Pauper - A Spring Reflection

I’m normally not a big fan of bans, as I think a meta should be allowed to evolve and grow and let decks change and pilots adapt. I guess that’s the Vintage player in me. But as I read the BnR for May 13th - with All that Glitters being banned in Pauper, I just felt… I don’t know.

Not angry. Frustrated? Sad? I’ve been mad at bans before, but mostly I just thought it wasn’t presented well. In fact, I don’t think any of the recent Pauper bans have sat right with me. Am I just out of touch? Maybe…

I don’t know if anyone on the Pauper Format Panel (PFP) will read this, but I want to be clear: I think their job is not easy - deciding bans and unbans for a whole community, and I think they do it overall very well. I just think it could be done different, and that difference might be worth a shot.

I’ll be upfront. The truth is I want many cards unbanned, across every Magic format. Way too many cards in Modern, Legacy, and Vintage exist in limbo - banned or restricted into sitting in boxes or binders to never be played in a meaningful way. Unfortunately, I think this article will already be seen as a whiny hot take, so I’ll spare you my actual hot takes on the BnR list. But, oh, the way I felt on that fateful day. April 24th, 2017. That’s the root. Sure, banning Top on the prospect of decreasing draws is a noble cause. But that wasn’t the case here. It was outcry of the people. It was the person who put the sign in front of the WotC office. It wasn’t winrate, although Miracles was commonly considered the best deck. It wasn’t the metashare of Top, which occupied more decks than Miracles as a draw-fixer. It was opinion. It was emotion. It was wanting to stop hearing people complain every day like “Oh man, another draw to Miracles”, “Miracles takes forever to contemplate their Tops”, “Top is toxic”.

Monastery Swiftspear is banned in Pauper on December 4th, 2023. In the article, you know what was brought up? Winrate. Can you guess Mono-Reds non-mirror winrate? 50.8%. This card was not banned off it’s power. This card was not banned off it’s ubiquity. This card was not banned on being a 4 of in every top 8 deck at a GP (looking at you, Smuggler’s Copter). This card was banned because… it felt bad to play against? Look, I understand that “Mountain, Swiftspear, Deal 1, Go” isn’t/wasn’t fun. But the deck was not a problem. In fact - referenced in the same article - Grixis Affinity sat at 50.5% and UB Terror sat less than 50%! Okay, well what had the highest winrate? Data from December 2023 shows Familiars at 56%, White Weenie at 54%, while Caw-Gates, BG Gardens, and UB Fae sit around 52-55%. Yet, Swiftspear get the ban. Why are these decks not getting the same treatment? Is it fun to deal with 2 5/5s on turn 3? Is it fun to deal with an indestructible 3/3 flyer? Is it fun to get Spellstuttered out of the game? To get Ephemerated out of the game? To get Edicted out of the game?

Maybe I don’t understand the community’s prospect of fun. Everyone has an idea of what is “fun” to them. And I think Pauper - and Magic as a whole - should be fun. If it wasn’t fun, we probably wouldn’t be playing it, right? But there is a stark difference between casual and competitive, between kitchen table and MTGO Challenges, between FNMs and GPs. To me, Pauper can lean more on being a competitive format. Right now, it sits in limbo - between those too uninterested (for variety of reasons) to buy into Standard or Modern or Legacy, those who bleed from the casual side using commons they have on hand, and those who remember a time where you could grind Pauper for a Pro Tour bid. Even if you reading this don’t consider yourself a “competitive player,” I don’t know a Magic player who wants to do something… uninspiring. Sure, maybe that Phelddagrif EDH Grouphug deck was fun for a game or two, but the Oops All Permanents Primal Surge EDH deck was more powerful - and likely more fun. Legacy is both powerful and fun. Vintage Cube is powerful and fun. Have you seen Caustic Bronco in Standard right now? Powerful. Fun. Why can Pauper not be a competitively viable, WotC supported format where Power and Fun meet?

Pauper finds itself without an identity.

I’ve read the articles. I’ve watched the videos. Truth is, they’re missing the mark with me. If something should be banned, shouldn’t it be “too good” against the meta? Because cards are being banned when they feel “too bad” to play against. The people who play Magic are smart. They can alter sideboards for decks they feel will be relevant. They can punish those predictions with counter meta. And when counter meta becomes meta, the “problematic cards” no longer see a higher share of play. That’s adaptation. And that’s proven. That’s happened all through Magic’s history. Why would Pauper be different? Because people have access to cry on Reddit or Twitter or YouTube about how your deck sucks and you should feel bad about playing it? Swiftspear and Glitters getting banned didn’t suck because you had to buy a new $700 deck, it sucked because that’s what people wanted to play. Who cares about price, someone could go buy a new BG Gardens this week, while someone else might have to wait 6 months to progressively buy into it - those things will buff, the reason they do it is to play a format that they love that does not show any in return.

I still love Pauper.

I’ll still continue helping my friends build Mono G Tron, or Mono B Reanimator, or Delver.

I’ll still play my America Ephem list, maybe bust out Mono U Fae, or even Hot Dogs - for old time’s sake.

But one day, I won’t.

I can be a Magic boomer. I can be another whiny post on Reddit. That’s fine. None of this was objective anyways.