I wouldn't run Juggler in a control deck, just because I have a single card, that is good at enabling it.
As far as the Juggler goes, it's pretty much how you expect it to be. It's very good in aggressive decks, but always has some variance built in. Btw. the worst case is a Kavu Climber with 1 toughness less.
Ill-Gotten Inheritance is actually very good on it's own. Regaining life can be the difference between winning and losing against any top decked red burn spell. It's just so amazing to have a win condition, that is immune to creature removal and also helps you stabilize on a comfortable life total.
If you guys have played the Standard Pauper event they're running on Arena you've probably seen A LOT of Inheritance. Although granted, its only standard card pool.
I'm brewing a mono black Pauper burn deck and Inheritance is pretty solid.
Blade Juggler, like every other half decent card in Pauper cube is playable. Magic players aren't capable of nuance so a card is either S tier or completely unplayable mediocre trash to them.
See: Lab Rats, Volcanic Hammer, Tidal Wave
You don't need auto damage every turn to trigger BJ, you could just, you know, swing in for some combat damage. If you're really concerned there is always the color red.
I've had people tell me that Fireblast and Gush aren't good cards in limited. I think it's important to ignore literally everything anyone on here and on the subreddit says and just try out cards that you think are fun.
If the cards turn out to be cool? Awesome!
If they turn out to suck? Well, one player is down a single card in his draft pool, no biggie. If after a few drafts the card isn't working out then take it out. Or hell, leave it in anyways if you still like the card. Dash Hopes isn't that good but it's still fun to get someone to concede to it.
So I made 3 exceptions to Pauper for 3 5 color rainbow creatures.
Since my Pauper cube has no bombs in it, there is little reason to play more than two colors. So I decided to incentivize multicolor with Genju of the Realm, Chromanticore, and Child of Alara.
Anyways, to go along with this I'm going to be adding more fixing since my cube lacks it, and a colorless section filled with affinity/metalcraft/sunburst/modular artifact creatures that the 5 color cards would fit nicely with.
I'm going to create two custom cards when I do this.
One will be a package deal of all 6 artifact lands. Draft one card and get one of each. The second will be a package deal of Ornithopter, Phyrexian Walker, Shield Sphere, and Tormod's Crypt.
I figure these cards are interesting and worth having in a draft, but aren't really worth drafting by themselves and I'm not a big fan of wasting 6 entire slots on basic lands that have, "Artifact" written on them.
After dedicating a lot of time to my old border cube, I've decided to return to my pauper cube and give it an overhaul. I'm selling off most of my collection (besides my cubes and constructed decks) and hope to get some good store credit. I want to use the credit to bling out my Pauper cube as much as possible. It's hard to do a search for specifically common premium cards online, unless i dredge the archives of FNM promos and go through them one by one. What are people's favorite promo/premium cards for pauper? How far have people gotten in their attempts to fully bling their cube? Are there certain cards that have promo versions that you think people just don't know about?
After dedicating a lot of time to my old border cube, I've decided to return to my pauper cube and give it an overhaul. I'm selling off most of my collection (besides my cubes and constructed decks) and hope to get some good store credit. I want to use the credit to bling out my Pauper cube as much as possible. It's hard to do a search for specifically common premium cards online, unless i dredge the archives of FNM promos and go through them one by one. What are people's favorite promo/premium cards for pauper? How far have people gotten in their attempts to fully bling their cube? Are there certain cards that have promo versions that you think people just don't know about?
Best,
CatParty
I have a promo foil Quirion Ranger and foil Gush I made a bunch of trades at the FLGS for. That's the hardest I've blinged out.
I have most of my cube foiled out.
Scryfall is the best way to search for all the different arts of certain cards. I'm pretty sure that in the advanced search menu, there is a pull-down menu called 'criteria' and there is a promo option there.
So as I stated above, I gave my Pauper cube a huge overhaul recently. I had fallen behind with updates around the past three or four sets, and I had been getting sort of bored of the "mandatory" updates to keep my cube strong. So I decided to scale things back and instead focus on developing specific archetypes and synergies in my cube. This allowed me to include a lot of newer cards which peaked my interest over the last few sets, as many seem to be great enablers for decks that would otherwise be too diluted in a Powered pauper cube.
I realize the CubeTutor AI isn't fully rounded out yet, skewing drafts, but I've been managing to construct some really fun looking decks. Blink seems to be a viable archetype, which hadn't been allowed in previous iterations of the cube. Along with Aristocrats in Bx decks, Soul Sisters, Dredge, and Spellslinger, these are all decks that now feel more focused and reliable to draft.
My concerns:
1. Is it too fast? This cube plays low to the ground, and Swarm is abundant since it synergizes with Aristocrats, Soul Sisters, and general aggro plans. I felt I included a number of pingers and a few "wrath" effects to compensate for this, but I dunno if it's enough.
2. Skies seemed like a very aggressive and evasive archetype, so I added lots of creatures with reach. Are there now too many?
3. Lands vs. Signets. Right now I'm running gain lands and bounce lands. I could swap one set of these for Signets to encourage midrange - but are there even any viable midrange decks in this cube? All I see is Big Green Stompy, but that already feel like it has enough ramp support. Or does it?
4. Are there any decks in this cube that seem like they would just dominate beyond belief? That was my concern with Skies, but I could be misevaluating/valuing some cards in here.
Any feedback and advice would be much appreciated! I really value the passion and efforts that you all contribute to this forum!
swarm is tough to balance, i had to even add sandstorm
signets are pretty strong, i definitely run them over a 2nd pair of duals, but i aim for raw power
Signets are just fine in Pauper cubes.
It's only in powered non-pauper environments where sweepers that destroy a bunch of lands in play are played where Signets are OP.
Otherwise you just resolve a 5 drop a turn early or it gets a little easier to start buying Evincar's Justice back or something. *shrug*
They're nice but sometimes you can get a little carried away with them and then all of a sudden you're running a ton of Signets in place of actual cards and you end up with a diluted deck.
I think the correct amount of signets is 1-2 max, depending on your curve. At least in my cube they dont actually just bring 5 drops a turn earlier, but actually make them somewhat playable in the first place. The meta is pretty fast and a lot of games are decided with 4 lands in play.
They also allow for easy splahses into a 3rd color, I really like them.
Thanks for the input. I've decided I'm going to run bouncelands over signets. I want Green ramp to feel special, so it should be the only color to get the fast mana. Other colors don't have much of a midrange plan anyway, and bouncelands can still be abused with free spells like Snap and Peregrine Drake. I think I'll even include Voyaging Satyr to help out green a bit more and it can play with the bouncelands as well.
Fountain of Ichor
Mother Bear
String of Disappearances
The 3 new pauper legal ninjas. Lol the 6/3 one is so gross.
Goblin War Party. Since I support Goblin Tribal and have already exhausted most of the cards that make goblin tokens, I had to put this in. Plus, it's mass pump if you need it.
The 3 mana white 3/3 with convoke that becomes a 5/5 if you control no tapped lands.
Answered Prayers.
Cave of Temptation.
Faerie Seer.
Savage Swipe.
I've yet to see a common from this set that isn't a decently powerful and/or interesting limited card. The only boring cards I've seen are the changelings, and that's just because I only support one tribe in my cube. Even stuff like Chillerpillar is fine.
The 3 mana white 3/3 with convoke that becomes a 5/5 if you control no tapped lands.
Martyr's Soul is a 3/2 - it becomes a 5/4. Still amazing! I'm trying out a ton in my cube right now. Haven't played with it yet though. I like this "push" in commons recently. Though not many are groundbreaking in any significant way, they enable more reliant synergy between many fun archetypes. They provide a lot more interactions and decision making to games, and make drafts less of a good stuff grab bag.
If you have a large emphasis on replaying creatures, they still feel underwhelming. If you do not, I consider them all but desperate/unplayable.
On paper a reusable 3/2 seems good. But do you play Greater Mossdog? That card is better.
As for the blue 5/5, seems good. BUT losing your draw of new card and they chump with a 1/1, they are winning that exchange. Especially since it has no evasion.
If you have a large emphasis on replaying creatures, they still feel underwhelming. If you do not, I consider them all but desperate/unplayable.
On paper a reusable 3/2 seems good. But do you play Greater Mossdog? That card is better.
As for the blue 5/5, seems good. BUT losing your draw of new card and they chump with a 1/1, they are winning that exchange. Especially since it has no evasion.
I try to shy away from bombs in my cube, and cards that are unlimited resources tend to be bombs. Like Sprout Swarm, Reaping the Graves, dredge creatures, retrace cards, buyback cards, etc.
Outrigger and Gravebane are an attempt to have some recursive threats balanced with some downsides or difficulties. Same with some others like wall of kelp and stonybrook schoolmaster and the three Thallid spawners.
Outrigger is also a pretty unique card. Blue doesn't tend to get above curve 4 mana 5/5's, and thematically most boat/serpent cards in the game are dumb below curve creatures that are only allowed to exist if your opponent has an island in play. This one seems kind of actually good and it may even be constructed pauper playable.
Tern and Omenspeaker are very different cards. I run Tern because I support skies. Speaker is good if you're trying to support ocntrol, and want to be able to defend against aggro. It also gets better with blink effects.
I love Razorfin Hunter. it used to be in my cube, but there are just so many Izzet cards I wanna run, I decided to swap it out. I moved Razorfin Hunter to my old border cube since there are lots of other available ping effects at common. Fireslinger does the same thing, essentially, and is splashable. I'd run lots of pingers if you're worried about Swarm being too strong in your cube. Otherwise I think Hypothesizzle is a really fun and unique card at common. It allows for lots of play options.
I'm trying to make room for both Goblin War Party AND the Giant in my cube. Giant slots into a Gruul ramp/stompy shell, while War Party plays into swarm. Again, it depends on which archetypes need the most support in your cube?
The only Enchantress card I'd run in pauper cube is Aura Gnarlid. Yavimaya Enchantress is a trap. You'd need to be running like 10 enchantments in each color in order for her to ever be guaranteed to be anything bigger than a 3/3 in a typical game. And in that case there re already plenty of vanilla 3/3s for 3cmc to run. Aura Gnarlid only needs one aura in play to already be better than Yavimaya Enchantress, and that's much easier to achieve than running enough enchantments to make the enchantress viable.
Saprazzan Outrigger is okay if you are playing a decent amount of removal not great but playable in some situations.
Agree with Night_Hydra on the problems with chumping. Gravebane Zombie is bad IMO 2 power creatues trade up big time sure they loose a creature each time but you lose a draw each time. Eventually they find the bigger threat and then you really don't wanna recur it.
Welkin Tern vs. Omenspeaker hmm for me it's the speaker although Tern is probably the better one.
I'm not sure if I would support Ramp in red. It's lackluster enough in green. War party seems okayish for swam, I've decided against it, even though I support swarm pretty heavily.
I strongly recommend most of the 10 Pauper legal Bestow creatures. They're all interesting, and Nimbus Naiad and Leafcrown Dryad are the two best ones. Bestow is a fun mechanic.
Ninjutsu is my favorite mechanic in the game, followed by Banding. Anything with ninjutsu is worth playing simply to retrigger ETB effects, and getting a 1/1 flier out of Moonblade is just icing on the cake.
Wight of Precinct Six has my least favorite art in the entire game, it's so soulless and digital looking, digital art sucked all of the soul from this game. Anyways, it seems like a fun card and the *****ty art is the only reason I don't have it in mine. If you can stand the art, go for it.
Delve is a mistake mechanic, everything with Delve is worth playing. Seems like a solid card.
Enchantress and Aura Gnarlid are decent cards.
Winding way seems fine. Green has a bunch of cantrips like Commune with Nature and Lead the Stampede and Commune with the Gods and Winding Way that are (almost) worth playing in constructed Pauper even. They should make great cube cards.
As far as the Juggler goes, it's pretty much how you expect it to be. It's very good in aggressive decks, but always has some variance built in. Btw. the worst case is a Kavu Climber with 1 toughness less.
Ill-Gotten Inheritance is actually very good on it's own. Regaining life can be the difference between winning and losing against any top decked red burn spell. It's just so amazing to have a win condition, that is immune to creature removal and also helps you stabilize on a comfortable life total.
Pauper Cube & Artifact Pauper Cube & Multiplayer Cube
Interested in building your own Pauper Cube? Take a look at some of the lists and the following project: The "Evaluate Everything" Project (updated to M21/JMP)
Blade Juggler, like every other half decent card in Pauper cube is playable. Magic players aren't capable of nuance so a card is either S tier or completely unplayable mediocre trash to them.
See: Lab Rats, Volcanic Hammer, Tidal Wave
You don't need auto damage every turn to trigger BJ, you could just, you know, swing in for some combat damage. If you're really concerned there is always the color red.
I've had people tell me that Fireblast and Gush aren't good cards in limited. I think it's important to ignore literally everything anyone on here and on the subreddit says and just try out cards that you think are fun.
If the cards turn out to be cool? Awesome!
If they turn out to suck? Well, one player is down a single card in his draft pool, no biggie. If after a few drafts the card isn't working out then take it out. Or hell, leave it in anyways if you still like the card. Dash Hopes isn't that good but it's still fun to get someone to concede to it.
Blade Juggler is a fun card. Give it a chance.
Ignoring what Magic players say isn't the answer, it's listening to what they have to say and doing the exact opposite that's correct.
T2 powpercube Value https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
Since my Pauper cube has no bombs in it, there is little reason to play more than two colors. So I decided to incentivize multicolor with Genju of the Realm, Chromanticore, and Child of Alara.
Anyways, to go along with this I'm going to be adding more fixing since my cube lacks it, and a colorless section filled with affinity/metalcraft/sunburst/modular artifact creatures that the 5 color cards would fit nicely with.
I'm going to create two custom cards when I do this.
One will be a package deal of all 6 artifact lands. Draft one card and get one of each. The second will be a package deal of Ornithopter, Phyrexian Walker, Shield Sphere, and Tormod's Crypt.
I figure these cards are interesting and worth having in a draft, but aren't really worth drafting by themselves and I'm not a big fan of wasting 6 entire slots on basic lands that have, "Artifact" written on them.
Ignoring what Magic players say isn't the answer, it's listening to what they have to say and doing the exact opposite that's correct.
Loose Change Pauper Cube-cast
Pauper Cube Article #1
Pauper Cube Article #2
Personal Enjoyment Cube
Best,
CatParty
GWUBRDraft my Old Border Nostalgia Cube! and/or The Little Pauper Cube That Could!RBUWG
Modern:WDeath & TaxesW | RUGRUG DelverRUG
I have a promo foil Quirion Ranger and foil Gush I made a bunch of trades at the FLGS for. That's the hardest I've blinged out.
I have most of my cube foiled out.
Scryfall is the best way to search for all the different arts of certain cards. I'm pretty sure that in the advanced search menu, there is a pull-down menu called 'criteria' and there is a promo option there.
Ignoring what Magic players say isn't the answer, it's listening to what they have to say and doing the exact opposite that's correct.
Loose Change Pauper Cube-cast
Pauper Cube Article #1
Pauper Cube Article #2
Personal Enjoyment Cube
Loose Change Pauper Cube-cast
Pauper Cube Article #1
Pauper Cube Article #2
Personal Enjoyment Cube
Here is the newly overhauled cube at the moment: http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/57658
I realize the CubeTutor AI isn't fully rounded out yet, skewing drafts, but I've been managing to construct some really fun looking decks. Blink seems to be a viable archetype, which hadn't been allowed in previous iterations of the cube. Along with Aristocrats in Bx decks, Soul Sisters, Dredge, and Spellslinger, these are all decks that now feel more focused and reliable to draft.
My concerns:
1. Is it too fast? This cube plays low to the ground, and Swarm is abundant since it synergizes with Aristocrats, Soul Sisters, and general aggro plans. I felt I included a number of pingers and a few "wrath" effects to compensate for this, but I dunno if it's enough.
2. Skies seemed like a very aggressive and evasive archetype, so I added lots of creatures with reach. Are there now too many?
3. Lands vs. Signets. Right now I'm running gain lands and bounce lands. I could swap one set of these for Signets to encourage midrange - but are there even any viable midrange decks in this cube? All I see is Big Green Stompy, but that already feel like it has enough ramp support. Or does it?
4. Are there any decks in this cube that seem like they would just dominate beyond belief? That was my concern with Skies, but I could be misevaluating/valuing some cards in here.
Any feedback and advice would be much appreciated! I really value the passion and efforts that you all contribute to this forum!
GWUBRDraft my Old Border Nostalgia Cube! and/or The Little Pauper Cube That Could!RBUWG
Modern:WDeath & TaxesW | RUGRUG DelverRUG
swarm is tough to balance, i had to even add sandstorm
signets are pretty strong, i definitely run them over a 2nd pair of duals, but i aim for raw power
T2 powpercube Value https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
Signets are just fine in Pauper cubes.
It's only in powered non-pauper environments where sweepers that destroy a bunch of lands in play are played where Signets are OP.
Otherwise you just resolve a 5 drop a turn early or it gets a little easier to start buying Evincar's Justice back or something. *shrug*
They're nice but sometimes you can get a little carried away with them and then all of a sudden you're running a ton of Signets in place of actual cards and you end up with a diluted deck.
Ignoring what Magic players say isn't the answer, it's listening to what they have to say and doing the exact opposite that's correct.
They also allow for easy splahses into a 3rd color, I really like them.
T2 powpercube Value https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
GWUBRDraft my Old Border Nostalgia Cube! and/or The Little Pauper Cube That Could!RBUWG
Modern:WDeath & TaxesW | RUGRUG DelverRUG
Cards I'm trying out:
Fountain of Ichor
Mother Bear
String of Disappearances
The 3 new pauper legal ninjas. Lol the 6/3 one is so gross.
Goblin War Party. Since I support Goblin Tribal and have already exhausted most of the cards that make goblin tokens, I had to put this in. Plus, it's mass pump if you need it.
The 3 mana white 3/3 with convoke that becomes a 5/5 if you control no tapped lands.
Answered Prayers.
Cave of Temptation.
Faerie Seer.
Savage Swipe.
I've yet to see a common from this set that isn't a decently powerful and/or interesting limited card. The only boring cards I've seen are the changelings, and that's just because I only support one tribe in my cube. Even stuff like Chillerpillar is fine.
Ignoring what Magic players say isn't the answer, it's listening to what they have to say and doing the exact opposite that's correct.
Martyr's Soul is a 3/2 - it becomes a 5/4. Still amazing! I'm trying out a ton in my cube right now. Haven't played with it yet though. I like this "push" in commons recently. Though not many are groundbreaking in any significant way, they enable more reliant synergy between many fun archetypes. They provide a lot more interactions and decision making to games, and make drafts less of a good stuff grab bag.
GWUBRDraft my Old Border Nostalgia Cube! and/or The Little Pauper Cube That Could!RBUWG
Modern:WDeath & TaxesW | RUGRUG DelverRUG
Ignoring what Magic players say isn't the answer, it's listening to what they have to say and doing the exact opposite that's correct.
On paper a reusable 3/2 seems good. But do you play Greater Mossdog? That card is better.
As for the blue 5/5, seems good. BUT losing your draw of new card and they chump with a 1/1, they are winning that exchange. Especially since it has no evasion.
Loose Change Pauper Cube-cast
Pauper Cube Article #1
Pauper Cube Article #2
Personal Enjoyment Cube
I try to shy away from bombs in my cube, and cards that are unlimited resources tend to be bombs. Like Sprout Swarm, Reaping the Graves, dredge creatures, retrace cards, buyback cards, etc.
Outrigger and Gravebane are an attempt to have some recursive threats balanced with some downsides or difficulties. Same with some others like wall of kelp and stonybrook schoolmaster and the three Thallid spawners.
Outrigger is also a pretty unique card. Blue doesn't tend to get above curve 4 mana 5/5's, and thematically most boat/serpent cards in the game are dumb below curve creatures that are only allowed to exist if your opponent has an island in play. This one seems kind of actually good and it may even be constructed pauper playable.
Ignoring what Magic players say isn't the answer, it's listening to what they have to say and doing the exact opposite that's correct.
- Welkin Tern vs Omenspeaker
- Hypothesizzle vs Razorfin Hunter
- Goblin War Party vs Ill-Tempered Cyclops (both roleplayers for Swarm/Sacrifice and Ramp, respectively)
Also, what are your thoughts on Observant Alseid, Moonblade Shinobi, Wight of Precinct Six, Magmatic Sinkhole, Leafcrown Dryad, Yavimaya Enchantress and Winding Way as individual cards, archetypes not withstanding?
Thanks to DNC from Heroes of the Plane Studios for the sig
Check my Pauper Cube!
Tern and Omenspeaker are very different cards. I run Tern because I support skies. Speaker is good if you're trying to support ocntrol, and want to be able to defend against aggro. It also gets better with blink effects.
I love Razorfin Hunter. it used to be in my cube, but there are just so many Izzet cards I wanna run, I decided to swap it out. I moved Razorfin Hunter to my old border cube since there are lots of other available ping effects at common. Fireslinger does the same thing, essentially, and is splashable. I'd run lots of pingers if you're worried about Swarm being too strong in your cube. Otherwise I think Hypothesizzle is a really fun and unique card at common. It allows for lots of play options.
I'm trying to make room for both Goblin War Party AND the Giant in my cube. Giant slots into a Gruul ramp/stompy shell, while War Party plays into swarm. Again, it depends on which archetypes need the most support in your cube?
The only Enchantress card I'd run in pauper cube is Aura Gnarlid. Yavimaya Enchantress is a trap. You'd need to be running like 10 enchantments in each color in order for her to ever be guaranteed to be anything bigger than a 3/3 in a typical game. And in that case there re already plenty of vanilla 3/3s for 3cmc to run. Aura Gnarlid only needs one aura in play to already be better than Yavimaya Enchantress, and that's much easier to achieve than running enough enchantments to make the enchantress viable.
GWUBRDraft my Old Border Nostalgia Cube! and/or The Little Pauper Cube That Could!RBUWG
Modern:WDeath & TaxesW | RUGRUG DelverRUG
Agree with Night_Hydra on the problems with chumping.
Gravebane Zombie is bad IMO 2 power creatues trade up big time sure they loose a creature each time but you lose a draw each time. Eventually they find the bigger threat and then you really don't wanna recur it.
Welkin Tern vs. Omenspeaker hmm for me it's the speaker although Tern is probably the better one.
Hypothesizzle vs Razorfin Hunter sizzle all the way.
Goblin War Party vs Ill-Tempered Cyclops i tend towards War party but then again i draft swarm more often than ramp
CatParty already said anything, that is to say about Tern vs. Speaker.
I personally prefer Goblin Electromancer and Frostburn Weird over booth options.
I'm not sure if I would support Ramp in red. It's lackluster enough in green. War party seems okayish for swam, I've decided against it, even though I support swarm pretty heavily.
Yavimaya Enchantress is fine in my cube. I'm pretty heavy into the aura archetype and stuff like Utopia Sprawl, Wild Growth and Abundant Growth make this pretty solid, IMO.
Pauper Cube & Artifact Pauper Cube & Multiplayer Cube
Interested in building your own Pauper Cube? Take a look at some of the lists and the following project: The "Evaluate Everything" Project (updated to M21/JMP)
I strongly recommend most of the 10 Pauper legal Bestow creatures. They're all interesting, and Nimbus Naiad and Leafcrown Dryad are the two best ones. Bestow is a fun mechanic.
Ninjutsu is my favorite mechanic in the game, followed by Banding. Anything with ninjutsu is worth playing simply to retrigger ETB effects, and getting a 1/1 flier out of Moonblade is just icing on the cake.
Wight of Precinct Six has my least favorite art in the entire game, it's so soulless and digital looking, digital art sucked all of the soul from this game. Anyways, it seems like a fun card and the *****ty art is the only reason I don't have it in mine. If you can stand the art, go for it.
Delve is a mistake mechanic, everything with Delve is worth playing. Seems like a solid card.
Enchantress and Aura Gnarlid are decent cards.
Winding way seems fine. Green has a bunch of cantrips like Commune with Nature and Lead the Stampede and Commune with the Gods and Winding Way that are (almost) worth playing in constructed Pauper even. They should make great cube cards.
Ignoring what Magic players say isn't the answer, it's listening to what they have to say and doing the exact opposite that's correct.