If you love deck restrictions then this week’s Midweek Magic has plenty of limitations to get your creativity buzzing with a Historic Pauper event. Grab 60 of your favorite common cards, slap them together in a deck, and compete for some cool prizes in this free event.
With your Historic Pauper deck, you’ll be able to earn up to three random rewards from this event. The first two rewards on the prize track are Rare Individual cards, which can be either a rare or mythic rare card from all cards available on Arena. There is a chance you get a duplicate or an additional copy of a card you already have four of, in which case you will earn an appropriate number of gems for that card.
The last prize available to players is a Mystery Cosmetic pack, which can hold a wide range of prizes including card styles as well as avatars and pets. More often than not, you’ll be opening a card style but there’s always a chance.
The Midweek Magic: Historic Pauper event is completely free to join on both the Magic: The Gathering Arena app or game client. The event beings on Tuesday at 2 p.m. PT and will run until Thursday at 2 p.m. PT for all players.
Historic Pauper Rules
If you’re looking to build your own deck for this event you’ll be restricted to only using common cards (including non-basic lands that are common) as well as basic lands. The fact that this is Historic Pauper means you’ll be able to choose from any common that is present on MTG Arena. Since all players will be on the same level of power, matches will often come down to who is playing the most aggressive deck or who can survive to drop their big creatures first.
The great thing about any event with Pauper rules is that you will more likely than not have tons of common wildcards to craft any deck you want. A great starting point, if you’re looking for a few easy wins, is a Red Deck Wins style, with plenty of burn spells and cheap creatures to quickly overwhelm your opponents in just a few turns.
Historic Pauper Red Deck Wins
| Creature (16) 4 Dwarven Forge-Chanter 4 Festival Crasher 4 Kessig Flamebreather 4 Kiln Fiend Instant (12) 4 Lighting Strike 4 Shock 4 Whirling Strike Sorcery (12) 4 Ancestral Anger 4 Crash Through 4 Wrenn's Resolve Land (20) 18 Mountain 2 The Autonomous Furnace |
With this Red Deck Wins style burn list, all you have to do is stick a turn two Kiln Fiend or Dwarven Forge-Chanter, and follow up with any number of spells like Lightning Strike and Shock to clear the board while pumping your creatures. If you can’t punch through with just burn alone, cards like Crash Through and Ancestral Anger, giving your creatures a boost in power and trample.
You can keep your hand full of cards (technically) with Wrenn’s Resolve, exiling the top two cards of your deck and giving you the opportunity to cast them until the end of your next turn. Another key card to chip away your opponent’s life total is Kessig Flamebreather, dealing one damage to your opponent for each noncreature spell you cast. It could be swapped out for a Firebrand Archer, which has a higher power at a 2/1 making it more aggressive, but the Flamebreather’s 1/3 body means it can block a few hits and survive if needed.