Pauper Commander | Casual Magic Ep. 159

[@kodepop]

Pauper edh is what edh used to be like before wotc capitalized on it. It's almost nostalgic with the amount of possibilities you get making decks, and its cheaper so it's easy to have a bunch of different decks.

[@mangohavoc6428]

Literally my tabletop group has just been playing pauper lately. Every now and then we will do a normal edh game but the pauper is just so much more fun and balanced. Nobody is going off turn 1, lots of 1 for 1s and combat damage matters. Love it

[@CommonConnoisseurs]

One of our favorite people! ❤

[@hanschristopherson8056]

You had me sold as soon as you told me I could play Risen reef as my commander

[@luizmiranda9095]

About two weeks ago, I visited my lgs on a quiet day. It was just me and one other player, and she helped me build my first Pauper EDH deck using some bulk cards from the store. Since then, I've bought more cards and have built a more refined and well-rounded Pauper EDH deck.

[@shanonkallhoff2431]

I respect what you both do for the game. I want a casually competitive Paupermander scene that uses uncommon legendary creatures, partners, and backgrounds to drive a tribal format. The untold stories of these uncommon yet legendary commanders could be written by the brewers and pilots of today, and tomorrow. Legends of the Five Rings was an old card game that had a design I loved to see at GenCon, and I feel it could be used for this format I like to refer to as Rags to Riches. What the leaderboard points earned was a story and power struggle change that made what a player did in a season of playing games, truly mattered for their faction. The rewards at the LGS are simply foil commons and foil uncommon commanders in small bundles. Themes and tribes could show up for different parts of the year as annual wizard meet-ups to earn favor leaderboard points for a team. Vampires versus Humans versus Spirits versus Goblins as an example. Thirty starting life and sixteen commander damage sounds good. I am still NOT sold on using any and all uncommon cards as your commander, and I think what I want wouldn't allow them, but I want to blend the communities to better the scene. Parents could face their kids with affordable decks like these, and creating any type of token in a game provides leaderboard favor points for your chosen team. If rares can be considered "format staples" and are seen as obtainable, then I would bet a format based on commons could thrive and have enough variants to provide endless brewing options. I'm Megastorm on Moxfield, and I have some of these decks built but no real format is in place at my LGS yet. I would LOVE it if Magic players would pick up on this and brew these uncommon legendary commanders as paupermanders.

[@thedevilcomes2011]

Shivam, you are the most under appreciated commander commentator/creator there is. Thank you for your contributions to Commander and this awesome community!

[@KungFuChess]

Pouper EDH is a great way to put all your bulk cards to good use.

[@coreyroberson4550]

I built and played two pauper commander decks back in 2014. At the time, there were two accepted variants - one used any uncommon as the commander, and the other used a legit legendary creature (regardless of rarity) as the commander - the important thing was that the 99 were all commons. I wanted to play the decks against normal commander decks without needing a rule 0 conversation, so I ran Talrand and Athreos. They were awesome and held their own in a pod of non-pauper decks. Now I'm revisiting the format, and I'm thrilled that we have decent legendary uncommons to choose from. Totally legit against pauper and non-pauper alike with the bonus of going completely rareless. I'm particularly interested in Garna, Bloodfist of Keld and Elas il-Kor.

[@forbunnie]

I had no idea this format existed. Thanks for the info.

[@tonyallen1845]

Pauper EDH is my favorite format to build decks in. Love it!

[@TheFoxintheBox92]

I was honestly excited to see this episode, especially since my lgs has been picking up pdh recently, where I'm at in Louisiana doesn't have a huge pauper scene, but we do have a moderately sized pdh following now!

[@juliosamaniego2206]

My EDH playgroup has made the recent switch to PDH, and we’ve had a blast doing so. We play paper not online.

[@donavandavis7710]

I found your channel through elder dragon hijinks and how lucky the first video I find is a pauper edh episode! I just built my first pedh deck Mahad, emporium master 😎 and my group has all picked up the format with me.

[@derekdearreader]

That's awesome! Hope yall dig it

[@imamagnet]

This was so cool to watch! Thanks for bringing Derek on. My partner recently got into Magic via Pauper Commander so we've been playing that a bunch together and I was so inspired, I've got 4 decklists ready to go now

[@Lyralye23]

I really love the concept of pauper and commander but there are some things I personally prefer to play differently, so we have some rule changes for my play group. We play with a 60 card deck that is all commons, still singleton, but the commander can be any legendary creature of any rarity, because we dont like using non legendary creatures as commonaders, and there are some cool rare and mythic commanders that arent even expensive at all. Additionally, we play the game with rules that do not eliminate players. Instead, when a player's life reaches 0, if it reached 0 by taking damage from a player except themselves, the person that inflicted that damage gains a point. You can also gain a point by dealing a total of 30 damage to others players (this substitutes commander damage). However, if you make yoursef "lose" by either decking out or dealing damage to yourself and reaching 0, all other players gain 1 point. Alternative conditions like poison also give you 1 point when applying the 10 poison counters. When a player's life reaches 0, it resets back to 30 afterwards, and if a player decks out, they shuffle their graveyard back into their deck, so they can keep playing (reset also applies to poison counters). When a player reaches 3 points the game is over, that player is the winner. This change is meant to make sure all players get the chance to play until the end instead of becoming spectators at some point. An additional rule change is how commander works in terms of taxing and returning to the command zone. Instead of returing to the command zone when it is removed, you can choose to return your commander to the command zone at any time, weather its in someone elese's control, in your graveyard, or just on your board affected by some annoying aura. When it is returned to the command zone, it is returned face-down. You may then pay the commander tax to flip it face-up. Once the commander is face-up, you may choose to cast it normally. These changes were made for 2 reasons: 1) So someone cant just lock your commander down in some annoying way. The commander is meant to be your main card, you should be able to have continuous access to it. 2) Sometimes you just dont have enough mana to pay a commander cost + tax in a single turn, this way you can pay the tax and the commander cast cost in separate turns if you so choose. And yeah those are all the rule changes we play with. I am not saying its better or worse, but its the way we have the most fun playing, which I think is the whole point of playing!

[@mildtotemperate]

Sounds awesome!

[@Zjivarra]

This video has convinced me to start building pauper brawl decks that I can host with and lend out to friends (I hate shuffling skyscrapers, so 60 cards seems better) And maybe to help prevent me from going for the same spell in same color decks, I might limit myself to the set the uncommon creature is from and then additional cards from only a hand full of other sets (could maybe even determine them at random) :)

[@Tha3l]

wonderful interview

[@Ambrose_MTG]

Pauper or Artisan Commander fits the bill. Thanks for this vid.

[@SalmonColor]

First time watcher! Solid podcast, deep diving into pEDH now!

[@Maxyk9]

I know I am late to this video but I like to build my decks to be legal in both edh and pedh. It is fun being able to use your deck in multiple formats and limits or changes the way you construct your deck. Like cards that wouldn't really be needed in pedh but are a must in regular edh make it quite interesting.

[@rubyseverinwhitworth9066]

I saw TCC make a deck tech for this format and I am hooked. I am trying out deck building for the first time and having fun building a Toggo/Agent of the Iron Throne (technically that is illegal but I am using Gut as a backup) and it's so fun

[@Crimtaku]

Really enjoyed watching this and while I am still building my first pEDH deck I already like the format. Also, what you said about those signpost commanders resonated very well with me. I was going to build proliferate around Merfolk Skydiver originally but since the deck already had infect in it and Tainted Observer came out... It just feels like mach made in heaven. Not sure how strong it will be, haven't seen anyone else play it, but I am eager to try it and find out.

[@andrewhawkins6754]

When I play commander, I use my PDH deck against their EDH decks to show them the power of PDH (Lorescale Coatl is a house vs most average EDH decks).

[@SIIghtIyBetter]

Let’s see that pauper elf deck list 👀

[@TheRogueThunder]

How do we feel about OGdh to describe original edh?

[@mildtotemperate]

Can't we just call it edh? I mean, that's its name. The other formats have a different name.

[@christopherarmstrong2476]

so the two banned cards aside..... everything pauper legal is pauper commander legal?

[@RuffiganPDH]

Yes, so you can run any of the cards banned in 60 card Pauper in your Pauper EDH deck.

[@Alkadron]

This pleases me

[@hugmonger]

Imagine trying to build an edh deck out of all mythic rares lol

[@casualmagicwithshivambhatt]

the toughest part is the land base =)

[@allanturmaine5496]

Nazgul as a commander? Wait. I think that ruins the build.

[@allanturmaine5496]

I never thought about Aftermath style boosters hurting pauper. That's yet another reason not to want low card counts in packs. Hint hint, Wizards/Hasbro.

[@jperry253]

I feel like using a legendary creature is important for the vorthos of the format. other than that seems cool.