While it’s very much an evolving format, at this point we have a pretty good idea about what makes a good cEDH Commander. To succeed in this sphere, a legend needs to give you access to a lot of colors or just be incredibly efficient in itself. Most of the top contenders in the cEDH metagame follow this pattern, but every so often, an anomaly like Nezahal, Primal Tide comes along to shake things up. Despite being ill-suited to the format on the surface, this Elder Dinosaur just took down a small event with a very novel brew.
Nezahal, Primal Tide In cEDH
For the most part, Keishi Ueno’s cEDH brew is a deck all about drawing cards and stopping your opponents’ plays. It runs a ton of excellent draw engines, ranging from expected staples like Rhystic Study, to more niche options like Voracious Bibliophile. Nezahal, Primal Tide itself contributes to this, too, providing a ton of draw as your opponents try to interact.
Once it’s established a full grip, Ueno’s deck controls the game with a huge stash of countermagic, ranging from Force of Will to Delay. It can also set up ongoing disruption with Aboleth Spawn and Faerie Artisans, discouraging your opponents from developing by copying their plays. The deck also runs a ton of Clone effects, too, letting you double down on its other aspects to tighten its grip on the game.
Counting To 20
Of course, Ueno’s Nezahal, Primal Tide deck wouldn’t be a cEDH list without a possible combo win, and it certainly delivers on that front. For starters, the deck can make infinite mana by looping Sol Ring and Chrome Mox with Hullbreaker Horror. Simply cast Sol Ring, tap it for two colorless, then cast Chrome Mox and bounce Sol Ring with Horror’s ability, then rinse and repeat.
Once you’ve got infinite mana at your disposal, you can start looping The One Ring instead, and draw through your entire deck. The plan here is to find Twenty-Toed Toad, which wins you the game if you start your turn with 20 or more cards in hand. Normally, this is far too fragile to work, even in casual Commander. Here, however, with access to your full deck and infinite mana, you can drop Toad followed by an extra turn spell like Time Warp for an immediate win.
Survival Of The Fittest
Though a first-place result is exciting to see for a left-field Commander like Nezahal, it’s far from a full-on cEDH contender yet. The event was small, with just 11 players in total, for one thing, and for another, it has a lot of tough competition to overcome before it secures a seat at the table.
The big problem Nezahal has as a deck right now is consistency, especially relative to other top lists like Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy and Tymna/Kraum. Being mono-blue greatly limits the deck’s access to tutors, which means setting up the combo win can be difficult. Even with the ample card draw it has at its disposal, there’ll be plenty of games where you just don’t find Hullbreaker Horror.
While Nezahal can certainly win without the combo, speed becomes an issue when you push for a combat damage win. Deep as its interaction suite is, cEDH is fast enough as a format that other decks will likely find a window to pop off against you fairly quickly. This makes the deck very vulnerable early on, before its draw engines are online to ensure a steady stream of disruption.
That said, Nezahal is still a fun, unique new deck, and one that can take players by surprise due to how unconventional it is. Going forward, it’ll be worth keeping an eye on this one to see if players like Ueno can iterate on it to become a serious player in the future.
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