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
135 episodes
Common Ground 134: Information Cascades in Pauper
Welcome back Pauper fam! As folks prepare for PauperGenesis and PauperGeddon this coming weekend, it's important to discern what the truth of your preparation and process is based on. To help with this, we revisit the classic Patrick Chapin art...
Common Ground 133: Where Do We Bow From Here? Pauper Ban Chat with Jonathan Collins (aka Brute)
Welcome back Pauper fam! Seeker of Skybreak is banned! What does this mean for the Pauper format? We invited Alum of the Pod Brute back on the show to discuss how the Naya Bow deck felt after his recent (and only possible) tournament win with t...
Common Ground 132: The Combat Phase with Judge Austin Walker
Welcome back Pauper fam! This week we invited Alum of the Pod and CGCup Head Judge Austin Walker back onto the show to dig into the intricacies of the Combat phase and the many steps and priority passings contained within. It's a great refreshe...
Common Ground 131: Marvel Pauper Spoilers, ASSEMBLE!
Welcome back Pauper fam! It's spoiler time once again and this time Marvel's Superheroes have joined the Pauper fray. Are we hyped about more tacky UB cards in the format? Not particularly. Will a number of them lead to some new and innovative ...
Common Ground 130: Pauper Questions from The Notorious E.L.L.I.O.T.
Welcome back Pauper fam! This week, we catch up with a handful of emails from our most frequent emailer Elliot! He has some good thinkers for us that lead into some fun discussions and general nonsense. Also some brief chat about the new Hawkey...
Common Ground 129: Elves Deep Dive & PauperGenesis Jeskai Testing with Derrick Smith
Welcome back Pauper fam! This week, Derrick Smith returns for another very fun episode where we dive into the Elves deck, how it works, and how to play against it. We also dig into Thomas' testing with the new version of Jeskai Ephemerate and d...
Common Ground 128: A Vacation's Worth of Pauper Challenges featuring Cube Weekend 2026 Stories
Welcome back Pauper fam! We just got back (for Cameron, within hours) from our annual Cube Weekend and have some catching up to do with the past weekend's Pauper events! Will Infect stick around? How many "Manaliths" is Jeskai playing now? Lots...
Common Ground 127: Bonders Rejoice!
Welcome back Pauper fam! Bonder's Ornament is unbanned! Will it finally propel Tron to the top of the metagame? Will the midrange/control decks pick up a singleton copy? James and Cameron discuss these points alongside a quick review of the rec...
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...