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Nin, Izzet mid-range combo! [Primer]

Commander / EDH* Budget Combo Competitive Infinite Combo Primer UR (Izzet)

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Counterspells, Wipes, & Removal (17)

Finishers, Combos, & Win Conditions (9)

Preservation & Resource Denial (8)

Land (30)

Tutors (11)

Draw (5)

Commander (1)

Commander: Nin, the Pain Artist

Mana Rocks & Ramp (15)

Graveyard Recursion (3)

Utility (1)

Maybeboard

Other (7)

Semi-competitive, "optimised", low-cost, high-level "75%" mid-range combos with Nin, the Pain Artist.


Presenting......

Nin, the Narcissist

Sexy Nin

"Your body is a delicate instrument that tells me truths. These devices help me tune that instrument."


Nin, the Pain Artist doesn't care about you. She doesn't care about your big creatures or your fancy stuff. She cares about herself and churning through her own deck before she explodes and smashes all opponents into a pulp in one fell swoop! Nin is a narcissist.

It is important to give credit where credit is due and I used the primer Nin Competitive Primer by impropriety to heavily influence the build of this deck. The differences between the primer and this deck are for two main reasons. Firstly, budget - this deck runs a hell of a lot cheaper than the one in the link, especially since the reprints of some of the key combo pieces recently. Secondly, meta - the primer regards a full and true cEDH meta and that is not my meta. This deck should run more closely to the top end of "75%" or "competitive casual" level, rather than true cEDH decks. I would also like to shout-out Betulas, who helped me with this brew as well as the helpful commenters on Reddit.

I hope you like it, and if you do, please upvote and comment!


This deck can win in a number of ways but they almost all rely on firstly achieving an infinite mana generation situation. There are a few ways to generate your infinite mana (see the section below) but they primarily rely on mana rocks and untap abilities/spells. These are mostly achieved through heavy card draw and the use of a number of tutors to get the cards you need.

You can then take this infinite mana and win the game in a couple of different ways (see below).

The deck also includes a package of preservation and resource denial (STAX-lite?) that will hopefully keep you alive long enough to achieve your objectives.

The deck will often seem to be doing "nothing" and then, suddenly, you'll hit a critical mass and explode. I have tried to go through each of these steps below.
This deck runs quite a high number of mana rocks. The idea of the infinite mana generation in this deck is to have these untap repeatedly each time you perform an action, thus allowing you to perform them again.

  • Isochron Scepter + Dramatic Reversal + ≥3 mana from rocks - As long as your rocks generate 3+ mana in total, you exile the Dramatic Reversal under the Isochron Scepter, tap 3+ from your rocks, cast the reversal, they all untap. Voila, infinite mana at instant speed.
  • Basalt Monolith + Power Artifact - Enchant the monolith and now you can untap it for 1 mana, netting you 2 each time you perform the cycle!
  • Basalt Monolith + Rings of Brighthearth - This one's worth googling how it works, but you can use the copied untap ability to infinitely tap/untap the Monolith, generating 1 spare mana per cycle and going infinite.
  • Staff of Domination + Metalworker + 3 artifacts in hand - By tapping the Metalworker and revealing 3 artifacts in hand you generate 6 mana. Use some of that mana to untap Metalworker with the Staff and boom, infinite mana cycle. If you've also got Rings of Brighthearth on the board or Power Artifact on your Staff then you can do this with just 2 artifacts in hand.

The deck includes a number of tutors to grab these vital pieces and a little recursion if they end up in the graveyard (see below) but there's also some heavy card draw in this deck to get you there if not.

So, what do you do once you have the infinite mana on board? That won't win you the game alone! Usually once you are generating infinite mana you will also have the ability to draw through your entire deck. This will help you to grab the finishing pieces of your puzzle.

  • Comet Storm or Expansion / Explosion - This one's simple, with infinite mana you can just blast your opponents to death in one big swoop.
  • Walking Ballista - Another simple direct damage ping. Use "half" the infinite mana to load this up with +1/+1 counters, then use the "other half" to unload all that damage straight to the face of your opponents.
  • Thassa's Oracle - If you've got infinite mana and picked up your deck, here's an alternative way to win. Cast this with an empty library, put none back, and win on the spot without needing to do any damage!
There are tons (14 or 15?) of mana rocks in the deck and almost any combination of 2 or 3 of them will be enough for you to generate the infinite mana with the other combo pieces. On top of that they will also ramp you into loads of mana as quickly as possible, allowing you to utilise Nin, the Pain Artist's draw abilities and get through to more and more of your deck as fast as possible.

There are also a few dedicated draw spells in the deck, such as Ponder, and Preordain which can all be really useful. Don't forget that Darksteel Myr is a great draw engine with Nin, the Pain Artist as you can damage it as much as you like without it dying! Dack Fayden is another great way to not only draw cards but also steal the opponents mana rocks.

Copy Artifact can also be used to copy your best rock.

Finally if you have lots of mana you can use your Prophet of Distortion to draw most (all?) of your deck to find whatever you need.
The deck includes the following cards to provide a "stay alive" package consisting of some counterspells and resource denial:

There are lots of tutors in the deck:


So that's it. If you liked the deck, please be kind enough to click the upvote button. If you really liked the deck, leave a comment and let me know! Even better, if you think you've got an upgrade for the deck then I would love to hear it, particularly if I missed something from a new set.


This was a pretty huge update (18 changes), dropping the average CMC of the deck from 2.6 to 2.1, dropping the lands from 36 to 32, removing a lot of the "chaff", and starting to fine tune the deck to really go off more easily. It still needs more playtesting, but so far it has done very well.

OUT:

IN:

Simple swap out, replacing Windfall with the new Spellseeker as another way to get the Dramatic Reversal when you can't find it!
I was previously using a "shared cards folder" to enable the use of medium and high cost cards in multiple decks. Having decided to stop using this folder I have had to make some modifications to all of my decks to fit the cards in. I also took this opportunity to make a few minor tweaks to my decks, which are also included in this update.

REMOVED:

ADDED:

A small update to free up some cards for a new deck I'm working on but I think these should actually streamline the deck a little bit.

REMOVED:

ADDED:

So Paradox Engine was finally banned, and with it goes a couple of our (jankier) ways to generate infinite mana. I've also come across a few more expensive pieces locally and so took the opportunity to have a bit of a major update to the deck.

REMOVED:

ADDED:

REMOVED:

ADDED:

Lastly I have swapped out a few printings for cooler ones, full art, etc just to keep the deck looking sweet :) Swan Song, Preordain, Sol Ring, and Thought Vessel all got the bling treatment and I aligned all my basics to be "Bolas Style" full arts from HOU/AKH.

REMOVED:

ADDED:

REMOVED:

ADDED:

I've wanted a Tarn for years, but MH2 finally made them cheap enough to justify it!

REMOVED:

ADDED:

It got banned ages ago and I just got around to updating it!

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Casual

100% Competitive

Revision 21 See all

(1 year ago)

-1 Hullbreacher main
+1 Thought Vessel main
Top Ranked
Date added 6 years
Last updated 1 year
Legality

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

9 - 0 Mythic Rares

40 - 0 Rares

18 - 0 Uncommons

16 - 0 Commons
Cards 100
Avg. CMC 2.13
Tokens Bird 2/2 U, Construct 0/0 C, Emblem Dack Fayden
Folders My Built Decks, Deck to try, Commander, Budget, Potential Decks to Build, edh decks, Interesting Commander Decks, immediate make, Decks i like, Cool Decks
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