Najeela, the Blade-Blossom

Legendary Creature — Human Warrior

Whenever a Warrior attacks, you may have its controller create a 1/1 white Warrior creature token that's tapped and attacking.

: Untap all attacking creatures. They gain trample, lifelink, and haste until end of turn. After this phase, there is an additional combat phase. Activate this ability only during combat.

Discussion (50)

plakjekaas on Changing Commanders

1 week ago

I do this all the time. My Mina and Denn, Wildborn landfall was turned into Rhonas the Indomitable big mana, into Omnath, Locus of Mana big mana storm. My The Locust God wheels&draw deck, at least the red part, got absorbed into Neheb, Dreadhorde Champion . My boros equipment commander used to be Archangel Avacyn  ^Flip, then went jeskai for a bit with Akiri, Line-Slinger / Ludevic, Necro-Alchemist , and then back to boros, with Akiri+ Ardenn, Intrepid Archaeologist . Athreos, God of Passage split up in Heliod, God of the Sun and Rankle, Master of Pranks . 5c Golos, Tireless Pilgrim enchantress went Klothys, God of Destiny enchantress, while the mana base is currently making its way to Najeela, the Blade-Blossom .

My decks are always in motion, and when I acquire new legendaries, I do like to fiddle around to see if my decks can get more interesting. Of course, it very much depends on the rest of the deck if I'd still consider it the same deck. Klothys enchantress is completely different from Golos enchantress, but the big mana green decks have always played similarly, making 100 mana and pumping a mana dork with Rhonas for lethal is fun, but if you can make 100 mana, your deck is just more suited to be mono G Omnath. Rhonas is still in the 99. When I made boros equipment, we hadn't started the surge of great boros equipment legends yet that we are enjoying now, naturally I found better choices over time for that.

enpc on What is "fair" magic?

3 weeks ago

My playgroup used to jokingly throw around the expression "Fair and balanced magic" as one of us would play Najeela, the Blade-Blossom or Captain Sisay cEDH decks.

At its actual root, I think the idea behind fair magic is mostly the idea of not blindsiding your opponent with a win. It's not about not running removal, or counterspells, but playing the game in a way that is organically moving forward for everybody. So when somebody whips out a game ending combo out of nowhere, the rest of the players feel robbed. Or if someone slams down a card which effectively locks a player out of the game, that player stagnates while the game moves on without them and again feels robbed.

Similarly, if there are four combo decks all trying to play out the combo while counterspelling everyone else's I would still call that "fair magic", since that's the direction the game's heading and everybody is on board with it.

The biggest violation of this is when somebody knowingly sits down at a table with the goal of breaking the social contract. Again, there's nothing wrong with playing a combo deck, but knowingly playing one into a game where the other three players just want to smash heads would be an example of unfair magic. Especially if there are disparities between the overall effectiveness of each deck.

But similarly, a player could be running a deck containing Avenger of Zendikar and Craterhoof Behemoth . That could be considered "unfair magic" as much as a combo if none of the other players are ready for that or it just abruptly ends the game.

While there are a lot of people who interpret fair magic as "supposed to be grindy back and forth", I think that especially in the context of commander it's tightly linked with the social contract more than a particular playstyle.

enpc on Expanding on a new format …

1 month ago

Being able to count the back of cards definitely does help to alleviate to an extent, however there are still a lot of hoops that you have to jump through. And it means that everybody has to spend the firt 10 minutes of every game checking that a person's deck fulfils the requirements. Formats like commander lep you show your commande and go. And it's pretty easy to see if somebody has made a deckbuilding goof.

Additionally, commanders like Najeela, the Blade-Blossom get stupid good, as she has immediate access to stuff like Skullclamp , Bow of Nylea , Purphoros, God of the Forge , Liliana Vess (to assemble an infinite combo piece) as well as some othe goodies. And yet she can still comply with the comabt requirement. And yes, yo ucan just ban her, but now we are adding more and more cards to banlists. Also, what about things like The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale ? that can now be played turn 1.

Overly complicated rules that have to be jumped through from step 0 is what really turns people off to the game. While MtG is fullof complex rules and interactions, you can pretty easily explain enough basic rules to players that they can start a game from nothing and have a good time. I just don't think that this is achieveable here - there's just too much complexity.

And while your playgroup might be fine with it all, remember that your group has had a long time to develop and understand it. But just dumping out a bunch of complicated (or super wordy) rulings is not going to help get traction in the community. Think about commander and how quickly yo ucna explain the basic rules to somebody so they get the idea of what they need to do. That's more what you should be aiming for.

Tzefick on Vexxus, Lich King

3 months ago

I kinda feel like it is a bit too self-contained. Like how does this really incentivize you to build around him? I mean you can just run discard to make him a hand denial engine ( Sadistic Hypnotist says hi), but how do you really build around his Zombie making abilities? Then you would need cards like Howling Mine and Font of Mythos , Anvil of Bogardan to grant the opponents cards you can later have them discard to gain the benefits. However you can only activate the ability as a sorcery, so they get their turn to get rid of their cards and thus deny you more tokens.

He seems to be designed as a token generator but comes more across as a discard engine that keeps players low on gas. Stax can work in competitive environments, but I find the creative possibilities around the card a bit lacking.

I think the concept could be fun akin to Waste Not and Bone Miser , but I think it would be more fun/engaging if you could build more around him.

Just airing some ideas or concepts for a direction the card could take.

The Swarm

Vexxus, Lich King

Legendary - Zombie Knight Wizard

Attacking Zombies you control have Deathtouch.

Whenever a creature you control deals combat damage to a player, you may have that player draw a card then discard a card, then you do the same.

Whenever an opponent discards a card, create a tapped 2/2 black Zombie creature token.

6/6

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Alternative on the discard trigger:

Whenever an opponent discards a card, if the discarded card was a land card, that player loses 3 life. Otherwise you create a tapped 2/2 black Zombie creature token.

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I changed the cost to 2 colorless and 4 blacks. This better allows colorless mana rocks, cost reductions and splashing in other colors than mono-black, and there's 6 pips to Devotion, which does seem a bit excessive if for no other reason than Gray Merchant of Asphodel .

I added Knight to his subtypes to allow more broad synergies with say Haakon, Stromgald Scourge or within the 99 in a Knight themed deck.

Giving all your Zombies deathtouch makes combat with you a real pain. Only giving it to attacking Zombies makes you less problematic to attack into but if the opponent wants to stop the onslaught of zombies, they may need to trade into some zombies on the defense or deal with your Commander. I know Death Baron exists, but he doesn't both produce the zombies and make them troublesome.

I was unsure about the enabling ability. The active ability doesn't require you to do anything with the Lich but sit back and slowly drain your opponents of their cards and create a mass army of zombies. It also presented a limit on the zombie generating ability.

I wanted to make it scalable so you could actually amplify the effect and build around him. However just slapping Larceny on a body with a Waste Not benefit seemed a little strong on the stax front, which could be a frustrating aspect of playing against this Commander.

If you instead make it a looting effect, there's a guarantee that it triggers the beneficial discard trigger and it would not be card disadvantage to the opponent, so it can be allowed to be "stronger" because that opponent isn't locked out. Instead they are actually getting a benefit in terms of card selection. This means that opponent can much quicker assemble an answer to your horde of zombies. To counter act this, you choose if the looting happens AND if it does, you get in on it.

Now it is true that you could potentially accrue a lot of zombies that, given they get through could double each round and you can quickly swarm the board with zombies. However that is not far from what Najeela, the Blade-Blossom can do. And this Commander costs 6 MV (mana value) and is mono colored.

It is possible that the discard trigger should be dependent on the cards discarded - making the opponent have a choice in what happens. Either they lose lose lands and take additional damage or they lose gas and you get more bodies.

Additionally it could be considered to let the tokens enter untapped, since they don't have Deathtouch through the Commander when on the defense.

The Specter-route

This is generally taking the idea of the hand denial and coupling it with the specter benefits for a more Voltron style support with Zombies as a more defensive tool.

Vexxus, Lich King

Legendary Creature - Zombie Knight

Deathtouch, Menace

Whenever Vexxus deals combat damage to a player, that player discards two cards. Then put two +1/+1 counters on Vexxus for each player with no cards in hand.

Whenever an opponent discards a card, create a 2/2 black Zombie creature token.

, sacrifice a Zombie: Vexxus gains Indestructible until end of turn.

3/6

Lich Wizard

Vexxus, Lich King

Legendary Creature - Zombie Wizard

At the beginning of each player's end step, that player discards a card.

Whenever an opponent discards a card, create a tapped 2/2 black Zombie creature token.

, sacrifice a creature: choose one --

• Target player loses 3 life.
• Each player draws a card and loses 1 life.
• Target creature gets -2/-1 until end of turn.

3/5

enpc on MDFC Sorcery in Strixhaven

3 months ago

RambIe: No matter what format it is though, the average player is going to try and optimise their deck (to varying levels).

Functional reprints of cards exist, you can't hold it against someone for running both Nature's Lore and Three Visits in their deck. And these reprints have existed for a long time, so this isn't some sort of new argument.

And on top of that, while these cards provide value in their non-creature form, there is a very limited number of these effects that poeple are able to pick from. This isn't the same as just gluing a Demonic Tutor to the back of your favourite commander. We as players don't get to choose these effects, unlike formats like Oathbreaker where your choice is two separate cards.

If they start printing MDFC cards which are a broken creature on one side and a mana efficient tutor on the other, then by all means I could understand your concern. But that's not what we've seen thus far.

The whole point of Commander is that it's a social format. Unlike basically any other format, there exists the social contract which should be the number one thing used to regulate a play group's experience.

At the end of the day, cEDH doesn't give a crap about how you feel about a card. If it's legal, the cEDH community will use it to win, as that's the primary driver for cEDH. But everybody is on a common understanding there.

In casual, if you have a deck which is causing problems for the rest of the group because it's too consistent or it's making commander unenjoyable fo the rest of the group, then the social contract exists to help deal with that situation. You may not like having to have hard conversations but that's part of life.

I'm just failing to see the issue here. You talk consistency, but we had that via functional reprints already. Since day dot we have had this. And on top of that, we have seen slews of commanders who, without employing mechanics like companion, partner, etc, have still had stigmas associated with them because of their consistency. Take Najeela, the Blade-Blossom . Or Prossh, Skyraider of Kher . These card both hold reputations, yet still fit within the mold of "traditional commander". And as far as your concerns with companion goes, we just aren't seeing it. For all the hype that was made, peopel aren't just jamming companion cards in their decks left, right and centre. Maybe we see a few Kenrith, the Returned King decks with Zirda, the Dawnwaker but that's it. And they're not exactly at the forefront of cEDH.

Coward_Token on Strixhaven spoiler season

3 months ago

Echoing Equation: Brudiclad is very sad that this card has a simic color identity (cough Thousand-Faced Heroics cough). Anyway, point this at Najeela, the Blade-Blossom or Ezuri, Claw of Progress and you'll likely threaten to kill someone. Xyris, the Writhing Storm can produce an absurd amount of sneks for similar results on the turn after, while Edric, Spymaster of Trest can probably make you deck yourself with a source of evasion

Fervent Mastery: Look, it's red Buried Alive !

Spined Drake: Ironically, this set will probably not have Tidehollow Strix and friends

fadelightningmm on None

4 months ago

My play group has been moving to higher powered decks lately, but even faced with combos as early as turn 3 or turn 1 Najeela, the Blade-Blossom I despise playing against Edgar the most. Eminence is largely unfun for those you’re playing against because you get free value for just playing commander. In a format built around your commander getting value that isn’t interacted with for free by just playing the game in not fun. If they were to fix eminence where you had to meet some additional condition first, say cast your commander and activate some ability you get an emblem it would make things feel more fair and interactive

jamochawoke on A Sliver Deck With No Slivers?!!

4 months ago

This is the second deck I've seen like this hit the front page recently, although it seems yours is older and uses a better commander ability! (they used Ur-Dragon to reduce cost of all changelings)

Tribal-Tribal

Some things I saw different with their deck that I think would be absolute bombs in this deck are:

• Ayula, Queen Among Bears since she would turn every single creature drop into two +1/+1 counter generators on ETB or a fight/removal trigger. Plus she only costs .
• A very similar albeit not as powerful inclusion would be one of my favorite cards, Bramblewood Paragon for as well that gives them counters on ETB like Ayula but also gives all of those with counters Trample as well!
• Najeela, the Blade-Blossom for gives you hasted token generation with every changeling attack and extra combat steps with her second ability.