“I’m switching lanes on ’em, but I don’t got no gears.”
Art:Prodigy's Prototype
by Ryan Pancoast
Table of Contents
Today’s Featured Commander Is:
Prodigy’s Prototype is a really strong commander that, in my opinion, is going to be really strong in rule break month two. There are so many huge vehicles that we can drop, and with all of our pilots that we create, we can easily crew up a huge board full of vehicles and hit our opponents like a truck. Combine that with all of the support for artifacts that are present in Azorius like Etherium Sculptor
and Starnheim Courser
. Azorius really is the perfect color combination for a deck that focuses on vehicles. While we may be a little bit slow to start, we absolutely pack a huge punch when we get to the mid/late-game. I think this deck is really strong and is going to be one of the best in rule break month two. I’m really excited to showcase this one today! Without further ado, let’s get it!
The Deck:
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Prodigy's Prototype Vehicles!
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Why Prodigy’s Prototype?
The past few decks we’ve covered have had the commander in a support role but in this deck Prodigy's Prototype is a huge part of our deck, they enable us to crew all of our vehicles easily and they allow us to fill up our board and they can also be great chump blockers, once we have around five or six pilots its pretty hard for us to have a vehicle that we cant crew, allowing us to be very strong in combat and cause a lot of problems for our opponents. Prodigy’s Pilot is a huge part of our deck and should be cast as early as we possibly can.
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:
Sheltering Ancient
Record against Sheltering Ancient 4-0
I had no trouble with this matchup, while the early turns can be a little scary because they have a huge commander, but after we escape the danger zone of the early turns, it’s usually not too bad. They can one-shot you in the early turns, so you have to be careful. Not a bad matchup if we can make it past the early turns, but it can be a little scary in the beginning.
Fiendish Panda
Record against Fiendish Panda 3-1
Fiendish Panda is a pretty good deck, they can get pretty big and are quite good at keeping their life total but luckily we can output quite a bit of damage and if they don’t have a big board we tend to just run them over, i didn’t have much trouble in this matchup, with one caveat if we let their lifegain go completely unchecked they can get to a point where they are really hard to kill.
Combine Guildmage
Record against Combine Guildmage 5-1
I had next to no trouble in this matchup. They are pretty slow in the beginning of the game as well, but we are typically a little bit faster than they are, and once we get our board established, there really isn’t much they can do to us. This is a great matchup for our deck.
Commanders, we have a tough matchup against:
Black Waltz No. 3
Record against Black Waltz No. 3 0-3
The deathtouch can be really tough against our flying vehicles, and their commander can output quite a bit of damage on us. They also have a ton of artifact hate/removal, which can make it really tough for us to keep our board. Without our board, our deck really falls flat in a lot of ways. This was a very rough matchup for the deck.
Khenra Spellspear // Gitaxian Spellstalker
Record against Khenra Spellspear 0-3
This is one of those matchups where us going slow can be really troublesome for us, Khenra can kill on turn three or four and is just a force to be reckoned with they are an extremely strong deck that we cant do much about, pretty much our only recourse is killing their commander early as they are no doubt a glass cannon deck.
Killian, Ink Duelist
Record against Killian, Ink Duelist 1-3
Killian is great at one thing, and that one thing they do great is removal and targeting our creatures. This is a matchup where our low counterspell and protection count make this really tough for us. Killian is great at destroying all of our creatures and making it so it’s extremely hard for us to close out games. This is a tough matchup for the deck.
Strategy Overview:
Hire all of the Pilots:
One of the biggest advantages that we can have in this deck is being able to produce pilots through our commander. This allows us to save our other creatures for attacking/blocking. I like to be really aggressive once I get my commander out, so we can produce as many pilots as we can.
Use your control elements wisely:
We don’t have a ton of control elements in the deck, while we do have classics like Counterspell
and Arcane Denial
we don’t have a large amount of them so using them for big threats is key, threat assessment is really important in this deck.
Don’t be afraid to chump block:
Since we have quite a bit of additional creature production through our pilots we often get to a point where we don’t need them anymore and they are nothing more than chump blockers, Pauper EDH is a really creature heavy format so being able to have extra chump blockers to not take as much damage is really strong for us.
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:
Starnheim Courser, Foundry Inspector
, and Etherium Sculptor lead the way here and reduce the cost of a large majority of the deck, which can allow us to accelerate our gameplan at a crazy rate with one or all of them out. We also have a lot of cards that work very well with our vehicle package, like Daring Mechanic
, which in the late-game we can activate quite a bit, as well as Giant Ox
and Interface Ace
, which are some of the best ways to crew our vehicles. While we are a very offensive-focused deck, we also have some really nice defensive elements like Ethersworn Shieldmage
, which can save us if we get into a bad combat situation where we are about to lose our vehicles. We also have Kami of False Hope
, which is a very nice way to protect ourselves from aggressive decks or stompy strategies or pretty much any deck that wants to swing out and go wide. I’m a really big fan of Thousand Moons Infantry
, especially with our vehicles that have vigilance since we can crew them every single opponent’s turn. Since we have so many vehicles and artifacts and love getting our artifact count up for cards like Filigree Attendant
, we also have a few affinity creatures that help increase our artifact count and give us a better board presence like Frogmite
, Myr Enforcer
, and Gearseeker Serpent
. All of these are really strong attackers as well!
Instants:
Since we are such an artifact-heavy deck, it’s only right that we have some benefits with cards like Stoic Rebuttal
and Metallic Rebuke
, which are pretty good counterspells and are made cheaper by our artifacts! We do have some classic counterspells like Arcane Denial, Counterspell, and Hindering Light
. While we don’t have a huge count of counterspells, and we do need to use them wisely, we typically have enough against non-control decks to be pretty strong at protecting our board and stopping our opponents from what they are doing.
Sorceries:
Settle Beyond Reality
is a really sweet card and one of my favorite white cards in the format, while it is a little pricey being able to exile an opponents creature and bounce one of mine is really good for the deck, while its not great that its at sorcery speed but being able to exile a key creature for one of our opponents is really strong. We have quite a few discounts and ways to make our artifacts and our creatures cheaper in this deck so we often run out of cards in our hands because of this its great to have as much card draw as we have and that’s the reason we are running a bunch in Lórien Revealed
, Ponder
, Preordain
and Thoughtcast
all of these are awesome ways to refill our hand and keep the board going!
Artifacts:
Our artifact package is where a good majority of our huge hitters reside in this deck, with great vehicles like Aradara Express
, which, if we ramp out early, can get really huge and be an absolute nightmare for our opponents to deal with. Hulldrifter
is another card that I’m a huge fan of, combining some strong card draw with a pretty good evasive attacker. Thundersteel Colossus
is one of our biggest and best vehicles in the deck, and it has a truly shockingly low crew cost; we can crew it with just one of our pilots from our commander! And being able to hit our opponents with a big 7/7 with haste can really flip the game on its head. Against decks that don’t run a lot of creatures, this card can do a huge number on them. Another one of my favorite vehicles in the deck is Raiders' Karve
since we are in Azorius we don’t have really any ramp but this card is not only a pretty decent attacker for the deck but also can provide some ramp and card cycling which is really nice to have. We round out our artifact package with some mana rocks like Mind Stone
and Commander's Sphere
. These cards not only help us ramp out our creatures and the overall gameplan but can be traded in for some card draw, they also help us increase our artifact count which can be really strong as well with cards like Foundry Inspector and Filigree Attendant.
Enchantments:
My favorite enchantment in our deck is All That Glitters
, a card that certainly needs no introduction and is one of the best damage dealers in the format, and because we have a huge artifact count and an ok enchantment count, we can output a crazy amount of damage. The rest of our enchantment package is all defense and allowing us to disrupt our opponents’ creatures and commander with cards like Deep Freeze
, Fall from Favor
, and Witness Protection
in decks that rely on their commanders, or a certain creature casting any one of these cards is truly a death blow.
Strengths of the Deck:
- Crewing vehicles is ridiculously easy in this deck, we produce so many pilots that can crew greater than their power that we can be a consistent force in combat.
- The pilots we produce are also great chump blockers against aggressive decks.
- A lot of our vehicles like Renegade Freighter
and Thundersteel Colossus are great attackers, and when we have discounts from our deck, we are able to drop these big creatures early.
Weaknesses of the Deck:
- Weak to artifact hate.
- We can be a little slow to start, allowing us to take quite a bit of early-game damage.
- We are in blue but are quite low on counterspell effects. It can be tough if we face a heavy control deck.
Deck Stats:
Sample Hands:
Conclusion:
Thanks so much for reading to the end! This deck feels like one of the best vehicle commanders that we have, being able to produce an absolute ton of pilots that crew greater than their power allow us to get our vehicles crewed very easily and make us a true threat in combat, this deck is amazing agaisnt a ton of decks in the format especially creature decks, it often gets to the point where we have so many pilots that we end up chump blocking with them. This one is a true banger and, in my opinion, is going to be one of the shining stars from Rule Break Month Two. Stay tuned and tap in!