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Mizzix Control Primer cEDH

Commander / EDH Competitive Control Storm UR (Izzet)

SilkyLoki37

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Commander: Mizzix of the Izmagnus

Artifact (14)

Enchantment (5)

Creature (2)

Planeswalker (2)

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Sorcery (8)

Artifact (3)

Enchantment (5)

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Planeswalker (1)

Mizzix provides incredible amounts of value by discounting your spells by increasing amounts. The discount lets you hold up enough mana to interact while still playing on your turn. This allows you to play control while still advancing your own plan.

Mizzix of the Izmagnus is a tier 1.5 deck, so if your only goal is to win, there is no reason to play Mizzix or any other Izzet deck. However, if you’re willing to play a deck that’s half a step down in power level from the top tier decks, you won’t regret it.

This list differs from other lists by not being as focused on storming off. There are less rituals and more interaction, which makes this deck more resilient and consistent.

The basic plan of the deck is to spend turns 1-2 ramping and sculpting your hand. Then, turn 3 will normally be spent either ramping or playing a value engine. After that, your goal is to hold up interaction to stop game-ending plans until you can play Mizzix with protection. As the game progress, build up experience counters, primarily with interaction, until you can combo off. There may also be turns in which you storm off either into the win or for value.
There are a couple starting hands that would be acceptable.

Fast: 2 lands, 2-3 artifacts, 1-2 counterspells, and a wheel, Recurring Insight, or a card advantage engine. Vomiting a hand full of ramp onto the board and refilling it is always good.

Medium: A good standard hand is 2 lands, 1-2 ramp cards, 0-1 value engines, 1 counterspell, 1 piece of interaction of any kind, and 1 tutor or draw spell (preferably something like Dig Through Time or a 3 cmc wheel, although cantrips will also work).

Slow: A slow hand is normally characterized by the absence of artifacts to ramp with. The only times you’ll keep slow hands are when you have multiple value engines in your hand and/or multiple cantrips to sculpt your hand.

Back to Basics and Blood Moon: This list is no longer running High Tide, so we can afford to run more non-basics. This provides greater consistency in the mana base, which is especially important considering the fact that although the deck is mostly blue, our primary combo is mostly red. As a result of the mana base change, we are now more greatly affected by these two stax pieces.

Dramatic Reversal, Turnabout, Reset, and High Tide: These cards, despite coming in clutch multiple games, have been sacrificed on the altar of resiliency. This deck is built to control first, then combo, and storm only when convenient. These cards are rarely useful unless going off.

Gilded Drake: I just don’t have a slot for it, as spot removal for creatures is normally the weakest kind of interaction. We already have two creature-specific removal spells, and both Snap and Lightning Bolt have other purposes outside of creature removal. Besides, most of the creatures we do want to get rid of have passive effects like Collector Ouphe or Eidolon of Rhetoric.

Gush: Due to the combination of the deck slowing down so that it no longer needs free spells to build experience counters and the deck no longer running the mana base to support High Tide, this spell has been removed.

Mizzix's Mastery and Enter the Infinite: This combo was only recently removed. It is slot-efficient and effective. While it draws your deck and normally ends with you winning, it doesn’t win you the game by itself. I’ve therefore removed it to increase the amount of interaction.

Mystic Retrieval, Runic Repetition, and extra turn spells: Despite being the first combo I ever learned, I’ve never been a fan of it. Mystic Retrieval is okay outside of the combo, the extra turn spells are good value, but Runic Repetition is dead. In general, the combo requires slotting in too many cards that aren’t effective enough outside of the combo.

Seething Song and other high CMC red rituals: Although the primary combo is mostly red, more often than not this will produce more red than we need.

Simian Spirit Guide and Rite of Flame: Although these cards have proven to be useful outside of going off, this list is focused on lasting until later in the game. Lotus Petal differs from these in that it can also produce blue mana and will stay available even if we wheel.

Submerge: This spell is often free to play and are therefore a great way to quickly build experience counters; however, the card is very narrow, and because of this, it’s been moved to the maybeboard.

Capsize: Being able to repeatedly bounce any permanent is great. It’s also part of our tertiary combo.

Bonus Round: We aren’t always aiming to storm off, but Bonus Round is a great storm piece. It’s also part of our secondary combo.

Desperate Ritual: Fast mana is good. It’s also part of our primary combo. Pyretic Ritual is excluded as there isn’t a slot for it.

Electrodominance: Part of our main combo. It’s good with Mizzix outside of the combo as it’s a two-for-one. Without Mizzix, it’s not good, but not useless.

Firemind's Foresight: It grabs our main combo and tutors for three cards.

Invert / Invent: Invent is incredibly useful as it lets us storm off out of nowhere.

Midnight Clock: This card just barely made the cut. It’s a bad mana rock and a bad wheel, but it is still both a mana rock and one-sided wheel.

Mission Briefing: When building the deck, I had a flex slot and was deciding between Snapcaster Mage and Mission Briefing. While the UU cost can be inconvenient, it allows us to cast spells from the graveyard that only get exiled if they would be put into a graveyard. This means that Capsize, Reiterate, and Narset's Reversal with Bonus Round online can be cast using Mission Briefing and will return to your hand rather than being exiled.

Reality Spasm: After testing, I decided that it would be useful to have at least one ritual that can produce blue. This was chosen as it can hit any permanent and is fetchable with Firemind's Foresight. It’s also part of our main combo.

Reiterate: Repeatable spell copying is good. It’s also part of our main combo.

Snap: We aren’t running much creature-specific removal, but this made the cut as it also acts as a ritual.

Trail of Evidence: This is one of our better value engines, and it lets us keep our hand full while we’re in control mode.

Whispers of the Muse: While a lackluster cantrip, it also serves as an outlet for our extra mana and lets us keep our hands full throughout the game.

If you used Electrodominance, you've now got infinite damage. Congratulations.

The Reiterate combo will typically be assembled using Firemind's Foresight. Grab Reiterate, Electrodominance/Desperate Ritual/Reality Spasm, and a 1 mana instant.

Reiterate will combo with Desperate Ritual to create infinite red mana if you have at least 4 experience counters.

Reiterate also combos with Electrodominance for infinite damage. Use Reiterate to copy Electrodominance, then the copy of Electrodominance casts Reiterate without paying the mana cost to copy the original Electrodomincance. It requires 1 more red mana than the Desperate Ritual line, but allows you to grab a 1 mana counterspell for protection.

Reiterate will also combo with Reality Spasm to generate infinite mana of any color if you have at least 3 sources that produce red and the permanents you untap produce more mana than it takes to cast Reiterate. However, if you only have 2 sources of red, or the third source causes you to take damage like Mana Confluence or Talisman of Creativity, you can only produce infinite blue mana. With Reality Spasm, you can also use Sensei's Divining Top to draw your deck.

If you’ve generated infinite red mana, you can cast any spell as many times as needed, normally Lightning Bolt or Swan Song to go for the win. However, you can also cast a draw spell like Brainstorm if you’d prefer to have your deck in hand when you attempt to go off.

As a side note, if you are planning on using Swan Song to win, it is recommended to draw your entire deck to maximize the odds of the swans surviving around the table. It’s also recommended to have infinite blue and red mana, which can be generated by using a bounce spell with Narset’s Reveral or Capsize to filter the infinite red mana into infinite blue mana as well. In a similar vein, you can use this loop with Dockside Extortionist to filter your floating mana into treasure tokens as long as your opponents have at least one artifact or enchantment.

With your deck in hand, you can play Trail of Evidence then cast a spell and copy it infinite times to generate infinite clue tokens. Then play Narset, Parter of Veils if possible, bounce as many of your opponent’s permanents as you can, play as many permanents as you can, and wheel. You can then sacrifice the clue tokens. If you were able to generate infinite treasures, you can draw your deck on the next player’s upkeep.

If Narset, Parter of Veils was in your graveyard, you can now draw your deck after you wheel, play Narset, Parter of Veils, and wheel again. If you don’t have another shuffle wheel, unless you draw both Narset, Parter of Veils and Windfall/Wheel of Fortune early, it’s typically better to just sculpt the best hand you can.

If you were only able to generate blue mana, you can use Whispers of the Muse to draw your deck, play out your artifacts in order to get red mana, and use Capsize to bounce an artifact that produces red to continually replay it and generate infinite red as well. Alternatively, with your deck in hand, you can play an artifact that produces red, then use Mission Briefing or Past in Flames to recast Reality Spasm and use Reiterate to generate infinite red mana.

As a back-up line, you can also use Midnight Clock, bounce spell Trail of Evidence, and Wheel of Fortune/Windfall to cause your opponents to draw from an empty library. Using Reiterate to generate infinite clue tokens, cast Wheel of Fortune or Windfall. Then use Midnight Clock with a bounce spell to refresh your graveyard, and use Trail of Evidence to draw into the necessary pieces. Repeat until your opponents draw from an empty library. Be careful when using Windfall, as casting it with too large of a hand may be fatal.

As a parting note, although Frantic Search does not go infinite with Reiterate, it’s hard to lose once you can loot as many times as you’d like and generate mana each time you do it.

Bonus Round + Narset's Reversal is essentially a complicated Reiterate. While the deck is not a storm deck, strictly speaking, this combo typically occurs when you are able to storm off. The best card to start the combo is Invert / Invent, as you can grab a way to generate mana and Past in Flames, and eventually durdle your way into the combo.

One essential note is that this combo requires blue mana. Due to this, Reality Spasm is the only ritual that it goes infinite with. However, Frantic Search is better with this combo than Reiterate, because it will generate three mana each iteration rather than the one that you would generate with Reiterate.

Although Reality Spasm is the only ritual that goes infinite with this, if you have Dockside Extortionist and a bounce spell, you can also go infinite with this as long as Dockside Extortionist creates enough treasures. As each iteration will let you bounce two things, you can use a mana positive artifact to help pay to recast Dockside Extortionist.

Additionally, as you’ll typically be storming into this line with Past in Flames, make sure to remember that casting a card using Mission Briefing won’t cause the spell to exile itself like casting a card using flashback will.

For ways to win with this combo, please see the Reiterate combo.
The Capsize + Dockside Extortionist is the final back-up plan. Neither cards are dead outside of the combo, which is the only reason this is included, as we aren’t running ways to tutor for Dockside Extortionist outside of Muddle the Mixture.

As long as your opponents have at least three more artifacts and enchantments than it costs to cast Capsize, you’ll generate treasure’s each time you repeat this loop.

To convert this to a win, you can use Sensei's Divining Top, Whispers of the Muse, or Dack Fayden to draw your deck. You can also use Narset, Parter of Veils to draw each nonland, noncreature card in your deck, which is pretty much the same as drawing your deck for our purposes.

Once you have your deck in hand, you can assemble either the Reiterate or Bonus Round + Narset's Reversal combo previously mentioned.

However, if those combos are not available, there is a cool kill condition using Dack Fayden and Narset, Parter of Veils. Once both of them are on the field, use Dack Fayden and Capsize (or the loop previously mentioned with a bounce spell, Narset's Reversal, and Bonus Round or Reiterate) to empty your opponents’ hands. Then, return Narset, Parter of Veils to your hand. After that, you can use Dack Fayden to cause your opponents to lose by drawing from an empty library.

If you don’t have a win condition available, that’s fine. You have a repeatable bounce spell that hits all permanents and infinite treasures, so you’re doing more than okay.

This combo, like the Capsize + Dockside Extortionist combo, is only included because each part of the combo is good on its own. This combo consists of three parts: Underworld Breach, a ritual, and a wheel.

If your wheel is Wheel of Fortune, you can use Desperate Ritual, Frantic Search, Reality Spasm, or a bounce spell on Dockside Extortionist depending on the number of treasures created by its ETB.

If your wheel is Windfall, you can use Frantic Search, Reality Spasm, or a bounce spell on Dockside Extortionist depending on the number of treasures created by its ETB.

The nature of the combo means you can’t go infinite, but you’ll net mana each time you perform the loop, and you’ll have access to more and more of your deck. Eventually, you’ll have milled most of your deck, and can set up one of the combos previously listed.
This deck, being tier 1.5, does struggle against some of the stronger decks due to the lack of colors and speed. Despite counteracting this by making the deck more interactive, there are several decks that hit Mizzix especially hard.
Due to the amount of Pyroclasm effects, it’s hard to keep Mizzix alive. To deal with this, you can slow your game down and focus your interaction on the Curious Control deck, as they’ll keep their interaction pointed towards the decks that are going for the win. Once you feel that Curious Control deck is running on fumes, you can bring out Mizzix. Be careful to not give the game away to one of the other decks while you’re policing the Curious Control deck.
This deck’s stax pieces are primarily focused on mana denial or tax effects, which is especially brutal as they set up under us. Your goal is to keep Urza, Lord High Artificer off the board or stop them from refilling their hand. As wheel effects are commonplace though, your main goal should be keeping their commander off the field.
There are quite a few decks that fall in this category, like Gitrog Dredge, Godo Helm, and Black Hole Son. These decks are all in on their combos, and despite being heavy on counterspells, we need to be setting up in the early turns despite them threatening to go off. Holding up interaction instead of progressing the board state will cripple us and let other decks win. The best way to deal with them is unfortunately by ignoring them for the early turns. Tap out and let the faster decks handle them while you prepare for the game to go long.
Playing against a Metapod deck is miserable. It really is. It’s got resource denial, tax effects, Rule of Law effects, and Stony Silence effects. Your best bet is keeping Tymna the Weaver off the board, which is a massive source of card advantage for them. As they don’t run many other draw effects, without her giving them additional draws, they’ll eventually run out of gas. You’ll often then be able to rely on other decks blowing up their stax pieces.
Stacking Triggers: You can stack the Mizzix triggers to get additional counters. For example, if you have no experience counters yet, you can cast Ponder, then after the Mizzix trigger goes on the stack, you can cast Brainstorm, which will you get you another Mizzix trigger. The stack resolves from the top down: the second Mizzix Trigger will resolve, Brainstorm will resolve, the first Mizzix trigger will resolve, then Ponder will resolve, ending with 2 experience counters.

Stacking Spells: In addition to stacking spells on top of the Mizzix triggers, you can also respond to spells after the Mizzix trigger resolves. For example, if you’re casting Echo of Eons for it’s flashback cost, you can wait for the Mizzix trigger to resolve for the extra experience counter, then cast Reality Spasm with a higher value for X.

Chain of Vapor: Although most commonly used as a form of removal, Chain of Vapor can also be used to storm off by bouncing your own mana positive rocks to your hand.

Firemind's Foresight: While this typically grabs your Reiterate combo, it has more uses than that. If you don’t have enough mana to combo off, you can start storming off with as little as one blue mana by grabbing Frantic Search, Snap, and Mystical Tutor. You can cast Snap to untap two lands, so that you can now cast Mystical Tutor for Past in Flames and use Frantic Search to draw it and continue storming off until you have enough mana. You can also grab Reality Spasm instead of Snap if you have two blue mana available. While this line isn’t set in stone, it’s one that I’ve commonly used to pull off a win on my turn rather than waiting to cast Firemind's Foresight on an opponent’s end step before going off next turn.

Intuition: What you tutor for will vary depending on your situation, but it will almost always include Invert / Invent or Firemind's Foresight, Past in Flames, and a ritual.

Invert / Invent: This is such a great card. Typically, you’ll grab Reality Spasm and Past in Flames to start storming off, then you’ll cast it for its flashback cost again to grab Frantic Search and Merchant Scroll so that you can eventually grab Firemind's Foresight. You can also use it to grab Narset's Reversal and Bonus Round. I cannot overstate how much work it can do. It’s versatile, so you can instead grab a counter and Merchant Scroll to grab Firemind's Foresight and win with protection.

Midnight Clock: I’ve found this card to be incredibly useful. Note that you can bounce it while the trigger is on the stack so that it shuffles back into your library before exiling.

Narset, Parter of Veils: Due to her passive not allowing your opponents to draw more than 1 card per turn, a wheel with Narset, Parter of Veils on the board will cut your opponents’ hands to 1 while refilling your own.

Timetwister/Echo of Eons: You can use Narset's Reversal to shuffle these back into your deck.

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Casual

90% Competitive