“We look out for each other. It’s the way it’s always been. This will blow over. We just need to stand together.”
Please note: We grouped these all together because they all don’t have a high commander count in this set.
Art:Veteran Beastrider
by Andreia Ugrai
We have a three-piece today! Combining colorless, multicolor, and green commanders all in one! Dont worry about Red, Black, Blue and White as those are coming tomorrow! All of these colors and multi-colors besides colorless have decent showings within Pauper EDH, there are some really good commanders in this set and of course some weak ones as well. I’m excited to showcase all of these today! Without further ado, let’s get it!
Let’s get straight into it!
Rating for Pit Automaton 1/10:
Colorless is a very tough color to be in within Pauper EDH. There just isn’t a lot of support for it, and if you aren’t playing a big-mana Eldrazi deck, it can be really rough. Pit Automaton doesn’t do much to change that, and this card is just kind of weak as a commander; limited by color means you can’t even take advantage of its exhaust-focused ability at all. This card is just straight-up bad.
Rating for Veteran Beastrider 10/10:
This card is really good and joins a long line of very strong Selesnya commanders, in a color like Selesnya, it’s really easy to activate Beastrider’s buff multiple times in a turn and is also really good both offensively and defensively, being able to untap all of your creatures after combat can be really strong as well to allow us to be really strong in combat and strong at blocking, this card is a slam-dunk and the perfect general for a selesnya stompy deck or a deck focusing on +1/+1 counters.
Rating for Skyserpent Seeker 9/10:
Simic gets another really good commander! Like they needed it! Simic continues to get a ton of love with Skyserpent Seeker. This card is really good, efficient, and has strong abilities, and its exhaust ability is really good. It’s perfect for a stompy-style deck. Simic has the cards and the support package to be able to blink this card effectively and cheaply and use it as a strong ramp piece. I am a big fan of this card and think it’s really good.
Rating for Lagorin, Soul of Alacria 7/10:
With seventeen vehicles legal in Green, White, and Colorless, as well as seven mount cards at common, I think you just barely have enough good ones to put together a nice creature base, when looking at this card because of the commander, I would build it as a +1/+1 counter shell with the vehicles and mounts on top. I think this card has a strong effect and is quite good, but while there is a decent amount of legal vehicles/mounts, a lot of these cards aren’t that great. I think this deck is fun and cool, but definitely not the most optimized version of a strong color like Selesnya; because of that, it only gets a 7/10.
Rating for Gastal Thrillseeker 1/10:
I don’t think this card is a very good commander, I love the ability and the flavor, but the start your engines ability and ETB trigger do nothing to make this a worthwhile commander, the best option for this card would be to have max speed before you bring them down, but all of the start your engines cards at common are not very good and not worth building a deck around. Based on how the format is getting more and more powerful with every set this commander is just a miss.
Rating for Embalmed Ascendant 10/10:
I’ve never seen a more Orzhov card! This card is really good and is a great card for Orzhov. They already have a decent amount of zombies in black and white, and this card is a natural fit for that archetype. While I do think it’s an option for an aristocrat-style deck, I don’t think it’s the best option, so I would definitely run this solely as a zombie commander. This card is strong and efficient and just works so well with the zombie archetype. While the max speed thing is not always the greatest since it takes a couple of turns, it still is a worthwhile general, and you can absolutely pack more drain and gain effects in the deck.
Rating for Cloudspire Coordinator 5/10:
I can see the potential, but with the decently high cost of vehicles and mounts, averaging around three to four mana I cant see situations where you can get a ton of value out of this, one token being able to crew 2 is quite good, but they can die really easily and with the heavy focus on removal within the format I’m not convinced that this card can stay on the field long term to get a big benefit. I like this card and think that cheaper vehicles and mounts in the future can be pretty good, but for now, I think it’s just ok.
Rating for Boom Scholar 5/10:
If there were more Exhaust cards, I think this commander would be really good; as it stands, it could be a stompy commander, but I just think there are better options; if we see the mechanic again, I think this card can be pretty good, but overall, I’m just not a huge fan of this one. I don’t think its great in its current form, I do hope it gets better in time as I do love the flavor!
Rating for Terrian, World Tyrant 5/10:
I know I keep giving cards five out of ten, but I’m just not sure how this one will shake it, it is an efficient and big creature, but having no abilities in a format filled with commanders who have crazy abilities can be very tough, not sure I like this one, I think you could absolutely make a stompy deck and ramp this out early and with cards like Rancor
it will be pretty good but its just uncertain, it really dies to any removal spell and may not have a big impact. I like this card, but I’m not sure it’s that strong.
Rating for Ooze Patrol 7/10:
I really wish this card was Golgari but think its pretty decent in just mono-green, since you are in green a lot of your creautes die from removal as opponents tend to hate on you quite a bit. I think this card can get pretty big pretty quickly, I’m not sure if it’s better than a straight-up stompy deck commander, but I like this card a lot and think it’s a really good commander.
Rating for Molt Tender 1/10:
Terrible commander, this card just really doesn’t do anything; if you like mana or milling your own deck for almost no payoff, then this is the one for you. This is a good support card if it was common but at uncommon its just really bad.
Rating for Greenbelt Guardian 9/10:
Elvish Herder
sees quite a bit of play within Stompy decks, and having a better Elvish Herder in the command zone is really good, the main drawback,k and its not even really a drawback is that this card doesn’t have a huge impact in the early-mid game and won’t really be used during those times so you need to rely heavily on a good hand. I like this card a lot and think it will be really good.
Rating for Fang-Druid Summoner 4/10:
There is not enough impact. Searching for a vanilla creature is just really bad in most cases. This is another case where I really wish this card was common because it would work in Jasmine Boreal of the Seven
. In its current state, I can’t think of an archetype that would want this as their commander.
Rating for Fang Guardian 3/10:
It’s a really bad card for mono-green to have; what you see is what you get here, and there is not much. I think this card is fine overall, but as a commander, it just doesn’t do much, and in green, there aren’t a ton of ways to bounce your commander and get the buff again; it is just not worth it as a commander; this is another card I wish was common.
Rating for Elvish Refueler 1/10:
There just simply aren’t enough Exhaust cards to make this card work; I love this card’s ability, and if we see more exhaust cards in the future, I think this will be really good, but for now, it’s just awful, and, in my opinion, can’t be built around.
Rating for Autarch Mammoth 7/10:
I think this is a decent commander for a ramp-filled stompy deck. They produce a lot of power on the board and can continue to allow you to go wide. While the saddle is expensive, it can be paid for pretty easily by most green decks. This is a card that I don’t think will be great, but I would love to give it a try and see how it goes. I think it will go pretty well.
Conclusion:
Thanks for reading to the end! I hope you all enjoyed this part one of a rating for all of the Pauper EDH commanders from Aetherdrift! While Colorless had a really poor showing, Multicolor and Green had a lot of cards that ranged from good-decent, and while they all had a few duds, they had a good showing overall. Aetherdrift does feature a lot of commanders that will get better over time, so eventually, I think it will be fun to look back and see how we felt about these then. Stay tuned for Black, Red, White, and Blue tomorrow!