Most people who know me, if asked “what is Alch’s playstyle like”, would likely point out my need for a strong control package, enjoyment of various combolines, and my love for any-and-all things Esper. Which is precisely why many a head turned a few months back when I sat down at my computer, flipped on my webcam, and revealed my new commander: Neyith of the Dire Hunt. For the guy that once held the (unofficial) record for most Esper decks played on PlayEDH at one time, a low-to-the-ground, smash face Gruul deck is the last thing I would be expected to play. So why did I choose Neyith? Well, that answer isn’t as simple as you’d think. I was looking for a change from my typical deck style that’s for sure. I also enjoy playing commanders that have excellent artwork, since I will be staring at the card for hours at a time in-game, and find it fun to brew things that do not really see a lot of play. Being illustrated by Magali Villenueve and printed in the ever-elusive Jumpstart set, Neyith checks both these boxes. The final decider for me was getting the chance to brew a combo-less, nearly stax-less deck that could still efficiently handle itself in Mid Power. We all know there are many decks like this already, but as a PlayEDH mentor it was very important to me that I get actual hands-on experience piloting something like this so that I could better help players with these kinds of decks.

The tuning process for my beloved Neyith deck was extremely rigorous. I learned early on certain things just didn’t work, needed to reground and restructure, and go at it again. This is probably the longest I have ever hyper-focused on tuning a deck, putting aside all my other decks and playing game after game with nothing but Neyith. Tough decisions were required down the line, pet cards needed to be cut, but in the end I went from losing nearly every game on her to being able go undefeated across several games in a night. Overall, Neyith is an absolute blast of a commander. More strategy goes into her than one may think, but the sheer value she can provide from the command zone is a force to be reckoned with. So what makes Neyith so great? Well, by now you are in dire need of answers, so lets go hunt for them!

So, let’s start off by going over what our commander actually does. For the low price of 4 total mana value, before getting into her combat tricks, we already get a 3/3 Human Warrior with the triggered ability “whenever one or more creatures you control become blocked, draw a card”. This is already off to a great start! At 3 toughness, Neyith survives Massacre Wurm in addition to many targeted burn spells. Her creature type doesn't matter that much, although we do gain some interesting synergies that we will get into later. Neyith’s triggered ability, however, is what makes her truly shine, providing conditional card advantage that often puts opponents in a rather interesting dilemma: should they take the damage, or block to save life but draw me cards? Notably, Neyith’s ability can also be triggered by fighting and yet, if you glance at my finished list (Click here for list!), you will notice there are not many cards dedicated to this seemingly integral part of my commander’s identity. So why is this?

In earlier drafts of Neyith, I relied a lot heavier on a full suite of fight spells dedicated to ensuring that I could always trigger this ability. However, this game plan has some major issues, mainly that without Neyith out fighting really doesn’t do much for us other than picking off the occasional hatebear or other problematic creature. This is fine, but at a power level where you can never know for sure that you will get to cast and keep your commander, our 99 needs to be built so that every play can further us towards our win condition independent of Neyith’s presence on the board. I also found that focusing more on the fight portion of Neyith’s triggered ability pushed me to include many more suboptimal creatures simply because they had decent abilities in conjunction with the fight mechanic. As you can see in the final list, and we will go into more detail on later, the creature base here is based around a much simpler preface, answering our opponent’s dilemma: we will quickly ramp to drop bomb after bomb, and our opponents will either have to block and put more threats into our hands, or die to the extensive combat damage this deck can deal. With that philosophy set, we can truly make use of Neyith’s final ability.

This ability states “At the beginning of combat on your turn, you may pay 2 R/G. If you do, double target creature’s power until end of turn. That creature must be blocked this combat if able.” Hopefully this text excites you as much as it does me, because there are a lot things we can do with this. For one, perhaps the most obvious one, we can use it as a cheap and efficient buff to turn one of our many big beaters on whatever poor soul at our table has no blockers. We can also force an opponent to use their lone blocker on one of our more disposable creatures, in order to get the rest of our massive board to connect. This is the point where Neyith’s ability can act as pseudo-removal as well. Many times in my Mid games on PlayEDH, I have seen players tap out, cast their scary commander, and pass without any other creatures on the board. This means that we have an opening to remove their commander without burning through any of our removal spells, as we can simply double a creature’s power, force our opponent to block with their commander, and take a sad trip back to the command zone! This is just the beginning of the many fun and wild shenanigans we can pull off with Neyith, so let’s jump into the rest of the deck!

Ramping to the Big Beasties

In a power level filled with combos, stax, and other spooky game plans, we need to be able to hit hard, hit often, and hit early. Which means we have to cover ramp before we do anything else. In Gruul, we have LOTS of options. Of course we are running the “gold standards”, packing Birds of Paradise, Llanowar Elves, Elvish Mystic, Fyndhorn Elves, and Priest of Titania into our list. Access to red means that we can make use of Dockside Extortionist, a power house at any level of magic that, in our list, is nearly guaranteed to power us into an absolute monster to drop on the table.
Selvala, Heart of the Wilds is also an absolute all-star in our deck, made even better when we have Neyith out due to the timing of her ability. Since Neyith’s power doubling is until the end of turn, we can go to combat, double the power of one of our big creatures, then go to our second main phase and activate Selvala to get double the mana we would get if we were playing any other commander. Since Neyith is already a 3/3 to start, this means that even if we only have her and Selvala on board we will still produce 6 mana. Moving beyond just our mana dorks, we also have some very good discounters such as Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma. Goreclaw pulls triple duty in our list, discounting our big beaters by a whopping 2 mana, providing them with both an anthem and trample to ensure they can get through, and serving as a big body for Neyith to target with her ability. Due to timing, Neyith’s ability will trigger first, doubling Goreclaw’s power to 8, and then Goreclaw’s own ability will kick in, making her an imposing 9/4 trampler. That’s pretty good for any creature, let alone one that is rapidly accelerating our gameplan! Beyond this creature based ramp we are also packing a whole suite of ramp spells including Three Visits and Nature’s Lore which, when cast with Emerald Medallion out, pay for themselves!

2. Add Interaction, then Mid

As PlayEDH mentors, one of the biggest things we often see is decks not having sufficient interaction in Mid, especially in decks like this. I get it, all these big scary creatures are fun! It’s very easy to skip over interaction in favor of more “fun” stuff, which is why I always add interaction very early on in my deckbuilding process and why we will cover it before we get into the fun stuff. What we need to focus on is two-fold: We need ways to stop our opponents from progressing their strategies too far, and we need to be able to protect our own stuff. Building to this first goal, we have tried and true staples of the format with Beast Within, Chaos Warp, and Nature’s Claim.
Chaos Warp is especially fun here as we can hold it as long as we need to in order to remove someone’s problematic permanent, or we can turn it on our own permanents, potentially flipping a dork into something much scarier!
Force of Vigor has gotten me out of many tricky situations before as well, and the fact that our list is over 75% green ensures that we will almost always be able to cast it for free! Finally, even though we are the ones trying to go wide and swing out, there is always the chance that we stall out and someone beats us to the punch. Gruul is not typically the best at removing whole boards, which is why Blasphemous Act is excellent for resetting the board, setting up an opportunity for us to rebuild faster.
As far as protection, we have some very good options here. In colors that are not typically known for their ability to win counter battles, Vexing Shusher has proven time and time again to be an absolute force to be reckoned with. Frankly, I have won every game where Shsusher has stuck around for multiple turn cycles.
Deflecting Swat is another excellent include that often serves the double roll of protecting our permanents and redirecting a removal spell into our opponent’s permanent we wanted gone anyway. Finally, when we spend all this time assembling a massive board of expensive creatures that our opponents would like to see wiped off the plane, we need to be ready for a board wipe. This is where Heroic Intervention comes into play, making our permanents hexproof and indestructible and ensuring our victory throughout various games.

3. Who says you can’t draw cards without Blue?

Card advantage is absolutely critical to any deck’s gameplan, as without you will stall out while everyone continues to build. In our list, it is especially important as we don’t have access to the mass draw that many blue or black decks have access to, and we still need to perform at a speed that can race combo decks. As a gold standard in green decks, we of course tripled up on Guardian Project, Elemental Bond, and Garruk’s Uprising to draw cards off of the many creatures we cast turn after turn. Garruk’s Uprising requiring the creature have power 4 or greater is a bit more limiting, only 10 of our creatures will trigger it on entry, but the initial draw when the enchantment enters the battlefield is almost always guaranteed thanks to Neyith’s doubling ability, and the trample enabling has made a significant difference in quite a few scenarios. In the sorcery spots we are working with Rishkar’s Expertise, Shamanic Revelation, and Harmonize. Rishkar’s is another card that benefits a lot off of Neyith’s ability, as casting it in our second main phase means that we can get double the draw in the same scenario as we would with a different commander. On top of that, Rishkar’s will let us cheat out a permanent with mana value 5 or less, which accounts for many of our bombs and value pieces.
Ohran Frostfang has consistently overperformed in my games with this deck, and sets up several interesting scenarios. For one, it creates a “lose-lose” scenario for our opponents. If they choose to block, I draw a card from Neyith. If they choose to let the damage go, I draw from Frostfang. Either way, we are still generating card advantage. In addition, Frostfang’s ability to give all attacking creatures deathtouch, in combination with the various methods our list has for enabling trample, means that we can easily run over opponents regardless of blockers. Furthermore, even in a scenario where an opponent decides to block one of our creatures to kill it anyway, we will now draw once from Neyith because our creature has become blocked, and once again from Frostfang once the trample-through damage on the player resolves.
The Great Henge is another value machine in our deck. Though at first glance it is a staggering 9 mana to cast, its ability to be discounted by the greatest power among creatures we control is critical, and it works even better with Neyith. Even without any of our big beaters out, all we have to do is swing with Neyith, double her power, and then cast the Henge for 3 mana in our second main phase. That's a pretty efficient way to ensure we can cast it! Once out, it will both buff each and every creature we cast AND draw a card from them, all while also acting as a mana rock that taps for 2 green mana. I like that kind of versatility, don’t you?!

4. Tutors and the Top Deck

In addition to draw, it's very important to have a sufficient array of tutors to ensure we can grab what we need, when we need it. Being Gruul, we are a bit restricted to mainly being able to tutor creatures, although Gamble continues to reward me time and time again! For creatures our list is currently on solid staples such as Worldly Tutor, Chord of Calling, and Tooth and Nail.
Given the menagerie of monsters we can pull from our 99, which we will get to in just a bit, Tooth and Nail also effectively doubles as a finisher in our list as there are various pairings of creatures that can put us in a position to win the game, or at least take out the most troublesome opponent! Imperial Recruiter is a bit more limited but, while not capable of fetching a big bomb, can grab us any of our dorks, Dockside, or some of our creature-based stax.
Vivien, Monster’s Advocate can tutor nearly any creature, dependent of course on whatever creature we choose to cast, straight to the battlefield. This is definitely a nice feature already, but Vivien’s usefulness does not stop there. She also allows us to look at the top card of our library and cast creatures from there. This gives us another place to pull creatures from, and provides us with knowledge that can be critical when we are digging for an answer or our finisher.
Sylvan Library, to no one’s surprise, is also a powerhouse in Neyith. With all the additional card draw/tutor power we have, even a single upkeep with the Library can put us exactly where we need to be to fire off. The life loss can add up, but with our list chances are we'll be threatening life totals as much as the Library drains ours.

5. Round One - Fight!

Now that we have covered the essentials, let’s jump in to some of the fun stuff! As mentioned earlier, we are not heavily focused on fighting in this list, but we do have some very strong fight effects.
Brash Taunter is great for this, as he is not only a repeatable way to fight and trigger Neyith’s ability, but he is indestructible. This gives us multiple benefits which, if you have been noticing the pattern, means that he is an excellent choice in our list. Not only does indestructible mean that Brash Taunter can survive fight after fight, it also means that we can repeatedly use Neyith’s second ability to force our opponents to block him, opening the path for our bigger creatures to connect without losing the taunter to combat damage.
Kogla, the Titan Ape is another heavy hitter that goes well with Neyith. When Kogla enters the battlefield, it fights another target creature. Being a 7/6, chances are we win that fight, allowing Kogla to stick around. We also draw a card off Neyith, so that’s a check in the “card advantage” box too. But what if the creature we want Kogla to fight is something really top heavy, with a power way above 6 and toughness below 7. Sure, Kogla will still kill that creature, but we also lose our ape, and 6 mana to remove one creature is not a great deal. This is where we need to skip to Kogla’s last ability and recall Neyith’s creature type: a human warrior. Kogla’s last ability reads “1G: Return target Human you control to its owner’s hand. Kogla gains indestructible until end of turn”. This very cute interaction means that in a pinch we can have Kogla fight a creature, trigger Neyith’s draw ability, and then pay to bounce Neyith to hand and give Kogla indestructible, ensuring it survives the fight. We can also do this same thing in response to a boardwipe, ensuring both Neyith and Kogla survive! I would already be sold on Kogla with those two things in mind, but then we must remember Kogla still has one more triggered ability, which reads “Whenever Kogla attacks, destroy target artifact or enchantment defending player controls”. Wow! In addition to everything else the Titan Ape does for us, it also can serve as removal for non-creature permanents? That sounds like a great deal to me! Apex Altisaur is another fighter I want to highlight in this list. At a whopping 9 mana to cast, this big brute is quite expensive and risky to play, but for me it has survived through various iterations of the deck because it is simply too fun not to use. Against decks packing tons of 1/1’s such as elfball or Krenko list, the altisaur is also simply a value machine, tearing through many tiny creatures and drawing tons and tons of cards off Neyith, all while acting like a pseudo-boardwipe. Obviously, due to the cost you want to either aim to cheat Apex Altisaur out, or cast it with Destiny Spinner on the board to make sure that it sticks.

6. Welcome to the Jungle

Going beyond just our fighters, let's talk now about the creatures that really power this deck!
Terror of the Peaks is an absolute monster that, combined with the high-powered creatures we are packing in this list, will quickly widdle down life totals making it easy for us to swing out for lethal damage. Taking all of our “when a creature enters the battlefield, draw a card” effects into account, this means that so long as we have mana available we can rapidly cast creatures while refilling our hand and pinging down our opponents.
Elder Gargaroth provides a formidable 6/6 vigilance, reach, and trample body for only 5 mana and is an excellent target for Neyith’s power doubling ability. In addition to that, Gargaroth’s triggered ability means once it is on the battlefield it can create disposable bodies to use with Neyith or generate further card advantage by drawing us more cards. It is a solid, versatile value piece that almost always outperforms my expectations in game.
Cavalier of Flame is another all-star, allowing us to wheel away a bad hand when it enters the battlefield, allowing us to dig for whatever we need. Furthermore, its ability to immediately buff and haste our board comes in handy, especially on turns where we have just dropped Avenger of Zendikar followed by some lands. Cavalier is also another excellent target for Neyith’s abilities.

7. FINISH THEM!

Let’s do a quick headcount: We have assembled an exquisite elves and other excellent pieces to rapidly ramp us, added a well rounded interaction package to help us deal with a variety of threats, threw in tons of draw and tutors to get us the pieces we need, and added an awesome creature base. Now, all that is missing are some solid finishers. First up you know them, you love them, it’s Craterhoof Behemoth! Hoof is about as efficient as they come, giving all of our creatures +X/+X and trample when it enters, where X is the number of creatures you control. There is rarely a boardstate we could have in this deck where Hoof doesn’t mean certain doom for our opponents. With various ways to tutor it straight to the battlefield, Hoof is often just an inevitability for us. Tooth & Nail can take this a step further, allowing us to tutor both Hoof and Avenger of Zendikar straight to the battlefield. Combine this with a haste enabler like Rhythm of the Wild or Cavalier of Flames and it’s probably time for Game 2!
Finale of Devastation also gets the job done, whether it tutors another finisher like Hoof for overkill or grabs something more tame and buffs our board to lethal levels.
Triumph of the Hordes is our go to finisher when facing opponents with high/infinite life totals, as infect will easily take care of them! While these are our main finishers, plenty of other cards can do the trick. Malignus with trample can pretty easily remove a player, especially with Neyith’s buff! As we mentioned before, Terror of the Peaks followed up by dropping our other big beaters will also get us across the finish line in many scenarios. The deck may not go for an infinite combo win, but it has many, many ways to close out the game, and is resilient to any of its threats being dealt with!

8. Some Sneaky Stax for the Road!

Before we wrap this article up, I wanted to highlight three more cards: Collector Ouphe, Magus of the Moon, and Blood Moon. While the focus of our deck is not remotely based on stax, I find it is always important to look at what strategies/card types your deck doesn’t particularly use well, and capitalize on it. In our case, we are running just 4 artifacts, only 3 of which possess activated abilities. This means that in nearly all scenarios casting Ouphe will put our opponents at a much greater disadvantage than us, allowing us to pull ahead in the game. Likewise, if we look at the mana base. Our list runs 21 basic lands, meaning we are not affected by Blood Moon effects nearly as much as our opponents will be. Take into account the amount of red pips we can use the red mana for, and the amount of dorks we have to make up for any deficiencies in green mana, and these effects are clear includes in our list. But what if we have Magus of the Moon out and we really want to access the massive amount of mana that our Nytkthos can produce? Simple, we activate Neyith’s combat ability and point Magus at the opponent with the biggest creatures! They have to block it, likely killing it, and then we are free to use our nonbasics as we please! But what if we just wanted to use the mana and then resume our Moon effects? In yet another cute reaction with Kogla, we can bounce the Magus since it is human, do whatever we want with our nonbasic lands, and then replay Magus!

Conclusion

I hope you all got some inspiration from this and go out and build your own Neyith lists! She is an incredibly fun yet often under-utilized commander, and I would love to see her at more tables on PlayEDH. Feel free to use my list as inspiration, or go out on a limb and try some new things! I am always tinkering with the list. And it’s quite possible the list I play in a few weeks is not the same as the one you are looking at now. For example, I have found I have plenty of draw in the deck and so something like Shamanic Revelation, which relies on me having a larger board in order to draw a sufficient number of cards, may get cut for something else! If you missed my decklist near the start of the article, you can click here for the list!

I'm always happy to discuss Neyith, or any other interesting commanders, over on the PlayEDH Discord at https://discord.gg/playedh. I pop in and out all over the power level spectrum, but you can most often find me in Low and Mid power chats!

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Explosive Engineering - Neyith of the Dire Hunt - Mid Power

Ramping to the Big Beasties