Nethroi, Apex of Aristocrats

Commander / EDH Aristocrats BGW (Abzan, Junk) Combo Multiplayer Reanimator Value Engine

akumawerewolf

Lands (36)

• 1x Brushland
• 1x Canopy Vista
• 1x Caves of Koilos
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Dakmor Salvage
• 1x Exotic Orchard
• 1x Geier Reach Sanitarium
• 1x Gingerbread Cabin
• 1x Godless Shrine
• 1x Grim Backwoods
• 1x High Market
• 1x Indatha Triome
• 1x Isolated Chapel
• 1x Krosan Verge
• 1x Llanowar Wastes
• 1x Marsh Flats
• 1x Murmuring Bosk
• 1x Nurturing Peatland
• 1x Overgrown Tomb
• 1x Phyrexian Tower
• 1x Reflecting Pool
• 1x Sandsteppe Citadel
• 1x Scattered Groves
• 1x Silent Clearing
• 1x Sunpetal Grove
• 1x Temple Garden
• 1x Temple of Malady
• 1x Temple of Plenty
• 1x Temple of Silence
• 1x Temple of the False God
• 1x Twilight Mire
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1x Vault of the Archangel
• 1x Verdant Catacombs
• 1x Windswept Heath
• 1x Woodland Cemetery

The Apex's Fodder (17)

• 1x Cryptic Trilobite
• 1x Endless One
• 1x Genesis Hydra
• 1x Hangarback Walker
• 1x Hooded Hydra
• 1x Hungering Hydra
• 1x Mikaeus, the Lunarch
• 1x Mistcutter Hydra
• 1x Phyrexian Marauder
• 1x Primordial Hydra
• 1x Shifting Wall
• 1x Steelbane Hydra
• 1x Stonecoil Serpent
• 1x Ugin's Conjurant
• 1x Voracious Hydra
• 1x Walking Ballista
• 1x Workhorse

Ramp (8)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Farseek
• 1x Heartless Summoning
• 1x Nature's Lore
• 1x Skyshroud Claim
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Spoils of Victory
• 1x Wood Elves

Combo - Aristocrats (6)

• 1x Corpse Knight
• 1x Cruel Celebrant
• 1x Poison-Tip Archer
• 1x Syr Konrad, the Grim
• 1x Vindictive Vampire
• 1x Zulaport Cutthroat

Combo - Alternate Reanimators (3)

• 1x Dusk / Dawn
• 1x Enduring Renewal
• 1x Rally the Ancestors

Mutaters (3)

• 1x Gemrazer
• 1x Necropanther
• 1x Sawtusk Demolisher

Commander (1)

Value through Death (11)

• 1x Dictate of Erebos
• 1x Erebos, Bleak-Hearted
• 1x Grave Pact
• 1x Grim Haruspex
• 1x Harvester of Souls
• 1x Liliana, Dreadhorde General
• 1x Luminous Broodmoth
• 1x Midnight Reaper
• 1x Moldervine Reclamation
• 1x Soul of the Harvest
• 1x The Great Henge

Graveyard Stockpile (7)

• 1x Altar of Dementia
• 1x Buried Alive
• 1x Death's Oasis
• 1x Final Parting
• 1x Golgari Grave-Troll
• 1x Hermit Druid
• 1x Jarad's Orders

Non-synergy Interaction (5)

• 1x Anguished Unmaking
• 1x Austere Command
• 1x Grand Abolisher
• 1x Mythos of Nethroi
• 1x Swords to Plowshares

Value Recursion (3)

• 1x Eternal Witness
• 1x Phyrexian Reclamation
• 1x Sevinne's Reclamation

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This is a deck around the new Nethroi, Apex of Death

Introduction

Wizards has brought an extremely fun and interesting toy to us in the form of Nethroi, Apex of Death. He's incredibly splashy and open enough to honestly do whatever you want with him.

I decided I wanted to abuse the hell out of this Apex of Death.

The goal of this deck is to stockpile your graveyard full of 0/0 creatures. Then, you can use Nethroi to reanimate all of these 0/0s along with any other creatures in your graveyard. And what are these other creatures? They're cards that have triggers whenever a creature dies.

So the win-con would go as follows. Reanimate 10 0/0s from your graveyard along with Cruel Celebrant, Poison-Tip Archer, Vindictive Vampire, and Zulaport Cutthroat. All 10 0/0s die immediately, putting 40 triggers on the stack that make each opponent lose 1 life. Make every player then lose 40 life, winning you the game (most likely).

Gameplan

This deck is exciting and you can play it in so many different ways. What's interesting is you can change your strategy throughout the game and play the game however you really like!

Here are the two main different ways the deck can play:

Slam and Jam

You are playing 17 creatures that can just be as big as you want. You can cast these for however big you want! Throw your big creatures onto the board to threaten people with huge creatures throughout the game, with your only restriction being how much mana you have available.

Then, you can start suiting up the huge creatures with the new mechanic- Mutate. If you Mutate a creature on top of a hydra, it will still have all the abilities and the counters from the hydra, but it will have a larger base power and toughness. If this is your Commander, then get ready to beat somebody's face in and very quickly threaten lethal Commander damage!

Value -> Combo

If big creatures aren't doing it or you just don't have the mana, then you can change your gameplan to this. You have plenty of creatures that care about your other creatures dying, so feel free to play your hydras and such as 0/0s just to get the triggers!

Do this with aristocrats and you can begin draining every player. Do this with a card like Harvester of Souls and you can begin churning through your deck! Keep going through the deck and generating value until you're ready to reanimate them all for the sudden kill!

Win Conditions

As stated prior, the main win condition is to cast Nethroi, Apex of Death, Eerie Ultimatum, or Rally the Ancestors reanimate all your 0/0s along with all your creatures that drain your opponents from all these 0/0s, and kill them in one swoop. Dusk / Dawn can similarly fill this roll if players are at a low enough life that you can kill them through recasting enough of these for 0.

Enduring Renewal

However, there are other ways to achieve this win. On top of the above win cards, there is the all-star Enduring Renewal. To describe how this card is such an all-star, I'm going to demonstrate a possible scenario:

• Enduring Renewal and Harvester of Souls is on the battlefield.

• Cast Walking Ballista with X equalling 0.

• Walking Ballista dies as a state-based action.

• Enduring Renewal triggers, bringing Walking Ballista back to your hand.

• Harvester of Souls triggers, and it's supposed to draw you a card, but Enduring Renewal's replacement effect takes place.

• Reveal the top card of your library. If it's a creature, mill it, otherwise, draw it.

• Repeat this process until you draw Rally the Ancestors or Eerie Ultimatum and have milled enough other 0/0 creatures and enough cards the drain your opponent.

• Cast Rally the Ancestors or Eerie Ultimatum and win.

Alternatively, if you just have one of your 0-mana 0/0s and a creature that drains opponents, looping the 0/0 infinitely just kills everybody.

Just simply having this weird enchantment on the board can lead to wins out of seemingly nowhere, and as such is definitely one of the most powerful cards for this deck.

Hermit Druid

I don't think Hermit Druid needs much of a introduction. This deck has 0 basic lands and, as such, he mills your entire deck, setting you up for mass reanimating with Nethroi, Apex of Death, Eerie Ultimatum, or Rally the Ancestors. Be very careful, though, as Hermit Druid is a human, meaning you can't mutate Nethroi, Apex of Death onto him.

This little 2-drop makes it so rather than setting up and filling the graveyard throughout the game, we can do it in one big shot and go for the win, as risky as it may be.

The main way we can pop a win in 1 turn with Hermit Druid goes as follows:

• Tap Hermit Druid and proceed to mill your entire library.

• Cast Sevinne's Reclamation from the graveyard, returning Eternal Witness and Grand Abolisher. Now, opponent's can't really act during your turn, ensuring your combo safety.

• Eternal Witness ETB resolves, returning Rally the Ancestors to your hand.

• Cast Rally the Ancestors with X = 2 (total 4 mana)

• Return everything that costs 2 or less from your deck onto the battlefield, reviving 16 0/0 creatures + Zulaport Cutthroat, Corpse Knight, and Cruel Celebrant.

• Resolve all triggers, deal 48 to each opponent.

Good ol' Beats

However, in certain play groups, you may run into hate pieces or the game has gotten too mucked up with board wipes and such. While this is yet to be tested, it would seem to me like it could be totally possible to slap Nethroi, Apex of Death onto a really big Voracious Hydra or other big creature and go to town, killing people with Commander damage instead. Just simply put Nethroi, Apex of Death on top so it has its base power and toughness while it keeps the trample from Voracious Hydra or abilities from any other hydra along with all those +1/+1 counters you funneled onto it.

Future of this deck

I have been testing this deck on Cockatrice with friends primarily. As such, I've started getting a good feel for this. It definitely is a very different kind of deck and I think there's still room for improvement. I would even love to turn this into a Primer at some point for Nethroi, but I'm only comfortable making a primer once I feel confident that I know the ins and the outs of the deck, which just frankly isn't possible in the few play sessions I've had so far.

I also plan on probably running at least 2-3 more board wipes.

Of course, any and all suggestions are greatly appreciated! This is a very new sort of deck that I believe this Commander has opened up to us!

Top Ranked	Achieved #18 position overall 4 years ago Achieved #12 position in Commander / EDH 4 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Aristocrats 4 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH BGW (Abzan, Junk) 4 years ago
Date added	4 years
Last updated	4 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	12 - 0 Mythic Rares 60 - 0 Rares 22 - 0 Uncommons 6 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.98
Tokens	Beast 3/3 G, Food, Morph 2/2 C, Snake 1/1 G, Thopter 1/1 C, Zombie 2/2 B
Folders	Abzan EDH, copy/paste, Deck Ideas, Abzan, Deck Ideas, ALL EDH Decks, Reference, Biollante