Commander Overview
Spider-Man India is a really exciting and cool Pauper commander. One of the biggest weaknesses of most Selesnya decks is the inability to be evasive. Spider-Man India helps with that a ton and lets us hit our opponents with our big, buffed-up creatures, removing one of the biggest weaknesses our color combination has. Spider-Man India also helps the overall game plan a ton since they give a creature +1/+1 as well, and with all of the proliferation in our deck, it’s very easy to get big. Spider-Man India also has the added benefit of being able to websling them, which is really good since a lot of our creatures have ETBs. Spider-Man India is really the whole package and an amazing commander for our deck.
How to Play the Deck
Our gameplan for this deck is really straightforward, we just want to buff up our creatures and attack, since Pauper EDH is trending towards a more removal heavy format, we do have a decent amount of protection built in. This deck is perfect for players of any skill level, and can be piloted easily by novices and masters, no matter your skill level as long as you are good at swinging out and hitting hard you will be just fine.
Synergy’s in the deck
Our whole deck interacts very nicely with each other; that is typically what happens when we have a very straightforward game plan like +1/+1 counters. Having cards like Courage in Crisis allowing us to buff up pretty much our entire board is a really nice piece of synergy for the deck. Spider-Man India is also a powerful piece of synergy for the deck and allows us to make our creatures more evasive, which helps a ton, especially in the mirror match. Our deck is highly synergistic; everything in it interacts well with itself.
Phases of the Game
Early-Game: Our early game is typically spent just committing some of our smaller creatures to the board and hopefully ramping with cards like Cultivate or Kodama’s Reach if an opponent is open. We do have an early creature out; it’s not a bad idea to swing their way and start chipping a bit of damage.
Mid-Game: The mid-game is typically when things start happening for us. We almost always have our commander out by this point, and also our stuff is usually pretty decently sized by then, allowing us to compete quite well in combat. We follow the core game plan here and swing as much as we can.
Late-Game: Typically by the late-game we have already proliferated a few times and put quite a bit of counters on our creatures, whether that be from our commander or just cards in the deck like Inspiring Roar we are typically pretty big by the time we get to the late-game, and when we are big enough to overwhelm our opponents in combat we swing out and take them out!
Card Breakdowns
Ramp
We have pretty low mana cost overall. Since we hvae a lot of cheap creatures we can afford to play not that much ramp, we do have a decent amount with cards like Cultivate and Kodama’s Reach as well as some creature-based ramp like Avacyn’s Pilgrim and Ilysian Caryatid, Caryatid is especially good because it is really easy to get a creature with power over four. Ramp isn’t a huge part of our deck, but we do have some that allows us to accelerate the game plan.
Card Draw/Card Advantage
Card draw is always tough since we are in Selesnya, it is certainly not easy but we do have some sources of card draw within the deck like Your temple is under attack which has the added benefit of allowingg you to build some good will with your opponent that you have draw with you, sure you are going to backstab them later but its always nice to make a temporary friend at the PDH table. Shoulder to Shoulder is another source of card draw we have and is truly the best of both worlds, allowing us to pump a creature with counters and get a card. Using it as a combat trick is always fun too! We finish off strong with our artifacts like Spare Supplies, Selesnya Locket, and Wedding Invitation, which not only further our overall game plan but also help with card draw! While Spare supplies only provides card draw, it is a strong and cheap source of it, and Locket and Wedding Invitation are both great support pieces for the deck.
Removal
We are not really a removal deck in any way. We, of course, have some because we do like to stop our opponents from going crazy. Still, we don’t have a ton. One of the biggest benefits of being in Selesnya is the ability to remove creatures as well as Artifacts/Enchantments. We have a lot of flexibility in what our stuff can hit with cards like Generous Gift, which is very strong in the deck and can devastate opponents. Return to Nature is a nice card that gives us options; being able to interact with multiple types of cards and creatures (through cards like Crib Swap) is really strong for the deck. We aren’t a deck that is typically very proactive with our removal, but since we have a decent amount of instant speed removal, we play a lot more reactively.
Protection
Spider-Man India is typically a pretty big target for our opponents’ removal since they make our deck a lot more evasive. Unless we are playing against a deck like Kangee, Sky Warden not every deck runs a ton of flyers, because of that we are running a few pieces of protection like Loran’s Escape and Shelter which protect us temporaily from single-target removal, since we often have a big / buffed up board saving a creature for even one additonal turn allows us to deal damage and threaten our opponents a lot more. We also have Blunt the Assault and Riot Control, which are both effective Fog’s for the deck, but allowing us to gain a decent amount of life positions us really nicely against other creature decks/aggressive strategies. Protection isn’t something we are super focused on, but if an opponent swings for lethal and we can’t block it, it doesn’t always mean the end for us.
Utility / Support
Our cards support the overall gameplan very well so i am just going to showcase my fvorite cards in the deck, Dread Linnorm is one of my favorite cards, the adventure side is a nice cheap buff and the creature itself is a little pricey but is quite tough for our opponents to deal with espeically if they have a lot of smaller creatures. I’m also a huge fan of Celebrity Fencer. It can grow quickly over just a couple of turns and pose a significant threat to our opponents. It also interacts perfectly with Nyxborn Hydra and gives the Fencer trample, truly spelling doom for our opponents. You can’t build a deck in PDH that includes white that doesn’t have Greatsword of Tyr. This card is just pure efficiency for our deck, giving our creature every time they attack, and tapping down an opponent’s creature is very strong and allows us to be a lot stronger in combat, which is great because we already are pretty strong in combat.
Mana Base
We have some non-basic lands in the deck that work really well with the game plan, like Captivating Cave and Cave of Temptation. Both of these are decent lands for the deck, but we primarily use them to buff up a creature and swing hard at our opponents. While they aren’t the most efficient lands, the ability to give our creatures counters is excellent. As i always like to include in my PDH decks i do have a bunch of on-color lands that allow us to draw like The Hunter Maze and Secluded Steppe we do hit a point in the game where we really dont need mana so being able to cycle is reallyy nice and can help us turn a dead draw into something worthwhile.
Win Conditions
Our only win condition is combat. Our commander greatly helps us, since they provide us additional evasiveness and allow us to attack more easily against creature decks, but there are no combos or anything special here. We buff up our creatures and turn them sideways!
Strengths of the Deck
Our commander provides evasiveness for the deck, allowing us to have better matchups against other creature decks and other +1/+1 counter decks.
Since we have a low mana curve overall, we have a very nice matchup against aggressive strategies since we can often block their early attackers.
Weaknesses of the Deck
Decks that are huge on removal and can constantly make us have a small board can be very tough matchups for the deck.
While we do have a few sources of card draw, they are certainly not abundant. Because of this, we can face a tough matchup when we don’t find our card draw. Typically, our one card a turn is enough to work with, but bad draws can happen.
Deck Testing/Matchups
I tested this deck against three different decks
Game 1: Vs Armament Dragon. Matchup Record: 3-2
This was an interesting matchup; it’s pretty much a mirror except they have access to black. If they have a fast game, they can usually get the better of us, as they do have better removal and card draw, but we are oftentimes quicker than they are since they need access to more colored mana and have a six-mana commander. This is a good matchup for our deck.
Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Greatsword of Tyr,Bloom Hulk and Unbounded Potential
Game 2: Vs Obelisk Spider . Matchup Record: 1-3
This was kind of a rough one, some of our creatures can survive the -1/-1 counters but in the early-game it can be really rough, it just disrupts our whole gameplan and can be a mess for us, this was not a great matchup, in a fast start i was able to get a win but this was a rough matchup for us.
Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Generous Gift,Crib Swap and Inspiring Roar
Game 3: Vs Zameck Guildmage. Matchup Record: 4-2
This is pretty much another mirror match for the deck. I thought this went really well. The two losses were in games where we could not stick Spider-Man India. This deck has access to counterspells, but if we are aggressive towards the Zameck player, this is a perfect matchup for us.
Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Nyxborn Hydra,Riot Control and Settle Beyond Reality
Conclusion
Thanks so much for reading to the end! I hope you all enjoyed this deck. Spider-Man India is a very cool commander that is an interesting take on +1/+1 counters. I really like making our buffed-up creatures more evasive, which is certainly not common in Selesnya. That evasiveness, combined with a bunch of support cards, allows us to have pretty good matchups against a majority of the format. Obviously, there are limits to +1/+1 counters and what we have access to in Selesnya, but overall, this deck has been perfect.