After the impact the last several sets had on the format, many in the pauper community have been awaiting the reveal of New Capenna’s commons to see just how broken Pauper will be in the coming weeks. We’re going to provide our picks for the New Capenna cards likely to have the most impact on the format.
#1 – Island
We knew right away that this card is going to make waves. Literally a free play, this card can come down every turn and give you an additional blue mana providing you have one in hand. Best of all, it’s immune to counterspells and very few cards can interact with it, in hand or on the board. Oddly enough, the card’s hidden text also lets you play more than four. Five in fact!
#2 – Chrome Cat
Let’s be honest, when it comes to three drop creatures you can’t beat a 3/2. Unfair much? Talk about pushed. You better go ahead and buy several playsets of this one now because, as you may not have noticed, this card can go in every deck. That’s right, that three on the top right of the card means that you can use those shiny new Islands to cast this cool cat even though it’s not blue. On top of likely resulting in an instant scoop by your opponent when it hits the board, its scry ability is going to do something really awesome, though we’re not sure what scry means but intend on looking it up at some point.
#3 – Corrupt Court Official
We love spells with totally unique text that’s never printed before – not even in the set right before this one. This card introduces a concept to the format called discarding which is like a counterspell but acts before they’re even able to cast their spell which makes it faster and better. Best of all, like we mentioned earlier, it’s one of the few cards that can hit Islands so long as they are in hand. This never-before-seen ability is likely going to make your opponents so jealous that they may become a burglar and steal it when you’re not looking. Those rats!
#4 – Cutthroat Contender
There’s something to be said about a card that only costs one. It’s there on turn one and, coincidentally, hits for 1. 20, meet 19. But what if we could do more? What if 20 could become 18? Well do we have the card for you! Cutthroat (pronounced Cutt Hroat) Contender allows you to use that life total of yours to deal two damage instead of 1 by paying one of your life points. If our math is correct here, your opponent will go to 18, and you go to 19. That’s right, each time it hits the opponent their number is one lower than your number! In MTG, that means you win.
#5 – Ready To Rumble
Pauper’s creatures, for the most part, have five or less health. That’s why when we saw this card revealed we immediately reserved a top spot for it. This card has a LOT going for it. Not is is easy to remember what it does since its cost is the same as the amount of damage it can do, (you can also easily remember by counting your fingers) but you never even have to worry about playing it at the right time. Unlike instants, you know this is being played on your main phases. Decision paralysis be damned! Thanks sorcery! Not only that, but it can also blow-up artifacts. For only five mana.
Honorable Mention – Sky Crier
Instant foil playset of this one. For only two mana you’re getting both flying and lifelink. This means when it does damage, (which it will because nothing can block flying) you can call a friend or ask the audience to have them help you with your next play. Super awesome. While obviously this is real good, the real meat of this card is in it’s card draw. For only four mana you get to draw another card! Best of all, your opponent does too which means brownie points for being nice. Without any restriction you can dump as much mana as you want to draw as many cards as you can afford. With so much good will, you’ll likely have opponents conceding because you deserve the win.