Commander Inspiration: Ring Wraiths - Lord of the Nazgûl

“Magictating” is defined as getting into the zone with your Magic the Gathering collection--thinking, planning, organizing, reminiscing about past games, and imagining future games. It is a combination of hard thinking about the game and calm meditation, reveling in the joy it brings you.

The Wraith Anecdote

Let's pretend it is 1996, and you've just lost another game to someone's Nightmare. Let's pretend that you were holding a Terror in your hand the whole game, and that your Sengir Vampires were horribly outclassed after turn six rolled around. Now, you went back to the drawing board and found some swampwalking creatures to make your friend pay for all those powerful swamps they were rocking. Let's say you even found a Lifelink or two to toss into your deck, so your Bog Wraith and your pumpable Dirtwater Wraith from that sweet new Mirage set can combine their powers to swampwalk all over your buddy's powerful Swamp laden deck. Eventually, you'll get outclassed again, but for a month or so you got to live the dream with your swampwalking wraiths. Now, nearly 27 years later you can finally make a deck dedicated to those wraiths. No, not just a cameo appearance for them, but a full-fledged deck! I'm here to let you know that you can have a powerful, fun, and oddly quirky tribal wraiths deck without breaking your bank, and all while doing some very sneakily powerful plays. Your friends won't know what hit them…especially if they're playing swamps!

The Commander

The Lord of the Nazgul is the most exciting and best commander for wraith tribal ever made. Yes, yes, it is possibly the only one made for it, but technically it could be Witch-king of Angmar or even Witch-king, Bringer of Ruin, potentially. The lynch-pin of this deck will be our Commander, as we are going to use and abuse Lord of the Nazgul to crank out a game ending army that crushes all those who might be foolish enough to oppose us!

Not Enough Wraiths

To be totally honest with you, it is difficult to construct a tribal themed deck when we only have 10 other wraiths to add to the deck beyond our commander. Well, that's honestly fine, as we get 8 more wraiths from being allowed to include nine total Nazgul. Yet, 18 creatures seems pretty slim, so we will be leaning into those changelings to round out our wraith army. Sure, it might seem a bit cheesy at first, but there are several changelings that really would love a chance to be tempted by the rings of power and fall into our menacing clutches.

We're actually going to run all of the original wraiths, and part of the reason we are doing that is that we are going to have a secret plan to make most of our original wraiths unblockable. Five of the original wraiths all have swampwalk, and that's actually going to be something that matters later on. We'll look more into this when I discuss those changeling pieces in the next section. I will just take a moment to point out that we will not only have menacing wraith tokens, but we may likely have copies of these original wraiths with swampwalk, and that will allow us to use Political Trickery, Shifting Borders, and Shifting Loyalties to suddenly make all of our 9/9 wraiths unblockable. It really only takes 3-4 wraiths to nix most players by the time we get around to closing the game out. More on this in just a bit.

Critical Mass

This is going to be the sort of deck that can reach critical mass pretty darn quickly. It only takes a few of these synergies to hit the table and you'll suddenly be able to close a game out in no time. The Nazgul and the Lord of the Nazgul have awesome synergies. There is one other legend that we really need to include in this deck to reach an absurd level of critical mass, and that's Orvar, the All-Form. Orvar allows us to leverage some pretty niche cards to create a ridiculous army alongside our Lord of the Nazgul. We get to employ not just sneaky, tricksy, nasty little spells like Political Trickery and Shifting Borders to make things unblockable, but we also get to crank out tons of wraiths by using targeting instants and sorceries that have a fun little mechanic called buyback. If you've got Orvar out alongside the Lord of the Nazgul, then you get to use cards like Imps' Taunt, Clockspinning, Mind Games, and (MVP of the deck) Whim of Volrath to make an incredibly powerful board in short order.

Changelings Want to be Wraiths

Seriously, look at Bloodline Pretender, Ghostly Changeling, Changeling Outcast, Skeletal Changeling, and Venomous Changeling. Now, can you tell me those things don't want to be wraiths and wield the rings of power? However, Orvar, the All-Form helps to not only round out the creatures we need to bring our creature count up to a respectable and appropriate amount; Orvar breaks this deck wide open. If you've got Orvar and Lord of the Nazgul in play things get crazy powerful in a hurry. Let's say you go ahead and cast Imps' Taunt on your opponent's end step targeting one of your nine Nazgul.  You get a 3/3 wraith from Lord of the Nazgul, another Nazgul token from Orvar, you get tempted by the ring, you put +1/+1 counters on your Nazgul, and then you buyback Imps' Taunt you can then repeat it all again. Since this spell is an instant it is like giving your creatures haste. Now, on your own turn you can easily target your own Lord of the Nazgul. If you happen to run a Mirror Gallery or some other legend rule nixing shenanigans, then you can really make things incredibly gross in a hurry. Overall, Orvar is the key to exploding your board position into an overwhelming state in a hurry. If you decide to run many of the buyback spells, then you may want to consider Memory Crystal as well. Triggering your Lord of the Nazgul is a wonderful thing, and when you get to do it reliably each turn you are in an amazing position to win games in short order.

Graveshifter and Littjara Kinseekers are both excellent changelings that synergize incredibly well with the rest of the deck's cards. These are ways to crank out card advantage and threat size respectively. Maskwood Nexus is another way to crank out the wraith tokens. Once you are able to copy your Nazgul you can start growing your wraith army in short order. This means spells that copy creatures are even better in this deck, as those spells not only create new Nazgul to help double up the +1/+1 counters, but also create extra 3/3 menacing wraiths from the Lord of the Nazgul. You'll be surprised just how quickly you are able to amass a murder of wraiths. Yeah, I'm using the crow grouping term…I think it fits. So, soon enough you'll be murdering your opponents with wraiths galore. Also, don't forget to use Whim of Volrath to target your swampwalking wraiths to make extra copies of them, and then also get menacing copies as well. A little Political Trickery and you'll be swinging for lethal in short order.

Copy them All-Form

So, yeah, you want to use Orvar in combination with targeting buyback spells like Whim, Imps' Taunt, Mind Games, and Clockspinning. Meanwhile, using any buyback spell along with our commander will keep us cranking out the 3/3 menacing wraiths. Using this to create a powerful board state is key to making a difference in our ability to take a game to the end. The other buyback baddies that can help you close out games in a hurry include Demonic Collusion, Capsize (with buyback), and Walk the Aeons. Tutoring, bouncing, and extra turns are all some the strongest things you can do in a commander game. That's why being able to repeat these effects is incredibly powerful. Being able to tack on additional tokens, doubling those tokens, or even just pumping up those tokens is so powerful. It's fun to swing with wraiths, and when you've got multiple Nazgul in play you are going to be awfully tempted to keep copying them. Trust me. The beauty of those +1/+1 counters is really going to shine when you manage to resolve your ninth wraith into play with Lord of the Nazgul and make them all base power and toughness 9/9. It's likely possible you'll be able to swing for lethal at someone with just two or three of your nine plus creatures. That's going to be a beautiful moment. Packing cards like Disturbed Burial and Graveshifter will help you rebuild your board state after people's inevitable board wiping shenanigans. Other incredibly fun cards to double up on your wraiths include cards like Body Double, Clone, Quasiduplicate, Rite of Replication, Cackling Counterpart, Irenicus's Vile Duplication (use it on your Lord of the Nazgul or even Orvar, the All-Form for gross effects) and even Stolen Identity (which can really shine in a deck with unblockable creatures).

Get Going Already

So, if you're not amped up about building a wraith deck that copies your Nazgul, uses Orvar to double up on wraith output, and abuses the triggers off your Lord of the Nazgul, then I guess you're not out to murder innocent hobbits for power. Huh, well, that's too bad if that's you, because you are going to be in the way of the rest of us destroying all that oppose our master's rise to power. The one ring will be ours, and I pity any fool that doesn't ride out with the wraiths to claim what is ours. In the meantime, may the wraiths, the ring, and the cards be ever in your favor, my wraithful friends.