I recently built Gonti as my first PDH commander, i wanted to steal other peoples stuff while being cheap. so i did so trying to use my own cards only :P
Love to see this video pop up on my feed! Just built this deck last week and the last cards for it just arrived in the mail today, so the video’s the perfect thing to watch as I slot the last cards in!
This deck might be the only good reason to run artifact **Exile** in the format :D very sick, happy you've found your cPDH deck and that you've chosen THIS one. I've always been a believer!
Packbeast is tutorable mid-combo so that's not important and Trinket Mage's best find might be Blood Fountain. Blood Fountain also does the job of Archaeomender better in most cases so maybe Dizzy Spell could find Blood Fountain more efficiently. The biggest problem is that neither of those find Ashnod's Altar or Cranial Plating, which is the goal of every other tutor. There is the "Too Many Tutors" version of the deck that plays Archaeomancer and the Ghostly Flicker combo. I think that version does play Step Through.
Great deck tech! Already noticed your list in tournament reports. Never realized the versatility and plans BCDE. Keep the great content coming. Any videos online showing of this deck in action?
Restricting to only legends would leave only 400 commanders. Lots of commanders opens up lots of possibilities, which has proven to be good for a format's longevity. Many people build a PDH deck with a legendary commander so that they can bring their deck to their EDH pods!
pauper edh is amazing its just normal commander but more casual and accessible. since there isnt any super op cards it also forces the decks to be different and interesting and a bunch of commanders that wouldnt be legal otherwise RAHHH I LOVE PAUPER EDH
Since you are championing lesser known formats. May I taught my own favorite format. That as far as I know, is little discussed. And, it does have it's own issues of cost and the like. But, never the less. I LOVE multiplayer draft. Either Winston draft (with 3 or less players) or normal draft up to 6 players(would not recommend more players then 6). 40+ deck(just like normal sealed or draft). Normal draft rules, but after deck building, everyone plays one big game, EDH-"like"(3-4 packs per person(little expensive, time consuming, I know. AND, not exactly beginner friendly)) But it is a LOT of fun. I would suggest giving it a shot. That said, favorite pauper EDH deck would have to be my buddies Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker deck. With amazing recession engines(lol the commander).
I like pauper, but I think artisan (common and uncommon) makes it even better, that's why I play "Brawltisan" instead (very similar to artisan commander, but 25 lives and 60 cards)
in my experience if your pauper commander is more than 4 mana there's probably a better alternative cause it's a quicker format and stuff pops off earlier. you may not find a card with the same perks but 2 and 3 mana commanders will just get so much more value out of a given game. it's so important to be able to cast it ASAP especially after it gets removed since most decks will revolve around it. my favorite pdh deck is 4cmc, oji the exquisite blade, but that one is a special case cause it's disgusting. my kangee is rad too but all my other commanders are 3 or less (vampire nighthawk, shambling suit, spellheart chimera, risen reef, killian, etc)
I have 3 pauper decks. Imoti, Celebrant of Bounty is insane as a pauper commander. Dargo + Kediss "Red Deck Wins" is a fun cPDH deck. I like Khenra Charioteer just for the fun of Gruul trample in a boardwipe-less format.
Pauper EDH is a blast. Games tend to be close, politicking is still viable, and the strategy is top notch. Combat matters, interaction happens, and the busted card feel bads are kept to a minimum. Did I mention I hate Praetors? 😝
It feels more challenging and rewarding to make a budget deck or Pauper deck be consistent and have enough cohesion/synergy to form a powerful winning gameplan.
My store actually had a scene for Pauper Commander many moons ago. We found a few things that eventually caused people to leave the format: Some commanders are just straight up better than others. This was back in the day, and the issue is probably worse now. Certain cards are way above the power level of the format. We had to house ban Ulamog's Crusher and Rhystic Study, among others. It is very difficult to close out a multiplayer game, when all your cards are so weak. We found it to be a bit more engaging as a 1v1 format. I still have my (un-updated) Fleshbag Marauder and Basara Tower Archer decks. I had fun with the format, and would encourage people to try it. We also played it pre-lockdowns, and it looks to have a little more development (there was no official banlist at the time, and players were still doing 40 life).
Of of this is super interesting. Where was this? If you don't mind me asking. When I first started really grinding the format a couple years ago, my games did tend to last a very long time but as me and the people around me got better, that has died down. I feel like a lot of it was players coming from 1v1 formats that would just durdle and stay alive without finishing the game or only have non-evasive attackers to slam into one another. Competitive games end in combo, by commander damage, or by burn/pinger strategies that are hard to stop from ending the game. Only having 30 life / 16 commander now helps a lot too. Ulamog's Crusher getting banned is the most interesting part of this. Sounds like it was solving the previous problem to me. I honestly haven't seen on actually perform in my games. Fleshbag Marauder (and now Demon's Disciple) was downshifted to common before I started playing the format so I've never seen it in the command zone. We now have Legate Lanius, Caesar's Ace. I haven't seen it in a game but it looks so strong.
@@lobbert8 This was in Cali. Around 2017, 2018. (I uploaded my decks to tappedout, and that's what the timestamps say.) The top of the meta was a few decks: my Fleshbag Marauder and Bassara Tower Archer decks were pretty dangerous. Fleshbag was great because there were a lot of zombie synergy cards that let me recur it constantly. I actually tested out Plaguecrafter before people stopped playing, and the zombie synergies actually were worth having a "worse" commander. Archer of course had very specific ways you had to interact with it, and it could kill with commander damage pretty consistently. The Archer actually started as Slippery Bogle: it could either pilot the mono green build, a mono blue build, or mix them together. I switched to the archer to try and give other people more of a chance. Invisible Stalker was on the "recommended house bans" list (or whatever vague suggestions existed at the time), so no one played it. Warden of the Eye was the other top deck, and it won via infinite combo. Jeskai colors meant it had a lot of control tools to pace the game how it wanted. I daresay me and my Warden of the Eye friend ruined the format for a lot of people. But just like regular EDH, it felt pretty easy to stumble into broken stuff eventually. I also ran Jhessian Thief and Cunning Breezedancer prowess voltron, but they didn't feel terribly powerful. Same with Ascended Lawmage: it just felt too slow compared to the likes of Bogle and Archer. I was theorycrafting Bastion Protector when the format died locally, haha.
@@neverclever0 It sounds like it was a competitive event, where having something disproportionately strong is the goal. Having separate LFG rooms like the PDH Home Base discord solves some of that but I've played plenty of casual games where someone brings something that's much too strong. Decks that run more removal are better at handling a situation like that and reminding players that ganging up on someone is deserved if they're still a threat after being interacted with. Less experienced players tend to just attack whoever has the highest life total, which also exacerbates the problem. Everyone I've ever met online has been good about reigning in their power level if asked. It doesn't happen super frequently, though, and it's usually the new player bringing something that doesn't fit so people are usually quick to forgive. What I'd be most concerned about are players that feel too ganged up on in situations like that and get too upset when targeted.
@@lobbert8 My store sits on the higher end of EDH power scaling, from what out-of-towners have told me. That surely leaked in to the PDH scene. I would encourage everyone to try the format. But it just didn't last long at my store. Power level discussions and disparities are the #1 problem with EDH, and they become so much more important when your decks have limited closing power. As always, discuss it with your group, and find what works best for as many players as possible.
It seems interesting to me. What else am I going to do with all the commons I've opened? I might build a set of 5 mono colored decks just to play with friends and see if I can convince anyone to build one of their own. I do like putting interesting restrictions on deck building either way so this would make it fun.
@@lobbert8 Haven't really seen what they have to work with yet, but Aberrant, Aftermath Analyst and Armorcraft Judge all seem doable. On second thought, Aberrant might not have the tools it needs to work since you can only use commons. The other two would be a lot easier I think. That's just a couple, but with any uncommon being possible as your commander
Sivriss, Nightmare Speaker! With the background Cloakwood Hermit, I just he is such a casual commander that I can't really play at commander night due to being super weak but this format enables it to be good.
Gorex, the Tombshell.I switched to crypt rats because of gravehate. But I'm still flirting with Gorex "brother" Sailors' Bane who skilfully avoids the gravehate and comes with very good protection.
I'm curious, do you have a regular group that's adding grave hate to their decks? I plays with tons of different people and almost never see any grave hate. Even in competitive!
GORX MY BELOVED! I build a LOT of decks, and my favorites shift pretty wildly back and forth at any given time, but in the last year Gorx has *consistently* been one of the decks I grab when I'm going somewhere, every single time. I can't get enough of him. I haven't had a problem with Grave Hate. Maybe I've been really lucky?
I adore my Dargo and Keskit deck. It's $40 and almost half of that is a Lotus Petal I got for free in a promotion. Dargo can somewhat keep up with low to mid power EDH solely by virtue of how much commander damage he does.
Zada! Zada hits way above her rarity level. Wiped out a table of proper commander decks filled with mythics and rares the other night. It feels rewarding to play pauper!
The format is definitely powerful! Zada is always terrifying. I can remember many times where I'm out of removal just doing everything in my power to convince new players that their Doom Blade, just this one, NEEDS to be used at sorcery speed haha.
Zada slaps af. I used to have a pretty tuned PDH deck that I would bring to EDH games and clean up with, she's berserk. I ended up taking it apart because I never played her in PDH - folks in those games knew to just murder her immediately, and so I spent a lot of games accomplishing nothing and losing. In the last couple years, we've gotten so many outstanding Zada cards: Flick a Coin, Ancestor's Aid, Witch's Mark, Daring Discovery... I decided I wanted to rebuild Zada but I just wanted to do stupid nonsense instead of combat. So I built her with all Walls. It's a really fun way to keep her casual but still a threat.
The amount of indirect support PDH gets from commander products is good. The amount of direct support that EDH gets from WotC is a bloated mess that has increased the cost of the format and made it rotate more than standard.
I definitely agree. I keep like 15 PDH decks updated and only have to order like 5 cards a set unless there's a new staple or it's a masters / horizons product. That might cost me a couple bucks. I'm still excited for new releases because of it. I dread new sets for EDH.
the struggle is real. For a while I tried to keep up with both EDH and PDH, but then they printed the whole "free if you control your commander" cards and deflecting swat was like $30 and I just gave up. Every time I see new commander-product I get really pleased with myself for having made that call.
At first thought you were going to talk about something different (which is fine if you were, i was still interested and you can talk about what you want) thanks for being a font of info of this cool format that i am getting interested in.
Hi lobert I'm back for one last question is disciple of deceit still good In competitive pauper I mean I look at this card and I'm like oh my goodness that's busted but it also seems like a removal magnet and at the same time I don't know if it's Still a deck.
I have not seen Disciple of Deceit in any of the cPDH games I've ever played but there's a player that took it to a 1k last year and is still testing the deck. They claim some pretty consistent turn 4 combos so it still sounds good to me. In my competitive pods, I feel like people will let threats live and only try to interact when an actual combo is presented or they'll just remove a combo piece on an end step so I think it's actually pretty safe. Edicts would be my first removal concern
Love the videos! Wish you made more videos and im excited for the future! My favorite cpdh deck right now is azra oddsmaker what are you're thoughts on azra oddsmaker?
I like that the deckbuilding cost of the commander is to include evasive attackers but in competitive, attacking to win the game with creatures from the 99 has struggled to get more than a 25% win rate and there are strategies out there getting more than their share of wins (combo). I'd call it high power.
Great video, really enjoyed seeing the thought process articulated in such a fashion. One of my PDH pet decks is Tiller of Flesh, and it ties really well with your "force multipliers" opening point. Adding a 2/2 incubator to any spell that targets a creature translates into amazing value, and doubles down as extra value for commander protection spells too. I put a lot of time into making my Tiller list and in PDH you can actually feel that effort pay off. Since it's still a somewhat unexplored format, if you champion a deck an go the extra mile, it really shows, and that's one of the things I love about this format.
That sounded really interesting so I found your list on Moxfield. I like commanders like this that are an army in a can and that it compensates for white being notoriously slow at winning by having room for ALL the removal. I was not expecting such a low creature count but I love it! How does it play? I imagine that it’s mana hungry but having so many instants helps with that?
@@lobbert8 nice, I'm glad you went to look for it! The deck plays the control long game without many sources for card advantage, so you have to pick your battles. I run a somewhat high density of rocks to make sure I can cast tiller with protection asap, and start using control elements to shut down the biggest threats when needed. The deck plays a draw-go style, and if before the turn is passed to you you still have mana open, you can always hatch some pods and already swing with them on your turn, also dodging sorcery speed wipes. Pods can also be popped as chumpblockers if needed. The all that glitters downshift was huge, and you should fetch it with the two aura tutors when you want to apply pressure. Overall the deck plays the long game, and usually when it wins I'm hatching 10 pods and killing everyone. Since they aren't creatures at first, people tend to not give them as much importance. It's at its weakest weakly on, as it's really mana started, but if you draw into rocks it picks up pace well enough. Overall a pretty nice experience if you want to try mono white control!
hold up... non legendary creatures in commander? Intriguing... this allows for some bonkers rush decks lol "oh yeah turn one I'll play my commander; [Monastery Swiftspear]"
Yep! In PDH any uncommon creature can be your commander so Monastery Swiftspear could be your commander! Each player's life total starts at 30 and 16 commander damage is lethal.
I made a Pauper Zada deck to try out the format with a friend and it quickly became one of my favorite decks! Very happy to see all the different possibilities that this format has to offer.
I have 3 copies of Zada in my favorite 60 card pioneer(?) deck, Boros prowess. a [Clever Lumimancer] loves it when Zada copies a 1-drop to make everyone flying say 3 times (that's +8/+8 +flying for her) ([Leonin Lightscribe] too!) Sadly, the lumimancer is uncommon, and the leonin rare, I believe, so not great in this format.
i got a question when the ability of oji triggers, and make target to itself and "candlekeep sage" is on the battlefield when oji leave the battlefield does not trigger candlekeep sage first? example: oji ability triggers, and targets to itself, leave the battlefield, "candleekeep sage" triggers draw a card oji enters the battlefield triggering both oji and candlekeep sage in this case you put oji trigger first to gain 2 life and scry 2 and after the candlekeep trigger to draw is work like that? because i see that brad do scry 2 and drawing 2 sorry if i got it wrong and sorry for my bad english nice video! greetings from argentina
There's no place between Oji being exiled and returning for anything no go on the stack, including triggers. The 2nd spell is cast Oji targets himself Oji's ability resolves The game sees that Oji entered and 3 triggers go on the stack. 2 candlekeep sage and Oji's scry 2 + gain 2. Brad can choose to order them however he wishes because they're all going on the stack at the same time.
the youtube algorithm found me i mean, everything you said can be true and i could have found out about it myself a year ago...if it wasn't for the fact that in the pedh discord server most people want to play when it's 3 am for me because they live in NA and then the pod would be of maybe three people with me and another EU guy :/
That's rough. It's a great format. When I started, there were no games on Mondays but that was when I had free time. I've been able to get a group by planning in advance by asking for players about 6 hours in advance and using discordtimestamp.com/ to do time zone conversions for others. The other key was being really regular and letting players that were able to make it know that I did it the same time every week. I'm sure you're not the only one with the same problem
Great stuff. No notes. Okay, one note: I truly love that we have so many utility lands and that they're not always the right call, but can be in specific decks. I agree with you on Dig Site, but that card does work in decks with a ton of mana, like Risen Reef.
Hahaha, all that data up there and then there's me, a psychopath with nearly 200 online lists, putting Tapped Fetches in all my Mono-colored decks 'cause I'm a slut for Scaretiller XD This is good stuff!
Logging your data specifically made me question my parameters haha. I only grabbed your moxfield stuff. An interesting fact is that column B was “Pal?”. So I could filter you guys out because I figured you’d skew the results and I wanted to know by how much. Comparing the graphs before and after I removed you, the graphs looked almost unchanged, which is why it’s not mentioned in the video.
I'm only 5 minutes in and I'm genuinely scandalized that Crystal Grotto and Tocasia's Dig Site are coming out of decks. They're the first two cards I add to decks. I think they're both outstanding. I only cut them when my mana-color needs are extreme, like in 3- or 5-color.
Great video and great insights! There's a ton of statements all over online magic communities touting how much mana you lose out on by playing taplands, but my observation is that this is really only true for decks that consistently need to curve out. If your deck doesn't curve out, it's pretty easy to have a tapland, sometimes two, played by T5/6 without slowing yourself down. The other side of the coin is how often you are scrambling the last 2/3 turns to dig for an extra card that you need, and cycling lands and spheres do a great job of providing that. If you aren't playing against T3-5 combo wins, I usually recommend running 4 cycling lands or spheres. I feel like those lands have saved games for me about equally as often as the tap lands have hurt me, so it just feels like a matter of personal preference for me, not a matter of what is better or worse. The other important part of this conversation is the risk of being a little behind (tapland on a turn you needed to curve out) vs the risk of being out of the game for several turns (if you don't have your colors). My usual rule of thumb is wanting 20+ lands that could provide each color in the deck (so in an orzhov deck, at least 20 lands that can provide black or fetch a swamp). Think about how often you've seen a Gretchen Titchwillow deck mull to a small hand and have trouble finding their colors. So both of the above reasons contribute to me consistently being towards the top of the "how many taplands are in your decks" scale. In a 2-color deck, I think I usually end up with 7-10 taplands, occasionally going higher. I love the data gathering part of this episode! The only potential stumbling block I see is that many of the in-person tournaments have drawn a lot of players that were newer to the format, and that demographic is much more likely to have a 35-basics-and-a-Command-Tower style of mana base, just because they aren't familiar with the options and the mana base was treated as an afterthought. I could see that skewing your data for organized play even lower than optimized decks would cause.
The average number of tapped lands in organized play was 6.9 but if you exclude in-person tournaments, the average fell to 5.8 so you're absolutely right about that. Before finishing this script, I reduced my tapped land count in my decks because of what I learned and in my test games that followed, I've still had access to my colors so I wanted to focus on getting people to play a faster manabase. You're right that you can get away with a lot more tapped lands in games that go longer. I briefly mentioned in the vid that I found that slower decks with lots of interaction tended to have more tapped lands but it does bear repeating because I only devoted like 1 sentence to that 😅. I will say that in competitive, I'd rather be on the deck curving out and winning quickly than a midrange or control deck trying to have the answers while developing with tapped lands so I'll admit that bias in my writing.
Great video. Did I understand correctly you’d argue against playing astrolabe in TPI? I’d say it’s the archetypical deck for astrolabe: just another easy to cast cheap cantrip that triggers TPI, synergises with skred and galblast, triggers several pingers, fixes for a color-intensive deck that wants to play untapped lands. Also provides fodder for demand answers and taps with moonscape prototype. Provides affinity for thoughtcast etc. Synergizes with over 20 cards. I never leave home without astrolabe in TPI.
When I made this video, authorities on the deck were off of it in TPI. A few more of them are playing it now. I was more trying to make a point that some lists are really tight and may not have room but even in a super tight list like that, I think you're right about it being color intensive so it probably even goes in there.
