This or That Magic: Nivmagus or Giants?
Welcome to the eighth episode of This or That Magic, the series where we answer life's most important questions the best way we know how: with a game of Magic! This week, we are changing this up a bit. Since This or That started, our focus has been almost exclusively on flavor, which leads to some interesting but not very playable decks. For this episode, instead of being too married to flavor, or goal is to have a thematic (and cheap) deck that you can pick up and play on your kitchen tables! Basically, if Tomer and I each built a Duel Deck, they would probably look something like this! Then, after the matchups, we'll talk a bit about upgrades and changes you can make to the decks if you want to make them even more competitive!
As for the matchup, Tomer is playing a deck featuring one of his favorite archetypes: spellslinger! The main plan is to play a Nivmagus Elemental and eat a bunch of spells to make it huge! Meanwhile, I'm going tribal with Giants and looking to play some huge creatures quickly! Which is better, Nivmagus or Giants? We're about to find out!
One last thing before the videos. Since we are changing up the style a bit, make sure to give us some feedback. Do you like the more repayable style of deck building, or do you prefer the old singleton and extremely flavorful but not especially playable style? Let us know in the comments!
Don't forget: if you enjoy the series (and haven't already), make sure to subscribe to the MTGGoldfish YouTube Channel!
Discussion
So, there you have it. It seems that the brute strength of Giants is just a bit too much for Nivmagus Elemental and friends. The good news is that the games were actually really close and interesting. Both decks had ways to win out of nowhere—Tomer thanks to the namesake Nivmagus Elemental, which can go from a 1/2 to a 20/21 in just one turn, and Seth's Giants thanks to Thundercloud Shaman, which can wrath away an entire board full of Elementals—which means a game-swinging play could happen at just about any turn.
As far as improving the decks, if you want to upgrade Nivmagus n' Friends, it could be as simple as adding some more counters to fight the Giants' big creatures or as in depth as building Sam Pardee's Nivmagus Storm deck for Modern. Meanwhile, for the Giants, there isn't much to upgrade as far as creatures are concerned, but the removal could get better with cards like Path to Exile or Lightning Bolt replacing Pacifism and Chained to the Rocks.
Conclusion
Anyway, that's all for today. Don't forget to let us know what you think of this new Duel Deck-esque style of deck building in the comments! As always, you can reach me on Twitter @SaffronOlive (and Tomer @Budget Commander) or at SaffronOlive@MTGGoldfish.com.
