The Power of Pauper: Power of the Black Mage
Howdy folks! It's time yet again for another edition of The Power of Pauper! I'm your host, Joe Dyer, and this week we're going to be talking all about the impact of Final Fantasy on Pauper so far. I'm back from my vacation, so let's get to it!
Pauper and Final Fantasy
We've got Final Fantasy now on Magic Online, and we're starting to see some results from some of the cards out of that set. One card in particular though really stuck out, and it's one that I had a fair inkling was going to see play. It's of course... Black Mage's Rod.
This card does so much in Pauper, and I'm not super surprised that it is seeing play. The biggest upside the card has is that it comes with two permanents, which in of itself is really strong in Pauper. Usually whenever you are getting two things for one card like this, it's usually pretty good, but the fact that this is also an artifact that also comes with a creature makes it even better, since those two things end up being some of the best sacrificial fodder in all of Pauper. Of course, the big places we're seeing this card are definitely decks where it makes the most sense, and that's primarily in Affinity shells.
These decks work really well with Black Mage's Rod because there are so many noncreature spells you can cast in these decks. Between casting removal like Cast Down to drawing a bunch of cards off an Ichor Wellspring with Fanatical Offering there is simply just a metric ton of things that trigger your friendly little Black Mage Hero equipped with the Rod. In addition, having more than one of these things in play can start making things incredibly dicey for the opponent because the damage is not targeted and you can usually do a lot of things at instant speed with many of the spells in these decks. It makes for a really interesting dynamic in these kinds of decks and it's not hard to see why it is good here.
In addition to these Affinity-esque shells, the card also goes great in general in shells that just want to cast Wellspring and Fanatical Offering. One such build is Gardens.
Again, the card is simply shoring up some of the cards you're already playing and it does it well.
The only major downside of the card is that if the creature equipped to the Rod is removed in some way, re-equipping it is really steep at three mana. It does allow for some counterplay in that regards, but there is a ton you can do in response to a removal spell as well to get as much value out of it as possible. Either way, this is a really powerful card entering this format, and I expect we'll see it more down the line.
Pauper Challenge 32 6/13/2025
The first Challenge event of the week was the Friday event. This event had 54 players in it thanks to the MTGO website.
You can find all of the decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Jund Wildfire | 1st | seasonofmists |
| Jund Wildfire | 2nd | _Tia93_ |
| Mono Blue Terror | 3rd | Tubuwee |
| Mono Blue Terror | 4th | oskiyaa |
| Jund Wildfire | 5th | cat_JAM |
| Golgari Gardens | 6th | Crevelloni |
| Bogles | 7th | PedraStone |
| Dimir Terror | 8th | Beicodegeia |
Definitely an interesting Top 8. At the end of the event though it was a pair of Jund Wildfire decks that faced off.
Not a ton of differences here between the two lists, with the minor exception of the winning list having Makeshift Munitions while the Second Place list does not. Pulse of Murasa main deck is a pretty cool inclusion here. It's kind of a neat card that can be used both on your own stuff as well as on your opponent's stuff, so if for example your opponent is trying to reanimate something like Lotleth Giant you can put it back into their hand to blank it.
Also in this Top 8 we had Golgari Gardens featuring one new card we talked about already.
Black Mage's Rod seems pretty good here. There's a lot of cards that trigger it between all the draw spells and the artifacts in the deck. Seems quite strong at pushing through some reach on the opponent.
Pauper Challenge 32 6/14/2025
The second Challenge event of the week was the Saturday event. This event had 42 players in it thanks to the MTGO website.
You can find all of the decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Mono Blue Terror | 1st | discoverN |
| Elves | 2nd | Tsubasa_Cat |
| Mono Blue Terror | 3rd | oskiyaa |
| Familiars | 4th | ChaoticMTG |
| Madness Burn | 5th | alfonseelric |
| High Tide Combo | 6th | PNascimento |
| Madness Burn | 7th | Bong0411 |
| Ephemerate Tron | 8th | EiJunCHN |
This is a curious Top 8. Terror and Madness Burn both took up half of the Top 8. At the end of the event it was Mono Blue Terror that won.
Exceptionally clean looking list here. This deck is really straightforward to play and that's what I like about it. This is one I would not mind putting together for my own cadre of paper Pauper decks.
In Second Place we had Elves.
Crashing Drawbridge as a way to enable haste for something like a big Nyxborn Hydra is pretty sweet. It's great that this is a good deck in Pauper for sure.
Further down the Top 8 we had High Tide Combo.
I do love that this deck exists, is reasonably powerful enough, but too overpowered for this format. It's great seeing a spell based combo deck have some space in the format.
Pauper Challenge 32 6/15/2025
The final Challenge event of the week was the Sunday event. This event had 63 players in it thanks to the MTGO website.
You can find all of the decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Elves | 1st | Brasatore |
| Elves | 2nd | WadeB |
| Grixis Affinity | 3rd | Angus91 |
| Madness Burn | 4th | alfonseelric |
| Bogles | 5th | Mah_Alves |
| Burn | 6th | GilbertoAntunes |
| Madness Burn | 7th | NMT_Sco94 |
| Mono Blue Terror | 8th | Luminati |
Fair amount of Burn and Elves. In fact the end of the event was a double Elves final!
Pretty much the same lists overall here. The only major difference is the Crashing Drawbridge in the main deck of the Second Place list.
Also in this Top 8 we had Madness Burn.
Very straightforward list here. It's definitely a good deck right now it seems. Grab the Prize was a huge upgrade for the deck.
Around the Web
- Kalikaiz has a video on Ruby Storm. Check it out here.
- Bryant Cook has a video on Pauper Spy Combo. Check it out here.
- The Common Coldsnap has another episode. Check it out here.
The Spice Corner
As League results are now spread out across the week, let's dig in and find something spicy!
WITCH'S CAULDRON.
Wrapping Up
That's all the time we have this week folks! Thanks for continuing to support the column and join us next week as we continue our journey into Pauper!
As always you can reach me at all my associated links via my Link Tree! In addition I'm always around the MTGGoldfish Discord Server and the MTGPauper Discord Server.
Until next time!
