Pauper Commander

Shirei Sera

17 Jun 2021 - 7 min read

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What’s up everybody! Welcome back and TGIPDHD, Thank God it’s PDH Day! (The name is still being workshopped). Much like The Hexdrinkers Podcast, the type of PDH content we produce will vary from week to week. Last time we focused on some of the spicy new hotness coming our way with MH2, while this week reflects what you’ll probably be seeing the most of in our pauper content and that is: a bomb ass deck. Fresh off a one-game winning streak at our last Commander night I give to you Shirei, Shizo’s Caretaker!

There are very few commanders that hit the right balance between enabling a solid recursion strategy and not being too generic in their abilities (looking at you Muldrotha the Gravetide ). While Shirei has a pretty harsh restriction for what they can bring back beyond death’s door, with the right build Shirei can still be absolutely heinous. Luckily for us, that doesn’t really change much between EDH and PDH. What I’m saying is the first post-game round is probably going to be on you.

Our Shirei of the day is focused around three main themes:
Sac Outlets
Creature Triggers
Persistence

Adherence to each of these themes is crucial to get the most out of your Kamigawan Spirit. We’ll start with the easiest to describe.

Creature Triggers:

Our main source of offense is going to be in ETB/LTB triggers. Due to the nature of Shirei returning small creatures from the graveyard back into play, Shirei allows us to exploit these abilities with devastating results. Here’s a taste:
Direct Damage: Serrated Scorpion , Cauldron Familiar
Card Advantage: Farfinder , Dusk Legion Zealot
Other Crazy Stuff: Nested Shambler , Gleaming Barrier
Since we can only recur creatures of power 1 or less, each of these effects are relatively minor, so our main path to the finish line is going to be chaining as many of these as possible each turn cycle. This will prooobably require…

Sac Outlets:

Not only do these cards allow you to repeatedly hit those potent ETBs, but most are also incredibly powerful in their own right. Whether you’re sacc-ing a Dutiful Attendant just in time to equip Shirei with a Blessing of Leeches , or you just need a little extra mana Soldevi Adnate is a great stand in for Black Market providing quick bursts of mana when it’s least expected. Or maybe you need a big creature to keep something like an enchanted Striped Riverwinder at bay? Spend a turn cycle sacc-ing your entire board to a Bloodflow Connoisseur or Carrion Feeder to quickly create a very significant threat.

Persistence

Lastly, we have perhaps the most boring category of cards but they could not be more important for our overall strategy. Shirei takes a little while to hit the battlefield, and from the second they do - they’ll be a target. Luckily, black has some of the best answers in the format thanks to a large collection of enchantments that provide regenerate. Blessing of Leeches is the classic common black protection, but my personal favorite for this deck is Dark Privilege . Doubling as a sac outlet, it’s incredibly on theme and gives us another way to groundhog day our triggers. Or for a more reactive solution, cards like Professor’s Warning are a dime-a-dozen these days and another potent form of protection.

Okay so we’ve got creatures loaded with ETBs, countless ways to churn them through the graveyard, and finally ways to make sure our best pieces stick around. What else is there to talk about?! Actually…

BONUS ROUND

Not really fitting into the above categories, these are three cards I wanted to highlight as truly awesome for this deck. While the veteran PDH player might already be nodding along at a few of these inclusions, they’re really great tech for a newcomer. Without any real tutors, things like basic land cycling and transmute take center stage. Shred Memory can get us any of our solid two-drops like Feed the Swarm for removal, Dark Privilege for protection, or a powerful Shirei target like Perilous Myr . World-Weary is a new one from MH2 but 5 mana for a decent removal spell isn’t toooo terrible…although really we’re here for the landcycling. Lastly, Crypt Rats . One of the closest things Pauper has to a board wipe BUT doubly effective here with Shirei since we can stack the triggers and keep our board of weenies alive!!

That’s it for highlights, let’s get you the whole deck!

And that’s all we got! Am I missing any of your favorite Shirei targets? Is there a line of play you think this should incorporate? Let me know in the comments below!

More Entries in Pauper Commander:

• 08 Jul 2022: Lotleth Troll
• 10 Jun 2022: Wilson, Agent of the Shadow Thieves
• 31 Mar 2022: Submitting your cPDH Deck
• 18 Mar 2022: Top Personal EDH Parallels for Pauper
• 03 Mar 2022: Neon Dynasty Pauper Commander Precons

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