Hello Ladies and Gentlemen, yet another time!
My last post has left my keyboard still a bit warm and I'm already writing another due to the fact that I didn't post ANYTHING last week and we're pretty much getting to an end with this week too. Gotta catch up boyz and gurlz!
Without further ado let's get going:
Yeah, I'm talking Nephilim! (taha, who would've guessed from a title like that......) Alright they're basically not Legendary so they're not allowed in competitive EDH play but look at those guys and look at their flavortexts... It doesn't get much legendarier (is that a word?!) than that! Even Mark Rosewater stated in an article on the mothership: "I'd errata the Nephilim to be legendary in a heartbeat if I was allowed to do such a thing."
Let's start with the most unexciting one of them all:
Of all the Nephilim this is the only one I don't really like. Four colors, offers a lot of value and still he is soooooo boring. The effect is simply too linear for my taste... but here is my approach:
Mr. Yore van Tiller offers everything you'll need for a strong reanimator theme. White and black for actual reanimation spells, blue, black and red for card draw and looting effects that fuel your hand and graveyard and then red for haste and blue for protection through counterspells. The rest, one could say, is history...
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Now this is where things get real. One of the most interessting things about his effect is that the player controlling the Nephilim is controlling the copies too. This can get handy - sometimes people will refuse to play removal on the Nephilim just because you will get too much value out of it, because a) any removal will turn into a mass removal of some sort and b) if the removal has a upside (like Annihilate) you'll get quite a bunch of value. And that is exactly how I would shape the deck - Value Overload! A bunch of cantrips that target a creature, creatures with enter the battlefield effects and cards like these:
Top left to bottom right:
- Dismiss into Dream: On itself it is for sure a solid card but once you combine it Ink-Treader stuff gets real. Each targeting spell now reads "If you targeted Ink-Treader, your opponents have to sacrifice each creature that doesn't have shroud/hexproof." Pretty solid...
- Possibiliy Storm: There is a possibility (...) that this is my favourite card ever even though it doesn't have storm (..........). Puns aside you cannot imagine how well this card does for the deck. If you cast any removal on the Nephilim for example, his trigger copies it onto each and every targetable creature and then Pssibility Strom "cascades" it away which means your Nephilim lives another turn AND you'll get another free spell out of the deal.
- Change of Heart: You can copy it with Ink-Treader and then buyback, making this a "build-your-own"-Fog-effect.
- Lightning Helix: Removal with upside, like I mentioned. It might not kill every creature but still 3 life/creature is a good deal for RW and it hits stuff like Prophet of Kruphix.
- Snap: Mass-Bounce that allows you to replay your board right away or generate loads of mana to play a big spell.
- Rite of Replication: Even without Kicker the value can get insane (did I mention that I would play ETB-creatures?). With Kicker ...... words cannot describe what would happen.
- Spiraling Embers: With all those cantrips your hand can get preeeeetty big, so it is even a valid kill condition.
- Dramatic Rescue: Its kind of a hybrid between Lightning Helix and Snap, suited best for surviving big swings towards your face netting you a bunch of life, making you able to replay your ETB creatures and halting the assault. A rescue indeed.
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Not quite as exciting as Ink-Treader Nephilim, but still he offers a few paths to build a deck. Whenever he connects you can draw two cards but unfortunately the lack of white makes him rather unsuited for any Equipment/Enchantment-Voltron-Shenanigans as white is the most supportive color for that. Other than that you can go two ways with the deck I think: Controlish with him as a card draw/selection source or using his discard ability even more going with a reanimator/combo theme.
Both have their strengths and weaknesses and I'm not sure which one I'd personally play but here are some key cards I would play. The thing is that all those decktypes work perfectly with the colors blue, red and black, but with being able to play green as a fourth color you'll have access to ramp and mana-fixing:
Control:
I think the best way to approach this is attacking the biggest weakness of control in Multiplayer-EDH, which is that if you try to control the whole table your mana gets overloaded pretty easily. The thing is if you have to play an answer every turn you won't have enough if you want to play something to actually win you the game too. That's why cards with delve are pretty nice to have, especially if your commander can enable them while not making card disadvantage. Cards with madness are basically the same, most of the time they're way cheaper and they can be played instant-speed that way. And once you're in complete control of the game you're able to cast a big finishing spell and win,... probably!
Combo:
The both cards in the middle are pretty standard stuff in spellbased combo decks. The thing is that Glint-Eye can turn the spells you will want to play into cards via his discard ability. You then can play the new cards from your hand while you still have access to the discarded card via Yawgmoth's Will and other card like it. If you manage to add Burning Vengeance to the equation all the recurring of spells that most likely generate mana and cards can actually kill people.
My favourite piece of tech though is the mirror. If you manage to get a bunch of cards into the exile you can do the following: Dump your full grip in something that I would call a "setupturn" filtering through cards, getting rid of cards that can prevent/interrupt your comboturn and then in the actual "comboturn" you can switch your empty hand for a new, full grip with preferably 10+ cards and go off.
Reanimator:
Pretty straight forward, Glint-Eye lets you discard the creatures, so we reanimate them... as easy as that. Basically while the deck around Yore-Tiller Nephilim is there for supplying him with reanimation targets, the deck around Glint-Eye works the other way round: Glint-Eye serves as the fuel machine and the rest of the deck reanimates/recurs said "fuel".
Good god, I guess everyone needs a break now... So I'll split the Nephilim Brainstorming Session into two parts: 2 interessting ones today and 2 interessting ones next time! (Sry, but I just hate Yore-Tiller)
See you around!
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