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Nikya of the Old Ways

Commander / EDH* Battlecruiser Ramp RG (Gruul)

NickyBolas

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1. Mana Doubler (3)

2. Land Untapper (6)

3. Firebreathing (6)

4. Maze Combo (3)

5. Ventmaw Assault (3)

6. Ramp Dork (5)

6. Ramp Land (4)

7. Removal Creature (5)

7. Removal Noncreature (5)

8. Draw (8)

8. Loot (2)

8. Tutor (5)

9. Spice (5)

9. Utility (2)

Other (37)

Commander (1)

Commander: Nikya of the Old Ways

Title

Firebreathing Tribal! Nikya of the Old Ways grants us double mana at the cost of noncreature spells. We can use this to pump up Dragons and other creatures to hit like a truck.

Using as many Mana doubling effects as we can, we can threaten lethal damage in players with a single attacking dragon.

To bolster this precarious strategy, we run combos based around Aggravated Assault - granting us infinite attack steps, and Argothian Elder - granting us infinite Mana during combat.

==accordion

Supplementing Nikya's Mana-boosting ability, we run similar effects via:

Untapping lands can produce more Mana than a regular Mana dork once our land produce double or triple.

The primary way we use our plentiful Mana to kill out opponents is through creates with firebreathing, or repeatable power-pumping abilities, like:

Since we are running land untapping creatures like Argothian Elder and Ley Weaver , we can use Maze of Ith to generate infinite Mana during our combat step.

Here's how this combo works:

Of course, this Mana it's only available for use during combat, as it empties from our pool when we change phases. So what better way to utilize this combo than pumping infinite Mana into a Moonveil Dragon .

Savage Ventmaw and Aggravated Assault form the classic Gruul combo, but there are additional ways we can emulate this synergy.

This combo works by generating 5+ Mana from each attack, but we can replicate this effect by utilizing the untapping effect of the extra attack steps and our creatures which untap lands, like Voyaging Satyr .

If our lands are producing double or triple, than we only need to untap a few lands to feed Aggravated Assault .

Hellkite Charger does a reasonable impression of Aggravated Assault , with the bonus of being castable once Nikya of the Old Ways is in play, but requires 7 Mana instead of 5, which is a bit harder to pull off.

Lastly Combat Celebrant + Maze of Ith + land untapper = Infinite attack steps.

We want to reach 5 minutes fast as possible so, in addition to the normal land untappers, we run:

Mana dorks to keep speed parity with stronger ramp spend that we don't have access to premiere rank spells.

Even better for late-game are creatures that put extra lands into play for Nikya to host like:

Being a creature-only deck doesn't necessarily preclude us from running a decent amount of removal for both creature and noncreature permanents:

Our draw power will be our weakest area when operating with noncreature spells.

We'll need to supplement the traditional draw engines of:

With some creatures who can loot away noncreature spells in case we draw into them while Nikya us in play.

==endaccordion

Coming Soon.

Competitive

Optimized

>Focused<

Casual

Jank

N/A

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Revision 1 See all

(6 years ago)

-1 Acidic Slime main
+1 Ancient Tomb main
-1 Apocalypse Hydra main
+1 Arbor Elf main
+1 Argothian Elder main
-1 Azra Bladeseeker main
-1 Bear Umbra main
-1 Braid of Fire main
+1 Brutalizer Exarch main
-1 Captivating Crew main
+1 Cinder Glade main
+1 Combustible Gearhulk main
+1 Command Tower main
-1 Courser of Kruphix main
-1 Dragon Whisperer main
+1 Dryad Arbor main
+1 Duskwatch Recruiter  Flip main
+1 Evolving Wilds main
+1 Fauna Shaman main
+1 Fierce Empath main
and 109 other change(s)