It feels like it was just yesterday when I was rounding out my Commander Masters Pauper review and, well, that's because it was less than a month ago when I finished that! But time marches ever onward and so does the Magic release schedule, so here we are once more for yet another Pauper review with Wilds of Eldraine. This set has a lot of sweet new cards in the mix and plenty of interesting things happening as well.

Before we get going, I'd like to remind you all that starting with Wilds of Eldraine, every one of my reviews will no longer be multi-parts and I will be condensing them all into single articles. Some people loved that I would cover the majority - if not the entirety - of new cards, but it's definitely getting to a point where that's not as feasible as it once was. As such, I'll be focusing on discussing important elements of new sets as a whole and focusing on the more impactful new cards in the mix as well. Some cards may get overlooked due to this, but there's definitely plenty to offer even if I don't touch on it.

With that said, let's take a look at a couple of the different mechanics of Wilds of Eldraine. There's some especially interesting ones this time around and I think it's worth covering them all together as a greater whole. I'll be skipping Celebration since it only appears on four cards and I think only one feels like it has real potential, so I'll cover it when discussing the individual cards.

Roles

Let's start off with roles, which in my opinion is one of the more interesting additions this set brings with it. Auras are typically narrow in their use when it comes to Pauper with only Bogles and Heroic traditionally making use of them, as well as a few odd ones showing up in decks like Azorius Affinity and Mono-Green Stompy. Roles open up some interesting potential space given that they can boost other creatures without necessarily costing you the extra card that your typical auras do. There're far fewer opportunities to get 2-for-1'd this way, which makes them appealing on a surface level.

The problem in regards to Pauper is more the rate of the cards the roles are attached to. Consider Besotted Knight for a moment.

Using the Adventure side of the card to make an aura isn't that bad. +1/+1 and ward is slightly comparable to something like Hyena Umbra at a glance. It's worse, to be sure, but it's not terrible especially when you consider that you can get something additional with it. The problem, though, is the attached creature is an actual Hill Giant - an otherwise vanilla 3/3 for four mana. That's not great, especially by Pauper's standards. As it happens, the majority of creatures making roles have similarly rough rates, often costing 3-4 mana at least to get a creature that can also give you a role. Most of the roles as well offer very menial effects, and most are the sort of cards where you can't slot them into something like Bogles for some added benefit because the benefit is too small.

I personally feel that the only two viable ones are Return Triumphant and Not Dead After All, and the big reason for both is they already have similar cards seeing fringe play. In Return Triumphant's case, it's Recommission. Return Triumphant can be better provided you're returning something with 0 or 1 power, but Recommission can also get back artifacts, not just creatures. Not Dead After All is like Feign Death, Undying Malice, and several other similar effects, though this one has some extra play in pinging an opponent when the creature dies again. It's possible this mechanic does more in future iterations, but here, there's just not really enough for it to be good enough on the whole.

Bargain

Unlike Roles, the number of Bargain cards in this set actually seem quite decent. There's a lot of cards in the format right now that you're happy to sacrifice. Sacrifice a spare Chromatic Star or Ichor Wellspring for a little extra bonus? Don't mind if I do! Most of these spells are fairly basic in their approach, but there's a couple that are notably interesting.

Archon's Glory can probably find some home in more aggressive White decks, as they tend to run enchantments and tokens you can spare to sacrifice to get the evasive lifelink buff. Ice Out turns into extra Counterspells with a small sacrificial cost that can be made into a benefit. The decks that will want to make use of it are minimal and would only run it in small numbers to supplement the actual copies of Counterspell, but it has play potential. Candy Grapple removes quite a lot of stuff in the format with a little sacrifice, and there's plenty worth sacrificing in Black. Troublemaker Ouphe acts as another rock solid Naturalize effect on a stick for Green decks like Elves that utilize tokens. Even something like Rowan's Grim Search or Brave the Wilds can prove potent in the right deck. I'd definitely watch a lot of these cards to see what they may do, because I feel like one or two of these have some genuine potential.

Adventures

Now comes a new round of Adventure cards. We've seen some have decent play in the past. With Throne of Eldraine, Ardenvale Tactician appeared in White Weenies decks and Merchant of the Vale saw some use in a couple different decks. Then with Battle for Baldur's Gate, Guardian Naga and Pegasus Guardian had a bit of time in the sun. On the whole, most weren't too terribly playable, though, so how does this new batch stack up?

In truth, it's not that great. Four of the cards make roles and the rates are generally bad enough that they're not worth talking about. The closest is Vantress Transmuter as a way to downsize creatures, but not removing their abilities like, say, Witness Protection makes it way less useful by comparison. Aquatic Alchemist reads well, but it's hard to get repeated use from the Adventure side and the once per turn aspect of the creature side is similarly less than ideal. Many others suffer from a similar issue as roles, with the overall rate being too low for what Pauper wants.

There are a couple cards I am eyeballing, though. Grabby Giant does quite a lot for the mana you're putting into it. You can get a treasure up front and curve into a decent sized creature that blocks fliers and lets you sacrifice stuff for extra value as a mana sink. Not a bad rate at all! Ratcatcher Trainee is a reasonable, if unexciting, body, but the fact that you can also make two tokens with the Adventure makes it a bit more enticing. Lastly is Beanstalk Wurm, which while it's not the best body, the fact that it ramps and can give you a big beater later on is actually fairly rock solid. None of these are format defining by any means, but they're decent enough that they might show up a bit here and there.

Now let's move onto the individual cards and see what the rest of the set has to offer us!

Hopeful Vigil

This card does quite a lot for two mana, and it's another card that can easily be picked up with something like Kor Skyfisher for additional value. It's got some pretty stiff competition from Barbed Batterfist, though, since you can also bounce that using Glint Hawk. The fact that you can't get the scry value without sacrificing this makes the Batterfist way more appealing to me, but this one definitely has the potential if you can get it into the right kind of shell.

Slumbering Keepguard

I'm basically a Bogles main with Elves largely being a rough meta choice these days and I have to say I'm a big fan of this card. One of Bogles' biggest issues is consistency in hitting the right kind of cards as well as topdecking in the late game if your Bogle has been hit with an Edict. This solves both issues. It sets up your draws well - extra great with Abundant Growth - and in the late game where you've probably got several suited up lands, this comes down with some solid resilience and can attack for quite a bit. It has similar benefits in Heroic as well, though with typically less auras and none that go on lands, it's a bit less exciting. The downside is how susceptible it is to removal for decks that normally laugh at such a thing, but the payoff is real enough to make me want to at least try it.

Stockpiling Celebrant

This has some comparisons to Kor Skyfisher, so if you're trying to get the value from bouncing permanents, this isn't a bad way to do it. It is, however, the worst between this, Skyfisher, and Glint Hawk and it isn't particularly close. The lack of evasion and mana value of three feels like an absolute dealbreaker to me personally. I'd expect to see someone tinker with it, but largely it's not that great.

Mocking Sprite

I know what you're thinking. Whoa, that's a really powerful faerie! I'm sure Faeries will make great use of this! Unfortunately, that's not the case. The body is very fragile here and three mana is pricey, but the real clincher is that most of the spells Faeries decks run are cheap cantrips and counter magic that don't have generic mana pips in them at all to reduce. If this shows up anywhere, it'll likely be Familiars builds running Spellstutter Sprite as a way to reduce costs of essential spells while benefiting the Sprite. There's a chance that it shows up somewhere, but if other familiar cards, Goblin Electromancer, and Goblin Anarchomancer aren't being played, I don't feel very hopeful for this one.

Quick Study

Divination is officially obsolete with an instant speed version now in our grasps! The question now is how playable will it be for Pauper? This is one where I'm not sure myself. On one hand, Inspiration (this but one more mana) and Divination itself never saw play, but Meeting of Minds recently came out and has become a Familiars staple. That one benefits from Convoke allowing you to cast it for low amounts of mana, though, so it'll be interesting to see how this stacks up by comparison. It'll either be an archetypal staple or see no play whatsoever and there's likely not much potential in between. We'll have to see how things go in the coming weeks.

Snaremaster Sprite

I thought there was a common one-mana faerie that can tap stuff down for some reason, but I guess I was wrong! The modal aspect of being able to simply cast this on turn one or use it later as a flying Frost Lynx with a relevant creature type is quite useful. It's not the biggest card amongst the bunch, but it likely has some play in small doses.

Spell Stutter

I saw a lot of people getting hyped about this one given the prevalence of Faeries and I have to say: I don't see it. In many situations, this is simply comparable to Lofty Denial which already sees virtually no play. If you have the three faeries to make this better, odds are at that point you have enough Spellstutter action to counter in other ways. It's a cool card, but doesn't feel particularly relevant to Pauper specifically.

Stormkeld Prowler

If you play this and then follow it up the next turn with an evoked Mulldrifter, you get the extra counters as well as your two cards (or more if you flicker the Mulldrifter). That alone makes me feel like this has decent play, but it gets better when you consider that it also buffs off Lorien Revealed, Tolarian Terror, Cryptic Serpent, Gurmag Angler, Myr Enforcer, and Gearseeker Serpents. There's a lot of ways to make this a serious beater in the right home and I'm interested to see if people find ways to brew with it.

Hopeless Nightmare

This is the second half of a mirrored pair with Hopeful Vigil. It's a bit less impactful, but is still fairly decent for the whole package. Two life and forcing a discard isn't the strongest play, but it's one that has some push on the game. I do have to make the comparison to Vicious Rumors here, though, as it was a card that looks like it does a lot but has such a minimal impact on the game as to be unplayable. What makes Hopeless Nightmare different is the extra point of damage - which I've seen people note makes it potentially playable in Black/Rakdos Burn - as well as being able to sacrifice it for scrying value later on in the game to help set up more impactful draws.

Warehouse Tabby, Wicked Visitor

I can't really talk about one of these without discussing the other since if you see one played, you'll probably be seeing the other as well. Discussion generated pretty quickly over Warehouse Tabby because of how you could use it alongside Rancor, Ashnod's Altar, and Energy Refractor to generate an infinite sacrifice loop. Players were scratching their heads on how you could make this do something particularly relevant, but with Wicked Visitor, we have our answer. It basically acts as a Disciple of the Vault for a particularly narrow build, so this will likely lead to people trying out some fancy new combo decks. Five card combos are rather fragile and hard to assemble, though, so I wouldn't put money on it necessarily being good, but it's something that people will definitely be toying with.

Flick a Coin

The abilities here are largely quite minor - especially for three mana - but getting an extra mana, a cantrip, and picking off a small critter is a reasonable rate. Three mana is still a lot, but this certainly has a shot in low quantities.

Gnawing Crescendo

Trumpet Blast-style effects have always had that feeling of being "almost there," with the only one that really made the cut being Rally the Peasants due to the flashback value. I like this one way more than most because even if your creatures die in the attack, you still get to keep creatures around. That can turn your board into mass removal while letting you keep a board yourself after the fact. It's another card that may show up in low quantities, but it's definitely a particularly interesting effect.

Grand Ball Guest

This is the one and only Celebration card that I think is worth talking about. That's because it's very easy to put two permanents onto the field in one turn in a lot of Red aggro strategies especially with the likes of Voldaren Epicure and Kuldotha Rebirth. When you do, this turns into a 3/3 trampler for two mana, which is a really good rate. Even at its worst it's still a bear with no downside, which is generally rock solid. With an easily attainable ceiling, though, I wouldn't be surprised if this one makes a decent little showing in the future.

Candy Trail

Last but not least, we have Candy Trail. This sets up your draws nicely and then sacrifices for both extra life and some card draw. With how much Affinity is floating around these days and the ease of playing this and sacrificing it, I'd almost be shocked if this one didn't see play. It's a pretty solid no brainer value play at most points in the game and seems like a great addition to the format.

All in all I think Wilds of Eldraine is a fairly lukewarm set. There's some solid cards in the mix, but there isn't really anything that particularly stands out as being something along the lines of "this is going to completely change the face of Pauper!" Given the monstrous impact that Commander Masters is having on the format as is, that's a good thing in my book. There's a lot of solid role players and decently playable cards among the bunch, so it'll be interesting to see how things shake out in the coming weeks. As always with new sets, I'm eager to see what players bring to the table! The Lost Caverns of Ixalan is next, but as that one comes out in November, we have a little time to let the format breathe.

Which cards are you most excited to play with?

Paige Smith

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