I personally think that ritual-effects are cornerstone in Pauper, not for any nostalgic reasons, but because Pauper generally is a format of strong enablers but weak payoffs. To me, any 1-card engine runs counter to the format's identity, and I'd much rather see anything strong enough to be ritual'ed out banned, rather than the rituals themselves. Without them you lose an important Mtg archetype, density-based combo decks, which there are multiple fair of in Pauper currently, but they would be severely cut down without rituals.
"strong enablers but weak payoffs", this in my mind is the definition of pauper as a format. We have crazy powerful spells like bolt and counterspell, but they are used to defend my 1/3 augur of bolas or my 1/1 faerie. 100% agree with this take.
Instead of banning 4 High cost creatures.. it would have been better to ban Lotus Petal / Dark Ritual / Cabal Ritual and it would make the format much better.
@@Duskrequim i can't agree. 1 card wincon engine at any amount of mana is something really bad in pauper compared to any other existing threat. Initiative had to go anyway. I can agree banning rituals could be a decent move for pauper, but at the moment only cyclestorm uses them, and it still needs to work really hard to win and is a mediocre deck.
@@Duskrequim Pauper has been historically a format with low power treats unlike standard or extended, so in there rituals are safe. You can ritual into a cascade creature and be not so far ahead your opponent. Also pauper is like "old legacy" where every card in hand means, so many games asking opponents how many cards in their hand to make decisions. Initiative provides free card advantage and free casting costs, it breaks the rules of pauper. This is why we hadn't seen turbo-monarch over the years. Rituals are healthy in a format without broken mechanics.
As a spectator, I find that dark ritual is very defining for the format, as I have always enjoyed the weird combo side of pauper. Having strong enablers, but clunky things for them to enable is foundational.
I think dark ritual shouldn't be banned. I play for I believe five years so not a huge amount of time, but I brought a bunch of people into pauper. Many believe it's a weak format and when I say cards like dark ritual, lotus petal, brainstorm, ponder and lightning bolt are legal, their interest for the format usually spikes or at least makes them consider. I think pauper should stay the format of some of the strongest enablers and weak payoffs. It makes for fun brewing experience. You can build almost any strategy in pauper, you just need to be creative. Dark ritual enables whacky strategies like cycle storm, zubera storm, even black land destruction, fishelbrand, some reanimator stuff... If you ban it, the format loses an iconic piece, but other rituals replace it so the degenerate decks are not really hindered. Just a bit less viable.
I agree with you. I'm just now getting into Pauper. I'm doing so more to make use of cards than because I have a love for the format. Cards like Dark Ritual are certainly an incentive for me to bother sleeving up the cards.
Dark Ritual is a great card with sleek design and exciting play patterns. It's also got that special place in the mind of a player that you discuss. Dark Ritual, Bolt, Brainstorm, etc. are a big part of how special Pauper is. I would not want to see it banned.
I’ve been playing Pauper for a little over five years now, and although they are annoying to play against, I think having some rituals is important for the format overall. I think that it is very reasonable to ban Dark Ritual or Lotus Petal, as together they are particularly consistent, but I think the format would be less appealing if it lacked both those iconic cards.
i think dark ritual is a card that only works in certain decks plus pauper being a high power format should not be bad necessarely i dont think it warrants a ban considering it would pretty mutch remove the possibility of any storm combo decks based around it, i think it would be negative to take sutch a card from the format
I think part of the charm of pauper as a format is having really powerful enablers such as Dark Ritual and Lotus Petal but having underwhelming threats to deploy with them. These cards are fun when they are powering out a Gurmag Angler or enabling a crazy build like Cycle Storm, and less so when they allow for a turn 1 Entomb and Reanimate a Griselbrand. Banning those cards removes this unique space in pauper where powerful enablers can be fun and janky without being back breaking.
@@DiabloTommaso it's also opened up a lot of fun possibilities depending on who you ask. You'll get to have more pleasant conversations if you don't open up by condescending to people.
@@ramirr if something it s broken free mana makes it worse. That s a fact. A 5 3 turn 5 or eaven 4 is not a problem. For sure now is more inconsistent but the fact remains that of you luck out you can make an insane play on turn 1/2.
Dark Ritual is (as you pointed out) one of the cards that make Pauper special. I vote against banning it. Initiative was a fine mechanic, that had stupidly broken creature bodies with it. I like these bans. Would’ve hoped to see maybe some unbans as well, but okay
It really says a lot that only ONE of the initiative creatures died to lightning bolt, and none of them died to the other format staple red removal, fiery cannonade. If the initiative creatures had had one or two points of toughness taken off across the board, I think they might have felt less terrible to see stick around. Of course, not enough to compensate for how backbreaking turn 1 initiative is with a blocker, but at least not quite so disparate.
As a casual MTG fan who knows nothing about pauper I was able to understand this video 100% you do such a fantastic job with your communication about this that it would be hard to be upset given the reasonings
I support the decision that PFP didn't ban Dark Ritual. I think Dark Ritual is necessary for some types of combo decks such as cycling storm, and these decks make pauper environment thrilling.
I vote to keep Dark Ritual, Lotus Petal and other Ritual spells in pauper. Without the massive payoffs you see in other formats with rituals, they help to continue deck ideas to thrive in the format. Pauper is healthy with rituals and lotus petal!
Dark ritual is the reason I was able to play against mono-black infect or ponza. I don't think I've ever used it, but it has allowed a lot of interesting decks to exist. Rituals should stay in the format.
Rituals are totally fine, they've only proven problematic in decks that were playing overpowered cards that subsequently required a ban (Chatterstorm, Galvanic Relay, initiative creatures). Cycle Storm is an incredibly awesome deck that's unique to pauper, and I don't think various tier 3ish LD and pinger storm decks are an issue. The issue with initiative is pretty clear in that it creates game material without ongoing cost much like a planeswalker. Monarch is strong but doesn't buy you tempo, only cards that you subsequently have to deploy, resolve and protect. If dark ritual was the issue we would have seen a turbo monarchy deck or a turbo cascader deck by now. For a lot of people pauper is a refuge from the crazy self-contained value engines you see in other formats, and I think it's proven the case that initiative (or at least the easily castable/turbo-able initiative creatures) break what the format is about.
I really appreciate how clear and direct this video is. For what it’s worth I think you are spot on about rituals and I hope they end up sticking around in this great format.
Do not ban rituals. Avoid having planeswalkeresque cards like initiative and cards with storm. And they are fine. Also most people dislike combos, so if you just listen to "the people" there is probably a majority (especially among people who are not fully invested in the format) who would love to see them banned. This, to me would be some kind of "tyranny of the majority" and not a good way to decide the direction of the format. Thanks for your work.
I'd much prefer to keep rituals because I'm invested into the format, and these powerful enablers let me play (and WIN with) weird decks. The only real meta deck I have is affinity, and I usually don't play it
Pauper has been historically a format with low power treats unlike standard or extended, so in there rituals are safe. You can ritual into a cascade creature and be not so far ahead your opponent. Also pauper is like "old legacy" where every card in hand means, so many games asking opponents how many cards in their hand to make decisions. Initiative provides free card advantage and free casting costs, it breaks the rules of pauper. This is why we hadn't seen turbo-monarch over the years. Rituals are healthy in a format without broken mechanics.
I love rituals! Specifically when they have combo implications! The issue that comes up in pauper is that rituals don’t have the counterplay options seen in other formats, tax effects in particular being less common causes a serious imbalance. The payoffs of storm and high impact creatures is also a major issue. If a metagame-safe payoff could be found, and white/green had access to main/sideboard tools for these strategies that would make room for deck diversity, as it stands the payoffs printed have lacked downside or challenge in their construction, chatterstorm decks could see a comparison to dragonstorm decks, which required a balance of creatures and powerful mana to make it work. I love the exploration the pauper team is adding to the discussion! I really hope to see some restrained pushing of the formats options as time goes on! ❤️❤️❤️ A downside that requires deck building constraints or could put its caster at risk is fun for both the player and the opponent! Such drama, so much risk, and iconic magic. Dark ritual may simply not be right for the format yet, but I’d rather see it painfully grow around it like blood moon in modern than to rip it from the format in my opinion.
I think it's notable that ritual cards are only run when there are payoffs that offset the opportunity and inherent value cost of playing those cards. The black and red rituals generally aren't run in the mono-colour variants with the respective rituals. Still, the rituals enable rogue decks, significant shenanigans and give more tools to deck builders. There will always be some form of non-game draws in a format, be it RDW, Counter-Draw or a mana cost shell like rituals or affinity. As long as the consistency of those non-games are low and manageable enough via statistics and sideboarding, rituals probably should stay.
I absolutely love that pauper allows me to play the most iconic commons from mtg's history. If you banned all the greatest hits like dark ritual, brainstrom, etc, I'd feel like im just playing with chaff. I'd probably stop playing pauper without being able to enjoy it as "legacy light" especially because of how accessible, yet powerful, the format is. Getting affinity chopped was a big hit for me, especially since I loved playing the iconic cards from mtg's history, now it's less so a museum of powerful old commons and just "strong stuff we have laying around" which is why I took mine apart in favor of playing delver (another amazing iconic card). I know im just a nobody ranting into the internet, but I really like pauper so I figured I'd say my piece.
Thanks for being so honest and open Gavin! Love pauper, it’s my favorite format, and I think keeping dark ritual, and the nostalgic powerful cards, does keep its charm alive 👏🏼👌🏼🔥
What made the Venture mechanic fun to play with is that you had to constantly be taking game actions in order to advance your dungeon progress and ramping up towards those big rewards. Initiative ruined that by having an incredibly overpowered dungeon and also allowing for automatic progress.
Sure, everyone loves dark ritual, lotus petal and etc, but if in the next year or so we have to ban another batch of a new mechanic to justify keeping dark ritual and lotus petal legal, i think we should re-evaluate this decision. As of right now, keep them legal.
For my little experience with pauper I think there's a huge difference between paper and online pauper. Online people tend to build decks that just win games the most (net decks if you will), while in paper you usually have a huge variety of builds because paper players "just feel plays different" and make changes according to the metagame of their zone. Hearing that the online dictates what gets banned or not makes me chuckle a bit because in paper people would have found different ways to deal with it for sure
Many magic personalities already said that the approach to communication you and your colleagues in the PFP had was outstanding. I'm here to also reinforce. Gavin... You're awesome. You do everything with care and makes me really happy to see you strike homeruns like this! Ps: do you also have time in your commute to run a podcast real quick ??
the fact that this video was intelligible to a literal non-mtg player (myself) is astounding, and exemplifies perfectly the kind of communication i wish we had in yugioh
When I was playing at some of the CK Paupergeddeon tournaments and their weekly, I never once saw Rituals being played and it was the best time I'd had playing magic. It does suck to lose such an iconic card, but for SO MANY other cards to die for 1-3 other card's sins... that's just too much. The need of the many, out way the need of the few.
Can I just say that the PFP, their process and transparency, makes me want to play Pauper. Excellent committee, very glad you’ve set this up like this Gavin.
The thing with Dark Ritual that makes it fair is you 2 for 1 yourself for a quick mana boost (or 3 for 1, if you chain two of them). You burn two, bring out your 5/3 and then...POW! Lightning Bolt. And it's a dead draw late in the game, when you need to top deck something.
Reakky aooreciate that you are taking us so deep into the discussions. That being said, I really hope you will reevaluate the bard specifically in the future, to see what would happen if it got unbanned, but everything else stayed
0-1 cost fast mana I think is where it gets problematic in pauper. unlike older formats such as legacy turn 0 interaction doesn't exist so there's literally nothing you can do to stop a ritual chain since most interaction (counterspell castdown) unlocks turn 2 and even snuffout requires at least 1 mainphase. Of course it is a big part of the format and I think all the fancy pseudo-storm combo decks are cool, but having spiritguide, petal, rite, and dark ritual is a lot of redundancy so some of those pieces might need to go.
I do think that the rituals are going to keep causing problems, but not at an absolutely unacceptable rate like they end up doing in other formats that have better higher end threats. Being able to play Dark Ritual alongside what usually amounts to draft chaff is absolutely a charm to the format that can't be discounted
Great job for such a fast ban! Also to answer your question, yes, keep Ritual legal in Pauper. That makes it different from other formats, which are full of powerful threads but lack fast mana. Ritual wasn't even any popular in Pauper before Initiative, it is played only in a few non-T1 decks, so it is not the problem.
I don't have an issue with rituals although part of that is nostalgia. When I started. Playing the classic Dark Ritual into Hypnotic Spectre was a brutal first turn and we loved it. As for Affinity, half my sideboard is there to deal with one deck. Game one is rough if I didn't know what I was playing against.
I was actually nervous for this B&R announcement since I was worried the rituals (+ Petal) would be banned instead of the Initiative cards. I agree with your reasoning that these cards are important to have in Pauper (for some people), even though they are risky and might necessitate bans of other cards. Being able to play these cards is a huge appeal for the format in my opinion and gets people excited about it. Thank you for taking this into consideration!
it's clear Dark Ritual enables some very unfair things, but I agree it's too iconic to Pauper, especially for players who consider it some sort of "Legacy Lite" format. I see Pauper as the format where I can play old stuff that don't see play anywhere else, and even though I don't play Dark Ritual, I think it's part of the format's charm
I've been playing Pauper for well over a decade and this is by far the most clear and concise banning explanation over a contentious decision I've seen 👌 I am however erring on the side of banning some of the ritual effects. I appreciate the iconic nature of cards such as Dark Rit, however rituals are also major players in other formats. Initiative is a unique, intricate and challenging mechanic which is unique to Pauper and it seems a waste of creative energy that a mechanic such of this is at risk of being edged out by the engine of rituals behind them.
I couldn’t agree more on the clear and concise point… PFP: phenomenal job. Buzz, I do take an opposite view on your rituals point. I respect your view, but I’m for the rituals and I hope they stay.
I think that keeping rituals is good for pauper. Pauper combo decks have the nice texture of "Great enablers, terrible clunky payoffs", e.g. fishelbrand, something that you just can't really find in any other format. You get lotus petal, you get cabal and dark ritual, you get rite of flame and seething song, great. Now put together some unholy abomination. Meanwhile in other formats you just get some deterministic win you can barely interact with. Pauper is still playing with power, and if you got rid of rituals and fast mana it'd go from "playing with cheap power" to "playing limited++".
What's interesting to me is that I am actually more enticed by the concept of "Limited++" than "cheap power", especially fast mana. And no, just playing any set in Limited is not the same experience, and does not have the same entry costs or persistence of a deck. Leagues (in the old sense of developing one deck over time by opening additional packs and modifying your build using them) wanted to solve this problem, but I have never had the opportunity to try one, and even still it is not actually the same thing as having the freedom to deckbuild with an open card pool and multiples. Or to keep a deck around indefinitely. I would be satisfied if I could find a community that was enthusiastic about using emulation programs to bounce around old limited formats and make also make "chaos" mashups between sets. (even given that WotC's proprietary collation would be absent, and dealing with a platform not as polished as Arena) I don't and won't expect Pauper enthusiasts to suffer an upending of their beloved format just to try and entice people like me in, though. I just wanted to point out that "Limited++" is something I've wanted to explore in the past, and had no outlet for. Several times, I have begun constructing things like Pauper and Peasant Block Constructed or era-restricted (Standard Snapshot, or whatever term). I'd like to do things like pack a bunch of the green Amonkhet mechanics into higher density, for example (Because I found the Cartouche of Strength filling my off-turns between Exerting to be very satisfying). I may look into whether it's at all possible to even mess around with a rogue pet brew like one of those ideas in Pauper and still be allowed to play Magic, but the lack of uncommons is going to be painful. And I don't have a casual scene around or know where I can find a decent Peasant environment instead.
The issue is that if the card is worth cheating in that much to where it makes the card problematic, it wouldn’t matter if ritual was in the format or not. The problem is that commons as of recent have been printed with insane mechanics that out power all other commons that are in the field. Like you stated in the video, the 7 cards you talked about banning were simply because of a mechanic introduced into the format. We aren’t banning 4 mana 0/4 defenders because of their stats. I love the constant push of new ideas and designs in the game, but designers need to be cautious of what is being put into the format. The PFP is a double-edged sword for me. It both strives to protect our format and ensure that everything is fun and enjoyable, but it also means that wizards acknowledges the format more and will create more cards for it. That can be good for cards like weather the storm as a great sideboard card we needed in the format, but bad because of the massive amount of bannings that we’ve had in the last few years. There have been more pauper bans in the last 4 years than the rest of pauper’s history. That’s not a coincidence. I want to point out that I know there are more sets per year than ever and that means less time to play test cards and understand impact of mechanics and strategies, but there has to be a fine line between game breaking mechanics and another vanilla 2/2. Thanks for reading and I hope you have a great day!
I think ritual is fine. I dont think online game play should solely decide bannings. I believe if people are spending several cards to get one creature out then they should get that creature. Just because something is popular doesn't mean its broken. People want to play whats new. Therefore that is also not a reason to ban cards.
I got into Pauper because I could play Brainstorm, Daze, and Gush. I’ve stayed with it because there are other fun decks using iconic powerful cards. Pauper decks should be incredible to watch. The notion of playing with just commons sounds like the decks would be trash. Pauper is so fun because it thoroughly defies that expectation. Dark Ritual is a format defining card. Lotus Petal being our common version of Black Lotus (even a parallel price tag) is beautiful. I believe we should be willing to ban new cards rather than cards that players have loved for decades.
I asked a friend of mine who is much smarter and much more familiar with the pauper meta-game/history of pauper than I and he had this to say: "I don't want pauper to lose it's identity of good spells bad payoffs. Otherwise if we take out the good old stuff and keep the new goodstuff it'll just feel like weaker pioneer, filled with midrange value decks that isn't anything special because all the cards would then be legal in other-non-rotating formats. For example I wish they banned foil instead of daze, gush, probe which weren't a problem until the foil downshift. Pauper used to be so unique that you could even play gush and probe. Now it's lost part of it's identity." That was also kind of my gut reaction though I'm more of a simpleton so for me I just like playing cool old cards that I don't get to play in any other 60 card constructed formats (excluding vintage and legacy because they're prohibitively expensive)
As an avid storm player, rituals are one of my favorite spell types, but quite frankly they can truly warp formats. Most of the red ones are more conditonal in some way and as such if any ritual should be banned it should absolutely be Dark Ritual
Pauper is often referred to as legacy light. If it's legal in legacy I say keep it. However that said legacy is currently having terrible problems with these powerful enablers that "are the cornerstone of the format". At some point you have to ask are these cards getting banned for the sins of others. Would these cards be able to stay without rituals. MtgO does things like "no ban-list" modern. Could they do something like "no ritual pauper"? You got enough data from two weeks to pull the trigger. You are also asking for our opinion, why not test it?
I liked the aproach and actions the pauper team come with. I don't like the fact that in all releases we get fucking weird value engines in pauper and absolutely nothing straight aggro and relevant to fight it.
Banning Ritual effect is 100% no for me. Without them, format loses a lot: possible combo decks. Combo decks can certainly go over the top if not looked carefully, but they make format healthy. If you take Ritual effects away, you effectively remove one part of Rock,Paper,Sciccors game. And that is not good for overall health of format. Atm aggro decks are still most played and thriving part of format, so I wouldnt remove Rituals from format. To keep things interesting.
Leaving it in turns all creatures mid-range decks into combo value, and you have one obvious archetype to go for because why wouldn't you just initiative slam to go under traditional combo and over non-initiative being the best deck. It breaks rock paper scissor inherently, so that argument is out the window
This is a well reasoned and healthy approach to banning issues. The other formats could learn from this. That written, it's insane that you guys keep letting Lotus Petal dodge the ban.
I don't play pauper. However, I quit modern because it was a format controlled by bans not cards or meta game. Which it ideally should be - this goes for any formats but more so for non-rotating formats than for limited formats since this have a much smaller window to be play in. I believe the reason this problem is occurring again (although in another format) is because RnD seems to be more focus on making new and better treats and don't make enough good answers. For instance had Endurance been printed along with Hogaak it might not have lead to the same amount of problems (you can talk about how healthy it is several cards are format warping especially when it is a luxury limited products, but that is another discussion). I can see why it is more interesting to design better and stronger treats but from design perspective and the business side. Many players want to play with cards which push the gameplay forward talking action either by having enablers which will make it possible to cast a big payoff in the end or just simply attacking and being the active in a sense you become the focus point of the game and a protagonist. It is less interesting in stoping this or playing this game especially for new players. However, it is important this tools are available to have a healthy meta game. This means when you are designing cards for old formats (which a set like commander legends are design for at least partly since the cards are not played in standard) it is important to see what impact the treats will have on the old format. If there is not enough designed answers to new treats in a new product, the players will be on put on their back foot not by the player they are facing but by the design team. I understand it can be hard to design for older formats especially when there is more than 20k number of cards. However, i firmly believe it is much better if there are design the necessary answers rather relying on bans. The metagame should be created by the players not B&R announcements - no my point is not to have zero bans or legalising every banned card, but it should be a design goal to try designing (a) solution(s) rather than banning the problematic cards.
I have a very hard time making up my mind on nonsense (ritual effects, infinite combos, free spells or effects, extra turns, broken cards like Uro and Oko, etc.). I know myself to be a timmy, so I'm 100 % committed to having the meta consist of fair strategies. I can have my cool big turns if my opponents are trying to stop me, race me, or kill me on turn four, but not if they're comboing off on turn three or win because their cards are inherently better than anything my deck can do. I don't want the johnnies and spikes to have less fun, but nonsense prevents me from having it. I'm really torn. My gut tells me nonsense shouldn't exist in any format, but I'm interested to see other argumentations.
As much as I love me some Dark Ritual, it does stand out from the rest of it's kind in a big enough way that it might merit a ban. I think its largest problem is how low the activation requirement is: just one mana. It doesn't have any other restriction. Cabal ritual needs threshold, rite of flame needs another copy of itself in the graveyard before it becomes comparable (and even then, it is still a sorcery), and songs of the damned requires a high creature count. To put into context, you could probably print a card with the exact same text as Dark Ritual, only requiring Spell Mastery for the full effect, and it would STILL see a tonne of play. (And notably "fix" the issue of exploiting it in fast openers). I understand the nostalgia and attachment to the card, but it might just not be right for the future of the format - with it, there is likely to be more high-costed, high-payout mechanics or cards that won't fit into the format. Like c'mon guys, we banned one of the 5 mana initiative creatures and it somehow made sense.
I enjoy having powerful cards like dark ritual in this format, as it incentivizes new players to give it a real chance. Without it and cards like it, pauper would not be the same exciting game that it is today
Do you mean new Magic players, or Magic players who would be new to Pauper? I might have been more excited about Pauper being a big thing when I was brand new, if I had access to it. But Rituals and Storm are a big turn-off for me, and while I've tried to imagine if that could've been different had I been diving into Pauper as a kid, I'm not sure that in practice it actually would've changed for me.
In the past couple years, cards like dark ritual, lotus petal, cabal ritual and others acted as a landmine for the format. It only needed the final push to break it. It was it with chatterstorm, galvanic relay and, recently, with the initiative mechanic. The mechanic may be strong, but those rituals are steroids.
You need to leave rituals, it's part of what makes pauper what it is. Insane enablers are a cornerstone of the format just like you said. The Storm decks in the format right now are healthy and it's very nice having that genre of deck as an option for people. Makes way more sense to get rid of mechanics developed for multiplayer. The depth of removal in the format smooths over any threats that can be turboed out, unless they bring with them mechanics that cannot be interacted with in enough ways. I love the initiative and monarch in EDH, but they shouldn't be a priority to make fit in pauper.
I think dark ritual is a perfectly fair card. In a deck like mono black aggro it is a powerful tool, that would never break the format. It simply highlights the actually problematic mechanics, because doing something broken faster is even better. I think it is a sign of a healthy format if a card like dark ritual can exist in it.
I love how legacy and vintage do bans and restrictions, one format says straight up no, the other one lets you keep a single copy. Is there a way down the road for pauper to have some split like that?
I'm strongly in favor of keeping dark ritual and lotus petal. They're part of what make pauper interesting. Decks like cycle storm are are awesome but not format warping. Echoing what a lot of others have said, this format does strong enablers, but weak threats. I'm a lot more dubious of decently powerful mechanics intended for multiplayer like Monarch and the Initiative than I am of powerful rituals. I don't hate that the multiplayer mechanics see play or anything; I think the monarch acts kind of like having a paired down planeswalker that actually works really well for this format. But if one of these mechanics intended for multiplayer + ritual/petal is a problem, I'd much rather you prioritize removing the multiplayer card causing problems in the 1v1 format rather than going after the enablers.
That's just a bad take tbh. You're basically saying if any card is made too good by dark ritual, you should ban that card. If it was a functionally identical card but in white, it can stay, since it's not affected by dark ritual. I mean...how dense can you be? The problem is clearly dark ritual. Now this makes a precedent where any new archetype made busted by ONE CARD is going to be killed in the egg.
@@JO11190 That is literally not true tho. There's plenty of lists that have been able to thrive using the initiative without the need for Dark Ritual, from Sultai to Grixis Torch decks. Ask yourself, what does Initiative add? All initiative decks are built around it and use it as a goal. There's hardly any interaction once they've got the ball rolling. Rituals allow for a myriad of interactions and will be the key enabler in many decks in the years to come. So, in a vacuum, what would you rather see go? A means to an end or the end itself? Your line of thinking sounds pretty asinine to me.
Listening to this video on a format I've never played (but admittedly have some interest in) was one hell of a positive experience. Coming from playing really only Commander and Yugioh having a ban list so clearly explained and as in depth as this was actually really solidifies my desire to engage with the format. Even if I disagree at least I know what I'm disagreeing with. I think the literal only way that this could be improved is knowing through what means the team at WOTC communicates with players to determine community sentiment and how that gets used. Currently the only complains I've seen is that this was a quick ban that didn't give the community much chance to try to keep it in check. Great presentation, well written, excellent way to incentivize me to play Pauper.
One of the big things I love about pauper is that fast mana gets to stay, and, sure, it means most of the storm (and now initiative) cards get the boot, but this creates a unique format with unique and interesting ways to use that mana beyond building a lethal grapeshot or empty the warrens or Initiative boi. I also think removing Black fast mana won't abolish fast mana decks, they'll just switch to RG shells and use elves, Rite of Flame and Manamorphose to get there. Is that a bit slower? Sure. But I don't think it's a meaningful change in power level and is definitely at the expense of interesting play/build space that is unique to pauper.
thank you for the accurate changes pfp have been doing! your actions doesnt come from a superficial view, you guys really see the big picture and make pauper the best format
I look at cards like Ritual and Petal the same way I always looked at Twin,Pod and looting in Modern. They were absolute pillars and players grew super attached to them but it was just clear over and over that an infinitely growing pile of cards were going to have to be banned to pay for their sins which is just a ridiculous situation. They will have to eat the ban hammer eventually, so at the minimum test banning them is probably going to be worth just getting over with.
I mainly play Pauper for the nostalgic thrill of casting the old broken cards. I would rather see every new non-Standard common banned preemptively than see Dark Ritual go, honestly.
Maybe it is worth the try to ban black rituals and leaving the red ones to try to unban some storm cards. Chatterstorm and galvanic relay were powerful cards due to fast mana access, but as a storm player in every format, i don't think it would be extremely powerful using only red rituals, deploylands and petal. Also, red rituals and agro decks have a common enemy: blue blasts. To sum up, unban galvanic relay (and chatterstorm) and ban black rituals and let combo players work.
I quit playing pauper years ago when things got too powered up and focused. But in this instance I feel it's a ritual problem. This makes me think of the sol ring issue in cmdr. Let's keep this foundational problem just because it's always been here is a poor plan imo.
Not related to banning but just a look into all decks having life gain. There is no card that stops this at any point. Any chance of looking into having a card that prevents life gain be printed as a common? Thanks.
Why? They don't seem overpowered... I think it's nice to have cards like Soul Warden that can provide counterplay to aggro decks, while also being weak to Electrickery effects. The payoffs like Ajani's Pridemate don't really exist at common. An instant that says "Players can't gain life this turn" could exist at common for B or R, but I doubt you'd see it on an enchantment at common.
I think banning "All cards mentioning the Initiative mechanic" would be a better ban. Four out of the seven are already banned and you want the fifth out as well, it would make a shorter and more coherent ban list. Also on the Wizards ban list website, as of right now, SInkhole is listed twice. Edit: Just a small anecdote; my LGS(s) all of them consist of games fighting over Monarch and Initiative, none play Dark Ritual. Like I said small sample size of 4 stores consisting of 12-25 players each but I think it shows where the problem truly lies. I actually thought DR was banned because I've never seen it played and two of my friends play mono-black.
I think Dark Ritual should stay. Deck diversity is healthy for the format and I think it does provide that. I personally think Underdark Explorer should have stayed. By removing the Sneak and the Battlerager you have really reduced the density issue, and given the ability to quickly adapt based off of results, I think it should have been given a chance. I am generally not pro bans unless it is confirmed that it is an issue, and this doesn't give that card a chance in the environment without the other 2. Any chance we'll see a ban list free Pauper cube in the future? Getting to play these cards in a situation where they are draftable and not in a constructed format is really fun and gives people a chance to play them while they are not hurting a constructed format
Ritual effects are fine -- they do nothing by themselves, they merely enable broken payoffs. It's why we talk about the "Storm Scale" and not the "Ritual Scale". That said, I recognise that they form a consistent engine which shows up time and again in un-interactive decks; but this is not alone a reason for banning them instead of their payoffs. The Initiative, if left alone to do its thing, will win you the game. Building up a ton of temporary mana will not. Creating a lot of small creatures will win you the game. Building up mana and storm count without a payoff will not. The actual payoff effects are the issue, and the quality of payoffs matters. We have precedent for this: Reaping the Graves is still legal in Pauper. So this issue isn't the storm engine inherently -- it's the quality of its payoff. Taking this logic along, engines which generate resource value without converting that into a in-itself win are fine (e.g. Monarch, Deep Hours, most Delve cards); these are part of the lifeblood of the format ("Pauper as a format of strong enablers to sub-par finishers"). Consider it also from the point of view of "resource axes": most good decks aim to get ahead-of-curve on a single axis (e.g. mana, accessible cards, board state). Efficiently exploiting a single resource axis is often what differentiates high-tier decks from lower-tier ones. The best decks tend to use a couple in tandem, but with meaningful trade-offs (either one resource for another, or vulnerability to hate). The Initiative is a problem because it exploits multiple axes at once (most crucially, the mana axis through getting free spell-level effects). Treasure Cruise was likewise a problem because it efficiently exploited two axes at once (mana and accessible cards) for little downside. Rituals allow a short-term gain on one axis (mana) at the cost of a resource loss elsewhere (accessible cards) -- alongside a built-in risk/reward set-up. Again, we have precedent for where this is most broken: Legacy banned Yawgmoth's Will and Underworld Breach because they severely mitigated rituals' built-in card disadvantage. Pauper has no such way of mitigating the downside, and so rituals remain an inherently risky strategy.
I think dark ritual is one of those cards that is a litmus test for a format is. If the best DR deck is a glass cannon, spin the wheel type (1land spy) or similar, the format is good. If it shows up in a consistent T1 or T2 deck, then there's a combo problem.
Congratulations on your decision! This was extremely important and the Initiative Ritual decks were unbeatable. I conceded a league game yesterday during game one because it was simply pointless. Thank you!
This comment might go unnoticed, but my thoughts are this ... 1. Dark ritual should not be banned. Having some form of storm deck in pauper should be encouraged, and if dark ritual gets banned, storm decks are going to be very rare... or might be nonexistent. On the topic of storm decks, back when chatterstorm was legal, yes the deck performed really well, but there were answers for the 1/1 squirrels. The problem was when they got buffed bc of first day of class. In my opinion, it should've been first day of class to be banned, and not chatterstorm. And 2. For affinity, my belief is that the indestructible lands need to go and unban sojourner's (I think that is how its spelled) and atog. First, why keep enforcer and not sojourner companion? I can see the problem being able to drop a bunch of 4/4s are out nowhere, but it is still weird to me to ban one and not the other. Two, the deck was fine and iconic with atog until the introduction of the indestructible lands. Those lands helped fix mana and are only countered by few cards sideboard cards. 3. I want prophetic prism back :)
rituals are fine. i'm was going to build cycle storm and it's going to be such a medium deck but it'll be a blast to play. now i can't since i have to worry about the deck being banned out of existence while affinity is fine since everyone is required to play hate pieces in board.
I think its just as you said. Some amount of these iconic & powerful effects are good and are a keystone of Pauper's identity. "ideas" like Rituals, storm and affinity are iconic and need to be represented in Pauper, less important are they payoffs IMO. Ban payoffs, leave enablers.
The problem with that is though is that you end up having to ban more and more cards because of what the enablers do. When you've ended up having to ban dozens of cards across different releases because of one specific card and how its outdated overpowered rules interact with them then you're really just treating the symptoms, not the disease.
@@ThomasPoulin tron lands require setup and can be destroyed, same with arbor elf. Pauper has incredible removal. You can’t remove a dark ritual. You’re comparing an Apple to an Orange
My experience with rituals in pauper is they are typically glass cannon. Good starts are kept in check by bad starting hands and or mulligans. If more rituals we're present in the format it might require a ban but for now I think rituals have an in game check. Also generally counter spells and removal can keep rituals in check as often the ritual player gets 2 for 1'd
I had my doubts about how the PFP was handling the situation, but i had to admit that the response was swift and surgical; leaving the window open for another readjustment in 2 weeks if the bans prove insufficient. Clearly the PFP seems to be one the best things that happened to the format in the last few years.
As I see it Dark Ritual doesn't really add anything positive to Pauper and I don't buy the argument for why it should be legal: if you want to exchange card disadvantage for powering out mediocre threats, there's Premodern. If you want to play an actual storm deck in a format where there are tools to fight it so the games aren't just coin tosses with extra steps, there's Legacy and Pioneer (Lotus Field plays rituals in Hidden Strings). The initiative creatures are just fine on curve and it's only a matter of time when something is broken again because of rituals. Of course there's the option of not allowing Commander cards to ruin 1v1 constructed formats (this trend started with True-Name Nemesis back in the day) but we all know that's not going to happen.
Weren't all of the Initiative cards overcosted to prevent this from happening (warp formats)? So... this means we will be getting better costed initiative cards for the future... or that we wont se the mechanic ever again?
Keep the rituals. Pauper is a format where card advantage actually matters and there aren't insane one card wincons (well until initiative), so there is an actual cost to dark rituals.
Thank you for your transparency and honesty. I do wish we had ban pannels for other formats like legacy. I also wish you were more honest with modern and how stale and disgusting that metà is, instead of flat out lying to our faces talking about how the data show the format is healthy when the whole community disagrees...
If you don't ban the fast mana, you won't be able to print aggressive 3 or 4 drops in the future, which means every couple of years, you will need to ban another card. Just ban the fast mana, and be done with it. I would rather play with new, powerful toys.
Honestly, I don't have a problem with rituals as they are one-time effects and you really need a payoff in order for them to be good. That said, I think the card that should be banned is Lotus Petal. It fits into any deck and enables a lot of things very efficiently.
I personally think that ritual-effects are cornerstone in Pauper, not for any nostalgic reasons, but because Pauper generally is a format of strong enablers but weak payoffs. To me, any 1-card engine runs counter to the format's identity, and I'd much rather see anything strong enough to be ritual'ed out banned, rather than the rituals themselves. Without them you lose an important Mtg archetype, density-based combo decks, which there are multiple fair of in Pauper currently, but they would be severely cut down without rituals.
"strong enablers but weak payoffs", this in my mind is the definition of pauper as a format. We have crazy powerful spells like bolt and counterspell, but they are used to defend my 1/3 augur of bolas or my 1/1 faerie. 100% agree with this take.
Instead of banning 4 High cost creatures.. it would have been better to ban Lotus Petal / Dark Ritual / Cabal Ritual and it would make the format much better.
@@Duskrequim i can't agree. 1 card wincon engine at any amount of mana is something really bad in pauper compared to any other existing threat.
Initiative had to go anyway. I can agree banning rituals could be a decent move for pauper, but at the moment only cyclestorm uses them, and it still needs to work really hard to win and is a mediocre deck.
@@Duskrequim Pauper has been historically a format with low power treats unlike standard or extended, so in there rituals are safe. You can ritual into a cascade creature and be not so far ahead your opponent. Also pauper is like "old legacy" where every card in hand means, so many games asking opponents how many cards in their hand to make decisions. Initiative provides free card advantage and free casting costs, it breaks the rules of pauper. This is why we hadn't seen turbo-monarch over the years. Rituals are healthy in a format without broken mechanics.
@@Duskrequim I understand where you are coming from, but disagree with you, echoing the other replies.
As a spectator, I find that dark ritual is very defining for the format, as I have always enjoyed the weird combo side of pauper. Having strong enablers, but clunky things for them to enable is foundational.
I think dark ritual shouldn't be banned. I play for I believe five years so not a huge amount of time, but I brought a bunch of people into pauper. Many believe it's a weak format and when I say cards like dark ritual, lotus petal, brainstorm, ponder and lightning bolt are legal, their interest for the format usually spikes or at least makes them consider.
I think pauper should stay the format of some of the strongest enablers and weak payoffs. It makes for fun brewing experience. You can build almost any strategy in pauper, you just need to be creative. Dark ritual enables whacky strategies like cycle storm, zubera storm, even black land destruction, fishelbrand, some reanimator stuff... If you ban it, the format loses an iconic piece, but other rituals replace it so the degenerate decks are not really hindered. Just a bit less viable.
I agree with you. I'm just now getting into Pauper. I'm doing so more to make use of cards than because I have a love for the format. Cards like Dark Ritual are certainly an incentive for me to bother sleeving up the cards.
Dark Ritual is a great card with sleek design and exciting play patterns. It's also got that special place in the mind of a player that you discuss. Dark Ritual, Bolt, Brainstorm, etc. are a big part of how special Pauper is. I would not want to see it banned.
I’ve been playing Pauper for a little over five years now, and although they are annoying to play against, I think having some rituals is important for the format overall. I think that it is very reasonable to ban Dark Ritual or Lotus Petal, as together they are particularly consistent, but I think the format would be less appealing if it lacked both those iconic cards.
i think dark ritual is a card that only works in certain decks plus pauper being a high power format should not be bad necessarely i dont think it warrants a ban considering it would pretty mutch remove the possibility of any storm combo decks based around it, i think it would be negative to take sutch a card from the format
I would vote to keep Dark Ritual in pauper, it's a special part of Pauper that can't be replicated elsewhere.
I think part of the charm of pauper as a format is having really powerful enablers such as Dark Ritual and Lotus Petal but having underwhelming threats to deploy with them. These cards are fun when they are powering out a Gurmag Angler or enabling a crazy build like Cycle Storm, and less so when they allow for a turn 1 Entomb and Reanimate a Griselbrand. Banning those cards removes this unique space in pauper where powerful enablers can be fun and janky without being back breaking.
Well too bad the threats get banned
I agree 100%. People who feel like opposite can play Pauper Historic.
@championchap cause free mana never made something problematic rigth?
@@DiabloTommaso it's also opened up a lot of fun possibilities depending on who you ask. You'll get to have more pleasant conversations if you don't open up by condescending to people.
@@ramirr if something it s broken free mana makes it worse. That s a fact. A 5 3 turn 5 or eaven 4 is not a problem. For sure now is more inconsistent but the fact remains that of you luck out you can make an insane play on turn 1/2.
Dark Ritual is (as you pointed out) one of the cards that make Pauper special. I vote against banning it. Initiative was a fine mechanic, that had stupidly broken creature bodies with it. I like these bans. Would’ve hoped to see maybe some unbans as well, but okay
It really says a lot that only ONE of the initiative creatures died to lightning bolt, and none of them died to the other format staple red removal, fiery cannonade. If the initiative creatures had had one or two points of toughness taken off across the board, I think they might have felt less terrible to see stick around. Of course, not enough to compensate for how backbreaking turn 1 initiative is with a blocker, but at least not quite so disparate.
I wouldn't call a 1/4 flying a broken body..
An off color 1/4 Flying creature is busted?
@@thetimebinder it can be when it becomes a 3/6 flyer the turn after and then the dungeon it turned on nugs you for 5 the turn after that.
As a casual MTG fan who knows nothing about pauper I was able to understand this video 100% you do such a fantastic job with your communication about this that it would be hard to be upset given the reasonings
I support the decision that PFP didn't ban Dark Ritual. I think Dark Ritual is necessary for some types of combo decks such as cycling storm, and these decks make pauper environment thrilling.
I vote to keep Dark Ritual, Lotus Petal and other Ritual spells in pauper. Without the massive payoffs you see in other formats with rituals, they help to continue deck ideas to thrive in the format. Pauper is healthy with rituals and lotus petal!
Monarch, Initiative, Storm are ALL payoffs and ALL have had bans instead of the fast mana.
@@thetimebinder yeah exactly. And that was good.
Dark ritual is the reason I was able to play against mono-black infect or ponza. I don't think I've ever used it, but it has allowed a lot of interesting decks to exist. Rituals should stay in the format.
Rituals are totally fine, they've only proven problematic in decks that were playing overpowered cards that subsequently required a ban (Chatterstorm, Galvanic Relay, initiative creatures). Cycle Storm is an incredibly awesome deck that's unique to pauper, and I don't think various tier 3ish LD and pinger storm decks are an issue.
The issue with initiative is pretty clear in that it creates game material without ongoing cost much like a planeswalker. Monarch is strong but doesn't buy you tempo, only cards that you subsequently have to deploy, resolve and protect. If dark ritual was the issue we would have seen a turbo monarchy deck or a turbo cascader deck by now. For a lot of people pauper is a refuge from the crazy self-contained value engines you see in other formats, and I think it's proven the case that initiative (or at least the easily castable/turbo-able initiative creatures) break what the format is about.
I really appreciate how clear and direct this video is. For what it’s worth I think you are spot on about rituals and I hope they end up sticking around in this great format.
Do not ban rituals. Avoid having planeswalkeresque cards like initiative and cards with storm. And they are fine. Also most people dislike combos, so if you just listen to "the people" there is probably a majority (especially among people who are not fully invested in the format) who would love to see them banned. This, to me would be some kind of "tyranny of the majority" and not a good way to decide the direction of the format.
Thanks for your work.
I'd much prefer to keep rituals because I'm invested into the format, and these powerful enablers let me play (and WIN with) weird decks. The only real meta deck I have is affinity, and I usually don't play it
I dont think you understand what tyranny of the majority means...
Pauper has been historically a format with low power treats unlike standard or extended, so in there rituals are safe. You can ritual into a cascade creature and be not so far ahead your opponent. Also pauper is like "old legacy" where every card in hand means, so many games asking opponents how many cards in their hand to make decisions. Initiative provides free card advantage and free casting costs, it breaks the rules of pauper. This is why we hadn't seen turbo-monarch over the years. Rituals are healthy in a format without broken mechanics.
It would have been better if pauper was made modern instead of legacy
I love rituals! Specifically when they have combo implications! The issue that comes up in pauper is that rituals don’t have the counterplay options seen in other formats, tax effects in particular being less common causes a serious imbalance. The payoffs of storm and high impact creatures is also a major issue.
If a metagame-safe payoff could be found, and white/green had access to main/sideboard tools for these strategies that would make room for deck diversity, as it stands the payoffs printed have lacked downside or challenge in their construction, chatterstorm decks could see a comparison to dragonstorm decks, which required a balance of creatures and powerful mana to make it work.
I love the exploration the pauper team is adding to the discussion! I really hope to see some restrained pushing of the formats options as time goes on! ❤️❤️❤️
A downside that requires deck building constraints or could put its caster at risk is fun for both the player and the opponent! Such drama, so much risk, and iconic magic. Dark ritual may simply not be right for the format yet, but I’d rather see it painfully grow around it like blood moon in modern than to rip it from the format in my opinion.
As a player of rituals I lile them BUT if it makes for a better format with a smaller banlist, I would be okay with seeing them go
I think it's notable that ritual cards are only run when there are payoffs that offset the opportunity and inherent value cost of playing those cards. The black and red rituals generally aren't run in the mono-colour variants with the respective rituals.
Still, the rituals enable rogue decks, significant shenanigans and give more tools to deck builders.
There will always be some form of non-game draws in a format, be it RDW, Counter-Draw or a mana cost shell like rituals or affinity.
As long as the consistency of those non-games are low and manageable enough via statistics and sideboarding, rituals probably should stay.
I absolutely love that pauper allows me to play the most iconic commons from mtg's history. If you banned all the greatest hits like dark ritual, brainstrom, etc, I'd feel like im just playing with chaff. I'd probably stop playing pauper without being able to enjoy it as "legacy light" especially because of how accessible, yet powerful, the format is. Getting affinity chopped was a big hit for me, especially since I loved playing the iconic cards from mtg's history, now it's less so a museum of powerful old commons and just "strong stuff we have laying around" which is why I took mine apart in favor of playing delver (another amazing iconic card). I know im just a nobody ranting into the internet, but I really like pauper so I figured I'd say my piece.
Thanks for being so honest and open Gavin! Love pauper, it’s my favorite format, and I think keeping dark ritual, and the nostalgic powerful cards, does keep its charm alive 👏🏼👌🏼🔥
What made the Venture mechanic fun to play with is that you had to constantly be taking game actions in order to advance your dungeon progress and ramping up towards those big rewards.
Initiative ruined that by having an incredibly overpowered dungeon and also allowing for automatic progress.
Sure, everyone loves dark ritual, lotus petal and etc, but if in the next year or so we have to ban another batch of a new mechanic to justify keeping dark ritual and lotus petal legal, i think we should re-evaluate this decision. As of right now, keep them legal.
For my little experience with pauper I think there's a huge difference between paper and online pauper. Online people tend to build decks that just win games the most (net decks if you will), while in paper you usually have a huge variety of builds because paper players "just feel plays different" and make changes according to the metagame of their zone. Hearing that the online dictates what gets banned or not makes me chuckle a bit because in paper people would have found different ways to deal with it for sure
Many magic personalities already said that the approach to communication you and your colleagues in the PFP had was outstanding. I'm here to also reinforce.
Gavin... You're awesome. You do everything with care and makes me really happy to see you strike homeruns like this!
Ps: do you also have time in your commute to run a podcast real quick ??
Bravo for leaving Dark Ritual/Lotus Petal in! 🙌 They enable unique and interesting decks that wouldn't be possible otherwise
My ideal pauper would have mana fixed very aggressively, meaning banning Tron lands, the best rituals, and lotus petal.
Unless a lot of other cards become unbanned, I think it’s probably best to keep with the trajectory of not banning ritual effects.
the fact that this video was intelligible to a literal non-mtg player (myself) is astounding, and exemplifies perfectly the kind of communication i wish we had in yugioh
When I was playing at some of the CK Paupergeddeon tournaments and their weekly, I never once saw Rituals being played and it was the best time I'd had playing magic. It does suck to lose such an iconic card, but for SO MANY other cards to die for 1-3 other card's sins... that's just too much.
The need of the many, out way the need of the few.
Can I just say that the PFP, their process and transparency, makes me want to play Pauper. Excellent committee, very glad you’ve set this up like this Gavin.
I couldn’t agree more. Thank you PFP for what you do, how you do it, and how we’re included with the process.
The thing with Dark Ritual that makes it fair is you 2 for 1 yourself for a quick mana boost (or 3 for 1, if you chain two of them). You burn two, bring out your 5/3 and then...POW! Lightning Bolt. And it's a dead draw late in the game, when you need to top deck something.
Reakky aooreciate that you are taking us so deep into the discussions. That being said, I really hope you will reevaluate the bard specifically in the future, to see what would happen if it got unbanned, but everything else stayed
0-1 cost fast mana I think is where it gets problematic in pauper. unlike older formats such as legacy turn 0 interaction doesn't exist so there's literally nothing you can do to stop a ritual chain since most interaction (counterspell castdown) unlocks turn 2 and even snuffout requires at least 1 mainphase. Of course it is a big part of the format and I think all the fancy pseudo-storm combo decks are cool, but having spiritguide, petal, rite, and dark ritual is a lot of redundancy so some of those pieces might need to go.
I do think that the rituals are going to keep causing problems, but not at an absolutely unacceptable rate like they end up doing in other formats that have better higher end threats. Being able to play Dark Ritual alongside what usually amounts to draft chaff is absolutely a charm to the format that can't be discounted
Well said!
Great job for such a fast ban! Also to answer your question, yes, keep Ritual legal in Pauper. That makes it different from other formats, which are full of powerful threads but lack fast mana. Ritual wasn't even any popular in Pauper before Initiative, it is played only in a few non-T1 decks, so it is not the problem.
I don't have an issue with rituals although part of that is nostalgia. When I started. Playing the classic Dark Ritual into Hypnotic Spectre was a brutal first turn and we loved it. As for Affinity, half my sideboard is there to deal with one deck. Game one is rough if I didn't know what I was playing against.
I was actually nervous for this B&R announcement since I was worried the rituals (+ Petal) would be banned instead of the Initiative cards. I agree with your reasoning that these cards are important to have in Pauper (for some people), even though they are risky and might necessitate bans of other cards. Being able to play these cards is a huge appeal for the format in my opinion and gets people excited about it. Thank you for taking this into consideration!
it's clear Dark Ritual enables some very unfair things, but I agree it's too iconic to Pauper, especially for players who consider it some sort of "Legacy Lite" format. I see Pauper as the format where I can play old stuff that don't see play anywhere else, and even though I don't play Dark Ritual, I think it's part of the format's charm
I've been playing Pauper for well over a decade and this is by far the most clear and concise banning explanation over a contentious decision I've seen 👌
I am however erring on the side of banning some of the ritual effects. I appreciate the iconic nature of cards such as Dark Rit, however rituals are also major players in other formats. Initiative is a unique, intricate and challenging mechanic which is unique to Pauper and it seems a waste of creative energy that a mechanic such of this is at risk of being edged out by the engine of rituals behind them.
I couldn’t agree more on the clear and concise point… PFP: phenomenal job.
Buzz, I do take an opposite view on your rituals point. I respect your view, but I’m for the rituals and I hope they stay.
I think that keeping rituals is good for pauper. Pauper combo decks have the nice texture of "Great enablers, terrible clunky payoffs", e.g. fishelbrand, something that you just can't really find in any other format. You get lotus petal, you get cabal and dark ritual, you get rite of flame and seething song, great. Now put together some unholy abomination. Meanwhile in other formats you just get some deterministic win you can barely interact with. Pauper is still playing with power, and if you got rid of rituals and fast mana it'd go from "playing with cheap power" to "playing limited++".
What's interesting to me is that I am actually more enticed by the concept of "Limited++" than "cheap power", especially fast mana.
And no, just playing any set in Limited is not the same experience, and does not have the same entry costs or persistence of a deck.
Leagues (in the old sense of developing one deck over time by opening additional packs and modifying your build using them) wanted to solve this problem, but I have never had the opportunity to try one, and even still it is not actually the same thing as having the freedom to deckbuild with an open card pool and multiples. Or to keep a deck around indefinitely.
I would be satisfied if I could find a community that was enthusiastic about using emulation programs to bounce around old limited formats and make also make "chaos" mashups between sets. (even given that WotC's proprietary collation would be absent, and dealing with a platform not as polished as Arena)
I don't and won't expect Pauper enthusiasts to suffer an upending of their beloved format just to try and entice people like me in, though. I just wanted to point out that "Limited++" is something I've wanted to explore in the past, and had no outlet for.
Several times, I have begun constructing things like Pauper and Peasant Block Constructed or era-restricted (Standard Snapshot, or whatever term).
I'd like to do things like pack a bunch of the green Amonkhet mechanics into higher density, for example (Because I found the Cartouche of Strength filling my off-turns between Exerting to be very satisfying).
I may look into whether it's at all possible to even mess around with a rogue pet brew like one of those ideas in Pauper and still be allowed to play Magic, but the lack of uncommons is going to be painful. And I don't have a casual scene around or know where I can find a decent Peasant environment instead.
The issue is that if the card is worth cheating in that much to where it makes the card problematic, it wouldn’t matter if ritual was in the format or not.
The problem is that commons as of recent have been printed with insane mechanics that out power all other commons that are in the field. Like you stated in the video, the 7 cards you talked about banning were simply because of a mechanic introduced into the format. We aren’t banning 4 mana 0/4 defenders because of their stats. I love the constant push of new ideas and designs in the game, but designers need to be cautious of what is being put into the format.
The PFP is a double-edged sword for me. It both strives to protect our format and ensure that everything is fun and enjoyable, but it also means that wizards acknowledges the format more and will create more cards for it. That can be good for cards like weather the storm as a great sideboard card we needed in the format, but bad because of the massive amount of bannings that we’ve had in the last few years.
There have been more pauper bans in the last 4 years than the rest of pauper’s history. That’s not a coincidence. I want to point out that I know there are more sets per year than ever and that means less time to play test cards and understand impact of mechanics and strategies, but there has to be a fine line between game breaking mechanics and another vanilla 2/2.
Thanks for reading and I hope you have a great day!
I think ritual is fine. I dont think online game play should solely decide bannings. I believe if people are spending several cards to get one creature out then they should get that creature. Just because something is popular doesn't mean its broken. People want to play whats new. Therefore that is also not a reason to ban cards.
I got into Pauper because I could play Brainstorm, Daze, and Gush. I’ve stayed with it because there are other fun decks using iconic powerful cards. Pauper decks should be incredible to watch. The notion of playing with just commons sounds like the decks would be trash. Pauper is so fun because it thoroughly defies that expectation. Dark Ritual is a format defining card. Lotus Petal being our common version of Black Lotus (even a parallel price tag) is beautiful. I believe we should be willing to ban new cards rather than cards that players have loved for decades.
I asked a friend of mine who is much smarter and much more familiar with the pauper meta-game/history of pauper than I and he had this to say:
"I don't want pauper to lose it's identity of good spells bad payoffs. Otherwise if we take out the good old stuff and keep the new goodstuff it'll just feel like weaker pioneer, filled with midrange value decks that isn't anything special because all the cards would then be legal in other-non-rotating formats. For example I wish they banned foil instead of daze, gush, probe which weren't a problem until the foil downshift. Pauper used to be so unique that you could even play gush and probe. Now it's lost part of it's identity."
That was also kind of my gut reaction though I'm more of a simpleton so for me I just like playing cool old cards that I don't get to play in any other 60 card constructed formats (excluding vintage and legacy because they're prohibitively expensive)
As an avid storm player, rituals are one of my favorite spell types, but quite frankly they can truly warp formats. Most of the red ones are more conditonal in some way and as such if any ritual should be banned it should absolutely be Dark Ritual
Pauper is often referred to as legacy light. If it's legal in legacy I say keep it.
However that said legacy is currently having terrible problems with these powerful enablers that "are the cornerstone of the format". At some point you have to ask are these cards getting banned for the sins of others. Would these cards be able to stay without rituals. MtgO does things like "no ban-list" modern. Could they do something like "no ritual pauper"? You got enough data from two weeks to pull the trigger. You are also asking for our opinion, why not test it?
I like that powerful cards like Dark Ritual and Lotus Petal are legal in Pauper
Powerful mana and janky payoffs are fun to watch and to play. >:)
I liked the aproach and actions the pauper team come with. I don't like the fact that in all releases we get fucking weird value engines in pauper and absolutely nothing straight aggro and relevant to fight it.
Dark Ritual into a Drain Life with Pulse of Llanowar on the table was what made me fall in love with Magic.
Keep rituals. Encourage paper pauper. Don't create more waste with draft chaff.
Banning Ritual effect is 100% no for me. Without them, format loses a lot: possible combo decks. Combo decks can certainly go over the top if not looked carefully, but they make format healthy. If you take Ritual effects away, you effectively remove one part of Rock,Paper,Sciccors game. And that is not good for overall health of format. Atm aggro decks are still most played and thriving part of format, so I wouldnt remove Rituals from format. To keep things interesting.
Leaving it in turns all creatures mid-range decks into combo value, and you have one obvious archetype to go for because why wouldn't you just initiative slam to go under traditional combo and over non-initiative being the best deck. It breaks rock paper scissor inherently, so that argument is out the window
Great respect for al of the hard work put into this. I would love to see other formats like modern get similar treatment.
This is a well reasoned and healthy approach to banning issues. The other formats could learn from this.
That written, it's insane that you guys keep letting Lotus Petal dodge the ban.
I don't play pauper. However, I quit modern because it was a format controlled by bans not cards or meta game. Which it ideally should be - this goes for any formats but more so for non-rotating formats than for limited formats since this have a much smaller window to be play in. I believe the reason this problem is occurring again (although in another format) is because RnD seems to be more focus on making new and better treats and don't make enough good answers. For instance had Endurance been printed along with Hogaak it might not have lead to the same amount of problems (you can talk about how healthy it is several cards are format warping especially when it is a luxury limited products, but that is another discussion).
I can see why it is more interesting to design better and stronger treats but from design perspective and the business side. Many players want to play with cards which push the gameplay forward talking action either by having enablers which will make it possible to cast a big payoff in the end or just simply attacking and being the active in a sense you become the focus point of the game and a protagonist. It is less interesting in stoping this or playing this game especially for new players. However, it is important this tools are available to have a healthy meta game. This means when you are designing cards for old formats (which a set like commander legends are design for at least partly since the cards are not played in standard) it is important to see what impact the treats will have on the old format. If there is not enough designed answers to new treats in a new product, the players will be on put on their back foot not by the player they are facing but by the design team.
I understand it can be hard to design for older formats especially when there is more than 20k number of cards. However, i firmly believe it is much better if there are design the necessary answers rather relying on bans. The metagame should be created by the players not B&R announcements - no my point is not to have zero bans or legalising every banned card, but it should be a design goal to try designing (a) solution(s) rather than banning the problematic cards.
I have a very hard time making up my mind on nonsense (ritual effects, infinite combos, free spells or effects, extra turns, broken cards like Uro and Oko, etc.). I know myself to be a timmy, so I'm 100 % committed to having the meta consist of fair strategies. I can have my cool big turns if my opponents are trying to stop me, race me, or kill me on turn four, but not if they're comboing off on turn three or win because their cards are inherently better than anything my deck can do. I don't want the johnnies and spikes to have less fun, but nonsense prevents me from having it. I'm really torn. My gut tells me nonsense shouldn't exist in any format, but I'm interested to see other argumentations.
As much as I love me some Dark Ritual, it does stand out from the rest of it's kind in a big enough way that it might merit a ban. I think its largest problem is how low the activation requirement is: just one mana. It doesn't have any other restriction. Cabal ritual needs threshold, rite of flame needs another copy of itself in the graveyard before it becomes comparable (and even then, it is still a sorcery), and songs of the damned requires a high creature count. To put into context, you could probably print a card with the exact same text as Dark Ritual, only requiring Spell Mastery for the full effect, and it would STILL see a tonne of play. (And notably "fix" the issue of exploiting it in fast openers). I understand the nostalgia and attachment to the card, but it might just not be right for the future of the format - with it, there is likely to be more high-costed, high-payout mechanics or cards that won't fit into the format. Like c'mon guys, we banned one of the 5 mana initiative creatures and it somehow made sense.
I enjoy having powerful cards like dark ritual in this format, as it incentivizes new players to give it a real chance. Without it and cards like it, pauper would not be the same exciting game that it is today
Do you mean new Magic players, or Magic players who would be new to Pauper?
I might have been more excited about Pauper being a big thing when I was brand new, if I had access to it.
But Rituals and Storm are a big turn-off for me, and while I've tried to imagine if that could've been different had I been diving into Pauper as a kid, I'm not sure that in practice it actually would've changed for me.
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In the past couple years, cards like dark ritual, lotus petal, cabal ritual and others acted as a landmine for the format. It only needed the final push to break it. It was it with chatterstorm, galvanic relay and, recently, with the initiative mechanic. The mechanic may be strong, but those rituals are steroids.
You need to leave rituals, it's part of what makes pauper what it is. Insane enablers are a cornerstone of the format just like you said. The Storm decks in the format right now are healthy and it's very nice having that genre of deck as an option for people. Makes way more sense to get rid of mechanics developed for multiplayer. The depth of removal in the format smooths over any threats that can be turboed out, unless they bring with them mechanics that cannot be interacted with in enough ways. I love the initiative and monarch in EDH, but they shouldn't be a priority to make fit in pauper.
I think dark ritual is a perfectly fair card. In a deck like mono black aggro it is a powerful tool, that would never break the format. It simply highlights the actually problematic mechanics, because doing something broken faster is even better. I think it is a sign of a healthy format if a card like dark ritual can exist in it.
I love how legacy and vintage do bans and restrictions, one format says straight up no, the other one lets you keep a single copy. Is there a way down the road for pauper to have some split like that?
I'm strongly in favor of keeping dark ritual and lotus petal. They're part of what make pauper interesting. Decks like cycle storm are are awesome but not format warping. Echoing what a lot of others have said, this format does strong enablers, but weak threats. I'm a lot more dubious of decently powerful mechanics intended for multiplayer like Monarch and the Initiative than I am of powerful rituals. I don't hate that the multiplayer mechanics see play or anything; I think the monarch acts kind of like having a paired down planeswalker that actually works really well for this format. But if one of these mechanics intended for multiplayer + ritual/petal is a problem, I'd much rather you prioritize removing the multiplayer card causing problems in the 1v1 format rather than going after the enablers.
That's just a bad take tbh.
You're basically saying if any card is made too good by dark ritual, you should ban that card.
If it was a functionally identical card but in white, it can stay, since it's not affected by dark ritual.
I mean...how dense can you be? The problem is clearly dark ritual.
Now this makes a precedent where any new archetype made busted by ONE CARD is going to be killed in the egg.
@@JO11190 That is literally not true tho. There's plenty of lists that have been able to thrive using the initiative without the need for Dark Ritual, from Sultai to Grixis Torch decks.
Ask yourself, what does Initiative add? All initiative decks are built around it and use it as a goal. There's hardly any interaction once they've got the ball rolling. Rituals allow for a myriad of interactions and will be the key enabler in many decks in the years to come.
So, in a vacuum, what would you rather see go? A means to an end or the end itself?
Your line of thinking sounds pretty asinine to me.
I like the idea of Pauper being a more accessible version of Legacy, so I think it would be good if cards like Dark Ritual remained in the format.
Listening to this video on a format I've never played (but admittedly have some interest in) was one hell of a positive experience. Coming from playing really only Commander and Yugioh having a ban list so clearly explained and as in depth as this was actually really solidifies my desire to engage with the format. Even if I disagree at least I know what I'm disagreeing with.
I think the literal only way that this could be improved is knowing through what means the team at WOTC communicates with players to determine community sentiment and how that gets used. Currently the only complains I've seen is that this was a quick ban that didn't give the community much chance to try to keep it in check.
Great presentation, well written, excellent way to incentivize me to play Pauper.
I think storm is a little annoying to play against because I don’t like the hate cards I have against it. Can we get smothering rug at common?
One of the big things I love about pauper is that fast mana gets to stay, and, sure, it means most of the storm (and now initiative) cards get the boot, but this creates a unique format with unique and interesting ways to use that mana beyond building a lethal grapeshot or empty the warrens or Initiative boi.
I also think removing Black fast mana won't abolish fast mana decks, they'll just switch to RG shells and use elves, Rite of Flame and Manamorphose to get there. Is that a bit slower? Sure. But I don't think it's a meaningful change in power level and is definitely at the expense of interesting play/build space that is unique to pauper.
thank you for the accurate changes pfp have been doing! your actions doesnt come from a superficial view, you guys really see the big picture and make pauper the best format
The rituals will break another deck at some point because it’s always them.
they create urza and ban mox opal, they create initiative, and ban the initiave, not the rituals, WIZ LOGIC!
I look at cards like Ritual and Petal the same way I always looked at Twin,Pod and looting in Modern. They were absolute pillars and players grew super attached to them but it was just clear over and over that an infinitely growing pile of cards were going to have to be banned to pay for their sins which is just a ridiculous situation.
They will have to eat the ban hammer eventually, so at the minimum test banning them is probably going to be worth just getting over with.
I mainly play Pauper for the nostalgic thrill of casting the old broken cards. I would rather see every new non-Standard common banned preemptively than see Dark Ritual go, honestly.
Maybe it is worth the try to ban black rituals and leaving the red ones to try to unban some storm cards. Chatterstorm and galvanic relay were powerful cards due to fast mana access, but as a storm player in every format, i don't think it would be extremely powerful using only red rituals, deploylands and petal. Also, red rituals and agro decks have a common enemy: blue blasts.
To sum up, unban galvanic relay (and chatterstorm) and ban black rituals and let combo players work.
I think pauper is the only natural home for ritual effects. I think it would hurt the format to ban it.
I quit playing pauper years ago when things got too powered up and focused. But in this instance I feel it's a ritual problem. This makes me think of the sol ring issue in cmdr. Let's keep this foundational problem just because it's always been here is a poor plan imo.
Nice after fixing Pauper would you start fixing Modern thanks!
Not related to banning but just a look into all decks having life gain. There is no card that stops this at any point. Any chance of looking into having a card that prevents life gain be printed as a common? Thanks.
Why? They don't seem overpowered... I think it's nice to have cards like Soul Warden that can provide counterplay to aggro decks, while also being weak to Electrickery effects. The payoffs like Ajani's Pridemate don't really exist at common.
An instant that says "Players can't gain life this turn" could exist at common for B or R, but I doubt you'd see it on an enchantment at common.
I think banning "All cards mentioning the Initiative mechanic" would be a better ban. Four out of the seven are already banned and you want the fifth out as well, it would make a shorter and more coherent ban list. Also on the Wizards ban list website, as of right now, SInkhole is listed twice.
Edit: Just a small anecdote; my LGS(s) all of them consist of games fighting over Monarch and Initiative, none play Dark Ritual. Like I said small sample size of 4 stores consisting of 12-25 players each but I think it shows where the problem truly lies. I actually thought DR was banned because I've never seen it played and two of my friends play mono-black.
I think Dark Ritual should stay. Deck diversity is healthy for the format and I think it does provide that. I personally think Underdark Explorer should have stayed. By removing the Sneak and the Battlerager you have really reduced the density issue, and given the ability to quickly adapt based off of results, I think it should have been given a chance. I am generally not pro bans unless it is confirmed that it is an issue, and this doesn't give that card a chance in the environment without the other 2.
Any chance we'll see a ban list free Pauper cube in the future? Getting to play these cards in a situation where they are draftable and not in a constructed format is really fun and gives people a chance to play them while they are not hurting a constructed format
Ritual effects are fine -- they do nothing by themselves, they merely enable broken payoffs. It's why we talk about the "Storm Scale" and not the "Ritual Scale". That said, I recognise that they form a consistent engine which shows up time and again in un-interactive decks; but this is not alone a reason for banning them instead of their payoffs.
The Initiative, if left alone to do its thing, will win you the game. Building up a ton of temporary mana will not.
Creating a lot of small creatures will win you the game. Building up mana and storm count without a payoff will not.
The actual payoff effects are the issue, and the quality of payoffs matters. We have precedent for this: Reaping the Graves is still legal in Pauper. So this issue isn't the storm engine inherently -- it's the quality of its payoff. Taking this logic along, engines which generate resource value without converting that into a in-itself win are fine (e.g. Monarch, Deep Hours, most Delve cards); these are part of the lifeblood of the format ("Pauper as a format of strong enablers to sub-par finishers").
Consider it also from the point of view of "resource axes": most good decks aim to get ahead-of-curve on a single axis (e.g. mana, accessible cards, board state). Efficiently exploiting a single resource axis is often what differentiates high-tier decks from lower-tier ones. The best decks tend to use a couple in tandem, but with meaningful trade-offs (either one resource for another, or vulnerability to hate). The Initiative is a problem because it exploits multiple axes at once (most crucially, the mana axis through getting free spell-level effects). Treasure Cruise was likewise a problem because it efficiently exploited two axes at once (mana and accessible cards) for little downside.
Rituals allow a short-term gain on one axis (mana) at the cost of a resource loss elsewhere (accessible cards) -- alongside a built-in risk/reward set-up. Again, we have precedent for where this is most broken: Legacy banned Yawgmoth's Will and Underworld Breach because they severely mitigated rituals' built-in card disadvantage. Pauper has no such way of mitigating the downside, and so rituals remain an inherently risky strategy.
I think dark ritual is one of those cards that is a litmus test for a format is. If the best DR deck is a glass cannon, spin the wheel type (1land spy) or similar, the format is good. If it shows up in a consistent T1 or T2 deck, then there's a combo problem.
I believe petal is more of a problem than any ritual and just axing that instead would be better.
Congratulations on your decision! This was extremely important and the Initiative Ritual decks were unbeatable. I conceded a league game yesterday during game one because it was simply pointless. Thank you!
Why ban Aakroka if it cant be played out of dark ritual and there’s no blue ritual like the red one if that’s the problem with the 4 mana cost
Lotus petal and dark ritual was the way
@@TheAwesomeOne560 but that still casts the 5 mana turn 2…
This comment might go unnoticed, but my thoughts are this ...
1. Dark ritual should not be banned. Having some form of storm deck in pauper should be encouraged, and if dark ritual gets banned, storm decks are going to be very rare... or might be nonexistent. On the topic of storm decks, back when chatterstorm was legal, yes the deck performed really well, but there were answers for the 1/1 squirrels. The problem was when they got buffed bc of first day of class. In my opinion, it should've been first day of class to be banned, and not chatterstorm.
And 2. For affinity, my belief is that the indestructible lands need to go and unban sojourner's (I think that is how its spelled) and atog. First, why keep enforcer and not sojourner companion? I can see the problem being able to drop a bunch of 4/4s are out nowhere, but it is still weird to me to ban one and not the other. Two, the deck was fine and iconic with atog until the introduction of the indestructible lands. Those lands helped fix mana and are only countered by few cards sideboard cards.
3. I want prophetic prism back :)
Not unnoticed. :)
rituals are fine. i'm was going to build cycle storm and it's going to be such a medium deck but it'll be a blast to play. now i can't since i have to worry about the deck being banned out of existence while affinity is fine since everyone is required to play hate pieces in board.
I think its just as you said. Some amount of these iconic & powerful effects are good and are a keystone of Pauper's identity. "ideas" like Rituals, storm and affinity are iconic and need to be represented in Pauper, less important are they payoffs IMO. Ban payoffs, leave enablers.
The problem with that is though is that you end up having to ban more and more cards because of what the enablers do. When you've ended up having to ban dozens of cards across different releases because of one specific card and how its outdated overpowered rules interact with them then you're really just treating the symptoms, not the disease.
I think banning dark ritual is a bit of a slippery slope
Why? It’s pretty unique among rituals, being +2 colored mana without restriction or setup
@@soren1803 why not ban tron lands? Why not Arbor elf? It's all fast mana, so where do you draw the line?
@@ThomasPoulin tron lands require setup and can be destroyed, same with arbor elf. Pauper has incredible removal. You can’t remove a dark ritual. You’re comparing an Apple to an Orange
Keep ritual effects and lotus petal in pauper.
disagree, get puaper back to a 7 turn format.
@@Darkyahweh lol Pauper is no longer a 7 turn format, petal and ritual don´t make nothing without this take the initiative cards.
My experience with rituals in pauper is they are typically glass cannon. Good starts are kept in check by bad starting hands and or mulligans. If more rituals we're present in the format it might require a ban but for now I think rituals have an in game check. Also generally counter spells and removal can keep rituals in check as often the ritual player gets 2 for 1'd
My gut says not to ban dark ritual but I would be understanding if it had to go, same with lotus petal
I had my doubts about how the PFP was handling the situation, but i had to admit that the response was swift and surgical; leaving the window open for another readjustment in 2 weeks if the bans prove insufficient. Clearly the PFP seems to be one the best things that happened to the format in the last few years.
As I see it Dark Ritual doesn't really add anything positive to Pauper and I don't buy the argument for why it should be legal: if you want to exchange card disadvantage for powering out mediocre threats, there's Premodern. If you want to play an actual storm deck in a format where there are tools to fight it so the games aren't just coin tosses with extra steps, there's Legacy and Pioneer (Lotus Field plays rituals in Hidden Strings). The initiative creatures are just fine on curve and it's only a matter of time when something is broken again because of rituals.
Of course there's the option of not allowing Commander cards to ruin 1v1 constructed formats (this trend started with True-Name Nemesis back in the day) but we all know that's not going to happen.
Weren't all of the Initiative cards overcosted to prevent this from happening (warp formats)? So... this means we will be getting better costed initiative cards for the future... or that we wont se the mechanic ever again?
Keep the rituals.
Pauper is a format where card advantage actually matters and there aren't insane one card wincons (well until initiative), so there is an actual cost to dark rituals.
Thank you for your transparency and honesty.
I do wish we had ban pannels for other formats like legacy. I also wish you were more honest with modern and how stale and disgusting that metà is, instead of flat out lying to our faces talking about how the data show the format is healthy when the whole community disagrees...
If you don't ban the fast mana, you won't be able to print aggressive 3 or 4 drops in the future, which means every couple of years, you will need to ban another card. Just ban the fast mana, and be done with it. I would rather play with new, powerful toys.
Honestly, I don't have a problem with rituals as they are one-time effects and you really need a payoff in order for them to be good. That said, I think the card that should be banned is Lotus Petal. It fits into any deck and enables a lot of things very efficiently.