Of all these different illustration of Niv-Mizzet and Niv-related iconography, only five of them have traditional paintings, including both the Signets and the Guild land Nivix. One other, Blast of Genius , has Niv-Mizzet lurking in the background.
There is but one traditional illustration of the dragon as the main character, and it has both a finished final painting, as well as an exceptionally rendered color study.
The work is Expansion by Alexander Deruchenko, and that color study is the piece of art that has made its way to my collection. Color Study for Expansion by Alexander Deruchenko, watercolor, colored pencils, and acrylic on watercolor paper, 9.
Expansion by Alexander Derchenko is a mixed media color study used by the artist during his process of creating the final oil-painted version.
There is often no difference between the color studies he creates and the illustration as it appears on a card, making his color studies much more than a preliminary stepping stone and essentially as collectible as a finished work of art.
This is especially true for Expansion—other than its final oil painting counterpart, it is the only other way to collect Niv-Mizzet as a traditional piece of Magic art. As soon as this card was previewed, I sent a message straight to Alexander.
I prepared for the sale and made my interest known. Without going full Art Market Minute within this article, both paintings were sold first to different collectors, and afterwards the color studies were offered.
They each garnered considerable bidding attention, with Expansion more so than the Ral-focused work of Explosion. I was ready for a fight to the finish, knowing that acquiring a work like this would not come easily. I placed my bid by private message in the closing minutes. There was no rebuttal to the bid I placed. I was stunned and elated; the dragon, and one of two pieces of his only traditional depiction, was mine. I knew going in that I wanted something to play off the guild colors of our main dragon, and preferably something that complemented the lightning between his hands if at all possible.
The mat choices came together fairly quickly, as my framer Lou was able to find complimentary colors in ultramarine and red textured that worked quite well together. Next came the question of the outside frame, and here the decision became tougher. In this case, it was not about architecture; it looked exactly as dragon scales:.
Down to three different color variations, I eventually selected the darkened pewter. It struck me as the best compliment to the mat color and the work itself. I think each would have looked as good as any other, but ultimately am very happy with the final choice. I hope you enjoyed this visual timeline, as well as getting a closer look at draconic color study you may not have known existed.
There is all that and more to look forward to, only in the Mirror Gallery here on Hipsters of the Coast. Remember, to see original mtgart and other vorthos related things, follow me on Twitter. Feel free to ask questions or retweet to continue the conversation. Thanks and see you next time! The biggest issue right now with Niv is just how prevalent the midrange decks are. Plaguecrafter for 3 mana will have you sacrificing your Dragon and drawing 0 cards.
The Eldest Reborn and Vivien Reid provide even more ways to knock off a Niv and still leave behind tons of value. This is a horrific position and probably not a good way to be successful in Standard right now. This is the sort of thing that can swing wildly, so if control decks continue to pick up in popularity to beat the Golgari menace, then be aware of how good Niv-Mizzet will be again. That could be tomorrow or it could be a month from now, but until that day, wait to unleash your Dragons.
Skip to content. If you like playing a topdeck card matters strategy she is your girl. Elsha can also get HUGE and so can actually be a somewhat viable voltron commander as well. Sevinne, the Chronoclasm - if you want to use Jeskai colors but put a focus on casting spells from your graveyard, this is pretty great choice.
Narset, Enlightened Master - Narset can be very competitive, chaining extra turns and other big spells. Riku of Two Reflections - an older commander but still strong. Adding green means that you also go a creatures route, or tokens route. Riku can be built a lot of different ways. Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder - can go combo, or simply utilize the cascade keyword to the max. Adding both green and black to the mix really expands your card choices.
I am posting this deck exactly as I currently own it in paper and will update it as I acquire upgrades. Many of the reserve list cards were acquired before they spiked. Please refer to the budget decklist in the next section for alternatives. Fetches 1 Prismatic Vista. Multi-color 1 Command Tower. Basics 7 Island. Approximate Total Cost:. I understand. You can trade and give yourself birthday presents to gradually increase the power of the deck.
Fetches 1 Evolving Wilds. Utility 1 Forgotten Cave. Basics 16 Island. This deck fits into several common archetypes, however, it is the combination of them that makes the deck unique. Being aware of these archetypes and making card choices based on their philosophy has been and continues to be an important part of streamlining and focusing the deck. A spellslinger deck attempts to cast as many of these spells as possible eventually comboing out with a high storm count or in the case of this deck, a particular combo.
As such, many the cards in the deck, no less our commander, synergize with instants and sorceries. Not going heavy on creatures means we can slot in powerful cards like Blasphemous Act and All is Dust and they will generally be one sided. Parun pushes the deck more toward a control archetype largely because of his mana cost and color combination. You can very rarely get him out early, so it's all about stalling your opponents until you can get there.
Once Niv is out, he cantrips all of the instants and sorceries cast by the table, and gives us more chances to draw into more answers. This is an integral strategy of the deck. Without control and removal, we would simply be overrun since we have such a low creature count of our own. BURN: Burn spells just aren't great in commander, that is pretty well known.
Instead of one opponent at 20 life, you have three opponents at 40 life. Those just aren't good odds. A normal burn deck would just never really work. It would run out of gas quickly and get overwhelmed. But, now add blue. Blue spells give us that sweet sweet card advantage, and the beautiful thing is that Niv allows us to turn all of that card advantage into damage directly.
Add Alhammarret's Archive and you have some serious damage, especially when you slot in things like Winds of Change and Tolarian Winds. Suddenly you are doing damage with very little mana invested. Now, all you have to do is protect Niv. With the right recursion spells, your graveyard can be an extension of your hand.
Over time, I've leaned more and more into this strategy and now with Underworld Breach it can allow me to win fairly reliably. Being able to recur spells from my graveyard gives me a huge amount of versatility and resiliency. Many of the wheel effects are present in order to fill my own graveyard. What this means in terms of deck building is that many of the cards are there to effectively thin the deck, or tutor for these key pieces. The deck is intended to function more or less the same every game.
It makes our own board wipes one sided most of the time. Not killing off our own card advantage as collateral damage is a good thing. Creatures don't trigger Niv's ability - You might consider this to be a minor difference, but there is a special satisfaction in know that so many cards in the deck actually do have direct synergy with my commander just for being an instant or a sorcery.
It makes topdecking in vaccuum slightly more tolerable. Chaining spells means we will always be drawing cards with Niv in play. We don't have tutors or recursion for creatures. Most creatures we would want to run here are delayed advantage. That is they gain you value over time rather than being worth casting immediately. I don't like that, simply because there is so much creature removal in the format.
Creatures tend to be a risky investment. Without any recursion for creatures, once that creature hits our graveyard it liable to stay there until the end of the game, whereas instants and sorceries can be utilized later. And as for tutors, without things like Natural Order or Green's Sun's Zenith we are counting on drawing into our creatures to play them.
That's inherently inconsistent if we base our strategies around them. It make deckbuilding easier. It also forces me to think outside the box and I am usually rewarded for that method of deckbuilding in finding hidden gems. Reality Ripple and Firestorm are good examples. It is also a lot easier to break symmetry on cards like Arcane Melee if you wanted to go that route. While a sideboard isn't exactly common in Commander, I do include it because there are certain cards you may want to slot in depending on your meta or matchups at a particular table.
I participate in Commander tournaments where decks are allowed to be accompanied by a 15 card sideboard, so I will list some of those those card options here. Invariably blue decks are the most likely to be able to stop us. Thankfully, red has some good answers for those pesky opponents. Pyroblast , Red Elemental Blast - These are no-brainers. A Vindicate and a Counterspell for just R can't be beat. Counterflux , Overwhelming Denial - these are pretty darn good and will usually be enough to end a counter war, however we have other options in the deck like Mindbreak Trap and Flusterstorm.
Generally, the best answer to our opponents' graveyard strategies is going to be these kinds of shuffle and draw effects because they synergize with our own gameplan. Tormod's Crypt - something like this could be used in a pinch and is tutorable with our artifact tutors. Rebuild can acutally help us sometimes by saving our own stuff from removal. Sometimes the best way to stop a combo deck is to take out the combo cards before your opponents have a chance to even cast them.
Essentially, this is the ultimate answer to everything. I don't main deck it because it costs so much to cast and generally a regular counterspell is just fine, but there are some opponents or situations where you might want to have this.
Disallow - Very flexible. It could be argued that this should be maindecked, and you are more than welcome to. Your control and removal suite should be tailored to your meta. Just like any deck, Firemind's Fury is susceptible to other deck archetypes and gets shut down by certain cards. Often the best defense is a good offense. Superior speed and card advantage is the surest way to beat any other deck.
But our second best line of defense against these decks is our removal and control suites. These aspects of the deck's structure can be tailored to best combat your opponents. Refer to the sideboard section for specific recommendations.
First, lets discuss specific archetypes and how to deal with them. I'll also list some of the stereotypical commanders that tend to embody these strategies. Hopefully, the other players won't like their games being shut down either and will hate them out or at least soak up some of the counters for us. Our best hope though is to simply out-race them in card advantage so we have access to more of our own control cards.
You can always swap in more of our own control and blue hate from the sideboard. You'll want to repeatedly bounce their armies and counter key spells until you can build enough card advantage to control the game. Swapping in more ways to deal with massive hordes of creatures is advisable. An aggro decks usual main weakness is card advantage. They are also pretty vulnerable to counterspells and wipes. They can win out of nowhere and if you don't have counters or removal in hand there is nothing you can do about it.
Familiarize yourself with the game winning combos they use and shut them down. Don't hesitate to swap in Jester's Cap if you are really serious about stopping these decks. Again, superior card advantage is the solution. Once you you have a lot of cards in hand you have the means to control the game and win.
Because of the deck's combo nature, the more key cards we lose the closer we get to being unable to win the game. Yet again, superior card advantage and speed is the key to beating this strategy. Cards that hurt you when you draw and cards that punish you for cards already in your hand. Both, quite unsavory. The good news is that these cards are pretty uncommon outside of a deck that uses them specifically as a win condition.
Grixis decks UBR are the mostly likely to run these cards. Here I will break down the deck card by card, in order of function. I will also go more in depth when it comes to certain interactions, toolboxing, or my general thinking behind my card choices. This is a very specific set of cards that I plan to acquire when my budget allows. These are cards that are strictly better than what I'm currently running.
I'm not rich, so I don't have them yet. Mox Diamond , Mana Crypt - Because this deck is lacking some of the other high powered colors like green and black, it asks for some intense ramp. More than any of my other decks, I feel this deck could benefit from these cards. However, Mox Diamond will probably never be available. Waiting for a chance to snag a crypt. More counterspells.
You don't want to be in a position of being flooded with these cards and not having a way to gain further card advantage. Dockside Extortionist - while I understand this has a home in basically every red deck ever, I'm not sure I like it in this one. The fact that he is a creature is certainly a drawback in this deck. I can't fully abuse him like a green or even white deck could.
However, his ramp potential is too much to be ignored. Copy Artifact , Phyrexian Metamorph - these would primarily serve as ramp pieces.
A bit more situational, but could be good. Arcane Melee , Jace's Sanctum , Baral, Chief of Compliance , Goblin Electromancer - cost reducers could be an interesting route to explore however my feeling is that it is better to simply lower the mana curve. Future Sight - this card has been in and out.
I really like the effect, but it's high on my mana curve. Also, I try to choose instant and sorceries over permanents for the sake of synergy.
Artifacts are the next priority. Colored enchantments are hit by All is Dust. I fear it doesn't make the cut because of its mana cost but it does shut down planeswalkers. Enter the Infinite - If drawing my library is my goal, than this card make sense, however Never a card you want to see in your opening hand. Misdirection - could be an effective defensive card for Niv however it does nothing against board wipes. These are cards I've either tested and taken out, or cards that I refuse to slot in for various reasons.
I find these spells to be very much superior for a lot of reasons: 1. They can accelerate us into casting Niv much earlier. As opposed to colorless ramp, these spells actually fix our colors. Getting Niv onto the table is one of the biggest goals of the deck since he is such a strong draw engine with the rest of the cards in the list. They trigger Niv's ability if he is already on the battlefield. With these rituals, it is a basically a free draw trigger since the mana used to cast is immediately refunded.
This can help you "storm off" into bigger and bigger plays. They play very well with Past in Flames and Underworld Breach , allowing us to really go off if we are using these recursion effects.
I have found High Tide to be an extremely powerful effect. At its worst it is a blue Dark Ritual , at its best it will give us arbitrarily large amounts of mana with Underworld Breach and untap effects. Dynamo only gives colorless and Heart comes into play tapped. Both these instant speed rituals help us accelerate and fix our mana for casting Niv and later on help us storm off.
Many times it just taps for red or blue but not both and even sometimes just colorless. Seething Song definitely leans into the zone of red rituals that aren't as effective and that I wish were better Geosurge , Irencrag Feat however I still think it's better than the stone. It typically gives me upwards of seven mana and the ability to actually grant "impulse draw" is really a nice bonus especially if I can manage to cast it multiple times.
A non-foil borderless double masters copy. Absolutely gorgeous card and I have no regrets. This fits the bill. Instant speed and it has the added bonus of wiping out planeswalkers.
With added draw multiplier redundancy it is less crucial to get Archive into play. As for Probe, it turns out drawing a card for 2 life is definitely worth it, and more often than not it winds up being 4 cards for 2 life! When I have a draw multiplier out this is a convenient way to draw lots of cards without decking myself. If I don't have a multiplier out but am trying to chain wheels with Underworld Breach this has been a great instrument to that end.
It prevents the situation of my opponents saying "well, lets just see if I draw into instant speed interaction and see if I can stop you" since I am the only one wheeling. It's a lot less tedious. And Missing Briefing is the better card earlier in the game. I never like seeing recursion cards in my opening hand, so I needed to drop down my count. This is a fantastic addition to the deck and I can't believe how long it's taken me to include it. I've been liking Mystic Sanctuary for the free recursion.
I can usually just counter or remove the things those lands enable rather than the lands themselves. These flip lands serve a very similar function and if I absolutely need them to come into play untapped as lands I can bolt myself in pinch.
The "high end" of these cards is MUCH more impactful to the game. For a while Reiterate served the function of going infinite with Inner Fire, but now with Underworld Breach , it is redundant for that purpose. Otherwise, I don't have a whole lot of blowout cards I want to copy with Reiterate.
Generally, I find it sitting my hand waiting to used which means it has to go. Past in Flames has the benefit of working a lot better with Inner Fire and the cheap card draw late-game.
It also generally works very well in my graveyard, whereas Retrieval is a bit more limited in late-game scenarios. Rielle has a lot of things going for her.
She negates any enemy discard effects, turns having a maximum handsize into an awesome end-of-turn looting effect, but more commonly doubles our draw from cards like Faithless Looting or Tolarian Winds. The "draw X spells" simply don't perform well in this deck. I can see them being better in a deck that can reliable copy them or reduce their cost, but in this deck they are bad topdecks early game. Just remember that her ability only activates for the first discard effect per turn.
If you have multiple discard effects, you will get the most value by casting them on your opponents' turns or simply waiting for your next turn.
Rules update from Gatherer -- If the first time you discard cards during your turn is due to having too many cards in hand during your cleanup step, you'll draw that many cards.
Players will receive priority during the cleanup step in this case, and a new cleanup step will happen after that one, during which you may have to discard cards again. Here I will list some topics that I'm interested in discussing or later coming to my own conclusions about through testing. Is there a better win-con for the deck? This is something I've gone over and over again in my head and with playtesting, and so far the answer has been no.
For example, if Spiraling Embers simply had a kicker cost where you could copy it then that would be the better choice. Neither Inner Fire or Comet Storm are great outside of the win-con. They aren't great early game. Comet Storm can sometimes be an decent removal spell, but Inner Fire serves no other function.
The basic complaint I hear a lot is "Competitive games are short and unfun. It really just depends on the luck of the draw, and how different decks match up to one another. Ultimately, I think playing commander shouldn't just be about winning. What is actually fun for me about playing is strategy, making choices, politics, deck building, and interaction, The event of winning can be satisfying but isn't and shouldn't be the primary motivation for playing.
I don't particularly like the the power creep or "arms race" aspect of comepetive commander where there is a strong desire to out-power the competition by getting more and more expensive cards.
While upgrading your deck is fine, I don't think overpowering the competition should be a driving force. Infinite combos can certaintly feel bad. Get your combo into play and if nobody has an answer the game is just over. Early game ending combos can definitely feel bad to play against and I don't necessarily feel favorable toward that particular aspect of competetive play.
While stacking your deck with interaction can mean that you have answers, it doesn't mean you'll have those answers when you need them. Land destruction and severe resource limition are also feel bad scenarios, and I don't really condone either. They are a part of the game and I'm not going to tell anyone they shouldn't build those kinds of decks, but I personally find them tedious and choose not to go that route with my deckbuilding.
This is a fun little set of cards that I made that I would love to test out in this list. Of course this deck would not be possible if it were not for countless opponents over the years.
Without people there is no game. I love deck building but the battlefield is the crucible in which this deck has evolved. A big shoutout goes to FireStorm who was a little ahead of me in terms of deck building.
I took many of his philosophies to heart. Our decks do diverge slightly, but I certainly credit him for many of the cards in this list. Enemies teach what you need to know. Last edited by RowanKeltizar 1 month ago , edited times in total.
Kykar primer and other active decks click! Thanks for the comment. All of the cards you suggest would make pretty decent win conditions, or Parun support, however, thematically, I've chosen this to be a non-creature based deck. I also like to steer away from permanent based win-cons because they are more fragile and less synergistic. Purely a personal choice. I had Mindmoil in the deck for a long time, but I ultimately found it to be a little less optimal simply because I can't tutor for it.
Also, once it's down, you don't have any choice but to cycle the rest of your hand away. For a combo deck, this can occasionally be problematic. Mindmoil isn't exactly a card you want in your opening hand. It's a late game play. I would consider building around it if Inner Fire and Comet Storm weren't so attractive to me. The one thing I've struggled with is that the primary goal of this deck is to get the majority of my library into my hand. Curiosity and Enter the Infinite are definitely in alignment with that plan, but I struggle to find the right place for them in the deck.
They are highly situational and splashy cards but will win me the game in the right circumstances.
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