Nin, the Pain Artist | Grouphug/slug

This is a casual deck.

You Might Feel A Little Prick

Hey folks, and welcome to Nin's torture chamber! Here, we give our friends cards but make them hurt for it! The goal is simple : make everybody draw cards, and hurt them with various implements of torture like Iron Maiden and Skullcage. The trick is to get "grouphuggy" first, to get them to lower their defenses. Then you slowly but methodically kill them! Such fun.

First, You Lure Them In

We have multiple ways of giving cards to everybody every turn like Howling Mine, Dictate of Kruphix, Howling Golem and Font of Mythos just to name a few. At first everybody will be super happy to draw cards to make their landrops etc. so they should leave your artifacts and creatures alone for a while. Use Nin liberally to take care of threats, all the while drawing them more cards. When they are relaxed and comfortable, it's time to...

Tighten the Clamp

Our objective is to damage everyone at the same time, no to draw the ire of a single opponent, so except for Black Vise, used for that special someone who needs a little extra punishment, pretty much every other instrument hurts everybody equally. Ebony Owl Netsuke and Iron Maiden are brutal if you can maintain a high card count (Folio of Fancies helps). Fevered Visions is a two-in-one, drawing them a card and hurting them. We have a couple of direct spells to finish them off when they're getting low with Runeflare Trap, Sudden Impact and Gaze of Adamaro. On a wide board, Vicious Shadows and Blasphemous Act can just end the game right then.

Lock Them In Place

You might say : "Giving our opponents cards is giving them more resources to kill us!" And you would be right. That's why we have a neat little stax package to keep them from casting too many spells! Mana Maze makes their head hurt from sequencing their turn properly and Arcane Laboratory straight up lets them only cast one spell in a turn. It affects us too but we have a mana sink in the command zone so we're not unhappy about that. But one of my favorites is Forced Fruition. Every spell they cast fills their hand more and more! Isn't it absolutely wonderful?

Meet the Interns

While our opponents might start to worry about their card count, we are thrilled to be filling our hand! Nadir Kraken and The Locust God give us some blockers, while the Niv-Mizzets are straight-up wincons. Nin has a neat interaction with Willbreaker, gaining control of any creature we target with her ability. People are just afraid of Body of Knowledge for some reason. And once in a blue moon Triskaidekaphile pulls us a win! It's so much better to hurt others in good company!

Wrapping Up (Their Bodies)

No, we don't run infinite combos à la Curiosity + Niv-Mizzet and Dramatic Reversal + Isochron Scepter because we're not that evil. Besides, theses "wincons" would just shorten the suffering of our dear subjects, which we want to avoid at all costs! When they cry for the sweet mercy of death at the hands of an infinite combo, we will simply say that we have none. How sweet!

In closing, we highly recommend using white-bordered lands as final psychological torture for those who suffer from white-border tilt.

That's all, torture-savvy friends! Let me know if you liked the deck, and, most importantly, how your friends liked it!