“No matter. It’s all the same. Lay out your arms, then”.
Art:Balmor, Battlemage Captain
by Bram Sels
Table of Contents
Todays Featured Commander Is:
Balmor is an amazing Izzet commander who can come out of nowhere and hit like a semi-truck! We are entirely focused on cantripping as much as we can and keeping the cycle going before swinging in huge! Balmor can come down super early and allow us to be super aggressive even in the early stages of the game. In the late stages of the game we can begin to cantrip a bunch in a turn and go for kill-shots! Balmor is a crazy aggressive commander who allows us to play an interesting take on a spellslinger deck. Without further adieu lets get it!
The Deck:
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Balmor, Battlemage Captain Cantrips!
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Why Balmor, Battlemage Captain?
Balmor is absolutely a focal point in our deck and we are heavily built around having Balmor on the field as early and for as long as possible! Balmor gives our deck the “punch” it needs to be aggressive and content with other combat heavy decks within Pauper EDH. Not only can Balmor come down super early but even on turn 3 we have the possibility to cast 3 spells a turn and turn him sideways and start swinging hard! Balmor is also defensively stat-ed so can be a great early game blocker as well!
Deck Overview:
This section contains information about cards in the deck and how they function within the deck! As well as highlighting some of my favorite cards in the deck!
Creatures:
Two of the best creatures in our deck are Blighted Agent
and Razor Swine
which both have infect and we all know how that goes especially with how easy it is to pump up our creatures and give them trample, since Blighted Agent has unblockable if they can come down on turn 2 the game can end very quickly! We also have some cards that get huge when instants or sorceries are cast like Kiln Fiend
, Monastery Swiftspear
and Nivix Cyclops
which all get much better after we cantrip a couple times!
The other part of our creature package is our non-combat ways to deal damage like Guttersnipe
and Erebor Flamesmith
we have 4 of these effects in the deck and if we have more than one on the field that game will get out of hand super quickly and when combined with all of the damage we have from Balmor we can end games really quick!
Instants:
Our instant package has a ton of great cards like Counterspell
and Arcane Denial
are both great ways to stop our opponents from casting crazy spells and is a great way to stop game-winning spells! Big Score
and Unexpected Windfall
are really great draw spells that we can use pretty early depending on how much we can ramp! We also have some cards that help us with combat and allow us to trigger Balmor like Expedite
, Daring Escape
and Sure Strike
. Just as all of our instants and sorceries are we want to cheap cards to trigger Balmor as many times as we can!
Sorceries:
Our sorcery package is where a lot of our card draw is with sweet cards like Serum Visions
, Ponder
and Preordain
these not only trigger Balmor but give us the ability to keep cantripping and hit even harder! Since we cantrip an absolute ton we can use cards like Empty the Warrens
which is a great way to make a ton of creatures and more creatures to apply Balmor’s buff too! Ruthless Invasion
and Seismic Stomp
are two cards that can be true game-enders since we can make a lot of our opponents unable to block or at the very least limit their blocks!
Artifacts:
More mana means more cantrips so we absolutely had to include Izzet Signet
, Arcane Signet
and Fellwar Stone
which are all great ways to have some extra mana at our disposal. Wedding Invitation
is a cheap card draw source that allows us to make a big creature unblockable!
Enchantments:
We only have two enchantments but both of them are very impactful! Aqueous Form
is a sweet and cheap enchantment that makes one of our bigger or key creatures unblockable, this is especially good when we have Balmor out! Clout of the Dominus
is another great card that allows us to protect Balmor and give them a buff, this is perfect for protection from heavy single-target removal or for a commander damage kill!
Land Base:
We are an Izzet deck so we of course have a bunch of ways to get both of our colors, that is combined with lands like Forgotten Cave
and Lonely Sandbar
which are perfect to draw some more and get more fuel for Balmor. We are more red-heavy then blue heavy so we are running more red sources then blue. We draw a ton of cards, but in testing I found that 35 lands often left us strapped on resources so I found that 36 is the right number!
Strengths of the Deck:
- Super easy to kill our opponents
- Constant stream of card draw
- A bunch of ways to deal damage outside of combat
Weaknesses of the Deck:
- Weak to creature hate
- Deck is considerably weaker without Balmor on the field
- Weak to control-heavy strategies
Deck Stats:
Sample Hands:
Main Win Conditions:
We are a combat deck through and through but we also have some non-combat ways to win. We can win through non-combat creatures like Guttersnipe, Erebor Flamesmith and Kessig Flamebreather
which are all great ways to win throughout combat, even if we use them as a complementary piece they are great ways to whittle down our opponents and get a ton of damage in!
Conclusion:
Balmor is a cantrip machine who allows us to have huge swings, especially combined with sweet creatures like Kiln Fiend and Monastery Swiftspear and can get out of hand super quickly. We are a fast acting Izzet deck who looks to chain and cantrip as much as we can and swing in for huge damage! Hope you enjoyed this article and thank you so much for all of the support. Thanks for reading to the end!