“Riding like a ghost ship, yeah”
Art:Formation Breaker
by Eelis Kyttanen
Table of Contents
Today’s Featured Commander Is:
Tarkir: Dragonstorm week continues! And today we have a commander that I believe has gone quite under the radar. Formation Breaker is a really strong commander that can pack a true punch, being able to buff them up big is very easy in this deck and they can hit like a truck, we primarily go for commander damage kills in this deck but have such an amazing supporting cast that we are easily able to kill opponents without commander damage if our opponents keep our commander off of the field. Formation Breaker is a lot like other +1/+1 counter strategies, but having a commander that is pretty much unblockable allows us to be extremely strong against a variety of decks, especially creature-focused strategies. If you are looking for some classic mono-green/+1/+1 counter fun, this is certainly the deck for you. Without further ado, let’s get it!
The Deck:
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Why Formation Breaker?
Formation Breaker is one of the best cards in our deck, it’s almost always a two-mana 3/3, which is great and can allow us to block quite effectively, especially against aggressive strategies. They are mostly a great attacker for the deck and easily allow us to one-shot opponents with commander damage, which is a super easy and effective way to end the game. Formation Breaker is an amazing card for our deck and is oftentimes our main win condition.
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:
Herald of Kozilek
Record against Herald of Kozilek 4-0
This is a very good matchup for our deck, Herald can output some big creatures but since they operate on a similar pace to we do we are typically on par with the size of their creatures, they do have a little bit more utilyt and support than we have but they cant stop an unblockable commander! I love this matchup and thought it was very good for the deck.
Glaring Fleshraker
Record against Glaring Fleshraker 3-0
Just like Herald of Kozilek, while they can get quite big, we are often a lot bigger and can typically just bully them in combat. This is a very good matchup for our deck, and since they are in colorless, they have almost just as few removal/utility cards as we do.
Arcbound Shikari
Record against Arcbound Shikari 5-0
I played a lot of games against another deck that focuses on +1/+1 counters, and this matchup went very well for us; I loved this matchup. At the same time, they do have some spot removal, it’s often damage-based, and they aren’t big enough to kill a large majority of our creatures. This is an extremely good matchup for our deck, and I had no trouble with this deck.
Commanders, we have a tough matchup against:
Zada, Hedron Grinder
Record against Zada, Hedron Grinder 0-4
Zada is just better than our deck in a lot of ways, while they aren’t often better in combat than us, they have so much burst and are quite a bit quicker than us. We have almost no removal, and sadly, we can’t do anything against most Zada decks since we have almost no removal. This is an unwinnable matchup without considerable help with our opponents.
Bone-Cairn Butcher
Record against Bone-Cairn Butcher 0-3
Bone-Cairn is one of the strongest commanders to release this year, and they are in Mardu and have access to a bunch of insane removal and control-style spells. While they aren’t a control deck at all, they certainly feel that way compared to us! The tokens with deathtouch are really rough for us as well and just cause a ton of problems; this is an extremely rough matchup for the deck.
Murmuring Mystic
Record against Murmuring Mystic 0-3
I will not tell a lie, control decks are an extremely tough matchup for our deck, control is just extremely good and efficient at stopping us, they are able to counter our commander and all of our big finisher spells and are just really efficient at stopping us, it certainly doesn’t help that we are in mono-green and they produce a ridiculous amount of flyers. This is a terrible matchup for our deck.
Strategy Overview:
Buff them up:
Buffing our commander up is one of the key aspects of this deck, they cant be blocked by creatures that are smaller than it and that is something we try to take advantage of as many time as we can, using cards like Might of the Masses
and Mutant's Prey
as two strong ways to buff up our commander and make them devastating.
Just do you:
Theres no going around it, mono-green has a lot of weaknesses, we don’t have a lot of card draw or removal and overall it can be tough against a lot of decks, one of the main reasons we want to “just do us” is that since we cant interact much with our opponents we just don’t care what our opponetns are doing and focusing on trying to stop them just doesn’t work, focus on yourself and focus on our gameplan, that is one of the best ways to address one of our biggest weaknesses.
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:
Even though we are mostly focused on our commander, we have an amazing supporting cast of creatures that help us an absolute ton and allow us to buff up our commander and be good enough against our opponents so we don’t fall flat and just die in combat. Cards like Bond Beetle
, Guardian Gladewalker
, and Ironshell Beetle
are all very good chump blockers for the deck that also give our commander a +1/+1, just perfect cards that help us save some health, especially against aggro, which is always nice as the format gets heavier on creatures and gets more aggressive overall. We are in mono-green and ramping is within our blood, so having access to Elvish Mystic
and Llanowar Elves
allows us to accelerate our gameplan a lot, and being able to accelerate our gameplan is very nice since when we hit the mid-end game we tend to get extremely big, which allows us to establish a strong board position much earlier than our opponents. Ivy Lane Denizen
is another card that is just a true all-star for this deck. It can come down early and buff up pretty much every creature in our deck, and allows us to be a true force to be reckoned with in combat. Since our creatures are almost always buffed up we can get a ton of value out of cards like Urban Daggertooth
and Pollenbright Druid
being able to proliferate just hits so much harder, especially when we have a full board of creatures that we can target. Scrounging Bandar
and Servant of the Scale
are also really good when they are buffed up since we can move all of their counters to our commander which can set up an unexpected one-shot on our opponents.
Instants:
Our instant package focuses almost entirely on buffing up our commander and cheaply, with super cheap ccards like Arbor Armament
, which is one of the few ways that we are able to block flying creatures, which can be quite relevant depending on what we are playing against. We also have Broken Wings
, which allows us to kill a flying creature, which is very good because, outside of these two cards, we have almost no way to interact with flyers. Our buffs get a lot better than just +1/+1 with one of my favorites being Might of the Masses which depending on how big our board is we can go crazy, in testing i used this card for a commander damage kill a bunch of different times, this is an amazing card that almost always acts as a finisher if we have a big board. Because of all of the buffs and the fact that they are often unblockable our opponents love to try to kill our commander while we don’t have a ton of ways to stop them we do have Tamiyo's Safekeeping
and Gaea's Gift
which not only stop our commander from dying we can also give them a counter which is perfect for our gameplan, we can use these cards offensively or defensively and since they buff them up it still makes them efficient and effective no matter which way we use it.
Sorceries:
Buffing up our commander is a huge portion of our game plan, and being able to ramp into cards like Soul's Might
when we already applied a decent amount of cheap buffs like Hunt the Weak
and Outmuscle
allows us to get very close to a commander damage kill pretty quickly. Being able to fight opponents’ creatures is also really strong and one of the few ways we can actually remove opponents’ creatures. Smell Fear
is one of my favorite fight cards we have since we also get to proliferate, which can be very strong within this deck. Proliferating is also available through cards like Courage in Crisis
, which I almost always target our commander, and with the proliferate, I am able to buff them up twice. We round out our sorcery package with Cultivate
and Kodama's Reach
, which are both great ways to accelerate our game plan and get everything going early.
Artifacts:
We are not a Voltron style deck but we do have quite a few ways to buff up our commander and make them more effective, after all our primary gameplan for damage is to commander damage kill our opponent, Armory of Iroas
is a nice and early and cheap way to get our commander bigger and prepare for a bigger hit! I am also a huge fan of Brass Knuckles
since we are able to make our commander a huge threat to our opponents and since we get an additional copy we are able to give another one of our big creatures double-strike which is super amazing for the deck and allows us to hit our opponents like a truck. Buffing up our commander is truly a key part of our deck, and because of that, we are running Implement of Ferocity
and Weapon Rack
, which are all cheap and efficient ways to get our commander big and unblockable. If you have read any of my deck techs before, you will know that I absolutely love Wedding Invitation
and think it is an amazing way to guarantee a hit, and in this deck, it’s arguably more important to get some card draw. I really like our artifact package, and it provides a lot of utility and support for the deck.
Enchantments:
We love to buff up our board and get them big as soon as we can, which is why we have some really cheap ramp like Utopia Sprawl
, Wild Growth
, and New Horizons
All of these are decently cheap and allow us to accelerate out our commander and all of our gameplan, just all great cards for the deck. We can buff up our commander super high, especially with cards like Predatory Hunger
and Forced Adaptation
, which can allow our commander to get out of hand very fast. Our enchantment package is full of quite a few bangers with one of my favorites being Master Chef
, which buffs every creature, including our commander, and gives us a nice edge, especially when we want to proliferate. I also really like Snake Umbra
, which gives us a small buff but, more importantly, some card draw, which in mono-green is something we desperately need, and this is a cheap and decent source of it.
Strengths of the Deck:
- We can get commander damage kills really quickly.
- We are a force to be reckoned with in combat and can be very tough to deal with.
- We are very strong against other creature decks.
Weaknesses of the Deck:
- We have very little removal; it can be quite tough to deal with opponents’ problematic permanents that are not creatures.
- We have very weak matchups against control decks, there is almost no recourse for us if they counter our stuff or remove our best stuff, just very tough matchups for the deck.
- We do have some card draw within the deck with cards like Spare Supplies
and Llanowar Visionary, but overall it can be tough to draw cards.
Deck Stats:
Sample Hands:
Conclusion:
Thanks so much for reading to the end! I hope you all enjoyed this deck as much as I did, it was a blast to play in testing and I had a lot of fun with this one, this is a deck that is flying under the radar to a lot of players in my opinion, it is shockingly easy to get our commander huge and we can be a true force to be reckoned with, this commander deserves a lot more love and I think it can be really strong at tables with a lot of creature decks, we can truly outmuscle them. Stay tuned and tap in!