The Rise of the Eldrazi set presents Paupers with an unprecedented number of “new” effects on cards and it is my belief that Pauper Extended is the ideal playground in which to toy with these new effects.

Why? Because unlike Classic, Extended is not dominated by extremely fast aggro decks — in fact, Extended is possibly the slowest of the regular PDC formats. And, unlike Standard, Extended has a vast cardpool from which to draw interesting synergies and combos. There is no better recipient of Totem Armor than Silhana Ledgewalker except maybe Slippery Bogle, and neither of these guys is Standard-legal.

Let’s take a look at how Extended can make use of some of the juiciest new Eldrazi commons.


Ulamog’s Crusher is an 8/8 that forces the opponent to sacrifice two permanents whenever you declare it as an attacker, which incidentally you must do every turn if able. It costs 8 mana and it is a colorless common. His friend, Hand of Emrakul, is a 7/7 for 9 (or 4 Eldrazi Spawn tokens), and he wants to play too. These two can be run in any Pauper Extended deck, but there is surely an optimal build.

Red and green are the colors that provide the acceleration in RoE, but I’ve seen more than one person suggest that since changelings count as Eldrazi Spawn, they can trigger Brood Birthing and then be sacrificed as one of the 4 necessary to bring out a turn 2 Hand. Here’s how it looks:

Turn 1: Island, Mothdust Changeling
Turn 2: Mountain, Brood Birthing, Hand of Emrakul
Turn 3: Island, counterspells, ANNIHILATE.

This insane speed may be the deciding factor, since otherwise the Eldrazi fall to Doom Blade just as easily as Glory Seeker does.



Venerated Teacher and Momentary Blink make good bedfellows, but unfortunately none of the level up commons are terribly overwhelming. Someone will try this but I don’t think it will make a splash, since the other million versions of Blink decks are stronger.



Silhana Ledgewalker and Slippery Bogle just got a buttload of new toys in the Umbra cycle. Snake Umbra is particularly charming, since it turns your untouchable monster into a Ninja of the Deep Hours. Hyena Umbra grants first strike, though that doesn’t seem powerful enough on its own to push the Bogle Pants deck into that color. M10’s Lifelink? Also, Aura Gnarlid is not UNTOUCHABLE but he does become UNBLOCKABLE as you load him with Umbras… A makeshift third creature in an archetype light on men?

Vent Sentinel is an extremely interesting card that could spawn an entirely new archetype: Walls. (I will dub the RWU version of this deck “Homeland Security” in a nod to my state’s recent passage of a controversial immigration law.) You want to build up your defender count so that Vent Sentinel can ping for bigger and bigger amounts of damage. Meanwhile, you’re maintaining board position with counterspells. Crazy people like me will try to perfect this archetype.

Raid Bombardment is an effect you don’t usually see at common — a non-aura enchantment. Any time you declare a creature with power 2 or less as an attacker, this enchantment deals 1 damage to the player you attacked. This combos well with the numerous token-making spells available in Extended spread amply across white, green, and red. I can see a red-green deck using Thallid Shell-Dweller and Vent Sentinel, and perhaps a few other walls, along with Scatter the Seeds, Sprout Swarm, Mogg War Marshal, and Raid Bombardment. Or maybe players will take the Elves approach — at XPDC 6.13 I was witness to the elf token production enabled by Lorwyn-Shadowmoor cards. The existence of this enchantment actually enables the creation of a whole new variety of Spore Cry — Shroomraiders?
 


And finally: Dawnglare Invoker needs a home. White/blue control with Calcite Snapper?