Last weekend was an exciting one for MTG Pauper at RIW Hobbies, as we hosted our fourth Major Event of the 2026 Pauper Championship Series season! Much thanks to the SIXTY players who joined us and competed!
Author page: Brian DeMars
Welcome to P.C.W. issue #5, your weekly source for all things Pauper written by players for players.
We had another high turnout event at RIW last Wednesday (32 players), a great stream, and a lot of fun. Also, some exciting Pauper news in the form of an unbanning that will be legal for play this Weds at our weekly event:
Last week featured at least two big Pauper events in the Midwest (of which, I attended and played in BOTH!).
RIW had 30+ for Weds night Pauper and NRG Indianapolis also pulled more than thirty teams for a Team Trio Event (Legacy / Modern / Pauper). It’s safe to say Pauper is heating up, as is the weather! Finally….
Welcome back! This week I have lots to report about the RIW Pauper Championship Series, as we had a Major Event over the weekend!
Welcome back to the second issue of RIW PAUPER CHAMPIONSHIP WEEKLY! This upcoming Saturday is the next large event for the series, which makes this week’s Weds Night tournament a special one; since, it’s the last chance for players to participate in some IRL testing before the marquee event this weekend.
Welcome to the inaugural issue of RIW PAUPER CHAMPIONSHIP WEEKLY! Since this is the 1st one, I’ll start with a little bit about what this series is…
Basically, as the title suggests, the plan is to put out a weekly article chronicling what’s going on in Pauper at the shop at our Wednesday 6PM events for the Pauper Championship Series.
Let me start by saying that I’m 100% unfamiliar with the Avatar: The Last Airbender franchise and because of that I assumedMTG AVATAR was going to be another Universes Beyond “Not for me” set (especially coming on the heels of the MTG Spider Man set which I found to be flavorfully unappealing and quite frankly a weak collection of cards). So, going into this spoiler season, my expectation was that I would not like this set because of my unfamiliarity with the non-mtg source material and recent trends.
Today, I’ll focus on a specific Commander deck I’ve been tuning for 4 years, Rin & Seri, and what I’ve learned about building an aggressive strategy for Bracket 2. If you want to “make it rain” Cats and Dogs or just pick up some solid fundamental tips for building / tuning a deck – you’ve come to the right place!
For those unfamiliar with the Pauper Championship Series, it’s a year-long MTG Pauper League that encapsulates all of the weekly and larger quarterly Pauper events. Player’s results and progress are tracked and the shop will be hosting a Pauper Invitational (based on points) at the end of the year to crown a 2025 RIW Pauper Champion. Here’s how it works:
#MTGFOUNDATIONS is EASILY one of my favorite Magic: The Gathering sets of the past 4-5+ years which was surprising to me because it is a Core set with a lot of reprints. Typically, because I don’t play 60-card Tournament formats anymore, and because I’ve collected the cards I actually want in their original printings – I tend to take a pass on Core Sets, but this set is AWESOME!