The main idea for this deck is to win of the most fun thing in magic: Drawing cards!
Combo
The quickest way to win, is to attach Curiosity or Phidian Eye to Niv Mizzet, letting us draw our entire deck while dishing out massive damage. I did not play those cards for a long time as they were too broken and I am not a fan of combo, however my meta got stronger and my decks did as well.
Update, I decided to cut them again, as two card combo's including your Commander are not a fun way to win for me or my playgroup. Also it takes pressure away, as Niv Mizzet is allowed to stick around a little more, not being an instant combo kill threat.
Wheels
The original strategy of the deck is too draw into or set up multiple wheel effects, that blast our opponents from the board, which also works quite well and is definitely more fun.
I won't go in detail about which wheel effects I chose, as there are tons out there and there is no genreal rule on which ones are better or worse. I iteratively went for those, that won't give my opponents 7 new cards each time, as I don't want to give them card advantage but force them to cycle away there important mid to late game bombs for random cards. On the other hand drawing 7 fresh cards can be very valuable for this deck and the brand new Narset, Parter of Veils can make even those spells extremely one sided. Also Time Reversal and Diminishing Return let us reboot our library, if we go low on cards and still have opponents to deal with. Another card that goes nuts with wheeling our opponents hands is Concecrated Sphinx, letting us draw twice their cards on top.
Ramp & Draw
The deck might seem a little short on ramp especially if we consider our must have 6 CMC commander. However with the massive amount of draw and wheel options, we should be quite save to at least hit each possible land drop.
Protection & Alternative Wincons
As we rely heavily on our commander, we run a few ways to give Niv Mizzet hexproof or shroud and a suite of counters to keep him on the board. If he still gets removed to often, we have a couple alternatives that abuse draw effects just as good with Psychosis Crawler and The Locust God.
Wizards
Niv Mizzet is a wizard and wizards are awesome, so we run a little tribal sub theme with Azami Lady of Scrolls and Docent of Perfection. One of my personal pet cards in that regard is Daring Apprentice. A 3 mana wizard, that (once he lost summoning sickness) is basically a zero mana counter, whats not to love?
Value
A card that is not found on many lists (to my honest surprise) is Basilisk Collar. It's giving us deathtouch which helps protecting our precious life total from nasty attackers and attached to Big Daddy Niv Mizzet it lets us clear our opponents boards from creatures by just pinging them with one damage each from a wheel or draw effect (while it's generating life!). As we will cast quite a few instants and sorceries, we also run cards to profit from those like Talrand, Sky Summoner or Docent of Perfection, that will help us with free chump blockers. To get even more out of our wheels and draws, we try to get rid of that nasty maximum hand size with Venser's Journal, Tought Vessel or Reliquary Tower. To deal with threats, we want to be able to counter or use Niv Mizzets damage in response to things happening, so it's always great to get flash for our spells with Leyline of Anticipation.
How to play
Obviously the deck revolves around Niv Mizzet so we wan't to get him on the battlefieldas early as possible but even more we want to get him to stay on the battlefield. There are a couple of things we can do to maximze our odds.
- Make sure he doesn't get countered or removed right away by checking our opponents mana. Most of them time players will be tapped out in turns 5-6 but still we need to check before playing Niv.
- Have Lightning Grieves, Swiftfoot Boots or a Counter available. Appart form Grieves this will delay Nivs entrance by one or two turns but keeping him is worth it.
- Only play Niv if you really need him. The Locus God, Psychosis Crawler, Toothy and Chasm Skulker all give us great value from drawing and wheeling and won't make us the number one (combo) threat on the table imediately. By playing it slow we should be able to steadily maximize our handsize, while our opponents will use their answeres on each other, giving us more chances for an explosive late game finish.
This deck is about wheel effects, so don't be hesistant to use them, even if you feel like having a stong hand. Early in the game wheeling will help you hitting your land drops. As soon as you get value from drawing cards, wheels will abuse that to the fullest. In late game we can finish of our opponents with wheels while also disrupting our opponents hands.
So don't be afraid to wheel away "good hands" and be assured, that you will likely draw a similar good hand. The decision becomes a little harder with wheels that make you discard (and not shuffle back) your hands. But even those are fine most of the times, as we run a couple of cards that will generate value from the graveyard and can even get our graveyard back with cards like Diminishing returns. Also don't be hesitant to wheel away the two combo pieces, as you can easily win of a couple wheels anyway.
In order to get the combo win you will have to make sure, to at least have one counter available and that you opponents live total is low enough, to kill them with the cards left in your library (times two if you have one or two mana to cast Winds of Change or Tolorian Winds).
Things I don't play
Of yourse We could play Laboratory Maniac for true combo wins, but that would require three additional mana and wouldn't be as flavour full, as blasting your opponents with Niv Mizzets direct damage. Niv Mizzet Paruun is the newest version of Niv and has some nice upsides. However it's specific mana costs make him quite hard to cast and I prefer Locust God and Psychosis Crawler as they are easier to cast and give the deck a slightly different twist. Tandem Lookout is the third 2 Card combo option that I don't play as the combo win is not my go to strategy. Dragon Mage is really flavour full but it takes forever to cast and doesn't guarantee you a wheel effect as it needs to loose summon sicknes and has to actually hit somebody which is to unreliable for such high casting costs.
One more thing
If you decide to built and pilot this deck, make sure you know your cards and synergies well enough and use the Tapped Out Playtest Tool a couple of times. This deck will give you tons of different options on each turn and if you don't know what to play, your turns will take forever, resulting in the rightworthy hate of your playgroup. And that wouldn't be fair to Niv Mizzet the Dragon that turned dawing cards into a wincon.
