Commander Overview
Encumbered Reejerey is one of my favorite new commanders for Pauper EDH from Lorywn. It reminds me a ton of Patched Plaything, and that was a great Voltron option, so I was super excited when Encumbered Reejerey got spoiled. It’s just a super-fun, casual card. It is rare to see a white card with such good stats. With our deck composition focusing on Voltron, it is very easy for us to get the counters off, and with cards like All that Glitters and Ethereal Armor in the deck, it is very easy for us to hit the sixteen damage threshold for commander damage. This is a cheap commander that works very well. Combine that with all of the protection that mono-white offers, and it can be quite a pain to remove our commander!
How to Play the Deck
The whole deck is set up around Voltron, the first step in pretty much every game you play with Encumbered Reejerey is to drop them early. They will be debuffed early. The early game is a great opportunity to attack at least once and get one of the -1/-1 counters off of them. Beyond that, it’s a typical Voltron game plan: buff Encumbered Reejerey up and swing as much as we can. This deck is perfect for players of any skill level.
Synergy’s in the deck
The whole deck synergizes with itself. We are pretty much built around the two best cards in our deck in All that Glitters and Ethereal Armor. These are also the reasons we are running tutors like Heliod’s Pilgrim and Shrine Steward so we can get them out easily. I also love the mini-exalted package we have in the deck with cards like Aven Squire, Akrasan Squire, and Guardians of Akrasa. These are not only great blockers for the deck but can be dropped early and assist with the commander damage kill gameplan.
Phases of the Game
Early-Game: The early-game is essential for our deck while it is very easy to do we want to put Encumbered Reejerey on the field on turn two in pretty much every situation, in all of my testing games i did this in every single game and it never steered me wrong, we do have some other strong early-game plays like Akrasan Squire or Darksteel Axe but getting Reejerey down early is key so on the next turn we can attack with them and remove one of the counters, since we have a very low overall cost we can remove these counters quite easily.
Mid-Game: By this point we typically have all of the counters off of Reejerey and because of that we have a 5/4 base which is very strong to have on the field, we normally never block with Reejerey unless it is a very one-sided combat but by this point we can start dropping our Voltron buffs like Flaming Fist or Nimbus Wings as well as some strong artifacts like Haunted Cloak or Vorrac Battlehorns, these are all great options, we are also easily able to get one-shots commander damage kills in the mid-game especially if an opponent doesn’t have blockers.
Late-Game: By this point, Reejerry is pretty huge, and we hopefully have one or both of Ethereal Armor or All that Glitters and are swinging hard and as often as we can. When we drop either of these, opponents typically want to kill Reejerey. Still, luckily, we have a ton of protection in this deck.
Card Breakdowns
Ramp
Outside of Marble Diamond and Gold Myr, we don’t have any ramp in this deck, which doesn’t really matter to our deck at all, since we have a low-cost commander and a low cost throughout the entire deck. Ramping isn’t something we care about at all.
Card Draw/Card Advantage
Card draw is firmly ok in this deck. We do have some sources of it, but since we are in mono-white, we don’t have as many of the decks in the format. Cards like Spare Supplies can be cheap and easy sources of draw for the deck. I much prefer the card selection we have through cards like Shrine Steward and Heliod’s Pilgrim, allowing us to grab offensive or defensive auras as needed. Card draw isn’t something we have a ton of in the deck, but what we do have is sufficient.
Removal
Being in mono-white means we don’t have great removal in the deck, we do have Crib Swap, which is cheap and does exile, which is very strong if we run into combo decks. We also have Generous Gift which can destroy any permanent which is very strong in pretty much any matchup but removal is not a strong suit in our deck, we are a selfish deck in a lot of ways and only care about our gameplan, we do have these couple sources but for the most part we don’t care what our opponents do.
Protection
Protection is one of our big strong suits in the deck, it can be tough to kill Reejerey since we have so many sources like Stave Off, Loran’s Escape and Shelter as well as many others, it can be tough to kill our commander and that’s not even including Aura’s that boost our count for All that Glitters and Ethereal Armor like Floating Shield and Pentarch Ward which can allow us to be much stronger in and out of combat, i also love Inviolability which allows us to attack even into opponents tough board states. Protection is one aspect of the deck that we are very strong in.
Utility / Support
We have an amazing supporting cast in our deck with cards like Transcendent Envoy and Starnheim Courser reducing the cost for a large majority of our deck, and in a deck with a decently low overall mana cost already, this reduction can allow us to speed out our gameplan easily. An additional piece of protection beyond our aura and spells comes from Coalition Honor Guard and Standard Bearer, as these can deflect single-target removal away from our creatures and point them to our flagbearers. Both of these allow us to keep Encumbered Reejerey on the field and living to swing another day!
While auras/enchantments are the largest part of our deck, we have some awesome equipment that can assist with the gameplan as well. You absolutely cannot play a white deck in Pauper EDH without Greatsword of Tyr, just pure efficiency on a card, the counter and tapping down an opponent’s creatures can be the difference in combat, and allows us to hit more often. I also love Vorrac Battlehorns and Haunted Cloak, giving our commander keyword soup makes us extremely hard to stop in combat. Lastly, we round out our support package with Wedding Invitation and Whispersilk Cloak, two cards that have very similar effects, making Encumbered Reejerey unblockable, which can allow for very easy commander damage kills.
Mana Base
We actually have quite a few sources of utility within our manabase. Idyllic Grange is a great land at any stage of the game, whether we use it early to remove a -1/-1 counter from Encumbered Reejerey or a buff later in the game, it is a great land. I’m also a huge fan of Sejiri Steppe in the deck; that protection for one turn, especially against mono-colored decks, can allow for a lot of free and easy commander damage. I like our manabase a lot, and it works very well for the deck.
Win Conditions
Our only win condition is commander damage kills! Our opponents are effectively reduced to sixteen in this game since we only go for commander damage.
Strengths of the Deck
We can have a strong board presence very early with Encumbered Reejerey. After just a couple of turns, Reejerey can be big and threatening to our opponents.
We are great at fighting through our opponents removal with so many protection spells and auras.
Weaknesses of the Deck
We are absolutely a one-trick deck; we can have a very rough time if we can never resolve our commander.
We can have a rough matchup against removal-heavy decks, while our commander is almost always safe, they can kill our supporting cast of creatures a lot.
Deck Testing/Matchups
I tested this deck against three different decks
Game 1: Vs Plague Spitter. Matchup Record: 2-2
This was a split matchup. This is one of those matchups where we need to hold up protection because Plague Spitter has a ton of removal. I had no trouble hitting them with Reejerey, but if you don’t hold up removal, your commander will die.
Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Stave Off, Pentarch Ward and All that Glitters.
Game 2: Vs Illuminator Virtuoso. Matchup Record: 5-3
This is another interesting matchup; it’s all about who’s faster. Virtuoso’s built-in double strike can be rough, but we can make our commander indestructible and block quite easily. This was a good matchup. Make sure you keep a pretty aggressive hand.
Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Ethereal Armor, Whispersilk Cloak and Arrest.
Game 3: Vs Obyra, Dreaming Duelist. Matchup Record: 1-3
I struggled in this one. Obyra’s ability isn’t as much of a problem as all of their flyers are; it can be tough to contend with creatures that are essentially unblockable against us. This was a terrible matchup for our deck.
Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Arrest, Generous Gift and Stave Off.
Conclusion
Thanks so much for reading to the end! Encumbered Reejerey is such a fun commander and one I have been having a blast with. I love being aggressive in mono-white and hitting hard against opponents who are effectively at 16 life; it’s an absolute blast. I’m normally not a huge mono-white fan, but this deck has been a lot of fun.