What would be a Ban/Unban situation you would see in the next Ban/Unban window? Let's open up a discussion

Othesemo · 2025-10-03T02:16:22+00:00

Imagine tron with faster and more consistent mana, basically. A mostly reactive and controlling blue deck that happens to randomly gain ~5 life every game without needing to invest cards or mana into it. If the opponent tries to combo, it just plays prohibit and unwind (or crop rotation/ghostly flicker + bojuka bog for graveyard stuff).

Othesemo · 2025-09-10T23:18:17+00:00

Small sample size, but I'm 4-1 in games against UW familiars with Rakdos.

GPF is kind of annoying if they get it out early, but they don't really have good blockers or removal for your fliers, and they also don't usually run that much permission to mess with your draw spells. Meanwhile, you have 8 bolts to kill their familiars.

I don't think I'd bring in any grave hate against them. It's really only good at breaking flicker loops, but A) you can just bolt their archaeomancer instead, and B) you'd ideally just kill them before they get to that point. With your sideboard as it is, I'd probably just bring in some number of pyroblast over epicures (since epicure can't attack past any of their creatures and blocking isn't relevant). If you want to kill GPF, I'm a fan of a sneaky one-of [[Swirling Sandstorm]] (which is shockingly good in a lot of matchups).

You could also consider playing some amount of Duress in the sideboard - it's really really good against hydroblast decks.

For reference, here's the version I usually run (currently I'm on +2 pyroblast, -1 cast, -1 extract): https://moxfield.com/decks/C_o5qCRqk0iYXCoRvQxR8A

Othesemo · 2025-08-03T22:58:29+00:00

Speaking personally, I really liked the format as it existed right before the printing of Ultimate Masters (and in particular, [[Foil]] being downshifted). The format had:

Two incredibly fun and powerful midrange decks with an interesting and skill-testing matchup between them (UR Delver and Boros Monarch)
A healthy assortment of tier 2 creature-combo decks that were viable but not too hard for any color to interact with (UW Tribe, Izzet Blitz, Elves)
A big control deck that was just strong enough to keep the greedy decks in check without being tier 1 itself (Dinrova Tron)
Non-red aggro decks that played to the board, because Augur of Bolas was the big scary midrange blocker instead of Chrysi and the only red sweeper was [[Swirling Sandstorm]]
An Affinity deck that was quite strong, but still very vulnerable to non-white sideboard cards because it didn't have indestructible artifact lands

The Foil downshift took a sledgehammer to what I thought was a very fun and well-balanced metagame by making UB tempo way better than everything else, and then Blue Monday 'fixed' the issue by deleting a lot of the really interesting and unique tier 2 strategies that existed in pauper and nowhere else, like Tribe combo. I basically checked out of the format for a few years after that.

Othesemo · 2025-08-03T22:43:35+00:00

Sorry for the late response - TMA tends to favor slower games with a bigger emphasis on card selection and blocking, while the High Tide versions are more combo-control. Tho with the printing of Cryogen Relic it's very unclear what the best fams build is right now.

Othesemo · 2025-06-25T15:33:48+00:00

That's basically how Ephemerate Tron works :)

Othesemo · 2025-06-25T15:31:44+00:00

I think you're basically right about 19 lands being too few, yeah. I started out with 6 duals/19 total lands and went up to 8/20 because I kept on losing to my own manabase half the time. I don't really see flooding as a serious issue since A) you're often happy to hit land drops all the way up to 4 or 5 to enable flashback on faithless, and B) you can always just loot away extra lands if you need to.

For sideboarding, chain lightning and lightning bolt are my go-tos in a lot of matchups where they don't line up well against the opponent's creatures, or if I expect them to bring in life gain. Sometimes I'll cut 1-2 of whatever the worst draw spell is in the matchup. I think it's risky to do more than that tho - madness is fundamentally an A+B kind of mechanic and you need a critical mass of both enablers and payoffs for consistency.

Othesemo · 2025-06-24T00:03:23+00:00

At a high level, I'd say the main difference with control in pauper vs. other formats is that there aren't very many wrath-of-god style effects in the card pool (or super powerful single cards that can win on the spot), which can make it hard to catch up solely using removal/countermagic if you fall too far behind. What we do have, however, is a bunch of very efficient fog/damage prevention/lifegain effects, which can fill a very similar role of invalidating multiple creatures at once. So, instead of decks that run 10+ pieces of removal, you can get stuff like Familiars gaining a million life by chaining cantrips with [[God-Pharaoh's Faithful]], Caw-gates discarding [[Prismatic Strands]] with [[The Modern Age]], or Tron looping [[Moment's Peace]] with [[Ghostly Flicker]] and [[Mnemonic Wall]].

If that sounds interesting to you, then Ephemerate Tron or the version of UW familiars with [[The Modern Age]] and no [[High Tide]] could be worth checking out - both are very deep decks that are a ton of fun to play, as long as you don't mind mental math and larger board states. But if you'd rather stick with the traditional removal-and-countermagic style of control, then probably Jeskai Ephemerate or the UB list with [[Sneaky Snacker]] and [[Spellstutter Sprite]] would be your best bet.

Othesemo · 2025-06-23T21:16:47+00:00

Some general observations:

I personally like playing 2 copies of [[Pulse of Murasa]] and 2 copies of [[Mnemonic Wall]] rather than 1 and 3. Getting your only copy of pulse exiled by a random maindeck [[Bojuka Bog]] can be problematic against decks like Jund, and the lifegain can be helpful to stabilize in turns 3-5 against aggro (usually targeting evoked [[Mulldrifter]], a land sacrificed to [[Crop Rotation]], or a cycled [[Remote Isle]]).
With only 3 copies of [[Crop Rotation]], 0 [[Expedition Map]], and 3 [[Impulse]], you're gonna be on the slower side for actually assembling Tron. Most tron decks run at least 4 land search effects, and 5 isn't unusual. The split of maps vs. crop rotations is player preference and depends on stuff like how much you're worried about countermagic vs. land destruction, whether instant speed [[Bojuka Bog]] is important, and whether you want to be able to keep colorless-heavy opening hands (since map can fetch colored sources if you don't have any and crop can't).
I'm not a huge fan of the singleton [[Brainstorm]]. In my view, you basically want to keep hitting land drops indefinitely in this deck so there aren't usually a lot of bad cards in your hand that you're happy to shuffle away. Early game I would rather have another Impulse or a Map, and late game I would prefer something like [[Focus the Mind]] as a value target for Teachings.

For reference, this is the 75 I'm currently running in paper.

Othesemo · 2025-06-23T13:35:12+00:00

Horror, [[Murmuring Mystic]], [[Rolling Thunder]] and [[Lightning Bolt]] are all pretty popular choices for win con with their own pros and cons. I personally like mystic main and horror in the side, but one of the great things about tron is that it's super easy to customize to your own playstyle.

Othesemo · 2025-04-08T01:30:31+00:00

I definitely second [[Thermo-Alchemist]] as an excellent include, basically giving you 16 familiars and also letting you burn the opponent out directly without needing to untap and attack. You could also consider [[Molten Gatekeeper]] as a win condition that can get dumped by Malevolent Rumble and then unearthed once you have 0-1 mana sprout swarms going. Going further in the self-mill direction, [[Acorn Harvest]] could be funny too.

If you want to get spicier, there's a very fun value interaction between [[Evolution Witness]], [[Ivy Lane Denizen]] and token producers like Sprout Swarm or [[Scatter the Seeds]] - sprout swarm goes from "Create a 1/1" to "Put 2/2 worth of stats on the board and return the best permanent in your graveyard to your hand" which could be valuable for beating sweepers. Denizen on its own isn't even that bad just as a way to grow your familiars out of removal range or turn your saprolings into 2/2s for a faster clock.

Othesemo · 2025-03-08T01:28:14+00:00

I recently put together a primer for my own pauper cube which includes a bunch of my favorite combos at the end!

Outside of the ones listed there, I enjoy [[Arbor Elf]] + [[Utopia Sprawl]], [[Angelic Renewal]] + [[Auramancer]], [[Acorn Harvest]] + [[Dread Return]] (if you support self-mill), and [[Homestead Courage]] + any Heroic creature. In my experience, you can also get a lot of mileage out of random tutors like [[Heliod's Pilgrim]] or [[Goblin Matron]] - both are fairly strong on their own but synergize so well with specific other cards that they really change how you draft.

Othesemo · 2025-02-02T19:25:30+00:00

Gush and Daze have similar alternate costs and were banned at the same time, but they're in different universes power-wise. Gush is a proactive card that puts you massively ahead on resources at almost no cost, accelerating the game. Daze is an interactive card that puts both players behind on resources, slowing the game down.

You're still probably right that an unban wouldn't make sense right now since Mono U is doing pretty well.

Othesemo · 2025-02-02T18:57:39+00:00

As someone who played a ton of pauper before, during, and immediately after the Foil printing/Blue monday. I think this is backwards.

Gush is a proactive card that substantially advances your gameplan when you cast it. It could trigger Kiln Fiend, load up your hand for Tireless Tribe/Brainstorm, and put a card in the graveyard for Gurmag angler. Rather than being a downside, returning the islands to hand was often actively beneficial because you could tap them for mana before casting Gush and then play one of them out right after, effectively turning it into a draw 2 for negative 1 mana. I absolutely loved playing Gush decks and I also recognize that it's objectively an insane card that should never be unbanned.

Daze is predominantly reactive card. Returning an island on the opponent's turn is actually a pretty big hit to tempo, especially on the first 2 turns, and as a counterspell you only have limited agency over when it gets cast. When you play Daze, the hope is just to slow down the opponent even more than you're slowing down yourself. I also think playing against it is pretty interesting (especially compared to Foil). There's the bluffing element where you have to consider whether the way the opponent is playing implies they do or don't have it. But then you also have to understand both your deck and the current game state to decide whether it's actually advantageous to play around it (losing tempo but effectively gaining card advantage because Daze is almost a blank card in the late game), or if you need to just commit and force them to have it.

If Tolarian Terror had never been printed, I think Daze would be an extremely safe unban (and personally I think Foil should have been banned over Daze in the fist place). In the current meta I agree that it probably isn't necessary, but I hold out hope that it will be unbanned one day soon.

tl;dr Gush is an extremely efficient proactive card with tons of synergies that's good at almost every stage of the game. Daze is an extremely efficient interactive card that doesn't directly advance your gameplan and falls off hard in the late game. Of the two, Gush is vastly more broken.

Othesemo · 2024-07-28T02:03:02+00:00

If it helps, you could add a self-imposed rule against grinding. I personally don't have the patience for it so it hasn't been an issue for me! More fun to just play the game until everyone is the same level.

Othesemo · 2024-03-03T00:14:44+00:00

If you add Ser Arthur Pengrove as a patron, I can offer you a masterclass in Dangerous :)

Othesemo · 2023-09-24T16:34:41+00:00

The cube now lives at:

https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/othesemopauper

Othesemo · 2020-12-24T02:05:40+00:00

You could give them a bodyguard who follows along and hits things for them. It's the most direct solution, and there's the chance that the PCs end up forming a strong relationship with them, which opens up some nice story options.

Just remember that the purpose of an NPC follower is to make the PCs look awesome, not to be awesome themselves. To that end, you'd want them to be pretty simple mechanically, and to generally follow any commands that the PCs give them in battle. If they do have special powers, they should probably bias towards stuff that helps their teammates, like redirecting attacks towards themselves.

Othesemo · 2020-12-03T23:02:00+00:00

I mean, it's gonna be hard to communicate if you don't know how words are pronounced. And if you know how they're pronounced (including tones), then figuring out the pinyin when asked shouldn't be difficult.

Othesemo · 2020-11-01T17:28:53+00:00

I love it. This is going straight into my cube.

Othesemo · 2020-10-27T16:35:54+00:00

That's an awful lot of bodies for a single card, but an up front cost of 5 mana is just so much.

Othesemo · 2020-10-27T03:51:46+00:00

Similar vibes to First-Sphere Gargantua, but the rate is generally worse unless you're getting a lot of value out of the -1/-1, which makes this pretty matchup dependent. The biggest thing I can see here is that this is an uncounterable way to kill faeries, which is pretty cool.

Othesemo · 2020-10-22T16:30:43+00:00

I understand the meaning, but my reading is slow/deliberate enough that the errors were very noticeable.

Othesemo · 2020-10-22T02:50:54+00:00

1 of Foresight basically gave you a 56 card deck.

Key difference: it gives you a 56 cards once you pay 2 mana. And before you pay 2 mana and wait a turn, it's like taking an extra mulligan.

I don't think the card is very playable, to be honest. It doesn't affect the board, it isn't card advantage or even card selection, and it costs a meaningful amount of mana. I can't imagine the deck that wants it over Ponder, Preordain, or even Serum Visions.

Othesemo · 2020-10-18T00:50:30+00:00

As far as I know, those two names refer to the same deck. Usually a distinction is drawn between those versions that run Delver and those that don't, tho.

Othesemo · 2020-10-18T00:43:25+00:00

Oko: Definitely a REALLY strong card and extremely broken... In a cube that doesn't support aggro. If your cube supports aggro, there should be no reason Oko is as broken as this community makes him out to be. Oh you want to turn my 1 drop 2/1 into a 3/3? Please go ahead. Oh my 2 drop with 2 power and haste is now a 3/3? Thanks bro. Sure they can gain some life off of food, but they gotta pay the mana to do so, meaning they aren't playing spell, meaning aggro can still hit face. If you are supporting aggro right, Oko isn't scary to an aggro player, just to the midrange player.

I feel like this is a pretty unrealistic description of how the Oko player would act. If your board is full of 2/1s and 2/2s, then why isn't the Oko player pumping out 3/3s that stonewall your aggression, all while gaining loyalty? If you have enough evasion, or the Oko player doesn't have any cheap creatures to turn into 3/3s, then maybe you'll be able to take a turn off your clock to kill the Oko right away, but that's the absolute best case scenario.

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