Hey everyone! It’s time for another Midweek Magic, and this week’s event has plenty of people excited to jam some games. That’s because we’re getting Historic Pauper, which means your wildcards are safe.
Outside of the recently completed Historic Pauper Challenge, the format has a dedicated community with multiple Discord servers devoted to it. That means there’s already an established metagame, so I didn’t have to spend a ton of time theorycrafting this week. I also tried to feature decks we didn’t recommend the last time this event came around—with one exception. If you want even more options, you can check out those previous deck lists here.
Some of the deck lists may show cards as rarities other than common, but every card included is available as a common on MTG Arena.
I know what you’re really here for, so I’ll stop rambling and let you get to the deck lists after a quick look at the event details.
Event Details
Bring a 60-card Historic deck that contains only commons and basic lands. Look for some common ground with all those cards you’ve drafted and build something new!
Find out more details about this and upcoming Midweek Magic events HERE.
Duration: July 28th, 2026 @ 2:00 PM PST to July 30th, 2026 @ 2:00 PM PST
Format: Historic Pauper
Entry Fee: Free
Ends After: You can play as much as you like for the duration of the event.
I know you were probably expecting some mono-red pile, but Rakdos Madness takes over as the format’s premier burn deck. The plan is simple: discard cards so you can cast them for their cheaper Madness costs while burning your opponent out as quickly as possible.
If you’re looking to get through your games in a hurry, you definitely won’t be mad about playing this one.
Do you enjoy treating Magic like a game of solitaire? Then Boggles is the deck for you. The plan is simple: stick a cheap hexproof creature, pile on a stack of Auras, and turn it into an unstoppable monster.
Meanwhile, your opponent gets to sit there staring at a hand full of removal, wishing any of it actually did something.
While it may not be quite as cool as the Squirrel Storm version, this build is arguably the stronger deck. The goal is to chain together a bunch of spells before casting First Day of Class and Empty the Warrens, giving your army of Goblins haste so they can end the game on the spot.
Sometimes the deck does absolutely nothing, but when the right storm (see what I did there?) brews up, it can produce some truly absurd turns.
As a bonus, you even get to play with cards like Frantic Search, which is banned in Historic but perfectly legal in Historic Pauper.
This is the only deck making a return from the last Historic Pauper event article, although this is a different build, so you could easily play either version.
White Weenie has been a staple archetype for decades, and Historic Pauper gives it plenty of powerful commons to work with. If you’ve ever wanted to flood the board with an army of Inspectors and overwhelm your opponent before they can get set up, this deck is right up your alley.
I’m taking zero credit for this one. I found it on one of the Historic Pauper Discord servers from TheDraftBrewery, and it was such a unique take on the archetype that I had to include it.
Between the eight mana dorks and Generous Ent, you don’t have to devote much of your mana base to producing black or blue mana while still getting access to some incredibly powerful splash cards. It’s a clever bit of deckbuilding that gives you the best of both worlds without sacrificing consistency.
Josh is a member of the elite limited team The Draft Lab as well as the host of The Draft Lab Podcast. He was qualifying for Pro Tours, Nationals, and Worlds literally before some of you were born. After a Magic hiatus to play poker and go to medical school, he has been dominating Arena with over an 80% win percentage in Bo3 as well as making #1 rank in Mythic.
