Something I have seen a lot lately is people asking, especially on reddit, "What does 75% mean?" with respect to Commander. This is usually in response to someone making a thread in the EDH subreddit asking for help with his or her 75% deck, which I'm gratified to see. I am glad there is a portion of the community that likes the building approach and wants to apply it to a few of their decks. Something I have seen a lot more lately, which worries me, is people responding, "It means your deck wins 75% of the games you play." I try to catch that sort of thing early and set the record straight. (Do you know how good a deck would have to be to win three out of every four games you play? It wouldn't be 75%, that's for sure.) It's a pretty pervasive misunderstanding, and I'm not sure how it started. There isn't much I can do about that besides catch it and try to explain what 75% is really all about.

On top of that emerging trend, there is a misconception as old as the 75% project itself that 75% decks are budget decks. No, they really aren't. Not only are there dozens of people writing about budget Commander all over the Internet and doing it better than I could, what kind of budget philosophy advocates running Bribery, a $20 card? 75% can be expensive if built right, but it doesn't have to be expensive, especially because you have a tendency to eschew cards that are very expensive because they are considered Commander staples because some of those cards have tendencies to ruin lives and push us past the mark we like to aim for of winning 1 ÷ n games.

So, which commander should I select? I didn't want to do anything cheesy, so the list of ban-watch cards, such as Invisible Stalker and Bloodbraid Elf, seemed like exclusions. Even if I somehow made the lists less cheesy, you still run into “the Rafiq effect,” so called because a 75% Rafiq of the Many deck is going to automatically going to be treated like a 100%, super-hostile Rafiq deck, so why build Rafiq 75%? I decided to find something that seemed like fun, that didn't naturally lend itself to a cookie-cutter build, and that would allow me to be a bit creative. There are a lot more uncommons than there are legendary creatures, so I have a lot to choose from.

I decided cards like Spinebiter and Viral Drake, while potent, were not the way I wanted to go either. Poison is a strong strategy, but I wanted to be a little freer to create. Ultimately, I decided on a card that seemed powerful and capable of helping someone behind catch up or someone ahead be pulled back in line. I went with Dimir Guildmage from Ravnica.

With the restrictions inherent in the format, I felt that some powerful cards would not be outside of the spirit of 75% even though we're held to the same restrictions as everyone else. I don't think Rhystic Study and Mystic Remora are too much card-draw for a 75% Pauper deck. They're good, but not out of control the way a card like Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur or Prime Speaker Zegana would be. I saw a lot of people saying that Capsize was pretty cheesy, so I decided to exclude it. I think we can build quite a powerful deck without it, and cards on Capsize's level in a normal Commander build would be excluded to make it more of a 75% build.

Was I going to try to combo-win somehow? We have access to cards the likes of High Tide and Cloud of Faeries, and those sorts of decks rule sixty-card Pauper, but I decided I wanted to maximize the advantage of hitting opponents with my commander and using his two abilities to make sure the people ahead had to discard some cards and anyone having trouble keeping up could draw an extra card or two. Was this going to end up as Dimir group hug? I didn't think anyone would think so when I pumped 5 black mana into Pestilence and pulled everyone's pants down. Pure card advantage without drawing so many cards that I played the same game every time was going to be easy to achieve with these restrictions. How does Dimir gain card advantage?

• Mill
• Discard
• Card-draw
• Transmutation
• Cipher and rebound
• Reusable permission

I decided against running mill because there aren't the cards to do it in Pauper, and I don't like mill nor do I consider it a viable way to kill three other people. Discard and card-draw were inherent in the commander I selected, and transmute cards like Dimir House Guard and Drift of Phantasms seemed decent in a Pauper setting. Cipher and rebound were worth looking at, although the really good cipher and rebound spells were not printed at common. Finally, I elected against even exploring reusable permission. Forbid is uncommon, and I'm not sure what else is even out there. I could use Archaeomancer to bring back spells like Dismiss and gain advantages that way, but I felt that I had enough. Let's see what I finally came up with.

75% Dimir ? Pauper Commander | Jason Alt

• Commander (0)

• Creatures (23)
• 1 Archaeomancer
• 1 Cavern Harpy
• 1 Crypt Rats
• 1 Deathcult Rogue
• 1 Delver of Secrets
• 1 Dimir House Guard
• 1 Dimir Infiltrator
• 1 Drift of Phantasms
• 1 Faceless Butcher
• 1 Fathom Seer
• 1 Gravedigger
• 1 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
• 1 Hand of Emrakul
• 1 Jhessian Zombies
• 1 Mnemonic Wall
• 1 Mulldrifter
• 1 Mystic of the Hidden Way
• 1 Okiba-gang Shinobi
• 1 Scrivener
• 1 Tormented Soul
• 1 Ulamog's Crusher
• 1 Whirlwind Adept
• 1 Moriok Replica

• Spells (35)
• 1 Agony Warp
• 1 Doom Blade
• 1 Geth's Verdict
• 1 Grim Harvest
• 1 Gush
• 1 Into the Roil
• 1 Perplex
• 1 Psychic Strike
• 1 Soul Manipulation
• 1 Vapor Snag
• 1 Artful Dodge
• 1 Brainspoil
• 1 Compulsive Research
• 1 Consult the Necrosages
• 1 Foresee
• 1 Hands of Binding
• 1 Hidden Strings
• 1 Last Thoughts
• 1 Midnight Recovery
• 1 Ponder
• 1 Probe
• 1 Shadow Slice
• 1 Flood
• 1 Helm of the Ghastlord
• 1 Mystic Remora
• 1 Pestilence
• 1 Rhystic Study
• 1 Bonesplitter
• 1 Dimir Cluestone
• 1 Dimir Signet
• 1 Mind Stone
• 1 Mistvein Borderpost
• 1 Neurok Stealthsuit
• 1 Ur-Golem's Eye
• 1 Whispersilk Cloak

• Lands (41)
• 13 Island
• 12 Swamp
• 1 Barren Moor
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Desert
• 1 Dimir Aqueduct
• 1 Dimir Guildgate
• 1 Dismal Backwater
• 1 Esper Panorama
• 1 Evolving Wilds
• 1 Grixis Panorama
• 1 Halimar Depths
• 1 Haunted Fengraf
• 1 Lonely Sandbar
• 1 Quicksand
• 1 Rupture Spire
• 1 Terramorphic Expanse
• 1 Transguild Promenade

Buy This Deck

I feel that what I am left with is quite a bit of good card-draw. The fact that you have a lot of ways to draw one or two extra cards each turn rather than eleven at once leads me to believe you're going to grind out advantage rather than win the same way every game. I like that I have some decent Equipment and spells to make attacking with my commander appealing, although I can easily get there with unblockable creatures and just tempo opponents out.

I am very mana-hungry, and I'm not sure I have enough rocks, but Darksteel Ingot, Manalith, Sky Diamond, and other rocks are waiting to be slotted in if they become necessary. I think Ur-Golem's Eye and Sisay's Ring are very good value for commons, and I am happy jamming them. Mind Stone is good enough for regular Commander, and I'm glad to jam it here. Borderposts are also cards I like in a lot of builds, and Mistvein Borderpost seems fine here.

I think you are going to gain quite a bit of advantage out of cipher spells, and I think transmuting to find them is very, very Dimir. While those two abilities are pretty disparate, they work together more nicely than I thought. Removing utility creatures such as Moriok Replica may become necessary to make room for more flyers or unblockable creatures. Let it happen, I guess.

Should I do the occasional Pauper Commander deck in the future? Maybe I should just cover one if someone sends me one and asks for input. Or should I never again go Pauper? Leave your opinion in the comments or in the reddit thread. Once again, thanks to everyone in the EDH subreddit for your input. I saw a lot of decks this week that I liked a lot, and they could easily make for future installments. If you really want my attention, e-mail them to altjason17 at gmail dot com, and I will take a look. Thanks for reading, and stop by next week for my next project!