“The rivers will run red.”
Art:Stromkirk Captain
by Jana Schirmer & Johannes Voss
Table of Contents
Todays Featured Commander Is:
Stromkirk Captain is a true vampire lord! Being able to buff basically our entire deck and give them first strike is a crazy card for only 3 mana. Our deck is packed to the brim with bloodthirsty vampires and a bunch of ways to make them bigger and better. Combine that with a classic Rakdos suite of removal, card draw and general interaction and you are a very strong contender at your table! Without further adieu lets get it!
The Deck:
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Stromkirk Captain Vampires Pauper EDH!
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Why Stromkirk Captain?
Stromkirk Captain is one of our main win conditions and a strong way for us to build and establish a presence in combat and on the board, we will never say no to more power and toughness on our board as well as a very easy win to many combat situations with first strike! While Stromkirk Captain is a great lord for our board we are almost never attacking with them as we want that buff as long as possibly can!
Deck Overview:
This section contains information about cards in the deck and how they function within the deck! As well as highlighting some of my favorite cards in the deck!
Creatures:
Prepare to be left in shock and awe, but our creature package is filled to the brim with vampires! Changeling Outcast
is a sweet attacker who is always unblockable! Bloodcrazed Neonate
is a sweet card that can come down really early and get bigger and bigger! Crossway Vampire
is a cool card that can shut down Voltron or any sort of buff up one creature strategy! Quag Vampires
is overall cool card at any stage, but really shines in the late game when we can make it much bigger! Savage Gorger
is a card that can easily get out of hand! Vampire Sovereign
is a great card for damage, lifegain and just overall being a well-stated creature even before Stormkirk Captains buff! Heirs of Stromkirk
is my personal favorite vampire in the deck since it is evasive a great damage dealer and only gets better!
Instants:
Big Score
and Unexpected Windfall
are both really strong ways to get mana and cards! Both of these cards are Pauper EDH staples for a reason they are super strong! We also have quite a lot of instant speed removal like Terminate
, Murder
, Cast Down
and Doom Blade
which are all really strong removal spells! To protect key creatures and Stromkirk Captain we can use Supernatural Stamina
and Undying Malice
as a great way to buff and bring back key creatures a perfect counters to opponents removal! Neonate's Rush
is a sweet card that is almost always very discounted for us and we can draw cards!
Sorceries:
Return from Extinction
and Aphetto Dredging
are both really strong recursion spells that allow us to grab multiple vampires back, which is absolutely perfect after a bad combat! Reckless Impulse
is a really great way to get some more cards if we have a lot of mana but not a ton of way to draw cards, or we can use it to set up for next turn! Blightning
is a really strong removal / discard spell which is also pretty cheap! If we have opponent who has a huge creature we can use Act of Treason
to get them out of way and swing with them!
Artifacts:
Arcane Signet
, Fellwar Stone
and Rakdos Signet
are all really cheap mana rocks that we can use for extra mana, how do we say no to that! Wedding Invitation
actually fully works in this deck, this is one of the few times that my favorite Pauper EDH card is actually fully viable! Campfire
is a great way to gain some life back since we swing out a lot and get swung back on quite a lot and we can get Stromkirk Captain back for cheap, which is perfect if they died a lot due to removal! Blood Fountain
is not only a really cool flavor win but a really strong piece of recursion as well!
Enchantments:
Our enchantment package has an absolute ton of power in it! Oubliette
is an absolute Pauper EDH all-star and just a great piece of removal! Kaya's Ghostform
is a card that I always found myself throwing onto Stromkirk Captain as a great piece of protection from single-target removal! Not only do we have First Strike but with Goblin War Drums
out we also have menace which is a nasty combat combo for our opponents to have to deal with! Gift of Fangs
is a really strong card that we can use either as a removal spell for a small creature or a buff for the combat win! We don’t have a ton of madness outlets but we can retrieve high value creatures with Tortured Existence
which is another Pauper EDH all-star!
Land Base:
Our land base is pretty much what you would expect from a Rakdos deck! We are running a bunch of cycling and draw lands as a way to assist with some of our card draw like Desert of the Fervent
and Desert of the Glorified
which are both really strong ways to draw some cards. Combine that with additional cycling lands like Smoldering Crater
and Polluted Mire
which gives us a lot of ways to cycle and get a card out of late game land draws!
Strengths of the Deck:
- Easy to win combat through first strike on every creature
- Decent amount of removal
- Decent amount of card draw
Weaknesses of the Deck:
- Weak to creature hate
- Deck is noticeably slower / weaker without Stromkirk Captain out
- Weak to control strategies
Deck Stats:
Sample Hands:
Main Win Conditions:
We have no infinite combos or loops in the deck but we do have a bunch of ways to buff up our vampires! The best of these being Vampiric Fury
which is a huge buff that can help us close out games! Stromkirk Captain is a huge part of our win since the buff makes us deal more damage and be better blockers as well as being able to have less fear in combat because of first strike, often times our opponents may not even block!
Conclusion:
Stromkirk Captain was a super cool card when Dark Ascension got released but as the years went on it got talked about less and less, thankfully we live in a world with the amazing Pauper EDH format and we can give this awesome card the respect it deserves. This deck is perfect for a new player or a veteran of the game, its just a blast and great for any vampire fans in your life! Thank you for all of your support and thanks for reading to the end!