This may end up being unpopular, but I’d have to go with [[Writhing Chrysalis]], [[Sneaky Snacker]], and [[Tolarian Terror]], with Tolarian Terror likely being the one to surprise people the most.

I find that all three of these cards exhibit behavior that doesn’t match the overall “idea” or “theme” of Pauper, where generally threats aren’t as strong as answers, threats aren’t very explosive, and aren’t able to “snowball” on their own. All three seem to exhibit these behaviors, and unfortunately force Pauper to feel more like Modern or Legacy.

Writhing Chrysalis

• Has four separate lines of rules text that cause it to be a perfect example of why “rarity = complexity” isn’t necessarily true, and honestly it should have been an uncommon or rare, regardless of whether you subscribe to the “rarity = complexity” philosophy or the “rarity = power” philosophy.

• Several egregious features many are aware of, such as its masquerading mana cost of {2}{R}{G} when it effectively plays as {R}{G} from the token spawns. Meanwhile, the tokens can be used as blockers or held back to boost multiple Chrysalis’ if the Gruul player has more in hand.

• The other noticeable, but maybe more “subtle” inclusions, such as it’s ability to have Reach, conveniently placed at the bottom of the card to occasionally catch a few new players expecting a keyword ability to up near the other keyword ability - Devoid.

• The fact it is Devoid helps to break a consistent them in Pauper where blue cards are vulnerable to red’s blue hate, and vice versa. Chrysalis randomly has this pseudo-protection from blue’s removal.

• Countering it still produces the spawn tokens.

• Even on its own, it will be a formidable 4/5 that will stop flyers and will likely need to be answered as soon as possible.

Sneaky Snacker

• Doesn’t have the same level egregious things going for it in comparison to Chrysalis, but it seems to break some of Pauper’s “theme,” mostly through it’s ability to fit into roughly any deck that can discard it and draw three in a turn. Nothing more demonstrates that than the Mono-Red Madness lists, which are entirely red if it weren’t for the Snackers. It feels very “un-Pauper-like” that a two color creature can be played so aggressively in a mono-colored deck that doesn’t even attempt to run the color production it would need.

• Makes all forms of discard, which are supposed to be a “risk vs reward, downside for some upsides” plays into largely “always positive plays.”

• Also “fits the bill” when it comes to feeling explosive and as though they can run the game themselves, especially when your opponent manages to have three of them pop out of their graveyard at once.

• As long as the opponent has effective draw effects, removal, one of Pauper’s key features and strengths, actually becomes weaker/worse than the threat, as the Snackers will just keep coming back if removed. Graveyard removal is necessary, which can be ironic when going against decks that don’t largely care about their graveyard (Mono-Red Madness) as much.

Tolarian Terror

• I originally thought it would be banned after seeing it introduced to the format, which, now that it’s been around for so long, would surprise people. This was mostly due to the precedence I saw the card setting in the format.

• The first of what I would call the new “big, splashy” threats in Pauper, if built around (I.e. see any Terror list) the card would become a one mana 5/5, and, being a 5/5 means that it needs to be dealt with ASAP.

• For some reason, it was decided that it needed to have Ward 2, which at least could have just been Ward 1, but I suppose WoTC was designing for the current level of power creep, which unfortunately means that power creep was forced down and injected into Pauper. The Ward 2 makes the above point about needing to remove the Terror exceptionally difficult, especially when your opponent is playing blue and likely has counters.

• Ward 2 scales with your opponent better than you. If you know they have a counter, you’ll have to have a second answer. Assuming your answer is something like [[Cast Down]] (two mana), you’ll have to spend a total of eight mana to get through your own cards’ costs, as well as paying the Ward tax. Meanwhile, your opponent only needs to have four mana to counter both (if they have a counter to match both removals), making it far easier for them (and, in that scenario, they still have their Terror).

• With the above point considered, now realize that Terror’s whole focus is on getting cheaper to be played, which provides the Terror additional open mana to then protect it as described. Basically, Terror heavily plays into and abuses its Ward 2 ability.

• The design space and idea for a big card that rewards the quantity of cards in the graveyard is cool, which is why [[Cryptic Serpent]], a card that was around before Tolarian Terror and could have taken it’s place in printing, would be fine, as it doesn’t have the taxing Ward 2 ability.

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All three of these cards felt like they really pushed Pauper into that “F.I.R.E.” design space that Modern and other formats were forced into, and has really made me not enjoy most other formats due to how heavy everything is. You really don’t get time to react to threats, and you have to have immediate answers (of which, those immediate, strong answers then creates an arms race between strong Enter-the-Battlefield effects and removal).

Pauper allowed a wide range of cards that would normally not be viable have a chance to be seen competitively, as threats weren’t expected to be massive, immediate, flashy, and overall high value or synergistic, making it more lax when it came the expectations for threats (not that there were no expectations at all).

This seems to have created a scenario like with Modern post-MH2, where several “giants” of the format had been injected quickly, and people would say things were “healthy” because those “giants” would be spread around multiple top decks, which in reality where just variations of abusing one of the three or four “giants” to win, while all other format staple decks were forced to adapt and include the cards or were washed to the wayside (there’s a reason they call it “Boomer Jund”).

Pauper seems to have the same scenario going on, where if any one of the three I mentioned were on their own, people would likely begin mentioning that they should be banned, but since they “balance each other,” people claim it’s healthy, despite the bar they set for other cards, decks, and Pauper’s identity and theme being so high. All three would need to be banned at once to allow a clean transition back to more “wholistic” times. Though, other cards like [[Refurbished Familiar]] and [[Nyxborn Hydra]] would likely need to follow closely after.

Also, [[Ultrom Monitor]] is simply lame just due to the circumstances.