Narset, the Glass Cannon

Commander / EDH Control Creatureless Multiplayer Pillow Fort RUW (Jeskai, America) Superfriends

GS10

Land (38)

• 1x Azorius Chancery
• 1x Battlefield Forge
• 1x Boros Garrison
• 1x Evolving Wilds
• 1x Grand Coliseum
• 1x Hanweir Battlements  ^Meld
• 5x Island
• 1x Izzet Boilerworks
• 1x Kher Keep
• 1x Mirrorpool
• 3x Mountain
• 1x Mystic Monastery
• 1x Needle Spires
• 6x Plains
• 1x Prairie Stream
• 1x Rogue's Passage
• 1x Rupture Spire
• 1x Sejiri Refuge
• 1x Shivan Reef
• 1x Slayers' Stronghold
• 1x Temple of the False God
• 1x Temple of Triumph
• 1x Terramorphic Expanse
• 1x Vivid Crag
• 1x Vivid Creek
• 1x Vivid Meadow
• 1x Wandering Fumarole

Copies (5)

• 1x Chandra, the Firebrand
• 1x Geistblast
• 1x Mirari
• 1x Mirrorpool
• 1x Narset Transcendent

MassRemoval (3)

• 1x Divine Reckoning
• 1x Mass Calcify
• 1x Volcanic Vision

Ramp (12)

• 1x Azorius Signet
• 1x Boros Signet
• 1x Coldsteel Heart
• 1x Commander's Sphere
• 1x Darksteel Ingot
• 1x Fellwar Stone
• 1x Generator Servant
• 1x Izzet Signet
• 1x Jeskai Banner
• 1x Mind Stone
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Worn Powerstone

ExtraTurns (10)

• 1x Aurelia, the Warleader
• 1x Beacon of Tomorrows
• 1x Expropriate
• 1x Fury of the Horde
• 1x Part the Waterveil
• 1x Ral Zarek
• 1x Relentless Assault
• 1x Seize the Day
• 1x Temporal Trespass
• 1x Walk the Aeons

Unblockable/Protection (7)

• 1x Aqueous Form
• 1x Gift of Immortality
• 1x Indestructibility
• 1x Open the Armory
• 1x Spectra Ward
• 1x Spirit Mantle
• 1x Steel of the Godhead

Filtering/Draw (4)

• 1x Brainstorm
• 1x Chandra, Pyromaster
• 1x Dig Through Time
• 1x Ponder

PillowFort (3)

• 1x Ghostly Prison
• 1x Propaganda
• 1x Sphere of Safety

Commander (1)

Utility (12)

• 1x Ajani Vengeant
• 1x Celestial Mantle
• 1x Hammer of Purphoros
• 1x Hanweir Battlements  ^Meld
• 1x Mind's Desire
• 1x Need for Speed
• 1x Rogue's Passage
• 1x Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker
• 1x Slayers' Stronghold
• 1x Strionic Resonator
• 1x Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
• 1x Vedalken Orrery

TargetedRemoval (6)

• 1x Chaos Warp
• 1x Oblivion Ring
• 1x Path to Exile
• 1x Return to Dust
• 1x Stasis Snare
• 1x Swords to Plowshares

TokenGenerator (4)

• 1x Assemble the Legion
• 1x Elspeth, Sun's Champion
• 1x Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
• 1x Kher Keep

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DISCLAIMER: This is not a perfected list, it's just my fun deck, made with budget restraints in mind and not meant to be hardcore-competitive. It's meant to be the bridge between my kitchen table Magic with friends and LGS half competitive game nights. Narset herself is too powerful to be just a casual general, but the list itself is not finely tuned. Keep that in mind, but still, feel free to suggest any potential improvements! No EDH Deck is ever finished, so in the future, some of your suggestions might find a way into the deck!

Narset is an incredibly powerful card. Yes, you've probably guessed it the moment you read it, but I mean this: You really have no idea how powerful she is until you play her or you face her.

I first started planning this list to play with friends, and I thought it was a strong general, good enough to hold it's own against all the people in my usual playgroup. I was half right. The deck is way too powerful to play in my playgroup! I love it, it's a great deck, brilliant general, but everyone else has a terrible time!

So, up to now I spoke no good of Narset! Why should you play her? She is the perfect bridge between a casual and a competitive deck. This is the deck I use in my LGS against more experienced and competitive players and it requires a lot of respect from everyone, no matter what they're playing. Also, I play this against my friends yes, but not regularly. I like my friends to have fun too! So mostly, Narset has become my revenge kill for those EDH marathons where I just keep losing every single time. Narset is my figurative way to roll up my sleeves and prepare for a fist fight I'm not going to lose, when that happens :)

If you like your deck built around a crazy good general's ability, Narset is for you. If your playgroup is starting to pull away from you in terms of competitivity, consider Narset. She is easy to navigate, a nightmare for the opponents and definitely very strong in any environment. Doesn't matter if the table is running infinite combos, or decks that cost 10 to 20 times your own. If Narset hits the table, things will get spicy! She is not meant for casual play unless you purposely build a weak deck so her ability isn't so broken, but IMO, that's a waste of a brilliant general.

The plan here is to get Narset out as quickly as possible. The later she comes down, the more prone she is to getting countered or being followed by a board wipe or a Fleshbag Marauder-like effect.

She has to come downt quick and preferably with haste, so we run a lot of cheap mana rocks to grant acceleration, and a few ways to make her hasty. Need for Speed and Hammer of Purphoros are cheaper than her and can be played before easily (I considered Mass Hysteria but being almost creatureless, I didn't want to give haste to my opponents creatures) and then Slayers' Stronghold (which rarely gets activated on the first cast) and Hanweir Battlements have activated abilities to make that happen. Once she attacks, you're off to the races.

Even one single attack from Narset, gets you either immense board presence, or a huge tempo swing (Unless of course the Gods of Magic hate you and Narset reveals 4 lands) (Even so. She is still broken). On my first few tests this happened to me on Narset triggers

• Ugin, the Spirit Dragon, Relentless Assault, Celestial Mantle, land - Ugin and Narset in the same turn. Seems deece. Oh wait, Relentless Assault? This was fun, let's do it again! And I'll double my life total while we're at it.

• Chandra, the Firebrand, Expropriate , Beacon of Tomorrows, Mass Calcify - Wipe their boards, Chandra copies Expropriate, no one wants me getting their few lands, so 6 extra turns, 7 with the Beacon.

See where this is going? The deck is insanely powerful for casual level play and it beats face competitively if it is not put in check very quickly. You play, you have all the fun. Your opponents watch you, waiting patiently to figure out if they're dead yet. Of course, it's not always this strong when you trigger Narset, but casting her sooner than turn 6, having her attack right away, and get you potentially 4 free spells (which are usually very powerfull) is just too much more than any of your opponents can be doing by that time.

Narset has trouble with someone forcing you to sack creatures, while you have trouble blocking since Narset is usually tapped and the deck only runs 2 other creatures and one of them is literally made to die. So Gideon, Ally of Zendikar is usually zeroing for tokens, attacking only into a relevant opening and generally to enable an emblem next turn without killing him; Elspeth, Sun's Champion and Assemble the Legion get you insane armies that will kill someone at will if left unchecked and Kher Keep is an emergency button if you need a chump for anything. Running a lot of Auras and enchantment based removal, Propaganda, Ghostly Prison and Sphere of Safety are the most reliable defense you can get in the deck. Crawlspace while being less impactful keeps you and everyone else from being slayed by tokens, so it kind of makes you friendly for the table.

Planeswalkers are good right? Have you played one of those old time players that only recently came back, and heard them complaining about how unfair they are? Well, planeswalkers in a deck made to abuse extra turns are slightly worse (again, I like other people to have fun, so... yeah, worse). I've had Ral Zarek get in, untap my Thran Dynamo (earlier list, meanwhile I cut it for something cheaper), and hard cast Part the Waterveil, extra turn Narset reveals a Temproral Trespass, next turn I hard cast Expropriate , and by the time you see it, I'm ultimating Ral Zarek before anyone else has had a chance to play. Picture Ajani Vengeant now. I still refuse to ultimate him! Narset Transcendent though seems like a good one to ultimate, but that one I didn't have the chance so far.

Man, this description is dragging so long it starts to ressemble Narset's multiple turns! That's about it. Ramp into her, swing, jackpot, go again. Of course if you're looking to be more competitive, you'd run better mana acceleration, you'd run lots of powerful countermagic, LD, resource denial, and so on, but in my playing environment, I'm almost tempted to run this with no mana acceleration to try and balance the field in a casual game, which would defeat the purpose, and when I did do something, it would leave everyone salty anyway. So I'm not looking to go with this in a more competitive shell, I'm just trying to perfect this list enough so it is consistent pretty close to as it stands. It's the said bridge between casual and competitive play.

Since I don't intend to splurge a lot more money into the deck, I'm not getting Force of Will type of cards. I mean to include some forms of countermagic, but I still need to figure out a way to do it without wasting important cards on Narset triggers. Insidious Will is one way, but other than that it will probably require more tutoring that I can hit with Narset to squeeze counterspells from the deck to my hand. Of course not just to tutor for counterspells, but that's an effective way to avoid getting important cards for any particular situation.

Maybeboard

Cards being considered currently or cards just recently cut for testing:

• Learn from the Past - Loops with relevant cards when all lands are exiled

• Past in Flames - Gets any and all relevant spells from the graveyard late game if needed

• Prahv, Spires of Order - Dodges combo kills like Purphoros, God of the Forge or Omnath, Locus of Rage triggers

• Rogue's Passage - Grants Narset unblockable

• Winds of Rath - Additional board wipe, keeping Narset most of the times

• Overburden - Slows aggressors down

• Preordain - Additional filtering

• Defense Grid - Nerfs control decks, Rashmi, Eternities Crafter becomes close to vanilla, and so on.

• Thran Dynamo - Additional ramp, most of the times only relevant to cast Narset over and over.

• Metallurgic Summonings - Possible win condition, but then again, If I'm casting spells big enough for this to be a win con, I'll probably be on the driving seat anyway

• Insidious Will - Modal counterspell that is not wasted on a Narset trigger

• Ward of Bones - A stax type card that helps slow down fast agressors. The big downside is that at 6 mana it comes down too late and as a late contingency most times.

Change Log November 1st, 2016

Small change as I finally found a Chaos Warp and it's definitely an important card in here, answering a whole lot of different threats. Giving Narset shroud can be troublesome when finding auras off her trigger and unblockable is often granted by said auras or Open the Armory, so Whispersilk Cloak is off.

Out > Whispersilk Cloak

In > Chaos Warp

Actual list as of October 24th, 2016.

Date added	8 years
Last updated	7 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	16 - 0 Mythic Rares 31 - 0 Rares 29 - 0 Uncommons 10 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.97
Tokens	Copy Clone, Emblem Elspeth, Sun's Champion, Emblem Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, Emblem Narset Transcendent, Emblem Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker, Enchantment Golem 3/3 C, Knight Ally 2/2 W, Kobolds of Kher Keep 0/1 R, Soldier 1/1 RW, Soldier 1/1 W
Folders	Actual EDH Decks, Edh, EDH, edh