- Make the most mathematically potent Niv-Mizzet triggers possible at 6 of each guild pairing, both for ease of deck construction and also because it pleases me.
- Keep the deck relatively budget-friendly, focusing on sub-$5 cards and trying to avoid anything above $10.
- Focus on cheap, versatile cards so I can empty my hand quickly and have a reason to trigger the commander again.
A few design decisions:
- Clones instead of blink: keeping with the theme of flexibility over power, I'd rather have a card that can trigger my commander when I need it OR grab the juiciest target on board rather than have to choose between sandbagging my blink effects or bog down the game with a bunch of commander triggers when I already have a full hand just for the sake of card selection.
- Borderposts and basic landcycing cards: one weakness this deck has is, with almost no generic draw, getting lands is done almost strictly from drawing off the top. As bad as the borderposts are, being able to draw them off the commander is super helpful, and if you're not making a land drop for the turn, their alternate cost doesn't really set you back on lands, and if you are really stuck on mana or colors, being able to do something slowly is better than nothing at all. The landcycing cards are all good in various situations as well, though they're probably not going to be cast all that often given how many late-game land drops we are missing compared to decks just draw to keep their hands full; we will need all the mana we can get to keep the resource imbalance as small as possible.
- WTF manabase: Due to the combination of few two-color ramp spells and wanting to play two spells per turn, this deck has a severe color dependency with few good solutions other than just going crazy on CIPTlands that can handle multiple color combinations. It's not as big of a downside versus other decks however; instead of trying to hit commander on-turn or play your six-drops on turn five or six like most decks, we just want to be casting spells every turn, many of which deal with those on-curve threats anyway.
Anyway, here is the list:
Decklist
Approximate Total Cost:
