“Meet me by the river where the trees don’t grow.”
Art:Cursed Wombat by Igor Krstic
Table of Contents
Today’s Featured Commander Is:
Cursed Wombat is a very cool commander who is basically just a different version of Pauper EDH legend Corpsejack Menace; while it may just seem like a worse version of this, I think its a whole lot different, and Cursed Wombat being a whole lot cheaper is amazing, being able to get out our commander and some of our smaller creatures and cheaper buffs earlier is great and allows us to snowball much harder in the mid-late game. There is nothing better than being able to hit super hard on the third or fourth turn and get even crazier as we hit the late-game. We have so many awesome cards that can trigger our commander a lot, like Master Chef
The Deck:
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Why Cursed Wombat?
Cursed Wombat is a huge part of our deck and always the card we cast on turn two. Getting this out early is great, and the sooner, the better; this is often the first creature that I put onto the battlefield. Cursed Wombat is a powerhouse and a bit of a removal magnet, which is why we are running cards like Snakeskin Veil
Gameplan:
The gameplan for the deck is extremely straightforward, with the most important piece being able to cast our commander on turn two; once we have them on the board, it is time to give all of our creatures as many counters as we possibly can to bolster up our board and allow us to start getting in some damage. We are a combat deck in every way and mostly spend our turns focusing on swinging hard and leaving at least a couple of our bigger creatures back for blocking. Every situation is different, so there is definitely some justification for fully swinging out, as it entirely depends on your board state / what your opponents are running. As far as removal and threat assessment goes, we aren’t super heavy on removal, but if an opponent has a crazy powerful commander like Tatyova, Benthic Druid
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:
Corpsejack Menace
While this deck is extremely similar to ours and plays a lot of cards, the extra speed we get by playing out our commander early gives us the early edge in this matchup, and that momentum gain can easily allow us to overwhelm our opponent. I like this matchup a lot, its just as winnable as it is losable but overall its still a good matchup.
Stromkirk Captain
This is a very good matchup for us; while we can take some early damage because a lot of the vampires in the deck are decently cheap and fly, I like this matchup a lot. They do have a decent amount of removal but are much more focused on creatures and since our creatures are usually pretty big we don’t have to worry much about the first strike as we typically would win those combats anyways. Overall this is a good matchup for us.
Oni of Wild Places
Oni of Wild Places is a very cool deck and one I didn’t even know existed. But for Cursed Wombat, this deck is a very good matchup for us. Their biggest piece of value comes out of their commander, and they are much less aggressive than most red decks; by the time they get their commander out, we typically have quite the board built up and can just go over the top. They don’t have a ton of removal in most lists either, so that helps us a ton as well; a lot of the removal they do have is damage-based, so once we get most of our cards past three or four toughness, it’s hard for them to kill any of our stuff.
Commanders, we have a tough matchup against:
Miara, Thorn of the Glade
Miara and Numa are a tough matchup; they are Golgari themselves but have the added benefit of elves, which provide a ton of mana production and can just get out of hand very quickly. They are also good at putting a ton of mana into Miara and buffing their creatures like crazy. If they have a slower-than-average start, we can usually go over the top, but overall, this is a tough matchup.
Mistmeadow Witch
This can be a very tough matchup for us; not only can they continuously exile our commander, rendering them useless, but they can blink some of our biggest creatures when we get buffs on them. Mistmeadow witch decks are also often built in a control shell, which makes it much tougher to stop them as they counter our commander or whatever we are trying to do. A decently heavy control package and the ability to null and void or commander makes this very hard. Our only recourse is to remove their commander as much as possible as many of the blink effects in Pauper EDH can only target their creatures. This matchup is not unwinnable but is an uphill battle.
Catapult Fodder // Catapult Captain
This deck is not fun to play against; they often don’t engage in combat with us, and because of the nature of their commander, they have a ton of creatures with huge toughness, which can make our combat plan a lot harder. A lot of these lists are also packing a crazy amount of removal which typically means we can’t keep our commander on the board. This is winnable if we use our removal to keep their commander off the board, but overall, it is a decently tough matchup.
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 so many cool creatures, so let’s go over some of my favorites! Ambitious Dragonborn
Instants:
By far, my favorite instant in the deck is Hunger of the Howlpack
Sorceries:
Proliferating and adding counters is the name of the game of our sorcery package, utilizing cards like Courage in Crisis
Artifacts:
Spare Supplies
Enchantments:
Master Chef
Land Base:
Our landbase is effective and works very well for the deck; being able to get some extra card draw from our landbase in the mid-late game helps a lot as well. In my many games of testing, I have not had an issue with the landbase. I did not experience any flooding or droughts. There isn’t a ton of interesting things going on in our landbase but it works well for the deck.
Strengths of the Deck:
- We are great in combat and can have decently big creatures by the third or fourth turn, this allows us to have a very high damage output.
- Our commander is a removal magnet but is cheap, so it can be cast quite a few times before it becomes impossible to do so.
- Since our creatures are so big we only need a few on the board, while in the late-game we typically have a pretty full board this deck can easily operate on just three or four creatures, having that high damage output helps a ton.
Weaknesses of the Deck:
- We are weak to removal, and our commander is a huge removal magnet; we do have some protection, but against control decks, it can be tough to stick our board.
- Without our commander, our mid-late game transition can be rough, and we can be outpaced in combat.
- If some of our bigger pieces like Card not found or even our commander get countered, it can make the overall game plan a lot rougher, and we don’t have much recursion.
Deck Stats:
Sample Hands:
Conclusion:
Cursed Wombat is just a fun and cool build-around card, while the comparison to Card not found is obvious, and arguably Corpsejack is better, but hey, more Golgari Counters commanders are something I am absolutely interested in. I like this deck a lot and think its a lot of fun to play. I hope you all enjoyed this one as much as I did. Thanks for reading to the end and for all of your support!!