Locations
December 19, 2019
Simic Flash | Eldraine Standard | Michael Flores
- Creatures (15)
- 2 Brazen Borrower
- 2 Hydroid Krasis
- 3 Paradise Druid
- 4 Frilled Mystic
- 4 Nightpack Ambusher
- Planeswalkers (4)
- 4 Nissa, Who Shakes the World
- Instants (15)
- 1 Negate
- 2 Aether Gust
- 2 Mystical Dispute
- 3 Quench
- 3 Sinister Sabotage
- 4 Growth Spiral
- Lands (26)
- 7 Forest
- 7 Island
- 2 Castle Vantress
- 2 Fabled Passage
- 4 Breeding Pool
- 4 Temple of Mystery
- Sideboard (15)
- 1 Ugin, the Ineffable
- 2 Aether Gust
- 2 Mystical Dispute
- 2 Hydroid Krasis
- 4 Cavalier of Thorns
- 2 Lovestruck Beast
- 2 Shifting Ceratops
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Our Hero wins a Standard PTQ with Simic Flash.
You should go back and read the original article if you haven't... How I Won a PTQ with Simic Flash. In addition to a plan coming together like Hannibal from the A-Team, I met my future Very Good FriendTM (and podcast partner) Lanny Huang in the first round.
Anyway: Note the Counterspell suite of the many Counterspells I played.
A metric ton of specialty counters against fellow Blue or Green (or possibly Red) opponents... But still room for three of these guys:
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January 25, 2022
Divide By Zero is banned in Standard.
Huh?
Does Divide By Zero look to you like the kind of card that should be banned in any format at all? At the time, the nice people in Renton, WA blamed Divide By Zero's ability to give blue decks early interaction, and blamed its flexibility as an answer. It could theoretically play defense against a variety of opponents... They wanted Blue to be more "intentional" in terms of who they were preparing for.
If, indeed, Divide By Zero was so powerful it had to be banned, it couldn't have just been the flexibility. Every Counterspell and like half of Magic's bounce spells are as flexible... and a big chunk of them are cheaper.
The "problem" is that Divide By Zero learned.
Divide By Zero could effectively Demonic Tutor (or [something]-Wish) for the Lesson of your choice.
Personally, I had spent the year previous to this ban or so getting more and more into Magic: The Gathering - Arena. Mostly because of the work of CovertGoBlue, who had become my favorite Magic YouTuber. CGB's signature decks were all "Blood Money" variants that often used cards like Eyetwitch or Hunt for Specimens to find Lessons.
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For my part, I even tried Blue splashes in CGB's Blood Money shell for cards like Divide By Zero... Before they banned it, anyway.
Lessons were not great Magic cards; but they were effectively free. You could get the better part of a good card... Divide By Zero is not so unreasonably costed, an Eyetwitch could chump block with the best of them, and Hunt for Specimens could do a pretty good Elvish Visionary impression. Learn cards weren't so great on rate themselves, but they could find the right Lesson for the job at hand. The Lesson might not be the best at it, but it could often be a good answer for what you needed at the time.
Introduction to Annihilation wasn't the most efficient removal spell; but if you were about to die to a big threat, it was much better than knocking the top of your deck and begging Fortuna.
Environmental Sciences was twice the cost of a Lay of the Land and none of the Ramp of Rampant Growth... But I often played two in my sideboard. Sometimes you just wanted to hit your next land drop; and the life was nice.
What's going on here?
April 19, 2024
Outlaws of Thunder Junction is released in paper Magic.
One of the best cards from Outlaws of Thunder Junction was Three Steps Ahead. The card was flexible on many levels. Sometimes you could just fix your hand. Sometimes you could make a Dismiss - better than a Dismiss, really - for five mana.
Did I ask already What's going on here?
Pop Quiz is a Learn card from Strixhaven: School of Mages... That in the past hasn't gotten much play. Which is odd because it's kinda sorta a Divination, but at instant speed. Only it's not quite a Divination. Sure you get the first card; but a Lesson out of your sideboard has to be as good as a random card off the top of your deck; which given the Strixhaven Lessons, might not have been true at the time.
But coming up in Avatar: The Last Airbender, there are tons of new Lessons that are upgrades to things that were already getting played!
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Introduction to Annihilation was a widely played card... In sideboards that had Learn access from decks like Blood Money. I don't think it was a great card to play in the abstract, but it was certainly played.
If that was the bar (assuming you had a low cost way to get it, or get it in a hurry), Zuko's Exile just has to be better. Sorcery becomes Instant. The opponent drawing a card becomes the opponent getting a Clue. At the very least they'll have to pay two mana to get that "same" card; and maybe you'll have something to say about it this time around. Zuko's Exile can't exile a Planeswalker, but that might not matter given where I imagine these cards will be played. More on that in a second.
In the universe of Pop Quiz, Zuko's Exile gets even better. If you have eight mana (which you very well might, goosing your land drops with Aang's Journey and playing at instant speed over many turns), you can answer a wider variety of threats (as long as they're not Planeswalkers I guess), and on demand.
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So back to my 2019 Quench deck (that largely played at instant speed)... You can just play three Quenches if you want to have a two-mana Counterspell, and stow the fourth one in the sideboard. Maybe.
So at least sometimes, if your opponent foolishly taps out on turn five, you can Pop Quiz for it and "make your own Three Steps Ahead."
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This will act much the same. For 5 mana you can get It'll Quench Ya! with Pop Quiz and counter your opponent's spell; profiting by the cantrip-ness of Pop Quiz in much the same way you would have gotten an extra card from Three Steps Ahead.
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Aang's Journey is largely going to be a functional reprint of Environmental Sciences; I don't imagine you're going to kick this card so often the way I imagine it will be played. But that's okay. Remember: Environmental Sciences is the one I was willing to play multiple copies of! A Pop Quiz deck is going to be even more apt to want this card.
Imagine: Third turn Pop Quiz. Untap and Aang's Journey. Pass with 
up for It'll Quench Ya! Exult in the joy of continuing to play a game of Magic: The Gathering at your speed.
The two life is really going to be a thorn in the side of some players. Especially the ones I imagine you're going to want to beat; or contextually have to beat.
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What's going on here?
Where might you put together a common cantrip that saw little to no play in its own era when the uncommon at the same mana cost was getting banned in Standard? Where might even slight upgrades to the Lesson plan suddenly mean a difference?
Pauper of course!
Pop Quiz - alongside some of these Avatar cards - might not completely transform that most second-most wonderful of formats, but it might just make for a new archetype!
The question of course isn't just about flexibility. It's about having cards that are about as good as the ones in your deck, instead of just rate downgrades.
Can we build our own Marang River Regent, then?
No one gets super excited about Sift. Part of the reason that Marang River Regent is such a great card is because you can kill your opponent with it; but the other part is because you can play at instant speed. Well what if you can kind of play at instant speed; but you get the bonus of not having the Sift in your deck?
Unlike It'll Quench Ya! I don't imagine you play a lot of Waterbending Lessons in your main deck. But if you're already in for Pop Quiz, I can't imagine you don't have access to a bulk card draw target.
But on the subject of playing at instant speed?
My whole last Pauper article was about a slight change to a class of cards that gets played frequently. Abandon Attachments might find a home in Red (being an instant) but probably not. It doesn't have enough upside relative to Grab the Prize or even Romantic Rendezvous.
But in Blue?
Red will play like twelve copies of this function! I don't know that Blue has ever had access at two mana!
This is a card that I can imagine wanting; and maybe even wanting in the sideboard.
The big question is whether there will be a Lessons payoff AT COMMON that gives Pauper players a reason to really load up on the type, beyond wanting them in the sideboard for a kind of "Cunning Wish" functionality from Pop Quiz; or perhaps a hybrid "Burning Wish" functionality from Cram Session, Field Trip, or our Elvish Visionary-in-waiting, Hunt for Specimens.
I'll be here for it, either way!
November 3, 2025
Credit where credit is due, there are a fair number of new ideas in this article, but at the very least they got kicked off by a conversation I had with Pro Tour Hall of Famer Patrick Chapin. Patrick and I recently re-started our longtime podcast together. If you want to hear the whole thing, do check out the most recent Top Level Podcast. We'd appreciate it.
LOVE
MIKE
