“Let the pain speak to me.“
Art:Arcus Acolyte
by Volkan Baga
Table of Contents
Today’s Featured Commander Is:
Counters, Counters Counters we’ve all seen them and if you have played Pauper EDH for any amount of time I would be shocked if you hadn’t run into a deck focused on +1/+1 counters its a popular archetype and for good reason, Coutners strategies are good and have a lot of support, now that leads us to Arcus Acolyte, you may be wondering what separates Arcus Acolyte from all of the other Counters commanders within the format, what separates them is giving our creautes Outlast which can be strong on turns where combat situations are not advantageous or we have creatures that we just played, that extra +1/+1 can go a long way especially when we have a bunch of newly played creatures on the board or we have creatures that don’t give themselves counters, combining that with a bunch of proliferate effects. You have a true recipe for a strong board presence and combat presence. This one is really fun to pilot! Without further ado, let’s get it!
The Deck:
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Why Arcus Acolyte?
Arcus Acolyte is a really cool card for our deck, being able to get counters on creatures that don’t start with counters can be a really good way to get the ball rolling especially with effects like Urban Daggertooth
and Smell Fear
being in the deck as well as multiple other ways to proliferate. The deck can absolutely work without Arcus Acolyte, but they provide a very nice piece of support for the deck, and if the game starts to go longer, we can be extremely effective. Arcus Acolyte is a wonderful piece of support for the deck, and the deck is absolutely better with them out than without.
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:
Jasmine Boreal of the Seven
Record against Jasmine Boreal of the Seven 4-0
This is a very good matchup for our deck. They just are not better than us in combat, and because of that, we beat them up for a good majority of the game. They also have just as little removal as we do, which helps a lot. This is a matchup where we just snowball very quickly and typically roll them.
Ivora, Insatiable Heir
Record against Ivora, Insatiable Heir 3-1
Ivora can be really fast but if they stumble even a little we can easily take advantage of them and dominate the game against them, this is a pretty alright matchup for our deck, be warned that one loss I had was an absolute stomping by Ivora, this deck can win and kill you quickly but if they stumble you should have nothing to worry about!
Ajani's Pridemate
Record against Ajanis Pridemate 3-0
This is a good matchup, we have to watch their commander and make sure they don’t get too out of hand, this is an easy matchup for our deck, we can keep up with their commander in combat pretty easily and outside of combat, they have almost no ways to deal with our board. This is a great time for our deck.
Commanders, we have a tough matchup against:
Hamza, Guardian of Arashin
Record against Hamza, Guardian of Arashin 2-3
A winnable but tough matchup for our deck, the biggest issue with this matchup is our lack of ways to deal with Hamza outside of combat, with them on the field for a long time they can get an extreme discount on so many of their creatures that we are unable to keep up or deal with them in combat, this matchup is winnable if we have strong start but overall can be rough.
Queza, Augur of Agonies
Record against Queza, Augur of Agonies 0-3
Counterspells, removal, you name it, they have it, and it’s coming our way. This is a tough one. While we can get some strong early-game damage in, it can be very tough for us to beat them once they get established. This is a very rough matchup for our deck.
Killer Bees
Record against Killer Bees 2-4
A winnable but tough matchup as well, I had a decent amount of success against them, but it can get really rough, especially if they start quick, which they often do, we don’t have very many ways to deal with flyers in the deck, so it can be quite tough.
Strategy Overview:
Buff them up:
Whether it be our commander or cards in the deck buffing up our board is the key strategy within this deck and how we end games.
Take advantage of off turns:
If we are in a spot where going to combat is not good for our board, we almost always have at least one or two of our creatures that we can activate Outlast for and get the counter train started, this is the perfect use of our mana on a turn where we aren’t doing much.
Use our limited resources wisely:
We don’t have very much removal in the deck, but we do have a few pieces like Generous Gift
. Because of this, we need to use our removal very carefully. I tend to wait for later-game permanents or a really problematic commander. Obviously, this differs from game to game, but being careful and cautious with your removal is key. We don’t have enough to throw around willy-nilly.
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:
Creatures are the cornerstone of any +1/+1 counters strategy, and don’t worry, we have some really strong cards with some of my favorites being Crowned Ceratok
which gives pretty much all of our creatures trample which is really strong and can end opponents’ days really quickly. Longshot Squad
is another very strong card for the deck, and giving a good majority of our creatures reach allows us to actually be effective against decks with a lot of flying creatures, without Longshot, we are pretty bad against them, and the damage will start stacking up against us. Now let’s look at the cool creatures in our deck like Urban Daggertooth which can get out of hand extremely quickly and proliferate a ton of times for us throughout the game, an aggressive costed and stat-ed creature is just perfect for our deck. We also have Celebrity Fencer
which can get huge with almost no effort and is one of the best attackers in our deck. We have quite a few cards that interact really well with our commander since they give our other creatures counters but not themselves, perfect for some outlast! Some of my favorites for that are Felidar Savior
and Duskshell Crawler
. I like our creature package a lot and it allows us to pack a huge punch and deal out a ton of damage throughout a game.
Instants:
Protection is the name of the game for our instant package here, with cards like Loran's Escape
and Snakeskin Veil
allowing us to protect our creatures from the large variety of removal present in the format. It’s not all defense at instant speed as we also have Thraben Charm
and Unbounded Potential
which both provide a great amount of utility for the deck! We are rounding out our instant package with some removal in the form of Generous Gift which is by far the best removal spell we have in the deck on top of both Prizefight
and Ram Through
which are two pretty basic fight spells but having access to them at instant speed in a deck that can make some really big creatures allows us to take out the best and biggest our opponents have to offer at instant speed, perfect for all of those Ulamog's Crusher
s that are floating around!
Sorceries:
We have an absolute ton of great ways to end the game at sorcery speed like You Meet in a Tavern
which is a huge buff for our board and while it’s only temporary if we go wide enough we can easily overwhelm our opponents with this. We also have Inspiring Roar
and Now for Wrath, Now for Ruin!
which are both great buffs for the board and can help us maximize our damage for not much mana investment. We do actually have some ramp with one of my favorites being Wanderer's Strike
while it is a little pricey being able to exile a key creature from an opponent and proliferate is absolutely worth it for five mana. If we have a big creature Smell Fear is also a pretty decent removal spell for the deck, and being able to proliferate and kill a big or small creature from an opponent is pretty good.
Artifacts:
Our artifact package is pretty boring, mainly consisting of mana-rocks. Still, we do have the super strong Greatsword of Tyr
which is one of the best pieces of equipment in the format and is just perfect for our deck, additional counters and being able to tap down an opponent’s creature is extremely strong. I also like Spare Supplies
as a cheap source of supplemental card draw, which Selesnya always needs. We round out our artifact package with mostly mana rocks, nothing wrong with ramping and when combined with our creature and spell-based ramp can get pretty our of hand quickly, drawing cards through our mana rocks is also possible with cards like Selesnya Locket
and Mind Stone
while we do have to sacrifice these rocks by the time we sac them to draw cards they really arent that useful anymore.
Enchantments:
Utopia Sprawl
and Wild Growth
are both super strong mana ramp for our deck and can allow us to accelerate the gameplan by a very wide margin, while we lack removal within the deck being able to make up for it with our speed is very good. I also like New Horizons
. Not only does this provide some additional mana ramp for the deck, but being able to give something a counter is always good and helps the overall game plan a ton. Since this is a counters deck we absolutely had to include Master Chef
which can make this deck go really crazy, while it is kind of a non-bo with our commander that amount of counter production is invaluable for our deck.
Strengths of the Deck:
- We are very good in combat, strong at both attacking and blocking.
- We have very good matchups against other combat decks.
- We have a decent amount of supplemental card draw for a selesnya deck.
Weaknesses of the Deck:
- We can have rough matchups against some aggressive decks since we don’t start very quickly, we can get big fast, but the early turns can allow us to take a lot of damage since we don’t have much of a board presence.
- We have very little removal; being unable to deal with opponents’ threats outside of combat can make the game considerably more challenging for us.
- We have a rough matchup against black decks that are more on the control side and focus on removal. If we can’t go wide and have a big board, it can be tough.
Deck Stats:
Sample Hands:
Conclusion:
Thanks so much for reading to the end! I really like this deck and had so much fun testing, while it has some innate weaknesses, I think that the deck’s strengths are worth playing it over other options. This feels like a true selesnya deck and is a great deck to bring out at a table among friends. Counters are truly for the people, at least that’s what your opponents think before they get hit in the face! I hope you all enjoyed it. Stay tuned and tap in!