The Power of Pauper: Pili-Pala!
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 decks featuring Pili-Pala in them as a central combo component. In addition, we've got some updates on what's going on with the Pauper Banned and Restricted announcements, as well as Challenge results from last week. I took a break last week to try to focus on Legacy/Vintage for Eternal Weekend coverage, but we are back and ready to sling some Commons.
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
Untapping for Fun and Profit
Lorwyn and Shadowmoor blocks were full of some of the weirdest and most interesting cards, but most especially at Common. What's great is that there's always one card that ends up being a Combo piece somewhere, and that rings true of plenty of cards in those blocks. One such card has had a history in Pauper before now of being a Combo piece, as Pauper often tends to be very creature centric in its combos, and that card is Pili-Pala.
This card wants you to tap this creature in some fashion and then be able to pay two mana to untap it to add a mana of any color. What if we just gave this card the ability to tap for mana? What does that do? Well... Careful Cultivation from Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty definitely exists.
What this does is it creates something of a loop. However, that loop is 100% mana abilities and can't actually be responded to once Cultivation is in play and attached to the Pili-Pala. Often times some of these infinite mana loops has a point where there is an ability on the stack at each part of the loop, but that's not true with these two cards. The way this works is that you tap Pili-Pala for two green, floating that mana. Then you spend the two green to untap it and add one mana of any color. This doesn't necessarily need to be green, but basically means you can get infinite mana of each color, as each time you're tapping for GG and then untapping for a color.
So with infinite mana, there's just a bunch of things you can do. One of the big cool things is that you can cast stuff like Nyxborn Hydra at a really huge number and wollop the opponent with them. You can also use something like Engine Rat and just continually make the opponent lose two life for each six mana spent (which in the scheme of things doesn't matter when you have infinite mana). Another super fun thing is casting the creature portion of Stormshriek Feral and then making it infinitely huge on the power side to get in for damage.
It's a cool deck and a cool combo, but it definitely requires a hot amount of clicking on MTGO to play. This is definitely something to consider for a paper deck, because of how much it can take to resolve online. That being said, you don't have to go super deep on MTGO to win the game, so the deck is definitely playable, you just need to be prepared to do a lot of tapping and untapping. In the absence of the combo too, you can cast stuff like Writhing Chrysalis and midrange your opponent to force them to have to deal with a threat so they may not be able to deal with the combo itself.
If you're looking for a combo deck that also gets to be a midrange deck, this might be a deck for you!
Update on Pauper BnR
This past week we got a bit of an update from Gavin Verhey on the Pauper Format Panel about some updates on an upcoming check-in on the trial unbanning of High Tide as well as any other B&R related announcements.
So originally there was supposed to be a check-in here in October over this card, but I think the move of the B&R to November 10th does give the PFP some more time to review the data and make some determinations. The PFP also does recognize here however, that the timing of the update has been moved a number of times, and Gavin does recognize here that the communication in that regard is not something they strive for and that the goal is better communication in general.
I gotta say, I really appreciate what the PFP says here, because to me it shows their continued commitment to doing what they can to make the format as best as they can and manage it to the best of their ability, with a lot of transparency in that communication. Personally I'm of the mind that Pauper seems pretty healthy at the moment, and I don't think High Tide needs to be re-banned at the moment, but I know that some people don't care for the play patterns of the deck.
I always look forward to B&Rs and announcements from the PFP though. They do a great job of being communicative and transparent, and that in of itself is pretty great. I am curious what will happen with this B&R on November 10th, but I almost expect we will see no change to the status of High Tide.
Pauper Challenge 32 10/10/2025
The first Challenge event of the week was the Friday event. This event had 52 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 White Heroic | 1st | renaar |
| Elves | 2nd | ColaKaKAO |
| Mono Blue Faeries | 3rd | barff |
| Elves | 4th | stu909090 |
| Mono Blue Terror | 5th | md91 |
| Grixis Affinity | 6th | NMT_Sco94 |
| Spy Combo | 7th | SirCervello94 |
| Grixis Affinity | 8th | LuffyDoChapeuDePalha |
This is certainly an interesting Top 8. At the end of the event it was Mono White Heroic.
Some cool cards here. Wonderweave Aerialist from the Omenpaths set is pretty sweet in this deck when you load it up with enchantments and stuff.
In Second Place, we had Elves.
This is a strong-looking list. Including the Initiative threat (Avenging Hunter) is pretty cool especially if you can drop a Nyxborn Hydra on your creatures to protect the Initiative.
Also in this Top 8, we had Spy Combo.
A lot of chatter has gone around about this deck, even some chatter that is B&R related. I think the deck is cool but I'm not sure if it's really banworthy. There definitely feels like some reasonable counterplay to beat the deck that is cheap and effective and available to mostly every other deck in the format.
Pauper Challenge 32 10/11/2025
The second Challenge event of the week was the Saturday event. This event had 50 players in it thanks to the MTGO website.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| High Tide Combo | 1st | xxSystemxx |
| Boros Synthesizer | 2nd | _rash_ |
| Mono Black Sacrifice | 3rd | marzaboi |
| Mono Blue Faeries | 4th | AvenRedeemer |
| Mono Blue Faeries | 5th | hetare_ane |
| High Tide Combo | 6th | Mikhathara1994 |
| Grixis Affinity | 7th | LuffyDoChapeuDePalha |
| Esper Affinity | 8th | Kirblinxy |
Fair bit of Faeries and Affinity, but the event was won by High Tide Combo.
This list looks fairly stock to what we've seen out of the High Tide deck as of late. I think for the most part, the deck has coalesced into a specific build. I still don't think this deck is also banworthy to reban High Tide, but I know that's fairly contentious among a lot of players.
In Second Place we had Boros Synthesizer.
This is a pretty straightforward and clean list. I don't think you could get any cleaner, really. Lots of solid action with the creatures and some really powerful removal in both Bolt and Galvanic Blast.
At the bottom of the Top 8 we had Esper Affinity.
What really makes this deck hum is Cryogen Relic combined with some of the cool cards like Kor Skyfisher and Glint Hawk. I love it.
Pauper Challenge 32 10/12/2025
The final Challenge event of the week 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.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Dimir Faeries | 1st | Beicoedegeia |
| Mono Blue Terror | 2nd | Kikis |
| High Tide Combo | 3rd | Edo_01 |
| Golgari Gardens | 4th | A_AdeptoTerra |
| Familiars | 5th | bombaj |
| High Tide Combo | 6th | wolf777 |
| Elves | 7th | magikninni1312 |
| High Tide Combo | 8th | kuldothared |
Quite a bit of High Tide in this Top 8. At the end of the event though it was Mono Blue Terror that won.
This is a fun list. I love the Faeries lists because the tempo element aspect of them is super fun. Mukotai Ambusher is a sweet threat.
In Second Place, we had Mono Blue Terror.
Very clean list here. Terror is a super strong deck right now, it seems like.
Also in this Top 8, we had Familiars.
I love how flexible variants of Familiars are. You can do so much with this deck and even its main deck is very flexible, given just the core.
Around the Web
- Our good friend Alex Ullman has a recap of the past weekend. Check it out here.
- Speaking of Pili-Pala, heartyshow has a video on it! Check it out here.
- Stompy MTG has a video on Mono Red Madness. Check it out here.
- Bryant Cook is going full Masked Meower in Dredge. Check it out here.
- Paige Smith has a solid look at ten more Pauper meta decks. 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!
