Enough To Pay The Bills *PRIMER*

Commander / EDH Aggro Casual Multiplayer UR (Izzet)

NV_1980

Instant (24)

• 1x Arcane Denial
• 1x Blue Sun's Zenith
• 1x Brainstorm
• 1x Capsize
• 1x Comet Storm
• 1x Counterflux
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Deflecting Swat
• 1x Electrodominance
• 1x Fall of the Titans
• 1x Fierce Guardianship
• 1x Firemind's Foresight
• 1x Increasing Vengeance
• 1x Lightning Bolt
• 1x Mana Drain
• 1x Mindswipe
• 1x Mystical Tutor
• 1x Narset's Reversal
• 1x Pyretic Ritual
• 1x Reiterate
• 1x Seething Song
• 1x Spell Burst
• 1x Storm King's Thunder
• 1x Turnabout

Artifact (10)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Chromatic Lantern
• 1x Izzet Signet
• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Primal Amulet  ^Flip
• 1x Pyromancer's Goggles
• 1x Ruby Medallion
• 1x Sapphire Medallion
• 1x Sensei's Divining Top
• 1x Sol Ring

Land (36)

• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Arid Mesa
• 1x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Boseiju, Who Shelters All
• 1x Cascade Bluffs
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Exotic Orchard
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 1x Highland Lake
• 7x Island
• 1x Izzet Guildgate
• 1x Mana Confluence
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 7x Mountain
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Reflecting Pool
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 1x Steam Vents
• 1x Sulfur Falls
• 1x Swiftwater Cliffs
• 1x Temple of Epiphany
• 1x Training Center
• 1x Wooded Foothills

Creature (8)

• 1x Archmage Emeritus
• 1x Baral, Chief of Compliance
• 1x Charmbreaker Devils
• 1x Dockside Extortionist
• 1x Goblin Electromancer
• 1x Guttersnipe
• 1x Lier, Disciple of the Drowned
• 1x Spellseeker

Commander (1)

Sorcery (16)

• 1x Chain Reaction
• 1x Clone Legion
• 1x Crackle with Power
• 1x Curse of the Swine
• 1x Earthquake
• 1x Epic Experiment
• 1x Expropriate
• 1x Insurrection
• 1x Jaya's Immolating Inferno
• 1x Mystic Retrieval
• 1x Past in Flames
• 1x Ponder
• 1x Preordain
• 1x Rite of Replication
• 1x Time Spiral
• 1x Vandalblast

Enchantment (5)

• 1x Inexorable Tide
• 1x Mystic Remora
• 1x Propaganda
• 1x Rhystic Study
• 1x Thousand-Year Storm

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Welcome to Enough To Pay The Bills! {U}{R}!

Hi there! Welcome to the primer of my Izzet spell-slinging deck; commanded by Mizzix of the Izmagnus. The best galvanic Blastseeker in the Izzet League has an issue with you. She wields and controls the arcane tools devised by the chemisters and they are all pointed at you. Orbs of elemental energy floating in mutual orbits, crackling concentric disks of power and streams of lava-bubbling water can be summoned at her call. Her Vedalken assistants are standing by to provide her with yet more instruments and artifacts to aid in your destruction. Get ready for some spell-slinging madness to come your way in no time flat! This deck is meant to be played casually. It’s not meant to be used in a competitive fashion, but of course I welcome anyone to try! Feel free to comment on anything you (dis)like throughout this primer; I hope you will enjoy it!

Why Mizzix?

Anyone who likes to cast massive spells at a huge discount, likes this beautiful goblin! Every instant/sorcery cast that’s slightly more expensive than a previous one, wins her an experience point, which translates to an ability to cast yet more expensive spells. At CMC4 she’s also not expensive to (re)cast. Her only downside is that she’s relatively easy to take out, but in a game featuring THE counterspell color, there are measures one can take to prevent that from happening.

Strengths and Weaknesses

I use the following parameters to determine the strength of the deck. For each, I allocate a score of 5 (very good), 4 (good), 3 (mediocre), 2 (bad) or 1 (very bad); when totalized this score represents the power rating of the deck.

• Mana: indicates the availability of mana sources within the deck.
• Ramp: indicates the speed at which mana sources within the deck can be made available.
• Card Advantage: indicates availability of filter- and draw resources represented within the deck.
• Overall speed: indicates the deck’s potential for pace, based on resource availability and mana curve.
• Combo: indicates the measure of combo-orientation of the deck.
• Army: indicates the deck’s creature-army strength.
• Commander: indicates how much the deck is commander-oriented/dependent (less dependency is better).
• Resilience: indicates the measure in which the deck can prevent and take punches.
• Spellpower: indicates the availability and strength of high-impact spells.

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Mana: 5

Mizzix’s ability cheapens about two-thirds of this deck’s spells. However, as mentioned before, she’s also not difficult to erase (at least, temporarily). Therefore, I’ve built in some redundancy. This comes in the form of five other cheapeners, along with nine sources for some additional mana (of which six are rocks).

Ramp: 1

There’s no ramp in this deck.

Card Advantage: 5

To keep things moving along, I wanted this deck to have plenty of card-advantage avenues available. What I love about Izzet, are its very decent spell-recursion options, which really helps a deck that wants to keep spell-slinging again and again. In all, six direct draw, three conditional draw, three (spell-)tutors, one filter and two (spell-)recursion options are featured.

Overall speed: 5

I wanted this deck to be fast, but not perse because I wanted it to be quick on the offense. Actually, I was more concerned with it being ready on time to react appropriately to stuff my playgroup’s doing. All the elements in here allow for this; lots of mana and draw combined with a low-overall mana curve.

Combo: 3

With the potential Mizzix can bring in terms of ‘free’ instant/sorcery mana, there’s some ground for a few funny infinite combos. This potential also translates to lots of synergy overall, which for instance is helped out loads by the deck’s many permanents/spells that can copy other spells.

Army: 1

Practically non-existent in this deck. None of the creatures in here have been added because of their combat-damage potential. A few options have been added to (temporarily) steal opposing forces, but it’s by no means focused on.

Commander: 3

There’s no denying it; without our esteemed commander around the player in charge of this deck is in a significant amount of trouble. Mizzix makes spells much, much cheaper to cast under the right circumstances, which is something this deck really tries to bank on. This is why as much redundancy has been built in to cheapen- and copy spells, without sacrificing its overall spell-casting capabilities.

Resilience: 5

The Izzet guild is filled with options to counter the opponents’ spells. To protect Mizzix and some other key permanents, seven of such spells have been added. In order to get rid of opposing permanents, thirteen removal options have been included as well (mostly against opposing creatures).

Spellpower: 5

If there’s one thing this deck does well, it’s casting high-yield spells around the place. Removal, damage-dealing, capture and counters; not to mention a great deal of opportunities to copy or even retrieve spells from the graveyard.

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Total power score: 33

Though this deck only really shines when Mizzix is alive and kicking (casting), I’d still consider this a powerful deck that won’t let itself screwed around with. There’s plenty of truly horrific damage potential to be found and the controller of her spells can flick through most of the deck’s content quickly in order to find the best spells at the most opportune moments. All-in-all, a force to be reckoned with at all times.

General strategy

By casting slightly more expensive spells each time, Mizzix gains experience points, which in turn reduces the cost of every successive spell by one colorless per XP-point. This allows for some truly amazing casts; especially with ‘X’-spells. Mizzix’s ability also empowers some very interesting combos that allows me to obtain infinite amount of colorless/colored mana, which can be pretty awesome fuel for the real kickers amongst my spell-arsenal.

The idea is to start out play in a reactive manner and build up experience counters with Mizzix; to let the opposition come at me and destroy/counter/bounce what they deploy against me. Once I’ve got enough counters (four or anything over that amount is great), it’s time to go on the offensive a bit more and allow others a good view of the deck’s sharp teeth. The game can be finished with a combo, but in most cases this is not necessary. A well-timed destructive spell, especially when copied, will have some serious ending-power as well.

Starting hand

At least three cards in the starting hand ought to be lands (or two lands and a cheap-to-cast rock like Arcane Signet, Izzet Signet, Ruby Medallion, Sapphire Medallion or Sol Ring. This is a must; I’m not going to start a game without this hand (even if I have to mulligan down to three cards). The ideal hand could also contain additional cheapening cards like Baral, Chief of Compliance or Goblin Electromancer. An early Sensei's Divining Top can also prove very helpful.

Early game

At first, there’s three things I usually focus on: make resources available, summon Mizzix and gather some early XP as soon as possible. Aside from the resources mentioned in the previous section, some great cards to start games with are Dockside Extortionist, Chromatic Lantern and Rhystic Study. Mystic Remora is also fantastic early on, but make sure to only cast her if you can guarantee her use for at least two or three turns (I usually don’t use Remora before turn four, when I’ve got a bit of a mana base up). Once a few basics have been played, it’s time to bring Mizzix on (if possible with Lightning Greaves, as that makes her much harder to remove). Now it’s time to gain experience by casting a bunch of cheap spells. Some great first ones would be draw-enablers like Brainstorm, Ponder and Preordain. Other great candidates are counterspells that protect my permanents from harm or disrupt my opponents’ game plans. Examples of these would be Arcane Denial, Fierce Guardianship, Mana Drain and Spell Burst.

Mid-game

Now that I’ve gained some experience points, it’s time to use the discount they give me. The best way to do so, is by also ensuring that I can copy what I cast. My favorites amongst such options would be Primal Amulet  , Pyromancer's Goggles and especially Thousand-Year Storm. Now some damage can be done with some truly wonderful X-spells. I love these in this deck, as I can always determine how much mana to use in order to increase the XP granted by Mizzix a bit more. Unleashing Comet Storm, Curse of the Swine, Electrodominance, Fall of the Titans and Jaya's Immolating Inferno usually feels rather cathartic at this point, as it will be the first truly offensive action I undertake during a game. Should I fail to run into some of these options in short order OR I can search for them with some more draw/tutor spells like Blue Sun's Zenith, Firemind's Foresight, Mystical Tutor and Spellseeker. I can even retrieve spells I cast earlier by using stuff like Charmbreaker Devils, Mystic Retrieval and Past in Flames.

End-game

As mentioned before, games can be ended by combos (listed below) but some other game-ending methods can be found in simple spell-casting that unbalances the current board-state in my favor. My most used examples would be spells like Clone Legion, Crackle with Power, Cyclonic Rift, Expropriate, Insurrection and Rite of Replication. Again, all of these are especially deadly if they’re copied when cast.

Combos

The following combos can be found within this deck:

• Narset's Reversal + Turnabout + Thousand-Year Storm: this combo starts with Storm on the table, the other spells in your hand and enough mana available to cast both in a single turn. First, cast Turn and target yourself. Follow it by Reversal (which targets Turn). This triggers Storm to produce a copy of Reversal. The copy of Reversal targets the original Reversal. The copy of Reversal resolves, return the original Reversal to hand. The original Reversal resolves, return Turn to hand. Turn resolves and untaps all my permanents. Repeat for infinite mana and storm.
• Dockside Extortionist + Capsize: this combo only works if all opponents combined have at least eight artifacts and enchantments in play (preferably more). Cast Extortionist. When he comes into play, Extortionist’s ETB trigger is put on the stack. When it resolves, create at least six Treasure tokens. Now cast Capsize (with Buyback) and target Extortionist. Both spells are returned to hand. Repeat for infinite ETB’s, storm and mana (if opponents happens to control more than 8 artifacts/enchantments).
• Reiterate + Turnabout + five untapped lands (two of which can produce red mana): first, tap all untapped lands (two of which have to be able to produce red mana) to add 5 mana to your mana pool. Next, cast Turnabout and immediately cast Reiterate, including its buyback cost, to copy Turnabout. The copy of Turnabout resolves, choose to untap all five lands. Immediately tap the lands again to add 5 mana to your mana pool (which by now should consist of 6 mana). Cast Reiterate (including its buyback cost) again and copy Turnabout. This can be repeated forever, creating infinite blue/red mana.
• Mizzix of the Izmagnus + Reiterate + Electrodominance: this combo requires Mizzix on the battlefield with 3 XP and at least {R}{R}{R}{R} in your mana pool. First, cast Electro with X is 3 (this increases Mizzix’s XP to 4). Cast Reiterate with buyback (target Electro). Resolve Electro’s copy and deal 3 damage to something. This allows for a CMC 3 spell to be cast for free. Cast Reiterate again to copy Electro (use Mizzix’s discount to account for the buyback costs). Repeat for infinite damage and infinite storm.
• Reiterate + Pyretic Ritual + 3 untapped lands that produce red mana: first tap all untapped lands to add 3 red mana to your mana pool. Next, cast Pyretic Ritual and immediately cast Reiterate, including its buyback cost, to copy Pyretic Ritual. The copy of Pyretic Ritual resolves, adding three red mana to your mana pool. Use two of that mana to cast Reiterate (including its buyback costs) again and copy Pyretic Ritual. This can be repeated forever, creating infinite red mana.
• Reiterate + Pyretic Ritual + Lightning Bolt/Fall of the Titans + 3 untapped lands that produce red mana: this combo adds Lightning Bolt to the previous combo. Once we have attained infinite red mana, we can also cast Lightning Bolt/Fall of the Titans and copy that an infinite amount of times with Reiterate. All of the cards required for this combo, can be gathered in one go by casting Firemind's Foresight.

Card Choices

Lands

My reliable sources of mana, and some utility:

• Ancient Tomb: major colorless mana for a small price in life-points; excellent land to have when I’m in a hurry.
• Arid Mesa/Bloodstained Mire/Flooded Strand/Marsh Flats/Polluted Delta/Verdant Catacombs/Windswept Heath: the lands I use to filter through my deck, which enables me to find the cards that matter to my strategy quicker.
• Boseiju, Who Shelters All: especially useful when casting combos that mustn’t be countered.
• Command Tower/Exotic Orchard/Mana Confluence/Reflecting Pool: great all-color mana lands that have very few disadvantages in their use.
• Cascade Bluffs, Highland Lake/Izzet Guildgate/Steam Vents/Sulfur Falls/Swiftwater Cliffs/Temple of Epiphany/Training Center: lands that provide Izzet mana, that depending in circumstances enter the battlefield tapped or untapped. I’ve tried to incorporate the best MTG has to offer on this front, except for the original dual lands which are outside my (and most players’) price-range.
• Reliquary Tower: because I hate to discard.

Mana and Ramp

The cards I use to accelerate mana-availability:

• Arcane Signet: cheap-to-cast, doesn’t come into play tapped and grants me any Izzet mana whenever tapped.
• Baral, Chief of Compliance: gotta love him for his value; cheapens spell-casting and is a potential draw-engine.
• Chromatic Lantern: mana fixing and a mana-source by itself.
• Goblin Electromancer: cheap spells is what I want, this Goblin helps me to cast them.
• Izzet Signet: I can’t have two Arcane Signets, so let’s include this instead.
• Primal Amulet  : first it cheapens my instants/sorceries, then it transforms into a land and actually copies my spells; even better!
• Pyretic Ritual/Seething Song: insta-red mana in bulk, and most of my red spells are mana-hungry bastards!
• Pyromancer's Goggles: not just a nice mana source, but a great resource to copy my red instants/sorceries.
• Ruby Medallion/Sapphire Medallion: Mizzet cheapens my spells, these do so even more.
• Sol Ring: are there EDH decks without this card?
• Solemn Simulacrum: grabs me a basic land upon ETB, and allows me one draw in case he dies.

Card Advantage

The mechanisms that provide me with card advantage:

• Archmage Emeritus: superbly suited for this deck, as in the latter phases of games this deck casts AND copies on a regular basis, meaning this card easily allows me to draw two additional cards a turn.
• Blue Sun's Zenith: an X-draw spell that’s reusable after every use!
• Brainstorm: sort of a one-shot Sylvan Library; unfortunately without the option to immediately draw additional cards. Still, a superb card resource at any point in a game.
• Charmbreaker Devils: retrieves a spell each turn and can get crazy strong if we create a spell storm.
• Epic Experiment: mega funny to surprise opponents with this one!
• Expropriate: whatever advantage my opponents choose for me, it’s going to be good!
• Firemind's Foresight: love this tutor, as it can find all the cards within certain combos.
• Lier, Disciple of the Drowned: usually makes an appearance during the mid-game, as I want to have more freedom to counter during a games’ earlier stages. Once he’s on, all my instants/sorceries can be cast twice!
• Mystic Remora: one of the greatest early-game draw cards in existence, as no opponent will ever pay the associated non-creature-spell taxes.
• Mystic Retrieval: single spell-recursion that can be re-cast from my graveyard.
• Mystical Tutor: nice, cheap spell-tutor that can find anything I need during a game.
• Past in Flames: sort of a Yawgmoth's Will for instants/sorceries only.
• Ponder/Preordain: draw with lots of pre-filtering up front for next to nothing costs.
• Rhystic Study: very few people will pay taxes to prevent my draws.
• Sensei's Divining Top: awesome filter- and draw mechanisms for hardly any cost. I try to include them in the majority of my decks.
• Spellseeker: helps me to find a number of useful instants/sorceries in this deck.
• Time Spiral: eventually I’m going to fun out of spells to cast; well that’s what this is for!

Counters, Destruction and Disruption

Opposing spells and permanents end here.

• Arcane Denial: I’ll counter your stuff, then you get to draw. And then I get to draw!
• Capsize: with Mizzix around, this spell can almost certainly be used with its buyback functionality included, which makes it a perfect spell for interesting combos.
• Chain Reaction: hits everything with a force equal to the strongest creature out there; nice, it won’t bother me all that much because … well … creatures schmeatures.
• Comet Storm: sending this spell over to hit multiple targets is a real kicker (pun intended!)
• Counterflux: super fun to cast this when the stack is loaded with opposing spells!
• Crackle with Power: an absurdly strong spell, especially with Mizzix’s experience counters around.
• Curse of the Swine: yay, exile! Have some boars!
• Cyclonic Rift: one of the best bounce spells ever; from the mid-game onwards it becomes truly devastating as it inherently wipes out so many permanents for good; especially tokens.
• Deflecting Swat: a potentially free redirection spell.
• Earthquake: great wipe against ground-based creatures.
• Electrodominance: a damage-spell with free-casting potential.
• Fall of the Titans: turns with this deck are often comprised of casting multiple spells, thus it’s efficient to have a destruction spell with surge in it.
• Fierce Guardianship: a potentially free counterspell against non-creature spells.
• Insurrection: the number of times this spell has ended games in my favor, is perverse.
• Jaya's Immolating Inferno: love to use this one on my opponents exclusively; especially when I have means to copy it at least once.
• Lightning Bolt: just a fun damage spell I wanted to include for flavor.
• Mana Drain: the perfect counterspell that generates mana for my next spell!
• Mindswipe: mega-strong counterspell in a deck like this, with plenty of spell-casting mana.
• Spell Burst: perfect counterspell when combined with Mizzix’s experience points.
• Vandalblast: vaporizing opposing artifacts is fun!

Copies

Why just cast one spell?

• Clone Legion: those creatures you have? Yeah, I’ll have a copy of each!
• Increasing Vengeance: copy a spell, cast it later from the graveyard and then copy another spell twice!
• Narset's Reversal: copy a spell and return it to my hand; perfect!
• Reiterate: in most cases, Mizzix’s experience allows me to use buyback at no extra costs.
• Rite of Replication: copying a powerful creature five times easily balances games in my favor.
• Storm King's Thunder: many copies are much more fun!
• Thousand-Year Storm: ow yes, the storm comes to life permanently!

Utility

Everything else I’m using.

• Guttersnipe: damage whenever I cast non-permanents, becomes lethal in a storm.
• Inexorable Tide: this is so crazy powerful when Mizzix is out; every casting increases Mizzix’s XP-count, which leads to more cheap castings; which leads to more counters, which leads to … well … huzzah!
• Turnabout: love to use this as a political tool to help temporary allies.
• Mindcrank: while I drain your life, might as well drain your library.
• Propaganda: just some nice taxation to counter over-aggressive combat opponents.

Notable exclusions

• Fact or Fiction/Steam Augury: I’m too much of a control-freak for this card; when I draw or scry, I want to be in control, my opponents’ choices be damned!
• Mizzix's Mastery: maybe it ought to be in here for flavor, but I decided to remove it for the time being because it wasn’t performing all that well (mostly because of the deck’s many ‘X’-spells).
• Sphinx-Bone Wand: used to be in here, but was discarded for more chances at a storm-effect to begin with.

Thank you for reading!

I appreciate the time you took to read my primer. Hopefully it was entertaining and useful to you. If so, feel free to leave a +1 and/or feedback of any kind in the comments below. Thanks again!

Date added	5 years
Last updated	1 year
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	18 - 0 Mythic Rares 42 - 0 Rares 11 - 0 Uncommons 15 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.98
Tokens	Boar 2/2 G, Copy Clone, Experience Token, Treasure
Folders	This could be fun