(Way to go, those who championed it, pat yourselves on the back!) Before the official filter, Pauper was played casually as essentially "any online card that showed up as common in the deck editor." Wizards more or less adopted this stance when they added the filter, but has never paid that much attention to it
The second ability keeps your hand stocked with fresh rats to bring out, which helps make any deck that uses Ashcoat more consistent
Poison does no damage: Poison is a what is called a "Special Condition" in the TCG, along with Burn, Confusion, Paralysis, and Sleep
Crashing Wave is here as an enabler that grants three stun counters to lot's of creatures at once
Clarke, Terry Pratchett, and many other authors
2024-06-07 Starting with the next opponent in turn order (or, if you cast Flare of Malice on an opponent's turn, starting with the opponent whose turn it is) and proceeding in turn order, each opponent chooses a creature or planeswalker with the greatest mana value among creatures and planeswalkers they control to sacrifice
