Hello and welcome to Daily Commander!

Today we are going to be talking about, Nemata, Primeval Warden!

Nemata is a four mana 3/4 with reach, if a creature an opponent would die exile instead and when you do you make a 1/1 Saproling, and two activated abilities involving sacrificing a Saproling, one Saproling and a green to make Nemata stronger by +2/+2 and two Saprolings and one and a black to draw a card.

Saprolings are an interesting token type, and I feel that playing them as a sort of token typal would be interesting, and Nemata creates a Saproliong whenever a creature an opponent dies, which then exiles it as well.

The best way to accomplish this is to use a bunch of removal, which shouldn’t be a problem in the color that has the most effective creature removal.

The problem with black having the most effective removal is that most of that removal is in the form of spot removal, which we will have but making one token at a time is not the most effective use of our resources.

So we need to take advantage of another resource that black has and that is mass power and toughness reduction, which while many of those affect everyone, they still have ones that target our opponents.

Curse of Death’s Hold, while only effecting one player, does make it easier for our creatures to kill our opponents creatures in combat.

Black also has some really good board wipes, the problem with those being that it kills all creatures. They do have one sided board wipes, but they tend to be very mana intensive.

In Garruk’s Wake kills all of our opponents creatures and Planeswalkers, but it is a whopping nine mana.

We do have conditional board wipes, like Virtue’s Ruin which destroys all white creatures, which is something to keep on hand but is very dependent on our opponents.

We also have to keep in mind all the Saprolings we’re making. We need to have some things that make Saprolings as well as boosting them so we can potentially swing for a solid amount of damage.

Luckily the game is replete with ways to make Saprolings, with one of the best ways being Tendershoot Dryad, which not only makes a Saproling at the beginning of each upkeep, but once you Ascend and get the city’s blessing, your Saprolings become 3/3’s.

There is also Thelonite Hermit which is a blanket anthem for Saprolings, but also can be Morphed to bring in four Saprolings when flipped face up.

Brightcap Badger can make Saprolings and Fungi we control into mana dorks to tap for green and makes a Saproling at the end of your turn while also having an instant Adventure to make two Saprolings.

Getting Saprolings onto the battlefield isn’t difficult, what is difficult is winning the game.

Our game plan is going to fall more so into the midrange category, meaning that we have to be able to dance between being defensive and being aggressive.

Having ways to boost our Saprolings means that we can win with an aggro plan while also being able to block effectively with all the Saprolings we are making.

Failing that, we need to make sacrificing Saprolings an effective use other than just drawing a card or boosting Nemata. Having a couple of cards with an aristocrat effect can be effective, especially if we need to play a complete board wipe.

Slimefoot, the Stowaway is a Blood Artist for your Saprolings while also being able to be a late game mana sink to make a Saproling. The Mycotyrant gets bigger for each Fungus and Saproling you control and has trample to swing big if necessary.

There is even Nemata, Grove Guardian that can make Saprolings or sacrifice those Saprolings to boost your Saprolings to get through even more damage or benefit from any aristocrat effects you are playing.

Nemata, Primeval Warden, while being most compatible for a pure Saproling typal strategy, can also be the jumping off point for a midrange type of deck. Going from a control deck to an aggro deck to an aristocrats deck is not what I expected when I first looked at Nemata, but this is the fun of Daily Commander.

Thank you for reading, see you tomorrow for the next Daily Commander!

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual