For the most part, Mill decks in Magic are infuriatingly slow to get going. You have to watch your opponents’ decks dwindle turn by turn, all the while fending off assaults from players who didn’t dedicate all their resources to milling. Sometimes, you just want to lean across the table, sweep your opponent’s deck off, and get things over with. Unfortunately, the pesky rules of Magic don’t generally allow such a play. With the help of Nerf War, however, a rare silver-bordered MTG card from outside an Un-set, you can live out this particular fantasy for real. All you’ll need is a high-capacity Nerf blaster and some willing participants.
Nerf War MTG
Originally given out as a special Promo card at HasCon 2017, Nerf War has mostly been swept under the rug of time in the years since. Today, however, a new Instagram video from Midnightmanaoce has brought the card back into the public eye.
Nerf War lets you relive the glory days of dexterity cards like Chaos Orb and Falling Star on a much, much bigger scale. For five mana, it lets you whip out a Nerf blaster of your choice and fire at will at an opponent’s library. Notably, this specifies target library, so you can’t hit multiple libraries with your barrage. Additionally, you need to fire from at least two meters away, so have a tape measure handy before you cast this.
Every card you knock off the library in question this way is put right into its owner’s graveyard, and then said owner takes half a point of damage for each one. This makes Nerf War a hybrid mill/burn card, and potentially an incredibly powerful one at that. With the right Nerf blaster, it should be trivial to take out most of an opposing Commander deck this way. Even if you can’t mill your opponent out fully, the potential for damage in the 30-40 range is very real here, too, so you may just kill them that way.
While it’s already capable on its own, Nerf War works particularly well with damage and mill doublers. Cards like Twinflame Tyrant and Fraying Sanity massively amplify the potential of this card. Ideally, you can even mill an opponent’s entire deck, or just kill them outright with damage. As if that wasn’t enough, you can even copy Nerf War, using a Commander like Melek, Izzet Paragon, to kill two opponents at once.
Weapons Of Choice
If you’re planning to run Nerf War in your MTG Commander deck, perhaps the most important consideration is which Nerf blaster you’ll bring along to use. The card specifies that you can fire until empty, so a blaster with a high capacity is ideal to take advantage of that. In this regard, the Nerf N-Strike Elite Hail Fire, with a staggering dart capacity of 144, is your best bet.
Alternatively, if you’d rather opt for precision over the spray-and-pray approach, you could pick up a motorized Nerf blaster. The Nerf N-Strike Elite Stryfe Blaster is a well-regarded option in this category in the Nerf community. You only get six darts to work with here, but the motorized firing means your shots will be more accurate and more powerful. This blaster is also more budget-friendly than the pricey Elite Hail Fire, though of course online prices may vary.
Rules Of War
Since it’s a silver-bordered MTG card, there are some etiquette considerations to take into account when running Nerf War in Commander. For starters, you’ll need to make sure the rest of your pod is alright with you playing it at all via a rule zero conversation. As with most silver-bordered cards, players are unlikely to object to this in bracket one, but may be more reluctant as you move up the brackets.
Because of its unique physical impact on the game, Nerf War will also require additional accommodations, on top of the usual. Players with expensive decks, for example, may not be too thrilled about you firing darts at them and potentially damaging their cards. Even when playing double-sleeved, cards falling off the table is a very real possibility here, which could result in minor dings.
To help combat this, you can bring along materials to ‘prep’ the play area for Nerf War. You can lay playmats or towels on the floor, for example, to create a soft landing area for fallen cards. Alternatively, you can also stick to regular, low-impact foam darts for your ammunition, since some of the fancier options could introduce fresh problems in this area. You may even want to bring along a stack of lands, or similar, to serve as a proxy for your opponent’s deck entirely.
Pros And Cons
Despite being a comical joke card and not technically being legal in any format, Nerf War is surprisingly pricey. This is because the card has seen only a single printing, as part of the HasCon 2017 Promo range. These promos, which also included Sword of Dungeons & Dragons and Grimlock, Dinobot Leader, were given out exclusively at the titular event, and only to players who purchased a $600 Super Fan ticket.
As a result, near-mint copies of Nerf War start at $40.51 on TCGplayer at present, with many listings up in the $50-60 range. While this makes Nerf War a fairly expensive gimmick, it’s also wholly unique. There’s no other card in Magic that does what it does, meaning it can lead to some truly memorable games. On top of that, it’s actually legitimately powerful, likely taking a problem player out of the game for just five mana every time.
Whether you want to relive those fond Nerf-slinging memories of youth or just try out a fun new card in Commander, consider loading this bad boy up. It might be a strange MTG card, but Nerf War is definitely worth building around if you fancy some fun.
Stick with us here at mtgrocks.com: the best site for Magic: The Gathering coverage. Be sure to check out our deckbuilder for your next big brew!