Najeela Shuffle Hulk cEDH

Commander / EDH Combo Competitive Five Color

deakmana

Instant (30)

• 1x Abrupt Decay
• 1x Assassin's Trophy
• 1x Autumn's Veil
• 1x Brainstorm
• 1x Chain of Vapor
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Delay
• 1x Dispel
• 1x Dovin's Veto
• 1x Eladamri's Call
• 1x Fire Covenant
• 1x Flash
• 1x Flusterstorm
• 1x Force of Will
• 1x Lat-Nam's Legacy
• 1x Lim-Dul's Vault
• 1x Memory's Journey
• 1x Mental Misstep
• 1x Mystical Tutor
• 1x Nature's Claim
• 1x Negate
• 1x Noxious Revival
• 1x Pact of Negation
• 1x Red Elemental Blast
• 1x Silence
• 1x Spell Pierce
• 1x Summoner's Pact
• 1x Swan Song
• 1x Vampiric Tutor
• 1x Worldly Tutor

Sorcery (8)

• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Diabolic Intent
• 1x Gaea's Blessing
• 1x Gitaxian Probe
• 1x Imperial Seal
• 1x Merchant Scroll
• 1x Ponder
• 1x Preordain

Land (29)

• 1x Arid Mesa
• 1x Badlands
• 1x Bayou
• 1x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Breeding Pool
• 1x City of Brass
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Exotic Orchard
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 1x Forest
• 1x Hallowed Fountain
• 1x Mana Confluence
• 1x Marsh Flats
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 1x Overgrown Tomb
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Savannah
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 1x Scrubland
• 1x Taiga
• 1x Tarnished Citadel
• 1x Tropical Island
• 1x Tundra
• 1x Underground Sea
• 1x Verdant Catacombs
• 1x Volcanic Island
• 1x Waterlogged Grove
• 1x Windswept Heath
• 1x Wooded Foothills

Enchantment (7)

• 1x Carpet of Flowers
• 1x Druids' Repository
• 1x Mystic Remora
• 1x Nature's Will
• 1x Sylvan Library
• 1x Utopia Sprawl
• 1x Wild Growth

Commander (1)

Creature (20)

• 1x Avacyn's Pilgrim
• 1x Aven Mindcensor
• 1x Birds of Paradise
• 1x Cephalid Illusionist
• 1x Dark Confidant
• 1x Deathrite Shaman
• 1x Derevi, Empyrial Tactician
• 1x Edric, Spymaster of Trest
• 1x Elves of Deep Shadow
• 1x Fyndhorn Elves
• 1x Llanowar Elves
• 1x Mindblade Render
• 1x Narcomoeba
• 1x Noble Hierarch
• 1x Nomads en-Kor
• 1x Protean Hulk
• 1x Spellseeker
• 1x Tymna the Weaver
• 1x Viscera Seer
• 1x Zulaport Cutthroat

Artifact (5)

• 1x Chrome Mox
• 1x Lotus Petal
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Mox Diamond
• 1x Sol Ring

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Maybeboard

Creature (3)

• 1x Elvish Spirit Guide
• 1x Gilded Drake
• 1x Wild Cantor

Artifact (1)

• 1x Null Rod

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What is Najeela Shuffle Hulk (NSH)?

Najeela Shuffle Hulk is a fast and resilient competitive EDH deck that has 2 compact and opposite combo lines to

Why play NSH?

1. 5 colors means you can run the best cards for the strategy regardless of color
2. Najeela Hulk is very adaptive. If one strategy gets blocked, its unlikely the other one will be
3. It's fast. Najeela lines can win by turn 3-4 frequently. Hulk can go off even faster.
4. Najeela is a threat by herself which is not often the case for 3 mana commanders. The pressure from her can open up opportunities
5. It's resilient. Najeela can be re-casted fairly easily and Flash can win the game at any time. The shuffle hulk line can get around some interaction that normal breakfast hulk lines have difficulty with ( Faerie Macabre , Scavenger Grounds , Rule of Law )
6. It's flexible. There are plenty of meta cards that can be slotted into Najeela without harming the core of the deck.

Why not to play NSH?

1. Its heavy on non-basics and could get hurt especially hard by Moon effects and Back to Basics
2. 5-colors makes the manabase expensive. Duals could be budgeted to shocks, but fetches probably can't be compromised without greatly hurting consistency

How does it work?

NSH has 2 main combo lines to win. The backup strategy is beatdown using her ability when possible, which has exponential growth.

Najeela Line
Najeela can combo with any of Derevi, Empyrial Tactician / Druids' Repository / Nature's Will . Najeela's untap ability can be used after damage has been dealth, but still in the combat step to create infinite combat steps.

Shuffle Hulk Line
The Shuffle Hulk line is a Flash + Protean Hulk combo that requires few slots, wins at instant speed, and has combo pieces that are useful outside of the combo. The line is as follows:
1. Cast Flash with Protean Hulk in hand and choose the hulk
2. After Flash resolves, Hulk will trigger. Choose Cephalid Illusionist , Nomads en-Kor , Zulaport Cutthroat , and Viscera Seer .
3. Use Nomads en-Kor ability to target Cephalid Illusionist , triggering the illusionist and milling 3 cards. Repeat this until you hit Narcomoeba and put it into play. (Note: if you hit Gaea's Blessing first, hold priority on it's trigger and continue until you hit the Narcomoeba )
4. Sacrifice Narcomoeba to Viscera Seer , triggering Zulaport Cutthroat . Now resolve the Gaea's Blessing if you have already milled it, otherwise mill until you hit the Gaea's Blessing .
5. Repeat

This line is resilient for a few reasons:
The combo works at instant speed, which means you can win in response to someone else trying to win themselves, or tapping out for something.
When you get the hulk creatures in play, they also have some protection. The best time an opponent can remove a combo piece would be in response to the Gaea's Blessing shuffle effect. While the deck has counterspell backup, it also has a Memory's Journey . If you have 1 green open, you could then respond by milling the Memory's Journey into the graveyard, casting it target the Gaea's Blessing , and then simply continuing the combo with their removal on the stack.

Individual Card Choices

Autumn's Veil - This card is fairly versatile in the list. Its most frequently used in decks that don't run blue to act as a pseudo-counterspell. The reason I included it in here is because it can pull double duty by protecting creature combo pieces from removal such as Abrupt Decay or Fire Covenant and also by functioning as a 1 mana counterspell to push through a combo piece. Another advantage it has is the mana cost. Usually during gameplay, lands should be fetched to provide mana of each color, allowing Najeela to combo. Because of this, sometimes there may not be enough blue to cast multiple counterspells after trying to get Flash or something through. The variance of mana cost helps by letting the lands stay varied instead of skewing blue

Zulaport Cutthroat - I chose Zulaport over Blood Artist because he can cause triggers from Derevi, Nature's Will, and Edric. Blood Artist is generally more versatile as he can potentially stop other players' combos. This is really a meta call.

Lat-Nam's Legacy - This is included to reduce awkward hands where you've drawn any Flash/Hulk pieces that you would rather have in the deck. This is a playstyle choice and is a flex spot, but I've appreciated it and think overall it makes things less clunky.

Slaughter Pact - A pretty good 0 mana removal spell that can stop some surprises from ruining your day. Notably it kills Aven Mindcensor , Containment Priest , Linvala, Keeper of Silence , Magus of the Moon . This is another slot that could be something else and I may change later. Likely I would run Fire Covenant here. Also an edge case it can hit Protean Hulk that you've cast.

Notable Exclusions

I'll add more here as questions arise.

Gaea's Cradle - I originally ran this and discovered that it's not good here. There's nothing to do with the excess green mana when the deck really favors having diverse mana. I can't think of a reason why I would want to add it back in.

Enlightened Tutor - Most straight Najeela decks run this, but its too limited here. The tutors the deck runs can get pieces for either Najeela combo or Hulk Flash.

Mana Drain - I had this for a while in the deck and the mana cost was too often prohibitive. Additionally the mana gained from it was rarely usable as the curve of the deck is extremely low.

General Strategy

The most common hands I keep are ones that can get a turn 1 or 2 Najeela or have the cards and tutors to set up a quick FlashHulk win. Other hands I might keep are turn 3 Najeela, but with good draw and interaction (like something with a 1cc Counterspell, a tutor, and a Sylvan Library for instance) or just about any hand with a turn 1 Mystic Remora .

Hands that don't have these things in general I send back, even ones that may seem solid. Such as:

Preordain, Land, Land, Land, Edric, Nature's Claim, Nature's Will

This could be a potentially dangerous keep even though it has a card that combos with Najeela, hand manipulation, and a piece of removal. It doesn't threaten fast enough and it doesn't have enough interaction to deal with other fast decks.

More to come on midgame....

Top Ranked	Achieved #30 position overall 5 years ago
Date added	5 years
Last updated	3 years
Legality	This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	4 - 0 Mythic Rares 53 - 0 Rares 20 - 0 Uncommons 22 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	1.62
Tokens	Bird 2/2 U, Warrior 1/1 W
Folders	Decks for Reference, Want to build, Competitive Builds, Najeela, Najeela Commander Builds, NICE, Interesting Lists