Commander Overview
In my infinite quest to build EDH decks that are truly fun for the whole table we have landed on Nelly Borca a card that is very interesting and is a true Boros powerhouse, but not in the way you would expect, Nelly is quite interesting because they don’t really play like a Boros deck but do have a lot of elements of Boros, we have all of the combat pieces in there but overall we don’t want to be involved, our ultimate goal for this deck is force our opponents to kill each other until its just us and one other player, and when that happens we clean up the game and sneak the win! We love protecting ourselves with things like Crawlspace and hurting our opponents with stuff like Duelist's Heritage. This deck is different from a lot of decks, but it’s a ton of fun for us. For our opponents, not as much, but hey, that’s not our problem.
EDH BRACKET
The average current preconstructed deck.
- No Mass Land Denial
- No Chaining Extra Turns
- No 2-Card Infinite Combos
- No Game Changers
- Few Tutors
How to Play the Deck
This deck has quite a bit of decision making in it, choosing what to Goad, Suspect and choosing what to buff with cards like Duelist's Heritage presents a lot of choices, because of this and the overall complicated nature of the deck I would not recommend this deck for a new player, I think it would be better suited to an intermediate player who has a strong understanding of the rules.
Synergy’s in the deck
Our whole deck is synergized around forcing combats on our opponents which is why we have cards like Alexios, Deimos of Kosmos which is a true nightmare that never goes away and can be a huge source of damage for us and whittle down our opponents a lot, its even better if paired with something like Gisela, Blade of Goldnight which makes the damage even crazier. We also have spells like Taunt from the Rampart and Disrupt Decorum, which can cause true chaos on the table and make sure it only goes against our opponents. We have a lot of different ways to make our opponents attack each other.
Phases of the Game
Early-Game: We are not super impressive in the early-game, we do have some cheap cards like Blind Obedience and Bloodthirsty Blade which can help sow some chaos in the early-game, but overall we don’t do much here, most opponents don’t have enough creatures for us to mess with them.
Mid-Game: The mid-game is where things start to get better for us, being able to start messing with our opponents and suggesting they attack our opponents instead of us, we have cards like Curse of Opulence which at this stage of the game is more than enough to sway our opponents, and if it doesn’t work we can make sure they don’t with cards like Norn's Annex, Windborn Muse and Ghostly Prison which can make it nearly impossible to attack us.
Late-Game: We love the late-game! We are a deck who wants to be in the late-game this is when we can drop Gisela, Blade of Goldnight or Fiendish Duo and accelerate our opponents killing each other, when we only have one opponent left we can get a lot of usage out of Insurrection or just attack and hit them hard, we are much better at fighting one person instead of three.
Card Breakdowns
Ramp
This is a tough aspect of our deck; we do not have a lot of ramp in the deck. We are a deck that mostly plays our land a turn and does what we can. We do have some mana rocks like Talisman of Conviction, but we don’t always have them, so it’s not something we can count on.
Card Draw/Card Advantage
This is another pretty weak aspect of Boros, but we do have some sources like Smuggler's Share, which is great against a variety of decks in the format since there is a ton of card draw in many decks. Nelly has a huge role in our deck, so Tome of Legends is an efficient source of card draw and is always good for a cheap extra card every turn. We attack with Nelly whenever we have the opportunity. While we don’t have a ton of card draw, we’re already alright with the fact that the deck is slower, so we are more than ok to go at a slower pace.
Removal
This is an extremely strong aspect of our deck, if opponents are too fast they can outpace us before we can sow combat-based chaos at the table, because of this we have to slow them down so having access to Chain Reaction, Blasphemous Act and Split Up allows us to slow down the game especially early. While we are great at board wipes, we also have a couple of sources of single-target removal that can be really strong, like Path to Exile and Swords to Plowshares, just cheap and efficient removal for the deck!
Protection
We are quite good at protecting ourself and our stuff, cards like Norn's Annex and Ghostly Prison allow us to keep our life total high and make it quite difficult to attack us and Take the Bait and Mandate of Peace can make sure an opponent who actually manages to attack us doesn’t succeed at it! I also love Deflecting Palm, which can absolutely be a win condition and kill an opponent depending on what they are attacking with, perfect against Voltron strategies!
Utility / Support
Let’s highlight some of my favorite cards in the deck! I love both Brash Taunter and Boros Reckoner are great blockers if our opponents can actually attack us, and can be a great way to point the damage at an opponent, which supports the overall game plan very well. Life of the Party is a very cool attacker and a truly insane card that can cause a lot of chaos for our opponents since their tokens are goaded for the rest of the game. Komainu Battle Armor is another card that is just crazy in our deck, and if an opponent swings out and allows us to hit them with this, we can ruin their next combat. Lastly, I want to highlight Bothersome Quasit, which is a perfect card for our deck and can allow the damage output our opponents throw at each other to be absolutely insane.
Mana Base
We have a very simple manabase within the deck, but we do have some cool non-basics like Rogue's Passage, which doesn’t have a ton of usage in the early/mid-game but can be great when only one opponent is left, and we need to hit them to whittle them down. Lastly, I want to highlight Sunhome, Fortress of the Legion, which is a double strike land that is easy for us to use in the late-game. We have a simple mana base, but it is quite efficient. In all of my testing games, I didn’t have any trouble with mana flood or screw.
Win Conditions
Our primary win conditions in this deck are combat, but not like most decks, we do attack a lot, especially with Nelly. Still, overall, we aren’t going for a big swing. Once our opponents are good and injured, and there’s only one left, that’s when we start getting a lot more aggressive. Even though our only win condition is combat, it plays a lot differently than our other decks. Insurrection is another card that can totally be used as a win condition, but, like the rest of our win conditions, it depends on what our opponents have.
Strengths of the Deck
We are great at forcing our opponents to attack each other and, more importantly, keeping them from attacking us.
We can really accelerate our opponents killing each other, we have access to cards like Agitator Ant and Duelist's Heritage, which can output a ton of damage.
Weaknesses of the Deck
We are a slow deck. While we can impact the game a bit in the early turns, we have next to no ramp since we are in Boros, and it does take a bit for us to keep going.
We have horrendous matchups against non-creature decks; we don’t really do much against them.
Deck Testing/Matchups
I tested this deck against three different decks
Game 1: Vs Shroofus Sproutsire. Matchup Record: 4-1
This was a great matchup for the deck and the exact kind of deck we want to face when we are playing Nelly. The one game I did end up losing was because they had an extremely fast start and got a very quick Shroofus commander damage kill on us.
Still, overall, we are great against this deck. We love Shroofus and love making him and all of his tokens hit our opponents!
Cards that worked really well in this matchup:.
Disrupt Decorum, Crawlspace and Norn's Annex.
Game 2: Vs Alela, Cunning Conqueror. Matchup Record: 2-2
This was a very interesting matchup for our deck, since our decks are basically trying to do the same thing. The only reason I don’t give myself the edge in this one is that Alela is in Dimir. We are in Boros, they have a lot more control elements and can easily disrupt our overall game plan. This is a tough matchup for us.
Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Chain Reaction, Mob Rule and Taunt from the Rampart.
Game 3: Vs Selvala, Eager Trailblazer. Matchup Record: 3-2
This was a firmly alright matchup for the deck. The only reason it was semi-bad is that they are just a lot faster than we are. Being faster can be truly problematic for us. Our board wipes are effective in this matchup, but they tend to have a decent amount of protection.
Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Luminarch Ascension, Smoke and Windcrag Siege.
Conclusion
Thanks so much for reading to the end! I hope you all enjoyed this one. This was a very interesting deck and definitely a little bit out of my comfort zone, as I had never really played a deck of this style, but overall it went really well. As someone who plays a lot of combat-heavy decks, this was a breath of fresh air. I loved playing wargames with my opponents and controlling who they could attack. While this deck is different, it doesn’t lose any of its fun.