Nikya, Eldrazi Summoner
This is my deck for a casual
Nikya of the Old Ways
, ramp deck for EDH. It's about as simple a deck as it comes, get Nikya out as fast as possible, then just drop threats until someone stops you. It's pretty easy to to have access to 12 mana by turn 5 if you've hit your land drops and just one of the ramp creatures. This spilt means the cards are arranged as pre-Nikya, your 1-4 drops that help ramp to her, and post-Nikya drops, 6+ that you cast after. This gives the deck a really strange mana curve, as 5 and 6 drops aren't really played unless they give an ability we need, as we blow right past them with Nikya's ramp ability.
Restrictions
I wanted the 'threats' for this deck to be eldrazi, originally I was going to use the three new Eldrazi (
Kozilek, the Great Distortion
,
Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
,
Emrakul, the Promised End
), however after playing I removed Emrakulfor not be fun for others. I also prefer the new Eldrazi without annihilator, just because the mechanic is a bit harsh...and new Ulamog is better, and new Kozilek has the awesome redraw and counter ability. This does mean I need to run colourless lands for
Kozilek, the Great Distortion
, so going with the old Eldrazi will mean an easier manabase.
I also run both
Genesis Wave
and
Primal Surge
so that
Primal Surge
isn't just an instant library dump, for causal games I want the chance it doesn't go off completely. Just drop the
Genesis Wave
if you want
Primal Surge
to be an instant win if not countered.
Gameplan
The aim is to ramp out Nikya by turn 4, then drop a massive threat turn 5 when you should have 10 or 12 mana. This generally means an Eldrazi if you've managed to search one up with
Fierce Empath
or
Fauna Shaman
, or if you've naturally drawn into one.
Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
is good if you're worried about removal or need some removal,
Kozilek, the Great Distortion
is good for refilling your hand if you're empty. Generally once you have one of the main threats out, Nikya will no longer be the target and it'll only be a boardwipe that takes her out.
The deck's main weakness is someone removing Nikya, and unfortunately there is not much you can do to stop that, most of your protection,
Archetype of Endurance
,
Soul of New Phyrexia
requires Nikya out already to be cast.
Temur Sabertooth
is a good cheap way to bounce her to hand instead of the commandzone if you can wait until you have an extra land spare.
Ramp
Since we are trying to keep
Primal Surge
as a win con, all our ramp has to be creature or artifact based, and any artifacts need to have CMC less than 5, else they can't be played after Nikya comes out. I only have
Sol Ring
and
Gruul Signet
, which if you open with can mean a turn 2 Nikya, but I find that more expensive rocks start interfering with our creature ramp which happens between 3-4 mana. Just remember once Nikya is out, any rocks you draw will be dead cards, while the creatures can still trigger other effects and thin your library.
Creature Ramp
For Nikya we generally want creatures that can fetch a land, like
Sakura-Tribe Elder
, or can untap lands, like
Voyaging Satyr
. Your normal elves like
Elvish Mystic
just don't generate the same mana late game.
Dawntreader Elk
,
Diligent Farmhand
and
Yavimaya Granger
are: put nonbasic into play tapped. It's expensive compared to
Rampant Growth
,
Cultivate
and
Kodama's Reach
, but sometimes you've got to play things like that.
Shaman of Forgotten Ways
and
Somberwald Sage
are another choice, though they can't help you cast Primal Surge or Genesis Wave, so I've excluded them from my deck. Some other untap land creatures could be
Blossom Dryad
or one of the many options, but I feel most of these are too expensive.
Then we have
Courser of Kruphix
or
Oracle of Mul Daya
to potentially get some land off the top, but I'm only playing
Courser of Kruphix
since it's quite easy to skip over mana with this deck and then she's a bit useless.
Bloodbraid Elf
is also basically ramp in this deck, as almost everything under 4CMC is our ramp creatures, with just a few exceptions.
And lastly is
Magus of the Candelabra
, which doesn't ramp until after Nikya is out, but allows use to tap out, untap everything for half of what we created, and tap out again, turning our potential into .
Regal Behemoth
also fits in here, as it and Nikya will allow us to tap our land for 3 mana each as long as we can stay as Monach. We also have
Growing Rites of Itlimoc
which can help us find a big threat when played, and later can produce a ton of mana, especially with one of our land untappers.
Card Draw
This is where the lack of instant and sorceries really hurts the deck, as it can limit our card draw. With green creatures, we are relying on effects that draw a card when a creature is cast or enters.
Obviously
Beast Whisperer
is the all-star here, it can be played pre-Nikya and triggers for every creature we cast.
Elemental Bond
also sneaks in there, as it can be played early and hits most of our creatures. Post Nikya we've got
Kozilek, the Great Distortion
and
Lifeblood Hydra
for some draw and
Primordial Sage
and
Soul of the Harvest
for additional creature cast triggers.
Some notable alternatives could be
Garruk, Primal Hunter
,
Abzan Beastmaster
,
Garruk's Packleader
,
Regal Force
,
Lifecrafter's Bestiary
and
Heartwood Storyteller
.
Removal
Again, lack of instants and sorceries really hurts our removal options. Luckily we are in green, so we have plenty of enchantment and artifact removal on creatures, however creature removal is mostly limited to fighting.
Acidic Slime
is an all-round champ for getting rid of whatever is a problem, and
Caustic Caterpillar
,
Reclamation Sage
and
Thrashing Brontodon
can help out for artefacts and enchantments.
Bane of Progress
is our wiping option for when we have multiple artifact/enchantment threats.
Temur Sabertooth
can also be used with these creatures to recur them and remove multiple threats. We also have
Terastodon
for clearing up troublesome lands or planewalkers.
Otherwise we have the classic
Steel Hellkite
, a must run for any deck with mana to burn, and
Scavenging Ooze
to deal with pesky graveyard decks. Graveyard interaction is quite limited in this deck, so if your group has a lot of it, a
Loaming Shaman
would be useful here.
We then have
Ulvenwald Tracker
and
Gruul Ragebeast
to provide some targeted fight effects, and since our creatures will tend to be huge, these fights should go in our favour.
Polukranos, World Eater
is good once made monstrous, and can clear a large number of creatures if Nikya is out to generate the mana.
Archetype of Endurance
can help remove hexproof, or you could run an
Arcane Lighthouse
or
Detection Tower
.
Lastly we have the nuclear deterrent,
Bearer of the Heavens
. This is definitely a cut-able card, but will just clear the entire board if things have gotten out of hand, requiring everyone to rebuild. Not for every deck, but combo's well with
Soul of New Phyrexia
.
Protection
Playing Nikya, you have a massive advantage over your opponents, all your cards are creatures, so your can punish players that want to cast non-creature spells.
Nullstone Gargoyle
is very powerful and can lock some decks down until removed (currently out until I get one), and
Thorn of Amethyst
will slow everyone else down.
Void Winnower
is another good choice as it can outright prevent opponents from casting answers to your threats.
Ruric Thar, the Unbowed
will also slow down your opponents, as he can deal some serious damage if not dealt with quickly.
Another powerful option is
Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger
, but I've left him out just because in my mind, he just makes the entire game way too complicated with remembering what was tapped on what turns.
Archetype of Endurance
is a useful creature for preventing directed removal, and
Soul of New Phyrexia
can be used to survive boardwipes and destroy effects.
Stonehoof Chieftain
will also protect our creatures when attacking. Another option would be to run
Spearbreaker Behemoth
, however it can only save our big stuff, though Nikya is included in that.
Worth mentioning is
Yeva, Nature's Herald
, which adds flash to our entire deck, allowing us to respond to threats on other player's turn. This could include dropping a
Archetype of Endurance
or
Soul of New Phyrexia
to blank their removal.
Unfortunately, this deck will always be weak to a good boardwipe and lacks recursion if that does happen. A good inclusion is
Genesis
, in the case you get wiped and lose your biggest threats.
Tutors
So we have a bunch of big threats to drop, but how can we get them into our hand.
Fauna Shaman
is quite good to replace a mana dork with a threat once we've hit Nikya, and
Fierce Empath
can fetch any of our big stuff.
Woodland Bellower
is expensive, but can fetch
Fierce Empath
, which in turn can get our bigger threat immediately, he also provides a decent body. Otherwise we've got
Growing Rites of Itlimoc
which will let us dig down a bit when cast.
One major addition would be
Duskwatch Recruiter
which allows you to dig quite a bit into your library with enough mana. I've left him out, but you might want to include.
That's it for tutors though, but your deck is mostly threats anyway, so you should have drawn into at least one by the time Nikya is out.
Land
In order to support
Kozilek, the Great Distortion
, we need to run a bunch of colourless sources, however thanks to Nikya, only one will be needed when casting, so it's not hard to meet the requirement.
Ash Barrens
and
Blasted Landscape
are good and can be cycled away if not needed and
Darksteel Citadel
is included as it is hard to remove.
Shrine of the Forsaken Gods
is included for flavour, and
High Market
and
Reliquary Tower
provide other ability along with colourless mana. We also run a single
Wastes
that can be fetched by our ramp creatures or with
Evolving Wilds
or
Terramorphic Expanse
.
Eldrazi Temple
is another flavourful option for this deck.
Otherwise it's just general Gruul lands,
Stomping Ground
,
Sheltered Thicket
and
Cinder Glade
can be fetched by
Wood Elves
and
Yavimaya Dryad
, and several taplands with upside.
Command Tower
is included of course, as it always goes in an EDH deck.
Win-cons
So how does this deck win? Well it has a few ways.
Primal Surge / Genesis Wave
Casting either of these cards will most likely dump a pile of high powered creatures onto the field. With creatures like
Khenra Charioteer
and
Ogre Battledriver
, and
Rhythm of the Wild
, you can easily drop enough to instantly overwhelm one or more opponents. In order to cast them though, we need to tap out and remove
Nikya of the Old Ways
, for this we have
Ulvenwald Tracker
,
Dark-Dweller Oracle
,
Horned Kavu
,
Starved Rusalka
,
Temur Sabertooth
and
High Market
.
Bearer of the Heavens / Indestructible
By using our sac outlets
Dark-Dweller Oracle
,
Starved Rusalka
and
High Market
, we can kill Bearer of the Heavens, and use
Soul of New Phyrexia
or
Stonehoof Chieftain
to give our creatures indestructible. We also have creatures
Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
which will survive the wipe. This will destroy everything except our creatures and should end the game as the only player left with any permanents.
Woodfall Primus / Rhythm of the Wild
Using one of our sac outlets,
Dark-Dweller Oracle
or
Starved Rusalka
, we can recur
Woodfall Primus
many times by giving it a +1/+1 counter with
Rhythm of the Wild
. This then allows use to use all the mana we have from Nikya to take out most of our opponent's noncreature permanents. This one is a bit harder to pull off, mainly because we have to draw
Rhythm of the Wild
as we have no tutors for it, and we are limited by how much mana we can produce. Still a good way to really set back everyone else, or even take a player out.
Just Big Threats
Lastly this deck can win just by dropping multiple 6+ drops every turn if not interrupted. Nikya is the key piece, but if your opponents only have targeted removal, she will not be the biggest immediate threat. The threats you pick to put into the deck are completely up to you, I went with Eldrazi, but anything big with powerful effects will work just fine.
Conclusion
This is my interpretation of what a
Nikya of the Old Ways
deck wants to do and it feel quite good to me. It doesn't require much thinking and feels great to drop massive threats on the board. The best part is you can completely remove the Eldrazi theme from this and put in some other big threat and it'll play just as well.
If you have any other suggestions, feel free to post in the comments, I'm open to other ideas.
