Pauper January 2026 Recap: Meta Trends, Sideboard Staples, Lorwyn Eclipsed Impact
January 2026 gave Pauper a nice mix of stability and fresh testing. The big decks stayed on top, but Lorwyn Eclipsed still managed to sneak a few new tools into early lists. In this recap, we will use MTGO Challenge and League data from PauperBrews to break down what people played, what actually performed, and what trends are worth watching next.
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How This January 2026 Recap Was Built
Data for this recap comes from these PauperBrews dashboards for Jan 1st 2026 - Jan 31st 2026.
With that out of the way, let’s take a look at what January told us.
The January 2026 Pauper Snapshot
At a high level, Pauper has stayed mostly the same since the [card]High Tide[/card] ban on November 10, 2025.
Midrange has a bit more room to breathe, but as the meta keeps evolving, a few decks are clearly solidifying at the top, and the numbers back that up. The big surprise for me is Elves. It is not just doing well; it is fighting for a top-three spot again. Let’s dig into the data.
The most played decks in MTGO Challenges
The clear top five right now is Mono-Blue Terror in first place, followed by Elves, Grixis Affinity, Mono-Red Madness, and Jund Wildfire.
It is easy to see why Mono-Blue Terror and Elves are leading the pack. Terror is the deck that stays solid against almost everything. At the same time, Elves holds its own against Grixis Affinity and Jund Wildfire, and it has a genuinely strong matchup against Mono-Blue Terror. The big serpents have a hard time pushing through the wall of bodies, and once [card]Wellwisher[/card] plus [card]Quirion Ranger[/card] starts looping, racing becomes really awkward.
So why is Mono-Blue Terror still number one anyway? Because it stays competitive across the field. Post-board, it can devote up to eight slots to shutting down red decks, and it backs that up with enough countermagic to fight midrange plans like Grixis Affinity and Jund Wildfire. Sure, a huge [card]Writhing Chrysalis[/card] can be annoying to punch through, but that is exactly the kind of problem [card]Sleep of the Dead[/card] is there to solve.
Jund Wildfire and Grixis Affinity can still set up their [card]Krark-Clan Shaman[/card] turns with [card]Toxin Analysis[/card], but you can lean on [card]Hydroblast[/card] in those matchups, especially since you are already bringing it in to fight cards like [card]Pyroblast[/card].
Outside of the top decks, the meta still feels wide, and you can see that in the finals over time. Different archetypes keep rotating into the spotlight:
Feb 01: Caw-Gates vs Mono-Blue Faeries
Jan 30: Mono-White Heroic vs Mono-Blue Terror
Jan 29: Dimir Faeries vs Grixis Affinity
That kind of variety is a good sign for overall metagame health. At the same time, if someone says blue still feels pushed, that is a completely reasonable take.
What Pauper Leagues Said First
Leagues are a similar beast, but with one notable twist: the most played deck there is Mono-Red Madness.
That tracks, because fast decks usually have an edge in leagues. Still, the rest of the list looks familiar. Elves sits in second, Mono-Blue Terror is right there with a similar trophy count, and Jund Wildfire follows close behind in fourth.
On the pilot side, January also gave us some new 2026 names near the top of the trophy leaderboard. First place is Huskyman20035 with 11 trophies, followed by saidinn.raken, True-Name-Nemesis, and Boquinha. From that group, Husky looks like the most diverse pilot, while the other three tend to stick to a tighter set of archetypes. What stands out, though, is that none of them are simply farming trophies by spamming Mono-Blue Terror, so this is not just one deck inflating a leaderboard.
If you want the safest league picks right now, Mono-Red Madness and Elves are the obvious starting points. That said, decks like Caw-Gates and Jund Wildfire still look like strong options too, since they keep putting up results across multiple pilots, not just one specialist.
Of course, leagues also contain the rogue end of the format. I would not overreact and dedicate narrow sideboard slots just for those decks, but you do want to keep them in the back of your mind so you do not get blindsided. That is just the nature of league data.
One more note from the short-term trend view: in the last five days, Grixis Affinity and Ruby Storm have both ticked up in popularity, while Elves has dipped to a more normal share.
That does not mean Elves is going anywhere, but it does suggest your sideboard should respect those rising decks. If that means finding room for a seventh or eighth [card]Hydroblast[/card] effect for the next week, that is not crazy.
Lorwyn Eclipsed Pauper Early Impact
As usual, a new set release creates a short window where everyone tests new toys, and Lorwyn Eclipsed already has a few cards showing up in real lists.
[cards]{{Burning Curiosity}}[/cards]
The first one is [card]Burning Curiosity[/card] in Ruby Storm.
Seeing one more card than [card]Wrenn’s Resolve[/card] is a big deal in a deck that lives and dies on velocity, and the fact that you can pair it with [card]Goblin Anarchomancer[/card] makes it even cleaner to deploy.
[cards]{{Goldmeadow Nomad}}[/cards]
Another early card is [card]Goldmeadow Nomad[/card] in a newer brew that looks like a twist on Selesnya Caw-Gates.
It is basically acting like extra copies of [card]Sacred Cat[/card], just without lifelink, and that matters because it lets the deck lean harder into a dedicated self-mill plan without running out of resources. Even better, it can help you assemble the [card]Basilisk Gate[/card] package faster.
[cards]{{Midnight Tilling}}[/card]
That same shell is also testing [card]Midnight Tilling[/card]. Even as a one-of, it fits the theme, and it plays nicely with what the deck is already trying to do.
One thing I like about Gates shells in general is how flexible the sideboard can be. If you are willing to run off-color cards, you can experiment with tools like [card]Pyroblast[/card] and [card]Hydroblast[/card] depending on how you tune the mana and the numbers. With the right tweaks, I could see this deck becoming a real addition to the format.
Card Trends From the Staples Dashboard
If you are wondering what the most played cards are right now, here is the quick story the Staples data is telling.
Seeing three blue cards and two red cards in the top five should not be surprising, since Mono-Blue Terror and Mono-Red Madness are two of the most represented decks. The staples reflect that reality: the most common cards are the ones that either make those decks work, or are the tools everyone else needs to fight them.
January Pauper FAQ
What was the best Pauper deck in January 2026?
Mono-Blue Terror looked like the best overall deck. It held the top spot in MTGO Challenges, and the reason is simple: it stayed strong across the field. Even though Elves can line up well into it, Terror still had a solid game against most other top decks, plus it could lean on sideboard plans like heavy [card]Hydroblast[/card] packages to swing red matchups and fight through midrange interaction.
What was the most-played Pauper deck in January 2026?
In MTGO Challenges, Mono-Blue Terror was the most played deck in the top five. In Leagues, Mono-Red Madness was the most played deck. That actually makes sense as a story: Challenges show the top competitive pillar, while Leagues reward speed and efficiency, so a deck like Mono-Red Madness naturally shows up more often there.
Did Lorwyn Eclipsed change Pauper?
Not in a massive, format-flipping way, at least not yet. What it did do was add a few early tools that people immediately started testing inside existing shells, with cards like [card]Burning Curiosity[/card], [card]Goldmeadow Nomad[/card], and [card]Midnight Tilling[/card] being the one seeing play so far.
What sideboard cards were most important in January 2026?
If you were building a sideboard in January 2026, the message was clear: be ready for red, be ready for blue, and do not overthink it.
[card]Hydroblast[/card] was the MVP because it solves a lot of problems at once. It is great against red aggro, and it also answers annoying red cards in slower matchups, especially stuff like [card]Pyroblast[/card]. And that was a big theme this month. The whole blast package, [card]Pyroblast[/card], [card]Blue Elemental Blast[/card], and [card]Red Elemental Blast[/card], was everywhere. That usually means you are going to play a lot of blue decks and a lot of counterspell battles, so people wanted cheap, clean ways to win those fights.
The rest of the top sideboard cards looked like a simple checklist. Need a way to survive burn and big spell turns? [card]Weather the Storm[/card]. Need to keep graveyards under control? [card]Relic of Progenitus[/card] and [card]Faerie Macabre[/card]. Need answers for artifacts? [card]Annul[/card] and [card]Cast into the Fire[/card]. And if you want to stop a combo or control plan before it starts, [card]Duress[/card] is still one of the best ways to do it.
Wrap Up
As things stand right now, Pauper feels like a much more enjoyable format than it was when [card]High Tide[/card] was legal. I also like PFP taking another look at cards that are already banned. My only tweak would be to not let the experiments run for too long.
What do you think? Does Pauper need a change, or an unban? Let me know in the comments.
If you enjoyed this kind of monthly recap, let me know, and I can do one every month.
Thanks for reading. Take care, and I will see you next time.
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