Tifa, Martial Artist Extra Combats

Commander Overview

Tifa is a true Naya powerhouse, and if you love combat, then this is certainly the deck for you. This deck excels at one thing, and that’s swinging as much as we possibly can, which is super easy to do with not only Tifa but with so many of our other cards. Getting to seven power on one of our creatures is very easy to do in this deck so we can trigger Tifa’s ability quite often. Tifa truly feels like a Naya commander, and with our board of powerful attackers, getting multiple extra combats can end the game very quickly, often in just a few turns when hitting the late-game. This is a perfect deck for anyone who is looking to swing as much as they can with big and buffed-up creatures.

How to Play the Deck

This has a pretty typical Naya game plan, we spend a majority of our early-game building up a board and preparing for bigger and better creatures, the beauty of this deck is that we don’t need to be attacking a ton, once we have a decent board built up and can trigger Tifa/ use our other extra combat cards we can hit like a truck. This deck is a lot more focused on huge attacks all in a turn, with our extra combats as opposed to whittling our opponents down.

Synergy’s in the deck

Since our whole deck is about taking extra combats, we naturally have a lot of cards that assist with that, whether it’s Combat Celebrant or Aurelia, the Warleader. We are very good at attacking a lot. While our creatures are not always super huge, we do have cards like Pathbreaker Ibex or Xenagos, God of Revels/Zopandrel, Hunger Dominus which can make our average creatures into true powerhouses. The deck synergizes very well.

Phases of the Game

Early-Game: This is truly our setup phase, we don’t care about much else during this phase then ramping, we don’t try to rush out Tifa we are ok with just committing strong support creatures like Bugenhagen, Wise Elder which is a cheap mana dork but in the late-game can be a consistent source of card draw. Early-game is pretty quiet for us; we don’t care that much about what our opponents are doing at this stage of the game.

Mid-Game: Since we spend a decent amount of time ramping in the early-game, our mid-game is quite accelerated this is when we drop Tifa as well as more extra combat cards like Anzrag, the Quake-Mole or Aurelia, the Warleader both of these allow us to be huge threats in combat, especially if we ramp into some of our best creatures like Pathbreaker Ibex or Quilled Greatwurm which get bigger and bigger the more combats we have. In my testing games, I killed a lot of people during the mid-game.

Late-Game: It is quite hard for our opponents to stop us when we get to the late-game, we typically have a huge board and a straightforward path to get multiple combats in a turn, with cards like Moraug, Fury of Akoum our creatures can get a huge buff over our multiple combats allowing us to get stronger and stronger during each one of our combats. Since we have a powerful board presence, we can end games quickly with the help of cards like Overwhelming Stampede. This card ends games even if we have only one combat, but since we have so many, it can get very wild. This card can easily set up some one-shots on the rest of the table. Akroma’s Will is another late-game card that can allow us to kill the whole table on our turn. Since we almost always control Tifa, we get both of its modes nearly every time. The late game is very good for us; we only get better the longer the game goes on.

Card Breakdowns

Ramp

Ramp is a strength of our deck, being in Naya makes ramping a bunch pretty easy. We do have a decently manageable overall cost throughout the deck, capping at around seven, so we aren’t like some decks where we pretty much only ramp. Still, we can get our gameplan out there quite quickly with the help of Cultivate, Kodama’s Reach, and Explosive Vegetation. We also establish our creature ramp early with Avacyn’s Pilgrim, Elvish Mystic, and Birds of Paradise. We also have a lot of payoffs for our ramp, obviously being both Tifa and our big creatures. It can feel really nice to drop great support cards early as well, like Annie Joins Up or Nature’s Will. Ramp is a big part of our deck and fuels our overall gameplan.

Card Draw/Card Advantage

We don’t have a lot of card draw in the deck, we do have some that works very well, like Beast Whisperer, which is a very consistent source of card draw for us since we cast a ton of creatures and typically have a decent amount of mana. This card draw can be great for our deck. We also have Garruk’s Uprising, which can be a consistent source of card draw. Giving our creatures trample is great as well. Kutzil, Malamet Exemplar is a source of card draw that we do have to be ahead to take full advantage of but it can be great for us. We don’t have a ton of card draw, we are ok with just drawing one a turn, as we get so much better if the game goes long.

Removal

We are best at removing our opponents stuff through combat but do have some direct removal that is helpful like Stroke of Midnight and Swords to Plowshares, we don’t have a lot of removal so I do save it for the most valuable targets typically an opponents commander but the threats in your games will vary, remember we aren’t super heavy on removal. We are poised strongly against creature decks, and we are great in combat against them.

Protection

We are typically seen as a big threat at the table, sometimes even before the game starts. People get a little squirrelly around Tifa, which isn’t surprising, given that our commander is an absolute powerhouse. The rest of the deck is even crazier because of those board wipes and removals coming our way a bit. We do have a few ways to fight back against both. We fight board wipes with Heroic Intervention. It feels amazing to have everyone else’s stuff blow up. At the same time, we stay with a full board. We also have Snakeskin Veil and Tamiyo’s Safekeeping, which can be great responses to single-target removal. Since we have Tifa on the field for a large majority of the game, Flawless Maneuver is a great free way to protect us from a bad combat or board wipe. We don’t have a ton of protection in the deck, but if we save it for nasty threats, we can have no trouble throughout a game.

Utility / Support

Extra combats truly is the name of the game so you know we had to come through with cards like Aggravated Assault which is not only a combo piece with Nature’s Will but if we have enough mana is very easy to activate on its own, combining this with Tifa can make us so hard to deal with. Since we have extra combats, we need big damage, so having Pathbreaker Ibex is perfect for our deck. Triggering this once is quite insane, but doing it twice is truly ridiculous, and if an opponent has no blockers, it can end the game easily. Moraug, Fury of Akoum is another card that keeps getting better as we have more combats, and with so many ways to get more combats like Bloodthirster or Aurelia, the Warleader, it’s very easy to do. I also love Adriana, Captain of the Guard. She not only helps if we attack multiple opponents, but this also works on our subsequent combats, allowing us to be a lot more threatening to our opponents.

We have a lot of creatures, but chump blocking is absolutely a big thing in the format. Hence, we need ways to get through. Garruk’s Uprising is a cheap and easy way to give our creatures trample and allow us to hit. I also love Zopandrel, Hunger Dominus. We have a lot of creatures on the board at any given time, so doubling them can be simply insane. Lastly, I want to talk about our opponents disrupting us, with cards like Kutzil, Malamet Exemplar and Voice of Victory. They can’t touch us during our turn, which is when we are most vulnerable and typically don’t have protection mana up. Both of these are true assets for the deck.

Mana Base

We don’t have anything interesting going on in our mana base. As we always do, we have all the on-color shocks and fetches. These allow us to get our mana/colors out early. We don’t have any interesting non-basics, just an efficient mana base that I had no trouble with during testing.

Win Conditions

Our only win condition is combat, and as many combats as we possibly can in a turn, we don’t have any other way to end the game.

Strengths of the Deck

If we can untap with Tifa or any of our other extra combat cards and a big board, we can easily end the game.

We are great in combat, whether we are attacking or blocking; it can be very tough for our opponents to attack into us.

Weaknesses of the Deck

We are typically seen as the threat even in the early-game because of Tifa and how easy it is to get extra combats.

Aggressive decks can put a decent amount of early-game pressure on us; having a low life total if we don’t have a great game can be very tough.

Combos Explained

Deck Testing/Matchups

I tested this deck against three different decks

Game 1: Vs The Mycotyrant. Matchup Record: 3-1

I liked this matchup a lot, trample is absolutely key in this matchup since Mycotyrant and their gameplan allow for a lot of chump blocking, but if we play our gameplan and have trample, this matchup is very easy. Be aware of heavy removal and try to keep your protection up, and you will be just fine in this matchup.

Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Garruk’s Uprising, Beastmaster Ascension and Iroas, God of Victory.

Game 2: Vs Kwain, Itinerant Meddler. Matchup Record: 2-2

Wheels aren’t great for us since we do have really any recursion and we don’t want to discard a ton of our cards but this matchup is winnable, being more aggressive and focusing on the Kwain player as much as we can is key, they can wheel us out of the game a lot and have the bounce/counterspells to shut us down. Be aggressive and hit hard.

Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Snakeskin Veil, Karlach, Fury of Avernus and Lightning, Army of One

Game 3: Vs General Marhault Elsdragon. Matchup Record: 4-1

Marhault is a very aggressive deck; they typically don’t hit super hard, but do hit a lot. Because of that, we often don’t block them. That was how I handled it when I played them. It worked very well; they have a lot of trouble contending with our board, and blocking only makes their cards better, so I did my best not to do it. Just be aggressive back!

Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Cultivate, Combat Celebrant and Skyhunter Strike Force.

Conclusion

Thanks so much for reading to the end! Tifa is such a cool commander, and hitting that lucky number seven is easy. I love how much this deck feels like a true Naya deck, big stuff and big swings a bunch of times in the same turn is just great. This deck is a blast to play and is quite effective against a lot of decks in the format.