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 is the obvious Treefolk to have in the command zone, if we're playing Pauper. It's got multiple colors, and it actually synergizes with other Treefolk, which is more than I usually get when building kindred decks. I will say, based on that art, it looks pretty hard to decorate, but I'm sure we can overcome that challenge.  

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, removal with Wickerbough Elder, and protection from Black Poplar Shaman. I'm not going to pretend these Treefolk are fantastic, as there's still a lot to be desired, but it's way more than I'd expected, and it gives me hope that this deck might be a little bit playable. 

But maybe not, given that we're also running stuff like Oakgnarl Warrior and Timberland Ancient. Some of our Treefolk are just plain ol' big guys, and awkwardly, our options are limited enough that we have to play Treefolk who don't even benefit from our commander, like Orchard Strider, but I guess that's what we get for playing a theme deck. We've got the Christmas trees we want, so let's see how we're going to decorate them. 

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, Fountainport Bell, and Golden Egg. The Egg even looks like a typical round ornament. But that didn't synergize at all with the rest of the deck, functionally, or thematically. That idea was like having a bunch of toys just laying around. It didn't really feel like I was decorating the tree. 

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, for instance, gives our trees and extra six power, for just four mana! That's a really strong rate, so naturally, I added other cards that would boost toughness, like Accorder's Shield, Warbriar Blessing, and Careful Cultivation. 

Next, I just added some generally good Equipment and Auras. Whispersilk Cloak, Cloak of the Bat, and Haunted Cloak, all the cloaks, really, provide excellent evasion. Kaya's Ghostform and Fungal Fortitude give our trees a second chance.

Then we have some scary stuff, like Phyresis. Is it on theme to turn out Christmas trees into poisonous killing machines? No, not really, but hey, I don't want to have a deck that does absolutely nothing. We're decorating the trees quite nicely. Those decorations may be deadly, but that's hardly a relevant detail. All that matters it that the baubles are shiny. 

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, Star Compass, Sinister Starfish, and Vulshok Morningstar.

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? That's part of the deck, but it's not the main means of gift giving.

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 is a card that allows you to prevent all damage across the board for both you and your opponents. Usually, you'd use it to stop yourself from taking damage, but you can also save your opponents from certain death and wish them a Merry Christmas! There's about a million copies of the effect too, so our deck is full of them. 

Another card with a million functional copies is Undying Evil. Typically, we'd just be rescuing our own creatures, but saving our opponents' best creatures can be our way of wishing them Happy Holidays. There are plenty of gifts to be given with this deck, even if we do eventually plan on cracking back with a 10/10 Christmas tree. 

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?