I can see this going both/and with Battle Screech; mono-white tokens could be a deck; maybe just tokens plus more tokens plus guardian's pledge, or maybe with 8 soul sisters and possibly suture priests.
So some Khans of Tarkir common spoilers out there:
Ainok Bond-kin 1W creature 2/1
Outlast 1W (1W, T: Put a +1/+1 counter on this creature. Outlast only as a sorcery.)
Each creature you control with a +1/+1 counter on it has first strike.
Probably doesn't do enough. The never-quite-good-enough Travel preps deck says hi.
Jeskai Windscout
Creature - Bird Scout 2U 2/1
Flying
Prowess (Whenever you cast a noncreature spell, this creature gets +1/+1 until end of turn.)
If wee dragonauts aren't good enough, this isn't good enough.
This one is interesting. 1 or 2 of in some kind of control deck? Eats 4/4s all day, and the 3 power means you can't just ignore it as a clock.
Mardu Skullhunter
Creature - Human Warrior 1B 2/1
Mardu Skullhunter enters the battlefield tapped.
Raid — When Mardu Skullhunter enters the battlefield, if you attacked with a creature this turn, target opponent discards a card.
This is a good card in a bad deck (mono black aggro) and probably not good enough to make the deck good. Certainly beats being a good card in no deck at all a la Generator Servant.
Mardu Warshrieker
Creature - Orc Shaman 3R 3/3
Raid — When Mardu Warshrieker enters the battlefield, if you attacked with a creature this turn, add RWB to your mana pool.
This seems like it ought to be able to do something, but I don't see it. Turns cloudshift into a ritual (if you've attacked) but um.
Lens of Clarity
1
Artifact
You may look at the top card of your library and at face-down creatures you don't control. (You may do this at any time.)
Pretty sure paying 6 (or 8 over two turns) for a french vanilla 4/4 is not the way to win games in Pauper. Interesting because it suggests there will be 4 other 3-color commons, and maybe one of them won't suck.
...
And Bitter Revelation
3B Sorcery
Look at the top four cards of your library. Put two of them into your hand and the rest into your graveyard. You lose 2 life.
Seems not good enough compared to sign in blood or read the bones. As a graveyard enabler there are a lot of cheaper options, though none that net you a card.
...
And one week later,
Our first guaranteed-playable pauper cards:
Tranquil Cove and the other 9 lands in the cycle - duals that come into play tapped; you gain 1 life when they ETB.
(Almost) strictly better than gates, which see competitive play, though usually in rogue/marginal decks. You could play 8 tap/multilands in a 2 color deck, though that seems pretty suicidal.
At first I thought these were a direct reprint of the uncommon Akoum Refuge and friends, but they're a functional reprint (and rarity shift).
Not much to say, really; better for control than aggro decks, and 2 color aggro is still probably not a possibility.
If you've somehow assembled infinite Ghostly Flicker without a draw creature or a kill condition in hand this would let the Esper deck gain infinite life Glimmmerpost style. Might be worth a slot or two over expanse.
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I primarily play limited, so most of my spoiler season comments view cards through that lens.
Sidisi's Pet 3B
Creature-Zombie Ape (C)
Lifelink
Morph 1B
The Sultai distinguish between pet and slave by the material of the chain.
1/4
Looks unplayable. If only it were 1/5.
Hooting Mandrills 5G
Creature-Ape (C)
Delve
Trample
Interlopers in Sultai territory usually end up as crocodile chow or baboon bait.
4/4
OTOH, this looks eminently playable, and not only in graveyard decks. Play it as a one-of in Stompy and delve it out off of early trades and pump spells; probably can't go more than 2-of in any deck since decks that fill the yard usually have other plans for the stuff they put there.
I could see this as a 1-2 of in some control (or possibly even a few Delver) variants. Nothing quite like using those spent counters to fuel card draw. And the fact that, if the game goes late enough, you can play it for U is just awesome.
Cruise isn't yet confirmed - if real, it's very good. I'd run it over the delve creatures in a blue deck; looks to me like all of the delve cards should be playable in competitive decks. Wonder if anyone's going to go crazy and play more than 2 of them in something.
Couple other cards - Disdainful Stroke,a 1U counterspell that counters a card with CMC 4 or more - seems too narrow to do work in Pauper, where so much action happens at CMC 3 and lower. Most of the bombs you would want to stop with this card also get stopped by Remove Soul or Exclude.
Savage Punch, 1G sorcery-speed fight - if you control a creature with power 4 or more, your creature also gets +2/+2 till EOT. Doesn't seems as good as the other fight options available. I guess Affinity might have enough 4/4s to like it, but Affinity has many better removal options and doesn't use most of them. (OTOH, it does show a guy punching out a bear. Could only be better if he were the Punisher.)
If they print another couple of good payoff cards, Pauper is well positioned with both Mental Note and Thought Scour. Dream Twist if you're going really deep.
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I primarily play limited, so most of my spoiler season comments view cards through that lens.
If they print another couple of good payoff cards, Pauper is well positioned with both Mental Note and Thought Scour. Dream Twist if you're going really deep.
Could it be that Treasure Cruise would be most at home in the perenially-maligned Erasure Turbofog lists?
EDIT: Oh yeah, and Hooting Mandrills seems pretty boss, with the one major problem that it's only a 4/4 in an environment with well-established answers to 4/4s...
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Oh, you think the losers' bracket is your ally, but you merely adopted the scrub tier. I was born in it, molded by it. I didn’t 4-0 an FNM until I was already a man; by then, it was nothing to me but an extra pack to sell for store credit!
Could it be that Treasure Cruise would be most at home in the perenially-maligned Erasure Turbofog lists?
EDIT: Oh yeah, and Hooting Mandrills seems pretty boss, with the one major problem that it's only a 4/4 in an environment with well-established answers to 4/4s...
Definitely could see it in Turbofog; the lifegain lands also help the fog deck quite a bit. Really, I think it will see play in pretty much any blue deck that plans to play past turn 5-6 (so not cyclopsfiend and maybe only sideboard in delver).
No huge surprises. Taigam's Scheming seems pretty good, though probably not tier-applicable. Whirlwind Adept seems like a really harsh beating, though the casting cost makes it awkward. Sultai Scavenger seems decent for Suicide Black. The various three-color morphs are cool commons but none of them seem very practical.
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Oh, you think the losers' bracket is your ally, but you merely adopted the scrub tier. I was born in it, molded by it. I didn’t 4-0 an FNM until I was already a man; by then, it was nothing to me but an extra pack to sell for store credit!
One thing I was looking for here was whether there were any interesting morphs to use Cloudshift and friends; mainly looking for beaters with toughness >4 (something that didn't exist at common before). Snowhorn Rider (5/5 trample, RUG3 casting cost, RUG2 morph) is one possibility there; Woolly Loxodon (6/7 vanilla, GG5 casting cost G5 morph) is the other. I don't see either of them making morph/cloudshift a deck. The other guy who seems fun to cloudshift is the RWB one, Ponyback Brigade, who's a 2/2 that carries 3 1/1 goblins around with him. Fun but probably not practical.
I kind of want to bring my janky +1/+1 counters deck back and put Longshot Squad and Ainok Bond-Kin in it, but realistically that's not going to happen.
A couple low-drop blockers who are 5 toughness or can be 5 toughness: Disowned Ancestor (cc: B, 0/4 Outlast 1B) and Archers' Parapet (CC: 1G, 0/5 wall, 1B, tap, opponent loses 1 life).
Could Feed the Clan work as an anti-Burn sideboard card for Affinity? Not sure how consistently it can be turned on.
Finally, just noting that Tormenting Voice is strictly better than Wild Guess in non-mono-red decks; OTOH, I think Guess was only (sometimes) played in mono-red decks so there's that.
1 - Treasure Cruise - will be played in multiple tier decks
2 - Hooting Mandrills - will probably be played in a tier 1/2 deck (stompy).
3 - Mardu Skullhunter
4 - Sultai Scavenger - both decent in suicide black, Skullhunter can be a 4-of, though. I don't think they're enough to push Sui black to competitive. Scavenger interacts nicely with Ghoulraiser in zombie decks (turns random return into your-choice).
5 - Shambling Attendants - without the other delve cards would be higher, but U/B control wants to use its graveyard cards to go on a cruise, and MBC uses its graveyard a lot more.
6 - Feed the Clan - anti burn sideboard in affinity.
-------- line of playability --------
7 - Disowned Ancestor
8 - Archers' Parapet
For the cheap 5 toughness blocking.
9 - Ponyback Brigade because ponies.
10 - Whirlwind Adept will either be totally unplayable or will be the center of a gross combo/control deck that figures out how to abuse it.
Really interesting stuff. The manifest mechanic seem pretty fun to get extra creatures or cheat ETB effects at uncounterable instant speed.
The black delve guy seems much better than the prior ones: it costs less and is a creature that overpowers most pauper threats.
But my fav card today is Jeskai Sage. People have already been trying to play white for Jeskai Student, so getting a cheap prowess in blue will be fantastic. The fact that it replaces itself once it dies is also pretty nice.
Dash and Creature modal spells also made me excited.
You missed one, and I think the most interesting one - Soul Summon, 1W Manifest the top card of your library.
Seems plausible for decks that want a lot of spells but still want to have some dudes in there - some kind of pauper Prowess deck maybe.
Hopefully we'll get one or two playables out of the modal dudes cycle, but the black one is trash. (Maybe they'll spoil the cycle in one of the limited articles? Otherwise this is likely 90% of the commons we will see before full spoilers.)
In terms of the delve dude, he's somewhat interesting, although I think the evasion on the 3/3 makes it better. Hard to say which of the 5 toughness dudes is better - the deathtouch guy laughs at pumps and always gets at least a 2-for-1 on a multi-block (say Myr enforcer plus frogmite). Still think I like this new guy for the dragon auras combo deck.
Not in love with the sage. He's a bear if you put work into him. Maybe there's some kind of hyper aggro kiln fiend deck that wants him as plan B with a refund.
Dash seems interesting, but again if there's a playable guy this one isn't it.
Avoiding ETB effects with manifest seems like it should be good, but there isn't that much in pauper that really merits it - the best you'll get out of it is a 3/3 for G (rogue elephant), and when you add the 1W to cast Soul Summon, that isn't even cheap. Skipping out on the Kjeldoran Dead drawback seems okay, but not really worth jumping through hoops for.
War Flare - +2/+1 to all your creatures, and untap them, for 2RW. A powerful effect, and with a red splash gives W tokens decks some extra Guardian's Pledge - but if you're playing token rush, do you want to be in two colors?
Harsh Sustenance - another multicolor token deck card, this time WB. Nice way to kill a turbofog player. Don't see a deck it goes in.
Grim Contest - "fight" but with toughness instead of power for BG1.
Cunning Strike - 2 to a creature, 2 to a player, draw a card for 3RU. The deck that wants this doesn't really care about the damage to the face, so this is effectively "kill a bear, draw a card." Can't see it being played over firebolt.
Butt Fight - "fight" but with toughness instead of power for BG1.
Just had to fix the name on that card.
As usual, the commons we see during Spoiler Season tend to be the limited bombs - nothing really amazing out there yet.
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Lightning Shrieker is in the storied tradition of MtG dragons - huge, scary, impressive, and completely unplayable in constructed formats (at least in classic pauper.
Write Into Being is kind of spicy, but you'd need something cool to Manifest to make it worth running. Maybe some kind of goofy bounce-castle deck with Angelic Renewal and Momentary Blink and such?
Reality Shift is insane, but not really relevant on this board...
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Oh, you think the losers' bracket is your ally, but you merely adopted the scrub tier. I was born in it, molded by it. I didn’t 4-0 an FNM until I was already a man; by then, it was nothing to me but an extra pack to sell for store credit!
Write Into Being is kind of spicy, but you'd need something cool to Manifest to make it worth running. Maybe some kind of goofy bounce-castle deck with Angelic Renewal and Momentary Blink and such?
Well, you've got lots of deck manipulation, 8 manifest cards, and infinite blink spells to work with in blue-white, so there could be something there.
It also seems pretty good in one of the slower Kiln Fiend decks. Pumps fiend/clops, sets up delver flips, eats edicts, and probably eats other removal as well. Are YOU going to let that 2/2 go unblocked if the guy has 4 open mana?
The black 1/1 seems good in Woo Rats, though probably not good enough to make it an actual deck.
Oooh, Mardu Scout looks kind of cool. Possibly good enough for Goblins, possibly only good enough for janky nonsense, but at least it's spicy, y'know?
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I can see this going both/and with Battle Screech; mono-white tokens could be a deck; maybe just tokens plus more tokens plus guardian's pledge, or maybe with 8 soul sisters and possibly suture priests.
Ainok Bond-kin 1W creature 2/1
Outlast 1W (1W, T: Put a +1/+1 counter on this creature. Outlast only as a sorcery.)
Each creature you control with a +1/+1 counter on it has first strike.
Probably doesn't do enough. The never-quite-good-enough Travel preps deck says hi.
Jeskai Windscout
Creature - Bird Scout 2U 2/1
Flying
Prowess (Whenever you cast a noncreature spell, this creature gets +1/+1 until end of turn.)
If wee dragonauts aren't good enough, this isn't good enough.
Shambling Attendants
Creature - Zombie 7B 3/5
Delve
Deathtouch
This one is interesting. 1 or 2 of in some kind of control deck? Eats 4/4s all day, and the 3 power means you can't just ignore it as a clock.
Mardu Skullhunter
Creature - Human Warrior 1B 2/1
Mardu Skullhunter enters the battlefield tapped.
Raid — When Mardu Skullhunter enters the battlefield, if you attacked with a creature this turn, target opponent discards a card.
This is a good card in a bad deck (mono black aggro) and probably not good enough to make the deck good. Certainly beats being a good card in no deck at all a la Generator Servant.
Mardu Warshrieker
Creature - Orc Shaman 3R 3/3
Raid — When Mardu Warshrieker enters the battlefield, if you attacked with a creature this turn, add RWB to your mana pool.
This seems like it ought to be able to do something, but I don't see it. Turns cloudshift into a ritual (if you've attacked) but um.
Lens of Clarity
1
Artifact
You may look at the top card of your library and at face-down creatures you don't control. (You may do this at any time.)
Not worth a card.
Edit: Whoops missed one:
Abzan Guide
Creature - Human Warrior 3WBG 4/4
Lifelink
Morph 2WBG
Pretty sure paying 6 (or 8 over two turns) for a french vanilla 4/4 is not the way to win games in Pauper. Interesting because it suggests there will be 4 other 3-color commons, and maybe one of them won't suck.
...
And
Bitter Revelation
3B Sorcery
Look at the top four cards of your library. Put two of them into your hand and the rest into your graveyard. You lose 2 life.
Seems not good enough compared to sign in blood or read the bones. As a graveyard enabler there are a lot of cheaper options, though none that net you a card.
...
And one week later,
Our first guaranteed-playable pauper cards:
Tranquil Cove and the other 9 lands in the cycle - duals that come into play tapped; you gain 1 life when they ETB.
(Almost) strictly better than gates, which see competitive play, though usually in rogue/marginal decks. You could play 8 tap/multilands in a 2 color deck, though that seems pretty suicidal.
At first I thought these were a direct reprint of the uncommon Akoum Refuge and friends, but they're a functional reprint (and rarity shift).
Not much to say, really; better for control than aggro decks, and 2 color aggro is still probably not a possibility.
Interested in Custom Card Creation.
My Cube:Cardinal Custom Cube
A custom version of a third modern masters: MM2019
(filter->rarity to see in set rarity).
Creature-Zombie Ape (C)
Lifelink
Morph 1B
The Sultai distinguish between pet and slave by the material of the chain.
1/4
Looks unplayable. If only it were 1/5.
Hooting Mandrills 5G
Creature-Ape (C)
Delve
Trample
Interlopers in Sultai territory usually end up as crocodile chow or baboon bait.
4/4
OTOH, this looks eminently playable, and not only in graveyard decks. Play it as a one-of in Stompy and delve it out off of early trades and pump spells; probably can't go more than 2-of in any deck since decks that fill the yard usually have other plans for the stuff they put there.
Treasure Cruise 7U
Sorcery
Delve
Draw 3 cards
I could see this as a 1-2 of in some control (or possibly even a few Delver) variants. Nothing quite like using those spent counters to fuel card draw. And the fact that, if the game goes late enough, you can play it for U is just awesome.
Couple other cards - Disdainful Stroke,a 1U counterspell that counters a card with CMC 4 or more - seems too narrow to do work in Pauper, where so much action happens at CMC 3 and lower. Most of the bombs you would want to stop with this card also get stopped by Remove Soul or Exclude.
Savage Punch, 1G sorcery-speed fight - if you control a creature with power 4 or more, your creature also gets +2/+2 till EOT. Doesn't seems as good as the other fight options available. I guess Affinity might have enough 4/4s to like it, but Affinity has many better removal options and doesn't use most of them. (OTOH, it does show a guy punching out a bear. Could only be better if he were the Punisher.)
Interested in Custom Card Creation.
My Cube:Cardinal Custom Cube
A custom version of a third modern masters: MM2019
(filter->rarity to see in set rarity).
If you go UG there's also Mulch and Satyr Wayfinder, along with Werebear and Hooting Mandrills as beaters.
EDIT: Oh yeah, and Hooting Mandrills seems pretty boss, with the one major problem that it's only a 4/4 in an environment with well-established answers to 4/4s...
Definitely could see it in Turbofog; the lifegain lands also help the fog deck quite a bit. Really, I think it will see play in pretty much any blue deck that plans to play past turn 5-6 (so not cyclopsfiend and maybe only sideboard in delver).
No huge surprises. Taigam's Scheming seems pretty good, though probably not tier-applicable. Whirlwind Adept seems like a really harsh beating, though the casting cost makes it awkward. Sultai Scavenger seems decent for Suicide Black. The various three-color morphs are cool commons but none of them seem very practical.
I kind of want to bring my janky +1/+1 counters deck back and put Longshot Squad and Ainok Bond-Kin in it, but realistically that's not going to happen.
A couple low-drop blockers who are 5 toughness or can be 5 toughness: Disowned Ancestor (cc: B, 0/4 Outlast 1B) and Archers' Parapet (CC: 1G, 0/5 wall, 1B, tap, opponent loses 1 life).
Could Feed the Clan work as an anti-Burn sideboard card for Affinity? Not sure how consistently it can be turned on.
Finally, just noting that Tormenting Voice is strictly better than Wild Guess in non-mono-red decks; OTOH, I think Guess was only (sometimes) played in mono-red decks so there's that.
1 - Treasure Cruise - will be played in multiple tier decks
2 - Hooting Mandrills - will probably be played in a tier 1/2 deck (stompy).
3 - Mardu Skullhunter
4 - Sultai Scavenger - both decent in suicide black, Skullhunter can be a 4-of, though. I don't think they're enough to push Sui black to competitive. Scavenger interacts nicely with Ghoulraiser in zombie decks (turns random return into your-choice).
5 - Shambling Attendants - without the other delve cards would be higher, but U/B control wants to use its graveyard cards to go on a cruise, and MBC uses its graveyard a lot more.
6 - Feed the Clan - anti burn sideboard in affinity.
-------- line of playability --------
7 - Disowned Ancestor
8 - Archers' Parapet
For the cheap 5 toughness blocking.
9 - Ponyback Brigade because ponies.
10 - Whirlwind Adept will either be totally unplayable or will be the center of a gross combo/control deck that figures out how to abuse it.
I hope yo build my esper deck with this new counter. I hope we get some good equipment.
The black delve guy seems much better than the prior ones: it costs less and is a creature that overpowers most pauper threats.
But my fav card today is Jeskai Sage. People have already been trying to play white for Jeskai Student, so getting a cheap prowess in blue will be fantastic. The fact that it replaces itself once it dies is also pretty nice.
Dash and Creature modal spells also made me excited.
Seems plausible for decks that want a lot of spells but still want to have some dudes in there - some kind of pauper Prowess deck maybe.
Hopefully we'll get one or two playables out of the modal dudes cycle, but the black one is trash. (Maybe they'll spoil the cycle in one of the limited articles? Otherwise this is likely 90% of the commons we will see before full spoilers.)
In terms of the delve dude, he's somewhat interesting, although I think the evasion on the 3/3 makes it better. Hard to say which of the 5 toughness dudes is better - the deathtouch guy laughs at pumps and always gets at least a 2-for-1 on a multi-block (say Myr enforcer plus frogmite). Still think I like this new guy for the dragon auras combo deck.
Not in love with the sage. He's a bear if you put work into him. Maybe there's some kind of hyper aggro kiln fiend deck that wants him as plan B with a refund.
Dash seems interesting, but again if there's a playable guy this one isn't it.
Avoiding ETB effects with manifest seems like it should be good, but there isn't that much in pauper that really merits it - the best you'll get out of it is a 3/3 for G (rogue elephant), and when you add the 1W to cast Soul Summon, that isn't even cheap. Skipping out on the Kjeldoran Dead drawback seems okay, but not really worth jumping through hoops for.
EDIT: Or, you know, it could totally spawn an archetype by itself. Whatever.
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
War Flare - +2/+1 to all your creatures, and untap them, for 2RW. A powerful effect, and with a red splash gives W tokens decks some extra Guardian's Pledge - but if you're playing token rush, do you want to be in two colors?
Harsh Sustenance - another multicolor token deck card, this time WB. Nice way to kill a turbofog player. Don't see a deck it goes in.
Grim Contest - "fight" but with toughness instead of power for BG1.
Cunning Strike - 2 to a creature, 2 to a player, draw a card for 3RU. The deck that wants this doesn't really care about the damage to the face, so this is effectively "kill a bear, draw a card." Can't see it being played over firebolt.
Just had to fix the name on that card.
As usual, the commons we see during Spoiler Season tend to be the limited bombs - nothing really amazing out there yet.
Also, there's another 2 mana mana dork, which looks just as unplayable as almost every other 2 mana mana dork (exceptions being wall of roots, overgrown battlement, werebear, and priest of titania).
Reality Shift is insane, but not really relevant on this board...
Well, you've got lots of deck manipulation, 8 manifest cards, and infinite blink spells to work with in blue-white, so there could be something there.
It also seems pretty good in one of the slower Kiln Fiend decks. Pumps fiend/clops, sets up delver flips, eats edicts, and probably eats other removal as well. Are YOU going to let that 2/2 go unblocked if the guy has 4 open mana?
The black 1/1 seems good in Woo Rats, though probably not good enough to make it an actual deck.