Players have been waiting anxiously to see what is going with Pauper and Wizards of the Coast dropped that information today. Pauper is the commons-only format that has a huge community following, which is a sanctioned format since 2019.
Announced earlier today, Wizards of the Coast provided an update on the Pauper format. There’s been plenty of disdain with the format since Modern Horizons 2 release with Storm and Affinity dominating the format. This hasn’t been the first time a Modern Horizons card has blighted the format. Arcum’s Astrolabe saw a ban in 2019 as that dominated the format with Kor Skyfisher loops.
September 8 Banned and Restricted Announcement
However, Modern Horizons is looking to add to the ban list with Chatterstorm and Sojourner’s Companion are leaving the format with immediate effect. Both of these cards have skewed Pauper into an unpopular format, to the point where players registered 60 basic lands in a Pauper Preliminary event. After the event, Wizards of the Coast responded that they were looking to update the Banned & Restricted list later this week.
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MTG Community Responds to the Banned & Resticted Update
Although the news just broke, noted players and community members are adding their thoughts to the announcement. Overall, it seems it may not add much since Sojourner’s Companion are additional copies of Myr Enforcer but it could be enough for other archetypes to catch up. However, Wizards of the Coast did consider Atog or Disciple of the Vault which would force Affinity to take an aggressive approach.
Going further, Storm will remain a powerful option since Galvanic Relay is still legal. Storm will exist but Wizards of the Coast hopes with the removal of Chatterstorm will slow down the strategy. There’s been plenty of discourse on Pauper needed an aggressive ban as we saw in Standard back in 2020. Unfortunately, we haven’t had an extensive ban update this time around, but hopefully, the removal of two cards will be enough for Pauper to come back to life.
What are your thoughts on the Banned & Restricted update? Is it enough? Will Tron come back and reign supreme once again? Let us know in the comments!
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