Anything strike people as particularly relevant? I could definitely see Elvish Vanguard or Yavimaya Enchantress inspiring decks. Rally the Peasants also intrigues me - I've played a lot of token decks that have felt a little too reliant on drawing both token makers and token pumpers. Having one token pumper play double duty certainly helps the deck.
And that's a top 10 without Kird Ape or Wildfire Emissary or Cephalid Sage (which is a potential house in my own favorite silly not-quite competitive deck, songs of the damned combo).
What about Prowling Pangolin? Now that this guy is in pauper, can anything really use him? I am still very new to the pauper scene but I really like this guy. In the right matchup I would love to pay 5 and make my opponent sac 2 creatures or have a 6/5. I'm thinking he could go into some kind of Tortured Existence control deck focused on the long game and eventually winning out with a big stick like Pangolin. Any other thoughts?
Is this set going to be on MTGO? If not then these cards wont be MTGO pauper legal will it?
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Originally Posted by Massive Marc
You know back in the old days, when there wasn't EDH, these "griefer" cards in decks were the norm. If you played a Winter Orb when you're opponents were tapped out, it was a good play. Now, you get people tell you they wanna punch you ? It's really sad how carebare this format is, to the point that some loser has to rip up your cards.
Is this set going to be on MTGO? If not then these cards wont be MTGO pauper legal will it?
Yes, just like MM1 and MM2. Probably almost nobody will buy any packs though, since most of the chase cards in paper magic have been printed in the Masters sets, so the pack value is really poor. They clearly weren't thinking about MTGO when they designed the set. Notably missing Rishadan Port and Misdirection, which are ridiculously expensive online.
What about Prowling Pangolin? Now that this guy is in pauper, can anything really use him? I am still very new to the pauper scene but I really like this guy. In the right matchup I would love to pay 5 and make my opponent sac 2 creatures or have a 6/5. I'm thinking he could go into some kind of Tortured Existence control deck focused on the long game and eventually winning out with a big stick like Pangolin. Any other thoughts?
Basically 5 drops need to be extremely extremely good to play in Pauper - the only ones that see play at the moment are Mulldrifter and Gray Merchant (plus some even higher drops in Tron). Also, Gurmag Angler exists and is basically just better than this guy.
I'm mostly excited about Night's Whisper dropping down. I can foresee it being used quite a bit since it is usable in multi colored decks, mostly because it doesn't require that extra black mana like Sign in Blood does. It's even a great addition to mono black decks. Definitely going in my Undead Warchief Pauper edh deck!
Peregrine Drake is stupid. It will be to Pauper what Twin was to Modern: just play it in a Ux Control shell (you don't need Familiars or Bouncelands for this one), drop one at the right time, and harvest free wins. It doesn't help that Drake and Mnemonic Wall are good on their own either.
Peregrine Drake is stupid. It will be to Pauper what Twin was to Modern: just play it in a Ux Control shell (you don't need Familiars or Bouncelands for this one), drop one at the right time, and harvest free wins. It doesn't help that Drake and Mnemonic Wall are good on their own either.
Didn't they just ban Cloud of Faeries which is a worse version of Drake? Play the deck while you can before it is banned.
Peregrine Drake is stupid. It will be to Pauper what Twin was to Modern: just play it in a Ux Control shell (you don't need Familiars or Bouncelands for this one), drop one at the right time, and harvest free wins. It doesn't help that Drake and Mnemonic Wall are good on their own either.
Didn't they just ban Cloud of Faeries which is a worse version of Drake? Play the deck while you can before it is banned.
To be fair, Cloud was also played in Delver decks. With that said however, Drake is pretty silly, based on my limited testing.
Peregrine Drake is stupid. It will be to Pauper what Twin was to Modern: just play it in a Ux Control shell (you don't need Familiars or Bouncelands for this one), drop one at the right time, and harvest free wins. It doesn't help that Drake and Mnemonic Wall are good on their own either.
Didn't they just ban Cloud of Faeries which is a worse version of Drake? Play the deck while you can before it is banned.
Yeah this is one card I'm not entirely happy seeing. I've never been a fan of control/combo decks. I'm cool with storm, infect, fiend/cyclops, exhume, etc. Just personal preference I suppose. If someone goes all in on a neat combo I'm fine. But, sitting across from someone who's just countering and dragging things out until they can go infinite just seems lame to me. It's one time when I prefer playing online because the clock is against them and they can always lose to time.
We have two of the "free" spells from Urza's block on the ban list already and while the Drake is a bit slower than CoF for comboing, once you have the lands in play it has far fewer requirements to combo off. With CoF you needed some Familiars/bouncelands in addition to Mnemonic Wall and Ghostly Flicker before you could combo. With the Drake all you need is 5 basic lands, a Mnemonic Wall/Archaeomancer, and a Ghostly Flicker then voila, infinite mana. We'll be seeing turns like this:
Tap 5 lands, cast Peregrine Drake, untap 5 lands
Tap 5 lands, cast Ghostly Flicker targeting Peregrine Drake and a land, floating 2 mana.
Peregrine Drake and the land return to play. Tap the untapped land to float a 3rd mana. Untap all your lands.
Tap 5 lands, cast Mnemonic Wall, return Flicker.
Use your remaining 3 floating mana to Flicker Wall and Drake and make infinite mana
Do whatever you want, draw your deck, Capsize the opponent's board, Rolling Thunder them to death. The sky's the limits.
Again that's with no Familiars or bouncelands required. If they have Familiars or bouncelands then they can go off even faster. Turn 4 kills are possible with just one Familiar and 4 lands (same scenario as above except everything is one mana cheaper). I won't be at all surprised if Peregrine Drake ends up banned within the year.
I think it's Ghostly Flicker what's eating a ban this time. The card has "abuse me" all written onto it, is cheaper and comes at instant speed. Nothing fair has ever come out of it in this format. The fringe blink archetypes still have Momentary Blink, Kor Skyfisher and Cloudshift.
Meanwhile Peregrine Drake doesn't make Delver nearly as obnoxious as Cloud of Faeries did, and on it's own it's just a fair free flyer much in the same vein as Spire Golem, except Golem has more butt, is easier and faster to cast, and doesn't result in a complete blowout if it gets countered. In exchange Drake can ramp a bit with Bouncelands but the mana has to be used right away, and can only slot in Control.
With the main offender Flicker gone, Drake is nowhere near as oppressive and potentially more free spells could be downgraded or unbanned in the future.
It definitely could be Ghostly Flicker that gets banned instead of the Drake, in which case I don't think there will be any other way to easily abuse the Drake's ability. I don't think they unban Cloud of Faeries though because then Delver gets its oppressive turn 1 Delver turn 2 CoF + Spellstutter draws again and the deck is still tier 1 even with that having been taken away. Frantic Search is still a really scary card too. Maybe it's safe in a world where Flicker joins all of the Storm cards on the ban list but I'd need to see a compelling case made before supporting that view.
It definitely could be Ghostly Flicker that gets banned instead of the Drake, in which case I don't think there will be any other way to easily abuse the Drake's ability. I don't think they unban Cloud of Faeries though because then Delver gets its oppressive turn 1 Delver turn 2 CoF + Spellstutter draws again and the deck is still tier 1 even with that having been taken away. Frantic Search is still a really scary card too. Maybe it's safe in a world where Flicker joins all of the Storm cards on the ban list but I'd need to see a compelling case made before supporting that view.
What would you be using Frantic Search for? Without the Storm cards and High Tide, it's just a Careful Study that sometimes might ramp you a +1 or +2 if you commit enough to bouncelands, which in turn makes you weak to LD. A temporary +1 isn't worth the card disadvantage IMO, and even if you follow up with things like Rituals, Manamorphose and Gitaxian Probe what would be your endgame? A giant Fireball? I think the format could handle an inconsistent combo deck like that.
I also don't think CoF should be unbanned, I was thinking more of Search.
Flicker has been the offender two times counting this one, and it will continue to be as long as creatures that can generate at least 1 mana (Bouncelands + Familiars), ideally 2 upon ETB see print. You could theoretically go off of Pestermite untapping a Bounceland with two familiars on board. Flicker is in essence an unfair card, and the most abusable of both, and as long as creatures that can generate mana upon ETB continue to see print throughout the years, it will continue to negatively impact the meta. I think getting rid of it entirely will solve this problem and future ones regarding this.
Of these I think the most exciting for me are Elite Ganguard and Rally the Peasants. It encourages more aggressive Boros builds instead of the basic Mono-W so that is fun. I think Kird Ape is cool becuase we might get to see some Gruul aggro builds. Iuno, I would jus tlike to see some more aggro builds. I feel like you have 2 types of aggro builds available right now 1) All-In (Suicide Black and Red based Prowess) that fold after turn 5 but can't win before turn 4 and 2) Go Wide (Green Stompy and White Weenie) that just dump tokens onto the field and hope to not get outclassed but drag the game out forever. It would be nice to see some kind of Boss Sligh/Big Red aggro deck just to have some variance.
The others like Night's Whipser, Evlish Vanguard, and Enchantress slot into existing decks.
Drake could bring back and older archetype.
Warden might enable a fun U/W Flyers build not unlike Caw Blade but drop the Equipment for more fatty flyers.
Nimble Mongoose is a wierd one because I could see it enabling/helping existing graveyard decks but also helping enable some Gruul style aggro builds.
Sylvan Might screams Infect to me.
My honorable mentioned I think is Avarax. Its basically card draw in red and reminds me a lot of Infectious Bloodlust. Its pump ability means it can hit pretty hard too and maintain a threat on board. On the other hand its also 5 mana, it has no evasion, and dies to Bolt.
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I think Peregrine Drake will definitely see play. While it's obviously not Cloud of Faeries, some of the previous posters have the right idea. It's busted in familiars. The format is still slow enough to allow it to go infinite consistently.
I also really don't like the Night's Whisper downgrade. It's an auto-include in MBC, even if not a 4-of. Kird Ape as a common always made sense to me. Hopefully Yavimaya Enchantress is a good enough addition to my Boggles deck, although I'm not so sure.
It definitely could be Ghostly Flicker that gets banned instead of the Drake, in which case I don't think there will be any other way to easily abuse the Drake's ability. I don't think they unban Cloud of Faeries though because then Delver gets its oppressive turn 1 Delver turn 2 CoF + Spellstutter draws again and the deck is still tier 1 even with that having been taken away. Frantic Search is still a really scary card too. Maybe it's safe in a world where Flicker joins all of the Storm cards on the ban list but I'd need to see a compelling case made before supporting that view.
What would you be using Frantic Search for? Without the Storm cards and High Tide, it's just a Careful Study that sometimes might ramp you a +1 or +2 if you commit enough to bouncelands, which in turn makes you weak to LD. A temporary +1 isn't worth the card disadvantage IMO, and even if you follow up with things like Rituals, Manamorphose and Gitaxian Probe what would be your endgame? A giant Fireball? I think the format could handle an inconsistent combo deck like that.
I also don't think CoF should be unbanned, I was thinking more of Search.
Flicker has been the offender two times counting this one, and it will continue to be as long as creatures that can generate at least 1 mana (Bouncelands + Familiars), ideally 2 upon ETB see print. You could theoretically go off of Pestermite untapping a Bounceland with two familiars on board. Flicker is in essence an unfair card, and the most abusable of both, and as long as creatures that can generate mana upon ETB continue to see print throughout the years, it will continue to negatively impact the meta. I think getting rid of it entirely will solve this problem and future ones regarding this.
I think the sheer amount of cards you can go through with Frantic Search is concerning and even if there's no infinite combo it's pretty hard to say it definitively won't do anything degenerate. It's been broken across several formats and I think letting a card like that back into the metagame needs to be done with a high amount of caution.
But I agree, Flicker is very much like Birthing Pod was in Modern - an engine card that only gets better over time. It probably will get itself banned at some point even if the Drake ends up getting the axe over it (assuming neo-Familiars is busted in half which still remains to be seen)
There is also the very real possibility that the meta shifts to favor fast aggro decks like Mono-R/Boros Prowess in response to this deck taking over. It might balance itself. As it stands right now ultra fast aggro decks aren't great given the current meta because of decks like Mono-B, Jeskai Kuldotha, and to a lesser extent Teachings. This could be seen as a result of the fact that those kinds of aggro decks lack a real endgame haymaker in the vein of cards like Thundermaw Hellkite or Hellrider. There also aren't a lot of good curve elements like Chandra's Phoenix. Against a majority of the field right now Prowess decks fold to a critical mass of removal where decks with a better curve wouldn't. Prowess just requires so much in terms of a critical mass of non-creatures that the variance is likely too high to ever be Tier 1. Avarax would be great if it had Flying or was a 3/4 but I think as is, its too weak. Drawing another copy is great but its simply too fragile.
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Night's Whisper could be interesting for BX decks. MBC always wants Sign in Blood to have the chance of burning the enemy down.
Enchantress gets buffed from ALL enchantments including Journey to Nowhere and Oblivion Ring. Aura Gnarlid does not. I'm not making any judgements on if that's good enough or not, just saying.
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I feel like it's probably not good enough seeing as Hexproof decks often don't even run the full set of Aura Gnarlids. Maybe there's some other enchantment deck that wants both, but nothing really comes to mind.
The problem with defining this format by what is "fun" is that everyone seems to define fun as what they don't lose to. If you keep losing to easily answered cards, that means you should improve your deck. If you don't want to improve your deck, then you should come to peace with the idea that you are going to lose because you chose to not interact with better strategies.
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Here's the full list of cards downgraded to common:
Anything strike people as particularly relevant? I could definitely see Elvish Vanguard or Yavimaya Enchantress inspiring decks. Rally the Peasants also intrigues me - I've played a lot of token decks that have felt a little too reliant on drawing both token makers and token pumpers. Having one token pumper play double duty certainly helps the deck.
I'm fond of Humble. The effect is like bounce and a combat trick built into one.
Hoping for a cure, or at least an outbreak.
Level 1 Judge (yay)
This set is crazy - it's almost easier to list out the cards that won't do anything:
You can make a legit top 10 and still have potentially useful cards left out:
1 - Peregrine Drake (Familiars ahoy)
2 - Elite Vanguard
3 - Warden of Evos Isle
4 - Elvish Vanguard
5 - Rally the Peasants
6 - Night's Whisper
7 - Nimble Mongoose
8 - Desperate Ravings
9 - Humble
10 - Yavimaya Enchantress
And that's a top 10 without Kird Ape or Wildfire Emissary or Cephalid Sage (which is a potential house in my own favorite silly not-quite competitive deck, songs of the damned combo).
(The other five cards I think might do something:
- Monk Idealist
- Tidal Wave
- Dragon Egg
- Emperor Crocodile
- Sylvan Might
)You know back in the old days, when there wasn't EDH, these "griefer" cards in decks were the norm. If you played a Winter Orb when you're opponents were tapped out, it was a good play. Now, you get people tell you they wanna punch you ? It's really sad how carebare this format is, to the point that some loser has to rip up your cards.
Yes, just like MM1 and MM2. Probably almost nobody will buy any packs though, since most of the chase cards in paper magic have been printed in the Masters sets, so the pack value is really poor. They clearly weren't thinking about MTGO when they designed the set. Notably missing Rishadan Port and Misdirection, which are ridiculously expensive online.
Basically 5 drops need to be extremely extremely good to play in Pauper - the only ones that see play at the moment are Mulldrifter and Gray Merchant (plus some even higher drops in Tron). Also, Gurmag Angler exists and is basically just better than this guy.
WUBRG Sliver Queen 5 Color Super Friend Tokens GRBUW
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Check my Pauper Cube!
Didn't they just ban Cloud of Faeries which is a worse version of Drake? Play the deck while you can before it is banned.
Yeah this is one card I'm not entirely happy seeing. I've never been a fan of control/combo decks. I'm cool with storm, infect, fiend/cyclops, exhume, etc. Just personal preference I suppose. If someone goes all in on a neat combo I'm fine. But, sitting across from someone who's just countering and dragging things out until they can go infinite just seems lame to me. It's one time when I prefer playing online because the clock is against them and they can always lose to time.
Again that's with no Familiars or bouncelands required. If they have Familiars or bouncelands then they can go off even faster. Turn 4 kills are possible with just one Familiar and 4 lands (same scenario as above except everything is one mana cheaper). I won't be at all surprised if Peregrine Drake ends up banned within the year.
Meanwhile Peregrine Drake doesn't make Delver nearly as obnoxious as Cloud of Faeries did, and on it's own it's just a fair free flyer much in the same vein as Spire Golem, except Golem has more butt, is easier and faster to cast, and doesn't result in a complete blowout if it gets countered. In exchange Drake can ramp a bit with Bouncelands but the mana has to be used right away, and can only slot in Control.
With the main offender Flicker gone, Drake is nowhere near as oppressive and potentially more free spells could be downgraded or unbanned in the future.
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What would you be using Frantic Search for? Without the Storm cards and High Tide, it's just a Careful Study that sometimes might ramp you a +1 or +2 if you commit enough to bouncelands, which in turn makes you weak to LD. A temporary +1 isn't worth the card disadvantage IMO, and even if you follow up with things like Rituals, Manamorphose and Gitaxian Probe what would be your endgame? A giant Fireball? I think the format could handle an inconsistent combo deck like that.
I also don't think CoF should be unbanned, I was thinking more of Search.
Flicker has been the offender two times counting this one, and it will continue to be as long as creatures that can generate at least 1 mana (Bouncelands + Familiars), ideally 2 upon ETB see print. You could theoretically go off of Pestermite untapping a Bounceland with two familiars on board. Flicker is in essence an unfair card, and the most abusable of both, and as long as creatures that can generate mana upon ETB continue to see print throughout the years, it will continue to negatively impact the meta. I think getting rid of it entirely will solve this problem and future ones regarding this.
Thanks to DNC from Heroes of the Plane Studios for the sig
Check my Pauper Cube!
Of these I think the most exciting for me are Elite Ganguard and Rally the Peasants. It encourages more aggressive Boros builds instead of the basic Mono-W so that is fun. I think Kird Ape is cool becuase we might get to see some Gruul aggro builds. Iuno, I would jus tlike to see some more aggro builds. I feel like you have 2 types of aggro builds available right now 1) All-In (Suicide Black and Red based Prowess) that fold after turn 5 but can't win before turn 4 and 2) Go Wide (Green Stompy and White Weenie) that just dump tokens onto the field and hope to not get outclassed but drag the game out forever. It would be nice to see some kind of Boss Sligh/Big Red aggro deck just to have some variance.
The others like Night's Whipser, Evlish Vanguard, and Enchantress slot into existing decks.
Drake could bring back and older archetype.
Warden might enable a fun U/W Flyers build not unlike Caw Blade but drop the Equipment for more fatty flyers.
Nimble Mongoose is a wierd one because I could see it enabling/helping existing graveyard decks but also helping enable some Gruul style aggro builds.
Sylvan Might screams Infect to me.
My honorable mentioned I think is Avarax. Its basically card draw in red and reminds me a lot of Infectious Bloodlust. Its pump ability means it can hit pretty hard too and maintain a threat on board. On the other hand its also 5 mana, it has no evasion, and dies to Bolt.
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I also really don't like the Night's Whisper downgrade. It's an auto-include in MBC, even if not a 4-of. Kird Ape as a common always made sense to me. Hopefully Yavimaya Enchantress is a good enough addition to my Boggles deck, although I'm not so sure.
I think the sheer amount of cards you can go through with Frantic Search is concerning and even if there's no infinite combo it's pretty hard to say it definitively won't do anything degenerate. It's been broken across several formats and I think letting a card like that back into the metagame needs to be done with a high amount of caution.
But I agree, Flicker is very much like Birthing Pod was in Modern - an engine card that only gets better over time. It probably will get itself banned at some point even if the Drake ends up getting the axe over it (assuming neo-Familiars is busted in half which still remains to be seen)
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Enchantress gets buffed from ALL enchantments including Journey to Nowhere and Oblivion Ring. Aura Gnarlid does not. I'm not making any judgements on if that's good enough or not, just saying.
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Whoop whoop!