Reflecting on the MTG Pauper Ban list and Meta Health

Is the MTG Pauper ban list in a good place right now? That’s a big question, and depending on how you look at it, Pauper is an incredibly diverse format. Like most MTG formats, there are plenty of playable decks—some stronger than others. But when it comes to the overall health of the format, things get a little murky.

This is where ban list discussions come into play. Are the right cards banned, or are certain strategies warping the format? Let’s take a closer look at how bans impact MTG Pauper and whether the format is in a balanced state.

What is the MTG Pauper Ban List and Why Does It Matter?

The MTG Pauper Ban List is a list of cards that are not allowed in the Pauper format due to their potential to create unbalanced gameplay or dominate the metagame. Cards are banned when they create overpowering strategies, broken combos, or hinder the player experience. By managing this list, the Pauper Format Panel (PFP) ensures that the Pauper format remains diverse, fair, and accessible for all players. (Or at least, thats the idea).

What Cards Are on the MTG Pauper Ban List?

This list of banned cards includes some of the most powerful ones that have either broken Pauper or have the potential to disrupt the metagame if they get un-banned.

Here’s the complete ban list in MTG Pauper:

• All cards that bring a sticker or an Attraction into the game

• [card]Aarakocra Sneak[/card]

• [card]All That Glitters[/card]

• [card]Arcum's Astrolabe[/card]

• [card]Atog[/card]

• [card]Basking Broodscale[/card]

• [card]Bonder's Ornament[/card]

• [card]Chatterstorm[/card]

• [card]Cloud of Faeries[/card]

• [card]Cloudpost[/card]

• [card]Cranial Plating[/card]

• [card]Cranial Ram[/card]

• [card]Daze[/card]

• [card]Deadly Dispute[/card]

• [card]Disciple of the Vault[/card]

• [card]Empty the Warrens[/card]

• [card]Fall from Favor[/card]

• [card]Frantic Search[/card]

• [card]Galvanic Relay[/card]

• [card]Gitaxian Probe[/card]

• [card]Grapeshot[/card]

• [card]Gush[/card]

• [card]Hymn to Tourach[/card]

• [card]Invigorate[/card]

• [card]Kuldotha Rebirth[/card]

• [card]Monastery Swiftspear[/card]

• [card]Mystic Sanctuary[/card]

• [card]Peregrine Drake[/card]

• [card]Sinkhole[/card]

• [card]Sojourner's Companion[/card]

• [card]Stirring Bard[/card]

• [card]Temporal Fissure[/card]

• [card]Treasure Cruise[/card]

• [card]Underdark Explorer[/card]

• [card]Vicious Battlerager[/card]

What is The Current Pauper Meta?

Right now, there is no doubt that [card]Writhing Chrysalis[/card] has been somewhat polarizing the meta. This creates an environment that can be annoying for many players, and while I don’t really know the answer to Pauper's problems, if any,  I want to point out a few lines of thought.

• Affinity is still very Good in Pauper.

• Control is possible now that [card]Prophetic Prism[/card] was unbanned, and also that faster decks have been nerfed in the format.

• Pauper is very diverse, but it seems that the early winners post-banning have been Walls Combo and Gruul Ponza.

Of course, we have decks trying to beat the meta, like Azorius Familiars with [card]High Tide[/card] or [card]Pactdoll Terror[/card] decks.

[cards]{{High Tide}}{{Pactdoll Terror}}[/cards]

The Golgari Gardens Theorem

[cards]{{Khalni Garden}}[/cards]

Some decks are usually not playable until the meta suddenly becomes favorable to them, or rather, they are crafted around it as “anti-meta decks,” or what I like to call the Golgari Gardens Theorem. Golgari Gardens is a deck that ranges from 12-16 removals main deck, with very few creatures, and its primary win condition is to bore you, or rather, kill everything in front and somehow win later. In other metas, like when Flicker Tron was dominant or emblems like Monarch or Initiative were played more, this deck would not have been great or playable at all. To be fair, its win rate right now is not amazing either, reaching around 48% of the top 32 in Challenges, one of the lowest win rates among other decks. It had a niche in the format because many of the other top decks in the meta were aggressive creature-based ones or fast combo decks. With tons of removal, this deck preys on them.

[cards]{{Lotleth Giant}}[/cards]

A similar situation occurred with the rise of Jund Dredge, a deck that was strong but highly vulnerable to graveyard hate. However, the meta at the time was already focused on running either burn or artifact hate, making graveyard hate more of a luxury. 

Think about it, why are Elves not seen a lot, or why did mono-green aggro suddenly disappear? It's not that the decks don’t exist anymore; it's just that the meta has pushed them away.

What I'm trying to say is that everything is just meta-dependent. From now on, don't be surprised if removal-heavy strategies start to fade into the background, while others—like Ephemerate Tron or, God forbid, Gruul Ponza—begin to rise. Also, keep in mind that with the banning of [card]Deadly Dispute[/card], blue decks might gain popularity again, since there's no longer a card that can easily outvalue those archetypes.

Pauper Ban list vs Banning the RIGHT cards

While I acknowledge that balancing a format is HARD, currently there’s not just one, but five to six people who are in charge of that, and they have the weight of hundreds, if not thousands, of players over their shoulders.

With that in mind, this is a reminder that the correct bans must address the underlying issue. Think about it: what do you do first if you have a flood coming from a cracked pipe in your kitchen? Put a finger on the hole or close the water supply to stop it from flooding. Doing the first will patch the issue, but the water will keep running, and if you let your finger out of the hole, the water will continue to flood the room. The latter is a step closer to fixing the issue, as no water means no flood.

[cards]{{Atog}}[/cards]

The same principle applies to any format, and Pauper is no exception. How many cards have been banned from Affinity at this point? [card]Atog[/card], [card]Disciple of the Vault[/card], [card]Sojourner’s Companion[/card], [card]All That Glitters[/card], [card]Cranial Ram[/card], and now [card]Deadly Dispute[/card]. But are those cards really the problem? When [card]All That Glitters[/card] was banned, another powerful Affinity payoff soon emerged, which eventually needed to be dealt with and was also banned a few months later.

Why ban surrounding cards rather than addressing the underlying issue? Why keep cards like [card]Galvanic Relay[/card] out of the format if the problem is the rituals? I know all of these are hard questions, but THIS is not an issue from a year or two back; it's an issue that Pauper has had since its conception and consolidation from MTGO.

The current Pauper banlist has many cards on it, and while most of them I agree on, are they really the main culprits, or just adjacent cards that suffered from incorrect banning behavior?

Notable Pauper Bans: The Most Controversial Decisions

Before diving in, let me be clear: most of the cards on the Pauper Ban List were extremely powerful, shaping the meta when they were released. Many of them dominated to the point of creating rock-paper-scissors environments or polarizing metagames.

That said, there are some decisions that have genuinely baffled me.

For example, [card]Monastery Swiftspear[/card] was released, and from day one, it proved to be a menace. Yet, it took a long time for the PFP to take action. A similar situation happened with [card]All That Glitters[/card]—though it wasn’t a relevant deck until [card]Novice Inspector[/card] was released, so I’ll give the benefit of the doubt there.

Still, [card]Cranial Ram[/card] was banned almost instantly because the PFP feared it would break Pauper, while [card]Refurbished Familiar[/card] wasn’t. 

Additionally, cards like [card]Sadistic Glee[/card] and [card]Basking Broodscale[/card] have been running rampant since their introduction, which is over half a year ago now. Now, [card]Basking Broodscale[/card] is finally banned, but it took TWO Paupergeddon events from considerable amount of time apart to get some kind of action.

To me, the inconsistency is the real problem. I understand that balancing a format isn’t easy and that players must adjust to the inevitable rise in power levels. But why not revisit the format on a regular basis, say every quarter? This could help create a more balanced and dynamic Pauper experience.

What is encouraging is that the PFP is finally looking at unbanning cards, so it's a step in the right direction.

Paper vs. Online

I know people will come back at this and say, " But paper is different,” and to them, I would say, “Great, does Paper run every Pauper Tournament?” Since the answer is no, both environments must be treated equally, especially since the online one is the most represented in the media.

Wrap Up

My opinions are my own, and this is truly how I feel. A format is not sustainable if it does not rely on data, and if the answer is that the format is not healthy and, as such, the data is not trustworthy, then you need to fix it.

As far as I know, the only reasonable way of fixing things is addressing the underlying issue, and patching it will never solve things 100%.

Thanks for reading!

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