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[Primer] The Savagelands - Neyith EDH

Commander / EDH Aggro Control Devotion Ramp RG (Gruul) Stompy

Hydrax


This deck has been moved to Moxfield. It will no longer be updated here.

Introduction

I made this deck because I wanted something a bit more laid back and simple - that is to say, sometimes I've had a long day and the most complex decision I want to make is whose face I should smash. That being said, there are already a million Ruric Thar decks and I wanted to try something more niche.

Enter Neyith of the Dire Hunt, a commander who promotes senseless violence and rewards you for it by giving you free cards. What's not to like?

This build is meant to be as modular as possible; meaning you can easily swap out some of the more expensive cards for something more budget friendly and vice versa. This particular list is packed full of efficiently-costed creatures with powerful combat stats to take advantage of Neyith's ability, as well as several Tramplers and Trample-granters so that the bloodthirstly surge of power does not go to waste on a puny chump blocker. We also have several ways of forcing fights to make sure our opponents do not get to keep their precious creatures on the field.

These are The Savagelands, and violence is the only law.

This Primer is broken up into the following sections:

  • Packages - a simple tally of ramp sources, removal sources, etc.

  • Individual Card Choices - every single card in the deck discussed individually. Why it's in here and what we can do with it, in detail.

  • Budget Options - for those who like the game plan but can't afford some of the more expensive cards in the deck. This section provides a $90 budget list for Neyith.

  • Change Log - a list of edits made to the deck and why those edits were made.

Packages

Individual Card Choices

A lot of the cards in this deck are pretty self-explanatory. Reading the card explains the card. However, some do have some niche applications and synergies that aren't immediately apparent. Take a glance through this section if any card in the list looks peculiar to you, otherwise feel free to collapse this panel and skip it if you feel confident that you understand the applications of each card.

I also prefer to discuss my cards in order of ascending CMC to better visualize my curve. If you're viewing this deck, I encourage you to click the "Sort" dropdown and select "Mana Value".

Neyith of the Dire Hunt isn't meant to be super intricate or complex. She does exactly what it says on the box. When one of our creatures fights or becomes blocked, we draw a card.

We can pay 3 to double one of our creature's power and give it Trample until end of turn. If it attacks, it MUST be blocked, our opponent won't have a choice. So Neyith has a self-reliant way to trigger her own ability.

Most EDH games will have at least one or two players who want to save their creatures because they have valuable abilities or synergies. Neyith says "F**K THAT, WE FIGHT!" She throws a wrench in several decks' gameplans and rewards us for using the brute force approach.

Ulvenwald Tracker is a repeatable fight effect on a body. We pay 2 mana, the Tracker tells one of our creatures that another creature is talking shit about them, then they fight. With Neyith on the board, the worst case scenario is that we just draw a card. The best case scenario is that one of our opponents' creatures has its ass kicked straight to the graveyard AND we draw a card.

Birds of Paradise is just a cheap, efficient mana dork that taps for any color of mana.

Elvish Mystic, Fyndhorn Elves and Llanowar Elves are all essentially the same creature. A cheap 1-cost dork that taps for green and helps us ramp.

Goblin Anarchomancer makes all of our spells (aside from colorless ones) cost 1 less to cast.

Mawloc is one of the most flexible creatures in our deck because we can cast as a simple 2/2 for just or we can sink even more mana into it to make it huge. This is a phenomenal creature in the late game when we have tons of extra mana available. Furthermore, if we cast it for , its Ravenous ability will draw us a card. And finally, it fights another creature as soon as it hits the board. It does everything we want to do in this deck.

Scavenging Ooze is in here in case there are some reanimator shenanigans going around. It's just a nice option to have against decks like Meren of Clan Nel Toth, Sefris of the Hidden Ways and Muldrotha, the Gravetide. It's also just good at removing combo pieces from opponents' graveyards at instant speed.

Sakura-Tribe Elder can be sacrificed to find a basic land. Useful in combat because we can block a creature and then just sac it for value and avoid the enemy creature damage.

Farhaven Elf tutors a basic land straight to the battlefield.

Wood Elves sort of does the same thing except it can only fetch Forests. Keep in mind that this can include Stomping Ground, Cinder Glade and Sheltered Thicket and that the land we fetch comes into play untapped.

Selvala, Heart of the Wilds has insane potential in this deck. At her absolute worst, she can net us 1 mana (1 to pay for her ability, we then get 2 back assuming she's the strongest creature we have). At her best however, she can give us insane amounts of mana because not only are we playing some powerful creatures on their own, but we can always pay 3 with Neyith's ability to double their power, then activate Selvala's ability for massive mana. Aside from being a powerful mana dork, she can occasionally draw us cards if we play a creature that's more powerful than anything else on the board.

Rhonas the Indomitable is fantastic in a fight deck because he has Deathtouch and Indestructible, so he'll immediately kill anything he fights and will come out unscathed. He can also pump another creature and give it trample until end of turn. This is a good way to compound with Neyith's power doubling ability if we have the mana for it.

Anger gives our whole team Haste when it's in the graveyard and we can get it there pretty easily by forcing it into a fight with a creature we know will kill it or throw it at an opponent who will be forced to block it thanks to Neyith's ability.

Chaos Terminator Lord looks like it was made for this deck. Think about it, we move to combat and double a creature's power with Neyith of the Dire Hunt, then give that creature Double Strike with Chaos Terminator Lord. Do I really need to explain why this card is good?

Toski, Bearer of Secrets is Indestructible which makes it very difficult to get rid of, but more importantly, it draws us a card whenever one of our creatures deals combat damage to an opponent. Just having this little Squirrel out gives us awesome synergy in a deck focused on combat.

Saryth, the Viper's Fang has insanely good synergy with this deck. It gives all of our tapped creatures deathtouch. This may not sound so amazing on the surface, but let's dig a little deeper. Whenever a creature is attacking, it is tapped; meaning if we swing with any of our creatures, they will have deathtouch. If that creature also happens to have Trample (for example, after being pumped by Rhona's Monument), then just 1 damage will be enough to kill whatever blocks it, and the rest will go through as trample damage. So lets say we've pumped Old One Eye into a 12/6 and swing with it. Our opponent blocks with a Wall of Omens. Just 1 damage will kill the wall thanks to Deathtouch, and 11 more will trample over. Saryth, the Viper's Fang makes it so that the maximum possible damage goes through any potential blockers. Furthermore, if one of our creatures is tapped and we use it to fight with something like Tail Swipe, it doesn't matter what its power is compared to the toughness of the other creature its fighting. Because it's tapped, it has Deathtouch, and because it has Deathtouch, just 1 damage is enough to kill whatever it deals damage to. And if all of that wasn't enough, Saryth gives all of our untapped creatures Hexproof, making them untargetable by spot removal while they're waiting to be deployed in battle.

Nylea, God of the Hunt is mainly in here to grant Trample to our whole team. Neyith unfortunately does not do that so even with all the power boosts we're giving, we need reliable ways to push damage through blockers and Nylea fits the bill. If we happen to hit 5 green devotion, she becomes a formidable 6/6 indestructible creature.

Nylea, Keen-Eyed makes our creature spells cheaper to cast and she can also give us some card advantage with her activated ability. If we don't find a creature with it, we have the choice to dump it in our graveyard; a good way to cycle out things we don't want for a better chance at finding something we do.

Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma makes our creatures with power 4 or more cost significantly less. We can use this to turbo out some of our biggest threats much earlier than expected. On top of that, when she attacks, she buffs our big creatures and gives them all trample, ensuring that we can easily push damage through any potential chump blockers.

Ripjaw Raptor is the perfect card for a Fight Club deck because it draws us a card whenever it takes damage. If we pump it with Neyith and it gets blocked, we'll be drawing 2 cards. It also has a formidable 5 toughness and 4 power, great stats for a 4CMC creature.

Ohran Frostfang draws us a card whenever a creature of ours deals combat damage to an opponent. If we have Neyith of the Dire Hunt on the board, this creates a lose-lose situation for our opponent. If they block our creatures to prevent card drawing from the Frostfang, we draw cards off of Neyith's ability. If they let creatures through to prevent us from drawing cards of of Neyith, we draw them off of Ohran Frostfang instead.

Battle Mammoth is a formidle 6/5 body with Trample so it's a great target to double up with Neyith's ability. Its best party trick, however, is the fact that it draws us a card whenever an opponent targets ANY of our permanents.

Elder Gargaroth is just an insane value card. 5 mana for a 6/6 with Vigilance, Reach and Trample. Not only can this thing attack every turn and stay untapped, ready to block, but it also has some very valuable effects that occur whenever it attacks OR blocks. We can gain 3 life if we're running low, we can create a 3/3 token if we want some board presence, or we can simply draw a card. There is no reason not to run this card. It's insane.

Silverback Elder is not monkeying around. It destroys an artifact/enchantment whenever we cast any creature. If the text ended there, we'd still run this card. But it gets better, we have two additional options. We can get a land out of our deck if we need to ramp or gain 4 life if we're running low.

Defiler of Vigor can reduce the cost of our spells by turning green pips into phyrexian symbol:gp pips. On top of that, whenever we cast a green permanent, it buffs our whole team with +1/+1 counters. It's also a massive 6/6 body with Trample so it's a great target to buff with Neyith's ability.

Brash Taunter has a lot of hidden utility in this deck. For one, it's Indestructible, so it can fight or attack into anything and not be killed. Second, it can force itself to fight ANY other creature, and all damage it takes can be redirected to any opponent. The most obvious way to use this ability is to fight an enemy creature, but we can do better than that. If we have the strongest creature on the board, we can make it fight Brash Taunter and deal that damage to any opponent. If we have Neyith on the board, we can move to combat, pump a creature to double its power, then simply have it fight Brash Taunter rather than attacking. This is an excellent way to deal damage to opponents hiding behind pillow forts or if attacking into them will be too costly.

Xenagos, God of Revels can give one of our creatures Haste and double its power as well as boost its toughness by the same amount. This is an excellent ability to stack on top of Neyith's, essentially allowing us to quadruple that creature's power. Xenagos also has Indestructible so it's difficult to remove.

Zilortha, Strength Incarnate makes it so that our creatures only die by damage if that damage equals their power rather than their toughness. This helps solve the issue of Neyith only doubling a creature's power while leaving their toughness untouched. The creature is powerful, sure, but is still easy fodder to chump blockers. With Godzilla on the board, it suddenly becomes much, MUCH harder to kill our creatures in combat.

Vigor is insanely good in this deck because we're all about having our creatures trade blows with enemy creatures. If Vigor is on the board, however, suddenly our creatures aren't taking any damage but instead getting permanently buffed. What doesn't kill you just makes you stronger, right?

Kogla, the Titan Ape has impressive stats and fights a creature when it enters the battlefield. On top of that, it can destroy an artifact or enchantment whenever it attacks. A repeatable artifact/enchantment removal on a body is extremely valuable and hinders our opponents from keeping any artifact/enchantment board presence. It also has a very underrated ability in that it can return a Human to our hand to give itself Indestructible until end of turn. This is extremely useful if we have Neyith on the board because if she is targeted with a kill spell, she'll have to return to the command zone and will be more expensive to cast next time. With Kogla's ability, we can put her into our hand instead and give the big guy Indestructible. This is especially good against boardwipes like Damnation or Wrath of God.

Gargos, Vicious Watcher fights a creature whenever one of our creatures is targeted with a spell or ability. Obviously this means we can trade blows if our opponents use things like Terminate or Swords to Plowshares, but crucially, Gargos cares about ANY spell that targets one of our creatures. A lot of our targeted Fight spells do this. When that happens, Gargos will go to war and with a massive 8/7 body, it will probably win.

Old One Eye gives our whole team Trample across the board. This is useful because Neyith can buff a creature but does not give it Trample so to ensure that all that power isn't going to waste on a chump blocker, having Trample means we can push some of that damage through. On top of that, it brings an additional 5/5 token with it when it enters. Finally, in some niche scenarios, we can discard two cards to bring it back to our hand from the graveyard. This is a useful way to get Anger out of our hand and into the yard where it belongs.

C15 buffs our whole team by the highest power among creatures we control whenever it attacks (and also grants them Trample). We can take advantage of this with Neyith's ability by buffing our strongest creature because that ability resolves before attackers are declared. Then, when we attack with the Ibex, our whole team gets a massive boost that can help them run through pretty much any opposition.

Ravager Wurm has Riot, so we have the option of buffing it with a +1/+1 counter or giving it Haste. Regardless of that, we also have the option of having it fight another creature upon ETB, or nuking a land with an activated ability.

Thorn Mammoth can fight a creature whenever it ETBs or another one of our creatures ETBs. A repeatable fight effect that's completely optional? Sign me up.

Sol Ring is an EDH staple, just a cheap and efficient mana rock.

Dolmen Gate prevents our attacking creatures from taking any combat damage, ensuring that we can swing freely without worry and let our opponents figure out if and how they want to block.

Emerald Medallion makes our green spells cheaper to cast. This helps us turbo out our creatures even faster and our fight spells are even more efficient. There are very few cards in our deck that don't benefit from the cost reduction.

Rhonas's Monument is in here for the same reason as Emerald Medallion, it ramps us by making most of our creatures cheaper to cast and when we do cast one, we grant one of our creatures +2/+2 and Trample which combos nicely with Neyith's ability to double their power. The Trample also makes sure that buff doesn't go to waste when it gets blocked.

The Great Henge is just a late-game value engine. It's going to cost significantly less than 9 mana, considering we can get up to a 7 mana discount if we have a 7 power creature, which isn't very difficult with Neyith's pump ability. Once the Henge is on the board, we can tap it simply to gain 2 life but it will also give us 2 mana and if we play a creature, it draws us a card. Straight value.

Sylvan Anthem provides a +1/+1 buff to all of our green creatures (which is almost all the creatures in our deck). It also allows us to Scry 1 whenever we play a green creature, letting us filter our draws a bit.

Garruk's Uprising draws us a card upon ETB if we control a creature with power 4 or more, then keeps drawing us cards if we play more creatures with 4 or more power. It also gives our whole team trample, making sure they always push damage through any potential chump blockers.

Shadow in the Warp is everything a Gruul creature-focused deck could ask for. It acts as a Heartless Summoning for the first creature we cast every turn and it punishes players who cast those blasphemous non-creature spells. Disgusting.

Rhythm of the Wild gives our whole team Riot, allowing us to buff them with a +1/+1 counter or give them Haste upon entry to the battlefield, whichever is more needed at the time. On top of that, it prevents those pesky blue decks from countering our creatures.

Unnatural Growth has insane value in this deck. At the beginning of each combat, all of our creatures' stats are doubled, just like that, no questions asked. This doesn't even include Neyith's ability, so we can use her to pump one of them and essentially quadruple its power on our turn. And let's not ignore the fact that it says EACH combat, meaning we get this double buff on everyone's combat step, making our creatures nearly impossible to attack into.

Primal Might at its worst is just a Prey Upon but we have the option of sinking more mana into it to beef up our creature before it fights.

Rampant Growth, Farseek, Nature's Lore and Three Visits are all just straightforward ramp spells.

Green Sun's Zenith can tutor for a Green creature with CMC equal to the amount of mana we put into X. After that, it shuffles itself back into the deck so we can use it again later. In the early game when we don't have much mana available, a good creature to fetch is Ulvenwald Tracker because it gives us a repeatable fight effect. In the late game, however, we have lots of juicy options such as Vigor to protect our creatures, Thorn Mammoth for repeatable fighting or C15 if we're looking to close the game out.

Nature's Claim is a simple 1-mana removal spell for artifacts/enchantments. We often end up spending a lot of our mana on dropping big creatures or Neyith's ability so a removal spell that only costs slots in nicely.

Tail Swipe is just simple, efficient 1-mana fight spell.

Duel for Dominance has the ability to give one of our creatures a +1/+1 counter if we control 3 or more creatures with different powers on the board. Then it lets that creature fight an enemy creature. We want to be fighting to draw cards off of Neyith of the Dire Hunt's ability and this does just that. Even without Coven, at worst this card is just a Pit Fight.

Inscription of Abundance can also be a simple 2-mana fight spell, but if we kick it for 3 more mana, we get all three modes. This includes buffing a creature, fighting, and gaining life equal to the greatest power among creatures we control. Fantastic value in this deck.

Ancient Animus is also a fight spell but it has the additional benefit of pumping our creature by +1/+1 beforehand if it happens to be Legendary.

Prizefight is just another cheap fight spell that gives us a treasure token back so it essentially pays for half of its own mana cost.

Setessan Tactics gives one of our creatures the ability to fight another, however we can target multiple creatures with this spell if we pay an extra green mana for each one we want to grant the ability to.

Khalni Ambush   is another straightforward fight spell but it can be played as a land if we desperately need a land drop. It's in here due to its versatility.

Beast Within is just a simple removal spell that can get rid of any permanent. Sure, our opponent gets a 3/3 token in return but if we're casting this then it's very likely we just got rid of something far scarier than a vanilla 3/3.

Deflecting Swat allows us to redirect a targeted spell to another appropriate target. If we have Neyith of the Dire Hunt on the board, we can cast this for free.

Chord of Calling is just a simple tutor spell, allowing us to grab any creature we want (assuming we convoke and/or sink enough mana into it).

Fabled Passage, Prismatic Vista and Wooded Foothills for our fetchlands.

Command Tower, Cinder Glade, Copperline Gorge, Cragcrown Pathway  , Fire-Lit Thicket, Game Trail, Grove of the Burnwillows, Karplusan Forest, Rockfall Vale, Rootbound Crag, Spire Garden and Stomping Ground can all come in untapped and produce both of our colors.

Sheltered Thicket enters tapped but it can be cycled in later stages of the game if we don't need it and it's also searchable via Wood Elves, Farseek, Nature's Lore and Three Visits.

Temple of Abandon enters tapped but lets us scry, potentially ditching a card we don't want to draw.

Castle Garenbrig allows us to exchange 4 mana for 6 green, on the condition that we only use it to cast creatures or activate the abilities of creatures. That's fine, considering we have lots of big Green creatures and any leftover mana can be spent on Neyith's ability.

Shinka, the Bloodsoaked Keep can give one of our Legendary creatures first strike. In a pinch, we can save Neyith or another Legendary creature in combat by allowing it to kill the other creature before it can deal any damage back.

15 Forests and 2 Mountains round out the basic lands.

Budget Options

I've put together a $90 budget version of this deck here. It sacrifices Red entirely for the sake of consistency but it's still quite a formidable Green aggro deck.

If, however you'd like to stick to Gruul and are looking to make budget changes to this list, here would be my suggestions:

Lands

Sorceries

Artifacts

Enchantments

Creatures

Change Log

11/16/22

  • Minor change, took out one Mountain and replaced it with Khalni Ambush  . It's another fight effect that can also be played as a land so the opportunity cost of making this swap is little to none. We don't lose a land but we gain the option of a fight spell.

10/4/22

10/2/22

  • Gruul Ragebeast was removed. I found that Mawloc can fight and draw us a card if we spend 7 mana on it, which is the same as Gruul Ragebeast but it's more flexible and can be used during earlier stages of the game. In the later stages of the game, we can make it much stronger due to so much excess mana available, especially with something like Selvala, Heart of the Wilds.

9/17/22

  • Added some new toys from the Warhammer 40K precons!

  • Thunderfoot Baloth was originally put in here to grant our team trample across the board but it needed Neyith on the field to be able to do that. Old One Eye does it without relying on anyone else.

  • Halana and Alena, Partners is in here to buff a creature each combat but let's be honest, Chaos Terminator Lord is just way more fun for that role.

  • Cindervines was removed in favor of Shadow in the Warp. Sure, we're losing the utility of artifact/enchantment removal but there are other sources of that and the ramp + punishment for non-creature spells is worth the trade.

9/1/22

  • Sunder Shaman was removed. He doesn't benefit from the cost reduction provided by Goblin Anarchomancer and Nylea, Keen-Eyed. He was replaced with Silverback Elder because just read it, the card is so good and covers the aritfact/enchantment removal we lost by cutting Sunder Shaman.

  • Savage Swipe was replaced with Tail Swipe because it's 1 mana, instant speed fight effect with no condition or drawback.

  • Urabrask the Hidden was removed. This was a hard cut because Urabrask has always been a pet card of mine but I think Anger just works better here. Less mana intensive due to being 4 CMC instead of 5 and 1 instead of . Plus we can easily get it into the graveyard with forced blocks or forced fights.

  • Inferno Titan was removed in favor of Defiler of Vigor. I had to find room for that wurmy boi and this was the easiest cut. We have enough removal already.

8/25/22

  • Hydra Omnivore was removed. It was good on paper but not in practice. It doesn't have Trample on it, and Neyith does not provide Trample so it can easily just be chump blocked and will not deal any damage to opponents. You need to swing at an empty board to reap the benefits. I replaced it with Thunderfoot Baloth because I liked that card quite a lot in the budget build of this deck.

  • Rebalanced the basic lands, swapped 2 Mountain for 2 more Forest because this deck is overwhelmingly green.

  • Also excited for Tail Swipe, it will likely be replacing Savage Swipe when Dominaria United releases.

8/22/22

8/18/22

  • Very minor change, Return to Nature was replaced with Nature's Claim. I've played this deck a lot and there were a few times in which we desperately needed to remove a problematic artifact or enchantment and I was just 1 mana short, so I'm throwing Nature's Claim in here because being 1 cheaper actually does matter. We lose the utility of graveyard disruption, but we have Scavenging Ooze to make up for it.

8/11/22

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Revision 26 See all

(1 year ago)

+1 Khalni Ambush  Flip main
-1 Mountain main
Date added 4 years
Last updated 1 year
Legality

This deck is Commander / EDH legal.

Rarity (main - side)

11 - 0 Mythic Rares

49 - 0 Rares

9 - 0 Uncommons

14 - 0 Commons

Cards 100
Avg. CMC 3.30
Tokens Beast 3/3 G, Foretell, Treasure, Tyranid 5/5 G
Folders saved decks, Commander Decks, decks that look fun, edh
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