I recently participated in a Premodern league put on by the Philadelphia Old School Discord. I managed to win first place with my NightmareWhale list. I went 6-1 in matches over the league and playoffs. The league only had 10 12 players so it doesn't mean this deck is now a deck to beat, but I do think it means its worth exploring further. Here I want to talk a bit about how this deck came to be.
This deck has evolved somewhat slowly for a variety of reasons. One, I don't spend as much time thinking about Magic as I used to. Two, in Texas the preferred format is Middle School, not Premodern, and I think there are way better ways to do this kind of thing, particularly Worldgorger Dragon.
A Not-So-Brief History
My origin with this idea started in September of 2020 when the Romancing the Stones leagues started up. I made a quick list of deck ideas I wanted to explore and the NightmareWhale list was at the top. I didn't make a list at the time, but I did save some links to some historic decks for reference. These historic decks came from the golden age of combo decks, the late 1990s.
The truest source of the deck is probably the HorseCraft deck played by Randy Buehler at the 1998 World Championships. It is a block constructed deck that uses Earthcraft, Workhorse, and Recurring Nightmare to create infinite mana.
Something like this is playable in Middle School with Earthcraft, Deranged Hermit, and Recurring Nightmare.
Later in 1998 after the release of Urza's Sage, Dave Humphreys finished in 9th place at PT Rome with a dedicated NightmareWhale list.
The power of Great Whale was subsequently nerfed by errata requiring it to be played from your hand. This was the end of the deck's competitive history, as Palinchron and other future cards also received the power level errata. At some point in the next 20 years (I think it was 2005?), power level errata was removed from all cards and this combo became possible again, but no longer had a format home.
The basic combo has shown up in Premodern and Middle School before, mainly as a way to combo kill with a value Survival deck. In a recent league, David Gleicher managed to combo off on camera with his list:
The first list I actually built wasn't in Premodern or Middle School, but for a Set Roulette tournament in December 2020. This showed me the power of Cloud of Faeries and Frantic Search in the list while having the extremely elegant Crypt Ghast win condition.
I'm ready to defend my title for @Mythic_Society Set Roulette. I really wanted to play this deck, but it required too much clicking on MTGO :( pic.twitter.com/YLt8c8g7TE
— Ty Thomason (@ceciliajupe) December 20, 2020
My love of Frantic Search + Sol land + Intuition led me to spend time on the aforementioned Worldgorger Dragon deck as well as the Pandemonium Replenish deck I played in the RTS leagues. The Whale set on the back burner through several leagues because I didn't think it would hold up in the MS meta of Force of Will. The nature of discarding so many cards made playing your own FoW much more difficult. But it was still appealing because it had so many copies of the combo cards.
My Decklist
Here is my decklist:
4 Cloud of Faeries
4 Palinchron
4 Great Whale
3 Merfolk Traders
3 Voldalian Merchant
1 Highway Robber
2 Raven Familiar
4 Recurring Nightmare
4 Frantic Search
4 Intuition
4 Cabal Therapy
4 City of Traitors
4 Polluted Delta
2 Swamp
2 Island
3 Mishra's Factory
4 Salt Marsh
4 Darkwater Catacombs
Sideboard
2 Duress
4 Phyrexian Negator
3 Null Rod
3 Defense Grid
3 engineered plague
How does the deck work? To start, you need to get a creature in play, a Palinchron or Great Whale in the graveyard, a Recurring Nightmare to bring back the big creature, and access to enough mana from lands untapping to repeat this process while generating additional mana. You can do this with four lands and two of Whale/Palinchron, three lands with City of Traitors and those creatures or a Cloud of Faeries, or five lands with Cloud of Faeries and one big creature. Once you have an unlimited amount of black mana, you can switch to casting the Recurring Nightmare for value, usually bringing back a looting merfolk to dig through the deck until you find Highway Robber, which will then be looped back and forth until the opponent is dead.
The manabase may look odd at first glance, but it is this way for important reasons. When comboing off, you need lands to tap for black mana repeatedly without doing damage to you. This is why there are no Underground River or City of Brass. Darkwater Catacombs does a great job turning the colorless from City of Traitors and Mishra's Factory into useful mana in the combo. It is also worth noting here that if you are only making extra blue mana in the loop but have Palinchron, you can use the Palinchron ability to turn that mana into black as well, allowing you to continue the combo. Mishra's Factory lets you start the combo without a creature in play, as well as being an alternative win condition by animating and pumping itself an unlimited number of times.
The creatures do warrant some discussion. Great Whale and Palinchron get the nod over Peregrine Drake because they can win games by just being reanimated on turn 3 against some matchups. Cloud of Faeries lets you combo with City of Traitors, is a free creature to start the combo earlier, can generate explosive mana turn with City and Frantic Search allowing you to play both Intuition and Recurring Nightmare on turn three, as well as cycling in a pinch. I don't think you need any more untap creatures, but there is always Drake if you decide that.
The looting creatures are vital to get the big creatures in the graveyard while sacrificing for Recurring Nightmare. They help dig both before and during the combo. With Frantic Search and Intuition, I don't think you need the full eight copies and I've been happy with six. They also block surprisingly well against some creatures in the format like Goblin Lackey. Raven Familiar digs deeper, and can let you draw additional cards while comboing to set up backup plans against possible removal on Highway Robber. I think Familiar is good to have, but not entirely necessary. Highway Robber is better than Triskelion for a win condition because it lets you avoid losing to Seal of Cleansing and allows you to play Null Rod in the sideboard if you want. You can also cast Highway Robber sometimes, unlike Ghitu Slinger.
Recurring Nightmare and Intuition are must haves at four copies each. Intuition is the best card in the deck and Nightmare makes the deck work. Frantic Search is incredibly powerful and I like playing four copies before any copies of Careful Study or even the looting creatures. They do get sided out when you expect more attrition.
The Cabal Therapy is the weakest card in the deck. It lets you protect your combo but extra black mana can be hard to come by. It could be Force of Will in a Middle School but with all the discarding you likely won't have extra blue card in hand. It could also just be main deck Defense Grid.
The sideboard I played isn't optimal. In Middle School, I would prefer Sea Drake to Phyrexian Negator. I don't think Negator is good enough to keep the sideboard slot, but I would still play Sea Drake. Duress is good at nabbing opposing hate cards before they can be deployed. Null Rod stops Tormod's Crypt, Defense Grid stops instant speed interaction. I think playing more Grid and Duress as well as some ways to deal with permanents like Meddling Mage or Planar Void might be the better way. You don't really need a backup aggro plan when you can sometimes get out early fatty without combo. Perhaps something like Grim Monolith to power out an early Whale or Palinchron could work?
Strengths and Weaknesses
The main strength of the deck is the redundancy of a powerful game winning combo as well as a solid backup reanimation plan. The combo is resilient to enchantment removal, and the size of the creatures makes it somewhat robust against burn spells. The biggest weakness is the overall speed of the deck as well as interaction with opposing permanents. This is not the fastest combo by any means, it requires at least three actual lands in play and usually more. It also struggles to deal with disruptive permanents or creatures attacking when the plan isn't coming together immediately. I don't think it can be a tier 1 deck in either Premodern or Middle School, but could be a solid tier 2 choice for people who enjoy combo decks like this.
-Ty
