“We are meant to hate each other. But we will show them all, wicked and divine, that we are stronger together.”
Art:Proud Wildbonder
by Dmitry Burmak
Table of Contents
Today’s Featured Commander Is:
Proud Wildbonder is a very cool commander who is insanely powerful, if you can stick them on the board for a couple combats, which is greatly aided by cards like Snakeskin Veil
and Gaea's Gift
you can deal a ton of damage and easily one-shot an opponent. Beyond our commander’s ability one of the best things about this deck is the high-amount and decently cheap creatures with trample. Our deck is as Gruul as they come and really feels like it; from the flavor of the cards to just what they do, this is a great choice for a Gruul lover. The stompy game plan and all of the ramp allow us to be quite the force in combat on both offense and defense. Being able to cast cards like Crimson Fleet Commodore
and Gnarlback Rhino
even a couple of turns early can provide an absolute ton of advantage and ramp the pressure up on our opponents. This deck is just great and not that popular in Pauper EDH, with only around twenty decklists online, which I think is criminally underrated. Without further adieu, let’s get it!
The Deck:
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Proud Wildbonder Trample!
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Why Proud Wildbonder?
Proud Wildbonder is a huge part of our deck and is just amazing. Sadly, they are a little bit of a removal magnet because allowing them to be on the board is not great for our opponent’s health. Since they are a removal magnet that is why we are packing cards like Snakeskin Veil and Gaea's Gift, which are some of the ways we can fight back against removal. If Proud Wildbonder dies, we can typically easily re-cast them at least the first couple of times, and even if we are unable to re-cast them, we still have a great deck that is hard to stop. Even if Proud Wildbonder hitting the field with an entire deck full of creatures with trample is a death sentence for our opponents in just a few short turns.
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 lot of great early-game creatures like Llanowar Elves
, Elvish Mystic
and Fyndhorn Elves
, this trio is amazing on turn one and can help us an absolute ton in the early-game and allows us to start casting our big trample-ers as early as we can. We have some very cool creatures within the deck like Stampeding Elk Herd
is very easy to trigger as eight power is pretty much nothing for the deck and giving all of our creatures trample is basically just unblockable for the deck. Kronch Wrangler
is a card that gets out of hand extremely quickly, I always look to keep hands with this card because after only a couple turns out we can have a very big creature that is likely bigger than anything on the board. Thundering Tanadon
is a card we can cast very early since four mana is quite easy to achieve in this deck, having a 4/4 with trample on the third or fourth turn puts us very far ahead. Greater Tanuki
is an interesting and honestly very cool card; being able to use it as a ramp or casting it in the mid-late game as a creature is great; a six mana 6/6 is pretty great, and this can be an amazing attacker/blocker for the deck.
Instants:
We have quite a few instant speed finishers that we can use to “gotcha” our opponents and hit them for way more damage, the best two examples of this are Ambitious Assault
and Burn Bright
. Another pair that works very well with both of these cards are Uncaged Fury
and Temur Battle Rage
which are super good combat tricks and allow us to put a ton of pressure on our opponents. All of these cards are great, but once combat is over, I love using Fling
to finish off an opponent; pretty easy to do if we have them buffed up. One of the biggest benefits of being in Gruul is that we are able to have some additional mana and card draw within just a couple cards, Big Score
and Unexpected Windfall
are both super strong and being able to ramp into these early can help set us up very well for the late-game!
Sorceries:
King Harald's Revenge
is a very cool card for the deck and buffing up our creature and forcing our opponents to block that creature; if we control our commander, it being forced to block doesn’t even matter to us. In addition to forcing an opponent to block, we have quite a few fighting effects within the deck, like Rabid Bite
and Savage Smash
, which are both strong pieces of removal and some of the few ways that we can interact with opponents creatures. Crash Through
is another great card that is a strong cantrip and, with our commander out, gives us the opportunity to hit for an absolute ton of damage. You Meet in a Tavern
is a great finisher for the deck and often the last card we cast before we eliminate our opponents; casting this with a full board is straight-up busted, especially if we control our commander.
Artifacts:
Even though our commander makes a good majority of our creatures pseudo-unblockable, we still have Wedding Invitation
, which is an amazing and cheap source of card draw and guaranteed unblockable even if we don’t have our commander. We are pretty light on artifacts and the rest of them are nothing but mana rocks but they are still quite good for the deck, more and more mana is something we will never say no to. When we hit the late-game we typically don’t need our mana rocks anymore so being able to cash-in cards like Gruul Locket
and get some supplemental card draw is great.
Enchantments:
We are quite aggressive throughout the entire deck, and our enchantment package is no different. Orcish Oriflamme
is a great card that makes every creature in our deck better, and our commander can help us uptick our damage a ton. Predatory Hunger
is a great card and can easily allow for a one-shot, especially against decks like Zada that cast a ton of spells in a turn. Utopia Sprawl
and Wild Growth
are both great early-game pieces of the ramp, and if cast on turn one, can set us up very early and really accelerate the gameplan. While we are primarily an offensive deck, we do have to play a little bit of defense, so we have Lignify
. This is an amazing card to take out commanders, but can be great on pretty much anything, especially huge creatures.
Land Base:
Even though we are a Gruul deck, many of our creatures and spells are relatively cheap, so In testing, I found it to be perfectly fine to only run thirty-five lands; testing thirty-six and seven lands versions led me to flood out regularly. Our landbase is effective but doesn’t have a ton going on, mostly consisting of basics, but we do have some lands that help the overall gameplan, like The Hunter Maze
and The Autonomous Furnace
which are both great sources of card draw. Our landbase is simple, but since we are running a stompy deck, that is perfectly ok, and I find this landbase to be strong for the deck.
Strengths of the Deck:
- We are very strong against any creature-based strategies.
- We have a great mix of support within the deck, from removal for various types of permanent to a ton of supplemental card draw.
- We are amazing at ramping and can easily cast permanents two to three turns early.
Weaknesses of the Deck:
- We are not reliant on our commander, but the deck is much better with them out.
- Generally weak to creature hate, almost all of our protection spells go to our commander.
- Any deck that limits our ability to attack or just does basic hand/board control can be tough; if we start strong, it’s not bad, but control overall is not a great matchup for us.
Deck Stats:
Sample Hands:
Main Win Conditions:
There are no infinite combos or loops within the deck. We are a combat deck in every way; we have some strong cards to easily finish off an opponent like Temur Battle Rage and Uncaged Fury. No matter what creature we attack with, we are able to deal damage with pretty much everything, whether it’s from trample or our commander. We are just amazing at doing damage. Being in Gruul allows us to ramp quite hard with cards like Cultivate
and Utopia Sprawl. This allows us to fight through our opponent’s removal and be great at filling up our board quickly.
Conclusion:
Proud Wildbonder is a powerhouse of a commander, and outside of CPDH, I think that this is one of the strongest combat decks you could play within the format, even just one or two turns with a decent board, and our commander spells disaster for our opponents. If you have been playing or are thinking about building this deck I highly recommend it, if you have a list id love to see it. Thanks for reading to the end and for all of your support!