Hello and welcome to Daily Commander!

Today we are going to be talking about Nashi, Searcher in the Dark!

Nashi is a two mana 2/2 with menace and whenever he deals combat damage to a player, you mill that many cards and you may put any number of legendary and/or enchantment cards from among them into your hand and if you put no cards into your hand this way, put a +1/+1 counter on Nashi.

I do like the direction that they have been taking with Nashi as a card in getting some sort of benefit from legendary cards as a story beat, with this Nashi also gaining a benefit from enchantment cards, mill strategies, and benefits from not putting cards in our hand as well.

The plan for the deck is to get some benefits from milling our legendary and enchantments as well as getting some decent damage in with Nashi since they need to deal combat damage to get their effect working.

The first thing to look at are the enchantments that we want to play, and we should look for a combination of enchantments that give benefits to Nashi, as well as some form of protection.

Eel Umbra is a solid pick because it has flash, gives the enchanted creature +1/+1 and umbra armor (formerly totem armor) as a way to defend the enchanted creature for a turn. Since Nashi can be cast on turn two we can start reaping in the benefits with an Aura like Eel Umbra to provide a benefit.

Speaking of flash Aura, Fae Flight is also a solid card to include because when it enters the battlefield it gives the enchanted creature hexproof until the end of turn while also generally giving +1/+0 and flying to help Nashi get damage through.

There also happens to be Demonic Embrace, which gives the enchanted creature +3/+1, flying, makes it a Demon among its other types, and we may cast it from our graveyard if we pay 3 life and discard a card in addition to its other costs.

We can also get the benefit of enchantment creatures like Overlord of the Floodpits, which when it enters or attacks we can draw two cards and then discard a card and rather than having to cast it for five mana, we can cast it with Impending for three mana and give it 4 turns to come onto the battlefield as a creature.

To further get use from our enchantments we can use Fear of Infinity, which has flying and lifelink, can’t block, and an Eerie in which whenever an enchantment we control enters and whenever we fully unlock a Room, we may return Fear of Infinity from the graveyard to our hand,

Whenever Grim Guardian or another enchantment we control enters each opponent loses 1 life, Fear of Sleep Paralysis has an Eerie ability whichs taps up to one target creature and puts a stun counter on it and prevents stun counters our opponents have on permanents unable to be removed, and Enduring Curiosity which has it where whenever a creature we control deals combat damage to a player we draw a card that can be cast with flash and can return as an enchantment when it dies.

The next thing we need to look for are the legendary creatures that will help us gain benefits from milling cards.

Raul, Trouble Shooter is a solid card for us that allows us to once on each of our turns, cast a spell from among cards in our graveyard that were milled this turn while also being able to tap to have each player mill a card. This is great for cards that we milled but can’t put back into our hand because it isn’t a legendary card or an enchantment but still want to cast.

Rona, Herald of Invasion can be used as a way to get cards into the our hand and into our graveyard, while also untapping herself whenever we cast a legendary spell and can transform into Rona, Tolarian Obliterator which has it where whenever a source deals damage to Rona, that source’s controller exiles a card from their hand at random and it its a land card we can put it onto the battlefield under our control, otherwise we can cast it without paying its mana cost.

Since we happen to be milling a lot of cards, The Ancient One will also serve us well because it is a two mana 8/8 that wouldn’t normally be able to attack or block unless we have eight or more permanent cards in our graveyard and we can pay four mana to draw a card and discard a card then have target player mill cards equal to the mana value of the discarded card.

Ertai Resurrected serves us well as a flash creature that when it enters the battlefield we can either counter target spell, activated ability, or triggered ability while having its controller draw a card or destroy another target creature or Planeswalker while again having its controller draw a card.

The last thing we need are ways to win the game, ideally in a way that we can manage failry easily.

Since our deck relies on us dealing combat damage, we can win via a Voltron type strategy. Wrecking Ball Arm is a legendary artifact that we can retrieve with Nashi and can Equip legendary creature for three mana to give the equipped creature base power and toughness 7/7 and can’t be blocked by creatures with power 2 or less.

If we are going up against an opponent with larger creatures, then we can use Conformer Shuriken, which whenever the equipped creature attacks we tap a creature that the defending player controls, and if that creature has greater power then the equipped creature, we put a number of +1/+1 counters on the equipped creature equal to the difference.

We also happen to be putting a lot of cards in our hand due to Nashi’s ability, so Nerd Rage is also a solid option because it let’s us draw two more cards, has it so that we have no maximum hand size, and if we have ten or more cards in our hand, the the enchanted creature get +10/+10 until end of turn when it attacks.

Auramancer’s Guise is a great card if we happen to lean more in the Aura route since it gives the enchanted creature +2/+2 for each Aura that is attached to it while also giving it vigilance.

Once Nashi’s power gets big enough, we have a chance at using The Dominion Bracelet, which gives the equipped creature +1/+1 and for fifteen mana and exile The Dominion Bracelet, we can control target opponent on their next turn and the ability gets X cheaper where X is the equipped creatures power.

Nashi is a value Commander, very clearly since he can get legendary cards and enchantments into our hand if it deals combat damage, and since he is a two mana Commander, this is much easier than expected, especially since even if we don’t get a hit Nashi gets bigger and bigger.

The issues come with making sure that Nashi stays in play long enough for us to deal damage to our opponents, and Nashi can very easily be the target of early removal from our opponents, which can make things difficult in the early game if we start pulling ahead too quickly.

Since we are in blue and black we have access to counter spells and removal spells, but we also risk losing them to Nashi’s milling, which we can mitigate somewhat, but not for very long.

The interesting thing about Nashi is that we can include no enchantments or legendary cards in the deck and be pure Voltron, adding +1/+1 counters on him in order to get him big enough to win via Commander damage, but losing out on the synergies and potentially cool strategies that are involved with legendary cards and enchantment cards are too hard to pass up.

With the sheer density of both in this deck, there are going to be plenty of turns where we may refuse putting more cards in our hand because it benefits us more to keep them in the graveyard or out of our hand, but that is talk for a different deck and play style.

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

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual