Common Ground MtG Pauper Podcast
A Magic The Gathering podcast focused on the best (and our favorite) format: Pauper! Tune in every Thursday for metagame updates, tournament reports, lots of laughter, and interviews with members of the Pauper community!
Hosted by Cameron Schindler, Thomas Gunn, and James "Hippo" Hieronimus.
Episodes
127 episodes
Common Ground 126: Getting Silly with Jund Wildfire featuring Matthew "Silly" Sentilles
Welcome back Pauper fam! This week, we're joined by Alum of the Pod Matthew "Silly" Sentilles for a DEEP dive into the Jund Wildfire deck! If you enjoy the "slop" midrange decks of the format or enjoy playing 20 turn games, this is the primer f...
Common Ground 125: THINK MARK - Pauper Metagame Catchup
Welcome back Pauper fam! This week, we check the pulse on the current state of the Pauper format and the neat decks that have been reshaping the metagame. Between some new additions from TMNT and Strixhaven, and some innovations in the Gates-pa...
Common Ground 124: PauperGenesis & NYC Pauper League with Chris/nyc-mtg
Welcome back Pauper fam! This week, we invited Chris from NYC Pauper League onto the show to learn more about NYC's incredible League and the upcoming PauperGenesis tournament this July! Chris and her local community are on the forefront of org...
Common Ground 123: Big Games VS Small Games in Pauper
Welcome back Pauper fam! This week, we discuss a Sam Black theory article that breaks down card advantage into two major concept pillars of Big Games and Small Games. We apply these concepts to Pauper and dig into how to use this information in...
Common Ground 122: Secrets of Lorehold- I mean, Strixhaven Spoilers
Welcome back Pauper fam! It's spoiler season once again and there are some exciting Strixhaven commons that we have our eyes on. Plus a few decklist results and certainly no mention of Pokémon Champions! Thank you as always for listening!
Common Ground 121: Skura Returns! Innovating in Pauper & Paupergeddon Coverage
Welcome back Pauper fam! This week, Skura, the Faerie King himself, returns to share some stories from Paupergeddon coverage and how he's been innovating on the Faeries archetype with a different take on the black splash. It's a great conversat...
Common Ground 120: Some Rather Foolish Pauper Takes
Welcome back Pauper fam! There seems to be some rather Fool-ish energy in the studio today. Follow along with "Cameron", "Thomas", and "Hippo" as they share their 100% accurate and fully-supported opinions on Pauper bans, unbans, and downshifts...
Common Ground 119: Paupergeddon and Win-A-Dual Tournament Reviews
Welcome back Pauper fam! Paupergeddon Spring edition has come and gone and we have some really sweet decklists to look through! We also recap our experience at Game Knight's (#sponsored) Win-A-Dual tournament this past weekend, featuring a swee...
Common Ground 118: Shoebox Stories & Picking the Right Pauper Deck
Welcome back Pauper fam! Cameron and Hippo just got back from Shoebox and have some shenanigans and Cube stories to share with us!* There have also been some shenanigans afoot with these new Turtles cards and some combos have started to emerge....
Common Ground 117: Lessons from Limited with Sam Snodgrass
Welcome back Pauper fam! This week we invite our friend and Limited crusher Sam Snodgrass onto the show. Known as snodz on MTGO, Sam has consistently been at the top of the draft trophy leaderboard for the better part of a year and had a deep r...
Common Ground 116: Returning to the Gardens - Control in Pauper 2.0
Welcome back Pauper fam! This week we return to the control archetype to go over some updates to the more long-form decks of the format and how they line up against the metagame that exists today. Gardens has seen a resurgence online as Rally o...
Common Ground 115: Teenage Mutant Pauper Turtles
Welcome back Pauper fam! It's TMNT spoiler time and even though we're not the biggest fans of this set, there are still plenty of cool Pauper cards to discuss. Will pizzas take over the meta? Is Cast Down stock at an all-time low? We chat about...
Common Ground 114: A Menu of Metagames - Pauper Data Analysis with Ryan Adams
Welcome back Pauper fam! This week we're joined by our friend Ryan Adams to discuss how to assess different metagames in Pauper using data analysis in new and creative ways. It's not just about winrate and matchups; how granular can we get when...
Common Ground 113: Organizing Your Local Pauper League with Ethan from Pauper PNW
Welcome back Pauper fam! This week Cameron and Thomas sit down with Ethan from Pauper Pacific Northwest (Pauper PNW) to chat about how we've each worked to build up our local Pauper scenes and how Pauper PNW has built out the Cascadia Pauper Ci...
Common Ground 112: Spying Some Great Results at the 3rd Common Ground Cup Pauper $2k featuring Champion Michael Modena
Welcome back Pauper fam! The 3rd Common Ground Cup is in the books and y'all showed up in a BIG way to make it the best one yet! 80 Pauper players came to do battle and win their share of $2000. Between handling coverage, watching the action, a...
Common Ground 111: CGCup 3 Pre-Show Episode featuring Tristan Aita (SoIMBAGallade)
Welcome back Pauper fam! It's Common Ground Cup time once again and we're all very excited to bring you another great event! We invited our friend Tristan Aita (SoIMBAGallade on MTGO) to join us in the commentary booth this time around so he jo...
Common Ground 110: Diving Into Pauper as a New Player with Jonathan Collins AKA Brute
Welcome back Pauper fam! This week we sat down with local friend and Discord regular Jonathan Collins (aka Brute) for a laidback discussion and storytime episode, mostly centered around Jonathan's first constructed Magic experience being compet...
Common Ground 109: there are plenty of playable pauper cards in lorwyn eclipsed
Welcome back Pauper fam! It's once again time for a new set and the bois have picked out a small selection of commons that they think might find some amount of shine in the Pauper format. Lorwyn Eclipsed looks to be a beautiful and flavorful se...
Common Ground 108: New Year, New Pauper?
Welcome back Pauper fam! This week we're solidly into 2026 which means it's time to take stock of the Pauper format to see where we're starting things off this time around. Menaces of the last year remain at the very top of the metagame but the...
Common Ground 107: Ringing in the New Year with a Pauper Mailbag
Welcome back Pauper fam! Happy New Year! To celebrate 2026 y'all showed up big time with plenty of questions for us to answer, so much so that we'll have to do another one in the near future! We hope your year is full of joy and we're incredibl...
Common Ground 106: 2025 Pauper Review with Kalikaiz
Welcome back Pauper fam! This week we invite Jake AKA Kalikaiz AKA saidenraiken on MTGO to join us once again for an end of the year review of the Pauper format, detailing the cards that stood out from each set release and how the format shifte...
Common Ground 105: Mirror Matches in Pauper
Welcome back Pauper fam! This week the boys answer an email prompt (thank you Skye!) and dive into the dynamics of mirror matches, both in terms of general heuristics and for a number of specific Pauper archetypes. We hope you enjoy this in-dep...
Common Ground 104: Eternally Grateful for Paupergeddon
Welcome back Pauper fam! This week Cameron and Hippo dissect the results from last weekend's Paupergeddon at the European Eternal Weekend. It was a diverse metagame with some splashy results and overall we think a good place for the meta to be ...
Common Ground 103: How Hasbro's Direction Led to Pauper's Renaissance with Zach Geraets
Welcome back Pauper fam! This week Cameron and Thomas sat down with returning guest (and Common Ground Cup 2 Champion) Zach Geraets to discuss how Hasbro and WotC's relationship with Magic and design has changed over the last few years and what...
Common Ground 102: Is Pauper Still "Legacy Light"? with Carson Bispels
Welcome back Pauper fam! This week we sit down with our good friend and local Legacy advocate Carson Bispels to chat about the age-old Pauper label of "Legacy Light". It's a great conversation about card and gameplay comparisons, plus insight o...