Much Abrew: Nahiri's Resolve = Boros Mom Blink (Standard)
Hello, everyone! Welcome to another episode of Much Abrew About Nothing. One of the side effects of our recent Standard bannings is that, now that Invoke Despair is gone, enchantments are unbanned—especially expensive ones that need to sit out on the battlefield for a few turns to generate value. They simply didn't work in a format where a huge percentage of decks could easily sweep them away with Invoke Despair. This means it's finally time to play a deck I'm super hyped about: Nahiri's Resolve Boros Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines Blink! The idea of our deck is simple: play as many creatures with enters-the-battlefield triggers as possible and then stick a Nahiri's Resolve to blink them all each turn. Things will get out of hand quickly if we can also add Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines to the mix as we will generate overwhelming Panharmonicon value! What's Standard like now that Rakdos is gone? Is it finally time for big enchantments like Nahiri's Resolve to shine? Let's get to the video and find out on today's Much Abrew About Nothing!
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Much Abrew: Nahiri's Resolve MOM Blink
Discussion
- Record-wise, Nahiri's Resolve has been great! So far, I'm 7-2 with the deck—a sterling 78% win percentage. But more importantly, the deck generates an absurd amount of value! In many ways, it reminds me of some of the old Panharmonicon decks we played back in Kaladesh Standard but even better in many ways because Nahiri's Resolve is such a great payoff for the deck.
- Speaking of Nahiri's Resolve, the card is really powerful when it sits out on the battlefield, and with Invoke Despair banned, it actually sticks on the battlefield pretty often. Sure, sometimes people have Farewell or a targeted enchantment-removal spell, but compared to just a week ago, the odds are significantly higher that our namesake enchantment will remain on the battlefield long enough to win us the game. Once it's on the battlefield, it not only allows us to reuse all of our enters-the-battlefield triggers each turn but also lets our creatures dodge sorcery-speed removal and wraths, which is especially helpful against control.
- The main drawback of Nahiri's Resolve is that any creatures we blink will be gone during our opponent's turn, which means we won't have them around to block. As such, we sometimes have to choose not to use it, especially against aggro. But remember, we don't have to blink all of our creatures with Nahiri's Resolve. Sometimes, we just blink just a Spirited Companion to keep our bigger creatures around to block while we wait to stabilize the board so we can blink even more creatures and generate more enters-the-battlefield value. Think of Nahiri's Resolve like a finisher. Even if we can't use it to blink, giving our team haste and +1/+0 is decent value, and eventually, we'll get the game to a position where we can blink most or even all of our creatures each turn, which will quickly put the game out of our opponent's reach.
- Outside of Nahiri's Resolve, our most impactful card is Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines to double up our enters-the-battlefield triggers. With a Mom on the battlefield, even just blinking a single Spirited Companion each turn is a lot of value. When we start blinking our entire team, our biggest worry is that we'll end up drawing so many cards that we'll accidentally mill ourselves out! Even outside of our Panharmonicon synergies, Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines seems a lot better in our new post-banning Standard format than it was pre-bannings. It shuts down most of GW Enchantments and is surprisingly good against Ramp, where it shuts down Leyline Binding, all of the ramp cards, and finishers like Etali and Atraxa, while offering a big body and incidental value in other matchups. While it can be a bit slow against some aggro decks, I think that Mom might be worth reevaluating in the context of the recent bannings. It might actually be a worthwhile main-deck card, even if you aren't fully in on the Panharmonicon plan like our deck is.
- So, what are we blinking with Nahiri's Resolve? Like any good Panharmonicon deck, primarily a bunch of creatures with enters-the-battlefield triggers that draw us cards. Spirited Companion, Circuit Mender, Combat Thresher, and Sanctuary Warden literally draw us cards; Ambitious Farmhand draws a land; Extraction Specialist draws us a cheap creature from our graveyard (which also will draw us a card when it enters the battlefield); and Etali, Primal Conqueror not only draws us two cards but also lets us cast them for free! There are also some neat synergies in the deck. For example, we can use Extraction Specialist to reanimate a creature and then blink Extraction Specialist to allow the creature it reanimated to attack and block.
- Maybe my favorite enters-the-battlefield creature in the deck is Twinshot Sniper, which is criminally underrated. If you squint hard enough, it's almost a Bonecrusher Giant, or at least Bonecrusher at home. Early in the game, we can channel it to Shock something, which is especially important now that Standard is more aggressive. Later, we can hard cast it and start blinking it to reuse its enters-the-battlefield trigger.
- As for the rest of our removal, it's mostly enchantment based so we can double it up with Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines. We also have one Soul Partition, which overperformed thanks to its ability to let us save our own creatures. Finding room for another copy or two in the deck could be worth it.
- The only card in the deck I didn't really like was Invoke Justice. My thinking was that it would be a way to reanimate a Nahiri's Resolve once our opponent killed it, but it felt unnecessary in practice. Invoke Despair is gone. Having an enchantment stick isn't unreasonable anymore, which means Invoke Justice probably should be just another Soul Partition or Touch the Spirit Realm!
- So, should you play Nahiri's Resolve Boros Mom Blink in Standard? I think the answer is an easy yes, assuming you like Panharmonicon-style blink decks. I'm pretty sure this is the best Elesh Norn deck we've built so far, so if you like doubling up enters-the-battlefield triggers and generating oodles of mana, this is a good starting point, at least! Not only does the deck win a surprising number of games, but it also wins them in style! Oh yeah, and Standard itself actually seems to be in a really fun place at the moment. We'll see how long it lasts, but the meta is diverse right now, and there seems to be a good mixture of aggro, midrange, and control decks that can compete. If you've been bored with the format, give it another shot. The bannings really seem to have opened up the format.
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.
