MTG Salvation

This is certainly a very odd looking creature with very odd abilities... very small lifelink, trample, flying, and flash on a 3/2 body for four mana. I was looking at different options for blue-based Draw-Go type Commanders with Flash, and I was also looking at possibilities for TurboFog Commanders, and Horizon Chimera seems to be the perfect mesh of the two strategies.

Because Pauper EDH lacks Planeswalkers, easy one-hit spell combos, mill combos, lack of efficient burn options, and alternate win conditions, basically all games are won by combat damage. Therefore, in a 1v1 duel setting, Fog effects should be very effective at negating opponent's turns, whether they are are aggro deck, an aggressive Voltron deck, or a control deck (since they need to eventually win with Voltron damage or normal damage of their own to win.) While you're casting Fog effects turn after turn and countering their other spells, Chimera gets flashed in at the opportune moment, gains you a little big of life to get you out of the red zone, and starts swinging with trampling damage. The other bonus is that with his Flash, if you draw an equipment early on, you can play it, cast Chimera later at end of turn, then suit up and start swinging right away.

One important thing to note is that unlike Lorescale Coatl, drawing cards isn't the biggest goal. Coatl's +1/+1 counter per card draw trigger is a much bigger effect than merely gaining 1 life per card drawn. Think of Chimera's lifegain as being similar to Oloro, Ageless Ascetic... not super amazing, but nice to have triggering often without having to enter combat. And once you're drawing plenty of Fog effects and negating their combat steps, it should add up nicely and help counter any early damage you took.

The decklist is nearly complete, I just need to cut 7 cards.



Other considerations that didn't make the cut:

Accorder's Shield, Ancestral Mask, Aqueous Form, Armor of Thorns, Blunt the Assault, Boomerang, Brainstorm, Burst of Strength, Chameleon Blur, Choking Tethers, Choking Vines, Clairvoyance, Clinging Mists, Confound, Crushing Vines, Curfew, Daze, Disperse, Echoing Truth, Eel Umbra, Frantic Search, Griptide, Harrow, Haze Frog, Inspiration, Intervene, Jolrael's Favor, Mana Chains, Mizzium Skin, Mysteries of the Deep, Nullify
Pendrell Flux, Pestermite, Rending Vines, Repel, Repulse, Runner's Bane, Simian Grunts, Skyblinder Staff, Sleeping Potion, Slow Motion, Snapback, Spell Pierce, Spore Frog, Spy Network, Sudden Storm, Terrifying Presence, Traumatic Visions, Vanishing, Volrath's Curse, Voyage's End, Whiplash Trap, Whispersilk Cloak, Gitaxian Probe, Search for Tomorrow

Well, i can tell you I understand how hard it is to cut since most of the cards do well in a strategy like this. That said, if you're gonna cut any of them, I'd consider looking at which aspect of the strategy you're willing to give up to make the others stronger.. like, from what i'm looking at, the main parts of your deck are:
>Fog (duh)
>Counterspells
>Draw
>Pushing damage through (power increasing auras/equipment)
>Protection of your creatures (Regenerate, hexproof, shroud)
>Preventing untap during upkeep

And then it condenses into control/fog and aggression. You could look at one strategy and diminish that in favor of the other. like, give up some counterspells or other control options to give you a faster, more aggressive game, or vice versa where you get rid of things that simply increase power to be sure every game
s in check before swinging in. YOu could go in either direction without losing too much (even reducing control, you still play plenty of draw and fog that you willsurvive off of lifegain and card advantage, or reducing aggression, you can still push through a lot of chip damage over time). Personally, i'd try cutting down the aggressive side, or at least the ones that ONLY do that (like Bonesplitter) and maybe some counterspells that target only creatures since you seem you'd be able to deal with them pretty well without 1 or 2. Speaking of, I knnow Cancel's 3 mana, but i'd rather have a full on hard-counter just in case

I also forgot that Gitaxian Probe is a must include, which makes it 8 cards to cut.

Here's the list of cards I'm feeling the most iffy about:
-Feral Invocation (The flash seems useless honestly. If I'm going to buff, I'm ok with doing it at sorcery speed.)
-Vulshok Morningstar (the 2 mana saved is negated by spells like Favor of the Overbeing and Armor of Thorns)
-Exclude (Cantrip is nice, but 3 mana to counter only creatures is asking for a lot)
-Rewind (Does nothing against a blisteringly fast aggro/Voltron start, and it's also bad against Control matchups)
-Withdraw (This card is much better when you have your own ETB creatures to bounce. An opponent having more than one creature on the battlefield can be handled by Fog)

Serpent Skin might be another option along the reasoning of Feral Invocation, plus if you need to regenerate that's 4 mana you need to dump and gives a smaller bonus than Trollhide. unless you say a cheaper regen cost is worth it, which is completely ok

Wow, I forgot to include Lull. That's embarrassing.

I had narrowed it down to the following 8 cuts:
Shielding Plax
Feral Invocation
Exclude
Rewind
Impulse
Withdraw
False Summoning
Preemptive Strike

Although I think I already cut Preemptive Strike in favor of Nullify. So I guess two more cards to cut?

I would consider running a flash army, with creatures like nephalia seakite, crookclaw transmuter, dewdrop spy, nephalia seakite, pestermite, and sentinels of glen elendra. You could flash in and go to town next turn or you could pull unexpected shenanigans once horizon chimera is already out. If not a full army, at least pestermite to keep their giant attacker held down for two turns or maybe two giant attackers in one turn. Also, there's a handful of decent fog effects like terrifying presence, spore frog, blunt the assault, choking tethers etc. which are perfectly servicable in your "maybe" list. Why is that? can you really have enough fog effects in turbofog? Finally, you don't want to cut shielding plax or exclude. Cards that replace themselves are the bread and butter of draw-go type decks. It lets you draw more times than you have to say "go" and that's exactly what you want. I would certainly pick exclude over remove soul/essence scatter.

Flash army isn't as effective since I want to be winning with Commander damage. They would just be blockers, as if I started attacking it'd require 12 more points of damage. The two flash creatures I do run have deathtouch, so they guarantee killing something at a very low mana cost.

Spore Frog isn't included because he's sorcery speed, so an opponent can point a burn spell at it during my turn, thus wasting the fog. Terrifying Presence is only good once Chimera is on the battlefield. I don't really want to use fog effects that cost more than three mana, which is why Chameleon Blur, Choking Tethers, Blunt the Assault, and Choking Vines didn't make the cut.

The problem with Shielding Plax is if they do counter it, it feels super bad. My feeling is that in 1v1 duel matches, casting the Commander is incredibly important, and I want to maximize the number of two-mana counterspells that can stop an early deployment of the Commander. The two mana tax is far harsher on Pauper because the number of solid ramp spells at common is very limited. You wont have as much access to mana as normal Commander, so every time you counter their Commander is valuable time to get more lands and draw more fogs. Card draw isn't 100% necessary, which is why I'm considering cutting Exclude. These last few cuts are very difficult to decide on however.

EDIT:
Vanishing is making it into the deck. I was playing a multiplayer game last night, and the Gelectrode player cast it on someone else's Lorescale Coatl. We realized that you can Phase out their Commander before they get their untap step, making it not only great for protecting your Commander, but also it completely nullifies their Commander better than any other card in Pauper. Definitely will make it into the deck.

New Commander option for this deck:



Changes would need to be made, but the fact that it has Monstrous and Deathtouch frees up many slots.

And that art. 0_0

Possible cuts: Diminish, Downsize, Mage's Guile, Snakeform, Favor of the Overbeing, Forced Adaptation, Moldervine Cloak, Oakenform, Savage Silhouette, Serpent Skin, Trollhide, Ambush Viper, Winged Coatl, Bonesplitter

Possible adds: Hermetic Study, Psionic Gift, Viridian Longbow, Rampant Growth, Mind Stone, Prismatic Lens, Skyshroud Claim, Island, Nature's Lore, Three Visits, Fellwar Stone, Trinket Mage, Horned Helm, Vorrac Battlehorns, Aether Spellbomb, Vedalken Aethermage