A Comprehensive Guide to Pauper Playables: 2023 Update

Posted on August 10, 2023

Back in 2020, I spent a few weeks compiling together an extended list of Pauper staples for Pauper players to go through. This was due to a frequent question I would see asked in Pauper circles by players just starting to explore the format: "does anyone have a list of Pauper staples?" Players would frequently be pointed to MTGGoldfish's staples page or pull up Scryfall and search for every Pauper legal common, however neither of those is necessarily a perfect option. This is because Goldfish only pulls up the most used cards to a certain point while Scryfall doesn't filter by way of playability.

My goal with these lists is and was to provide a far more curated list. This could entail cards that are actively played, cards that have seen play in the past, and cards that have the potential to see serious play. Barring the rare outlier that pops up once in a while and starts seeing play all of a sudden (think Foundry Helix being long seen as unplayable jank but now sees play in stock Boros Synthesizer lists) the idea was to give players a list of the core essentials. With this, they can have a resource that can be referenced over and over again to help with their deck-building processes.

In case you missed the previous iterations of this list, you can read through them here:

Part 1: White and Blue

Part 2: Black and Red

Part 3: Green and Multicolored

Part 4: Colorless, Lands, and a small list of cards not on Magic Online at time of writing.

Part 5: Complete Text List

I've been wanting to revisit this series for a good long while. The original intent was to do an update once every year or so, but every time I considered working on it, something else more important would take precedence. Now, though, it's been a little over three years and we've seen a lot more cards enter the Pauper card pool. At the time of my initial set of articles, I had covered up to mostly Throne of Eldraine with a couple clear standouts from Theros: Beyond Death. I also missed quite a few cards the first time around that slipped off my radar for one reason or another.

Given how much I'd have to go through, how many cards would need to be covered, and - frankly - how difficult it would be for CoolStuffInc and my editor to edit and publish, consider this piece a companion to the originals. The original articles are still there and relevant, but instead I want to use this as a way of showing the other key cards that have been and remain relevant to the Pauper format. To that end, I'll be using the following criteria to determine where cards were pulled from today:

Cards will be added that were previously missed and were specifically brought to my attention. It is too difficult to review and cross-check every single card covered, so to simplify this, I'm focusing on cards that others mentioned to me during the initial run. This means I may, and likely will, still miss a handful of cards and encourage you to let me know of any missed cards on social media.

I will be revisiting sets from Ixalan through Theros: Beyond Death to check in on cards that may not have made an impact at the time, but have as time went on. I am doing my best to avoid overlap, but there may be a little bit of it along the way.

Any release since Theros: Beyond Death that added new cards to the Pauper format will be examined and pulled from.

The most recent sets as of the writing of this article (Commander Masters, LotR: Tales of Middle-Earth, March of the Machine) may not be fully represented because it's possible some cards may have yet to make an impact at this time.

For Commander Masters specifically, I'll be including the cards most likely to be played or tested, but cards may both be missed and cards may be included that don't end up being particularly impactful.

In general, cards may and will be missed. This list is meant to be a helpful guide, but it's unlikely to be the be all, end all. Additionally, in some cases it's hard to pull specific results from a few years ago, so there's decent odds I list some cards that I remember seeing play that may not have been as impactful in Pauper as I recall.

Last but not least, please remember that this is attempting to cover Constructed Eternal Pauper and I am ignoring spaces like Pauper Commander, Pauper Cube, and Arena Pauper for the sake of this list, though many of the cards here will work well there as well.

Additionally, the reasons for why the cards chosen are included follow the following criteria as laid out in previous articles. This helps to determine the most relevant options for players looking to easily parse through a list for playables to mess around with.

Has shown up in a proven, tier deck.

Is a popular favorite among lower tier decks.

May have fallen out of favor recently but still good at one point and may be good here or there.

Is a newer card from the last few releases that may have not had its time to shine.

Is a card that is close to breaking out, but hasn't found a home yet.

Banned cards are excluded.

At the end of the cards, I will include a full updated text list for every card in all of the previous lists as well as this one. The only exclusions will be a handful of cards I feel maybe shouldn't have been on the list in the first place - namely cards that were and still aren't on Magic Online - or have otherwise been banned. I hope you find this entire list helpful for your future Pauper brewing needs.

White

Blue

Black

Red

Green

Gold

Colorless

Lands

Double-Faced Cards

Full Text List

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