Pauper Commander - Dungeon Diving with Rilsa Rael

An Exciting Venture...

Anyone who's played 60-card Pauper probably remembers the short period of time that taking the initiative was legal. There was a deck called Turbo Initiative, and its only goal was to get an Aarakocra Sneak or a Vicious Battlerager onto the battlefield as soon as possible. From there, the deck simply continued to venture into the Undercity and gain an absurd amount of value until the opponent was dead. It doesn't sound all that impressive at first, but once you've seen the deck in action, you'll certainly be convinced of its power. Between the two extra power from the "Forge" Room, the instant five damage from the "Trap," and the free creature from the "Throne of the Dead Three," the deck packed quite a punch. Enough of a punch to get banned quite quickly. 

A Second Chance for the Initiative?

Luckily for us, the initiative cards are only banned in Pauper, and not Pauper EDH. Even better, we can have a card that ventures into the dungeon in the command zone! Rilsa Rael, Kingpin is five mana for a simple deathtouch creature that opens the Undercity when it enters. But, if you've completed a dungeon, just once, he'll start turning your creatures into extremely strong attackers. +5/+0, deathtouch, first strike, and menace is no joke. Plus, he can do it to himself, benefiting from the threat of commander damage. If we can complete a dungeon quickly enough, our attacks can be game ending. 

Speedrunning the Dungeon

Of course, Rilsa Rael's big reward is for a big task. To complete a dungeon, we need to go deeper five times. The problem is, counting our commander, there's only nine cards that say: "venture into the dungeon," and most of them are pretty unplayable. Clattering Skeletons is just way too hard to trigger to justify playing, so we can't rely on playing the initiative cards, and we certainly can't rely on venturing in the upkeep. That's just too slow. 

We need a quick way to turn our commander online, and I think the answer is in the commander itself. It ventures into the dungeon on enter, so why can't we have it enter a few more times? Unlike the initiative mechanic, blink mechanics are extremely plentiful in Pauper. Just off the top of my head, I can name Ghostly Flicker, Displace, Teferi's Time Twist, Planar Incision, Essence Flux... (Shows how much I know about Pauper, Essence Flux isn't a common!) Point is, there's a ridiculous amount of them, and, they can be supplemented by cards like Archaeomancer, which can be blinked itself. Even better, if you can put Archaeomancer and Ghostly Flicker together, you can blink anything for three mana, over and over again.

Back from the Grave

But still, I'm not satisfied with the amount of blink we have for Rilsa Rael, even though we've exhausted Pauper's list of blink cards, so what if Rilsa died and came back, causing the ETB to trigger again? Enter Not Dead After All, a card that's been abused in modern times to trigger Grief and Fury over and over. Should our commander make a bad attack, be forced to block, or simply bite a removal spell, we can just bring it right back with one of these effects. Undying Malice, Undying Evil, and Feign Death are all ways to venture further into the dungeon that double as protection spells. 

Swinging In

With this many ways to retrigger our commander, completing the dungeon will be easy. Which means... an attacking creature gets +5/+0, menace, first strike, and deathtouch. The best creature to take advantage of this is, of course, our commander, who merely has to deal 17 damage to knock a player out of the game. Let's add some unblockable into the deck. Aqueous Form, Invisibility, and Slip Through Space all give us ways to get in damage when we need it. Funnily enough, Vorrac Battlehorns also says unblockable, as long as Risla is giving a creature menace. Two creatures must block + only one creature can block = no creatures can block. 

In addition to letting Risla get in for extra damage, the unblockable effects give us easy ways to take back the initiative if we lose it. There's a lot of pieces in this deck that somehow complement each other. The blink pieces keep our commander alive while retriggering his enter the battlefield ability, but after we've completed the dungeon, they can be used to blink Archaeomancers, which can recur unblockablity spells, to get in with the big damage we've unlocked. 

Grip on the Game

Of course there's one more part of this deck we need, which is the control aspect, like removal and counterspells. I want to go a bit more heavy on the control aspect of this deck, given that we want to spend the first half of this game just trying to complete a dungeon. Therefore, we're gonna be running everything from Doom Blade to Victim of Night just to make sure nothing is going to survive long enough to mess with us. And for the big spells that could be a problem, we've got counterspells. The original is legal in Pauper, along with Arcane Denial, and Essence Scatter.

My favorite reaction spell, however, has to be Foil. I never feel more satisfied when playing Magic than when I counter someone's spell for free in a Pauper deck. Everyone expects Force of Will, or Deflecting Swat, to the point that people plan for it when playing EDH, but when they know I'm playing a Pauper deck, they think that tapping out means they're safe. Of course they would. Why wouldn't they? Free spells don't exist in just commons, right? Hilariously, there's a significant amount of them. Foil, Daze, and Snuff Out can all be played without tapping a single land. My opponents are never safe. 

Dungeon Diving Deep Dive

Does this deck invoke the power of Turbo Initiative? Nah, not really, but it's not weak, by any means. Thanks to the ludicrous amount of blink I crammed into the deck, getting through a dungeon is indeed easy peazy. The biggest problem is certainly the deck's ability to close out the game, despite Risla's Buff. Still, it's far from impossible, thanks to the deck's control-heavy nature. Lasting to the end of the game and sneaking out a win is absolutely something this deck is capable of. I have to say, though, my favorite thing about the deck is just venturing into the dungeon. Regardless of whether it was a well-designed mechanic, and regardless of whether it's needlessly complex, I find it very fun. It does feel like you're adventuring somewhere and that completing the dungeon is an accomplishment. Tell me, are you a fan of the dungeon mechanic?