The Power of Pauper: Legendary Commons!
Howdy folks! It's time yet again for another edition of The Power of Pauper! I'm your host, Joe Dyer, and this week we're talking a bit about San Diego Comic Con this past weekend, because some of the spoilers that were put out about Spider-Man may seem relevant for Pauper. In addition we've got some Challenges from this past week to look at.
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
Spider-Man, Does Whatever a Spider Can
San Diego Comic Con was just this last weekend, and while we are experiencing the release of Edge of Eternities, Wizards was spoiling the next Standard set in Spider-Man. One really big thing I think about this set for Pauper in general is that due to the large amount of various characters in the Spiderverse, we're getting a bunch (and I mean a bunch) of Legendary creatures at Common. This definitely means that one or more of these could stand to impact Pauper in some way.
Oh right this is a card that exists. Woof. If any of these do end up seeing a lot of play, its certainly possible that Cast Down could be pretty bad since it won't interact with them.
Obviously there aren't a lot spoiled sofar, but yeah this is definitely one of those situations where we could get a lot more and they could definitely be good. Spider-Man, Web-Slinger especially is interesting since it can bounce for example a Thraben Inspector that attacked on Turn 2 to cast it for W (and getting a 3/3 out of it) then recast the Inspector for another Clue token.
Some other cards that looked interesting in the pile of Commons that were shared were:
I am intrigued to do a full set review for when this spoiler season hits, but definitely be aware of these cards! There is certainly potential in anything to hit well these days from Standard sets.
Pauper Challenge 32 7/25/2025
The first Challenge event of the week was the Friday event. This event had 58 players in it thanks to the MTGO website.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Madness Burn | 1st | Niederschatten |
| Mono Blue Terror | 2nd | boytriton |
| Madness Burn | 3rd | TuggaNaxos |
| Jund Wildfire | 4th | Misplacedginger |
| Grixis Affinity | 5th | Mogged |
| Ephemerate Tron | 6th | NMT_Sco94 |
| Ephemerate Tron | 7th | Alleyezonme |
| Mono Blue Terror | 8th | discoverN |
Fairly interesting Top 8. Good amount of Tron, Burn, and Terror. At the end of the event it was Madness Burn that won.
Very straightforward version of this, using stuff like Alms of the Vein and the like, rather than the more Mono Red version. This version does have some stretched mana a little bit, but it also gets to play things like Desert ping lands.
In Second Place we had Mono Blue Terror.
Very powerful and clean. I do like this deck a bunch and think it's great that we have a dedicated tempo/control variant in the format.
Also in this Top 8 we had Ephemerate Tron.
Mysidian Elder seems like a super sweet card when you remember you can blink it with Ghostly Flicker and Ephemerate and KEEP making Wizards that ping.
Pauper Challenge 32 7/26/2025
The second Challenge event of the week was the Saturday event. This event had 58 players in it thanks to the MTGO website.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| High Tide Combo | 1st | PNascimento |
| Dimir Terror | 2nd | hetare_ane |
| Gruul Ponza | 3rd | Ixidor29 |
| Golgari Gardens | 4th | __Noob__ |
| Madness Burn | 5th | Niederschatten |
| Madness Burn | 6th | Lamela |
| Turbo Fog | 7th | IvernOP |
| Izzet Terror | 8th | SpockVidaLoka |
Bit of Burn, bit of Gruul, bit of everything. At the end of the event it was High Tide that won.
I love that this deck exists. It's great to have a spell-based combo deck in the format, and frankly I do not believe this deck is insane. A win here or there or a Top 8, but it's not overpowering the format at every chance it gets. It's awesome.
In Second Place we had Dimir Tempo.
These build are also a lot of fun, given that they get access to some great removal, although it will be interesting to see how Cast Down adjusts to Spider-Man.
Further down the Top 8 we had Turbo Fog.
Oh Fog. I really need to settle on a build of this and get it built so I have this one drawn up in paper Pauper.
Pauper Challenge 32 7/27/2025
The final Challenge event of the week was the Saturday event. This event had 68 players in it thanks to the MTGO website.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Jund Wildfire | 1st | AlessandroPiraccini |
| High Tide Combo | 2nd | PNascimento |
| Mono Blue Terror | 3rd | Muka33 |
| Dimir Terror | 4th | O_danielakos |
| Burn | 5th | Niura |
| High Tide Combo | 6th | Beicodegeia |
| Madness Burn | 7th | A_AdeptoTerra |
| Jund Wildfire | 8th | N01 |
Pretty nice diversity here. At the end of the event it was Jund Wildfire that won.
You could also call this deck sort of Jund Affinity, but it doesn't really describe it well enough. It really is Jund with all the best cards in specific colors, and I love it.
In Second Place we had High Tide.
Toils of Night and Day is a sweet card and a sweet card name. I legitimately did not remember that card existed.
Further down the Top 8 we had Madness Burn, the Mono Red version.
This deck really knows how to put an opponent's butt on fire and is very aggressive about it too. Very strong and clean manabase.
Around the Web
- Bryant Cook has a video on Spy Walls. Check it out here.
- GiorgioCombo has a video on Tron. Check it out here.
- Pauperganda has a video on Domain. Check it out here.
The Spice Corner
As League results are now spread out across the week, let's dig in and find something spicy!
Illvoi Galeblade seeing good play in Faeries.
We also had multiple Cryogen Relic decks, so woo!
Wrapping Up
That's all the time we have this week folks! Thanks for continuing to support the column and join us next week as we continue our journey into Pauper!
As always you can reach me at all my associated links via my Link Tree! In addition I'm always around the MTGGoldfish Discord Server and the MTGPauper Discord Server.
Until next time!
