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The Sea is Woke - Noyan Dar Control

Commander / EDH Competitive Control Primer Tempo WU (Azorius)

the_unseen89

Instant (30)

Creature (5)

Land (38)

Artifact (6)

Planeswalker (1)

Commander (1)

Commander: foil Noyan Dar, Roil Shaper

Sorcery (12)

Enchantment (7)

Maybeboard

Instant (7)

Sorcery (4)

Artifact (1)

Creature (1)

Land (1)

Enchantment (1)

#1 Noyan Dar deck on TappedOut as of February 20, 2019

Zendikar Rising Update: Crawling Barrens is in and Rishadan Port is out.

Upvotes are appreciated!

Introduction

This is a unique deck that relies on your lands to not only cast your spells but also to destroy your opponents. Animating your lands makes for an interesting game that requires you to make smart decisions.

This is a control deck that is going to animate lands to swing for the win. This is not a traditional creature based deck but does require you to swing to win. I am always working on this deck and appreciate comments and suggestions.



  • You like playing spells
  • You like relying on your commander to win
  • You like grindy games
  • You’re okay with making tough decisions
  • You like appearing as an underdog until you go off
  • You like winning quickly
  • You don’t like relying on your commander
  • You like playing lots of creatures
  • You like winning with commander damage
  • You don’t like playing control

Overview

One of the biggest strengths of this deck is the consistency. As long as you are able to resolve Noyan Dar, you will consistently have a voltron like land to bring the beats. Since this has a basic control shell, people will nervous to cast spells. We do run a fair amount of counter spells and some of those spells like Teferi's Response are so specific they are extremely useful in our deck and our opponents don't see it coming.

Another strength is that this deck functions very differently than other decks. There are no other commanders that animate lands when you cast spells so you win for uniqueness!

We don't have a ton of win-cons currently as this is a high power deck but leans to the more casual side. Also, you're turning lands into creatures which is usually bad. There is a ton of creature removal both targeted and mass, and this can really mess up your plan. Losing multiple lands to a creature removal feels bad. Learning how to play this deck an be a weakness. You will really need to think multiple turns ahead to stay alive. If everyone decides to go for you, it is hard to come back without mass destruction or bounce.

The Strategy

The main strategy is to cast Noyan Dar and to control the board while animating lands into huge beaters. We have a classic control shell which should keep us alive. You will need to counter the obvious cards that will take us out. Since Noyan Dar is not a commonly played commander, many people will not be expecting the odd cards in the deck. Animating an Inkmoth Nexus with Noyan's triggers three times and then swinging after activating its ability is a win. This is the quickest win you can have with this deck.

This deck does not have any infinite combos built into it but the best interaction we have comes with View from Above . If you control Noyan Dar, you can cast this card as many times as you can pay for it. The notable lands to animate are Inkmoth Nexus , Darksteel Citadel , and Cascading Cataracts . Inkmoth only requires 3 awaken triggers to be lethal when activating for infect damage. The other two make for big indestructible beaters that are hard to remove. People will have a hard time dealing with them.

Notable Cards Explained

Crucible of Worlds no longer makes the cut. It is just too slow. Since we aren't animating multiple lands, losing to board wipes is not really a problem.

Here we are looking for the best creatures for what we are doing. Since we are casting many spells we are looking for things to generate value.

Monastery Mentor will help you go wide when casting your spells. Since the monks all have prowess they will grow each turn you plan to swing.

Murmuring Mystic is here to help us get some blockers in the air. Again, since we are casting so many spells, Murmuring Mystic will usually generate a lot of value for us. I chose this over Talrand because the 1/5 body is harder to remove.

Tomik, Distinguished Advokist is the new hotness. He is going to help protect our lands that have been animated. Flying is a bonus but this card will shut down some deck strategies that want to play lands from their graveyards. 10/10 for Ral's bae.

Embargo helps fend off very aggressive decks. The upside being that our animated lands will untap. This is a control card that many are turned off of. The loss of 2 life seems scary but it beats getting blown out by a swarm of opponents who can deal more than 2 damage a turn.

Overburden is fantastic on turn 2 for us. Most commander decks are creature based and this really slows your opponents down. We really only have 2 creatures so the downside isn't that bad for us. This has been errata'd to say "cast" so animating lands does not hurt.

Sacred Ground will help us in the event that one of our woke lands is destroyed. This helps get around wrath effect spells.

Terra Eternal is pretty self-explanatory. Having indestructible lands is great. There is just enough land destroy in the format that it does mess with peoples plans. I'm looking at you Wasteland .

Trade Routes is the best way to help beat those late game land draws. You can effectively cycle a land card if you need to draw something better. It also helps with board wipes. If you are about to lose a bunch of creatures you can pay to return them to your hand to avoid a complete blowout.

Teferi's Response is a fun counterspell that works well in our deck. Since our lands become creatures this makes this card much more useful as it can counter more than just land destruction.

Vanish into Memory is a neat spell that works really well in this deck. If you are about to lose an animated creature for whatever reason, you can cast this spell to blink the creature. You will draw cards equal to its power but since it comes back as a land and no longer a creature, you won't have to discard anything. This also helps us when we need to blink something problematic.

View from Above is the most important instant in this deck. Actually, this might actually be the most important card in the entire 99. If you have Noyan Dar out, you can cast this spell and return it to your hand. If your opponents are tapped out, you can cast this as many times as you can pay for it and awaken a single land multiple times to make a massive flying elemental. This is usually how this deck wins. If this spell is countered you are not out of luck and things become significantly harder.

Crush of Tentacles is a great card to cantrip into. You never want to cast this without surge unless you are in dire need. If you have any lands that are animated, they will stay on the battlefield. This is a great way to out tempo your opponents.

Devastation Tide is here for the same reason as our other bounce spells. Our lands remain unaffected by the bounce and it helps you to stabilize when things are getting out of control.

Hour of Revelation is a cheap wrath spell that will usually do less harm to us than our opponents.

Part the Waterveil is an auto include. The goal is to cast this for its awaken cost but if you cannot, you at least get to take another turn. Having Noyan Dar out will get you 9 counters if this is cast for awaken.

Planar Outburst is a wrath for non-land creatures. Can be a one-sided wrath if you can set it up.

Tragic Arrogance is underplayed in my opinion. In this deck however, lands are not included in the text so you can choose Noyan Dar as your creature even if you have multiple lands animated. You will not have to sacrifice those creatures to this. It is a great spell to get around hexproof creatures and force your opponents to keep their worst creature, artifacts, ehchantment, and planeswalker.

Other Information

Please see updates below.

Feedback

Your feedback is greatly appreciated. Let me know if this primer helped you. Leave your comments below. Thanks for reading!



Upvotes are appreciated!

Suggestions

Updates Add

Strixhaven Update — May 4, 2021
Edit

Out: Day's Undoing In: Devastating Mastery

Devastating Mastery is a new board wipe that can be played politically that does not hit lands. It has been a bit since I've added any new cards to this deck and I am very excited to test this out.

Day's Undoing really never put me in a good position. I mostly fueled my opponent's hands and ended up on the back step. This is why I'm removing this.

Zendikar Rising Update — Sept. 25, 2020
Edit
War of the Spark Update — May 3, 2019
Edit
Update 5 — Dec. 28, 2018
Edit
Update 4 - Big Changes — Oct. 21, 2018
Edit
Update 3 — May 26, 2018
Edit
Update 2 — April 15, 2018
Edit
Update 1 — April 9, 2018
Edit

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Casual

92% Competitive

Top Ranked
  • Achieved #1 position overall 6 years ago
Date added 7 years
Last updated 1 year
Legality

This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)

12 - 0 Mythic Rares

42 - 0 Rares

13 - 0 Uncommons

16 - 0 Commons
Cards 100
Avg. CMC 3.02
Tokens Bird 2/2 U, Bird Illusion 1/1 U, Emblem Teferi, Hero of Dominaria, Monk 1/1 W, Octopus 8/8 U
Folders EDH Deck Ideas, very interesting , Commander, interesting, Decks, EDH, Good ideas, EDH Ideas, Decks to Consider, Interesting Decks
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Revision 35 See all

(3 years ago)

-1 Day's Undoing main
+1 Devastating Mastery main