“Infinity, rapture, I am their harbinger.“
Art:Metastatic Evangel
by Volkan Baǵa
Table of Contents
Today’s Featured Commander Is:
Metastatic Evangel is a card that I feel a lot of people overlook out of MH3. In a way, I totally understand. In pretty much every flavor of Commander, people see mono-white as one of the weaker color combinations, and in some situations, that is certainly correct, but in a more balanced format like Pauper EDH, this deck is absolutely awesome. With a ton of bounce effects and an absolutely crazy amount of +1/+1 counter enablers, and a commander who can come down early and affect the rest of the game, this deck has an absolute ton to offer. I was even able to help with one of mono-white’s biggest weaknesses by throwing in some artifact-based card draw. This deck is fast and flashy and with sweet cards like Celebrity Fencer
and Slith Ascendant
as well as big sweeping spells like Silverflame Ritual
and Now for Wrath, Now for Ruin!
we can easily buff up our board and bully our opponents in combat. This deck is awesome, and I am very excited to showcase it to you all today. Without further adieu, let’s get it!
The Deck:
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Why Metastatic Evangel?
Metastatic Evangel is an extremely important card for our deck. The best part of our commander is how much of an impact they have as soon as they get in, even just a couple turns of playing a couple creatures can help our board get huge and make us quite the threat in combat. Being able to amass a strong board state early allows us to outpace even the most aggressive decks in the format. Metastatic Evangel can be a little tough to keep on the board, but we do have cards like Shelter
and Feat of Resistance
to help protect them. While this isn’t always relevant, I think it is worth sharing that if there is an infect deck or a deck focused on -1/-1 counters at the table, you can proliferate those as well, and since we proliferate so often, just a couple of poison counters on an opponent can be their demise. There are situations where it is incorrect to do this, but having the option is pretty awesome!
Gameplan:
The overall game plan for the deck is simple: stick our commander on turn two and keep the creatures coming! Being able to commit more and more on-curve creatures and proliferate every time they enter allows us to build up a substantial and impactful board as soon as possible. Sticking our commander is a huge part of our game plan as they are a very impactful card for the deck and the main piece within our engine. Being able to proliferate one or two times a turn on top of all of the cards in our deck that give other creatures counters, and in just a couple of turns, we can have an absolutely crazy board. Being able to win in combat allows us to leverage a lot against our opponents and go up against the best of the best decks in combat. For starting hands, the basic requirements are at least two lands so we can cast our commander on curve, a couple of early-game creatures, and some form of protection. In my experience, and since we have such a low operating cost, there aren’t many bad hands in this deck unless you just draw a no-lander.
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:
Killer Bees
Record against Killer Bees 6-1
Killer Bees is a pretty favorable matchup for us overall; if we stop their commander, there isn’t that much they can do against us. We do need to be very wary of a one-shot with this deck, but if we hold up some removal and continue committing to the game plan, this is usually a decently easy win. The lack of overall creatures in most killer bees lists allows us to hit very hard pretty often.
Battle Cry Goblin
Record against Battle Cry Goblin 4-2
I like this goblin matchup a lot; being able to outpace them, especially in the early game, is quite easy for the deck to do. We just outscale them way quicker than they can get built up. We do have some fear around this deck, especially in the late game when they can activate their commander multiple times a turn and hit hard. Overall, this deck can’t do that much to touch this. We are decently aggressive, so sometimes we lose the race, but this is a pretty favorable matchup.
Greta, Sweettooth Scourge
Record against Greta 5-0
I like this matchup a lot, we are just a lot faster than Greta and can overwhelm them in combat. It can be tough because they can gain a ton of life off of their food tokens, but overall, I think this matchup is favorable. We do need to be careful because they have some sources of non-combat damage, and they do have a lot of removal, but since we have so many creatures, I find it to be pretty favorable to fight through the removal and just simply out-damage our opponents.
Commanders, we have a tough matchup against:
Syr Carah, the Bold
Record against Syr Carah, the Bold 1-4
Syr Carah and any deck that focuses on non-combat damage can be very tough for us; the main issue with these decks is that they just don’t care about combat in a game where we have a great hand and can easily make a huge board we can overwhelm, and just simply out damage them, but in a game where they are able to get some of their best pingers and damage dealers out early, we can’t do much. This is, overall, a pretty tough matchup for us.
Hallar, the Firefletcher
Record against Hallar, the Firefletcher 0-5
There are a ton of kicker spells that deal damage and help the Hallar player get ahead. Hallar is another deck that focuses on non-combat damage. I’m sure you can see a theme here, but since they are in Gruul, they are also very good at combat as well. This deck can, at the very least, compete with us in combat, and with all of that upside on top, this is just a very tough matchup for us.
Invisible Stalker
Record against Invisible Stalker 1-6
Decks that don’t care about interacting with us in combat can be very hard for us to beat, especially ones that have hexproof. We are in mono-white, so it’s not like we are entirely dependent on removal, but having it as an option is very strong, and not being able to kill one of this deck’s main damage dealers hurts us a lot. The high density of counterspells typically present in these lists hurt us as well.
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, one of my personal favorites being Celebrity Fencer even without all of our proliferating this is a card that gets out of hand very quickly and can hit extremely hard. Night Market Lookout
is another very cool card that is similar to Celebrity Fencer but since we have so many blink effects in the deck we are easily able to proliferate this like crazy and trigger it quite often, this card is just plain awesome. Since our commander loves re-trigger’s and re-ETB’s we can get a ton of value out of Whitemane Lion
and Kor Skyfisher
. Whitemane Lion is especially awesome when you target itself and get a bunch of re-triggers on our commander, using it to save our commander or other creatures from removal is also a great option that we have. Slith Ascendant is an evasive card and definitely one of the better damage dealers in our deck; there are a lot of flying creatures within the format, but being able to consistently get bigger and bigger allows him to be a true force to be reckoned with. MH3 brings some very strong enchantress commanders, so there is no better time than now to be running cards like Shinewend
, which is a very consistent source of enchantment removal. Since the main name of our game is to win in combat, there isn’t a card that helps us more than Ainok Bond-Kin
, which gives pretty much all of our creatures first strike, being able to attack with a lot of confidence helps us an absolute ton.
Instants:
Since our commander triggers on non-token creatures entering and we are in mono-white, there is nothing wrong with flickering our own creatures; whether we do this offensively or defensively, it really doesn’t matter as it is still quite strong. Take Up the Shield
is another very cool and cheap card that can be a great way to protect against a removal spell or an early-game way to get a counter on a creature. Being adaptive and having the option to protect our creature from removal allows us to fight through the large amount of single-target removal within the format. Having that option allows us to be strong against a variety of strategies, especially control-style strategies that try to remove our creatures. Our instant package is full of great ways to keep the best of the best we have on the board.
Sorceries:
One of the coolest parts of our sorcery package is that almost all of the cards we have also further the overall gameplan like Wanderer's Strike
not only is it a removal spell that exiles the creature but we also get to proliferate, while five might seem like a lot of mana and arguably it is the additional benefit it provides allows us to justify the cost. Some other awesome sorceries are Now for Wrath, Now for Ruin! While the counter is naturally awesome, the vigilance can be extremely relevant, especially against other creature-based strategies. Being able to buff our entire board not only helps us increase our overall damage but is very good, especially when we are proliferating consistently with our commander. The last card I want to highlight is Shoulder to Shoulder
. Being able to buff two creatures and draw a card is perfect for this deck; it doesn’t get much better than this in terms of value to cost.
Artifacts:
While many people view mono-white as a bad color combination, there is one huge benefit, and that is that we are able to run Greatsword of Tyr
, which is a crazy powerful piece of equipment in pretty much any deck, but it is even better in this deck where we are able to proliferate the counters. Against a deck that has a lot of creatures with vigilance or only attacks with a couple of creatures, being able to tap a creature down and get a counter is so much value for the deck. Armory of Iroas
is another awesome piece of equipment for the deck; more counters are something we will never say no to, and having it be consistent is amazing. Beyond that, we have some supplemental card draw with cards like Jalum Tome
and Spare Supplies
, which are both cheap and awesome sources of card draw, which help us keep the overall gameplan going and are super cheap with little downside.
Enchantments:
We are quite light on enchantments, but all of the enchantments we have are great for the deck, like Oblivion Ring
and Journey to Nowhere
, which are both amazing ways to take out some of the best creatures or nonland permanents or opponents have. If an opponent has a deck that relies on their commander or a single creature, I love using Reprobation
to completely disrupt their gameplan. Even though we don’t have a ton of enchantments all of them provide a ton of utility for the deck.
Land Base:
Out of the few non-basics we have in the deck the coolest one we have is Idyllic Grange
in a deck solely focused on +1/+1 counters who doesn’t love a free counter and in the early-game getting the ball rolling early is very nice as well. We have our typical suite of supplemental card draw within our landbase it is certainly worth its weight in gold in this deck because we don’t have a ton of sources of card draw. Even though we have an overall low cost, we love to cast multiple things in a turn to trigger our commander and keep those counters coming; because of this, I think that thirty-five lands is perfect for this deck.
Strengths of the Deck:
- We are very strong in combat after having our commander out for just a few turns.
- Even though we are in mono-white we have quite a few ways to deal with opponents threats outside of combat.
- We are very strong against aggressive creature-based strategies we can often outpace their power and toughness and stop them until they run out of steam.
Weaknesses of the Deck:
- We are heavily focused on our commander, who is absolutely a removal magnet for our opponents.
- Weak against decks that focus on bouncing our permanents as we lose the buffs we put on them.
- While we try our best, we still don’t have enough card draw, and because of the low cost of most cards in the deck, we can run out of cards very quickly.
Deck Stats:
Sample Hands:
Conclusion:
I hope you all are enjoying MH3 week so far! We have been doing so much testing during our little break and are super excited to showcase the awesome MH3 commanders for the rest of the week. We have tested with nearly every deck in the set, so if you got one, let us know! Now, back to the deck. I very much enjoy this deck, and it feels like a true mono-white / white weenie experience. This deck is just a ton of fun, and being able to proliferate on pretty much every turn is awesome. If you love mono-white, +1/+1 counters, or just fun and exciting Pauper EDH decks, I think you will love this one. Thanks for reading to the end and for all of your support!