Explanation of Pauper Bans for December 4, 2023
Hello! This is Gavin Verhey, and in addition to designing Magic cards, I am also a member of the Pauper Format Panel. I'm here today to talk about a ban for the format.
For those who are new to the Pauper scene, the Pauper Format Panel monitors the format and manages bans and restrictions. We don't impact Magic sets, select what cards get downshifted, or make new cards for the format (outside my capacity to do so as a Magic designer). And while we certainly talk about what kinds of cards the format could want, our focus is on the health of the format and important card restrictions.
That said, let me cut to the chase:
Some of you may be wondering "why?" Others may be wondering "why not more?" Let me run you through the data and information that led to this decision, how we see decks in the format, and more.
We'll start with the state of the format. For a while, Pauper has been a decently diverse Eternal format. Looking at online events, like Magic Online challenges, many of the Top 8s feature five to six unique decks. The most recent Paupergeddon, a huge Pauper tournament from a few weeks ago with over 500 players, had five different decks in the Top 8. If you look at the variety, decks like Affinity, Mono-Red, Golgari Gardens, Mono-Blue Terror, Familiars, Faeries, Defenders, Caw-Gate, and more have shown up and been successful. Aggro, control, midrange, and even combo show up.
So, what's the problem?
The problem concerns speed and polarization.
Since 2022, the format has sped up considerably. Adding cards like
So, we wanted to make a change. And we talked about a lot of potential bans (and even reversing some). Let me first give you an extremely candid look through the data from Magic Online Leagues—where Pauper is played most.
We'll start with Mono-Red, the most avidly requested deck we ban from. Well, for a deck that people love to talk about, it might shock you to learn that its non-mirror win rate is … 50.8%. Barely over half its games. And that's from the best-performing lists; some versions of the deck hit sub-50% win rates!
So, why ban a card from it?
Well, once again, it's polarity.
When you look at game one, Mono-Red does great. It's favored in most match-ups. But in games two and three … it changes to unfavored in almost all match-ups!
Whether using any of the eight Blasts or bringing in a ton of life gain cards, there are plenty of great options against red.
However, that still has a tremendous impact on the format. If people are spending eight sideboard slots on red, that means it becomes harder to fight other decks. It squeezes out other archetypes. We want to get to a place where Mono-Red is still a viable deck but less feast or famine. We don't want players feeling forced to dedicate eight slots to it. Its explosive draws are a little less strong and resilient. It is good and healthy if Mono-Red is a strong deck. It is bad if it's so strong that it warps the format in this way.
We evaluated all the cards in the deck and talked about a lot of possible bans. Especially with the brand-new
The two different "bottle two" cards (bottling being our internal design name for this effect, named after
We also talked about artifact lands—more on that when we get to Affinity below.
Everything really kept pointing back to
We did talk about whether we wanted to hit one card or two. We thought we'd start here, and then consider if more needs to go. Any of the above cards are certainly on the table. If you have thoughts after trying the new format, you're welcome to share them with us.
Okay, that's a lot about red. Let's move on to some other decks. Starting with Affinity.
Affinity has been playable in Pauper for a very long time. It's been resilient to bans like
We talked for a long time about bans here. And there were two main directions to go.
The first, and simple one, is
The second, more nuanced one is a set of artifact lands: either the ten Bridges or the five original Mirrodin artifact lands. Banning the five originals also has the knock-down effect of damaging Mono-Red since they lose
Losing artifact lands is a gigantic blow to both Affinity and the format. They get used in a variety of decks. (For example, the indestructible ones with
So, with that in mind, let's dig into the data.
When it comes to win percentage and match-ups, Affinity is a bit of different story than Mono-Red. It does sport a similar win rate—just 50.5%—but it's a lot less polarizing in its match-ups. It has some naturally unfavored match-ups, like Black-Green Gardens and Faeries, where red was advantaged over most other decks. After sideboarding, it only tends to lose ground, picking up more unfavorable match-ups.
Additionally, there are a lot of sideboard options available when it comes to ways that both fight artifacts or even just kill creatures that are holding an
Ultimately, we decided to hold on to Affinity for now, see what happens with this change to Mono-Red, and consider it more in a future update depending on what this does. We would also love to hear from players on the artifact lands. How would you feel about the original artifact lands going away? How about the Bridges?
Finally, of the big three decks, I want to talk about Terror.
This deck had been blue-black for a long time, and its win rate was never anything wild. However, the addition of
We talked about banning a couple options here. First were
So, let's look at the data. How is this deck doing?
Well, it's win percentage is under 50%! Affinity, Faeries, Caw-Gate, and Defenders all thrash it solely by the percentages, and of course it is behind against Mono-Red, too. And while it's capable of winning games, getting help from the sideboard, and so on, it's still brutal. Against Caw-Gate, a popular and strong deck, it boasts only around a 30% win rate!
Additionally, a new card from The Lost Caverns of Ixalan has really changed the game here in
All of this in mind, we decided not to make any changes to
Now, we did talk about some much more aggressive changes to really mix things up. For example, banning two cards from Mono-Red, artifact lands, and
Oh, and before I move on to the next topic, in the discussion of win rates, if these are the win rates of the decks people talk about the most and they aren't that high, you might be wondering, "Which do have high win rates?"
It can fluctuate as sets come out, of course, but as of the most recent week for which we have data, Familiars sits on top at about 56%. Caw-Gate, Black-Green Gardens, and Blue-Black Faeries (no Terrors in sight!) are all close behind, between 52–55%. One other that really surprised me (though the play rate is quite low, so the data isn't perfect) is White Weenie with a cool 54% win rate—so maybe give that a spin.
Given the relatively low spread of win rates, and that the top decks churn week to week, we have been reticent to make a lot of changes to the format. The problems of speed and polarity have pushed us to act here, and we may so do again. However, we talk about Pauper a lot, and part of the reason we haven't made a change prior is that things have looked balanced. We did settle on this
A few final things to talk about.
One is reversing bans. We did talk about unbanning some cards, ranging from cards as innocent as
Next is a question we get on occasion: why not just aggressively ban and unban cards all the time to shake things up for Pauper? After all, it is a very accessible format.
While that is somewhat true, for a non-rotating format, I do think a sense of stability is important—people fall in love with decks and play them because they enjoy them, and banning cards from a deck for a few weeks just to shake things up and see what happens isn't the natural kind of churn I think is healthy—and the whiplash could cause people to leave the format entirely. Additionally, if we ban cards every other month perpetually, it doesn't give a great impression to non-Pauper players about what to expect when they try the format—and we want to grow the format over time. I think we could and should consider banning a little more aggressively, and we're going to talk about it, but still not at any kind of extreme degree.
Finally, I want to talk about the card ________ Goblin, or Name Sticker Goblin on Magic Online. Though the Magic Online team at Daybreak has done great work to implement this card on Magic Online, there have been some notes from players about the fact that it works differently in real life than online being a strange split for the format. It has mostly shown up some in the format alongside
I hope this has been a helpful behind-the-scenes look at the format and what led us to this decision. To recapture this one more time at the end: our hope is to nudge the format toward being a little less fast, being a little less polarized, and giving people more sideboard slots back. It is not meant to kill Mono-Red. If nothing meaningful in the format changes, we're not afraid to come back within a couple months and make more changes if needed.
We really try to be as transparent as possible with players about our changes and why we're making them. We appreciate you reading through all of this, and in return, we'd love for you to think about all the rationale here, try out the change to the format, and then reach out to us with your thoughts. Our social media handles are below.
On behalf of the entire Pauper Format Panel, thanks for playing Pauper, and we hope you enjoy the change to the format!
Alex Ullman – @nerdtothecore
Alexandre Weber – @Webermtg
Emma Partlow – @Emmadpartlow
Gavin Verhey – @GavinVerhey
Mirco Ciavatta – @Heisen011
Paige Smith – @TheMaverickGal
Ryuji Saito – @Saito_o3