Niv's Misfits

Commander / EDH* Casual Five Color Spellslinger

Epicurus

Land (32)

• 1x Lotus Bloom
• 2x Forest
• 1x Island
• 2x Mountain
• 1x Plains
• 1x Swamp
• 1x Bayou
• 1x Blood Crypt
• 1x Breeding Pool
• 1x City of Brass
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Evolving Wilds
• 1x Gateway Plaza
• 1x Godless Shrine
• 1x Hallowed Fountain
• 1x Lotus Field
• 1x Overgrown Tomb
• 1x Path of Ancestry
• 1x Pillar of the Paruns
• 1x Rupture Spire
• 1x Sacred Foundry
• 1x Steam Vents
• 1x Stomping Ground
• 1x Taiga
• 1x Temple Garden
• 1x Terramorphic Expanse
• 1x Tropical Island
• 1x Tundra
• 1x Volcanic Island
• 1x Watery Grave

Selesnya (6)

• 1x Enlisted Wurm
• 1x Faeburrow Elder
• 1x Knight of New Alara
• 1x Sylvan Reclamation
• 1x Captured Sunlight
• 1x Reborn Hope

Golgari (7)

• 1x Creakwood Liege
• 1x Leyline Prowler
• 1x Abrupt Decay
• 1x Deathsprout
• 1x Grisly Salvage
• 1x Putrefy
• 1x Garruk, Apex Predator

Gruul (7)

• 1x Bloodbraid Elf
• 1x Horned Kavu
• 1x Shivan Wurm
• 1x Collision / Colossus
• 1x Violent Outburst
• 1x Exploding Borders
• 1x Frenzied Tilling

Azorus (6)

• 1x Deputy of Acquittals
• 1x Silver Drake
• 1x Ardent Plea
• 1x Stormcaller's Boon
• 1x Venser, the Sojourner
• 1x Migratory Route

Izzet (6)

• 1x Etherium-Horn Sorcerer
• 1x Bloodwater Entity
• 1x Crackling Drake
• 1x Niv-Mizzet, Parun
• 1x Ral, Storm Conduit
• 1x Beacon Bolt

Rakdos (6)

• 1x Bedevil
• 1x Bituminous Blast
• 1x Angrath's Rampage
• 1x Demonic Dread
• 1x Dreadbore
• 1x Grave Upheaval

Other (5)

• 1x Chrome Mox
• 1x Mox Tantalite
• 1x Primal Amulet  ^Flip
• 1x Maelstrom Nexus
• 1x Ancestral Vision

Commander (1)

Simic (7)

• 1x Shardless Agent
• 1x Coiling Oracle
• 1x Gyre Engineer
• 1x Maraleaf Pixie
• 1x Murkfiend Liege
• 1x Arixmethes, Slumbering Isle
• 1x Kruphix, God of Horizons

Dimir (6)

• 1x Kathari Remnant
• 1x Ancient Excavation
• 1x Deny Reality
• 1x Diabolic Vision
• 1x Enter the God-Eternals
• 1x Mnemonic Betrayal

Orzhov (6)

• 1x Beckon Apparition
• 1x Mortify
• 1x Athreos, God of Passage
• 1x Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
• 1x Castigate
• 1x Vindicate

Boros (5)

• 1x Figure of Destiny
• 1x Boros Charm
• 1x Justice Strike
• 1x Lightning Helix
• 1x Ajani Vengeant

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I first must announce that I don't really ever play Commander. I'm old, and I have been playing for a long time, and I exclusively play constructed, generally ending up with decks that are Vintage or Legacy, because I like to be able to use whatever cards I want in a deck. So when I hammer out the kinks in this deck, it will be my one and only EDH deck.

I had thought for a while now that an EDH cascade deck would be fun, but I had some trouble deciding on the commander. So the basic theme of this deck, if there is any at all, is cascade. Which is to say, it depends on spell advantage to overrun the opponents. There's precious few dominant cards in the deck, but a lot of un poco de todo (a little bit of everything). What my experience from playing casual constructed cascade has taught me is that it's important to know that the spells coming up on the cascade need to be useful in a general sort of way. They need to be spells that will help you in a lot of different circumstances.

What made me finally decided to go ahead with this deck was my discovery of Niv-Mizzet Reborn. Even given that he doesn't have cascade, he operates on the same archetypal principle - spell advantage. Furthermore, his ability to put a solid number of cards into your hand is especially helpful in Highlander format. Some of the spells in this deck are more powerful, and he gives you solid opportunity to retrieve them.

Now, in order for 'Ol Nivvy to be at his most effective, there has to be a decent amount of each color pair for him to choose from. So I designed this deck with the intention of having an equal amount of spells from each guild colors. I came close to that, having 7 spells from each of 5 guild colors, with the others being 6 spells of Dimir, Azorius, Orzhov, Rakdos and Boros colors. The mix allows for greater possibilities of maximizing Niv-Mizzet's ability.

There are only 5 spells in the deck that are not color pairs. The first is Maelstrom Nexus, which is maybe the best cascade spell of them all, so I couldn't decline to use it in this deck. Primal Amulet   is another, but could kind of be considered more as a land than a spell. The last three are 0 cost suspend spells (Lotus Bloom, Ancestral Vision and Mox Tantalite), which are mainstays in cascade decks, and all three are incredibly good even if cast with suspend, as they are intended.

Niv-Mizzet is at his best if you can activate his ability multiple times. One Avenue that could aid such a cause would be flicker spells. However, many of the best flicker spells are not color pairs themselves. On the other hand, there are a decent number of color paired creatures that bounce your own creatures when they enter the battlefield. So I included Silver Drake, Deputy of Acquittals, Horned Kavu and Shivan Wurm.

The mana problems of running a 5-color deck are mostly dealt with by running 10 different lands that produce mana of any color and all of the shock lands, but also through landcycling and other land search. Spells like Migratory Route, Grave Upheaval, Treacherous Terrain and Sylvan Reclamation can sometimes be useful late-game when you have enough mana to cast them, but they're pretty much exclusively in there for the landcycling.

There are many more noncreature spells than creature spells in the deck, so the Izzet spells play on that theme: Crackling Drake, Bloodwater Entity, Stormchaser Mage, Beacon Bolt, Ral, Storm Conduit and, of course, Niv-Mizzet, Parun. Also, there are other spells, such as Arixmethes, Slumbering Isle, which I can see this deck removing its counters pretty easily.

And finally, since there are few creature spells in the deck, there is a slew of burn and removal spells, as well as a decent number of spells (both creature and otherwise) that create creature tokens. There is no specific wincon to this deck other than spellslinging, so all of that burn and removal aims to keep the opponents from getting anything going, while you build your own forces and get the stronger cards rolling, like Garruk, Apex Predator, Arixmethes, Slumbering Isle, Niv-Mizzet, Parun and the like. It's also worth pointing out that the 3 Lieges in the deck overlapped their bonuses to some degree, and Knight of New Alara not only gives +2/+2 to All of the non-token creatures in this deck, but gives +5/+5 to the commander.

I don't know how good this deck really is, because I don't generally play commander. I do believe that it will be very fun, if nothing else. Please do comment and critique this deck, but try to do so without fundamentally altering the theme.

Thank you. Enjoy!

Date added	4 years
Last updated	4 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	10 - 0 Mythic Rares 35 - 0 Rares 27 - 0 Uncommons 21 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.53
Tokens	Beast 3/3 B, Bird 1/1 W, Emblem Garruk, Apex Predator, Emblem Sorin, Lord of Innistrad, Emblem Venser, the Sojourner, Spirit 1/1 WB, Vampire 1/1 B w/ Lifelink, Worm 1/1 BG, Zombie Army 0/0 B
Folders	inspiration