Wizards of the Coast has announced that it is be forming the Pauper Format Panel for Magic: The Gathering, providing a more structured perspective on one of MTG’s most popular formats. There are various ways to play the game, from the 60-card Standard MTG format rules to Commander, in which players formulate a 100-card deck without any duplicate cards. Pauper is a community-created MTG format that limits deckbuilding to common rarity only, making all uncommon, rare, and mythic cards illegal in structured play. The upside to Pauper is that common cards can be included from any set ever released in Magic: The Gathering, allowing Strixhaven and Urza’s Legacy cards to work together.
The Pauper format was the Magic: The Gathering community’s attempt to solve a recurring problem in the collectible card game. In formats like Commander and Standard, building a deck can be costly. While not every card is overpriced – like the $500,000 MTG Black Lotus card – a worthwhile Commander deck can cost upwards of $100. To win tournament players must purchase cards within a given meta, and purchasing singles to concoct a winning deck can be expensive. Many formats, including Standard, are constantly in flux, incorporating the most recent sets Wizards of the Coast has released. That, too, can make MTG an expensive hobby. Popular (and effective) Pauper decks hover around the $50 mark, though, as they are entirely created using common cards, which are usually less expensive. This helps make Magic: The Gathering a more inclusive game overall.
On its website, Wizards of the Coast has announced that it is forming the MTG: Pauper Format Panel that will discuss the format as a whole and identify any issues that arise (via The Gamer). This will include overpowered combos or the need to ban particular MTG cards. The Pauper Format Panel will consist of six prominent MTG community members. Gavin Verhey, a senior designer for MTG, will act as the middle-man between the panel and Wizards of the Coast. The panel will serve a similar purpose to both the Commander Advisory Group and the Commander Rules Authority. While no changes have been announced yet, Verhey confirmed that the panel has “started discussing possible changes to the current Pauper format.”
Watch the announcement video on YouTube here.
While Wizards of the Coast has been involved with the Pauper format for a while, the MTG: Pauper Format Panel is an important step in legitimizing the format. Though it doesn’t confirm that Wizards is releasing Pauper products as of yet, the Pauper Format Panel should ensure that Pauper is taken into consideration when new products are released, making sure that cards like Sojourner’s Companion and Chatterstorm don’t upset the format at launch.
While Wizards improves on its new Digital-only MTG Alchemy format, it’s also encouraging that it’s providing resources to the Pauper format. The common-only mode isn’t necessarily as profitable as other formats, but the formulation of the Pauper Format Panel shows that Wizards cares about the growing MTG player base. Though it’s unclear what the future holds for Pauper, the Pauper Format Panel will likely enact a plethora of changes that hopefully the Magic: The Gathering community agrees with.
