Spoiler Highlight: Hawkeye's Bow on Pauper

Pauper has a new two‑card, three‑mana combo.

Seeker of Skybreak has no targeting restrictions and can untap itself with its activated ability. With Hawkeye's Bow, a new equipment from Marvel Super Heroes, you can deal infinite damage to the opponent by repeatedly tapping and untapping Skybreak with its own ability. It is a cheap, efficient loop that is easy to protect with Tamiyo's Safekeeping and similar effects.

Writhing Chrysalis shares the same color combination. Skybreak works as a ramp with mana dorks, and both pieces can be found with Malevolent Rumble. It is not as if splashes are impossible in this combination, and the combo's color requirement is not restrictive.

We have seen this story before.

Basking Broodscale was banned from Pauper due to its synergy with Sadistic Glee, which allowed generating infinite tokens that resulted in infinite damage, infinite mana, and infinite power for Writhing Chrysalis and Broodscale. The archetype was too consistent and had the well‑known problem of the "Splinter Twin situation" — when a deck forces the opponent to make suboptimal plays anticipating an immediate win next turn, leading to multiple pseudo‑extra turns as a consequence.

The new combo does not, on its own, have that false tempo factor. Seeker of Skybreak needs haste to start the loop unless another card grants it, such as Boots of Speed or Crashing Drawbridge. Adding a third piece was not a challenge for the Broodscale combo, but a card that "does nothing" except grant haste is different from including Chrysalis or Nadier's Nightblade, which offer additional effects and bodies on the board.

The best enabler for haste right now is most likely Bitter Reunion.

Even without the potential for a sudden win, the mere existence of the combo means that a resolved Seeker of Skybreak will always be the primary removal target, under the risk that if the opponent untaps with it, a Hawkeye's Bow could come from hand and finish the game. Not to mention the possibilities of free ramp that allow second‑ or third‑turn wins.

The hype has merit, but as soon as Hawkeye's Bow leaked a few days ago, calls for preventive bans began on social media — after all, if the Broodscale combo (which required a third piece) was too strong, how could this one not be? The request is partly justified, and there is some sense in preventive bans when Cranial Ram left the format before Modern Horizons 3 released because of its similarities to All That Glitters.

Social media is hyperreactive to anything bordering on absurd. One accusation, suspicion, or assertion is enough to whip up a furious mob against a topic, an individual, or, in this case, a card. The benefit of doubt does not exist in the digital environment: something is either good or bad. That is reason enough to reconsider our stance on the new combo and accept that, perhaps, the best course is to follow the opposite of Cranial Ram and give players the chance to test Hawkeye's Bow and see how the format evolves around it.

Cranial Ram was an obvious ban. All That Glitters was a worse version of that artifact in an archetype that already carries seven bans and remained standing, and Ram was a callback to the first card ever banned in Pauper. Affinity has a track record and reasons for us to worry about what enters it, while Seeker of Skybreak has never had a presence in the format.

There is a precedent with Basking Broodscale and Sadistic Glee, but there are also differences that leave room for deckbuilding innovation and flexibility in answers and adaptation. A two‑card combo will be frustrating at first, but we need time for the community to evaluate, through results, how dangerous a new combo is for Pauper, rather than calling for a ban at the first sign.

What possibilities would we lose with a preventive ban? Some second‑ or third‑turn wins in Leagues might happen, but they require explosive hands that the rest of the list would be inconsistent to support on its own, and the combo's core is answered by a single Gut Shot.

Lists featuring Chrysalis and the Wildfire shell, a Ponza version, or even lists mixing Elves with the combo, or Walls and Freed from the Real with Seeker of Skybreak and Hawkeye's Bow are possibilities that could shake up the Metagame and even reach a point where a new combo starts directing more answers toward itself, not unlike what already happens with Faerie Macabre because of Spy Combo.

And also, which other variants are we not considering when we look only at Seeker of Skybreak?

The format deserves innovation, and innovation comes with risks. No one will try something new if it is not bold enough or synergistic with something already in the Metagame, and the Skybreak combo is, in part, both. It is only natural that it could create new archetypes and that those archetypes could be powerful enough to make Top 8 of a Challenge.

Marvel Super Heroes releases on June 23. The next Banned and Restricted update will take place on August 10. By that date, the Pauper Format Panel will decide the fate of Bonder's Ornament in the Metagame, and there will be enough time — if Hawkeye's Bow breaks the format — to have data to assess how well the Metagame can adapt to a new two‑card combo.

Time will tell.