Naya Fury Kaldheim Standard Deck Guide: How to Get Turn 5 Wins With Ease

Hello everyone! Today I’m here to bring you one of Standard’s newest Tier 1 decks. It’s big, it’s mean, it’s a combo killing machine, it’s Naya Fury. All the credit to the concept goes to cftsoc for pioneering the idea a few weeks back and successfully breaking Standard. Before we dive too much into it, let’s take a look at the version of Naya Fury I’m running with.

[sd_deck deck=”TfsnCScV6″]

Naya Fury is an offshoot of the popular Naya Adventures variant from earlier in the Kaldheim season and the main appeal is the titular “combo” package the deck has. Goldspan Dragon is a great aggressive tool in general which by itself would already give the traditionally slow deck a faster clock; however, we don’t just stop there to accelerate Naya’s clock. Abusing Goldspan Dragon’s ability to generate 2 mana every time it’s targeted by something, we play Unleash Fury to give the deck ridiculous reach and the ability to kill out of nowhere. I was in a testing game with a friend where they did nothing turns 1-3, turn 4 played a Showdown of the Skalds, then killed me on turn 5 through interaction! All it took was 2 Unleash Fury and a Sejiri Shelter to take what seemed to be a terrible hand to an amazing one. To further compound the combo element, the list plays Kazuul’s Fury to add even more reach to the deck. Sometimes you just play a normal game of Magic, but then can Unleash Fury on a Lovestruck Beast and chuck it at the opponent!

Beyond trying to combo people with the Dragon, the deck is very reminiscent of Naya Adventures of old. You’re still playing all the classic adventure creatures, you’re still playing Showdown of the Skalds with Shepherd of the Flock, and you can easily win games while never drawing the combo. The best part about this deck is that since it attacks on different axes and uses powerful cards, it doesn’t really have a bad matchup in Standard. However, that’s not to say the deck is without fault. With the excess of tap lands, you can have very slow draws which can be problematic in matchups where racing matters. Furthermore, Naya Fury is more prone to drawing “the wrong half” of the deck compared to the more traditional Naya where all your cards go for the same game plan. You can keep what seems to be a decent hand, but draw a few too many Unleash Fury, Sejiri Shelter, or Kazuul’s Fury and you can be in real trouble. That being said, the deck doesn’t have terrible consistency issues (if it did, it wouldn’t have been the most played deck amongst the MPL and Rivals players last weekend), but it’s something to be cognizant of.

MATCHUPS AND SIDEBOARDING

MONORED AGGRO (SLIGHTLY FAVORED TO MODERATELY FAVORED)

IN	OUT
+2 Redcap Melee	-2 Shepherd of the Flock
+2 Fire Prophecy	-4 Unleash Fury
+2 Glass Casket	-1 Embercleave
+1 Wilt

This board strategy will be very common, but you’ll be boarding out the Unleash Fury in many matchups. The reason we do so is that game 1s are way more about enacting your own game plan compared to responding to the opponent’s, so the combo is much better pre-boarded. Furthermore, when the opponent can bring in more interaction, we don’t want to dedicate slots to a combo that may end up getting us killed if they have the answer. Treat this matchup as you would with the old Naya Adventures deck, use your bigger cards to play defense and kill them when you exhaust their resources.

MONOWHITE AGGRO (SLIGHTLY FAVORED TO MODERATELY FAVORED)

IN	OUT
+2 Fire Prophecy	-4 Unleash Fury
+2 Glass Casket	-1 Embercleave
+1 Wilt

Pretty much the same board plan as Monored except no Redcap Melee. The matchup will also function very similarly in terms of you needing to stall them out until you can scrape together a win. Unlike many other Naya Fury lists, this one doesn’t run Archon of Absolution and that’s for a few reasons. One, Monowhite players have the Scalding Cauldron tech. Two, Monowhite didn’t perform well the past weekend so it’s stock should go down. Three, I don’t think the Monowhite matchup is problematic enough where we need Archon. Finally, they’ll be forced to bring in Scalding Cauldron on the blind as they will likely assume you’re playing Archon!

MIRROR 

IN	OUT
+2 Redcap Melee	-3 Shepherd of the Flock
+2 Fire Prophecy	-4 Unleash Fury
+2 Glass Casket	-1 Embercleave
+2 Drannith Magistrate

The mirror can be complicated as it’s going to be a lot of posturing and all about card advantage, but without the combo element in post board games, you can not be so scared to tap out compared to game 1. Since most lists will have Redcap Melee, try your best to save your Dragons until you have a way to protect it or buff it since you don’t want to lose it easily. This applies to Giant Killer as well, but that’s slightly harder to play against. Lastly, if the opponent is obviously representing something like Giant Killer, it’s prudent to not play into it.

SULTAI ULTIMATUM (EVEN TO SLIGHTLY FAVORED)

IN	OUT
+2 Klothys, God of Destiny	-2 Giant Killer

This matchup would normally be terrible for Naya Adventures, but the combo package makes it much more even, and arguably even good for Naya. Sultai has a hard time interacting with Goldspan Dragon, so focus on just comboing them out quickly before they can resolve an Emergent Ultimatum. Quick note on boarding, if they seem to play a lot of Elder Gargaroth, keep in all your Giant Killers and shave your Shepherds instead. Furthermore, you can board in Embercleave as well if they don’t seem to have many board wipes. If you’re feeling really saucy, Drannith Magistrate also turns off Emergent Ultimatum, but I don’t think it’s necessary most of the time.

CYCLING (EVEN)

IN	OUT
+1 Tormod’s Crypt	-3 Shepherd of the Flock
+1 Fire Prophecy	-4 Giant Killer
+2 Glass Casket
+2 Klothys, God of Destiny
+1 Embercleave

Cycling can be a really good matchup or a really bad one depending how they draw. If they have a slower start and no Improbable Alliance, you can crush them. If they have a really fast start, it’s very hard to beat, but in fairness, most decks can’t beat Cycling’s best starts anyway. Focus on comboing them out with Dragon before you get bonked by a Zenith Flare 

TIPS AND TRICKS

• This is a combo deck, but normal Edgewall Innkeeper draws are still excellent as well. Don’t think you always need to combo the opponent game 1.
• Feel free to aggressively play out Giant Killer if you’re facing an aggro deck or you can get a quick draw with Edgewall Innkeeper.
• Shepherd of the Flock can bounce any permanent, including lands. A big feature of this deck is that you can play something like Sejiri Shelter or Kazuul’s Fury as a land early, then you can bounce it back later in the game to use it.
• Play your MDFCs aggressively since this deck is quite mana hungry. If you’re flooding or you have your plays for the next few turns lined up, obviously you can hold them, but don’t hold them if it’s going to disrupt your curve.
• Sejiri Shelter is both a protection spell and a way to circumvent blockers so always keep that in mind.
• I mentioned this before, but you don’t have to Unleash Fury solely on Goldspan Dragon, buffing up a creature to throw at them is a very viable way to win.
• Every point of damage in this deck matters heavily, so don’t hold back your creatures unless you’re forced to do so, even 1 damage can make the difference when closing out the game. This is generally good advice, but is specific to this deck as it’s capable of some very crazy wins.
• Be very careful when sequencing your mana. Red and White are your main colors, but you do need Green early as Edgewall Innkeeper and Lovestruck Beast are both cards you want to cast early. That being said, don’t produce too much Green early as that can hurt your ability to cast your spells later.

That’s all that I have for today! Thank you for reading and have a great day!