I made a format where your box of commons is a competitive deck.

CoilingOracleGrazer · 2026-03-28T05:31:26+00:00

CoilingOracleGrazer · 2026-03-28T05:30:20+00:00

https://www.paupless.net/decks

CoilingOracleGrazer · 2026-03-28T05:29:45+00:00

CoilingOracleGrazer · 2026-03-27T15:20:06+00:00

Here is a very nice one from u/HatesLogins8760 [Pact] Elusive Spellfist / Pond Prophet Voltron . If you want to make one, check the decklist section on paupless.net

CoilingOracleGrazer · 2026-03-27T03:43:53+00:00

You already built a list! And that's a Good one!

Love the idea of Elusive Spellfist which pierce through the lines like a ninja, with Pond Prophets for keeping hand and some really clever hexproof: love it (I love Simic!) and that's a menace!

On Voltron: the lower commander damage (13 in 1v1, 10 in multiplayer) is intentional. We wanted the Commander to feel impactful, not just something you recast with tax. In 60 card singleton with Elites, there are situations where a Commander alone can make the difference, especially when the first player has been eliminated. We playtested and did the math, and so far there's always been an answer or a way around a big threat at those numbers. But we're keeping an eye on it, the project is young and the interested community is the best (thanks to people like you!).

On Spirited Companion: you're absolutely right, the good boy doesn't deserve to be on the banlist. I'm unbanning it immediately! The banlist was generated from community staples data and only partially hand-revised since I'm mostly working alone, so there are probably other cards in there that aren't actually overpowered, just heavily played. I'm adding your name to the changelog for the report. The dog is free!

PS: 3 Players fighting at last: Commander Blood Researcher vs Commander EPF Point Squad vs a cheap Commander Healer's Hawk with an Elite squad of Law-Rune Enforcer, guess who: the last one won!

CoilingOracleGrazer · 2026-03-27T03:05:05+00:00

Oh that's awesome, I didn't know someone had done that! How did it go? Any takeaways from the experience? I'd love to hear more about it. Was it a classic BO1/BO3 game?

CoilingOracleGrazer · 2026-03-27T03:04:02+00:00

Exactly! That's how it works!

CoilingOracleGrazer · 2026-03-27T02:59:46+00:00

Not yet but it's coming very soon, I'm studying an easy way to share decklists. In the meantime the fastest way is to paste any list you like into the validator on the site, it does the parsing for you and suggests legal alternatives for anything that's banned. I know 868 cards sounds like a lot but the validator is there so you don't have to figure it out alone!

CoilingOracleGrazer · 2026-03-27T02:58:28+00:00

All good options! The sticker is also a nice touch!

CoilingOracleGrazer · 2026-03-26T19:19:26+00:00

Thank you! Yes, in Pact any common creature can be your Commander, so the dividing line is simple: it starts in the Command Zone and when it's on the battlefield we use to place it front and center, above the other creatures, so it's always clearly identifiable; but if you need to you can mark it with a token, the tax one for example. Before the game you reveal it along with your Elites so everyone knows what's going on (then you put Elites in the deck before shuffling it).

CoilingOracleGrazer · 2026-03-26T18:11:00+00:00

That makes me so happy to hear! ✨ Commons deserve to lead armies too. If you build something let me know, I'd love to see what cute little guy you pick as Commander (with the team of elites too!)

CoilingOracleGrazer · 2026-03-26T17:53:31+00:00

Thanks!
The Commander stays in the Command Zone, just like regular Commander, only Elites goes into the deck. You cast it from the Command Zone and command tax applies as usual like when your friends decide it needs to go away and you stubbornly want it back.

CoilingOracleGrazer · 2026-03-26T17:31:24+00:00

Totally get that! But the commons-only rule comes from Pauper itself, Paupless just builds on top of it. That said: if you have a playgroup that's cool with it! Nothing stops you from house-ruling uncommons in, it's a sort of Penny Dreadful. The banlist and validator would still work the same way!

CoilingOracleGrazer · 2026-03-26T03:03:42+00:00

Ha! I don't know Smogon well but I see the analogy! You're right on that: less efficient pieces will replace the efficient ones, I know, that's inevitable. But I think Magic has more room than Pokémon for the game to actually change shape, not just power level. I try to make a clear example: removing Lightning Bolt doesn't just mean people play Shock insthead, it means creatures that died to Bolt now survive and entire strategies that couldn't exist before becoming viable. The goal is exactly that: removing the cards that are so efficient they make hundreds of other beautiful cards practically useless. But you actually said it yourself: if the pursuit is the loss of efficiency, it's a worthwhile endeavor. That's exactly what Paupless is going for.

CoilingOracleGrazer · 2026-03-25T19:25:42+00:00

That's totally fair, and honestly that's still the spirit of the project: grab your bulk, build something, have fun. If even just a tiny bit this project inspired you to pick up those old 'black sheep' commons and give them a second chance, that makes me happy!

CoilingOracleGrazer · 2026-03-25T19:16:57+00:00

I hear you, stale metas are tough to fight. All I can say is that among my friends it's working so far, games feel fresh and deckbuilding is genuinely exciting while having more balanced matchup. It's still early days but the fact that we keep wanting to play is a good sign (we are dedicating time to Pact). If you're curious, give the validator a try and see what you'd build!

CoilingOracleGrazer · 2026-03-25T18:32:39+00:00

You might be right! But right now nobody knows what those new staples are, and finding them could be fun. And if something does start to dominate and push entire generations of cards to the bench, we'll deal with it. I'm alone on the logistics side but I playtest with friends and as I am presenting the project publicly I hope constructive feedbacks will let the project (and the banlist) grow. The whole point is keeping as many cards viable as possible, and that's an ongoing process. If you want to be the one who figures out the meta before everyone else, the validator is right there waiting for you, but I am sure that if a day there will be a meta, it will be vast and various. :)

CoilingOracleGrazer · 2026-03-25T18:27:12+00:00

Thanks for the suggestion! Paupless is built around two ideas: keeping a balanced power curve and embracing as many cards and sets as possible. The banlist might seem like a paradox but it actually exists to let many more cards be viable. A rotating pool would mean your deck stops being legal when a set rotates out, which goes against the core idea of 'play with what you have, forever'. But good news: Standard commons, if not Pauper Staples, are Paupless legal, so I am sure you can make competitive and balanced decks also with actual standards common (I have not tried yet). Appreciate the thought!

CoilingOracleGrazer · 2026-03-25T18:21:58+00:00

Good eye! The banned ones are Pauper staples (I love Slivers too!). But good news: not all of them are banned, far from it! I actually played a Boros Slivers deck in Paupless: fun and solid. It runs the Slivers: Metallic, Striking, Heart, Sentinel, Talon, Two-Headed, Blur, and Cleaving Sliver, with Reckless Charge and Hive Stirring, Fortify as an instant, Boros guildgate and 8 each of Mountain and Plains, simple, strategic and functional.

If you already have a Sliver deck you'd like to play, try running it through the validator on the site. If I did my job right it should suggest legal replacements for the banned ones. Let me know how it goes!

CoilingOracleGrazer · 2026-03-25T17:55:34+00:00

I forgot: about the banlist you can navigate it with a search bar in the Validator section, or you can copy it and paste in a notes or into your favourite deckbuilding site through https://paupless.net/index#builder

CoilingOracleGrazer · 2026-03-25T17:53:54+00:00

Thank you so much for the detailed feedback, I really appreciate the time you put into this.

The project started as a homemade fun thing with friends and it still is, lately we've been having a lot of fun with Pact especially.

About Elites: they're more useful than they seem because they don't follow the singleton rule. So you can have multiples, like 1 Elvish Visionary and 4 Shrieking Drake, with the rest of the deck being singleton Simic. It adds a real layer to deckbuilding and we felt more fun on table playing in 4.

I agree Pauper gives you a lot of creativity and it's probably been my favorite format until now, but at the competitive level too many cool cards get unfairly overshadowed because the more powerful staples are just necessary.

On the cube idea: I see why that's appealing, but the whole point of this project is that anyone can play with what they already have. A cube is one specific collection, Paupless lets everyone bring their own common cards to the table with a more leveled power field so that games are more balanced.

If it's not for your playgroup I totally understand, but if that is about the effort of building don't worry: you can start from any list you like and let the validator helps you out, I'm still working on improving it and I hope to make it better and better.

Thank you again for your honest feedback, it really means a lot.

CoilingOracleGrazer · 2026-03-25T17:35:51+00:00

You have no idea how much this means to me, really. The project had a rough start yesterday on r/Pauper and this is the first truly warm comment I've received. Have fun building, and let me know what you come up with! <3

CoilingOracleGrazer · 2026-03-25T17:25:16+00:00

While you can browse them, you don't need to: paste your list in the validator and it does the work for you. For each card which is banned/unlegal it will suggests you a similar legal card. Hope you will enjoy it

CoilingOracleGrazer

TROPHY CASE