After a short-long hiatus from magic, I'm back and with a new idea for a my first pauper build.
Short history:
While common-cube drafting a few months back, I saw a build in UGR colors that relied on packing big ramp and recurring sorcery speed fireball effects while stalling the board with utility creatures. Here, I'm expanding that deck/strategy with several more themes to fit the 100 card singleton EDH domain. I'm picking Riku of two reflections as my General because he synergies with big mana and copying large effects/fatties.
Themes
Big ramp +landfall + Fireball Effects + sorcery recursion : We're packing most of the land ramp utility dorks and 2 for 1's available in the common/color slot. Copying/recurring fireball effects will be the major win-con. We use Anarchist, Izzet Chronarch, and Mnemonic Wall to repeatedly burn players out. Windrider Eel and the trinket mage fetchable Adventuring Gear provide landfall trigger enabled aggro.
Bounce Effects: A large portion of our disruption/utility is dedicated to bounce effects. We can remove most nasty permanents from the board while providing a tempo swing in our favor. This also opens up the option for recurring our own utility creatures (see sorcery recursion guys above) along with other utility removal dorks. Wizard Mentor is a hilarious piece with enough mana and Riku making the rounds.
Tokens: Another way to gum up the board via Eldrazi spawns, Sparoling, and Riku shenanigans. Creatures that bring friends like Eldrazi drones are good as they can be tokenized. Evoke mechanic creatures can be cheated into play at a lower cost and tokenized. Sprout Storm is another recurrable win-con on its own.
Updated list:
-Added a mini aura sub-theme centering on Bramble Elemental.
-Tuned the disruption, cutting boring counterspell and faerie trickery for more creature oriented stuff.
The Bramble Elemental theme seems a little shaky without a way to reliably find it, but I'm not a pauper guy so I can't say if that's a problem. Frenzied Tilling and Rushing River are both solid disruption cards that fit with your existing things. I'd probably lose the other counters, too. Non-pauper Riku tends to tap out a lot in my experience, which isn't really conducive to counters.
Like I say, I don't play pauper so I could be way off on all of this. List looks like a good one, though.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
[Pr]Jaya | Estrid | A rotating cast of decks built out of my box.
The Bramble Elemental theme seems a little shaky without a way to reliably find it, but I'm not a pauper guy so I can't say if that's a problem. Frenzied Tilling and Rushing River are both solid disruption cards that fit with your existing things. I'd probably lose the other counters, too. Non-pauper Riku tends to tap out a lot in my experience, which isn't really conducive to counters.
Like I say, I don't play pauper so I could be way off on all of this. List looks like a good one, though.
Frenzied Tilling is good, like Mwonvuli Acid-Moss and Reap and Sow. Rushing River may be too limited, especially in multiplayer where tempo is mitigated.
From playtesting pauper, I find it as an even more "gridier" version of attrition EDH. That is, the games are much slower, fewer infinite combo shennegains, explosive plays/chains begin much later in the game, a reliance on some form of combat damage for once. As you suggested, I will probably lose the higher cc counters like Exclude because of how mana hungry the deck is.
On Bramble elemental. The auras of this deck can hold themselves on their own. The worse case would be drawing him without any auras at hand and paying 5 mana for a vanilla 4/4 (not too bad for pauper, but certainly could be better).
Also some quick battle reports:
-The deck is quite grindy like most pauper decks, but its two major themes (tokens and recurring fireballs) usually gets the job done.
-A lot of the games benefit from politicking your way into resolving Riku and going nuts with ramp effects, especially ones that trade LD with ramp
-Ulamog Crusher + Wizard mentor + Riku are BFFs
I'm somewhat artifact averse as they can't get copied by Riku.
Gotcha, makes good sense. Have you made any changes in the last few weeks? Perhaps something else from Innistrad has wow'd you? In your experience how many times do you need to recast Riku to get the game state to the point where you start X'ing people out of the game? Also, have you played against other pauper or non-pauper commander decks and how did it compare against whichever?
Gotcha, makes good sense. Have you made any changes in the last few weeks? Perhaps something else from Innistrad has wow'd you? In your experience how many times do you need to recast Riku to get the game state to the point where you start X'ing people out of the game? Also, have you played against other pauper or non-pauper commander decks and how did it compare against whichever?
From playing Riku against normal multi-player decks, I never bother resolving riku until late game when I'm prepping to copy xpells or can chain a spell (usually more ramp) on the same turn directly after casting him. A common occurrence is copying ulamog's crusher at 10 mana or the return sorcery creatures for massive CA. In the mean time, I'm doing whatever possible to slowing down the leading player (via ramp/ld, bounce effects) while staying under the radar (as pauper riku rarely draws attention if you politick correctly)
vs. weaker / pre-con decks where removal is scarce, riku dominates and stuff like combat damage via multiple windrider eels + landfall wins out. Otherwise, its attempting to ramp to 16+ mana for giant fireballs.
From Innistrad, I like Traitorous Blood. Especially copied with Riku it allows for an alpha strike with an opponent's own creature(s).
Its not bad but I can only wish it doubles as removal like Grab the Reins or had instant speed. Lifting someone else's titan or killing the Omnath player with his own General is pretty good tho.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Short history:
While common-cube drafting a few months back, I saw a build in UGR colors that relied on packing big ramp and recurring sorcery speed fireball effects while stalling the board with utility creatures. Here, I'm expanding that deck/strategy with several more themes to fit the 100 card singleton EDH domain. I'm picking Riku of two reflections as my General because he synergies with big mana and copying large effects/fatties.
Themes
Tips, suggestions, comments are always welcome!
8 Forest
5 Mountain
7 Island
1 Tree of Tales
1 Seat of the Synod
1 Great Furnace
1 Bant Panorama
1 Naya Panorama
1 Jund Panorama
1 Terramorphic Expanse
1 Evolving Wilds
1 Izzet Boilerworks
1 Simic Growth Chamber
1 Gruul Turf
1 Rupture Spire
1 Command Tower
1 Halimar Depths
1 Soaring Seacliff
1 Tranquil Thicket
1 Forgotten Cave
1 Lonely Sandbar
Broken Copy Machine
1 Riku of Two Reflections
Utility / others
1 Adventuring Gear
1 Rancor
1 Sprout Storm
1 Wizard Mentor
Disruption
1 Ingot Chewer
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Night Soil
1 Into the Roil
1 Muddle the Mixture
1 Arcane Denial
1 Man-o'-War
1 Aether Adept
1 Capsize
1 Winged Coatl
1 Spiketail Drakeling
1 Aethersnipe
1 Sundering Vitae
1 Wickerbough Elder
1 Aftershock
1 Mwonvuli Acid-Moss
1 Reap and Sow
1 Mold Shambler
1 Frenzied Tilling
1 Relic Crush
1 Fissure
1 Disintegrate
1 Kaervek's Torch
1 Fireball
1 Rolling Thunder
1 Windrider Eel
1 Morselhoarder
1 Ulamog's Crusher
Tutoring
1 Drift of Phantasms
1 Fierce Empath
1 Trinket Mage
Ramp/fixing
1 Evolution Charm
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Coiling Oracle
1 Tilling Treefolk
1 Cultivate
1 Kodama's Reach
1 Wood Elves
1 Farhaven Elf
1 Yavimaya Elder
1 Krosan Tusker
1 Ondu Giant
1 Skyshroud Claim
1 Kozilek's Predator
1 Emrakul's Hatcher
Draw
1 Brainstorm
1 Mystic Remora
1 Ninja of the Deep Hours
1 Frantic Search
1 Mulldrifter
1 Compulsive Research
1 Rhystic Study
1 Deep Analysis
1 Foresee
1 Anarchist
1 Mnemonic Wall
1 Izzet Chronarch
-Added a mini aura sub-theme centering on Bramble Elemental.
-Tuned the disruption, cutting boring counterspell and faerie trickery for more creature oriented stuff.
Like I say, I don't play pauper so I could be way off on all of this. List looks like a good one, though.
Frenzied Tilling is good, like Mwonvuli Acid-Moss and Reap and Sow. Rushing River may be too limited, especially in multiplayer where tempo is mitigated.
From playtesting pauper, I find it as an even more "gridier" version of attrition EDH. That is, the games are much slower, fewer infinite combo shennegains, explosive plays/chains begin much later in the game, a reliance on some form of combat damage for once. As you suggested, I will probably lose the higher cc counters like Exclude because of how mana hungry the deck is.
On Bramble elemental. The auras of this deck can hold themselves on their own. The worse case would be drawing him without any auras at hand and paying 5 mana for a vanilla 4/4 (not too bad for pauper, but certainly could be better).
Also some quick battle reports:
-The deck is quite grindy like most pauper decks, but its two major themes (tokens and recurring fireballs) usually gets the job done.
-A lot of the games benefit from politicking your way into resolving Riku and going nuts with ramp effects, especially ones that trade LD with ramp
-Ulamog Crusher + Wizard mentor + Riku are BFFs
I'm somewhat artifact averse as they can't get copied by Riku.
Gotcha, makes good sense. Have you made any changes in the last few weeks? Perhaps something else from Innistrad has wow'd you? In your experience how many times do you need to recast Riku to get the game state to the point where you start X'ing people out of the game? Also, have you played against other pauper or non-pauper commander decks and how did it compare against whichever?
From playing Riku against normal multi-player decks, I never bother resolving riku until late game when I'm prepping to copy xpells or can chain a spell (usually more ramp) on the same turn directly after casting him. A common occurrence is copying ulamog's crusher at 10 mana or the return sorcery creatures for massive CA. In the mean time, I'm doing whatever possible to slowing down the leading player (via ramp/ld, bounce effects) while staying under the radar (as pauper riku rarely draws attention if you politick correctly)
vs. weaker / pre-con decks where removal is scarce, riku dominates and stuff like combat damage via multiple windrider eels + landfall wins out. Otherwise, its attempting to ramp to 16+ mana for giant fireballs.
Nothing from Innistrad wowed me.
Its not bad but I can only wish it doubles as removal like Grab the Reins or had instant speed. Lifting someone else's titan or killing the Omnath player with his own General is pretty good tho.