“My Suit Is At The Cleaners.”
Art:Sabotage Strategist
by Darren Tan
Table of Contents
Today’s Featured Commander Is:
Sabotage Strategist was a card I held in high regard within my initial rankings of the set. After a bunch of testing, I still think this card is very good for a control strategy. Being able to shut down and limit smaller creatures’ attacks can really turn games on their head, and being able to counter any buffs they have can make games against us an absolute struggle. This deck is quite powerful, and while it takes us quite a long time to kill our opponents, we are pretty good at slowing down the game to our pace and slowly taking down our opponents. Without further ado, let’s get it!
The Deck:
Click here to copy full decklist to your clipboard!
Sabotage Strategist Control!
Buy This Deck!
Buy this deck using our TCGPlayer Affiliate Link: Sabotage Strategist Control Pauper EDH
Why Sabotage Strategist?
Sabotage Strategist is a huge part of our deck; not only do they allow us to be decently strong against creature decks or aggressive strategies, but also a decent late-game attacker when we activate their exhaust ability. Sabotage Strategist really is the whole package in this deck and we have quite a few ways to protect them so they can stay on the board and help us control the game for a long time.
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:
General Kreat, the Boltbringer
Record against General Kreat, the Boltbringer 3-0
This is pretty much the ideal matchup for our deck. We can counter a lot of their best cards, and our commander can really shut down almost all of their 1/1 attackers. They just can’t do much against us. We do have to be careful about what we let resolve, but in testing, I just slowed the game down a ton and beat them down slowly, and it seemed to work very well.
Record against Arabella, Abandoned Doll 5-0
Another matchup that we are just poised to beat, as long as we keep their commander off of the field, there really isn’t much that they can do against us, and without their commander, their deck has considerably less punch, as long as we can keep their commander off of the board and get ours down on turn four this matchup is quite easy.
Murmuring Mystic
Record against Murmuring Mystic 3-0
A true control vs control matchup! Our commander gives us the edge in this one allowing us to pretty much invalidate their bird army and make the game really tough for them. We do sometimes engage in counterspell wars with this deck, but for the most part, they aren’t doing much we care about. I like to remove their commander, but even if we can’t, our commander allows us to be very strong in this matchup. This is a very strong matchup for our deck.
Commanders, we have a tough matchup against:
Heartfire Hero
Record against Heartfire Hero 0-3
While we can counter a decent amount of their stuff and their commander, this can still be a pretty rough matchup; they can recast their commander quite easily since they are so cheap, and if we have an off turn and let some of their problematic stuff resolve it can be really rough. This is a tough matchup for our deck.
Fynn, the Fangbearer
Record against Fynn, the Fangbearer 0-3
We usually do pretty decent against Fynn in the early-mid game, but it is the transition to the late-game and their large amount of deathtouch that can make this matchup really hard, we have a limited amount of creatures, and for the most part, they don’t, because of that they can just beat us down even when we have our big creatures out a rough matchup for sure.
Khenra Spellspear // Gitaxian Spellstalker
Record against Khenra Spellspear 0-3
One of the best decks in the format, and if they choose us, they can kill us on turn three, the only real hope we have in this matchup is bounce spells like Vapor Snag
or Annul
and often times these aren’t enough, we are just getting set up, and they are already about to kill us. This is a tough matchup.
Strategy Overview:
Protect ourselves:
Through our counters and bounce spells, it is key that we control the pace of the game and don’t allow any opponent to get out of hand.
Keep our commander on the field:
Against creature decks and decks that love attacking keeping our commander on the field can really slow them down and hurt their overall gameplan, from turn four on our ultimate goal is to keep our commander on the field.
Keep Drawing Cards:
We have quite a bit of card draw within our deck, and keeping our hands full is key to having responses and ways to interact with our opponents; I always like to keep my hand as close to seven as possible.
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 pretty low creature count, but we have a decent amount of support and utility creatures that help with the gameplan. I especially like Silver Myr
as outside of our artifacts, it is one of the few pieces of the ramp we have and can allow us to get out our commander early, which is really good against pretty much any creature decks. If we aren’t able to get our commander out early, we are able to be decent at blocking through cards like Drift of Phantasms
and Riptide Turtle
, which are really good blockers for the deck. My favorite support creature that we have is Naiad of Hidden Coves
, which is very strong and discounts a large majority of our deck, which can be really strong. Now let’s move on to what we all have been waiting for: our finishers, the best are Tolarian Terror
and Cryptic Serpent
since they are strong attackers and are often much cheaper, I also like Shipwreck Dowser
as it can allow us to get a spell back and is a decent attacker/blocker for the deck, our creature package isn’t super impressive but it gets the job done.
Instants:
We have a lot of awesome counterspells like Dissolve
, Arcane Denial
and Counterspell
as well as some cheaper ones like Mana Leak
, Dispel
and Negate
allowing us to counter a wide range of things and still have mana up to be able to deal with other problems that arise. One of my favorite instants is Capsize
, which can be great in the late-game since we can easily utilize its buyback ability to keep on using its effect, which can really devastate decks with expensive cards or ones that are tight on mana. I also really like both Annul and Vapor Snag, as they can be used once an opponent buffs up and goes all in on a creature, and we can bounce them back and ruin all of their investment!
Sorceries:
Our sorcery package has a ton of card draw with amazing and cheap spells like Ponder
and Preordain
not only are these efficient spells for the deck they allow us to fill up our graveyard and reduce the cost of cards like Tolarian Terror, I really like Fade Away
as well, if you catch an opponent all-tapped out it can be really devastating and absolutely change the game. Another great finisher for our deck is Serpentine Curve
, which can get shockingly big, and if we have bounced or removed our opponent’s creatures, we can hit really hard.
Artifacts:
I know, a TNT deck without Wedding Invitation
! Believe me, it hurts me too, but I just couldn’t do it this time! What we do have is pretty much all mana rocks. These are great in the early game for helping to speed out our commander and, in the late game, can allow us to hold up counterspells. Our artifact package is pretty boring but does provide utity for the deck and works well.
Enchantments:
Our enchantment package is kind of like the rest of our deck, controlling and devastating for our opponents, with so many ways to disrupt creature decks like Deep Freeze
, Fall from Favor
and Kasmina's Transmutation
. Our enchantment package is filled to the brim with these effects, and they help us round out the game and put even more pressure on our opponents, and disrupt their game plan further.
Strengths of the Deck:
- We are quite good against aggressive or token strategies, especially because of our commander.
- We have quite a bit of counters/bounce and removal within the deck allowing us to shape the board to our liking.
- Since we are so heavy on control, we can easily politically influence our opponents to not mess with our stuff.
Weaknesses of the Deck:
- We can be a little slow in the early game. When we hit the mid-game, we do begin to dominate aggressive decks, but we can take some early damage.
- We have slow kills in most games, so we can struggle against decks that scale really well.
- We are built around stopping our opponents, so we have to aggressively mulligan for counterspells; without them, the game plan can feel flat.
Deck Stats:
Sample Hands:
Conclusion:
Thanks so much for reading to the end! It feels really good to be getting back into the deck techs after a lot of ratings and top 10’s this deck really is a blast to play, and we had so much fun testing this one, I think this is a very strong contender for mono-blue control and is a great deck at least for us, I will not deny that our opponents did not share the same sentiment as we countered all fo their stuff. Stay tuned and TAP IN!