“Meet me by the river where the trees don’t grow.”
Art:Cursed Wombat
by Igor Krstic
Table of Contents
Today’s Featured Commander Is:
Cursed Wombat is a very cool commander who is basically just a different version of Pauper EDH legend Corpsejack Menace
; while it may just seem like a worse version of this, I think its a whole lot different, and Cursed Wombat being a whole lot cheaper is amazing, being able to get out our commander and some of our smaller creatures and cheaper buffs earlier is great and allows us to snowball much harder in the mid-late game. There is nothing better than being able to hit super hard on the third or fourth turn and get even crazier as we hit the late-game. We have so many awesome cards that can trigger our commander a lot, like Master Chef
, which gets super out of hand with some of our smaller creatures, I also love the payoffs we get in this deck like Hagra Constrictor
and Longshot Squad
which provides utility and a ton of extra help for us in combat. This deck is cool; if you love Corpsejack Menace, I’m sure you will love this one, too! Without further adieu, let’s get it!
The Deck:
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Why Cursed Wombat?
Cursed Wombat is a huge part of our deck and always the card we cast on turn two. Getting this out early is great, and the sooner, the better; this is often the first creature that I put onto the battlefield. Cursed Wombat is a powerhouse and a bit of a removal magnet, which is why we are running cards like Snakeskin Veil
and Feign Death
while these are great to protect any of our creatures they are especially important for our commander because we want them on the board at all times. Cursed Wombat is a huge part of our deck and is a card we should cast on turn two every game; if you draw a hand that can’t cast a turn two wombat, I definitely wouldn’t recommend keeping that hand.
Gameplan:
The gameplan for the deck is extremely straightforward, with the most important piece being able to cast our commander on turn two; once we have them on the board, it is time to give all of our creatures as many counters as we possibly can to bolster up our board and allow us to start getting in some damage. We are a combat deck in every way and mostly spend our turns focusing on swinging hard and leaving at least a couple of our bigger creatures back for blocking. Every situation is different, so there is definitely some justification for fully swinging out, as it entirely depends on your board state / what your opponents are running. As far as removal and threat assessment goes, we aren’t super heavy on removal, but if an opponent has a crazy powerful commander like Tatyova, Benthic Druid
, or Golden-Tail Trainer
, those are great candidates for our removal. We aren’t super heavy on removal so we definitely have to pick and choose our battles but I find the most immediate threat that can be game-warping is the best thing to remove.
Deck Matchups:
Since this is Pauper EDH, there are an absolute ton of things that can tip a game in your favor or out of it. While an archetype may seem favorable, there are absolutely good and bad commanders for our deck to go up against; I have included both these, which were all played among my testing groups using various decks, and I have included the sample size for clarity purposes. This is just meant to be a guide after testing a bunch of games with this deck!
The information below is notes about specific decks that were featured in our testing pods and how we fared against them. Naturally, Pauper EDH is a multiplayer game, so these are just a summary of my notes against different commanders and strategies. When we test these decks we try to test to its strengths and weaknesses to give a full spectrum of what the deck has to offer. Various commanders and archetypes/strategies are used to get the most accurate information.
Commanders, we have a good matchup against:
Corpsejack Menace Record against Corpsejack Menace 4-2
While this deck is extremely similar to ours and plays a lot of cards, the extra speed we get by playing out our commander early gives us the early edge in this matchup, and that momentum gain can easily allow us to overwhelm our opponent. I like this matchup a lot, its just as winnable as it is losable but overall its still a good matchup.
Stromkirk Captain
Record against Stromkirk Captain 4-0
This is a very good matchup for us; while we can take some early damage because a lot of the vampires in the deck are decently cheap and fly, I like this matchup a lot. They do have a decent amount of removal but are much more focused on creatures and since our creatures are usually pretty big we don’t have to worry much about the first strike as we typically would win those combats anyways. Overall this is a good matchup for us.
Oni of Wild Places
Record against Oni of Wild Places 5-1
Oni of Wild Places is a very cool deck and one I didn’t even know existed. But for Cursed Wombat, this deck is a very good matchup for us. Their biggest piece of value comes out of their commander, and they are much less aggressive than most red decks; by the time they get their commander out, we typically have quite the board built up and can just go over the top. They don’t have a ton of removal in most lists either, so that helps us a ton as well; a lot of the removal they do have is damage-based, so once we get most of our cards past three or four toughness, it’s hard for them to kill any of our stuff.
Commanders, we have a tough matchup against:
Miara, Thorn of the Glade
and Numa, Joraga Chieftain
Record against Miara and Numa 1-4
Miara and Numa are a tough matchup; they are Golgari themselves but have the added benefit of elves, which provide a ton of mana production and can just get out of hand very quickly. They are also good at putting a ton of mana into Miara and buffing their creatures like crazy. If they have a slower-than-average start, we can usually go over the top, but overall, this is a tough matchup.
Mistmeadow Witch
Record against Mistmeadow Witch 2-6
This can be a very tough matchup for us; not only can they continuously exile our commander, rendering them useless, but they can blink some of our biggest creatures when we get buffs on them. Mistmeadow witch decks are also often built in a control shell, which makes it much tougher to stop them as they counter our commander or whatever we are trying to do. A decently heavy control package and the ability to null and void or commander makes this very hard. Our only recourse is to remove their commander as much as possible as many of the blink effects in Pauper EDH can only target their creatures. This matchup is not unwinnable but is an uphill battle.
Catapult Fodder // Catapult Captain
Record against Catapult Fodder 1-3
This deck is not fun to play against; they often don’t engage in combat with us, and because of the nature of their commander, they have a ton of creatures with huge toughness, which can make our combat plan a lot harder. A lot of these lists are also packing a crazy amount of removal which typically means we can’t keep our commander on the board. This is winnable if we use our removal to keep their commander off the board, but overall, it is a decently tough matchup.
Deck Overview:
This section contains information about cards in the deck and how they function within the deck! I also highlighted some of my favorite cards in the deck!
Creatures:
We have so many cool creatures, so let’s go over some of my favorites! Ambitious Dragonborn
is a powerhouse of an attacker and is a great attacker and blocker for the deck; this card can get huge quickly, and since it puts counters on, we also trigger our commander with it! Expanding Ooze
is a great card for its cost, and its ability can target pretty much anything in our deck and just keep the counters coming; this is an awesome brand-new card that makes the deck a lot better. Fetid Gargantua
is another new card that I have been absolutely loving and is by far the best source of card draw for the deck; we are easily able to draw 2-4 cards a turn with this, which can get really out of hand quickly. We can’t talk about all of our creatures without discussing our strong payoffs like Hagra Constrictor and Crowned Ceratok
are quite cheap and are absolutely just crazy, menace, and trample is a great combination, especially with how big our creatures can get. Longshot Squad is another card I like a lot for the deck, flying creatures have always been difficult for decks that have a lot of green to stop so being able to stop them with nearly all of our creatures is great.
Instants:
By far, my favorite instant in the deck is Hunger of the Howlpack
for only one mana, giving a creature +3/+3 of +4/+4 if we have our commander is an amazing rate and super strong. I like the makeup of our instant package as we have a good mix of removal and protection, our commander is a huge removal magnet for the deck, so having cards like Snakeskin Veil and Ranger's Guile
to protect our commander and creatures can help us deal much better with the large amount of removal present in the format. I love Fowl Strike
for the deck as flying creatures are definitely a gap in the types of things we can remove at instant speed, and it has the added benefit of Reinforce if we don’t need to destroy a flyer. If we are facing another +1/+1 counter strategy or another deck that has huge creatures, we sometimes don’t win every combat, which is where Wail of the Nim
comes in, being able to regenerate our entire board after a bad combat or using its other ability to slow down a token deck.
Sorceries:
Proliferating and adding counters is the name of the game of our sorcery package, utilizing cards like Courage in Crisis
and Smell Fear
provide a lot of utility and are great at pretty much any stage of the game. Being able to use a lot of sorceries at any stage of the game helps us a ton with being adaptive; cards like Soul's Might
is a great card at any stage of the game but really shines as a before-combat finisher when we already have a buffed up creature, this card is a little expensive but definitely very strong and a lot of fun. Soul’s Might also works very well with cards like Essence Harvest
, which is another awesome finisher for the deck and can easily allow us to take out an opponent after combat; this is the true uno-reverse card of the deck! While we have a lot of flash and fun at sorcery speed, we do have some standard includes like Atraxa's Fall
, which is a great and cheap piece of removal that can hit a lot of different things. We have more supplemental card draw at sorcery speed in Night's Whisper
and Read the Bones
which is just another great way to fill up our hand and keep the gameplan going.
Artifacts:
Spare Supplies
is a very good source of supplemental card daw for the deck and if we draw a hand that has a low overall mana cost, which we often have, that leads us to dumping out our hands and being able to re-up on cards is imperative to keeping the gameplan going. Weapon Rack
is definitely my favorite artifact in the deck; with our commander, it gives multiple counters, and with the decent amount of proliferation effects in the deck, we can continuously put counters on it and get a lot of value out of this card. The rest of our artifact package isn’t all that interesting and mostly consists of mana rocks, being able to ramp is early but not that interesting to talk about.
Enchantments:
Master Chef is one of the best cards we have in our deck; with our commander, it gives us two counters on a creature per ETB, which is actually crazy and scales super hard. I like this card a lot and definitely prioritize opening hands that have this in it. Predatory Hunger
is another powerhouse in a format filled to the brim with decks that run twenty-five to thirty creatures getting a buff every time is crazy without our commander, and with the Wombat on the board, we can get a huge creature in just one or two cycles around the table. New Horizons
is a true best-of-both-worlds scenario for our deck, providing a decent amount of mana ramp and counters that trigger our commander; being able to do all of this for only three mana is awesome and allows us to beef up our creatures even earlier. With all of these counters and creatures that get big, we can be pretty dominant in combat, and that leads me into another awesome enchantment in Eternal Thirst
being able to take advantage of opponents creatures dying is awesome and the creature that gets buffed up with this is absolutely crazy.
Land Base:
Our landbase is effective and works very well for the deck; being able to get some extra card draw from our landbase in the mid-late game helps a lot as well. In my many games of testing, I have not had an issue with the landbase. I did not experience any flooding or droughts. There isn’t a ton of interesting things going on in our landbase but it works well for the deck.
Strengths of the Deck:
- We are great in combat and can have decently big creatures by the third or fourth turn, this allows us to have a very high damage output.
- Our commander is a removal magnet but is cheap, so it can be cast quite a few times before it becomes impossible to do so.
- Since our creatures are so big we only need a few on the board, while in the late-game we typically have a pretty full board this deck can easily operate on just three or four creatures, having that high damage output helps a ton.
Weaknesses of the Deck:
- We are weak to removal, and our commander is a huge removal magnet; we do have some protection, but against control decks, it can be tough to stick our board.
- Without our commander, our mid-late game transition can be rough, and we can be outpaced in combat.
- If some of our bigger pieces like Master Chef
or even our commander get countered, it can make the overall game plan a lot rougher, and we don’t have much recursion.
Deck Stats:
Sample Hands:
Conclusion:
Cursed Wombat is just a fun and cool build-around card, while the comparison to Corpsejack Menace is obvious, and arguably Corpsejack is better, but hey, more Golgari Counters commanders are something I am absolutely interested in. I like this deck a lot and think its a lot of fun to play. I hope you all enjoyed this one as much as I did. Thanks for reading to the end and for all of your support!!