Oops All Nikya
- bonzaientertainmen
- 2 days ago
- 8 min read
This Week: I build an Oops All Spells (and lands) deck but put a Commander that doesn't let me cast non creature spells at the helm. Impossible? Nope. Check it out on Moxfield too.
Every so often a ban, a new mechanic, or card will come along and upend my plans, usually in a good way. That’s the case with Secrets of Strixhaven. Let’s back up a little first. Ever since I made my Gruultrol list I’ve been looking to invert the idea. If you’re not familiar, I put Ruric Thar into the command zone and built a control style deck. He punishes players, myself included, for playing non creature spells. I used creature ETBs, Blood Rush, and Lifelink effects to insulate myself while letting him wreak havoc on my opponents. The deck plays like quicksand, making every move opponents’ make pull them further down. It’s great.
Shortly after that, I asked myself if I could do the opposite, a spell slinger style deck in those colors. I wanted something more than green to ramp and red to storm off. My initial idea needed an additional hurdle to make the deck interesting. If Ruric Thar discourages me from playing non Creature spells, what’s the next step? It turns out it’s not allowing me to cast non creature spells at all. Don’t worry, I’m not just locking myself out of the game to lose.
Nikya of the Old Ways is a high risk high reward card. She prohibits me from playing non creature spells when she’s on the field. That’s a big restriction, but it comes with a big reward. She acts like Wild Growth, letting my lands tap for an additional mana. Doublers are very powerful, so it’s worth paying attention to any card with the effect. But how does this work with an Oops All Spells deck? It’s impossible, right? Not quite.
Nikya isn’t always in play, so I need to make my non creature spells count before she hits the field. My preferred ways to do this are Adventure spells and MDFCs. I compiled my first draft with this in mind. Adventure spells have an independent Instant or Sorcery attached to them that I can cast from my hand and then play the creature side from exile at a later time. If you’ve followed me for any amount of time you know my fondness for Beanstalk Giant and Embereth Shieldbreaker. The Giant comes with Fertile Footsteps as the adventure. For 3 mana I get to search for and put a land in play. The Shieldbreaker has access to Battle Display, a 1 mana spell that destroys an artifact. I need all of this.
Bear Down is an Artifact/Enchantment removal spell that comes with Stormkeld Vanguard, an evasive 6/7 for only 6 mana. Beanstalk Wurm is a 5 mana 5/4 with Reach. More importantly, Plant Beans lets me play an additional land. At only 2 mana I can get this out very early on in a game, which is important for preempting Nikya. It also works well with Hearth Elemental. Stoke Genius lets me discard my hand to draw 2 cards. It’s best when I have no cards in hand. If one of the cards happens to be lands. I get extra value thanks to Hearth Elemental’s cost reduction.
More importantly, I have access to some additional permanents with Adventure. Two-Handed Axe offers Double Strike one time with Sweeping Cleaver. It’s even better with the Axe since it doubles an attacking creature’s power. The Axe still triggers even if Nikya of the Old Ways is on the field, I just need to cast it before she hits the field. The best option is Virtue of Strength. Garenbrig Growth lets me return a creature or land from my graveyard to hand. With adventure spells, I get even more value from it. The enchantment is where it’s at. Virtue of Strength triples the mana from my basic lands. Big mana is abundant here.
Those MDFCs I mentioned before also provide great flexibility for the deck. Sundering Eruption is a bit of a finisher if I can’t use Nikya to full effect. There’s always a troublesome land that needs to be removed, but more importantly, it shuts down most blockers, so I can get in for damage and maybe eliminate an opponent. Bridgeworks Battle and Stump Stomp are fight spells that clear out troublesome creatures. Kazuul’s Fury is a burn spell that scales with what creature I sacrifice. That non combat damage synergizes well with Virtue of Courage and is a great way to get access to additional cards. Either way, if I can’t play any of the cards in this category I can always just play the land side to ramp out even faster.
This was a good start, but why did Secrets of Strixhaven upend the deck? It all started when Emeritus of Ideation got spoiled. These new Prepared creatures are inverse Adventure cards. They allow you to play the attached spell from the battlefield. I knew when I saw the first card more would be coming, and I was not disappointed. I can still meet my restriction of all my cards having/being an instant or sorcery with these cards. I would just need to wait to procure them before I built the deck. These new cards allow me to play the creature side on any turn, and have access to the other spell when Nikya is gone. Getting rid of her at the right time will be key, and a big focus of the later part of the article.
But first, what are the standouts from this new prepared cycle of cards? Naktamun Lorespinner becomes prepared if a player is Heckbent. Then I have access to Wheel of Fortune, the namesake of all Wheel effects. Emeritus of Conflict has a high bar before it becomes prepared at casting 3 spells, but once it does, I get Lightning Bolt. 3 damage may not seem like a lot, but if an opponent removes my commander he can expect to eat that 3 damage. This is another card that’s great with Virtue of Courage.
My biggest roadblock in the deck is also my biggest asset, my commander. My plan is to use Nikya, tap all my lands and make a ton of mana, then remove her and cast a game winning spell. My Adventure and similar spells don’t provide me with that ability. Instead, I turned to my land base. Safe Haven provides me with the ability to exile my commander. That creates a decision for me. The card allows me to keep my exiled commander safely tucked away with the land and at a later time I can sacrifice the land on my upkeep to return my commander, and any other creatures I happened to exile this way, to the battlefield. Or, since I’m targeting my commander I can always opt to return it to the command zone. This will get expensive quickly, but there are ways to mitigate it. I should also only need to do it one or two times in a game. If I send my commander back to the command zone I can retain the land for future exiling. Endless Sands is another land that fits this part of my strategy. Instead of giving me the opportunity to return the exiled creature at the beginning of my turn, Endless Sands makes it a tap ability, with a 4 mana cost tagged on. The Ninja Turtles set also came out with Northampton Farm. As nice as a 50% increase in this effect would be for me, I don’t play Universes Beyond cards, so I’ll have to do without it until it gets an in universe reprint. Either way, I need to use some ramp spells to improve my odds of getting these lands on the table.
So, how do I plan to pull all his together? I can make mana, play my instants and sorceries when Nikya is off the field, and exile her with the aid of a few permanents. My plan is ramp out all of those lands, then tap them all when Nikya is on the field, remove her from the game, then pump all the mana into a big X burn spell. It’s very doable to have a dozen lands on the battlefield and at least one mana doubling/tripling effect in play. I pour all of that into Earthquake and I can do some real damage to the game. Or I can be more targeted with Comet Storm or Devil’s Play.
I have more versatility to the deck as well. If I don’t have one of my exile lands available, I can send Nikya into combat, let her get blocked and if I know she isn’t going to survive combat, tap out to generate double mana, and after she dies, and before my mana pool empties cast one of my burn spells. One of my MDFCs is also key here. Disciple of Freyalise may be expensive at 6 mana, but she lets me sacrifice Nikya to draw 5 cards and gain 5 life. This works well because I can tap out to double all my mana While Nikya is on the field and then cast the Disciple all in the same main phase. It’s a lot less stressful even if it eats up some more of my bonus mana.
I don’t think people will see this deck coming. I expect a point of confusion or disbelief from opponents. How can you build an Oops All Spells deck around a commander that won’t let you cast them? Once they grapple with that, then I pop my commander off the field and hit them with an overpowered burn spell. It’s diabolical.
This is what I have so far with the deck
Ettercap | Fanning the Flames | |
Ferocious Werefox | Demon Fire | |
Flaxen Intruder | Bonecrusher Giant | Rolling Thunder |
Grabby Giant | Bramble Familiar | |
Collective Voyage | ||
Merchant of the Veil | Yavimaya Bloomsage | Pir's Whim |
Monster Manual | Studious First-Year | Nylea's Intervention |
Questing Druid | Maelstrom Artisan | Hour of Promise |
Ratcatcher Trainee | Natural Connection | |
Rosethorn Acolyte | Emeritus of Abundance | Road/Ruin |
Haze of Pollen | Roiling Regrowth | |
Tlincalli Vanguard | Lull | You Happen on a Glade |
Hush | ||
Wilt | Migration Path | |
Young Red Dragon | Beneath the Sands | |
Forest x8 | Mountain x8 | |
Mirrorpool | Fountain Port | |
Throne of the High City | Sheltered Thicket | Scavenger Grounds |
Miren, the Moaning Well | Evendo, Waking Haven | Desert of the Fervent |
High Market | Blast Zone | Desert of the Indominable |
I know Oops All Spells is ambitious here. If you want to build a deck like this you may be better off in a more general Spell Slinger build. That’s just to say, a strategy that lets you play some artifacts or enchantments like Artist's Talent and Cloud Key that will allow you to remove Nikya of the Old Ways at a more predictable and controlled point or at least provide greater density of the effect than I can achieve with my lands.
Thanks for reading and all the support to date. I have affiliate links with Mana Pool and TCG Player to help fund these off the wall strategies. It's what makes all this possible,
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