The Power of Pauper - Ruby, Ruby, Ruby
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 Ruby Storm! This deck is super sweet and looks like a ton of fun. In addition we've got some Challenges to look at and whether any cool new Lorwyn Eclipsed cards show up there.
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
Rubies are for Pauper
Pauper is genuinely full of really fun decks, and I always love seeing decks improve in certain ways. Very recently, we've seen a lot of things happening with a deck affectionately referred to as Ruby Storm. Now, there's absolutely zero copies of the card Ruby Medallion (since it's not a Common) in a deck like this, which is where Ruby Storm's namesake comes from, but the name was coined pretty early on for this deck mainly referring to the cost reduction effects granted by Goblin Anarchomancer and Thornscape Familiar.
Anarchomancer and Familiar are what drives the core of this deck by reducing the cost of red and green spells by one and being able to double up on these effects allows you to chain spells effectively like Manamorphose and impulse draws like Reckless Impulse/Wrenn's Resolve. The big payoff here is being able to resolve an effect like Seize the Storm and create a bunch of huge Elemental tokens to demolish your opponent with. What really helps with closing the game out on this aspect is First Day of Class, which will end up granting the Elemental tokens haste so that you don't have to pass the turn to be able to attack.
It's a really clever and fun deck, and recently it has gotten some new things. Avatar: The Last Airbender brought a bevy of new Lesson cards that allow First Day of Class a way to also fetch a cool sideboard card it can use, like Waterbending Lesson, Origin of Metalbending, and How to Start a Riot. In addition, Lorwyn Eclipsed gives us the card Burning Curiosity, which is rather sweet considering that blighting one of your Anarchomancers or Leyline Weavers will let you exile three cards instead of two, which is really great if you're reducing this to R already.
I did some poking around and found a video on this deck, so check it out cuz it definitely looks like a lot of fun. If you're looking for a unique deck that does combo in a fun way, this might be a deck to look at to try out.
Pauper Challenge 32 1/29/2026
The first Challenge event of the week was the Thursday event. This event had 49 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 | barff |
| Grixis Affinity | 2nd | TiagoFuguete |
| Dredge | 3rd | seasonofmists |
| Mono Blue Faeries | 4th | Hamuda |
| Mono Red Rally | 5th | Jose Guillermo |
| Grixis Affinity | 6th | Beicodegeia |
| Elves | 7th | Pinolo_Cosmico |
| Mono Blue Terror | 8th | Luminati |
This is a rather solid-looking Top 8. At the end of the event, it was Dimir Faeries that won.
This is definitely a fairly straightforward build. I do like having Murmuring Mystic as a card that not only can generate threats to close out the game, but it also weirdly generates evasive creatures you could bounce with the Ninjutsu mechanic. I am kind of curious how these decks will look with TMNT and the Sneak mechanic.
In Second Place, we had Grixis Affinity.
This is a pretty good-looking list. It's wild that we need multiple maindeck Nihil Spellbomb but at the same time, if the card doesn't really do anything in a matchup you can cash it in to Fanatical Offering or Reckoner's Bargain and get an extra card out of the deal.
Also in this Top 8 we had Dredge.
I love Molten Gatekeeper as a card you can unearth a bunch of 2/3s and hit them with a big Lotleth Giant while having some haste threats and extra damage on top. Just super cool deck. I really want to build this one at some point in paper.
Pauper Challenge 32 1/30/2026
The second Challenge event of the week was the Friday event. This event had 57 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 | Sodeq |
| Mono Blue Terror | 2nd | _against_ |
| Grixis Affinity | 3rd | Beicodegeia |
| Mono Red Madness | 4th | Enz091 |
| Dimir Faeries | 5th | barff |
| Mono Blue Terror | 6th | Sarlanga |
| Mono Blue Terror | 7th | Leshira |
| Jeskai Moxite | 8th | viashinoperuano |
Fair bit of Terror here, but the end of the event was won by Mono White Heroic.
Okay I really dig seeing some Learn action here to enable Lessons like Yip Yip! and Airbending Lesson as just free spells to nab during the game. Really cool deckbuilding. The fact that Guiding Voice is so cheap to cast is really great.
In Second Place we had Mono Blue Terror.
Look, there are 16 Islands. It doesn't get any better than that. Also Force Spike? Yeah, let's go.
At the bottom of the Top 8 we had what I can only call Jeskai Moxite?
Melded Moxite is a really neat card that enables stuff like Sneaky Snacker and also is really cool to bounce with both Kor Skyfisher and Glint Hawk. This looks like a really neat list and a lot of fun to play.
Pauper Challenge 32 2/1/2026
The final Challenge event of the week was the Sunday event. This event had 59 players in it thanks to the MTGO website.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Azorius Gates | 1st | wolf777 |
| Mono Blue Faeries | 2nd | Hamuda |
| Mono Blue Terror | 3rd | Luminati |
| Grixis Affinity | 4th | Beicodegeia |
| Elves | 5th | Kampo |
| Spy Combo | 6th | LikeAFerro |
| Mono Red Madness | 7th | ejk |
| Mono Red Rally | 8th | boom_bust |
Fairly diverse Top 8. At the end of the event it was Azorius Gates that won.
This is a rather nice looking list. You got a nice array of countermagic, removal, and threats to bombard the opponent with, and you can play a really interesting long game with it.
In Second Place we had Mono Blue Faeries.
Mono Blue doesn't have as much raw removal as Dimir can get access to, but it makes up for it with more permission and more creatures. Snap also really helps to clear the board and to allow you to bounce your own effects, which is really solid.
Further down the Top 8 we had Spy Combo.
This is certainly a deck with a lot of strong feelings behind it. I feel like you either really like this deck or you really dislike it. I don't think there's much middle ground there. I'm currently fine with it existing in the format, but it could become a problem quickly if certain printings and conditions come down the line.
Around the Web
- Pauperganda has a video on Beast Storm. Check it out here.
- Heartyshow has a video on Elves with Lorwyn. Check it out here.
- The Common Cold Snap has a new episode. 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!
Rakdos Affinity is sweet.
This Dimir control list has some really sweet stuff in it.
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!
