Pauper EDH: All you need to know about PDH rules and how to start playing
Whether you want to start playing EDH on a budget, long for a lower power level of decks that come organically rather than being self-imposed, or you're a Pauper player trying to venture into multiplayer, PDH might be something for you!
Today, I will talk about the rules, the landscape, and the appeal of the format!
Rules
The rules are trivially simple. I'll present all the rules, but highlight the ones that are PDH specific compared to traditional EDH.
- 99-card main deck
- Every card in the main deck has to be unique except for basic lands.
- 1 commander that is any uncommon creature, vehicle, or spacecraft, not necessarily legendary
- Cards in the deck are of the commander's colour identity
- Cards in the main deck are commons
- Starting Life is 30
- Commander Damage is 16
- Cards banned are Mystic Remora and Rhystic Study
The rules are this simple. So, in practice, you grab an uncommon commander, build a deck of 99 commons in the commander's colours, and you can start playing already.
Let's now get into examples of cards from a variety of categories.
Ramp
In the mana acceleration department, we've got the EDH classics: Arcane Signet, the cycle of 10 Ravnica signets, various land searchers, and creature mana dorks.
Regardless of the colours you're building, you can very easily slot some ramp in.
Interaction
No, this is not a cEDH slide. All these cards are perfectly legal in both Pauper and PDH. You can play hyper-efficient interaction in this format to thwart the opponent's plans.
Card selection and card draw
You've got some of the best card selection spells like Brainstorm, Ponder, or Preordain, coupled with Treasure Cruise, Pauper-banned Deadly Dispute, and an all-timer Faithless Looting, among many others.
Threats
The range of threats is likewise very broad. You've got a strong assortment of aggressive red threats, spell-based blue creatures, overstated green, utility white, and graveyard-centric black - and so many more in between.
Within the same colour, you'll find threats of different flavour though. In black, you'll have big creatures, but also lifelink, synergies with sacrifice, recursion; in blue, there will be utility creatures, but also small flyers, ninjas. The list truly goes on.
Commander ideas
While uncommon legendaries can also be used in traditional EDH, here I want to draw your attention to creatures that you cannot play anywhere else as commanders other than here.
Azorius Soulherder flicker, Rakdos Sacrifice Mayhem Devil pingers, Izzet Third Path Iconoclast spell slinger, Simic Risen Reef Elementals, Colorless Glaring Fleshraker Tron.
Personally, I'd probably want to Rule 0 in my own play group to *only* use nonlegendary uncommon creatures just to see this unexplored territory manifest in deck brewing.
Resources
If you're just as curious as I am on the ins and outs of the format, there are resources out there that I will happily shout out.
- PDHREC for deck inspirations
- PDH Homebase for the rules
- Some PDH paper gameplay videos:
Conclusion
As far as I'm concerned, you're equipped now with both the knowledge and inspiration to delve into the world of Pauper EDH.
You can build your decks super thematically, you can take a more good-stuffy route, or find something completely unknown and build around that.
I hope you have fun with it!
Cheers!