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Nin, the Pain Artist

Commander / EDH Control UR (Izzet)

Fleda

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Land (39)

Enchantment (3)

Instant (29)

Sorcery (5)

Commander (1)

Commander: Nin, the Pain Artist

Creature (14)

Artifact (7)

Planeswalker (2)

Practice every mage's greatest power, the ability to say "yes" or "no". This counterspell-heavy build of Nin, the Pain Artist looks to take the game as late as possible, playing politics and waiting until its opponents are starved for cards, striking when they are least able to retaliate. If such a strategy makes you think you might find a sadistic kindred spirit in Nin, please read the following deck explanation.

This is a super long game, counter-control build of Nin, the Pain Artist, looking to use counterspells and other control tools to drag the game deep into the double digits of turns. The deck sets out to outlast its opponents' resources, and if that has happened a large x-cost effect will usually end the game.

Nin, the Pain Artist is the general for this deck for two reasons. One, she is often just a Mind Spring, which can be quite powerful if you are looking to contorl the game. Two, she can be a powerful finisher. Once enough mana has been accumulated, Nin's activated ability can draw an opponent's deck out. She can also be removal in a pinch, and can be quite useful in a politics strategy.

The lands in this deck do a lot of heavy lifting. They are obviously sources of mana, and thus are quite important to the control plan. However, many of them are also useful control tools in their own right.

Kher Keep, Springjack Pasture, Mystifying Maze, Field of the Dead, Sokenzan, Crucible of Defiance, and Wandering Fumarole are all defensive lands, in the deck for their ability to block and keep us from taking too much damage. Kher Keep, Springjack Pasture, and Wandering Fumarole also work well with Nin, being creatures and thus targets for her activated ability.

Speaking of targets for Nin, Forbidden Orchard works with Nin to give your opponents cards. On the one hand, sometimes you need to make an ally or you need an answer you don't have, and giving an opponent cards can work towards those goals. On the other hand, sometimes you need to kill your opponent and they are being quite rude in not playing creature for you to target, a problem that Forbidden Orchard solves.

Still on the subject of drawing cards, Mikokoro, Center of the Sea can keep cards flowing into your hand. Mikokoro, Center of the Sea can also work on the "help your opponent find an answer for the table" task mentioned above. While not strictly card draw, Castle Vantress is a handy source of card manipulation if you can spare the mana.

With the limited yet powerful wizards the deck is running, Riptide Laboratory is quite useful. The ability to rebuy strong triggered abilities is obvious, but I cannot count the number of times I have flashed in Snapcaster Mage as a blocker and then bounced it with Riptide Laboratory.

This deck runs Scavenger Grounds along with the two cycling deserts in its colors. Graveyards are always a problem for control decks, and Red and Blue are not the best at answering those problems. The low opportunity cost of a land helps ease those worries.

The modal double face lands are in here as lands first with late game upside/in a pinch utility. I am not running all of them, mostly because the ones I'm not running are either too expensive moneywise right now, or they don't do enough for what they cost as a card. While not a modal double face card, Surtland Frostpyre is the same sort of thing as a slower land with late game usage. I like it better than the double face cards because it gets to be a land with spell-like usage later, opposed to either a land or a spell.

No deck is complete without mana ramp or mana artifacts, though this deck is a tad light on both. Myriad Landscape, Solemn Simulacrum, and Burnished Hart, all search for lands, some putting them in play and some to hand. Magnifying Glass is an atypical choice that I like for the extra ability to Investigate. Stashing a card draw away for later use is not bad, and Bonder's Ornament is possible the "worse" version of this mana rock, but if everyone else things the card is bad then no one will run it and thus only you draw the card. Honored Heirloom jams a little bit of graveyard hate into the deck. Cursed Mirror takes a turn off of being a mana rock in order to do something else cool.

This deck is running seventeen counterspells, as well as two cards that take a spell while keeping it on the stack, five ways to copy spells, one way to return spells to their owner's hand, and one card that does lots of things. This deck is looking to interact with spells as they happen, and how do that can determine how they game unfolds.

Most of the counterspells do more or less the same thing, but there is a decent amount of knowing the table that goes into knowing when to use them; it is important to know what you are facing, because some counterspells need to be saved for certain threats. Of course the main time to use a counterspell is if doing so will keep you from dying, but beyond that main point there are some guidelines I like to follow with this deck.

Dissipate, Mindbreak Trap, Summary Dismissal, and Void Shatter all exile whatever they hit, and thus should be saved for threats that you only want to deal with once. Anything with a strong recursion ability, something that is recurred, or something that will be abused once it is in the graveyard are all prime targets for these spells.

As decks become more and more reliant and centered around their commander, being able to answer those cards promptly and efficiently is more important. Wash Away lets you counter a commander for a single mana, as well as anything cast from the graveyard.

You should try to save Force of Will and Pact of Negation for when you have no other options. They both obviously have factors that need to be taken into consideration when using them, so try to weigh the "free counterspell" aspect with the "resource self-denial" aspect. Mindbreak Trap also falls into this category.

Cryptic Command and Mystic Confluence have defensive options as well as counterspell options, so sometimes the correct use of these spells is not dying. Many people will play right into Cryptic Command, letting you counter a spell and erase their combat step, and you haven't lived until you get to use all three modes of Mystic Confluence in one go.

The copy spells are not quite counterspells, but with a little doing that can accomplish much the same task. Obviously, if a counterspell is on the stack a copy can be one as well. There are other obvious applications, ranging from Expansion / Explosion-ing an Explosive Vegetation to copying a Tooth and Nail, to grab Dualcaster Mage and Venser, Shaper Savant, stacking the triggers to grab two more creature and deny their Tooth and Nail for the turn (a truly great feeling if you've never seen or experienced it yourself).

Not quite a counterspell in its own right, Hullbreaker Horror can turn any instant in your hand into an Unsubstantiate or a bounce effect. It can also just turn mana rocks and other junk into a wonky Evacuation on your turn so it can get in for some damage.

Overcharged Amalgam has a bunch of utility, but is first and foremost a counterspell. It can also be an emergency blocker, a card draw target for nin, and if all else fails it flies and can attack.

Sublime Epiphany is a counterspell that can defend, make a guy, and draw a card. It does so much, but it almost does it all.

Lastly, Time Stop and Discontinuity do it all. If there is a disturbing spell aimed your way, a pesky death trigger, or just an unfavorable combat step, these spells fix every problem the discerning Blue mage might be facing down. And while they can be a counterspell in a pinch, their usage as a defensive spell is much more potent.

Staying alive is important to any deck planning to go long, and this deck walks the razor-est of razor's edges to do so. Hopefully counterspells have kept the truly scary things at bay, but sometimes you just need to deal with things that are in play or coming your way, and there are spells in the deck to do this.

AEtherize, Evacuation, Cyclonic Rift, and Perplexing Test are solely focused on stopping things that have found their way heading towards your head. These are your temporary answers, more to annoy than actually stop. Cryptic Command, Time Stop, and to a lesser extent Mystic Confluence also fall into this category, though they often have other jobs.

Metallurgic Summonings might look like a big recursion spell, and it certainly can be used as such, but it is in the deck largely to make tokens to gum up the board. Every counterspell leaving an X/X behind can make attacking look futile pretty fast. It might lack the recursion ability, but Shark Typhoon similarly creates X/X blockers after casting an instant or sorcery.

All Is Dust, Blasphemous Act, Ugin, the Spirit Dragon, Chain Reaction, Collision of Realms, and Jiwari, the Earth Aflame are the mass removal spells in the deck. All Is Dust and Ugin, the Spirit Dragon solve most problems, and when you need to cast Blasphemous Act it usually costs one to two mana. Jiwari, the Earth Aflame is the card that draws the most odd stares, but it is actually quite a tricky card. It is an instant speed ability, and it is an activated ability; telling someone their counterspell doesn't stop your board wipe is tilt-inducing. Chandra, Awakened Inferno does a decent impression of a board wipe as well.

Spot removal is a bit sparse in the deck, but aside from some cards that have already been mentioned there are some slots dedicated to it. Chaos Warp, Reality Shift, and Curse of the Swine all deal with singular things that can be difficult to deal with.

Comet Storm and Expansion / Explosion can be used as removal spells, and if doing so keeps you alive then by all means go for it, but they are burdened with a more glorious purpose.

Nin does a lot of heavy lifting in this department, but I would be remiss if I failed to include cards that keep the hand healthy.

Blue Sun's Zenith, Expansion / Explosion, Diviner's Portent, and Commander's Insight all draw big piles of cards, which can be necessary if our hand is depleted in rapid succession. There are several cards in the deck that can draw one card (they have been mentioned already), and their inclusion helps smooth out game play, keeping the hand at acceptable levels. Drawing chunks of your deck at a time should be reserved for when you have been able to take a turn off of countering things, or when you are about to take over a game.

Other than the aformentioned Metallurgic Summonings, the recursion package of this deck is limited to Snapcaster Mage and Archaeomancer. Archaeomancer in particular can win games on its own if you can engineer a soft lock through Evacuation or Cyclonic Rift (fascilitated by Riptide Laboratory).

Tutoring in this deck is done solely by Spellseeker, and if it can be protected with a Riptide Laboratory out it can take over a game. On its own it is no better than just another counterspell, but if it can be used twice or more it puts in work.

Now winning with this deck can be difficult, and despite how linear it may look there are several avenues you can take to get there. The most obvious method is a big x-cost spell. There are several ways to do this in the deck: burn with Comet Storm, drawing with Blue Sun's Zenith, both with Expansion / Explosion (Twincast and associates make this qutie easy). If these options had to be used earlier in the game, Nin herself is a fine win condition.

While not the deck's speciality, it can do some creature damage through a limit number of cards. Metallurgic Summonings, Shark Typhoon, and Field of the Dead can make an army, and if supplemented with something like Comet Storm you can put some pressure up. While the tokens it makes are smaller, The Locust God makes tokens reliably and can itself attack. Deekah, Fractal Theorist makes a fractal of small to moderate after every instant and sorcery, and Geometric Nexus tracks all the spells cast in the game to make one big boi that can be made unblockable with Deekah. The stealing spells and Twincast variants in the deck can snag you a scary eldrazi or a big token spell. There are some creatures in the deck that can attack, and if that looks like it might have to be your route to victory try to get chip damage in wherever you can. Chandra, Awakened Inferno's emblems, if allowed to stack up, can help close the distance. And Brash Taunter can punish attackers and can work with Nin to mess someone up. The many creatures the deck can create, as well as any creatures your opponents have laying about, can work with Vicious Shadows to deal big damage.

The most distasteful strategy is just making people give up. As have been said, the deck can create some unfun game states through a soft lock or just having a grip full of counterspells, and I would never fault a player for not wanting to play through that. If you are above such gameplay, it is easy enough to avoid, but I encourage you to at least visit the dark side sometime, it can be invigorating.

This deck is held together with chewing gum and prayer, and as such you need to play passively. I have seen players take similar decks, counter everything in sight, and suddenly find themselves with no hand and a table full of angry players. Save your responses for when things get a big dicey: that Cultivate can resolve, wait for the threat that comes after.

One of the best ways to play this deck is as a tool for others to use. Be willing to counter spells that half the table finds scary, keep the game nice and tame, maybe take on a patron and help a struggling player. The politics aspect of Commander is where this deck lives, and if you shun it you will not do well with this deck. Let people know you can keep scary commander #17 in check, and you narrow your number of opponents down from three to one, and that can do a long way to getting you to a stable point in the game.

There are going to be some card choices you disagree with, and that is fine. You might not have the cash for Force of Will and that is fine, I choose to waste money on expensive cards. There may be some card you think is vital to Nin decks that I am not running and sure, maybe; you will note I am running Creepy Doll over Stuffy Doll and that is entirely by choice. Please let me know if I missed some amazing spell that would be perfect in this deck, I would love to discuss it.

I am super comfortable playing the politics game in Commander, and I know many players that are not. If you are one of those people, this deck is probably not for you. It is vulnerable for much of the game and survives by letting powerful spells resolve when they do not threaten you. I like durdley control and love how difficult it is to scrap together a win with this deck, and you might not. Please understand that before telling me to jump off the nearest such and such.

Thank you for reading the world's most improbable Rube Goldberg machine-turned Commander deck. Let me know in the comments below what you think of the deck, if you found a neat card or interaction for the deck, or if it is a horrible monster of a deck and should have its head held underwater until the bubbles stop.

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Date added 6 years
Last updated 2 years
Legality

This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)

8 - 0 Mythic Rares

61 - 0 Rares

14 - 0 Uncommons

9 - 0 Commons
Cards 100
Avg. CMC 3.98
Tokens Boar 2/2 G, Clue, Construct */* C, Copy Clone, Emblem Chandra, Awakened Inferno, Fractal 0/0 GU, Frog Lizard 3/3 G, Goat 0/1 W, Insect 1/1 UR, Kobolds of Kher Keep 0/1 R, Manifest 2/2 C, Shark */* U, Spirit 1/1 C, Zombie 2/2 B
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