Build of the Week: Mizzix

Thanksgiving was fun, and I hope everyone enjoyed themselves. This week I'm tackling a Goblin Engineer. There are two schools of thought when it comes to Mizzix. On the one hand, people look at her ability and think of Storm, using her like a legendary Goblin Electromancer to be able to play multiple spells in a turn. The other school of thought is to use her like a mana battery. Enabling the use of huge spells in what is commonly called Battlecruiser Magic. Battlecruiser Magic goes to the heart of what EDH is all about, so I'll be focusing on the second school of thought. Here is an approximation of a storm list if that is more up your ally.

When thinking of U/R big mana decks, my first thought was the UR Tron lists of original Ravnica that were later ported into Modern. Defined by its enormous plays, the deck leaned on a few monolithic threats to close out a game while drawing absurd amounts of cards with X spells. Mizzix acts like a Thran Dynamo or better most of the time, letting your X spells be larger and larger, while also making playing Clone Legion and Time Stretch in the same turn a possibility.

The last article on Daxos was about determining the overlap between his abilities. This week, the construction is about figuring out how to go from zero to 60 in as little time as possible. Daxos' abilities didn't care about escalation. Every enchantment you played had the same value. Mizzix only rewards you for playing a spell with a greater mana cost than the counters you already have. While this means that the higher cost cards will always trigger her, they won't be getting cheaper very fast. Thus, I broke the spells down into Stages of development.

Decklist: http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/23-11-15-KKG-mizzix/
Bullshit Scale: 3

Stage 1

Stage 1 is from 0 - 3 counters. When Mizzix first resolves, we have to build our experience counters. Cantrips are beautiful here. Not only do they increase the number of experience counters we have, they also find higher converted mana cost spells from Stage 2 to continue our development. Unfortunately, they stop adding to our experience counters the fastest, so we can't run as many as would be ideal. This is one of the big divergences between  this version and Storm. Storm doesn't need to continually add to the experience, so it plays many more spells in stage one for smoothing.

Stage 2

Stage 2 is from 4 - 6 counters. For the most part, they are draw spells. It's generally at about this point that we are going to start to run out of resources. A strong draw spell will give us more gas, keep adding on counters from Mizzix, and give us more land to more naturally hit our top end if our goblin engineer is incapacitated for some reason. Its important to hold off on casting these until you are at a higher number of experience counters if possible. If you cast these before you have 4 counters, its likely that you are cutting off other spells from being able to add to your experience. There are some tricks here. Gush's alternate cost, Delve, Rebound, Flashback. The point here is to get the maximum amount of value out of the experience trigger as possible, not necessarily out of the cost reduction.

Stage 3

Stage 3 is where the big payoff is for the deck. Mizzix lets us do these things either much earlier or much larger than they were intended to be done. X in an X spell does get reduced by her ability, so she acts like free mana for Stroke of Genius and similar spells. However, X spells clash with Mizzix's Mastery, oddly enough, and Epic Experiment so I tried to keep the X spells to the absolute cream of the crop. They don't clash with Past In Flames. Having two Yawgmoth's Will analogs in a deck with Delve spells is going to cause some complications occasionally, but the effects are so tremendously powerful that its worth the anti-synergy. These spells are how we're most often going to win the game.  That, and Blazes to the dome for 20 or more.

Utility/Protection

While the other instants and sorceries are on a ramping curve, these spells should be cast whenever you need to cast them. A big upside is that they still do add counters. Protecting Mizzix with her trigger condition is just common sense. For the most part, these are ways to protect Mizzix from those who would do her harm, but Reiterate is a solid way of extracting maximum value out of all of our spells. While I didn't include many Earthquakes, you could easily swamp a couple in and have strong board clearing capabilities if you need to protect yourself from swarms of creatures frequently.

Permanents

While the deck is largely spells, having some powerful permanents does help. Crucible is to help ensure we can keep hitting land drops forever, and it interacts well with Command Beacon to keep Mizzix to a reasonable cost in long games. Orrery and Leyline are specifically good since the deck has a lot of powerful sorceries and wants to be able to play Mizzix without fear of sorcery speed removal. Mizzix is generally winning outside of combat damage, and thus Meishin is an excellent card to keep us from getting run over. That we can have 10+ cards in hand from draw spells and Reliquary Tower ensure it can be extremely potent. The original UR Tron lists had monolithic creatures to win the game for them. While we are mostly spells to take advantage of Mizzix, I included Kozilek and Ulamog to supplement our win conditions. They don't need much support, they can win the game on their own, and they also serve as Feldon's Canes. With multiple X draw spells, its possible for the deck to run out of library. Having them as deck cyclers is useful going long without having to include cards specifically for that purpose. You could include Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger if you wanted, but I decided against him or more large threats since they don't have the ancillary function of preventing decking.

Mana

It is imperative that we have Mizzix on the table as fast as possible. The first turn or two should consist of playing some piece of artifact mana, then playing Mizzix, then going through the stages of development. Artifact mana also helps us recast her if she dies, and enable us to cast the top end spells even if she is currently incapacitated.

There are 18 basics in the list, and several U/R dual lands. I tried to keep the selection of colorless lands to a minimum. Mizzix puts more emphasis on colored lands since she reduces generic costs. Its more likely that we'll be short a colored mana to cast a second spell. Command Beacon/Petrified Field/Crucible of Worlds is a trio that should help us keep Mizzix on the table even through heavy resistance. Myriad Landscape transforms into two colored sources and Thawing Glaciers ensures we'll hit lands drops essentially forever. Winding Canyons acts as another Orrery effect for Mizzix, letting us play her with flash gets past a lot of the potential counter play. I'm not sure Academy Ruins is going to earn its spot. Without self-sacrificing artifacts to recur it loses some of its bite. If I were to cut one of these for another colored source, Ruins would be top of the list. The bottom of that list is Reliquary Tower. You draw so many cards from the X spells that stacking this with Thought Vessel is worth the redundancy. Mage-Ring Network also seems like a solid backup plan. Getting bursts of mana lets us at least cast one of the big spells in the absence of Mizzix.

The roads not traveled.
Storm was discussed as a possible alternative, but another potential alternative is to go with an almost mono-color version and include Gauntlet of Power/High Tide effects. That gives you a huge boost to mana, enough to power out the high cost stuff in the deck without Mizzix in play. I chose to avoid that route since it doesn't feel Izzet-y. Having to lean on one land type more than the other also restricts deck building to an extent and I wanted to include things like Insurrection and Molten Disaster.  The plodding pace of 1 land per turn will still get us there, and comes with added benefit of being able to recast Mizzix post Planar Cleansing style sweeper. Lands are the most stable source of mana in EDH, which is why green is so strong.

Without changing anything about the deck's overall construction, there are still many obvious improvements that could be made. Cut for budget reasons were Snapcaster Mage and Jace, Vryn's Prodigy. They are both excellent. Also, given how mana hungry the deck is, Mana Crypt would be an excellent addition. Also, more free counter spells would help, such as Force of Will and Pact of Negation.

Firemind's Foresight/Reset/Turnabout/Mystic Tutor - This package is pretty standard in UR decks as a compact way to generate infinite mana. While the deck would certainly win more with the inclusion of these cards, I don't think it would be better for it. As it stands, the deck is powerful and explosive, but its not consistent enough to be a terror. Including this package or more tutors would push it over the edge into a 4 on the Bullshit Scale.

Mizzix really pushed a different style of deck. With 46 nonpermanents, its going to have challenging draws. It certainly seems like a blast to play though when its firing on all cylinders. I'll be back next week with Meren. Till then, Cheers!