When is it worth it to use Maskwood Nexus?

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Treamayne
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Post by Treamayne » 2 years ago

I build Tribal (in the true sense) almost exclusively (37 of my 40 current decks are based on creature type). I also wrote the Variant guide for Tribal EDH (See here).

That said, my experience with Maskwood Nexus has been that there are three types of tribal decks that want to consider it:
1) All Creature tribal (e.g. Tribal Tribal where you specifically want changelings and/or to give all creatures changeling to exploit buffs for more than 1 creature type.

2) Non-Type-Line tribal. This includes things like Saproling.dek, Servo/Thopter.dek, Plant.dek, etc. So if, for example, you wanted a Saproling deck that was also mostly Fungus creatures (but not all) and you wanted the Fungus Lords, Saproling Lords (and maybe some Elf Lords, since more than a few elves make saprolings) you might justify this so that you can give all of your buffs to all of your creatures.

3) Shapeshifter/Theft decks. There are a few tribes like Illusions, Shapeshifter (see below), Vampire, Zombies (some builds - so huge this is easily avoided), etc. that have a strong component of copying and/or stealing opponent creatures. There is often a component of changing/adding the appropriate creature type (Olivia Voldaren, The Scarab God), but that is relatively recent, and there are more that do not amend the type line (Geth, Lord of the Vault, Yasova Dragonclaw).
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Halfdane_Shifters.jpg
I'm not ruling out other uses, those are just the three where I have found it to at least be worth considering even if it doesn't make the final cut (like my Ghave Fungus deck).
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Dragoon
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Post by Dragoon » 2 years ago

I agree with @Treamayne but I would also add that it can be worth it for the second ability alone. If you have an ability that triggers when a member of your tribe enters the battlefield, like Reaper King does, I think it is worth it to include it, even if all your creatures are already of that type. Unless you have better ways of generating the appropriate tokens of course.

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Post by Shabbaman » 2 years ago

I've put Maskwood Nexus into two decks: Atla and Yuriko. The eggs get dragons, and making everything changeling is pretty absurd. In Yuriko I have a lot of non-ninja's and several ways to turn them into a ninja. Maskwood is redundancy there, and probably not optimal. If the ninja trigger of Yuriko wasn't so strong I wouldn't consider it. As for the eggs and the dragons, well, also very strong. Are your tribal triggers stupidly strong? Then it makes sense to run Maskwood Nexus. Incremental, minor triggers? You get some 2/2 fodder.
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Post by Crazy Monkey » 2 years ago

I've had a lot of success with Maskwood Nexus in semi-tribal decks with a fair number of off-tribe creatures. Specifically Unesh, Criosphinx Sovereign and Gargos, Vicious Watcher decks, for the cost reduction alone. Any commander with tribal specific cast triggers can use it without color considerations.

Unesh plays a lot of clones, so reducing their cost enables more sphinx triggers. Also creating tokens for more triggers at instant speed is good.

Gargos is massive cost reduction, and having that for all creatures is great. Even in a more dedicated tribal deck, there is space to fit in some non-hydra support. I personally also use this to enable Greatbow Doyen based player removal.
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Hawk
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Post by Hawk » 2 years ago

As everyone else has said, I personally find that Maskwood Nexus (and its color-locked precursors like Conspiracy, Xenograft, Arcane Adaptation, and to a lesser extent Unnatural Selection) are rarely good in dedicated tribal decks; either you are able to field enough creatures in tribe that you don't need it, or you aren't and this isn't enough since the deck would then fall apart if you never drew these enablers.

It is thus best in...

- Multi-tribe decks. This is most obviously decks like Reaper King or Morophon, the Boundless changeling and lord tribal, but to a lesser extent you could look at folks like Rin and Seri, Inseparable (make all your cats also dogs!).
- As an off-shoot of the above, decks with a tribal commander where that "tribe" isn't well supported enough. I think specifically of Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow and Atla Palani, Nest Tender - we may also see it somewhere in a deck like Kaseto, Orochi Archmage (although I think we are at a point where there are enough Sneks to make that deck work without it).

So that's where I'm at. On the other side of the spectrum, I have a deck like Mirri the Cursed vampires. That deck absolutely runs some non-vampires; Reassembling Skeleton for the aristocrat memes, Sheoldred, Whispering One as a powerful finisher, Crypt Ghast for mana doubling. But I wouldn't run Maskwood in this deck, not even as a token outlet, because the deck's vampire payoffs simply aren't worth the slot. Sure occasionally it is awkward to have to sac Ghast to Anowon, the Ruin Sage but meh.

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Post by pokken » 2 years ago

I struggle to imagine ever playing a conspiracy effect. that kinda deck that's dependent on a narrow effect to work is just not going to appeal.

I can barely be arsed to tribal at all but if I do I'm gonna commit :)

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Post by JovialJovian » 2 years ago

Though I haven't updated the deck since it came out, I would consider Maskwood Nexus for Tolsimir, Friend to Wolves, because the deck suffered from a lack of wolves that were appealing enough to play to the point that I was already running Changelings (Chameleon Colossus is best Wolf), and specifically Birthing Boughs. Since Wolves are largely tokens produced by other cards, Maskwood allows the non-wolf creatures producing the wolves to better integrate with the tribe. Wren's Run Packmaster is an all-star in the deck, and Maskwood makes it much stronger.
On that basis, I would grab Maskwood for a tribal deck using an under-developed or generally weak tribe, to allow me to make up some ground by running out-of-tribe creatures, and/or for a tribe that is primarily represented by tokens, to allow the non-tokens to participate in the tribe.

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Post by Sinis » 2 years ago

Treamayne wrote:
2 years ago
That said, my experience with Maskwood Nexus has been that there are three types of tribal decks that want to consider it:
I tend to use cards like Maskwood Nexus for truly anemic tribes. Scarecrows, Berserkers, etc. There are enough Conspiracy analogues now that you can probably build your own tribes within reason.

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Post by Outcryqq » 2 years ago

I've been dunked a few times by Maskwood Nexus - if someone sacrifices The World Tree with Nexus out, they get to put all creatures from their library into play. That's happened to me twice.

Edit: these others haven't happened to me yet, but: Sarkhan Unbroken ult with Nexus out also gets all your creatures from library to yard, and all the tribal recruiters (Goblin Recruiter, Dwarven Recruiter) will let you search and order any of your creatures in your library to the top of your library. Not bad, if you're already using these cards and could find a spot for Nexus.

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Post by ISBPathfinder » 2 years ago

So far, my opinion has been that the card is not worth running. My reason for saying that is that its just really inefficient and it doesn't do much of anything on its own. I have yet to be impressed by the concept of running it that I think it belongs anywhere.
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Post by 3drinks » 2 years ago

Treamayne wrote:
2 years ago
I build Tribal (in the true sense) almost exclusively (37 of my 40 current decks are based on creature type). I also wrote the Variant guide for Tribal EDH (See here).

That said, my experience with Maskwood Nexus has been that there are three types of tribal decks that want to consider it:
1) All Creature tribal (e.g. Tribal Tribal where you specifically want changelings and/or to give all creatures changeling to exploit buffs for more than 1 creature type.

2) Non-Type-Line tribal. This includes things like Saproling.dek, Servo/Thopter.dek, Plant.dek, etc. So if, for example, you wanted a Saproling deck that was also mostly Fungus creatures (but not all) and you wanted the Fungus Lords, Saproling Lords (and maybe some Elf Lords, since more than a few elves make saprolings) you might justify this so that you can give all of your buffs to all of your creatures.

3) Shapeshifter/Theft decks. There are a few tribes like Illusions, Shapeshifter (see below), Vampire, Zombies (some builds - so huge this is easily avoided), etc. that have a strong component of copying and/or stealing opponent creatures. There is often a component of changing/adding the appropriate creature type (Olivia Voldaren, The Scarab God), but that is relatively recent, and there are more that do not amend the type line (Geth, Lord of the Vault, Yasova Dragonclaw).
SPOILER
Show
Hide
Example Shapeshifter deck:
Halfdane_Shifters.jpg
I'm not ruling out other uses, those are just the three where I have found it to at least be worth considering even if it doesn't make the final cut (like my Ghave Fungus deck).
I would say it's most worthwhile when you have to care about multiple types. Single types, I wouldn't worry about unless they are a bit under-represented a la Rebels (imagine running a Zirda deck, and activating a Ramosian Lieutenant to fetch an Dwarven Blastminer). But in a deck like, say, Kaalia, Zenith Seeker, where numbers very much matter and you want to maximize your triggers, this helps you hit the full three cards every time.

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Post by Dunharrow » 2 years ago

I would definitely toss it into Reaper King. I don't think I would play any scarecrows in the deck, and maybe only a couple changelings. I think it enables a tribal commander to click with other types of cards and is basically the 2nd best kind of effect available (though it can be number one if you care for tutoring), making tokens, etc.
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Post by Treamayne » 2 years ago

Anybody know why the original post to which I replied was removed?
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Post by duducrash » 2 years ago

I played a bunch of allies deck in modern and casual. I have now decided to brew General Tazri for a budget pod my and friends are coming up with now that almost all of us are vaccinated. Surely it is weird to chose a 5c commander to this specific pod with the budget considerations, but I digress.

Maskwood Nexus was one of the first inclusions I made. It goes infinite with Turntimber Ranger infinite power and infinite wolf/ally creatures. If I have Hagra Diabolist / Halimar Excavator / / [card]Kalastria Healer it's a kill on the spot. and if I have Ondu Cleric It's infinite life for me.

The ability that really draws me is the ability to poop out allies and get rally triggers whenever I need. saving my stuff and all good stuff like that

I'm a big fan of the card in ally tribal. But I'm also a notoriously bad deck brewer so theres that

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