“I’m hexed away, my vision fade.”
Art:Blessed Spirits
by Anna Steinbauer
Table of Contents
Today’s Featured Commander Is:
Blessed Spirits is a very strong Auras commander that allows us to be a pretty strong gameplan with a large combination of both offensive and defensive auras, being able to lock down opponents creatures/commanders while buffing up our commander and getting prepared for a commander damage kill is a very strong strategy, especially since we have big finishers in the deck like All That Glitters
and Ethereal Armor
. While this deck naturally comes with the drawbacks that are typical within mono-white, it performed considerably better than I thought it would. This deck has been a ton of fun to pilot and test, and I’m excited to share it with all of you today! Without further ado, let’s get it!
The Deck:
Click here to copy full decklist to your clipboard!
Blessed Spirits Auras!
Buy This Deck!
Buy this deck using our TCGPlayer Affiliate Link: Blessed Spirits Auras Pauper EDH
Why Blessed Spirits?
Blessed Spirits is a huge part of our deck and one of the main ways that we end the game, They are so easy to get commander damage kills with, whether we are using our enchantments offensively or defensively we can still get counters on our commander and if we bring out a big damage enchantment we can hit really hard and easily finish off an opponent with a commander damage kill, since Blessed Spirits is the main damage dealer within our deck they often get targeted quite often but luckily we have quite a bit of protection for them. Blessed Spirits is a huge part of our deck and is almost always correct to cast on curve.
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:
Ruby, Daring Tracker
Record against Ruby, Daring Tracker 4-1
I find the best way to handle this matchup is to mulligan pretty aggressively for a hand with a lot of defensive auras, we can get a commander damage kill decently quickly in this deck and if we are able to slow Ruby down they cant do much against us, this is a pretty good matchup for the deck, one of the main reasons is that they don’t have a lot of removal.
Cynical Loner
Record against Cynical Loner 4-0
As weird as it sounds since we are in mono-white we are often a little bit quicker than them and can get a kill before they are able to fully set up, if they have a game where they have a perfect hand and start going crazy early it can be bad but if they play decently slow and don’t reanimate or recur insane threats its pretty good for us.
Itzquinth, Firstborn of Gishath
Record against Itzquinth, Firstborn of Gishath 3-0
Itzquinth is a matchup that is very similar to Ruby, a little more emphasis on packing protection because Itzquinth’s ability can be quite good against us, especially when we are just building up our board, overall as long as we follow the core gameplan this is a very good matchup for our deck.
Commanders, we have a tough matchup against:
Tallowisp
Record against Tallowisp 2-2
This is a pretty tough matchup for our deck, but it is winnable. The main reason they have an advantage over us is that their commander allows them to tutor auras quite easily. This amount of card selection can spell trouble for us, especially because they can run the big two as well in All That Glitters and Ethereal Armor. The best path to win against Tallowisp is to lock down their commander with something like Reprobation
. In both games, I was able to slow them down by locking down their commander, and I won.
Ivora, Insatiable Heir
Record against Ivora, Insatiable Heir 0-3
This is a pretty rough matchup, while both of our decks are attempting to do the same thing they are in mono-red and are just a lot quicker than we are, in testing I kept getting blown out of the water by this deck, it was a really rough matchup, since they have so many pump spells oftentimes I was dead on the third or fourth turn. This is a terrible matchup for our deck and our only hope is if they have a terrible start.
The Mouth of Sauron
Record against The Mouth of Sauron 0-4
The Mouth of Sauron is just a very good matchup against our deck, they don’t really care at all what we are doing, and if we don’t mulligan aggressively for a ton of protection they often just kill our commander or whatever we are buffing up, they have so much removal and counterspells, this is a really tough one.
Strategy Overview:
Protect Blessed Spirits at all costs:
Blessed Spirits is one of the biggest parts of our deck. It provides quite a bit of protection, and being able to protect Blessed Spirits is key to winning the game and effectively executing the game plan.
Mulligan Aggressively:
If you are against a deck that you think is going to be heavy on removal, I like to aggressively mulligan for both defensive auras and protection. While a good six or five is fine, I typically wouldn’t go lower than that.
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 quite low on creatures in the deck, but the creatures we do have provide a lot of utility for the deck, like Starnheim Courser
, which reduces the cost of a large majority of our deck, which is always very strong. Captivating Unicorn
is a card that is a little pricey but very strong for our deck and can allow us to really mess up our opponents’ blocking and disrupt combat. While it isn’t cheap, we actually have a shocking amount of tutoring for being in mono-white. With Heliod's Pilgrim
, Totem-Guide Hartebeest
in our deck we can grab the big two (All That Glitters and Ethereal Armor) pretty easy, this allows us to get some pretty quick kills. If we don’t have protection and we can’t keep Blessed Spirits on the field, we can get a decent amount of value out of Flutterfox
as a backup Voltron creature. it’s not ideal, but we certainly can make it work.
Instants:
There is so much removal within the format, which is why we are running quite a bit of instant speed protection like Loran's Escape
, Emerge Unscathed
, and Shelter
. Being able to protect our commander and our creature are core parts of the deck and very important to winning a game. We actually have one removal spell in the deck in Generous Gift
, I tend to be quite conservative when using this because it really is our only true removal spell in the deck, I tend to use this one quite wisely and carefully. We do have Crib Swap
as well, but since it only targets creatures, it is not true removal for anything. Your Temple Is Under Attack
is a card I am a big fan of in this deck since it provides a nice bit of utility, whether we choose the draw for us and an opponent or the protection this is a very effective card for only three mana.
Sorceries:
We are pretty light at sorcery speed, but since we are so focused on auras, it’s perfectly fine. We do have Settle Beyond Reality
, which is a very cool way to bounce one of our creatures, preferably a tutor, and exile an opponent’s creature. While it is quite pricey, the effect is really strong and really can flip the momentum on the game. Finishing up we have two cards that are pretty much the opposite, we start with Terashi's Grasp
which is some cheap artifact/enchantment removal for the deck and Mine Excavation
which is some cheap recursion for our artifacts and more importantly our enchantemtns in the deck. This is a situation where you see what you get, but they are great support pieces for the deck.
Artifacts:
A lot of our artifact package contains ramp, which also provides card draw like Mind Stone
and Commander's Sphere
which are nice ways to get ahead and when they have outlived their usefulness we can get rid of them for some card draw which is something that is always needed in mono-white. Even though we are an aura deck we had to include both Greatsword of Tyr
and Whispersilk Cloak
which are both great extra utility pieces for our buffed-up creature.
Enchantments:
Our aura’s can be broken down into offensive and defensive enchantments, lets dive right into our offensive enchantments, you’ve heard me mention them many times before but we have both All That Glitters and Ethereal Armor these are both finishers for the deck and allow us to pump out an insane amount of damage, these are arguably the two best enchantments in our deck. Empyrial Armor
is another extremely strong offensive enchantment that can bring a lot of extra damage to our opponents. Flaming Fist
is a card that I contemplated cutting as its use can be narrow, but if you get it out with a buffed-up version of your commander, it absolutely goes crazy. As far as other offensive enchantments go Candlelight Vigil
is a great efficient aura for our deck and has good stats for the cost, we also have some protection in our enchantments with some totem armor cards like Eland Umbra
and Dog Umbra
. Now, let’s get into some of our defensive enchantments, cards like Benevolent Blessing
and Pentarch Ward
, which can help us play through opponents’ removal very easily. Now onto our true defensive enchantments like Faith's Fetters
which is not only a very strong way to shut down an opponents threats but is especially good against aggressive decks since we gain four life when playing it, while its not a ton it can make a difference, it doesn’t matter if we win at one or thirty! We also have a ton of other defensive enchantments like Arrest
, Reprobation and Bound in Silence
being able to control and dictate what can or cant attack/block is a very powerful position to be in within a game.
Strengths of the Deck:
- Commander damage kills come pretty easy in this deck.
- We are able to lock down a lot of opponents creatures and take them out of combat with cardsl like Reprobation
and Arrest, we also still trigger our commander when playing these as well! - We have quite a bit of protection for our creatures; they can often survive multiple removal spells.
Weaknesses of the Deck:
- We have very little removal, and we focus mostly on protecting ourselves and our permanents. The main issue with this is that it can be tough to stop opponents when they begin to get out of hand.
- We are quite weak to enchantment removal. Luckily, it’s not extremely prevalent throughout the format.
- We get targeted quite heavily when playing out either All That Glitters or Ethereal Armor. In my experience, people go after us very hard when we drop either of these.
Deck Stats:
Sample Hands:
Conclusion:
Thanks for reading to the end! Aura’s is a very fun archetype within the format and even though it comes with some drawbacks like not a lot of removal or card draw it can still be very strong, when building this deck I wasn’t too sure how strong it would be but after testing I was pleasantly supprised how well it did against a lot of decks. Auras have gotten so much stronger since the printing of All That Glitters and is a much more viable strategy than previously! I hope you all enjoyed it. Stay tuned and tap in!