One of my absolute favorite things of the last few years when it comes to Magic has been the return of the classic retro card frames. To someone like me, it feels highly nostalgic and is what I personally feel to be a Magic card. Yes, I know that the modern frame is better for accessibility purposes and has a good reason for existing, but to me the classic frame just feels right. It's what I grew up with and even now it feels wrong to me to use a modern frame card if a retro version exists.

When Time Spiral Remastered was announced, I nearly jumped out of my seat with excitement. I couldn't wait to see all the modern cards getting that classic treatment. Then we got more retro frames in Modern Horizons 2, and then The Brothers' War and Dominaria Remastered. Those latter two releases especially hit hard with a handful of classic arts in their original frames for the first time in years. I'm still over the moon about getting original art retro frame Howling Mines with black borders that don't cost an arm and a leg. I can even get them foil now with the classic shooting star on them!

The biggest surprise, however, was seeing the retro frames come to a Standard release in March of the Machine: The Aftermath. Yes, technically we got retro frames alongside The Brothers' War, but they weren't actually for Standard necessarily. Here, though, we get some brand new made-for-Standard cards with the retro frame and wow are they gorgeous.

Nissa, Resurgent Animist especially wowed me. The card itself is cool, flavorful, and most importantly playable, but what really struck me was the art. More importantly, it was how the artwork worked in that frame, like it was explicitly made for it. Bringing back classic artists is something that's been happening more since Double Masters, but it's frequently happening on borderless versions of the cards. Seeing old school artist Adam Rex coming back to depict Nissa here reminds me of cards from the Premodern era of the game. It feels like it would be right at home alongside the likes of Calming Verse, Titania's Chosen, and Primal Growth.

This rings even more true when you see the other Green retro frame arts of the set:

Just, wow. Every single card here reminds me of Magic in the late 90s and early 2000s. That was the time when I was first getting into the game and remains a pivotal time in my life that I regularly think about and revisit. And now seeing these, it's like we hit a time warp and went straight back to those classic sets. With these new cards and this old-school vibe, I can't help but make a Commander deck with this sweet new retro frame Nissa.

Let's check out a list!

Nissa, Resurgent Animist | Commander | Paige Smith

• Commander (1)
• 1 Nissa, Resurgent Animist

• Creatures (36)
• 1 Ancient Greenwarden
• 1 Ashaya, Soul of the Wild
• 1 Avenger of Zendikar
• 1 Beast Whisperer
• 1 Cavalier of Thorns
• 1 Circle of Dreams Druid
• 1 Elvish Archdruid
• 1 Elvish Mystic
• 1 Eternal Witness
• 1 Farhaven Elf
• 1 Fertilid
• 1 Foundation Breaker
• 1 Frontier Guide
• 1 Fyndhorn Elves
• 1 Greensleeves, Maro-Sorcerer
• 1 Joraga Treespeaker
• 1 Llanowar Elves
• 1 Lotus Cobra
• 1 Oracle of Mul Daya
• 1 Priest of Titania
• 1 Ramunap Excavator
• 1 Reclamation Sage
• 1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
• 1 Soul of the Harvest
• 1 Sporemound
• 1 Springbloom Druid
• 1 Temur Sabertooth
• 1 Tireless Provisioner
• 1 Tireless Tracker
• 1 Titania, Nature's Force
• 1 Titania, Voice of Gaea
• 1 Wood Elves
• 1 Multani, Yavimaya's Avatar
• 1 Nissa, Vastwood Seer
• 1 Omnath, Locus of Mana
• 1 Titania, Protector of Argoth

• Planeswalkers (2)
• 1 Nissa, Ascended Animist
• 1 Nissa, Who Shakes the World

• Instants (2)
• 1 Beast Within
• 1 Return of the Wildspeaker

• Sorceries (10)
• 1 Cultivate
• 1 Genesis Wave
• 1 Harmonize
• 1 Kodama's Reach
• 1 Nature's Lore
• 1 Nissa's Pilgrimage
• 1 Rampant Growth
• 1 Skyshroud Claim
• 1 Three Visits
• 1 Vastwood Surge

• Enchantments (6)
• 1 Beastmaster Ascension
• 1 Exploration
• 1 Khalni Heart Expedition
• 1 Primeval Bounty
• 1 Song of the Dryads
• 1 Zendikar's Roil

• Artifacts (2)
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Sword of the Animist

• Battles (1)
• 1 Invasion of Zendikar // Awakened Skyclave

• Lands (40)
• 24 Forest
• 1 Arch of Orazca
• 1 Argoth, Sanctum of Nature
• 1 Blighted Woodland
• 1 Demolition Field
• 1 Drannith Ruins
• 1 Fabled Passage
• 1 Field of Ruin
• 1 Misty Rainforest
• 1 Mosswort Bridge
• 1 Myriad Landscape
• 1 Oran-Rief, the Vastwood
• 1 Prismatic Vista
• 1 Tranquil Thicket
• 1 Verdant Catacombs
• 1 Windswept Heath
• 1 Wooded Foothills

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When building this deck, there were three things I sought out to look for right out of the gate: mana ramp, elementals, and elves. All three of these are the main core components of what makes up the deck. It's your lands that trigger Nissa - hence the ramp - and then you need the Elves and Elementals for her to find.

A couple cards swiftly came to my mind in particular. Wood Elves and Springbloom Druid could get lands right onto the battlefield and Avenger of Zendikar works great with the landfall synergies. After those were the ramp spells. They're all pretty much staples so they're easy to figure out. Rampant Growth, Nature's Lore, and Three Visits each pull one land while cards like Cultivate, Skyshroud Claim, and Vastwood Surge dig out multiples, guaranteeing a Nissa activation.

The next thing I looked up were the elementals. I've done quite a bit with Elves in the past and so while I knew there were bound to be some great choices there, I wanted to make sure plenty of strong elementals made the cut first and foremost. Everyone expects a bunch of mana dorks, but it needs something to really push the deck beyond the usual play of Elfball decks. The big surprise, though, was that there weren't really a ton of big Mono-Green elementals to pull from! With all the elementals over the years, I certainly expected there to be more than there actually was.

Thankfully, though, there are still plenty of great ones to pull from. Ashaya, Soul of the World is a truly outstanding choice, as it makes any of your creatures coming into the battlefield lands that can trigger Nissa. Soul of the Harvest is also already a solid Elves staple and works just as well here too, drawing you lots of additional cards. All three Titania cards have good synergies with the land plays and Greensleeves, Maro-Sorcerer spits out a ton of tokens. You even get extra big creatures like Multani, Yavimaya's Avatar as well as some decent utility in cards like Ancient Greenwarden and Foundation Breaker. Fertilid also can be found, acting as even further ramp to fuel your strategy.

Most of the Elves are pretty standard fare for what you'd expect. With low creature type matters synergy in this deck with the higher focus on elementals, most of them are in mana dorks like Llanowar Elves variants, Joraga Treespeaker, and Priest of Titania. Reclamation Sage and Beast Whisperer provide some of the extra value you also might come to expect. Tireless Provisioner gives you artifact tokens and the criminally underrated Frontier Sage helps dig up more lands as needed to keep the ball rolling with your commander's ability. Nissa, Vastwood Seer flips into a value walker, which benefits your commander in a flavorful way.

I actually contemplated which Nissa cards I could run. I only went with two planeswalkers in Nissa, Who Shakes the World and Nissa, Ascended Animist for their strong value, but there's definitely a number of other great options in a pinch. Nissa's Pilgrimage and Sword of the Animist provide some extra flavor bumps as well. There's also a number of Zendikar-related cards such as Zendikar's Roil, Khalni Heart Expedition, and Beastmaster's Ascension - all of which give you some serious oomph to what you're trying to do.

One of my favorite subtle things about this deck is actually how to play all the ramp in it. It's not always the most optimal strategy to just play all of it right away, because it deprives you of potential triggers. You only get to search up a creature on the second time you play a land, but it won't work if you play a third or fourth or anything like that. This means you need to time your ramp spells and fetches just right in order to maximize your value in what you're doing. It's a really cool dynamic that gives the deck some unexpected texture and makes it that much more of an enjoyable experience.

The only thing I'm a little bummed about is that as of right now, there aren't as many old frame cards as I would've liked for a list like this. Aside from Nissa herself, I passed on the other new retro frame cards because they largely (except maybe Animist's Might) didn't really fit the concept of what I was going for. There are certainly still some great choices, but it's tough when there aren't particularly a ton of memorable old bordered elementals, for example. Wizards has been really going out of their way to print more and more retro frame cards as of late, though, so I feel like we'll be able to revisit this list later and add some more of those classic Green frames to this deck.

For now, what you're left with is a really fun deck to play with. It's a very interesting kind of list, that has the general vibe of what an Elf Ball deck might do, but with far less focus on the Elves side of the package. Best of all, many of these cards are very affordable, and a lot of the value is tied up in fetches that can easily be replaced. Odds are you probably have many of the cards sitting around and if you need to, it's probably not a stretch to find things you can swap around to fit your budget. No matter how you play, though, it's sure to be a great time at your next Commander night. It's great seeing these old frames bringing out such massive nostalgia and I hope WotC keeps it up, because this rules!

Paige Smith

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