>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 really 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 absolutely cream people every game, especially since this deck probably couldn't fit into cEDH 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. If you want to improve the power level of this deck, I suggest using more ways to protect your spells like Defense Grid, and you should also include Gamble, Pyroblast, Red Elemental Blast, Guttural Response, and Vexing Shusher, as well as ways to reliably find Boseiju, like Expedition Map. Other choice 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 really 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 really gives you the gas you need to viably burn people into cinders. 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 it's 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. If people are going to die, try to at least have a mana and damage doubler out so your loss isn't huge.

>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 ensure we can close out the game.

Ramunap Ruins - This card seems mediocre when it comes to dealing damage, but sometimes, you really need that extra mana, and paired with things like Fiendish Duo, this card really shines.

Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle - This guy basically nets you 9 free mana every turn after turn 6, which is the turn right after Neheb comes out, worse-case scenario. The floor on this guy is fantastic, and the downsides of it being a tap land is 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.

>Artifact 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 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!

>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 in wonderful.

Flame Rift, Flamebreak, Sizzle, 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. WIth a damage doubler, you can with right there and then, although be careful to have the right doubler out or you will most likely end the game in a tie.

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 gvies you complete control on what you want to do. Its just fantastic.

>Extra Damage

Angrath's Marauders, Fiendish Duo - They double all damage, netting us tons of extra mana to play with.

Fire Servant - Only towards instants and sorceries, but this deck isn't too focused on comabat damage, so this is fine.

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 it's 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, but later in the game it starts to lose its appeal, but at 1 mana, its 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.

>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 you hand and get your mana back while also looking for cards to play. Very solid.

Browbeat, Risk Factor - I never knew these cards existed before I made this deck, but I love them! They are flexible cards that give you mana as compensation if your opponents decide they don't want to give you card, but I find that they are more scared of giving you mana than cards, so a good portion of the time you'll be allowed to draw.

Faithless Looting, Tormenting voice, Thrill of possibility - 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.

Magus of the wheel, Reforge the Soul - When you have tons of mana, you tend to cast most of the cards in you hand, and wheels give you gas to refill.

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.

Experimental Frenzy - This card allows you to dig as deep as you need to find cards, and it can destroy itself when needed. It is much better than it seems, and I've won games with it.

Stolen Strategy - This card is fantastic. It gives you options if you need them, and you can use the advantages that the other decks have to ramp you, draw, or just play their bombs.

>Interaction

Chaos Warp - The best red removal spell.

Swiftfoot Boots - Good protection while still letting us target Neheb.

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

>Flex Cards

Chandra, Torch of Defiance - This is definitely 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 gives us an enormous damage boost that can also be used to take out any problematic creatures if we need to.

Chandra, Flamecaller - This Chandra isn't on the level of the other one because her ultimate isn't as useful, but it still gives you the option between potential damage and new cards with her wheel ability.

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.

>Extra Combat

Aggravated Assault - Neheb can go infinite with this, as long as you have at least 6 mana, but I would advise to have 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, Past in Flames - These two do similar things - enable us to play or spells again from the graveyard. This is great if we need to use that Fiery Confluence again so we can close out the game.

>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.

Drakuseth, Maw of Flames - Not quite as scary as Kozilek, but he can give us tons of mana each turn as well as deal lots of damage.

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

Rolling Thunder, Fireball - A step down from the above two, they can still target multiple things, but we need more mana to do it at the same level.

Fanning the Flames, Electrodominance - Not Ideal for finishing the table, these guys made the cut because they can be used again and used to play another card while dealing damage, respectively.

>Exclusions

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 really don't want to take 20+ damage from our own spell.

Lightning Greaves - Sometimes we want to target our commander, such as with Strionic Resonator, and this card won't let you do that. This guy is almost perpetually under consideration in every deck I make that is focused around the commander, and we'll see how this changes in the future.

Fanatic of Mogis - We don't have a big board presence, and this would be better if we were more focused on attack damage, which is a way you can build Neheb.

Pingers like Thermo-Alchemist - We dont really play that many spells each turn, favoring a go tall strategy instead of a go wide strategy. Again, this deck isn't built for him, but that is certainly a viable way. Other cards that fit into this category would be Guttersnipe style cards

Combustible Gearhulk, Sin Prodder - Both were in the deck at one point, but I didn't like how I almost always lost cards. You might say that these are similar to Browbeat, but no, we lose the cards in the graveyard if they don't want us to draw.

Wildfire Eternal - This deck isn't really focused on attacking, and there aren't that many cards that we really care about if we cast free or not.

Stuff like Obsidian Fireheart - 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.

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 - The only spells we would really want to cast for free are 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 that 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 destroy 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.

Fork effects - We have a few in this deck already, but they also give us mana to cast stuff. Just having a Fork in the deck could be useful at times, but damage doublers basically do the same job already and work for many more things.

>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 be not needed here, but it could be helpful if you draw damage ramp, making you deal twice the amount of damage with that and and with an x-spell later on that turn.

>Budget Options

The Main thing making this deck expensive is the Gauntlet of Might, at 500 dollars. You should remove that for another doubler, of which there are many. 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 is Kozilek and several of the damage 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 hard, as many of the cards that make this deck produce that much mana 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. He is fun and forgiving to play, albeit somewhat complicated. I hope you enjoyed reading this, because dang is this harder than I thought.

Thanks for still being here and please tell me your questions and feedback in the comments!
(btw, I don't really know what else I should put the the exclusions part, so please give me some more things to think about!)

>Changelog

>5/4/20

Primer finished and posted!

>5/5/20

Added Forgotten Cave in for a Snow-Covered Mountain
Looked over it a bit, added some cards in the "Exclusions" section