Would Naya Humans be a playable deck
Modern forum
Posted on Oct. 7, 2014, 7:14 p.m. by MTGMania
I recently got back into Magic after taking a break and I used to play standard back in Innistrad-RTR. I looked through my old decks and noticed my favorite deck sitting there. Boros Humans. I really don't want to keep buying and upgrading standard decks and I would much rather settle down for a while in a different format. Modern always interested me but the prices didn't. I don't want to have to play a butt load for 4x Dark Confidants. I've always wanted to play Naya Humans and I was wondering if it was playable in modern and if it would do well against other modern all-stars. If so what are some good Naya cards (they don't all have to be humans :P).
TL;DR Is Naya Humans Playable in modern.
That point of playing humans is that I would be able to reuse cards that I had in my old deck so that I wouldn't have to spend that much on new ones. Like I said about the confidants I am definitely not dishing out the money for Tarmogoyfs.
October 7, 2014 7:25 p.m.
Well you could try to homebrew a deck with a main focus on green white exalted, splashing red for removal/burn but I do not know how good it would be in the modern meta. It would give you a fun aggroish deck however you would probably want Noble Hierarch for a deck like that but she is expensive as well. It is definitely worth trying on cockatrice or something like that.
October 7, 2014 7:34 p.m.
but zoo is definitely the best deck naya has to offer so far
October 7, 2014 7:35 p.m.
That sounds like a good idea! I was going for more of a blend of all of them because they all seem to have sufficient removal, so that wouldn't be a problem. Red and Green would give me access to Huntmaster and BTE and Domri. And Heirachs are sligthly above the price I want a single to be at.
October 7, 2014 7:37 p.m.
Define playable.
Will it be a deck that can occasionally win games? Sure, you could straight port the old Naya Blitz deck and win. Curving a Champion of the Parish into Burning-Tree Emissary with Lightning Mauler is pretty brutal. And you get to take out some of the bad cards and run better things like Lightning Bolt and a better mana base.
Will it be good or competitive? No. There's just much better things you can be doing in Modern, and the plethora of cheap removal in the format makes tribal synergy decks really bad. Heck, the old Naya Humans deck had a bad enough time with a card like Flames of the Firebrand . Now you can get it at instant speed and it draws a card, Electrolyze .
October 7, 2014 7:44 p.m.
CrazyLittleGuy says... #8
Playable? Sure. Tier 1? Not really. But then, any skilled pilot can win their local FNMs with good playing and a moderately good deck. It won't take down PTQs or SCG Opens, but it'll be fun to pilot and build, even more so since it's your own.
October 7, 2014 7:46 p.m.
Hmmm... you make a good point Slycne, do you have ideas for any other particularly cheap decks that don't require miracle draws to win?
October 7, 2014 7:46 p.m.
quesobueno123 says... #10
MTGMania Threw together a list Naya Humans but burn is buildable cheap.
October 7, 2014 7:48 p.m.
Naya Humans is definitely a solid deck in Modern, especially once you add Path to Exile , Lightning Bolt , Knight of the Reliquary , and (if your budget allows) Tarmogoyf .
I wouldn't say Naya Zoo is better, just that Humans is a different deck. Champion of the Parish is harder to grow than Wild Nacatl , but it gets bigger the longer your opponent doesn't deal with it. Thalia, Guardian of Thraben maindeck ruins a lot of days for a lot of decks.
You're trading off value creatures and some consistency for more explosive hands and synergy.
October 7, 2014 7:51 p.m.
Thank you for throwing together that deck it definitely helped my visualize it better. As for what sylvannos added I definitely agree that the cards you suggested would be good and as for Naya Zoo last time I looked at the decklist it involved some expensive cards. I'm also open to putting Nacatl into my humans deck. I am running some non-human creatures.
October 7, 2014 7:55 p.m.
MTGMania If you're looking to cheaply get into Modern. Burn or Storm are your best bets, especially if you cheat on the consistency a little and run them without fetches.
October 7, 2014 7:56 p.m.
Also a point about what sly said I was looking to make it similar to that old Blitz deck while replacing the weak cards with modern all-stars.
October 7, 2014 7:57 p.m.
I like the idea of storm, does it do well particularly?
October 7, 2014 8:04 p.m.
quesobueno123 says... #16
MTGMania Fairly, it is a fun deck to pilot, but takes a while to master.
October 7, 2014 8:11 p.m.
Sounds like my type of deck, can it hold it's own against other decks though?
October 7, 2014 8:13 p.m.
@MTGMania: I play Storm myself. It's really meta dependent. It does really well against Zoo, R/G Tron, and a lot of the decks that lack instant-speed removal.
It's also one of the hardest decks in the format to play. Executing the actual combo itself is easy. Knowing when to go off, however, is the hard part.
Not to mention, it's also Jon Finkel's favorite deck in Modern, so that should tell you something hahaa.
October 7, 2014 8:40 p.m.
I ran this during innistrad. Fairly cheap to build, and relatively potent.
October 7, 2014 8:42 p.m.
"Playable" sure. I wouldn't bank on it winning a lot, but it can be good. Champion of the Parish , Kessig Malcontents , Thatcher Revolt , Burning-Tree Emissary , Lightning Mauler , Thalia, Guardian of Thraben , Silverblade Paladin , hell maybe even Gaddock Teeg if you get a little out of the humans aspect. You get a nice little aggro weenies deck.
October 7, 2014 8:55 p.m.
Fetches are not a necessity. I personally don't even like them.
October 7, 2014 8:57 p.m.
Although storm seems to be a really solid option, I'm not sure I'd be able to execute the combo. I've seen it played and it puzzles me every time. As for Kahnye's deck that looks extremely similar to what I had in mind, I'll probably playtest it at a later date.
October 7, 2014 9:17 p.m.
Storm seems like a solid option although I'm not one to grasp combos, I've seen it go off many times and it puzzles me every time. As for the Naya Humans that looks extremely similar to what I had in mind, how has it fared in modern Kahnye?
October 7, 2014 9:20 p.m.
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/lightning-heros/
This is one the decks that I play in modern, very fast and pretty resilient. I used to play it with no fetches and can say the arid mesas dont make the hugest impact. If you wanted to play Naya, Zoo would be the best bet and that's pretty expensive although you have alternatives to tarmogoyf (experiment one and scavenging ooze are solid fill ins). If you are like me though, fast humans is pretty fun especially when you can shell out 17 damage by turn 3.
October 7, 2014 9:58 p.m.
It has fared well sir. Cavern turn 1 into Champion of the Parish really hurts all the control decks, jund can come online fairly fast, but usually if everything is going well I am dropping Hellrider with 2-3 creatures out. There is plenty of removal in the format, but the curve is so low, that unless they have consistent board wipes, spot removal is too slow to combat your foot on the pedal.
October 8, 2014 12:16 a.m.
NotSoLuckyLydia says... #28
If you want a card like Hellrider after coming off a bunch of cheap weenies, why not run Gruul Shamans? It uses Rage Forger as a three drop hellrider, sometimes leading to a win on turn three with the right setup. You already likely have the Cavern of Souls , the most expensive card in the deck, and none of the creatures cost very much at all.
This is a list I've been testing with, but haven't tinkered with much lately. Modern Gruul Shaman
If you borrow/already own/just don't use Blood Moon , the deck will drop to under 120 bucks.
October 8, 2014 2:38 p.m.
difference between Hellrider and Rage Forger is the haste. at worst Hellrider is 4 cmc for 4 dmg if no creatures on board. with any kind of a presence on the board, Hellrider swings the same turn and add more umph. also having 4 Cavern of Souls , i usually call "devil with one of them :)
October 8, 2014 2:42 p.m.
NotSoLuckyLydia says... #30
If you're using Hellrider as a 4 drop burn spell in a hyper-agressive deck, and your opponent isn't at 4, you're already probably not winning that game. Note that Rage Forger also puts a +1/+1 counter on all your creatures. That'll generally be enough to go for a turn three win, if you Burning Tree'd.
October 8, 2014 7:16 p.m.
If you want an inexpensive deck to play I'd recommend Burn/RDW It's actually really strong, I go 3-1 or better every time I bust it out at FNM. And it's really fun to play if you like to be the beatdown player.
And if your looking at later expanding it you can build it into U/R Delver. The only expensive cards are the fetches and they are very affordable in Khans right now. I'm picking them up as I get store credit or from trades and I'm 5 of having the full sett. Getting them all while Khans is drafted will let you play more decks in the future with little extra investment.
October 9, 2014 4:39 a.m.
Naya Humans is buildable but by far the best shell for Naya is hatebears. It has a strong human element and can built to be an aggro hatebears with Champion of the Parish as a strong 1 drop and the extremely strong Eidolon of the Great Revel on two (not a human, still awesome). Eidolon and 4 Thalia screw up most modern decks.
October 9, 2014 5:01 a.m.
All these suggestions sound good, I tried burn and I don't think it's my style. I think I'm going with Naya Humans (not all humans). How well do you think it'll do at an FNM.
October 9, 2014 9:53 a.m.
HAving a decklist to discuss will be good :) Put it up on the site.
October 9, 2014 9:57 a.m.
Alright I'll have it up soon under this forum or under deck help :).
October 9, 2014 9:58 a.m.
Alright I threw together a deck. This is in NO way the final version. I am open to card suggestions.
quesobueno123 says... #2
Tarmogoyf , Wild Nacatl , Kird Ape , Courser of Kruphix . You basically would be building zoo.
October 7, 2014 7:21 p.m.