Just wanted to say thank you for putting this together! I'm gonna be building something 5 colors I think!

@rjimi: Thank you! It's a fun format and I'm happy to see people taking interest.

This is an AWESOME resource. I've got 7 Pauper decks built now, and my play group is really enjoying selecting one and going at it in multiplayer. Currently playing Xathrid Slyblade voltron, Herald of Kozilek beatdown/combo, Wall of Denial table cop, Shaman of the Pack elfball, Inkfathom Witch aggro/evasion, Young Pyromancer burn/aggro and Sultai Soothsayer reanimator/combo. A few of the lists are on my profile here at TappedOut. Take a peek!

Might I suggest adding Xathrid Slyblade as a very viable mono-black commander? It turns out deathtouch, first strike, and hexproof are all wonderful abilities for voltron. :D Here is my Xathrid Slyblade PDH.

Surprised that Stormchaser Mage isn't in this list. He's worked out really well for me in the past.

Good catch. Adding now.

This is an awesome list! I'm currently working on one of my own, so this is great to see.

My question for you is, why lower the life points from the standard EDH rules? From my experience from the format, I've found that Commander Damage tends to be far more potent of a factor than in standard EDH, And settling at 15 commander damage was always far too low. I'd love to hear your opinion on this matter!

In the group I play with we tried having 21 commander damage, 10 commander damage, 15 commander damage, and 16 commander damage. We found that at 21 the games took much too long (like 3 hours for a 4 player game) since the main win condition is commander damage. This would be fine if there was a lot of interaction but we also discovered that the longer the games went the less people could do since there are no haymakers in the format. People would be out of cards and playing in top deck mode for like an hour which was not fun. At 10 it gave commanders that were at 5 power a great advantage over other commanders, allowing them to win after two swings. Same with 15, allowing for a win after 3 swings (maybe less). So we decided on 16 because it puts commanders with 4 or 5 power (ubiquitous among uncommon creatures) on a 4 turn clock.

When it comes down to it, we were trying to find a balance between speed and fun and I think 16 is where equilibrium happened. The format is not very developed though and that is subject to change when it becomes more fleshed out. I was the only person playing with a tuned deck (Changeling Titan) and never ran into problems but other people used all of their cards pretty fast and you need to be a little frugal with what you play.

This is such a great resource. I've started building decks around Woolly Thoctar and Wayward Servant, and I'll probably be building a ton more!

Izzet Guildmage goes infinite with any ritual effect then play any storm spell, such as Grapeshot and win.

Good call. Too bad he can't run Songs of the Damned. But you could run it Goblins for defense and run Battle Hymn, Brightstone Ritual, Desperate Ritual, Energy Tap, Infernal Plunge, and Pyretic Ritual along with tutors for the Storm cards. Might be better as pure combo, not sure.

Izzet Guildmage cannot go infinite storm with ritual effects. Copies of the ritual are free over and over with Infernal Plunge only but does not increase storm count. Storm count is spell casts only. Even the ritual spells that can generate more than 4 mana do not work because they make only red mana. You need blue mana to copy instants infinitely. Unless I'm missing something and would love an explanation because I'm building him.

I'm glad Disciple of Deceit is on here, there's a lot you can do with that one.

I also am working on a Lightning Berserker deck with at least 50% lands. Seems to be doing alright, so far.

Anybody wanna compare notes?

Yes, I would like to compare notes with anybody who plays this format (not many people in my area do). I have built the following decks so far:

Drooling Groodion: Voltron/control deck that uses some recursion elements to repeat effects such as Crypt Rats, Nantuko Vigilante, and Dimir House Guard. Bascially, you generate a lot of tokens with cards like Sporoloth Ancient and Sprout Swarm, which you then sacrifice into the commander's ability. Actually surprisingly strong, because it allows repeated removal (which is great in this format, since most wins are creature based) and boosts itself at the same time.

Thunderclap Wyvern: Beatdown/control. Plaxcaster Frogling: Beatdown/control. Gelectrode: Control/Combo. Mesa Enchantress: Beatdown/control. Cliffhaven Vampire: Lifedrain. Contraband Kingpin: Artifact control. Stromkirk Captain: Vampire tribal.Drogskol Captain: Spirit tribal. Unraveling Mummy: Zombie tribal.

Currently thinking about Ruthless Sniper as monoblack cycle commander.

Here are the decks I run. Take into account that I have no one to play with so they are tested basically against my other decks and some of the decks I find here on TappedOut:

Myrsmith: White weenie artifact build. Very vulnerable to removal and boardwipes. Focuses on getting cheap equips, artifact creatures, and artifact cantrips out to create myrs. Can overwhelm if they can't deal with her when she comes into play. Does not deal well against some of the top tier commanders.

Changeling Titan: Voltron ramp. Contains mostly ETB creatures that ramp, tutor, or draw with green staples for the same. It is easy enough to deal with the Titan but it has to be dealt with and removing it gives you additional value off of the ETB creatures. Extremely vulnerable to flying and boardwipes.

Marsh Crocodile: ETB/discard. Runs a bunch of ETB weenies that let you draw, discard, or return a permanent to its controllers hand. Commander is only used if you don't have a card to bounce a creature to your hand to continue the value train. Has lots of fliers and weenies on the ground and contains graveyard play. Takes a while to win, arduous to play, probably not fast enough to beat out a Psychatog or Spellheart Chimera.

Seasinger: Aikido/control. Use your opponent's best creatures/commander against them and counter spells that would stop you. Vulnerable to removal and aggro. Probably my strongest deck in 1v1.

I've got some more but they're not optimized/in paper yet. I am currently cataloging all of the combos in Pauper EDH, my next goal is to try and make a top tier combo deck that can rival fast commanders like Psychatog and Spellheart Chimera.

I would like my previous comment to be acknowledged. I've brewed Izzet Guildmage a while and I want to clarify that he cannot go infinite with "any ritual effect" and copies do not trigger storm. The only ritual related combo that works is Lava Spike with Desperate Ritual. Here is my list

@Podkomorka: Sorry I must have missed the notification for your last post. You are right that you need blue to copy an instant spell, I overlooked that. It also does not contribute to Storm. Red and Blue have no ways to filter into blue either. And while you could still infinitely cycle Infernal Plunge there would be no reason to do so unless you could somehow benefit from activating an ability. It could still be worth running the stronger rituals like Battle Hymn and Brightstone Ritual to copy two or three times for a Fireball. But you are correct, Izzet Guildmage cannot inherently create Storm combos or create infinite mana.

Also great list :) looking forward to perhaps contributing around here. Would you be interested in doing something similar to that popular "edh list by tier" list where they not only rank the decks by tier but also keep decklists in the description section for some of the more popular decks? Here is a link to that tier list for reference.

@Podkomorka: That is something I would like to do down the line but I don't think I have enough data currently to rate any tier besides tier 1. I have started gathering decklists on reddit and users who have commented here on this primer but I have not compiled them into a list yet. If we could get more discussion going on what decks people think are best and what decks people have problems playing against I think we could get the skeleton of a tier list assembled. If you have any suggestions I would be glad to have them.

Formulating a banned list is something I would also like to do. The only card that comes to mind currently is Ghostly Flicker and I don't even think that is too bad considering you need to assemble a small Rube Goldberg contraption to get it back as well as graveyard hate and creature exile effects making it unlikely to last more than a turn or two.

Would Lorescale Coatl be eligible for this list? It's what I run irl and it's pretty brutal. It kinda helps that it gets exponentially bigger with every turn.

TheTindell179 I would agree with you. That card is sick. Im a fan of it. I currently run Psychatog as my primary weapon.

http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/budget-competitive-edh-psychatog-42/update/

Nyx Weaver definitely, and also Cloudblazer. The card advantage (and life gain I guess :P) becomes insane with all the blinks available to Azorious.

Considering Boros Swiftblade is already on the list, I'd also suggest Fencing Ace for the list. Sure it has one less toughness, but it's only one color, which makes it easier to drop early. After that, just load him up with equipment and auras.