Would love some recs for a Nethroi, Apex of Death deck with a Kaheera companion. Self Mill and reanimation are the general game plan, but the theme is "Cards from a Forgotten Pokemon Clone from from the 00s"
Mmmmh, a tough one. Hard to recommend creatures because the restriction means you likely already saw most of them, particularly the good ones, but hard to recommend noncreatures either because the deck likely wants to be mostly creatures.
Let's see... For the vibes and the gameplay the main recommandation will be...
Vivien is pretty much a Pokémon spinoff character, she captures defeated monsters' spirits in her bow to summon in her assistance later on. I love these three Vivien and try to find them homes regularly, but this deck might be a fit. Vivien on the Hunt is six mana, but for this deck, she mills (you can draw the creatures, or just leave them in the 'yard if you want them there), she pods which is always a fun way to tutor when it's not a combo, and then she has a fallback for defense.
Three mana Vivien is very fragile in a game of commander, but Vigilance and Reach at least means one blocker, if you can keep up your mana you can threaten to flash in stuff, and at worst she can draw a card when she enters with her -2 so she replaces herself. I just love the gameplay of every creature having flash, and notably, Mutating is still casting a creature spell, so with her out you can mutate at instant speed.
Monster's Advocate is the most generically good, but the one that I think fits a bit less well here. Still, she's powerful, and the tokens she makes are beasts for Kaheera's purposes.
Now for some other recommendations that might already be in the deck:
Dinosaur Egg is technically a Dinosaur for Kaheera, has zero power for Nethroi to bring back, loves being mutated onto because it likely got a few counters and has a trigger based on toughness, and seems close enough to some Pokémon mechanics to end up in a clone.
Season of Loss is a modular board wipe from the upcoming set that has a lot of options, but a self-mill creature deck in particular should be very capable of turning that last mode into a potent wincon, and shouldn't have too hard a time to combine the first two modes for profit considering how much stuff Nethroi can bring back.
I feel like I recommend this card to every other black decks, but in my defense, it's really good, really fun to play with, and for now, still relatively affordable.
It's a classic, but it always gets real big real fast which does work with Nethroi's lifelink or any Mutate's evasion, has 0 power from Nethroi, and the new art does have enough pokémon vibes.
Sometimes, you just want to return your Nethroi to hand to just be able to re-mutate it without paying commander tax. Cheap flash creatures that allow you to do that or can be brought back with Nethroi to do their thing immediately.
