I know it seems counterproductive to add lands that only tap for a single color when you want better fixing, but it's true. Sunken Hollow and Smoldering Marsh are just going to come into play tapped. You'll still have difficulty turning on Drowned Catacomb, Dragonskull Summit, and Sulfur Falls. It's important that your lands that can come into play untapped actually do so.
You have some filtering with the Signets and Graven Cairns, but you probably want Cascade Bluffs and Sunken Ruins as well. Cards like Ash Barrens and Grixis Panorama can be untapped lands or can help you find a basic to allow your buddy lands to shine. You will have opportunities to play lands tapped, since your not doing anything on turn 1 (except playing Kederekt Parasite in a deck with only 2 red permanents - not ideal).
Also, check your colorless utility lands. I get some of them, but Halimar Depths, Reliquary Tower, Temple of the False God and Boseiju, who shelters all all strike me as unnecessary. Yeah, getting something countered sucks, but your playing a bunch of redundant spells. If they counter one wheel affect, the next one will work.
Other than that, you split your mana relatively evenly, despite the fact that the casting costs in your deck are not evenly split. You have very few red cards, and yet you run as many red sources as you do black sources, when you play lots more black cards with more intense casting costs (see Underworld Dreams).
And obviously, fetchlands would be huge. They grab you duals, they ensure your buddy lands can enter untapped, they are exactly what you want. I assume budget has kept you away from them.
Hm true, I always overlook the quantity of basic lands I put when considering the amount of colored mana I have to spend. The reason why I put Boseiju, who shelters All is because we have a permission Azami in the playground ;( and imo Reliquary Tower is a must because Waste Not, Howling Mine and Geth's Grimoire nets me tons of cards I may need to keep myself on the board. I don't wanna spend tons of money to make my manabase cause I live in Brazil and cards here are thrice expensive, that's why I didn't include Cascade Bluffs and Sunken Ruins, the fast lands and the fetchlands (Scalding Tarn is pricey as hell now). Currently my manabase looks like this:
Nekusar is slow, how would you burn out everyone fast enough?
Focusing solely on "hand cycling" as much as possible, maximizing Nekusar, draw-triggers, and discard triggers. You have most of these pieces in your current decklist already, but these decks eschew milling cards like Mind Grind, Psychic Spiral, Psychic Corrosion, or Mindcrank in favor of running things like Teferi's Puzzle Box, Wheel of Fortune, Winds of Change, or Memory Jar. I think you would find that you would speed up your clock if you removed the milling cards and got away from the Laboratory Maniac plan and just focused on the damage plan. In the end, yes this is a relatively slow way of winning still, but right now you are in-between the "burn them out" route and the Control+Laboratory Maniac route.
As for the mana base, I think the biggest issue is the number of lands that enter the battlefield tapped. You have 9 lands that will always enter play tapped, and another 5 that will likely enter play tapped because you don't have enough lands with the appropriate basic land types to support them (only 8). This especially makes the Ravnica Bouncelands even worse as they will often have to bounce a land that will itself have to enter the battlefield tapped. I think that you are better off running more basics and finding some ways to run more low-cost cantrip spells like Brainstorm, Ponder, Preordain, Night's Whisper, Chart a Course, etc. to help you draw into the appropriate lands and smooth out your draws in the early game. I think that will help out your mana and the speed of the deck more than the rituals.
I have them already but I was thinking about adding Skyscribing and Fascination but they're slower. The thing is that if I wanna win fast enough with Neku solely on those two spells I'd have to use infect Tainted StrikePhyrexis but my playgroup loathes at infect (they hate land destruction too, but they find infect more acceptable)
I like Thought Vessel and Commander's Sphere
I would cut ;Rakdos Carnarium;Izzet Boilerworks;Dimir Aqueduct;Foreboding Ruins;Choked Estuary - the bounce lands I only play if I can untap them for extra mana. Forboding Ruins and Chocked Estuary will mostly enter tapped since you don't have that many basic land types. I think basic lands would mostly be better. Temple of the False god is also tough in a deck that is trying to get to 4 mana quickly.
Next, if you find your commander slow... it could be for other reasons. Nekusar doesn't do much on his own. You need to have the wheel effects to start killing people.
If Nekusar is being hated, you need to get Lightning greaves out more consistently.
I was also thinking about cutting off those bounce lands and the ''reveal'' lands but I didn't find any substitution to them. And this is another problem, starting the game with enchants and wheels and good artifacts. My initial list doesn't have lightning greaves (maybe I should really put it) and none of the tutors.
That where I would look if you don't want fetch lands.
Regarding starting hands... Nekusar can either try to control the board, and grind out a win, or Nekusar can race to burn out the opponents as fast as possible. What would you prefer?
Being somewhere in the middle is not the best... Casting a windfall and a bunch of grindy enchantments doesn't kill your opponents very quickly. It just makes you the enemy. So you can either control the game, and win slowly, or you can forget the slow grindy stuff and just try to set up your fastest win.
Nekusar is slow, how would you burn out everyone fast enough?
I wouldn’t really call rituals ramp due their impermanence. Rituals are usually combo pieces. If you feel like what you’ve got is insufficient look into Nirkana Revenant and Crypt Ghast. With Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmawth they are very powerful. If you want to dump some cash there is, of course, Cabal Coffers. Other than that Grixis can be pretty hard up for ramp. Solemn Simulacrum is a fine choice. Burnished Hart is acceptable but not stellar.
I put Solemn Simulacrum on my first deck but I felt like I needed more bicolored lands since grixis has intense color needs. I'm thinking about putting Expedition Map.
I like Thought Vessel and Commander's Sphere
I would cut ;Rakdos Carnarium;Izzet Boilerworks;Dimir Aqueduct;Foreboding Ruins;Choked Estuary - the bounce lands I only play if I can untap them for extra mana. Forboding Ruins and Chocked Estuary will mostly enter tapped since you don't have that many basic land types. I think basic lands would mostly be better. Temple of the False god is also tough in a deck that is trying to get to 4 mana quickly.
Next, if you find your commander slow... it could be for other reasons. Nekusar doesn't do much on his own. You need to have the wheel effects to start killing people.
If Nekusar is being hated, you need to get Lightning greaves out more consistently.
I was also thinking about cutting off those bounce lands and the ''reveal'' lands but I didn't find any substitution to them. And this is another problem, starting the game with enchants and wheels and good artifacts. My initial list doesn't have lightning greaves (maybe I should really put it) and none of the tutors.
Hi there! I play tons of casual commander, especially those of grixis and now I've started to dig into more "competitive" ways to play. Maybe competitive isn't the right word. My favourite commander (as one may easily notice) is Nekusar, the Mindrazer but he gets tons of hate and is very slow, at least to me. For the past few days I've been trying to come up with a good, fast and solid manabase and yet not absurdly expansive and I can't find the right balance between lands and spells.
Should I put them in the deck or should I just put cheap tutors (transmute cards)? The average CMC of the deck is 3.00, that's why I run it with 37 lands.
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Hm true, I always overlook the quantity of basic lands I put when considering the amount of colored mana I have to spend. The reason why I put Boseiju, who shelters All is because we have a permission Azami in the playground ;( and imo Reliquary Tower is a must because Waste Not, Howling Mine and Geth's Grimoire nets me tons of cards I may need to keep myself on the board. I don't wanna spend tons of money to make my manabase cause I live in Brazil and cards here are thrice expensive, that's why I didn't include Cascade Bluffs and Sunken Ruins, the fast lands and the fetchlands (Scalding Tarn is pricey as hell now). Currently my manabase looks like this:
Bad River
Blood Crypt
Boseiju, Who Shelters All
City of Brass
Command Tower
Crumbling Necropolis
Darkwater Catacombs
Dragonskull Summit
Drowned Catacomb
Exotic Orchard
Grixis Panorama
Luxury Suite
Mana Confluence
Morphic Pool
Reliquary Tower
Rocky Tar Pit
Shadowblood Ridge
Shivan Reef
Smoldering Marsh
Steam Vents
Sulfur Falls
Sulfurous Spring
Sunken Hollow
Tainted Isle
Underground River
Watery Grave
So I'll remove Choked Estuary, Foreboding Ruins, the three ravnican bouncelands and put City of Brass, Mana Confluence, Sunken Hollow and Smoldering Marsh. I can include Teferi's Puzzle Box, it's just that that card sometimes backfires and unfortunately I don't have money to buy Wheel of Fortune and Memory Jar (that's why I love playing MOL).
I have them already but I was thinking about adding Skyscribing and Fascination but they're slower. The thing is that if I wanna win fast enough with Neku solely on those two spells I'd have to use infect Tainted Strike Phyrexis but my playgroup loathes at infect (they hate land destruction too, but they find infect more acceptable)
Nekusar is slow, how would you burn out everyone fast enough?
I put Solemn Simulacrum on my first deck but I felt like I needed more bicolored lands since grixis has intense color needs. I'm thinking about putting Expedition Map.
I was also thinking about cutting off those bounce lands and the ''reveal'' lands but I didn't find any substitution to them. And this is another problem, starting the game with enchants and wheels and good artifacts. My initial list doesn't have lightning greaves (maybe I should really put it) and none of the tutors.
So far the lands I put for my Nekusar are the following: Mikokoro, Center of the Sea;Geier Reach Sanitarium;Reliquary Tower;Rakdos Carnarium;Izzet Boilerworks;Dimir Aqueduct;Foreboding Ruins;Choked Estuary;Luxury Suite;Morphic Pool;Sulfur Falls;Drowned Catacomb;Dragonskull Summit;Shivan Reef;Underground River;Crumbling Necropolis;Sulfurous Springs;City of Brass;Temple of the False God;Darkwater Catacombs;Shadowblood Ridge;Halimar Depths;Scavenger Grounds;Command Tower;Exotic Orchard;Boseiju, who shelters all;Watery Grave;Steam Vents and Blood Crypt.
The artifacts are: sol ring, the three signets and the two talismans, mind stone, basalt monolith, fellwar stone, darksteel ingot and thran dynamo.
The thing is that I'm afraid those cards aren't enough for mana acceleration, so I'm thinking about adding these spells: Dark Ritual;Cabal Ritual;Rite of Flame;Desperate Ritual;Pyretic Ritual;Seething Song;Mana Geyser.
Should I put them in the deck or should I just put cheap tutors (transmute cards)? The average CMC of the deck is 3.00, that's why I run it with 37 lands.