I know this is the paper forum, but the MTGO pauper forum has less activity than this one, and nearly all Paper pauper playgroups use the MTGO ban list.
Familiars is completely dead. Cloud was the thing that made it work. And yes it can still go off without them, it won't.
This also kills a lot of MUD's power and might bring it out of Tier 1. Cloud isn't a huge part of the deck, but the synergy with Spellstutter Sprite is a huge part of what makes the deck work. Take Cloud away and Ninja loses it's punch too. So, yeah... Blue just took a huge hit.
I'm really hoping that this will be the final push that my LGS has been needing to abandon WotC's online Pauper ban list for their paper Pauper tournaments. The store owner has been toying with the idea of running their Pauper tournaments with no ban list for a while now, and since he usually seems to play either High Tide or Delver I think the idea will look a lot more attractive now.
From a more personal standpoint, I was just finishing building Delver this week and currently have a set of Cloud of Faeries coming in the mail from TCG Player this very moment. To say that I am upset with Wizards would be a major understatement.
This is why our casual playgroup uses the legacy banlist instead of anything else. It creates a relatively balanced casual environment where you can still build cheap good decks, all commons or peasant style if you so desire, and if the ban list changes you're much more likely to see rares go than the lower rarities (Treasure Cruise being the exception, but it was universally banned).
I think it's sad that the pauper meta can't adapt to handle combo decks properly. Pauper has Counterspell, Duress, Mana Tithe and solid instant speed removal. Do people just want to play creatures and removal? I think it would be better to include stuff like Hymn to Tourach and Spell Pierce in MTGO Pauper and unban cards relevant for storm and infinite combos. Invigorate infect and affinity w/ plating can come too. Is a meta where MBC conquers all preferable to this?
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As sad as this makes me, I think banning it makes perfect sense. Delver won't be nearly as good as it was, and Familiars essentially doesn't work anymore. This is going to change a lot of things.
It's weird, isn't it? You would think Pauper can handle combo decks, with the huge amount of countermagic. I guess the combo is just so consistent that even having countermagic doesn't always help (I know it didn't always for me). Not to mention it also has the backup win of just attacking.
This is going to be a very interesting phase for Pauper.
This is why our casual playgroup uses the legacy banlist instead of anything else. It creates a relatively balanced casual environment where you can still build cheap good decks, all commons or peasant style if you so desire, and if the ban list changes you're much more likely to see rares go than the lower rarities (Treasure Cruise being the exception, but it was universally banned).
Interesting. Does your play group run into any issues with some of the more efficient paper commons that are not available online? Like Sinkhole, Hymn to Tourach, or High Tide? I really enjoyed playing TPPS when it was legal. This might be an alternate Banned list to consider.
As sad as this makes me, I think banning it makes perfect sense. Delver won't be nearly as good as it was, and Familiars essentially doesn't work anymore. This is going to change a lot of things.
It's weird, isn't it? You would think Pauper can handle combo decks, with the huge amount of countermagic. I guess the combo is just so consistent that even having countermagic doesn't always help (I know it didn't always for me). Not to mention it also has the backup win of just attacking.
This is going to be a very interesting phase for Pauper.
It won't change anything for me - there will just be a disclaimer to new players that MBC has Hymn, Infect has Invigorate, and these two decks have Cloud. But, it's weird... I always get a little grouchy when they ban cards that I like using but if you look at how dominant Cloud decks are right now online, they make up 28% of the field and the rest of the top 8 is 31%. So yeah, makes sense.
Part of why these decks were so strong is that MUD was the one deck that did really well against Familiars and it's a beast on its own. Most decks just don't run counters.
Interesting. Does your play group run into any issues with some of the more efficient paper commons that are not available online? Like Sinkhole, Hymn to Tourach, or High Tide? I really enjoyed playing TPPS when it was legal. This might be an alternate Banned list to consider.
Well our group is "casual" in a very broad sense of the word, the legacy banlist is more like a house rule that people respect. I'm the only one using peasant deck building rules but at least two other guys are starting to build like me. What I've found is that the ban list isn't really important, because people have such very different deck building ideals. In our group and with guests visiting, I've encountered everything from fully fledged legacy reanimator with ABUR duals (I went 2-1 with my peasant spring tide!), a GWB homebrew that made top 8 in a semi-big sanctioned legacy event with Death rite shaman, pern deed etc and indeed sinkhole/hymn - but I've also seen pili-pala or door to nothingness combo and treefolk tribal using real legacy fetches and shock duals. I've also borrowed really bad decks from friends and won against good decks just because I had something random like Hindering Light to stop a combo and couple of random 3/1 flyers to seal the deal. It has really broadened my perspective on how big a role randomness and match-ups play in a broad environment, and how unimportant things like ban lists or exact land totals in a deck is (things I like to obsess about for personal and aesthetical reasons mostly).
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WotC cited the Familiar combo in their banning of Cloud of Faeries, but it's just as important that Cloud of Faeries is a crucial card of the most widely played deck in Pauper, Delver. People keep talking about counterspells and stopping combo in Pauper, but Delver is just oppressive. It feels almost unbeatable when Delver goes turn 1 Delver, turn 2 Cloud of Faeries, pass with Spellstutter Sprite to counter anything you do. Delver is so incredibly efficient for Pauper that less focused decks simply can't compete. Between Delver and Familiar, Cloud of Faeries was simply too strong, and it really did limit the options of what you could viably play competitively.
As it is, I disagree with people who say that banlists don't matter that much. If it works for your local scene to run with an altered or no banlist, then that's awesome for your group, but when you play with people who tend to make the most competitive decks out there, there needs to be some restrictions set in place. For example, I couldn't even imagine Affinity if Cranial Plating was unbanned. It might even be stronger than Modern Affinity because Pauper has Artifact Lands. Whether or not it would actually be stronger than Modern Affinity, it would undoubtedly be completely oppressive.
As a personal update to the situation I talked with the shopkeeper who runs the weekly paper Pauper events at my LGS and he loved the idea of running "no ban list" Pauper, but unfortunately the owner of the store vetoed the idea. I get the reasoning though. If they ran the tournaments with no ban list then they wouldn't be able to run them sanctioned, which would mean that all the prize support would have to come out of the store's pocket rather than WotC funding.
So, after some consideration, I abandoned my almost complete Delver build and turned it into U/W Caw Blade instead. I just wanted a blue control deck with Counterspell and Brainstorm to round out my Pauper deck collection and Caw Blade filled the criteria pretty nicely. Plus I kinda have sweet spot for any deck that can bring in Holy Light out of the board. lol
So, life goes on. At least I can still play Storm in casual Pauper matches outside of the sanctioned tournaments.
I'm sorry for the loss of Familiars and Delver players. Thankfully, there's not much money invested in a Pauper deck. I think this ban was sorely needed to improve diveristy, and I wholeheartedly agree with it. Not because I'm bitter (In fact, my two main Pauper decks have fair matchups vs both), but because Familiar was incredibly oppressive and resilient for a combo decks, and without policing cards in the format it's only natural that hard to disrupt combos are king. Neutering Delver (while I think it's still playable with some shift) is also good for the format overall. I think we will see a lot of more rogue / fringe decks see the spotlight due to what was arguably the best deck gone and also the most unfun top deck (in a new player's eyes, of course) being neutered.
I wish Modern's banlist was managed half as good as the Pauper one, lol.
I miss pauper only having plating and frantic search banned.
Pauper is one of the most diverse formats largely because of the ban list. Because it's an online format people don't have a good way to self-govern their meta game, so WotC needs to. I hate the idea of having a lot of these cards on there, but it's one of the only formats where the ban list makes sense up and down.
How Cloud changes things, I don't know, but it does knock off 25% of the decks that place in events and that should open it up for other stuff.
I guess I'm salty because since I started playing pauper I've built six decks, three of which have had cards banned, two of which are completely unplayable after the bannings. At least fairy ninjas is still playable. I used to advertise pauper as a cheap format with high powered combos and the cards necessary to stop them exist, but that's plainly not true any more. RW combo is terrible, storm is completely banned, and now most flicker decks don't work either.
I guess I'm salty because since I started playing pauper I've built six decks, three of which have had cards banned, two of which are completely unplayable after the bannings. At least fairy ninjas is still playable. I used to advertise pauper as a cheap format with high powered combos and the cards necessary to stop them exist, but that's plainly not true any more. RW combo is terrible, storm is completely banned, and now most flicker decks don't work either.
I haven't really ever thought of Pauper as a combo format, but I suppose it once was.
Here is the official explanation from Wizards, for those who didn't scroll down the first time (like me):
PAUPER
The format currently has poor color balance. Of the ten most played nonland cards, nine are blue; the tenth is Lightning Bolt. We looked into the cause of this.
The Esper Familiars deck uses Sunscape Familiar and Nightscape Familiar to reduce the cost of blue spells, which include "free spells" such as Cloud of Faeries and Snap. Combined with the bounce lands, this means the "free spells" effectively produce mana. Here is a typical winning position: One casts Ghostly Flicker targeting Cloud of Faeries and a Mnemonic Wall, netting mana and getting back the Ghostly Flicker. Once enough mana is produced, the Ghostly Flicker can target a Sea Gate Oracle instead of the Cloud of Faeries, repeatedly looking for Sage's Row Denizen. From there, the flickering mills the opponent's deck.
Because of all the card-drawers here, it is difficult for non-blue decks to defeat this deck. It pushes the metagame to the imbalanced state where blue is heavily overplayed. Cloud of Faeries is likely the most problematic card in the deck.
In the interest of color diversity, Cloud of Faeries is banned from Pauper.
It seems they were mostly concerned with Esper Familiars, but also with colour balance in general. Nothing really to do with Delver.
Rather than Delver, I think more cost-efficient cards should be printed in other colors. Like Disfigure in Black, or Lightning Bolt in red, something like a Swords to Plowshares but with attacking or blocking and 3CMC or less restriction in White, or a Kird Ape-like creature in mono Green (1/1 for G that gets +1/+2 upon certain conditions, or a plain DFC card like Delver that transforms into a 2/3)
Pauper is one of the most diverse formats largely because of the ban list. Because it's an online format people don't have a good way to self-govern their meta game, so WotC needs to. I hate the idea of having a lot of these cards on there, but it's one of the only formats where the ban list makes sense up and down.
Imagine a Pauper format where the dominating decks would be:
Infect with Invigorate
Affinity with Cranial Plating and access to Spell Pierce if desired
Delver, also with access to Spell Pierce and CoF if desired (not that it needs faeries to place)
MBC with Hymn to Tourach
TPPS with all storm cards available
Cloudpost with Temporal Fissure or control builds or whatever
Spring Tide with Merchant Scroll, High Tide and Frantic Search with Lotus Petal for Grapeshot
Maybe: Goblins, green stompy, white weenie if they can compete
Yes, this would be a more powerful meta with even less room for bad scrubby decks, but would it be less diverse? Can it be less diverse from a color perspective than 9 out of 10 top cards being blue? I prefer the principle that Zephyr advocates - make the other colors stronger and able to handle or put pressure on blue players. Familiars combo facing invigorate infect or plating affinity will see themselves using snap on opposing creatures rather than managing their own combo - just saying.
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I'm pretty sure that it'd all die to mono-blue and mono-blue would become the only deck worth playing.
Wishing for more powerful commons is fine and all, but that's not really how it works over at WotC.
Of course this is a hypothetical discussion and WotC isn't paying attention. Having said that, take a look at the semi-official peasant format page - perhaps the closest thing we can get to competitive paper pauper. http://mtg-peasant.com
As you can see, MBC with Hymn is the most popular top8 placing deck. Mono red (RDW + Burn combined) is #2. ThopterSword in a UB control shell is #2, but that's specific for a certain uncommon rarity card combo so nevermind. However, mono blue isn't even in the top 5 most popular decks. I think MBC with hymn is a big reason mono blue won't do well, same with burn.
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Cloud of Faeries is gone! As a despiser of all things blue, I am happy to see this.
Does Esper Familiars completely fizzle? They still have ways to combo.
How about Delver lists that run Cloud? Do they still run Spellstutter Sprite? Will Faerie Miscreant take Cloud of Faeries place?
I know this is the paper forum, but the MTGO pauper forum has less activity than this one, and nearly all Paper pauper playgroups use the MTGO ban list.
Discuss.
In u faeries, miscreant will be the replacement for now.
This also kills a lot of MUD's power and might bring it out of Tier 1. Cloud isn't a huge part of the deck, but the synergy with Spellstutter Sprite is a huge part of what makes the deck work. Take Cloud away and Ninja loses it's punch too. So, yeah... Blue just took a huge hit.
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From a more personal standpoint, I was just finishing building Delver this week and currently have a set of Cloud of Faeries coming in the mail from TCG Player this very moment. To say that I am upset with Wizards would be a major understatement.
I think it's sad that the pauper meta can't adapt to handle combo decks properly. Pauper has Counterspell, Duress, Mana Tithe and solid instant speed removal. Do people just want to play creatures and removal? I think it would be better to include stuff like Hymn to Tourach and Spell Pierce in MTGO Pauper and unban cards relevant for storm and infinite combos. Invigorate infect and affinity w/ plating can come too. Is a meta where MBC conquers all preferable to this?
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It's weird, isn't it? You would think Pauper can handle combo decks, with the huge amount of countermagic. I guess the combo is just so consistent that even having countermagic doesn't always help (I know it didn't always for me). Not to mention it also has the backup win of just attacking.
This is going to be a very interesting phase for Pauper.
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It won't change anything for me - there will just be a disclaimer to new players that MBC has Hymn, Infect has Invigorate, and these two decks have Cloud. But, it's weird... I always get a little grouchy when they ban cards that I like using but if you look at how dominant Cloud decks are right now online, they make up 28% of the field and the rest of the top 8 is 31%. So yeah, makes sense.
Part of why these decks were so strong is that MUD was the one deck that did really well against Familiars and it's a beast on its own. Most decks just don't run counters.
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Well our group is "casual" in a very broad sense of the word, the legacy banlist is more like a house rule that people respect. I'm the only one using peasant deck building rules but at least two other guys are starting to build like me. What I've found is that the ban list isn't really important, because people have such very different deck building ideals. In our group and with guests visiting, I've encountered everything from fully fledged legacy reanimator with ABUR duals (I went 2-1 with my peasant spring tide!), a GWB homebrew that made top 8 in a semi-big sanctioned legacy event with Death rite shaman, pern deed etc and indeed sinkhole/hymn - but I've also seen pili-pala or door to nothingness combo and treefolk tribal using real legacy fetches and shock duals. I've also borrowed really bad decks from friends and won against good decks just because I had something random like Hindering Light to stop a combo and couple of random 3/1 flyers to seal the deal. It has really broadened my perspective on how big a role randomness and match-ups play in a broad environment, and how unimportant things like ban lists or exact land totals in a deck is (things I like to obsess about for personal and aesthetical reasons mostly).
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As it is, I disagree with people who say that banlists don't matter that much. If it works for your local scene to run with an altered or no banlist, then that's awesome for your group, but when you play with people who tend to make the most competitive decks out there, there needs to be some restrictions set in place. For example, I couldn't even imagine Affinity if Cranial Plating was unbanned. It might even be stronger than Modern Affinity because Pauper has Artifact Lands. Whether or not it would actually be stronger than Modern Affinity, it would undoubtedly be completely oppressive.
So, after some consideration, I abandoned my almost complete Delver build and turned it into U/W Caw Blade instead. I just wanted a blue control deck with Counterspell and Brainstorm to round out my Pauper deck collection and Caw Blade filled the criteria pretty nicely. Plus I kinda have sweet spot for any deck that can bring in Holy Light out of the board. lol
So, life goes on. At least I can still play Storm in casual Pauper matches outside of the sanctioned tournaments.
I wish Modern's banlist was managed half as good as the Pauper one, lol.
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How Cloud changes things, I don't know, but it does knock off 25% of the decks that place in events and that should open it up for other stuff.
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I haven't really ever thought of Pauper as a combo format, but I suppose it once was.
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It seems they were mostly concerned with Esper Familiars, but also with colour balance in general. Nothing really to do with Delver.
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UB Ramses OverdarkUB
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Imagine a Pauper format where the dominating decks would be:
Infect with Invigorate
Affinity with Cranial Plating and access to Spell Pierce if desired
Delver, also with access to Spell Pierce and CoF if desired (not that it needs faeries to place)
MBC with Hymn to Tourach
TPPS with all storm cards available
Cloudpost with Temporal Fissure or control builds or whatever
Spring Tide with Merchant Scroll, High Tide and Frantic Search with Lotus Petal for Grapeshot
Maybe: Goblins, green stompy, white weenie if they can compete
Yes, this would be a more powerful meta with even less room for bad scrubby decks, but would it be less diverse? Can it be less diverse from a color perspective than 9 out of 10 top cards being blue? I prefer the principle that Zephyr advocates - make the other colors stronger and able to handle or put pressure on blue players. Familiars combo facing invigorate infect or plating affinity will see themselves using snap on opposing creatures rather than managing their own combo - just saying.
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Wishing for more powerful commons is fine and all, but that's not really how it works over at WotC.
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Of course this is a hypothetical discussion and WotC isn't paying attention. Having said that, take a look at the semi-official peasant format page - perhaps the closest thing we can get to competitive paper pauper.
http://mtg-peasant.com
As you can see, MBC with Hymn is the most popular top8 placing deck. Mono red (RDW + Burn combined) is #2. ThopterSword in a UB control shell is #2, but that's specific for a certain uncommon rarity card combo so nevermind. However, mono blue isn't even in the top 5 most popular decks. I think MBC with hymn is a big reason mono blue won't do well, same with burn.
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"At least for those who can play cards, their present incarnation is not quite wasted."
[Click here for the articles!]
UGTurboFogGU
BRSacrificial AggroBR
16The Paper Pauper Battle Bag16
EDH
BRRakdos, Lord of PingersBR
GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
UB Ramses OverdarkUB
Sig by Ace5301 of Ace of Spades Studio