Meme or Dream? Nahiri For Mirrodin! Equipment (Standard)
Welcome back to another edition of Meme or Dream?, the series where we put decks to the test that Wizards publishes on Magic.gg saying they got at least six wins in a row at platinum rank or better in best-of-three play on Magic Arena. Are they as janky as they look, making them a meme, or is it actually possible they can string together a bunch of wins, making them a dream?
In all honesty, this week's deck is one of the best-looking Meme or Dream? decks we've ever played. It actually has a full sideboard, a bunch of four-ofs, and an obvious plan for winning a game of Magic. So, why are we playing the deck? Well, I really like Nahiri, Forged in Fury. I've tried a few times to make the Aftermath mythic work but with little success. So, even though today's deck doesn't look as horrible as some of our other Meme or Dream? decks, my personal experience has been that Nahiri is definitely way more of a meme than a dream.
The deck's plan is to flood the board with equipment that also makes creatures, like Barbed Batterfist, Citizen's Crowbar, Hexgold Halberd, and Bladehold War-Whip (along with Rabbit Battery, which is both an equipment and a creature thanks to reconfigure). While none of these cards is especially powerful as a creature—the For Mirrodin! mechanic only makes 2/2 tokens, so we're essentially playing a bunch of Grizzly Bears—they add equipment to the battlefield, which helps support our three big payoffs.
Payoff number one is Nahiri, Forged in Fury. Thanks to the number of equipment in our deck, we typically can play Nahiri for just two mana, and a two-mana 5/4 is a pretty good deal. More importantly, Nahiri generates a ton of card advantage—whenever we attack with an equipped creature, we get to exile the top card of our library and play it that turn, and if it's an equipment, we can cast it for free! Ideally, we'll have three or four For Mirrodin!–style equipped creatures on the battlefield when Nahiri comes down, letting us draw some cards immediately. And if we hit some more For Mirrodin! equipment, we can play them for free, which almost makes Nahiri a weird watered-down version of Winota, Joiner of Forces for equipment.
Our second big payoff is Astor, Bearer of Blades, which draws us an equipment when it enters the battlefield and lets us equip for just a single mana. If we combine Astor with Bladehold War-Whip (which makes our equip costs one less), we can equip all of our equipment for free, essentially building our own Standard-legal version of Modern staple Puresteel Paladin! Astor lets us play a Voltron game plan where we stick all of our equipment on a single creature, buffing it and giving it trample and double strike, and hopefully kill our opponent in just a couple of attacks!
Our last payoff might be familiar since we played it a couple of weeks ago in an Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines blink deck: Nahiri's Resolve. While it might not be obvious at a glance, Nahiri's Resolve is actually absurd in our deck because it can blink artifacts as well as creatures. This means that we can run out a bunch of For Mirrodin! equipment in the early game and then use Nahiri's Resolve to blink them later. We'll keep all the tokens that our equipment made and get a new batch of tokens once the equipment re-enter the battlefield on our next upkeep. In practice, this means we're often adding three, four, or five 2/2s to the battlefield each turn once Nahiri's Resolve comes down, which, combined with the haste and +1/+0 the enchantment offers, means we can typically kill our opponent in just a couple of turns!
As far as the deck's actual performance, it was surprisingly strong. We ended up going 4-1 in our five matches, which means that for the first time in a long, long time, we have a Meme or Dream? deck that is a no-doubt dream! I was actually shocked by how well the deck played, especially considering none of my builds of Nahiri, Forged in Fury felt competitive at all. Not only did we win 80% of our games, but by the end, we were winning at Top 1,000 mythic!
While the deck was awesome, and I would very much recommend trying it in Standard if you like equipment decks, it was also a bit of a missed opportunity. I didn't really pay any attention to the cost of the deck until after I recorded the video, but it's actually pretty close to being a budget deck. In paper, it's technically $143, although about $60 of those dollars are two copies of The Wandering Emperor and Unlicensed Hearse in the sideboard. While both cards are solid, they aren't essential. Just cutting those would make the deck around $80. Considering the nonlands in the main deck are only around $20, it should be pretty easy to put together a competitive version that is super cheap in paper, especially if you have access to the good dual lands (which aren't super expensive, but the mana base will cost you another $35-ish).
The same is mostly true on Magic Arena. Since all of our For Mirrodin! equipment are commons and uncommons, the main deck only has 13 non-land rares and mythics, which means the deck should be pretty cheap to put together for digital play as well if you are playing best-of-one (or are willing to cut back on sideboard cards in best-of-three)!
Basically, Nahiri For Mirrodin! Equipment is a surprisingly fun and strong deck, and it's pretty budget-friendly, especially if you are willing to cut some nonessential sideboard cards or trim back on the rare lands in the mana base! For this first time ever (I think?), this is a Meme or Dream? deck that I actually feel comfortable recommending. It's super fun, super unique, and oddly, super good!
Conclusion
Anyway, that's all for today! As always, leave your thoughts, ideas, opinions, and suggestions in the comments, and you can reach me on Twitter @SaffronOlive or at SaffronOlive@MTGGoldfish.com.
