MTG Salvation

We got a good number of downgraded cards from Uncommon to Common in this set:

Ancestral Blade
Crib Swap
Crusader of Odric
Sanctum Spirit

Frogify
Vedalken Infuser

Bone Picker
Cast Down

Balduvian Rage
Kazuul's Toll Collector
Orcish Vandal
Rapacious Dragon
Abrade

Conclave Naturalists

Everflowing Chalice
Golem-Skin Guantlets
Iron League Steed
Magnifying Glass
Skinwing
Surge Node
Myr Retriever

I think that's all of them. What are you most excited about? Are there any cards here that you think will made an impact on the format?

Cast Down seems to be the very best 2-mana removal in Black they've ever had at common. Step aside, Victim of Night.

I'm really hyped to play Bone Picker. Black got its own Delver of Secrets that's even easier to activate!

White got the most downgrades after artifacts, but unfortunately, not much of it seems playable. Ancestral Blade is on-curve and potentially strong, but I can't see any deck wanting this right now. Crib Swap is exiling removal, but the 3 mana is more of a drawback than the 1/1 changeling it leaves behind. I could see it getting some play, though.

I'm pumped for Balduvian Rage, but only because it's going to go into my Zada, Hedron Grinder PDH deck. Aside from that, Rapacious Dragon is the biggest dragon in Pauper and making two treasures is very strong. Orcish Vandal turns your artifacts into free Shocks, which could have applications. Abrade was a staple Standard card, time will tell if it will make its way into Pauper sideboards, as competition for artifact hate and creautre removal is pretty fierce though we've never had both on a card this efficient I think.

Everflowing Chalice is such a powerful card, but I can't think of any ramp deck that would play it.

Myr Retriever is ripe with combos and has seen play in very successful decks in the past in eternal formats. Alex Ullman wrote an article about the potential power of Myr Retriever in Pauper: https://www.channelfireball.com/all-strategy/articles/myr-retriever-in-pauper/

Golem-Skin Guantlets is a fetchable Trinket Mage target that gets better with other equipment. With 2 other equipments attached, it offers more power than Bonesplitter.

Magnifying Glass is unforunately a bit outclassed by Bonder's Ornament, but maybe certain decks will want the extra permanents in play rather than cheaper card draw.

Surge Node is an extremely efficient card. There are very few cards in Pauper that actually use Charge counters, and even fewer that are even playable. Everflowing Chalice seems like the best fit here, but I think it will take more than that to make a deck want to play this.

All super insightful comments. Thank you!

I had not thought about how it would be translated into other languages. My native language is French, which is generally wordier than English. I'll have to take a look at a translation of Oubliette when I can get my hands on it (I don't even know if they translated Arabian Nights into French, actually). "Oubliette" itself is a French word!

It's interesting to note how similar in word count and character count Oubliette and Animate Dead are. Thinking a bit more about Animate Dead, I see a major difference in how intuitive it is over Oubliette. Animate Dead does pretty much exactly what you expect it to do just by reading the card name. The same can't be said for Oubliette, in my opinion.

Again, thanks for your thoughts. The subject is much deeper than I'd imagined.

Thanks for the reply!

Why couldn't they reprint Oubliette with the previous wording? I get that it sucks, but it reminds me a bit of the Animate Dead situation. Could they not have done the same thing?

What do you think is the most problematic thing about the current wording? Is it the noting of counters and quantity?

In the end though, I agree with you. This felt like the best way to reprint this odd-ball. I imagine it will see more play now with increased accessibility.

It was high time for an update. Almost three years have passed without very little tweaks, yet so much has changed.

First off, with all the changes to decks and bannings and everything, I have found that the price for the 17 decks actually hasn't changed dramatically. It went from $715.74 to $768.34. This doesn't seem unreasonable when considering the steady rise in costs of our favourite hobby.

Other contributing factors to the modest rise in the cost of the Battle Bag are the reprinting of Ash Barrens which reduced the price of many decks by $10+, which is great.

Mono-Black Control has had a decent facelift and now even sports Oubliette. The cost of the deck has nearly doubled, however. Gone are the days where you can have a competitive Pauper deck for under $20.

The Mono-White deck went from Weenies to Heroic. It competes somewhat with the Hexproof deck in Selesnya, but still certainly has its own flare.

The Rakdos deck is now a Goblins list! I am very happy with this switch. The deck is one of the funnest I have ever played and is quite strong.

The Tron list has changed quite a bit. I decided to stay away from the popular Flicker version that is in the meta right now and stayed with a more traditional RG list with a splash in WUB. Crop Rotation takes the place of the now banned Expedition Map; time will tell if can live up to the card. I also included a nice tutor package to go along with it, so the deck is pretty spicy.

The Orzhov Pestilence deck is now almost creaturless and plays a lot more like a control deck than a lock. There is also a nice discard package.

Winding Way has made its way into many decks, which allows for lower land counts and lower curves.

I finally got rid of Auriok Sunchaser in the Affinity deck to make space for more powerful cards and filtering.

Some deck will still be in a state of flux as I playtest them and potentially change them altogether. My friends frequently complain about the Dimir Control deck and how unfun it is to play with and against. I am seriously thinking about switching it out for a Rat Lock deck, which is at least a bit more interesting. The Eye Candy deck has been hit by so many bannings through the years that the deck seems almost unrecognizable. I am still unsure about how to proceed with making up for losing Dazes and Gush and all that. I expect this deck to look very different after I work it out.

We are finally getting a much-needed reprint of Oubliette, which was only ever printed in Arabian Nights! You could regularly see this common going for 40-50$. Even reprinted as an uncommon, this card will probably start at 3-4$ and wind its way down once Pauper players have had their fill.

On to the topic:

The original Oubliette had some very strange wording to it, exiling anything attached to the creature as well as retaining counters. This does sound a lot like Phasing, which is what Oubliette was changed into. There is one major difference I wanted to point out, however: Oubliette will no longer trigger ETB abilities like it did before.

This is most likely an improvement to the card overall, but it all depends on what you do with it. No more Aven Riftwatchers coming back with FIVE vanishing counters, but that Skarrgan Pit-Skulk is coming back with all his counters and auras.

What do you all think of the change in text? For better or worse? Should they have stuck to the original, wordy ability?

Quote from pektusman »

Ooooh, Replicate. Now I see. Correct me if I'm wrong, you only have to cast Stream of Thought once (for U), then if you have 8 extra mana, say 4UUUU, opponent mills 12 total? Me likey. Gotta get me some Tangles so I can build this.

Yeah, it's a sweet card!

if you want to mill 12, you have to pay 4UUUUU (U+2UU+2UU). It's rare to pay that much, but it does happen. Usually, I only pay U or 2UUU during a game.

Quote from pektusman »

I have to ask: Why only 2 copies of Jace's Erasure?

I basically replaced 2 copies for Stream of Thought. The initial reasoning was that sorceries are even more difficult to interact with than enchantments, which makes losing to something like Gleeful Sabotage very unlikely. Erasure was also not the best draw in the very late game, where SoT can just end the game with enough mana. In addition, Stream also prevents me from milling myself out and shuffles lost/important pieces to my game plan back into the deck, which Erasure can't do.

Yeah I was really happy with the deck so far. Now that Mystic Sanctuary is banned, I have to rethink the deck once again. Too bad; I was just getting to discover this card and the current metagame and now everything is changing again! What a weird time to jump back into the game.

Thankfully, changing the deck away from Mystic Sanctuary seems simple enough.


Weather the Storm continues to overperform in this deck for sure!

After a little break from Pauper, I thought I would give Turbo Fog a facelift and see how it does. The meta's looking a lot more fun than when I last checked in December.



I briefly tried Growth Spiral and Dreadwaters with 20 lands, but it felt really clunky (particularly Growth Spiral) so I quickly changed back to a more traditional build.

Mystic Sanctuary is so great. It can be a bit awkward to activate depending on how many Thornwood Falls you draw, but otherwise it's such a great addition to the deck. It gives the deck a lot more flexibility than before. I've even had some cool interactions with Arcane Denial where I countered my Fog on my own turn, played Sanctuary to put Fog on top, then draw it and two new cards on the opponent's turn. I'll have to see if it's worth investing further into bouncing my lands with more Deprives, Tragic Lessons and maybe Simic Growth Chamber.

Frantic Inventory is also feeling pretty good. It feels weird to have to track two different cards in my graveyard, but I have never drawn more cards in my life. I'm thinking of changing my Think Twice slot into Ponders or Impulses just to smooth out my draws and rely on these to really churn out card advantage.

Overall the deck feels much smoother to pilot. I feel much more in control of my draws and my hand with Mystic Sanctuary and Stream of Thought. I also went up to 2 Weather the Storms a while ago and haven't looked back.

I think you could be straight Azorius. Riot Control is pretty much the best fog out there. This would also give you access to board wipes, namely Supreme Verdict and Fumigate. Teferi, Time Raveler and Approach of the Second Sun seem like they belong in a deck together.

I'd maybe run something along these lines:


Add some number of counterspells, card draw and spot removal for Ulamog and you're set to go. I'm not sure if it would be better than other WU shells out there, but it sure would be fun. I might also be forgetting some stuff like extra turn spells or something, but this seems like it could be a place to start.

I think Mystic Sanctuary is a great card to have as either a 1-2-of. It should be easy enough to get going with all the islands we run.

Oh that's great, maybe I'll pick up a copy and try it out sometime. Thanks for the tip. I find it really hard to make cuts in my land base now, though. I feel like I've hit the limit on my non-basic land count. I've even been cutting a bit into my non-lands to make room...

I played Blast Zone for a couple games and took it right out again. It's just too much work to get it going and it often just sits in play as a colourless land that might as well have been a forest a lot of the time.

Field of the Dead, on the other hand, is amazing. The sheer number of bodies it makes for free once you have an engine going is really incredible. I've since cut to 2 Snow-Covered Forests and gone back to the non-snow basics to have different named basics, which can be really great with something like Evolving Wilds, making 2 zombies. Even as few as 5-7 zombies can really turn a game around with very little investment in the mana base.

Lotus Field has also been a great performer. getting the double sac without casting a spell is great, Hexproof has been relevant (to my surprise), it gives me the green sources I've desperately been craving... I even had a game where I played it and immediately untapped it with Garruk Wildspeaker to ramp myself up 6 mana in a turn.

Hidden Spider is sometimes a pretty risky card because it gets eaten by Spellstutter Sprite very easily from turn 2 and on, and very late in the game, they can afford not to play their fliers to not activate the enchantment. It's far and away the best flyer-hate spell if you land it on turn 1, though. Otherwise, get ready for a counter war.

If you look at some of my recent videos versus delver, you'll see me having great success with Penumbra Spider, with the opponent stone-walled by this unkillable monster.

I got completely smooshed by Hidden Spider just a couple days ago.

I also really like playing Penumbra Spider. At 4 mana, it can be hard to cast, but it's hard for a Delver player to have 4 faeries for Spellstutter Sprite, so they absolutely need a hard counter for it. I gums up the board very effetively and needs a combination of removal and combat to really get rid of, making it almost a 4-for-1 in many cases.

We just keep getting cool lands set after set!

What do you think of Field of the Dead? Seems very easy to get 7 different lands in play, and pooping 2/2s constantly for every land drop can add up quick in this deck.

Lotus Field seems pretty strong for our deck, getting rid of the biggest drawback of Lotus Vale of requiring untapped lands. And it has Hexproof. Seems sweet!

Cryptic Caves is probably not good enough for our deck, though I could see it being a powerful card in other Commander lists.