Niv-Mizzet, Supreme - Maze Farer / 5-Color Kess

SirGregarious · Post by **SirGregarious** » 11 months ago

Looking to trim the fat from this deck I built as well as get input. I think I'm primarily in the streamlining phase where I'm picking the most efficient interaction and cutting some clunky cards. Here's the general game plan:

Get Niv-Mizzet, Supreme on board with an Eidolon in hand to enable infinite Jump-Start which will double up all our interaction, draw and tutor spells.
Get a combination of storm enablers on board: Fallaji Wayfarer and Jeskai Ascendancy OR Guildpact Paragon, Widespread Thieving and Storm-Kiln Artist for examples.
Storm through deck while casting extra land effects to place as many Gates in to play as possible.
Activate Maze's End for the win.
Alternatively, punch opponents to death using Niv-Mizzet, Supreme with Basilisk Gate OR a swarm of tokens.

I decided to opt for Spellslinger synergies involving making tokens instead of ping effects due to the ability to storm off with the tokens being able to be convoked or sacrificed for mana.

There is one particular oddity to Niv-Mizzet, Supreme applying to split cards. When checking casting legality, split cards ignore one half when you declare casting. This means that even though a card like Wear // Tear is a Boros card in all zones besides the stack, Wear and Tear separately are red and white when cast, which makes them illegal recipients of Niv-Mizzet, Supreme's Jump-Start. This also means that Supply // Demand can be cast from the graveyard using Jump-Start despite being Bant in all zones besides the stack. This is more intuitive and obvious when you consider how Lier, Disciple of the Drowned interacts with Adventure cards, allowing you to cast the Adventure part from the graveyard while ignoring the creature half. Here are the rules in question:

601.3e Some rules and effects state that an alternative set of characteristics or a subset of characteristics are considered to determine if a card or copy of a card is legal to cast. These alternative characteristics replace the object's characteristics for this determination. Continuous effects that would apply to that object once it has those characteristics are also considered.
709.3. A player chooses which half of a split card they are casting before putting it onto the stack.
709.3a Only the chosen half is evaluated to see if it can be cast. Only that half is considered to be put onto the stack.

Here is the fully extended deck list, with 23 cuts needing to be made:

Decklist

Approximate Total Cost:

Some things to keep in mind when evaluating cuts are which things are tutorable, which cards are versatile tool box effects to Jump-Start, and which things will conflict with Niv-Mizzet's 5 CMC. Most tutors are going to be for creatures, but there are some more open ended ones: Ringsight, Supply // Demand, Lim-Dûl's Vault, Bring to Light and Perplex are all able to get things that aren't creatures. Some other notes: Casting a board wipe and then putting Niv-Mizzet on board makes opponents nervous to extend, this effect is also applied to any Counterspell equivalents you have in the graveyard. Both Battle cards can be flipped by Niv-Mizzet connecting once, are insanely powerful effects, and are "stored" for later in their Battle half so you can flip them on a later turn when you're ready to go off.

Here is a trimmed list of cards that I'm thinking about cutting:

Decklist

Tutors (5)

1 Altar of Bone

1 Congregation at Dawn

1 Jarad's Orders

1 Perplex

1 Signal the Clans

Counterspells (6)

1 Absorb

1 Counterflux

1 Countersquall

1 Dovin's Veto

1 Voidslime

1 Undermine

Targeted Removal (13)

1 Bedevil

1 Despark

1 Fracture

1 Kaya's Guile

1 Mortify

1 Putrefy

1 Rakdos Charm

1 Terminate

1 Vanishing Verse

Board Wipe (4)

1 Kaya's Wrath

1 Last One Standing

1 Supreme Verdict

1 Time Wipe

Draw Spells (3)

1 Sauron's Ransom

1 Faithful Mending

1 Manamorphose

Tokens (2)

1 Deekah, Fractal Theorist

1 Young Pyromancer

Value (4)

1 Exalted Flamer of Tzeentch

1 Rashmi, Eternities Crafter

1 Vega, the Watcher

1 Whirlwind of Thought

Other (2)

1 Boros Charm

1 Amulet of Vigor

Approximate Total Cost:

Feel free to ask any questions about card inclusion / exclusion. I also wouldn't mind hearing recommendations of cards I may have overlooked. A couple cards high on my cut list are: Exalted Flamer of Tzeentch, Congregation at Dawn and Young Pyromancer. Flamer is once each of our turns, which is limited. Congregation is 3 CMC and eats our next draw. Pyromancer makes small red tokens, which we need the least of.

darrenhabib · Post by **darrenhabib** » 11 months ago

Without a doubt the bottleneck of this deck is going to be mana and casting spells at a rate that is going to be satisfactory. You are going to lose most games with a handful of cards that you just couldn't deploy.
This is not a storm deck where you are casting and producing mana with Storm-Kiln Artist in a meaningful way. If that makes sense you are not casting Dark Ritual, Desperate Ritual, Dramatic Reversal, etc, etc, that allow you to constantly cast more cards. This deck is casting two spells per turn max (and always a turn later than you want with Gates) and you're done.
I take it that the Gates are purely for budget reasons? Root Maze can make everybody in the same misery boat, and punish big-dollar decks with their fetchlands.

I do think that the only way you are going to have success with casting cards in a timely manner is via the token strategy and Phyrexian Altar and the convoke cards Invasion of Segovia // Caetus, Sea Tyrant of Segovia and Fallaji Wayfarer.
Cryptolith Rite is another of these. Earthcraft is a $120 and requires fetchlands for basics to fix, so understand not feasible on budget.

As far as cuts I would reduce card draw as even with a setup mentioned above you are still only just casting cards you have already.
Also I'd cut board wipes. You can look to block with token creatures if getting pressured massively and look at targeted removal for problematic creatures.
Invasion of Segovia // Caetus, Sea Tyrant of Segovia only does non-creature and Fallaji Wayfarer only does multi-color, so here is a great hint that cutting cards that don't match both these stipulations can be cut. Unfortunately token generators need to be exceptions.

With the convoke cards and token generators I would match up multi-colored spells in deck as much as possible with the colored creatures they generate. I have listed other token generators so that figuring out a color pie can be maximized.
Young Pyromancer = Red
General Ferrous Rokiric = Red/White
Sedgemoor Witch = Black/Green
Kykar, Wind's Fury = White
Talrand, Sky Summoner = Blue
Deekah, Fractal Theorist = Blue/Green

Third Path Iconoclast = Colorless
Saheeli, Sublime Artificer = Colorless
Metallurgic Summonings = Colorless
Monastery Mentor = White
Whispering Wizard = White
Tura Kennerüd, Skyknight = White
Docent of Perfection = Blue
Murmuring Mystic = Blue
Shark Typhoon = Blue
Poppet Stitcher = Black
Lord of the Nazgûl = Black
Ovika, Enigma Goliath = Red

Also the mana cost of these cards plays a big deal into selection as well.
To me White and Red has a lot of appeal with General Ferrous Rokiric, Kykar, Wind's Fury, Monastery Mentor, Young Pyromancer.
If you wanted to lean into another color like Blue more because the quality of the multicolor Blue spells is more appealing, then of course you could do that but they are all >= 4 cmc.
Sedgemoor Witch and Poppet Stitcher can fix Black nicely.
Anyway you can see what I'm getting at, really skew your deck to colors your creatures will most be able to convoke to cast.

Of note Supply // Demand is a 3 color card. It's only two colors when cast on the stack.

I can give you more individual card cuts (with reasons), but best to wait to see what you come up with info I've given

SirGregarious · Post by **SirGregarious** » 11 months ago

darrenhabib wrote: ↑
11 months ago
Without a doubt the bottleneck of this deck is going to be mana and casting spells at a rate that is going to be satisfactory. You are going to lose most games with a handful of cards that you just couldn't deploy.
This is not a storm deck where you are casting and producing mana with Storm-Kiln Artist in a meaningful way. If that makes sense you are not casting Dark Ritual, Desperate Ritual, Dramatic Reversal, etc, etc, that allow you to constantly cast more cards. This deck is casting two spells per turn max (and always a turn later than you want with Gates) and you're done.
I take it that the Gates are purely for budget reasons? Root Maze can make everybody in the same misery boat, and punish big-dollar decks with their fetchlands.

I do think that the only way you are going to have success with casting cards in a timely manner is via the token strategy and Phyrexian Altar and the convoke cards Invasion of Segovia // Caetus, Sea Tyrant of Segovia and Fallaji Wayfarer.
Cryptolith Rite is another of these. Earthcraft is a $120 and requires fetchlands for basics to fix, so understand not feasible on budget.

I have been goldfishing the deck, yet to put it in to practice in a real game, so grain of salt so far on what bottle necks. I usually find myself casting one or two spells per turn until about turn six.

Most spells are CMC 2 or 3, which goes infinite with two or three mana on cast effects. There are two pure one card sources of rainbow in Widespread Thieving and Storm-Kiln Artist, which work on most anything in the deck. A combination of token producer and Phyrexian Altar / Convoke enabler nets one mana per token, or two mana per token if you have both. There are three enablers of that type (Phyrexian Altar, Invasion of Segovia and Fallaji Wayfarer), and five token producers in my current build. Jeskai Ascendancy does the thing where it automatically wins the game if it sticks while you have two mana dorks or a Convoke enabler on board. I've found myself able to cast the entire deck as early as turn six, but more consistently in the seven-eight territory. Being able to cast every spell twice via Niv's ability leads to every spell having double its typical draw power, and every mana on cast effect being able to net more mana per card if you reach a positive on cast. With Niv's ability letting you cast every tutor twice as well, it's easier to get your pieces out that it might seem at first.

This is a Maze's End deck. You can't use Maze's End without Gates. Budget is a small factor, but not a huge one. That being said, I haven't found myself stuck on colors very often. Earthcraft is expensive, difficult to tutor for due to being an enchantment, requires a token producer to work, and only works with basic lands which requires fetches to line up. Fallaji Wayfarer is easy to tutor for and only requires a token producer, Phyrexian Altar and Invasion of Segovia are difficult to tutor for and only require a token producer, so those options are quite a bit better. I had Cryptolith Rite in the deck originally, but I ended up taking it out as I was getting bottle necked on creature tokens not having Haste, as well as it being difficult to tutor for in being an enchantment like Earthcraft. My tutors that hit enchantments are often used to get Jeskai Ascendancy.

darrenhabib wrote: ↑
11 months ago
As far as cuts I would reduce card draw as even with a setup mentioned above you are still only just casting cards you have already.
Also I'd cut board wipes. You can look to block with token creatures if getting pressured massively and look at targeted removal for problematic creatures.
Invasion of Segovia // Caetus, Sea Tyrant of Segovia only does non-creature and Fallaji Wayfarer only does multi-color, so here is a great hint that cutting cards that don't match both these stipulations can be cut. Unfortunately token generators need to be exceptions.

With the convoke cards and token generators I would match up multi-colored spells in deck as much as possible with the colored creatures they generate. I have listed other token generators so that figuring out a color pie can be maximized.

Sedgemoor Witch and Poppet Stitcher can fix Black nicely.
Anyway you can see what I'm getting at, really skew your deck to colors your creatures will most be able to convoke to cast.

Of note Supply // Demand is a 3 color card. It's only two colors when cast on the stack.

I can give you more individual card cuts (with reasons), but best to wait to see what you come up with info I've given

Casting draw power and tutors twice per card is what enables the consistency. I like the card draw spells like Izzet Charm or Flame of Anor due to their versatility in other modes when needed, so I've been removing the non-modular card draw spells. My current version of the deck that I have been testing does not have the board wipes in it for that particular reason. I was waiting to get a few games in to see if the rattlesnake effect of a board wipe sitting in the graveyard is worth running. As of right now, there are 33 multicolor non-creature spells to be convoked by the convoke enablers. I find that I often need Temur mana to go off the most frequently, and that I need Black mana the least frequently. Colorless token producers are almost pointless considerations due to most of my spells being colored mana only. I run Sedgemoor Witch over Poppet Stitcher due to it also making Green tokens that are able to block.

Supply // Demand is the card in question that made me look up the rules for and talk to judges about. I already listed the relevant rules in my original post, as well as the explanation given to me by judges about it. The short version is that you CAN cast it with Jump-Start from Niv's ability.

This is the current version of the deck that I have sleeved up and have been testing:

Decklist

Commander (1)

1 Niv-Mizzet, Supreme

Extra Land (6)

1 Atarka's Command

1 Cosmic Rebirth

1 Escape to the Wilds

1 Eureka Moment

1 Growth Spiral

1 Urban Evolution

Eidolons (5)

Tutors (8)

1 Perplex

1 Ringsight

Counterspells (5)

1 Absorb

1 Counterflux

1 Dovin's Veto

1 Ionize

1 Psychic Strike

Removal (8)

1 Putrefy

Draw Spells (6)

1 Expansion // Explosion

1 Izzet Charm

1 Prismari Command

1 Sphinx's Revelation

1 Tainted Indulgence

1 Flame of Anor

Mana (10)

1 Invasion of Segovia // Caetus, Sea Tyrant of Segovia

1 Widespread Thieving

Tokens (5)

1 Deekah, Fractal Theorist

1 General Ferrous Rokiric

1 Kykar, Wind's Fury

1 Sedgemoor Witch

1 Talrand, Sky Summoner

Value (8)

1 Jeskai Ascendancy

1 Archmage Emeritus

1 Invasion of Ravnica // Guildpact Paragon

1 Quandrix Apprentice

1 Rashmi, Eternities Crafter

1 Tome of the Guildpact

1 Vega, the Watcher

1 Whirlwind of Thought

Other (3)

1 Archelos, Lagoon Mystic

1 Tiller Engine

1 Scapeshift

Gates (23)

1 Cliffgate

1 Gond Gate

1 Heap Gate

1 Manor Gate

1 Maze's End

1 Sea Gate

Lands (12)

1 Command Tower

1 Exotic Orchard

2 Forest

3 Island

1 Mountain

1 Plains

1 Swamp

1 The World Tree

1 Tolaria West

Approximate Total Cost:

darrenhabib · Post by **darrenhabib** » 11 months ago

SirGregarious wrote: ↑
11 months ago
Most spells are CMC 2 or 3, which goes infinite with two or three mana on cast effects.

You have 27 instant and sorcery that are 2-3 mana, with a further 5 multi-colored creature/enchantments in that range, so half of your spells.

Jeskai Ascendancy does the thing where it automatically wins the game if it sticks while you have two mana dorks or a Convoke enabler on board.

There are only 4 mana dork in the deck and if they are say Birds of Paradise and Noble Hierarch then you are literally only casting 2 mana spells before you run out of mana.
There are only 12 x 2cmc that are non-creatures and that are proactive. i.e a Dovin's Veto can't be cast without targets and casting Demand for x=0 isn't doing anything.
Now I get that specifically Faeburrow Elder + Jeskai Ascendancy is a win. On that note Bloom Tender.
Yeah that's nice that Demand can get both of Faeburrow and Ascendancy with jump-start. I can see most of your games being won this way.

This is a Maze's End deck. You can't use Maze's End without Gates. Budget is a small factor, but not a huge one.

I've played against dedicated Maze's End decks and never lost once. By dedicated I mean they are specifically Burgeoning + Seedborn Muse, Exploration, massive land ramp .. think Reshape the Earth type cards.
If budget is only a small factor, then my point is don't trade off coming into tapped lands for a win condition that'll you'll hardly ever use. You'll lose far more games because of tapped lands, than for that one in ten where you got to win with it.
Now if you wanted to mold your deck around winning with the Maze's End then of course there is good stuff you can do.

I had Cryptolith Rite in the deck originally, but I ended up taking it out as I was getting bottle necked on creature tokens not having Haste, as well as it being an difficult to tutor for in being an enchantment like Earthcraft. My tutors that hit enchantments are often used to get Jeskai Ascendancy.

If you had a different mana base then Anger is a nice one for haste, that enables Jeskai Ascendancy better.

I was thinking that your graveyard is a resource and so mill and surveil are very good pseudo draw.
Glimpse the Unthinkable can mill 20 cards giving you a lot of choices. Memory Sluice does 8 (or even 16). Breaking // Entering for 16.
Grisly Salvage has the advantage of putting cards into hand, but also filling graveyard with spells.
You could easily take out some of the Eidolon for these as you are bound to hit one and multiples don't seem to benefit that much.
Then use graveyard cards for access to more of what you milled. Reborn Hope, Treasured Find, Can't Stay Away, Kolaghan's Command, Cosmic Rebirth, Find // Finality. Of note these can all get Faeburrow Elder if milled.
Anyway I've realized that I'm inspired to make my own deck, so just ignore me..

SirGregarious · Post by **SirGregarious** » 11 months ago

darrenhabib wrote: ↑
11 months ago
You have 27 instant and sorcery that are 2-3 mana, with a further 5 multi-colored creature/enchantments in that range, so half of your spells.
There are only 4 mana dork in the deck and if they are say Birds of Paradise and Noble Hierarch then you are literally only casting 2 mana spells before you run out of mana.
There are only 12 x 2cmc that are non-creatures and that are proactive. i.e a Dovin's Veto can't be cast without targets and casting Demand for x=0 isn't doing anything.
Now I get that specifically Faeburrow Elder + Jeskai Ascendancy is a win. On that note Bloom Tender.
Yeah that's nice that Demand can get both of Faeburrow and Ascendancy with jump-start. I can see most of your games being won this way.

All of the 2 cost spells get 18 cards deep, all of the 3 cost spells get an additional 18 cards deep, meaning with those you can get 36 cards down into the deck assuming you don't have any advantage engines on board to start. Some of those effects are tutors, which can be used to get ahold of other effects to extend your reach. You can get ahold of other mana producers like Kykar, Wind's Fury or advantage engines like Archmage Emeritus, or whatever makes sense in the moment. Of note, Fallaji Wayfarer + Jeskai Ascendancy does the same thing.

I was thinking that your graveyard is a resource and so mill and surveil are very good pseudo draw.
Glimpse the Unthinkable can mill 20 cards giving you a lot of choices. Memory Sluice does 8 (or even 16). Breaking // Entering for 16.
Grisly Salvage has the advantage of putting cards into hand, but also filling graveyard with spells.
You could easily take out some of the Eidolon for these as you are bound to hit one and multiples don't seem to benefit that much.
Then use graveyard cards for access to more of what you milled. Reborn Hope, Treasured Find, Can't Stay Away, Kolaghan's Command, Cosmic Rebirth, Find // Finality. Of note these can all get Faeburrow Elder if milled.

I had toyed around with the mill / recursion package that you're talking about, but I stayed off of it for two reasons. The bigger reason, most of those effects are sorcery speed and I wanted to keep my deck at instant speed because I would be holding interaction rattlesnakes in the graveyard. The lesser reason, I'm on Maze's End and the only way to get it back from the graveyard is with Cosmic Rebirth. Although, that does make me wonder about including Crucible of Worlds effects.

The current scheme is Draw, Tutor, Cast. With the mill package, the scheme becomes Mill, Recur, Cast. It's the same amount of steps in practice, but the milling can't be done incrementally on opponent's turns while threatening interaction whereas the draw can. It leaves you vulnerable to graveyard hate, but your hand is mostly safe. There are also fewer modals spells that are Mill Yourself + Interact than there are Draw Cards + Interact. On the cutting Eidolon thing, it's probably correct to run three of them. Having two in hand is good because it allows you to pitch them to looting costs for free. Having three in the deck means you can always get one off of Signal the Clans, or you could get two off the Jump-Start of that if you run four Eidolons instead.

I've played against dedicated Maze's End decks and never lost once. By dedicated I mean they are specifically Burgeoning + Seedborn Muse, Exploration, massive land ramp .. think Reshape the Earth type cards.
If budget is only a small factor, then my point is don't trade off coming into tapped lands for a win condition that'll you'll hardly ever use. You'll lose far more games because of tapped lands, than for that one in ten where you got to win with it.
Now if you wanted to mold your deck around winning with the Maze's End then of course there is good stuff you can do.

That's the thing, this doesn't play like those decks. This plays like a tried and true Jeskai storm list where it casts the entire deck with a Rube Goldberg. If the opponent can't stop you from churning through your deck, you win no matter what your payoff is. The payoff could be any combination of cards that when cast ends the game like Laboratory Maniac or Firemind's Foresight, Lightning Bolt, Reset, and Reiterate or any other silly combination of cards instead if you felt like it. Maze's End just happens to be the way out I picked for it because you can cast 14 Growth Spiral equivalents in a single turn with this deck.

Either way, glad to have inspired someone to build this commander. It's a cool one.

darrenhabib · Post by **darrenhabib** » 11 months ago

On my deck building I came across Sorcerer Class and Hero of Precinct One.

SirGregarious · Post by **SirGregarious** » 11 months ago

darrenhabib wrote: ↑
11 months ago
On my deck building I came across Sorcerer Class and Hero of Precinct One.

I've been trying to put Sorcerer Class in a deck since it came out. I ran in to the same problem I had with Cryptolith Rite where the tokens generated that turn don't have Haste. Hero of Precinct One is about the same as Young Pyromancer, which I don't have either in the deck right now.

I rotated in a mill/recursion package to see how I liked it in practice. I included Golgari Grave-Troll, Stinkweed Imp and Life from the Loam as a dredge package, and it does the dredge thing where you fill your graveyard absurdly fast by paying Jump-Start costs with them. Reconstruct History seems good for getting most of your combo pieces back. This version of the deck seems less compatible with Maze's End, so including different finishers and juicing the mana base a bit seems like a better angle. I kept the Jeskai Ascendancy pieces, but I also tossed in Witherbloom Apprentice and Chain of Smog because I had it on hand. Chain of Smog is a little clunky due to it being mono-colored and a sorcery, which we don't have many tutors for. If I get ahold of a better finisher, I might prefer this version.

That being said, I'm not dissatisfied with either version of the deck I've been testing, both are ending up with wins between turns six and eight pretty consistently in goldfishing.

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