Pauper Commander - Ancient Lumberknot

Last week, I built a deck based entirely on the art. Card mechanics and functionality were thrown right out the window, leaving the aesthetic as the only thing that mattered. Was the deck terrible and borderline unplayable? Yes, of course it was, but I still had a blast building it.

The art on every card is the main reason I play the game, so building a deck out of beautifully done snowy landscapes was a lot of fun for me. In the end, the deck was really nice to look at, so I'd call it quite a success, despite its shortcomings in gameplay. 

Because it's still Christmas season, I'm gonna give myself a gift and make another theme deck. I'll make a real deck next week, but I'm having too much fun doing this right now. 

Christmas is all around us right now, and the thing that represents this time of year the most is a Christmas tree. I love all the bright lights and shiny baubles that adorn those green needles, and the brilliant star on top. I especially love it when there's a ton of variation in the ornaments, memories from years past. Christmas trees are such a fantastic decoration, and the way they light up a space awes me every time, so let's try and build a deck that embodies the glow of a festive fir tree. 

First things first, we need a tree. Ancient Lumberknot

I considered having just a single tree that we would decorate, but then I thought, the more the merrier, so we're going to fill this deck with an entire forest of lumbering Christmas trees. Surprisingly, there's pretty good support for the Treefolk type in Pauper.

Usually it's a huge challenge to build kindred decks with only commons, because we just don't have a lot of support. But here, we have a cost reducer in the form of Bosk Banneret

But maybe not, given that we're also running stuff like Oakgnarl Warrior

I considered a few different means of representing ornaments with Magic cards. My first idea was to play a bunch of little baubles, like Executioner's Capsule

So naturally, the desire to actually hang the cards from the Treefolk's limbs led me to my next idea. I could decorate the trees with Auras and Equipment! There are a lot of shiny things that we can attach to our trees, some of which are actually pretty strong mechanically. Slagwurm Armor

Next, I just added some generally good Equipment and Auras. Whispersilk Cloak

Then we have some scary stuff, like Phyresis

Of course, the thing that everyone is waiting for is the star. Unfortunately, I couldn't find anything particularly brilliant to fill this slot. Magic cards aren't really designed to look like household decorations. The closest I could find were Chromatic Star

The last one can even be attached to a tree! It's not great, but we have at least four ways to cap off our trees. Oh, and if there's anyone who caps off their Christmas tree with a genuine starfish, I'd love to see it. 

There's one more detail I haven't mentioned yet. Our Christmas trees are decorated and looking lovely, but they're still barren, because there's not a single gift beneath them, so how are we going to embody the spirit of Christmas and spread cheer across the battlefield? Maybe with some donated enchantments, like Parasitic Impetus

I figured the Magic archetype that embodies this time of year the most is Group Hug. We don't have the typical group hug pieces, but we can imitate the archetype with two sets of cards. 

The first is fogs. Fog

Another card with a million functional copies is Undying Evil

I'm not sure if this deck gives the same energy that the glow of a Christmas tree does, but it certainly has some kind of energy. At times, that's political manipulation with fog cards, at other times, that's a big tree bearing down on our opponents. Not quite what I was going for when I dreamt up this deck, but I'm not entirely dissatisfied. I mean, the deck actually does something, which is a huge upgrade from last week's deck. Of course, it's still not a good deck in any way, but I feel like it does a nice job of bridging the gap between matching a theme and playing the game. What do you think?