The Power of Pauper: The Cauldron's Familiar
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 Food Gardens! In addition to that we've got some Challenges to look at from last week.
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
Familiar Cauldrons
Things in general have been rather slow for Pauper as of late it feels like. With the release of Lorwyn Eclipsed we are in a period of waiting to see what new cards from that set that might impact the format, but in the background we've been steadily seeing results from a new evolution in the Golgari Gardens core. Gardens as a deck primarily functions around using Khalni Garden as a token generator in addition to the core of Pauper that centers around cards like Ichor Wellspring and cards that draw cards. Previously this was stuff like Deadly Dispute, but with that banned now the deck utilizes cards like Eviscerator's Insight and Fanatical Offering.
The most common build of the Gardens shell often operates around cards like Crypt Rats and Initiative threats like Avenging Hunter, but more recently I've been seeing a more... Food oriented version appear.
Naturally because of getting to leverage Cauldron Familiar you also get to play a lot of Food based artifacts. Cards like Nutrient Block from Edge of Eternities is really good because you can sacrifice your Familiar to something like Fanatical Offering, and then sacrifice the Nutrient Block to get back Familiar, while also getting to draw another card beyond the two you drew for Fanatical Offering.
What makes this deck sweet is that you have this really grindy engine of ripping your opponent's life total down that draws a lot of cards, and then you can recycle everything back into your library with Campfire to keep going. And you get to do this all in a shell that gets to play solid removal in the form of Cast Down and late game threats like Troll of Khazad-dum to effectively close the game out.
Sideboard-wise you get a bunch of cards to really shore up your fast aggressive matchups. Cards like Weather the Storm help keep your life total healthy and Moment's Peace to keep alpha strikes off your back, while mass removal like Drown in Sorrow cleans up small creatures (which is good against stuff like your Burn matchups and White Aggro decks). In a pinch even you can sacrifice your Food artifacts for three whole life.
This is a really fun looking deck that I definitely recommend if you're looking for something incredibly grindy and strong.
Pauper Challenge 32 1/15/2026
The first Challenge event of the weekend was the Thursday event. This event had 61 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 Terror | 1st | _against_ |
| Golgari Gardens | 2nd | __Noob__ |
| Jund Wildfire | 3rd | Walker735 |
| Jund Wildfire | 4th | Triso |
| Mono Blue Faeries | 5th | barff |
| Glintblade | 6th | Misplacedginger |
| Grixis Affinity | 7th | Beicodegeia |
| Mono Blue Terror | 8th | Luminati |
This is a pretty interesting Top 8. At the end of the event it was Dimir Terror that won.
Ooh. I like Sneaky Snacker here. It's really easy to dump into the graveyard with Mental Note or Thought Scour and easier to get into play with a Brainstorm or Abandon Attachments.
In Second Place we had Golgari Gardens.
Very interesting list. Accursed Marauder is pretty cool.
Also in this Top 8 we had Jund Wildfire.
This is a pretty straightforward looking list here. I really like Gixian Infiltrator as a way to make a really big threat to close the game out with.
Pauper Challenge 32 1/16/2026
The second Challenge event of the weekend was the Friday event. This event had 64 players in it thanks to the MTGO website.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Elves | 1st | Shiib |
| Dimir Terror | 2nd | _against_ |
| Food Gardens | 3rd | True-Name-Nemesis |
| Spy Combo | 4th | CrazyMorango |
| Elves | 5th | Dr. Jon Osterman |
| Mono Red Rally | 6th | boom_bust |
| Tron | 7th | brick_ |
| Grixis Affinity | 8th | kuldothared |
This is a fairly diverse Top 8. At the end of the event it was Elves that won.
There's some really cool cards here in the sideboard. Spinewoods Paladin is super interesting, while not an Elf, it's a really solid effect and a huge body.
In Second Place we had Dimir Terror.
This is the same pilot who won the first Challenge here, so the list is the same as that one. It's pretty solid.
Also in this Top 8 we had Tron.
Big creature Tron is pretty cool. One of the more amusing things here is Pinnacle Kill-Ship. Most of the creatures in the deck can turn it on via Station and it gets to deal 10 to something upon entering. It's also not Legendary, so playing four of these out is kinda gross.
Pauper Challenge 32 1/17/2026
The third Challenge event of the weekend 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Elves | 1st | Shiib |
| Mono Blue Terror | 2nd | discoverN |
| Izzet Faeries | 3rd | Brvnx |
| Burn | 4th | SaculSueahtam |
| Rakdos Madness | 5th | MisterTwin |
| Mono Red Madness | 6th | Mahers |
| Dimir Faeries | 7th | Mikhathara1994 |
| Mono Blue Terror | 8th | SaN3 |
Another pretty diverse Top 8. At the end of the event it was the same Elves player from the previous Challenge that won.
Since this is the same list, there's not much else to really say. Elves is a super strong deck right now that is super aggressive.
In Second Place we had Mono Blue Terror.
This is an extremely straightforward and clean list. This deck's game plan is pretty simple. Deploy some threats, protect them with countermagic and keep up the pressure with card draw.
Also in this Top 8 we had Izzet Faeries.
This is a pretty neat list. Skred still having some good text in the year 2026 is always sweet to me.
Pauper Challenge 32 1/18/2026
The final Challenge event of the weekend was the Sunday event. This event had 71 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 | Serpico_94 |
| Elves | 2nd | John1111 |
| Elves | 3rd | SpikeYou |
| Elves | 4th | Hypergeomancer |
| Mono Black Sacrifice | 5th | RUCetFort |
| Gruul Ramp | 6th | xRaptus2 |
| Mono Blue Terror | 7th | Leshira |
| Elves | 8th | blastoids |
Whole lot of Elves here. At the end of the event though it was Jund Wildfire that won.
Sagu Wildling is such a cool card. It's crazy how good a card that just searches for a land is good, but then becomes a 3/3 flier later on if you need it to, or just simply fetches you another basic land.
In Second Place we had Elves.
This is the same list as Shiib's. I have seen some lists lately playing far less lands and Land Grant too, so that's interesting.
Further down the Top 8 we had Mono Black Sacrifice.
Oh this is sweet. Sadistic Glee hasn't seen a lot of play since Broodscale's banning, so it's cool to see it here.
Around the Web
- GiorgioCombo has some KitCat action. Check it out here.
- Heartyshow is looking at some Lorwyn cards. Check it out here.
- Our good friend Alex Ullman has a great article on Pauper. 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!
This is a pretty sweet deck. Pactdoll Terror has always been pretty interesting to me.
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!
