Welcome to my Chainer, Nightmare Adept deck!! This deck is all about getting out fast and sneaky creatures to smash face. And, while you're distracting your opponents with attacking, I've got three combos ready to end the game in epic creature-based ways!!
"Who's to say that dreams and nightmares aren't as real as the here and now?" - John Lennon
Introduction: Choose Your Guild
My favorite aspect of Magic the Gathering is building a deck that reflects not only who you are as a person, but how you want to play the game. Everyone has chances like this in all of the formats, but EDH specifically gives you the opportunity to play as yourself. Everyone wants to build a strong deck, but I also wanted to build a "me" deck. The kind of deck that I could imagine playing in an episode of Yu-Gi-Oh, where I'm charging into battle with my spells and creatures by my side.
I know, I know...I referenced Yu-Gi-Oh in this; Chandra, strike me down. But lets move on.
I've always been an aggro player. I see all of the sneaky strategies, the advanced untapping-to-tapping-to-untapping methods, the "Let me bring in my Eldrazi card from outside the game" cards. In the face of all that, I say "NAHHHH I WANNA SMASH FACE!! RUN FAST, SMASH FACE!!". Obviously, you'd think I'd lean more towards first, and you'd be half right. I did a lot of research and personality quizzes, and I found that while had a commanding lead, and were in a very close tie for second. Going Jund felt like I was stretching myself too thin, and feels a little too reliant on Elves. That left , but my initial research left me with a bunch of demons for options. Don't get me wrong, I love cards like
Rakdos, the Showstopper
, but running too many demons or "drag me to Hell" cards, and I start to have nightmares.
So what could I do? An aggro deck in a creature-based strategy that reflected me, but didn't rely on mana dork Elves or give me demon-themed nightmares? Well imagine how psyched I was when I read
Chainer, Nightmare Adept
!! It's everything I could ask for! 4 CMC is fine, I can use his ability as soon as possible, and he gives all of my creatures a way to the graveyard and/or haste!! Let's go!!
Strategy
Opening Hand
You're looking for a mostly normal opening hand. The idea is to start emptying out our library into our hand, onto the field, or into the graveyard. If you draw a couple of later game cards like
Dread Return
, mulligan. Those cards are just dead in the early game. Get Chainer out fast, then get to wheeling through your deck.
Main Gameplan
Once Chainer is out, it's time to start throwing creatures out; fast. Cards like
Balthor the Defiled
are there to smash face, cards like
Magus of the Wheel
are there to help with card advantage/discard, and cards like
Doom Whisperer
and
Combustible Gearhulk
are there to do a bit of both!!
Now, I've never played with combos before, and I wasn't interested in them at first...but these were just too good and, while attacking is still a great gameplan, these combos are here to help you close out the game.
Wombo, Combo!!
Alright, aside from the standard
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
+
Zealous Conscripts
/
Combat Celebrant
combo, this deck has 2 actual combos (one that's much more attack based) I'll start with that combat one...
-
Filth
+
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
: Chainer gets Filth in the graveyard, giving all of our creatures Swampwalk. Then Urborg makes all of the lands Swamps. Now we can just keep creating a huge field of unblock able creatures!! This is a great opportunity for
Bone Miser
to shine. Discard a creature card with Chainer, creating a 2/2 Zombie with Bone Miser, then cast the new creature with haste! That's 7 power coming at the opponent, not even including the new hasty creature you cast!
-
Entomb
+
Necrotic Ooze
+
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
+
Death Cultist
: My absolute favorite combo in this deck. Cast
Entomb
to put the other three mentioned into your graveyard. Cast Chainer next turn and, if you have enough mana leftover, cast Necrotic Ooze from your graveyard. Now, you have a
Necrotic Ooze
that can continuously create copies of itself thanks to
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
. Now, this could be enough on it's own, since you'd have an army of 4 powered creatures, but they'd all end up tapped.
Death Cultist
will allow you to just sac all of your copies and deal lethal to everyone.
I never thought I'd love a pile of Ooze so much.
Epilogue
I've made a lot of decks, played with others' decks, but this deck really means a lot to me. I want to push this deck to make it the top
Chainer, Nightmare Adept
on TappedOut, as well as the best version this deck can possibly be. So, this is where I humbly ask for YOUR help! Like this deck? Give it an upvote!! Got an idea of other cards I should consider? Comment your ideas and give it an upvote!! Have questions about why I included the cards I did and cut the cards I did? Ask away and give it an upvote!!
Check this deck out, and have some fun!!
