Pauper Cube
Inspired by the original 'The Pauper Cube' by Adam Styborski.
This cube features some of the most powerful cards printed in Pauper history. The cube is designed to have small synergies with soft archetype support, meaning archetypes are suggested and not forced on the player. You will find in this cube plenty of deck archetypes that could be pivoted into within the same colour pairings, giving players a multitude of angles to play the game. Every set release adds to the format something new and interesting to the list to try out.
Archetype Support
This list uses commander labelling for colour pairs. Cards in colour pairs are distributed evenly to try balance the support they receive.
Color Pie Strengths
Black:
Sacrifice, Destruction, Creature Recursion
Black contains all the clean removal spells and offers support in sacrifice outlets/engines.
White:
Enchantments, Tokens, Anthems, Protection
White contains a lot of the token generation spells and anthem effects. Most removal effects are enchantment based.
Red:
Direct Damage, Speed
Red is very direct and straight forward. Instead of being shoehorned into the strictly aggressive colour, red has been given access to tools to help navigate some of it's traditional shortcomings like impulsive card draw.
Green:
Ramp, Fight, Colour Fixing, Larger Creatures
Green is the colour that cares about developing it's mana. It shares similarities with black and white, in that it too can go wide and generate tokens and also has access to sacrifice strategies.
Blue:
Tempo, Bounce, Reactive
Blue has a lot of draw spells and interactive spells that deal with things on the stack or on the board. Contains a lot of ETB effects that delay your opponents game plan.
Maybeboard
Each new set brings in newer more powerful cards, replacing older cards that are functionally the same but were weaker versions. The maybeboard consists of these removed cards as well as a plethora of cards that were deemed noteworthy to try out or cards deemed too powerful and warped the format. There are also cards that could be introduced or removed depending on the level of support an archetypes needs.
The Autumn 2024 Update
macflurry posted to Pauper Cube -
This covers cards from the following sets:
The Lost Caverns of Ixalan, Ravnica Remastered, Murders at Karlov Manor, Outlaws of Thunder Junction, & Modern Horizons 3.
Changes
In | Out | Comments |
---|---|---|
Aerie Auxiliary | Relief Captain | A case can be made for either card. Relief Captain is being benched as the extra +1/+1 counter doesn't occur too often and being edged out in favour of evasion. |
Accursed Marauder | Demon's Disciple | This card definitely schools its predecessors. Forces your opponent to sacrifice real bodies and comes down a turn earlier and allowing you to cast multiple spells in one turn. |
Tithing Blade | - | This card does it all. Removal, adds to affinity, sacrifice fodder, and a good finisher mana sink. |
Refurbished Familiar | Liliana's Specter | With the amount of incidental artifacts and the flexibility to always gain card advantage, this card can finally put Liliana's Specter to rest. |
Scurrilous Sentry | Vicious Battlerager | For a card called Battlerager, it doesn't attack as aggressively as Scurrilous Sentry. The effects on both cards are very similar in terms of card advantage. |
Wither and Bloom | - | - |
Unscrupulous Agent | - | - |
Vault Plunderer | Phyrexian Rager | This card would definitely succeed in adopting Rager's name as you can now finish off your opponent with this effect. |
Consuming Ashes | Feed the Serpent | This will eat up Feed the Serpents spot since there are currently no common Planeswalkers and can filter your next two draws |
Eviscerator's Insight | Village Rites | Let's just reminisce on how good Deadly Dispute is |
- | Phyrexian Vivisector | In most scenarios, Nefarious Imp does the same thing but with any permanent and can sneak in some cheeky damage |
Skoa, Embermage | Fang Dragon | Skoa just has a bigger bite to it for a card in the top of end of the mana curve. |
Glimpse the Impossible | - | 0 |
Molten Gatekeeper | Witty Roastmaster | This stands up against its competitors, being able to come back for the finish. |
Horrific Assault | Band Together | Loses instant speed but the mana-efficiency is just what stompy wants. |
Nyxborn Hydra | Ivy Elemental | This has power crept Ivy Elemental |
Basking Broodscale | Mother Bear | This bear is just right! It has infinite combo potential and is just a good value engine with the right synergies |
Evolution Witness | - | We finally have our Eternal Witness at home! |
Malevolent Rumble | Wasteful Harvest | The discounted cost and being able to bank the mana on a spawn. Often this card is cast on your turn as it is a waste to leave 3 mana in a colour that cares about playing on curve. |
Cranial Ram | Fireblade Artist | At this point, I'm cramming affinity and voltron strategies. This a slower but still powerful effect similar to Cranial Plating |
Writhing Chrysalis | Kird Ape | A 2/3 just doesn't cut it anymore and this card is just silly. Players will struggle when they get ambushed by the surprise Reach. |
Broodrage Mycoid | - | 0 |
Expanding Ooze | Dreg Mangler | Expands on the counter theme. Worst case scenario it is able to support itself |
Faithful Watchdog | Call of the Conclave | You can count on this card to be good on both offence and defence. It also plays well with all the counter strategies. |
- | Cave of Temptation | Despite it's name, this card could not persuade people to draft this card |
Honourable Mentions
Landscape Cycle - Let's you get colourless mana and wait until you need the colour fixing. Works really well with Brainstorm
Drossclaw
Drownyard Lurker
Fanged Flames - Gets around protection spells and has the ability to exile problematic creatures.
Gravedig - A nice call to Gravedigger. Very flexible turning gravedigger into a vanilla 2/2 or fetching the card back.
Inspired Inventor - Also gives you energy.
Nightshade Dryad
Nyxborn Unicorn
Serum Visionary
Sneaky Snacker
Snapping Voidcraw
Warped Tusker
Makeshift Binding
Nezumi Linkbreaker
Nurturing Bristleback
Patient Naturalist
River Herald Scout
Seismic Monstrosaur
Snarling Gorehound
Etali's Favor
Family Reunion
Quick Draw
Raven of Fallen Omens
Goblin Tomb Raider