Magic: The Gathering's Commander Legends: Battle For Baldur's Gate is the second rendition of the Commander Legends lineup, first released in 2020. While the set has a Commander focus, some of the cards it includes will be legal in the Pauper format.
Pauper is Magic: The Gathering's all-common format. Every card from any legal set (non-acorn) is playable so long as it was printed at the common rarity. Commander Legends: Battle For Baldur's Gate has a hefty number of cards that can make a splash in the Pauper format. Some will boost up already powerful archetypes, while others may give weaker archetypes the cards they need to push themselves to the top of the metagame.
10 Summon Undead
Reanimator is a deck that hasn't been able to break into the top of the metagame. However, Summon Undead can help bring it up to make it a stronger threat. Reanimator decks put powerful creatures into the graveyard and revive them to get around their large casting costs.
Summon Undead does cost a bit of mana, but the important part of its effect is the self-mill. With it, you can alter the cards on the top of your deck, and ensure that you will have a target to use for Summon Undead in your graveyard.
9 Ingenious Artillerist
Ingenious Artillerist is a support card for artifact decks, which one of the best decks in Pauper, Affinity, happens to be. Whenever one or more artifacts enter the battlefield under your control, it deals damage equal to the number of artifacts to your opponent.
Ingenious Artillerist will help you to get closer to closing games out. There are many powerful artifacts in the Pauper format, allowing for easy triggers of Ingenious Artillerist's abilities. In a deck like affinity, these artifacts will build up your affinity count, all while burning the opponent with Ingenious Artillerist to speed the game up.
8 Cloakwood Swarmkeeper
Cloakwood Swarmkeeper is a fantastic card for any deck that can build up a lot of tokens. Whenever any token enters the battlefield, Cloakwood Swarmkeeper will give itself a +1/+1 counter. It only costs one mana as well, making it easy to build up counters early in the game.
In addition to that, Cloakwood Swarmkeeper is an Elf, which is one of the best tribal decks in Pauper. There are Elf cards that make tokens when you play another Elf, like Lys Alana Huntmaster, and this allows Cloakwood Swarmkeeper to build up counters to make your battlefield get out of hand quickly.
7 Breath Weapon
Breath Weapon has brought along another board wipe-like card, which is very limited in Pauper. It shares a very similar effect with Fiery Cannonade, but instead of dealing two damage to every non-Pirate creature, it deals two damage to every non-Dragon creature instead.
In many cases for Pauper, Breath Weapon is better as there are more Pirates in the meta compared to Dragons. You can even play both cards together, to allow for two playsets of different sweepers. For control decks, as well as side decks that run red, Breath Weapon will surely become a staple.
6 Vicious Battlerager
Taking the initiative is very similar to monarch, which is one of the strongest archetypes in Pauper. Being able to mix the two together could become a formidable threat thanks to cards like Vicious Batterager.
When it enters the battlefield, you take the initiative. When it becomes blocked, the defending player loses five life, and since in Pauper you only have 20 life, the opponent often can't afford to block it often. As you progress through the Undercity dungeon, Vicious Battlerager will become even stronger, and be able to deal massive damage without even needing its effect.
5 Flaming Fist Officer
Flaming Fist Officer is a fantastic choice for white creature-based decks, such as white weenies. Whenever another creature leaves the battlefield, Flaming Fist Officer will get a +1/+1 counter. White decks can easily flood the field with creatures, allowing for an aggressive monowhite deck to become part of the metagame.
Flaming Fist Officer only costs three mana to cast, allowing it to hit the battlefield quickly and start building up power early in the game. It becomes a threat that has to be dealt with before anything else, as removing something else will only make Flaming Fist Officer stronger.
4 Arms Of Hadar
Cards like Fiery Cannonade are already staples in the Pauper format, and Arms Of Hadar is a stronger version than that. For four mana, all creatures an opponent controls will get -2/-2 until the end of turn.
Unlike other wipe effects in Pauper, Arms Of Hadar will only affect one player instead of both. This makes it one-sided, and the fact it minuses stats as opposed to doing damage means it gets around indestructible effects as well. Arms Of Hadar will have a spot in any deck that runs black, as it will shut down plenty of small, fast aggro decks.
3 Kenku Artificer
Kenku Artificer is a fantastic card for decks that run a lot of artifacts. When Kenku Artificer enters the battlefield, it will put three +1/+1 counters on a noncreature artifact to make it an artifact creature with flying.
Many artifacts do nothing on the battlefield, but are played for their effects, such as Ichor Wellspring. Kenku Artificer will make them into threatening creatures in the air that can start swinging in for damage. They're also still artifacts, allowing them to be used as they would normally and counting towards an affinity count for extra flexibility.
2 Mold Folk
While sacrifice decks are not making waves in the current Pauper metagame, Mold Folk may be just what the archetype needs. It has a base power and toughness of 1/1, but by paying one mana and sacrificing a creature or artifact, it will get a +1/+1 counter.
Mold Folk comes with lifelink as well, allowing you to keep your life total up. With cards like Body Dropper from Streets Of New Capenna, Rakdos Sacrifice is looking like it'll be a deck to look out for in the future Pauper metagame.
1 Greatsword Of Tyr
Monowhite Heroic is one of the strongest archetypes in Pauper, and Greatsword Of Tyr makes it even better. It does cost one white and one generic to cast, and a further one white mana to equip, but will make whatever it's equipped to a massive threat.
When the creature equipped with Greatsword Of Tyr attacks, it will get a +1/+1 counter on it, and make a creature your opponent controls unable to block. Since Heroic decks are built around stacking up the power on creatures, this makes Greatsword of Tyr a fantastic addition to the archetype.
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