Magic the Gathering - Pauper Commander / EDH (PDH) - Ascended Lawmage

by  ElspethFTW, Old School Duelist

Dragon’s Maze is known as one of the weakest overall sets in recent years, at least as far as rares were concerned. There were a couple of decent mythics: Voice of Resurgence and Blood Baron of Vizkopa. Master of Cruelties has seen play in Commander, as well. But as a draft set, Dragon’s Maze was pretty good. It had a good number of playable commons and uncommons. One of those very playable uncommons was  Ascended Lawmage.

Ascended Lawmage has seen some fringe Standard play and has been a favorite among those who have played Return to Ravnica-block Limited. The Lawmage is a 3/2 flyer for 2WU that also has Hexproof. The Hexproof is what really counts here. As a Pauper Commander, you suit him up and send him in for the kill. In Pauper Commander, you don’t always have to deal 21 Commander damage as in regular Commander; some playgroups set it as low as 15-18.

In some ways,  Ascended Lawmage is like the  Bruna, Light of Alabaster of Pauper Commander. While he doesn’t have the ability to simply have a bunch of enchantments thrown onto him, the deck is built to out-tempo opponents while suiting the Lawmage up to be able to deal lethal damage. Dealing with Hexproof Commanders is very hard to do in Pauper, as you might imagine.

There are a couple of ways you can build an Ascended Lawmage deck. One way is to build a deck that focuses more around having multiple Hexproof flyers to complement the Lawmage. A decklist I found on MetaMox, Swift Peasant Justice, does just that. It complements the Lawmage with Hexproof creatures such as Aven Fleetwing and Benthic Giant, as well as Elguad Shieldmate, which gives both herself and whoever she Soulbonds with hexproof. Then there are tempo creatures such as AEthersnipe, Mist Raven and Voidwielder, which can bounce opponent’s creatures back to their hands. There are some Bestow creatures to power up your Hexproof creatures, including the Lawmage, and Exalted creatures to give your Lawmage an extra boost when attacking alone.

The rest of the deck includes a bevy of Auras to beef up your Commander and his escorts, as well as other Enchantments to deal with getting problem creatures out of the way. Many great Auras exist at the common rarity, some from much older sets, that you may not even know about until building Pauper EDH lists.

Here is that list that I found on MetaMox. There may be a few tweaks I would make here and there, but overall it’s a really solid list.

Swift Peasant Justice

Commander

Ascended Lawmage

Lands (37)
1 Azorius Chancery
1 Azorius Guildgate
1 Bant Panorama
1 Drifting Meadow
1 Esper Panorama
1 Evolving Wilds
1 Halimar Depths
1 Haunted Fengraf
10 Island
1 Kabira Crossroads
1 Lonely Sandbar
1 New Benalia
1 Opal Palace
10 Plains
1 Remote Isle
1 Secluded Steppe
1 Sejiri Steppe
1 Soaring Seacliff
1 Terramorphic Expanse

Creatures (27)
1 Akroan Skyguard
1 Angelic Page
1 Auramancer
1 Aven Fleetwing
1 Aven Squire
1 Æthersnipe
1 Benthic Giant
1 Dawnglare Invoker
1 Deepwater Hypnotist
1 Elgaud Shieldmate
1 Floodtide Serpent
1 Glimmering Angel
1 Guardians of Akrasa
1 Hopeful Eidolon
1 Impaler Shrike
1 Kor Sanctifiers
1 Mist Raven
1 Mulldrifter
1 Nimbus Naiad
1 Ninja of the Deep Hours
1 Nyxborn Shieldmate
1 Nyxborn Triton
1 Observant Alseid
1 Oreskos Sun Guide
1 Sphinx’s Disciple
1 Stealer of Secrets
1 Voidwielder

Non-Creature Spells (35)
1 Aqueous Form
1 Brilliant Halo
1 Cage of Hands
1 Call to Serve
1 Capashen Standard
1 Celestial Flare
1 Divine Verdict
1 Eel Umbra
1 Empyrial Armor
1 Ethereal Armor
1 Excoriate
1 Flight of Fancy
1 Ghostly Wings
1 Hands of Binding
1 Hyena Umbra
1 Infiltrator’s Magemark
1 Into the Roil
1 Kjeldoran Pride
1 Knightly Valor
1 Last Breath
1 Last Thoughts
1 Narcolepsy
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Ocular Halo
1 Ophidian Eye
1 Pacifism
1 Ray of Dissolution
1 Revoke Existence
1 Rhystic Study
1 Spectral Flight
1 Steel of the Godhead
1 Triclopean Sight
1 Vapor Snag
1 Viscerid Armor
1 Way of the Thief

The other way to build an  Ascended Lawmage  deck would be to focus more on the Control element, using more card filtering such as Ponder, Preordain and Brainstorm, and more counterspells such as Logic Knot, Mana Leak, Rewind (most recently printed at Uncommon, but originally printed at Common), among others. The more creature-heavy builds are the ones I would personally favor, however, especially in a format that definitely favors board presence more than traditional Commander, as board-wipes simply don’t exist in this format.

The best part about this deck that it would probably cost between $5-10 to build, the majority of that being Hyena Umbra and Rhystic Study. Most of these cards you probably have laying around or are cards you could acquire extremely cheaply.

Would you ever consider playing this sort of deck? Or are there other Azorius (Blue/White) builds that you would prefer? Personally, I think this is one of the stronger decks in the format.

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