Pauper Commander has a giant pool of available commanders. There are multiple strong commanders in Mono Red, with one of the best being Alexios, Deimos of Kosmos. While you can run any uncommon creature as a commander, this one is still using a legendary one. Its playstyle is very unique in the sphere of PDH, and offers an Aggro style that no other deck can quite replicate. This guide will go over card choices and how to pilot the deck to victory.
If you’re new to Pauper Commander and want more information about the format, check out our full overview of PDH here!
The Commander
Alexios, Deimos of Kosmos leads the deck. It is a card that you want to get onto the battlefield as quickly as possible. The earlier you can slap it down, the better. If you get it down early, your opponents won’t have blockers for it, and it’ll cascade into 5, 6, and then 7 damage to someone. And once it comes back to you, it’ll be an 8/8 with trample.
The reason the deck is so powerful is how Alexios works with commander damage. Commander damage is attached to the commander itself, not the player who owns it. So, if Opponent A attacks Opponent B with Alexios and deals 6 damage to them, they only need to take 10 more damage from anyone else controlling Alexios to lose the game through commander damage.
This is why it’s vital to get Alexios, Deimos of Kosmos onto the battlefield fast. It’s very possible to get it onto the battlefield as early as turn 1 with a great opening, and it can steal games out from everyone’s noses. Since it can’t attack you, you just have to worry about other creatures attacking you.
The Ramp
With how important it is to cast your commander fast, ramp is incredibly important for the deck to enable casting it before your opponents can set up defenses. So, the faster you can generate mana, the better.
One of the best ways to do this is with rituals. These are cards that give you more mana than they cost to cast. Examples include Desperate Ritual, Pyretic Ritual, and Seething Song. If you can ramp up into an early Seething Song, that can enable a turn one commander play (though it’s unlikely). You also have permanents that you can sacrifice for mana later: Vessel of Volatility and Reckless Barbarian.
On top of rituals, you also have a traditional suite of mana rocks. You don’t want any that cost more than two; that would just be too much of a mana sink. Instead, we have Arcane Signet, Fire Diamond, Fellwar Stone, and Mind Stone. These help you to cast your commander more quickly, as well as stack up on mana to cast other spells more consistently. You also have mana dorks in Ornithopter of Paradise and Iron Myr for more cheap mana generation.
Treasure Generation
A sub-theme of all the ramp you’re doing is Treasure generation. There is a lot of Equipment that you can throw on your commander to make a ton of Treasure. And since everyone is attacking with it, you can make a ton of Treasure tokens in a turn cycle. So long as the Equipment doesn’t grant an ability to the creature itself (as seen on Sticky Fingers, and instead just triggers when dealing damage/attacking (as seen on Beamtown Beatstick, you will get the Treasure, not the player in control of Alexios. This is because you control the Equipment still, even though the control of Alexios is on another player, and since Alexios doesn’t have the ability, the Equipment does, you’re the one who gets the benefit.
So, you want to equip Alexios with these cards, as they drastically increase your mana generation. On top of the previously mentioned cards, Goldvein Pick and Prying Blade both make you a Treasure when Alexios deals combat damage, and Shiny Impetus will give you a Treasure just for attacking . Stack this with Whispersilk Cloak to make it unblockable and Brass Knuckles to give it double strike, and you’ll have enough Treasure to get by the rest of the game.
Creature Suite
The number of creatures in the deck is very small. Your commander is the main attraction, and all your resources are going to go into it. However, there is still a small handful of creatures to help out in a pinch. Both Champion of the Flame and Goblin Gaveleer can act as sub-commanders if Alexios ever gets removed and you don’t have the mana to pay for it again. Although they don’t get swapped around like your commander, their stats can get quite high, and they already have trample to make chump blocking much harder. To cast your Equipment more effeciently, Foundry Inspector discounts them all by one mana. Since so many are cheap and colorless, this’ll make many of them only one mana, if not free to cast.
To help close out games, you have some passive burn damage options. With how many artifacts you’ll control, Sunshot Militia can stack up quickly. Equipment doesn’t care if its tapped or not, so every two pieces on the battlefield is essentiually one free damage on everyone. If you have Treasure tokens you don’t need to use, you can use those as burn damage too. On top of this, Reckless Fireweaver turns all your Treasure generation into some burn damage, helping to close games out faster if the commander damage plan falls through.
Aura Suite
Auras are less common than Equipment in this list, but in some cases, more important to build up Alexios’ stats. With all the mana you’ll have access to, Dragon Mantle can build up some large stat boosts, usually enough to take someone out of the game with commander damage in just one swing. Similarly, since nearly your entire landbase is made out of Mountains, Claws of Valakut can provide a hefty amount of power boost, on top of giving Alexios first strike to make it safer in combat. Speaking of, Reflexes is another way to give it first strike. While Alexios can’t attack you, it can still die in combat, so first strikes makes it much harder for it to be killed there.
The Brute is a minor stat boost, but lets you pay three mana to regenerate the creature it’s attached to (which will almost always be Alexios). Since you make so much mana, the cost is easy to pay to ensure your commander doesn’t get destroyed. To make it harder for opponents to block. Madcap Skills will give it menace. Errantry locks all your opponents out of attacking with anything but Alexios. Since Alexios, Deimos of Kosmos has to attack every combat, this prevents your opponents from attacking you, as they’ll be prevented from attacking with any other creatures.
Battle Tricks
The idea of the deck is to win as quickly as possible, so battle tricks help you accomplish that goal. These cards are ones that provide stat boosts and often, more importantly, keyword abilities for the turn. The most important battle tricks are ones that grant double strike, as this makes it much easier to one-shot someone (or put them on a one-turn clock). These cards include Raking Claws, Temur Battle Rage, and Uncaged Fury.
On top of these, you have cards that provide utility, either a part of the effect or getting two effects if you invest more mana. Borrowed Hostility gives first strike on top of a stat boost. Since you make so much mana, it’s easy to pay its escalate cost. Siege Smash can either be used as a stat boost or as artifact removal, something that comes in handy in PDH. You can get a useful +3 stat boost with Turn Inside Out as well as replace a creature if it’s going to die with a manifest 2/2 to get an extra blocker on the field. Titan's Strength provides a stat boost and controls your top deck through scrying.
There are a few combat tricks that also create a Treasure. These essentially discount your spell by one mana, as the mana used to cast it is replaced with another mana source. And even if you don’t use it right away, you’ll have mana stored for later. These cards include Ancestors' Aid and Reckless Ransacking. All the cards in this category are instants, so you can use them on opponents’ turns when they attack with Alexios to bring life totals and the commander damage threshold closer.
Removal Suite
While your commander can dish out a ton of damage, it can still die in combat. In addition, there is always the problematic creatures that may rear their head that can throw a wrench in your strategy. So, you always want to pack some removal options. However, Mono Red doesn’t have access to proper removal spells in Pauper Commander. As such, all its removal is tied to dealing damage.
The best removal spells are Lightning Bolt and Galvanic Blast, as these two are instant speed and deal a decent bit of damage. You can use Abrade as either creature removal or artifact removal, both useful effects in the format. Unforunately, you’re pretty locked into being able to remove creatures with three or less toughness, unless they have damage on them already.
Pauper Commander is not a format with very traditional board wipes, which is why creature decks tend to be a lot stronger in it compared to traditional EDH. Luckily, Red has access to a few. Board wipes in PDH are done with spells that deal damage to all creatures (and not every much). These include Breath Weapon and Fiery Cannonade. Although two damage isn’t a ton, there are a lot of low-toughness creatures in the format, making thme viable. Sulfurous Blast can deal three damage to all creatures and opponents as well. However, this is only if you use it during your main phase. Luckily, your commander has high toughness, so you don’t have to worry about these board wipes ever removing Alexios.
Card Draw
The last bit to go over is card draw. Red has a few traditional options, such as Demand Answers for an easy way to draw two cards. Faithless Looting is another way, but requires you to discard two cards from your hand as well. Thanks to flashback, you can dig through your deck quickly for your best cards.
However, a more common form of card draw in this particular deck is impulse draw. These are spells that exile the top card(s) of your library and let you cast them later. The two biggest ones are Reckless Impulse and Wrenn's Resolve, since they give you until the end of your next turn to play them. On the contrary, Haste Magic requires you to play the spell the turn you exile it, but also provides your creatue with a stat boost.
How PDH Alexios Plays
In a regular game, you’re rushing to get Alexios, Deimos of Kosmos onto the battlefield as soon as you can. As soon as it hits the field, you start getting value out of it. If you manage to ramp into it quick enough before your opponent has good blockers, you can start snowballing right away. Then, you want to make it evasive if you can with Equipment such as Whispersilk Cloak and Executioner's Hood. This helps it to get in for consistent damage, as all it takes is one turn cycle for everyone to be on the commander damage clock.
The biggest downside of the deck is your defenses are always going to be low. You don’t have a lot of creatures, and you’re most powerful creature (your commander) is never on your side of the battlefield, as it’s always shifting control. So, you need to utilize your removal spells when you’re being targetted for attacks. Save your Lightning Bolts and Galvanic Blasts for the most threatening of attackers, as none of the creatures in your creature line-up are particuarly useful in combat most of the time. At most, they’re going to be chump blockers.
The biggest pro of the deck is just how quickly it can close out games. Thanks to how many rituals are available in Red, it’s not too uncommon to dig for Seething Song and Desperate Ritual and have access to them early. While your commander can dish out damage fast, Mono Red isn’t a color known for having much protection. The only real protection spells are Whispersilk Cloak and The Brute (and to a lesser extent, Leather Armor which taxes spells). Often, it’ll be able to survive combat, but Alexios often can’t survive removal spells unless you have access to these.
In Conclusion
As far as Mono Red options go in Pauper Commander, PDH Alexios is a very strong canidate for best commander in the color. There are other options sure, but Alexios, Deimos of Kosmos is the closest thing to Voltron that’s viable even at the most competitive of tables. Once it hits the battlefield, there is a very real chance the game ends in just a few turns. For Aggro and Mono Red lovers, PDH Alexios is a fantastic choice to add to your Pauper Commander arsenal.
Want a different deck on the other side of the archetype spectrum? We have a cPDH guide on Mahadi for Control lovers if you want another deck that takes things slow instead of being as aggressive as possible.
