajj Witches
4 Dead Weight
3 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
I argued for Phyrexian Rager over Lilliana's Shade, but I think he might be on to something. We learned from the Mono Black Land Destruction list (http://mtgolibrary.blogspot.se/2014/12/featured-pauper-gauntlet-deck-mono.html) that a Mono Black Shell that shifts between Control and LD is useful in Pauper.
Is this a playable deck? Future testing is needing, but I think jphsnake might be on to something.
In the following video you will find my first four matches with the deck on camera. The MBC matchup is rough but there are some very powerful things you can do to other decks (such as Delver).
