Nekuzar, the Pain Dealer

Commander / EDH* UBR (Grixis)

ppoolli

Instant (15)

• 1x Arcane Denial
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Dark Ritual
• 1x Dispel
• 1x Dream Salvage
• 1x Drown in the Loch
• 1x Firestorm
• 1x Flusterstorm
• 1x Mana Drain
• 1x Mystical Tutor
• 1x Pact of Negation
• 1x Red Elemental Blast
• 1x Swan Song
• 1x Vampiric Tutor
• 1x Wheel and Deal

Sorcery (15)

• 1x Awaken the Erstwhile
• 1x Burning Inquiry
• 1x Dark Deal
• 1x Dark Petition
• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Echo of Eons
• 1x Incendiary Command
• 1x Molten Psyche
• 1x Past in Flames
• 1x Reforge the Soul
• 1x Toxic Deluge
• 1x Wheel of Fortune
• 1x Whispering Madness
• 1x Windfall
• 1x Winds of Change

Enchantment (12)

• 1x Bloodchief Ascension
• 1x Breathstealer's Crypt
• 1x Curiosity
• 1x Forced Fruition
• 1x Liliana's Caress
• 1x Megrim
• 1x Oppression
• 1x Phyresis
• 1x Phyrexian Tyranny
• 1x Rhystic Study
• 1x Underworld Breach
• 1x Waste Not

Artifact (13)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Geth's Grimoire
• 1x Izzet Signet
• 1x Library of Leng
• 1x Lotus Petal
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Memory Jar
• 1x Rakdos Signet
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Talisman of Creativity
• 1x Talisman of Dominance
• 1x Talisman of Indulgence
• 1x Teferi's Puzzle Box

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Ashiok, Dream Render

Creature (7)

• 1x Bone Miser
• 1x Fate Unraveler
• 1x Glint-Horn Buccaneer
• 1x Jace, Vryn's Prodigy  ^Flip
• 1x Jace's Archivist
• 1x Nekusar, the Mindrazer
• 1x Whirlpool Warrior

Land (36)

• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Arid Mesa
• 1x Blood Crypt
• 1x Bojuka Bog
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Dragonskull Summit
• 1x Drowned Catacomb
• 1x Exotic Orchard
• 1x Geier Reach Sanitarium
• 6x Island
• 1x Mana Confluence
• 1x Morphic Pool
• 4x Mountain
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 1x Riverglide Pathway  ^Flip
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 1x Shivan Reef
• 1x Spinerock Knoll
• 1x Steam Vents
• 1x Sulfur Falls
• 4x Swamp
• 1x Training Center
• 1x Watery Grave
• 1x Wooded Foothills

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Everyone likes to draw cards right? Everyone likes to discard cards right?

Here's another Nekusar deck that, as the abilities on the card suggest, wins the game by dealing damage through draw. Discard plays a big factor in this as well, but let's get started on some of the key strategies.

RAMP:

Like any fine tuned deck, this deck runs as many 2 drop artifact ramp spells as possible. Playing a Signet/Talisman on T2 is always a good play, ramping us to 4 mana by T3. An early Sol Ring or Dark Ritual is always welcome, boosting us to more artifact ramp spells and helping us reach Nekusar, the Mindrazer as fast as possible.

DAMAGE:

Besides Nekusar, the Mindrazer, we look for other cards such as Underworld Dreams, Liliana's Caress, Megrim and Glint-Horn Buccaneer to help us stack on the pain. Molten Psyche (with 'Metalcraft' online - which shouldn't be too hard given the amount of artifacts we run), has the potential to do HUGE damage, again, if cast at the right time - preferably after a wheel. But wait, "Besides Nekusar, the Mindrazer and Underworld Dreams, these cards don't do anything on their own" I hear you say? This is true, which is why we rely on our utility to draw us into the cards we need.

UTILITY:

The nuts and bolts. The stuff we need to do the thing we want. Here we are running tutor spells like Mystical Tutor, Demonic Tutor and Beseech the Queen to help us search for the right card at the right time. We can set up a Mystical Tutor placing a Reforge the Soul to the top for that miracle wheel, hopefully with a discard damager on board. Or just get whatever you need. Demonic Tutor will most likely always be searching for Waste Not, ideally setting up a wheel on the same turn. I want to take a second here to highlight the importance of this card and the HUGE impact it can have on your game. Waste Not is a HEAVY HITTER in the right deck, drawing you cards and (hopefully) giving you mana to cast the cards you draw, and if you play it right, you can chain spells and win the game. Tutoring for and casting Underworld Breach at the right time is the game winner, setting up a turn where you can continuously re-cast Wheel of Fortune, Windfall or Burning Inquiry, and here we can use our Lotus Petal to help with the required mana. Geth's Grimoire and Library of Leng play a big part in our draw/discard engines, helping us churn through our deck and making sure we keep our good spells on top of our library.

WIN-CONS:

As described above, the win con for this deck is damage through draw or discard. We are waiting to draw or searching for these cards, then casting wheels (such as Whispering Madness, Wheel of Fortune, Windfall, Dark Deal, Burning Inquiry, Wheel and Deal and Winds of Change) for maximum effect. Waste Not + any wheel (that resolves), will hopefully give us 6+ extra draws from our opponents discards, 4+ black mana and maybe a few zombies (which aren't THAT relevant). The floating black mana can allow us to cast a mana rock to help cast other cards - hopefully more wheels - giving us MORE cards through Waste Not, then we just rinse and repeat. Rinse and repeat, until we hit Underworld Breach or Past in Flames, giving us access to our graveyard. Firestorm can kill the table if we have enough cards in hand, and things like a Phyresis or Curiosity on either Nekusar, the Mindrazer or Glint-Horn Buccaneer + a wheel can get there too.

I hope this was helpful for you in building/refining your own Grixis, Nekusar pain deck. The cool thing about this commander is that there are so many cards to choose from when building, it just comes down to how proficient and tuned you want it to be.

Happy enemy making :D

Date added	9 years
Last updated	2 years
Legality	This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	9 - 0 Mythic Rares 47 - 0 Rares 16 - 0 Uncommons 13 - 0 Commons
Cards	99
Avg. CMC	2.56
Tokens	Bird 2/2 U, Emblem Jace, Vryn's Prodigy, Zombie 2/2 B
Folders	idea deacks