Commons only commander ideas?

Mimicvat
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Post by Mimicvat » 4 years ago

Been wondering if a pauper commander can make the cut in EDH, particularly without leaning on blue's "legacy counterspell" package.

I think the simplest, and sadly the most uninteresting, is to cantrip your commons;
Fiador, Marshal of the Masses
Creature - Legendary Human Soldier
Eminence - As long as Fiador is in the command zone or on the battlefield, you cannot cast spells not of common rarity.
When Fiador enters the battlefield, choose green or red. Whenever you cast a common creature spell that is white or the chosen colour, draw a card.
2/2
Made him colour flexible, you can run all of the bad pauper colours but needs to focus around white as I feel that is the best colour "for the common folk".

His eminence ability restricts you to commons at all times, but you will only benefit from the draw if he is in play and with a creature heavy strategy. Deck would likely run as a mass of crappy peasants and then some bad spot removal or overruns.
Sorlis, Half-mad Alchemist
Creature - Legendary Fairy Wizard
Eminence - As long as Sorlis is in the command zone or on the battlefield, you cannot cast spells not of common rarity.
Flying
Whenever you cast a red spell, reveal the top card of your library. If that card is a blue card, Sorlis deals X damage to itself and X damage to any target, where X is the CMC of the revealed card.
Whenever you cast a blue spell, reveal the top card of your library. If it is a red card, put it into your hand.
1/4
Trying to make a weird izzet spellslinger deck, one that rewards you for having a mixture of the two colours instead of just the powerful blue commons.
Akisk, Apprentice Necromancer
Creature - Legendary Human Wizard
Eminence - As long as Akisk is in the command zone or on the battlefield, you cannot cast spells not of common rarity.
Flying
Whenever a non-zombie creature you control dies, create a token that is a copy of that card, except that it is a black zombie instead of its other colours and types.
At the beginning of your end step, sacrifice all zombies you control with a decay counter on them. Then, put a decay counter on each zombie creature you control.
1/2
I'm trying to capture the idea of a mediocre necromancer, who can raise the dead but not keep them going.

Wondering if the nexus community has some pauper commander ideas they can contribute? Can we make these cards interesting in some way?
Currently building: ww Bruna, the Fading Light (card advantage tribal / reanimator)
Main decks;
r Neheb, Big Red Champion g Yeva's Mono Green Control, b Ayara's Aristocrats rb Greven, Predator Captain the One Punch Man, ugw Derevri, Empirical Tactician Aggro,rwbu Tymna & Kraum's Saboteurs, wbg Kondo & Tymna's Hatebears wugTuvasa's Silver Bullets, urBrudiclad does Brudiclad thingsgubSidisi, Brood Tyrant (lantern control)

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Krishnath
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Post by Krishnath » 4 years ago

I've never really understood pauper commander. The whole point of Pauper is to only play with commons, yet the nature of legendary permanents pretty much exclude them from that rarity.

So what you really need to make this work is legendary creatures whose abilities aren't to powerful or complex for common, and that pretty much limits you to keywords. I suggest you design some simple legendary creatures that could potentially slot right into popular pauper decks without being to powerful. Another option is to find nonlegendary uncommon cards with anthem/lord abilities, downshift them to common, make them creatures, and legendary. Something like.

Chiless, Unbound Telepath 2U
Legendary Creature - Human Wizard
Your opponents play with their hands revealed.
2/2

Which is based off Telepathy, seems reasonable as a legendary commander for a pauper style commander format. The trick is to not over complicate things.
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SecretInfiltrator
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Post by SecretInfiltrator » 4 years ago

Okay, if you use eminence, then you are already referencing the command zone directly, so why not replace eminence directly with a line that actually does what you want "~ can be your commander only if your deck contains no card that isn't common rarity or a basic land."

Adding an ability that controls this to your card, your card wouldn't even need to be legendary. You get to turn the drawback deck "can't cast anything but commons" (which wouldn't even cover rare lands, btw) into the benefit "if you follow a deck building restriction you can use this as your commander". Yay!

I'd go even further though: I'd try my best to think about making those new commanders actually commons. Krishnath has touched upon that: Repeated card advantage is not easily put at common and that mana cost alone is a red flag, so let's turn things around and think about what common means: To me, commons are (a) simple and (b) available in multiples. Except that second one is not easily done unless...

Cantrip Courser {3}{G/U}{G/U}
Creature - Centaur Wizard (C)
Pair (Exactly two of these can be your commander.)
When ~ enters the battlefield, draw a card.
2/4


(Note: The comprehensive rules would clarify that this keyword both allows a nonlegendary creature to be a commander and that the number of copies allowed per deck is increased accordingly if and only if they are used as your commanders.)

Pair is an extremely simple keyword and if you make the rest of the card simple enough for common you are doing something interesting. Now I went for raw card advantage on this card (especially considering what card advantage pseudo-"partner" itself is, but I'm not going to go to deep into the balance side of this).

Now you have two courses: Find the best build-around effects you can put at common (and there are some... prowess alone; flicker/self-bounce also appears at common - actual Pauper players will no this better than me, I guess), or exploit the design space opened by the two copies...

Pact Brothers {2}{R}
Creature - Azra Warrior (C)
Pair (Exactly two of these can be your commander.)
~ gets +1/+1 for each card named ~ you control.
3/2


Sworn Sword {2}{W}
Creature - Human Knight (C)
Pair (Exactly two of these can be your commander.)
When ~ enters the battlefield, put a +1/+1 counter on each creature named ~ you control.
2/2


Lost Cultist {1}{B}
Creature - Spirit Cleric (C)
Pair (Exactly two of these can be your commander.)
{B}, Sacrifice three Clerics you control: Create a 3/3 black Spirit Warrior creature token with flying and lifelink.
1/2


I argue that last one is common enough if Shadowborn Apostle is. At least the idea of tribal/sacrifice support could be another build-around theme.

p. s.: I haven't checked, but I assume most/all of the actual common commander options are downshifted vanilla/almost vanilla legendaries from Legends?

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folding_music
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Post by folding_music » 4 years ago

I like the idea of dedicated common commanders on one level, but it's more fun if they're insanely simple. Here's an idea I've privately proxied up in the past:

Dominia Prime wubrg
Legendary Creature
Dominia Prime cannot be played.
Before the game starts, reveal Dominia Prime from your command zone, then add a Mesa Pegasus card, a Prodigal Sorceror card, a Drudge Skeletons card, a Dwarven Warriors card and a Giant Spider card to your command zone.
0/0

user_938036
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Post by user_938036 » 4 years ago

There are very few unbreakable rules of magic and you hit a fairly simple one. Real magic cards can't care about a card's rarity because all versions of a card must be treated as the same and cards have been printed at multiple rarities.

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void_nothing
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Post by void_nothing » 4 years ago

I really like what @SecretInfiltrator came up with here.
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Krishnath
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Post by Krishnath » 4 years ago

user_938036 wrote:
4 years ago
There are very few unbreakable rules of magic and you hit a fairly simple one. Real magic cards can't care about a card's rarity because all versions of a card must be treated as the same and cards have been printed at multiple rarities.
It's allowed in silver border. Silver Border cards are real magic cards. It's an unbreakable rule of black border however, but OP didn't specify they were intended for black border, so...

However, that doesn't change the facts that they are way to complex for common.
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Mimicvat
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Post by Mimicvat » 4 years ago

The intent is for a commander that makes a common deck (particularly a non-blue common deck) playable at a normal table, not for a commander that is of common rarity. Very much the "if your whole deck is terrible commons you get to use this commander" - sorry if I wasn't super clear there!

If we were talking about "pauper commander" in that the commanders next to be common-tier, then it is essential that card draw be given to GRW as this effect is pretty much unavailable in pauper for those colours. If decks can't draw, they're going to be unplayable at the pauper commander table, unless we wanted every deck to be blue or black which seems like an uninteresting place for pauper commander to be...
Currently building: ww Bruna, the Fading Light (card advantage tribal / reanimator)
Main decks;
r Neheb, Big Red Champion g Yeva's Mono Green Control, b Ayara's Aristocrats rb Greven, Predator Captain the One Punch Man, ugw Derevri, Empirical Tactician Aggro,rwbu Tymna & Kraum's Saboteurs, wbg Kondo & Tymna's Hatebears wugTuvasa's Silver Bullets, urBrudiclad does Brudiclad thingsgubSidisi, Brood Tyrant (lantern control)

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Krishnath
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Post by Krishnath » 4 years ago

Mimicvat wrote:
4 years ago
The intent is for a commander that makes a common deck (particularly a non-blue common deck) playable at a normal table, not for a commander that is of common rarity. Very much the "if your whole deck is terrible commons you get to use this commander" - sorry if I wasn't super clear there!

If we were talking about "pauper commander" in that the commanders next to be common-tier, then it is essential that card draw be given to GRW as this effect is pretty much unavailable in pauper for those colours. If decks can't draw, they're going to be unplayable at the pauper commander table, unless we wanted every deck to be blue or black which seems like an uninteresting place for pauper commander to be...
There are a lot of common cards that are good in commander, and even a few that are staples. Take Capsize for example, incredibly good in commander (most repeatable removal is), common when originally printed. A lot of common artifacts and color fixing in commander are commons. Literally every color has multiple good commons. So rewarding players for playing only common cards isn't really the way to go. But going for what I suggested, taking uncommon artifacts, enchantments, and creatures, and making them legendary common creatures (with tweaked casting cost) is a novel way to make a real pauper appropriate commander. And as pointed out earlier, black border cannot care about rarity because cards a printed at different rarities. Dragon Engine used to be common, in the latest printing it was rare for an example. Which leaves you only with the option of either making them silver bordered or find another solution that encourages play with commons (such as making the legendary creatures common and making an actual pauper commander format).

Speaking of card advantage.

Eli, Ancient Librarian 2UU
Legendary Creature - Human Advisor (C)
2UU: Draw a card.
1/1
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