UPDATED PRIMER AND LIST https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/narset-cannon/
What is Narset Cannon?
Narset Cannon is a glass cannon, that shoots bear traps, powered by dynamite. It does very powerful things, wins on turn one, makes opponents saltier than the dead sea, and(very often) blows up in your face and kills you. It's ~40 cards that put Narset into play as fast as possible in modern, and ~20 hits your opponents can't beat.
Why should I play Narset Cannon?
Narset Cannon isn't a great deck, but it is a fun deck. If you like gold-fishing this deck is for you. You play roughly the same games against bubbles in your living room as you do against X FNM grinder out in the real world. If you like solving puzzles you will love Narset Cannon. You control every zone, and can move cards at will with
Pull from Eternity
,
Spoils of the Vault
, and
Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
. If you get your combo going there aren't many games you can't win despite your opponents and yourself.
Card choices
For this section I think the easiest way to do it is to separate the 'getting Narset into play' portion of the deck and the 'winning by casting these cards for free' portion of the deck. I'll start with the former.
Lands
This deck is trying to do a lot of things for free, but it does need to pay mana for some things.
4
Gemstone Caverns
- When playing this deck start every game on the draw. One way we get Narset into the graveyard, for Goryo's, is by exiling her to caverns or
Serum Powder
then using
Pull from Eternity
to bin her. Also this deck's fastest wins happen when you can start casting spells, like pull or spoils, on our opponents turn with this free turn zero land.
4
Forbidden Orchard
, 4
Gemstone Mine
, and
Mana Confluence
- Five color lands to cast our five color spells. I like orchard better than more lands that are going to pain me like
City of Brass
. Narset has first strike so you need a lot of 1/1s before they matter in combat, but every point of life matters in a deck casting
Spoils of the Vault
.
4
Simian Spirit Guide
- Fast mana is better than normal mana when you're trying to combo turn one and two.
Spells
4
Narset, Enlightened Master
- Our girl, the combo enabler. The engine this deck uses to cast spells for free.
4
Goryo's Vengeance
- How we get Narest into play. Vengeance is cheap, fast, and the hinge the opens this deck's door to victory.
4
Serum Powder
- This card is another way the deck puts Narset into exile to be pulled into the graveyard. Also a lot of hands with this deck are just clunkers and it mulligans a lot, like a lot a lot, and powder helps you get around some of those clunkers with free mulligans. Be careful, though, not to exile all your copies of
Omniscience
,
Pull from Eternity
, or too many
Goryo's Vengeance
.
4
Pull from Eternity
- As I mentioned pull gets Narset into our graveyard, but it's also important for other reasons. When you're comboing pull lets you get anything in exile back to a zone you use, and along with emrakul helps you get cards you need back into your deck.
4
Spoils of the Vault
- A one mana tutor that will kill you when you play this deck.
4
Faithless Looting
- A classic in graveyard decks. The best card to see when you inevitably end up mulliganing to three.
The hits
There's a few different philosophies on how to build this part of a Narset deck. The first is to go all in on Narset damage. This way plays no cards like
Enter the Infinite
and
Omniscience
, but just overloads on things like
Waves of Aggression
and
Relentless Assault
with the hope of getting to 20 in one turns worth of combat. One positive to this way are that your fury of the hoards are much better with so many more red spells. You also get to play some
Griselbrand
, and just draw fury with him, for some more consistency. Alternatively this build loses a lot of power; there's a big difference between attacking a bunch with a 3/2 and casting enter the infinite. A deck built this way can't beat infinite life, just a lot of life, and blockers; and also while it has more consistency with Narset flips it can fizzle with it's opponent at 2 or 3 when it all seemed like is was going so well.
At the other end of the spectrum this portion of the deck can be maxed out with enter, omni,
Brilliant Ultimatum
, and huge merrymakers to try to win really hard off just one Narset swing. I like this way better than the former because even if you walk Narset into a 4/4 you can still win and generally just have more power. My build is closer on the spectrum to being built like this, but I think I've found the best spot in the middle with four
Conflux
in the deck.
1
Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
- While you can't actually cast Emrakul off of Narset she's very important to how this deck wins, and also very important to controlling every zone by being how I put cards back into my deck from my graveyard.
4
Fury of the Horde
- This is the card that makes the deck function. It lets Narset attack again if you hit it, and if you just have it and alt cast it.
4
Enter the Infinite
- The card you want to hit the most with Narset. The line is, once you hit it, to cast enter for free, put
Omniscience
back, alternatively cast fury of the hoard, cast omniscience which you hit with Narset and win from there usually by Emrakul.
3
Omniscience
- This card is enter's tag team partner. Also not bad to hit before enter because odds are you have something sweet in your hand. I'm pretty certain three is the right number. One is wrong because you can never take a
Serum Powder
mulligan if its one of the cards, and two is iffy for the same reason. Two might be right, but omni plays well enough with
Conflux
and emrakul that three hasn't ever punished me super hard.
3
Waves of Aggression
- In my build it's just a re-buy on Narset. I'm playing it over something like
Brilliant Ultimatum
because it's red for fury of the hoard, and over something like
Relentless Assault
because it's white for conflux.
4
Conflux
- Ok so I know by now you're wondering, “what does this card even do?” When you hit this card with Narset you find fury of the hoard(red),
Goryo's Vengeance
(black),
Pull from Eternity
(white), Narset(blue), and another conflux(green). After that you alternate cast fury by exiling Narset and conflux. You just re-bought combat while setting yourself up to combo again next turn with pull and vengeance It's red to maximize fury. It also changes to
Enter the Infinite
in your hand if you find yourself with
Omniscience
in play. It's the best of every world. Also some tips: If you already have enough red cards leave the conflux in your deck so you still have that to hit with Narset, If you already have Fury grab
Simian Spirit Guide
(red) to take a whiff out of your deck. If you already have pull you can grab a second Narset(white) to take a whiff out and leave a hit(conflux) in.
Some interactions
Pull from Eternity
+
Spoils of the Vault
- Spoils exiles the cards you pass over too find the one you want. With these two cards you can spoils for Goryo's and hope to pass over Narset or emrakul.
How to beat infinite life- Ever since this deck was created people have played a miser card to beat infinite life; all scenarios assume you have
Omniscience
out and cast
Enter the Infinite
. That cards is usually Research/Development with some combination of SB cards usually
Duneblast
+
Biorhythm
(which doesn't even beat kitchen finks). Other decks have played
Plunge into Darkness
to take infinite turns and do infinite damage; the important part is you sacrifice emrakul. I've forgone Research/Development because it does nothing if you draw it or hit it with Narset until you're in a winning spot, and plunge because while it isn't as bad a the former it still doesn't do much and infinite life isn't super common anyways. I don't fold to infinite life though, I just have to win with mil and it's kind of complicated.
Step 0- DO NOT CAST EMRAKUL! If you just play Emrakul you cannot win unless your opponent kills her for you.
Step 1- Get Emrakul into exile. If she's not in exile from a serum powder of gemstone caverns you get her there by casting enter the infinite, putting Emrakul on top, and then cast spoils of the vault naming
Hidetsugu's Second Rite
. You will reveal Emrakul, put her into exile, and lose one life.
Step 1.5- To continue you need at least two enter the infinite to not be in exile, and need to pull a second one into the graveyard before you continue.
Step 2- Pull Emrakul into your graveyard; her shuffle trigger will go on the stack.
Step 3- With her shuffle trigger on the stack cast Goryo's vengeance targeting Emrakul. Put her into play and shuffle your graveyard into your library.
Step 4- Cast enter the infinite; put whatever card on top.
Step 5- Attack with Emrakul as many times as needed, by casting fury or waves, to annihilate every permanent your opponent controls.
Step 6- End your turn and put Emrakul into exile.
Step 7- Discard to hand size holding on to two pull, two Goryo's, as many enters as you have not exiled, and whatever else.
Step 8- Let your opponent take his/her turn. On your turn draw a card and go back to step 2. Your opponent will have one mana and their whole deck to disrupt you before they run out of cards. This is why I recommend keeping two of each pull and Goryo's to respond to whatever they try, and extra copies of enter if they try to stop you at that step.
