"Nissa , Steward of Elements: Simic XXXXXcitement!"

"Nissa , Steward of Elements: Simic XXXXXcitement!"

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr.MD

At long last a new Simic planeswalker! And she comes in with a lot of X as well! Welcome....Nissa?How in the world did Nissa get imbued with Blue mana? Does any one else find it weird that Nissa who actually dabbled in black mana first didn't get a Golgari colored version first? Well I guess it was just me.

Now on to the new Nissa who is the first planeswalker who has an X cost on her , Like a Hydra , Like Endless One. Like something I can add into a Simic Tiny Leaders deck some day. This card is so playable in standard that it hurts. So I guess the ideal time to cast it is if you have enough mana to abuse the top of you mana carve. Let us say that highest cost in your deck is 3 mana , you ought to cast it paying 3 for the X and Simic Mana. She now comes in with 3 starting Loyalty counters.

Now looking at her 2nd ability first which cost 0. You can look at the top card of you Library if it is a Land or a creature with converted mana cost less or equal to the number of counters on Nissa you get to put it on the battlefield. For free! So 3 mana cost creatures and below are free for you now per activation. Now imagine if you have infinite mana and in a Simic EDH deck that is not impossible(Deadeye Navigator + Palinchron anyone?) You can put at least 20 mana on the X cost and you almost get a creature card or land free all the time.

So now the biggest task is to make sure that you have cards that you can cast for free that are equal or less than Nissa's  counters. And this is where her first ability which is a +2 helps immensely. You can Scry for 2 and if you think what you see is not what you need then put it in the bottom of your library. On the other hand if you like what you see try and not act too happy about it so you can still bluff your EDH opponents.

At this point Nissa and her last ability are just a bit redundant but it is still an ability that can help you close out games. It is a -6 that lets you target 2 lands , awaken them to become Elementals, give them haste and flying until end of turn. Wow. You summon 2 creatures with a combined 10 points of damage! Unopposed it would only take two turns to finish an opponent. 

Well I think I have covered all of the planeswalkers in Amonkhet for now. Nissa is the one the makes me all excited here. So what do you think of the new Nissa? Should she have gotten a Golgari colored card instead given that the plane of Amonkhet is so connected with death? Thanks for reading. Keep on brewing.