“Try and explain to them that I didn’t have a choice.”
Art:Daru Warchief
by Tim Hildebrandt
Table of Contents
Today’s Featured Commander Is:
Daru Warchief is a very fun commander focusing on soldiers and making them so much better, a discount for nearly every creature in our deck and a buff to both power and toughness allows us to fight the good fight against almost all of the combat decks within the format, combine that with all of the huge buffs we have in white and we have a recipe to deal a ton of damage to our opponents and close out games quite quickly. At the same time, there are a lot of drawbacks of being in mono-white, like not a ton of card draw and not a ton of removal but we can make it for it by being very efficient in combat. Soldiers being one of the oldest creature types in magic makes it so there is a ton of awesome soldiers at our disposal. Without further adieu, let’s get it!
The Deck:
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Daru Warchief Soldiers!
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Why Daru Warchief?
Daru Warchief is a huge part of our deck and is the card I almost always cast on turn four, if we mana ramp into it with cards like Marble Diamond
I cast it on turn three, we want to keep our commander on the field for as much as long as we possibly can, they make the whole experience with the deck better, reducing costs for nearly every creature and buffing them up a ton. Daru Warchief typically is targeted with removal quite a bit, which is why we are running cards like Emerge Unscathed
and Loran's Escape
, sadly white doesn’t have a ton of these effects but protecting from a couple of removal spells can allow us to keep our commander on our board and keep the overall gameplay going!
Gameplan:
The overall gameplan for the deck is very simple; the key to the entire gameplan is to turn our creatures sideways as often as possible; there are a ton of awesome one-drop soldiers in the deck, so being able to have at least one of those in an opening hand is something we always look for. A perfect opening hand is two to three lands, some early creatures, and some form of protection or a buff we can use later in the game. I tend not to mulligan very aggressively in this deck, as a lot of the cards are quite cheap already. Once you have a good hand there isn’t much more to do outside of playing out our creatures and commander and swinging as often as we can, with the large amount of buffs in the deck a lot of combats can be quite optimal for us but I don’t like to force bad attacks and typically wait till we have our commander and a buff for a true numbers advantage.
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:
Cadira, Caller of the Small
Record against Cadira, Caller of the Small 5-0
This is a great matchup for us; while they do have a lot of tokens, they often don’t hit for more than one damage, and by the mid-game we typically have a ton of blockers with higher power and toughness thanks to our commander and we can just beat them in combat and in the late-game we can easily go over the top with our buffs, I like this matchup a lot.
Wispdrinker Vampire
Record against Wispdrinker Vampire 4-1
Wispdrinker Vampire is a great matchup for us; while the drain and gain they constantly do can be a little annoying, it typically doesn’t present a huge threat, and almost all of their creatures are power two or less, which allows us to be much better than them in combat. While they do often have a lot of removal, we have a lot of creatures who are better in combat, and they most certainly can’t take out all of them.
Bill Ferny, Bree Swindler
Record against Bill Ferny, Bree Swindler 2-0
This deck doesn’t do a ton against us; we don’t really ever need to block the commander, it can get a little dicey depending on how they are built, I played against a control shell Bill Ferny, but they were slower than most control decks and by the time they were able to get any advantage from their commander I was already very close to killing them. This is a strong matchup for us.
Commanders, we have a tough matchup against:
Itzquinth, Firstborn of Gishath
Record against Itzquinth, Firstborn of Gishath 1-4
There are not a lot of creature decks that snowball as hard as dinosaurs do. while we can dominate the early game against this deck, their ability to shoot down our commander or one of our bigger creatures and maintain a very strong board state makes this matchup quite tough. This matchup is winnable, but we typically need some assistance from our opponents to get it done.
Disciplined Duelist
Record against Disciplined Duelist 0-3
Disciplined Duelist is very good at one-shotting opponents through commander damage and since they come in with a shield counter, there is not much we can do against them in terms of removal since we have very little, they can be a little slower than we are, so chipping in early damage is key to winning this matchup but overall its a tough one, since they are in Bant they have access to enchantments that give their creature hexproof which makes them un-interactable for us. This is a tough matchup that I did not have very much success against.
Heritage Druid
Record against Heritage Druid 1-4
The elfball is very hard to stop! The version of this deck I played against was more of a stompy style deck with crazy mana production. We have a lot of trouble with the efficiency and mana production of this deck, and then they drop huge cards like Ulamog's Crusher
that just decimate our board; they get started much quicker than us and can snowball into an “avalanche” very quickly. This is winnable if we have a great hand and they can’t stick their commander on the board, but overall, it can be very tough.
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 awesome creatures within the deck, and my personal favorites are Veteran Swordsmith
and Veteran Armorsmith
which are even more power and toughness buffs for our deck, while we certainly don’t need any more buffs we certainly want more and with both of these and our commander we can hit like a truck! Court Street Denizen
is another great card that allows us to play the control game a little bit and when combined with cards like Raise the Alarm
and Captain's Call
we can tap down a lot of our opponents board and clear the way for our creatures to hit hard. We have quite a few flying soldiers in the deck which is pretty great because there are a lot of strong flyers in the format and white certainly isn’t known for having awesome blockers in the air, one of my favorites is Aven Cloudchaser
because it also provides enchantment removal which is becoming more and more relevant as more cards are added to the format. Skyblade of the Legion
is another flyer I really like. While it is just a vanilla creature, it has good stats for its cost and is an amazing blocker for the deck. We have quite a few early-game soldiers to help us bolster our ranks early, like Thraben Standard Bearer
and Elite Vanguard
, which are both great early-game attackers and can help us chip in some early damage. One of the coolest soldiers in the deck is Advance Scout
, which is a huge asset to have when we go in combat and in the mid-late game, being able to give three to four creatures first strike makes us very strong and very hard to stop.
Instants:
There are a ton of new and powerful enchantments these days like All That Glitters
, so enchantment removal is as important as it ever was, so cards like Aura Blast
, which also provides some supplemental card draw is a true slam dunk for the deck. Coordinated Barrage
is another awesome card that, in my experience, opponents will not see coming; since almost all of the creatures in our deck are soldiers, this can kill pretty much anything and is great to use offensively or defensively. We also have some more traditional removal that opponents will definitely expect, like Generous Gift
, but being able to destroy any permanent can be very relevant . Swift Response
is another strong removal spell and great for commanders or creatures that tap which is pretty common within the format. We also have buffs at instant speed which are great for the element of surprise; one of my favorite buffs is Borrowed Grace
because we can use it offensively and defensively and the escalate cost is pretty cheap and very doable, in the mid-late game and giving all of our board +2/+2 allows us to be pretty unstoppable in combat.
Sorceries:
Our sorcery package focuses on buffing up all of our creatures, making us even stronger in combat; one of my favorite buffs is Now for Wrath, Now for Ruin!
as well as Silverflame Ritual
Because the vigilance can be very strong, especially against other creature-heavy decks, and the flat buff across the board is quite strong as well, a lot of our buffs are redundant effects but can help us end games easily. Even though they are sorcery speed buffs and our opponents will see them coming it doesn’t make us any less scary in combat, if you are able to cast more than one of these buffs in a single turn we are certainly a force to be reckoned with.
Artifacts:
Greatsword of Tyr
needs absolutely no introduction and is an awesome piece for the deck; it doesn’t matter at all what creature this goes on. It will be quite impactful; this is a great card and one I would keep in every hand if I could. We have some additional mana production within our artifact package, which is mostly useful for speeding our commander out as soon as we possibly can. Skyshaper
is a card that my opponents always have to read and are shocked that it exists unless you are playing against a commander like Kangee. This is a great finisher for the deck and a very fun and flashy way to end the game.
Enchantments:
We don’t have a lot of traditional removal in the deck but we make up for it with cards like Oblivion Ring
and Reprobation
, which are both awesome ways to take out a commander or key creature an opponent has, having access to these is a great way to keep ourselves in the game and since we are in mono-white many opponents will not expect this so the element of surprise can be great especially when an opponent commits hard to a permanent or whats attached to a permanent. By far, my favorite enchantment in the deck is Lumithread Field
. While we rarely morph, the toughness boost is amazing, especially against other creature decks, and when combined with our commander, it makes our blockers crazy. Omen of the Sun
is another awesome enchantment it having flash is very relevant, and in testing, I used this to chump block huge creatures that were going to kill me; the life and the scry don’t really matter that much but help justify the mana cost and in some games could be relevant.
Land Base:
We have a very un-interesting landbase since we are a mono-colored deck luckily all of our non-basics are pretty impactful, like Sejiri Steppe
, which can be great if we have a huge creature we want to swing in combat or The Fair Basilica
which is a nice source of supplemental card draw for the deck and is quite relevant when our hand starts getting low. All of these lands are quite good but not something I look for, a bad hand with plains or our non-basics should still be mulligan’d. Since it is so plains heavy, you probably won’t see a lot of the non-basics within the game, which is perfectly ok as the deck can absolutely function without it.
Strengths of the Deck:
- We have a pretty strong early game, which allows us to be pretty well-positioned against aggressive strategies.
- We are very strong in combat and besides some very strong Gruul decks we are quite good in combat.
- With all of the buffs in white we can output a ton of damage and whittle down opponents in just a few turns.
Weaknesses of the Deck:
- We don’t have a lot of removal or card draw; while that is a known weakness of mono-white it can be a little tough to keep our hand full and deal with our opponent’s removal.
- Our commander is a huge removal magnet and we don’t have a ton of ways to protect them, while we can protect them a few times we can’t forever.
- Control decks are very tough matchups for us and very hard to win.
Deck Stats:
Sample Hands:
Conclusion:
Thanks so much for reading to the end! Daru Warchief has been on my build list for a very long time, and I hope you all liked this one as much as I did; soldiers are such a fun and cool creature type and truthfully have a lot more layers of complication then I first realized and are an absolute blast to blast, from old to new there are a ton of awesome soldiers to play and this deck is just some good old mono-white fun. Do you have a Daru Warchief deck? We’d love to check out your list! Thank you all so much for the support!!