PDH Archetype Guide

Pauper EDH* Budget Casual Competitive Multiplayer Pauper Primer

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Commander (1)

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PDH Archetype Guide

This resource is meant to give new players an overview of the archetypes in PDH.

Mateus Nogueira from the brazilian eternalmagic.com.br publishe a series on archetypes in commander in 2017. It's the best breakdown I have found so far as it actually looks at archetypes and not themes. You can check it out if you're interested.

Below you see the graphic he used to illustrate the archetypes and their distribution within the major archetypes aggro, midrange, control and combo. The graphic itself is base on Patrick Chapin's macro archetypes that Chapain describes in his book "Next Level Deckbuilding“. I want to see how these archetypes transfer to PDH as well as showcasing some of the prominent commanders and key cards for each.

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Linear Aggro

Linear Aggro is an archetype that wants synergy over individual card quality. A classic example would be tribal decks. Sadly most tribal payoffs are uncommon or higher. There are several lords at uncommon but that alone will not be sufficient to make a good deck. Of all the tribes elves stand out with the most payoff cards at common. The other linear aggro decks we have follow the same principle of synergy above individual quality but go about it in different ways. Robots is one such example where the synergy comes from controlling artifacts and equipment specifically to reap the bonuses keywords like metalcraft or affinity offer.

Notable Commanders:

Imperious Perfect - Pumps elves, makes elves, pretty straight forward.
Bramblewood Paragon - If only you had another color in your identity. There are a decent amount of good warriors but a second color would really up the quality you could choose from. There are enough elf warriors to make him work though.
Sludge Strider - Gives you access to some of the best metalcraft, affinity and being equipped/artifact matters cards we have. On top of that it's an artifact payoff, a decent sized body and an artifact itself.
Sigil Captain - Kind of belongs into the next category as well. Since his buff is pretty huge but conditional he does impose certain deck building restrictions on you. Thus you can argue that he fits this category too.

Notable Cards:

Its very hard to list cards that this archetype wants in general. Since synergy is the name of the game each one wants very different cards that provide that synergy. Here are some examples for the commanders listed above:

Lys Alana Huntmaster and Timberwatch Elf for elves.
Auriok Sunchaser, Kitesail Apprentice, Glassdust Hulk and Disciple of the Vault for artifacts matter.
Battle Screech and Triplicate Spirits for Sigle Captain.

Swarm Aggro

Most aggro decks in our format will fall into this category. In this archetype what you care about the most is how many creatures you have not what they do. Token decks fall under this archetype but so do non-token aggro decks that play a large amount of small creatures. The second part to the puzzel are mass pump effects as payoffs for having such a large amount of creatures. These can be either temporary or permanent in the form of +1/+1 counters for instance.

Notable Commanders:

Loyal Guardian - The only non-voltron aggressiv commander to make it into tier 1 on the pdhhomebase tier list. He puts power and toughness equal to the number of bodies you control onto the battlefield. Every turn. He escalates quickly.
Phalanx Leader - Requires you to have a way to trigger him but can also make your team grow very big very fast.
Zada, Hedron Grinder - He turns single target pumps into team wide pumps. Since single target pump spells tend to be more powerful this can turn a bunch of 1/1s into a leathal attack with just a few spells.
Selesnya Guildmage - Slower than the others but very reliable since he does everything your deck wants to do by himself.

Notable Cards:

Here the kind of cards we are looking for are a lot more streamlined. Many bodies and mass pump.

Krenko's Command, Battle Screech, Scatter the Seeds - There are many variations of these cards. Spells that make multiple tokens.
Mogg War Marshal, Countless Gears Renegade, Yavimaya Sapherd - Again these are just examples and there are plenty more. Creatures that bring extra bodies with them.
Rally the Peasants, Sigil Blessing, Guardians' Pledge - Some examples of mass pump spells. There are other effects such as preventing opponents creatures from blocking, putting +1/+1 on your creatures or giving them keywords like haste, trample or firs strike that can also be very beneficial in this archetype.

Big Aggro

Go big or go home. When you want to smash your opponent with huge creatures this is the archetype for you. Sadly we don't have many ways to get big threats into play ahead of time so ramp is what we usually have to go with. There are a few reanimation spells but we both lack a critical density as well as fatties that have enough impact to make the hoops you need to jump through worth it. Unlike ramp, where we can just play another big threat if the first is dealt with, the big threats in a reanimator deck need to have more impact on an individual basis.

Notable Commanders:

Drumhunter - Does both, ramp you and reward you for playing big monsters.
Centaur Omenreader - In the right build this can be some serious ramp coming from the command zone.
Rosheen Meanderer - Another powerful but conditional ramp. The access to red make it a lot less restrictive though.
Draconic Disciple - 5/5 is pretty much the biggest you will see soaring through the sky above a PDH table so those tokens are a serious threat.

Notable Cards:

Here we are looking for our big threats that we want to crush our enemies with as well as the tools to get them out ahead of the one land per turn mana curve.

Ulamog's Crusher, Greater Sandwurm - This is what our premium big threats look like. They hit hard and are either difficult to block or cause some form of damage even when block as is the case with the annihilator mechanic.
Krosan Tusker, Zhur-Taa Swine - Here we have some example of fatties that offer more versatility by having some form of alternate mode to being a beat-stick.
Mold Shambler, Skitter of Lizards, Sparktongue Dragon - Some examples of creatures that can be played early if need be or held onto for more value if we are not being pressured.
Rampant Growth, Utopia Sprawl, Priest of Titania, Rakdos Signet - Just a few of the dozens of options we have for ramping. Wether you want land ramp, enchantment based ramp, mana dorks or mana rocks will greatly depend on what the rest of your deck is doing.

Voltron Aggro

When you load up one creature to be a really big threat and just want to get the job done as fast as possible one player at a time then voltron aggro is the place to be. You are forsaking playing the long game and waiting for the right time to strike in favor of blazing fast hard hitting aggression. These decks are a lot like a one shot flintlock pistol and can either fizzel or just run out of steam after killing the first opponent. Worse yet your voltron target could get removed and rebuilding is something these decks are normally not really good at. As you will see from the notable commanders, these are ones that can mitigate these weaknesses either by their abilities or by branching out into colors that allow them to do so.

Notable Commanders:

Satyr Enchanter - He refills your hand simply for doing what you want to do anyways, pile enchantments onto him to make him a lethal threat. White also offers some additional protection to help avoid having to rebuild. His power is formidable enough to earn him a tier 1 spot on our list.
Tallowisp - An odd one that I originally had totally underestimated. Tutoring is just so powerful and it gives your fast kill game plan an astounding consistency. Another resident at tier 1 on our list.
Viashino Slaughtermaster - For when you want to kill someone on turn three because they trash talked aggro voltron (probably me then, sorry). He is very explosiv and by dipping into black can have some added resilience.

Notable Cards:

While we are almost exclusively looking for cards to interact with our voltron commander the types of effects we are looking for vary. They can be broadly split into offensive and defensive tools though some may fit both roles.

Ancestral Mask, Ethereal Armor, Rancore - Some of the common auras to grow our voltron from a pub to a beast.
Shield of the Oversoul, Cho-Manno's Blessing, Hyena Umbra, Cartouche of Solidarity - The more defensive side of auras. Cartouche is a way to protect against the bane of voltron, edict effects.
Vines of Vastwood, Blessed Breath - Some of the non aura defensive cards.
Groundswell, Seal of Strength, Invigorate, Mutagenic Growth - A selection of classic one shot pump spells. The seal makes a very good turn one play if your aren't looking to or can't ramp turn one.
Khalni Garden, Sejiri Steppe - These are land based protection. They are especially good in conjunction with Crop Rotation to allow us to get their effect at instant speed.

Pain/Group Slug

They say sharing is caring but this archetype has a pretty twisted interpretation of the concept. The idea is to dish out damage to everyone at the table at the same time. At some point you break parity by using life gain or one sided damage to pull ahead of the other so they will drop to zero before you do. We don't have many symmetrical damage effects in our format but most of them are quite potent. On top of that we have a good number of damaging effect that only effect opponents making it easy to break parity.

Notable Commanders:

Loyal Subordinate - In case you are new to the format, yes he fulfills the Lieutenant condition by himself.
Guttersnipe - When you are in the mood for some extra slug added to all your non creature slugging this is the way to slug.
Spiteflame Witch - For the purists of you who want to have the real essence of group slug without all that only hitting opponents non sense.
Corpse Knight - Ohrzov can be very good a this game plan and the knight does exactly what you want him to.
Syr Konrad, the Grim - The newest bad boy of drawing table ire. If you haven't had the questionable joy of facing him yet, let me tell you, he can hurt, a lot.

Notable Cards:

First and foremost we are looking for ways to damage all of our opponents. Defense should not be overlooked though as it is easy for our opponents to break parity against us if they can freely swing in.

Flame Rift, Breath of Malfegor - The two big slugging burn spells we have.
Thermo-Alchemist, Firebrand Archer, Urborg Syphon-Mage - Repeatable sources of slugging are very welcome in this type of deck.
Kingpin's Pet, Tithe Taker, Basilica Screecher, Syndicate Enforcer, Basilica Guards, Syndic of Tithes - Extort is the perfect keyword for this strategy and probably the main reason why it works in Ohrzov as well.
Crypt Rats, Pestilence, Swirling Sandstorm - Board wipes are important for this deck. If an opponent gets ahead on board it can become dangerous quickly as everyone should be relativly low on life. Pestilance and the rats also add some slugging on top. Note the rats do have an uncommon printing so they could spearhead your deck as well.
Blood Seeker, Suture Priest - These don't slug everyone at once but they do a lot of work. When life total become low they make sure that people can't over deploy threats to catch up in the damage race. They also stop flicker loops as long as they stick around.
Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning - You want removal to keep the board free from threats. Black offers a lot of great removal but I want to mention burn that can hit creatures and players as it is one way to get your opponents lower on life or straight up finish them off.

Good Stuff

Good Stuff is a very straight forward concept. You want to play the best cards of each color you have access to. This is less about synergies and more about individual raw power from each card. Every card you draw will be powerful on its own and close to no card in your deck should have situations where it's a dead card. On the downside you forgo the potential extra power you can get from synergies but in exchange everything you do will be impactful. Good Stuff is the archetype that profits the most from access to more colors as you get a larger pool of cards to pick the best ones from.

Notable Commanders:

Fleshformer - One of the few five color commanders we have. On top of that he is repeatable removal from the command zone. He does incentivise you to have a fairly even color split so that your mana base will allow for multiple activations of his ability.
Worldheart Phoenix - Another one of the five color commanders. A 4/4 flyer is really big in our format and he is hard to deal with. On top of that he allows for a more proactive play style as you don't need to hold up mana for ability activations. You are also more flexible in how you split your colors.
Warden of the Eye - When all of your spells are really high impact individually being able to use them again is powerful as well. He also pairs extremely well with one of the best engien cards of the format, Ghostly Flicker. Even though it's a more synergy based card it is both wide enough in application and so high on power that even a Good Stuff deck will find it hard to pass up on.
Sphinx of the Guildpact - The big sister of the phoenix. 5/5 flying is terrifying relative to most other flyers. Like the phoenix it does a good job of being hard to deal with. At seven mana it does ask your deck to be a lot more on the controlling side of midrange though.

Notable Cards:

You could list any card here as long as it is stand alone good. The examples here are by no means all there is. Good Stuff is also the perfect deck to play cards that normally don't make the cut because your game plan is blocking too many slots with specific cards.

Capsize, Disturbed Burial, Evincar's Justice, Sprout Swarm - These all do very different things but the all have the very powerful buyback mechanic on them. They are the kind of spells that have the potential to take over the game by themselves.
Rolling Thunder, Death Denied, Ivy Elemental - Big mana sinks are great because their power celing is so high. They also have the upside of being flexible depending on the situation.
Matca Rioters, Tribal Flames, Opaline Bracers, Skyreach Manta, Protective Sphere - In case you are in five colors why not reward yourself for that as well?
Mulldrifter, Dinrova Horror, Maul Splicer, Ulamog's Crusher - Just play whatever creatures you feel are the best of the best. Opinions will vary but I think these examples are not bad one even if they are more on the slow side.

A quick note on mana fixing. Good Stuff decks tend to be 3+ colors so all the usual suspects that help your mana are very welcome. If you are not in green, grab some signets, if you are five colors don't overlook Felwar Stone simply because you have access to green.

True Midrange

True Midrange is a strategy that can quickly adapt and switch between offense and defense. It is also characterized as a deck that will make a lot of one for one trades once it has some card advantage going for it. With the way our format functions I feel this is more or less the default if your deck is not trying to do something else specifically. The focus on card advantage generating ETBs paired with the lack of sweepers and the resulting higher density of spot removal make this archetype the easiest for our format to slot into.

Notable Commanders:

Marsh Crocodile - Good at letting you reset one of your ETBs while providing a good sized body for offense. Some disruption strapped on for additional upside. Black provides you with the solid removal you need as well.
Species Gorger - Continuos resetting of ETBs and kicker creatures lets you grind that card advantage your need. The 6/6 body is quite big for our format. With green over black in the mix you can go bigger with your threats due to ramp in exchange for weaker removal.
Nightscape Battlemage, Stormscape Battlemage, Sunscape Battlemage, Thornscape Battlemage, Thunderscape Battlemage - Their flexibility make them good at switching gears from defense to offense and vice versa. They provide you with value and give you three colors to hone in on the most efficient tools for your needs.
Blazing Hellhound, Mayhem Devil, Korozda Guildmage, Maw of the Obzedat - Aristocrat style deck are in general well suited to this strategy. The benefits they reap of sacrificing creatures can often be used for either offense or defense. They tend to have decent card advantage tool with card draw as well as recursion and being black centered gives them access to efficient removal.

Notable Cards:

In order to check all the True Midrange boxes we need three things. A way to generate card advantage, the ability to switch gears and efficient removal the we don't mind being one for one as we generate our advantages else where.

Mulldrifter, Spark Reaper, Citanul Woodreaders - Repeatable sources of card draw are welcome, especially when tagged onto a creature that can serve double duty on offense or defense.
Gravedigger, Anarchist, Auramancer, Mnemonic Wall - More card advantage attached to creatures to help you build up your board while you build up your card advantage at the same time.
Terminate, Doom Blade, Journey to Nowhere - Efficiently costed removal is great for this strategy. You can afford the one for ones and they do work no matter what point you are at in a game.

Toolbox

One of the harder to pull off archetypes in our format. Toolbox decks rely a lot on tutoring effects to find the right tool for the right situation as well as very narrow cards that have a huge impact if the situation is right. Our format is not high on either. That said we have two main angels for tool boxing. The first is using the graveyard as our toolbox and the second is using reacurable tutors like creatures with transmute. It is possible to use a commander like Disciple of Decet to build a toolbox deck but be warned, this commander is known for its highly consistent combo builds. This can lead to you getting focused for what your commander could do instead of what you are doing with it.

Notable Commanders:

Disciple of Deceit - It's a tutor on a stick, repeatable, from the command zone. If your pod accepts that your not going to drake combo them out of the game asap it might be the most true toolbox commander we have.
Golgari Guildmage - One of the classic graveyard toolbox commanders. While it does cost a lot of mana you will have access to every creature in your bind when you need to.
Sultai Soothsayer - While she may not look like it at first glance this naga offers a lot. Card selection as a bad sudo tutor, fills up your graveyard for your toolbox and comes with a color identity that offers most of the creature based tutors and the recursion needed to loop them.
Defiant Vanguard - Not really the best simply because the rebels we have are not the best overall. If we see rebels return with some impactful commons in the future this kind of toolbox deck will rise in power significantly.

Notable Cards:

There are three things we need. Tutors/recursion, narrow but high impact tutor/recursion targets and the setup we might need to make it work. Especially the recursion usually asks for some setup.

Dimir House Guard, Dimir Infiltrator, Drift of Phantasms, Vedalken AEthermage - These creature based tutors are great. Not only can you recur them to keep finding the tools you need they are also uncounterable.
Tortured Existance, Disturbed Burial, Grim Harvest - Probably the best repeatable creature recursion we have. Works well with both the creature based tutors and our yard as toolbox.
Stinkweed Imp, Golgari Brownscale, Shambling Shell, Satyr Wayfinder, Forbidden Alchemy - Some of the many ways to fill our grave with toolbox fodder.

The actual tools in your toolbox will vary greatly depending on your color identity and game plan. Being a singelton format we always have some semblance of toolbox but in this case you are looking for effects that will be amazing when they are good but possibly not good all the time e.g. Faerie Macabre.

Something I have not touched on yet are flicker decks. While most of them will have the drake combo in the 99 at their core they are about reusing ETBs as much as possible. When you look at a card like Cloudshift you may not see it as a toolbox card. However it kind of does read "this is a modal spell where the modes are equal to the ETBs you have on the battlefield". I think it's debatable if flicker decks fall into the toolbox category. Some may see them as control decks, others may rate them to be combo decks. To me they are toolbox decks where the toolbox is what you have in play. Due to it being up for debate I included it as a foot note even if this kind of deck is very prominent in our format.

Group Hug

This is a rather difficult archetype. Not only because there are very few Group Hug cards at common but also because there seem to be different takes on what this archetype actually is and how it should operate. Lets go over those first to make sure we're on the same page here (note these are by no means official sub type names just labels I have come up with to differentiate them):

Pacifist Group Hug
This is the type of Group Hug that adheres to the definition you will find on the mtg wiki Often Group Hug decks do not have a way to win on their own. Instead, the goal of the player piloting is to extend the game as long as possible by supporting whatever player is currently behind, and moderating the effects each player can play and resolve.

Weaponize Kindness
This type of Group Hug interpretation is also very generous. It will help out whoever is the furthest behind and will distribute gifts all over the place. Unlike the Pacifist Group Hug it does so not out of selflessness. Instead it either seeks to extend the game to get to some for of late game wincon or it will straight up punish you for the gifts they have been giving.

Turbo Hug
What is better than a Hug? That's right a Turbo Hug. Let's face it, who in our fast paced society still has the time to sit down with friends and enjoy several hours of commander. Why not skip to the good parts. That is exactly what this kind of Hug deck does. It accelerates the game by increasing everyones recources, be it mana, cards, creatures in play. The goal of these kinds of deck can very well be to win but the first goal is to skip the build up and get right into the action.

Now that you should understand what I'm talking about lets take a quick look at the other inherit problem Hug decks face in PDH. In most products you will see little to no Group Hug style cards. In any two player competitive setting helping your opponent usually makes no sense. You sometimes see such effects as drawback but those are few and far between. There are a good number of symmetrical card that will do the same for all players both the majority of those are reserved for higher rarities. The main source of real Group Hug cards come from special products aimed at multi player environments. Conspiracy 1 and 2, Battlebond, Commander products. However even here most Group Hug cards are at higher rarity. With Wizards putting more Focus on formats like Commander chances are good that the number of Group Hug commons and commanders for our format will go up quite a bit over the next few years so I expect this archetype to become more relevant as time goes by.

Notable Commanders

Wall of Shards - Probably the most all in one Pacifist Group Hug commander we have.
Woodvine Elemental - This is the type of commander Weaponize Kindness can be based on.
Diviner Spirit - Let me hit you for two and then we both draw cards, deal? Great if you want to focus on the political aspect of Hug. Also Those cards you draw are probably not just fluff and cotton candy.
Hunted Wumpus - A 6/6 for four is pretty good. Why not share some of that goodness with everyone else so we can get right into the action. Turbo Hugs.
Indentured Djinn - A 4/4 flyer is also quite potent, especially on turn 3. Just make sure the rest of the table is topped up on gas so that the game can get more explosive faster. More Turbo Hugs

Notable Cards

The kind of cards you find here will vary a bit depending on the type of Hug deck your running. To keep things simple I'll just list some of the actual Hug cards we have access to.

Shieldmage Advocate, Soldevi Heretic - Prevent damage, draw cards, all the good stuff for your opponents.
Vision Skeins, Words of Wisdom, Flux - Let's all draw some cards together.
Benthic Explorers, Borderland Explorer, Jungle Wayfinder - We ramp together as one!
Selvala's Enforcer, Rousing of Souls - Parley? Damn to the depths whatever muttonhead thought up 'parley'!

Meta Hate

This is something that does not really exist as an archetype in PDH. There are a few cards that are very good against certain decks like Active Volcano, Pyroblast or Faerie Macabre but we don't have the crushing hate card this archetype needs to function such as Tsunami or Choke. You will still tweak your deck to the meta you play in but that in itself wont become the deck you are playing.

I think that is actually a good thing, especially when even the top tier decks are not oppressive enough to make such an archetype a necessary tool to police certain decks.

Voltron Control

We are getting to the end of the midrange spectrum and as the name suggests we are already very controlling. Voltron Control can still be classified as a midrange deck because it follows the play pattern of switching between being the aggressor and being defensive. Unlike most other midrange deck the default stance is controlling thought. When these decks switch to aggression they do so fast and incredibly brutal. In many cases they expect the first player to get knocked out the turn they switch gears with the other two soon following suite. With the initial mindset of playing like a control deck the majority of Voltron Control play blue. That paired with only needing to do 16 instead of 21 commander damage makes this archetype one of the top strategies in our format.

Notable Commanders

Crackling Drake - The big sibling that outclassed Enigma Drake and Spellheart Chimera. Solid tier one commander. While it does not have built in protection it makes up for that by not having to run many cards that are dead weight while you are still in control mode.
Ascended Lawmage - Hexproof, evasion, access to blue plus a supporting color that offers the cards you need to voltron up your commander is a recipe for another tier one beast. Here we have the other side of the coin to the drake. We get built in protection so we don't need cards to help us with that but instead we need ways to turn that three power body into a lethal threat.
Dreadwing - Not even close in power to the two above but having access to another color does have it's merits. Also being a one CMC commander allows you to switch to a more Aggro Voltron play style if the matchup calls for it.
Deadeye Plunderers - Very slow and in need of a lot of protection as well as ways to make sure they connect reliably. They require you to play an even more control heavy deck than the others. However Whispersilk Cloak addresses all problems this deck faces in one card.

Notable Cards

Depending on our commander we need a mix of control cards (card draw and interaction), protection for our commander and tools to voltron up our commander into a lethal threat.

Psychotic Fury, Ethereal Armor - These are just examples. When you need things to voltron up your commander these are the kind of cards you are looking for.
Whispersilk Cloak, Clout of the Dominus - As far as protection goes anything that sticks around is nice since you will need multible combat steps to close out the game.
Counterspell, Arcane Denial, Negate - You start off the game as a control deck so no real surprise here.
Lightning Bolt, Blink of an Eye, Doom Blade - More interaction, more control.
Secrets of the Golden City, Mulldrifter - Drawing cards just as expected.
Ponder, Preordain, Brainstorm - Card selection will help us find the pieces we need to switch gears more consistently.
Muddle the Mixture, Drift of Phantasms, Merchant Scroll, Dizzy Spell - Turns out tutors are really good.

Thife Control

The words 'gain control' next to each other only appear on a total of 12 commons (plus one silver bordered common). That on its own is already sketchy for this archetype. To make matters worse all but one are red and red is not a classic control color by itself. If that wasn't enough all of them also only target creature and return them at the end of turn. So it this archetype out of the question for PDH? Yes and no. You will not be able to play a deck with flashy thievery spells like Bribary, Trechery or Blatand Thivery. We simply don't have access to these kind of cards. There are two routes you can take this though. I call these Thieving Aristocrats and Flicker Thieves.

Thieving Aristocrats

With this style of deck we steal opponents creatures but we do not intend to keep them. We don't want to give them back either though. We use the Act of Treason type effects we have to steal their best creature, if possible swing with it and then sacrifice it for additional value. Rakdos is the most obvious way to go here because you need both the stealing effects and good value sacrifice outlets like Spark Reaper, Burnt Offering, Bone Splinters, Fling or Mind Swords.

Flicker Thieves

This deck is possible because of one card and one card only Ghostly Flicker. While you might think it's more or less the same as Displace that is not true for several impactful cases and this is one of them. Ghostly Flicker has one very important line of text: return those cards to the battlefield under your control. Not their owners control but yours. This is important because the card that returns is a new game object that will have no memory of its prior states and thus has 'forgotten' that you should return it at the end of your turn. Yes it will stay yours forever. What we want with this is some repeatable way to steal creatures. You can either find that from your command zone with Seasinger or in form of a creature ETB in form of Smelt-Ward Gatekeepers. The Gatekeepers require you to have at least two gates in play so the more colors you run the better. This is the reason why this is something you can throw into a five color control list as a wincon. You could also play it in some URx deck but Temour, Jeskai and Grixis each have a harder time finding some piece of the puzzle.

Chaos

Chaos cards that mess up everyone board, turn the game on its head and make it all come down to a coin flip do not really exist at common. The best you can do is mess a little with hand by using Burning Inquiry or Winds of Change.

The only place you can get some semblance of Chaos from is the command zone but even here it's mostly messing with hand with Noggle Ransacker, Barbed Shocker or Dragon Mage. The notable exception is Goblin Test Pilot. Of course you can always make your in game decisions erratic and random by rolling a dice to determine who you attack or target with your spells. From a strategic stand point that is just bad play but I get that Chaos is not about good or bad play.

If you (and your play group) want to have Chaos in your games but still play PDH you might want to consider allowing silver bordered cards. While they are officially not allowed nothing stops you from allowing them in your own play group. Just make sure everyone is fine with it first.

Stax

Hated by many more fiercely than the stalling nature of some Group Hug decks or the madness of Chaos, Stax is an archetype that seeks to reduce the plays everyone can make as much as possible and then gain some form of benefit from grinding the game to a halt. Their wins are usually very slow and even in their losses the stop people from playing out their strategies as it was intended. Luck is on both the Stax hating and Stax loving players side when it comes to PDH. Classic Stax decks do not exist. This is great if you hate Stax but from what I learned from talking to a lot of people who play Stax is that one of their big joys is finding all those interlocking pieces that stop the game. To many it's a puzzle to solve. You may not believe it but most Stax players don't play Stax to make you suffer. Sure they may not care that you do so in the process but it's not the common motivation.

What does that mean for PDH? First of you can't just throw together the obvious Stax card and play Stax. If you want to really dig deep through over 25 years worth of commons you can however uncover cards that will form something similar to a Stax deck. You get your puzzle but at the same time it will be no where near as oppressive or disruptiv as it is in other formats.

There is no way to just play a card or two and someone can't play any more. You need to chain and interlink, recur and sequence the right kind of disruption. I'll just mention a few cards to point you in the right direction but I will leave the digging and puzzling to you:

Abyssal Gatekeeper
Akki Blizzard-Herder
Delirium Skeins

I believe this kind of strategy is not suitable for the more casual oriented play group. First of all people wont like it much and second of all it's just not good. If you are facing top tier combo and voltron deck the high volume of disruption can be a much greater hindrance to these decks that are highly focused on their game plan. Having someone sacrifice a Crackling Drake also feels much better than when a poor saproling has to suffer.

Pillowfort

Traditional Pillowfort decks are associated with preventing opponents from attacking you either by taxing for each attack, making it outright impossible or in some other way very undesirable to attack you. They play defense until they reach the lategame where their winning bombs can take over the game. In PDH we don't really get those effects but we still have plenty of ways to negate attacks made against us.

Notable Commanders

Azorius Guildmage - Tap down their biggest threats to keep yourself safe or better yet politic with the threat of activation. Being able to counter activated abilities is a nice bonus.
New Prahv Guildmage - Probably just a weaker version of the other guildmage but giving your lategame threat flying can be powerful. Also while more expensive to activate, detain is more powerful than just tapping.
Benalish Heralds - Doesn't do much pillowforting himself but the high toughness is helpful on defense and the continuous card draw allows you to find more of you defensive tools.
Wall of Denial - A bit of a cute one but the wall can block almost all regular creatures in our format and is hard to handle. It comes down early and blunts any aggression thrown our way so that it's often better to turn creatures elsewhere.
Lady Evangela - Good defensive ability and access to black, Ohrzov and Dimir control cards.
Angel of Despair - This might seem like an odd choice and there are Ohrzov commanders with good pillowfort abilities but the angel wants you to play control and gives you a very powerful lategame bomb from the command zone. Without access to blue pillowforting is the premier type of control as it allows for a more proactive play style.

Notable Cards

Here we are looking for defense first and foremost. We still value interaction and card draw highly as any control deck will do but those cards are less specific to this archetype.

Stonehorn Dignitary - This very unique effect for a common is probably the king of pillows. Paired with some of the widely used flicker tech he can keep you safe turn after turn.
Circle of Protection: Red, Rune of Protection: Black, Righteous Aura - Damage prevention is a great way to mitigate damage but also to persuade attacks in the first place.
Goldmeadow Harrier, Errant Doomsayers, Law-Rune Enforcer, Dawnglare Invoker - Tapping down creatures is something not only commanders get to do. There are a lot of options to pick from at common rarity.
Soul Warden, God-Pharaoh's Faithful, Scholar of Athreos, Conclave Phalanx - Life gain is another arrow in our defensive quiver. Repeatable life gain is especially valuable. A quick note on the extort mechanic: It is perfect for this type of deck as you are fine with a slow win condition, especially when it helps your defensive setup.
Kami of False Hope - Fog effects in general work in this type of deck. The kami (and to some extent Spore Frog) deserve a special mention for being easier to recur if your also running black.

Draw-Go

Draw-Go is the type of deck that plays as its name suggests. It's the reason blue has a rep as an unfun color. Your opponents want to play a spell? Not without asking you for permission. This style of deck, whilst sometimes being the bane of standard, has a much harder time in multiplayer formats. Similar to the problems traditional agro decks face it scales poorly with more players. In this case the life total is not the issue but the resources. You want to counter every threat that is played and when your opponent draw three cards to your one per turn cycle this can be tricky.

Notable Commanders
Bane Alley Broker / Rona, Disciple of Gix / Azure Mage / League Guildmage - Any form of repeatable card draw on your commander will go a long way to enable your strategy. Whilst not the most efficient card draw it is fairly unconditional. If you don't need your mana to counter you can keep refilling your hand.
Shadowmage Infiltrator / Ingenious Infiltrator - A lot more mana efficient compared to the activated abilities but it is reliant on being able to consistently attack at least one of your opponents. However if this is not possible you may already have let too many threats slip past your counters.
Mundungu - If you can't draw extra cards from the command zone then how about a repeatable counter instead. It may only be a force spike but until you use it you effectively tax all your opponents for one from the threat of activation.
Nightveil Predator - This might seem like an odd choice. What he does for you though is counter every targeted removal spell. Well not really but any of those target at your commander are more or less "must counter" spells. If you suite him up with a card drawing aura or a pinger ability he will draw or virtually draw you a bunch more cards while being relativ safe.
Frilled Mystic - Hard counter on ETB. Pretty simple. He does want you to utilize flicker shenanigans but when you do it will be hard for your opponents to get any threatening spells to resolve.
Tatyova, Benthic Druid - This is the kind of card draw we want. Reliable, mana cost free, repeatable. The only downside of the fish lady is her own CMC and the window of opportunity that casting her opens up. However this commander is tier 1 for a reason.

Notable Cards

Efficient counter magic, instant speed card draw and removal. Those are the building blocks of Draw-Go. At some point we also need a way to win but that is secondary to making sure we are in full control first.

Rhystic Study - This card is insane. Insanely powerful, insanely annoying, insanely expensive. Then again you're playing Draw-Go so you're not looking for cards to make you friends anyway.
Arcane Denial, Exclude - Cantriping counters are great for this style of deck, more so than any other archetype.
Counterspell - When looking for counters try going for the most efficient you can finds. There will be turn cycles where you have to counter three or more times and you need to be able to have the mana to do so.
Ponder, Preordain - Whilst sorceries are not really what this deck wants one mana cantrips are still worth it to smooth out your draws and make sure you have that counter at the crucial moment.
Ghastly Demise, Vendetta, Snuff Out - Cheap instant speed removal is a good way to handle any problematic creatures that got past your counter spells.

Combo Control

This archetype shares many features with the Draw-Go archetype but where Draw-Go struggles Combo Control sits at the top of the pile from a power level perspective. It has a higher consistency in assembling its win con due to utilizing tutors and redundancy in combo pieces. This means it runs less counters and other interactions than Draw-Go. This is fine because unlike Draw-Go it does not have to react to every threat and uses its counters in a more pin point way to ensure it's combo can resolve or to stop others from winning.

Notable Commanders
Disciple of Deceit - For many the boggy man of the format. Repeatable tutoring on your commander gives the deck a level of consistency that is hard to match.
Tatyova, Benthic Druid - She has been strong for a long time but when Throne of Eldrain gave us Mystic Sanctuaray it pushed her firmly into tier 1 territory.
Ley Weaver / Lore Weaver - One half of a two card infinite mana combo and a game winning outlet for infinite mana both in the command zone. When you just have to find a Freed from the Real to win consistency will be pretty stellar as well.
Gilder Bairn - The only commander on this list who is not tier 1. His combo lines are convoluted and a bit janky. He's a great choice if you like the archetype but your play group does not want to play tier 1 strategies.

Notable Cards

Tutors, card selection, card draw, efficient counters and removal. The kind of spells we want are not that different to other U/x control decks but the priorities differ. That's why I will take a closer look at some of the tutors but all the notable cards from Draw-Go apply here too.

Drift of Phantasms - This has so many relevant targets. Ghostly Flicker, Freed from the Real, Presence of Gond, Strider Harness, Ashnod's Altar and more.
Merchant Scroll - Finding Ghostly Flicker is enough to make a tutor really good in our format. Being only two mana is big too.
Dimir House Guard - This one can get a number of relevant combo pieces such as Archaeomancer or Ivy Lane Denizen. It has its place in Combo Control but is more important in Full Combo and Agro Combo.
Heliod's Pilgrim - Grabbing Freed from the Real or Presence of Gond is good but due to color identity it rarely fits in Combo Control and sees more play in Full Combo and Agro Combo.
Brainspoil - This does not find many relevant things but it does find Peregrine Drake and that is all it needs to find to make it viable.

Full Combo

Full Combo (also referred to as Traditional Combo) is not an archetype that is simply packed full of combos. It can be but most of the time this will make the deck significantly weaker. Instead this archetype describes decks who's plan A is to assemble and win with their combo. They tend to be faster than Combo Control. Their interaction is often used to protect themselves and only used on opponents when they really need to.

This is not the most common archetype in our format for a couple of reasons. The best commanders for this type of deck happen to also be the best commanders for Combo Control. With it's higher consistency and resilience Combo Control is often chosen over Full Combo. You can take you a portion of the interaction from a Disciple of Deceit list and fill the space with everything that ups your speed such as Dark Ritual, Lotus Petal, Springleaf Drum or even janky 5 CMC cards to ditch and find Peregrine Drake. You can get to a point where you can win a turn or even two turns faster but you probably wont win as often.

There are some commanders that lend themselves well to Full Combo though. Skyward Eye Prophets are one such example. The deck wins by drawing it's entire library using their commander, Village Bell-Ringer, Retraction Helix / Banishing Knack and a bunch of mana dorks. Since the combo needs a critical mass of dorks to function your deck will have an incidental focus on fast ramp built into it already.

There are also some commanders that lend themselves to Storm Decks that can easily pack an additional traditional combo, turning them into a hybrid between the two as much of the setup will overlap anyways.

For notable cards and commanders look at the lists for Combo Control and Storm.

Storm

Storm. Archetype, mechanic, weather condition and last but not least name of a scale of how broken mechanics are in magic. When we talk about storm as an archetype we don't necessarily also refer to the storm mechanic. Instead we usually talk about any strategy that gains increasing advantages of casting multible spells in a singel turn and is built to maximize the number of spells it can cast on the turn it tries to 'go off'.

While we do have spells with the storm mechanic in PDH the majority of them don't scale that well into multi player formats. We also lack the raw power of storm pay offs such as Aetherflux Reservoir that regular EDH gets to play. Instead storm decks in PDH will setup an engine that will deal damage and refuel your hand at the same time. So as long as you have or can generate mana you can keep dealing damage and drawing more cards. The key pieces are repeatable damage sources like Thermo-Alchemist or Firebrand Archer and a way to tag card draw onto the damaging effect with cards like Tandem Lookout or Ophidian Eye.

Notable Commanders

Gelectrode - Not the best target for your draw enables because he only its one player at a time but you always have access to it.
Blistercoil Weird - This one you even have to suite up before he can get to work. He does however come down super cheep and offers you a somewhat viable voltron plan B.
Mercurial Geists - If you want to go full on Storm-Voltron hybrid this spirit only needs five spells to be a lethal attacker.
Izzet Guildmage - The copies don't help with your storming but they are great to help set yourself up by sculpting your hand or just grinding out value. He can also generate infinite mana with a few spell based combos. This makes him the perfect commander if you want to go the route of the Storm/Full Combo hybrid.
Bear's Companion - This commander offers something a little different. The color identity of green and with it Snake Umbra and a bunch of mana generators and free spells to go with it.

Notable Cards

You need a damage source, card draw and mana to storm of. Storm decks tend to be a little inflexible in deck building. In an ideal world every card in your deck helps make your one big storm turn better.

Thermo-Alchemist, Firebrand Archer, Cabal Paladin - This is the type of card you are looking for when looking for your damage source.
Tandem Lookout, Ophidian Eye, Snake Umbra - These trigger of ever player you deal damage to tagging a draw three onto every on of your spells. Some are not may abilities though. Just keep that in mind so you don't deck yourself before you can burn out your opponents.
Desperate Ritual, Seething Song, Lotus Petal, Goblin Electromancer - These are the most common form your mana generation will take.
Gitaxian Probe, Gush, Snapback - Free spells help ease the mana constraints and who does not like a zero mana draw 5?
Ponder, Preordain, Brainstorm - These help to set up your hand for your storm turn as well as being cheap spells for your storm turn.

Aggro Combo

This archetype is first and foremost still a combo deck. Its game plan A is a lot like that of Full Combo so you will see the same type of cards here like fast mana and tutors. The difference is that it gives up some combo consistency for the flexibility of a stronger plan B should the combo route be disrupted or otherwise unavailable. The exact strategy varies depending on what that plan B looks like. After switching gears you could for instance be a Voltron Aggro or a Swarm Aggro deck.

Notable Commanders
Grumgully, the Generous, Good-Fortune Unicorn - Both Commanders lend themselves well to persist based combos as they are a combo piece from the command zone. Their ability synergies just as well with a Swarm Aggro game plan though.
Woolly Thoctar - Offering the color identity to play Presence of Gond + Midnight Guard + Impact Tremors. With a card like Heliod's Pilgrim being a good tutor for this deck you can get away with a really slim but deadly Voltron package e.g. Shield of the Oversoul + Runes of the Deus.
Korozda Gorgon - Can combo with undying creatures and Ashnod's Altar and can also run the ramp and recursion for some Big Aggro beat down.
Slimefoot, the Stowaway - Because he deals damage instead of causing life loss he is one of the few commanders that can combo with Phyresis. Being a token generator opens him up to a solid Swarm Aggro plan B.

Notable Cards

It is difficult to list these as they can vary greatly depending on the combo of choice and the type of aggro the plan B is. You may have noticed that the notable commanders are all non-blue and green based. This is no coincidence. The lack of blue also means a lack of the premium cantrips the color offers as well as the lack of highly flexible interaction on the stack (counter spells). This opens up deck space for the aggro plan. Being green based makes it even easier to be Aggro Combo. Mana dorks are one of the best forms of 'fast' mana in our format and on top of that, they always provide bodies on the board. Green also has some of the best aggro cards in general covering all types of aggressive archetypes.

Once you have decided on a specific combo and know what you want your plan B to be you can use the other combo and aggro archetype section for inspiration.

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Compendium | Tier List | | | | |

Top Ranked	Achieved #27 position overall 4 years ago Achieved #1 position in Pauper EDH 4 years ago
Date added	5 years
Last updated	4 years
Legality	This deck is not Pauper EDH legal.
Cards	1
Avg. CMC	5.00
Folders	Pauper EDH, Pauper Commander, favorites, Pauper Commander, PDH, Notes / Reference Decks