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Not your average Mono-U (Nezahal, Primal tide)

Commander / EDH Artifact Control Mono-Blue Voltron

Masne98888

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Artifact (22)

Enchantment (5)

Planeswalker (1)

Instant (17)

Land (37)

Commander (1)

Commander: Nezahal, Primal Tide

Creature (13)

Sorcery (4)

Maybeboard

Artifact (3)

Enchantment (1)

Creature (2)

Instant (1)

Sorcery (2)

Introduction

Hi guys, i am a commander player and i'm definetly not new to the format and not new to tappedout, nevertheless i have never took the time to write a complete guide about my deckslists. With this particular deck i decided to make the effort, for two main reason
  1. I am very proud of this deck. Usually when i build a new deck, even if i always like to put a bit of myself in every deck, I end up copying the basic strategies from others and I take most of the cards from EDHREC. This time it's different, the strategy for this deck comes directly from me and i took only few cards from EDHREC; I searched most of the cards by myself, with the help of my own experience and Scryfall.
  2. this commander is extremely underrated and it deserve much more love, in particular because it gives you the opportunity to take a different view on mono-blue
Nezahal, Primal Tide is our commander, i love him, he is huge and does pretty much everything this decks needs; let's give a closer look to him
  • His power is 7, that's perfect! Exactly what we need for building a voltron strategy, with only 3 attacks we can take down an opponnet, and even less if we use our tools that I'll show you later
  • He can't be countered which is always nice
  • He can protect himself with his own ability! By discarding 3 cards we can exile him, and he'll turn back at the next end step; this ability protects our commander from removals like Path to Exile , but even from wraths like Damnation . Since our main win conditions is dealing commander damage, it is very important that we can protect him
  • Whenever an opponent casts a noncreature spell, we get to draw a card: very good ability, it let us dig Through our library helping us searching for the key pieces, while at the same time it gives fuel for the other Nezahal's ability (the one described above)
  • He removes our hand limit. This might not sound like much, but since the deck is built around drawing a lot of cards, in order to be able to protect the commander with his own ability, we are often gonna have much more card than seven in our hand
The winning strategy of the deck works on 5 phases
  1. We start by ramping a lot of mana using artifacts like Thran Dynamo or Caged Sun (ramping a lot is fundamental for this deck)
  2. Then once we have mana, we draw a lot with cards like Pull from Tomorrow or Mind Spring (having an hand always full of card is also fundamental for the deck)
  3. While ramping and drawing, we protect ourselves from destruption and attacks with counters and cards like Evacuation
  4. We slam in our commander, that cannot be removed, since we have an hand full of cards and we can keep exiling him in response to everything
  5. Finally, we make him unblockable with cards like Thassa, God of the Sea or Rogue's Passage and we start dealing commander damage to our opponents until they are dead
PROS
  • With this deck you get to draw a lot of cards
  • It is not a mainstream deck and is definetly much different than most mono-U
  • This deck is based on a voltron strategy that doesn't rely much on auras and equipment
  • It is sort of budget friendly, with 80€ I was able to get all the cards
CONS
  • By being a mono-U deck, it generates a lot of not deserved hate from the opponents
  • It has a bad match-up against super aggro decks, like Purphoros, God of the Forge or Aurelia, the Warleader , and it doesn't have any way to gain life
  • It suffer a lot from artifact hate

Cards choice

  • Caged Sun : this card is great, it gives us exactly what we need (a shit tone of mana), we also have some cards that let us search our library for islands, which makes this card even better.
  • Thran Dynamo : great card, let's us ramp 3 for only 4 mana, there is not much else to say.
  • Gilded Lotus : a weaker versione of the card above, since it cost 1 more mana, but it's still pretty good, also gives us blue mana instead of colorless, which might be usefull
  • Dreamstone Hedron :another weaker versione of thran dynamo, since it cost 2 more mana, but it has the added bonus of letting us draw for the late game (even if probably we'll never use that ability)
  • Hedron Archive : since the are no more cards that tap for 3 or more mana in the game, now we gotta go with the ones that tap for less, simple as that
  • Ur-Golem's Eye : ugh, this card is terrible, i know it, but ramping is so important for this deck, that we have to play cards like this
  • Worn Powerstone : this card is actually better than the one above, since it comes out one turn earlier, even if we can't tap it right away
  • Palladium Myr : this is basically a worn powerstone with legs, can be used as blocker in extreme situations
  • Coalition Relic : this card can store up a counter to give us more mana for the big turns, or tap for mana right away if we need to, is versatile
  • Burnished Hart : great card, is definetly not cheap, since it cost a total of 6 mana to get 2 lands, but it helps with caged sun and also che be used as a blocker for one turn (also we don't have anything better to ramp lands in mono blue ¯_(ツ)_/¯)
  • Solemn Simulacrum : just a great staple for commander, in particular for this deck, gives us a land, a card and a blocker, what more could we ask for?
  • Everflowing Chalice : this card is good because is very versatile, also it can go crazy in the late game when we already have an enormous amount of mana (with this deck, we never have "enought mana")
  • Sapphire Medallion : this card is not as good as it may looks, since we ran a lot of colorless card (that don't get the discount), but is still pretty good, since this is a mono color deck
  • Thought Vessel : you may think that this card is useless, since our commander already removes the maximus hand size, and the answer is that our opponents can play around that ability, by playing a removal on nezahal during our end step, by doing so, even if we exile him with his own ability, he's not gonna come back until the next turn's end step, and that would make us discard to 7. For this reason another card that removes the limit can still be pretty usefull.
  • Sculpting Steel : this is our trick to get more copies of our best ramp artifacts, like caged sun or gilded lotus, we can also copy opponent's stuff if there is something good, like a Darksteel Colossus
  • Clever Impersonator : basically a more expensive sculping steal, with the bonus that we can copy any permanent if there is something interesting on the board
  • High Tide : a one-shot caged sun, pretty good if we are planning to play a big X cost card
  • Sol Ring : because sol ring
  • Pull from Tomorrow : X-cost draw cards are one of the most important pieces of our deck, they let us fill our hand, so we can protect our commander
  • Stroke of Genius : nothing to say
  • Blue Sun's Zenith : with this card we also have the option of milling our opponents if we have a lot of mana, but don't count much on that, since we don't run any infinite mana combo
  • Mind Spring : being a sorcery, really makes this card much weaker than the others one, whoever there are only 3 instant X-cost card-draw cards in mono blu, so we gotta stick with that.
  • Myojin of Seeing Winds : thid guy is the biggest card draw in the entire deck, it is definetly not cheap, but that is not a problem for our deck, it lets us draw around 12 to 17 cards, for "only" 10 mana!! Just great, also works very well with Omniscience
  • Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur : another big guy that let us draw a lot of cards, not as much as myojin of course, but it has flash, which means that it can be used as a surprise blocker, and also can be a pain in the ass for the opponents if they don't remove him quicly
  • Overwhelming Intellect : usually with this card we get to draw around 6 cards, which is great for only 6 mana, plus we get to counter something big. In the match ups when no opponent is playing big creatures, we can just discard it to nezahal's ability if we need to protect him, so, even in that case, this card is not completely useless
  • Treasure Cruise : basically an Ancestral Recall for this deck, since we get to fill our graveyard with nezahal's ability, we are easily gonna pay just 1 mana for this card
  • Padeem, Consul of Innovation : good card, gives protection for our mana rocks (which are very important for our deck) and gives a card each turn, also can be used as blocker for not too big creatures
  • Rhystic Study : just a good staple for commander, if not removed quicly, is gonna let as draw a lot of cards, sometimes even more than 10, in particular if played early in the game
  • Alhammarret's Archive : this is the most important card among the ones in this category, we don't really care about the life gain, but drawing double card is just so good in this deck, it works well with all other cards in this category, but most importatly, it works perfectly well with our commander's second ability
Nezahal has a lot of powerfull abilities, but it doesen't have anything like trample or flying, a simple 1/1 token every turn is enought to block him, for this reason we need to run something to make him unblockable.
  • Whispersilk Cloak : makes our commander unblockable and gives him a bit of protection with hexproof, also it can be tutored since it is an artifact
  • Key to the City : a nice artifact that makes our commander unblockable for the price of a card (which is not big deal if we just filled our hand with an X-card or something similar)
  • Dragon Wings : we can cycle this card for two mana, and then, once it is in our graveyard, is gonna give flying to our commander whenever it comes to the battlefield, even if we just blinked him! It doesn't give unblockable, which may be a problem, but usually, there is always at leats an opponent who doesn't have an flying blocker
  • Wonder : similarly to Dragon Wings , this card gives flying to our commander for as long as it stay in the graveyard, and with nezahal's last ability, is pretty easy to put him there
  • Thassa, God of the Sea : love this card, can make our commander unblockable and gives us card filtering every turn, on top of that it is indestructible and if we get enought devotion, she can be used as blocker
  • Beacon of Tomorrows : extra turns cards can be very deadly in this deck, they can give us the extra attack that we needed to kill an opponent; also i run only extra turns that shuffles back in the deck, this allows us to go infinite if we cycle enought card through our deck
  • Nexus of Fate : same as the card above
  • Fireshrieker : this card can be used as a suprise attack for finishing an opponent that was already hit by nezahal before in the game
  • Empyrial Plate : this card is similar to Fireshrieker , but is better, because it's cheaper and if we have at least 14 cards in our hand, we can directly one-shot an opponent
  • Omniscience : this card is not a direct win condition, but it gives us so much value, that most of the time is gonna bring us to victory, in particular if we play it right after a big draw spell. It works especially well with extra-turns spells
  • Sunder : i put this card in here, because if combined with our mass removals, like Evacuation or Cyclonic Rift , is gonna let us win the game if we have nezahal in play, by removing every land and creature except for himself (that can be protected with is own ability)
  • Forbid : this card is here because it acts like a complete lock-down for our opponents if we have enought mana and we draw enought cards (and we are gonna do it); add nezahal and Alhammarret's Archive and the lock-down is complety, since every noncreature spell cast by our opponents is gonna let us draw 2 card to feed our Forbid , at this point it should be basically impossible for them to get through it; if you want to exaggerate add Omniscience to the combo, and at this point, not even the 3 mana cost of the card is a problem.
  • Worldslayer : this is my absolute favorite card in magic and is one of the reason why i decided to build this deck; it is also our greatest win condition: once we equip it to our commander, we just need to deal damage to someone and BOOM every permanente is gone, except for our nezahal, that can be exiled with is own ability in response to Worldslayer trigger. This card is so good in this deck, i'm surprised no one plays it in nezahal commanders, but again, almost no one plays nezahal as a commader :')
We play a lot of artifact in the deck, in order to get mana; at this point, why not play some tutors for them?
Since our gameplane of generating a lot of mana and drawing a ton of cards is gonna attract a lot of hate from the opponents, we need some ways to protect ourselves.
  • Cyclonic Rift : just a stupidly powerfull card that should be in every single blue deck
  • Evacuation : since we don't have cards like Wrath of God in a mono blu, we run global bounce effect instead; this card is also instant, which means we can use it in response to a big attack on us
  • AEtherize : basically an 1 mana cheaper evacuation, with an irrelevant drawback
  • Curse of the Swine : an one-sided removal for all big creatures, can be very expensive sometimes, but with this deck, it should not be a problem most of the times
  • Propaganda : another great staple for commander, especially good agains tokens decks
  • Kefnet the Mindful : this guy is our blocker, it is gonna be active most of the time and can give us some extra card advantage if needed; also can be used as an alternative to our commander in combination to Worldslayer
  • Reality Shift : just a cheap and versatile removal for creatures
  • Duplicant : a not so cheap removal for creatures, but that has the upside of being an artifact, therefore is tutorable; also can be used as a blocker
Since we play a mono blu deck, why not add some counters? i only play 2 mana counters, since i don't like to pay to much for them and the main reason for playing them is to stop combos and protecting our big spells. I only play 3 of them, but by drawing a lot of cards, we should be able to always have at least one in our hand.
  • Counterspell : just a very good card
  • Arcane Denial : a counter that let us also draw a card, very good and the drawback is often not much relevant
  • Negate : just to stop other counters that are coming to our X-cost spells
  • Foil : basically a free counter, it is a 3 for 1, but considering the massive amount of cards we draw from Nezhal, it is no big deal
  • Relic of Progenitus : my playgroup is rich of graveyard based decks, i play this card to counter them; also it can cycle itself, therefore it is never a dead draw
  • Lightning Greaves : they give us a bit of protection for our commander, but most importantly, they give him haste, allowing us to start dealing damage the turn nezahal comes in
  • Telepathy : when i put this card in the deck, i thought that it would be a fun card, but not a really good one. I was wrong, this card is fun AND strong; it gives us an exact idea on how to proced to our gameplan, and most importantly it tell us where to land our counterspells; without giving any information to the opponents about our hand

Conclusions

  • Mana Crypt , Mana Drain , Ancient Tomb and Maze of Ith : I didn't put those cards in the deck, because they cost too much money and i don't own them, even if they would be great in this deck
  • Expropriate , Time Stretch and other extra turns: I didn't put those cards in the deck because they are simply too powerfull; my playgroup is rich for casual deck (there is this guy who plays tribal skeleton, and i said everything) and i didn't want to make mine too competitive
  • Deadeye Navigator + Peregrine Drake : i didn't put any infite combo in the deck, for the same reason as the cards above, however, if you want a stronger and more competitive deck, feel free to add those cards.
  • Gauntlet of Power : i used to play this card, but since there are some people who play Blue, i decided to remove it because it gave too much advantage to the opponents
If you have an suggestion or criticism, please let me now in the comment; i'll also try to answer any question about the deck. Thank you guys for reading, if you found the decklist usefull or at least interesting, i invite you to upvote, it took a lot of effort to to write down all that.
  • P.S. Sorry for my potato english XP

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Date added 6 years
Last updated 4 years
Key combos
Legality

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

9 - 0 Mythic Rares

26 - 0 Rares

28 - 0 Uncommons

8 - 0 Commons
Cards 100
Avg. CMC 3.75
Tokens Boar 2/2 G, Manifest 2/2 C
Folders meme, Ideas
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