https://edhrec.com/commanders/najeela-the-blade-blossom

Najeela 3 mana card is way too strong for the format. in most cases you can win with this deck without even doing much. even in a 3dh game unless 1 of the other 2 players gets lucky enough with a board wipe or 2, or kill card for naj, she fills the board way too fast.

Her second ability can win the game with enough warriors on board or an infinite mana generator.

In my opinion this card should be banned from commander. Yes in a play group she probably does get banned, but for people like me who play online without a real group its just basically an auto concede if you cant get an answer.

Hi, welcome!

Just curious... when you say you play online, do you mean on MTGO, or one of the free proxy servers? Also, do you consistently play with the same people, or are you seeing a lot of different players with Najeela decks?

Najeela seemed like an apology for Saskia not being a Warrior, but pushed further than anyone really needed for a Warrior tribal commander. (She didn't really need to be 5C for example.)

When you say "Her second ability alone can win the game with enough warriors on board or an infinite mana generator.", we should actually be crossing out "alone" on account of the rest of the text. What you're actually saying is "with a well developed board state and sufficiently undefended opponents she can win the game" which is, yes, true, that's what should happen at that point. (And infinite mana usually ends the game too, because the people playing it have ways to make it end the game, like a commander ability like this one.)

If she makes developing that board state too easy though that's one thing to consider, or if your group is busting out infinite mana I'm wondering if there's a deck power level difference at play here.

I play on a free proxy. I see this commander played with many of the EDH players on there.

since I play online people usually make rules for the lobby, for the most part the extra bans made still allow her to get played. But on the lobbies that don't make those extra bans the powerlevel of the decks are pretty equal.

Think about this in terms of her developing a board. Turn 1 mana crypt, followed by a mana confluence. Then they decide to cast a 2 or 3 drop warrior. Turn 2 drop a land then cast another 1 or 2 warriors. Turn 3 cast commander and attack. Now at this point the best option is to remove her or board wipe, if no one can its just game over by turn 5 or turn 4 if they have a infinite colored mana generator.

... Okay, so you have them developing quickly, dropping some warriors and then swinging to increase the # of warriors they have on turn 3

... then you brush right over how they could possibly have a turn 4 infinite coloured-mana generator.

I kind of want to know those details. If they've been developing their warriors, how do they pivot and convert that into infinite coloured-mana generation?

Also - IMO when I see people complaining about a 3-drop creature (even a commander) it seems that most people don't want to run cheap targeted removal for such a creature. I've done that before (I overhauled my decks to put more in to deal with small creatures) and found a number of fun/interesting cards that I'd previously overlooked and I feel it's given my decks more reach, as they aren't just always dead in the water if someone does a rush.

Yeah, this. Sure they get a bunch of dudes on T3, but your description involves three lands and a bunch of colourless mana rocks. There's no extra combats there

First off, commander generals for the most part are not banned for being broken. General like Meren of Clan Nel Toth and Zur, the Enchanter are much closer to "broken" than pretty much every banned general aside from Leovold, and it's highly unlikely that either of them will ever be banned. And secondly, I'm going to respond to you as though we're talking multiplayer games, as the banlist as ran by the RC is not designed for nor all that relevant to 1v1 play.

But going on to Najeela, she is certainly not overpowered. Non-combo aggro strategies are pretty terrible in multiplayer as a whole, and especially in Commander as the life totals are doubled. So, the only way that she can have any chance of winning against other high-powered decks is if she goes the combo route. And some facts about the combo route:

1. She has 8 cards that can combo off with her, although every single one of them requires multi-turn setup.

2. With a god hand, she can theoretically win on T2. In most games, she can establish a potentially winning position by turn 4-5. Compare this to other fast combo decks like Hermit Druid which can win T1 but usually aims for T2-3, Protean Hulk which is in the same situation but can potentially win T0, and Narset which pretty consistently can win T3-4.

3. Common ways to stop her: well-timed spot removal/counterspell on either her or her combo cards, mana denial, getting your general out early to block her/her tokens, wraths, and global creature hosers like Humility or Ensnaring Bridge. Many of the above things are exceedingly common in Commander as a whole, and all of them are especially common as the overall power level of the table increases.

4. The vast majority of powerful commander generals have one thing in common: card advantage. Most good generals are either CA engines or powerful removal/lockdown pieces. Najeela provides zero of either of those qualities, making her far less resilient than other powerful generals. She also has no way to protect herself, and whatever impact she had on the board can be instantly eliminated with a wrath.

Ultimately she's in that weird limbo spot of being too slow to be a glass cannon combo deck, but not resilient enough to be a more midrange/control combo build either. She's also hurt by the fact that she can't dodge removal, and outside of significant help from other cards really doesn't do anything except affect directly life totals.

In a casual meta or one that is otherwise unprepared for her strategy/tactics, she certainly has the power to steamroll the table. However, the cards/strategies that tend to neutralize her are things that most competitive decks are already doing a lot of, so she's at best the dark horse in those games.

In the OP's defense, you don't really need to go infinite to make an impact. I think that is what he's aiming to describe. Attack with four warriors, next turn you'll end with 16 warriors. That is good for a turn five.

Outside the combo's Sid mentions there is always good stuff you can do with that. Phyrexian Altar. Mana Echoes. Impact Tremors. I think it makes a good Stompy deck, with all the downsides Stompy has.

And yes, a good combo potential. But let's not pretend there aren't faster combo decks. We're not banning them either. A fast sweeper hurts this deck a lot, and while "play more answers" is the worst response, in the case of sweepers... well, I've seen a lot of sweepers on turn four. So there is that.

While yes, the best way to deal with her is to run more removal, this is commander. meaning its 99 different cards. which means even if you run 10 removal spells, theres a chance you will not draw one before they can kill you, same with board wipes. while yes the infinite combos are annoying, you dont need it to make a big enough impact to just win.

So I run 3-5 boardwipes and usually 5-7 low CMC interaction (counterspells, disenchant, terror style cards). If everybody else follows that pattern then in each game it is not unheard of having a wrath on turn 4 or 5, or at the very least something to break up the combo around t4-5. Now I fully recognize that not everybody follows this pattern. The people that I typically play with run 0-1 Wrath, and 1-2 low CMC interaction.

What happens? I often have to police whomever is starting to run away with the game on t5-7, I do it when it is most convienient for me and I often am either the winner or more likely the Kingmaker. Not always ideal, but it is hard to convince people to play Hero's Demise in every black deck versus something more thematic or higher CMC that almost does the same thing. Ravenous Chupacabra is a better deal, it can kill nearly any creature and leaves a 2/2 behind, but sometimes you don't have 2BB available, or it is not your turn or... see what I mean?

Probably still worth running Hero's Demise as there are a lot of combo commanders, and other legendary creatures that need to go. Now I won't fault you for running Assassin's Trophy or something else with a 2 CMC, but I mean, a Terror in every Black deck isn't that hard to come by is it?

A couple things to bear in mind about the proxy servers: since they're not bound by the same limits as paper Magic or MTGO, you will see a very different metagame there. Since anyone can run the top tier mana artifacts and lands, the proxy scene tends to encourage decks that run at hyper-speed. This in turn makes it seem like Commander needs extra rules fixes, when the rest of the Commander community just doesn't see the kinds of plays you do. Stuff like Mana Crypt, the monoliths, Rings of Brighthearth (ie, the kinds of things that power out infinite mana early) cost serious $, so most people don't see them

You might consider trying out MTGO... the software leaves much to be desired, and I realize this is shitty, condescending advice if you don't have the money for it. But I suspect that regardless of what cards are banned, you're not going to find the experience you're looking for playing proxy

This. And like I said:



Vomit out your hand and assemble your army of warriors, get wrathed, replay Najeela with commander tax, assemble some more warriors, lose Najeela again and look, you can't play double commander tax. The deck is a bit of a glass cannon. Basically you need permission for their first wrath. And:



Sweepers aren't just "a card in the 99". EDH is defined by the never-ending flood of sweepers.



Interesting point. I have no clue if this is an accurate description, but it does sound like a thorough analysis.

Did... you just confuse me with Uktabi_Kong?

My sincere apologies.