Crackling Drake Voltron Control

Pauper EDH* Spellslinger UR (Izzet) Voltron

Scarecrow1779

Instant (39)

• 1x Balduvian Rage
• 1x Blink of an Eye
• 1x Confound
• 1x Counterspell
• 1x Electrickery
• 1x Exclude
• 1x Fall of the Hammer
• 1x Fists of Flame
• 1x Flaring Pain
• 1x Frantic Search
• 1x Harvest Pyre
• 1x Intervene
• 1x Into the Roil
• 1x Jilt
• 1x Keep Safe
• 1x Leave in the Dust
• 1x Lightning Bolt
• 1x Lofty Denial
• 1x Logic Knot
• 1x Mage's Guile
• 1x Magmatic Sinkhole
• 1x Mana Leak
• 1x Muddle the Mixture
• 1x Negate
• 1x Psychotic Fury
• 1x Pyroblast
• 1x Raking Claws
• 1x Rescind
• 1x Run Away Together
• 1x Runeboggle
• 1x Scatter Arc
• 1x Shadow Rift
• 1x Soul's Fire
• 1x Spell Rupture
• 1x Temur Battle Rage
• 1x Think Twice
• 1x Thrill of Possibility
• 1x Turn Aside
• 1x Uncaged Fury

Land (33)

• 1x Ash Barrens
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Evolving Wilds
• 1x Forgotten Cave
• 1x Highland Lake
• 11x Island
• 1x Izzet Boilerworks
• 1x Izzet Guildgate
• 1x Lonely Sandbar
• 7x Mountain
• 1x Path of Ancestry
• 1x Remote Isle
• 1x Smoldering Crater
• 1x Swiftwater Cliffs
• 1x Terramorphic Expanse
• 1x Thriving Bluff
• 1x Thriving Isle

Creature (8)

• 1x Burning Prophet
• 1x Crashing Drawbridge
• 1x Elgaud Shieldmate
• 1x Looter il-Kor
• 1x Pyre Hound
• 1x Pyroceratops
• 1x Spellgorger Weird
• 1x Tandem Lookout

Commander (1)

Sorcery (13)

• 1x Artful Dodge
• 1x Deep Analysis
• 1x Distortion Strike
• 1x Faithless Looting
• 1x Flame Slash
• 1x Gitaxian Probe
• 1x Gust of Wind
• 1x Ponder
• 1x Portent
• 1x Preordain
• 1x Serum Visions
• 1x Swirling Sandstorm
• 1x Treasure Cruise

Artifact (6)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Bonder's Ornament
• 1x Izzet Cluestone
• 1x Izzet Locket
• 1x Izzet Signet
• 1x Whispersilk Cloak

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Maybeboard

Instant (5)

• 1x Hypothesizzle
• 1x Miscalculation
• 1x Oona's Grace
• 1x Repulse
• 1x Tolarian Winds

Enchantment (3)

• 1x Bloodfire Infusion
• 1x Clout of the Dominus
• 1x Frogify

Sorcery (2)

• 1x Aftershock
• 1x Slip Through Space

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This deck is somewhere between tempo and control. It quickly fills the grave with cantrips, cycling, rummaging, and looting effects in the early game, plays the commander, then holds up lots of interaction to keep enemy threats at bay and stop removal aimed at the Drake. With the help of double strike, trample, unlockable, and a few combat tricks, the Drake can easily one- and two-shot opponents.

The deck has a huge interaction suite, including 14 spells that can stop removal spells and 17 ways to remove opponents' permanents. Most of these take the form of instants, so you can mostly play draw-go after Crackling Drake is on the field.

The main challenges for this deck are balancing the need for a low CMC with the need for additional utility and drawpower, and balancing the interaction suite according to the meta you play in. If you have too many expensive spells, the deck will be too slow and will get overrun by enemy threats, but if the deck is too low on CMC and ditches a lot of additional value effects, it can end up running out of gas so it can't keep the Drake on the field or runs out of removal. Balancing the removal suite is mostly just making sure you have enough counterspells if your group is more removal heavy, and making sure you have plenty of instant-speed creature removal if your group plays lots of combos. Some of the cards in the maybe-board like Frogify and Aftershock are more suited to groups that like playing very large creature threats, but unless every deck is running efficient ramp and large threats, the Drake can just prioritize killing the player with the most/largest creatures first.

The main potential change I see for the future of this deck is testing it with 2 additional basic lands. The deck has to reach 5 or 6 mana available before it can play the Drake and hold up interaction, so failing to draw another land on turn 4 or 5 can be a real problem, especially with the intense color requirements for Crackling Drake. However, cycling and cantrips help mitigate this problem, for the time being, the same way they do in the Xerox decks in other formats, like Legacy and Pauper Delver decks.

Date added	4 years
Last updated	3 years
Legality	This deck is Pauper EDH legal.
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.36
Folders	Pauper EDH, Crackling Drake