Hey folks! We're well into the spoiler season with only two weeks to go before release. Not too many commons to talk about, but here are a few interesting things nonetheless.
Blade Juggler could have had potential if it had been a 2/2 with one less to Spectacle. As it sits, it's pretty average.
I love Burning-Tree Vandal. This card is aggressively costed for its abilities. Being able to haste out and rummage just for attacking is excellent. If you can't attack profitably, you can always opt for a 3/2 for 3 with a great ability. I doubt it will see much play, but it's a beautiful card.
Skewer the Critics is one of the better riffs on Lightning Bolt I've seen in a while. This will see play in Burn for sure. You are damaging the opponent every turn with burn, so activating the cheap Spectacle cost shouldn't be an issue. Great card!
People have already written about Growth Spiral since it was one of the first cards to be spoiled. It's an excellent rate for an instant speed spell. Is this the only way to make land drops during an opponent's turn in Pauper? In any case, it's certainly got potential.
Blade Juggler actually looks pretty good to me as a potential Phrexian Rager replacement. Spectacle is fairly easy for MBC to trigger with a t2 Witches or another early drop and the 3 power is better than Rager. I'll definitely test it out. It can also skirt around Prohibit and Spellstutter Sprite since it's CMC is 5.
Burning-Tree Vandal makes a mono red madness build viable by adding a good discard outlet. I doubt that would be better than other Madness builds, but I like having more options for variants of archetypes.
Sauroform Hybrid looks good for a Big Green build. Functionally a 6/6 with haste for 6 mana that can add some pressure in early turns might be something people will overlook. And if it eats some removal early then that saves some of your other threats later on.
I like the design of Frenzied Arynx. Riot looks like a fixed Tribute since it puts the choice in the controlling player's hands, but either way a 3/3 with trample and haste or a 4/4 with trample looks good and it has a late game mana sink. Is this the finisher the fringe Frenzied Tilling decks need to become more relevant? Maybe!
I'm definitely gonna be playing Burn the week after RNA becomes legal. Skewer is gonna push that archetype forward...everyone make sure to pack some life gain in your SBs!
Persistent Petitioner could spawn a new janky archetype. Don't know if it'll be good, but I did lose to a Relentless Rats deck in the final round of a tournament last week.
It's not the splashiest card, but I'm actually considering running Titanic Brawl in my GW Tethmos deck. Those colors are light on instant-speed removal, and I'd even consider playing Pounce/Pit Fight since it's instant speed removal and gives a Heroic trigger on Tethmos High Priest. Also the deck runs 4x Travel Preparations, so the +1/+1 counter effect is a slight upside over those cards.
Twilight Panther as a 1/2 for one W with a deathtouch activation for B seems like it could be played in something as well.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Playing since 1994: Currently MAGS (HomeBrew),Standard & Pauper (Pioneer and Modern are degenerate trash formats)
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
Impassionate Orator is a beefier Soul Sister. Pretty good ability for a bear.
Summary Judgement is probably the white removal spell that White has needed alongside Journey to Nowhere. 5 damage is the necessary threshold a card like this needs to have in order to see mainstream play. It kills Anglers, which is huge! Being able to play it right after attackers are declared is also relevant.
When I saw Clear the Mind, I screamed "NOOOOOOO!" Pauper finally has a card that can shuffle its owners graveyard back into the library. And it Cantrips! This is huge. This is a way for Blue decks to stop Mill decks (like Turbo Fog)from winning. For me, there are three options here: 1) This is a must-counter spell, 2) Turbo Fog needs to run graveyard hate like Relic of Progenitus to reduce the effectiveness of the card, but weakening its sideboard plan against Blue decks that would otherwise not warrant graveyard hate or 3) Turbo Fog needs to play its own copy of Clear the Mind in its sideboard to keep up. This card may also begin a trend towards durdling decks that do absolutely no milling but only survive while the opponent draws themselves to death. This should be an interesting card!
Prying Eyes is a massive draw spell! Instant speed draw 4 is excellent, regardless of having to discard 2 afterwards. I like it a lot! I feel like it could see play as a singleton in a lot blue control decks. UB Mystical Teachings maybe?
Sage's Row Savant is an aggressively costed card for its stats and abilities. It reminds me of Omenspeaker, but with more of an aggro bend, which I don't hate. Aggro decks want to be able to smooth out their draws too.
Goblin Gathering is a pretty hilarious card that I think could be fairly powerful in the right build. Consider a control deck with Pieces of the Puzzle and Archaeomancer and Mnemonic Wall to consistently make 4-5 Goblins at a time. Could be an interesting deck. The card is still rather expensive on the front end for only two goblins, but it's great as soon as there is a single copy in the gy.
Sagittar's Volley is yet another pushed anti-flying green card. It looks powerful on paper to beat Delver (kill a delver and ping all the faeries), but can it really beat Aerial Volley?
Wrecking Beast has an amazing amount of text for a beatstick common filler. a 6/6 with trample and haste is well worth 7 mana in my books. This is one of the cases where the haste seems so much better than the counter only because it's on a green card.
Applied Biomancy has the lure of being a 2 for 1. I think they could have made the pump a little bit bigger, like +1/+2 or something to really make it great.
Rubblebelt Runner has some interesting text that I've only seen on a rare, which is Legion Loyalist. Is it relevant to Pauper? Not particularly, but I think it's worth mentioning because it's so unique. Pauper really got some treatment this set!
When I saw Clear the Mind, I screamed "NOOOOOOO!" Pauper finally has a card that can shuffle its owners graveyard back into the library. And it Cantrips! This is huge. This is a way for Blue decks to stop Mill decks (like Turbo Fog)from winning. For me, there are three options here: 1) This is a must-counter spell, 2) Turbo Fog needs to run graveyard hate like Relic of Progenitus to reduce the effectiveness of the card, but weakening its sideboard plan against Blue decks that would otherwise not warrant graveyard hate or 3) Turbo Fog needs to play its own copy of Clear the Mind in its sideboard to keep up. This card may also begin a trend towards durdling decks that do absolutely no milling but only survive while the opponent draws themselves to death. This should be an interesting card!
Yep, just what Blue needs, more tools, more cards, more durdling. It never stops.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Playing since 1994: Currently MAGS (HomeBrew),Standard & Pauper (Pioneer and Modern are degenerate trash formats)
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
What do you all think of Persistent Petitioners? Could advisor tribal be a viable archetype? Seems hilarious. You would only need about 4 activations of its final ability to kill someone.
Playing since 1994: Currently MAGS (HomeBrew),Standard & Pauper (Pioneer and Modern are degenerate trash formats)
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
In terms of raw power level impact, I think this is the same as recent sets with about one major new card per set (Ghitu Lavarunner in Dominaria, Devious Cover-Up in Guilds of Ravnica). In terms of unique effects and build-arounds, though, this set seems much bigger than average. And it's not just as if WotC is adding complexity to common, but it feels like they're creating more cards with depth and lenticular complexity.
Is about all that may make some inroads. Everything else seems like SB tech or fringe stuff. And notice what color 3 of these 4 are. Blue as always.
RE: "Blue as always"...I think Skewer the Critics is going to be the one card to truly impact competitive Pauper, and it's totally un-blue.
Clear the Mind is interesting, but I think Devious Cover-Up is probably better. Persistent Petitioners and Growth Spiral are interesting and might go into fringe rogue decks, but even though they're blue, they're not gonna go anywhere near the dominant Delver strategy. So even if they're blue I see them as pro-diversity, not anti-diversity.
Rubble Reading is probably the best new land destruction spell WotC has printed in ~13 years. I used to play Implode in UR LD deck during Invasion-Odyssey block Standard, and wished that effect were in Pauper for grindy LD decks. Scry 2 is often comparable to draw 1, so maybe this might make RG Ponza more of a thing in addition to Mono-G Ponza.
Ill-Gotten Inheritance is a unique effect that might find a home. It's comparable to Pristine Talisman in UB Teachings decks, although this is also a win-con. Maybe this could go in GWB Enchantress decks, cutting the U they use for Curse of the Bloody Tome as a win-con?
Because 3 of those 4 are indeed Blue. Hence the comment.
Again the rest you have mentioned is interesting and will filter in somewhere at some time but they seem fringe at best. I'm glad for more cards that open up the format and strategies, I just don't see it opening it up hardly at all. Most of those cards listed have better alternatives and many of them get to that 4 cmc mark which makes them near unplayable unless their effect is game changing.
As for Skewer I just see it replacing maybe a 2 of something in Burn. I don't think it makes it any faster, just lets it take out creatures a little better than say a Lava Spike.
I'm not disagreeing that these cards won't find a home, I just think their impact is going to be negligible. We will have to agree to disagree.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Playing since 1994: Currently MAGS (HomeBrew),Standard & Pauper (Pioneer and Modern are degenerate trash formats)
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
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Blade Juggler could have had potential if it had been a 2/2 with one less to Spectacle. As it sits, it's pretty average.
I love Burning-Tree Vandal. This card is aggressively costed for its abilities. Being able to haste out and rummage just for attacking is excellent. If you can't attack profitably, you can always opt for a 3/2 for 3 with a great ability. I doubt it will see much play, but it's a beautiful card.
Skewer the Critics is one of the better riffs on Lightning Bolt I've seen in a while. This will see play in Burn for sure. You are damaging the opponent every turn with burn, so activating the cheap Spectacle cost shouldn't be an issue. Great card!
People have already written about Growth Spiral since it was one of the first cards to be spoiled. It's an excellent rate for an instant speed spell. Is this the only way to make land drops during an opponent's turn in Pauper? In any case, it's certainly got potential.
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
Burning-Tree Vandal makes a mono red madness build viable by adding a good discard outlet. I doubt that would be better than other Madness builds, but I like having more options for variants of archetypes.
Sauroform Hybrid looks good for a Big Green build. Functionally a 6/6 with haste for 6 mana that can add some pressure in early turns might be something people will overlook. And if it eats some removal early then that saves some of your other threats later on.
I like the design of Frenzied Arynx. Riot looks like a fixed Tribute since it puts the choice in the controlling player's hands, but either way a 3/3 with trample and haste or a 4/4 with trample looks good and it has a late game mana sink. Is this the finisher the fringe Frenzied Tilling decks need to become more relevant? Maybe!
Persistent Petitioner could spawn a new janky archetype. Don't know if it'll be good, but I did lose to a Relentless Rats deck in the final round of a tournament last week.
It's not the splashiest card, but I'm actually considering running Titanic Brawl in my GW Tethmos deck. Those colors are light on instant-speed removal, and I'd even consider playing Pounce/Pit Fight since it's instant speed removal and gives a Heroic trigger on Tethmos High Priest. Also the deck runs 4x Travel Preparations, so the +1/+1 counter effect is a slight upside over those cards.
Corrupt Control B | Burn R | UG Turbofog UG | White Weenie W | GW Tethmos WG | BG Cycling Combo BG
Enchantress GBW | Colorless Tron C | Red Deck Wins R | UG Madness UG | Mono-G Tron G | UR Puzzlehorns UR
Rhystic Tron WU| WU Prowess WU | BR Reanimator BR | Mono-R Control R | Stompy G | Temur Tron URG
Mardu Infinite Priest WBR | 85-Card Dredge BRG | Elves GU | Boros Bully RW | Jeskai Familiars RWU
Twilight Panther as a 1/2 for one W with a deathtouch activation for B seems like it could be played in something as well.
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
I am loving some of the new additions!
Impassionate Orator is a beefier Soul Sister. Pretty good ability for a bear.
Summary Judgement is probably the white removal spell that White has needed alongside Journey to Nowhere. 5 damage is the necessary threshold a card like this needs to have in order to see mainstream play. It kills Anglers, which is huge! Being able to play it right after attackers are declared is also relevant.
When I saw Clear the Mind, I screamed "NOOOOOOO!" Pauper finally has a card that can shuffle its owners graveyard back into the library. And it Cantrips! This is huge. This is a way for Blue decks to stop Mill decks (like Turbo Fog)from winning. For me, there are three options here: 1) This is a must-counter spell, 2) Turbo Fog needs to run graveyard hate like Relic of Progenitus to reduce the effectiveness of the card, but weakening its sideboard plan against Blue decks that would otherwise not warrant graveyard hate or 3) Turbo Fog needs to play its own copy of Clear the Mind in its sideboard to keep up. This card may also begin a trend towards durdling decks that do absolutely no milling but only survive while the opponent draws themselves to death. This should be an interesting card!
Prying Eyes is a massive draw spell! Instant speed draw 4 is excellent, regardless of having to discard 2 afterwards. I like it a lot! I feel like it could see play as a singleton in a lot blue control decks. UB Mystical Teachings maybe?
Sage's Row Savant is an aggressively costed card for its stats and abilities. It reminds me of Omenspeaker, but with more of an aggro bend, which I don't hate. Aggro decks want to be able to smooth out their draws too.
Goblin Gathering is a pretty hilarious card that I think could be fairly powerful in the right build. Consider a control deck with Pieces of the Puzzle and Archaeomancer and Mnemonic Wall to consistently make 4-5 Goblins at a time. Could be an interesting deck. The card is still rather expensive on the front end for only two goblins, but it's great as soon as there is a single copy in the gy.
Open the Gates I mention because it is great fixing for 3-5 colour decks, but probably won't beat cards like Utopia Sprawl, Abundant Growth or Nylea's Presence.
Sagittar's Volley is yet another pushed anti-flying green card. It looks powerful on paper to beat Delver (kill a delver and ping all the faeries), but can it really beat Aerial Volley?
Wrecking Beast has an amazing amount of text for a beatstick common filler. a 6/6 with trample and haste is well worth 7 mana in my books. This is one of the cases where the haste seems so much better than the counter only because it's on a green card.
Applied Biomancy has the lure of being a 2 for 1. I think they could have made the pump a little bit bigger, like +1/+2 or something to really make it great.
Rubblebelt Runner has some interesting text that I've only seen on a rare, which is Legion Loyalist. Is it relevant to Pauper? Not particularly, but I think it's worth mentioning because it's so unique. Pauper really got some treatment this set!
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
Yep, just what Blue needs, more tools, more cards, more durdling. It never stops.
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
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
There is some interesting stuff for sure. I just don't see much of it making much of an impact outside of maybe 3 or 4 cards.
Skewer the Critics
Clear the Mind
Persistent Petitioners
Growth Spiral
Is about all that may make some inroads. Everything else seems like SB tech or fringe stuff. And notice what color 3 of these 4 are. Blue as always.
It would if there were any other advisors. There are none in Pauper. All you need is this one though.
EDIT: I did forget about the Changelings being all creature types.
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
RE: "Blue as always"...I think Skewer the Critics is going to be the one card to truly impact competitive Pauper, and it's totally un-blue.
Clear the Mind is interesting, but I think Devious Cover-Up is probably better. Persistent Petitioners and Growth Spiral are interesting and might go into fringe rogue decks, but even though they're blue, they're not gonna go anywhere near the dominant Delver strategy. So even if they're blue I see them as pro-diversity, not anti-diversity.
Sagittar's Volley is interesting compared to Aerial Volley. Unlike the latter, it's still a good SB card vs. Boros Monarch. You can kill one Kor Skyfisher or Glint Hawk, as well as all their Battle Screech tokens.
Two other cards I haven't seen mentioned:
Rubble Reading is probably the best new land destruction spell WotC has printed in ~13 years. I used to play Implode in UR LD deck during Invasion-Odyssey block Standard, and wished that effect were in Pauper for grindy LD decks. Scry 2 is often comparable to draw 1, so maybe this might make RG Ponza more of a thing in addition to Mono-G Ponza.
Ill-Gotten Inheritance is a unique effect that might find a home. It's comparable to Pristine Talisman in UB Teachings decks, although this is also a win-con. Maybe this could go in GWB Enchantress decks, cutting the U they use for Curse of the Bloody Tome as a win-con?
Corrupt Control B | Burn R | UG Turbofog UG | White Weenie W | GW Tethmos WG | BG Cycling Combo BG
Enchantress GBW | Colorless Tron C | Red Deck Wins R | UG Madness UG | Mono-G Tron G | UR Puzzlehorns UR
Rhystic Tron WU| WU Prowess WU | BR Reanimator BR | Mono-R Control R | Stompy G | Temur Tron URG
Mardu Infinite Priest WBR | 85-Card Dredge BRG | Elves GU | Boros Bully RW | Jeskai Familiars RWU
Again the rest you have mentioned is interesting and will filter in somewhere at some time but they seem fringe at best. I'm glad for more cards that open up the format and strategies, I just don't see it opening it up hardly at all. Most of those cards listed have better alternatives and many of them get to that 4 cmc mark which makes them near unplayable unless their effect is game changing.
As for Skewer I just see it replacing maybe a 2 of something in Burn. I don't think it makes it any faster, just lets it take out creatures a little better than say a Lava Spike.
I'm not disagreeing that these cards won't find a home, I just think their impact is going to be negligible. We will have to agree to disagree.
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."