A Retrospective on the Pauper Format Panel's First Four Years

Posted on January 14, 2026

This past Saturday, January 10th, marked the fourth anniversary of the Pauper Format Panel being announced!

The Pauper Format Panel, or PFP, was formed by Wizards of the Coast - helmed by Gavin Verhey - to bring together prominent members of the community to manage the Pauper Format. This came about as a result of cards like Arcum's Astrolabe, Fall From Favor, and Chatterstorm infamously taking too long to ban. Wizards noted they don't have as many format experts as other major formats, which led to these slow decisions. By bringing together members of the community to aid in taking action, the format could be improved faster.

Thus, seven of us were selected to join the panel. You can read the full original announcement here, but the seven members are as such:

Gavin Verhey

Mirco Ciavatta of Italy (better known as Heisen01 to Pauper players)

Emma Partlow of the UK

Ryuji Saito of Japan (one of the PauperMTG.com members)

Paige Smith (that's me!) of the United States

Alex Ullman of the United States

Alexandre Weber of Brazil (better known as _Against_ on MTGO)

Given this anniversary, I figured it would be fun to take a look back at the actions taken by the PFP over the years. A four-year time span seems like the perfect length of time to look at what cards have been banned as well as unbanned and why. There's just enough to talk about within the bounds of my usual weekly piece, so the timing just seems right!

I will not be covering the check-ins we made with the format that didn't result in action being taken. While I think many of these moments help provide additional context, I only have so much space to write and there's a lot to discuss as is.

There's so much to cover, in fact, that I'm not going to waste any more time with introductions! Let's jump right in and kick things off right from the start!

January 2022: Atog, Bonder's Ornament and Prophetic Prism are banned.

Shortly after the announcement of the Pauper Format Panel, we got right to work. Despite WotC's banning of Sojourner's Companion alongside Chatterstorm, Affinity was clearly still presenting a problem and needed some action taken against it. As such, the PFP went ahead and banned Atog to try alleviating the issue.

This proved to be pretty controversial. For many players, the cards that should've gone were the indestructible artifact land bridges that came with Modern Horizons 2. They made the deck more resilient and difficult to answer, and so people saw a correlation that made them feel this was the root of the issue. We on the PFP felt a little different, though we certainly waffled on the issue for a good while.

Here's the issue, though: the bridges weren't the only major thing that impacted the deck during this time period.

Around the same time, we saw the printing of Deadly Dispute in D&D: Adventures in the Forgotten Realms. This powerful spell would push Affinity heavily, and the ability to keep an extra artifact around really pushed it. Similarly, cards like Blood Fountain and Voldaren Epicure were printed, providing new ways to get cheap artifacts down. These bans were also happening right as other powerful spells like Experimental Synthesizer and Reckoner's Bargain were printed, ensuring this trend would continue.

We saw banning Atog as a way to impact Affinity without hitting the rest of the format in the process. Lo and behold the deck has remained, though it's evolved into new forms as time has gone on. And some issues persisted, which we'll get to in a bit.

First, though, we have to mention Bonder's Ornament and Prophetic Prism. What happened with these? Well, the big concern here was Flicker Tron. The deck was tremendously dominant prior to the release of Modern Horizons 2 and continued to be a big player alongside the other powerful decks of the time. The gameplay felt like a slog, with the Tron deck locking opponents out of the game, which didn't seem ideal to have as a top deck.

The problem we needed to solve was what to hit? Lists ran plenty of cards in low quantities, to the point that there was either decent redundancy for many options or the arguable problem cards weren't even always played! As such, the decision was made to hit the mana. Banning Prophetic Prism may seem a little weird, and it was even weird at the time, but it caused the deck to go down several pegs. The deck did manage to survive with the printing of Network Terminal and Energy Refractor later in the year.

Additionally, Bonder's Ornament wasn't just showing up in Tron lists. It also became a major player in decks like Jeskai Ephemerate, leading to that deck becoming one of the top options of the format. It allowed for incredibly snowballing card advantage that proved problematic in multiple decks, which led to its banning.

Banning Prophetic Prism also hindered Affinity a bit as a touch of splash damage. Since we were already trying to hit Affinity with this ban anyways, this was pretty acceptable. The only other deck that utilized it at the time was Boros/Mardu Monarch, which both had numerous alternatives and soon evolved into Boros/Mardu Experimental Synthesizer decks.

March 2022: Galvanic Relay and Disciple of the Vault are banned and Expedition Map is unbanned.

There was some thought among the PFP that without Atog, Disciple of the Vault would become a bit more reasonable. There was worry that it would still be too good with Krark-Clan Shaman, but it seemed dangerous for someone to utilize since it killed their Disciples in the process.

As it turned out, Disciple continued to be a little too strong. With cards like Deadly Dispute, Reckoner's Bargain, Blood Fountain, Voldaren Epicure, and Experimental Synthesizer, sacrificing artifacts proved trivial. The fact that you could still wreak havoc with Krark-Clan Shaman made it all the more deadly. As a result, Disciple was banned from the format.

The other big ban at this time was Galvanic Relay. The card went under the radar as being a storm card that didn't provide a win condition outright, and thus seemed a bit more modest. Despite this, players eventually realized that the card was extremely good with pinger creatures like Kessig Flamebreather. You could find an absurd number of cards off of Galvanic Relay and then keep casting them in perpetuity, with your pingers decimating your opponents' life totals in the process.

This led to Relay/Pinger Storm becoming one of the top decks of the format, and where the main focus on this announcement landed. Most notably, the deck boasted a whopping 60% win rate on Magic Online - a fact mentioned in the B&R article. It was oppressive to the point that a ban simply had to happen, though various pinger decks have continued to be big players in the format in the years since.

Last but not least, Expedition Map was unbanned. While we really wanted to weaken Flicker Tron decks, our efforts may have been a bit too effective at the time, causing it to largely exit the meta. With the addition of Network Terminal for fixing, we wanted to give it a little more juice - something we could do by unbanning Expedition Map.

This card was previously banned by Wizards to weaken Tron and was seen as missing the mark tremendously by the community, who simply switched to Crop Rotation instead. As such, this was an easy unban that put Flicker Tron in a more acceptable position in the meta, especially when The Brothers' War released with Energy Refractor.

September 2022: Aarakocra Sneak, Stirring Bard, Underdark Explorer, and Vicious Battlerager are banned.

Let's not beat around the bush here: initiative is fairly busted in 1v1 competitive Magic provided you can have access to it early. Pauper did a lot of that very thing with the aid of fast mana such as Dark Ritual, Cabal Ritual, Lotus Petal, Simian Spirit Guide, and more. This led to a rapid proliferation of fast kill decks utilizing the various initiative cards. Even Stirring Bard - a creature with defender - proved to be creating some intense win rates in Red decks thanks to this fast mana.

As a result, all four of these cards were rapidly banned within about a month of their release on MTGO. This was a combination of instantly apparent dominance, some pre-existing paper pedigree that came up prior to their addition to MTGO, and outcry from the community. This bore out not just in Pauper but in Legacy where White Plume Adventurer was banned after it tore up the format alongside Seasoned Dungeoneer. The mechanic was also quickly removed from the MTGO Vintage Cube due to its power.

Despite this, three initiative cards were left unbanned in the format: Avenging Hunter, Goliath Paladin, and Trailblazer's Torch. The Torch did nothing, and Goliath Paladin has been a somewhat fringe player, showing up in certain decks but not being a staple card. Avenging Hunter has lasted as a good middle ground. It's an extremely powerful late game threat, but isn't quite as backbreaking in the early game like the cards banned here.

December 2023: Monastery Swiftspear is banned.

This ban is a great example of how win rates don't always tell the full story. A lot of players took issue with the banning of Monastery Swiftspear - which was downshifted in Double Masters 2022 - because the win rate was noted to be around 50%. If the traditional ban threshold is around a consistent 55%, it shouldn't be close to being banned, right?

The underlying issues with this card - and the Mono-Red Aggro deck in general - were a bit more nuanced. The games were overwhelmingly favored to the Red Aggro lists against the entire meta in Game 1, with most going over 60%! As a result, just about every deck in the meta had to heavily skew their sideboards to battle against this strategy.

What this means is that even though the deck wasn't overwhelmingly dominant after sideboard games were considered, it was warping things quite heavily. This, coupled with the intense meta share of this deck at the time thanks to how it sped through leagues, is what led to the banning. It's a multi-faceted issue where the numbers on the surface don't show what's wrong and why action needs to be taken.

May 2024: All That Glitters, Stickers, and Attractions are banned.

The Masters expansions continue to wreak havoc! This time, Commander Masters brought with it a whole host of powerful downshifts. Far and away, though, the most impactful of the bunch was All That Glitters (though Dread Return has given it a run for its money also).

If you've played much Pioneer or even Modern, chances are you've run into a Bogles or Light-Paws, Emperor's Voice list here or there making use of this card. As a result, the obvious spot players figured this would see play was in Pauper Bogles. To the surprise of no one, the card was fantastic in that deck, but not quite busted.

It would end up being a different story for Affinity decks, however. It enabled Azorius and Jeskai Affinity decks which leaned on the back of this powerful aura. With the right setup, it wasn't a stretch to have an 8/8 Gingerbrute that could be made unblockable as early as turn two! The turns were a bit too explosive and all-in, creating another warping effect, leading to its banning.

Additionally, every card that cared about Stickers and Attractions from Unfinity was banned from every format. The reason this happened was because of players in various formats - predominantly Legacy - having to bring sticker sheets even if they weren't playing with the cards. The reason for this could be to either bluff or in the event that you stole one via, say, a reanimation spell like Reanimate or Animate Dead.

This wasn't necessarily a decision the PFP had a hand in, though it naturally impacted this format as well so we talked about it a bit in the lead-up. The big impact here was the loss of the so-called "Name Sticker" Goblin, which had become a minor staple of competitive Red decks as well as a few paper lists.

Weirdly, the Attractions ban was a technicality, since there weren't even enough Attractions to make a deck with them in Pauper in the first place. As such, they were effectively banned from the start, though never in an official way like this.

June 2024: Cranial Ram is pre-banned.

Now wait! We're not done taking down artifact aggro enablers just yet! In a rather unusual turn of events, the powerful Modern Horizons 3 common Cranial Ram was preemptively banned in Pauper before the set even released!

Simply put, the writing was on the wall from the moment the card was previewed. Saito of the panel had the privilege of revealing the card in question, and the discussions within the panel were instantaneous. Did we really want to see this card enter the format and take over Affinity strategies? After all, we'd just banned All That Glitters, Cranial Plating was the very first card banned from the format, and this slotted in quite well to the existing Grixis Affinity lists.

At first, the panel was willing to let it play out. After all, it's best to give cards a chance before showing them the door. However, we all soon realized how rough this would make a number of high profile events taking place so soon after the release of Modern Horizons 3. Given the historical precedent that showed we'd have to ban it and that the card would almost certainly dominate these major tournaments, the card was preemptively banned from the format.

What's interesting, though, is we do have some semblance of a look into how a card like this could perform in this kind of Grixis Affinity deck. The majority of the deck is available on MTG Arena and is legal to play in the Historic Pauper format that pops up from time to time. More importantly, though, is the fact that you can play both Deadly Dispute and Cranial Ram in the same list. Here's the list I play on the client, as an example:

Grixis Affinity | Historic Pauper

Sorceries (4)
4 Thoughtcast

Buy This Deck Export text

While this version of Pauper lacks many of the elements present in Legacy-style Pauper available in paper and on MTGO, it's clear how powerful this interaction can be. Whenever the format comes up in Arena's Midweek Magic events, this is the deck to beat and Cranial Ram is a major reason why.

March 2025: Basking Broodscale, Kuldotha Rebirth, and Deadly Dispute are banned. Prophetic Prism and High Tide are unbanned.

Three bans hit the format this time around, and they were a doozy!

The big one was pretty clearly Basking Broodscale. The Modern Horizons 3 creature combos fairly cleanly with Sadistic Glee, essentially creating a Splinter Twin situation in the format. This would cause games to end out of nowhere as early as turn three and would frequently negate all actions taken earlier in the game. This was felt even harder in paper matches where it was easier to establish the loop.

As a result, it seemed pretty obvious action needed to be taken. The question then became what should be banned, Broodscale or Sadistic Glee? In the end, we decided that it was much more likely that Basking Broodscale would have a higher potential to break in the future. As such, that card ended up being banned.

The other big one here was Deadly Dispute. I'd already noted a couple times in this write-up that this was profoundly impactful on Affinity lists. What I didn't mention is just how big it turned out to be in numerous other decks.

Deadly Dispute pretty much single-handedly turned the format into Black Sacrifice piles that all rose toward the top of Pauper on the back of this one card. The lists would also use the similarly powerful Reckoner's Bargain and Fanatical Offering to provide redundancy, but the treasure was just too much. When combined with Ichor Wellspring, it would in a way give you an Ancestral Recall that you had to get a small rebate on. It was too much and the Treasure token pushed it over the edge.

The other cards continue to be powerful, but not dominant. Removing this from the format broke things up a little and made the format far less Black Sac Midrange Soup piles, which has proven to be a blessing overall.

Last but not least is Kuldotha Rebirth. This once again plays into the same polarization topic that came up with Monastery Swiftspear. The numbers didn't indicate a tremendous win rate, but the intensely polarizing games indicated a warped meta. This was expected to worsen with the other two bannings, so the PFP opted to take action here as well.

The big question for us mainly became whether to ban Kuldotha Rebirth or Goblin Bushwhacker. Both are extremely powerful and classic cards for the format. Ultimately, we settled on Kuldotha Rebirth, as the ability to go wide out of nowhere was a bit too backbreaking. Even without the Bushwhacker pump, this proved to be a bit much for the format. Goblin Bushwhacker continues to see play now and performs quite well, though it remains to be seen if it too will become a bit too problematic.

Finally, we saw a couple unbans! Remember how I noted earlier in the article that the PFP were concerned about Flicker Tron dominating the meta? Well, the format was quite a bit slower then. In 2025, the format had sped up quite a bit, making it harder for Flicker Tron to be the dominant force it once was. We felt that it was time to give it a little bit of its classic juice back with this otherwise innocuous card. Flicker Tron has taken a modest role within the format since, performing well in the hands of experts during large events, but not being quite as strong otherwise.

The other one, High Tide, was initially banned when the paper and online versions of Pauper were unified into a singular, sanctioned format. This was done due to theorycrafting within Wizards at the time, but the card had never been given a real chance in the format. Between some internal exploration and examining community lists, we felt it was weak and inconsistent enough to be modest in the format.

How did the experiment go? Well...

November 2025: High Tide is banned once more.

Yeah, it didn't last too long. Following the trial unban period - which was extended multiple times due to various factors - High Tide was once again put on the ban list.

So, what happened here? Was it too strong after all? Well, yes and no.

The real answer here is that the play patterns were abysmal. The deck certainly had its diehards, namely some prominent format creators, but to most other players everywhere it was a slog to deal with. Turns could last upward of 10 minutes and not even win the game, leading to players having to sit through and hope the opponent whiffed. Not only was this deeply unpleasant to deal with, but it also caused logistical headaches for tournament rounds going to time.

Oh, and while it was debatable as to whether the deck was too strong, one thing was clear: it was slowly performing better and better. Players were getting more used to piloting the deck against the meta, optimal lists were being discovered, and so on. There's also something to be said about its incredibly polar matchups - which were so intense in one direction or the other they'd make Red Aggro blush. It became obvious that the longer the deck was allowed to stick around, the worse it was likely to get, and thus it was banned once again. Likely for good this time, as well.

That having been said, I'm really happy that we tried the experiment. Now we don't need to wonder anymore how things might play out if High Tide were unbanned. We have examples and data to go off of, which is great for the future, and it's great that the players who enjoy these decks got a chance to play with them for a few months. It got people talking about the format who otherwise might never touch it and was overall a positive in the grand scheme of things.

I hope we'll have an opportunity to do more of these in the future, though most of the cards on the list feel far more obviously dangerous to remove.

That just about summarizes what the first four years of the Pauper Format Panel looked like! We're still here and going strong. I look forward to seeing what 2026 brings to the format and have a feeling that it's going to be a great year to sling some commons!

I'll be sharing this on social media a bit so make sure you provide your thoughts on the format and the state of the PFP. We'd love to hear your feedback!

Paige Smith

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