“That’s as far as I know; that’s as far as I go.”
Art:Druid of Horns
by Nils Hamm
Table of Contents
Today’s Featured Commander Is:
Druid of Horns is a very underrated commander within Pauper EDH; I do understand why that is the case. The Voltron archetype is quite crowded, but only 14 decks online for the entire format is pretty crazy. This card is quite strong, and it provides a little bit of a different angle that most Voltron decks don’t have. While we are buffing up and making our commander bigger, we are getting strong attackers/blockers making it so we are much less reliant on our commander hitting hard to win the game and can certainly finish opponents off with just our tokens. Combine that with the litany of amazing protection spells and a multitude of ways to give our commander and creatures hexproof and we have a recipe for a gameplan that is quite resilient against all of the removal that the format has to offer. This is a very exciting one and one I waited way too long to play; without further adieu, let’s get it!
The Deck:
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Druid of Horns Aura Voltron!
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Why Druid of Horns?
Just like most Voltron decks Druid of Horns is the focal point of the deck and the card we always cast when we get four mana; we have a ton of protection for them within the deck like Avoid Fate
, Tamiyo's Safekeeping
and Snakeskin Veil
so we are frequently protected from single-target removal which can really hurt our opponents especially ones on more control based strategies. Druid also gives us a decent matchup against creature decks, especially aggressive strategies, because the tokens we make are amazing blockers and can shut down a mono-red decks board, and against something like a stompy deck, they can be great chump blockers.
Gameplan:
The gameplan is quite typical for any Voltron deck; we want our commander out as early as we possibly can, which is quite easy to pull off with cards like Elvish Mystic
, Fyndhorn Elves
and Llanowar Elves
within the deck. Once we have our commander out, keeping them alive and buffing them up to get more and more tokens is the main focus of the gameplan. We aren’t able to protect them forever, but with the high amount of protection we have, we can keep them alive for quite a while. A commander-damage one-shot isn’t something we are directly going for, but in the course of testing, it happened quite a bit.
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:
Akawalli, the Seething Tower
Record against Akawalli, the Seething Tower 3-0
Akawalli is a very interesting matchup and one I was originally quite scared of, but after playing it, it is quite favorable for us. Akawalli is similar to us in that they focus on building up their board and in their case their graveyard at all cost; while they often have strong payouts for that, we are typically a little bit quicker, and in my testing games I found myself easily one-shotting the Akawalli when most of the defense were in there graveyard.
Displaced Dinosaurs
Record against Displaced Dinosaurs 4-0
Displaced Dinosaurs is an extremely amazing commander and a very strong card, but in this matchup, it is nothing more than a race, and with all of our ramp, we almost always win this race and can one-shot them with commander before they can even cast their commander, while this only happened in two out of four games its crazy how fast our deck can be, they have a lot of ramp too, but we are often quicker because our commander isn’t seven mana. Overall, this is a very favorable matchup for us.
Sigil Captain
Record against Sigil Captain 3-1
Sigil Captain is the true king of making three threes, but good for us, we can make them at a much faster rate! We are able to chump block most of the creatures in this deck, or if they are 3/3’s, we can trade with them while we build up our commander. They don’t have much removal or card draw within their deck, so they aren’t a threat to us most of the time and cant do anything without their commander as their deck mostly consists of 1/1’s
Commanders, we have a tough matchup against:
Fynn, the Fangbearer
Record against Fynn, the Fangbearer 0-4
This is a very tough matchup for the deck while we are both mono-green; Fynn decks are a little quicker and they can be quite “explosive” with their poison counters, combine that with our deck having much more protection for our creatures than removal for our opponents and all of the proliferation effects in green and this is overall a tough matchup that our deck really struggled in.
Nightkin Ambusher
Record against Nightkin Ambusher 2-5
This is a very tough matchup for the deck, mostly because the Nightkin is rarely able to be blocked, which shuts down all of our gameplan pretty much; combine that with the fact that many of these decks have counterspells, and this matchup is just overall a nightmare for us.
Juri, Master of the Revue
Record against Juri, Master of the Revue 0-3
Juri is a very explosive deck and can come out of nowhere and deal a ton of damage; in all of the testing games I played everything was going fine, and then bam, it was over, Juri is super good and a very tough matchup for us, they have so many discard and sacrifice effects it can hurt our overall gameplan a ton.
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! Since this deck is mono-colored and we don’t have a ton of non-basics we have omitted the landbase overview section.
Creatures:
To start off we have some strong early-game ramp like Elvish Mystic, Llanowar Elves and Fyndhorn Elves one or all of these in our opening hands allows us to be very fast and slamming our commander super early allows us to accelerate the gameplan an absolute ton and we can be very fast and deadly in those games. Our commander is a huge focus for our deck but in case they keep getting killed and we can’t protect them, we do have some awesome alternate Voltron targets like Aura Gnarlid
, Bramble Elemental
and Yavimaya Enchantress
which are all great options and can absolutely bring the same level of damage that our commander can. We do have some tutors within our creature package, allowing us to grab the best of the best, like Ancestral Mask
, one of my favorite parts about Shrine Steward
is since they cost five we can easily ramp into them and catch them early allowing us to get the best of the best from our deck to our hand, this is not something we typically see within mono-green. We do have some other cards that provide some nice supplemental card draw, like Owlbear
and Striped Bears
, which are great blockers that can refill our hand.
Instants:
We have so many aweomse cards at instant speed, I love all of the protection the deck runs because it helps us against the number one thing in the format, which is single-target removal, not having to worry about our commander constantly getting hit with cards like Breathe Your Last
or Murder
is a true relief because the single-target removal in the format is super prevalent and common. Cards like Avoid Fate, Ranger's Guile
, and Snakeskin Veil are very cheap and can easily catch our opponents off guard when they spend mana to try to kill our commander or one of our Voltron creatures. We also have quite a few ways to fight our opponent’s creatures, and with how big some of our creatures get from our auras, we can fight pretty much anything that’s not indestructible; we have a ton of these effects, and these are another group of cards that we can catch our opponents off guard with. One of my favorite spells in the deck is Aspect of Hydra
because it outputs an absolutely insane amount of damage for only one mana, and our devotion is usually quite high between our creatures and enchantments.
Sorceries:
We do have some artifact/enchantment removal of our own in Carnivorous Canopy
and Atraxa's Fall
, which are both efficient and cheap, its always good to hold these because we do have to cast them at sorcery speed but having the option in mono-green is quite strong. While those two are great, we also have Pick Your Poison
, which is so good; sacrifice helps us get around indestructible, and being able to have them sacrifice a flying creature for only one mana is very strong. Beyond that, we only have a ramp at sorcery speed in Cultivate
and Kodama's Reach
. Being able to ramp into those early off of some of our creature ramps is super sweet and puts us very far ahead.
Artifacts:
While we are a Voltron deck we are mostly an aura voltron deck, but we do have some artifact Voltron cards that are pretty good, like Haunted Cloak
, which turns our commander into keyword soup and makes them even better than they already are, for quite a small amount of mana as well, we don’t get the trigger on our commander but the keywords are absolutely worth the mana investment. Brass Knuckles
is another piece of equipment I love for the deck; being able to give our commander and another creature double-strike makes us very strong in combat, even stronger than we already are. We do have some minor ramp in our artifact package, which can be very strong, especially if we have some of our creature-based ramp, as with both of them out, we can greatly speed up our game plan. Spare Supplies
is one of the cheapest and best sources of card draw we have in the deck and allows us to get some early advantage but is also very strong in the late-game more cards is pretty much always good! Last but not certainly least, we have Wedding Invitation
, which provides both card draw and an easy way to finish the game with commander damage, in my testing games there was clear fear on our opponent’s faces when I dropped this one because they knew what was coming, I typically hold this until I’m ready for a one-shot because there is quite a bit of artifact removal within the format.
Enchantments:
We are an Aura Voltron deck, so naturally, we have the best of the best enchantments that green has to offer at our disposal, like Ancestral Mask, which is actually crazy and can deal so much damage it’s nearly criminal! Especially when combined with our multiple ways to give trample within the deck like Dragon Fangs
and Fists of Ironwood
having access to cheap trample at two mana and an insane buff at three mana can allow us to end the game extremely quickly and the one-shot is quite easy with this combination of cards. As far as enchantments that payoff a ton throughout the game I love Predatory Hunger
. Since its cheap, I don’t often put this on our commander, and in testing, I was putting it on Llanowar Elves or Elvish Mystic and was able to to attack for eight or nine on the third turn, no matter what creature this is on it gets huge pretty quickly and can get very out of hand. We also have some newer cards making the cut, like Reach for the Sky
. Reach is super important as there are quite a few good flyers that run in a lot of decks within the format, and previously, mono-green had almost no way to stop them.
Strengths of the Deck:
- We are great against creature decks especially aggressive strategies.
- We have an awesome list of alternate Voltron targets like Aura Gnarlid
and Bramble Elemental. - We have a true strength-in-numbers mentality in this deck, and between our commander and all of the creatures they create, we can overwhelm our opponents with an attack.
Weaknesses of the Deck:
- We can have tough matchups against control strategy.
- We do have some supplemental card draw, but we don’t have a ton.
- We don’t have a ton of ways to interact with artifacts/enchantments, and against decks that focus on them, we can have a tough matchup.
Deck Stats:
Sample Hands:
Conclusion:
I hope you all enjoyed this one as much as I did; who doesn’t love some mono-green Voltron? Voltron is a very crowded space within the format but is an absolute blast to play, and Druid of Horns feels very fresh and different, at least to me; I’ve built quite a few Voltron decks over the years, and this one truly made me feel something! If you build this deck or are one of the fourteen others who have a list, send it our way. We’d love to check it out! Thanks for reading to the end and for all of your support!