Neheb, the Eternal x Dragon's Approach (Extra Phases)

[RogHimself]

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Today I would like to present to you my latest creation. Neheb, the Eternal, ready to decimate your weekly playgroup.

The deck is all about big-mana, 'storming' off, burn & direct damage, and some sweet dragons top top it off, whom will assist us in all of the before-mentioned categories. Our 24x Dragon's Approach form the backbone of the deck. This deck will appeal to anyone who loves to figure out play-lines to keep a train going, enjoy quick games, and like to abuse their friends.

In short, the deck works as followed.

1. You cast Neheb, the Eternal and one piece of Dragon's Approach, dealing around 12 damage, which converts into 12 mana in the 2nd Main Phase.
2. This mana is spent to either cast more Dragon's Approaches, wheeling your hand to get new gas, or even better, giving you extra Combats and Main Phases. Neheb does not only trigger in your 'first' 2nd Main Phase, but rather in every post-combat mainphase!
3. Go to the next combat/main phase, trigger Neheb again, repeat the above and burn your opponent's down to 0 life.
4. Add a win to your name and move on to the next game.

Neheb's Dragons

DecklistCMCManaPricesChartsDraw 7

Commander

1 Neheb, the Eternal

Creatures

1 Generator Servant

1 Magus of the Wheel

1 Manaform Hellkite

1 Neheb, Dreadhorde Champion

1 Backdraft Hellkite

1 Inferno of the Star Mounts

1 Dragon Mage

1 Knollspine Dragon

Sorceries

1 Faithless Looting

1 Tormenting Voice

24 Dragon's Approach

1 Jeska's Will

1 Seize the Spoils

1 Wheel of Misfortune

1 Past in Flames

1 Relentless Assault

1 Seize the Day

1 Imposing Grandeur

1 Mana Geyser

1 Reforge the Soul

1 Song-Mad Treachery // Song-Mad Ruins

1 World at War

1 Fury of the Horde

1 Dragonstorm

Instants

1 Thrill of Possibility

1 Chaos Warp

1 Electric Revelation

1 Seething Song

1 Valakut Awakening // Valakut Stoneforge

Artifacts

1 Sol Ring

1 Arcane Signet

1 Coldsteel Heart

1 Fellwar Stone

1 Fire Diamond

1 Fractured Powerstone

1 Lightning Greaves

1 Liquimetal Torque

1 Mind Stone

1 Prismatic Lens

1 Swiftfoot Boots

1 Memory Jar

1 Thrumming Stone

Enchantments

1 Aggravated Assault

1 Fiery Emancipation

1 Sunbird's Invocation

Lands

1 Desert of the Fervent

1 Flamekin Village

1 Forgotten Cave

1 Geier Reach Sanitarium

1 Hanweir Battlements

1 Mikokoro, Center of the Sea

23 Mountain

1 Smoldering Crater

1 War Room

Approximate Total Cost:

Allow me to go over some key components one by one.

Mana
We all know the importance of mana in EDH. More mana means more spells, which leads to victory. Neheb is our main mana-generator. His ability works wonders with Dragon's Approach. Assuming that we're playing with 3 opponents, every Dragons Approach nets us 9 mana in our second main. If we're able to attack with Neheb that'll be 12 mana. This mana is the base for the storm-part of our deck and lets us do all kind of degenerate stuff we shouldn't be able to do in the 'early' game.

Furthermore we run a whopping 9 manarocks and other red staples like Jeska's Will, Seething Song and Mana Geyser. These cards give us the opportunity to cast Neheb including one Dragon's approach, which gives us enough mana to start storming off in our 2nd Main.

Drawing / Digging
Drawing is not red's strength. Luckily we have access to all red's looting effects, which happen to synergize well with our main gameplan: by discarding Dragon's Approach's we can cast our 'fifth' Approach quicker, which enables us to find a dragon and take it from there. Note I did not include random looting effects that will put us at a card-disadvantage (i.e. Burning Inquiry).

Wheels are very important in this deck. Since we have so much mana we can cast our entire hand rather quickly. Wheels lets us re-fill our hands. Dragon Mage and Knollspine Dragon are tutorable with our fifth Dragon's Approach. Magus of the Wheel, Memory Jar, Wheel of Misfortune, Reforge the Soul keeps us going as well. These discard and wheel effects allow us to dig deep into our library, allowing us to find key pieces and improving the consistency of the deck.

We also get as much draw effects in lands and mana rocks as we can get to prevent us from running out of gas. Think War Room, Mikokoro, Center of the Sea and Mind Stone. Finally we love cycling effects on lands to ditch and trade them for something more useful.

Dragon Package
We only run five dragon's in the deck, each with their own 'specialism'.

Dragon Mage - Specialty: Gasssss // Also know as a Wheel of Fortune on-a-stick. By tutoring Dragon Mage with our Dragon's Approach and giving them haste we can attack with him immediately in one of our extra combat steps, allowing us to have a full hand straight away and keep the train moving.
Knollspine Dragon - Specialty: Gasssss // Sometimes we do not have extra Combat Phases to get use out of Dragon Mage, and we need new cards straight away. That is the role of Knollspine Dragon // Just ETB'ing gives us a new set of cards to work with. Also it discards our hand, potentially dropping more Dragon's Approaches there, setting us up for the next (and hopefully our fifth) Dragon's Approach we cast.
Backdraft Hellkite - Specialty: Gassss // Allows us re-cast all of our sorceries & instants out of our graveyard, which frankly enough, are a lot. Recasting cards like Relentless Assault to give us extra value out of this card, or we simply just re-cast a Mana Geyser when we are in need of even more mana. All the goodies are right there.
Manaform Hellkite - Specialty: Damage // The deck runs 40+ non-creature spells. All these spells that we were going to cast anyway now gives us a free value in the form of hasty dragons. These dragons can go in for damage immediately, giving us even more mana in new phases and finish off games really quickly. Especially when we cast a Fiery Emancipation for instance, granting us a 6/6 flyer that goes in for 18 damage.
Inferno of the Star Mounts - Specialty: Damage // the main role of this dragon is to go in for damage when we need to. The haste ability on this card really gives it a major upside. Think when Aggravated Assault (can anyone see the combo?) is in play and we need to get in for the extra damage so we can get the ball rolling? Also, it can snipe opponent's down, plus it also boosts himself, which leads to more combat damage.

Additional phases
By adding extra combat steps to our gameplan we are essentially doubling down on our combat damage, which leads to double the mana in our second main phase due to Neheb's ability. What is even better though, is when we can extend our turn with another 2nd Main Phase. Neheb on it's own already leads to explosive turns, but by extending our turn it can get really nutty.

Aggravated Assault - Combined with our commander this leads to infinite phases 9 out of 10 times. If we assume that an attacking Neheb deals 3 damage to an opponent, we just need 2 extra mana to repeat it. Note that the second time Neheb get's blocked it will net you 6 mana in the third Main Phase.
Seize the Day - Extra combat, extra main phase, recastable from the 'yard and good discard target for looting effects. What more can you ask?
Fury of the Horde - Extra combat, extra main phase, ability to cast for free (very likely due to the high density of wheels, thus ammunition) plus gives us a 8/8 dragon combined with Manaform Hellkite
Relentless Assault - Extra combat, extra main phase

Haste-enablers
Giving our creatures haste is very important. Being able to connect with Neheb the turns he comes down lets us go off straight away. It gives us immediate value. Nothing is worse for a tempo-deck like this to play Neheb only to get hit by removal, which makes him expensive to cast. Also, turns where we are storming off and are able to tutor up new dragons with our fifth Dragons Approach, we want to finish the game then and there. In our ideal situation we are able to attack with these new dragons (hello Dragon Mage or Backdraft Hellkite) straight away to keep the ball rolling.

Generator Servant - Ramp + haste! Allows us to get Neheb in on turn three.
Lightning Greaves - Classic haste & protection.
Swiftfoot Boots - Classic haste & protection.
Song-Mad Treachery // Song-Mad Ruins Land, thus not giving up another slot.
Flamekin Village - Land, thus not giving up another slot.
Hanweir Battlements Land, thus not giving up another slot.

Honorable mentions
Past in Flames - Redundancy for Backdraft Hellkite. Synergizes greatly with all the looting effects.
Fiery Emancipation - Speeds up our gameplan by 3x. Very easy to cast in this deck
Dragonstorm - Redundancy on Dragon's Approach with potential upside to bring out all of our dragons all at once.
Sunbird's Invocation - Allows us to go deep into our library.
Thrumming Stone - Single handedly wins us the game on the spot 9 out of 10 times.

Final Footnote
See how the deck barely run's any protection? It is because we generally finish off the game the turn that Neheb comes down, leaving a really small window of opportunity for our opponent's to do anything. Also I'd like to mention that the deck really scales wonderfully with larger tables (4-6 opponents), since more oppponent's mean more mana, allowing us to get the job done efficiently. Finally, the best thing of it all is that it only costs around € 250,- to forge, and imho quite overpowered considering this price-level.

What do you think of the deck? Is this something you'd play, or would you consider it too evil perhaps?

[duducrash]

Nice! Dragon's Approach honestly rock. and playing big dumb dragons is all one should care about tbh.

Any deck running this ammount of spells I'd think about Storm-Kiln Artist and Birgi, God of Storytelling // Harnfel, Horn of Bounty , have you considered them?

Also, 31 lands? it is trully a burn deck. Of those 31 lands 4 enter tapped, in your games, have you consitently had mana?

also Underworld Breach seems perfect here

[ISBPathfinder]

This idea got me a bit intrigued on the idea of 4 mana Neheb. I get that its not the same but I figured I would throw my theorycraft in here for now as I don't know if I build it or not. Its also still +1 card over max as of now but I figured I would throw it in here for still being a Neheb + Dragon's Approach concept. I wen't a bit harder on my Dragon's Approach count as I really want to throw a bunch of them away to Neheb. I have built both mono red Nehebs before and I did have some issues with the four mana one in that its awfully commander centric and he can get stalled when encountering some established boards.

Decklist

DecklistCMCManaPricesChartsDraw 7

COMMANDER (1)

1 Neheb, Dreadhorde Champion

CREATURES (8)

1 Squee, Goblin Nabob

1 Hellkite Tyrant

1 Drakuseth, Maw of Flames

1 Knollspine Dragon

1 Thunder Dragon

1 Scourge of Kher Ridges

1 Utvara Hellkite

1 Kozilek, the Great Distortion

ARTIFACT (11)

1 Jeweled Lotus

1 Mana Crypt

1 Mana Vault

1 Sol Ring

1 Soul-Guide Lantern

1 Arcane Signet

1 Lightning Greaves

1 Crucible of Worlds

1 Alhammarret's Archive

1 Thrumming Stone

1 Embercleave

ENCHANTMENT (0)

INSTANT (4)

1 Chaos Warp

1 Deflecting Swat

1 Fiery Temper

1 Unexpected Windfall

SORCERY (37)

1 Faithless Looting

1 Cathartic Reunion

32 Dragon's Approach

1 Seize the Spoils

1 Fiery Confluence

1 Pirate's Pillage

PLANESWALKER (3)

1 Sarkhan, Fireblood

1 Sarkhan the Masterless

1 Chandra, Flamecaller

LAND (37)

1 Flamekin Village

1 Gemstone Caverns

1 Hanweir Battlements

1 High Market

1 Homeward Path

24 Mountain

1 Myriad Landscape

1 Opal Palace

1 Rogue's Passage

1 Spinerock Knoll

1 Strip Mine

1 Tectonic Edge

1 Temple of the False God

1 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle

Approximate Total Cost:

[RogHimself]

Bump!

Just ordered this deck, can't wait to give it a testrun.

Did make some swaps in the meanwhile, see my updated list below.

https://www.moxfield.com/decks/8DGRGcgUnkqpSbPo__qB3w

Some of the additions:
Goldspan Dragon - Meant to cast before I cast Neheb. Gives 6 extra mana when Neheb is on the board (4/4 flyer plus 1 artifact token).
Treasonous Ogre - Cause.. storm! Don't care much about my life total. All-in baby.
Mizzix's Mastery - Slam dunk. Easily overloaded and game finisher: love to get me some more value out of those extra combat/mainphase-spells.
Big Score - Ramp combined with looting.

I'd love to add Runehorn Hellkite as well, but haven't been able to find a spot for him yet.

[void_nothing]

This is very silly, which makes it fun. I hope it's the gas.

[Ulka]

I'm loving this concept myself. I have been designing a Dragons approach deck myself but for pauper EDH so it feels very different but I'm still loving to see how crazy this list is.

[TheAmericanSpirit]

Spellbinding Soprano might be good here. All those triggers add up to a tangible discount with extra combats, and even the generic -1 can provide nonzero mileage!

[RogHimself]

Did some testruns and made some improvements to make the deck more consistant.

IN
Runehorn Hellkite - Found a spot for it! And it sure does perform well. Make sure to discard it, since we are running it for it's ability.
Unexpected Windfall - Can't have enough ramp and looting.
Backdraft Hellkite - Removed it before but realised I was missing it in certain situations. Especially when I'm running out of gas and there are cards like Relentless Assault, Jeska's Will or Reforge the Soul in my graveyard. It's basically redundancy for Past in Flames and Mizzix's Mastery.
Spinerock Knoll - Another way to make the deck 1% better: low investment and can come in handy in niche situations.

OUT
Thrumming Stone - Figured out using 5 mana for a spell that sometimes (actually quite often) runs dead (only 24 Dragon's Approaches..) is not worth casting most of the time.
Manaform Hellkite - When I re-read the card it showed me that it does not work with Sunbird's Invocation and Mizzix's Mastery. It's good, but not good enough.
Sunbird's Invocation - It's a good card, but because the steep mana investment it usually needs to stick around a full turn cycle to really get some use out of it. And since it's so good it's a removal magnet (which is why I'm also keeping an eye on Fiery Emancipation, but that card just synergizes too well with Neheb & Dragon's Approach.
Inferno of the Star Mounts - This card shines when you have all the mana in the world. But when I have all the mana I win anyway.. no need for another wincon.

This might be the most fun deck I have so far. A nice change of pace compared to my other more slow 'controlley' decks.

[RogHimself]

Oof.

Just realised Heartless Hidetsugu is a slam-dunk in this deck.

Put him down on turn 3/4/5.
Drop Neheb on turn 4/5/6.
Activate Hidetsugu and gain 60 mana (plus: halving opponent's lives give Dragon Approach's the chance get to lethal very quickly). (Plus pt. 2: it gives me at least 20 cards when Knollspine Dragon comes down afterwards 😵)

Lolz.

[EonAon]

I'm actually kinda surprised you don't have Anger in here for haste orDragon Tempest nothing is better than hasty dragons. Lathliss, Dragon Queen Leyline Tyrant Moraug, Fury of Akoum all seem like interesting cards but up to you if you wanna see them squeezed in or not.