On my never ending quest for new EDH experiences this last week I decided to build and run a fully Pauper EDH deck. Pauper EDH is a format where you can use an uncommon commander (some versions allow any uncommon creature as an option but I prefer to use Legendary creatures maintaining normal EDH legality) and the remaining 99 cards must be common (or have had a common printing at some point in time IE. Rhystic Study which was a rare in Jumpstart but was originally printed as a common in Prophecy). There's also a less extreme version of this concept sometimes called Peasant Commander which allows both commons and uncommons but I went down the more severely challenging route.
For a commander I went with Rona, Disciple of Gix both because she is a cool card that i've always wanted to find a use for and because it gave me the opportunity to make a bunch of groan-worthy 'Rona puns (2020 things).
The Rona in question, although she's related to the Phyrexians she's nowhere near as evil as the other 'rona going around.
For a strategy the obvious choice was artifacts because apart from a handful of cards all the historic cards at common are artifacts.
This is the deck I ended up with -
The main strategy is simply to win through lots of small card advantage (mainly from Egg style artifacts - Eggs referring to cheap artifacts that sacrifice drawing you a card and maybe giving you some extra advantage like mana filtering, it's a reference to the Egg cycle from Odyssey). In addition there's a few synergies and a number of convoluted combos.
1. Displace or Ghostly Flicker (which you can tutor for with Merchant Scroll, Perplex and Mystical Teachings) combine with Archaomancer, Mnemonic Wall or Salvager of Secrets to allow you to repeatedly re-trigger creatures with 187 (enter the battlefield) effects like Rona herself.
2. Ashnod's Altar + Etherium Sculptor + Myr Retriever + Workshop Assistant produces an infinite loop netting 1 colorless mana each time and allowing for infinite triggers of cards like Disciple of the Vault.
I played in 2 pods with the deck at my LGS's regular Wednesday EDH tournament (shoutout to the Cardhouse Crew) up against full power "normal" EDH decks (nothing cEDH but still significantly stronger than Pauper options).
Round 1 was a pod consisting of myself (Rona), K'rrik, Scarab God and Rhonas (original version).
I managed to win the roll and start play. I durdled around cheap artifacts and Rona. K'rrik played out a bunch of Nighthawk style cards (lifelinking deathtouchers) and an early K'rrik. Scarab God unfortunately mulligan'd multiple times and ended up being land screwed all game. Rhonas ramped a bunch of times. I stepped in and used Evincar's Wrath to get rid of my Rona, K'rrik and a Llanowar Elves. After that though the Rhonas player's earlier ramping started paying off and massive creatures and insane mana (at one point 10+ forests with Nyxbloom Ancient and Nissa out) was insurmountable. A ginormous hexproof Managorger Hydra killed off the K'rrik player even through all his deathtouching lifegaining blockers and netting 40+ life and cards when it died thanks to Fruit of the First Tree when it died. My recurring Executioner's Capsule helped deal with the biggest problem creatures and for a little while it looked like he might mill out but a huge Finale of Devastation was enough to take the Scarab God player and myself out in the same turn.
Round 2 was a pod consisting of myself (Rona), Marchesa (Black Rose), Rin&Siri and Breya.
In the early game I had a Rhystic Study for extra advantage, Breya was durdling around with Sai and thopter tokens, Marchesa was doing some nasty Marchesa + Threaten effect + Altar of Dementia stuff to steal and beat out down with our own creatures and Rin&Siri were looking very threatening with a Beastmaster's Ascension and 4 dog tokens from Release the Dogs, she was also able to play Rambunctious Mutt to kill the Altar and then had a massive turn with Titanic Ultimatum and a fully active Ascension allowing her to kill off Marchesa and gain over 100 life. I tried to chip away at the life total but my Disciple of the Vault was probably a little too annoying so I was then killed off by a huge Nacatyl Warpride + Tokens swing from Rin&Siri and a Thopter swarm swing from Breya. Needless to say the final winner was Rin&Siri (Titanic Ultimatum OP!).
Overall I had a lot of fun with the deck and while I never felt like I was winning I was at least relevant at the table and it felt like the possibility of a win was there. Not bad for a deck built of commons.
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