“Oh yeah, well, my senses don’t come alive.”
Art:Patched Plaything
by Domenico Cava
Table of Contents
Today’s Featured Commander Is:
Patched Plaything was a card that I initially underrated when I went through and rated all of the Duskmourn commanders; I received a lot of feedback that I needed to jam more games with the deck and recognize it as the powerhouse that it is. I have done that and played over twenty additional games with this deck, and wow, this card is powerful and can produce some strong, quick wins with a ton of protection for our commander. This deck is a blast and honestly doesn’t even feel like a mono-white deck; if you like speed, this is the deck for you. Without further adieu, let’s get it!
The Deck:
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Patched Plaything Voltron!
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Why Patched Plaything?
Patched Plaything is both our starter and our finisher for this deck; they come in ready to rock and roll, especially because we don’t cast them from our hand, so they come in pretty huge already and only need a small amount of buffs to start doing a crazy amount of damage to our opponents and having a commander damage one-shot on the table, this is a Voltron deck so being able to buff up our card with cheap artifacts and enchantments and then utilizing big finishers like All That Glitters
and Golem-Skin Gauntlets
allows us to be super aggressive and hit like an absolute truck. Patched Plaything is a huge part of our deck and a great asset.
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:
Savage Ventmaw
Record against Savage Ventmaw 6-0
This is a very good matchup for us and one that I like a lot, they are rampy but when turn three and four hit and we start swinging hard they often don’t have enough blockers established to stop us allt hat well, they don’t have a ton of ways to kill our commander on top of that and because of all of those factors this match is a slam-dunk for us.
Arabella, Abandoned Doll
Record against Arabella, Abandoned Doll 5-0
Arabella is a strong deck, but the big advantage we have over them is their very small creatures, which get easily run over when our commander has trample, which is quite easy to do in this deck and since we are looking to do commander damage and commander damage only we are able to not really care at all about their lifegain. I like this matchup a lot and find it is great for our deck.
Jasmine Boreal of the Seven
Record against Jasmine Boreal of the Seven 3-0
This is another deck that we typically just run over, and the commander damage and speed at which we operate overwhelm our opponents too quickly. I like this matchup a lot, and while they can get a little scary in the mid-late game, we rarely let them get there!
Commanders, we have a tough matchup against:
Possessed Skaab
Record against Possessed Skaab 1-3
Possessed Skaab is a resilient and strong control deck that, in my experience, almost never lets us resolve our commander, which is one of the biggest weaknesses of our deck. I did have success in a game where I was able to resolve Patched Plaything but we are pretty much dead in the water if they continuously counter our commander. This is a winnable but tough matchup.
Elas il-Kor, Sadistic Pilgrim
Record against Elas il-Kor, Sadistic Pilgrim 0-4
This is a rough one; in a deck that has a ton of different sacrifice effects, it can be really tough to keep our commanders on the field, especially since they are often the only creature that we have. This is a rough matchup, and while we can easily fight through all of their removal, the sacrifice effects like Fleshbag Marauder
make this matchup very difficult.
Murmuring Mystic
Record against Murmuring Mystic 2-5
A winnable but tough matchup for our deck, this is very similar to any of the control matchups we face if we cant stick our commander we will struggle; it is also quite tough because Murmuring Mystic decks typically contain a decent amount of bounce effects which will force us to cast our commander from our hand and not be able to avoid the downside. Once they have invalidated our commander, it’s just a simple bird beatdown till the end.
Strategy Overview:
Speed: This deck is decently fast and uses cheap buffs + artifacts/enchantments to produce very quick wins, the number eight is truly the magical number in this deck.
Protection: We have a ton of different ways to protect our commander, like Loran's Escape
and Stave Off
, as well as many others that allow us to keep our commander on the board.
Clearing the Way: Clearing the way of problematic creatures with cards like Journey to Nowhere
and Oblivion Ring
, as well as protection from certain colors like Cho-Manno's Blessing
all of these help us make combat easier and guarantee a hit on our opponents. Greatsword of Tyr
is a card that can help to make our commander huge and clear the way 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 quite a low creature count since we are focused on our commander and playing a sixteen health game. The creatures we do have do play a profound impact on the overall game, like Thraben Inspector
and Novice Inspector
, which are both strong early-game blockers, and their card draw can be great as well! Inspiring Overseer
is also a strong and cheap source of blocking and card draw. We can struggle to have much of a board presence in the early game so being able to put all of the huge combat damage to a stop with cards like Kami of False Hope
, which is a great panic button card for us that can protect us from a loss. The last two creatures I want to highlight are arguably the most important in Transcendent Envoy
and Starnheim Courser
because they reduce the costs of almost all of the cards in our deck and this mana discount can help us speed out the gameplan tremendously.
Instants:
We have a ton of buffs at instant speed which can turn a small attack from our commander into lethal commander damage, being able to cast cards like Artful Maneuver
and Auspicious Arrival
at instant speed to maximize our damage can surprise our opponent and lead them to make bad blocking decision before we swoop in and hit them like a truck. One of my favorite cards in the deck is Battlefield Improvisation
, which is a card that flew under the radar for me but is an absolute powerhouse, and is perfect if we have a lot of equipment but not a lot of mana, this is also another amazing way to one-shot an opponent. Apostle's Blessing
and Stave Off are just two examples of the many ways we have to protect our commander and keep them on the board, Pauper EDH is a format filled to the brim with a ton of single-target removal and once your opponents see you with Patched Plaything a lot of that removal is coming your way, I typically like to keep at least a couple mana up because when your defenses are down your opponents while certainly try you.
Sorceries:
Even though it is a sorcery I like Sunlance
a lot; it is a super cheap card and can be a great way to clear an opponent’s blocker or kill any of their creatures, it’s not great that it can’t target a white creature but that’s ok it is what it is and since we are in mono-white are removal options are quite limited. The last two sorceries we have are Guiding Voice
and Homestead Courage
, which both do pretty much the same thing and the counter provided by both of them help up our damage and fuel the overall gameplan for a very small investment.
Artifacts:
Our artifact package provides an amazing utility for our deck, including some additional card draw through cards like Spare Supplies
, card draw is something mono-white struggles with quite a bit and being able to get some cheap and decent card draw can help change the game a lot for us and also helps with some of our enchantments. While mono-white certainly has some weaknesses, we also have some strengths, like being able to run Greatsword of Tyr. We have quite a bit of strong equipment like Whispersilk Cloak
which allows us to easily one-shot an opponent through commander damage, I typically like to be ready with protection when this card hits because all eyes will be on you when you drop this. Since our deck aims at speed, we have quite a few very cheap pieces of equipment to get our commander’s damage higher, like Vanquisher's Axe
, Bonesplitter
and Darksteel Axe
which are all cheap and strong ways to increase our damage output.
Enchantments:
We are a Voltron deck, so you know we had to pack two of the best enchantments in the formal in All That Glitters and Ethereal Armor
, which, even with only two or three other enchantments on the board allow us to hit super hard with our commander and set us up for a one-shot pretty easily. We also have enchantments that help make our commander evasive, like Angelic Gift
and Lunarch Mantle
. The flying can be super helpful in allowing us to hit our opponents with much less resistance, and the card draw provided can be helpful as well. We don’t have a ton of card draw in the deck, but being able to add three or four additional damage from Empyrial Armor
can help put us over the top and get us to that magic number of eight, which is enough for a one-shot if unblocked. We also have some additional protection through cards like Benevolent Blessing
and Cho-Manno's Blessing, which make us quite strong against mono-color decks and all but guarantee a hit against them.
Land Base:
Our landbase is almost all plains, but we do have some interesting lands that help with the overall gameplan, like Idyllic Grange
, which is a cool way to get an additional buff on our commander and get them closer and closer to that one-shot. The same is true for Captivating Cave
, Cave of Temptation
, and Forge of Heroes
; all of these are also good if our commander gets bounced and we do have to cast them from our hand we can stem some of the downside. Beyond that, we have some pretty basic cycling lands, which are decent ways for us to draw cards, something we aren’t super great at within mono-white. I think this landbase functions well for the deck and I didn’t have any issues with flooding or anything like that in my testing games. Thirty-five is a little higher than most lists, but because of the emphasis on casting a ton of spells as well as Voltron pieces in a turn, I believe it’s the right move.
Strengths of the Deck:
- We are quite fast and can easily overwhelm our opponents.
- When we cast our commander they are often the biggest and baddest creature on the board.
- We have quite a bit of protection for our commander, once they are on the board they are quite hard to remove.
Weaknesses of the Deck:
- We are good once our commander is on the field but can struggle a ton if they continuously get countered.
- We can have a rough matchup against aggressive decks because we rarely have blockers and they can hit early and decently hard.
- We are definitely a glass-cannon deck a bad draw can be very tough.
Deck Stats:
Sample Hands:
Conclusion:
Thanks so much for reading to the end! Patched Plaything is a commander. I am completely turned around and have much more respect ( and if facing against them, a lot more fear!) This deck is strong and fast and does what it can as quickly as it can; this deck can end an opponent’s game out of nowhere and is quite resilient with all of the protection built into mono-white; patched Plaything has shot up considerably in my set rankings and is an awesome card.