The Power of Pauper: More Spiders, More Problems
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 finish up our look at Spider-Man with some cards I did not look at last week. In addition we've got some Challenges to look at as well.
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
Spiderszing
While we did get through a number of cards from Spider-Man last week, there were a few cards that we didn't get to look at, so we're going to do that now!
Amazing Acrobatics / Drix Interception
Generally we don't play Cancel in Pauper when we have Counterspell. Is a Cancel that also has a mode of tapping creatures good enough? I am not 100% sure since most of the tap cards that see play generally tend to keep the creature tapped or use stun counters to delay a bit.
Beetle, Legacy Criminal / Arala, Hedron Scaler
I don't like the stats on rate here because 3/3 flier for four mana is rough. Is the exile ability from graveyard a thing? I also don't think this sees play much anywhere unfortunately.
Electro's Bolt / Deathflame Burst
The thing I don't like about Mayhem in the context of Pauper is that we have a lot of great Madness cards already. Mayhem attempts to be a fixed Madness, but I think it ultimately falls flat. The fact that you have to still follow timing rules is rough on Mayhem spells when you have all the best Madness burn spells right there.
Grow Extra Arms
I worry as to what Spiders we are targeting to get this to just cost G. Without that rider and without something to target, it's not very good.
Lurking Lizards
I mean, this could actually be reasonable in a big midrange type deck. You're definitely going to ramp and cast a bunch of big creature spells, and that makes this guy even bigger. Not too hateful.
Pumpkin Bombardment / Knife Trick
Sorcery speed here is what gets me, but a Burn spell specifically for creatures that also has a discard a card tacked on for one mana isn't hateful. I do wish it was any target though and don't really see why it couldn't be.
Spectacular Tactics
The Omenpaths art here is legitimately hilarious, but the card itself is just reasonable. Destroy Evil definitely sees play, and having one that also can grant hexproof also is pretty cool.
Spider-Man, Brooklyn Visionary / Zan, Tunnelweb Explorer
This is actually pretty interesting in some Ramp strategies. It's not hard to get into play with its "Web-slinging"/"Enweb" ability, and you can enable bouncing a tapped creature with something like Arbor Elf without having to attack (or a mana dork like Llanowar Elves). A 4/3 for four mana that ramps on ETB isn't hateful.
Spider Manifestation / Leyline Weaver
This is an interesting card. 2/2 with Reach is some weird stats, because usually things with Reach have at least some higher toughness. I would have taken a 1/3 at this rate (2/4 for 2 is probably a bit much). The untap function does allow you to get value out of mana on this thing, and it's not legendary so that's cool.
Steel Wrecking Ball / Temple Trap
Five mana is a lot of mana for this effect, but you can probably easily play this with Tron. You can flicker it with Ghostly Flicker so that's groovy.
Venom, Evil Unleashed / Tethex, Gift of Malice
Five mana for a 4/5 with Deathtouch is still quite a lot. I still don't think the exile ability is any good. I doubt this one sees play anywhere.
Ally Surveil Lands
There's also a cycle of ally-colored tap lands that have the ability to Surveil. Repeatable Surveil isn't hateful, so I have to imagine that maybe one of these shows up somewhere.
Pauper Challenge 32 9/12/2025
The first Challenge event of the week was the Friday event. This event had 44 players in it thanks to the MTGO website.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Jund Wildfire | 1st | seasonofmists |
| Mono Blue Terror | 2nd | outZEROo |
| Mono Blue Terror | 3rd | Luminati |
| Mono Blue Terror | 4th | Bugsy69 |
| Burn | 5th | davidbrito |
| Dimir Control | 6th | _against_ |
| Mono Blue Faeries | 7th | _Luvi_ |
| Boros Midrange | 8th | viashinoperuano |
Quite a bit of Mono Blue here, something that definitely persists throughout the weekend. At the end of the event though, it was Jund Wildfire that won (something that also persisted a lot during the weekend).
Gixian Infiltrator is a really sweet inclusion here as a big growing threat, given how many permanents get sacrificed in a deck like this. Pretty neat way to close games out.
In Second Place we had Mono Blue Terror.
Very clean and straightforward. Two Ponder is wild though.
At the bottom of the Top 8 we had a sweet Boros Midrange pile.
Well, sort of. It's Boros, but we do have four Sneaky Snacker that we're only ever playing via the graveyard. Melded Moxite is a super sweet new card here.
Pauper Challenge 32 9/13/2025
The second Challenge event of the week was the Saturday event. This event had 39 players in it thanks to the MTGO website.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Mono Blue Terror | 1st | Xx420blazeitxX |
| Mono Blue Faeries | 2nd | hetare_ane |
| Jund Wildfire | 3rd | _blaze66 |
| Jund Wildfire | 4th | SpikeYou |
| Jund Wildfire | 5th | Pinolo_Cosmico |
| Golgari Gardens | 6th | __Noob__ |
| Mono Blue Terror | 7th | discoverN |
| High Tide Combo | 8th | Adrowo |
Lot of Jund Wildfire here, but the end of the event was won by Mono Blue Terror.
At the very least there's three Ponder! No Gut Shot in the sideboard is also interesting.
In Second Place we had Mono Blue Faeries.
I like how clean and straightforward this is. Illvoi Galeblade is such a cool new card.
Also in this Top 8 we had Golgari Gardens.
It's certainly interesting how much this deck leans on the core of "black draw 2" and Ichor Wellspring. Pretty wild to see how much this deck has changed over time.
Pauper Challenge 32 9/14/2025
The final Challenge event of the week was the Sunday event. This event had 56 players in it thanks to the MTGO website.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Mono Blue Terror | 1st | Beicodegeia |
| Mono Blue Terror | 2nd | Lennny |
| Mono Blue Terror | 3rd | Raydan |
| Mono Blue Faeries | 4th | Terracotta99 |
| High Tide Combo | 5th | PNascimento |
| Jund Wildfire | 6th | _blaze66 |
| Grixis Affinity | 7th | LuffyDoChapeuDePalha |
| Ephemerate Tron | 8th | Alleyzonme |
Whew so much Mono Blue. Even the end of the event was decided by a Terror v Terror matchup.
Not a whole lot of changes between these two decks. Mostly sideboard slots.
At the bottom of the Top 8 we had Ephemerate Tron.
Pretty solid looking deck here. I like how Cryogen Relic fits in here. It seems quite good.
Around the Web
- The Common Cold Snap has a new episode. Check it out here.
- Pauperganda has a Steelfin Whale Combo deck. 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!
FOOD.
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!
