“I want wind to blow, glow, make me cold again”
Art:Chandra, Novice Pyromancer
by Anna Steinbauer
Planeswalkers legalized by PDH RC for Jan 2025; you can find more info here. (https://www.reddit.com/r/PauperEDH/comments/1gbvtcg/big_announcement_for_january_breaktherulesmonth/)
Table of Contents
Today’s Featured Commander Is:
Chandra, Novice Pyromancer is just straight-up great, while there are quite a few commanders within the format that synergize super well with Elementals, Chandra is in the top tier in my opinion, her big anthem effect as a plus, allows them to stay on the field pretty easily and there are other abilities are quite strong as well. Chandra acts as an awesome support commander for the deck and allows us to output a ton of damage and put a considerable amount of pressure on our opponents. Our Elementals synergize so well together and allow us to have a strong and formidable board state and presence throughout the early game and transition very nicely to the mid-late game. This deck is also super flavorful to play and has a ton of cards that don’t get played very much throughout the format. I have been having a blast with this deck, and it really is the whole package. Without further, adieu, let’s get it!
The Deck:
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Chandra, Novice Pyromancer Elementals!
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Why Chandra, Novice Pyromancer?
Chandra is a great support card for our deck and makes our deck better in every way! Chandra’s plus is by far their best ability for our deck as a consistent +2/+0 buff allows us to be quite strong in combat on most turns, and if an opponent stumbles and doesn’t have a lot of blockers, we can run them over and generate so much pressure. This buff, being a plus, allows us to keep Chandra on the field much longer, which can be great. Chandras minus abilities are quite strong as well, while the mana isn’t always relevant since she cant come out till turn 4 the damage is pretty much always good, and burning down a creature that survived combat is a great asset to have at our disposal. Chandra is a great support card for our deck, whether we use them solely for their buff or to generate mana / burn down an opponent’s face/creature. This card is great at pretty much any stage of the game.
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:
Keensight Mentor
Record against Keensight Mentor 3-0
I am a big fan of this matchup for our deck. We typically just dwarf them in combat, and it takes considerably longer for them to get a board going. They do get pretty scary once they are fully built up, but by that point, we are usually putting a ton of pressure on them. I find this matchup to be very favorable.
Risen Reef
Record against Risen Reef 5-2
In the elemental vs elemental showdown, I actually really like our odds, while their commander’s ability can be scary, they often don’t have enough early-game creatures to compete with us, allowing us to put a ton of pressure on during the early turns and by the time they begin to get set up they have a relatively low life total, and we have Chandra and can start bringing a ton of damage. I like this matchup a lot, and it’s always good to feel confident in the mirror match!
Deepmuck Desperado
Record against Deepmuck Desperado 4-0
Mill definitely isn’t the strongest strategy within the format, and for the most part, we just don’t really care what our opponents do, losing some of our good cards definitely sucks and hurts the overall gameplan, but with Chandra, our damage output is quite high and allows us to be very strong against this deck, they continuously Mill us but if we are able to build a board at all we can easily just steamroll them.
Commanders, we have a tough matchup against:
Arabella, Abandoned Doll
Record against Arabella, Abandoned Doll 0-3
This is a very tough matchup for our deck. Arabella is no joke, and we really struggle against this deck, while we can easily beat them in combat, it can be tough for our deck to keep their commander off of the board, and the trigger from their commander is devastating and makes it very hard for us to chip into their overall life total.
Uglúk of the White Hand
Record against Uglúk of the White Hand 2-3
Even though we won a couple of games against Ugluk, I would not say that this matchup is good for us. If we have a strong early game and can get ahead of them, this is usually a pretty easy win. Ugluk is absolutely a widely known commander throughout the format, so most opponents are pretty interested in keeping Ugluk off of the field; if Ugluk was never on the field, this would be an amazing matchup for us, but alas, that is not realistic. This deck is winnable, an early board presence is pretty much required to get the win.
Aven Wind Guide
Record against Aven Wind Guide 3-4
Another winnable but tough matchup. This matchup is all about speed; if we can get an early board going, get Chandra on turn four, and start threatening damage, this matchup isn’t very hard, but we have almost no way to deal with flyers, so if they are able to get their gameplan established this game becomes nearly unwinnable. I typically like to aggressively mulligan within this matchup to find a hand that allows us to have a strong early-game.
Strategy Overview:
Keep Chandra on the field as often as we can:
One of the key aspects of this deck is to keep Chandra on the field as often as we can, Chandra is a great piece of support for our deck, and keeping them on the field and ensuring we can have blockers to protect them is a key strategy for this deck.
Never Stop Swinging:
We are an aggressive deck; if there is an opponent who will be weak to combat, it is important to take advantage of that and never stop swinging; if there is an opportunity to deal damage to an opponent, you should pretty much always take it!
Use your removal wisely:
We are not super heavy on removal in this deck, so balancing the best times to use our removal is key to being successful with this deck. Cards like Abrade
are super valuable and should be saved for the biggest artifact or creature that we can kill with it. Having strong threat assessment is key to being successful with this deck.
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:
This deck is packed to the brim with some awesome elementals and some non-elementals that are pretty awesome as well, one of my favorite non-elementals is Caterwauling Boggart
, while it is a little pricey giving our elementals menace combined with Chandra’s ability is really strong and makes combat a nightmare for our opponents. Another great card is Witty Roastmaster
, which is essentially just a second copy of Impact Tremors
, but the additional damage can really hurt our opponents, being super heavy on creatures helps a ton as well. Now, let’s focus on some of my favorite elements! My personal favorites are both Pyroceratops
and Pyre Hound
, which are great creatures on their own as they both come with trample and get continuously bigger throughout the game if your opponents don’t have a quick answer for these they can get out of hand very quickly. Chandra's Embercat
is shockingly relevant in this deck and is an effective way to get Chandra out a turn early, which is great for our deck. I’m also a big fan of Chandra's Magmutt
, especially against other players on planeswalker decks; even without it, this card is still decently strong and can be a great utility card to have. Since we have our buff quite often,n being able to use it with cards like Genasi Enforcers
can allow us to deal a ton of damage to our opponents.
Instants:
Even though we have the buff from Chandra quite consistently, I still found some value in Ambitious Assault
, which can often provide card draw and, when combined with Chandra’s ability, allows us to have a ton of damage presented on the board and put a ridiculous amount of pressure on our opponents! Control decks can be really rough matchups for us, so having both Pyroblast
and Red Elemental Blast
at our disposal allows us to able to stop at least partially a control deck from continuously countering Chandra and ruining our overall gameplan. While it definitely is not the perfect answer, it is often unexpected from our opponents, and the element of surprise can be very valuable here. We are actually pretty good at drawing cards within our deck and we have both Unexpected Windfall
and Big Score
, which are two of my favorite draw spells in the format and can help us refill our hand and get some extra mana which works really well for the overall deck. We don’t have a ton of removal, but we do have Abrade and Lightning Bolt
, which are both great for dealing with smaller creatures and can be quite helpful. By far my favorite instant in the deck is Massive Raid
it is a great utility piece to have and can be a great way to take out a huge creature, but we more often than not use it to deal a ton of damage to our opponents, this is a true finisher and can easily be used to kill an opponent!
Sorceries:
Molten Birth
is the coolest card in our deck, in my opinion; who doesn’t love flipping coins for more and more elementals? Even if we are only able to cast this once, it is still quite effective as more and more elementals help to make Chandra’s trigger much more impactful! Since we are so focused on combat and hitting like a truck, we have quite a few ways to stop our opponents from blocking, like Cosmotronic Wave
, Seismic Stomp
and Magmatic Chasm
pretty much all of these are finishers for the deck and unless we are playing against Aven Wind Guide or Kangee, Sky Warden
these are all pretty effective. While it sadly is sorcery speed, we do have some removal in Flame Slash
, which I find is a cheap way to deal with a lot of the commanders in the format, which can really hurt decks that rely on their commanders!
Artifacts:
Our artifact package is pretty small but does the job well. This isn’t a deck that wants to run a ton of artifacts, and for the low count we have, I find them to be quite effective, I love both Beamtown Beatstick
and Armory of Iroas
both are cheap and early-game pieces of utility and even before we get Chandra we can easily dominate combat with these on some of our smaller creatures, dominating the early-game makes the game go quite smooth for us overall because we once we dominate the early-game and make a strong transition to the late-game, there isn’t much our opponents can do. I’m a huge fan of Spare Supplies
within the format and find it to be quite effective in this deck as well, while there is a decent amount of card draw in the deck, we can absolutely never say no, too to more utility especially because we typically dump our hand quite quickly!
Enchantments:
The best enchantment in our deck is absolutely Impact Tremors, in a deck like this that outputs a ton of damage, being able to increase it even more is just nuts, something to always consider with Impact Tremors is that it certainly makes you a threat to the rest of the table so assume that your opponents will respond accordingly and keep attacking, besides the target on the back this card is absolutely great and dishes out so much damage. Mishra's Domination
is a card I have been absolutely loving in testing; whether you use it offensively or defensively, it is extremely effective and, in both cases, is absolutely worth the two mana. I am also a big fan of Goblin War Drums
in this deck. While we do have other cards that have this same effect, having a backup in case our creature version of this effect dies is a good piece of redundancy that allows us to dominate combat.
Strengths of the Deck:
- We have quite a strong matchup against most creature-decks.
- Chandra provides a ton of utility and support for our deck, allowing us to put a ton of pressure on our opponents.
- We have synergies galore in this deck with a lot of different ways to present a threatening board.
Weaknesses of the Deck:
- While we are decently aggressive, we absolutely cannot compete with some of the fastest decks in the format.
- Control deck matchups, or really any deck that aims to keep Chandra off of the board for most of the game, can be very tough.
- Low on removal.
Deck Stats:
Sample Hands:
Conclusion:
Thanks so much for reading to the end! I hope you all enjoyed this interesting and aggressive deck. Chandra is such a cool card, and I am so glad that the PDH RC gave us the chance to showcase this awesome commander through Rule break month! Tap in and stay tuned for more!