“ahHaaa, I got you, you dang mouse.”
Art:Heartfire Hero
by Jakub Kasper
Table of Contents
Today’s Featured Commander Is:
Heartfire Hero has been a standard powerhouse since Bloomburrow released, and luckily for us, its an uncommon, so we can take this hero’s talents to Pauper EDH! Heartfire Hero is a very strong card that can get huge quickly. It also has the huge benefit of being able to damage each opponent when it dies, and luckily for us, it has a super low cost, so we can let it die or even Fling
at our opponents and deal a ton of damage. This deck features some classic mono-red spell-slinging, and we can produce an absolute ton of damage. This deck has been a blast to test and pilot, and if you love slinging spells and cantripping like crazy, I think you will love this one! Without further adieu, let’s get it!
The Deck:
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Heartfire Hero Valiant Flings!
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Why Heartfire Hero?
Heartfire Hero is truly the heart of our deck, horrible jokes aside, this card is great and always the cast on turn one or two; the only reason we would cast it on turn two is if we had a tapland but still cast this guy as early as we possibly can so we can build up Valiant triggers hit hard and start stacking damage and if they face removal do a lot of damage to each of our opponents. Heartfire Hero is susceptible to damage, but it is often right to buff them up while a removal spell is on the stack so we can maximize damage and make our opponents essentially give us more and more copies of fling! Heartfire Hero is a huge part of our deck and a card that should be cast as early and often as possible.
Gameplan:
The overall gameplan for this deck is very simple, cast our commander buff them up, and fling them as much as we can; while we don’t have multiple copies of Fling, we get to fling our commanders damage every time they die so our opponents can give us extra copies, we have multiple ways to trigger our commander which is the main source of damage for the deck. I typically like to keep two to three land hands with this deck and a bunch of cantrips or anything that can trigger our commander. Being in mono-red lends us to have an extremely simple gameplan within the deck.
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:
Guttersnipe
Record against Guttersnipe 4-2
This matchup is truly a race; both decks have very similar goals and similar damage outputs. While their damage is more consistent and chippy, we can often deal a ton of damage and hurt their game plan a lot. I always like to keep a strong and aggressive hand for this one but it is overall a good matchup for the deck.
Grumgully, the Generous
Record against Grumgully, the Generous 4-1
We are definitely not as strong as Grumgully is in combat, but luckily, our commander shines in this matchup, and the damage we are able to output can put a ton of pressure on Grumgully. Many Grumgully lists also are not heavy on removal which works heavily in our favor.
Grunn, the Lonely King
Record against Grunn, the Lonely King 3-0
Grunn is a good matchup for us; by the time our opponents have Grunn out, we usually have a big enough commander that can contend with them in combat, and if not, we can just go on the fling and damage gameplan and whittle them down as much as we can, we do need to be wary of the one-shot from commander damage, but overall this is a good matchup for us.
Commanders, we have a tough matchup against:
Honest Rutstein
Record against Honest Rutstein 1-4
A deck with a ton of removal, sacrifice, recursion, and discounts spells disaster for us, this is a winnable matchup, but we need to be able to always win in combat and fling our commander more often than not when we have them buffed up it is often better to let them die or even play into your opponent’s removal to trigger our commanders damage ability, we can re-cast a fair few times before this goes out of reach. This is still a very tough matchup, but it is one that is winnable.
Khenra Spellspear // Gitaxian Spellstalker
Record against Khenra Spellspear 0-4
Khenra is one of the best and fastest decks in the format and can achieve the sweet one-shot commander damage victory much better than we can, I typically like to test against decks we have built at TNT and decks that are longstanding strong like Khenra, there isn’t much we can do here if they have a good hand and can one shot us then we will die. It’s a very tough matchup, I hope they have a bad hand, and you and the table can gang up on them.
Peregrin Took
Record against Peregrin Took 0-3
Peregrin Took can be a tough matchup mostly because they can gain an absolute ton of life off of their foods which hurts our gameplan a ton, beyond that they have a lot of token production and quite a few big finishers, this deck is basically the exact opposite of our mono-red 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:
Since we are focused on doing a ton of damage with our commander, we are quite light on creatures but we do have some strong ones like Kiln Fiend
and Festival Crasher
, which are great alternate creatures to deal a ton of damage if our commander in unavailable. Pyroceratops
and Spellgorger Weird
are also great options but cost more and are a little slower; I often use them as blockers for the deck as they snowball quite quickly. Damage is truly the name of the game for mono-red and we have a strong trio of damage in Guttersnipe, Firebrand Archer
, and Kessig Flamebreather
which are all great ways to deal additional damage for something our deck does an absolute ton, I typically tend to prioritize hands that have any of these cards in them.
Instants:
We have so many awesome instant speed buffs that we can use to output a ton of damage or win in combat, some of my personal favorites are Antagonize
, Temur Battle Rage
and Uncaged Fury
because for very little mana investment we are able to get a drastically bigger damage output, it is also the perfect time to Fling our commander after we have put a ton of buffs on them. We also have quite a few sources of card draw to help refill our hand and keep on casting through cards like Expedite
and Crimson Wisps
as well as some more traditional and expensive draw spells like Big Score
and Unexpected Windfall
which can help give us a mana advantage and extra cards which is a ton of effect for only four mana. While we have a ton of instants, there isn’t too much interesting to say about that. We have a ton of one, two, and three mana buffs that help further the overall gameplan and allow us to fling and hit like a truck.
Sorceries:
Since we love dealing damage, making our opponents unable to block helps us an absolute ton, which is why we are running cards like Coronation of Chaos
and Cosmotronic Wave
, which can take the best creatures out of combat for our opponents and allow us to hit hard, Cosmotronic Wave is especially good against decks that have a lot of tokens or one-health creatures and in that way, it can almost act as board wipe. Since we can remove the best of the best an opponent has out of combat, we should have some big damage follow-ups like Assault Strobe
and Reckless Charge
, which are both super cheap and output our damage an absolute ton. Gravitic Punch
is essentially another copy of Fling and has a jump-start, so it can easily represent two copies of fling, and with this and a lot of mana, we can easily end the game.
Artifacts:
All of our artifacts are pretty cheap equipment that allow us to trigger our commander and provide a small buff, cheap equipment like Leonin Scimitar
and Honed Khopesh
but one of my personal favorites is Leather Armor
as that ward is super awesome and allows us to have at least a little bit of protection from our opponent’s removal which can be great in the mid-early game. We also have Armory of Iroas
, which is a strong and consistent way to buff up our commander and make them better in combat.
Enchantments:
Since our deck is built on buffing up our commander, what better way than to use our mana with cards like Granite Grip
and Claws of Valakut
, which get better and better as the game goes on. These allow us to deal a ton of damage and provide a ton of extra damage to each opponent if our commander dies. We also have a ton of other auras and buffs tied to mana like Ghitu Firebreathing
and Firebreathing
, which are both awesome ways to turn our extra mana into a ton of extra combat and non-combat damage. Mark of Fury
is not the most impressive enchantment within the deck but is a consistent way to trigger our commander’s valiant ability every turn, which can be great for passively buffing them up, and the haste can matter a decent amount in the early game.
Land Base:
We have a very simple landbase; while we do have some card draw, there isn’t much compared to the large number of mountains; this is to be expected with a deck that is mono-color. Even though we have a decently low overall cost, I like to run thirty-five lands as it provides the most consistency; in the almost twenty games I played with this deck, I had a ton of success with this landbase and did not have any games with flooding or droughts of mana.
Strengths of the Deck:
- We are extremely aggressive and deal a ton of damage quite early.
- We actually have a lot of supplemental card draws that allows us to keep our hands full and continuously trigger our commander.
- Our commander is very cheap, so we can easily re-cast them at least a couple of times.
Weaknesses of the Deck:
- We can struggle against control strategies, we tend to not have many creatures and all control elements and removal being focused on our commander can be tough.
- While we are quite aggressive we are not that great at blocking, other aggressive decks can deal a lot of damage to use before we are able to set up our board.
Deck Stats:
Sample Hands:
Conclusion:
Heartfire Hero is a super awesome commander a deck that is a ton of fun to pilot, while it certainly has some pitfalls and is by no means the strongest deck in the format it is quite consistent and a lot of fun to play, and in a color combination as wild as mono-red I think that’s a great thing to expect. I hope you all enjoyed this one as much as I did. Stay tuned. We have a ton of more sweet Bloomburrow PDH decks coming out this week! Thanks for reading to the end and for all of your support!