Introduction
The basic idea is that every successful Atla Palani, Nest Tender trigger should win the game, no whiffs allowed.
If you can manage to get a Atla Palani, Nest Tender trigger though completely on turn 4, the game should be in the bag.
Deck Details
As she is so central to the decks plan, never ever cast Atla Palani, Nest Tender if you cannot protect her until you can use her. this means either Lightning Greaves or Heroic Intervention/Deflecting Swat/Loran's Escape/etc. should always be available if you drop Atla Palani, Nest Tender onto the field.
This means that we will almost never cast her on the turn where we reach 4 mana. On this turn we usually want to ramp one more time or drop a sac outlet on the board.
Setting up atla is very important since she is such a removal magnet. Only cast her once you have everything else in place and you know you can protect her.
Activating Atla is another topic, since she can make eggs at instant speed, you usually wait until the end of turn before your untap, or until you are getting attacked or boardwiped before creating eggs, so they are on the board and thus vulnerable for the shortest possible amount of time, and also since having eggs on board makes opponents VERY jumpy so you should try to lay low as long as possible.
the 4-cost slot is crucial, since we never want to play anything other than atla when we have exactly 4 mana + enough mana for interaction open, this means that the only other 4 mana cards are Decimate and Day of Judgment since we only want to cast them in situations where casting atla would not be helpful.
Wincons
The Deck can usually win, just by overwhelming your opponents with your big hitters in early turns alone.
If that is not enough, there are also some infinite, or non deterministic combos to that can be included into the deck to ensure victory.
These are currently not possible with this main board as pieces are not included to keep the deck from becoming a combo deck.
You need to include the following cards to turn this deck into combo, and you can remove any creatures not mentioned in the combos to make space:
Maskwood Nexus, Greater Good, Dockside Extortionist, Goblin Sharpshooter.
** Easy Thornbite Combo **
Execution
-
Activate Atla Palani, Nest Tender, paying to make a Egg.
-
Sacrifice the Egg to Ashnod's Altar to get back in your mana pool. This triggers Atla Palani, Nest Tender and Thornbite Staff.
-
Resolve Thornbite Staff's trigger and untap Atla Palani, Nest Tender.
-
Resolve Atla Palani, Nest Tender's trigger and reveal Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre from your library.
-
Sacrifice Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre to Goblin Bombardment and shuffle it back into the deck. You now did 1 Damage and are back in the starting state, ready to loop from step 1.
You can replace Goblin Bombardment with Altar of Dementia.
You can replace Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre with Kozilek, Butcher of Truth, Blightsteel Colossus, Worldspine Wurm or Avenging Angel.
** Maskwood Nexus Combo **
Step 1:
Have Atla, Maskwood Nexus and a instant speed sac outlet like Altar of Dementia on the board.
Step 2:
Sac another creature to trigger Atla.
Step 3:
The new Creature that enters the battlefield becomes a egg type due to Maskwood Nexus static ability.
Step 4:
Sacrifice the creature you got and repeat until you hit Ulamog, shuffling your graveyard into the deck.
Step 4.5:
Win by using your sac outlets:
** Longer Thornbite Combo **
Execution
-
Activate Atla Palani, Nest Tender, paying to make a Egg.
-
Sacrifice the token: egg to Ashnod's Altar to get in your mana pool. This triggers Atla Palani, Nest Tender and Thornbite Staff.
-
Resolve Thornbite Staff's trigger and untap Atla Palani, Nest Tender.
-
Resolve Atla Palani, Nest Tender's trigger and reveal either Palani's Hatcher or Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre from your library. If you reveal Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre, sacrifice it to Ashnod's Altar and shuffle it back into the deck, also triggering thornbite staff, to bring you back into the starting state. If you reveal Palani's Hatcher, it enters the battlefield and triggers.
-
Resolve Palani's Hatcher's ETB trigger and create two eggs. At this time, you have Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre as the only creature in the deck, in your mana pool, and a untapped Atla Palani, Nest Tender, a Palani's Hatcher and two Eggs in play.
-
Sacrifice one Egg to Goblin Bombardment. This triggers Atla Palani, Nest Tender and Thornbite Staff. the Thornbite Staff trigger doesnt matter as Atla Palani, Nest Tender is already untapped.
-
Resolve Atla Palani, Nest Tender and reveal Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre. Now you have Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre, a untapped Atla Palani, Nest Tender, a Palani's Hatcher and one Egg in play. You have floating, and you did 1 damage to your opponent.
-
Sacrifice Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre to Goblin Bombardment. This triggers Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre. Resolve Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre to shuffle it back into the library. You now did 2 damage to your opponent.
-
Sacrifice the second Egg to Goblin Bombardment. This triggers Atla Palani, Nest Tender.
-
Resolve Atla Palani, Nest Tender and reveal Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre again. Now you have Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre, a untapped Atla Palani, Nest Tender and Palani's Hatcher in play. You have floating, and you did 3 damage to your opponent.
-
Sacrifice Palani's Hatcher to Goblin Bombardment.
-
Sacrifice Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre to Goblin Bombardment. This triggers Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre. Resolve Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre to shuffle it and Palani's Hatcher back into the library. Now you have a untapped Atla Palani, Nest Tender in play. You have floating, and you did 4 damage to your opponent. You have Palani's Hatcher and Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre in your library.
-
Repeat from step 1. this deals 4 damage per loop and can be repeated infinitely.
Cool Cards and Interactions
Shout out to these cool cards:
-
Shields of Velis Vel is a instant speed eggification, meaning you can turn any boardwipe or targeted removal into free Atla Palani, Nest Tender triggesr!
-
Enlightened Tutor is one of the best cards, since it can tutor Lightning Greaves / Mithril Coat / Swiftfoot Boots for protection or Skullclamp either as sac outlet or draw engine.
With Sensei's Divining Top out you could even instant speed protect atla by tutoring Mithril Coat, drawing it with top and then flashing it onto atla.
-
Tail Swipe, as mentioned above, can pop eggs instant speed by making them fight with a power > 1 creature, but can also be used to remove creatures once you have out your big hitters like Worldspine Wurm.
-
All sac Outlets( Altar of Dementia, Goblin Bombardment etc ) can serve as protection from exiling creatures, which would be the only way to permanently stop the deck. If an opponent tries to Path to Exile our Blightsteel Colossus to stop it from shuffling back into our deck, or even if an opponent casts Merciless Eviction, we can instead sac our creatures at instant speed to ensure recursion.
-
As already mentioned multiple times, Sensei's Divining Top is insane in this deck. It can be used as topdeck manipulation for atla triggers, instant speed draw with tutors, to pop off with Jeska's Will or help find interaction, and it is tutorable with Enlightened Tutor!
-
Marauding Raptor has not quite made the cut for now, but its notable that he is a ramp and sac outlet on a cheap stick! Hes excluded since hitting him with Atla Palani, Nest Tender would be horrible.
-
Even though not in the main board currently, Maskwood Nexus gives all of our creatures the "egg" creature type. This essentially means that we can combo off infinitely with Atla and one Sac outlet.
-
As described in the wincons section, Mirror Entity can easily become a combo piece in this deck I have elected to exclude some of the other pieces needed to go infinite in order to keep the deck as a non-combo deck. Mirror Entity itself is still included, since it can effectively turn atla into an egg and thus essntially acts as a one time double for an atla trigger when you hit it.
Potential Changes and Upgrades to consider
-
Stax Route: Winter Orb, Trinisphere, Stony Silence, etc. make sure the opponents are suffering even before we trigger Atla Palani, Nest Tender and also make sure they dont have the resources to stop us.
-
Combo Route: using stuff such as Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker + Restoration Angel, or Maskwood Nexus which goes infinite with any sac outlet such as Altar of Dementia, Ashnod's Altar or Greater Good since Blightsteel Colossus and the eldazi titans shuffle themselves back into the deck allowing them to be found again. Alternatively, include card:Dockside Extortinist and other combo creatures to go infinite with Mirror Entity.
-
F-You Route: Slap in fast mana such as Mana Crypt, Chrome Mox, Jeweled Lotus, Mox Diamond etc, as well as other cards currently excluded for power level reasons.
Potential Cuts to make:
-
Carpet of Flowers might be too specific, maybe run Jeska's Will instead, since it synergizes nicely with our topdeck manipulation from Mirri's Guile, Sylvan Library and Sensei's Divining Top?
-
Search for other win-more cards like Thornbite Staff that are still in the main list and replace them with instant speed interaction?
-
Find out if using fight cards like Tail Swipe as "protection" is worth it (fight cards can help you trigger eggs instant speed if atla is about to be dead, or they can be used when you have found the big hitters to remove any creature). Also check if the constriction of only fighting with enemy creatures, thus excluding atla is a problem.
-
Maybe rethink mana base, remove some red sources and add in more green and white? although it should be more than enough currently since the mana distribution is bait with things like Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, Worldspine Wurm or Avacyn, Angel of Hope never being hardcast not to be considered for mana base optimization.
-
If you want to build this list into the combo version, cut all non required creatures such as Flayer of Loyalties, It That Betrays, Blightsteel Colossus, Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, Avacyn, Angel of Hope and Worldspine Wurm, leaving you only with Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre, Mirror Entity and Kozilek, Butcher of Truth, since you will need the eldazi titans to ensure recursion from graveyard, and running two gives you some safety.
Then, replace the removed creatures with Maskwood Nexus, Greater Good, Dockside Extortionist, Goblin Sharpshooter, Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, Restoration Angel more buff spells for atla for the Mirror Entity line, and additional protection pieces or fast mana.
A Fun Challenge for your friends / Alternative Building Strategy
What I have started doing recently, is to remove all creatures from the deck, then give my opponents a stack of around 20 creatures from both main and sideboard, and letting them choose the 11 that I will actually run for the game.
This reduces salt by making your opponents feel like they can avoid the worst of the worst (my boy Blightsteel Colossus) while also increasing variance in how the deck plays.
Any tips or help is always welcome!
