“And I hear the sounds of thunder all around.”
Art:Ashiok, Dream Render
by Cynthia Sheppard
Table of Contents
Today’s Featured Commander Is:
Ashiok is one of the coolest Planeswalkers we are going to focus on in our series; they are quite strong, and while tutoring and searching aren’t extremely prevalent, there are quite a few decks that like to search, and are able to cheaply turn that off can be quite strong. We are a control deck with a heavy focus on the mill; while it’s not the main theme of our deck, it certainly is a prevalent sub-strategy. The cards in our deck allow us to fill up our opponent’s graveyard, and with the help of Ashiok, we can wipe it all out! Removing the best of the best an opponent has and being able to consistently exile the graveyards of our opponents absolutely shuts down graveyard-based strategies and is very strong against pretty much all strategies. This deck is weird and wacky but is certainly a blast and I am very excited to showcase it today! Without further adieu, let’s get it!
The Deck:
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Angrath, Captain of Chaos Army Aggro!
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Why Ashiok, Dream Render?
Ashiok, Dream Render is an integral part of our deck; they can come down pretty early and allow us to shut down a lot of early-game tutoring and searching while tutoring and searching is not a huge focus in the format there are still quite a few cards that allow searching and tutoring and being able to shut those down can really hurt a lot of decks, especially decks that want to utilize cards like Merchant Scroll
for combos or any other kind of purpose. Ashiok’s mill and exile effect is also quite strong; it allows us to be absolutely own graveyard decks, and milling our opponents and getting their best cards in the graveyard can be quite helpful. Ashiok is a card I like to keep on the board as long as I can, and a card that provides a ton of utility for our deck.
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:
Khenra Spellspear // Gitaxian Spellstalker
Record against Khenra Spellspear 4-0
Khenra is an amazing deck and quite strong, but we actually have a decent matchup against them. While we do need to aggressively mulligan for some removal and counterspells but if we are able to keep Khenra off of the boar,d there isn’t much they can do, and we start milling all their best spells we have quite an advantageous matchup against this deck.
Prophetic Titan
Record against Prophetic Titan 3-1
This is another control vs control style matchup, and with our counterspells being well-placed against their commander and some of their stronger spells, we are able to take advantage of them and not have a very hard time beating them. I find this matchup to quite favorable for us.
Ajani's Pridemate
Record against Ajani’s Pridemate 5-0
This is a very good matchup for our deck; White just doesn’t have much to stop our overall gameplan, and life gain decks like this want to take it to the long game; unfortunately for them, we are just considerably better at the long game and with our creatures and late-game presence we can easily win this matchup.
Commanders, we have a tough matchup against:
Tormod, the Desecrator
Record against Tormod, the Desecrator 1-3
This is a very tough matchup for us and the one graveyard deck that we aren’t very good against, they actually benefit from the core gameplan of our deck, if their commander stick,s this matchup is tough, if we can keep their commander off the field its usually pretty good for us but it can be hard as they have a lot of protection like Feign Death
and Undying Evil
. While this matchup is tough, it is still winnable.
Fynn, the Fangbearer
Record against Fynn, The Fangbearer 0-4
Infect is extremely hard to deal with, and this matchup is just overall very rough for us; even with a lot of counters and removal, they have quite a bit of proliferation effects, and even a bad turn where we only get one poison counter can be very tough and lead us down the path of losing. These decks tend to dominate the early game with tiny creatures that makes this matchup horrible.
Invisible Stalker
Record against Invisible Stalker 0-3
This is a tough one; we can’t really interact with Invisible Stalker, and the only way to stop it is to counter it. Since it can come out so early unless we go first and have a Counterspell
in hand, this matchup is quite rough. If we don’t let their commander resolve, this isn’t a very bad matchup, but it just comes out so early. This is a tough one!
Strategy Overview:
Ashiok as often as we can:
Keeping Ashiok on the board and preventing opponents from searching or tutoring is a key part of our strategy and helps to keep our opponents “fair”.
Don’t let anyone get too out of hand:
We are packing a ton of removal and counterspells, and because of this, if an opponent becomes too threatening, it is imperative that we deal with their problem creatures, spells, or permanents. Between recursion from cards like Shipwreck Dowser
and Archaeomancer
, we have more than enough spells to keep removing the best things our opponents have.
Attack when it counts:
We are running a decently high creature-count for a control deck, but we have a lot of utility through our mill creatures like Merfolk Mesmerist
, Vedalken Entrancer
and Towering-Wave Mystic
which are great ways to fill opponents graveyards early and have some early-game blockers/board presence when we transition the late-game we have some big swingers like Eldrazi Devastator
, Ulamog's Crusher
and Tolarian Terror
which are all awesome ways to finish out the game.
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:
We are running quite a bit of creatures in this deck; even though we are a control deck, having a way to end the game and some early support creatures is key to the overall game plan. A lot of our early-game support creatures mill like Towering-Wave Mystic, Merfolk Mesmerist, which are both great early-game creatures that help us fill up the graveyard before we get Ashiok out and start the exiling! Since there is quite a bit of mill going on we have a ton of recursion within the deck like Archaeomender
and Archaeomancer, I am a big fan of Archaeomender in this deck because Blood Fountain
is one of the best artifacts in our deck and the recursion can be very good especially if we are up against decks that have a ton of removal, being able to recur spells with Archaeomancer is also extremely strong and a great way to get back our strong removal and counterspells and allow the control to keep coming. Something control decks always struggle with is having a good late-game and being able to close out games quickly, luckily we do not have that problem with great late-game finishers like Ulamog's Crusher, Eldrazi Devastator we are easily able to close out games and actually present some damage to our opponents. We also have Tolarian Terror and Cryptic Serpent
, which can come out quite early and are strong attackers in testing I was able to get these out as early as turn four.
Instants:
Our instants are a key part of our deck, we are filled to the brim with counterspells and removal which help us fully control the game, from classic counterspells like the namesake Counterspell as well as some counters that help to further the overall gameplan like Countermand
and Thought Collapse
which are a little more expensive than a lot of our counterspells but filling up the graveyard to set up an Ashiok exile is absolutely worth it. We have a few instant speed mill spells as well which can be really strong after an opponent scrys or is about to draw a ton of cards, being able to utilize cards like Dream Twist
or Winds of Rebuke
at instant speed can be very strong and absolutely surprise your opponents.
Sorceries:
While we have a ton of instants, we have a very low sorcery count; the sorceries we do have are quite impactful and help with the overall gameplan a lot. Mind Sculpt
removes seven cards for only two mana and is a card I often find myself recurring back out of the graveyard again and again. We can never say no to card draw and filling up our graveyard with instants and sorceries so cards like Ponder
and Preordain
help a ton with the overall gameplan and allow us to get out huge hitters like Cryptic Serpent or Tolarian Terror quicker. Im also a big fan of Merchant Scroll being able to get a shuffle on the deck and grab a spell we need is quite strong for only two mana, I typically use it to grab a counter or removal if needed or a card like Dark Ritual
to quickly get out one of our late-game creatures early which can have a huge impact on the game.
Artifacts:
Our artifact package really isn’t very interesting outside of Blood Fountain, which provides some card draw, one of the best targets for Archaeomender, and most importantly allows us to recur the best creatures in our deck, with all of the removal focusing on creatures or artifacts having these options is very strong.
Enchantments:
Our control elements definitely don’t stop at spells, being able to utilize cards like Witness Protection
or Utter Insignificance
to remove a strong commander or really any pesky or annoying creature our opponent has is awesome, reducing a strong combo piece or commander to nothing more than a weak creature with no abilities is huge for our deck and allows us to truly control the game. Going back to our mill strategy Curse of the Bloody Tome
and Chronic Flooding
are both very strong ways to mill our opponents, while we aren’t looking to fully mill them out being able to fill up their graveyard and subsequently exile it allows us to control the game and get rid of their key cards, while it could just be lands or something that really doesn’t matter that we mill taking away resources from our opponents allows us to have a leg up and continuously make our opponents decks less effective.
Strengths of the Deck:
- We are very good against graveyard-based strategies or decks that want permanents or spells in their graveyard.
- We are also very strong against creature-based strategies; a ton of removal and counterspells can make it so opponents can never establish boards.
- We have quite a bit of creatures for a control deck allowing us to be strong in the mid-late game and not have any trouble closing out games.
Weaknesses of the Deck:
- During the first four or five turns, we can struggle to commit to our board because we want to hold up counterspells or removal; we often can be stuck playing on our opponent’s turns.
- Facing other control decks can be a problem for us; in those matchups, we are almost never able to keep Ashiok on the board, which messes the overall gameplan up a ton.
- Opponents really don’t like getting core functions of the game messed with, and we are often an early attack target. Because of that, Ashiok can also be hard to keep on the board in some games.
Deck Stats:
Sample Hands:
Conclusion:
Thank you so much for reading to the end! I hope you all enjoy Ashiok as much as I did! This deck has been a blast to pilot; combining Mill with Control is truly a match made in heaven and makes for a really fun playing experience, well, at least for us. I won’t say that my opponents have a ton of fun against this strategy; a ton of removal, counterspells, and mill doesn’t make it the most enjoyable experience for opponents, but it is a strong and effective deck.