Table of Contents
Pauper Commander (PDH) is a very fun format where you can use any uncommon creature as your commander. With decks made out of only common creatures, a 30 starting life total, and 16 commander damage needed to be dealt to take someone out with it, brewing possibilities are endless. There are many, many decks of all kinds of archetypes. In this article, we’ll go over multiple decks in varying colors, playstyles, and more.
PDH decks are very cheap, with some decks costing less than $20. It’s one of Magic’s most accessible formats, and one that’s a dream come true for those who love to brew. If you want some starting points to start your Pauper Commander journey, look no further than these decks.
PDH Creature Decks
These are decks that are built around creatures. In PDH, combat is much more common as the primary win condition. With the low amount of board wipes available in the format, you can play creatures more freely. If you’re looking to get down and dirty with combat, check these decks out.
General Marhault Elsdragon
General Marhault Elsdragon is a very aggressive deck that specializes in combat. The idea of the deck is all your creatures have trample such as Colossal Dreadmaw, Avenging Hunter, and Balamb T-Rexaur. This makes it so if your opponents do decide to block, General Marhault Elsdragon boosts their stats to make sure you connect for damage.
While practically every creature in the deck has trample, you have extra ways to get in for extra damage. You want every attack to be impactful, so stat boosting cards are important to the strategy. You want these to be instants to punish opponents who block even more. Colossal Might nets you 4 extra power, Predator's Strike gives a creature a +3/+3 stat boost for just one mana, and Temur Battle Rage provides a creature double strike to deal tons of extra damage.
With General Marhault Elsdragon, you want to constantly be attacking. You’re always going to be on the offensive, pressuring your opponents with your massive stats on your creatures. Your mana curve is a bit high, so you need a lot to play out your best creatures like Spider-Rex, Daring Dino and Timberland Ancient. Territorial Scythecat is a creature you want out quickly to grow its stats high enough to take someone out with one attack.
A sample decklist can be viewed below. The deck puts opponents on the backfoot as quickly as possible. It becomes a race to drain life totals down, but with how much damage you can do in a turn, this isn’t a problem.
Commander
Creatures (42)
Instants (16)
Sorceries (6)
Lands (34)
100 Cards
$66.06
Silver-Fur Master
Despite the PDH restriction of only allowing commons in the 99, you can still run decks built around creature types. One such creature type, or types in this case, are Ninjas and Rogues. Silver-Fur Master is begging to be a commander, and in PDH, you can use it as one. It discounts your ninjutsu abilities on cards like Ninja of the Deep Hours as well as their stats, along with boosting stats of your Rogues such as Aarakocra Sneak.
To easily be able to use ninjutsu abilities, you want creatures that can’t be blocked. This includes Blighted Agent, Triton Shorestalker, and Looter il-Kor. Most of these cards are Rogues, so if you don’t opt to use ninjutsu, you can chip in for damage with the stat boost that Silver-Fur Master provides to them. This is especially good with Blighted Agent thanks to having infect attached to it.
On the other side of the creature equation, you have Ninjas. Many of the best ones have attack triggers that you can get to go off at least once when you ninjutsu them in. Okiba-Gang Shinobi forces two discards, Mistblade Shinobi can bounce an expensive creature to a player’s hand to make them have to re-cast it, and Moon-Circuit Hacker lets you loot for a card everytime it connects for damage, and is a straight card draw if it entered the battlefield that turn.
A sample decklist can be viewed below. As with many PDH creature decks, the majority of your deck is made up of creatures. In this case, a mixture of Ninjas and Rogues.
Commander
Creatures (40)
Instants (16)
Artifacts (9)
Lands (33)
100 Cards
$65.44
PDH Voltron Decks
There are many options for Voltron decks in PDH. At the common rarity, there are many useful Equipments and, to a lesser extent, Auras. Many Voltron decks are usually Equipment-based, as they have a better card pool compared to Auras, and don’t suffer the problem of going to the graveyard if the creature they were attached to is ever removed. With not a ton of recursion in PDH, you generally want to veer onto Equipment decks for your Voltron strategies.
Legolas, Counter of Kills
Legolas, Counter of Kills is a different flavor of Voltron where you want to constantly be killing your opponents’ creatures. Simic isn’t a color pairing that is known for removal spells. Rather than direct removal, you have to use Legolas, Counter of Kills itself to kill other creatures. This can be done either with fight spell like Pounce or cards that deal damage equal to a creature’s power such as Horrific Assault.
As with many Voltron decks, you want to load up Legolas, Counter of Kills with various pieces of Equipment. Goggles of Night scrys a card whenever the equipped creature deals damage, which will also untap Legolas, Counter of Kills when you do (assuming it’s the first time you scryed that turn). Golem-Skin Gauntlets gives a +1/+0 stat boost for every Equipment on it, and that stacks up quickly. To make sure you get in for damage, Whispersilk Cloak makes the equipped creatures unblockable and gives it shroud so that it can’t be targeted by abilities. One thing to note about Whispersilk Cloak is that this prevents you from attaching other equipment, and since your creature count is so low, you may get stuck with this downside.
The best fight spells you can be playing are ones that also provide a stat boost or +1/+1 counters to Legolas, Counter of Kills. Ent's Fury gives a +1/+1 counter and a stat boost before a creature fights. Prizefight is another fight spell that also gives you a Treasure token to cast more spells with. Curse of the Werefox gives the creature fighting a Monster Role token which is an Aura that gives +1/+1 and trample.
A sample decklist can be viewed below. Legolas, Counter of Kills is a deck for you if you like scrapping with other creatures, constantly fighting with them and removing them, slowly growing your commander’s stats to swing out with commander damage.
Commander
Creatures (5)
Instants (20)
Sorceries (17)
Artifacts (18)
Enchantments (7)
Lands (33)
100 Cards
$73.8
Kemba, Kha Regent
Kemba, Kha Regent is a unique Voltron commander in that it’s less about attacking with your commander, but instead, loading it up with Equipment in order to generate a ton of tokens. Every upkeep, you create 2/2 tokens equal to the number of Equipment attached to Kemba, Kha Regent. Even weak Equipment spells like Honed Khopesh have a place in the deck because that helps to generate more tokens. If you have three pieces of Equipment on Kemba, Kha Regent, that’s three 2/2 tokens being made.
With how many creatures are being made, cards that gain life when creatures enter are especially strong. This helps you to have a constant stream of lifegain, letting you stay in the game for longer as you amass your token army. Soul Warden, Suture Priest, and Soul's Attendant are some of the best choices. These effects all stack with one another, making for a ton of burst healing when Kemba, Kha Regent starts triggering with multiple Equipment on it.
One thing you don’t ever want to happen is Kemba, Kha Regent getting removed. It takes a lot of mana to load Equipment back onto it, and it isn’t a deck that can easily ramp. As such, you want multiple protection spells to keep your commander safe. Loran's Escape provides hexproof and indestructible, with Blacksmith's Skill doing the same. Apostle's Blessing and Shelter both let you choose a color for a creature to gain protection from a color until the end of the turn to shut off being affected by any removal spell (unless it’s colorless, which is very rare).
A sample decklist can be viewed below. Since the deck wants a ton of Equipment, these take up the majority of the deck, while the creature lineup is primarily lifegain enablers. Your main source of creatures comes from your commander, and all this makes for a scary deck once you load Kemba, Kha Regent with a ton of Equipment.
Commander
Creatures (19)
Instants (11)
Sorceries (1)
Artifacts (35)
Lands (34)
100 Cards
$61.38
PDH Control Commanders
While creature-based decks are very good in PDH, you also have plenty of options for the other side of the equation: Control. Control decks slow the game down and control the flow of the game through counterspells and removal spells.
Underworld Coinsmith
Underworld Coinsmith is a mixture of Stax and Burn. Your primary source of damage is Underworld Coinsmith‘s ability. Since it burns everyone, there is a big lifegain theme in the deck as well. To take advantage of its constellation ability, all of your removal spells come in the form of enchantments. You also have Blood Tithe for mass burn and lifegain, and Grim Guardian to get some extra burn in with enchantments entering.
Enchantments are one of the main pillars of the decks. Primarily, cards that exile creatures until they leave the battlefield. Journey to Nowhere is one of the best thanks to its low mana cost. Oubliette is the best removal spell, since it phases a creature out. This means that unless they can remove Oubliette itself, the creature isn’t coming back (including commanders). To slow opponents down, you have the Circle of Protection cycle (Circle of Protection: Black). Even though you may be against decks that aren’t playing a certain color, these still trigger constellation. It does require mana and life investment, but Righteous Aura can help to negate any extra damage that may be coming your way from a source.
Practically every card in the deck that deals damage also affects you. As such, lifegain is vital to the strategy. Soul Warden and Soul's Attendant both provide a constant stream of lifegain whenever creatures enter. Creeping Bloodsucker burns all your opponents and gives you a big boost in life. Suture Priest gains you life when you play your creatures, and burns your opponents when they play theirs.
A sample decklist can be viewed below. Thanks to the low starting life totals in PDH, the burn damage can rack up quickly. The idea is to stall out the game, then use Underworld Coinsmith‘s effect as much as possible to deal a turn of burn damage each turn cycle.
Commander
Creatures (26)
Artifacts (12)
Enchantments (27)
Lands (33)
100 Cards
$76.4
Tatyova, Steward of Tides
Tatyova, Steward of Tides takes advantage of PDH’s lack of solid board wipes. Once you have seven or more lands, every land entering turns a land into a 3/3 creature (and Tatyova gives them flying too). So, once you animate them, you generally don’t have to worry about them ever getting removed through board wipes, only regular removal spells. Indestructible lands such as Darksteel Citadel and Tanglepool Bridge are especially strong since they become indestructible blockers.
You always want lands entering the battlefield, so you want to play cards that return lands to your hand. Soratami Cloudskater lets you loot for two mana. This card isn’t particularly good, but it’s great for resetting a land which the deck wants to do frequently. Tidal Bore isn’t a fantastic card, but in terms of Tatyova, Steward of Tides, it’s great for being able to return an Island to hand. Capsize lets you bounce any permanent to the hand, and you can keep reusing it so long as you can pay for its buyback cost.
Since your creatures are primarily lands, you have plenty of room for counterspells. Cards like Counterspell and Disruption Protocol help to counter any spell. Deprive and Daze are both excellent counterspells that also return a land to your hand. You want to use your counterspells on the few cards that can wipe your battlefield such as Crypt Rats. You generally don’t want to use them to protect Tatyova, Steward of Tides since the land animation is permanent. So it doesn’t matter if it’s on the battlefield or not once the effect triggers.
A sample decklist can be viewed below. The deck is a late-game powerhouse. Early game it’s all about ramping to get to seven lands as quickly as possible so Tatyova, Steward of Tides‘ effect becomes active. You don’t need mana for anything but counterspells generally, letting you easily control the flow of the game.
Commander
Creatures (15)
Instants (25)
Sorceries (12)
Lands (41)
100 Cards
$96.06
In Conclusion
These decks are but a small taste of the many decks that PDH has to offer. With such a huge card pool of commanders (even moreso than traditional Commander), there are limitless possibilities. As each set gets a new release, many new PDH commanders are introduced in the format.
You can brew all sorts of decks with all sorts of playstyles. New PDH decks are popping up constantly, and it’s easy to keep your decks updated with new cards thanks to how cheap commons tend to be.
