On The Zeta Set in Pauper
Hello, Pauper players! Gavin Verhey here on behalf of the entire Pauper Format Panel.
Recently, we revealed the cards from The Zeta Set, a new release from Secret Lair. While these cards are all reprints and generally don't add anything to competitive formats, there is an interesting wrinkle in that twelve of them were printed at common for the first time. There's been a lot of discussion about this, with players wondering what the story is here, and people being hopeful they can play with these cards.
Today, we are making these cards legal in Pauper (with a few notes). You may have heard differently in the past, and this is a change from what was said previously. Today, I want to tell you about what's going on, how we reached this conclusion, and what to expect going forward.
Let's get into it!
Building The Zeta Set
Outside of new-to-Magic cards, printings of Secret Lair cards haven't impacted format legality. There has never been a reason for that to matter before, and we haven't discussed the impact of Secret Lair releases on Pauper or for the individuals managing formats to review Secret Lair cards.
The release of The Zeta Set changed that. For reference, here are the twelve cards that are being printed at common for the first time in this release.
When these were revealed, Wizards, the Pauper Format Panel, and I talked through their ramifications and how we wanted to handle these. A few different pieces led us to the conclusion to not make them legal in Pauper.
For one, these cards would have a large impact on Pauper and, for many of them likely, not in desirable ways. A card like
Second, there was no playable game experience intent put behind the downshifts of these cards. Every single other Pauper-legal card in Magic history was put at common by someone designing the gameplay of a set or product. Whether it has been a card in a main set, a downshift in a reprint set, or
Third, having cards enter the format through future Secret Lair releases, creating an influx of new Pauper cards at somewhat random times, seemed like something frustrating to monitor when preparing for tournament play. Others and I felt like the Pauper community would not want this. I had guessed that the potential for cards to be printed into Pauper through a Secret Lair release felt against the spirit of the format.
So, taking all this into account, we collectively—the Pauper Format Panel and Wizards—decided to not make these cards legal in Pauper.
Listening to the Response
Pauper is a format built by and for the community. That's why we have the Pauper Format Panel. That's also why I think it's extremely important to listen to feedback. And listen to feedback, we have.
Over the past week, we've all heard pretty loudly that a lot of the community wants these cards to be legal in Pauper and have us ban any cards that we believe are over the line, rather than categorically saying downshifts in Secret Lair releases don't impact legality. So, we've done some research and I've been having some discussions.
So, let's address my three points from above.
First and foremost, as much as myself and others at Wizards can see the distinction and intent behind these and other Pauper-legal cards, I recognize that this is not how players perceive things. Regardless of how a card got made, whether it was printed as a common in paper or on Magic Online, rarity has been the one governing truth around the format and what people have come to expect with every product we release, especially for products sold in boosters. That "C" at the bottom of the card is a truism for the traditionally black-and-white rules of Magic. We've heard that note a lot over the past week from all of you.
Second, if there was going to be a constant influx of cards from Secret Lair, I would be a lot more concerned about it. Cards getting added into the format out of nowhere shortly before an important event would likely be a source of frustration. However, after discussing this with the Secret Lair team, everyone agreed that any future downshifted common cards will be shown to us. While that doesn't mean we can necessarily veto them, it will help make sure we can provide feedback on them. Additionally, randomized booster products, which could include downshifted cards at common, are not on the roadmap for Secret Lair at this time (see this article for details). This gives me a lot more confidence about solving for these individual cards.
That brings us to these twelve cards and how they play. Wizards, the Pauper Format Panel, and I continue to be of the opinion that these aren't really adding net fun to the format. Some of them will have to be banned outright, and several others will certainly be on the watchlist. However, if we are just asking if the cards are fun for the format, we have a tool to answer that: the banned list.
What We're Doing
We've read a lot of discussions and arguments for allowing these cards. As Pauper is a community-driven format, I always want to really weigh what the community says strongly. And I want to recognize that, while a lot of the community was for this change, many people agreed with not including these cards in Pauper. We understand the reasoning for the gut feeling of "These don't look like they should be legal." However, given this is not going to be a commonly repeated release model for common cards that will continually cause disruption, the points made about not arbitrarily distinguishing between products made sense to us. For the long-term direction of Pauper, it made sense to maintain the simple distinction that a common rarity in paper or on Magic Online dictates a card's legality. There are lots of common cards in strange places that may not be the healthiest for Pauper, but it's not our role to categorically remove them. That's what the banned list is for.
So, we have decided to change course on this. These cards will be legal for tournament play effective Monday, September 7. There are a few notes on that.
First, we are going to ban a couple of cards off the bat. Our criteria for what to ban here are cards that we feel extremely confident would be over the line because they cause decks that currently exist to win the game quicker and much more efficiently.
The first one we're banning is
Second, we are banning
Several of the other cards are going to be kept on a tight watch list. We are being more permissive in leaving these cards unbanned for a short time to see how they play out, but we are keeping them on a tight leash heading into the next banned and restricted list update. We've heard from many players that they're excited to play these cards, and we want to provide them with that chance. There are cards that are extremely powerful for Pauper, but unlike the other two, they don't contribute to winning the game quicker and more efficiently. We want to comment on a few of the most notable ones, though the others may certainly see play as well.
These cards are on our radar as they will make an impact and could shift the format in ways that would make it less varied, balanced, and less fun to play. You can expect that we'll be checking in on these cards in the next two banned and restricted list updates, which will be on October 12 and in December. On October 12, we will take action on anything that is immediately a problem. In December, we'll take another look after all those changes to make sure we're happy with everything that is left.
In terms of legality, these will become legal in tabletop Pauper next Monday, September 7. This would normally be immediately upon release, but given that this announcement is coming late in the week and people may have Pauper events this weekend, we didn't want to change the metagame within 48 hours of those events. We worked with Magic Online (a huge thanks to that team for working to accommodate this) and managed to get this into their next update, which will be on September 23. We know that this does create a short window of time where legality is different between tabletop Pauper and Pauper on Magic Online, which is something we typically try to avoid, but it is a side effect of legalizing cards that nobody was prepared to implement.
This does mean things are going to be a little less stable in Pauper for the next few months, and I wouldn't be surprised if we have to ban cards in October and December as a result of this. This will likely be a memorable time of format exploration and testing, and I know many players have wanted to see a new infusion of cards into the format. I just want to set expectations in advance as people prepare for events that we may take action during upcoming banned and restricted list updates.
Thank you for all of your feedback over the past week. I know there's been some mixed messages as we figured this all out, all the way up to an article earlier this week saying these cards would not be legal in Pauper. It took a little bit of time to have all the right conversations and make all our ducks were in a row to implement this. It's not often we change course on something we've settled on, but I'm happy we could take the time, listen, and put in the work to make it happen. One of the strengths of Pauper is its great and passionate community, and it was certainly felt this week.
Have fun building with the new cards, and we'll be watching to see what decklists show up as people play ahead of October 12.
On behalf of the Pauper Format Panel,
Alex Ullman
Alexandre Weber
Emma Partlow
Gavin Verhey
Mirco Ciavatta
Paige Smith
Ryuji Saito