This deck was inspired by the
Mist-Syndicate Naga
+
Slither Blade
combo, and since I'm a slut for tribal decks I wanted to see how far I could push Naga. The deck plays pretty fast and aggressive for blue, putting in a good midrange spot with the high value cards, consistent games, and a surprising amount of graveyard play.
First up is
Sai of the Shinobi
, which on the surface looks pretty weak. A +1/+1 for 1 with equip 2 isn't exactly a threat, but it being able to attach itself to creatures for free as they hit the field is the important part and gives this equipment huge synergies with the rest of the deck. Works great with any of your creatures to swing for more damage, be bulkier blockers, or survive burn, and works with a couple of the Naga especially well. Mist-Syndicate Naga is a no brainer, it can attach itself when he shinobis in for more damage, and then attach itself to the copy token for a better blocker. But it pairs even better with
Champion of Wits
, equipping itself before the card draw, turning an ability that normally just filters cards into something that can net you card advantage. Getting this card out early greases the wheels for the rest of the game, and getting multiples out can get out of control quickly.
On theme with Sai is
Smoke Shroud
. An enchant that gives +1/+1 and flying for 2 isn't the best on its own, but the ability to recur from the graveyard whenever your Mist-Syndicate (or his copies) hit the field, while giving them the evasion they need to make more tokens is both powerful and annoying. The graveyard recursion is also important here as it allows you to freely pitch these into the graveyard to things like Campion of Wits or Taigam's Scheming so you can pull them back out with your trusty ninja.
Another card you'll be wanting to throw into graveyard as you dig through your deck is
Defy Gravity
. Instant speed flying for a single blue is good value, allowing you to swing freely with your token engine, or provide an unexpected blocker against an enemies flyer, as well as pump up your Spellweaver Eternal with prowess. Once again being able to play this from the graveyard is hugely important to the value of the card.
By now you are probably wondering where the Naga are.. I promise they are in here!
Slither Blade
and
Mist-Syndicate Naga
are pretty self explanatory. Slither Blade is a great value as a 1/2 for 1, and the unblockable is a huge enabler for Mist-Syndicate. Mist-Syndicate on the other hand is your primary win condition, trying to overwhelm your opponent with unblockable or flying snakes and their token copies before they can stabilize. The Ninjutsu ability on Mist-Syndicate gets some extra value out of bouncing your
Champion of Wits
back to hand for more card advantage when you drop them again. Champion of Wits is good at finding your combo pieces by filtering through your deck, and gets even better when the things you are discarding are things you will be playing again from the grave anyway, including other Champions or Tah-Crop Skirmishers with their Eternalize and Embalm keywords. Yes,
Tah-Crop Skirmisher
, the 2/1 for 2.. not even a proper bear, but it is on theme! Not just that, but the deck really wanted some 2 drops that can be played early and buffed with sai+smoke, or used as chumpers, but that I could also play from the graveyard so I can more freely filter past them and this guy fit the bill.
Spellweaver Eternal
is the other 2 drop body in the deck and what it lacks in recursion it makes up for in keywords. Prowess is great, getting pumped whenever you play a noncreature spell gives you that extra oomph when you drop a Smoke Shroud on it or cast Defy Gravity as a combat trick. The Afflict keyword is also nasty for getting in some guaranteed damage, and can work well with
Chain of Vapor
if you want Spellweaver to survive by either bouncing it or the creature blocking it, while still getting off that extra damage. Spellweaver is great at making declaring blockers shitty for your opponent, and adds a layer of uncertainty to combat that your ninjas will really enjoy.
The last Naga on the list is
Ramunap Excavator
. This oddball is the only green card in the deck (besides Bala Ged Recovery, which is mostly played as a land), and there's only two of them because they really only exist to help you get past the mid game when you start running out of steam. They are not a card you want to see in your opening hand, but will be something you search for with Taigam's Scheming and Champion of Wits. Being able to play lands from the yard is really important, because most of the time you will be pitching them into your graveyard as you look for your combo pieces in the early game. Without him I was struggling to get more than 4 lands on the field, making it difficult to pay for all the spells I was drawing with Champion, or unable to afford the Embalm/Eternalize costs when my yard was full. Ramunap helps pull all those lands out in the mid to late game to help fuel those expensive recursion costs, and combos well with some of the utility lands.
Mystic Sanctuary
pulls Taigam's Scheming out of the yard for surveil on steroids or pulls Chain of Vapor out for even more fun we will get to in a minute.
Waterlogged Grove
is a cheap and repeatable way to draw more cards (maybe even the card you brought back with Mystic Sanctuary) and
Ghost Quarter
is obligatory repeatable land destruction, but targeting my own lands can help recur other utility effects and is the only way I can shuffle my own library. Ramunap really elevates the graveyard play.
Taigam's Scheming
is largely considered a bad card. Paying 2 mana and burning a card to Surveil 5 is usually card disadvantage, but in a deck like this it's easy to see how this is the glue holding things together. Not only does Scheming dig deep and rearrange your draws to pull cards you need to the top and set yourself up, but it fills your graveyard up with things like Smoke Shroud or Defy Gravity that you can use from the graveyard right away, or Tah-Crop/Champion which you'll be bringing back as zombies later, and especially lands you don't want to draw, helping keep you from flooding out (or sometimes pulling that island you desperately need to the top in a drought). When you are playing so much from the graveyard, this pseudo surveil is effectively putting those cards in your hand. This is a niche Taigam's Scheming was built for.
Last but not least is the infamous
Chain of Vapor
. Great at removing pesky blockers, or protecting fragile combo pieces.. or both at a cost. Normally blowing up your own lands to bounce a creature isn't advised, but sometimes you're really in a bind. And then sometimes you have lands with ETB effects like Mystic Sanctuary that you can blow up and then play again with Excavator to put Chain of Vapor back on top of your library, while bouncing your Champion of Wits back to hand to be played again to draw your Chain. Then it's all upsides, baby! The versatility of this card at instant speed and for 1 mana is just insane.
While this deck can certainly combo off, and is incredibly fun to play, it is rather fragile. While it is fairly consistent thanks to all of the filtering, nothing is immune to back luck. If it is too slow at finding it's combo it can be easily overrun by true aggro decks, or locked up by control. And since it is trying to beat people down fairly quickly, it's weak against life gain and taxes. Chain of Vapor can help mitigate some lifelink, or bounce some taxing permanents for a turn, but it does get tricky. That said, it's just a kitchen table brew for some fun with friends and shouldn't be looked at too closely through a competitive lens. Thanks for listening to my TED talk.
