Narset - The Revival
Paradox Narset
Paradox Narset is my attempt to rebuild a competitive Narset list.
Many people will tell you that Narset died with the mulligen changes, and for the most part, they aren't wrong. She was once a tier 1/2 commander, depending on who you ask. But the removal of partial paris caused some problems.
The problem with Narset
The mulligen changes hurt a lot of decks, but in particular non-green decks looking to resolve expensive spells. The green decks have an abundance of mana dorks meaning their turn 1 acceleration is still consistent. But non-green decks now have a harder time mulling to their fast mana, so resolving a 6 mana commander has become a turn or 2 slower.
Narset also needs protection, haste, or both. Hexproof is often not good enough, so without haste, you still need protection from anyone playing wraths or sac effects, as well as actually resolve her in the first place. If she dies or is countered once, it slows you down a few turns, but the second time is usually game game over.
It also hurt Narset in particular by neededing to up the land count. Without being able to mull aggresively for mana sources, if you want to resolve your 6 mana commander, you need to hit your land drops and get to 6+ mana in the first place. Having more mana sources in the deck means more wiffs with Narsets ability. And when the old-school Narset decks were playing what was essentially a 15 card combo of chaining together Time Warps and extra combat step effects, having to add more lands really hurt, as well as having to add more protection and card filtering as we couldn't reliably mull into it anymore.
Because of this, the old Narset combat steps combo deck stopped being consistent enough to play in the big leagues. She was simply outclassed by faster and more consistent combo decks.
The Solution
Storm. Yup, we are giving up on the somewhat unique 'combo' of stringing together combat steps and extra turns that Narset decks were loved for. Instead, we are using Narset the same way Jeleva decks use her - to get free spells to help up our storm count. Narset has the upside of being able to cast multiple spells, and until end of turn, meaning exile a counterspell gives us protection for our combo turn, and thus unlike Jeleva, she is a main combo piece instead of an added extra.
The Deck
The Narset Paradox
The aim is to cast a bunch of mana rocks and then cast Narset. Then, using free spells from Narset, we try to start storming off. The usual path to victory involves getting Paradox Engine down with some artifacts and start casting spells to generate mana. When half of our spells are card draw spells, we can start drawing cards while making mana to try to find a win condition.
The Win Conditions
The main way this deck wins is through Paradox Enginge, Retaction Helix, and Aetherflux Resevoir. Retraction Helix on a creature can be used to bounce a mana rock, which can be recast, untapping the other rocks, and making mana and storm. When we find Resevoir, this makes infinite life to kill the table. Retraction Helix looks like a little janky card that no one should be playing, but it's also pretty useful to bounce hatebears and stax pieces mid combo, or to bounce a permanent to save it from removal if you accidentally draw your opponent into removal with a wheel or windfall effect. (It is pretty janky really though, I just need to justify it somehow).
We also have Aggrevated Assault, which with Paradox Enginge and mana rocks, can often lead to enough combat steps to storm off and win, as each time you attack, you just need 1 spell to cast to untap your rocks to activate Assault again.
Intersting Cards
Enter the Infinite - Casting this, either through Narset, or hard casting, will win the game if it resolves. You should have enough counterspells in your hand after to beat anything your opponents have, and use the retraction helix combo for infinite like and blast them in the face with your aetherlazer.
Mizzux Mastery - EtI gets countered? You can stopped mid combo? You happen to cast wheel into windfall and have a buttload of spells in your graveyard? You thought of a badass intuition pile? Mizzux Mastery is a catch all card that can help us combo off in a bunch of ways. It's quite expensive, but when half our deck is mana rocks, casting it isn't that rediculous of a notion.
Intuition - Speaking of - intuition is a complex card that can often lead to imminent victory if used correctly. The piles I look for most often will have Snapcaster or Jace (if I can give haste) or both, the spell I want, and Mizzux Mastery, or Snapcaster, a spell I want, and Seize the Day. With Paradox Engine already out, Intuition for Seize the Day/Deep Analysis/Faithless Looting gives us 4 spells to cast to abuse the untaps while digging for spells.
Seize the Day - 2 extra combat, and up to 8 extra free spells is normally enough to win. I find I often tutor for this card if I can't tutor and win with EtI
Lion's Eye Diamond - Discarding your hand is often worth it to resolve Narset turn 2/3, but be careful she doesn't get countered if you take this risk. It's also great to crack in response to a draw spell, a free spell to trigger Paradox Engine, and an artifact you can sac to Transmute Artifact to look for something better.
Jace, the Mind Sculptor - Planeswalkers often look out of place in fast combo decks. Jace's ability to set up the top of your deck is obviously very powerful, and he is also great before you are reasy to combo, or in the games where Narset gets killed/countered, as well as being able to be used to bounce a hatebear if needed. He is, however, also one of the weaker cards in the list, and may end up being cut soon.
Jace, Vryn's Prodigy - unlike 4cmc jace, this version is actually fantastic. Looting in the early game, then flashing back a card draw spell makes this Jace a much more useful planeswalker, as well as only costing 2 mana. The problem comes from exiling it with Narset.
Dac - Dac is great in any meta that relies heavily on mana rocks, you can use him to accelerate by stealing a sol ring, or use him on the combo turn to loot.
High Tide - Not at it's best in this deck by a long shot, but this is really our 'Dark Ritual' in this deck, that sometimes will get us extra value through untap steps. Don't mistake this for a high tide deck though, we don't try to abuse High Tide like other decks, it's just another ritual to accelerate Narset, and sometimes to get value while comboing. Because of this, we don't even run Candelabra, despite it's synergy with Paradox Engine.
Baral - Barals looting ability helps us turn 2-4, and his cost reduction is fantastic on the combo turn. An overall solid card, which only lets us down by being a creature. It could very well be replaced at some point because of this, but he does let us combo off without Narset a lot easier.
Notable Exclusions
Lightning Greaves - with so few creatures, the shroud actually hurt quite a bit. While it only shuts off Retraction Helix and Seize the Day, these are two of our more important spells!
Path to Exile - I really dislike this card at competitive tables, as accelerating your opponents is a real risky. But it might make it's way back in at some point as a cheap removal spell for hatebears, as you want to win before they can untap anyway. If you need more removal for your meta then it's definitely worth including.
Extra Turns - We don't really care about taking an extra turn and untapping, we want to try to win on the first turn we attack with Narset.
More extra combat effects - These are all dead cards in games without Narset on the table, and often overkill even in the ones that do. I have only included two, Seize the Day is cheap, fine to discard to looting effects and flashback making it a good intuition pile card, and often the only extra combat we need. Aggrevated Asssault is another win condition and easy to go semi-infinite with - and even that is getting close to being cut.
Isochron Scepter - It was in here with Dramtic Reversal for a while. It combo's with Engine, and is great with Manadrain/Counterspell, or Izzet Charm. It was cut because it was win more with Engine, and without Engine, you needed to also have one of those 3 spells or Reversal, and Reversal was a dead card most of the time without it. Maybe if I can find room for Impulse and Think Twice or something I can add it back in.
The Chopping Board
Desperate Ritual/Pyretic Ritual - Great to get Naraset out a turn early, okay to generate mana with Paradox Engine. These are possibly better as something like Impulse. While Impulse doesn't really accelerate getting Narset out, it can help find you what you need to be able to do that, or find protection if you have the mana already.
Turnabout - Likewise, it rarely accelerate Natset out, and when comboing, it's often not even needed if we have Engine. I've included it for the High Tide synergy, being able to untap rocks if that's the better option, and as it's versatility to target your opponents stuff to tap them down. When untapping rocks, it's a worse Dramatic Reversal. When untapping lands, it only shines with High Tide, which isn't a priority spell. Have I just found my space for Scepter/Reversal/Impulse? Who knows.
Where it sits
From playing this list the last month, I think it's a solid tier 2 list, capable of winning at the most cutthrout of tables, but not as fast as decks like Zur or even Jeleva. The lack of black, and the reliance once a 6cmc commander of 4cmc make it a few turns slower than those two, while being fairly similar. In practice, it does play out quite differently than those two, and is a blast to play, so I'd recommend it to anyone who misses playing with Narset.
It has a good ability to fight through stax, which other storm decks often lack, as it just need to attack with Narset to get going, and her free spells will often help you break through their stax pieces before you can combo off. Narset also being a kill/counter on sight commander can help draw out removal and counterspells, clearing the way to combo off naturally the turn after (though I wouldn't rely on this, we all know every deck plays 4 copies of force of will).
Closing
This list is still very much a work in progress. I've been working on it for a month or so, playing in as many competitive games on cockatrice as possible, and I feel it's getting to a pretty strong position, but expect more changes to be made. I think it's much stronger than the old combat step lists, reliably comboing off the first time you attack with Narset, on average turn 4, while being able to pack a decent protection removal suite, and most importantly, being able to combo off consistently without Narset, something old Narset decks were weak to.
Let me know what you think of the list, what it's missing, what it's going to be weak too. I'll be testing and tuning this list for a while yet. My love for Narset has been revived, I hope some of yours will be too.
