I've been thinking about building Nezahal. It's been a while since I've played big blue. Any updates thus far?
Also, if you're looking for janky stuff to throw in there, Dragon Wings might be good. It can be discarded to Nezahal's flicker ability, and once it's in the gy it'll trigger whenever Nezahal comes back into play after a flicker, so it just doesn't go away unless someone exiles it.
I think he's best in a traditional mono-black big mana deck, using token generators and sac outlets with Grave Pact effects to control the board and tutor up your win condition of choice. His mana cost is very high, but black has a ton of ways to generate a lot of mana. Coffers and the like will get the job done, but Black Market is also a strong choice in that particular deck. Exsanguinate or Gary are good win cons, and you can easily play a more grindy style if it's more to your liking.
I think I'm in love... He's just so good in EDH and there are a ton of ways to build around him. Zombie tribal? Check. Clone stuff with stupid effects? Check. Steal things from your opponents? Check. He and Lazav will be besties!
That is amazing with mana up. Pay two to copy, say, Invisible Stalker, go to combat and attack, then after blockers are declared, pay another 2 two become, say, Blightsteel Colossus to kill someone via infect. Tons of shenanigans here!
That doesn't work. It doesn't retain the activated copy ability once it becomes something else.
It does work if you change it to Blightsteel after it fails to be blocked.
No, it doesn't. You change it into Invisible Stalker and it loses the ability to copy things. Once your opponent declares blockers, you no longer have the ability to change it into something else. The only way to change it into multiple things in one turn is to activate the ability in response to itself, but at no point will your opponent declare blockers before the abilities all finish resolving at it loses the activated ability to change into things.
Profit. Well, as much as you could hope to profit from a 3-card combo involving at least 7 mana this turn and likely more earlier to have even gotten here.
That is amazing with mana up. Pay two to copy, say, Invisible Stalker, go to combat and attack, then after blockers are declared, pay another 2 two become, say, Blightsteel Colossus to kill someone via infect. Tons of shenanigans here!
That doesn't work. It doesn't retain the activated copy ability once it becomes something else.
As long as it isn't in the first few turns or off some combo out of no where that renders the entire game up to that point irrelevant, then I don't usually care how my opponents win.
It's a great answer for planeswalker commanders and gods that just won't go away. Taking gods is especially spicy since you're not likely to turn them into a creature unless your deck is built for it, and most decks that run them as commanders don't run any enchantment exile/tuck effects so they're not likely to get it back.
It mostly depends on availability, but art is also a factor if there is alternate artwork that I like more than the original. For example, the Sakura-Tribe ElderFNM art looks MUCH better than the normal artwork imo.
I used to run Thada as my general. She would either eat removal all game long or get me so far ahead that the rest of the game was archenemy. There are a lot of fun tricks you can do to prevent people from blocking her, like using Vedalken Plotter to swap one of your islands for their best land.
The only tucks MW usually cares about are hinder and spellcrumple. Two cards. The rest he's almost invariably got a sac or bounce outlet to rescue himself. Those, and desertion, are really the only thing he gives a crap about. All this talk really does is tell us MW should be banned
Unlike MW, most commanders can't afford to devote half their deck to ways to bounce and sac them so they can be recast for value.
You can literally make the same argument about only caring about Hinder and Spell Crumple for any commander. You don't need to devote half your deck to sac outlets in order to see them often enough. Worst case, you tutor for one, but only running a few will still give you access to them as long as you run a decent amount of card draw.
From what I can tell, Blue loses the most in its ability to deal with generals. I think Crumple and Hinder were the biggest offenders, as you couldn't sac your general, bounce it or give it protection to save it. As blue is really strong in this format, I am okay with this. Blue players can play more expensive answers, like Perplexing Chimera.
Red losing Chaos Warp sucks. I hope it gets more punisher cards to at least hurt players for playing things Red can't deal with.
Derevi decks run a ton of sac outlets, so only two of those actually answer her. The only other card I can think of is Desertion. Maybe Perplexing Chimera, but that's janky.
Also, if you're looking for janky stuff to throw in there, Dragon Wings might be good. It can be discarded to Nezahal's flicker ability, and once it's in the gy it'll trigger whenever Nezahal comes back into play after a flicker, so it just doesn't go away unless someone exiles it.
No, it doesn't. You change it into Invisible Stalker and it loses the ability to copy things. Once your opponent declares blockers, you no longer have the ability to change it into something else. The only way to change it into multiple things in one turn is to activate the ability in response to itself, but at no point will your opponent declare blockers before the abilities all finish resolving at it loses the activated ability to change into things.
This would work, however.
That doesn't work. It doesn't retain the activated copy ability once it becomes something else.
It's worth noting that Doriel has been quoted in flavor text before. He's quoted on Divination in a couple of the core sets.
If Wizards let you could design a legendary creature with no restrictions on your design, what would you design?
You can literally make the same argument about only caring about Hinder and Spell Crumple for any commander. You don't need to devote half your deck to sac outlets in order to see them often enough. Worst case, you tutor for one, but only running a few will still give you access to them as long as you run a decent amount of card draw.
Derevi decks run a ton of sac outlets, so only two of those actually answer her. The only other card I can think of is Desertion. Maybe Perplexing Chimera, but that's janky.