“The numbers don’t lie, and they spell disaster for you.”
Art:Catapult Fodder // Catapult Captain
by Jesper Ejsing
Table of Contents
Today’s Featured Commander Is:
Click or Tap to Flip!
Catapult Fodder is just a very cool commander overall; it is a true flavor-win for mono-black as we often load our huge toughness creatures into the catapult and throw them directly into our opponent’s faces! There is no doubt that this is not the most competitive deck in the world but it offers a very fun experience that can do a ton of work and put a lot of pressure on our opponents, especially with cards like Unhallowed Phalanx
which is a cool thirteen damage to an opponents face and a great choice to recur with some of our recursion like Feign Death
or Wander in Death
. Since we have a focus on high-toughness creatures, we are very well-positioned against aggressive strategies since we can block their early-game offense and output a lot of damage in the mid-late game. This deck is just a blast; if you are looking for a fun deck to play amongst friends, I think that is a great candidate. This deck is just a blast, if you are looking for a fun deck to play amongst friends I think that is a great candidate. I hope you all enjoy this one as much as I did! Without further adieu, let’s get it!
The Deck:
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Why Catapult Fodder?
Catapult Fodder is a big part of our deck, we definitely could win without our commander as we can go to combat as needed and we are able to dish out non-combat damage without our commander but as always we prefer to have our commander flipped as soon as we possibly can. Catapult Fodder is a little expensive to activate, and we don’t have any way to untap them, so we can only activate them once a turn, but due to the high toughness of creatures, we are easily able to do seven or eight damage a turn with a flipped commander which is quite strong. Even though we can win without our commander, we prefer to have them out as much as we can.
Gameplan:
The overall gameplay is very simple for this deck; we want our commander on curve and some early-game creatures so we can get closer and closer to flipping our commander when they do come out. We don’t have a ton of ramp in the deck besides our mana rocks, so we very rarely cast our cards or commander early; this makes our opening hand much more important. I typically like a two to three-land hand with some early-game creatures and some recursion/removal. Once we get our commander out and flipped, we activate them as much as we can to begin to whittle down our opponents.
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:
Chaos Terminator Lord
Record against Chaos Terminator Lord 7-2
This is a very good matchup for us, I like being able to thwart much of their early-game offense, and as long as we can keep their commander off of the board, we are much better than them in combat, they often run out of cards quickly which can help as well, this matchup is favorable but don’t get too passive if they stick their commander and have some pump spells they can easily one-shot us so we definitely want to keep at least a couple creatures back to block. Overall I like this matchup a lot.
Killer Bees
Record against Killer Bees 3-1
Killer bees is very much a one-trick pony kind of a deck and we have enough removal to keep their commander out and make them not do much throughout the game, some games, they can just go crazy, and if we don’t get our removal out before they get enchantments with Totem Armor or cards like Snakeskin Veil
it can be a very tough matchup. I find this matchup to be favorable overall, but this is another deck that can absolutely perform a one-shot.
Loyal Subordinate
Record against Loyal Subordinate 5-0
A classic mono-black versus mono-black matchup, this matchup is kind of funny because both decks are just trying to keep each other commanders off of the board, luckily even if we don’t have our commander our creatures are much better at blocking and can easily overwhelm them in combat, they will run out of removal eventually! I like this matchup a lot and find it to be very favorable!
Commanders, we have a tough matchup against:
Chakram Retriever
and Chakram Slinger
Record against Chakram Slinger and Chakram Retriever 0-4
This is a tough matchup for us; they have a lot of control elements and on average can do more non-combat damage then us; this matchup is definitely a race, but since they can remove or counter our commander a lot this can be very tough, we don’t stray from the overall gameplan for this deck, but it can be a very hard matchup to win.
Inkfathom Witch
Record against Inkfathom Witch 1-6
This is not an easy one for our deck, one of our biggest strengths is being able to block our opponents creatures since ours have such high toughness and since this deck focuses heavily on unblockable creatures this is an extremely tough match for us, one of the best ways to fight back is to keep their commander off of the board as much as possible since that is where a lot of their damage comes from. This matchup is winnable but not easy.
Murmuring Mystic
Record against Murmuring Mystic 0-5
This deck is honestly built to beat us, a control-style deck that also has a ton of flyers that we can’t block is just a very hard matchup for us, I tried many times but was unsuccessful in squeezing out a win in testing, these decks typically run a lot of counterspells which makes it very difficult to resolve any of our key cards.
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 have to talk about arguably the best creature in our deck, which is Gray Merchant of Asphodel
. besides our commander this is one of the best cards we have in the deck and we love recurring and re-ETB’ing this absolute bomb, our opponents definitely feel some fear when this comes on the board as it can be a huge momentum swing for us. Now, let’s talk about some of the high-toughness creatures we have that are awesome to sacrifice. I love our early-game blockers like Shield Sphere
and Gloom Pangolin
, which are great blockers and can really stop the attacks from early-game aggressive strategies. We don’t have a ton of creatures that we want to attack with but Gluttonous Slug
is definitely one of them; being able to get bigger and bigger as the turn goes on allows us to increase the damage a ton and the menace is perfect, this is kind of the best of both worlds as we love sacrificing this to our commander when we get big. Since we have a decent amount of removal within the deck, I love getting a ton of value out of Rotfeaster Maggot
, and against stompy strategies or decks with big creatures, this card can gain us seven or eight life, which feels very good, especially for only five mana. We can’t talk about an amazing high-toughness creature without mentioning the best of the best in Unhallowed Phalanx, which is a cool thirteen damage when sacrificed to our commander, which can be absolutely bonkers.
Instants:
Move away Murder
! We have Breathe Your Last
, which has a lot of upside as the life-gain can be very nice, especially against decks that love going to combat every turn. Defile
is one of my favorite removal spells we have the -1/-1 can be perfect against Voltron commanders or any creature that gets indestructible having a removal spell that opponents cant stop without counterspells allows us to never worry even when an opponent drops a huge threat. Beyond our removal, we have some protection for our creatures/commanders like Feign Death and Supernatural Stamina
, which are great ways to fight through removal, and I do love using them to get back a big toughness creature we sacrificed.
Sorceries:
Severed Strands
is a super strong sorcery, and with the huge amount of high-toughness creatures within our deck, a way to gain a ton of life, getting an awesome creature that we want to Re-ETB into the graveyard with Severed Strands is super strong. Severed Strands works great in conjunction with some of our sorcery speed recursion like Blood Beckoning
and Wander in Death. Feed the Swarm
is arguably one of the most important sorcery in our deck, solely because it is one of the few ways we have to remove enchantments, which is perfect for all of the All That Glitters
and Armadillo Cloak
s that are floating around the format.
Artifacts:
One of the focuses of our artifact package is being able to increase the toughness of our creatures, this makes them better blockers and makes them even better damage dealers when we use our commanders ability, it may seem a little unconventional, but that is why we are running cards like Slagwurm Armor
and Cathar's Shield
while these do have high equip costs being able to commit them to the board early is great and helps us prepare for the mid-late game when we typically have our commander flipped. We love non-combat damage in this deck, so we absolutely had to include Tithing Blade // Consuming Sepulcher
, which is a great edict effect and one the backside allows us to deal additional passive damage, which is perfect for our deck, even if we drop this on turn two being able to take out an early-game creature or mana dork is great and can really hurt our opponents.
Enchantments:
Dogged Pursuit
and Ill-Gotten Inheritance
are both great passive ways to deal damage and helps us to whittle down our opponents, which is great because a lot of our creatures are great blockers but not amazing attackers. We also have a pair of enchantments that are great to put on our commander to fight through removal like Unholy Indenture
and Unhallowed Pact
; these are both cheap and great for pretty much any creature, we can use them to fight through removal and can even use them for recurring the creatures we bring back to re-sacrifice them or Re-ETB them.
Land Base:
Being a mono-black deck allows us to run a very simple landbase that mostly consists of swamps; there isn’t a ton of amazing non-basics within mono-black, but the ones we do have allows us to get some additional card draw, which can help especially in the late-game when we are going through our hand quickly. Piranha Marsh
is another cool non-basic that we run that I really like; while one-damage can seem insignificant at any stage of the game, I have personally killed an opponent who was at one with this card, while it is just a pretty simple land, the effect can be great. Mortuary Mire
is a great piece of recursion for the deck and is a very easy way to recur some of the high-toughness creatures that we sacrifice, perfect for recurring insane cards like Gray Merchant of Asphodel as well. Witch's Cottage
is another very strong land that also provides recursion, and since we are mono-black, it is almost always turned on.
Strengths of the Deck:
- We are well-positioned against aggressive strategies because we have a ton of high-toughness cards for the early game.
- We are pretty strong at recurring some of the best creatures that we sacrifice to our commander.
- We can kill opponents without having to go into combat, allowing us to be all defense and still maintain damage and threaten our opponents.
Weaknesses of the Deck:
- We are entirely reliant on our commander; while we are good at blocking because of the high density of high-toughness creatures, we are quite weak if our commander consistently gets removed.
- We have a tough matchup against control-style decks; not being able to stick our creatures or commander can slow down the overall gameplan a ton.
- We are weak against decks that are heavy on artifacts and enchantments because we don’t have much removal that can hit those.
Deck Stats:
Sample Hands:
Conclusion:
I hope you all liked the list, this deck has been a ton of fun and one I love pulling out at the end of the night for a little bit of goofy casual fun. While it absolutely is a casual deck, it can definitely put in work and be very strong against a number of strategies. This deck is by no means a combo deck or CPDH, but it is a ton of fun. I hope you all enjoyed this one as much as I did. Thanks for reading to the end and for all of your support!