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Nin, the Pain Artist

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Nin, the Pain Artist

At a glance

  • Commander: Nin, the Pain Artist
  • Colors: Izzet
  • Archetype: Izzet pinger control
  • Power tier: mid-high

Cards

Commander

Nin, the Pain Artist — , Legendary Creature — Vedalken Wizard (2/2)

, : Nin deals X damage to target creature. That creature’s controller draws X cards.

Nin is a two-sided valve. Pointed at an opponent’s creature she is scaling, repeatable removal — pay enough X to kill anything, every turn she untaps. Pointed at your own creature (ideally one that survives or that you’re happy to lose), she is a card engine: ping it for X, you draw X. Critically her ability only targets creatures — it can’t hit players or planeswalkers, so she is not a finisher by herself and not direct interaction against non-creature threats. That’s why the deck is built as a pinger control shell: a wall of tap-to-ping wizards and a deep burn/counter suite do the work Nin can’t, and Nin sits on top as removal-plus-refuel. Confirmed against printed Oracle text.

Gameplan

Pure attrition. Trade one-for-one (or better) on everything the table commits, keep the board clear with pingers + burn, protect the engine with counters, and grind the game to a state where you have cards and they don’t. Win is inevitability, not a single haymaker:

  1. Early: cantrip rocks and dorks ramp into Nin on turn 3-4 while cheap burn/counters trade.
  2. Mid: deploy pingers. Repeatable 1-damage tap effects keep small creatures and mana dorks off the board for free, every turn.
  3. Late: Nin + a fat mana base turns every opposing creature into a kill or a Divination, while the burn pile and pinger chip damage close out players.

Key synergy lines

  • Nin → your own pinger = draw engine. Tap Nin targeting one of your durable pingers (Frostwielder, a Wall, anything you don’t mind) for X to draw X. Even X=2 is a Divination that also leaves a body. With a way to gain life or a high-toughness target it’s fully repeatable.
  • Untap-on-cast pingers (Thermo-Alchemist, Unruly Catapult, Cinder Pyromancer, Kindlespark Duo) turn the deck’s huge instant/sorcery count into free recurring damage to each opponent — this is the real clock and the inevitability core. Every burn spell and counter you cast re-arms them.
  • Ophidian Eye / Tandem Lookout on a pinger (or on Nin) = “whenever this deals damage to an opponent, draw a card.” Stapled to a : ping, that’s a card every turn for free.
  • Murmuring Mystic makes a 1/1 flyer on every instant/sorcery — chump army + slow evasive clock, and the Birds are also fine Nin-targets for card draw.
  • Frostwielder exiles anything it damages, so your pings answer recursion and indestructible creatures.
  • Sulfurous Blast / Scouring Sands / Boiling Earth sweep the small stuff your pingers can’t keep up with; Scouring Sands and Boiling Earth are one-sided (opponents only), which is exactly what a creature-light control deck wants.

Role breakdown (with counts)

  • Lands — 36: 9 nonbasic (Command Tower, Izzet Boilerworks, Izzet Guildgate, Highland Lake, Swiftwater Cliffs, Halimar Depths, Evolving Wilds, Terramorphic Expanse, Ash Barrens) + 15 Island + 12 Mountain.
  • Ramp — 9: Sol Ring, Arcane Signet, Mind Stone, Star Compass, Prophetic Prism, Fractured Powerstone, Wayfarer’s Bauble, Skittering Surveyor, Witching Well. Cantrip-y rocks that don’t dilute the control plan; gets Nin online a turn early and fuels her big-X activations late.
  • Card advantage — 11: Brainstorm, Ponder, Preordain, Accumulated Knowledge, Frantic Search, Ideas Unbound, Lat-Nam’s Legacy, Mnemonic Sphere, Ophidian Eye, Tandem Lookout, Murmuring Mystic. (Nin herself is additional repeatable draw.)
  • Spot removal / burn — 14: Lightning Bolt, Galvanic Blast, Burst Lightning, Magma Jet, Incinerate, Searing Spear, Lightning Strike, Skewer the Critics, Volt Charge, Staggershock, Brimstone Volley, Pillar of Flame, Firebolt, Izzet Charm. Doubles as reach to close games.
  • Counters / interaction — 8: Counterspell, Arcane Denial, Negate, Essence Scatter, Disdainful Stroke, Dispel, Spell Pierce, plus Izzet Charm’s modal counter. Bounce backup: Unsummon, Vapor Snag, Blink of an Eye.
  • Mass / pseudo-wipe — 3: Sulfurous Blast, Boiling Earth, Scouring Sands.
  • Pingers (engine) — 15: Prodigal Sorcerer, Prodigal Pyromancer, Rootwater Hunter, Zuran Spellcaster, Vithian Stinger, Razorfin Hunter, Vulshok Sorcerer, Viashino Fangtail, Frostwielder, Thornwind Faeries, Thermo-Alchemist, Unruly Catapult, Cinder Pyromancer, Kindlespark Duo, Goblin Fireslinger.
  • Payoffs / misc: Wee Dragonauts (spell-count beater), bounce (3).

Win condition

Inevitability: a board of repeatable tap-pingers (especially the untap-on-cast crew) plus Nin grinds the table out of creatures and cards; pinger chip + Murmuring Mystic birds + leftover burn finish opponents. You never need a “wrath into haymaker” — you just out-attrition the room.

Pilot notes

  • Don’t fire Nin reactively turn 4 unless it’s a key kill; her best turns are X=big removal or X=2-3 on your own creature for cards.
  • Sequence untap-pingers (Thermo-Alchemist etc.) before you start chaining spells so each cast re-arms them.
  • Hold one counter for the engine — losing Nin or a key untap-pinger to removal is your worst beat; bounce-protect with Blink of an Eye in a pinch.
  • Scouring Sands / Boiling Earth are one-sided; cast freely. Sulfurous Blast hits you too — clear your own dorks first or use it as a reset when behind.
  • Ophidian Eye / Tandem Lookout want to go on a creature that can connect or tap-ping an opponent every turn — that’s your steady card flow.

Weaknesses

  • No game vs. resolved big single threats outside burn/bounce — a hexproof/indestructible fatty dodges pings (Frostwielder helps); lean on counters to stop it landing.
  • Nin can’t touch players/planeswalkers — planeswalkers must die to burn or bounce.
  • Mana-hungry: Nin’s X-ability and counterspell-up posture both want lots of lands; flooding the board of pingers can be slow if you don’t draw ramp.
  • Light on lifegain, so racing aggressive decks before the pinger lock comes online is the danger window.

Decklist

⬇ Download as .txt — paste into Moxfield, Archidekt, or MTG Arena.

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