Commander Overview
Lord Dregg is such a cool commander and one of the coolest from TMNT for Pauper EDH, being in Golgari truly feels amazing here as our commander is not only a pretty consistent source of token production but also a source of card draw, now granted it is quite expensive card draw but having it as a way to sacrifice tokens and thus retrigger Lord Dreg on pretty much every one of our turns is quite strong. Lord Dregg has been a blast to play, and while it does feel weird to play a token deck that isn’t white, it is a ton of fun. TMNT provides a plethora of amazing Pauper EDH commanders, so stay tuned for even more coming soon.
How to Play the Deck
Playing the deck is deceptively easy to do; there isn’t a ton of complicated interactions within the deck. There are two key things to remember when playing this deck. Always remember that you can use your commanders ability at instant speed to get some additional card draw and maybe find something like a removal spell and that we do our best to have at least one thing die so that we can trigger Lord Dregg, other than that its just a tokens deck, make a ton of tokens, use payoffs like Mirkwood Bats and Nadier’s Nightblade to whittle down our opponents while we swing as much as we can. This deck is great for a player of any skill level and is easy to pick up and play.
Synergy’s in the deck
Our whole deck is synergized around tokens and our commander, two of the best token payoffs in the deck are Nadier’s Nightblade and Mirkwood Bats which are by far the best two cards in our deck, being able to ping opponents on both creation and death of our tokens synergizes perfectly with our commander and allows us to deal a ton of passive damage since we have a lot of token production in the deck. We also have token production that works very well with our commander, like Greedy Freebooter, which can not only net us some early extra mana but will trigger our commander as well. Turning things like weak saprolings into flying insect tokens with our commander is a huge win for the deck.
Phases of the Game
Early-Game: Like most decks, this is the establishment for us, all we do is playout some early-sac outlets like Viscera Seer or Ashnod’s Altar and then cast any other supporting creatures and finally our commander. We can be aggressive since we have a decent amount of one-drops in the deck, but it certainly isn’t a requirement.
Mid-Game: The mid-game is a great example of how the deck should work, its all about cycling stuff in and out at least once a turn so we can trigger our commander and keeping getting our flying tokens, while they may seem insignificant at first they are great options for the deck and having more evasive tokens allow us to hit hard since flying isn’t super prevalent in the format, obviously against a deck like Kangee, Sky Warden it can be quite tough to hit but overall it makes our game easier. Just follow the gameplan, keep “cycling” stuff in and out, and hit hard.
Late-Game: By this point, we typically have a good amount of flying tokens as well as just other tokens and creatures on the battlefield. We try to be pretty aggressive and just attack. Since we are in Golgari, we are pretty heavy on removal, so we can be good at removing our opponents’ best creatures, so blocking is a lot tougher.
Card Breakdowns
Ramp
We aren’t a heavy ramp deck, but we do have a pretty low curve overall, so we typically don’t have trouble playing out our stuff. In contrast, we do have cards like Arcane Signet and Golgari Signet, which can be helpful. They aren’t super consistent if we get them, great if we do, but not ramping is not bad for our deck, and we are perfectly ok with playing our one land a turn and casting things as we can.
Card Draw/Card Advantage
Lord Dregg is a great but expensive source of card draw for the deck, but in a pinch, being able to sacrifice a token, trigger Lord Dregg, draw a card, and make a token is pretty great. Since we care about stuff going to our graveyard at least once on our turn cards like Deadly Dispute and Village Rites synergize extremely well with our deck and trigger our commander, which creates a true best of both worlds situation. Rounding out our card draw package, we have Read the Bones, Sign in Blood, and Night’s Whisper, which are all cheap and easy draw sources with minimal drawbacks. Between all of our cards and our commander allowing us to draw, we very rarely have a low amount of cards in our hand.
Removal
Removal is one of the biggest strengths of Golgari and we have no shortage of it, while we can’t kill everything on the board and are most certainly not a control deck we can remove problematic stuff with ease. We even have some removal that synergizes extremely well with our commander like Candy Grapple and Final Flourish which are both great ways to trigger our commander and hurt our opponents. Beyond that we have some key cheap removal pieces like Breathe your Last, Deadly Derision and Bake into a Pie just easy ways to get rid of our opponents stuff and give us a minor benefit.
Protection
Protection is one of the weaker portions of our deck. We are ok with it, it can be hard to kill our stuff with -1/-1 counters or damage-based spells because of cards like Might of the Masses, but typical removal works pretty well, we often don’t care if most of our stuff cares. We can recur some of our best stuff with Forever Young, which is a great way to respond to a bad combat or key cards like Mirkwood Bats or Nadier’s Nightblade being killed.
Utility / Support
Let’s go over some of the best sources of token production in our deck, Sprout Swarm can be near infinite token production, while it can be pricey to buyback the spell it is still a great option and perfect for the mid-late game when we have some extra mana floating around or if we have something like Ashnod’s Altar to get the extra mana and trigger our commander. Acorn Harvest is another great source of token production for the deck, and it isn’t hard for us to cast, and flashing it back is easy for us to do as well, just a great way to fill up our board. Since we have so many tokens on the field at one time, Gruesome Fate is a great way to translate that into damage and is good when we have a pretty full board, which is often in this deck. I’m also a big fan of Saproling Migration. While we don’t need to kick it to make it good, it is a cheap and easy source of tokens. We also have creatures that synergize well with the token game plan, like Symbiotic Beast, which we can sacrifice easily to get four tokens, and if it’s our turn, we can get an extra one from Lord Dregg. Deathbloom Thallid is another really cool card, while it may not be impressive, it synergizes extremely well with our commander since we get a token when it dies and will get one from Lord Dregg.
We have a lot of stuff die in our deck, so naturally we have payoffs like Bloodflow Connoisseur, which can get big really quickly and is also a consistent way to trigger our commander and get a huge creature. The same is true for Silumgar Scavenger, which is a powerhouse in our deck and can get really big fast. I have ended many games with Silumgar Scavenger. Glimmer Bairn is another very cool card for the deck, attacking for one and then sacrificing a bunch of stuff to hit for big damage and trigger our commander for the extra token at the end of the turn is great. We have a lot of ways to get big for something we do a lot in the deck.
Mana Base
Since we have a pretty low overall cost in our deck, some of the lands we draw in the late-game can be dead draws, so having lands like Slippery Karst and Polluted Mire that are able to be cycled can allow us to turn those dead draws into opportunity. While not always relevant, Bojuka Bog can be a hard counter to graveyard strategies and is shockingly good against spellslinger decks too. While our manabase is mostly basics, the non-basics in the deck are quite helpful.
Win Conditions
Our only win condition in the deck is combat, which is greatly assisted by all of the flyers we have from Lord Dregg, since we can be more evasive than most Golgari decks. We are also greatly assisted by cards like Nadier’s Nightblade and Mirkwood Bats. These are by far the best two cards we have in the deck.
Strengths of the Deck
We are great at chump blocking since we have a lot of disposable creatures, and with so many sac outlets in the deck, we can get mana or counters on a creature like Silumgar Scavenger when our stuff dies.
Our commander is a true powerhouse, they provide card draw and consistent token production for the deck.
Weaknesses of the Deck
We can be a bit slow and can get run over by an aggressive deck in the early game. We can stabilize after a few turns, but we can take a lot of early damage, which can hurt us in the late game.
Nadier’s Nightblade and Mirkwood Bats are by far the best cards in our deck, and all eyes are on us when we drop either of them. We will be targeted, as many opponents know the power of these cards.
Deck Testing/Matchups
I tested this deck against three different decks
Game 1: Vs Syr Alin, the Lion’s Claw. Matchup Record: 4-0
I had almost no trouble with this matchup. They have next to no way to give their creatures trample, so we just chump block as much as we can and hit with our flyers. We are a lot better than they are in the removal department, so using that to our advantage allows us to kill their best creatures. Just stick to the game plan here, and you should be just fine.
Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Bake into a Pie, Sprout Swarm and Omen of the Dead.
Game 2: Vs Zada, Hedron Grinder. Matchup Record: 1-4
This is not a great matchup for our deck, our chump blocking doesn’t do much against cards like Crash Through, and Zada is just faster than us. Keeping a heavy grip of removal and slowing the game down is the best way for us to grab a win.
Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Cast Down, Arms of Hadar and Silumgar Scavenger.
Game 3: Vs Queen Allenal of Ruadach. Matchup Record: 2-2
This is a split matchup for our deck. This matchup mostly consists of who is faster, and watching out for Queen Allenal is the most important thing we can do. We are a lot better at removal, and taking out their commander can slow them down a lot. The flyers created by Lord Dregg are very important here since they don’t have many ways to stop them. This is a fine matchup, but removing their commander is key.
Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Forever Young, Emergency Weld and Glimmer Bairn.
Conclusion
Thanks so much for reading to the end! I hope you all enjoyed our first Pauper EDH deck for TMNT week. We have a few others we have tested and are coming soon. Lord Dregg is such a fun commander, and while Golgari tokens certainly isn’t as strong as a color combination like Selesnya, it is very fun and feels a lot different. If you’ve played a lot of token decks and are looking for something similar but new, I think you will love this one.