Budget Magic: $22 (7 tix) Pauper UB Teachings Control

Tweet by SaffronOlive // May 22, 2015

video budget magic

Hello friend (insert dancing frog video here), it's Budget Magic time once again and this week we are going to try something a little bit different. Instead of playing Standard or Modern, we are going to be delving into Pauper — a format that is budget friendly by design. I'll be the first to admit that I've always been skeptical about the commons only format. I was worried that it would be bland, boring, or inbred. Turns out nothing could be further from the truth. The decks feel surprisingly high powered, the metagame is diverse and far from solved, and new additions like the gainlands from Khans block have opened exciting new avenues to explore in deck building.

One of the interesting aspects of the format is that since you can only play with commons, budget becomes less of an issue — all decks are, by default, budget decks. Instead of playing less than optimal cards to save money, you can focus on building and tuning your deck in the best way possible given the constraints of the format. Or you can just build everything given that buying all of the tier one decks in Pauper will cost you less than building most Standard decks. Because today's deck is already optimized (as well as I can optimize anything), I won't have anything to say about upgrading the deck; all of the card choices are intentional, and nothing was trimmed to save money. Anyway, let's get to the videos!

Oh, and just a quick reminder: if you enjoy the Budget Magic series and the other video content here on MTGGoldfish, make sure to subscribe to the MTGGoldfish Youtube Channel to catch all the latest and greatest.

UB Teaching Control: Intro and vs Affinity

UB Teaching Control vs Mono-Black Control

UB Teachings Control vs Mono-Red Burn

UB Teachings Control vs UG Infect

The List

Anyway, that's all for today. Let me know what you think about having Pauper be part of the Budget Magic series. Is the format something we should explore more in the future, or would you rather stick to Standard and Modern? Leave your thoughts and opinions in the comments, and as always, you can reach me on Twitter (or MTGO) @SaffronOlive.