Pauper: The Problem with Playing to the Crowd

This video was posted by Gavin Verhey on the Good Morning Magic channel this Tuesday, June 23. It refers to the potential banning of the Hawkeye Combo on June 29.

The post date also marks the official release of Marvel Super Heroes on Magic Online and the start of the set's competitive season. For Pauper, as the video itself indicates, this is the moment when the Seeker of Skybreak and Hawkeye's Bow combo will be extensively tested and refined to find its place in the competitive Metagame, with extra Challenges throughout the week for data collection before the Pauper Format Panel makes a decision by Monday.

The combo already had widespread buzz on social media since the artifact was leaked. Players even posted on Reddit with hundreds of upvotes and comments calling for a preventive ban on Hawkeye's Bow to prevent the format from being taken over by a combo with similarities — in theory — to Basking Broodscale and Sadistic Glee.

The first results from the Hawkeye Combo are already in, with three Challenge wins. They are still not enough to provide a definitive answer on the space for a new deck in a competitive format environment, especially one with as much hype as this one. Players will try new lists; they will stand out, and subsequent events will gradually define how well the format can adapt. Depending on the events up until Saturday or Sunday, a conclusive position on Verhey's question may not even be clear yet.

For this reason, shifting part of the responsibility for a ban to the public is a major mistake.

This is not the first time Verhey, representing the Pauper Format Panel, has produced audiovisual content asking, "What do you think?" To some extent, there is a "democratic" virtue in asking the format's consumers and competitors for their opinion on a topic of debate. Legacy, for example, would be much better if it also had a specialized committee willing to do the same work as the PFP.

The problem lies in how much weight player feedback can carry in decision-making. Bans should be based on data, not on opinion, especially in an environment as cacophonous as social media, where the divisive tendency of algorithms tends to create partial evidence and tribalism more often. The result is a group already predisposed to wanting Hawkeye's Bow banned since before release, capable of making more noise on platforms and YouTube comments as more results come out.

The attempt to make this process more democratic than in other formats can also fail because, in a game like Magic, there may be mismatches with some elements that constitute a democracy: the notion that they do not mean the prevalence of majority opinion over the minority, nor the ability of the minority to override the majority; the assumption that we will not agree, therefore we need to build agreements and reach consensus; and the certainty that the decision will be made by community representatives, and these representatives may make mistakes that can be corrected in future cycles.

In a recent live stream where we debated proxies with João Gutosvski and Gabriel Neves, I used the analogy that "Magic is a country that Wizards of the Coast presides over." In context, it was about how, once the governing figure of that scenario seems not to care about certain audiences, as happened with Brazil after the end of Portuguese localization, that audience will stop caring about the imposed rule sets and open space for anarchy. In this case, the "anarchy" stems from the reasons behind the growth of the pro-proxy player community both in Brazil and in other demographics, including countries facing strong economic pressures.

Let us try this reasoning from another perspective: if Magic were a country and Wizards of the Coast the president, Pauper and the game's other formats would be states, each with its own set of rules and management formulas. By inviting active community participation, the PFP suggests the equivalent of a plebiscite. But all public opinion is shaped by feelings, cognitive perceptions, and existential needs of distinct groups regarding a subject, and it does not always represent the best course. A majority may desire something of little benefit to the larger collective based on individual experiences.

The same applies to a card game, especially regarding two essential aspects of regulating the game environment: Rules and Bans. Both directly affect how the player perceives the game as they change what they can or cannot do during a match. Banned and Restricted updates tend to be perceived with more biased or hyper-reactive biases relative to the facts, and the recurring bans in competitive formats have created a public tendency to call for the removal of any card they find unpleasant.

A plebiscite on banning a card will inevitably come with anecdotal evidence, based on Metagame health perspectives shaped by how well-positioned "your deck" is, creating distorted views of reality when compared to concrete data. Changes in consumption patterns also affect perceptions of competitive formats, with stability seen as detrimental, but with criticism of any possibility of innovation that might become a threat; the same player who complains about being in a Red Aggro vs. Blue Tempo vs. Affinity environment for too long is also calling for the ban of the first card of 2026 that could actually bring substantial changes to the competitive scene.

The Pauper Format Panel may have this take with the best intentions, but ban decisions are not something that appealing to the crowd will attract the best results for the competitive environment. A close look at the results, the data to which only the Magic Online team has access, and the nuances of the Metagame does much more than any social media post. It falls to its members to take on that responsibility.

The evidence we have so far indicates that Naya Hawkeye is the deck with the greatest competitive consistency with the combo. It has posted more frequent results in Leagues and closed the first Challenge with Marvel Super Heroes with two copies in the top 8 (first and seventh), in addition to winning the second Challenge and finishing with nine copies in the top 32, and also winning the third Challenge, but with less representation: seven copies.

It is also the most dangerous version of the combo, which attacks from three different lines by mixing the Naya Gates core with the benefits of looting and Hawkeye in the same list, making it harder to cover all angles of response — Basilisk Gate with any creature that stays on board, Sneaky Snacker with looting effects for the go wide with flying, and Seeker of Skybreak with Hawkeye's Bow and Bitter Reunion for the instant hit-kill. All demand different interaction categories, and perhaps the risk in the list lies in how efficient it has become at executing all of them reasonably well.

The Temur variant, entirely focused on the combo and with Writhing Chrysalis as a complementary win condition, reached the Top 16 of the first Challenge, relying on Perilous Research and Cryogen Relic for card advantage and even including Blue Elemental Blast in the maindeck to protect the combo. One copy reached the Top 32 of two Challenges.

Jund finished the first Challenge with a 3-3 record, relying on a combination of sacrifice effects with Wirewood Herald to find Seeker of Skybreak. The deck has shown up in only two events, and both ended poorly, showing that the "Jund Broodscale" core does not work with the same efficiency.

One version posted results in Leagues using the Gruul core and the interaction between Bayou Groff and Wirewood Herald for consistency in finding Seeker of Skybreak. Mixing a beatdown plan with large, cheap creatures and Call Damage Control with Candy Trail to filter the top and find Hawkeye's Bow also deserves attention.

Another Gruul variant went 5-0 in a League, this time running the looting package with the new Vision of Love to reinforce the complementary Chrysalis line with Sneaky Snacker.

What we have at this moment is a rising deck and a Metagame that is trying to understand it to respond appropriately. Naya is by far the most consistent version right now, and we need to be aware that Bitter Reunion is also doing a lot of work as the glue for Skybreak to work alongside Sneaky Snacker, which we have already discussed as a card that is rapidly growing in presence, being second only to Pyroblast among the most played cards in both events. But we cannot confuse the sins of an infinite combo with the debate around Snacker; both can be harmful to Pauper in their own way, and a Hawkeye environment does not seem ideal for evaluating Snacker under the best conditions.

With three Challenges and several Leagues, there are enough reasons to keep the alert signal on. The Hawkeye Combo has proven to be a Metagame definer, and it remains to be considered in the coming days whether the other archetypes can adapt, how many concessions they need to make on other fronts, and which strategies might stand out as predators of this strategy. However, when a deck can, beyond the combo-kill, have two or three complementary game plans, the ability to answer each of them without forcing "non‑games" can be severely compromised.

That's all for today!

If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment!

Thanks for reading!