Mizzix, Spellslinging Shenanigans
Commander / EDH
SCORE: 1 | 3 COMMENTS | 803 VIEWS | IN 1 FOLDER
0.0: Start of greatness —Jan. 28, 2016
Played the inaugural match with Mizzix - vs Ezuri and Meren (precons) and Alesha. Managed to win (Psychosis Crawler + Arjun, the Shifting Flame did the most work, followed by Rite of Replication on an opponent's Eternal Witness), and got a better perspective regarding the deck.
I've noticed that in many ways, the deck functions similarly to Animar, Soul of Elements. Both provide a scaling cost reduction, and synergize with a particular style of deck. The two play slightly differently though.
-For Animar, creatures usually have a static mana cost, and Animar loses counters every time it leaves the battlefield, which means there is a large focus on being able to chain creatures to rebuild the counters. Animar also plays a third color, which is both a positive and a negative - you'll have more lands available, but it's really easy to run out of the color you need. A lot of the deck is directed towards being able to maintain fuel to recover after the inevitable wrath.
-For Mizzix, experience counters stick around, and get more difficult to accumulate the more you have, which leads to wanting lots of X-costing spells. Running only two colors means that generating the correct colors of mana is much easier, and instants/sorceries are much more efficient at drawing cards, so it's easy to keep a full hand. Also, because there is less emphasis on creatures, it's easy to not overextend... but it's also harder to close the game out because you can't bash people with your creatures.
Overall, the two are different, and I think having both in my list of available decks is a good thing.
Regarding my thoughts for this deck:
-One of the main limiting factors for the deck was the amount of colored mana consumed vs generated. It wants more artifact ramp, and spells that cost less colored mana - the difference between costing 1 colored mana and 2 means casting twice as many spells per turn. Being only two colors means having the right colors is much easier, and colorless mana is usable in small quantities for casting permanents and X spells (in contrast to Animar, who really hates colorless mana, and even mana that isn't in the right colors)
-The deck also wants more finishers. Comet Storm simply doesn't scale fast enough (without heavy ramp) to deal the 40 damage per opponent it needs to.
-It's possible to draw enough cards to consistently hit land drops. However, protecting Mizzix is still a good idea - even if you can recast her, it will usually cost most of your mana to do so.
-X spells (or proliferate) are great - even if you have a bunch of experience counters, you'll still want more. X spells obviously don't work with any of the 'cast for free' cards though.
Overall, my current plan for this deck is to shuffle things around between it, Animar, and my Zedruu the Greathearted deck, then iterate from there.