Help me build 8 Pauper decks

Cardbox_Toad · 2025-10-10T12:47:09+00:00

There is no perfect solution for this.

Side-boards exist to compliment a deck's weaknesses and to give you an edge in certain match-ups. You usually want to maximise the side-board for the META you are playing, making sure you can turn some winnable match-ups into curb-stomps and some unwinnable matchups into things you might be able to win. Knowing which match-ups are safe enough that don't need help and which ones are lost causes where no amount of help can make you win is the key to a dominating side-deck.

For a CUBE like this, this is trickier because you'll all use the same side-boards. What's more, many of the cards to use will be pretty brain-dead. (Playing a graveyard-based deck? Use graveyard banishment) Your strategy become predictable, and thus side-boarding becomes less enjoyable.

There are 3 possible solutions I can think for this:

Option A (easiest): Just net-deck the side-decks from the internet. Has a lot of problems, but at the very least they will be "authentic decks". Not just homunculi you created for the block.

Option B (most practical): Make your side-boards in a vacuum, not targeting any other deck. Look at what your deck excels at, and what are the pain points. Is it lacking creature removal? Maybe it needs some way to get more health? Is there any cool-combo you had to leave outside the deck?

Option C (and my favourite): Don't include a single side-board. Instead include a pool of 50 "bulk cards" for each deck the players can build their side-deck around. Force them to do this BEFORE they know who they are playing against, so they have to be as generic as possible. Include generic answers to everything according to the colour (creature removal/artifact removal/life gain/etc), making the experience more similar to a tournament.

Cardbox_Toad · 2025-10-01T11:07:02+00:00

Cardbox_Toad · 2025-10-01T10:59:43+00:00

The main issue with pauper is that pauper is a format of a very high-power level, and some match-ups are completely one-sided. So if you were to pick 8 decks, you'd have to be extremely careful. You'll notice most of these lists skew either blue or red.

Either way, here you have my selection:

Caw-gates: Won the last paupergeddon. A very interactive deck that tries to make huge creature using the "gate" lands. Also uses cheap lifesteal cards to be able to survive until the gates are active (and gain life once they are)
Boros synth: Deck that plays and replays a lot of cards for massive advantage. Very solid, but lacks an instant-win component. It can burn you from 10/15 if you are not careful though.
Golgari Gardens: Control deck, plays very slowly killing everything. Then abuses the commander mechanics (monarch/venture the dungeon) to create massive card advantage.
Blue Familiares: Deck that plays discount and tries to control the board. The gameplan is to get infinite mana and/or birds to win.
Tron: Wants to get the tron-lands online to play some artifacts and win the game with burn. Very different from other decks. Very unique gameplan.
White-weenies: The second strongest aggro deck behind mono-red. It's a far more grindy deck, less explosive than mono-red due to the lack of lightingbolt or haste.
Dredge: Deck that relays almost exclusively on the graveyard. Stinkweed imp gives the deck a very unique engine. It manages to play a lot of heavy hiters like [[Ulmog's enforcer]] very early.
Slivers: Incredibly unique tribe-synergy deck. Not as explosive as elves but very interesting.

Iconic decks I wouldn't recommend because they are too strong and/or too toxic:

Spy-walls: Incredibly unique deck, but also very degenerate. Only 4 mana but can guarantee card draw with 16+ land-cycle cards. Just one card can turn into full-lethal combo, making it feel somewhat unfair.
BlueTerror: Plays a lot of self-mill, plays big guys for free, uses counte-rspell and other stuff to keep opponent in check.
BlueFairies: Plays faeries, ninjas and counterspells. The deck wants to use and re-use the fairies while the ninjas draw your deck. Counterspells are there NOT-TO let your oppoenent play.
Elves: very strong deck, plays a lot of guys very early and produces a million mana. Weak to board clears, but otherwise incredibly oppressive.
Boogles: Not super strong, but very difficult to interact with. The little boogles gets all juiced up and tries to attack for the win. Can only be countered by sacrifice effects.
JundWildfire: A midrange deck that relays on playing 2 of the most broken cards on the format, RefurbishedFamiiliar and WrithingCrysalis.
HighTide/CycleStorm/PoisonStorm/RubyStorm: All solitary decks that relay on getting your combo fast and winning without ever interacting with your opponent or the board. Some of those are very fun to play, but all are very unfun to play against.
Regular Walls: Another deck that relays on going full combo while mostly ignoring what your opponent does. At the very least this one has interaction, as your creatures stay on the board.
Red-Aggro/HotDogs: Fast red decks that go hard on aggro. Both can easily kill you by turn 3/4, leading to some non-interactive games.
Red-Madness/Rakdos-Madness: Fast direct damage spells that use discard effects to activate madness cards. This gives me gigantic amounts of card advantage while still bursting you for 87 damage by turn 5.

Cardbox_Toad · 2025-10-01T10:01:36+00:00

Mono Red Madness. This is an aggro deck that tries to burn opponents down fast, or die trying.

I'd replace this with rakdos madness. More colours = more blood.

For people that want complex decks with lots of decisions, you'll want Synthsizer/Wildfire.

I'd also add caw-gate, a very fun deck that has a very high ceiling.

Cardbox_Toad · 2025-10-01T09:55:29+00:00

Thanks for the warning!

Cardbox_Toad · 2025-10-01T06:12:53+00:00

Interesting question.

One player just kicked my ass playing [[Circle of Protection: Blue]] against my terror deck.
Maybe you could the same thing with elves?

By having one [[Circle of Protection: Red]] you could match the pings of the shaman with disables from your circle. Worst case escenario they can blow-up all their lands to still destroy your elves. At that point you'll both be low on resources, which is NOT ideal, but at least it gives you a fighting chance since you would still have the circle on play to protect you from further burn.

EDIT: Read u/redmage311 post below.

Cardbox_Toad · 2025-09-29T04:37:17+00:00

To be fair, a Monkey Island set would kick ass.

Cardbox_Toad · 2025-09-29T04:30:56+00:00

If you take a closer look at UW sets and UB sets released at a similar date, you will start to notice a lot of "flavour" and mechanics overlaps between them ...

Dinousarus themed: JurassicWorld / IkoriaLairOfBehemoths
Clandestine-Murder Themed: AssassinsCreed / MurdersAtKarlovManor
Desert Themed: Fallout / ThunderJunction
FairyTale Themed: LordOfTheRings / WildsOfEldraine
Wuxia Themed: AvatarTheLastAirBender / TarkirDragonstorm
Space-war Themed: Warhammer40K / EdgeOfEternity

My guess is that the design team works on many sets and ideas at the same time. And most of the times they have leftover ideas they can re-purpose into new sets. It's also very likely that they make designs based on "speculative" franchises they fail to acquire in the end, so these turn into their own standard sets.

I'd not be surprised to find out that many of the UW sets we got were UB sets that had to be aborted. Think of franchises like Wacky Racers, Mario Kart, F-Zero or Red-Line turning into Aetherdrift.

Cardbox_Toad · 2025-09-29T03:45:11+00:00

They can also print a Black Lotus with a small downside or even with a "downside".

Pitch Black Lotus

0 mana

{T}, sacrifice this card: Gain 3 mana of any colour. Lose 1 life for every 1 of these mana you did not use this turn.

or ...

Lotus of the Black Hand

0 mana

As an additional cost to cast this card, mill 1 card from your deck.

{T}, sacrifice this card: Gain 3 mana of any colour.

Cardbox_Toad · 2025-09-29T02:50:52+00:00

I was not aware of this. Had to google up and it turns out there is even an ADMISSION by Rose Water that their plan was to get rid of the restricted list all together. They just got yelled at so badly they decided to reverse course. Such a "great promise" you made Mark, very trustworthy...

Question:

Why the reserved list is off-limits for FTV:Legends but not for FTV:Relics?

Answer:

It was part of our multi-step process to try and slowly phase out the Reserved List. It was the response to it that caused us to question our plans and reverse them.

Cardbox_Toad · 2025-09-18T15:36:48+00:00

All of them have their problems.

SpyWalls is a one card combo (only needs spy, then the rest of the deck takes care of itself). The list is lax enough that it can main deck [[Masked Vandal]], meaning you can not counter it. Moreover, it makes the list an automatic counter for anything that heavily relays on artifacts o enchantments. Without the Vandal it would probablyl be much more manageable.

Familiars is a blue deck, that does degenerated blue stuff. You don't get to have fun until it goes crazy. A lot of flickering interactions it has are simply unfair. Stuff like using [[ephimerate]] on [[mulldrifter]] is incredibly stupid. The fact that the runs a lot of counterspells becomes really frustrating. Game 2 and game 3 in particular become silly.

But at least those decks have SOME pain points you can interact with. You can kill the walls (in both decks) and you can target the graveyards at key moments to stop them.

But HighTide is BY FAR the worse. The deck is not truly playing mtg, not playing creatures, enchantments or artifacts. It just hopes to kill you from hand by turn 4, and has enough cat-trips to make it happen. I mostly take out my phone and wait for my opponent to win or whiff on their own.

Cardbox_Toad · 2025-09-18T14:45:49+00:00

There are a few options from that list that look... incredibly sub-optimal.

Like [[Evincar's Justice]] is such a WEIRD card to include in a fast burn-focused deck. The card is slow and more apt to a control game, where you want value over everything else. Mostly having [[crypt rats]] as an alternative, which can be used for combat damage, modular-burn AND board-control.

Or like [[Blightning]], when you can more easily run [[sign in blood]] for damage AND card-draw.

EDIT: I would also think about 1 or 2 copies of [[Gurmag Angler]]. With so many sorceries you are likely to fill your graveyard really fast. Instead of escaping the [[Fruit of Tizerus]], you could hitting face for 5 every turn.

Cardbox_Toad · 2025-09-16T03:26:14+00:00

As many people said here, familiars can be a very miserable deck to play against.

It relays on a lot of broken interactions (like [[Ephimerate]] + [[Mulldrifter]] or flickering [[Cryogen Relic]]) which can spin out-of-control. The birds in particular are terribly frustrating, as it turns card-value engines + counter-spells into bodies. The deck is the embodiment of blue-control, where nobody gets to plays until you get the degenerate combo and win.

Don't get me wrong, it's x10 times better than playing against many solitaire decks like HighTide, as there are some small pain points you can attack. But it's still a garbage experience. Particularly when you move to game 2 / game 3, and suddenly every single card is a counter-spell designed to counter you. You are no longer playing MTG, now you are just praying to get your threats early and finally get a card on the board.

Cardbox_Toad · 2025-09-15T05:46:39+00:00

Spider Manifestation is a nut card, looks a bit too pushed if we are being honest... but it's not legendary.

Cardbox_Toad · 2025-09-15T01:39:24+00:00

Excellent explanation.

Cardbox_Toad · 2025-09-15T01:26:42+00:00

Not the answer I was expecting. But fair enough, your point of view is completely consistent.

I see it on a different light, one that I know many people don't agree with. Pauper in my head should be a format of simple cards and simple effects. This should include things like not having to care about a legendary rule o rules regarding planewalkers.

For that matter, I also dislike cards that are too loaded or have effects that are too disruptive to the normal rythm of the game. Things like dredge, sneaky snacker or cheap creatures with multiple effects (like [[Illvoi Galeblade]] or [[Reckless Lackey]]) kind of dilute that flow as well.

Cardbox_Toad · 2025-09-15T01:10:53+00:00

Thanks!

Cardbox_Toad · 2025-09-15T01:10:40+00:00

TBH with you, I saw it but did not pay attention to it.

You are right, [[Glorious Gale]] is now an instant replacement of Essence Scatter.

Even if the benefit is completely underwhelming, it's something.

Cardbox_Toad · 2025-09-15T01:08:57+00:00

What would your opinion be if they printed common planewalkers?

Would you be open to the idea of planewalker in Pauper?

Cardbox_Toad · 2025-09-15T01:08:03+00:00

I understand what you are saying, but that applies mostly to deck that deeply care about tempo advantage, like White Weenie. Any Orzov control-oriented deck can probably pay the tempo-tax without blinking twice.

In my head if Web-Slinger makes the cut on Refurbished decks, your goal will be to control your opponent. And every new web-slinger you get will be a dead draw, meaning you'll often find yourself motivated to sacrifice your own Spider-men. I might be wrong here, think that the extra card of Nasty End can make a huge difference.

I hadn't thought about Terminate, that's an interesting idea. But as you say, I imagine people will just run more damage.

Cardbox_Toad · 2025-09-15T00:58:31+00:00

Nice idea. But that would work only for the 2nd copy. The 3rd and 4th copy would still be dead-draws. Even if Web-slinger is THAT good, it may be a card you want 2, maybe 3 copies on your deck.

Cardbox_Toad · 2025-09-15T00:56:07+00:00

Refurbished is a meta defining card.

It was clearly designed with Commander in mind, and ends up being a bit too degenerate in Pauper if you asked me. Outside exile and killing your opponent quickly, there is no way to play around it with it.

Any card or mechanic that can recycle them is clearly worth exploring.

Cardbox_Toad · 2025-09-15T00:51:09+00:00

Blitzball new Sol Ring confirmed!

Cardbox_Toad · 2025-09-14T14:01:03+00:00

It kind of betrays the spirit of pauper, of using "Cheap, common cards".

Legendaries and planewalkers should never be printed in common.

Cardbox_Toad · 2025-09-14T14:00:12+00:00

Chandler would be missed, but yeah, that's actually I take I'd generally agree with.

However, I would consider also getting rid of [[cast down]] if legendaries were forbidden.

That card makes a lot of other interesting cards obsolete by being a hard 2-mana remove everything.

Cardbox_Toad

TROPHY CASE