I’ll never forget when I first learned about the Midnight Guard and Presence of Gond combo in Magic the Gathering. It was actually while I was picking through the bulk commons and uncommons boxes at my local game store. While I was hoarding Utopia Sprawl and other useful commons and uncommons, one guy was hoarding specifically Midnight Guard and Presence of Gond. He wanted to build several playsets because he felt they were a good investment for Pauper. For the 10 cents a piece that commons were at that game store, it was a pretty good move on his part.

Midnight Guard was originally printed in Dark Ascension and would be reprinted in Magic 2015 and Battlebond. Presence of Gond was originally printed in Shadowmoor and would get a reprint in Commander 2013 and Masters 25. Midnight Guard’s effect in itself isn’t that exciting, as what it does is untap whenever another creature enters the battlefield. But, Presence of Gond is an enchantment that allows you to tap the enchanted creature to create a 1/1 Elf creature token. Because the Guard will untap when the Elf token enters play, you can create as many tokens as you like. On its own, you can create as many tokens as you like and overwhelm the board, so the Midnight Gond combo is a win condition all in itself.

But, in Pauper, there are plenty of other cards that supplement this combo. Check out this Midnight Gond combo deck that master deck builder SaffronOlive built back in August 2018.

Midnight Gond Combo

Creatures (23)
4     Benevolent Bodyguard     
4     Nettle Sentinel     
4     Soul Warden     
3     Soul's Attendant     
4     Thermo-Alchemist     
4     Midnight Guard

Spells (10)
4     Faithless Looting     
4     Sprout Swarm     
2     Prismatic Strands     

Enchantments (4)
4     Presence of Gond     

Lands (23)
4     Ash Barrens       
3     Blossoming Sands       
2     Boros Garrison       
2     Crumbling Vestige       
1     Forest       
1     Khalni Garden       
1     Mountain       
2     Plains       
1     Rugged Highlands       
1     Selesnya Sanctuary       
2     Survivors' Encampment       
3     Wind-Scarred Crag       

Sideboard (15)
2     Electrickery     
2     Pyroblast     
1     Relic of Progenitus     
2     Journey to Nowhere     
2     Standard Bearer     
1     Kor Sanctifiers     
2     Oblivion Ring
3     Spidersilk Armor     


Benevolent Bodyguard is a great card in this combo deck, as he allows you to protect your key creatures at the cost of his sacrifice. Soul Warden and Soul’s Attendant let you take advantage of lots of creatures entering the battlefield by gaining lots of life over the course of the game. Nettle Sentinel is a cool card that combos well with another key card in this deck, Sprout Swarm. As if your Elf tokens weren’t enough, this two-mana Convoke spell allows you to make even more 1/1 creature tokens!

Thermo-Alchemist is a cool card that allows you to not only have a 3 toughness creature on board, but also allows you to “ping” opponents over the course of a game. Faithless Looting gives you the ability to dig for your combo creatures and is generally just one of the best draw spells in the game - especially Pauper. Prismatic Strands gives you another way to protect your combo.


Another Midnight Gond Pauper Deck: Gond Life

There’s another pretty gond Midnight Gond combo deck that’s seen some competitive success called Gond Life. It’s similar to the Midnight Gond Combo deck we just looked at, but it focuses more on the gaining life aspect. It incorporates Commune with the Gods to dig for your Presence of Gond or Midnight Guard and plays powerful token generation cards like Battle Screech, Cenn’s Enlistment, and Rally the Peasants in place of Sprout Swarm. It’s posted decent results in Pauper Challenges on Magic the Gathering Online and is definitely a list worth checking out.

Creatures (16)
4 Benevolent Bodyguard
4 Midnight Guard
4 Soul Warden
4 Soul's Attendant

   
Spells (17)
1 Cenn's Enlistment
4 Commune with the Gods
3 Faithless Looting
3 Prismatic Strands
2 Rally the Peasants

Enchantments (4)
4 Presence of Gond
   
Lands (23)
3 Ash Barrens
2 Blossoming Sands
1 Boros Garrison
2 Crumbling Vestige
1 Evolving Wilds
1 Forest
2 Khalni Garden
1 Mountain
3 Plains
2 Selesnya Sanctuary
2 Survivors' Encampment
3 Wind-Scarred Crag

Sideboard
2 Electrickery
1 Flaring Pain
1 Journey to Nowhere
2 Last Breath
2 Oblivion Ring
2 Pyroblast
3 Spidersilk Armor
2 Standard Bearer



How Good is the Presence of Gond Combo in EDH

Unsurprisingly, Presence of Gond does see a fair amount of play in EDH decks, although not at an extremely high rate. Elf decks with Commanders such as Rhys the Redeemed and Ezuri, Renegade Leader particularly like having Presence of Gond around as a way to produce a few extra Elf tokens over the course of a game. It also sees play in some token Commander decks such as Trostani, Selesnya’s Voice. It’s not a huge card in the format, though. Midnight Guard does sometimes see play alongside Presence of Gond in Rhys and Trostani decks. The combo isn’t bad in EDH. But because you’re playing with single copies in a 99 card deck, the Midnight Gond combo is nowhere as reliable, so not as many people tend to include it in their EDH decks.


Is the Midnight Gond Combo Playable in Modern?

In a deck sometimes known as G/W Twin, the Midnight Gond combo is one that some Modern players have attempted to make a competitive deck in the format. If someone comes up with a good list, I’ll definitely want to give it a look. But the Midnight Gond combo is a bit slow and too easily disrupted in the highly competitive Modern format. Pauper has enough protection to push it through and multiple strategies that can incorporate it.

The Midnight Gond combo is a pretty fun way to flood the board with tokens, although it’s not quite as “oops, I win” as Splinter Twin combo - although it’s pretty close in the Pauper format. Also, because the combo pieces have been reprinted a couple of times, it’s cheap to build and easy to acquire in foil.


Have you ever played a deck with the Midnight Guard and Presence of Gond combo?

Stonehorn Dignitary is only a common from the Magic 2012  Core Set, but it's a card that has seen some substantial competitive play. Currently, the Rhino Soldier sees the most play in competitive Pauper deck. Stonehorn Dignitary is played at four copies in 5-Color Urzatron Control (also known as Rainbow Tron) and four copies between the main and sideboards of Sunscape Storm (also called Esper Familiars) While it’s still a $0.25 card at the moment, people list playsets for $2 to $3 on eBay. Because it's a common there's plenty of supply, but it has a lot of demand.

What makes the Dignitary so interesting from an investment perspective is that there are no reprints of it. Also, foil copies have been going bonkers. They’ve been listed as high as $13 on TCGPlayer, although the actual market seems to be between $4 and $7. Since Pauper is an Eternal format, players are quite willing to invest in foil copies for decks they plan to keep built. So, do we want to pick up a playset or two of Stonehorn Dignitary and hope for the best?

Low-Risk Pauper Investment with a Decent Reward?

Because this is a common you can still find in bulk, Stonehorn Dignitary is extremely low risk to buy in quantity. Heck, because it sees some EDH play in “blink” decks like Brago, King Eternal and Roon of the Hidden Realm, you can usually sell it to buylists for about a nickel.  That’s the absolute worst case scenario, though. This card shouldn’t be going anywhere in Pauper OR EDH anytime soon.

The card's staying power is in the price of Stonehorn Dignitary foils. This is a card that's retailed for $11 in foil, although it tends to sell in the $8 - $10 range. There probably isn't much money to be made in those at this point, though. Still, watch for them in trade or if they are greatly underpriced, because they are still nice cards to have.

The only thing that can hurt the Dignitary is if he gets reprinted. While this guy could fit into a lot of different scenarios, he hasn’t been reprinted yet. As it stands, there’s a good chance that Dignitary is $0.50 before long, and being that people are buying him four at a time for Pauper, $1 isn’t out of the question.

If you buy Stonehorn Dignitary at retail, you’re looking at likely doubling or quadrupling your money. If you already have some laying around, set them aside. This is one of the better commons to keep your eye on right now. If you can get foils on the low-end, that’s probably the better plan to make money quick. But if you’re just looking to grind out some value, keep a playset or two of these around.

by ElspethFTW, Old School Duelist

Magic the Gathering’s Pauper format has caused some cards to see crazy price spikes over the years. One such card was an uncommon from Torment called Chainer’s Edict. On at least a couple of occasions, its price shot to $10 or higher from just few dollars. This happened when Edict became legal in Pauper due to a reprint in the Magic Online exclusive reprint set, Vintage Masters.

But there would be another Torment uncommon to share the same fate by the name of Circular Logic. It was also reprinted in Vintage Masters at common. But while Chainer’s Edict saw huge gains back around Christmas 2015, it would take until January 2018 for Circular Logic to finally see its own price spike.

Back its in Standard days, Circular Logic was a pretty good Constructed card. It's a really good card if you can cast it for its Madness cost. It reads: “Counter target spell unless its controller pays (1) for each card in your graveyard.” For three mana, that’s not a bad permission spell. But if you happen to discard it, you can play it for its Madness cost, which is only a single Blue mana. That’s pretty strong, and a card you’d play four copies of in a deck based around Madness.

Since its Standard days, though, Circular Logic became a bit of a forgotten card in competitive play. It doesn’t even see much play in Commander. Likewise, even when it first became legal in Pauper, it wasn’t a widely played card. It did, and still does, see play in a fairly popular Blue/Black control deck called U/B Teachings. This deck uses Mystical Teachings to search out any instant spell in the deck. The deck only plays one copy of Circular Logic so it's clearly not something you'll see all the time. There isn't really a solid interaction in the deck itself. But it's pretty good against the Mono-Black Control decks in the format.

Still, even with such little visible play, Circular Logic has long been a strong casual card. People really like building decks around the Madness mechanic. The mechanic was even reintroduced in Shadows Over Innistrad. Still, this card didn’t break $1 for a long time, although interest in it certainly picked up at that time.

Well, I wish I would’ve invested in a playset at the time. It turns out that in early 2018, Circular Logic would find a new home in Pauper in a deck called Inside Out Combo. Not only that, the deck plays four copies. In response to this new deck, the card would enjoy not one, but two price spikes. The first was from $1 to $4, and the second was to $7.50. It would settle back around $6. What is this awesome deck that caused such a momentous price spike?

The deck is based around a pair of cards. One is a creature called Tireless Tribe, which allows you to discard a card for it to gain +0/+4. Obviously, this is awesome synergy with a Madness card like Circular Logic, giving you a cheap and easy counterspell to set up the combo with the namesake card in the deck. Inside Out is a 2-mana instant spell that switches the power and toughness of a creature until end of turn. It also draws you a card.

The Inside Out Combo deck is extremely simple: draw a bunch of cards then dump a bunch of cards, get through unblocked with something like Shadow Rift, then drop a copy of Inside Out. While you’re at it, you can discard the card you drew. You’ll probably get through for lethal damage. It’s pretty basic, but the deck has enough countermagic to make it feasible. The deck is actually very successful on Magic Online and in the Pauper format in general.

by  ElspethFTW, Old School Duelist

At the end of 2015, the Magic the Gathering card Chainer's Edict was selling quickly everywhere. The Torment uncommon was once a very good card back in its Standard heyday. But what was causing it to suddenly fly off the market?

It saw little to no Legacy play and only minimal play in Commander. The only format in which Chainer's Edict saw play is in Pauper on Magic Online. Pauper is the all-common format which gained new life with the printing of lots of older uncommons at common in sets in online-only sets such as Vintage Masters and Tempest Remastered. That's right. On Magic Online, Chainer's Edict became a common, thanks to the Magic Online-only reprint set of Vintage Masters.

Being common in Vintage Masters means that Chainer’s Edict is legal in the Pauper format, despite its paper printings only being at uncommon or higher. In addition to the original Torment printing, there’s the Friday Night Magic foil promo, and the "mythic rare" From the Vault: Twenty premium foil. So, Chainer’s Edict becoming legal in Pauper explains where so many From the Vault: Twenty Chainer's Edicts ran off to…

And not only did Chainer’s Edict see a price spike, it saw three separate spikes, along with other “mini” spikes. On Christmas 2015, Chainer’s Edict from Torment hit $4 after being just $1.50 the week before. It would hit $6.50, then blow up to $15.50 in March. You read that right. And while Chainer’s Edict did come back to Earth around $5, in early 2018, it would blow up again, all the way to $16! While it eventually stabilized around $10, you have to figure that’s pretty high for an uncommon that only sees play in Pauper. The From the Vault Twenty printing is about the same and the promo sells for a decent premium.

So why is Chainer’s Edict so expensive? All it does is force a target player to sacrifice a creature for 2 mana. That’s good, but is it $10 good? This is when you have to consider that it has a Flashback cost of 5BB or five colorless mana and 2 Black mana. While 7 mana sounds really high, you get to play it from the graveyard. Essentially, you get two uses out of the same card, and that’s always a good thing.

Really, it’s expensive because so many decks in Pauper can use it. After all, this is a card that saw a lot of Standard play at one time. Cards that force sacrifices are really good, and keep in mind that this was uncommon originally, not common. When uncommons suddenly become commons, you’re going to have a few that suddenly become extremely good cards in the format.

With Relentless Rats being printed at Common in Masters 25, the highly popular Rat swarm is now available in the all-common rarity Pauper format! Previously only printed at uncommon, it's no surprise to see that it's actually been the #1 best-selling card on TCGPlayer in the latter half of March 2018.

What makes Relentless Rats so relentless that it's become such a hot Magic card? It's simple. You can play as many as you want in a deck, and for each one you control, each of your Relentless Rats gets +1/+1.


How can you play Relentless Rats in Pauper? Here's one potential Relentless Rats Pauper deck list from Mazzi di Huzen on DeckStats.

Lands (18)

14 Swamp
4 Barren Moor

Creatures (32)

28 Relentless Rats
4 Gray Merchant of Asphodel

Non-Creature Spells (10)

2 Death Denied
4 Geth's Verdict
4 Victim of Night


The deck is very straightforward. The Barren Moors give you the ability to cycle away itself for a single Black mana for another card if you don't need to play any more land. The 4 copies of Geth's Verdict and 4 copies of Victim of Night give you some of the best removal in Pauper. This removal is good for slowing down faster decks because each copy of Rats costs 3 mana to cast. Two copies Death Denied gives you the ability to retrieve dead Relentless Rats from your graveyard in order to continue the Rat onslaught.

Then, of course, we have 28 copies of Relentless Rats, which ensures that we always have copies of Relentless Rats to play at all times. We finish off the deck with 4 copies of Gray Merchant of Asphodel. The lynchpin in Mono-Black Devotion decks, each copy of Rats gives you 2 devotion to Black. The Gray Merchant himself gives you an additional 2 devotion. His ability drains your opponent for an amount of life equal to your devotion to Black. With just a few Rats on the board, you can end the game very quickly

Because of how long this deck can take to get going, you are going to be using your removal early and often. However, once you start getting a lot of Rats on the board, it's very difficult for your opponent to even attack you anymore. If the board becomes stalled and your army of Relentless Rats can't get through for damage, you always have the Gray Merchants to finish off the game with the drain ability. It's a pretty cool Mono-Black Devotion/Control deck.

We also found another Pauper deck list on TappedOut that uses Dark Ritual for mana acceleration, Disfigure for removal and Dusk Legion Zealot for card draw. But we prefer the Mono-Black Devotion/Control deck list better ourselves.

What do you think of Relentless Rats in Pauper? Have you ever build a Rats deck using the Relentless Rats?