Last updated on July 8, 2025
Kuldotha Rebirth – art by Goran Josic
From July 4 to 6, 2025, Paupergeddon Summer 2025 filled Lucca’s Polo Fiere with a record-breaking 1,106 players, eclipsing every previous Pauper event and putting the common-only format on the same attendance tier as large Standard or Modern events.
And arguably even better, the Pauper metagame was wide open, with six unique archetypes in the Top 8 – a far cry from the just two different decks that dominated the last Standard Pro Tour a couple of weeks ago.
Pauper Format Fundamentals
“Pauper is an Eternal Constructed format with card legality restricted by rarity, that only allows cards printed at common,” explains David Royale, our resident Pauper expert here at Draftsim in his Ultimate Guide to Pauper. “This condition makes for an affordable but competitive format that grabs players' interest.”
Pauper was born decades ago as MTGO-specific format, but gained official tabletop support from Wizard of the Coast in June 2019. It works pretty much like Vintage, Legacy, and Commander in that Pauper is an eternal MTG format (that's to say, you can play cards from any Tournament-legal Magic set ever printed), with the twist that you can only play commons.
In Pauper's case, a common card is a card that was printed at common in any one MTG set, no matter if previous or later versions were printed at uncommon, rare and/or mythic. “If a common version of a particular card was ever released in a Magic: The Gathering paper product or Magic: The Gathering Online, any version of that card is legal in this format,” says WotC in their description of how the Pauper format works. “This includes land cards that were printed with both a common set symbol and the L rarity code.”
Dark Ritual, for example, was printed as a Rare in the Strixhaven Mystical Archive bonus sheet. But since it was printed as a common in many other sets, it's legal in Pauper, and you can even use the Mystical Archive printing.
The rest of the rules are exactly like every other 60-card format: minimum 60 cards in the main deck, up to 15 card sideboard, and a maximum of 4 copies of any individual card (except basic lands).
Pauper, King of Open Metas
For players that have been paying most of their attention to Magic's Standard format – where, in the last Pro Tour, Izzet Prowess was 40% of the field, and there were just two archetypes represented in the Top 8 – the Day 1 meta in this recent Paupergeddon was refreshingly open, with the most-played deck reaching a play rate of just 15%, and no other archetype reaching the 10% threshold:
Source: Reddit
The Day 2 metagame was equally open…
… and, cherry on top, the Top 8 was extremely diverse, with six different archetypes represented.
“6 decks in 8 spots at the top,” agrees u/NickRick. “Looks like we're in a good spot.”
“The conversion rate looks pretty uniform across,” notes u/Newez in one of the reddit threads discussing these excellent results. “Pauper really is looking like one of the best constructed formats.”
Some Pauper players noted, ironically, how the format that WotC pays no attention to is the most diverses, but this opinion has found strong disagreement, with many players praising WotC in general, and WotC's Gavin Verhey in particular, for how well the format is curated.
“We have probably the best curated format under the PFP which is wholly a WOTC initiative,” says u/dalmathus, referencing the Pauper Format Panel.
Who’s in Charge of Pauper?
High Tide – art by Marc Simonetti
Last year, Wizards of the Coast took control of Commander, and among other initiatives it created the Commander Format Panel to “work with our design teams and other teams at Wizards to help provide feedback and craft the Commander experience,” including handling the banning process.
WotC's Gavin Verhey is in charge of this Commander Panel, and thus far it looks like it was modelled fairly similarly to how Pauper has been run since 2022, where the Pauper Format Panel (PFP) was created: An advisory group also lead by Verhey, with the participation of several other players and content creators and who advise Wizards' Play Design team.
“The Pauper Format Panel consists of seven people, including myself and six notable Pauper community members from around the world,” explained Verhey in his Announcing the Pauper Format Panel article, back in January 2022. “We're going to be discussing the format and providing recommendations of action to the Play Design team at Wizards. This will cause action such as bannings to take place much quicker, eliminating the challenges that slowed us down previously.”
If this Paupergeddon's metagame is any indication, they have succeeded spectacularly – and may could even teach the Standard Format a thing or two!
Getting into Pauper
“Of all Constructed Eternal formats, Pauper has to have the most archetypes available under its belt,” says David about the huge number of playable archetypes.
And the best thing is, the majority of them will be less painful to your wallet than just one Commander staple like Rhystic Study or Cyclonic Rift!
The specific of the Pauper metagame and the different Pauper communities far exceeds this news piece, but if Pauper has piqued your interest you may want to check David's deep dive:
Healthy deck diversity, a Format Panel where players sit at WotC's table, and rock-bottom entry costs make Pauper one of Magic’s fastest-growing scenes. Pay like a beggar, but play like a King!
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