Explanation of Pauper Bans for May 13, 2024
Hello, everybody! This is Principal Magic Designer Gavin Verhey and member of the Pauper Format Panel, which is the group that monitors Pauper and its banned list. As a group of six individuals from around the world, we are always talking Pauper, crunching data, and deciding whether to change anything in the format.
I'll get straight to today's change and then cut into why we made this change.
Why this card? Why only this card? Let me walk you through everything.
We'll begin by looking back at our last announcement. When we last had a B&R back in December, we banned
"Affinity has been playable in Pauper for a very long time. It's been resilient to bans like
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."
Well, welcome to that future update.
In the time since this last ban,
How are the decks with it doing? Well, they've had a lot of success. In addition to many top challenge finishes and omnipresence in leagues, the win rates are good: the Red-White Synthesizer deck with
It's also the kind of card that creates a high impact on the format even when it's not involved in the match-up. The kinds of viable decks all have to measure up to defeating a polarizing card like
We did look at alternatives. The other primary option that came up many times were the artifact lands. Many cards sit on the banned list for the price of keeping the artifact lands legal.
So, we looked at the Modern Horizons 2 Bridges again. However, what we found, as we built up our own lists and tried them out, is that it was not nearly as big of a hit as you might expect. The problematic White-Blue Affinity deck thrived on the back of mostly using original untapped Mirrodin artifact lands, and while the Three-Color Affinity decks play some Bridges, they still have room for additional ones and their actual artifact land count would not be reduced by much. The Red-White Synthesizer decks do play
We then, of course, did talk about getting rid of the Mirrodin artifact lands instead of or in addition to the Bridges. However, whenever we talk about these lands, our view is that they're something Pauper players enjoy as a staple of the format: a lot goes with them if they go away. We'd love to hear any feedback on this from you all, so please send it our way.
So, of those paths, banning
The other primary place to consider knocking a card from was Mono-Red. Still boasting a strong (though not out of bounds) win rate and creating a lot of polarity, Mono-Red continues to be a staple of the format. Though weaker without Swiftspear and mostly moving away from the four-ofs in both
What in red do you hit if you hit a card?
There's also
The polarity that the format had made cards that were good against red often not as good against
Other than red and decks with
We also talked a lot about unbanning cards.
The main discussed card:
However, we didn't do it here for two main reasons. First, it's a card that also traditionally has seen play in Affinity and Red-White decks, both decks we're trying to weaken with this ban, and while I don't know whether they would play it, it seemed like an unnecessary risk. Second, by banning
Speaking of which, I wanted to talk about our next check-in time and how it relates to today's banning. Modern Horizons 3 is coming up in just under a month. Traditionally, these sets add a lot of cards to Pauper, and I predict this one will be no exception.
We wanted to be sure to get rid of
I'm going to be transparent here and provide a heads up that is a little unusual, and this is Gavin talking as someone who has been able to look through the commons of Modern Horizons 3. (The rest of the Pauper Format Panel doesn't see sets in advance.) There is one common from Modern Horizons 3 that has a high likelihood of needing to be banned in Pauper, as it is like a card we have banned in the past. That's totally fine, and, as always, Magic sets shouldn't revolve around Pauper—they should do what each set lead decides is the right choice for their set, and the Pauper format will react accordingly.
But the result of this is that I expect we'll be checking in very soon after Modern Horizons 3 to make any format adjustments needed. It's worth seeing these things bear out in practice, but I expect to keep a short leash on anything problematic—we don't want you playing a format that is broken for weeks and weeks like when, for example,
Finally, one last topic. As you may have heard announced for other formats, stickers and Attractions will no longer be appearing in competitive play. We are applying this to Pauper as well for the same reasons. In Pauper,
When the Play Design team asked me how I would feel about this change from a Pauper perspective, I gave a pretty strong vote of approval. While I commend the Magic Online team's efforts, stickers have created a slight fracturing in the format, where paper and online are not identical.
There are some other paper-only decks, such as Sticker Stompy, that this will impact. And while fans of those decks may be sad, I appreciate that this removes that gap between both digital and paper for the health of Pauper.
Okay, that's everything for today. I expect I'll speak with you all again within a few weeks after Modern Horizons 3 releases, either to make any adjustments or, if things do in fact look alright, to update you on what we're thinking. In the meantime, please let those of us on the Pauper Format Panel know your thoughts—especially on the artifact lands, as it's a much-discussed topic. We'd love to hear from you.
On behalf of the entire Pauper Format Panel, this is Gavin, signing off for today.
Alex Ullman – @nerdtothecore
Alexandre Weber – @Webermtg
Emma Partlow – @Emmadpartlow
Gavin Verhey – @GavinVerhey
Mirco Ciavatta – @Heisen011
Paige Smith – @TheMaverickGal
Ryuji Saito – @Saito_o3