(Mayael's Aria | Art by Steve Argyle)

Taking You Naya

Welcome to back to Wombo Combo, the article series where we look at data from EDHREC and Commander Spellbook to find the best EDH combo cards in each color identity. This edition, we finish off our journey through the three-color identites by looking at Naya combo cards.

There is a saying that says "Save the best for last", and Naya appears to be a great example of this. Based off Commander Spellbook data, Naya has the most combo cards with ten or more EDH combos, including several heavy hitter combo commanders.

Naya has primary focuses on counters, creatures and tokens, with some commanders also having lifegain themes. Naya is one of the best color combinations if you want to have a lot of creatures on the battlefield, or buff the creatures you already have.

Let's see the heavy hitters Naya has to offer for your next deck.

 

#10: Baylen, the Haymaker

Number of Combos: 30

Deck Inclusions: 5,972 as commander (#191); 3,750 as card (2.894%)

Our #10 card is a recent debut from Bloomburrow - Baylen, the Haymaker. Baylen is an excellent token commander that allows you to tap tokens for various benefits. This works great with creature tokens, because Baylen's abilities get around summoning sickness.

Baylen's first ability can tap tokens for repeated Ant Queen activations and Insect generation, alongside a couple token doublers like Primal Vigor.

Because Baylen works for all types of tokens, you can also use Peregrin Took and Academy Manufactor instead to get enough tokens to keep the loop going. Baylen is also a great payoff for infinite token combos, giving you infinite mana, card draw and +1/+1 counters on Baylen.

 

#9: Ghired, Conclave Exile

Number of Combos: 32

Deck Inclusions: 3,864 as commander (#339); 3,946 as card (0.711%)

Ghired, Conclave Exile allows you to populate each time it attacks, getting more copies of beneficial creatures to your deck's strategy. You can use this for simple combos with Aurelia, the Warleader or Breath of Fury. Ghired can also be used for some more complicated lines involving cards like Combat Celebrant and Flamerush Rider, getting you infinite combat phases and combat damage with ease.

Some good includes to facilitate combos include plenty of token generators (like Molten Echoes) and haste enablers like Fervor.

 

#8: Atla Palani, Nest Tender

Number of Combos: 33

Deck Inclusions: 14,973 as commander (#26); 10,910 as card (1.967%)

Atla Palani, Nest Tender is the perfect commander if you want big creatures, but don't want to pay all that mana for them. Atla Palani also works well with shuffle cards like Worldspine Wurm to create infinite combos, by ensuring that you will always have a creature card to flip into.

Using Mirror Entity, you can turn Wurm into an Egg and kill it simultaneously to get an Atla Palani trigger, so long as you boost Atla Palani and Mirror Entity's toughness by any other method.

You can also use cards like Arashin Sovereign to achieve a similar effect to the shuffle card. Who wouldn't want their Mysterious Egg to hatch into a Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre?

 

#7: Zacama, Primal Calamity

Number of Combos: 34

Deck Inclusions: 3,891 as commander (#338); 50,425 as card (9.08%)

Zacama, Primal Calamity may cost nine mana, but it is a very strong card in return for that hefty upfront investment. Zacama untaps all your lands when you cast it, allowing you to get back some (if not all) of the mana you spent to cast it. This allows easy combos for bouncers like Temur Sabertooth and Sanctum of Eternity.

Zacama also has three activated abilities, allowing you to gain life, destroy an artifact or enchantment, or deal 3 damage to a creature. The lifegain can be used for combos with Prize Pig, or a Light of Promise enchanted Crystalline Crawler.

With the amount of utility Zacama provides, its easy see why over 50,000 decks run it in their 99.

 

#6: Havi, the All-Father

Number of Combos: 39

Deck Inclusions: 580 as commander (#1,317); 3,776 as card (2.339%)

Havi, the All-Father is a card built for legendary-matters decks, and while it may not beat Jodah, the Unifier in the command zone, it is a great include for the 99. Havi can be used to return legendary cards of lesser mana value when a legendary creature dies, allowing for some level of recursion to retrieve important legendary creatures.

It can also be used for an easy infinite combo with Saffi Eriksdotter, as you can use Havi to return Saffi, and use Saffi's ability to return Havi when it dies.

Havi also has an interesting relationship with clones, who can easily copy something of higher mana value than them to then return themselves to the battlefield. This is especially true with Moritte of the Frost, which ignores the legend rule and negates the need for a sacrifice outlet, as the legend rule will kill Moritte for you.

 

#5: Samut, Voice of Dissent

Number of Combos: 41

Deck Inclusions: 1,779 as commander (#725); 18,628 as card (3.358%)

Samut, Voice of Dissent is a strong creature in its own right, but also has a key combo enabling quality of giving creatures you control haste. Haste enablers are a great way to get an advantage by ignoring the "summoning sickness" rule, allowing creatures to attack and activate tap abilities instantly.

They are also extremely helpful for enabling infinite combat combos, using cards like Breath of Fury. Samut's activated ability can also be used for some Ioreth of the Healing House combos, alongside another legendary creature that is a mana dork.

Haste enablers also allow you to bounce mana dorks over and over again, like Selvala, Heart of the Wilds, and still get the mana from their abilities.

 

#4: Ghired, Mirror of the Wilds

Number of Combos: 53

Deck Inclusions: 2,129 as commander (#623); 2,748 as card (1.177%)

Ghired, Mirror of the Wilds is the second version of Ghired we are covering in this edition, and enables almost double the amount of combos. Ghired allows creatures you control to tap to create a copy of a token that entered the battlefield under your control this turn.

This is similar to Ghired, Conclave Exile's populate trigger, except it is reusable and affects any token, at the expense of only working for those entering this turn. Ghired works in a similar vein to many Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker lines, including token copies of Zealous Conscripts and Village Bell-Ringer.

Midnight Guard also untaps itself, and gets the ability from Ghired, making it an easy engine for a two-card combo. Ghired can also use the always reliable cards of Thornbite Staff and Intruder Alarm for easy comboing.

 

#3: Mayael's Aria

Number of Combos: 60

Deck Inclusions: 14,258 as card (2.571%)

Mayael's Aria is a strong enchantment that can provide you the ultimate result - winning the game on the spot. All you need to win is a creature with power 20 or greater when the final part of the ability resolves. There are a myriad of ways to accomplish this, with some being easier than others.

For example, Mossbridge Troll and Colossus of Akros can make themselves large enough, or Colossification can make any creature you control large enough.

You can also make a Marit Lage token from Dark Depths, boost up your Atogatog to have enough power, or use Conclave Sledge-Captain to put enough +1/+1 counters on your creatures to easily achieve a victory.

Whatever your method, Mayael's Aria can provide an easy win-condition for decks heavy on creatures and creature buffs.

 

#2: Marath, Will of the Wild

Number of Combos: 70

Deck Inclusions: 2,403 as commander (#560); 749 as card (0.135%)

Marath, Will of the Wild is a card that fares better as a commander than as a member of the 99, due to the number of +1/+1 counters being influenced by commander tax, which makes sense considering Marath was released in Commander 2013.

Marath's ability lets you pay mana and remove +1/+1 counters from it to create Elemental tokens, deal damage, or put that many +1/+1 counters on another creature.

The counter ability can be scaled thanks to counter increasers like Branching Evolution, allowing you to remove a counter from Marath and put two on it in return.

You can also put counters on Cryptic Trilobite and remove them to cover Marath's cost. The creature token option works well with ways to replenish Marath's counter, like Cathars' Crusade, and a way to recoup the mana, like Ashnod's Altar or Mana Echoes.

 

#1: Jinnie Fay, Jetmir's Second

Number of Combos: 93

Deck Inclusions: 5,291 as commander (#237); 21,841 as card (3.938%)

Our most useful combo card in Naya is Jinnie Fay, Jetmir's Second! While Jinnie may be second to Jetmir among the Cabarettis, Jinnie is second to none in Naya combo cards. Jinnie allows you to change the tokens you create to either be 3/1 Dogs or 2/2 Cats with haste. This allows easy combos with somewhat restrictive cards like Requiem Angel by making a non-Spirit each time.

You can also take cards making a token when a creature enters dies, like Pitiless Plunderer or Ganax, Astral Hunter and make another creature instead. Jinnie making Cats with haste is a perfect piece for infinite combat phases, such as replacing Dogmeat, Ever Loyal's Junk token with a Cat to use in a Breath of Fury combo.

Having the option to turn not as helpful tokens like Blood or Map tokens into 2/2 creatures with haste is a massive help in many decks, and Jinnie is the perfect card or commander to enable combos in Naya and beyond.

 

Honorable Mentions

None of the cards in the Top 10 wet your whistle? Here's a few more to quench your thirst:

1. Shalai and Hallar: An easy piece for flinging large amounts of damage when paired with cards like The Red Terror or War Elemental.

2. Rith, the Awakener: Provides an avenue for creating large amount of creature tokens each combat phase, which is useful for Aggravated Assault or Breath of Fury combos.

3. Mazzy, Truesword Paladin: Useful for Aura combos with Auras like Instill Energy or Triclopean Sight.

Thank you very much for reading this edition of Wombo Combo, and don't forget to check out Commander Spellbook for more EDH combos and visit the Commander Spellbook Discord for more EDH discussion and to submit your own EDH combos. Until next time, happy comboing!

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