Fragarach? I hardly know 'er! - Equipment *Primer*

Commander / EDH Artifact Attach Equip Kor Mono-White Primer Tokens Weenie

Tamsin

Artifact (33)

• 1x Argentum Armor
• 1x Batterskull
• 1x Bloodforged Battle-Axe
• 1x Colossus Hammer
• 1x Commander's Sphere
• 1x Deathrender
• 1x Explorer's Scope
• 1x Godsend
• 1x Grappling Hook
• 1x Hammer of Nazahn
• 1x Heartseeker
• 1x Heirloom Blade
• 1x Helm of Kaldra
• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Loxodon Warhammer
• 1x Mace of the Valiant
• 1x Marble Diamond
• 1x Mask of Memory
• 1x Masterwork of Ingenuity
• 1x Mind Stone
• 1x Moonsilver Spear
• 1x Quietus Spike
• 1x Shadowspear
• 1x Shield of Kaldra
• 1x Skullclamp
• 1x Strata Scythe
• 1x Swiftfoot Boots
• 1x Sword of Fire and Ice
• 1x Sword of Kaldra
• 1x Sword of the Animist
• 1x Sword of Vengeance
• 1x Umezawa's Jitte
• 1x Worn Powerstone

Creature (22)

• 1x Alms Collector
• 1x Armament Master
• 1x Armored Skyhunter
• 1x Auriok Steelshaper
• 1x Balan, Wandering Knight
• 1x Danitha Capashen, Paragon
• 1x Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
• 1x Heavenly Blademaster
• 1x Keeper of the Accord
• 1x Kor Duelist
• 1x Leonin Abunas
• 1x Leonin Shikari
• 1x Mentor of the Meek
• 1x Puresteel Paladin
• 1x Relic Seeker
• 1x Solemn Simulacrum
• 1x Sram, Senior Edificer
• 1x Stone Haven Outfitter
• 1x Stoneforge Mystic
• 1x Stonehewer Giant
• 1x Taj-Nar Swordsmith
• 1x Verge Rangers

Sorcery (5)

• 1x Fell the Mighty
• 1x Hour of Reckoning
• 1x Open the Armory
• 1x Rout
• 1x Steelshaper's Gift

Enchantment (2)

• 1x Cathars' Crusade
• 1x Sigarda's Aid

Commander (1)

Land (33)

• 1x Buried Ruin
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Drifting Meadow
• 1x Emeria, the Sky Ruin
• 1x Evolving Wilds
• 1x Forge of Heroes
• 1x Kabira Crossroads
• 1x Karoo
• 1x Myriad Landscape
• 1x Phyrexia's Core
• 20x Plains
• 1x Secluded Steppe
• 1x Temple of the False God
• 1x Terramorphic Expanse

Instant (2)

• 1x Return to Dust
• 1x Swords to Plowshares

Planeswalker (2)

• 1x Elspeth, Knight-Errant
• 1x Elspeth, Sun's Champion

---

Introduction

This is the primer for my Nahiri Equipment deck. It has two main themes, the first being equipment, and the second being tokens. The deck excels at creating card and mana advantage through equipment, and either making a huge beater, or trading tokens for real creatures. The deck started when I bought my first pre-con, Forged in Stone in 2014. Over the past 3-4 years, I have made various changes to it, even taking it apart once, and putting it back together. I kinda just enjoy writing primers and guides, even if no-one reads them, so here we are. Oh, and as an aside, the name for the deck comes from a sword in The Ulster Cycle of Irish Mythology. Fragarach means "Retaliator" or "Answerer". You're welcome.

Disclaimer

My playgroup plays with Partial-Paris mulligans still, so my land count may seem rather low to most people. However the general curve of the deck can support it, in my experience with playing with Vancouver mulligans.

I decided to upgrade and include a Sword of Fire and Ice and an Umezawa's Jitte. In my experience the other four "Sword of X and Ys" aren't worth including. Body and Mind is probably the worst, by far, and Feast and Famine doesn't fix your card advantage issues. Sword of Fire and Ice draws you a card, and enables you to deal with small utility creatures that aren't worth spending a card on to remove.

Why Play Nahiri?//You'll Love This Deck If...

Mono-White gets a bit of a bad rep in EDH. Whilst white is seen as the best support color, it's seen as the worst mono-color. This is true. The commander options are on-the-whole weaker than even mono-red, and it has the same struggle with card-draw most of the time. However, multiple cards exist that support an equipment strategy in white, and allow it to draw quite a few cards. There are also a few good colorless ramp options that are either equipment, or artifacts. In short, do you like equipment, but find voltron boring and easily hated-on? You might want to give this deck a go. If you want one of the most competitive decks in the format, you should look at Sram, Senior Edificer Cheerios instead

Deck History

When I was just an EDH fledgeling, just over a year in the format, my only two decks were Savra, Queen of the Golgari, and Kaalia of the Vast. Me and my partner saw the spoilers for Commander 2014 online, and they were really hyped for Daretti, Scrap Savant and I was really hyped for Nahiri, the Lithomancer. We bought the decks, and I was kinda frustrated with how jumbled the white deck was out of the box in comparison to the more streamlined red deck. I traded for and bought some equipment and refined the deck over time.

The deck used to run a lot more token-producers, but I find that the deck functions better with fewer, repeatable ones, with other benefits to running them. The deck also used to run a tonne of anthem effects, but they tend to be absolutely crap when you draw too many of them. The deck also used to run more recursion, but it wasn't pulling its weight.

Change List

2021/07/24 - Took out Forge of Heroes since it's too gimmicky on planeswalker commanders who don't have different costs on their + and - abilities. Replaced it with Geier Reach Sanitarium as a source of repeatable card draw. A really nice card from Commander 2019

2021/04/22 - Took out Dragon Throne of Tarkir Nomads' Assembly and Staff of Nin because I may have never cast any of them in the seven years I have had this deck. I also took out Burnished Hart Stoneforge Masterwork and Whispersilk Cloak and put in cards which are stronger with tokens or ramp me in other ways. I put in Colossus Hammer, Leonin Abunas, Shadowspear, Kor Duelist, Armored Skyhunter, and Keeper of the Accord.

2020/06/04 - Took out Deploy to the Front and Jazal Goldmane for being too expensive to get full value from most often, and put in Verge Rangers and Armament Master for more control over mana, and a cheaper creature which scales better.

2019/10/5 - Took out Bonehoard and put in Mace of the Valiant. Bonehoard doesn't get very big in this deck in general.

2019/04/02 - Took out Sandstone Oracle and replaced it with Heavenly Blademaster to try it out. Sandstone Oracle is very expensive in a deck where you're hard-casting it. I don't play in a meta full of control players, and the few that do play in my meta usually draw cards in the end-step before their turn.

Deck Strategy

Most of the time, it's a good idea to tutor for Sword of the Animist or Sword of Fire and Ice. If you already have one of these, it can be nice to tutor for Godsend. These are two of the strongest equipment in the deck. Sword of the Animist allows you to pretend you're any deck with green, and Godsend is obnoxious on creatures they'd prefer to block. Hopefully you get an enabler for draws, like Skullclamp, Sram, Senior Edificer, or Puresteel Paladin. It can be worth mulligan-ing until you find some repeatable card draw. You'll need it. Do not mulligan past 5 ever in EDH, though. Not just for this deck. You generally can win by making a large threat, à la voltron, but you aren't dealing commander damage, so it can be worth attacking more than one player at once.

So you've gotten to five mana. How do I use this deck's commander. If you're already in a good spot (hexproof Puresteel Paladin for example) you might not need to play her. If you have managed to play a decent equip before you're at 5 mana, it can be good to play Nahiri and use her +2. If you have a good creature on the board, and you have mana left over, it can be worth playing Nahiri, using her -2, and then cheating in a strong equipment with her, provided you can equip it to something, or it's Batterskull or it gets your engine online, like Hammer of Nazahn. Even in situations where this doesn't save you mana it can be a massive tempo play, as you'll have access to Nahiri if you can protect her for a turn, as well as a strong threat people won't want to attack into. I find not enough Nahiri players utilize this gambit, which is risky, but can also be extremely effective at creating threats in the mid-game.

Generally it can be wise to not play every threat in your hand unless you have a lot of protection or card draw from it, since all it takes is someone wiping all artifacts and you can be in big trouble. During the mid game it's your responsibility to kill players based off how likely you think they are to win later on. Players playing xG are usually the biggest threats since they recover the best from board wipes with ramp. Players playing xWB might Merciless Eviction you, so they're also decent choices. xU artifact decks tend to combo off if left alone, so killing them is always a top priority. You can overcome certain control decks, but you can't deal with combo decks outside of beating them to death. Sometimes the table will gang up on you, but I find this deck is still a lot of fun just due to the various engines in the deck.

Key Cards that Recoup Losses from Mono-White Color Identity

In no real order;

Land Ramp

• Solemn Simulacrum

• Explorer's Scope

• Sword of the Animist

• Myriad Landscape

• Keeper of the Accord (if you're behind, which isn't always the case)

Mana Rocks

• Mind Stone

• Worn Powerstone

• Commander's Sphere

• Marble Diamond

Pseudo-Mana Rocks (often called "noob-traps")

• Karoo

• Temple of the False God

Mana Advantage

• Deathrender (bypasses creature casting costs)

• Danitha Capashen, Paragon (reduces all equipment casting cost by one. This slot in the deck used to be Pearl Medallion, but that affected less cards, and couldn't reduce them to cost 0 [since they had to cost at least {W} to be white])

• Sigarda's Aid (bypasses equip keyword cost)

• Balan, Wandering Knight (bypasses multiple equip keyword costs)

• Auriok Steelshaper (reduces cost of equip keyword by 1)

• Stoneforge Mystic (bypasses equipment casting cost)

• Stonehewer Giant (bypasses equipment casting and equip keyword costs)

• Puresteel Paladin (bypasses equip keyword cost)

• Nahiri, the Lithomancer (bypasses equip keyword costs, and casting cost of equipment)

• Hammer of Nazahn (bypasses equip keyword costs)

• Bonehoard (bypasses equip keyword cost once)

• Batterskull (bypasses equip keyword cost once)

• Armored Skyhunter (bypasses casting and equip keyword cost)

One-Time Card Draw

• Secluded Steppe

• Drifting Meadow

• Solemn Simulacrum

• Alms Collector (in practise)

• Commander's Sphere

• Mind Stone

Repeatable Card Draw

• Sword of Fire and Ice

• Stone Haven Outfitter

• Mask of Memory

• Skullclamp

• Sram, Senior Edificer

• Mentor of the Meek

• Puresteel Paladin

• Alms Collector (in theory)

• Geier Reach Sanitarium

Equipment Tutors

• Taj-Nar Swordsmith

• Relic Seeker

• Open the Armory

• Stoneforge Mystic

• Stonehewer Giant

• Steelshaper's Gift

Non-Traditional Card Advantage (with explanations)

• Hour of Reckoning (parity broken by tokens and equipment)

• Fell the Mighty (parity broken by “weenie” strategy and equipment)

• Rout (parity broken by equipment, instant speed noteworthy)

• Sword of Fire and Ice (can destroy utility creatures without spending a card)

• Elspeth, Knight-Errant (creates tokens)

• Argentum Armor (repeatable permanent destruction)

• Umezawa's Jitte (can be used to kill creatures when you don't need to pump your own creature)

• Godsend (repeatable exile that bypasses hexproof/shroud, makes blocks very difficult due to exiling before damage, has non-zero chance [in theory] to deny casting of staple creatures)

• Heartseeker (repeatable creature destruction- good with Nahiri when bypassing steep equip cost)

• Bloodforged Battle-Axe (creates tokens [of itself])

• Moonsilver Spear (creates tokens with flying)

• Keeper of the Accord (makes tokens if you're behind, which can be helpful)

• Elspeth, Sun's Champion (creates tokens, wipes large creatures, parity broken by weenie strategy, and equipment)

• Heirloom Blade (quasi-tutor on death -can be used to find Stoneforge Mystic, or one of the soldiers in the deck, using Nahiri’s token. Knights and Warriors are also useful to search for)

• Explorer's Scope (this was already listed in the land ramp section, but it actually marginally improves your draws over time as well, by making sure you're drawing less lands on average from your deck, not only by thinning them, but by eliminating single land draws from your deck, and breaking clumps of lands up - in the worst case scenario where you don't have a source of card draw)

• Verge Rangers (if you check the top card of your library before playing lands from your hand, it can occasionally draw you cards. This also thins your deck. Similar to Explorer's Scope except you're trading the ability to ramp lands for the ability to check before or after drawing cards and have more control over when you play the lands.)

• Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite (wipes opponent’s weenies, makes 1/1s trade with opponents’ 5/5s)

• Nahiri, the Lithomancer (creates tokens, can bring destroyed equipment back from the graveyard[in theory])

Date added	6 years
Last updated	2 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	6 - 0 Mythic Rares 43 - 0 Rares 21 - 0 Uncommons 10 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.13
Tokens	4/4 C Token Legendary Creature Avatar, Angel 4/4 W, Copy Clone, Emblem Elspeth, Knight-Errant, Emblem Elspeth, Sun's Champion, Kor Soldier 1/1 W, Phyrexian Germ 0/0 B, Soldier 1/1 W, Stoneforged Blade