pie chart

Niv-Mizzet/Jegantha

Commander / EDH Battlecruiser Dragons Jank Jegantha, the Wellspring

awatts30

Upvote 0
0

Lands (35)

UR (6)

WB (6)

BG (6)

BR (6)

GU (6)

GW (6)

RW (6)

WU (6)

Commander (1)

Commander: Niv-Mizzet Reborn

Companion (1)

Commander: Jegantha, the Wellspring

RG (6)

UB (6)

Other (4)

Sideboard

Other (1)

Maybeboard

Other (3)

RW (1)

WB (2)

UR (1)

BG (1)

I built this deck on a lark, but it has become one of my favorites! It’s weird, janky, and even if I lose I can still feel like I won, but it’s also surprisingly effective.

You may enjoy this deck if you:

  • like weird themes and mini-games and deck restrictions;
  • like playing cards that people have never seen before;
  • play on a budget;
  • have a casual playgroup that lets games run longer;
  • like drawing a **_ton_** of cards;
  • like having a lot of flexibility with how you can play the cards you have;
  • like playing big beaters and creating overwhelming board states;
  • like having answers and interaction.

You may NOT enjoy this deck if you:

  • like playing at a competitive level;
  • like comboing off;
  • like playing on “easy mode” or feel that you need to be optimized;
  • like playing graveyard strategies;
  • like playing stax, permission, discard, forced sacrifice, or other “fun police” strategies.

This deck was made based off of the idea in NitpickingNerds’s “5 Unique Commander Deck Ideas” video.

The idea is to maximize Niv-Mizzet Reborn’s ETB trigger by having an even split between the color pairs and minimizing the number of cards which can’t be hit by Niv. (While Beezy set a self-imposed restriction to have no cards which couldn’t be hit, I allowed myself a few important exceptions, listed below.) Between this voluntary limitation and Jegantha’s companion requirements, deckbuilding (and tweaking) was a fun challenge.

The deck naturally developed a dragon subtheme which often proves to be both a utility tool and its wincon. The commander is a dragon, and there is a whole cycle of two-color dragons which care about dragons (Atarka, World Render, Dromoka, the Eternal, Kolaghan, the Storm's Fury, Silumgar, the Drifting Death). Add in a few more two-color dragons with useful abilities and you’ve got enough support to actually make it work.

There are a handful of cards that, despite not being two-color, are so useful that I opted to include them. Even if I took them out, they would be replaced with lands (in order to preserve the balance between the ten color pairs) and couldn’t be drawn by Niv’s ability anyway.

  • Chromatic Lantern: The color fixing is just too good not to include in a five-color deck.
  • Tome of the Guildpact: In this deck, this card basically reads, “Whenever you cast a spell, draw a card.” It provides stupid amounts of card draw, and has any-color ramp stapled on.
  • Rienne, Angel of Rebirth: Recursion of ALL your creatures, plus a slight buff. Great card advantage.
  • Ramos, Dragon Engine: Virtually every spell in this deck is multicolor, so Ramos gets swole real fast. Cast five spells, get ten counters, trade for twenty mana. Niv-Mizzet alone nets you ten mana. Plus, he’s a dragon. You can either trade those counters in in order to chain together more spells, or just smash face with him.

Ramp options are a little weird in this deck.

Jegantha is huge, obviously, given his accessibility as companion. Faeburrow Elder is the other best dork, and Kiora's Follower is the best of whatever is in play.

The borderposts are very weird rocks, and are definitely subpar, but are included as basically the only ones that Niv can hit. Early game you can play a basic, tap it for , and return it to your hand and play a borderpost, and it effectively acts as a tapland. Mid- to late-game, once your mana is fixed a little better, they’re just slow rocks.

Klauth, Unrivaled Ancient is a huge mana source. With the number of dragons and other heavy hitters in this deck, he can provide you a ton of mana and let you dump your hand after a big draw or rebuild quickly after a board wipe.

Kruphix, God of Horizons was an unexpected source of ramp. I mainly added him for his “no maximum hand size” static ability, one of the few available to this deck, but learned that he is also a great sink for any mana that was left open for interaction but was not needed to be used on future turns. Just don’t waste your time sinking Jegantha’s mana into him, however, as it will become colorless but still retains its “no generic costs” restrictions and there are no costs in this deck which it could then be used for.

I’ve learned the hard way that the dorks in this deck are very susceptible to board wipes. Getting all your mana wiped out hurts, and this deck can’t rebuild them as quickly as other dork-heavy decks like Elfball can. Options for land ramp in this deck are very limited, but that’s probably going to be my next experiment.

Niv provides a lot of card draw. Hitting 6-7 cards of his ability is pretty typical, and there are lots of ways to flicker or recur him.

Tishana, Voice of Thunder is another great source of card draw and flicker target, and one of the few granters of no maximum hand size. With the number of creatures this deck can lay out, she can easily draw you a full grip and provide a beefy body to boot.

General Ferrous Rokiric churns out a 4/4 with every spell you cast, which add up very quickly.

This deck plays all the best charms and commands. Most of the instants and sorceries are modal, which allows a lot of flexibility in how they are used.

Hostage Taker and Evil Twin can act as creature removal (bonus points if you point Twin at someone’s commander just keeping killing it every time they cast it), or they can copy Niv-Mizzet if you need more draw. Dack's Duplicate likewise can be used much the same way.

Special callout to my pet card, Maelstrom Pulse. I love this removal spell. It may be slow, but it hits any nonland permanent and is an absolute bomb against tokens. Someone managed seven landfalls and now your staring across at triple-digit Scute Swarms? One card can make them all disappear. Treasures, Clues, anything that someone may be generating frightening numbers of can be dealt with.

With Niv-Mizzet and Jegantha, you have both card draw and ramp in your command/companion zone, which is a nice assurance. You probably want to mulligan away any hand that can’t at least get you to casting Jegantha (who can then guarantee you can cast Niv).

The first two or three turns will probably be “draw-go.” At most, you may be playing a borderpost, but as mentioned previously they’re basically functioning as taplands at that point.

There aren’t any haste enablers, so depending on the ramp in your opening hand it will probably be turn 5 or 6 before you can tap Jegantha. Once you got this point, you should be producing 10-14 mana, and Niv can refill your hand any time you need it.

It’s a slow, grindy game, protecting your board state and policing any threats while you continue drawing, ramping, and playing big beaters to keep the pressure on. This deck draws big and ramps big, and it’s not uncommon to have a board state that spills over into a neighboring player’s playmat. It can seem really unassuming at first, especially when you’re dropping a bunch of janky cards like borderposts; talk up the deckbuilding restrictions, laugh with your opponents about your crappy cards, and play politics to keep the attention off you. As the deck starts to do its thing, you’ll quietly reach a critical mass where it is snowballing faster than anyone can deal with.

I love playing this deck. Even if I’m not going to win, it’s always exciting to drop my commander and see what I get off the top. Will this be the time that I get ten cards off his trigger? Even when it’s not winning, it’s still a fun deck to pilot, and I love challenging myself by playing with restrictions.

Suggestions

Updates Add

April 9, 2023
Edit

Trying out Shadowmoor filter lands in order to make better use of Jegantha's mana. It certainly helps, but there are some negative synergies as well: makes the Battle lands less effective, and can be very bandwidth-heavy in the instances where they represent the majority of your mana sources (had one game where I had four filter lands and one basic). May cut back to five.

Out: 2x Plains, 2x Island, 2x Swamp, 2x Island, 2x Forest,

In: Cascade Bluffs, Fetid Heath, Fire-Lit Thicket, Flooded Grove, Mystic Gate, Rugged Plains, Sunken Ruins, Twilight Mire, Wooded Bastion

April 9, 2023
Edit

Comments

Attention! Complete Comment Tutorial! This annoying message will go away once you do!

Become a supporter of TappedOut and hide ads for only $3/month!

Important! Formatting tips — Comment Tutorial — markdown syntax

Please login to comment

95% Casual

Competitive