The Power of Pauper: Common Understanding
Howdy folks! It's time for the very first edition of The Power of Pauper! I'm your host, Joe Dyer, and this week we're going to be kicking things right off with a look at the Pauper format as it exists right now and basically giving a bit of a introduction to the format for those who may not know much about it. We've also got some info on Challenges on Magic Online to talk about!
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
An Introduction... to Pauper!
The Pauper format is quite an interesting one, full of strong power level gameplay and a great number of interesting decks. Officially the format is defined as an Eternal format, since the sets legal in the format consist of all legal sets in Magic: The Gathering. Legality in the set is officially defined as any card printed at Common rarity in any paper or Magic Online set. The format started primarily on MTGO, but has since become more popular in paper events after the merging of digital and paper rulesets in June of 2019.
The format is also fairly unique in that it is one of the few formats in MTG that has a Pauper Format Panel, headed by Gavin Verhey of Wizards of the Coast. This panel helps provide recommendations on the state of the format to Wizards of the Coast (in regards to format management like bannings, unbannings, etc.)
The official Pauper Banlist can be found here.
Accessibility of cards in Pauper is one of the most desirable and interesting things about the format as many of the decks are exceptionally inexpensive (sometimes below $50 overall). It is important to be aware of some of the format's more expensive staples. Cards like Snuff Out, Lotus Petal, and a few others may not be as format defining but they can be pretty expensive enough to consider when deckbuilding.
Pauper itself often plays out much like other formats such as Legacy does, as many of Magic's early Commons were exceptionally strong cards overall. This has often earned the format the title of "Legacy Lite" in some ways. In fact, a good number of the decks in the format can draw strong parallels to Legacy.
Let's take a look at the many different strategies that can be seen within the Pauper format.
Affinity
Affinity is one of the most unique features of Pauper as a format, having been a relatively powerful strategy for a very long time, thanks to the presence of the original Mirrodin artifact lands and now the new "Bridge" artifact lands from Modern Horizons 2. The core of this deck has remained an intact function of the format, even through bans such as Disciple of the Vault and Atog.
The current incarnation of the deck functions as an aggressive board control deck that deploys cheap creatures (such as Frogmite and Myr Enforcer) alongside strong removal like Galvanic Blast and Makeshift Munitions. The deck boasts a strong amount of card draw between artifacts that draw cards and newer cards like Deadly Dispute and Reckoner's Bargain.
As a deck, Affinity is a well-known quantity in the Pauper format, and thus it has a lot of ways to attack it. There are a great number of artifact hate cards in the format, with most colors having some way to interact with artifacts in a fashion. Affinity is also exceptionally popular, so even in paper events there's likely to always be at least one Affinity player in the room.
Burn / Kuldotha Red
Burn, or "Kuldotha Red" as it is commonly referred to these days has been an ongoing strategy available to Pauper, but very recently in the past year became juiced up a little bit thanks to the downshift of Monastery Swiftspear in Double Masters 2022 in addition to the more recent printings of Experimental Synthesizer from Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty.
This deck boasts a lot of strength in the current format and is rather contentious a topic among the community due to the deck's aggressive nature and fast starts. The deck has a lot of synergy in the interaction between Kuldotha Rebirth and Experimental Synthesizer and can push through its deck quickly with cards like Reckless Impulse.
This is definitely a deck you will see on Magic Online quite a bit, so it helps to have a plan to face it. Quite often, decks with inherent life gain, fogs, and creatures with protection from red (see Crimson Acolyte are used to combat this deck. It is definitely a strong addition to the current format.
Orzhov Ephemerate
This deck utilizes one of the other primary format staples in Ephemerate. Ephemerate is such a powerful card in the Pauper format that it is seen in multiple amounts of decks that want to accrue value via "Enters the battlefield" effects. In the case of the Orzhov deck, it is gaining value off of cards like Dawnbringer Cleric, Inspiring Overseer, and one of the format's few legal Initiative cards left Goliath Paladin.
The Initiative is still very present in the Orzhov deck, and it does provide this deck a very powerful way to attack the game. This deck slows the game down by playing lots of removal while using its creatures and Ephemerate to blink them in and out. The amount of removal this deck boasts is pretty high overall, so it is capable of attacking many creature based strategies.
Blue Control / Tempo
As with many other formats, blue decks in Pauper have a great presence thanks to the printings of cards like Brainstorm, Ponder, and Preordain. Blue decks in general have had a very rocky history in the format, as many strong blue Commons have been banned in the format (everything from Daze to Treasure Cruise). There are several excellent blue decks in the current format though to consider.
One of the primary blue decks in the current format is the Dimir Terror deck.
This deck is a reactive control deck that utilizes countermagic and removal to clear the way for low cost threats like Gurmag Angler and Tolarian Terror to hit the board. This deck is one of the few decks playing Snuff Out, one of the format's more expensive cards as it is a very free effect for this deck to cast.
The power of this deck comes from the considerable amount of cantrip action this deck has, allowing it to push through its deck at a pretty reasonable pace. Some variants of this deck will also play cards like Deep Analysis as an additional flashback draw spell. The card Unexpected Fangs is also exceptionally powerful in this deck given that Tolarian Terror has Ward 2 and giving it both a +1/+1 counter and a lifelink counter is pretty incredible.
Another common blue-based deck in the current format is the Familiars deck, named primarily for the presence of Sunscape Familiar.
This is another deck that leans pretty hard on the usage of flicker effects, namely Ephemerate (again!) and Ghostly Flicker. It is primarily trying to set up loops with Ghostly Flicker by making it cost U (via the Familiars) where you can flicker both Archaeomancers and other permanents to continue milling the opponent with Sage's Row Denizen or drawing cards with Mulldrifter.
The deck also tends to gain a lot of inherent life off of the presence of cards like God-Pharaoh's Faithful as you are often looping Ghostly Flicker and Snap enough to gain a bunch of life.
Another blue based strategy in the format, and one that arguably stands on its own is Caw-Gates.
Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate not only provided the format with a rough time in the form of Initiative, but it also provided a cycle of Gates and one of the most powerful of those is Basilisk Gate. The deck is a control / tempo shell that utilizes evasive threats and removal in order to pump creatures with Basilisk Gate to win the game.
Gates is a pretty powerful deck and has a lot of strength behind it, as its mana fixing is super solid thanks to the Gates (even if they are coming in tapped). This is definitely a deck to keep eyes on in the future.
The final other type of blue deck in the current format is more of a Tempo strategy and that is Faeries.
Faeries is a weird deck, because it could just as easily be called Ninjas. It operates primarily off of the function of curving evasive creatures like Faerie Seer / Faerie Miscreant into cards like Moon-Circuit Hacker and Ninja of the Deep Hours off of the Ninjutsu ability.
The biggest strength of this deck primarily is the ability to make these kind of curve out attacks into Ninjutsu by being able to also repeatedly bounce cards like Spellstutter Sprite and the other Faeries as they all have strong "Enters the Battlefield" effects. There are a number of different variants of the Faeries decks from Mono Blue to Dimir and also Izzet. They're a strong tempo-oriented gameplay in the current format.
Gruul Land Destruction / Ramp
Another powerful card legal in Pauper is Utopia Sprawl. Sprawl provides a massive amount of early-game ramp in green, giving these decks the ability to push into more powerful cards. Often times these ramp decks are also land destruction decks, using the mana ramp advantage they have to spit out land destruction spells at a faster rate than the opponent can develop their own mana.
These decks often utilize the Cascade mechanic to gain value off multiple spells. These decks also utilize one of the other legal Initiative cards in the format in the form of Avenging Hunter. Cards like Annoyed Altisaur and Boarding Party are powerful cards that swing hard, capable of ending the game quickly and cleanly.
Tron
Pauper is one of the other formats in Magic: The Gathering where the UrzaTron lands are fully legal cards and also one of the more interesting aspects of the format. While we're not doing things like powering out Karn Liberated like Modern does, Tron does a lot of really powerful things in the format that make for some incredibly interesting gameplay.
One such way to approach Tron in this format is through the multicolor Ephemerate Tron deck.
While it seems like Tron might have some issues casting colored spells (they're colorless lands, obviously!), cards like Energy Refractor allow the deck to filter its massive amount of mana into any color it wants or desires. The deck operates functionally as a "fog"-like control shell, using its mana advantages to recast board control spells like Breath Weapon and Rolling Thunder while using Ghostly Flicker in conjunction with Mulldrifter and Mnemonic Wall to rebuy those effects until it has enough mana and time to end the game with a massive Rolling Thunder or attacking in the air with Mulldrifter.
This is an incredibly powerful shell, and Tron has evolved a lot over its time in the format. Other variants of the deck also utilize cards like Dinrova Horror or Stonehorn Dignitary to force the opponent out of resources or to skip combats over and over.
Another Tron variant that has shown up recently is the Ashnod's Altar variant.
This variant of Tron utilizes Myr Retriever and Ashnod's Altar in a very combo-esque fashion, generating a lot of mana off Altar and pushing through the deck with typical mainstays such as Ichor Wellspring and Chromatic Sphere. The primary best way this deck can win is the usage of Golem Foundry and Impact Tremors to close out the game.
Combo Decks
Like most formats, Pauper is no stranger to having combo decks. In fact, much of the Pauper ban list has been in part reining in various combo-based strategies. When most people think of combo in the format, the first thing that comes up is Storm cards, of which many of them are indeed banned (cards like Grapeshot / Empty the Warrens, etc.), but there are plenty of interesting decks in the format from a combo perspective.
One of the more well-known decks now (and one of my personal favorites because I have this one built) is Walls Combo.
On paper it might be hard to grok what Walls is capable of. The deck plays out much like a Legacy Elves deck by utilizing its dorky Defender creatures alongside enablers like Quirion Ranger to power out an effect like Freed from the Real or Galvanic Alchemist onto an Axebane Guardian and then produce infinite mana. From there, the deck can win a number of ways, but it typically involves having or digging to find Valakut Invoker, but it can also win with Secret Door dungeon loops among other things.
One of the primary challenges of this deck is mulliganing to functional hands, and also sweepers that can clean the board up are rough to fight through. While many of the sweepers don't do that much damage to the table, cards like Krark-Clan Shaman are exceptionally problematic to fight against. Overall though, this deck is super fun, but it's also pretty rough to play on Magic Online due to the clicking needed to make the mana.
Another common combo deck in the format is the First Day of Class Goblins Combo deck.
This deck is honestly a pretty cool deck. It operates largely off the back of how First Day of Class interacts with the Persist ability off of Putrid Goblin. Because Persist puts a -1/-1 counter on and Class puts a +1/+1 counter on, it cancels out the counters. What this allows the deck to do is to utilize Skirk Prospector with Putrid Goblin to make infinite mana. The deck can then win by either using Dark-Dweller Oracle to dig to their win condition or by simply having Makeshift Munitions on board to win by repeatedly sacrificing the Putrid Goblin to deal damage.
This deck can also just win by deploying a bunch of Goblins with First Day of Class in effect and swing with a bunch of hasty creatures if it needs to, and it is backed up by a lot of card draw typical of other red/black decks in the format in Deadly Dispute and Ichor Wellspring.
Finally, there is an actual "Storm" deck in the format, in the form of Cycle Storm.
In terms of raw accessibility, Cycle Storm is one of the most expensive decks in the format, largely due in part to the price of Lotus Petal. However, the deck is intriguing as it wins through a combination of cycling creature cards with effects like Drannith Stinger and Horror of the Broken Lands in play, and then utilizes Reaping the Graves to return all of those cycling creatures back to hand to do it all over again and continue pushing through the deck. Cards like Songs of the Damned provide massive mana advantages when having a bunch of cycling creatures in the graveyard.
There are a number of other combo decks in the format as well, but these three are the largely prevalent ones.
Just Scratching the Surface
This is only scratching the surface of what is possible in Pauper, and no single article could detail every single Pauper strategy that exists. However, I hope this provided folks with a solid introduction to the format and understanding its general gameplay and what decks are possible. There's much more to explore with this format, so keep looking at these articles to see more of how one can explore Pauper!
Pauper Challenge 4/1
Oh hey this is our very first Challenge to discuss ever on this column for Pauper! Pauper Challenges operate on the same days as other Challenges do, and there is indeed a Discord of folks collecting data for these events (the Castle of Commons Discord), but that data collection is definitely hit or miss and not insanely consistent. The Saturday Challenge takes place at 2:00 AM PT typically. This also tends to affect whether we know how many players are in these events, so we don't generally know if there is no data collected.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Familiars | 1st | Gn42 |
| Caw-Gates | 2nd | _Batutinha_ |
| Mono Blue Faeries | 3rd | Mikhathara1994 |
| Mono Blue Faeries | 4th | Brivenix |
| Walls Combo | 5th | Liv_BR |
| Mono White Aggro | 6th | immvp |
| Gruul Ponza | 7th | _Shatun_ |
| Orzhov Ephemerate | 8th | Hoarse_Duck |
Kind of a neat Top 8 here. Some solidly blue decks here, but there's some diversity in archetypes overall. At the end of the event, it was Familiars that won.
One thing that is readily apparent in decks like this one is how ready they are for things like Affinity. Four copies of Dust to Dust in sideboards is a real statement on beating up on Affinity.
The Second Place finalist was on Caw-Gates.
Also, The Modern Age has really proven itself to be a really solid card for Pauper, as you'll see it a lot in these kinds of decks. The looting effect combined with getting a 2/3 flier out of it later on is pretty solid.
Further down the Top 8 we had Walls Combo.
Guardian Naga is a sweet card in the sideboard here. I may have to pick some up for my own list of this deck.
Down in the bottom half of the Top 8 we had a sweet Mono White Aggro deck.
The value inherent in bouncing creatures with Kor Skyfisher is super fun. Raffine's Informant seems quite strong overall. This deck is pretty sweet.
Pauper Challenge 4/2
The second Challenge event of the weekend is the 10:00AM PT event.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Kuldotha Red | 1st | Mistr |
| Affinity | 2nd | Backoff |
| Mono Blue Faeries | 3rd | ezocratto |
| Kuldotha Red | 4th | Nekrus |
| Jeskai Ephemerate | 5th | Foresterf |
| Ephemerate Tron | 6th | ziofrancone |
| Familiars | 7th | Kampo |
| Affinity | 8th | jessy_samek |
Some red heavy Top 8 this go around, and plenty of Affinity. At the end of the event it was indeed Kuldotha Red that won the event.
Mine Collapse is kind of a sweet card in the sideboard here. Being able to cast it for sacrificing a Mountain to deal 5 to a creature is interesting. Very powerful deck overall.
In Second Place we've got Affinity.
Very clean deck here. Lots of strong card draw and some powerful creatures. Kenku Artificer has definitely proven to be very strong here.
Also in this Top 8 we had Mono Blue Faeries.
I really dig seeing Of One Mind. It's so easy to enable in decks like this with Moon-Circuit Hacker being a Human and any of the Faeries being non-Human. Drawing two for U is very good for sure.
Further down the Top 8 we had Jeskai Ephemerate.
Cleansing Wildfire with the Bridge lands is a pretty cool interaction, since you can cast it on your own Bridges, get a basic land and also draw a card. The effect allowing the controller of the land to search is not based on the Destroy effect so the Bridge being indestructible enables it. Mana ramp and card draw in red is some sweet interaction.
Around the Web
- Our good friend Alex Ullman had an awesome article on the Paupergeddon event. Check it out here.
- Pauperganda had a great video on Boros. Check it out here.
- Heartyshow had a great video on Rakdos Madness vs Affinity. Check it out here.
- Bryant Cook had a video on a Walls 5-0 Trophy. Check it out here.
- Great videon on Altar Tron. Check it out here.
The Spice Corner
You can find this past week's 5-0 deck lists over here.
Turning Inside Out!
Wrapping Up
That's all the time we have this week folks! Thanks for continuing to support the column and join us next week as we continue our journey into Pauper!
As always you can reach me at all my associated links via my Link Tree! In addition I'm always around the MTGGoldfish Discord Server and the MTGPauper Discord Server.
Until next time!
