Final Fantasy is now out and available at Owl Central Games. We have a ton of singles available right now, including the commons and uncommons you need to spruce up any deck. But what I’m most excited about is the new cards available for Pauper! Here’s a quick recap of all the commons that you should snag right now at Owl Central Games to be on the cutting edge of my favorite format. Which are you most excited to play with?
These are picks for the best cards and they go together. Black Mage’s Rod and Cornered by Black Mages! There’s currently an uptick in the amount of Lava Darts getting played in the format so Black Mages might be a little held down at first but if you’re able to keep these guys in play you’ll rack up a lot of extra damage. Both these cards pair well with all of Black’s card drawing spells by giving you a trigger and leaving behind material so they’ll slot in easy to pre existing decks but I want to see these paired with Raven of Dark Omens to give you a huge pile of bonus triggers.
Instant Ramen is the Ichor Wellspring option that Counterspell decks will like more. It opens up a new avenue for deckbuilding, allowing an affinity-style deck to be less of a “tap-out” style deck and shift it towards being more reactive.
This would still allow you to be mana efficient too, holding up cards like Fanatical Offering, Reckoner’s Bargain, Cast Down, and others, but letting you still utilize that mana, even if you don’t need those effects during that particular turn.
Outside of playing Slivers it’s really hard to play a decently costed lord in Pauper. This is usually attached to a 4 or 5 mana activated ability on a random 1 power creature. It’s super cool that the +1 power will linger for the turn even when Choco/Mog is killed, forcing your opponent to act first with their removal during your Upkeep or on their turn allowing you to navigate combat in the most optimal way. I think this Summon opens up possibilities of go wide token decks in addition to giving Mono White Aggro another aggressive tool in their kit. Not that Writhing Chrysalis and Malevolent Rumble need the help, but I could see some kind of Naya Tokens build or just Green White Tokens with Glimmer Bairn, Cloakwood Swarmkeeper, and Sprout Swarm.
Magitek Infantry reminds me of a stat adjusted Ramosian Sergeant. The +1/+0 is pretty trivial to turn on in Pauper and most decks wouldn’t mind having another artifact in play. It’s a 2/1 for 1 that Brainstorm likes.
These are the cards that stood out to me in the Pauper format! I’m looking forward to seeing what you bring to our Friday Night Pauper events, plus what shows up for our major events too. See you around!
