“Behold the flesh and the power it holds.“
Art:Glaring Fleshraker
by Raph Lomotan
Table of Contents
Today’s Featured Commander Is:
Glaring Fleshraker is arguably one of the best new cards for Pauper EDH to come out in Modern Horizons 3 and is a commander I have been super hyped on for a long time. This card is super good. While it does naturally lend itself to CPDH and infinite combos but I have geared this list more towards casual play; while it is quite powerful, and we can drop Eldrazi quite early as well as some of our big artifact creatures, on top of all that we have quite a bit of equipment in the deck because they trigger our commander and help us a ton when commit one of our big creatures to the board. There is a lot of awesome equipment within the deck, like Brass Knuckles
and Haunted Cloak
, which are great finishers as well as some very cheap artifacts like Bone Saw
and Shield Sphere
. We are a commander-focused deck and don’t have many pieces of protection, so we need to be quite careful when playing this deck; luckily, because of the way the deck was built, we can usually re-cast our commander quite a bit. I am so excited to showcase this one; we have been cooking it for a while! Without further adieu, let’s get it!
The Deck:
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Glaring Fleshraker Artifacts!
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Why Glaring Fleshraker?
Glaring Fleshraker is a huge part of our deck, and by huge, I mean the main gameplan engine for the deck, and without it, the deck is a lot slower. Not only can they come down very early since they only cost three, but they are a great source of non-combat damage and a great source of mana production. They are the engine for our deck, and the Eldrazi spawns they make allow us to drop huge creatures early; even if we don’t have a lot of big creatures in hand, being able to set and establish a huge board is great. Glaring Fleshraker is a huge part of our deck and a card we want on the board pretty much all the time.
Gameplan:
Speed is the core of our gameplan, getting out our commander as early as possible allows us to ramp a ton and slowly whittle down our opponents. Keeping our commander out and not losing them in combat is super important; being colorless, we are naturally pretty weak to removal, but we are able to fight through it by generating a lot of mana, which allows us to re-cast our commander quite a few times. Speeding out huge Eldrazi is the primary goal for our deck, and in testing, I rarely lose when we are able to drop a huge Eldrazi very early.
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:
Herald of Kozilek
Record against Herald of Kozilek 7-0
This is essentially an Eldrazi mirror match, luckily we have speed on our side, and even with the discount on our commander, we can get a bigger and badder board established much quicker than Herald, It is a great matchup for us and one that we typically win, even without the greatest hand in the world.
Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma
Record against Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma 6-2
I like this matchup a lot; Goreclaw decks and most green decks, in general, don’t interact that much, so this is absolutely perfect for us; we can typically outpace them with our mana ramp, and our big cards are just as good as their’s so we match up well in combat. I did drop two games against Goreclaw, sometimes they have crazy hands and just outpace us like crazy, but hey that’s just variance.
Breaker of Creation
Record against Breaker of Creation 4-0
It is a true Eldrazi mirror match. I love that this deck is also colorless, so we don’t have to worry about removal; speed is certainly the name of the game here. We are able to outpace them a ton, and by the time they get their rocks established and prepared for a big cast, we typically already drop bombs on them. Just like a lot of matchups with this deck, speed is the true name of the game here.
Commanders, we have a tough matchup against:
Deepmuck Desperado
Record against Deepmuck Desperado 1-5
This matchup is hard for us. We don’t have a lot of removals, and the mill can mill our big Eldrazi, and if all of them get milled, we have no way to recur them, starting fast and hoping they have a bad hand is basically our only way to sneak a win against this one.
Gray Merchant of Asphodel
Record against Gray Merchant of Asphodel 0-7
Gray Merchant is an extremely powerful commander, and since they are in mono-black, they typically pack an absolute ton of removal; it can be very tough to keep our commander on the board and protect our bigger creatures if we are able to drop them. Even if we do get some creatures established, they can easily kill us with multiple re-triggers on Gray Merchant’s ability, a very difficult matchup for us.
Nimble Larcenist
Record against Nimble Larcenist 0-4
Control decks are always tough matchups. Being in colorless against control strategies does not typically lead to success. This is made worse by their commander, which can easily be re-triggered and take some of the best artifacts we have. This matchup is winnable, but we need a lot of assistance from our opponents to eliminate the Larcenist player as soon as possible.
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 a couple of free affinity creatures in the deck, which are very quickly free cards like Myr Enforcer
and Frogmite
with a hand full of cheap artifacts; we can easily run these out on the second or third turn which is a great tempo swing and allows us to be in control of the early game. Rusted Slasher
is another very cool card I want to highlight; having a sac outlet for our artifacts is great for cards like Clockwork Fox
or Mycosynth Wellspring
and can provide a ton of value for the deck. Using Rusted Slasher as a blocker is pretty great as well since we can easily regenerate them; we can also be quite aggressive with them, which is nice as well. The main point of our deck is to dump out huge Eldrazi; we have quite a few of them that are very strong, like Ulamog's Crusher
, Eldrazi Devastator
and Hand of Emrakul
being the top three, these cards are often game-warping when they come down and they are very tough for a lot of opponents to stop in combat. I also really like Ruin Processor
; it positions us quite well against aggressive strategies both in combat and from the life-gain trigger.
Instants:
Well, we only have one instant in Scour from Existence
. While it is extremely expensive for a removal spell, being able to exile a combo piece from an opponent or a key creature does feel pretty good. Since we produce a ton of Eldrazi spawn within the deck, it also feels a lot less bad than in other decks. Since we are colorless, I welcome any and all removal at our disposal.
Sorceries:
Get excited! We have two sorceries at our disposal! Introduction to Annihilation
is our second removal spell in the deck, but being able to exile is nice; giving an opponent card advantage definitely feels less good, but because of our mana ramp casting this early on a key creature or combo piece can be very good. Introduction to Prophecy
is a very cheap source of supplemental card draw, which is a great asset to have on turns when we are casting a ton and keeping the mana train going.
Artifacts:
Some of the best artifacts in our deck are the cheap ones that produce mana and trigger our commander like Chromatic Star
and Chromatic Sphere
these are just a lot of mana ramp for the deck and the card draw is very nice as well so we can trigger our commander. We also have a lot of equipment like Haunted Cloak; these provide us mana ramp and, more importantly, are great to equip on our big Eldrazi and allow us to be even more of a threat in combat. One of my favorite pieces of equipment in the deck is Leather Armor
. The ward can be really helpful, and hey, more protection for arguably the most important card in our deck is always great. Ichor Wellspring
and Mycosynth Wellspring are both awesome ways to get some extra advantage and, more importantly, trigger our commander; we have a few ways to sacrifice these. We have quite a bit of card draw within our artifact package, like Spare Supplies
and Jalum Tome
. In my experience, we can activate a lot of our drawing artifacts on the same turn, allowing us to achieve a true storm-like experience.
Land Base:
The big creatures we drop are already great in combat, but since we typically have an abundance of mana activating either Cave of Temptation
or Captivating Cave
are both great ways to allow us to hit harder. Forge of Heroes
is quite strong, and being able to buff our commander and make them stronger helps them survive combats or direct damage spells or abilities. With the help of cards like Expedition Map
and just a little bit of luck, we can typically assemble a pretty early Tron, which allows us to go even crazier. I like this landbase a lot and find it works well for the deck, I also like running thirty-five lands; even though we get a lot of mana production from our artifacts/commander, having backups to hard-cast things as needed is quite strong.
Strengths of the Deck:
- We can deal a lot of non-combat damage quickly.
- Our commander’s mana production is off the charts and allows us to drop huge creatures quite early.
- We play almost like a pauper storm deck, casting a ton of spells and producing a ton of mana on every turn; once we drop a huge creature, we are a force to be reckoned with in combat.
Weaknesses of the Deck:
- We are very focused on our commander, and since we are colorless, we don’t really have any ways to protect them.
- Weak to artifact hate.
- We can’t really stop any opponents from doing much, we do have a couple spells but we are limited by our colorless deck.
Deck Stats:
Sample Hands:
Conclusion:
Glaring Fleshraker is extremely strong; whether you are building them in a ramp-style Eldrazi deck or just a straight-up combo deck, this card is super sweet. I have been very hot on this card since it got spoiled, and in testing, it has been even crazier than I first thought. I hope you all enjoyed this one as much as I did. Thanks for reading to the end and for all of your support!