>Introduction

Hey, I'm Rinzler! I haven't been playing Magic for as long as many of you here, I got interested in commander around War of the Spark, and before that, I was messing around with friends and random janky constructed decks. Sadly, I don't have enough money to throw around on expensive pieces of cardboard, so the majority of the decks I own are played solely online. This is one of my personal favorites, and I hope you enjoy!

>Power Level

This deck is at about a 6 or 7 in power level, and a tutor and a heavy protection package aren't included as I don't like to cream people every game, especially since this deck probably couldn't fit into cEDH well even if it was fully optimized, so it leans more towards casual play. If not dealt with early, this deck is a runaway train and can make absurd amounts of mana. In casual games, It should be able to be stopped, which is why there isn't an enormous protection suite. I allow for some disruption to happen so I don't run away with the game. Even then, I've lost 2 games with this deck total. It just explodes and wins in a turn or two after setting up. If you want to improve the power level of this deck, you should include Gamble, Pyroblast, and Red Elemental Blast, as well as ways to reliably find Boseiju, like Expedition Map. Other choices would be to include more powerful rocks like Mana Crypt, Mana Vault, and some of the moxen.

>Why should you play Neheb?

Neheb, the Eternal is a commander that pays off when red does what red wants to do: dealing damage. He can turn each small burn spell into massive amounts of mana, and he gives you the gas you need to viably burn people into cinders. This deck is very fun to play because of the amount of freedom that Neheb can give you with the amount of mana he generates. If you want an answer to all your burning questions (get it?) look no further.

>Why shouldn't you play Neheb?

First and foremost, this deck is mono-red, which while fun, has several problems that can make it outclassed in ramp and draw by most decks that play green or blue, and most decks with several colors. We depend very heavily on our commander as well as rocks and doublers to ramp us, and If someone plays a single Vandalblast on a good board state or a Song of the Dryads targeting our commander, we are in a serious pickle as we have no enchantment removal and a very slow recovery.

>Gameplan

Basically, what we want to do it get Neheb out as early as possible, with a group damage spell in our hand (ex. Flamerift) so we can make mana and play some big spells. Ideally, we want to aggressively wheel and draw to look for ways to close out the game, if you don't already have one in your hand. You often need to think about exactly what you are going to do before you do it, as there are so many options to take each turn. The ideal card to run into when drawing is Aggravated Assault, but you don't need that card to make huge amounts of mana. When you have enough mana, ideally use an x-spell (ex. Jaya's Immolating Inferno) to win the game. If you can't do that, then try to advance your board state as much as possible to set up for the win in the future. This deck is at its strongest when there are 4 people, so try to accelerate early as much as possible, before your opponents start to die off and you lose mana making potential.

>Single Card Discussion

>Mana Base

Snow-Covered Mountains - We're running these just in case other people have mountains and we have an Extraplanar Lens, so only we get the benefit of extra mana.

Boseiju, Who Shelters All - A colorless tap land isn't bad when it protects your stuff, especially since red doesn't have much in the way of protection, and 2 life isn't much in the grand scheme of things for such a great benefit that we need to ensure we can close out the game.

Ramunap Ruins - This card seems mediocre when it comes to dealing damage, but sometimes, you need that extra mana, and paired with damage doublers, this card really shines. Just make sure you only activate it when you need it, as you will be a land down the rest of the game.

Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle - This guy nets you 9 free mana every turn after turn 6, which is the turn right after Neheb comes out, worst-case scenario. The floor on this guy is fantastic, and the downsides of it being a tap land are negligible since we're running so few.

Forgotten Cave - It can cycle away if we don't need it, which is nice, and even though its a tapland, it is only 1 of 3 total.

Ancient Tomb - It taps for 2, and can accelerate us into our commander faster.

Cavern of Souls - It guarantees us that we will successfully cast Neheb, which is important.

Valakut Awakening // Valakut Stoneforge - A good selective wheel when we need it, and a land when we don't.

>Normal Ramp

Arcane Signet, Mind Stone, Sol Ring, Commander's Sphere - This deck needs absurd amounts of mana to function, and these guys form the backbone of our non-land mana production. Mind Stone and Commander's Sphere can also give us cards in a pinch.

Cryptolith Fragment // Aurora of Emrakul - This absolutely gets a spot in this deck because of how it both generates mana by tapping and also deals damage which Neheb can convert to mana on our second main phase, and if you get it to flip, then it makes twice the amount of mana it did before!

Everflowing Chalice - At worst a two-drop mana rock, you can feed it un-needed mana that it will repay you with later on. I love this card.

Gauntlet of Might, Extraplanar lens, Strionic resonator, Doubling cube, Helm of the Host - These guys double your mana in various ways and can generate huge piles of mana.

Pyromancer's Goggles - A mana rock that doubles stuff? Yes, please!

Ruby Medallion - A solid card, it can let you play x-spells for less, which can make all the difference.

Primal Amulet // Primal Wellspring - The love child of the goggles and the medallion, it's decent until you flip it, then it gets more fun. This thing with doubling cube lets you copy a spell twice!

Generator Servant - Lets you power out Neheb 2 turns early, and also gives him haste so he can swing and make some mana.

>Damage Ramp

Acidic Soil, Price of progress - These two absolutely shine in EDH, as tons of ramp and non-basic lands are everywhere. The value on these is wonderful.

Flame Rift, Flamebreak, Breath of Darigaaz, Slagstorm - These guys are the ones that make this deck work. They're basic but necessary.

Heartless Hidetsugu - I love this card. He makes nuts amounts of mana and ends games on the spot under the right conditions.

Sundering stroke - It makes 21 mana if you spend only red mana on it. That's enough for me.

Pyrohemia - This is a beast, it destroys token decks and gives you complete control on what you want to do. It's just fantastic.

Thermo-Alchemist - Dings the table and makes 3 free mana each turn at least. Not bad!

Guttersnipe - Most of our deck is instants and sorceries, and that means that he will trigger very often, getting us 6 mana each time.

>Extra Damage

Fiery Emancipation - For 6 mana, we can triple our damage, and also mana creation, for anything that we do that damages our opponents. Fantastic card.

Torbran, Thane of Red Fell - Two may seem incremental, but a Flame Rift that deals 6 instead of 4 can make all the difference in the world.

Insult // Injury - One of my favorite cards from Amonkhet, it gives us flexibility with the option to deal damage with its aftermath ability to get the ball rolling.

Quest for Pure Flame - A card that isn't very hard to activate and doubles damage is perfect and is amazing early game. Later in the game, it starts to lose its appeal a bit, although at 1 mana, it's not an enormous investment.

Bonus Round - A great option to double spells for an entire turn, but be careful, as your opponents can also take advantage of this.

Increasing Vengeance - The only Fork effect I'm putting in here for now, it's in here for its ability to be used twice, with a benefit the second time.

>Draw and Wheels

Apex of Power: Getting this into exile with something like a Commune with Lava is a feel-bad, but most of the time, you'll be able to play this from your hand and get your mana back while also looking for cards to play. Very solid.

Faithless Looting - The generic draw-type effects that red has isn't as good as real draw, but it works.

Neheb, Dreadhorde Champion - He deals damage, makes mana, and refreshes dead cards. It hits all the bases.

Wheel of Fortune - When you have tons of mana, you tend to cast most of the cards in your hand, wheel of fortune gives you new gas to run with.

Knollspine dragon - This can give you an absurd number of cards if you play it after combat.

Khorvath's Fury, Molten Psyche - These guys aren't as good wheels as the first two, but they deal damage, which paired with the new hand, can give you what you need.

Commune with Lava - An amazing draw spell that lets you play cards until the end of your next turn, which is huge. You can refill, set up, and then pop off.

Light Up the Stage - Another exiling "draw" spell that works just as well as Commune with Lava, and can almost always be cast for just 1 red mana.

Endless Atlas - We run a lot of mountains here, and since we're a mono-colored deck, getting 3 mountains out isn't very hard.

Sword of Fire and Ice - This provides double duty, getting us a card and 2 extra mana each time Neheb connects.

Tome of Legends - This gives us a card per turn if we can attack with Neheb, pretty solid.

Jeska's Will - It's a source of mana and a draw spell, so this card fits very well with what our deck needs!

>Interaction

Chaos Warp - The best red removal spell.

Swiftfoot Boots, Lightning Greaves - Good protection for Neheb.

Vandalblast - An amazing artifact removal spell that can be used however you wish.

>Flex Cards

Chandra, Torch of Defiance - This is my favorite Chandra planeswalker because of the utility it gives you. You can draw or get mana, both of which this deck can use very well. Her -7 is also a bonus if we can get there, but most of the time, she won't stay on the table for long, so make sure you use her well.

Fiery Confluence - A great modal spell that gives you the option of hitting creatures, artifacts, or making absurd amounts of mana.

Tectonic Giant - This was my favorite card from the new Theros, and it is very good here. Every turn you have a guaranteed 9 mana, and if someone removes it, you can draw cards off of it.

Leyline Tyrant - A fantastic red dragon that saves us a ton of mana! His ability lets us keep unspent red mana to use on later turns, and if he dies, we can use that saved mana as another x-spell before the mana goes away.

>Extra Combat

Aggravated Assault - Neheb can go infinite with this, as long as you have at least 6 mana, but I would advise having around 10 if you want to try to go infinite.

Seize the Day, World at War - These two grant extra combat steps and we can play them twice to get additional value.

>Recovery

Backdraft Hellkite, - This guy enables us to play our spells again from the graveyard when he attacks. This is great if we need to use that Fiery Confluence again so we can close out the game with a big x-spell.

Chandra, Acolyte of Flame - This Chandra is great at getting loyalty counters on both Planeswalkers, but if we need to cast another x-spell to close out the game and the only one we have is in our graveyard, we can cast them with her -2.

>Finishers

Kozilek, Butcher of Truth - When he hits the table, people tend to concede if they're not ready. With the massive amounts of mana we make, he can come down as early as turn 4, with mana to spare.

Comet Storm, Jaya's Immolating Inferno, Crackle with Power - These three are our ideal x-spells to use since we need less mana to deal large amounts of damage to each opponent.

Fall of the Titans - A very good finisher as we can almost always meet the surge condition, but since we can't hit all three players, be sure to have something else ready to go.

Inferno of the Star Mounts - A very fun, repeatable way to take out of opponents that can also attack! It's a little more fragile, but is much better than something like fireball.

Fanning the Flames - Not ideal for finishing the table on one play, this guy made the cut because it can be used again and again, useful if you have infinite combat steps and no draw.

>Exclusions

Fanatic of Mogis - We don't have enough devotion to red for this to be useful.

Magus of the Moon, Blood Moon - I don't feel mean enough to run these, and they will just make us a target. If you want to be more competitive though, then definitely include these.

Earthquake type effects - This deck is dependent on its commander, and we would want to be casting this for huge amounts, which would kill Neheb. Also, we don't want to take 20+ damage from our own spell, unless this is used to finish the table. If you decide to use this, be careful.

Hall of the Bandit Lord - This is 3 life every activation for a minimal benefit that isn't always useful.

Combustible Gearhulk, Sin Prodder - Both were in the deck at one point, but I didn't like how I almost always lost cards. We don't have enough recovery in the deck to have our opponents mill us each turn instead of drawing.

Stuff like Obsidian Fireheart (damage on upkeep) - Damage on other people's turns is burn, yes, but not the kind we want. We can't use that damage as mana, so it isn't here.

Howling mine - You don't get the benefit of the draw until an entire turn cycle goes by, and that's giving too much to our opponents. We have enough wheels as is that give enough cards.

Rituals (ex. Desperate Ritual) - Our damage spells are already rituals with Neheb. These don't damage our opponents and don't give us nearly the same amount of mana. The only one that I'm considering is seething song for a t3 Neheb, but I'm not even sure I need that, given the explosiveness of the deck.

One-shot extra combat steps like Relentless assault - I included the one-shot extra combat spells purely because the could happen twice. These aren't as good, cost basically the same, and do less.

Finale of Promise and other free cast effects - Free cast effects don't really matter much when most of our instants and sorceries are cheap. The only things we would really want to cast for free are the x-spells, and we can't do that.

Dictate of the Twin Gods, Furnace of Rath - These two are damage doublers, but they affect our opponents too, which isn't really ideal since they can(and will) take advantage of them. You have to wait a turn cycle before using them effectively or hold up mana on your turn to flash it out, which will mess up your turn.

Braid of Fire - We only have two instant-speed finishers that we can abuse this with, and one isn't actually that much of a finisher. Not worth it. I had this in at one point and never used the mana since it vanishes after the upkeep.

Basic Fork effects - We have a few fork effects in this deck already, but they aren't this basic. Damage doublers basically do the same job already and work for many more things. Maybe include these if you feel like piggybacking on tutors in more competitive pods.

Repercussion - We don't run quite enough spells that also hit creatures for this to be worth the include. It isn't bad, in fact it can be tremendous, but it just won't work as well as it can in this version of my deck.

>Opening Hands

The main thing we're looking for here is close to enough mana to get Neheb out, along with some sort of damage ramp spell to get rolling. 4 mana sources would be ideal, but 3 is fine if the hand offers everything that we need.

Here are some opening hands that I used Deckstats for:

>Hand 1: Ruby Medallion, Helm of the Host, Chaos Warp, Seize the Day, Mind Stone, 2x Snow-Covered Mountain

Mull. It seems good, but we have no way to ensure damage ramp and only 2 lands, with an expensive helmet as well. Good later-game draws, but not now.

>Hand 2: Swiftfoot Boots, Fireball, Comet Storm, Flamebreak, 3x Snow-Covered Mountain

This is a fairly greedy hand, with no way to ensure we can get Neheb out, but has damage ramp and finishers. I would keep here.

>Hand 3: Bonus Round, Neheb, Dreadhorde Champion, Doubling Cube, 4x Snow-Covered Mountain

Definite keep. This is great, giving you the doubling cube to ramp up mana production and the other Neheb to smooth draw and make mana. Bonus Round may not be needed here, but it could be helpful if you draw damage ramp, making you deal twice the amount of damage with that and with an x-spell later on that turn.

>Budget Options

The main thing making this deck expensive is the Gauntlet of Might, at 600 dollars. You should remove that for another doubler, of which there a few. Switching the Snow-covered mountains with normal ones is a no-brainer, as these mountains collectively cost $25 more than standard ones. Other expensive cards in here are Kozilek and several of the doublers, along with wheel of fortune. This deck focuses on big mana, so if you want to make a super budget version of this, it would be a bit hard to employ the same strategy, as many of the cards that make this deck produce as much mana as it does are expensive. If you want to play very, very cheap burn, check out Torbran Pingers.

>Conclusion

Neheb is a strong commander that uses this deck uses to great effect, even when powered down a bit. He is fun and forgiving to play, albeit somewhat complicated. I hope you enjoyed reading this because wow making this primer was harder than I thought.

Thanks for still being here and please tell me your questions and feedback in the comments!

>Changelog

>5/4/20

Primer finished and posted!

>5/5/20

A guy from Reddit got serious and gave me a big list of stuff to change, and I changed some and didn't change others.
Forgotten Cave & Ancient Tomb in, 2x Snow-Covered Mountains out.
Fall of the Titans in, Electrodominance out
Thermo-Alchemist in, Experimental Frenzy out. (This spot might change as I test several pingers)
Increasing Vengeance in, Tormenting Voice out.

For Morg:
Cavern of Souls in, Snow-Covered Mountain out.
Lightning Greaves in, Chandra, Flamecaller out.
Breath of Darigaaz in, Sizzle out.

>5/6/20

Added more draw power:
Endless Atlas in, Browbeat out.
Light up the Stage in, Thrill of Possibility out.
Tome of Legends in, Risk Factor out.
Sword of Fire and Ice in, Stolen Strategy out.

Other things:
Generator Servant in, Angrath's Marauders out.
Guttersnipe in, Fiendish Duo out.
Chandra, Acolyte of Flame in, Past in Flames out.

>5/10/20

We got approved! This is a legit primer now! Ayyy!

>12/6/20

Replacing Fire Servant with Fiery Emancipation. Emancipation triples our damage for everything at only one more mana than Fire Servant.
I'm playing with Leyline tyrant, trying to figure out what to take out for it. I really want to see what it can do.

>1/5/21

Replaced Drakuseth with Leyline tyrant. Drakuseth might find his way in later.

>1/15/21

Valakut Awakening // Valakut Stoneforge in, Snow-Covered Mountain out. This is an easy switch. One more tapland won't hurt us in the grand scheme of things when it has a great upside.

Jeska's Will in, Reforge the Soul out. Reforge the Soul can help others as well as us, and has no real upside to other wheels besides maybe getting a lucky miracle and a 2 mana wheel of fortune. Jeska's Will can pay for itself most of the time, which essentially means 3 free cards. Besides, Valakut Awakening // Valakut Stoneforge more or less replaces the roles of both a mountain and Reforge the Soul.

>Kaldheim Cards! (1/24/21)

Tibalt's Trickery - This is a risk/reward response to something, sort of like a chaos warp counterspell. However, this can massively backfire, and I'm not quite sure I want to play it just yet. The main upside to this spell is that it both counters a spell and negates any tutoring that the player has done. If you play this, try to only use it when you really need it. Otherwise, there is too much risk.
Toralf, God of Fury // Toralf's Hammer - Toralf is sort of a Repercussion on a stick. I'm including this here if you guys are running a heavier creature damage suite, with more earthquake effects. With a relatively small Earthquake or a kicked Breath of Darigaaz on a full board, Toralf can easily kill your opponents.
Tyrite Sanctum - Due to how slow it is and how much mana it takes to use, I won't include it, but if you need another way to protect Neheb, this may be the way to go.
Birgi, God of Storytelling // Harnfel, Horn of Bounty - The god side can be helpful, but the horn is much more useful in this deck. It can trade in a dead card from hand for two temporary ones in exile, which generates a ton of temporary card advantage. This is a great draw source to consider, just be sure you can take full advantage of those cards you exile
Quakebringer - This guy is pretty nice! He makes it so our opponents can't get their life back and he gives us 6 damage on upkeep, as well as having a 5/4 body that can swing in to make our potential mana gain from him 11 per turn! The Foretell mechanic also makes it so you can play it on turn 4 if you draw it early, which is handy.
Also, the new Snow-Covered Mountain card is amazing, although I don't know if it beats out the modern horizons full art lands. Those are perfection.

>7/22/21

Sorry, I havent been updating this primer much, I had drifted away from mtg a little and had nobody to play with, but here are some changes, set reviews coming soon.

Fireball out, Crackle with Power in. (Easy swap, Crackle with Power is so much better)
Rolling Thunder out, Inferno of the Star Mounts in. This is slightly more tentative, but I think it'll do much better damage than Rolling Thunder has.