For as long as planeswalkers have been a part of Magic, the idea of a viable “Superfriends” deck, or a deck filled with as many planeswalkers as possible, has been an irresistible goal for many. The idea of so many iconic characters fighting side-by-side has a Marvel-esque appeal to it, after all. Unfortunately, outside of Commander, the archetype’s clunky nature has largely kept it from the spotlight thus far. Today, however, saw a surprising change in the deck’s fortunes. In today’s MTG Online Modern League, a spicy Nykthos Superfriends list achieved an unexpected 5-0 result.
Nykthos Superfriends In MTG Modern
At the heart of this deck, which comes to us via MTG player Ajani89, is the potent ramp engine of Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx and Leyline of the Guildpact. Together, this duo allows easy access to a huge burst of green mana very early in the game, since Leyline offers four green pips for Devotion. Combined with Delighted Halfling as a turn-one boost, you can start tapping for a ridiculous amount of mana on turn two.
If you’re lucky enough to open with this combination, it’s very much possible for this deck to win the game immediately. Assuming you hit two Leylines on turn zero, you can then play Delighted Halfling on one and be in a position to tap Nykthos for eight green mana on turn two. You can then use this mana to cast Storm the Festival, which, if fortune smiles on you, can put both Karn, the Great Creator and Teferi, Who Slows the Sunset into play from your top five.
From here, you can use Karn to grab The Chain Veil from the sideboard, and Teferi to untap Nykthos and Halfling for more mana. You can then activate Veil, untap everything again with Teferi, and repeat for infinite mana. Once you’re ready, Karn can grab Walking Ballista from the ‘board to close things out.
This is the quickest combo win open to the deck, but there are others available too. If things go really late, you can abuse a loop of Karn, Kiora, Behemoth Beckoner and Pestilent Cauldron//Restorative Burst to win via an infinite life/infinite mill play. This is a lot more convoluted than the line above, but it’s also a lot more reliable later on.
Playing With The Big Boys
For the most part, the MTG Modern version of Nykthos Superfriends is all about this combo strategy. You want to get your ramp online fast and go for a combo win as soon as possible. That won’t work out every game, of course, which is why the deck has a very reasonable creature beatdown strategy to fall back on.
Since this is a Leyline of the Guildpact deck, Scion of Draco works just as well here as it does in Domain. You can drop this turn two off of a Leyline start, and have a hard-to-kill, hard-to-race threat right away. There’s even a copy of this card in the sideboard, too, for Karn to grab if you’re feeling aggressive.
Scion plays wonderfully with Outcaster Trailblazer as well, which is a fantastic draw engine for a go-big deck like this. Throw in Overlord of the Hauntwoods and Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines as chunky ramp and stax cards, respectively, and it’s more than possible to just ramp into a win on board with this deck.
What’s great about Ajani89’s deck is that its combo elements support this side of things as well. Storm the Festival can nab you combo pieces early, of course, but it can also dump two huge creatures into play to push for a beatdown win. Your Nykthos untappers, Kiora and Teferi, can also be used to grant your big creatures pseudo-Vigilance. The result is a deck which, while definitely geared more towards quick combo wins, can hold its own in an all-out brawl to boot.
A Winning Team?
Overall, Ajani89’s list is an intriguing combination of Combo and Ramp. This puts it in an interesting position in the current Modern metagame, which seems to be leaning more towards “fair” creature decks at present.
Both Boros Energy and Jeskai Blink embody this style of play perfectly. While they can come out swinging in the early game, they’re quite grindy strategies overall. This means that Nykthos Superfriends has a real chance of simply going over the top of them in a lot of games. If you can land a turn-zero Leyline and a turn-one Delighted Halfling, turn three Karn into a turn four win is totally doable.
Unfortunately, both of these decks pack plenty of cheap removal to keep Halfling off the board, which allows the aggressive early turns these lists are capable of to finish you off pre-combo. While it can react to different situations via Karn, a major weakness of Ajani89’s deck is its lack of mainboard interaction for decks like this.
Thankfully, Amulet Titan, the other big deck at the moment, doesn’t pose such issues. It’s capable of comboing off just as quickly as you, of course, but it won’t threaten you too much on board. It also folds pretty hard to a Torpor Orb from the Karn sideboard, which gives you an easy way to get out ahead and cut them off.
Nykthos Superfriends is a mixed bag in current Modern, but the fact that such an out-there brew is viable at all is pretty exciting. This will be one to watch in the coming weeks, to be sure.
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