Adelbert SteinerAdelbert Steiner | Art by Lorenzo Mastroianni

It's very much my job here as the writer of The Monolith, aside from talking about monocolored decks of course, to tempt you in to building decks that aren't your standard fare. Decks that forgo obviousness and power for interesting ideas and fun restrictions. What better time then, as we continue to pick apart the legendary creatures revealed in the upcoming Universes Beyond set Final Fantasy, to talk about Pauper EDH!

Now I'm not the first person to delve into the wonderful world of Pauper Commander here on EDHREC.com. But when a set comes out with this many legends, some of them are bound to be non-rares. We had the same thing happen in Lord of The Rings: Tales of Middle-Earth. And when you've got access to uncommon legends with interesting effects, why not whack together a PEDH deck to fit around them!

What Is Pauper Commander (PEDH)?

Much like the absolutely wonderful 60-card format it's based on, Pauper EDH carries all the same rules that Commander does, but with one exception. You can only put a card in your deck if it was printed at common at some point in its history.

That includes cards that have been up-shifted in rarity in later sets, like Dark RitualDark Ritual. As long as it was common at some point in Magic's history, it's legal in PEDH. Otherwise, you can't put it in your 99. As for the commander itself though, you're allowed to push up to the uncommon rarity.

The fun thing is, your uncommon commander doesn't even have to be legendary. You can play with regular old uncommons as your leader. That'll give you access to super powerful creatures you wouldn't normally be able to put in your command zone, like GuttersnipeGuttersnipe and SoulherderSoulherder

Adelbert's Finer

To helm our Pauper EDH list we're looking at the brand new Adelbert SteinerAdelbert Steiner, a 2/1 Human Knight with an All That GlittersAll That Glitters style effect on him. For each Equipment you control, Adelbert will get +1/+1. That's not Equipment attached to Adelbert either, that's just any Equipment you have on the battlefield.

Combined with lifelink, we've got ourselves the potential for a really juicy, Equipment focused, Voltron Commander build. For those not in the know, Voltron decks attempt to whack as many buffs onto a single creature they control as possible - usually your commander, so you can kill opponents even easier. Once they're big enough, swing in for the win!

Free Real Estate

As Adelbert gets a buff just from the Equipment hitting the field, we'll sort of get to have our cake and eat it too. Whereas most Voltrons would either need to pay for the equip cost of their Equipment, or have an ability to get around that, Adelbert can receive a small benefit right away.

Then later, when we actually get the Equipment attached to him, we'll be double dipping with the buffs it provides. And that's if we even want to equip to him. By having another big threat with all the Equipment attached to them we can also split our attacks as we see fit.

The Living Weapon

Seeing as Adelbert doesn't mind where your Equipment cards are when he's checking for his buffs, we can use a certain type of Equipment to give us a bit of an edge in battle.

Equipment cards are great in comparison to Auras, because they won't send themselves to the graveyard when their attached creature leaves the battlefield. We can even use the equip ability to swap our swords and shields round to whichever creature needs them on the fly.

The tradeoff though, is that Auras attach themselves as soon as you cast them. Equipment gets cast, and then needs additional buy-in to attach it to your creature. Enter: living weapon cards. These Equipment cards will enter the battlefield and immediately attach themselves to a token they make when they enter.

There's only so many Pauper legal living weapons, but a few other cards do the same thing. For Mirrodin! was a very similar mechanic from All Will Be One, for example.

Leave Something Back

One of the trickier aspects of playing a Voltron Commander deck is keeping yourself alive after you've swung. It's all well and good having a giant commander, but once they're tapped, who's defending your life total? Vigilance is great for that but so is just having some chump blockers available - especially when your opponents are going wide.

By using these cards that come with an extra body, we can hold the line after Adelbert attacks. And if we end up getting Adelbert killed so many times that his commander tax is untenable? There's backup options to fight with. Speaking of...

Forking Your Voltron

As I mentioned earlier, Adelbert can get a decent amount of pump without actually equipping our weapons. With that in mind, we have the option to fork off our damage between two different creatures. That way we'll get slightly less powerful creatures, but having two means we can swing at multiple players.

This is a four-person format, after all. And targeting down one player can leave our other two opponents a little too much space to build up their game plans.

If we want some solid targets for the wall of weapons we'll be equipping them with, we need to find something that'll get through our opponents' blockers. Cards like Guardian of the GuildpactGuardian of the Guildpact have really solid evasion, with protection from monocolored giving it a good chance of slipping through the cracks of our opponents' defenses. Not to mention dodging a lot of removal!

Likewise, GingerbruteGingerbrute can punish players who aren't equipped with hasty creatures by making itself all but unblockable. That'll teach you for not playing mono-red!

Choosing the Right Gear

The main consideration for building out Adelbert's arsenal is which Equipment cards we include in our 99. First of all, we're going to need a lot of them! In this deck we're going to favor quantity over quality, so low cost Equipments are best (unless they come with a friend).

We also want to keep an eye out for any gear that'll give Adelbert some evasion tactics to make it over walls of blockers. Cards like Bladed PinionsBladed Pinions will put in some vital keywords for our Voltron commander, like flying and first strike. Haunted CloakHaunted Cloak will help as well with trample and vigilance allowing us to hit over and also keep our commander up to block.

Whispersilk CloakWhispersilk Cloak will make our glorious leader unblockable and also give him protection from removal, but remember to equip it last as the shroud will also stop us from targeting him when it comes to attach more Equipment.

Double Your Benefits

Whilst it might be banned in regular 60-card Pauper, All That GlittersAll That Glitters (from what I can tell, anyway) is perfectly legal in PEDH. Adding this Aura to Adelbert will double his buff from Equipment cards as well as giving some additional power and toughness for any other artifacts or enchantments you control.

And don't sleep on Golem-Skin GauntletsGolem-Skin Gauntlets either. It might only affect the power of our commander and not benefit his toughness, but cards that say "for each" on them can get out of hand fast. Why do you think we're building this commander?

Carry Some Protection

A word of warning: whilst it might not have the flashiest removal spells in Magic, Pauper does tend to be quite removal heavy! It's worth padding the deck out with a few options to protect Adelbert from harm when swinging in for big damage.

Blacksmith's SkillBlacksmith's Skill is one of the best instant-speed protection spells in the game, let alone Pauper. But we can also run a few permanent versions to have in our back pocket for when we need them. Benevolent BodyguardBenevolent Bodyguard acts as a perfect fit, giving us a Selfless SaviorSelfless Savior style protection effect we can activate at instant speed. But also allowing us to make Adelbert unblockable by any monocolored boards.

Adelbert Steiner PEDH Decklist

If you're interested in joining the PEDH community and giving Adelbert a build, I've included a rough example decklist below that you can build yourself or just jump off from. If you're new to Pauper in general I highly recommend giving either the Commander variant or 60-card competitive format a go. The latter is my absolute favorite way to play Magic; it's a format that just keeps on giving.