Niambi wants a deck that removes its creatures and brings them right back to reuse them. It also suits a deck that throws away its own cards on purpose for a reward.
Mana cost
White, Blue ()
Power / toughness2 / 1
RarityRare
Flash
When Niambi enters, you may return another target creature you control to its owner's hand. If you do, you gain life equal to that creature's mana value.
Picked for what they do in Niambi's deck. When two cards do the same job, the one with the lower comes first. All of them fit Niambi's color identity.Mana ValueThe total amount of mana a card costs, all added up. A card costing two generic and one green has a mana value of three. Wizards renamed this from "converted mana cost" in 2021, so older cards and articles may still use the old name.Open the full glossary
explain how Niambi works in tricky situations. They come from Wizards of the Coast, the company that makes Magic.RulingThe official answer to how a card works in a tricky situation. Most rulings are written by Wizards of the Coast, the company that makes Magic, and a few are notes from Scryfall, the card database Magic players use. A ruling explains a card. It does not change what the card says.Open the full glossary
Wizards of the Coast23 Jun 2020
If a creature on the battlefield has {X} in its mana cost, X is considered to be 0.
Wizards of the Coast23 Jun 2020
If the target creature is an illegal target by the time Niambi's triggered ability tries to resolve, the ability won't resolve. You won't return the card from the zone it moved to or gain any life.
Color identityEvery color of mana symbol on a card, in its cost and in its rules text. Your commander's color identity sets the limit for your whole deck: every other card has to fit inside it. A deck led by a green and white commander cannot play a card with any blue in its color identity.Open the full glossaryWUPlayers write colors as letters: W for white, U for blue. Blue is U because B was already taken by black.Blink/FlickerBlink decks briefly remove their own creatures from play and return them at once, so every 'when this enters' ability happens again. The move is called a flicker, and it can also rescue a creature from a spell aimed at it.Open the Blink/Flicker pageSelf-Bounce / RescueReturns a permanent to its owner's hand, often one of your own. That saves it from removal or lets its 'when this enters' ability happen again. Whitemane LionOpen the Self-Bounce / Rescue pageTarget RemovalRemoves a single chosen permanent by destroying it, exiling it or returning it to its owner's hand, however big it is. It is the precise answer to one problem, as opposed to a board wipe that hits everything. Damage and -X/-X can miss a big creature, so they are Damage Removal and -X/-X Removal instead. Swords to Plowshares, Beast WithinOpen the Target Removal pageLifegain EngineGains you life again and again, on a trigger that keeps happening, rather than once. You start at 40 life in Commander, so life is something to spend as well as a cushion, and a card like this sets off every card that rewards you for gaining it. Soul Warden, Trostani, Selesnya's VoiceOpen the Lifegain Engine pageLife GainGains you life, once or over and over. Soul Warden, The Great Henge. In Commander life is something to spend, not just a cushion, and many of these cards also set off others that reward gaining life.Open the Life Gain pageMadness/DiscardDiscard decks throw away their own cards on purpose and play cards that reward each discard. Cards with madness can even be cast for a different, usually cheaper, cost at the moment you discard them.Open the Madness/Discard pageLootingDraws and discards in the same breath. Faithless Looting, Frantic Search. It does not gain you cards. It improves the ones you have, and fills your graveyard on purpose, which is exactly what a reanimator card like Animate Dead wants.Open the Looting pageSelf-DiscardDiscards your own cards as a cost or an effect. Filling your own graveyard on purpose is the point: it feeds cards that bring things back, madness and channel abilities, and some cards are worth more there than in hand. Faithless Looting, Boseiju, Who EnduresOpen the Self-Discard pageBounceBounce decks send cards on the battlefield back to their owner's hand, to slow opponents down or to reuse their own cards. Bouncing an opponent's card makes them pay for it again; bouncing your own lets its 'when this enters' ability happen twice.Open the Bounce pageETB ValueDoes something useful the moment it arrives: an enter the battlefield ability, which players shorten to ETB. You keep that effect even if the card is removed straight afterwards, which is why these pair so well with flicker cards that make them enter again. Solemn Simulacrum, The One RingOpen the ETB Value pageLegends MatterCards that care about legendary cards: rewards for casting them, discounts, or bonuses for each one you control.Open the Legends Matter page
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, Discard a legendary card: Draw two cards.
Open the full glossary
