You want to play a deck that does really powerful things, but you’re scared of it having too many bad matchups. I understand. There was a time when I was like a little lamb huddled in the barn hiding under the straw in hopes that the big, bad boogeymen of the format would pass by without seeing me.
"Maybe that guy won’t have the triple Ethereal Armor on his Invis—never mind, I’m dead."
"If this U/W/R player doesn’t topdeck Supreme Verdict I can totally win this ma—just kidding, they miracled Terminus."
"This hand can beat anything but triple Burning-Tree Emissary into Flinthoof Boar! Oh. Well then. Four of them into Boar is just as bad I guess."
I was terrified of all these things happening, and from my experience they were all happening way too frequently.
Then it happened.
A strange man with a mohawk and a Minotaur who happens to know wizardry walked into the barn, lifted up the straw I was "safe" under, and offered me a hand.
"Come with us, Mark. We have so much to teach you," the bull-magician-thing said to me.
"You’ll never have to be afraid of them again, little guy," Mr. Bad Haircut gently articulated as they both hoisted me up on their shoulders. "Today is a new day."
The sun was bright, the breeze was cool, and as I looked behind me at the place that had been like a prison to me, I felt for the first time that everything was finally going to be ok.
Ladies and gentlemen? I found Naya.
Last weekend there was a PTQ in Hollywood, Florida. The night before, I decided I was going to play Naya, and I quickly went to work to figure out which build I would battle with. Naya Blitz was almost out of the question because Four-Color Reanimator was on the rise and I was told that the matchup was borderline laughable from the Reanimator perspective. As far as I was concerned, there were only two decklists that I would even consider:
Creatures (28)
- 4 Strangleroot Geist
- 4 Dryad Militant
- 4 Loxodon Smiter
- 4 Experiment One
- 4 Ghor-Clan Rampager
- 4 Boros Reckoner
- 4 Voice of Resurgence
Lands (22)
Spells (10)
Sideboard
Creatures (27)
- 4 Avacyn's Pilgrim
- 3 Restoration Angel
- 4 Thundermaw Hellkite
- 3 Flinthoof Boar
- 3 Loxodon Smiter
- 2 Experiment One
- 4 Boros Reckoner
- 4 Voice of Resurgence
Planeswalkers (4)
Lands (24)
Spells (5)
Aaron’s list hit me right off of the bat as striking and right in the area of what I wanted to do if I was playing this archetype. It has a ton of powerful draws and is almost sweeper-proof with the package of Strangleroot Geist, Voice of Resurgence, and Advent of the Wurm. The sideboard, however, felt like it left a lot to be desired. It was a little too open to two-for-ones than I was willing to go in on due to cards like Volcanic Strength allowing for blowouts if they have removal, Skullcrack being too narrow since most of the time it’s in response to a Thragtusk, which still leaves them a big enough body to block, and Ray of Revelation being more like a drop in the bucket.
Willy’s build to me felt both focused and scattered at the same time. Domri Rade + Boros Reckoner? Sign me up! Random two Experiment Ones and only three Flinthoof Boars? Huh?
While there were inconsistencies in his maindeck that could be fixed, his board felt very powerful and ready for almost every deck out there. Cards like Assemble the Legion and Unflinching Courage are amazing in their respective matchups and can easily lead to victories on their own.
Figuring that with some tuning Willy’s deck allowed for the more powerful and consistent draws, I worked on making modifications to his build.
I, however, wasn’t alone in my idea.
When I arrived at the PTQ site the next day, I had basically chickened out pretty hard. For those of you that join me on my stream, you know that I pretty much battle exclusively with Jund, and I decided that I’d be better off just playing old reliable than audibling into something I was inexperienced with. My reasoning for initially wanting to switch was that the Naya build I came up with felt so powerful that the level of strength would make up for me not being well-practiced with it, but in the end I let my fears overtake me and just went with what I knew.
As I walked around the room, I ran into some of my friends from Port Saint Lucie, and among them was my pal Jimmy.
"What are you playing?" I asked him.
"Naya," he replied, "I took Willy’s list and made some changes."
"Like what?" I inquired.
"I cut the Experiment Ones and the Flinthoof Boars and a Domri Rade for two Advent of the Wurms, two Huntmaster of the Fells, and two Arbor Elfs," he said back.
My face drained in color. I took it as a sign.
A few hours before we left for the PTQ, my friend Brennan and I made almost the exact same changes to the deck except for me playing the full four Huntmasters. One of my team members had independently made almost the same reads that I had, and I knew from the start of the tournament that he was going to win the entire event.
I was right.
After starting 6-0 and being able to double draw in, I watched Jimmy slice through the Top 8 in order to secure his second blue envelope. For reference, this is what he played:
Creatures (26)
- 2 Arbor Elf
- 4 Avacyn's Pilgrim
- 2 Huntmaster of the Fells
- 3 Restoration Angel
- 4 Thundermaw Hellkite
- 3 Loxodon Smiter
- 4 Boros Reckoner
- 4 Voice of Resurgence
Planeswalkers (3)
Lands (22)
Spells (9)
From top to bottom, I felt the changes were beyond correct.
When you lose the inconsistency of things like two Experiment Ones and three Flinthoof Boars and replace them with cards that are multifaceted like Advent of the Wurm and Huntmaster of the Fells, you’re not only improving your mirror matchups by playing strictly better cards, but you’re opening yourself up against other decks in the field to be better against them.
Let’s examine the good and bad here:
- Experiment One – With the curve of this deck, he can become a 3/3 by turn 3 with relative ease and can increase the clock on your opponent exponentially. This comes at the cost of it not being a four-of, which means these turns won’t happen often. Also, decks are packing more cards like Pillar of Flame and Tragic Slip. Playing him on turn 1 doesn’t mean he’ll live to see turn 2.
- Flinthoof Boar – Like Experiment One, Flinthoof Boar is fast and can allow for a faster clock. Being a 3/3 on turn 2 is no joke either. Its problems stem from this not being a Burning-Tree Emissary deck. Sometimes just running it out on turn 2 isn’t going to be good enough because it won’t beget the tempo you need to take down midrange and control decks.
- Huntmaster of the Fells – In midrange matchups, Huntmaster can be the key to victory. Playing him on turn 3 off the back of a mana guy can give you an edge over a ton of decks in the format. The life gain isn’t irrelevant, and even if they kill him he leaves behind a 2/2 to hold down the fort. He can’t regenerate like Experiment One can sometimes, and occasionally you’ll hold off in hopes of flipping him, which will lead to a disaster of they have a removal spell during their upkeep. It’s a trap a lot of people fall into.
- Advent of the Wurm – A 5/5 Trampling token creature that can hit the board as early as turn 3 can be a humongous beating to play around. If you play it followed by an Unflinching Courage, the game often just ends. Abrupt Decay is a card, though, and cards like Zealous Conscripts, Mark of Mutiny, and Traitorous Blood can mean you just die to their attack that is mostly powered by your own token.
The sheer power and flexibility of Advent of the Wurm and Huntmaster of the Fells just felt like way too much to ignore, and Jimmy and other members of our team correctly deduced that they would pull their weight in every single game that they played all day.
The sideboard offered more cards that Willy played, with a little infusion of Aaron’s board by including Ray of Revelation as a way to deal with Bant Hexproof more effectively. What both decks felt like they failed to do in regards to Junk Reanimator Jimmy remedied by adding in more graveyard answers in Ground Seal and Rest in Peace. This was a concession to the fact that Four-Color Reanimator is a very real threat; the only way to beat it was to make adjustments. Zealous Conscripts replaced one of the Assemble the Legions because that extra threaten effect against an Angel of Serenity or Thragtusk can mean the difference between a win and a loss.
As a side note, you haven’t lived until you’ve cast Zealous Conscripts to steal your opponent’s Thragtusk, use it to make them fight and kill their own Olivia Voldaren, and get a 3/3 token afterwards.
I feel like going forward this is without a doubt the best version of Naya that a person can be playing. You’re not relying on the luck factor of hoping to go under control and midrange decks and kill them before they get online, and you’re not crossing your fingers in fear of the typical aggro nut draw that you’re under normal circumstances almost helpless against. This deck isn’t afraid to strike from all angles.
Throughout the day, Jimmy was able to beat everything he played against and beat them soundly, only losing one game against a Junk opponent and one game in the finals where he mulliganed to five.
R/G Aggro: 2-0
Junk Reanimator: 2-1
Bant Control: 2-0
Naya: 2-0
Naya: 2-0
Two Draws
R/G Aggro: 2-0
Bant Flash: 2-0
U/W/R Control: 2-1
This tournament contained a ton of the usual Florida ringers, and Jimmy had to beat one of the best players in the room, Adam Fox, in the finals in order to secure his second Pro Tour invite.
After I dropped, I focused on watching all of Jimmy’s matches, and I couldn’t even come close to arguing with the results.
The deck contained all the brute force needed to plow through most of the decks he played while still maintaining a degree of elegance with how it had to play out each threat at the correct time. Domri Rade is one of the most powerful plays the deck can make and gives a ton of options when it hits the field. The interactions between Domri and Boros Reckoner are well documented, but with the smaller Naya decks and R/G Aggro at an all-time high in Standard, this combination is highly devastating to their board state and can actually just put them too far behind to recover as early as turn 3!
Do you like two-for-zeros? I know I do!
Sideboarding with the deck is also very intuitive and one of the reasons to play it. Against control decks, you can board out your clunky cards like Mizzium Mortars, Selesnya Charm, and Arbor Elf for your bigger trumps like Garruk, Primal Hunter; Boros Charm; and Assemble the Legion. Against aggro decks, you get to side into anti-their-deck cards like more copies of Mizzium Mortars and Unflinching Courage, basically making you a more powerful version of whatever they could possibly be doing. Domri Rade is your main man in almost every matchup because his fight ability teams very well with your Loxodon Smiters and Boros Reckoners while his +1 ability puts a very real clock on your midrange or control opponent since the ultimate is all but a death sentence for them.
If you’re interested in this version of Naya at all, I’ll be streaming with it for the next several nights in a row, so please feel free to pop in, say hello, watch, ask questions, and observe the power of this beast. (twitch.tv/Mark_nestico)
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Did I gush enough about the deck? Probably not. I could have gone on for another thousand words, but I’d rather you do what I didn’t at the PTQ and sleeve it up, battle, and win.
If I had to pick a deck for the upcoming SCG Standard Open in St. Louis, it would 100% be this version, and I wouldn’t think twice about it. It’s a powerhouse, and it deserves your piloting.
At the beginning of this article, I talked about the two that came to my rescue, Mohawk Man and the Minotaur Sorcerer…
Don’t be surprised if either of them come knocking at your door tonight. They’re on a mission to prove to you that you’re worth saving and that the days of playing a boring Standard deck are over.
I believe that the Naya deck is our future. Be taught by it well and let it lead the way.
Catch ya on the flip-
Mark
*Special thanks to my buddy Steve Mann for lending me the two Thundermaw Hellkites to play this deck online.
**Special congratulations to Jimmy for winning his second PTQ. Now I’ll never hear the freaking end of it.
***Special thanks to Whitney Houston for helping me with that last line.