The Power of Pauper: Is Pauper No Longer the "Cheap" Format?
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 talking about Pauper from a high level overview of the overall cost of the format. Is Pauper no longer considered cheap? In addition to that we've got some Challenges to discuss and a poke at the BnR announcement from this past weekend with an announcement by Gavin Verhey of the PFP.
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
Is Pauper No Longer Cheap?
We're looking at Pauper at a much higher place than we usually do on this article. Usually I'm much more focused on metagame developments, but Pauper has been chugging along well and MH3 is still influencing that, so let's talk about Pauper from the standpoint of prices. That's right, this is somewhat of a finance article.
The question we have to pose is that in 2024, is Pauper a cheap format still? Is it no longer considered one of the cheapest formats?
To start digging into that, let's take a look at the top 10 decks listed on MTGGoldfish. Currently: it's Broodscale, Gruul Ramp, Grixis Affinity, Burn, Mono Blue Terror, Mono White Aggro, Madness Burn, Dimir Terror, Elves, and Dimir Faeries.
The average cost of all ten of these decks is roughly around $73 at this point in time in paper, based on the average cost of the deck given on the site. The high end of these decks is Dimir Terror at an average of $89 and Burn/Broodscale at $81. That's right... Burn is an $81 deck in paper.
Now, comparing this to a format like Standard. Standard's prices are certainly a lot higher than they used to be as well. A good number of the top 10 Standard decks according to the Goldfish page at the moment are anywhere from a low end of $114 to $440. Standard has certainly gotten a bit more expensive as well in this regard, but in a lot of ways Pauper is still cheaper than Standard by a bit.
Still, it is interesting to see the prices on some of these decks. Pauper has always been expressed as a format that is cheap because it's all commons, but there are many commons in the format that haven't seen proper reprints to really bring down their overall price. For example:
Furthermore, there is a weird flip on things when you look at the prices of these decks in Event Tickets on Magic Online. The same decks can be seen below.
The same decks on MTGO are an average of 65 tickets (functionally $65), which is definitely less than the paper equivalents, but at the same time, which deck is more expensive is flipped around a bit. Decks like Gruul Ramp are extremely expensive, ranging up to 93 tickets primarily due in part to cards printed in Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate. The fact that many of those cards were released as treasure chest-only cards makes their prices really wonky. For example, a playset of Avenging Hunter on MTGO is nearly 30 tickets.
Much of the pricing issues with Pauper can very much be traced back to reprint equity, and much of that reprint equity is tied up in older cards in paper, but also in how cards were released on MTGO in the first place. Finding good spaces to reprint some of these cards (especially those with the word INITIATIVE on them) can be very difficult, and I don't imagine cards like Lotus Petal ever get reprinted as an actual Common ever again in any actual fashion. As more decks bubble up to the surface that may use either set of these cards, the overall prices surrounding those decks will definitely keep increasing.
There used to be a relation of being able to have multiple Pauper decks because Pauper decks were very cheap. And when we say cheap, generally most people are equating prices below $50 to be super cheap for a deck. Awkwardly, I don't think we are there anymore with the current prices on the format. Out of all the decks on the Pauper page on Goldfish, Walls Combo and Mono White Heroic came out below $50. That's not a lot for a format based on all commons.
I think this really goes to show that there are always good opportunities to print cards for Pauper, and I know our good friend Gavin Verhey is consistently looking for new opportunities to reprint cards that need it, so I have to hope that eventually reprint equity catches up and helps bring the format back down a little bit, but for now, I do think that we aren't "cheap" anymore.
Gavin Verhey on the Banned and Restricted Announcements
While we had a Banned and Restricted Announcement this past week, there were no changes to the Pauper format. Our good friend Gavin Verhey had this to say about the Banned and Restricted Announcements and how that all works for Pauper.
I think Gavin hits it on the nail right here. I don't think there's anything about current Pauper that seems so utterly busted that it needs to be banned. Broodscale is toeing a line for sure, but I think it currently is beatable. I'm okay with giving the format more time to breathe overall, especially considering that numerous decks are playing around with MH3 cards in a lot of ways.
Pauper Challenge 32 8/23
The first Challenge event of the week was the Friday event. This event had 56 players in it based on the MTGO decklist postings. There was no data for this event.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here. The Top 8 is below.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Grixis Affinity | 1st | LuffyDoChapeuDePalha |
| Dimir Faeries | 2nd | Brivenix |
| Burn | 3rd | BuenosLoko |
| Mono White Aggro | 4th | Kirblinxy |
| Mono Blue Terror | 5th | discoverN |
| Burn | 6th | gaeleogiao |
| Grixis Affinity | 7th | CAM_13 |
| Dimir Terror | 8th | O_danielakos |
Very interesting Top 8 here. At the end of the event it was Grixis Affinity that won.
Defnitely strong looking list here. I love seeing Toxin Analysis because the card seems so good, especially if you're able to cast it on an indestructible flier made by Kenku Artificer.
In Second Place we had Dimir Faeries.
In spite of the fact that green decks got one of the best reach threats ever in the form of Writhing Chrysalis, Dimir Faeries has continued to look really good. This version is interesting because it's very much an older looking list not playing Sneaky Snacker like a good number of the lists have been doing. Wither and Bloom looks like a sweet card here though.
Also in this Top 8 we had Mono White Aggro.
I like how clean this list is, honestly. It's got a very straightforward game plan and just seems very strong overall.
Pauper Challenge 32 8/24
The second Challenge event of the week was the Saturday event. This event had 53 players in it based on the MTGO decklist postings. There was no data for this event.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here. The Top 8 is below.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Golgari Broodscale | 1st | Beicodegeia |
| Mono Blue Terror | 2nd | imthekiing |
| Burn | 3rd | Mahers |
| Gruul Ramp | 4th | IvernOP |
| Gruul Ramp | 5th | ziofrancone |
| Jund Broodscale | 6th | kokoko098 |
| Jund Broodscale | 7th | Digital_Fiakka |
| Mono White Aggro | 8th | KidRenan |
Quite a bit of Broodscale here in this Top 8. In fact, the event was won by Golgari Broodscale.
This is a solid-looking version of this list. Last Rites is a super sick card here as a way to make the opponent discard stuff from their hand. Being able to go up to 4 is nuts in a deck that plays eight main deck draw twos for 1B.
In Second Place we had Mono Blue Terror.
Incredibly clean-looking list here. Force Spike and Spell Pierce seem so insanely good right now.
Also in this Top 8 we had Gruul Ramp.
This deck continues to look very good in the current format. It's powerful and has a lot of bomb plays that push the game towards being over in a few turns.
Pauper Challenge 32 8/25
The final Challenge event of the week was the Sunday event. This event had 67 players in it based on the MTGO decklist postings. There was no data for this event.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here. The Top 8 is below.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Jund Broodscale | 1st | Terminus0 |
| Mono Blue Terror | 2nd | carrot_eater |
| Grixis Affinity | 3rd | Capoeira02 |
| Mono Blue Terror | 4th | Zenith777 |
| Grixis Affinity | 5th | fingers1991 |
| Golgari Gardens | 6th | LuffyDoChapeuDePalha |
| Dredge | 7th | Tangerina |
| Gruul Ramp | 8th | Broa |
A reasonable amount of diverse decks here. At the end of the event it was Jund Broodscale that won.
Evolution Witness is a sweet card to tack into this list especially with Sadistic Glee allowing it to keep returning cards back to hand as a backup threat. Seems great.
In Second Place we had Mono Blue Terror.
I really like Deem Inferior in this shell. It's super powerful and its cost reduction can be quite huge off even a single Brainstorm reducing it to just U.
Also in this Top 8 we had Golgari Gardens.
Very straightforward and stock list here. I like the one of Blood Fountain as a way to get back threats from the graveyard, and getting the Blood token is also great too.
My Video for the Week
I got a recording done! I had a lot of fun playing around with Poison Storm this past week, so enjoy the video!
Around the Web
- TeasdaleMTG has a video on Food Gardens. Check it out here.
- Alex Ullman has a recap on Bloomburrow Power Rankings. 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!
Okay this list is kind of cool. Gates + Snacker?
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!
