The Power of Pauper: Collegiate Commons
Howdy folks! It's time yet again for another edition of The Power of Pauper! I'm your host, Joe Dyer, and this week we're going to be taking a look at Secrets of Strixhaven for Pauper! In addition to that, we've got our weekly MTGO recap and Challenge events from this past weekend.
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
Strixhaven, Strixhaven, We Lend Our Love to Thee
We've got a new Standard set on the way, and with it, we're headed back to school with Secrets of Strixhaven! This set has some pretty interesting cards in it, with some new mechanics like Prepared spells and all sorts of stuff.
Now that the full spoiler is out, we can look at all the cards that could see play in Pauper! I don't think we can cover all of them, because there are 80 commons in the set, but let's look at the stuff that could be cool. As always, if I miss anything, please let me know.
Owlin Historian
Honestly, a 2/3 flier that surveils on ETB for 3 is not bad on rate. The trigger is cool too. Some sort of weird self-mill, self-exile aggro strategy?
Rehearsed Debater
This is a Heroic card that doesn't require you to actually target another creature with an instant or sorcery. A lot of Heroic decks, though, tend to play more Auras and stuff due in part to how Heroic actually works over Repartee. Having to be an instant or sorcery means that there is a fundamental shift to how that deck would work. Still, neat effect.
Shattered Acolyte
Another two mana destroy an artifact/enchantment for one mana is a thing. This one is at least a 2/2 with lifelink.
Deluge Virtuoso
This has some pretty sweet effects, getting a stun counter on something, but then also being able to boost this creature with instants/sorceries is kind of neat as well.
Procrastinate
While this is a sorcery, I really like this card for something like Poison Storm. You can tap down something pretty hard since that deck generates a ton of mana in short order. Then once you have some stun counters, you can keep proliferating them.
Melancholic Poet
There's definitely a lot of cool Repartee creatures, though, but also there's probably a way to build some sort of Orzhov Heroic deck that does some things with these cards. This isn't terrible.
Goblin Glasswright
This probably isn't insane, but you do get some mana out of it. I don't think it's that good, but it is cute.
Glorious Decay
I always love seeing flexible modal spells like this. Having a bunch of different options is never bad, really.
Studious First-Year
I kinda like this one. Yeah, it's fragile, but converting one mana into a Rampant Growth is pretty cool.
Tenured Concocter
This is kind of cool. It's big, but if your opponent targets it, you get to draw cards! I like these sorts of things. Also, becoming a 6/5 for gaining life is cool.
Pest Mascot
If you can come up with a persistent stream of life gain here, this could be very cool. It definitely could get big rather quickly.
Page, Loose Leaf
One kind of big criticism over Universes Beyond sets has often been how much designs in those sets push down into Common for Legendary creatures. There's a lot of these with no real downside to them. This one at least has some interesting play to make more than one a good thing to have. I don't think this is actually insane or powerful, but it is a cool effect.
Weekly MTGO Recap
This past week was a pretty normal week of events with just the regular Challenge events on the docket. You can find the weekly recap here.
We had the following events this past week:
| Event Name | Top 32 Link | Data Sheet Link | Number of Players |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pauper Challenge 32 4/9/2026 | Top 32 | Data Sheet | 48 |
| Pauper Challenge 32 4/10/2026 | Top 32 | Data Sheet | 54 |
| Pauper Challenge 32 4/11/2026 | Top 32 | Data Sheet | 47 |
| Pauper Challenge 32 4/12/2026 | Top 32 | Data Sheet | 67 |
All in all, there were around 216 decklist entries overall, which is not too bad. Every one of the events had more than 40 players, so that's also pretty reasonable. This is down from last week's 266 entries, though.
Let's take a look at the graphical data.
As we continue to look at how Pauper evolves week to week, it definitely is understood that Pauper is still aggro-slanted quite a bit. At the top of the heap this week was Mono Red Madness.
This deck did very well this past week, having a 53.5% non-mirror win rate overall. The amount of decks recorded went down a little to 24 copies, but the deck did well. I think as the format continues to shift around, players not ready for this deck can fall to it pretty quickly. It is a good deck, but it is attackable if you keep it in mind.
Dimir Terror was second in line in terms of popularity, and its overall win rate went down a little to around 51.3% non-mirror. Terror is one of those decks that is certainly on the radar of a lot of people, and it's a deck that has had a pretty strong presence in Pauper as a format, that seeing this kind of week to week shift is honestly telling me that it's a deck that can be beaten, and isn't really overpowering Pauper as a format. I think the deck is currently in a fine place and has some interesting gameplay.
Grixis Affinity ended up in third in terms of metagame share this past week, which put it up from last week. It also had a much better overall win rate at 57.2% non-mirror win rate. Affinity is one of those long-standing decks in Pauper for a long time, and it's just a rather solid deck to be on. I like seeing the shifts of decks like this because it showcases how these decks are just moving around the various pillars of Pauper in the metagame. This is a good thing; it shows that decks regarded to be good can wax and wane just like any other.
Coming into the fourth deck spot this past week was Mono White Aggro. This deck has also been on a lot of people's radar, mostly due in part to how much the deck was boosted from the presence of Leonardo, Big Brother. In truth, the deck again had around a 49.4% non-mirror win rate (which is like 0.1% worse than its win rate including mirrors), and that's only slightly up from the 47% from last week. I think this deck is probably pretty good, but it's again not overpowering the format by any means. I'm pretty happy to see this list around, especially since it is such a truly cheap deck that can have some really strong games.
Rounding out the list this week was Jund Wildfire. This deck had a slightly better week this time, with a 53.7% non-mirror win rate over the deck's 48% non-mirror from last week. This seems rather right in line with Pauper's power level to me.
Overall, Pauper looks really good as a format. There is a lot of shifting back and forth in the metagame, and decks are waxing and waning appropriately based on metagame force shifts. This is great. Decks should do this week to week, and I think Pauper has some really fun gameplay. There's some eyes to keep on things like Dimir Terror, Spy Combo, and Mono White Aggro, but I feel like those decks are currently fine.
Are you having fun with Pauper? Please let me know in the comments below!
Pauper Challenge 32 4/9/2026
The first Challenge event we are covering was the Thursday event. This event had 48 players in it thanks to the MTGO website.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Dimir Terror was the most played deck of the event, and while it had some solid Top 8 appearances, the overall win rate of the deck was just below 50% at 45.45% non-mirror. Mono Red Madness did very well here, as did Jund Wildfire. Mono Blue Terror did very poorly.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Rakdos Madness | 1st | grajtow |
| Dimir Terror | 2nd | mehanske |
| Dimir Faeries | 3rd | barff |
| Golgari Gardens | 4th | __Noob__ |
| Mono Red Madness | 5th | Keez |
| Jund Wildfire | 6th | carvs |
| Grixis Affinity | 7th | RatoMorto |
| Dimir Terror | 8th | Bugsy69 |
Fairly interesting looking Top 8. At the end of the event, it was Rakdos Madness that won.
Solidly straightforward list. I love Contaminated Ground in the sideboard as an answer to Tron decks. Slap one on a Tron land and shut it off since becoming a Swamp overwrites the Tron lands subtypes. This is important to know because the Tron lands don't look for the names of the other Tron lands, they look for their subtypes. If you remove that land type, the Tron land no longer can produce its extra mana. I love cool tech like this.
In Second Place, we had Dimir Terror.
I like the Sneaky Snacker angle to the deck. It gives you a bit of a cool recurring threat that you can use to keep up the pressure on the opponent.
Also in this Top 8, we had Jund Wildfire.
I love this deck, honestly. It's super fun looking. Big midrange threats and lots of removal and card draw. It's some powerful stuff.
Pauper Challenge 32 4/12/2026
The final Challenge event we are covering was the Sunday event. This event had 67 players in it thanks to the MTGO website.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Mono Red Madness was the most played deck of the event, and its win rate was pretty good. Dimir Faeries performed very poorly here, while the rest of the things across the cutoff were pretty positive.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Mono Red Madness | 1st | fazparte |
| Spy Combo | 2nd | Cachorrowo |
| Dimir Terror | 3rd | cicciogire |
| Jund Wildfire | 4th | Namkrew___Lacsap |
| Mono Red Madness | 5th | DOOMfinite |
| Mono Red Madness | 6th | renato_tadeo |
| Mono Red Synth | 7th | SaculSueahtam |
| Golgari Gardens | 8th | __Noob__ |
Lot of Mono Red decks here. At the end of the event, it was Mono Red Madness that won.
Super straightforward list here. 18 Mountain is the way to go!
In Second Place, we had Spy Combo.
There's some interesting stuff here in the sideboard, but also the main deck construction seems to have completely cut stuff like Avenging Hunter as a plan B. I think if you can just hard cast some big threats if you need to, but it is interesting. The sideboard, as mentioned already, has some interesting bits like Flaring Pain, which makes sense because Lotleth Giant deals damage and not loss of life.
Outside of the Top 8, we had Boros Moxite.
I love this deck. It's such a cool looking pile of cards. I think it's great that Melded Moxite has proven to be good in Pauper because it's such a good card.
Around the Web
- Bryant Cook has a video on learning to play Cycle Storm. Check it out here.
- Heartyshow has a video on Mono Red decks. Check it out here.
- The Common Cold Snap has a new episode. Check it out here.
- GiorgioCombo has a video on Pizza Combos. Check it out here.
The Spice Corner
As League results are now spread out across the week, let's dig in and find something spicy!
Devoted Druid combo!
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!
