I've found that pauper commander is extremely sparse in boardwipes and recursion, so a slow-building and inherently recursive deck built on the engine from Auriok Salvagers seemed rather potent. Additionally, it is instantspeed and repeatable, so the deck can hold up interaction in the form of Springjaw Trap or Dispeller's Capsule while continuing to cycle Traveler's Amulet and Chromatic Star to draw cards and hit land drops. After playing the value game, games can be ended by a pile of tokens from Golem Foundry or Icatian Crier or by making a creature large via modular or Myr Scrapling effects.
Pauper Commander: Auriok Salvagers
Approximate Total Cost:
The deck plays a massive pile of artifacts which Auriok Salvagers can recur, and uses them for their own abilities or as discard/sacrifice fodder. Against slower decks which don't pressure it quickly, it is rather resilient and has time to set up its value engines. It can also run several infinite loops via cost reduction and Myr Retriever type effects through Ashnod's Altar, which is apparently a common? This can then use Prismite to recycle damage for a win.
Otherwise the deck is fairly grindy by recurring blockers, removal, and sources of +1/+1 counters. Making tokens at instant speed can allow improved control of combat by tapping creatures via Court Street Denizen due to a lack of protection and hexproof on most large attackers in pauper.
I'm posting the deck now because it seems to be the deck of mine that's getting the most upgrades in Kamigawa: neon dynasty and I wanted to organize my thoughts on it. As a deck, Salvagers has been a nearly unique option for pauper commanders since the inception of the format, but between some of the good recent supporting cards (Starnheim Courser, for example) and needing to find swaps I think this is worth posting.
I'm looking at Ninja's Kunai, Network Terminal, Iron Apprentice, and Light the Way. Having more flexible and relatively low mana damage sources in the form of the Kunai improve the interaction options. Network Terminal is another Jalum Tome to allow any salvageable card to become a repeated draw. Iron Apprentice is basically The Ozolith as a semi-safe place to put counters which can't easily be blanked by removal. Light the Way is both a protection piece for more difficult to recur cards like the spellshapers, or just a combat trick.
