“I pay no attention to the affairs of men—until they make me their enemy.”
Art:Thundercloud Shaman
by Greg Staples
Table of Contents
Todays Featured Commander Is:
While giants are a creature type that has been around for a long time, they dont have much of a foothold in EDH or Pauper EDH. There are just a lot of creature types that do what giant’s do better! Thundercloud Shaman is arguably the best giant out there. Board wipes are something that are not very common in Pauper EDH and being able to do it to pretty much exclusively our opponents is a very powerful effect and can often easily set up wins! The only caveat to our board wipe is an opponent who is also on Thundercloud Shaman, I wont lie the Thundercloud mirror match is not common but also very hard to beat! Without further adieu lets get it!
The Deck:
Thundercloud Shaman Giants!
Buy This Deck!
Link to TCGPlayer to buy this deck: Thundercloud Shaman Giants Pauper EDH
Why Thundercloud Shaman?
The main reason we chose Thundercloud Shaman is the board wipe ability and we cant discount the fact that giant’s are pretty cool! Thundercloud Shaman is not a commander we often want to cast as soon as we can and it is sometimes better to wait till we can really harm our opponents board and deal a ton of damage to them as well! Thundercloud Shaman with ramp can be decently strong against aggressive strategies but due to our high casting cost we are often weak to them.
Deck Overview:
This section contains information about cards in the deck and how they function within the deck!
Creatures:
I am sure that you are shocked by this fact, but our creature package is filled to the brim with giants. The best and arguably most important Giant in our deck is Stinkdrinker Daredevil
who reduces the cost of all giant spells by 2, considering most giants are colorless and then red this discounts nearly every creature in our deck, this card is crazy good and a hand with it and some lands is pretty much a snap keep! To keep up in the early game and commit some giants early we also have a few changeling giants who are really good at starting the giants out and getting the count up for Thundercloud Shaman like Universal Automaton
and War-Spike Changeling
.
Ancestral Statue
is a key card in our deck since it allows us to bounce Thundercloud Shaman and retrigger his ETB which can be deadly if our opponents have begun to rebuild! Barbarian Guides
is one of the few non-giants in the deck, while snow landwalk is sometimes relevant all we care about is bouncing Thundercloud Shaman back to our hands and getting a retrigger on his ETB! Cinderheart Giant
is a huge giant that is good when it dies, this card is not great since we dont get to choose what we hit with 7 damage! Another great giant is Pharagax Giant
which forces an opponent to make everyone take 5 or give us a 5/5 it really doesn’t matter to us and we are perfectly fine with either option!
Instants:
We are not strong against counterspells or really any blue decks but we do have Pyroblast
and Red Elemental Blast
which are the only ways that we have to deal with blue decks and should be saved for the combos / best of the best blue spells! We have some pretty sweet draw spells in Big Score
and Unexpected Windfall
which are both great draw spells with a treasure token out of the deal! Crush Underfoot
is a really cool giant spell that allows us to deal damage to a creature perfect for after our opponents rebuild after we board wipe! Shattering Pulse
is a card we can often buyback and keep messing with our opponents artifact.
Sorceries:
Some of our sorceries help with combat and drawing cards! Two of the best are Crash Through
and Warlord's Fury
which are both cards that help greatly with combat and draw cards a real win-win. The only downside is that we cant cast these at instant speed so our opponents will know that they are coming! Roar of the Crowd
is a really great card that can be great to destroy huge creatures or just go straight up to our opponents face, in the late game when we have a ton of giants this can get out of hand very quickly! Giant's Ire
is an expensive removal spell but since we can draw a card and have a ton of artifact mana it is totally worth it!
Artifacts:
Mana, Mana, Mana is the theme of our artifact package and by that I mean its all mana, only mana! We are filled to the brim with rocks some of the best are Mana Geode
which gives us a scry and Fountain of Ichor
which we can make into a creature if needed. I am not going to list all of our mana rocks as the effects are redundant but artifact mana is the main way we cast Thundercloud Shaman and other big permanents early!
Enchantments:
We only have one enchantment Giant Spectacle
which is a great card to put on really any creature and make getting in during combat that much easier, the deck is filled with a lot more things but out of all the possible enchantments I thought that Giant Spectacle giving menace was a worthwhile effect!
Land Base:
Our land base is as simple as you would expect a Mono-Red landbase to be. We are running a high-land count at 37 we have a pretty high mana curve overall and in testing we found 37 to be the magic number for this deck! We of course need extra card draw in Mono-Red so we have cards like Forgotten Cave
and The Autonomous Furnace
which are both great early-late game ways to get some additional card draw. Other than that, a few more cycling lands and some mountains and that is a landbase, this landbase is not the most fast or efficient but we offload some of our mana production to our artifacts.
Strengths of the Deck:
- Thundercloud Shaman is a board wipe only for our opponents
- Super easy to win combat
- Decent mana ramp through artifacts
Weaknesses of the Deck:
- Weak to creature hate
- Weak to artifact hate
- Weak to aggressive strategies
Deck Stats:
Sample Hands:
Main Win Conditions:
We are a combat deck through and through, there are no infinite combos or loops in the deck. The main we win the game is casting Thundercloud Shaman and using the board wipe to clear the way for all of our giants and straight “run-over” our opponents! Thundercloud is easily the best giant in our deck as they clear the way, we do have some cards that help but are giants are not very evasive on their own!
Conclusion:
In conclusion giants are a ton of fun to play and Thundercloud Shaman is the perfect general to lead this deck! Not only are giants decent stat creatures who are already pretty good at attacking and blocking, being able to blow up only our opponents boards clears the way for us to get massive swings and easily end the game! Thundercloud Shaman is also a card that we are easily able to recur and cast again so even when our opponents try to build back thier board we just wipe it again. Hope you enjoyed this article, thank you so much for all of the support on our site, the growth has been amazing! Thanks for reading to the end!