MTG Salvation

To be honest, the deck really isn't that hard to stop. Unless it's built to really protect the general, It's easy enough to turn him off with removal, counterspells, board wipes, or any kind of protection. If it is really focused on protecting Nekusar, then it's missing pieces to further it's game plan. The deck is either all in or it isn't. And if it isn't, you should be able to hit a win condition much faster. Especially when he's drawing you cards.
The deck squirms when the commander is stolen or copied. It freaking hates that, I wouldn't recommend cards like Urza's armor, or the other prevent 1 damage cards. Their terrible against anything but Nekusar. Fill your deck with cards that are good against multiple threats. Darksteel Mutation is pretty solid, and is good against a lot of other decks that don't run sac outlets. I also seem to remember that Grixis has a problem dealing with enchantments.

Aaaaaaaaand we know the second printing has more Mind Seizes because of a certain fish.

Anyay, to stop milling, your best option is to just throw in an Eldrazi Titan. Just discard as needed.

You should also consider adding some old-school lifelink cards like Spirit Link and Armadillo Cloak and Soul Link and Vampiric Link to answer the life loss. Or, find a way to counteract it; I'm fond of Bloodchief Ascension, Venser's Journal, and Sword of War and Peace. Alternately, Urza's Armor.

Also, include removal. You can really screw with him if his wincon is too expensive to cast, and remember, he's not in green, though blue has a few options for him. And you really have no reason not to have removal or a few counterspells. (A more permanent solution is Predator, Flagship, albeit for seven mana per turn!)

Just to left field it a bit; Build a weenie aggro deck. I used to have a Wort, Boggart Auntie tribal goblins deck that was early aggro into mass reanimation into tutor combo pieces and it was pretty brutal for my opponents despite having to draw my own cards. If you're not interested in combo, it's still super easy to kill people with goblins. If you consistently show that you're gunning for the neku player, the other folks extra draws and more chances for a wrath shouldn't mean much. Any fast aggro deck is going to be able to apply more pressure than neku and should love extra draw.

I guess I did not make it so clear, its not so much Nekusar, but I have several persons in my play group playing decks that work with Nekusar, one of which exiles cards every time I draw a card(and take damage). Milling in itself is annoying, but exiling 10-15 cards a turn, can be crippling.

Since wining is no longer an option, does anyone have an idea on how to grief them back? If you can't beat them, join them. I am assuming if we let the group degenerate to this point, they will stop if everyone are playing decks with no wincon's designed to remove skill completely from the game and replace it with ridiculous.

Thoughts?

I would try the Imperial Animar deck featured on this forum. The last thing you want to do is give that deck more card draw since it can go off T4 or T5 easily without any help.

Quote from Faust2391 »

Vicious Shadows. If they're playing the Nekusar decks like most others, they will have pretty damn big hands.

And similarly, Price of Knowledge from the Nekusar deck.

Humility and Dovescape. He will never play that general again, trust me...

Play Varolz, the Scar-Striped. One of the guys in my playgroup has a nasty Nekusar deck. I built Varolz because I was interested in the color combo. He put Elder Mastery on Nekusar and I laughed out loud. The next time it was my turn I one-shot him. I had Varolz in play with a fair bit of mana from ramp and Grave Pact. I drew a bunch of cards and discarded almost my whole hand, sacrificed almost my entire board, then I scavenged my whole GY and hit him with a 40+/40+ Varolz.

So everyone is running Nekusar and cards like him simultaneously? That is rough.

Still... Psychosis Crawler might be useful, as could Shared Fate. Another piece of trolling might be Crumbling Sanctuary.

Whenever I play Nekusar (with infect options alongside my wheels), I get gang-rushed. Still, it typically happens when I am the only Nekusar-guy at the table. Multiples would be tough to deal with... maybe Clones of Nekusar to punish him, too.

Cheers!

I would play tons of free mana like mox Diamond chrome mox lotus petal dark ritual etc and beat them with thier own wheel effects I would probly also play grixis but use jevala and play storm. .... O wait I was supposed to give you my list and forgot get right on it..



Edit : from memory since in bored might be a few cards off if I went to a side event this is what I would play should also own the nekusar trolls by doing what they do better.

Quote from Moxnix »

I would play tons of free mana like mox Diamond chrome mox lotus petal dark ritual etc and beat them with thier own wheel effects I would probly also play grixis but use jevala and play storm. .... O wait I was supposed to give you my list and forgot get right on it..



Edit : from memory since in bored might be a few cards off if I went to a side event this is what I would play should also own the nekusar trolls by doing what they do better.

trancer99's DeckMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards

1 Jevala Cmc 0 2 mox opal 3 mox Diamond 4 chrome mox 5 lotus petal 6 lions eye Diamond 7 ever flowing chalice 8 mana crypt 9 pact of negation Cmc 1 10 Gitaxin probe 11 ponder 12 preordain 13 brainstorm 14 sol ring 15 mana vault 16 voltaic key 17 thoughtseize 18 duress 19 spell pierce 20 chain of vapor 21 dark ritual 22 imperial seal 23 vampiric tutor 24 mystical tutor 25 candelabra of Tawnos 26 Senseis diving top 27 High tide Cmc 2 28 Izzet signet 29 Dimir signet 30 talisman of dominance 31 grim monolith 32 dark confidant 33 merchant scroll 34 demonic tutor 35 impulse 36 snapcaster Mage 37 cabal ritual 38 counterspell 39 mana drain 40 remand 41 Etherium sculptor 42 lim Duls vault 43 muddle the mixture 44 cyclonic rift 45 grapeshot

Cmc 3 46 wheel of fortune 47 time twister 48 windfall 49 seething song 50 intuition 51 grim tutor 52 frantic search 53 yawgmoths will 54 necropotence Cmc 4 55 fact or fiction 56 past in flames 57 turnabout 58 tendrils of agony 59 future sight 60 force of will 61 glided lotus 62 Ad Nausuam Cmc 6 63 minds desire 64 time spiral 65 recurring insight 66 mind over matter Cmc 8 67 tidespout tyrant Lands 33 9 fetch 3 shock 3 dual 83 city of brass 84 the new city of brass 85 command tower 86 sunken ruins 87 drowned catacomb 88 underground river 89 shivan reef 90 urborg tomb of yawgmoth 91 mountain 92 swamp 93 swamp 94 island 95 island 96 island 97 island 98 island 99 island 100 island

Okay... 2 questions

1. I don't have Candelabra, Imperial Seal, Time Twister, or Grim Tutor, and I do not I think I will in the future due to how much they cost, and I cant proxy in the tournament. (I do have the 2B version of vamp tutor)

2. How in the heck do I play this?

..

Have you ever played storm in legacy? If not I have few YouTube videos someone posted one in the community thread. Basically you cast wheel / spiral / insight / ad Nausuam then play your whole hand and pop minds desire considering they will wheel for you it makes it even easier to hit you should be able to go off turn 3-5 every game untouched and with practice through counter magic the biggest thing is not walking your refill spell into a counter. You can replace expensive cards with more mana since they wheel for you or cmc 1 anti disruption goblin electromancer is fine mystical teachings is a decent budget tutor cmc 1 artifact kill is ok filler nights whisper is fine stuff like that.

Play Dissipation Field. Lol hard at their tempo loss.

Any reason why we are running Jeleva and not Nekusar ? Do you ever cast her?

Michiko Konda, Truth Seeker as a Nekusar player myself, this destroys me.

Quote from trancer99 »

Any reason why we are running Jeleva and not Nekusar ? Do you ever cast her?

The reason is whatever general you pick you won't use it 90% of the time the times you do cast your general it's because your large draw cards it tutor spells got countered so you ran out of gas. Jevala at a low cmc gives you more gas you dint build around her since you don't plan on using her she's just a backup plan like any draw card general is. Ally nekusar does is reduce the storm count and with lines like > AN / insight / spiral > play hand > tutor yawg win > minds desire it doesn't matter at all. You can play 4 or 5 color but it's harder and you barley get a boost using more cards and the mana gets slightly less stable so it almost evens out. Tide spout is optional as an infinite outlet I don't use it in 5cc builds mainly because it's a poor draw and suck to hit off AN but it's auto win off desire. I don't use it in most AN build but ALL non AN storm builds. Red is the most important splash because Gracie shot wheel and PiF are stupidly good. Seething song is a nice bonus and meta dependent shattering spree and vandal blast are good budget options. G/w doesn't give you a whole lot but carpet of flower S library's silence e tutor are very good here if you can handle the splash you get an extra fetch your mana for the rest if the deck is fine as you turn islands into duals and cut things like non blue shock from your pie. They are better than the cuts but sometimes you can't cast them right away so it evens out. The best middle ground is jevala because you get tge grixis core AND your general gives you some extra gas or resilancy. You can use doomsday Labman tech in here but it much harder and the dilution of either strategy makes awkward hands making a more focused build better. While doomsday is faster using AN as a back up this deck doesn't go ALL IN so it's better at crushing bad decks where you have plenty of time to go off. In general you make a few land drops ramp 1 pop a tutor and win gush the deck enough and the tutor targets will be obvious. Losing twister seal hurts grim can be replaced fairly easy but it hurts a little as well maybe you use teachings + nights whisper and Saphire medallion or goblin electromancer in those slots helm of awakening is "better" but in the opener it will let other combo and control decks get first use and punish you this is why I like sculptor on the future top combo slot.

I have found that in my personal experience in playing versus Nekusar that he is not so effective when he's taking a 99 card dirt nap....Hallowed Burial, Terminus, Oblation, Unexpectedly Absent, Spell Crumple, Hinder, Spin into Myth, Void Stalker, Proteus Staff, Bant Charm, or just turn him into a dung beetle Darksteel Mutation.

Jeleva... Tendrils... girl... tendrils... La Blue Girl? When I build it, I am going to call it that.

If you run Grixis storm like Mox suggests I'd run Sol'kanar the Swamp King as the commander. He is one of the few Grixis commanders that adds value to storm if you actually cast him. Especially in your meta where the other black players will feed you with life gain for Ad Nauseam.

Funny story, I decided to build a Sol'Kanar storm deck last night after watching a video of Mox's 5 color storm deck. I wanted something fun but slightly less oppressive then what he runs.

You can also replace a few of the money cards he suggests with things like the 0 CMC artifact creatures, Culling the Weak, Blood Pet and Rain of Filth. I was planning to make a list that does exactly this some today if you wasn't me to post it. Basically it will be a combination of the list Mox posted here plus ctmastercard's Oloro ANT list in the 1v1 forum.

Quote from bigbearlyke »

If you run Grixis storm like Mox suggests I'd run Sol'kanar the Swamp King as the commander. He is one of the few Grixis commanders that adds value to storm if you actually cast him. Especially in your meta where the other black players will feed you with life gain for Ad Nauseam.

Funny story, I decided to build a Sol'Kanar storm deck last night after watching a video of Mox's 5 color storm deck. I wanted something fun but slightly less oppressive then what he runs.

You can also replace a few of the money cards he suggests with things like the 0 CMC artifact creatures, Culling the Weak, Blood Pet and Rain of Filth. I was planning to make a list that does exactly this some today if you wasn't me to post it. Basically it will be a combination of the list Mox posted here plus ctmastercard's Oloro ANT list in the 1v1 forum.

I have a BU Oloro I have been working on, but its not finished, it has the 5 or so 0 cost creatures, and Rain,Culling,Pet, etc... with red we open up three 0 cast Kobolds... hmmmmm....

I like the Sol'Kanar idea a lot, but Jeleva is still cheaper if you need just one more cast to hit the redzone...

Hopefully Moxnix will chime in on this.

..

The other option if you dislike storm is to play bomberman. only thing is you need a LED which can get costly but my freind has 3 different bomberman decks he has been testing so far the america and junk ones have worked best.

This is the storm list I'm thinking of running with Sol'Kanar. It's only slightly more budget then Mox's Jeleva list but I plan to proxy around 8 cards since I only have 1 copy and they are in other decks:


I didn't include the land base because it will basically be standard Grixis with the duals, shocks, some fetches. Maybe a few utility lands.

My basic idea wasn't to race like most ANT decks but to kind of slow play into the storm. Hence the slightly high average CMC.

I like the concept but looking at both lists and the ideas I have, we could "hide in plain sight" much easier with Nekusar at the helm. Sol'Kanar gives us love for B spells, but most of our spells are blue.

Does storm count for Sol'Kanar's ability? or just cast stuff?

I am thinking one of us should make a thread for this since it has moved away from the original post. If nobody objects I will make one.


..

Quote from trancer99 »

I like the concept but looking at both lists and the ideas I have, we could "hide in plain sight" much easier with Nekusar at the helm. Sol'Kanar gives us love for B spells, but most of our spells are blue.

Does storm count for Sol'Kanar's ability? or just cast stuff?

I am thinking one of us should make a thread for this since it has moved away from the original post. If nobody objects I will make one.


..

His ability has errata to read "cast" so storm copies don't count. While most of our spells are blue you also gain life from spells opponents play. My theory with Sol'Kanar is that most likely I won't cast my commander whoever it is. I'm basically just playing Grixis storm and the commander is there for colors. But with Sol you can also trick people who haven't played the deck into thinking it's voltron or aggro because he is a 5/5 beater with swampwalk. So they may waste removal with him.

Go right ahead and make a new post.