Nissa's Spanish Inquisition!

[toctheyounger]

I played my version of this deck the other day, and I have a few substitutes for cards I dont have/wont buy, but it performed very well. I know you took seedborn muse out of your list but it did a LOT of work for me on the turn right before my final turn with emergence zone I was able to cast an army of creatures that were in my hand from a creeping renaissance on my turn.
For the actual win I ultimate'd nissa, Vital Force a few turns earlier which let me draw a bunch. Then the penultimate turn I ultimate'd Nissa, who shakes the world, who actually came down pretty early and helped me zoom ahead. When I searched for 8 forests I think, and got to draw 8 from Vital Force's emblem that was awesome, and then finally my last turn was ultimating Nissa, Sage Animist to swing in with those 6/6 indestructible forests plus all the creatures I brought back on my opponents turn.
It was very fun, so thank you for putting together this idea.

I'm glad you're having fun with the idea. Sounds like Nissa tribal is doing good things for you. How reliable has Shaky Nissa been? I've considered adding it before, I guess I've just balked because I don't have any clear way to hit the ultimate reliably.

[TheMagicWord]

I assume Shaky Nissa is Nissa, Shaker of Worlds . I put her in pretty much for her doubling of forests. Her plus sometimes was just used to untap a land and retap it for GG. I really like the doubling and plan on keeping her in.
I just happened to do it enough to reach the ultimate, which was not something I'd ever considered, and usually we dont have planeswalkers ultimating in our playgroup so 3 was unheard of.

[rogerandover]

Good to see you roger! Hope you've been keeping well

Once and Future is decent. I don't run Regrowth, but spell based recursion is Seasons Past and Nostalgic Dreams. I think it competes with Dreams, but Seasons is just significantly better. It may well be worth a try though, Dreams is one of those cards I don't play except in desperation so it could slot in instead.

The castle...yeah you're probably right. I have Zendikar Resurgent in the deck so I can get very slightly more from it, but the Mathis is still a bit tight to be really worth it.

Henge is....frankly just nuts here. I'll never cast it for full cost and it's just high octane fuel for Nissa really. Like a second, much cheaper, Resurgent.

I'm good, thanks. Just a lot of non-magicial things going on right now, so I'm not that active though I'm still lurking the forum once in a while
And nice looking primer you got going. Congrats'!

What I like mostly about Once and Future is the instant speed. I've been playing Noxious Revival in more and more decks. It's really functional, becuase of it being an instant. Once and Future is less flexible, but I imagine it will enable some great blow-outs.

About The Great Henge, with a power 7, it will kinda be a free spell, so even with a creature around power 3 or even 2, it's an artifact for 4/5CMC with a great effect. I don't think thats too expensive for this kind of effect. I'm not sure it will be insane, just give good value. I kinda want to try it out in Nissa, since I like to add counters on some of my creatures creatures and I always want to draw more cards.

[toctheyounger]

I'm good, thanks. Just a lot of non-magicial things going on right now, so I'm not that active though I'm still lurking the forum once in a while
And nice looking primer you got going. Congrats'!

Thanks I can relate, it's been at least a month since I last played a game other than 1v1. RL is busy as hell.

What I like mostly about Once and Future is the instant speed. I've been playing Noxious Revival in more and more decks. It's really functional, becuase of it being an instant. Once and Future is less flexible, but I imagine it will enable some great blow-outs.

I can understand that. Instant speed is valuable, so it's definitely one I'd see being on my 'maybeboard' if/when any of my current recursion options start to look substandard. Given they're all sorcery speed there's probably no harm trying out something that I can pop anytime.

About The Great Henge, with a power 7, it will kinda be a free spell, so even with a creature around power 3 or even 2, it's an artifact for 4/5CMC with a great effect. I don't think thats too expensive for this kind of effect. I'm not sure it will be insane, just give good value. I kinda want to try it out in Nissa, since I like to add counters on some of my creatures creatures and I always want to draw more cards.

I was thinking the same thing. I'm still wary that it's quite expensive, so if I can't drop it early it'll likely be subpar. Nonetheless, I still think I can drop it early enough. The question will be whether that's to the detriment of any other plays. Shouldn't be, but testing will tell.

[toctheyounger]

I assume Shaky Nissa is Nissa, Shaker of Worlds . I put her in pretty much for her doubling of forests. Her plus sometimes was just used to untap a land and retap it for GG. I really like the doubling and plan on keeping her in.
I just happened to do it enough to reach the ultimate, which was not something I'd ever considered, and usually we dont have planeswalkers ultimating in our playgroup so 3 was unheard of.

That was what I was meaning, yeah. I have to admit I was tempted by her with Spark spoilers myself, I just didn't want to get TOO heavy into walker territory. The great thing about the ones I do run is they all have utility on all of their abilities. I can see the ultimate of Shaky being a total blowout, but that first ability is tentative. The doubling is nice, though - if I were to include it I'd probably swap out Zendikar Resurgent. It does happen to be a pretty back breaking option though, most of the time when I cast ZR I can win the game shortly afterwards.

[toctheyounger]

It's been a little while since I pulled out Nissa (or any other build for that matter) to play. Life has been frantic. Nonetheless, I have at least a couple of updates at present:

In	Out
Fabled Passage	Warped Landscape
Field of the Dead	Ghost Town

Passage is a no-brainer strict update. It's no Prismatic Vista, but I also don't think it needs to be to do some great work here. Field of the Dead....honestly, if this thing runs how I hope it will, it'll be a monster. Ghost Town is cute, but it just doesn't do enough to justify a place.

As for Eldraine pulls, well.....that's all I've got thus far. Most of my good grabs were for other decks. I still think Questing Beast could be really strong here (or anywhere), and I want to try The Great Henge in a couple of places, even if it doesn't work here. We'll see how it goes for singles moving forward. Otherwise, just to make Field of the Dead a little more reliable, I might pick up a few Snow-Covered Forest for the deck too.

[toctheyounger]

Recent updates:

These ones are subtle and tiny, really. Mostly it's something I've been mulling over for the last couple of plays around Abundance:

It's a cool card that can help fix, but there's a couple of things - it doesn't accelerate your early draw, and it makes your turns take forever. So I really wanted something that pulled me ahead early - when it happens I'm nigh unstoppable, but I need to make sure it happens more regularly. Otherwise, the land changes are to optimise the interactions with Field of the Dead. I will be going for more or less a 50/50 snow/non-snow split, as stock comes in to my LGS.

• Yavimaya Dryad
• 6 Snow-Covered Forest

• Abundance
• 6 Forest

So at least I have the same net level of Rebecca Guay art in the deck, that's important. And Dryad is reasonable ramp dork, with a corner case unblockability clause (corner cases are great fun when they come off).

[Rumpy5897]

Yeah, seems like a good swap, given the list's love of landfall. Hmm...

Farhaven Shelf nervously gulps in the corner

[toctheyounger]

Yeah, seems like a good swap, given the list's love of landfall. Hmm...

Farhaven Shelf nervously gulps in the corner

Well, it's sort of a 'more the merrier' scenario. If there were another Wood Elves variant kicking about somewhere I'd be in. Failing that the next upgrade to that is somewhere along the lines of Azusa, but that's probably a real long term plan, she ain't cheap.

[rogerandover]

I just decided to cut Abundance the other day. It was mostly there to interact with Sylvan Library, but I never think it did, so most of the time it's just a dead card. And like you say, it slows down the game, and also it can be a bummer to reveal the cards...

[toctheyounger]

Yep, all of the above. Revealing a bomb card really sucks if your opponents play or splash blue. Ultimately it just didn't really add, and early game it was just limping to a Nissa flip.

I'm definitely interested in more ways to hit the ground running. The ramp dorks are eminently abusable but I pretty much have all of the reasonable ones. I've tossed up dropping Sakura-Tribe Elder into the list before, although I have less tools available to recur him with. Otherwise I'm faced with pretty expensive options for further early game accelerants - Azusa, Exploration, Oracle. It's a daunting prospect.

[Rumpy5897]

Wait what, you're not running a Steve? Why?

[toctheyounger]

Yeah, no Steve. Ultimately because I can't really abuse him all that much. I have no reanimation whatsoever, and the recur to hand is a bit inefficient, also probably not what I'd want to use my E-Witness on. Frankly though, I'm open to convincing; it's a format staple, and this deck works best when it gets going super early, so if we think Steve deserves a spot, state your case

[Rumpy5897]

looks at list

...but but where's the Nature's Lore and stuff. And Skyshroud Claim, given the curve heftiness. What is this

Two-drop ramp is nice because it's two-drop. You have a few pieces that synergise with the 3CMC ETB guys (I spotted Temur Sabertooth, Cloudstone Curio and to an extent Panharmonicon), but it doesn't feel like the deck revolves around abusing them. Getting the ramp train going quickly and efficiently is quite nice. Plus, it helps with keeps - it feels bad to go for that two lander with Cultivate (or ETB dork in your case), only to fail to draw a land in the first three turns. Two mana is easier to play in those scenarios. That said, I'm just an outsider taking a cursory look at a deck. You know this thing inside and out, you primered it, you know what's up. Take my ramblings at arm's length.

By the way, the Nexus deck tag supports CMC mode. So you can swap all the CMC values to 1, add view=cmc to the deck tag itself, and then stuff like curve will work. I looked at it, saw an average of 5.08, and had no idea what was happening for a moment

[toctheyounger]

Weird, I thought I had fixed the deck list. I'll have a look at it this afternoon.

Yeah, there's a good chance it fixes the early game. 2 drop ramp is nothing to scoff at, especially considering it's instant speed. The ETB's, yeah I have a small engine to abuse them, but the deck does go in a few different avenues, so it's not a heavy engine. I could see a place for Steve, if nothing else to trial. Cutting for him....I dunno....maybe Nissa's Triumph. It's sort of the most conditional card I can see at first glance.

[Sanity_Eclipse]

Yeah, there's a good chance it fixes the early game. 2 drop ramp is nothing to scoff at, especially considering it's instant speed. The ETB's, yeah I have a small engine to abuse them, but the deck does go in a few different avenues, so it's not a heavy engine. I could see a place for Steve, if nothing else to trial. Cutting for him....I dunno....maybe Nissa's Triumph. It's sort of the most conditional card I can see at first glance.

Sound logic to me. Although if you have (or can get) a Nature's Lore, I'd swap that into the deck first. Tapped vs Untapped.

As for creature recursion, is Genesis still a format staple kinda card?

~~~~~

Also, I've been meaning to mention that I've definitely taken a couple pointers in card choice from this deck for my own Titania build and I wanted to say thanks.

As a point of discussion, something I've been mulling over lately is Rampaging Baloths vs Primeval Bounty.
RB
+ bigger tokens (4/4)
+ creature, so it's easier to abuse in
- both are potentially six mana do-nothing cards the first turn they're played unless you set it up a bit

Prime
+ triggers an effect on everything you do, not just land (this is kind of a triple point, methinks)
+ the +1/+1 counters could let you beat with mana dorks, race a threat, and/or enable persist shenanigans or similar, etc
+ enchantment, so it's harder for some colors to deal with
- tokens are smaller (3/3)
- as an enchantment, it's not as easy to search and abuse in

What do you think?

[toctheyounger]

As for creature recursion, is Genesis still a format staple kinda card?

I've thought about it here, but it's kind of expensive, and needs a sac outlet ideally. Honestly, for a similar cost, Seasons Past is really, really good. The value you can get from it is just nuts, I'd love more copies for other g/x decks.

Also, I've been meaning to mention that I've definitely taken a couple pointers in card choice from this deck for my own Titania build and I wanted to say thanks.

You're very welcome, I'm glad you got something from this weird ass deck. Funnily enough, I was perusing your list a couple of days ago too. I should have a closer look and see what's going on there, it looked really interesting - I like the flavourful style of deckbuilding you employ. It's something I've done a couple of times before with pure Vorthos builds around a series of books I enjoy, it's an interesting challenge getting a theme across will still building a cohesive deck.

Re Primeval Bounty - this is not a bad idea. Generally, the idea with Baloths is to make an army, which obviously this won't do...easily at least, but it gives me options to go in a couple of directions with either going tall or wide. The other cool thing it does is keep my Spike Weaver fogging for days.

Whether it's a swap for Baloths or not, I don't know. Perhaps it's one of these:

I might have to do some playtesting. The deck is sort of at the point where cuts are always tough choices, but if Bounty does good things it might well be worth the add.

[Sanity_Eclipse]

I've thought about it here, but it's kind of expensive, and needs a sac outlet ideally. Honestly, for a similar cost, Seasons Past is really, really good. The value you can get from it is just nuts, I'd love more copies for other g/x decks.

Seasons Past does look pretty neat. Different CMC's would mean a 1 CMC, a 2 CMC, and so on, and not like 1GG vs 2G?

You're very welcome, I'm glad you got something from this weird ass deck. Funnily enough, I was perusing your list a couple of days ago too. I should have a closer look and see what's going on there, it looked really interesting - I like the flavourful style of deckbuilding you employ. It's something I've done a couple of times before with pure Vorthos builds around a series of books I enjoy, it's an interesting challenge getting a theme across will still building a cohesive deck.

Re Primeval Bounty - this is not a bad idea. Generally, the idea with Baloths is to make an army, which obviously this won't do...easily at least, but it gives me options to go in a couple of directions with either going tall or wide. The other cool thing it does is keep my Spike Weaver fogging for days.

Whether it's a swap for Baloths or not, I don't know. Perhaps it's one of these: "why not both?"

I might have to do some playtesting. The deck is sort of at the point where cuts are always tough choices, but if Bounty does good things it might well be worth the add.

What I have posted isn't accurate, I've been tweaking it IRL for a couple weeks and haven't updated because I'm still at 102 cards ( ). Hell, that posted list might be short, I may have edited out a section by accident. But thank you! I've had enough of the 60/4 "efficient"/"competitive" deckbuilding where you use maybe a (couple) dozen different cards per deck. I'd much rather tell a story through the construction and card choices and have something that's fun and thematic.

Fair point on the Army creation vs incremental value, actually. Didn't think of that. Not sure what I would cut to include both, personally, and I'm not even including RB at the moment. (As a side note, am I the only one that hates having similar but different tokens in a deck? Here it would be having both 3/3 and 4/4 Beast tokens)

I can say about my build that it has a bit of a Flash package (Yeva, Emergence Zone), a Gargos/Hydra package (with Monstrify) which ties into the Fighting package (Ulvenwald Tracker and Foe-Razer Regent|PTKDF) and non-creature permanent removal, since I figure the fighting will keep enemy creatures down. It's just those last couple of cuts / swamps. Do I use Shamanic Revelation? Do I go into the graveyard even harder with Greater Good and either Genesis or grabbing a Seasons Past? I'm so close but so far...

[toctheyounger]

Seasons Past does look pretty neat. Different CMC's would mean a 1 CMC, a 2 CMC, and so on, and not like vs ?

Yeah, that's right. Most pertinent to Titania, though, is that 0 is a CMC too, so it grabs lands. I've had times casting it where I go from 1 card in hand to 5 or more. I can't recommend it enough.

What I have posted isn't accurate, I've been tweaking it IRL for a couple weeks and haven't updated because I'm still at 102 cards ( ). Hell, that posted list might be short, I may have edited out a section by accident. But thank you! I've had enough of the 60/4 "efficient"/"competitive" deckbuilding where you use maybe a (couple) dozen different cards per deck. I'd much rather tell a story through the construction and card choices and have something that's fun and thematic.

I'll keep an eye on it then and see how the thread eventuates. I like the idea of different themes purely because you often end up needing less of the same cards, and it's a cool way to see more of your binder's contents.

(As a side note, am I the only one that hates having similar but different tokens in a deck? Here it would be having both 3/3 and 4/4 Beast tokens)

Not just you. It bugs me. What's worse though is keeping track of +1 counters through a game. It's one of the major reasons I don't like using Cathars' Crusade or Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest. They just get confusing.

I can say about my build that it has a bit of a Flash package (Yeva, Emergence Zone), a Gargos/Hydra package (with Monstrify) which ties into the Fighting package (Ulvenwald Tracker and Foe-Razer Regent) and non-creature permanent removal, since I figure the fighting will keep enemy creatures down. It's just those last couple of cuts / swamps. Do I use Shamanic Revelation? Do I go into the graveyard even harder with Greater Good and either Genesis or grabbing a Seasons Past? I'm so close but so far...

Well, I can't say for sure without a look at the list in greater detail, but if a Titania army is a possibility, I can tell you Shamanic Revelation has been stellar for me. It's not uncommon to gain 60 odd life and draw at least a full grip from it. Card is really underrated. As a plus, if you want to lean into graveyard stuff, so long as you're not running 'no max hand size' modifiers, that sort of burst draw kills two birds with one stone anyway as you can just turf what you want in the yard on cleanup. But yeah, Seasons and Revelation are both worth a look for really excellent value.

[rogerandover]

I'm with [mention]Rumpy5897[/mention] on the land-ramp issue, and I think we did dicuss it back @ salvation once. The low cmc ramp gets you to where you can start casting Nissa, so you don't miss your next landdrop. I don't play Steve either, but most of the other 2cmc ramp spells.

Also, I'd don't think I be cutting Nissa's Triumph anytime soon, but I'm also told that I'm running some kind of weird mono green lands.dec

I'll second Seasons Past. The value you gain is usually enormous, and sometimes you even get to play it twice in a game. About card draw, there's also Rishkar's Expertise. That card also have some pretty good value painted on it.

[toctheyounger]

I honestly haven't actually cast Triumph yet. To me it's a little subpar purely because it doesn't drop lands to play. Add to that it's only optimal once you have a Nissa in play I'm a little hesitant to keep it. Comparing to Nature's Lore there's just a lot less momentum, you know?

I think it's worth looking at trying Steve out. Alternately, Exploration, Azusa, Lore...or something. I'm happy to consider other cuts too - very happy to take suggestions

[Rumpy5897]

I'd probably jam Nature's Lore over Steve, as later on in the game you're effectively down only one mana, or neutral if you run doubling. That said, the appeal of a saccable chump is also there.

[toctheyounger]

Yeah it's a toss up really. Entering untapped is great but Lore isn't a creature. I think Lore still gets the nod. Pretty sure I've got a copy kicking about somewhere.

[Rumpy5897]

Seeing how it's general ramp spitball time all of a sudden, Skyshroud Claim is two of those put together. Your level of synergy with the creature dorks is not insane, as already established, so you could consider pulling out some of them to make room. Two-mana and four-mana land get spells are probably the best green does in the general ramp category, and it's not like you can't afford to jam them as your commander secretly costs seven. Unless it conflicts with your game plan in other ways I don't see. I'm just talking ramp in a vacuum here.

[toctheyounger]

Yeah I could probably manage adding both of those. They seem reasonable. I'll do a crate dive over the weekend and see what deserves a cut for these.