Please Note: Rule Break Month two is over, just reposting old articles from the site
Full rule are here: Reddit/PauperEDH
Commander Overview
Goliath Truck is here to cause some havoc!The big truck is one of my favorite cards coming out of Rule break month two and allows us to buff up our Voltron creatures and swing big, while sadly the Goliath Truck isnt typically our primary Voltron creature he is a wonderful and strong support commander that helps a ton.
Kefka, Court Mage//Kefka, Ruler of Ruin
How to Play the Deck
The deck is quite straightforward, as most colorless decks tend to be. The elimination of color makes our options pretty limited, and those options are attack/block, as well as throw some equipment onto our creatures. This deck is perfect for a player of any skill level as long as they know how to turn cards sideways. Even though we are rocking a colorless deck, don’t be fooled, we can get some pretty intimidating creatures out there like Eldrazi Devastator and Ulamog’s Crusher, which can really swing the game. This deck is straightforward but is a blast to play and can be really strong.
Phases of the Game
Early-Game: The early-game is pretty simple for this deck. We want to cast Goliath Truck as quickly as we can, and we also want to get our early-game rocks and mana dorks out like Automated Artificer and Manakin. There is nothing wrong with committing our equipment to the board early as well; some of my favorites are Bonesplitter and Ceremonial Knife. We typically aren’t too concerned with what our opponents are doing at this stage of the game.
Mid-Game: The mid-game is where we really shine. This is when we can start buffing up our stronger creatures, like Kozilek’s Pathfinder, which can really devastate decks that have a limited number of blockers. This is also when we get a lot of activations and usage from the Goliath Truck. This is the perfect time to get out our more pricey equipment like Brass Knuckles and really start hurting our opponents.
Late-Game: Late-game is when we swing really big and start putting a ton of pressure on our opponents. By this point, we usually have a large amount of creatures/equipment on the battlefield and can drop some big bombs like Ulamog’s Crusher, Hand of Emrakul, and Iron Giant. These can put a ton of pressure on our opponents and help us close out the game. We also typically have quite a few activations of Giant Truck, so we are quite strong by that point.
Card Breakdowns
Theme of the deck/Synergy’s
Our central theme for this deck is pure colorless Voltron combined with all of the excellent equipment like Haunted Cloak, Armory of Iroas, and Quick-Draw Dagger. Combining that with our commander or creatures can really get a lot of buffs and make combat an absolute nightmare for our opponents.
Our deck has a lot of excellent synergies. We have multiple payoffs for all of our artifacts, like Golem Foundry, which allows us to churn out creature tokens at an alarming rate, as well as Golem-Skin Gauntlets, which can enable us to output a ton of damage and really hurt our opponents.
Our equipment and creatures go hand in hand, and we have so many amazing creatures that help us with the overall game plan, like Foundry Inspector, which reduces the cost of a large portion of the deck and accelerates the game plan quite a bit. Another one of my favorite synergies in the deck is Tower Worker, Mine Worker, and Power Plant Worker, which, when combined, can give us huge benefits. While it is pretty rare, it is cool to have our own creature version of Tron. Another one of my favorite creatures is Maelstrom Colossus. While it is random what we can hit, I am still a massive fan of cascading into something else. Every card in the deck is helpful and fits the strategy, so if we hit something small or big, it can be perfect.
Ramp
Even though we are a colorless deck, we do have some ramp in both our creature and artifact packages. Manakin, Alloy Myr, and Tower Worker are strong early-game blockers if we need them and can help us ramp out our equipment, commander, and bigger creatures. We also have some artifact ramp in the deck, which helps us get ahead as well, like Network Terminal and Sisay’s Ring. Ramping and getting our big creatures out early is a huge part of our deck. Since we have a decent amount of extra mana, we do have Everflowing Chalice, which is really nice since we can dump our excess mana into it and really accelerate the game plan.
Card Draw/Card Advantage
Being in colorless isn’t as bad as it seems! While we don’t have an awe-inspiring card-draw package, we do have some that can really support the game plan. Cards Skyscanner not only provide a single card draw, but are also one of the only flyers in our deck. Flyers are certainly a weakness for this deck, and that helps a ton. Spare Supplies is another source of card draw that can help us get ahead a little bit, and since we have a decent amount of additional mana production, it allows us to draw cards on turns where we otherwise don’t have much going on.
Removal
Removal is one of the weakest aspects of our deck. We technically have some removal, but it is expensive and not super easy to do. Removal through combat is quite easy for us, but anything else can be very tough. We do have cards like Bumbleflower’s Sharepot, which is a piece of removal, but paying five is quite a bit as far as removal prices go, but hey, being in colorless forces us into some interesting paths. We also have Introduction to Annihilation, which is another quite pricey removal spell. However, still having it as an option is good for a colorless deck. We. We round it out with Scour from Existence, which is the most expensive of the bunch, but does exile, which can be quite relevant if we are playing against decks that have combo pieces.
Protection
We really don’t have a lot of protection in the deck. We do have Herbal Poultice, which can be nice to have, but overall, we have almost no protection in the deck. That is one of the deck’s big weaknesses. Against a control/removal-heavy deck, we can struggle.
Win Conditions
Our win conditions are typical, especially for a colorless deck. We love going to combat with our big Eldrazi or even our smaller creatures buffed up with our equipment. Being able to equip Bonesplitter, Darksteel Axe, or Golem-Skin Gauntlets on any one of our creatures is very strong. We don’t really do anything fancy in this deck. The best way we can win is by swinging out and hitting hard. We don’t try to be super aggressive, but once we get to the late game, we become extremely hard to stop.
Utility / Support
We have a great supporting cast in our deck, Goliath Truck is one of my favorite support cards as it allows us to really build up our creatures and make them more and more of a threat in combat. Bladed Pinions is another strong card for the deck since we can make our creatures more evasive, think about a flying Eldrazi, that is quite a scary thought. Filigree Familiar and Clockwork Fox are both strong utility creatures for the deck that can be great chump blockers in the early game. In the case of Clockwork Fox, you might even be able to get some political points out of an opponent.
Mana Base
Being in colorless lends us to a very simple landbase since we are running twenty-eight wastes, there is not much room for us to do much else. Still, we do have some cool support lands like Cave of Temptation and Captivating Cave, which both do the same thing and effectively act as an additional activation of Goliath Truck, which is something we will never say no to. We also have Haunted Fengraf, which is a good piece for us, while it isn’t great that it’s random, having any recursion at all is very good. We round out with a true powerhouse, we are running all three Tron lands in Urza’s Power Plant, Urza’s Mine, and Urza’s Tower. You truly haven’t lived until you’ve gotten natural tron in a Pauper EDH game. It is truly an amazing feeling and a great way to get crazy ahead on mana.
Strengths of the Deck
We have a ton of big creatures in our deck and can really overwhelm decks that don’t have a strong combat presence. We can oftentimes steamroll them.
In many of my testing games, I was easily able to one-shot opponents when I had them buffed up, attacking as early as we can with Goliath truck is key to making this one-shot happen, although cards like Golem-Skin Gauntlets certainly don’t hurt.
Weaknesses of the Deck
Not having access to colors means our spell selection is minimal.
We can have really tough matchups against decks that are heavy on artifact hate. I’ve played against quite a few red decks that go heavy on the artifact removal, and I struggled greatly.
Deck Testing/Matchups
I tested this deck against three different decks
Game 1: Vs Glaring Fleshraker . Matchup Record: 1-4
This was a rough matchup for the deck, while we are both doing a very similar mana production, coming from Fleshraker is too much for us, they are just typically a lot quicker than us, and even if they aren’t they cana whilttle us down quite a bit, this was a rough matchup, i had a great hand in one-game. I really stomped them, but overall, this is a tough matchup.
Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Introduction to Annihilation, Scour from Existence and Kozilek’s Pathfinder
Game 2: Vs Indulging Patrician. Matchup Record: 3-1
This was a much better matchup than I thought. We don’t care much about what they are doing; the drain and gain aren’t amazing for us, but it doesn’t present much of a problem because it’s quite a bit slower than we are. I found this matchup to be great for us. I tend to be a little more aggressive against this deck since we don’t want them hanging around into the late-game.
Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Foundry Inspector, Golem Foundry and Sojourner’s Companion.
Game 3: Vs Honest Rutstein. Matchup Record:2-2
This matchup was very interesting for me, we split the games and had some very competitive games, most Honest Rutstein decks care more about their own graveyard and their own gameplan than ours so that does work to our advantage, they definitely get in some early damage on us but can struggle against us when we build out a full board, this is a matchup where token producers like Golem Foundry come in a handy a lot.
Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Scaretiller, Trailblazer’s Torch and Bladed Pinions.
Conclusion
Thanks so much for reading to the end! I hope you all enjoyed this one as much as I did. Even though Rule Break month two is over, you can still rule zero this commander in! I hope you all enjoyed it and can get some good games out of this one. I had a lot of fun building and testing. Being able to use Vehicles was just awesome, and this is one of the ones I will be rule-zeroing later. Stay tuned and Tap in!