Introduction

Pauper has thrived from the innovative ideas from its players. Shaking up the Pauper meta is fun and their are several decks that could benefit from existing cards being downgraded to common.

I’ve already covered some cards that would create new archetypes. I’m looking today to improve on strategies that currently exist with some notable additions.

Reckless Bushwhacker

This is a lovely card that could be played alongside Goblin Bushwhacker to allow for an eight whack strategy in Pauper to make not only Goblins stronger but Red Deck Wins rather than Burn as a whole. This would also help other go wide strategies.

Hypnotic Specter

This is one of my favourite cards of all time and in my original starter deck for Magic along with Dark Ritual.

Originally printed at Uncommon it was moved to Rare but Magic has moved on and whilst for Limited purposes it may not want to be downgraded it could be printed at lower frequency in a supplementary product.

A 2/2 flyer is a very fair card in the format and being able to force discards has the potential to improve Mono Black strategies against blue conrol centric decks.

Spellheart Chimera

Izzet spells has vanished from the meta, being replaced by Izzet Skred. Adding a flying threat may enable the combo cased strategy to return. I did consider Crackling Drake but decided after Arcum’s Astrolabe banning adding more card draw would be something that could be counter productive. Their is also Enigma Drake to consider but I’ve gone for the addition of Trample over the extra point of toughness to keep things more balanced overall.

Mistmeadow Witch

Jeskai Snow was a powerhouse of a deck and one of my favourites, now Blink effects are not popular because of what it can scale into. Repeatable blinking, albeit on a fragile creature, appeals to me and I remember the days when you could repeatedly blink utility creatures in Standard with the witch.

Battlewise Hoplite

Mono White Heroic is an excellent deck but by splashing blue we could get another threat into the deck which would also allow for greater inevitability from the additional scrying option. One of the frustrating cards we had to face during Theros with Standard Heroic decks.  

Conclusion

That concludes part two of my down shift trilogy, the final article will cover tribal decks and what we can do to help them become a regular feature of Pauper.