Minthara, Merciless Soul - Pauper Commander

Revisiting My First PEDH Deck

When I started playing Pauper EDH, the first deck I tried was Minthara, Merciless Soul

There was some gameplay potential there, but next to no synergy. Plus, unlike regular EDH, where you can cram a bunch of busted mythics and rares into a deck and get a cohesive result if you commander is good enough (*cough cough* Miirym, Sentinel Wyrm

A Fork in the Road

The problem is, we have a lot of options available to us. Minthara is built around creatures leaving the battlefield. Both conveniently and inconveniently for us, there are a ton of ways to do that. Immediately, I see three ways of building this deck.

The first is by having creatures die. Sacrifice outlets, creatures that send themselves to the graveyard, and just general combat deaths will all do the trick.

Then you have the blink route. Play cards like Ephemerate

The third option is just to play creatures that trigger Minthara entirely on their own, like Wyrm's Crossing Patrol

What I think we're going to do is combine the first two paths together with a little strategy I've learned from other decks. In Pauper, you have access to ten or so practical copies of Cloudshift

In Azorius, you'd probably want to run cards like Archaeomancer

What this card is best at is causing a creature to enter the battlefield a second time. Pretty much the only difference between it and Cloudshift

We'll grab around twenty or so "blink cards" spanning from the likes of Scrollshift

There's the grotesque Carrion Feeder

Sacrifice Outlets

Now that I think about it, there are actually a lot of ways to sacrifice creatures in this deck. Deadly Dispute

Unfortunately, it won't often trigger Minthara, as you'll most often want to regenerate on opponents' turns. But it's not bad when it comes to combat, especially since Minthara only boosts power and not toughness. Then, you have a few creatures that sacrifice themselves, like Children of Korlis

Stuff to Blink

Now that we've got that all set up, we can focus on some powerful blink targets that will also benefit from Minthara, the real meat of the deck! Gray Merchant of Asphodel

The deck's not all evil, though. Naturally, we're running Spirited Companion

We've got Nested Shambler

That's pretty much it y'all. You just play a bunch of creatures, blink them for value, and swing in with a huge army while Minthara's on the board. Not much more to it than that! If I'm just comparing this deck to my original deck, it's a huge improvement, but even compared to some of my newer Pauper decks, this one holds its own. Minthara is a pretty strong commander, and with a strong backbone in the 99, she can do wonders.