The Power of Pauper: The Upheaval
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 talking all about the Banned & Restricted Announcement that occurred on March 31st, 2025! This announcement is so huge for Pauper that we aren't even going to be covering any of the events from this past weekend. In addition however, we are going to do our set review of Tarkir: Dragonstorm for Pauper as well this week.
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
Banned & Restricted Announcement 3/31/2025 - Massive Changes to Pauper!
We had a major Banned & Restricted Announcement this past week, with a bunch of changes addressing Pauper in general. With this we received a really solid article covering all of the changes in addition to a video from Gavin Verhey going over all the changes as well. You can find the article explaining the changes here, and I will embed the video below.
Something to call out immediately before getting into the initial coverage of what was banned, the PFP does call out that while the format seemed varied and balanced, with many decks hovering between 48% and 53% win rates, that there is more to Pauper than just the numbers. Things seem balanced, but that doesn't mean that there aren't issues with play patterns, that deckbuilding isn't homogenous, etc.
To that end, let's talk first about the cards that are banned.
BANNED: Basking Broodscale, Deadly Dispute, Kuldotha Rebirth
These changes are HUGE for Pauper in general. So much like how the PFP has done so, we're going to break it down card-by-card by talking first about Basking Broodscale.
Broodscale created a deck that functionally felt like Splinter Twin in Pauper in a number of ways. Since its inception from Modern Horizons 3, the deck's refinement has continued to grow and grow to the point where the entire metagame has had to shift to adapt around this deck. You need to have an answer Turn 3 or later all the time to deal with this deck, just like Splinter Twin was at the time of its banning in Modern. Except, where Modern has really adapted and power crept over the years to deal with this sort of thing... Pauper doesn't really have those same kinds of tools. The pressure the Gleezard deck has put on Pauper is pretty immense as a result, forcing the entire format to warp around its existence.
It's worth noting that the main reason that they banned Broodscale over Sadistic Glee is pretty simple: Glee has existed without any issues for a longer time and was functionally unplayable in Pauper before this, and they are more likely to print something like Glee over something like Broodscale. I personally think this is a fine ban. Broodscale is a deck that seemed very rough to play against and not so much fun to play, so I'm glad it's gone.
Deadly Dispute is certainly a very big ban for Pauper. The article calls out how much decks in the format have converged on Dispute + Ichor Wellspring. Many top decks played this set of effects, making Dispute one of the best draw two effects in the entire format. Dispute has long been the Ancestral Recall of Pauper alongside Wellspring. It generates a refund of mana and functionally draws three with Wellspring, making it extremely powerful and format warping. Dispute has functionally homogenized deckbuilding to an extreme. The hope for this ban is that it can allow other draw two effects like Eviscerator's Insight to be good. The article also mentions that they accepted a lot of community feedback from the last video about B&R and the community was overwhelming in support of action being taken.
I recently spoke about this one myself, and it's definitely one of the most impactful bans on this list. It will be interesting to see what happens going forward, but I feel that this is a good change.
Finally... Kuldotha Rebirth. The PFP calls out how much Pauper has sped up in the past few years and that this is most apparent in Mono Red. It's the most played deck in MTGO leagues, so it's just a deck that's everywhere. It's also called out that while this deck's win rate is in a reasonable 53%, but it's Game 1 win rate is completely outrageous. For example, against decks like Terror, Glee, etc. the deck boasts a 65% to 70% Game 1 win rate and against lesser played decks a 55% to 60% win rate. According to this data, there's no single deck among the most played decks that this deck doesn't have a positive Game 1 win rate against. The PFP calls out this polarity is just far higher than what they want to see.
The PFP did discuss multiple different cards to give the axe, from Goblin Tomb Raider to Goblin Bushwhacker. They ultimately settled on Rebirth because of how powerful the card is with effects like Experimental Synthesizer and Clockwork Percussionist and how polarizing it makes games.
I'm firmly okay with any ban that reduces the top of the format a little bit to give other decks chances to grow. If we kill off Broodscale, Dispute, etc. but don't touch something from Mono Red it becomes the defacto best deck. I also think Rebirth is very powerful and thus I definitely agree with this change.
Other Discussions
The PFP does call out in this article that they did talk about the Bridges from MH2 again. However, the loss of Deadly Dispute does end up being a significant impact enough to consider that the Bridges are fine to stay for the time being, but the PFP is not ruling out changes in the future if need be.
They also mentioned Writhing Chrysalis, a card widely regarded as one of the most powerful commons in the last few years. There is a lot to call out here that getting rid of both Dispute and Broodscale does slightly weaken Chrysalis, and they do call out some of the things that make Chrysalis very good (4/5 with reach on rate, can't be blasted, etc).
At the same time, they also mention that Pauper for the longest time had a midrange gap that is now being filled by the existence of Chrysalis. This is certainly a card they're watching but not planning to ban unless the format drastically shifts for it.
Unbans
The PFP is performing a bit of a new experiment for Pauper, something that hasn't really been done with other formats, and that is Trial Unbans. This is an unbanning on the expectation that the PFP would revisit the card on the next BnR and if the card was too good it would be banned again if need be. To that end, there's two cards being Trial Unbanned, and that is High Tide and Prophetic Prism.
High Tide is certainly a unique card with a history of different legality. At one point in Pauper's past, there was not a unified list of legal cards, and the only truly legal cards were those cards printed in common on Magic Online, where the format started. Some tabletop rules allowed cards that had been printed at common in paper. High Tide was a common in Fallen Empires, but was never a common in any set on MTGO.
At some point, Pauper's format legality was unified to include everything printed at common ever, and High Tide was placed on the ban list as a precaution.
The big selling point behind unbanning this card is that it's nice to give spell-based combo some tools, while hopefully not tipping the scale to make it the best thing to do. A lot of the strongest cards for a card like High Tide such as Peregrine Drake and even Cloud of Faeries are banned, so there is a lot less ways to abuse this card. It's also noted how much of a fan favorite of a card High Tide is, and in the interest of expanding the format a little they decided to try it. They also do note that if the format becomes completely dominated by this deck, they will step in earlier to make an immediate correction, but that would have to be a wildly extreme swing.
I for one am pretty excited to see what High Tide does, and whether it is any good.
Prophetic Prism is a card that was more recently banned, at a time where Tron was hugely dominant. They've talked about unbanning this card in the past, but were hesitant that it could do the same thing again. However, printings like Energy Refractor has made them believe that Prism is an okay card to come off, especially with having gotten rid of cards like Deadly Dispute at the same time.
I am okay with releasing a card like this. I don't think it will be as broken as it once was, realistically.
Wrapping Up
I am thankful at the end of the day for the Pauper Format Panel. The information and transparency they provide over their processes and decision making is wonderful. I am incredibly thankful for Gavin Verhey's steadfast leadership of the Panel as well. I'm excited to see where Pauper goes from here.
Tarkir: Dragonstorm for Pauper
We have a new Standard set coming up in the form of Tarkir: Dragonstorm! We're headed back to the plane of Tarkir, so let's see if there's any cards that seem Pauper playable!
Coordinated Maneuver
I'd have been more excited about this kind of effect if Thraben Charm did not exist. Sadly... that one kind of outclasses this.
Riling Dawnbreaker
Omen is certainly a lot worse than Adventure, since it shuffles in, but a token maker where you can get a dragon later on isn't the worst thing.
Salt Road Packbeast
This seems like kind of a neat card. I definitely can get behind it in a Mono White token type shell.
Ringing Strike Mastery
There's been some hubbub on this versus Bind the Monster. I do think Bind is probably better, as giving your opponent the option to untap the card is possibly pretty bad. I am curious if this is reasonable though.
Riverwalk Technique
I like modal cards, and I like flexibility. This seems pretty neat and flexible to be honest. A removal spell and a counterspell stapled to the same card is pretty sweet.
Alesha's Legacy
Oh I wanna put this on a Crypt Rats so bad.
Worthy Cost
I feel like there's a bunch of creatures worth sacrificing that having a one mana exile effect is extremely good.
Stormshriek Feral
The Omen half of this is kind of neat. It seems pretty good really, and then you can turn it into a 3/3 flier with flying and haste later on when you draw it.
Heritage Reclamation
This seems like an incredibly good and flexible Naturalize effect, honestly. Sometimes you see Wilt see play, and this is honestly just better than that since you can use it to get rid of a card and draw a card.
Undergrowth Leopard
I like this one too as its stapled to a creature, and it even has Vigilance. Could be neat somewhere.
Around the Web
- TeasdaleMTG has some thoughts on the Bannings. Check it out here.
- Kalikaiz is jumping on the ban-wagon with Altar Tron! Check it out here.
The Spice Corner
GOBLIN ANARCHOMANCER LET'S GO.
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!
