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99 Ways to lose (Nihilist)

Commander / EDH Casual UB (Dimir)

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Read the Introduction and Rules please before judging or commenting, thanks.

Suggestions, Upvotes and Comments welcome.

Feel free to share the rules, would be nice to see more people enjoying it.

Are you sometimes bored of all the overpowered Decks out there?

Are you sometimes tired of these cheesy "Oops, i win"-combos?

Do you want to see/play some new cards and not always the same EDH-Staples?

Well then Nihilist may be the right thing for you and your Playgroup!

Nihilist is a really fun casual-format that is all about building the worst deck possible.

Sounds easy you say? Well, its more of a challange in both building and piloting than you might think. There are some Core-Rules to make sure it is not that easy for you.

Making a deck with 99 or no lands would be too easy. So here are some rules for the deckbuilding:

  • Commander: Max Dualcolored Commanders. Would be too easy to screw up a 3 or more colored manabase. No vanilla-Commanders allowed, at least 1 ability (triggered, activated or a keyword). If that commander refers to a specific card type (creature-type or card type like artifact, instant etc) the deck must include at least 12 cards that match this type.

  • Lands: Exactly 36 Lands. At least 26 basics that produce deck-colors, evenly splitted if dualcolored. Nonbasic lands must produce colorless mana or mana in deck-colors.

  • Creatures: 32 non-defender/wall creatures. At least 26 of them with power 1 or more. At least 20 colored creatures(10 of each color if dualcolored. Multicolor creatures count for 1 color of choice), artifact-creatures beyond that allowed.

  • Other Spells: 31 other spells, whatever you like in terms of colors and card types. Extra-creatures allowed(Defenders too), No extra Lands!

  • Fairness: Every card and ability should be playable. For example no Atog without any artifact to sacrifice.

These rules make sure that every deck technically can win and isnt that unfun to play with. Now you may think you still can lose by only drawing and passing the turn?!? This is where the Game-Rules kick in.

Some game rules to make sure that the worst possible decks are piloted in the best possible way.

Nobody is playing the deck he/she built. You start the round by giving your deck to the player to your left. So every game, a different player is piloting your deck. You play a different deck every game and you try to defend yourself against a different player every game while trying to take down the player with your deck.

Except for the deckbuilding and the game-end, all normal commander rules apply.

The game ends if the first player leaves the game. The owner/creator of the deck that lost the game gets +2 Points. The owner/creator of the deck that made the kill gets -1 Point. After each game, you give your last played deck to the player to your left and start again. After a full rotation on the table you have a winner by points.

Your main-gaol is to attack the player that is playing the deck you created, every game you play a new deck and "against" another player with your deck. You can try to help other players staying alive with the tools you have.

This all may sound terrible but try to give it a shot. It is not that easy to build a really bad deck with this restrictions and you might overlook some synergies that are totally OP in this format. Its is a blast to play and really satisfying if you can find or sneak in a "combo" the creator of your deck may have overlooked to sneak in some damage. I bet you will be surprised how "good" some cards are which you thought are completely garbage.

Building a Nihilist-deck doesnt cost you much. It is not uncommon that deckbox and sleeves are more expensive than the cards in the deck. Cut Dark Confidant and boseiju from my list and it’s not even half the price anymore. Making some proxies is toally fine here, but make some prints and no handwritten notes. The player you give the deck to may not know the card and needs all informations.

This is more of a general introduction to the format. A better deck-description will follow. I’ll also make some explanation for some of the not so obvious card choices and share some experience about different ways to build a deck like this.

I really hope you like the idea and i would love to hear if you tried it and if you like it. If you did give it a try, show me your decks. I would love to see how you built it.

Card suggestions are highly welcome! Everyone knows the good cards, but its much harder to find really bad cards.

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Revision 1 See all

(6 years ago)

+1 Demonic Pact acquire
Top Ranked
  • Achieved #1 position overall 6 years ago
Date added 6 years
Last updated 3 years
Legality

This deck is Commander / EDH legal.

Rarity (main - side)

1 - 0 Mythic Rares

30 - 0 Rares

18 - 0 Uncommons

23 - 0 Commons

Cards 100
Avg. CMC 3.25
Tokens Morph 2/2 C, Sheep 0/1 G, Urami
Folders Nihilist, Other ways to play, nihilist, Decks to try, EDH, Homebrew Formats, Flavortown, Other People's Decks, Cool commander decks from cool people., Good Decks I didn't make
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