Red Mana For Days! Commander With Neheb, The Eternal

Red gets a bad rap in Commander, through no fault of its own.

I mean, it can’t really help that many of red’s strengths in its slice of the color pie play much better in a duel scenario as opposed to a format where you have more opponents and everyone begins with double the starting life totals. Lightning Bolt starts to look rather anemic when your three opponents begin the game with 120 life between them.

That said, I think R&D has done a good job of beefing up the areas of red’s color pie that play great in Commander, especially in their Commander products. One of my favorite Commander decks right now is Feldon of the Third Path, which plays a lot with artifact synergies, and I have been constantly tweaking it and adding sweet new cards over the past few years. A sweet new red legendary creature from Hour of Devastation has me very nearly as excited to build around it as I have been about Feldon. And it could not be more different, which is super-cool. Just check out Neheb, the Eternal!

While I was mostly ambivalent about Neheb’s earlier Rakdos incarnation, this shiny new pure red version looks amazing! I certainly am going to experiment with it in Standard, but for now let us focus on the 100-card format.

What does Neheb do? He gives us mana after our combat step, and he does it in a very red way by translating life our opponents lose into mana. Luckily for us and red cards in general, damage causes life loss and so damage is going to give us back mana.

From Magic’s Comprehensive Rules:

119.3a Damage dealt to a player by a source without infect causes that player to lose that much life.

What is fantastic about Neheb is that he takes what red is good at – dealing damage with spells – and turns it into a rush of mana, which in Commander means we can pay for bigger haymaker spells to brawl with the best of them. So take our lowly example of Lightning Bolt above—sure, that three points might not be a whole lot of damage in the great scheme of things, but when it is also a red Dark Ritual? Now you have my interest!

Dealing Damage: Spells

The effects that deal damage to each opponent are really exciting. For instance, in a typical four-player game, two-mana Flame Rift will give you twelve red mana back! Suddenly a handful of Legacy Burn deck staples get a bit more interesting. Browbeat goes from a joke to being in the conversation—let me draw three cards, or take five damage and give me five mana. Cryptolith Fragment taps to give you a mana during your pre-combat main phase, and then three red mana post-combat. Pyrohemia converts each red mana you spend to ping everyone and everything into a red mana back for each opponent during your postcombat main phase.

And then… and then there is Aetherflux Reservoir. Now, a lot of the best spells that deal damage to our opponents deal damage to us too, so the odds of us being over 50 life are lower than usual, but if you can get up there with Neheb on the battlefield and smack someone for 50 damage during pre-combat, that’s 50 red mana coming back your way post-combat.

Wow. 50 mana, people!

Dealing Damage: Creatures

There are many red creatures that dish out extra damage to our opponents, so I have included a bunch here. Heartless Hidetsugu is the big one here, cutting down life totals and potentially giving us back a ton of mana post-combat. Combustible Gearhulk is like a walking Browbeat here, giving an opponent a choice between letting us draw three cards or potentially taking a bunch of damage and giving us a bunch of mana.

I love how Embermaw Hellion just makes everything a little more painful for our opponents, which of course nets us just a little more mana too.

Of course, when we think about attacking and then getting a rush of mana in our postcombat main phase, it makes sense that we might actually want more attack steps, right?

Attack Step

Throw out a Flame Rift, attack with some creatures, get a rush of mana from Neheb afterwards. Now cast Seize the Day and attack again. Deal some more damage and then get even more mana afterwards. Cards like Aggravated Assault and Hellkite Charger can potentially just allow you to have as many attack steps as you could possibly want (along with extra mana each time). Yeah, I think that can end games!

I wanted to add in some creatures that might appreciate the extra attack steps, like Smuggler’s Copter and Dragon Mage. Grenzo, Havoc Raiser and Prophetic Flamespeaker can help turn the extra attacks into card advantage. since you will be getting that extra mana afterwards.

Protect/Boost Neheb

Obviously, if we build around Neheb, things can get insane rather quickly, so it will not take long for your opponents to start scrambling to deal with Neheb. I am including some safeguards like Swiftfoot Boots and Darksteel Plate to help. We may also want to pad our life total, since many of our spells and effects deal damage to all players, so Basilisk Collar and Loxodon Warhammer will help. Since Neheb is a Warrior, Obsidian Battle-Axe seems like a natural inclusion.

Last but not least, how about Strionic Resonator to copy Neheb’s triggered ability for even more mana?

Mana Sinks

Okay, so there is potential for crazy amounts of mana flowing our way post-combat. Assuming we are not always taking extra attack steps, I wanted to include some things to sink all that mana into for fun and profit. Fireball variants Banefire and Red Sun’s Zenith are sweet, and spells like Earthquake and Fault Line are even great pre-combat to convert into more mana post-combat. The best of the bunch are reusable effects like Kumano, Master Yamabushi, Shivan Hellkite, and Fanning the Flames. Yes, Fanning the Flames! We’ve finally found a home for you in Commander.

Okay, without further ado, here is my new favorite red Commander deck, once I get my hands on Hour of Devastation:

Neheb, the Eternal

Bennie Smith

Test deck on 06-23-2017

Commander

Creatures (23)

Lands (12)

What do you think? Am I missing any obvious inclusions? How would you build Neheb, the Eternal differently?

Speaking of Mono-Red Commander Decks…

Before I go, I thought some of you might appreciate seeing my Feldon of the Third Path deck. I originally wrote about it here quite a few years back. I got a chuckle reading that old article and seeing this part of it:

It amuses me to imagine the “story” that’s going to play out with this deck, something like…

Feldon the master artificer, consumed with grief but filled with hope, turns on the machine and awaits breathlessly for the signs of life within. “She will come back to me,” he whispers to himself as the doors open up. He squints at the shape moving out of the shadows, his heart skipping a beat…

His smile turns to a scowl when he realizes it is not Loran standing there but rather… another Ingot Chewer. Which promptly begins to chew on itself.

Feldon pounds his fist in frustration and pores back over his notes…

Still funny, though Ingot Chewer is no longer in the deck. I wonder though if maybe I should add it back, now that I think about it?

My current list is below. It has a ton of play in it, in no small part due to all the nifty Goblins that do cool things when Feldon copies them from the graveyard (which is why Moggcatcher makes an appearance). The deck got a huge upgrade from recent sets, and I am particularly looking forward to utilizing the Game Day foil Glorybringer!

Feldon of the Third Path

Bennie Smith

Test deck on 06-23-2017

Commander

Creatures (34)

Lands (15)

New to Commander?

If you’re just curious about the format, building your first deck, or trying to take your Commander deck up a notch, here are some handy links:

Commander Primer Part 1
(Why play Commander? Rules Overview, Picking your Commander)
Commander Primer Part 2
(Mana Requirements, Randomness, Card Advantage)
Commander Primer Part 3
(Power vs. Synergy, Griefing, Staples, Building a Doran Deck)
Commander Starter Kits 1
(kick start your allied two-color decks for $25)
Commander Starter Kits 2
(kick start your enemy two-color decks for $25)
Commander Starter Kits 3
(kick start your shard three-color decks for $25)