“Do you want him to know he’s a puppet?”
Art:Vraska, Swarm's Eminence
by Anna Steinbauer
Table of Contents
Today’s Featured Commander Is:
The day is finally here! Twenty-one of Twenty-one legalized for January Pauper EDH commanders have been completed! While these commanders are only legal for a couple more days, rule zero holds strong and allows us to play them whenever we want, just wanted to say thank you for all of the support over this month. Anyways, let’s talk about Vraska, arguably one of the best of the best Planeswalkers on the list. They remind me a lot of Fynn, and while not nearly as explosive, it can be really hard to attack into us and really hard for our opponents to block us. Combining that with a Golgari shell filled with additional removal and we can really control the game while being decently aggressive towards our opponents. It’s really easy for our creatures to get big and get a lot of counters; when that happens, we can become pretty unstoppable in combat. This deck is sweet! Without further ado, let’s get it!
The Deck:
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Vraska, Swarm's Eminence Deathtouch Counters!
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Why Vraska, Swarm’s Eminence?
Vraska is an extremely big part of our deck; without them, the deck can still be good in combat but lacks the punch that the +1/+1 counters give. I like Vraska minus ability a lot as well for the deck; more creatures with deathtouch and more opportunities for additional counters are quite good. While Vraska is a big target because of their abilities, they can be very hard to kill in combat because we have so many deathtouch creatures, while there is some planeswalker removal in the format, it is not run a ton. If I can ramp Vraska out, I always do, and keeping them on the field as long as we can is key to the game plan.
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:
Phoenix Chick
Record against Phoenix Chick 3-0
While they can do a decent amount of damage in the early game, once we get Vraska and our counters as well as our deathtouch creatures built up they really can’t do much against us. This is a very strong matchup. As long as we don’t take too much early-game damage, we are usually pretty good.
Fynn, the Fangbearer
Record against Fynn, the Fangbearer 4-2
I actually like this matchup, it’s definitely winnable and loseable, but deathtouch creatures constantly bumping into each other can make for a very interesting game, this matchup basically comes down to if we can keep Fynn off of the field, if we can its usually not too bad if they are able to commit Fynn early and we don’t have much removal it can be quite tough. Overall, I like this matchup and think it’s decently favorable for us.
Zada, Hedron Grinder
Record against Zada, Hedron Grinder 3-0
Zada is a very good matchup for our deck, they don’t have trample a ton and with our large amount of removal we can easily keep Zada off of the field and clean up the rest with our deathtouch creatures, Zada can be explosive so I like to aggressively mulligan for some early-removal.
Commanders, we have a tough matchup against:
Tor Wauki the Younger
Record against Tor Wauki the Younger 0-3
Sacrifice effects make this matchup really rough for us, they also don’t care a ton about combat and would rather use their commander, we can slow down their gameplan if we are able to keep their commander off of the field, but with cards like Feign Death
and Not Dead After All
in the format it can be rough.
Murmuring Mystic
Record against Murmuring Mystic 1-3
Too many counters and a bunch of chump blockers make this matchup quite terrible for us. Our creatures don’t matter a ton in this matchup, and they consistently counter Vraska, which can make the overall game plan quite weak.
Kasmina, Enigmatic Mentor
Record against Kasmina, Enigmatic Mentor 0-3
Another control deck that is great at countering our stuff, and Kasmina can be really good against us as well, Kasmina’s ability makes our removal considerably less effective and overall makes this matchup just terrible for us.
Strategy Overview:
Protect Vraska:
Since Vraska is such a huge part of our deck, it is imperative to keep her protected both from removal and in combat; we don’t have much of a recourse against counters, but what we can control, we do.
Be Aggressive:
With a ton of deathtouch creatures in the deck we can easily take swings that may not be advantageous because 9/10 out of ten our opponents won’t block. Against non-aggressive decks I tend to attack quite a bit early.
Build up Quickly:
We have a decent amount of ramp and a bunch of cheap creatures to commit to the board early, having our deathtouch blockers up allows us to transition super well once we get Vraska out.
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:
A lot of our creatures aren’t very interesting since a lot of them is nothing more than just some deathmatch creatures that will get bigger and better with Vraska’s ability. We do have some strong deathtouch creatures like Bone Picker
, which is nice and evasive and can get a lot of counters from Vraska. Goring Warplow
is another creature I really like as they can be a great attacker even without Vraska and when combined with Elvish Herder
, which is one of the best creatures in the deck, we can easily start getting at on of counters. Elvish Herder isn’t the only piece of utilyt we have in the deck, we have Crowned Ceratok
which can be really strong and allow us to maximize our damage as well as Longshot Squad
which helps us against decks with flyers!
Instants:
We have a lot of really good removal like Go for the Throat
and Cast Down
, but it’s our protection that I really want to highlight our protection from removal like Snakeskin Veil
, Tamiyo's Safekeeping
and Gaea's Gift
protecting our best creatures and being able to keep them on the board is absolutely core to our gameplan and allows us to stay strong as our creature gets bigger and bigger from Vraskas ability. If our opponents do remove our creatures and begin to start hitting us and it begins to get scary, we can take a couple of turns to recover with Moment's Peace
, which is not only great to save us if needed, but this can be a good political piece as needed as well.
Sorceries:
Card draw is always great, and lucky for us there is a ton of great card draw in Golgari like Sign in Blood
, Read the Bones
, and Night's Whisper
are all super cheap sources of card draw and can easily help us refill our hand. We also have some true ramp classics like Explore
, which is card draw and some ramp that I always love, as well as true format classics like Cultivate
and Kodama's Reach
which are just all great ways to get our colors established and accelerate our gameplan overall. We don’t have a ton of artifact/enchantment removal, but we get along pretty well with both Feed the Swarm
and Atraxa's Fall
. Our sorcery package helps with the overall game plan quite a bit with cards like Courage in Crisis
, which can help to make us quite the force in combat.
Artifacts:
We love ramping, and while we do have a low overall cost, having some additional ramp/mana fixing like Arcane Signet
and Golgari Signet
can really help us get ahead early. I especially like Golgari Locket
. While it is a little pricier, it’s pretty nice to have some supplemental card draw because of our low overall cost. We can run through our hand pretty quickly!
Enchantments:
I always get nervous about flyers when playing Green or Black decks, so we had to include Spidersilk Armor
; the reach is really nice, but I also like being able to have some additional toughness which can help our creatures survivability, especially against aggressive decks. Since we are a two-color deck that likes to go decently fast, we get a lot of value out of Utopia Sprawl
. Being able to make our land into a dual land for cheap is really nice for the deck. I ended up with a true black classic in Oubliette
, which is one of my favorite ways to take out a big creature or problematic commander.
Strengths of the Deck:
- We are quite good in combat because almost all of our creatures have deathtouch; I typically like to wait until we can get some Vraska or other +1/+1 counter buffs before going all in on blocking and killing opponents’ creatures.
- Being in Golgari, we have the best of both worlds of removal and ramp, allowing us to deal with opponents’ threats and be quite speedy while doing it.
- We transition really well to the mid-late game, and as the game goes long, we can be pretty strong, especially if we are able to keep our creatures on the board.
Weaknesses of the Deck:
- We can have rough matchups against control decks, not being able to stick Vraska makes us weak in combat.
- In the beginning of the game, we can be quite weak in combat without Vraska’s buffs; this makes our early-game presence strong, but we still aren’t that great in combat.
- A lot of our creatures are unimpressive without Vraska. While the deathtouch is nice we don’t have really any recursion so without Vraska buffs we don’t want to be blocking like crazy. We do have some proliferation effects that help once they get counters, but our creature base is quite weak on paper.
Deck Stats:
Sample Hands:
Conclusion:
Thanks for reading to the end. This is the final conclusion for our Planeswalker series. Twenty-one commanders throughout the month of January was an excellent and super fun undertaking that we were so happy we got to share with you all. I had an absolute blast sharing these with you, and I hope you all enjoyed them too. Even though they become strictly rule zero in a couple of days, I’m going to be bringing these decks back to my table often and continuing to have fun with them; I recommend you all do the same. Thank you so much for all of the kind words, love, and support throughout this month. Stay tuned and TAP IN!