Nashi, Searcher in the Dark "Legends Don't Miss" - Plot Twist #19

Welcome back to Plot Twist, the series where we build a Commander deck that looks like it'll tell one kind of story only to throw out a twist for our opponents mid-game. If you're joining us for the first time, welcome! I'd encourage you to check out the previous articles in the series to get a sense of the types of stories we're looking to tell.

Last time, we took a look at our first commander from Duskmourn in The Swarmweaver and built a deck that tried to add extra card and subtypes to our permanents to help trigger Delirium. This week, we're tinkering around with everyone's favorite Rat Ninja Wizard: Nashi, Searcher in the Dark. Nashi has a LOT going on. He cares about his power like a good Voltron commander should, he self-mills for card advantage, he wants us to play a lot of legends and enchantments, and he even adds +1/+1 counters onto himself. There are a lot of directions we could potentially take Nashi in, so this week we're going to make sure we don't miss.

How Does Nashi Work?

Nashi has menace to give himself a natural source of evasion along with a second ability that triggers whenever he deals combat damage to a player. When Nashi does, we self-mill cards equal to the damage dealt and then can place any number of legendary or enchantment cards milled this way into our hand. If we don't, we can put a +1/+1 counter on Nashi, helping us dig even deeper next time he connects.

In taking a quick look at Nashi's EDHREC page, we can see brewers find themselves in a similar conundrum. Some are leaning into an enchantments-matter theme with cards like Doomwake Giant, Grim Guardian, and Aphemia, the Cacophony. Others are using Nashi as a sort of dredge/reanimator commander with cards that care about being in the graveyard, like Wonder, Animate Dead, and Necromancy. Still other brewers are making a deck filled with the new Rooms from Duskmourn, like Derelict Attic // Widow's Walk, Polluted Cistern // Dim Oubliette, and Defiled Crypt // Cadaver Lab. Overall, there are a lot of directions Nashi, Searcher in the Dark could potentially go, and brewers seem excited to explore all of them.

One thing that stuck out to me about Nashi, though, is that he does have the potential to miss with his combat damage trigger, so this week we'll be building a version of Nashi designed to make sure we can snag as many of the cards we mill as possible.

Doing the Twist

That's right, our decklist this week is going to be comprised of as many legendary permanents and enchantments as possible. As of the time of writing, every nonland permanent in the deck is legendary and/or an enchantment, and all but 16 of the lands are legendary or enchantment-lands so Nashi, Searcher in the Dark can grab them as well. If you're truly mad, you could absolutely up the number of legendary lands in the deck even further, but we needed to make some concessions in order to be able to produce colored mana reliably. Weirdly, a lot of the legendary lands available in Dimir only produce colorless mana. While we could certainly add Eye of Ugin or Gods' Eye, Gate to the Reikai for the lolz, we'd also like to be able to potentially play the game too. All that to say, with the way this deck is currently constructed, we have an 83.8% chance of being able to place any card milled by Nashi into our hands, so we should be reliably able to 'draw' a ton of cards every time Nashi, Searcher in the Dark does combat damage to one of our opponents.

We're running a variety of Voltron pieces, like Aether Tunnel, Blackblade Reforged, and Excalibur, Sword of Eden, to make sure Nashi can connect and also up his power in the process. We also have a rather funny-looking 'ramp' package of cards, like Bontu's Monument, Crystal Skull, Isu Spyglass, and The Celestus to make sure we can cast all these extra cards we'll be getting from Nashi. Since we may have to discard to hand size sometimes (though we'll try to avoid that with Wizard Class and Reliquary Tower), we have Balthor the Defiled, Syr Konrad, the Grim, and The Capitoline Triad to make sure we're getting maximum value from any cards that happen to find their way to our graveyard. To round it all out we've got quite possibly the most unusual package of interaction we've ever seen in a Plot Twist article! This week's decklist is going to be a ton of fun.

Suiting-Up Nashi

Since our deck is built to maximize the value of Nashi, Searcher in the Dark's combat damage trigger, we need to make sure he can connect for damage. Since sometimes Nashi's natural evasion in the form of menace won't be enough, we've got Aether Tunnel, Minas Morgul, Dark Fortress, Rogue's Passage, Shizo, Death's Storehouse, and The Black Gate as additional ways to make sure Nashi can evade blockers. Many of these come from our lands, so while they're more mana-intensive they'll also be harder for our opponents to get rid of compared to Auras and Equipment. 

Like many a Voltron deck, we'll need plenty of ways to protect our commander. Eel Umbra and Octopus Umbra give Nashi the totem armor ability, which will destroy the Aura instead of Nashi if Nashi is destroyed, but that also provide nice boosts to his power and toughness. As a side note, there's something truly delightful about a Rat Ninja Wizard whose totem is an octopus. Hammer of Nazahn, Mithril Coat, and Gerrard's Hourglass Pendant give us a few extra ways to protect Nashi in a pinch as well, and each can be reattached to Nashi, Searcher in the Dark if an opponent somehow manages to exile him.

We're also running Equipment like Ace's Baseball Bat, Blackblade Reforged, Excalibur, Sword of Eden, and Hand of Vecna to massively boost Nashi's power so we can connect for extra damage, too. We even have a couple of ways to grant Nashi haste in Sting, the Glinting Dagger and Hall of the Bandit Lord, something I wasn't sure we'd be able to find in a Dimir deck but will help us close out the game when an opponent is low on life but we don't have Nashi, Searcher in the Dark in play.

Historic-ly Strange Ramp

Since we're trying to ensure that we can get just about any card in our deck off of Nashi, Searcher in the Dark's triggers, we're running some rather unusual sources of ramp in this week's deck. I wouldn't blame you if you wanted to slot Sol Ring, Arcane Signet, and Dimir Signet into this deck (they would certainly make the deck better), but there is something really fun about being able to say "I don't play Sol Ring in this deck" that will throw our opponents for a loop. I've had a blast with my Gandalf, Westward Voyager deck that has Keruga, the Macrosage as a companion, and I can say from personal experience that not being able to rely on cheap ramp certainly takes a deck in different directions as you brew it.

We've got a suite of three- and four-mana 'ramp' in Bontu's Monument, Crystal Skull, Isu Spyglass, Kefnet's Monument, Malcolm, Keen-Eyed Navigator, Phial of Galadriel (which just keeps popping up in decklists, like our Sorin of House Markov deck that we built around when Modern Horizons 3 premiered); The Celestus, and Thran Temporal Gateway. Most of our games will probably have us casting Nashi on turn 2, so it makes sense to follow Nashi up with either a piece of Equipment or ramp to help us cast all the extra cards we'll 'draw' off of Nashi's combat damage trigger.

Since we care about legendary cards, we're running Mox Amber, Mox Opal, and Urza, Lord High Artificer in this deck. These cards often point towards a higher powered/cEDH decklist, so we'll probably want to disclose them in our pregame conversation. You could certainly swap them out for something else if you wanted to power the deck down, and I always encourage you to check out the 'maybeboard' of my decklists for other cards I looked at but ultimately cut from the final decklist. Mox Amber seems like it'll be active most of the time because we have a cheap commander and 23 other legendary creatures in the deck, while Mox Opal has 25 other artifacts to help meet the Metalcraft condition reliably.

The Oddest Interaction Suite We've Seen Yet

I told you in the intro that this week's deck had some weird ones in it. Let's start off with Isildur's Fateful Strike, a Lord of the Rings card that is one of the few viable legendary instants or sorceries we can run. It's basically Murder, but for one more mana we can potentially force our opponent to exile cards from their hand as well. While this card is going to be pretty situational most of the time, if we ever find an opponent sitting with a boatload of cards in hand that they've drawn off of Rhystic Study and manage to land an Isildur's Fateful Strike, that will be an epic story that we'll retell again and again. We've got a couple of enchantment removal spells in Amphibian Downpour, Imprisoned in the Moon, and Oubliette that can give us answers to problematic creatures, and One Ring to Rule Them All and The Meathook Massacre (not the second/eleventh one) can help us clean up the board.

Dissipation Field immediately caught my eye while building this deck because it dissuades our opponents from attacking us, much like Propaganda, though I suppose decks built around enters triggers might be okay with that. Kiku, Night's Flower is a repeatable removal spell that might be worse than, say, Royal Assassin, but it's a card I'd never seen before starting this week's decklist and it stood out to me. Kira, Great Glass-Spinner was an all-star in Modern Merfolk decks for a long time, and it will help protect Nashi, Searcher in the Dark and our other legendary creatures from spot removal. Stone of Erech gives us a much-needed way to interact with an opponent's graveyard without exiling our own, and last but not least Venser, Shaper Savant gives us a sort of catch-all answer to a single problematic spell or permanent. If you've never had the pleasure of using Venser to return an uncounterable spell to an opponent's hand, it's a thrill you will be chasing every time you shuffle up to play a game of Commander.

Winning the Game Like a Boss Legend

The ways we'll win with this deck will feel quite unexpected when our opponents sit down across from our 'Voltron' deck. Since we're running so many legendary creatures, Heroes' Podium felt necessary so that we can pretend we're playing a Jodah, the Unifier deck, like this one. Karn's Temporal Sundering requires us to have a legendary creature or planeswalker when we cast it, but it will give us an extra turn when we need one to win the game and bounce a blocker or other problematic permanent too. The Capitoline Triad should be easy to both cast and activate given we're self-milling almost exclusively historic permanents, and turning Nashi and all of our other legends into 9/9s will help end the game quickly. We've got Balthor the Defiled to reanimate all of our black creatures at once, which works really well with Syr Konrad, the Grim in particular. And of course Kokusho, the Evening Star is here to do the sort of things that originally got it banned in Commander but will mostly help us stay alive and do the last five damage to an opponent if we can't get through with Nashi, Searcher in the Dark.

We should be able to steal a lot of creatures from our opponents' graveyards with Chainer, Dementia Master, Sheoldred, Whispering One, and The Scarab God on the off chance that our own creatures aren't enough to win the game. Should we find ourselves in need of a particular legend to win the game or answer an opponent, we can always use Sidisi, Undead Vizier and Varragoth, Bloodsky Sire to tutor up an answer on our next turn.

A Few Additional Twists for Good Measure

Since this week's decklist had a rather unusual stipulation to it, we uncovered some really unique cards along the way. Ebondeath, Dracolich fits really well into what we're trying to do, and can be recast from our graveyard if we have to discard it to hand size. The Cauldron of Eternity acts as both a bad Recurring Nightmare and shuffles any of our creatures that die right back into our library so we can continue to draw them with Nashi, Searcher in the Dark! It's part of the same cycle as The Great Henge, so it often gets overlooked, but seems like a great card for casual play. Crystal Skull, Isu Spyglass really piqued my interest because its sort of an Augur of Autumn in blue that cares about historic permanents. If you've got a good Crystal Skull, Isu Spyglass deck, please send it my way!

I think Amphibian Downpour is going to be a card that we come to see more and more of over time. Being able to potentially turn multiple creatures into 1/1 Frogs with no abilities at instant speed is a very powerful effect for . Lastly, I want to call out Sting, the Glinting Dagger one more time because it gives the equipped creature +1/+1, haste, AND untaps the equipped creature at the beginning of each combat. There's got to be some Twiddle nonsense you can do with Sting, the Glinting Dagger, and I'm sure that someone far smarter than me will figure it out.

Here's the full decklist for you to peruse:

Roll the Credits

I hope you enjoyed reading the latest edition of Plot Twist featuring Nashi, Searcher in the Dark. Next time you sit down for a game of Commander, see what sort of plot twists you can add to take the game's narrative in a new direction.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on today's deck and what cards could find a home in it in the comments below or on Archidekt. The Maybeboards of my decklists are always filled with cards I thought could work but didn't make the final decklist.

You you can check out my other articles here or see what decks I'm currently playing here. I recently took apart two decks (my Isshin, Two Heavens as One Deck and my Killian, Ink Duelist Reanimator Deck) because they no longer sparked joy, and I built a Karador, Ghost Chieftan Cycling-Reanimator Deck that has been a complete blast to play. I'm constantly toying with new ideas like this Colorless Combo deck and would love to hear your thoughts on them there.

Stay tuned to see what other twists and turns are headed your way in the next edition of Plot Twist.