Molten Gatekeeper Is another of an effect we liked to help keep pushing through damage. We decided that this effect was good enough the first time that we’d like a second one for now.

Galvanic Discharge is being added in not to indicate a future pivot into heavy use of the energy mechanic, but because it’s simply a very efficient removal spell. While it doesn’t go face, it’s still a good rate for this sort of spell when we played last gasp for ages.

Fiery Cannonade similar to Drown in Sorrow above, is also a bit more efficiently costed than we’d like for even a soft board wipe.

Voldaren Epicure has been fine but it’s being pulled as we’re already looking to other options for a 1 drop that allows some level of card velocity.

With this update we’re hoping to address some of the issues that folks have raised with green not feeling like a good color to draft with more cards that we hope to give some additional resiliency to the color.

####Adds
Evolution Witness was one of the more popular cards we’ve seen in a while, the initial thread in the discord was hugely in favor of it and the NPS score for it bore that out. While most times this will trigger once, please be sure to let us know when you manage to get at least 2 or 3 things back.

Nyxborn Hydra is both a good card and fits the theme for Selesnya.

Colossal Dreadmask means that every single creature on your board from the point it hits suddenly becomes a potentially game ending evasive threat, sans artifact removal, this should end games pretty fast.

Eldrazi Repurposer is coming in as a pretty reasonable 3 drop with a pile of bodies coming along on both entry and departure.

Basking Broodscale is similar to Evolution Witness a neat little counters matter card that is just fine on rate and it you manage to start getting more counters on it can provide a bit of additional ramp or bodies to have hang around.

Malevolent Rumble is a bit slower and more restricted Impulse but it should hopefully get the job done.

Horrific Assault finally lets us have the Bite/Punch/whatever you want to call it effect at 1 mana, it’s going in as a good piece of green removal.

Longstalk Brawl is an interesting take on the classic 1 mana fight spell in that it has a decent probability of winning the fight and leaving your opponent with a 1/1. With the sizes of creatures in our format being relatively compact, giving +1/+1 lets this emulate a bite more than a fight.

Utopia Sprawl along with it’s best friend Arbor Elf make for a really solid and aggressive amount of ramp possible in the early game. We’re testing this one out for the time being.

Gnoll Hunter was an experimental inclusion that seems to have failed the experiment.

Primal Huntbeast at this point feels just very clunky, we have left its sibling in the cube (Jade Guardian) for the counters synergies, just to see how things shake out.

Jungleborn Pioneer is a relic of when 3s in green were far worse.

Deepwood Denizen is a counters card that hopefully the counters deck shouldn’t need. While it’s a neat little draw engine, we feel like the counters deck is doing best when it’s just attacking.

Clear Shot is rough at 3 mana and while we got a nice new version of it with silly art, it just isn’t that good.

Titanic Brawl is not great, it relates to one of green’s themes, but it was always just an ok addition, not an actual payoff.

Voracious Typhon is going out as an uninteresting variant on the threat that has multiple angles of use.

Prizefight is another example of a fight card we just felt wasn’t feeling as good as it once did.

Fyndhorn Elves is leaving so our one drops aren’t too crowded with functionally identical cards.

Edge of Autumn is a fun little riff on Rampant Growth but we’re adding in other ramp and we figured this was the one that would be missed the least.

The big structural update for this update is going to be that we’re swapping from 4 “gold” slots to what we’re describing as 3 “True Gold” and 1 “Not-gold”. You might have questions as to what exactly means, so here’s the breakdown.

“True Gold” cards are cards that the committee has deemed would be either unplayable or at least much worse without access to all colors in their color identity. We include anything that requires 2 colors to cast in this definition, as well as cards that are one color but have an additional cost such as flashback or kicker where we feel that the base mode is not good enough on its own.

“Not-Gold” cards are best exemplified by hybrid cards, though this is not a requisite. They are cards where you would be content playing them in either of their colors, but are even more useful if you’re in both colors. This could include Split cards or some new, unforeseen mechanic that satisfies this idea.

WU – Add Judge’s Familiar, cut Lawmage’s Binding

Judge's Familiar never felt perfect for the things Azorius was trying to do, but fit perfectly as either a white or blue card, so it made perfect sense for it to be here. We also managed to get in another instant speed effect like binding in the form of dog umbra, so it felt like the least interesting one left.

UB – Dimir Guildmage takes up a hybrid Slot now

BR – Add Cindering Cutthroat, Cut Terminate

Cindering Cutthroat helps put a solid threat into both black and red, a welcome addition to both colors. Terminate on the other hand, while A-plus removal is currently taking up a far more limited slot than some of its equivalents

RG – BTE takes up a Hybrid slot Now, Add Writhing Chrysalis, cut Colossal Might

BTE has been swapped into the newly created slot. We’re adding in Writhing Chrysalis as it was an absolutely absurd common in its own limited format and while we have fewer eldrazi tokens running around, it should still prove to be a solid threat.

GW – Add Safehold Elite, add Watchdog, cut Qasali Pridemage, Travel preparations

Safehold Elite swings back in, while not the craziest include, it does interact somewhat with the selesnya theme in being able to be reset.

We’ve also decided to bring in Faithful Watchdog as it’s not only a great rate but is a nice card for the counters deck as it’s just generally a solid body that gets to do the color pair’s main thing.

Coming out are Qasali Pridemage as well as Travel Preparations. While the first might be somewhat obvious for not fitting directly into the theme, travel preparations is one we feel will take some explaining, especially with Armadillo Cloak remaining in. The committee decided that generally Armadillo Cloak is more likely going to lead to winning games, even if it’s not strictly following the theme.

BW – Add Gift of Orzhova, cut Unmake

We did talk about the idea of if Unmake was the cut here, but ultimately decided since it’s functionally more of a True Gold card at the end of the day, we cut it and added in Gift of Orzhova as a replacement taking up the Not-gold slot.

UR – Add Tempest Angler, cut Fire/Ice

Potentially a controversial swap, we felt that in order to handle this change in a way that felt balanced, we felt that Fire // Ice was closer to a Not-Gold that True Gold, and wanted to make space for Tempest Angler

BG – Desecrator Hag takes up a Hybrid slot Now

RW – Dog Walker takes up a Hybrid slot Now

GU – Add Quandrix Pledgemage, cut Temporal Spring

Quandrix Pledgemage sees a return here, and we’ve heard your opinions, Temporal Spring is out of here.

Colorless
You may have noticed that there’s some oddness going on with the colorless and land modifications, we decided that we’re going slightly up on our land count and that meant that something had to go.

Thundering Tanadon is a weird outlier in that we had 6 technically colorless cards and at some point along the way we wound up with 2 greenish ones, and Tanadon lost against Mutagenic.

Star Compass is a fine mana rock but not one that we were thrilled to have just hanging around this long.

Sylvok Lifestaff is not helping any deck trying to be more proactive in its gameplan, and as part of our continued effort to make aggressive decks better, the equipment that keeps casting healing salve over and over isn’t helping

Skyscanner is one that some members really wanted in as a “glue” to fix up drafts but frankly average card quality as well as abundance of fixing means that having something like it has become less and less necessary.

Hidden Grotto

We liked this enough when it had a Desert typeline, why not have 2?

The Landscapes

We’re adding the 10 landscapes, they’re all very strong options, coming in untapped, getting a basic when the fixing is more important than the mana, and sometimes you might even have the chance to cycle one, but we’re not gonna hold our breaths on that one.

The CLB gates

The gates are good, don’t get us wrong, but we don’t need more fixing with the landscapes coming in. That and the fact these need to be manually tracked goes a bit against the general idea of keeping things as simple as possible when we can.

Ash Barrens and Shire Terrace also are both exiting as more Evolving Wilds adjacent lands.

Masked Vandal is not a bad card, but the combination of a 1/3 body, the lack of artifact/enchantment recursion, and an enter-the-battlefield effect that wants both a creature in your graveyard and a target on the board all means that the shapeshifter ended up on the cutting block when a better two-mana option appeared.

Scion Summoner is a card that has been on the chopping block for a long time and has mostly just stuck around because it blocks Guardian of the Guildpact. We’ve decided to no longer worry too much about that though, and thus we’re following its abysmal polling results and saying goodbye to this Eldrazi.

Sure to be one that some of the community finds a contentious removal, we are removing Cogwork Librarian, which I don’t think anyone was clamoring to have cut. That said, it is functionally a card that likely has been chosen more times than almost any other card ever in the cube, but has likely also seen the least number of times actually on the stack. For that reason, we’re slotting in Juggernaut as a generically good beatstick that the community has indicated they’re interested in including.

Dog Walker is, in many ways, exactly what Boros is looking for. Three bodies in one cheap shell plays very nicely with its current strategy of going wide before unleashing a Rally the Peasants, and the frank reality of things is that the card quality for Boros commons generally hasn’t been all that great for us.

Wojek Halberdiers is a card that’s been polling poorly for a long time. While it does play into the go-wide archetype with its Battalion trigger, it’s nonetheless the obvious cut when a new exciting Boros card finally arrives.

Blightning is a card that people have been wanting back for a while, and we figured that we’d let you have it. Why cast Lava Spike and Mind Rot when you could cast both at once on one card?

Spike Jester is a card that’s been unpopular with the community for as long as we’ve been asking for input, and our defense of it has always been that it’s good for aggro when you just want to do three damage to their face. We realize that it doesn’t quite gel with the Aristocrats archetype we’re going for in Rakdos, however, and thus you’re getting those three damage to face with a card that has more of that nebulous Fun Factor.

Escape Tunnel over Evolving Wilds is one update that is perhaps simple but a general quality of life improvement, it is just a strictly better card and we’re excited to hear your fun stories of managing to pump something for lethal after targeting it with the tunnel’s other ability.

Conduit Pylons over Cave of Temptation is another interesting one. I’m sure that some out there expected that the cut here would likely be the similar Crystal Grotto, but we hope that having two of these generic draw fixing lands will be better on the whole than a single grotto effect that sometimes becomes a counter.

One of the bigger changes for our cube is the inclusion of a broken third land cycle. Pauper has been getting variations on taplands regularly, and with the most recent printing of dual colored deserts, we believe that Pauper finally has a density of effects to explore giving each archetype something unique. Prior to this update, we had 10 Bouncelands, 10 Scry/Draw lands, and 10 typed duals which kept things mostly consistent. In evaluating our existing cycles, there was considerable discussion among the Pauper Cube community and within the committee, but ultimately there seemed a clear consensus that both bouncelands and scry/draw lands were a clear step above other options for providing something near card advantage. The conclusion was clear then; typed duals were not going to stay as a full cycle.

While typed duals can occasionally allow you to feel extra clever alongside cards like Generous Ent or Farseek, the majority of the time they play like any old guildgate. In contrast, the gainlands and pinglands impact every game they are in, letting a deck extend or shorten the game by 5%. While these may have less interesting possibilities, we believe they improve the drafting experience by increasing the valuation of dual lands over other cards. Plus, while these two new cyclers interact poorly with searchers, they do interact with our bouncelands, ghostly flicker effects, and cards that care about life change such as Skewer the Critics

The overall philosophy was to keep typed duals in the green archetypes when possible as the base with searchers and multicolor decks, gainlands in controlling archetypes which are looking to extend the game, and pinglands in aggressive guilds, especially red, that are trying to speed up the endgame. As we continue to finetune archetypes and magic introduces new duals, it is our goal to continue to adjust this broken cycle to maximize fun per guild.

For More Be Sure to Visit: https://thepaupercube.com/

White
White might be a bit of boring update this time around, as most of these cards are just slight upgrades, so we’ll use this space to just quickly pay respects to Pacifism, you will be missed, you were good removal but power creep comes for almost all of us. Also Intercessor is a neat first take of what a Fiend Hunter at common looks like.

Blue Adds
Blue’s adds for this update pull the curve a bit lower than it’s been to date, Quick Study is maybe one of the more interesting ones, finally putting one of our “draw spells that let you keep up a counterspell as well” at a lower Mana Value slot should help, no matter how little blue needs it.

Murmuring Mystic was making it in from the moment it hit the server. We’ve been fans of the UR spells matter deck, and it’s nice to get some support in the form of a payoff on the blue side of things.

Zephyr Winder was an early high scorer in the MOM preview season, we’re giving it a whirl for those of you missing Carnivorous Death-Parrot

We had some back and forth on Shipwreck Dowser and whether we need 3 of these effects in the cube, we’re going to try it out with the caveat of “if folks complain we’ll retool later”

Mocking Sprite is a riff on a card we’re already playing that seems interesting and does add evasion to the electromancer genre of creatures

Lórien Revealed has made waves in a lot of formats, we’re hopeful it’s a neat, flexible option, similar to Hieroglyphic Illumination was for a time in the cube.

Blue Cuts
Halimar Wavewatch has not been polling amazingly and dodged a few updates where it was a potential cut as the committee felt that it was a useful tool for keeping slower blue decks alive in the early game. Mystic getting in made us feel like it wouldn’t be missed too much.

Shaper Parasite was one that was on the chopping block due to a combo of folks replying negatively in polling to it as well as several opinions that it was a Knowledge check for folks who knew the cube better rather than an actual skill testing card.

Deprive was one of those cards that’s been in the cube for a while now and just didn’t generally have a great opinion surrounding it. This is more of a “I won’t miss it” type of cut.

Errant Ephemeron is leaving for general low performance in polling and a desire to keep the curve a bit lower.

Scattered Thoughts was cut mostly to avoid increasing the “blue cards that are card positive” count too much.

We’re finally giving Omen of the Sea the axe, it wasn’t the greatest option for card draw and doesn’t synergize with a lot of what blue’s trying to do.

Black Adds
Dread Return was a shoe-in from time of spoiling till now. Black has been wanting access to Zombify for a while and getting it with extra text added onto it is just incredible.

Drown in Sorrow was another easy to include option, 3 mana board control is incredibly real.

Mire Triton is just a solid utility creature, not much more to say.

Troll of Khazad-dûm has been finding homes in eternal formats and we’ve loved the options for this style of large creature with land cycling tacked on, but end of day this is the one we felt was the best option to have in the cube.

Legion Vanguard as a downshift was the culmination of many versions of sac outlets we’ve been getting at common in mainline sets that just weren’t there. A bear that can turn creatures into card filtering/draw/counters is a nice little package for the aristocrats decks.

While we don’t have the density for Bargain to just always be active, Rowan's Grim Search has some very neat upside to it, being able to rip through up to 6 cards. If players find that this is more often than not just a Succumb to Temptation we can reconsider down the road to remove additive distraction.

The classic big sibling of cube classic Phyrexian Rager, Phyrexian Gargantua is joining the cube. While Black might be getting a bit chunky on the curve, we are aware and will be keeping an eye out.

Voracious Vermin Is a neat version in the vein of things like Mortician Beetle with the upside of coming with its own fuel source for it’s triggered ability.

Dunland Crebain comes from a long lineage of “creatures that come with an additional body” and while it’s more on the ground than the Blue equivalents, we’re eager to add this one in.

Candy Grapple May not have polled as highly as some other options, but this is another in the line of “strictly better Last Gasps”. Even without bargain the card’s playable, with bargain you have access to removing slightly bigger creatures.

Black Cuts
Gluttonous Slug has utility against aggro decks but is unexciting as a proactive win condition, the committee will always lean more on the side of proactive cards when the option presents itself.

Eyeblight Massacre loses out as a less powerful and more complicated sweeper. There are definitely some stories floating around out there where someone managed to get this to keep their 2 dorks alive to rebuild faster, but that wasn’t enough to keep it around.

Typhoid Rats hits the magic combo of being both unexciting and just having a better version already in the cube.

Twisted Abomination was not tenable to keep in with another similarly shaped big ol’ goober. Rest in peace to a classic limited banger.

Vulturous Aven Has been in for a while as a funky riff on Sign in Blood, but it’s just time to rotate this one for some fresher options.

Read the Bones has a like-for-like card selection and card draw upgrade available for us to test at the same mana cost.

We’re also dumping Moan of the Unhallowed as one of the less exciting options in the color.

Sinuous Vermin has been on the radar for possible cuts for a few sets now, the time has finally come.

It seems like every new set offers a new token generator, and it is finally time to replace Deathbloom Thallid with something more modern.

Mire's Grasp is, like so many removal spells, slowly being powercrept out.

Red Adds
Guttersnipe already has some sibling effects in the cube and tacking shocks onto your bolts and preordains and so on is pretty cool.

Rally at the Hornburg Might be the best version of a 2 mana red spell that makes 2 1/1s we’ve seen. While we’re not supporting human typal stuff, the first time someone late game gets haste on some other creature for lethal, I’m sure we’ll all hear about it.

Gnawing Crescendo is a very cool riff on the Trumpet Blast classic template that has some cool applications in an aristocrats build.

Wrenn's Resolve is just another copy of Reckless Impulse, an already great card, easy include.

Sulfurous Blast is coming in as another option for board control in read that either gives you it at instant speed or getting to go bigger to clear more sizeable threats.

Aristocrats gets a gift in Harried Spearguard, probably one of the neater Raging Goblins we’ve seen in recent history.

Oliphaunt is coming in as one of the top of curve options for red due to the fact it just won’t be dead in most situations,

Ratcatcher Trainee // Pest Problem is an interesting on that we want to try out. The base body is one that we’ve had variants of in the cube before and they’ve been cut but the hope is that the modality is enough to make this version worth it.

Improvised Club is a boring update to a card you’ll see in the cuts, it’s just better.

Chimney Rabble Is another in the vein of Beetleback Chief a cube perennial favorite so of course it was getting in.

Red Cuts
Thermo-Alchemist Is going out to make room for other spells matter payloads, being survived by the other ping effects that don’t require waiting a turn.

While we’re not doing 1 for 1 cuts as much these days, you know why Krenko's Command got cut, right?

Dynacharge Is another that’s just beginning to show some age here and we feel comfortable letting this one go now.

Bitter Reunion was added pretty recently but just hasn’t been as big a hit as we had expected, combined with having better draw 2s added since then.

We’re cutting Makeshift Munitions for it being more of a cute card that fits an archetype rather than a really great option. One day we’ll get something closer to Goblin Bombardment and we’ll be happier with that.

Keldon Marauders is also getting trimmed for the time being as our 2s are still really good and we needed to find room somewhere.

Flurry of Horns, a favorite of at least one Committee member has finally been on the chopping block long enough. Rest in peace sweet bull human hybrids.

Viashino Pyromancer was cut since we needed a 2 drop cut for curve consideration and this was the one that we were happiest with at the end of a long discussion

Heartfire got outclassed and folks seemed to like it well enough for its strictly better version to make sense.

Ghirapur Gearcrafter Is showing a bit of age these days.

Green Adds
Generous Ent was one of several options for a green forestcycling creatures. End of the day it made the cut over other options mostly because of that gold standard 1 generic mana to get a land.

Wary Thespian is the type of card it’s hard to be wildly excited about because it’s just generically a reasonable card. The body on its own is unimpressive, but tacking card selection on the way in and the way out is a really nice addition to this shape of creature.

Green Cuts
Ambush Viper was just somewhat unremarkable and didn’t have a huge fanbase supporting it.

Nessian Asp was starting to show its age at this point, the idea of it where it’s a mid-game threat that has a late game threat of activation, but I the Generous Ent provides more flexibility.

White only had 6 cards that the committee was considering, so no cuts this time around. We are aware that Guardian of the Guildpact was on a lot of people’s radars and trust us, it’s on ours as well. For these additions, most of these are generically good, and folks have been clamoring for a Basri’s Acolyte style of card for a while. Palace Sentinels is a more probationary add, given the polarizing effect of the monarchy, but was well liked enough by the community to give another test.

The blue additions include some great options. We’re well aware that Drake adds an infinite mana combo to the cube, but the payoffs being few in number or relatively complicated, we feel that it’s a pretty safe add. Exclude has also long been a fan favorite that we haven’t found room for in updates past, it felt only right for it to be included here.

The last of the silver border cards falls! While the parrot definitely had a few fans, overwhelmingly it represented a strange part of the cube that folks had generally less than positive opinions ranging from the fact it’s not mtgo compatible to general dislike of silly cards in general. Research is a tested and good card from the realm of constructed and hopefully will work well here for slower blue decks.

Black’s free adds shouldn’t be dreadfully shocking. Most of these are ones that have come up in the past or are at least recognizable. We did want to get one recursion engine into the cube and it was between Tortured Existence and Undertaker. In the end we went with the non-creature option for a bit more resilience, but Taker is still very much on the table for future updates.

While there is a real cost to that 1 in the activated ability on Mold Folk, we think that the fact it’s a mana cheaper up front and comes with a free keyword is worth that trade off. The fact this can eat random treasures or food or other tokens is just added upside.

Boot Nipper has never been a card that turns heads and was mainly included as a card to fill slots. Infiltrator on the other hand actively has a thing that it wants to do.

Abomination is a classic card which fits at two points of the curve very neatly, either ensuring you make early land drops or being a decent finisher.

We’ve been off stand alone edicts for a while, but we want to try out one of the all timers again. Cruelty has been fine but felt like one of the less premium pieces of removal in the current list.

Last Gasp has been a long time resident here, but we’ve gotten to the point where there’s cards that are just strictly better in the cube. Ashes however is a bit of a unique beast, so it’s getting back in for the time being.

OGS was in the cube a ways back and it’s finally time for it to make a return. Toll has done a decent impression of a duress with legs, but we feel that giving it a more real body and a way to bleed someone’s hand very aggressively is a neat play pattern.

Red gets a bunch of neat freebies here. Bitter Reunion was very hyped around release and we’re excited to see how good it plays. There’s a bit more support for UR doing spells matter stuff, and some generally good additions in the form of epicure and steelcrusher.

Heelcutter has been a dependable top of curve, but batterfirst represents huge amount of material on the board and we want to test out what we think is the most flexible 3/1 for 2 in red.

Marauder is a great 2 drop for decks aiming to attack quickly and often, and while sorcerer can make combat a bit tricky for the opponent, we feel it’s starting to show its age these days.

Barbarian was always a probationary add, and motivator has been on the list to add for a while now, so this was an easy swap.

Magma Jet has been in since its downshifting and definitely is far from being an out and out bad card, but we feel that the uncounterable combat trick that Maaka can be, or the overcosted body represents more value for what the average red deck is trying to do.

Wolverine is a great mold for a spells matter card as it doesn’t care if it’s present for the spells being cast or if it shows up after. Cyclops has been fine but never amazing.

Look at all this utility! We’ve got a new solid 3 drop, we’ve got counters support, we’ve got card draw with a flex mode, we’ve even got a somewhat janky Reclamation Sage.

This is one that we initially chose not to include for fear of it being a huge wall for decks wanting to just turn things sideways. While it definitely can do that, it also attacks decently well and Shoat has felt odd for a minute now.

Adventure Awaits was mentioned a bunch on the recent annual survey. We hear you, so we’re trying out something in the same overall genre. Edge of Autumn has a very clear gameplan of being ramp early game and card draw late game which we hope will be well liked.

Wild Mongrel is a classic card, there’s no debating that in the least. That said, it really doesn’t have a lot that it synergizes with in the cube any more. While Hunter isn’t the most amazing card printed, it still plays into one of green’s varied gameplans while not being overly specific enough to need to go in exactly GW.

Oligarch was in a weird spot of not really being amazing and not really supporting Orzhov’s gameplan that clearly. Cards that help with the slow life drain have been generally well liked, and putting it on a french vanilla piker seems like enough of an upside to merit testing at bare minimum.

To immediately walk back the comments about Oligarch, it’s a card that doesn’t support a color pair’s main game plan. Cloak may not mention counters, +1/+1 or otherwise, but it is just GOOD. We’re currently discussing long term analysis of how we want to use our gold slots in the cube, but for now this should be taken as an include on sheer power level and not a trend.

I can already hear the yelling that this isn’t really a colorless card, but hear us out. Mutt is just fine as a colorless card but is just a touch better in a red deck where you get to rebuy it later. We’re viewing it similarly to how phyrexian mana spells technically have utility in specific color decks but are totally playable in any deck

Gear has lingered in the cube way longer than it should have. It’s a card that needs very specific support to work well and it simply wasn’t there. Growth on the other hand is just downright good and can fit into most decks barring the absolute slowest of durdle decks.

We’re including one “scary” constructed banned card here. Ornament is very much on probationary inclusion but we felt that it wasn’t overpowered in this context and is more interesting than the raiders.

At least one committee member will be in mourning for a few days about this one, but probe is a solid card that makes almost every deck just a bit better. If the information/free cantrip proves too much, we’ll find something new to go here.

Maybe the fastest inclusion to removal turn around time, Iron Golem didn’t land with the expected reaction from the community, so instead we’re going to pivot to another big old dummy, and hopefully one that people enjoy more.

Land

Haven has a full 10 cards that are just better than it in the cube and we wanted the option for more utility lands to make their way into the cube with this update. Enjoy fixing your draws instead of your mana.

We saved the controversial one for last. Gate has not gotten an amazing reception from the community, but the committee felt very strongly that it would make for a good utility land to include here and we’re going to test it out. If we hear that the community does not like its inclusion here, we can always swap expanse back in or find another utility land to test here instead.

Coming Soon...

White

Inspiring Overseer was an instant hit with the community, and it’s not hard to see why. With Priest of Ancient Lore in the cube already, this is just a better card. Riftwatcher represents a pretty sizable life total bump and slower decks frankly don’t need the help.

Informant is a great card to see at common. A piker that loots on entering the battlefield is solid as is, but this being able to be a 3 power threat turn 2 is also great. Having both an aggressive body in the early game as well as being able to get you closer to a mass pump effect or simply looting away lands is much more valuable than Valkyrie which just felt bad paying retail for.

Blue

Blue’s newfound options for 1-mana ways to deal with resolved threats is an interesting turn. This swap was the most discussed amongst the committee with a lot of options being floated around, including fairly recent addition Bind the Monster among others. End of the road we’ve chosen to swap out Thunder Drake. Drake is a cute card, is often just that, a little curiosity versus a real threat. If upping to 3 semi-permanent answers to resolved threats proves too much, we’ll re-evaluate this at a later date.

Red

Mayhem Patrol is a nice little card for getting in damage as well as having a mode that’s pretty close to 1R: shock and draw a card, and that’s pretty sweet. We looked through the glut of cards that are two mana, red and make two 1/1 bodies and eventually decided that instigator was the least interesting of the group and settled on it being the cut. The Instigator was best in go-wide and aristocrats, and Mayhem Patrol’s menace will still help with the former, while its blitz will still help with the later.

Roastmaster needs to trigger maybe three times to feel actively good, but thankfully red shouldn’t have many issues there. Inner-Flame Acolyte on the other hand is really showing its age at this point. It’s been on the chopping block before, and it’s just finally time to say goodbye to an old friend.

Green

We know some will be heartbroken by the Denizen’s departure, but as we’ve discussed in the discord, green is not wanting for four drops, but the threes are a barren wasteland of bad cards. Thankfully Jewel Thief is a shining gem in an otherwise miserable space. While more experienced players who know about the arcane combo lines with Ivy Lane might miss it, we feel that just having a solid beater that comes down early is likely better.

Prizefight wasn’t immediately on our radar, but thanks to committee member Solset and a bit of spirited discussion, we feel confident in including an instant speed fight that’s much faster and cheaper and can also temporarily ramp you is more appealing than the double bite.

Gold/Multicolored

I know folks breathed a collective sigh when we saw a Rakdos common that actually did things. Body Dropper is by no means going to turn the cube on its head overnight, but having it in lieu of Auger Spree felt like a solid upgrade in quality while also more clearly signaling the guild’s identity.

While it would have been nice if the campuses had been completed, here we are with the draw-a-card duals. While not a clear 1 to 1 comparison, these will be the allied color option that accompanies the campuses for the time being.

White

A cool old card that a bunch of boomers like? How could the committee pass this one up? In all seriousness, Elite presents more interesting and aggressive game plans than a simple tapper and plays nicer in decks looking to put counters on their creatures. We look forward to fun stories about this card.

Yes, we’ve heard you! People have been clamoring for the inclusion of Ainok Bond-Kin for a while now, and we’ve finally relented. While whitemane has been in for a while, its mandatory effect can feel awkward when you just want to curve out. Knowing we wanted to get a bit more in the way of counter payoffs, this was an easy swap.

Blue

Another somewhat late inclusion, Flicker is finally joining the ranks alongside Displace, providing a bit more utility as iit can target artifacts and lands. While the easier swap would have been to 1:1 the two double-target flicker spells, we opted to trim some of the redundant bounce instead.

Red

These four swaps are all somewhat related to one another, so they’ll be tackled together. While discussing cards, we talked about the desire for burn to be more useful for an aggressive styled deck, and allow for a bit more reach and mid combat interactions. We’re biasing towards more instant speed, better rate options, and including an X damage spell to help close out games. We’ve opted for Fireball to allow for some use by the more defensive decks as a somewhat awkward two or more for one, but not adding additional pips to the base cost to maximize damage as an aggro finisher. If necessary down the line, we can consider a different X spell if this particular one isn’t working out for cube owners.

Rage-Hound was discussed when Theros Beyond Death released, but it never made its way into the cube. We’re swapping it in over Dragon Fodder for a bit more diversity in the options we have when it comes to red two drops. The hound is great as a persistent threat that requires real creatures to block it after the first pass, and we think that will benefit red decks looking to attack.

Green

A bit of a strange inclusion, but we feel that giving green access to another decent multi-card draw spell in the form of Lead the Stampede will benefit the color’s card options.

Also rans

End of the day, we couldn’t figure out what the cut for this thing would be, so as much as we’ve liked it in concept, it won’t be making it in this round.

Next Steps
As always, joining the discord is your best way to voice your input and be a part of shaping the cube’s future, but this time we’ve got a new announcement. Currently in alpha but hopefully being more broadly accessible soon, we’re going to have a dedicated site for voting on cards for the pauper cube. This should allow for better access to voting on literally any common and allow for on the spot polling with less set up from the committee side of things. If you’ve ever sat there and said “I wish I could vote on literally every common!”, get excited. More news on this will be coming soon!

https://thepaupercube.com/

White

Blue

Black

Red

Green

If you haven’t joined the Pauper Cube Discord you’re missing out: So many unique discussions around cards, themes, and archetypes happen daily. But better than that, it’s home to a wonderful community of supportive cube enthusiasts who offer great feedback for anyone’s ideas. The Pauper Cube wouldn’t be here without this community.

Multicolor

Polling the Discord, while non-scientific to be sure has proved super helpful for finding out group consensus opinions on the cards both currently in the cube and those we’re considering. If you want to help contribute your opinions this is the best way to do so. We’ve gone through a few polling techniques, starting in discord and slowly moving to use Google forms to automate it, and we’re slowly working through a large number of commons, at this point having collected almost 25,000 votes on various cards!

If you haven’t joined the Pauper Cube Discord you’re missing out: So many unique discussions around cards, themes, and archetypes happen daily. But better than that, it’s home to a wonderful community of supportive cube enthusiasts who offer great feedback for anyone’s ideas. The Pauper Cube wouldn’t be here without this community, and we’re thrilled you’re here with us.

The Campuses are a HUGE upgrade over the Gainlands that makes us incredibly hopeful for future explorations in this vein. It does feel odd that these are lands with activated abilities you’re never excited to activate, but when you need the filtering to draw into some late game action, it’s better to have access to these than not. When a player is truly behind, using the scry activation will help feel like the game is, well, an actual game.

Expel – Hypothetically, swapping like-for-like would remove a piece of enchantment removal in favor of this. Conditionally removing only tapped creatures is barely a threat, and exiling rather than leaving a creature on board is a potentially a big upside. However, we’re trying to make changes only where necessary, and it’s likely we’ll see another functional piece of removal in the next few sets if white really needs another upgrade.
Bury in Books – Blue has a lot of powerful cards at its disposal. Bury in Books feels like an excellent piece of bounce, but it presents itself at a time where blue still seems overrepresented.
Big Play – Giant Growth variants face an uphill climb, but because we’re adding counters support, it feels like Big Play deserves extra consideration. It just doesn’t quite get there, even with the emphasis on counters.
Eureka Moment – One of the awkward results of defining Simic as “ramp” is that cards that ramp well or draw cards look really appealing, but they don’t actually do anything to advance the game to a wining board state. It’s hard not to like Eureka, but harder to justify cutting a threat or answer for a card that “just” draws more cards.
Biblioplex’s Assistant – This is an expensive, understatted Archeomancer, but it’s colorless. It could be exciting, but it lacks punch. We can’t justify slotting it in, even as a probationary addition.
Owlin Shieldmage – This was one we were very high on during preview season, but as time went it became clearer and clearer that this isn’t much more than a 5 mana 3/3 flyer. Hopefully the next time we see Ward we’ll get a bit closer to the ideal.

Polling the discord, while non-scientific to be sure has proved super helpful for finding out group consensus opinions on the cards both currently in the cube and those we’re considering. If you want to help contribute your opinions this is the best way to do so. We’ve gone through a few polling techniques, starting in discord and slowly moving to use Google forms to automate it, and we’re slowly working through a large number of commons, at this point having collected almost 25,000 votes on various cards!

If you haven’t joined the Pauper Cube Discord you’re missing out: So many unique discussions around cards, themes, and archetypes happen daily. But better than that, it’s home to a wonderful community of supportive cube enthusiasts who offer great feedback for anyone’s ideas. The Pauper Cube wouldn’t be here without this c

Perhaps setting a land-speed record for shortest stay in the cube, Bound just does what you want Binding to do, but better in most respects. That with a lower count of white pips just made this a slam dunk.

Codespell Cleric is a nice clean reward for playing a low curve. This either can hit turn 2 as a 2/2 or if drawn later can buff something bigger and/or more evasive. Mistral Charger, while fine, just generally is unexciting and doesn’t lead to as interesting a play pattern.

If you happen to have been in the discord over the past few days, you might have seen this one coming. Martyr’s Soul is a card that at the time seemed like a slam dunk for aggro decks but hasn’t been paying off in quite the same way. Valkyrie happens to help support a similar game plan of small, semi disposable creatures, though it doesn’t play quite as well with tokens. Gaining evasion will hopefully make up for the smaller body.

Stitched Drake is a classic. It’s also at this point beginning to show its age a bit. Augury Raven has the same end effect of “under-costed flying beater” without the feel bad of having it in hand with no creatures in the bin.

Waffling on 4 mana draw spells that net you 1 card total is a fun little dance as Wizards continues to print new and interesting versions of this effect. Behold is an absolute powerhouse take on the effect with very little downside that sees more cards than Rain.

We do love to see the almost strict upgrades, don’t we folks? Bind the Monster is pretty much as close as we’ll see to a blue riff on either Vendetta or Swords to Plowshares in a long time. A+ removal that has an actual cost with the ability for counterplay.

All darlings have their day come. Justice is a card from another era of Magic entirely, where cards were balanced differently. Massacre on the other hand is a nice clear shift in how these types of effects are designed in modern Magic. We know some monsters out there will lament not casting Justice off of a Pristine Talisman, but we’re moving into some cleaner, less repetitive options. (We mean Phizzled. Phizzled is some monsters).

As stated in the Q&A, Skull Raid is a super neat effect and a fun update on the time honored Mind Rot while not evoking the sheer misery of Hymn to Tourach. Hired Blade was an experiment so we’re swapping this over to another experimental include.

While there’s a touch of baggage with the fact that Cannonade is not just strictly speaking a Pyroclasm, we’re tossing this in for decks that are on the slower side that have red in them. It feels a bit odd to include what is almost always a card that will get passed by mono red, but this is our first chance at a ‘clasm and we want to see how it plays out in cube.

Munitions isn’t Goblin Bombardment. However it’s not that far away either. This is going in as a support option for aristocratty decks or even just as a way to get those last points through in a more aggro-y midrange deck. Sandsprinter has been fine but unimpressive, and for that reason it’s moving out at least for the time being.

Rummaging is ok, impulse draws are better. While Firewalker costs mana, not requiring a card in hand just makes this play into mono-red’s gameplan so much better. Let’s get that actual red card advantage directly into the cube.

Elephant Ambush is a card that most of the committee remembers playing in retail limited at the time. It’s definitely starting to show its age, and in its place we’re pulling in a card to support the +1/+1 counters theme that we promise you we are working on. There’s also some neat synergy with the persisters in the cube on top of just turning tokens into even more ways to make that hexproof threat good.

Packmate was an outstanding common in its limited environment and is definitely the type of card we love to include in the cube, and Prey Upon is a card that is deeply showing its age. The goal is for greens removal suite to be composed of fight effects with stat buffs and the Bite style effects that don’t put you in a position where you 2 for 1 yourself.

A card that was once more expensive than the entire cube is finally (more) affordable. With some updates you’ll see below, the value of searching for specific land types has gone up, and besides, with Nature's Lore already in the cube another copy would be great to help out green decks.

The Familiar is cuter, cheaper and draws a card. Very few downsides here for this swap over.

This is going to stand in for the 10 typed snow duals. These are pretty much just strictly better at this point and a great upgrade for the cube. We have brought it up that there is a chance in a few years these might go up in price, but until that day comes, these are a great inclusion.

Every time we do one of these updates, things are gonna be passed on simply because they’re not quite right or they might not fit right now. Battlefield Raptor is one huge amount of power creep on Suntail Hawk, however the lack of density of ways to make it bigger leave it on the sidelines for the time being. Masked Vandal was strongly considered as an answer for pesky artifacts and enchantments, but in the end the awkwardly defensive body coupled with it being green made it less appealing than if they’d just let us have Reclamation Sage. Shimmerdrift Vale is a neat little update/side-grade on the Evolving Wilds effect we’ve seen a bunch. At this point however it’s just not a necessity and felt overly fiddly to include.

We’ve added two new channels to help us out hearing what you feel about cards currently in the cube. Recently Martyr’s Soul was brought up to see how folks in the community felt about the card. It was great to get a simple Yea/Nay view on how the community was viewing the card as well as some more in depth opinions. As an effort to help replicate this, we’re introducing #cube-card-rating and #cube-card-rating-discussion. The former will get regular posts from admins with cards, which folks can react to with emoji to express approval or disapproval, the latter will be the place for more in depth discussion of cards. The hope is that these channels will stimulate discussions about cards that don’t frequently come up in an effort for the Committee to have a more holistic picture of how the people playing this cube feel about certain cards. This process may get a bot devoted to making sure there’s always stuff to discuss, but for the time being it’ll just be these two with manual posts.

If you haven’t joined the Pauper Cube Discord you’re missing out: So many unique discussions around cards, themes, and archetypes happen daily. But better than that, it’s home to a wonderful community of supportive cube enthusiasts who offer great feedback for anyone’s ideas. The Pauper Cube wouldn’t be here without this community, and we’re thrilled you’re here with us.

I agree with most of these changes. The only card card I feel was really overlooked was Shimmerdrift Vale. I have found this card good enough for non-rariety restricted cubes of larger size. Afterall, this is a 5 color fixing land we could be playing in pauper, and we are already playing Warped Landscape, which is clearly inferior. For me, anyway, that is hard to argue with.

I also find it humorous that some members of the community are concerned with the price of the snow tap lands in the future, but we added Three Visits to the cube. I promise you, this card will always be more expensive than all the tap lands combined.

For more information about The Pauper Cube, check out www.thepaupercube.com.

Update Notes From www.thepaupercube.com

White

Cage of Hands has been in the cube for a while as part of White’s removal suite. We’ve heard your critiques regarding removal density and are docking one of the more persistent options which will sometimes just obviate the best creature on your side of the board in favor of the Ancestral Blade. We’ve spoken in the past on this card several times, but a bear that dies into a Short Sword is a great value option.

Black

Midnight Scavengers has lingered in the cube for a while now. It’s an okay Gravedigger style of effect but has some nasty baggage in the form of Graf Rats and the meld text implying a two card combo that doesn’t exist. We felt that it was finally time for it to go, and Bone Picker provided the perfect opportunity to play a card that’s simply very good in its place.

Doom Blade has been a staple in rarity restricted cubes for years, and it’s still a solid card. However, all eras must come to an end, and now it’s Cast Down’s world, we’re just living in it. In all seriousness, Cast Down is pretty much a strict upgrade to a spell that is more good than interesting, and there’s no reason not to upgrade a good removal spell to a great one.

Red

Searing Blaze has a pedigree from eternal formats with fetch lands for the ability to play it for the full 6 points on the opponent’s turn. Pauper is not that format, and with only 2 fetch lands that fetch tapped basics, Blaze simply wasn’t pulling weight. Abrade, on the other hand, neatly is creature or artifact removal. While artifacts are far from the biggest threat in the cube, red decks the world over can rejoice with a main deck option for dealing with Serrated Arrows.

Green

Let’s hear it for the slow but gradual move away from fight spells in favor of bite spells! While Savage Punch has a bit more of a boost to the creature, knowing that your creature will survive the encounter with no damage marked makes for a great uptick in value for green’s removal suite. Hopefully Clear Shot’s instant speed and guaranteed power and toughness boost make it more of a threat than the conditional buff provided by Savage Punch.

Overgrown Armasaur has been a medium performer for a while. Conclave Naturalists allows for more main deck interaction with the dreaded artifacts or enchantments with the fail case of being big enough to survive burn as well as being a pain in combat gives it a bit of an edge over the harder to cast 4/4 that sometimes will die into a 1/1.

White

Fortify is a flexible team pump spell. Flexible in that there are two modes printed on it, but there’s one that steals the spotlight a bit more. Dauntless Unity provides an option that can be just as potent on offense while offering a way to be a bit cheaper in a pinch. Unity technically allows its caster to add two power or two toughness to the team, though it costs a bit more than Fortify. Playing a kicked Dauntless Unity costs less than Borrowed Grace for the same effect, but conceivably a greedy white mage can add a Goblin Piker‘s worth of stats to all of their creatures.

Suppression Bonds and Nahiri's Binding are very similar options in white’s removal framework. That said Bonds is truly a catchall where Binding does have a slight limitation in not shutting off almost anything in the Cube. Hopefully newer drafters are able to ignore the planeswalker related flavor text.

Blue

Bubble Snare is an incredible piece of blue removal. While sometimes it will be a slightly more expensive option to Claustrophobia, the upside of slamming this when something has tapped down to attack you feels simply great. Narcolepsy has some rules baggage that might make it just a bit more complex than is necessary when it comes to activated abilities involving tapping.

Kasmina’s Transmutation is not wowing a lot of folks. While it can work as a way to shut off potentially problematic creatures, it still leaves a body on the field and that can come into play later. Deliberate, on the other hand, is another instant speed Preordain at 2 CMC, which is a lot better than it looks.

Black

Chainer's Edict and other edicts are still dicey and frequently feel like a less than positive interaction when they’re in hand and the opponent happens to have a 1/1 token that can be thrown under the bus. Feed the Swarm is more on the experimental end of inclusions for this update, but adding the ability for black decks to handle enchantments is an interesting space that merits testing. Phizzled laments the loss of another in the Diabolic Edict family.

Red

While this slipped through the early passes, TukTuk Rubblefort is an odd number in the mold of Warded Battlements, an aggressive support card with a very defensive body. Plated Geopede, while a long time inclusion, can point towards a lands theme that isn’t incredibly well supported. As with Searing Blaze above, the lack of fetch lands makes it hard to maximize the potentcy of the Geopede. All this said, Rubblefort might not be the slam dunk we’re talking it up to be so this is more of a probationary inclusion.

Act of Treason is a classic at this point. It’s been in so many sets and is always just kinda reasonable. While it’ll be missed, the chance to include a reasonable body from Fissure Wizard on the now frequently printed “red creature that rummages on ETB” feels like an upgrade. Encouraging red to play proactively rather than reactively fits most of our expectations for color pairs including red.

Green

Adventure Awaits is a solid piece of card draw. Plenty of green decks need help hitting consistent gas on the draw, and this, while most of the time this card is limited to drawing a creature, it sees so many cards and never truly misses. Arachnus Web is somewhat janky removal which offers a way for the opponent to spring their creature as an incidental side effect of Borrowed Grace or with a piece of equipment like Bonesplitter.

On the Topic of Selesnya
A while ago we put out a poll to get an idea of how various archetypes were performing within the cube and there was a resounding call of “Selesnya is not only bad but uninteresting!”. We hope that in between various releases we will be reviewing Selesnya and hoping to shift its focus from a go-wide, token-based midrange deck into a more +1/+1 counter focused archetype. This will likely be a bit of a large overhaul so we didn’t want to include such a large change with a double set update and instead give this radical facelift its own time to shine. We will be keeping folks posted through the Discord, so if you haven’t already we strongly suggest getting in there for not only this discussion but other discussions surrounding the Cube.

If you haven’t joined the Pauper Cube Discord you’re missing out: So many unique discussions around cards, themes, and archetypes happen daily. But better than that, it’s home to a wonderful community of supportive cube enthusiasts who offer great feedback for anyone’s ideas. The Pauper Cube wouldn’t be here without this community, and we’re thrilled you’re here with us.

For more information about this cube visit www.thepaupercube.com