“All that’s mine, just a sinking supply.”
Art:Kheru Goldkeeper
by Randy Vargas
Table of Contents
Today’s Featured Commander Is:
Kheru Goldkeeper is by far the most hyped commander to come out of this set and for good reason, this card is just simply nuts, the fact that this card isn’t rare is actually shocking, Pauper EDH and CPDH definitely got shaken up with this one, it has so much potential, today is my first foray into CPDH, while I am aware of some of the tops decks in the format I have not played a ton of CPDH and Kheru Goldkeeper was the card that finally gave me the kick I needed to play this awesome subformat! I had so much fun with this one and with CPDH, I hope you all like this deck! Without further ado, let’s get it!
The Deck:
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Kheru Goldkeeper Treasure Combo!
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Why Kheru Goldkeeper?
Kheru Goldkeeper is a huge part of our deck and is one of the main reasons that our deck works, they are apart of pretty much every combo in our deck. Even without the combos, Kheru is a pretty decent and efficient creature, and the passive mana generation we can get from them, even if we aren’t directly going for a combo, can be very strong and allow us to scale very nicely. Kheru Goldkeeper is a huge part of our deck, and having them on the battlefield can allow us to go off at pretty much any time. We are also running cards like Tamiyo's Safekeeping
and Turn Aside
as cheap and strong ways to protect them from the litany of removal present in the format.
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:
Bone-Cairn Butcher
Record against Bone-Cairn Butcher 3-0
We are easily able to keep their commander off the board, and truthfully, we just don’t care what they do. We are almost always quicker than they are, and without their commander, they really can’t operate the same way that they want to. This is a great matchup for our deck.
Tatyova, Benthic Druid
Record against Tatyova, Benthic Druid 3-2
While we arent as fast at Tatyova and we did drop two games I still think this matchup is favorable, it is annoying that removal like Cast Down
isn’t good in this matchup but overall we still have more than enough counters and removal to shine in this matchup, they can combo off quick but if we play a little slower and hold out for our combos and hold up our removal, this is a very good matchup, even though we dropped two games I still think this is a good matchup for our deck.
Sphinx Summoner
Record against Sphinx Summoner 4-0
In my testing games I had no trouble against this deck, countering their commander and keeping them off the board while we wait to find our combo is the true name of the game here and the best way we can play against them, I like to keep more removal/counterspell heavy hands against Sphinx, just stick to the gameplan and be conscious of what they are doing and you should be all good.
Commanders, we have a tough matchup against:
General Kreat, the Boltbringer
Record against General Kreat, the Boltbringer 1-3
This is a rough matchup, General Kreat is just so fast and even though we run Essence Warden
as a way to save some life they can hit really hard and fast, if we are able to assemble the combo quite quickly its not a bad matchup but if we stumble or are slow it can be very rough.
Arabella, Abandoned Doll
Record against Arabella, Abandoned Doll 1-3
They are just so fast and so explosive that they can be extremely difficult to deal with, this is a pretty tough matchup for our deck, just like General Kreat, Essence Warden really doesn’t help us too much here because they are able to dish out so much removal so quickly, this is a very tough matchup and unless they stumble and have a slow start or we have the combo in our opening hand it can be very tough.
Zada, Hedron Grinder
Record against Zada, Hedron Grinder 0-2
At this point, I’m sure it’s pretty easy to tell what our biggest weakness is! Yes Zada is another hyper aggressive deck that beats up on us unless we are able to stop them early or combo off early, Zada is a shockingly good deck and can take an ordinary looking turn into a death sentence, they are able to One turn kill so quickly and it can be truthfully overwhelming to play against. This is a very rough matchup for our deck.
Strategy Overview:
Take your time:
We are a combo deck through and through. We can win on pretty much any turn once we have the combo. Because of this, if we are playing against decks that are not super aggressive, it is perfectly ok to play as a control deck more than a combo deck; we have more than enough control-style spells to do that.
Combo off safely:
Since we are able to take our time in a bunch of matchups, we also need to be comboing off safely; we don’t want to let an ill-timed counterspell ruin our combo and stop us from winning. Because of that, if we are able to and it’s not urgent for us to combo off, going off with protection is always better than without.
Protect your commander at all costs:
All of our combos revolve around Kheru Goldkeeper so protecting them and keeping them on the field for as long as we can is truly key to the gameplan, Having an early Kheru can help us a ton especially with some easy and passive mana generation which can help deal damage if we have our pinger package out or just want to generate some extra mana for tutoring or getting closer to our combo.
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:
Lets talk about the best of our creature package and that is our pinger package, these are the reasons our combos work and they are arguably the highest value cards in our deck, we have the following pingers: Disciple of the Vault
, Nadier's Nightblade
, Mirkwood Bats
and Pactdoll Terror
, these are our combo pieces and what allow our combos to actually deal damage and end games, for the most part I almost never play these out until its to combo off, luckily they are all decently cheap except Mirkwood Bats so its perfectly easy to hold for most of the game until we are ready to go! Now let’s dive into the creatures that we actually play. We start off like most decks that contain green with cards like Llanowar Elves
, Elvish Mystic
, and Boreal Druid
. Accelerating our mana is really important in this deck since it can help us get to our commander and the combo faster. These are always amazing plays on turn 1. If for some reason the combo is impossible for us to do i really like using Bloodbriar
as a nice way to get a big creature passively while we can use this in conjunction with the combo it typically gets pretty big on its own, this is not an ideal gameplan for the deck it but can save us if we need a big blocker or arent able to combo off. We have a ton of tutoring in this deck mostly through our creatures like Drift of Phantasms
, Dimir Infiltrator
and Dimir House Guard
, these allow us to grab two, three and four mana cards which is perfect for the combo as it pretty much allows us to grab anything, its also very nice with all of the reucrison we have in the deck since we are easily able to recur these and re-transmute them which can be super strong, these are the best tutors we have and they are really effective. We also have Wirewood Herald
which is another very strong tutor for the deck and is mostly used to grab either a mana dork or Evolution Witness
just another tutor to help us thin out the deck and grab exactly what we want.
Instants:
We have an absolute ton of instants in this deck, we are packed to the gills with removal like Cast Down, Doom Blade
and Go for the Throat
, as well as coutnermagic like Counterspell
, Dispel
and Negate
even though we are a combo focused deck we have quite a bit of control elements which in my opinion helps protect us and the combo and stop opponents from doing degenerate things. We are able to fill up our graveyard and trigger our commander and mill quite a bit with cards like Cache Grab
, if we accidnelty mill a creature that we need back or they die to removal we can use the amazing Death Denied
to bring them back which can be very nice especially if we are playing against other control decks. I’m also a very big fan of Dig Up the Body
, which we can use its casualty ability very easily and cast it twice, it’s just the perfect way to fill up our graveyard easily. I also want to highlight Dizzy Spell
which allows us to grab cards like Tortured Existence
, which allows us to combo off very easily.
Sorceries:
Drawing cards is truly the name of the game in our sorcery package; We are really good at drawing cards, with cheap options like Ponder
, Preordain
as well as Night's Whisper
and Lórien Revealed
, We are really good at cycling through our deck and finding our tutors and our combo pieces. We also have Gitaxian Probe
which I mostly use as an easy way to gain info on our opponents hand and draw a card for only two life, I really like getting info from another control player, I care much less about what the aggro decks are doing and more want to know what the control player is doing. Druidic Ritual
cheaply triggers our commander and allows us to recur a pinger or one of our tutor creatures, very strong card for the deck and helps with the gameplan a ton.
Artifacts:
In doing some research before I decided to do the build for this deck I noticed a lot of decks went really heavy on artifacts, while I think this is a perfectly fine way to approach the deck I sacrificed a lot of the artifact focused stuff in lieu of far more controlling elements like instants and sorceries, I found this to provide far more consistency against a large amount of decks in the format. We certainly aren’t ignoring our artifact package as we have Arcane Signet
, which is a cheap and nice source of mana fixing for the deck, we also have Golgari Signet
, which is a nice piece of mana fixing. We round out our artifact package with Ashnod's Altar
just like the other combo pieces in my deck, I typically hold this until it’s time to rock and roll, it’s just safer that way.
Enchantments:
We don’t have a ton of enchantments, but we do have some really powerful control cards that help us control the game and set it to the pace that we want! Two of my favorites are Witness Protection
and Unable to Scream
. These are both insanely good in a mirror match, but are very good against any deck that cares about its commander to combo off or execute the game plan. These are both amazing assets for the deck. Nature's Kiss
and Tortured Existence are pretty much nothing more than combo pieces for the deck, and because of their high value for the deck, I typically never play them unless I am about to combo off; the risk of having them on the field is just too much.
Combos Explained:
You are able to add infinite damage to most of these combos if you have any of the following: Nadier's Nightblade, Mirkwood Bats, Pactdoll Terror or Disciple of the Vault.
Here’s a more detailed breakdown:
Kheru Goldkeeper + Archaeomancer
+ Mnemonic Wall
+ Essence Flux
1. Set up: Have Kheru Goldkeeper on the battlefield, Archaeomancer/Mnemonic Wall, and Essence Flux in your hand.
2. Cast Essence Flux: Cast Essence Flux, paying the necessary mana. Target Archaeomancer/Mnemonic Wall to blink it.
3. Archaeomancer/Mnemonic Wall triggers: When Archaeomancer/Mnemonic Wall returns to the battlefield, its ability triggers.
4. Return Essence Flux : Resolve the Archaeomancer/Mnemonic Wall trigger, returning Essence Flux to your hand from your graveyard.
5. Kheru triggers: Kheru Goldkeeper’s ability triggers, creating a treasure artifact token for each treasure artifact token that is on the battlefield.
6. Repeat : Repeat steps 2-5 to generate infinite treasures. Combine with any of the damage dealers above to add infinite damage as well.
Prerequisites
Kheru Goldkeeper, Evolution Witness, and Myr Scrapling
on the battlefield.
Steps
- Sacrifice Myr Scrapling.
- When Myr Scrapling dies, it triggers, putting a +1/+1 counter on Evolution Witness.
- Evolution Witness triggers, returning Myr Scrapling from your graveyard to your hand.
- Kheru triggers creating a treasure.
- Cast the Myr from your hand.
- Repeat.
Results
1. Infinite +1/+1 counters on Evolution Witness.
2. Infinite death triggers.
3. Infinite ETB.
4. Infinite LTB.
Kheru Goldkeeper + Ashnod's Altar + Persistent Specimen
Prerequisites
Kheru Goldkeeper, Ashnod's Altar, and Persistent Specimen on the battlefield.
1 Black available.
Steps
- Sacrifice the specimen to the Altar, adding B.
- Pay to return the Specimen to the battlefield tapped.
- Kheru triggers creating a treasure.
- Repeat
Kheru Goldkeeper + Tortured Existence + Any creature in hand and graveyard.
Prerequisites
Kheru Goldkeeper, Tortured Existence, and a damage dealing creature (see above) on the battlefield.
You have a creature card in hand and a creature card in your graveyard.
Have 1 Black available.
Steps
- Activate Tortured Existence by paying 1 Black and discarding a creature card, returning another creature card from your graveyard to your hand.
- Kheru Goldkeeper triggers, creating a Treasure token.
- Activate the Treasure by tapping and sacrificing it, adding .
- Repeat.
Kheru Goldkeeper + Skyswimmer Koi
+ Golgari Brownscale
Prerequisites
Kheru Goldkeeper + Skyswimmer Koi + Golgari Brownscale
Have an Artifact enter the battlefield or draw a card.
Steps
- An artifact enters the battlefield, triggering Koi, allowing you to draw a card.
- Brownscale allows you to replace the draw portion of Koi’s ability with Dredge 2 returning the Dredge creature to your hand, also gaining you 2 life.
- Kheru Goldkeeper triggers, creating a Treasure token.
- The second part of Koi’s ability triggers allowing you to discard the Dredge creature.
- Repeat.
Results:
Infinite self mill
Infinite treasures
Infinite discard triggers
Infinite life gain
Infinite life gain triggers
Strengths of the Deck:
- We can get wins pretty much out of nowhere if we have our commander.
- We are in Sultai which allows us to be extremely controlling and have access to the best of the best of ramp, card draw and countermagic/removal.
- We have very good matchups against other control decks, we can end games easier than they can and we can afford to get into removal/counter wars with them.
Weaknesses of the Deck:
- Control matchups can disrupt our combo quite a bit which can be very tough for the deck.
- We can take a quite a bit of early damage from aggressive decks, while we do have Essence Warden
to stem the bleeding it still can be quite tough. - We are not as fast as some of the other combo decks and require a bit more setup than something like a Freed from the Real combo.
Deck Stats:
Sample Hands:
Conclusion:
Thanks so much for reading to the end! This is one of my first forays into CPDH, and I hope you all enjoyed it! Kheru Goldkeeper really is the full package and is just a super amazing card that is just a true powerhouse with so much combo potential; I had an absolute blast playing this one and testing it out. This card was one of the most hyped coming out of the set, and I am not surprised at all. This card is a true bomb. I hope you all enjoyed, and stay tuned because we will have more CPDH content soon! Stay tuned and TAP IN!