Eternal Masters and Pauper

Eternal Masters is a blessing for Pauper players. Two major things happened. There were reprints of very expensive cards making Pauper much easier to afford and there were 27 cards that were shifted to common rarity. Lets have a look.

The reprints
Firebolt, Innocent Blood, Pyroblast, Hydroblast and, most notably, Daze will now all crash in price and be very affordable to Pauper players.

There were more reprints than this of course but they were already at bulk prices and will not seriously impact the affordability of the format. An example of this would be the KTK dual lands.

On the other hand, that makes the non-reprinted cards shoot up in price, especially as there are no pre-Modern flashback drafts in 2016. These include cards like Snap, Gorilla Shaman, Lotus Petal and Crypt Rats.

The new commons
Some of these will, naturally, make zero impact on the format. This is the default state for any card in Pauper. The card pool is massive. The surprise this time is that there are so many cards that will, in fact, make an impact.

Desperate Ravings: If combo decks

Elite Vanguard: A 2/1 for 1 mana that helps an already established deck (White Weenie). It also enables Soldier Tribal with War Falcon. I think this will see play. Elite Vanguard is probably a stronger card than Kird Ape in Pauper.

Kird Ape: While a 2/3 for 1 mana seems good there are no dual lands that are forests that can support this little guy. Wild Nacatl has made a very small impact on the format and I expect Kird Ape to make even less. There is very little to cut for this in a Domain Zoo list. Kird Ape would go best in a two-color aggro deck and those are a classic trap in Pauper. The mana base is just not there to support two-color aggro decks when the single color aggro decks are so extremely good in the format.

Night's Whisper: This is the most impactful of the downshifted cards. This enables MBC to play more than four Sign in Bloods. It also enables XB control decks to have access to the same two-mana card drawing power as MBC used to have. I am fairly sure this will be the most played card from EMA in Pauper.

Nimble Mongoose: A 3/3 for 1 mana with Shroud is much more impactful than a 2/3 for 1 mana. If a card sees play in Legacy it will probably see play in Pauper. I even think this makes UG Delver decks possible.

Peregrine Drake: This does make Familiars a viable deck again. Maybe the five mana cost is balancing enough but I fear that the non-interactive menace is back once again - until this card gets banned in Pauper. Make no mistake - this is worse than Cloud of Faeries. The only question is: How much worse?

Rally the Peasants: Being able to give your horde two extra power twice has to be respected. Having to include red is not fun, though.

Yavimaya Enchantress: The fact that non-aura enchantments work with this can be important.