From Thrash to Treasure (PDH) (EDH / Commander)

Pauper EDH is an alternative 100-card format that uses any uncommon creature as the commander with the remaining 99 as commons.

This mono-red deck is built around the commander Thunder-Thrash Elder, an uncommon with a whopping Devour of 3! Each creature sacrificed as it resolves puts 3 counters on it, which means 5 creatures puts the commander at 16 which is commander damage lethal in PDH.

Mono red happens to be in a good spot for going wide in PDH. There's a ton of spells that create 2+ creatures with a single card. But we also run a ton of utility creatures like Iron Myr / Goblin Chirurgeon / Goblin Motivator / Sparksmith that we can sacrifice to the commander in case we don't need their utility.

Mono-red has troubles protecting key pieces but this deck ignores that by only committing the commander as it goes for a kill, to do that we run a lot of sources of haste as well as various forms of evasion, be it flying / trample / menace / intimidate.

Once we've alphastruck an opponent - expect the commander to be removed. It's fairly easy to rebuild, in particular with cards like Emrakul's Hatcher / Swarming Goblins / Empty the Warrens which can provide a lot of bodies with a single card.

At the moment the deck's a bit low on interaction as it focuses a lot on doing its own thing - any cards that don't contribute towards that goal are tough includes. That said there's still Lightning Bolt and Seal of FIre, efficient spells that can open the way for a commander attack. There's also Sparksmith which offers repeatable removal at the cost of life.

Some inclusions I'm unsure about are the combat buffs, particularly Assault Strobe and Raking Claws. Maybe it's better to just include more creatures to sacrifice for a more consistent game plan however in ideal scenarios they can replace 2-3 creatures.

I believe Devour works upon resolving the spell, so you don't sacrifice creatures upon casting or entering the battlefield which matters in a few scenarios; counterspells don't wipe your board & people can't ping your 1/1 before it can gobble up creatures. This does however mean we can't give it unblockable with creatures like Goblin Tunneler. If I'm incorrect, please let me know.

The big weakness of the deck is naturally instant speed removal, if your opponents are in the colours for it (mainly blue & white & black) and can hold up removal for when you go for a hit the deck can struggle. The best course of action is grabbing a Goblin Chirurgeon with a Goblin Matron but it's not very ideal. Timing your commander is key.

The deck can also be slowed down by boardwipes however it's fairly good at rebuilding. Repeatable ones like Pestilence can be a nightmare though.

Thanks for reading! If you have any questions or suggestions, please leave a comment.