Mishra is not, at first glance, a good choice for EDH. I mean, what can he do in a singleton format? His ability is useless...alone. Combined with certain other cards, it becomes surprisingly powerful. Those cards are
Nether Void
,
Blood Funnel
, Nullstone Gargoyle, Planar Chaos, Possibility Storm, and
Ice Cave
. By stacking the triggers so that Mishra resolves second, you can completely ignore these cards' negative effects when casting artifacts. After they counter the spell in question (or in P.Storm's case, return it to the deck), Mishra resolves and looks in your grave/deck for a card with the same name as the one you cast. Conveniently, that's where the one you cast is now! This lets you reap the benefits while your opponents are busy fighting through all your global stax effects. Remember that you can always chose to search your deck with Mishra even with nothing to grab, allowing you to shuffle away unwanted cards revealed with Sensei's Divining Top, Halimar Depths, Future Sight or Magus of the Future by simply casting an artifact.
Because of this, Mishra puts us squarely in a staxy artifact strategy. To back that up, I included a few other stax effects like the OG Smokestack. Once your opponents are drained of resources, Mishra and the big artifact bombs can take their time finishing off the table. Alternatively, there are a few instant-win combos to use if you can assemble the pieces, which are all useful alone as well:
There are some odd-looking choices that I want to explain:
Boseiju, Who Shelters All and Cavern of Souls allow me to cheat my non-artifact spells past
Nether Void
and Co. fairly easily. The most important effect this has is allowing me to easily recast Mishra if he dies so that my stax effects stay one-sided. Conveniently, my other non-artifact creatures are all either Humans or Artificers, so I can always protect him in addition to the most important creature in my hand. Likewise, almost all of my noncreature spells have colorless mana in their costs to make Boseiju usable. Additionally,
Last Word
and Counterflux are notable for always being immune, while
Decree of Pain
's cycling mode can bypass the stax cards by being an activated ability rather than a spell.
Several 1 CMC artifacts I have look unimpressive alone, but become much more useful with Salvaging Station recurring them constantly. This also allows the two Spellbombs to become "whenever a creature dies, pay 1 and draw a card". Additionally, they become a constant source of fodder for Smokestack and Possessed Portal. I also have a few token producing lands to help pay for them (which also help cover
Blood Funnel
's cost when Mishra isn't in play or for non-artifacts he can't help).
WIN CONDITIONS:
Beatdown with Blightsteel Colossus and other big artifacts (also, Blightsteel Colossus + Chandra's Ignition
kills the table instantly).
Mycosynth Lattice + Vandalblast
destroys my opponents' everything, including lands. Can also be done repeatedly with Darksteel Forge + Nevinyrral's Disk
(a strong lock by itself) or over time with Karn, Silver Golem.
Possessed Portal combined with any method of recursion, token producing or adding cards to hand without drawing can lock out the board indefinitely so Mishra can bitch-slap some fools with his glowy purple murder hands.
Etherium Sculptor + Future Sight + Sensei's Divining Top
allows infinite draws/storm count. I used to have Tendrils of Agony as a way to win instantly off this, but I cut it since it's not a consistent combo and Tendrils is pretty dead otherwise. Still, infinite draws should probably let me win very quickly. Also works with Magus of the Future and
Blood Funnel
(with Mishra).
POTENTIAL CHANGES (Advice Welcome!)
Tezzeret the Seeker and Liliana Vess add more tutors and utility. I don't want to run just one as they'll blank under Possibility Storm without another Planeswalker in the deck.
Thopter Spy Network under ideal conditions is a Bitterblossom stapled to a Phyrexian Arena without life loss, and is also a source of flying blockers (which I have very few of). Additionally, more tokens help feed the stax engines. Might be a little slow, but it seems like it could crank out some serious value.
Cranial Plating makes Mishra a legitimate voltron threat, and works quite well with the above mentioned Network as the tokens are both evasive attackers to wear the Plating and artifacts to fuel it. First strike also allows an additional draw off of Network.
Master Transmuter can cheat in big artifacts, but feels like it might be a bit too slow and clunky.
More counterspells and boardwipes are always a good thing.
As far as cuts go, Hurkyl's Recall, Etherium-Horn Sorcerer and Chandra's Ignition all feel like they might not be worth a slot, but I'm not really sure.
