Commander Deck of the Week: Nadaar, Selfless Paladin

Last year’s Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur’s Gate was one of the biggest sets for Commander in a long time, despite the disgruntled blowback when it was first rolled out.  In the year since its release, it’s gained a lot of cache in the community as more and more cards were tried and overperformed.  For me personally, no other set has inspired brand new decks more than Baldur’s Gate, but it also yielded a ton of new cards that I’ve peppered into the 99 of a ton of decks. One deck in particular got some serious upgrades: Nadaar, Selfless Paladin!

I had so much fun with the dungeon mechanic when Adventures in the Forgotten Realms first came out. I played a ton of it in Standard on MTG Arena, and when Alchemy rolled out tweaks to the dungeon cards making them stronger, I wracked up a ton of wins.  It inspired me to build several paper decks that featured the mechanic:  Mono-White Nadaar, Esper Sefris, Bant Rafiq, and a weird dungeon/vehicles Acererak deck.

I even recently built my very first Oathbreaker deck with Ellywick Tumblestrum as my oathbreaker and Explore the Underdark as her signature spell.

The original dungeon mechanic – venture into the dungeon – featured three dungeons that were very carefully and cautiously designed for duel formats, and quite frankly were a bit weaker than they should have been (as demonstrated by the Alchemy tweaks that significantly improved the power level of the cards without coming close to breaking things). The initiative mechanic, and its special dungeon, Undercity, was a lot more powerful, designed as it was for multiplayer. I daresay they pushed it pretty hard, since it quickly made a huge impact on Legacy and eventually led to the banning of White Plume Adventurer.

Anyway, I quickly added what initiative cards I could into a Mono-White deck, which adds an interesting little game to how the deck plays:  Nadaar himself ventures into the dungeon, so ideally you want to get the initiative – and open up Undercity – first before playing Nadaar. But beggars can’t be choosers, and sometimes you’ve just got to delve into what dungeon is available to you, and just hope you can play an initiative card in between dungeons.

Nadaar’s triggered ability is pretty sweet, as it triggers when he enters the battlefield, and it also triggers when he attacks. So I’ve added a bunch of ways to blink him after he attacks so I get extra triggers and can stroll through dungeons like a hungry Owlbear looking for a snack.

Let’s crack open that dusty crypt and see what lurks in the dungeons below!

Initiative

I’ve got just about all the initiative cards that Mono-White can have, with the exception of Undercellar Sweep. It’s definitely one of the weaker ones, and I ended up going with Goliath Paladin since it synergizes better with the variety of ways I have to blink creatures.

White Plume Adventurer and Seasoned Dungeoneer are the all-stars, each of them are efficient creatures with relevant abilities outside of initiative. I do have six Clerics, two Warriors and a Wizard so Seasoned Dungeoneer’s party-loving trigger can matter sometimes. You know, thinking about this makes me wonder if I should find room for a Runed Stalactite so that Nadaar can join the party fun?

Venture into the Dungeon

I had more of these initially, but I cut a few to make room for the initiative cards.  Radiant Solar is my favorite of the bunch, though I’ve been pleasantly surprised with Immovable Rod’s utility. I’ve got it in my Zirda, the Dawnwaker deck and it has done some amazing work, but even paying the full activation cost it’s still going to be worth shutting down something that’s threatening you or causing you issues. I also really like Thorough Investigation, as it triggers from attacking which I want to do already with Nadaar. Sacrificing the Clue token provides raw card draw and venturing deeper into the dungeon.

Blink Effects

I’ve got a lot of blink effects to help me race through dungeons at a good clip, hopefully Undercity which provides a ton of value. Sword of Hearth and Home is a fantastic card in general, and a white deck loves its ability to land ramp, and the blink effect works on any creature you own… which means if someone has stolen a creature from your or animated it from your graveyard, you can get it back with the Sword’s trigger.

I’ve never actually had a chance to cast Lae’zel’s Acrobatics, which does a nice job of saving the team from mass removal or partially dodging a kicked Cyclonic Rift. Making the high roll is definitely very intriguing, getting to double blink could lead to some bonkers amount of dungeon triggers.

Legion Loyalty isn’t exactly blinking, but giving your attackers myriad can also mean a whole bunch of dungeon triggers; even though the copies of Nadaar will die to the legend rule, you’ll still get the enters the battlefield triggers.

Recursion

Emeria, the Sky Ruin, Adarkar Valkyrie, Sun Titan and Cauldron of Souls are time- and battle-tested recursion cards for creatures. Don’t forget that Adarkar Valkyrie’s ability can be used to take control of an opponent’s creature if it’s going to die and would do some work on your side of the battlefield.  Luminous Broodmoth is a fun type of recursion, bringing non-fliers back from the graveyard with a flying counter on them. You can knock that flying counter off by blinking the creature, so it can come back with Broodmoth again when it dies.

Guardian Scalelord is an awesome new card from March of the Machine Commander, functioning as a flying Sun Titan and letting another creature borrow that ability – and flying – for a turn when it enters the battlefield. Giving backup to Nadaar gives him evasion, and at four power it can bring back a lot of our initiative or other dungeon creatures.

Card Draw

For card draw, I’ve included the classic combo of Land Tax and Scroll Rack—so long as an opponent has more lands than you (and in Commander, somebody is always ramping hard), you can trigger Land Tax to find three Plains, then use those cards to Scroll Rack into a fresh three or more cards.  Then when you Land Tax again you shuffle your library, which resets the top of your deck to do it all over again. Just be careful you stay one land behind the ramp monger.

Sanctuary Warden provides excellent value in a blink deck, drawing cards from its shield counters or other counters you want to remove (like the flying counters from Luminous Broodmoth’s effect). Platoon Dispenser provides easy value since this deck can churn out token creatures from various dungeon rooms, so you can easily meet its end step trigger. Also, its unearth ability combines quite nicely with all the blink effects to bring it back from the graveyard permanently.

Removal

I’ve got a lot of the expected removal spells in white, but I’ve leaned in on creatures that can be blinked, like Dawnbringer Cleric and Space Marine Devastator.  I’d also like to take this moment to strongly suggest Contraband Livestock if you haven’t tried it yet—it takes an otherwise boring effect (exile a creature) and adds some excitement with the dice roll. Do they get an Ox, a Boar, or a lowly Goat for their trouble?  Roll a d20 and let’s find out!

Interaction

Mother of Runes and Giver of Runes provide nice protection for Nadaar and other crucial creatures from pinpoint removal, or letting them slip past blockers. Reconnaissance lets us attack into an unassailable defense and then just remove our attacker from combat after getting that sweet attack trigger. It also gives attackers pseudo-vigilance, letting you “remove from combat” a creature after it’s dealt damage and you’re in your end of combat phase.

Mana Ramp

I’ve got just a little bit of mana ramp, mostly relying on card draw and dungeons to keep my land drops each turn. Dust Bowl and Lotus Field are ways to keep my land count low enough to keeping taking advantage of Land Tax and Knight of the White Orchid.

Okay, here is the full decklist:

Here are the deck stats from our friends at Archidekt:

What must-have cards might I have missed including here?  Since I just put this together, I’m curious if you have had any experience playing with or against a Nadaar deck you could share?

Talk to Me

Do me a solid and follow me on Twitter!  I run polls and get conversations started about Commander all the time, so get in on the fun!  You can also find my LinkTree on my profile page there with links to all my content.

I’d also love it if you followed my Twitch channel TheCompleteCommander, where I do Commander, Brawl and sometimes other Magic-related streams when I can.  If you can’t join me live, the videos are available on demand for a few weeks on Twitch, but I also upload them to my YouTube channel.  You can also find the lists for my paper decks over on Archidekt if you want to dig into how I put together my own decks and brews. 

And lastly, I just want to say: let us love each other and stay healthy and happy.