Table of Contents
Pauper Commander is a format where any uncommon creature can be your commander, and the 99 has to be cards that have a common rarity printing. Thanks to these rules, there are countless possibilities for decks. These range from competitive decks that want to win fast, or decks that just use an uncommon creature you enjoy. They don’t even have to be legendary, opening the door for many more options compared to traditional Commander.
This opens the door for a lot of Pauper Commander fun. Since there are so many options, you can do all sorts of fun and silly things. You can build decks that use uncommon tokens, or a deck made out of creature types that don’t usually go together. These decks that will be gone over in this article aren’t necessarily about being optimized, but rather about having fun.
Singe-Creature Decks
These two decks are ones that are built around one creature, more specifically, your commander. The two decks here will play very differently, but your commander is at the center of them both. The fun from these decks comes from their uniqueness, less because of their power.
Cascade Voltron (Kathari Remnant)
Cascade and Voltron are two archetypes that don’t really go together. That doesn’t mean you can’t force it, though! Kathari Remnant is a card that isn’t too special, but it cascades when you cast it, and can regenerate itself to keep itself protected. The idea of the deck is to bounce it back to your hand with cards like Unsummon to cascade into Equipment like Vorrac Battlehorns.
In many cases, your creatures are unblockable or pseudo-unblockable. This makes them great targets for the Equipment your cascading into. Dauthi Horror often won’t be able to be blocked unless an opponent happens to have a creature with shadow, which is unlikely. Changeling Outcast sacrifices its ability to block to make itself unblockable. Phantom Warrior is more costly, but comes with guranteed unblockable while still being able to block itself.
You can get a lot of guaranteed damage, making the initiative and monarch very useful. Aarakocra Sneak is the best at enabling the initiative, with Trailblazer's Torch being a good Equipment at doing that too. For monarch, you have Thorn of the Black Rose and Canal Courier to get that going.
A sample decklist can be viewed below. The deck can be clunky, but it’s more about the fun novelty of using your Voltron commander as a cascade tool instead of just combat.
Commander
Creatures (25)
Instants (18)
Sorceries (1)
Artifacts (19)
Lands (34)
100 Cards
$49.74
Investigative Journalism (Shao Jun)
When it comes to Shao Jun, the best way to play it is as a Treasure commander. However, that’s too easy; this is about Pauper Commander fun, not optimization! So instead, this build utilizes other kinds of tokens, primarily Clue tokens. This makes cards like Secrets of the Key and Ceremonial Knife very strong as ways to keep getting tokens onto the battlefield.
Many of the creatures in the deck are ones that create a token when they enter or deal damage. If you can get Belligerent Guest to deal combat damage consistently, you can keep making Blood tokens. Forecasting Fortune Teller makes a Clue just by entering the battlefield.
Some artifacts just stick around on the battlefield to tap with Shao Jun‘s effect. Volatile Wanderglyph is the most useful as it lets you discard and draw a card to dig through your deck. You can utilize Relic of Progenitus as graveyard hate, or if graveyards don’t matter, as burn damage with your commander. Any of the tokens you make are meant to stick around on the battlefield, not actually be used. All these tokens can be made into extra burn damage with Reckless Fireweaver.
A sample decklist can be viewed below. While the deck can still be powerful, it’s not fully optimized. It’s more about the fun novelty of making tokens without actually wanting to use them.
Commander
Creatures (25)
Instants (13)
Sorceries (11)
Artifacts (19)
Lands (30)
100 Cards
$87.5
Tribal Decks
These decks are ones that are focused on one specific creature type. The two commanders that will be gone over here aren’t common, and instead favor creature types that don’t usually see much focus in Pauper Commander. So don’t expect to see something like Elves or Demons here!
Another Brick in the Wall (Wingmangle Chaplain)
Walls are an old creature type that later just turned into the defender ability (though Walls still exist). These creatures can only block, not attack. The trade-off is that they usually have high toughness to make it hard to break through your defenses. Wingmantle Chaplain provides a 1/1 token each time a defender enters. Angelic Wall or Fortified Rampart aren’t going to do much on their own. Instead, they power up your battlefield with Birds.
You want creatures with defender to constantly be entering. To help, there are various blink cards to exile them and bring them back. Ephemerate is the best one, as you get two for the price of one. Scrollshift is a bit more mana, but you also get card draw out of it. Even though they can’t attack, Otherworldly Journey brings it back with a +1/+1 counter to make them better blockers.
You can take advantage of various cards. Fortified Area gives all your Walls banding, so get out the textbook to explain how banding works to your friends. Banding lets all your Walls block together and divide combat damage taken amongst them all. Wall of One Thousand Cuts is one of the few Walls in Pauper Commander that can actually attack. With Basilica Guards, you can turn your spells into some burn damage and lifegain with extort.
A sample decklist can be viewed below. Since your creatures can’t actually attack, you’re quite literally a wall of defenses, attacking with your Bird tokens instead.
Commander
Creatures (36)
Instants (19)
Artifacts (4)
100 Cards
$60.88
Clerical Error (Edgewalker)
When you think of Tribal decks, Clerics aren’t a creature type that often comes to mind. In Pauper Commander, you have Edgewalker as an option, which discounts all your Cleric spells. While you can’t discount generic mana costs, you can discount colored costs. So one-mana spells like Anointed Chorister and Blood Celebrant are completely free to cast.
Clerics have a lot of lifegain synergy. A lot of your spells are going to have a steep discount, if not be free, so you can easily flood the battlefield. This enables cards like Soul Warden and Soul's Attendant to gain you a ton of life. You can convert that lifegain into burn damage with Marauding Blight-Priest and Epicure of Blood.
You can take advantage of how many Clerics you’ll have on the battlefield. Your creature can be converted into burn and lifegain with Harsh Sustenance and Profane Prayers. For removal, you can utilize Pack's Disdain. There is a surprising amount of recursion thanks to Aphetto Dredging, Misery Charm, and Raise the Draugr.
A sample decklist can be viewed below. Clerics provide a different kind of Tribal playstyle for a unique blend of Pauper Commander fun.
Commander
Creatures (47)
Instants (8)
Sorceries (5)
Artifacts (5)
Enchantments (1)
Lands (34)
100 Cards
$60.42
Miscellaneous Decks
These two decks don’t quite fit into any broad theme like the other ones in this article. Nonetheless, they are still great at providing some Pauper Commander fun. These take advantage of various mechanics in order to blend various archetypes together or have the novelty of playing a Commander staple as your commander.
Merciless Madness (Merciless Javelineer)
This deck runs Merciless Javelineer as its commander, but encapsulates all sorts of themes. The commander provides you a discard outlet, which powers up madness cards such as Alms of the Vein to be cast at a discount. There is also a cycling subtheme in order to trigger cards such as Drannith Stinger.
There is quite a lot of discarding going on in the deck, whether from your commander or from cycling. Many cards care about this, including Grisly Survivor, Horror of the Broken Lands, and Magmakin Artillerist. All of these cards help to bring the deck together, so you don’t have to rely on just your commander.
Your graveyard is often going to be filled with various cards. This makes it easy to turn threshold on. Cabal Initiate gets a nice stat boost, Dirty Wererat gains some stats and loses its ability to block, but can regenerate itself easily by discarding cards. You can also use your graveyard to delve creatures such as Gurmag Angler or to cast Chitin Gravestalker at a discount.
A sample decklist can be viewed below. There are a lot of moving parts and mechanics in the deck, but that’s what makes it so much fun! It’s like a little history lesson on Magic’s various keyword abilities.
Commander
Creatures (38)
Instants (8)
Sorceries (12)
Artifacts (11)
Enchantments (1)
Lands (30)
100 Cards
$55.07
The Lab Man (Laboratory Maniac)
Most players who have played traditional Commander know about Laboratory Maniac. It’s a very common win condition for various combo decks that play out their entire deck (either by milling or comboing to draw it all). But, in Pauper Commander, you can have some real fun with it by using it as your commander. There aren’t many infinite mill combos, but there is Persistent Petitioners, which has 30 of them in the deck to mill a ton of your deck.
There aren’t actually a ton of unique creatures in the deck; all of them just help you mill your deck more. Deranged Assistant is a mana dork that mills a card when you activate it. Sage's Row Denizen lets you mill two cards whenever any blue creature enters. Since you’re in Mono-Blue, that’s all your creatures. Drowner Initiate lets you pay a mana when you play Blue spells to mill.
To help get through your deck quicker, you play a decent bit of draw power. Frantic Search is essentially free since you untap lands after you play it. You can draw a ton of cards with Distant Melody by naming Advisor with a lot of Persistent Petitioners on the field. Treasure Cruise can usually be cast for just one Blue mana thanks to delve.
A sample decklist can be viewed below. Winning with Laboratory Maniac isn’t easy in Pauper Commander, but you don’t do it because it’s easy; you do it because it’s fun.
Commander
Creatures (34)
Instants (16)
Sorceries (10)
Artifacts (4)
Lands (34)
100 Cards
$116.64
Pauper Commander Fun Over Winning
The fun of Pauper Commander is getting weird and experimental with your commander. Fun is ultimately subjective, and your version of fun might be playing optimal builds that push cPDH (competitive Pauper Commander). At the same time, another definition may be doing goofy stuff just because it’s possible. You don’t have to build a deck of all Defenders, but it’s novel. Alternatively, if you want something more “structured, you can still take novel ideas like Voltron and add some cascade spice into it.
Ultimately, at the end of the day, Pauper Commander is all about having fun. It’s not just about winning, even if you do find winning fun. With Pauper Commander fun, it comes in the deckbuilding. The decks that were gone over here were all incredibly fun to come up with and build. That is where a lot of the fun comes from in Pauper Commander, the deckbuilding. There are countless options for the number of uncommon creatures there are, so you’ll never run out of deck ideas to make.
In Conclusion
Pauper Commander fun comes in all kinds of flavors. Whether you like decks built around funky creature types or “keyword soup” decks that have all different kinds of mechanics inside, there is something for you.
With every set, there are so many new options that Pauper Commander constantly gets injected into the formats. After all, commons and uncommons have the largest number of cards in each set. So, it really is the format where the fun never ends. You’re never going to run out of decks to build because the options are never going to stop coming.
