I'm a bit of a Comander purist. I've seen lots of variants come and go over the years. I've even invented one along the way (ask me about SPM). But I've never let myself get carried away with any one in particular. I built a Silver League deck because a friend had one, I built a Brawl deck in paper when that was first announced, and I even have some tiny leaders decks to this day. None got much traction outside my own home. Now, there are a lot of variants that have shown some staying power. With today's article, I wanted to future proof my collection and build into variant formats.
The thing that stopped me from getting into variant formats? I didn't want to carry around a lot of extra decks that wouldn't see much play. My initial spark of interest stayed steady over the months as I saw people talking about Oathbreaker, Pauper EDH, Wacky Races, Pendragon, and more. People really are creative. I was initially attracted to Pauper because it seemed like a format I could jump into with just cards I had on hand. The EDH version is no different. It wasn't enough to get me to build a deck though. Then it hit me. I just need a modular deck.
My original modular deck was an elf deck that swapped between multiple legendary creatures to change the commander each game. More recently, I published a deck that switched among Companions. I had my vector. With this idea, I wouldn't so much change my commander, but I would build a deck that could bridge formats. Of all the formats I've been exposed to it seems pauper EDH has the most staying power. It also happens to have a lot in common with Pendragon when it comes to deck building. Both decks play commons in the 99/98, so I wouldn't be at a power loss playing one format over the other. The big difference comes in the command zone. Pauper EDH requires me to have an uncommon creature leading the deck, no need for it to be Legendary. Pendragon goes full King Arthur and wants a common creature and a Legendary Equipment. I had 3 cards to choose to get the ball rolling, that would match the color identity between the 2 decks.
I wanted a deck that had some interesting play options, that could win with combat damage and another way. My first instinct was to go mono colored as it would streamline building and play patterns. I immediately thought of Suture Priest, Inquisitor Exarch, and Helm of the Host as my core 3. I could lean into blink/flicker effects, which I really like, to get creatures leaving and entering and sure up my life total while softening opponents'. It would have been very doable but a little simple and low impact. I was hesitant at first, thinking the deck would be too linear, so I decided to turn it up a little.
I've wanted to build an Elas il-Kor, Sadistic Pilgrim deck for a long time. The life gain and drain effect could be very powerful with the right enablers. So there was my hook. A Black and White option that makes expendable creatures and/or drains opponents. I also knew I wanted to stick with Helm of the Host to build off the powerful ETBs of my common creatures with the Pendragon version of the deck. It would be easy to copy creatures that either make creature tokens or makes me sacrifice creatures. With 2 cards out of 3 selected, I just needed to ID the common creature. This was a little easier than I thought it would be. A quick search of common white and black creatures and filtered to the ones that do something when they enter, leave, or die and my pool was very manageable.
I knew I wanted something that worked well with Helm of the Host first and foremost. If I make more and more of these creatures I wanted to profit greatly. I felt Pendaragon was an inherently combat driven format and wanted a creature that would thrive in that environment. Flying would be great for getting in for damage and keeping my Arthur safer. Vigilance would be a plus since I need to play defense after attacking. Defender is a nonstarter. I settled on flying since I would rather keep my guy safe while advancing my plan. Grasping Thrull was a little expensive but fit into the plan perfectly. 2 damage every time this hits the field will add up. The 2 life I gain insulates me from other attackers.
So there you have it. When I play pauper EDH I put Elas il-Kor in the command zone, Grasping Thrull in the 99, and Helm of the Host to the side. When I play Pendaragon I Move Grasping Thrull and Helm of the Host into the command zone and take Elas il-Kor out. With that settled, I needed to fill the rest of the deck with cards that advanced the plan in either format.
The first add to the list was easy; Suture Priest. I know opponents will be playing a creature regularly since they'll have access to their commander. Every time they do, Suture Priest will hit them for one. I'll rack up some life with every creature I have hit the field. I wanted ways to keep paying off the Thrull, Priest, and Elas so blinking my creatures was key. Icewind Stallwart drops in and blinks any of my non warriors. Settle Beyond Reality is a little expensive but it does double duty, triggering my key creatures and acting as permanent removal for an opposing creature. Cloudshift and Ephemerate are classics for this strategy and were easy adds for the deck.
I have a couple more great targets for those spells too. Roving Harper and Spirited Companion are a good way to draw cards in the deck. Effective and on rate are a good combination. Thraben Inspector and Novice Inspector are great early or later on. The clue can just chill there until I have the mana to crack it. Inspiring Overseer and Priest of Ancient Lore do the same thing as one another, hitting the field, drawing me a card, and gaining a life.
I've gone over several key cards that gain me a little life here and there. All that life gain means I need to weaponize it. Marauding Blight-Priest was a must. It rewards me for multiple instances of life gain rather than one big burst of life. Epicure of Blood is the same thing. It turns my reward into your punishment. They're great like that.
Gaining and draining, especially thanks to my blink plan makes my deck more dynamic and resilient. If someone points targeted removal at one of my creatures or if a bad block situation pops up I can just fire one of those off and save that key creature. I needed to add a little more to the deck to keep it interesting and it just so happens to play nice with my flicker effects. I added in the Venture into the Dungeon mechanic for this reason. It's a great way to eke out a little more value from the deck and I can pick a dungeon or room to best suit the situation I'm in. Veteran Dungeoneer is below rate as a 3/4 for 4. The venture pushes it over the line. Getting to trigger it again and again makes it a great target to blink. Planar Ally and Yuan-Ti Fang-Blade are more combat driven to trigger the effect but really pay themselves off nicely with Helm of the Host.
I noticed something about my venture cards, they're very combat focused. My decklist was getting pretty stacked and I didn't have much room for generic combat focused support. Or did I? A great place to hide effects, especially repeatable ones, is within your mana base. People don't like interacting with lands so they're generally safer than most other permanents. It's almost like we should NORMALIZE LAND DESTRUCTION.
I digress. Elas il-Kor isn't very beefy, but commander damage is a viable avenue to winning in PDH so I feel it's worth pursuing. Likewise, my Arthur is conveniently evasive, thanks to flying, so putting more damage in the air will allow me to close out a game that much quicker. I only needed to look in those Dungeons and Dragons sets for the key to my idea. Basilisk Gate allows me to pay 2 mana and tap it to give one of my creatures +X/+X. X just happens to be equal to the number of gates I control. So I added some sweet Gates into the deck. Orhzov Guildgate is the original gate here and is a little slow since it comes in tapped. Black Dragon Gate and Citadell Gate do their best Guildgate impression since they come in tapped and I only care about making White and Black with them respectively. Heap Gate offers a little more versatility since it makes treasures. The color fixing is a little less relevant and I don't expect to use it. That leaves me with 5 gates in the deck, a little slow but respectable. That potential +5/+5 would go a long way considering Commander damage in PDH is set to 16 and 21 in Pendragon.
Since I mentioned Gain and Drain as part of my plan I wanted to elaborate for you. What if I can't attack? I'm not about to fold to a pillow fort strategy or sea of tokens that I can't attack through. I needed something more beneficial. I'm playing black and white so my mind went to a signature mechanic from the Orhzov, Haunt. No, not Haunt, although I am running Blind Hunter since it works well with my blink plan and while wearing Helm of the Host. No, I'm talking about Extort. This funky mechanic lets me pay one extra mana every time I cast a spell and drain the table. The best part though, I don't have to have any conversations about hybrid mana symbols and reminder text. I added in creatures like Tithe Drinker and Syndicate Enforcer. Basilica Screecher and Kingpin's Pet offer more of the same but happen to be more evasive. There's a cap on how many times I'll be able to pay for Extort in any given turn so I expect Helm of the Host will stay off these creatures most of the time.
I'm drawing toward the end here but there's one topic I want to hit before I wrap this up and that's removal. Any time I try a new format I tend to lean into having more removal available to me. A big part of that is to allow me to reset my situation if I make mistakes. I can fight back and stabilize with strong removal options without feeling like I threw away the game. I have some solid options like Generous Gift, Murder, and Tragic Slip. I'm also leaning into artifact destruction to deal with the Legendary Equipment I expect to see in Pendragon. I loaded up on cards like Destroy Evil, Disenchant, and Invoke the Divine to let me deal with more permanent types.
In my research I noticed something critical, the boardwipe situation was rather critical. I couldn't just fall back on Austere Command or Winds of Abandon. White board wipes were concentrated at higher rarities than these formats would let me play. So I had to get creative. If White wasn't going to come through, Black would have to. Even then I expected some “destroy all creatures” options but I found myself in the same place. I was undeterred. If I couldn't destroy all creatures outright I had to look at other ideas. I quickly remembered Bile Blight from Theros block. It was great at clearing token strategies when I was playing standard, which is what I'm afraid of gumming up the board. Bile Blight isn't available in common but there were plenty of similar effects out there. Cower in Fear and Suffocating Fumes are great because they only hit opposing creatures. My board stays intact. -1/-1 is rather limited so I kept going and decided I would need to accept higher losses. Drown in Sorrow goes a bit further providing -2/-2 but hits my creatures as well. That's not all bad since Elas il-Kor will drain my opponents when one of my creatures dies. I just have to be careful with my Nested Shambler since I want the tokens and reducing its power hurts me getting more tokens.
So what do the decks look like? Look no further.
Elas-Il Kor, Sadistic Pilgrim | Grasping Thrull | Helm of the Host |
Blind Hunter | Generous Gift | Wedding Invitation |
Icewind Stalwart | Settle Beyond Reality | Alchemist's Vial |
Syndicate Enforcer | Invoke the Divine | Foreboding Fruit |
Suture Priest | Solemn Offering | Sign in Blood |
Marauding Blight Priest | Cloudshift | Spirited Companion |
Epicure of Blood | Murder | Inspiring Overseer |
Viscera Seer | Cathar Commando | Priest of Ancient Lore |
Carrier Thrull | Disenchant | Roving Harper |
Falkenrath Noble | Tragic Slip | Thraben Inspector |
Basilica Screecher | Flicker of Fate | Ceremonial Knife |
Syndic of Tithes | Disciple of the Sun | Novice Inspector |
Tithe Drinker | Justicar's Portal | Delver's Torch |
Your Temple is Under Attack | Kingpin's Pet | Ranger's Hark |
Planar Ally | Kaya's Ghost Form | Commander's Sphere |
Veteran Dungeoneer | Undying Evil | Pristine Talisman |
Yuan-Ti Fangblade | Riot Control | Kor Cartographer |
Cower in Fear | Ephemerate | Pilgrim of the Ages |
Suffocating Fumes | Pegasus Guardian | Star Compass |
Arms of Hadar | Stonehorn Dignitary | Shade's Form |
Drown in Sorrow | Destroy Evil | Journey to Nowhere |
Not Dead Afterall | Supernatural Stamina | Oblivion Ring |
Basilisk Gate | Citadel Gate | Black Dragon Gate |
Ohrzov Guildgate | Heapgate | Plains x16 |
Swamp x13 | Bojuka Bog | Drifting Meadow |
Polluted Mire | Secluded Steppe | Barren Moor |
I think I'm on to something here. I don't have to hesitate or shy away from variant formats if I can reduce the cost of entry. The best part? This deck can easily just play as a normal commander deck too. Granted, at a slightly lower power level, but it's doable.
What do you think? Are you going to lean into making decks that span formats, or am I better off building for one thing at a time?
As always, please use my referral links. With your support, I'll be able to build this crazy idea of a deck.
Your choice!
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