Fish Hulk and Najeela
Commander (EDH) forum
Posted on Jan. 21, 2020, 1:56 a.m. by enpc
Given the state of cEDH at the moment and the shake up that has been Thassa's Oracle, there is a feeling that cEDH has kind of become "solved" in its current state (There's a good deck update here - have a read).
So with this all said and done, since the most competitive lists are now moving to fish hulk as a primary win condition, does this mean that Thrasios, Triton Hero + Tymna the Weaver is still the best commander(s) for the deck? What about Najeela, the Blade-Blossom?
My thoughts for Najeela over Thrasios are this:
-
Fish hulk doesn't rely on infinite mana, meaning that including infinite mana loops as a backup strategy means a heavier reliance on mana rocks and dorks (and thus card spaces).
-
Since Najeela is basically a 2 card combo with a bunch of cards already (with one of those peices in the CZ) most lists already take advantage of the forbidden tutors (i.e. Demonic Consultation and the like). In addition to this, they also leverage creature tutors (to get derevi) meaning more value options per tutor.
-
Najeela gives you access to red, not only allowing you to swap Blood Pet for Wild Cantor (small gains) but also making the deck hardier against Blood Moon type effects since at worst you can still cast your commander and turn sideways. Also gives access to an assortment of red and R/x cards.
-
Having a single commander means an additional card slot in the deck. It's not much, but every bit counts.
While Thrasios can provide good card advantage even outside of combo (4 mana draw a card is still decent) and Tymna can potentially open provide constant advantage (though mileage may vary), is Najeela actually the better fish hulk commander? Thoughts?
dingusdingo says... #3
First post best post. Which one is better is meta dependent, due to the nature of how they are built
- Najeela does worse against decks with combat stoppers, TnT does worse against decks with draw stoppers.
- TnT is a 4 color mana base, Najeela is 5. Even with the additional mana fixing Najeela runs, your mana base is going to be more vulnerable to getting sniped by Wasteland and Strip Mine. Both are roughed up pretty bad by Moon effects and Back to Basics.
- TnT is grindier, Najeela has ability to threaten wins off of just commander.
Either way you're playing fish hulk, so life isn't going to be very hard for you in general. Both are great options for being the commander. Just be aware you'll have a massive target on your back with either commander, even at competitive tables, for playing the tier 0 builds.
GhostChieftain says... #2
I don't think that either one is actually better than the other overall, just in certain tables one may be favored over the other. Both are tier 0 commanders that apart from playing the other one you won't be able to play any better deck. Imo what you are doing when picking between the two is actually deciding if you want better and more reliable card draw or if you want inevitability in the form of 1/1 warriors beating people down. Najeela helps the game not go super long and grindy because she'll just kill people, but tnt gets nutty card advantage and has hella good grind game if it goes long as well as the fact that they may just draw into pieces faster. They are very similar decks overall and either way the hulk player is gonna come in clapping cheeks as always, just gonna smell fishy now.
January 21, 2020 9:37 a.m.