“Not anymore, not after what we’ve been through.”
Art:Nahiri, Storm of Stone
by Aleksi Briclot
Table of Contents
Today’s Featured Commander Is:
Nahiri is a very cool card that is amongst some very stiff competition, Nahiri is a very strong commander and a great support piece for a Voltron deck. Nahiri is among stiff competition because of the high density of awesome Voltron commanders in the format; while she certainly wouldn’t be my first choice, she still is a ton of fun and a great card to have at your disposal. Nahiri’s abilities are quite strong, the first strike can allow us to bully opponents in combat and be very strong against the creature decks of the format, and being able to deal damage to a tapped creature can be nice but can not be great against certain commanders, and it truly feels like a wonky Boros ability. We have a very strong Voltron deck here, complete with a low creature count, some awesome Voltron creatures, and some equipment that turns our small guys into some ridiculously big swingers. This is an interesting one! Without further ado, let’s get it!
The Deck:
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Nahiri, Storm of Stone Voltron!
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Why Nahiri, Storm of Stone?
Nahiri provides a lot of utility for our deck, and the discount on equip costs can be very nice, while a lot of our equip costs are decently cheap, already having a further discount allows us to be far more efficient with our mana and have strong and efficient turns and allow us to hold up mana for removal like Abrade
or even draw spells like Big Score
. I really like Nahiri’s ability to damage a tapped creature, which can be a great ability to use after we went to combat and an opponent has a creature still hanging around, I also really like using it on mana dorks and really any creature that taps quite frequently. Nahiri is a great utility piece for the deck and helps the overall gameplan in a ton of ways.
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:
Murderous Redcap
Record against Murderous Redcap 3-0
I like this matchup a lot and find it to be quite favorable. Murderous Redcap can be a pretty nasty deck, but we are often quicker, and by the time they establish their commander we usually are out of range of their commander being able to kill our creatures. We are pretty good at just smacking them down and ending the game before they can really get anything going.
Crackling Drake
Record against Crackling Drake 3-1
This is a very good matchup for us; while they are an Izzet deck, they are focused on themselves and their gameplan and rarely care what we are doing; this especially doesn’t matter when we swing like a truck when they are just getting started in their gameplan. This is a great matchup for our deck; while I did lose one in testing, that was on a hand where I didn’t have an early Voltron creature and just got run over. This matchup is loseable so certainly don’t take it lightly but overall, I like it.
Jasmine Boreal of the Seven
Record against Jasmine Boreal of the Seven 4-0
This is a great matchup; we just don’t really care what they are doing; once we get our Voltron creature established, it’s pretty much lights out for them; if we can keep their commander off of the board, they can’t really do anything against us. While we don’t have to keep their commander off the field, it certainly helps, but it is not something we always want to do. They do have good mana production, but their vanilla creatures get outpaced very quickly.
Commanders, we have a tough matchup against:
Bruenor Battlehammer
Record against Bruenor Battlehammer 0-3
Remember how I said that Nahiri is among stiff competition, well, this is a large part of the stiff competition that we are up against. Nahiri is a fun and cool card, but let’s be real: Bruenor is the better commander, free equipment every time they take a turn and a huge buff for each of their creatures makes this matchup an absolute nightmare for us. Nahiri’s damage ability doesn’t help much here, and this is a very rough one.
Murmuring Mystic
Record against Murmuring Mystic 0-4
This is a very rough matchup for our deck, unlike Crackling Drake, they absolutely have the counterspells to stop us, against Mystic, we struggle to deal with our flyers and the fact that they counter our most important stuff, and even if they don’t they have quite a bit of bounce effects, this deck takes a very long time to kill you but slows us down enough that it will eventually happen.
Gatekeeper of Malakir
Record against Gatekeeper of Malakir 0-3
So much removal and so much sacrifice spells absolute disaster for a deck that is only running fifteen creatures; they are so good at making us sacrifice creatures and removing our creatures that stick around that makes this matchup so horrible. This is truly a rough one.
Strategy Overview:
Swing as hard as we can, as soon as we can:
We are a Voltron deck swinging truly is the name of the game here we need to be swinging as early and as often as we can, we typically like to wait for optimal combat situations or situations where we are just better in combat. Swinging hard when we can allows us to put a ton of pressure on our opponents and end games quickly.
Focus on one:
Since we are a Voltron deck, we tend to focus on one creature; this is critical to the strategy as we tend to throw all of our resources on a strong creature like Champion of the Flame
. Focusing all of our buffs as well as our protection is a great way to have a strong board presence and have all of the answers
Almost never care what your opponents are doing:
We are quite good at combat, and that is the primary focus of the deck, while we do have a little bit of removal I tend to hold it until the worst of the worst our opponents have to offer come out, I tend to be very “selfish” and just focus on our board and our gameplan and focus on buffing and swinging our Voltron creatures.
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 a pretty small creature count overall, but as a Voltron deck, that is perfectly ok with us, we love having access to only the best, like Goblin Gaveleer
and Champion of the Flame which are the two best Voltron creatures we have and if played early and given some protection can be absolutely insane and do a number on our opponents very quickly and with ease. We have a ton of great support pieces like Kazuul's Toll Collector
, which makes equipment costs free once a turn, which can be really nice on turns where we are casting a lot of equipment, and Ironclad Slayer
which is a great way to recur a piece of equipment if we fall victim to artifact or enchantment removal. I also love Starnheim Courser
as it makes a large majority of our deck cheaper which is something we will never complain about, especially with the additional discounts from Nahiri. Continuing in our support of the overall gameplan, we have both Priest of Ancient Lore
and Roving Harper
, which are nothing more than additional card draws for the deck, which is something we always need since we are in Boros. Ingenious Artillerist
and Sunshot Militia
are both cheap and easy ways to get some non-combat damage and hurt our opponent’s life total, which makes the big swing with our Voltron creature much easier and allow us to end games easier.
Instants:
We have a limited amount of creatures, and with a ton of removal floating around the format, we need to be able to protect our creatures, and we are able to through cards like Center Soul
and Emerge Unscathed
the protection for super cheap is great if we want to go to combat or if we want to protect our creature from a removal spell these are both cheap and awesome, and the rebound on both is super worth the cost. We get pretty aggressive at instant speed, and if we don’t have protection for our creature, why not throw it at an opponent’s face?! With Soul's Fire
and Fling
, both of these things are possible! I love the usability of these cards in our deck. Not only can we “fling” when our creature is about to die, it’s awesome to do it after combat to finish off an opponent. Continuing to get aggressive, we have both Uncaged Fury
and Temur Battle Rage
, which can also be awesome finishers for the deck and can easily end the game for an opponent. Last but certainly not least, we have Big Score and Unexpected Windfall
, which are strong sources of card draw for the deck, which is something that every Boros deck needs to function.
Sorceries:
No blocking allowed! Our sorcery package is extremely small but has a lot of great utility for our deck in both Coronation of Chaos
and Cosmotronic Wave
both of these allow us to manipulate opponents blocking in combat which is super awesome and allows us to get hits in combat situations where we normally wouldn’t. Rounding out our Sorcery package is Fragmentize
; with so many good artifacts and enchantments in the format, having a way to remove the most problematic one on the board is something I thought was valuable, and in testing, I was correct!
Artifacts:
We have a ton of awesome artifacts, so let’s just go over the cream of the crop. We are in Boros so you know we had to play Greatsword of Tyr
, this card is a true powerhouse and tapping down an opponent creature and buffing ours for cheap is super worth it. I love quick and free equipment that can get the damage going easily, so we are running both Dueling Rapier
and Mirran Banesplitter
. Both of these auto-attach when entering and can help us get the damage going quite quickly. We do have a lot of awesome offensive equipment but have some good defensive ones too, like Leather Armor
, which provides a toughness boost and, more importantly Ward; the Ward can be really nice, especially when we commit our Voltron creature to the board early. We also have Golem-Skin Gauntlets
, which is a true powerhouse and an absolute finisher even if we just have four or five pieces of equipment out, this is a huge attack buff for our deck and works perfectly in conjunction with Whispersilk Cloak
which is a great way to totally invalidate our opponent’s board and their ability to block. We do have some non-equipment cards like Golem Foundry
, which can be triggered quite a bit in our deck and provides some fodder for attacking/blocking; I originally tested this without Golem Foundry and found that Golem Foundry added a lot more stability to the deck overall.
Enchantments:
It’s all about protecting our Voltron creatures! Because of that, our enchantment package is full of great and cheap ways to protect them, like Benevolent Blessing
and Inviolability
, which can make us very strong in combat, I also enjoy Squee's Embrace
because it provides a buff and allows us to recur that creature if they die which can be quite relevant with decks heavy on removal. Cartouche of Zeal
is a pretty cool card that I often end up holding until we want to take an opponents creature out of combat if we do need this early to buff up a Champion of the Flame we absolutely can but I do prefer to hold it until we can take full advantage of it.
Strengths of the Deck:
- We can hit really hard once established and our creatures can get out of hand very quickly with creatures like Goblin Gaveleer
or Champion of the Flame. - We have quite a bit of protection for our Voltron creatures allowing us to act pretty freely and swing with no real worry.
- We can be quite fast, while certainly not as fast as some aggressive decks. We can get a kill shot going by the fifth or sixth turn, which can take a lot of decks by surprise.
Weaknesses of the Deck:
- Even though we have a few sources, card draw can be tough.
- We have a pretty low creature count and thus can get bullied in the early-game by aggressive/creature strategies, while this usually doesn’t matter once we get established. At a table full of aggressive decks it can be quite bad.
- We don’t have a ton of straight-up removal, which can be tough if opponents are on a stompy strategy and bring out huge creatures that can compete with our Voltron creatures.
Deck Stats:
Sample Hands:
Conclusion:
Thanks so much for reading to the end! Nahiri is a super cool commander and definitely a very interesting choice for a Voltron commander. I like this deck a lot, and while I don’t think it is the best option for a Voltron commander, I think it definitely has a place, and Nahiri’s ability can be quite strong aggressive decks. This is a different and interesting take on a commander for a Voltron commander, and I hope you all enjoyed it as much as I did!