[EDH/Commander] Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind - Draw

[nethys]

https://deckstats.net/decks/98891/1386851-niv-mizzet-draw-and-kill

This deck is mainly based on drawing and deal damage with Niv-Mizzet.
All advices are welcome to improve it.

My main concern are :
Creature => There is very few creatures with CCM of 2 or 3. And the one I have are utility creatures. I don't wantto waste them to block. Should I had some more low creatures only used to block ?
Handle Threads => I put a lot of counterspells. But I think I should be lacking of means to handle other thread. What could I modify to help with that ?

Thanks in advance for your answers.

[Slyvester12]

Is this meant to be a casual deck for playing against precons or more in the 7-8 range? Because, at the moment, you don't seem to have much beyond counterspells and card draw, and LabMan being your only win condition is pretty fragile. You need to add in ways to tutor for important pieces like Enter the Infinite and remove low-value cards like Isochron Scepter, which only works with 4 cards in your entire deck.
Unless you're strongly attached to Niv Mizzet, I would consider Nekusar, the Mindrazer instead since you're already running a draw/wheel shell and would benefit a lot from black.

[nethys]

Well if it can compete with commander preco which are pretty strong, it's a good starting point. But I would make it stronger if possible.

I'm indeed really attached to Niv-Mizzet. The whole point of the deck is to play thé combo Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind with Curiosity or ophidian eye.

With this base idea, I started to add more draw effects or draw related cards to be able to trigger Niv ability when I dont have my 2 enchants.

But you are right about isochron sceptre, I'll remove it.

[Slyvester12]

The main problem with focusing on Niv-Mizzet is that you have no way to kill the third opponent, assuming a normal game of four players. You need things like Scroll Rack and Time Reversal to refill your deck, or you'll just be kingmaker for whomever you don't kill. On the other hand, adding cards like Gitaxian Probe to make LabMan a more reliable win condition helps too.

[nethys]

It can sound silly, but I didn't think about third ans fourth players. I more often play in duel, but I should think about multi too.

I've seen those cards in other decks, but I didn't realized that they where used for that. Echo of eons works too, I guess ?

And gitaxian probe should be useful too. To know what card I should remove, could you say how many draw and counter I should save ?

[vali0021]

isn't Niv-Mizzet, Parun a better commander tho?

[Slyvester12]

Niv-Mizzet, Parun is a better commander in a lot of ways, but the mana cost is a problem. You can't let a combo deck stall out because your available mana turn 6 is UURRRR or UUUURR. Even if you want to wait until you can combo the turn you play your commander, having a less restrictive mana costs still helps.

Depending on budget, I would replace some weaker counters like Cancel, Essence Backlash, and Mindswipe with combo protectors like Force of Will and Pact of Negation or better value like Mana Drain. But, those are a bit pricey.

On the other hand, dropping spells like Invoke the Firemind and Blue Sun's Zenith (because you have no way to make infinite mana and Omniscience will treat x as 0) would make room for the deck refillers.

Removing some big creatures like Dragon Mage and Thundering Djinn also makes room, and they can be replaced with some basic ramp like Wayfarer's Bauble and Burnished Hart to speed up the deck.

It's also important to add targeted removal like Chaos Warp and Reality Shift, for which you could remove Thought Reflection because it's too expensive and Venser's Journal because you want to reload your deck, not have a 100-card hand.

Another idea is running an eldrazi like Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre or Blightsteel Colossus to get an automatic graveyard reset on discard.

[Red_Wyrm]

Considering you have, unless I missed something, like no mana rocks, 26 lands seems kind of low. I aim for about 33 lands plus mana rocks.

There are quite a few draw commanders. Generally I think wheels. So cards like Nekusar, the Mindrazer, every Niv Mizzet ever except Niv-Mizzet Reborn, Arjun, The Shifting Flame, The Locust God, Mizzix of the Igamagus, if you really really want, but I wouldn't use him. Probably more. They all weaponize card draw in one way or another. Not so much Mizzix.  Personally my favorite is The Locust God because he can avoid commander tax fairly regularly.  Cast The Locust God, they destroy it, okay. Cast it again next turn, with ideally one more mana than before for that swan song or whatever. If they don't destroy it, then you can combo off. I run him and there are no combos like you have with drawing you're entire deck, though that would work, I guess. I just wheel away using just about every wheel in izzet colors. Wheel of Fortune, Time Spiral, Time Reversal, wheel of fate, Memory jar, Magus of the Jar, Magus of the Wheel, Tolarian Winds, Collective Defiance, Jace's Archivist, Winds of Change, not Timestwister, I'm poor. Those are the big ones that come to mind. I also have Mana echos, Phyrexian Altar and Ashnod's Altar to make mana out of my locusts and continue to cast the cards I draw. 

I don't wanna explain my deck too much in case you don't care, so I'll wrap this up.

My friends like it because it doesn't combo and win. I just keep drawing until I either win, or have a bunch of locusts and fizzle out. I will definitely create a board presence if I am able to untap with The Locust God, but it is fair. I like it because unlike a combo deck, I am not winning the EXACT same way every time. Sure same idea, but win with different cards in slightly different ways, still gets dull after like three games for me.

My friend had Alhammarat's Archive out one time and I milled him to death with wheel effects T'was great.

Now it doesn't seem like Wheel is the way you are going, but I definitely think that is the best way to do it. But if you want a combo deck and not necessarily a Niv-Mizzet deck, go for it man! The last thing I would ever want is to tell you you're playing/building the deck wrong.

Niv-Mizzet, Parun is a better commander in a lot of ways, but the mana cost is a problem. You can't let a combo deck stall out because your available mana turn 6 is UURRRR or UUUURR. Even if you want to wait until you can combo the turn you play your commander, having a less restrictive mana costs still helps.

Depending on budget, I would replace some weaker counters like Cancel, Essence Backlash, and Mindswipe with combo protectors like Force of Will and Pact of Negation or better value like Mana Drain. But, those are a bit pricey.

On the other hand, dropping spells like Invoke the Firemind and Blue Sun's Zenith (because you have no way to make infinite mana and Omniscience will treat x as 0) would make room for the deck refillers.

Removing some big creatures like Dragon Mage and Thundering Djinn also makes room, and they can be replaced with some basic ramp like Wayfarer's Bauble and Burnished Hart to speed up the deck.

It's also important to add targeted removal like Chaos Warp and Reality Shift, for which you could remove Thought Reflection because it's too expensive and Venser's Journal because you want to reload your deck, not have a 100-card hand.

Another idea is running an eldrazi like Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre or Blightsteel Colossus to get an automatic graveyard reset on discard.

To piggy back on this, I try to keep all my counter spells below three mana, meaning a card like arcane denial is the worst my counterspells get. You could argue it is better than counterspell (which I also run) because it is UU, and I have found that blue is very valuable mana. If I had force of will, I would run it, but I don't and I don't think it is worth investing in. I am suspecting a reprint in the future, but if it is modern horizons 2.0 (if that ever happens) that'll definitely make the price jump, not dip. Definitely get Pact of Negation if you can. And Force of Negation, though I have only used that one once. Swan Song is also AMAZING! Turn Aside is pretty decent, as the main purpose of counterspells is for protection. Rewind is iffy. I have run it without ever using it, while it seems to be great for my friend's Baral deck. Red Elemental Blast and Pyroblast are worth considering because blue is a stupidly annoying color. Also instead of Thought Reflection, which I agree, is too much mana, maybe Alhammarat's archive? More money, but I love it. It turns a card like Mindmoil into actual card draw instead of card filtering. But I didn't see mindmoil in the deck list. Still awesome though.

For ramp, I wouldn't do Burnished Harp. I run that in one deck, my Kozilek, The Great Distortion deck (because you take what you can get in colorless ramp) and I hate how slow it is. Although I admit, I don't know of a better replacement in Izzet.

Gilded Lotus is pretty slow and Chromatic Lantern is worthless in two colors. It is basically Manalith. Arcane signet would make a fine addition after tomorrow. Fellwar stone would also be decent since at least one other person is playing blue.

[Slyvester12]

If your budget allows, Force of Will is always worth running. There's a huge difference between a 1 mana counter and a 0 mana counter. Also, yeah, you should go up to 34-38 lands with more rocks. Burnished Hart is slow, but izzet doesn't really have ramp options. Also, my recommendations were specifically for Niv-Mizzet; there are plenty of ways to run the other draw commanders.

[nethys]

Revision 3

Added/removed cards:
+1 Feldon's Cane
+1 Gitaxian Probe
+1 Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur
+1 Mind Over Matter
+1 Pact of Negation
+1 Reminisce
+1 Time Reversal
+1 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre

[nethys]

Revision 4

Added/removed cards:
-1 Blue Sun's Zenith
-1 Chromatic Lantern
-1 Dragon Mage
-1 Dream Fracture
-1 Electrostatic Field
-1 Essence Backlash
-1 Gilded Lotus
-1 Isochron Scepter
-1 Mindswipe
-1 Narset, Parter of Veils
-1 Staff of Nin
-1 Thought Reflection
-1 Thundering Djinn
-1 Treasure Cruise
-1 Venser's Journal
+1 Burnished Hart
+1 Capsize
+1 Chaos Warp
+1 God-Eternal Kefnet
+1 Manalith
+1 Rewind
+1 Wayfarer's Bauble

Thanks for all you advices.
I really apprecaited all of them.

But now, I don't really know what card to remove to make room for more lands.
That have always been a diffcult point for me XD.

It worth nothing saying that I plan to balance the number of Mountains and Islands according to the final list of cards.

[Slyvester12]

Darksteel Ingot, Thought Vessel, Rewind, Temple Bell, and Psychosis Crawler would be okay cuts.

[nethys]

I think I understand your suggestions

• Rewind is a "Free" counter, but you need to have the mana avaiable. So it's not as interesting as a Pact of negation.
• Oneirophage is cheaper than Psychosis Crawler and can evade with fly, when the second effect of Psychosis Crawler is avaiable on my commander.
• Temple bell effect can by achieved with Azami, Lady of Scrolls or Arcanis the Omnipotent or even with Niv itself. And they don't make opponent drawing.

But I don't understand for Darksteel Ingot and Thought Vessel. If the purpose is to add mana, why removing 2 mana rocks ? And why Darksteel Ingot over manalith, which are basically the same card except that Darksteel Ingot is indestructible ?

[Red_Wyrm]

Perhaps Commander Sphere over Darksteel Ingot. It is sort of on theme with you know, drawing cards. But then again, it dies more easily. in fact, that IS how you draw cards with it!

Psychosis Crawler isn't used to be big and attack with. It is used for it's life loss effect. Like if someone cast's Nevermore, naming, Niv, you got this guy as a back up, or commander tax is too high, or for whatever reason, you need another way to weaponize that card draw, you have it. Sure, Oneirophage is going to be a bigger creature and it is one less, but you have to attack with it, and I don't like being forced to attack to get value.

Rewind is good if you are facing multiple opponents that you anticipate will attempt to disrupt you, or require counter spells for some other reason. But for four mana, you could just cast arcane denial and Counterspell instead of rewind and then cancel. Turn aside, Dispel and Swan Song are going to be your best replacements for pact of negation or force of will if you can't afford them. I agree with Mr. Slyvester that there is a large difference between 0 and 1 mana (mana crypt vs sol ring), but one mana can get the job done.

Azami might actually be a decent replacement for temple bell because, If I am not mistaken, each of the Niv-Mizzets are wizards. Yeah I just did a quick check and it looks like about half (I didn't count) of your creatures are wizards. The other half give you value in some other way that they don't need to synergize with Azami. Also, consecrated Sphinx? I guess it is definitely not as good in 1v1 as in 4 player, but it is still good.

Best of luck!

[nethys]

Yeah, indeed, Commander sphere is a pretty good idea.

I not very sure between Psychosis Crawler and Oneirophage for now. Put I understand yur point of view, attacking is more random that a triggered effect. I'll see.

As for Azami, I indeed have 14 Wizards. It wasn't meant to be a tribal deck, but it helps here. Without counting the spark double that could become a wizard too.

In order to have some variety in kills/removal, I was thinking about playing a combo I discovered some years ago.

Tidespout Tyrant + clone + Ornithopter => You play Tidespout, duplicate it with clone then play ornithopter. Then you can return 2 target permanents to their owners hand. Yon can return any permanant of an opponent (even lands !)  and you ornithopter. Now you can replay your ornithopter for 0 and repeat until you reset the boards of your opponenents.

As I already have a spark double which can act as a clone, I was wondering if adding Tidespout Tyrant and Ornithopter could be a good idea. With a tolaria west, I could easily tutor the ornithopter.