Hi everyone, today I will be telling you about Pauper, the single best budget format. By the end of the article, I hope you will have a good understanding of the pauper metagame and will have an interest in playing one of these decks for yourself or brewing up something entirely new!

The Format

First the easy stuff, Pauper is a 60 card format that only allows cards printed at the common rarity. The card pool includes any card that has ever been printed at common, including special printings and supplemental sets, and extends all the way back to Alpha. The upshot of commons is that the prices on almost all the cards are very low!

But why just commons? Doesn’t that make the format boring and simple?

Oh you sweet summer child, long ago, before the new world order, Wizards printed cards of reasonable (and unreasonable) power level at common. Here is a short list to pique your interest: Lightning Bolt, the Urza Tron lands, Counterspell, Ponder, Brainstorm, Delver of Secrets and Island. Many of the cards on that list are either banned or considered too powerful for formats from Standard to Vintage.

Oh. Well is the format just a pile of super degenerate good stuff?

Actually no, for a really good reason. The mana in pauper is awful, the best dual lands in the format are the gain lands from Khans followed by the bounce lands from Ravnica, and there are no duals that enter untapped for any price. This means that the cost to adding colors to your deck is HUGE and as a result almost all the decks in the format are one to two colors. This is especially true for aggro decks, where having a land enter the battlefield tapped on one of the early turns of the game can be incredibly punishing.

But I don’t know anyone with a Pauper deck, who am I supposed to play with?

The vast, vast majority of Pauper is played on Magic Online, and unless you are lucky enough to have a local scene that’s where I would start. Disregarding for a moment the quality of the actual MtGO program, it’s very easy to start playing Pauper online! I’d recommend taking a deck list from a website like TappedOut, MTG Goldfish, or MTG Top 8 and buying your cards from Cardhoarder. (I’m not sponsored by any of these sites (someone sponsor me)) Cardhoarder’s website is awesome and allows you to buy decks with either PayPal or MtGO tix all in one stop.

Yea yea, I know how to use the internet, is there a way to play competitively?

I was getting there; with Pauper you have access to all the same online play opportunities that you do with the other formats like Modern or Legacy. For the MtGO illiterate among you that includes free to play queues, 5 match leagues that are pay to enter and pay out based on record, and the new addition of Pauper challenges which run for 5+ rounds of Swiss before a cut to top 8. One of the really cool things about these online tournaments is that they pay out the same for each format, so the return on investment in Pauper decks can actually be very high!

The Decks

Now I’ll give an overview of some of the top decks in the format right now, Pauper is in a pretty interesting place right now with the addition of a bunch of new downshifted cards from Modern Masters 3 and there are a variety of new and improved archetypes that made the list. One interesting thing to note is the lack of a tiered combo deck in the meta right now (although there are a lot of janky brews if that’s your thing) and as a result I’ll be posting what I think the best Aggro, Midrange, Tempo, and Control deck is instead of the usual Aggro, Combo, Control breakdown.

Aggro: Mono Green Stompy Sample Deck

Strengths

This deck is FAST; it uses cheap creatures in conjunction with pump spells to end the game as quickly as it can. Typical lines of play from this deck include playing a turn one threat such as Nettle Sentinel or Young Wolf, on the second turn chaining multiple copies of Burning Tree Emissary, and then casting another two drop or suiting up your turn 1 play with a Rancor or a Bonesplitter. There aren’t many decks in the format that can keep up with one of its combo Burning Tree hands. The deck has some grinding potential with Young Wolf and Rancor, while your pump spells keep even the smallest creatures threatening once your opponent has stabilized

Weaknesses

This deck sometimes suffers from “Draw the wrong half of your deck syndrome” with around 16 effects to make your creatures bigger you can often draw too many pump spells and not enough threats to actually pump. It is also a very linear deck, the deck has to keep attacking with its creatures to win and your board can be outclassed by some of the other cards in the format rather quickly.

Midrange: Boros Monarch Sample Deck

Strengths

This is one of the grindiest decks in the format, and in my opinion, one of the sweetest. The crux of the deck is to play cards that draw more cards when they enter the battlefield like Thraben Inspector and Prophetic Prism and then pick them up again with Glint Hawk and Kor Skyfisher so you can then replay them and draw even more cards. As the name suggests, this deck plays with the new Monarch mechanic from Conspiracy 2, It uses the new 4 drop Palace Sentinels to claim the Monarchy then uses removal spells like Lightning Bolt and Journey to Nowhere to protect the throne. It also uses the nearly free Metalcraft from the artifact lands and other artifacts in the deck to turn on Galvanic Blast for additional removal and reach

Weaknesses

The deck can spend a long time doing nothing during the early turns of the game while you set up your value engines, and a fast aggro hand can knock you out of the game pretty quickly. This deck isn’t easy to pilot either, it can take a lot of practice and format knowledge to know when to deploy threats vs setting up value plays vs grabbing the monarchy.

Tempo: UR Skred Delver Sample Deck

Strengths

This deck is the natural evolution of the old mono blue delver lists that have been tier one for a very long time. The fact that there is a strong Delver of Secrets deck shouldn’t be all that surprising, all the ingredients are there. There are strong card selection spells to help them flip, there are strong protection spells to keep them in the air, and strong supporting creatures to fill out your threat base. The red splash brings in the damage based removal that the deck needs to be able to beat the faster aggro decks and Skred scales to the late game to kill Gurmag Anglers.

Weaknesses

The mana for the deck is… weird. Weirder than you might think. For example, you have to make a conscious choice about whether to cast Lightning Bolt or Counterspell on turn 2. Additionally, the deck is weak to the big control decks like Tron where the deck’s low threat density really hurts.

Control: Dinrova Tron Sample Deck

Strengths

Nothing quite says misery for your opponent like using Ghostly Flicker to bounce your Dinrova Horror and Mnemonic Wall for as long as your opponent is willing to sit around, and that is exactly what this deck does best. This deck goes over the top of every other deck in the format, and if that’s your thing then this is for you!

Weaknesses

As you might guess from a deck playing a bunch of 5-6 drops, it can be incredibly clunky to play and your hand will frequently get clogged up by a bunch of cards that you can’t cast, your clock is also your enemy and it is important to play quickly. When you’re playing for money online, your opponent can use the clock as a win condition if they have the patience.

The Ban List

Wait a second… Aren’t Grapeshot and Empty the Warrens commons?

Yea those are super banned

Wasn’t there a combo involving Cloud of Faeries or Peregrine Drake?

Yup they’re banned too

Well what about…

Look man you can just find the official ban list here http://magic.wizards.com/en/game-info/gameplay/formats/pauper

This is the shortest ban list of any format that I’m aware of so seriously, go crazy! Break something in half!

Wrap Up

Well this got… Long. I appreciate everyone who has made it this far in the article, and I hope I have shown the love I have for this wonderful format. Please note that there are a TON more viable decks than what I have listed here, including some brews of my own that I’ve been working on. I had a lot of fun writing this so expect some more content from me in the future! If you have ideas for future articles feel free to contact me on twitter @NathanOfNelToth or on Facebook.