So, recently I decided to get into MTGO EDH/Commander, and so I went and dusted off an old Extended deck, expanded it, threw in a brand new Niv-Mizzet and some choice rares, and built this budget monstrosity. It's by no means a table-destroying deck, but I think it's fun to play; it's neither an overly optimised combo deck, an uninteractive omnihoser type control deck, or a 'battleship Magic' deck which plays big men and turns then sideways. It sticks to the two overarching principles of every blue-red EDH deck: Play differently every time, and do something unexpected every turn.
Draw lots of cards! - Besides Niv-Mizzet himself, some 20 or so cards in the deck are cantrips, cycling cards, or draw cards, and that's not really enough. Arcanis the Omnipotent, Illuminated Folio and Quicksilver Dagger feed Niv-Mizzet's fire. Quicksilver Dagger can be attached to Niv-Mizzet himself, doubling his card-drawing and tripling his damage. Minamo, School at Water's Edge can untap Mizzet or Arcanis for double the pain and card draw. Time Reversal prevents self-milling and refills the hand, while Winds of Change cycles the hand. They both are also fantastic plays whenever Niv-Mizzet is in the table. Mindmoil turns Niv-Mizzet into an engine of incredible pain.
Play lots of spells! - This is the 'storm' part. Besides actual storm spells like Empty the Warrens, the deck runs nine creatures that either feed off spells, like Wee Dragonauts and Storm Entity, or help recurse spells and cast more spells in a turn, like Grinning Ignus and Nucklavee. Galvanoth gives you free spells, interacting very nicely with the various scrying spells. And, of course, there's Cast through Time, which lets your storm count carry over between turns, and Mind's Desire, which rewards your high Storm count with yet more free spells.
Shenanigans! - A light control theme, the deck runs Dissipation Field to discourage attack (With the added bonus of being able to bounce Niv-Mizzet any time for 1 life), some light burn, Clout of the Dominus for a hasted, shrouded Niv-Mizzet, and of course the obligatory mass destruction in the form of Molten Disaster.
Steal! - This is more of a sub-theme, but rather than absurd fatties like Kozilek, Butcher of Truth, the deck runs theft effects like Blatant Thievery and the game-winning Insurrection. Clone and Body Double allow quasi-thievery and duplication of other people's creatures, whereas the Mizzium Transreliquat duplicates artifacts. And, of course, Telemin Performance can pull someone else's Kozilek by turn four. Or it can pull a Sakura-tribe Elder. It also instantly mills to death anybody running a creatureless deck, which is good riddance. And once you've stolen everyone's creatures, you can Soulblast everything at someone's face.
Amuse the Table! - A small sub-theme of cards that are played because they are fun or amusing more than anything. Death by Dragons has a nice interaction with Insurrection, but it's really too entertaining to hold in your hand for long. Pongify is run because nobody expects an untapped island to cast creature destruction. Cultural Exchange is run because of how entertaining it can be.
There are plenty of cards that should be in this deck and aren't because I haven't had the time to get them or for budget reasons, i.e. Consecrated Sphinx and Lightning Greaves. I'm asking for suggestions and critique as I tune this deck; I'm thinking of eventually building a paper Magic version of it.
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This is the deck after several iterations of incremental change. I've added more cards that act as standalone threats, as well as a heavier control component and a few ways of dealing with problem permanents that red and blue have trouble getting off the board.
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It helps to group the cards by function rather than type. Here is my Niv decklist. I've been working on it for a few months now and I'm fairly happy with it.
I wasn't aware of arcane denial or winds of change so thanks for pointing those out. ^^
Looking at your list I don't see a whole lot of synergy and a lot of really high CMC stuff. Caged sun especially seems bulky and not useful in a two color deck.
If you want mana: Cast Inner Fire then reiterate it with buyback... you have infinite mana. Cast any draw seven effect and reiterate that, now you have near infinite damage depending on the card you use. In order to do this, you will need 10 mana available and at least 8 cards in hand including inner fire and reiterate . You would cast Inner Fire , then cast reiterate , paying its buyback cost. Reiterate would resolve first, creating a copy of Inner Fire and returning to your hand, that copy would then resolve, giving you 7 mana. Repeat as many times as necessary.
If you want card draw: Cast psychic possession, consecrated sphinx, or plagiarize... then cast any of the draw 7 type spells.... suddenly you have 14 (or 21 in the case of the sphinx assuming 1v1 4v4 it would be 49 i think) cards in hand. Reiterate, reverb, or twincast the draw 7 and you get 28 cards in hand... 28 dmg from Niv, and a 28/28 psychosis crawler. Cast inner fire and you've got 28 mana to play with.
Ah, thanks for doing that... it makes it a lot easier to see whats going on.
Since you have so many high CMC stuff I would run a lot more artifact ramp... probably at least 10.
Dreamscape artist seems quite good. I'm running 40 land now bc 38 didn't seem like enough... but then I get a lot of land later when I don't need it. Probably will switch him for a land.
Clone is also great... psychosis crawler is always a good target for that in my deck... plus it can kill generals obviously.
Nucklavee seems useful but a bit high costed... good card advantage though.
Cards that I was considering:
Pemmin's Aura ... it's cheap and has a toggleable shroud. Good on both arcanis and niv + any other tap creatures you might have. Can be used as removal as well.
Do you have a cockatrice account by chance? I'd love to go head to head and see what happens
I'm considering dropping Nucklavee because he's kind of narrow, as he only grabs blue instants and red sorceries (And not a blue sorcery or a red instant).
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After some more playing with it, I find that I need more card advantage, though I'm unsure of what to cut to make room for it (And what kind to get, whether to add more raw card draw or replace a few spells with cantrip versions).
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And this is the result. The Storm theme, after being squeezed gradually after each iteration, is now finally gone, replaced with more card draw, more reliable overall effects, and a more steady style of play where the deck tries to play good threats with some utility and make them stick. Psychosis Crawler and Molten Psyche are the new stars here. If you're wondering why there are as many islands as mountains, in spite of the deck being much bluer than red, it's because several of the utility lands are blue, but I'm starting to find that I need to add more dual lands soon. Other wishlist cards are Jin-Gitaxias, Deep Analysis and Brainstorm.
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If your goal is card advantage you ought to look at my decklist again. It's not perfect and it def still changing, but it has gone through a lot of trial and error... much evolution and fat trimming to get this point.
YOU NEED MORE WINDFALL SPELLS! at least ten
Again I would say drop the really high cmc stuff like cast through time and argentum armor, too often I found that I was waiting a bunch of turns to drop something only for it to get removed or countered...
I would run 3 more counters... spell crumple, dream fracture, and mana leak, or last word
I would run waaaay more mana ramp. I would run inner fire, gilded lotus, Sol Ring, Solemn Simulacrum, Coalition Relic, Coldsteel Heart, Mind Stone, and Mox Opal ... the map, the caged sun, and the scope all seem kinda weak for this deck :/ Speed is ALWAYS a good thing... the faster you can establish your side of the table the better.
I would switch elixir of immortality for time spiral or time reversal... you get the graveyard back but you also get to do some dmg with Niv or at the very least refill your hand. Life gain in a Niv deck should be through draw or cards in hand... I.E collar or ivory tower.
try to get a chaos warp... it's such good removal and has only backfired on me once.
rough account of a recent 4 way competetive edh game using my Niv deck:
saved hinder to counter kaalia... tucked permanently
saved spell crumple for omnath... tucked permanently
finally got Niv on the table, fetched boots and collar and went to town on their creatures.... avenger of zendikar... pinged... dead, Vorinclex same thing...
I used jaya ballard, equipped with collar to take out all the token creatures on the battlefield for about an 90 point life gain...
I cast Niv again and cast a few windfall effects taking my opponents to lower and lower life... and me to higher and higher. any threats were quickly countered or removed.
I cast isochron spcepter attached to a twincast... a few turns later someone cast Praetor's Counsel (silly move on his part) and I twincast that... getting the 35 cards in my yard back to hand...
When it came to my turn again, I cast Inner Fire and reverbed it for 70 red mana in my mana pool. I cast aeon chronicler and psychosis crawler... and then twincast a molten psyche for about 120 dmg or something nuts like that... and then cast insurrection for good measure ^^ GG
well that's all I got for you for now... keep playtesting your deck and you'll be able to see what works and what doesn't. Try to play against the best players/decks you can.
Chaos Warp, Mox Opal/Chrome/Diamond, Gilded Lotus and Solemn Simulacrum aren't in my version of the deck for budget concerns, basically, as I would rather run them than not. I added Coldsteel Heart in the last iteration.
My deck tries to avoid relying too much on the general, and so I don't run a dozen windfall effects that are more or less worthless without him on the board. When I get to five or six mana, I'd rather play a credible standalone threat that draws less hate than Niv-Mizzet, and save him for when I can protect him (With mana open for counters, Leyline of Anticipation for casting with Flash, or greaves).
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1 Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind
1 Caged Sun
1 Crystal Shard
1 Darksteel Ingot
1 Expedition Map
1 Extraplanar Lens
1 Illuminated Folio
1 Izzet Signet
1 Mizzium Transreliquat
1 Arcanis the Omnipotent
1 Body Double
1 Clone
1 Dreamscape Artist
1 Galvanoth
1 Gelectrode
1 Grinning Ignus
1 Izzet Chronarch
1 Kiln Fiend
1 Magus of the Future
1 Mulldrifter
1 Nucklavee
1 Sage of Epityr
1 Shrewd Hatchling
1 Spellbound Dragon
1 Storm Entity
1 Wee Dragonauts
1 Dissipation Field
1 Mindmoil
1 Mystic Remora
1 Clout of the Dominus
1 Curiosity
1 Ophidian Eye
1 Quicksilver Dagger
1 Spellweaver Volute
Instants
1 Banishing Knack
1 Careful Consideration
1 Cerebral Vortex
1 Cerulean Wisps
1 Crimson Wisps
1 Dead/Gone
1 Electrolyze
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Fling
1 Gather Specimens
1 Pongify
1 Soulblast
1 Spin into Myth
1 Telling Time
1 Think Twice
Sorceries
1 Blatant Thievery
1 Counsel of the Soratami
1 Cultural Exchange
1 Death by Dragons
1 Distant Memories
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Gitaxian Probe
1 Grapeshot
1 Haze of Rage
1 Heat Shimmer
1 Insurrection
1 Mind's Desire
1 Molten Disaster
1 Ponder
1 Preordain
1 Rough/Tumble
1 Telemin Performance
1 Time Reversal
1 Winds of Change
1 Command Tower
1 Forgotten Cave
1 Izzet Boilerworks
1 Lonely Sandbar
1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
1 Terramorphic Expanse
1 Vivid Crag
1 Vivid Creek
12 Island
10 Mountain
Deck Themes
Draw lots of cards! - Besides Niv-Mizzet himself, some 20 or so cards in the deck are cantrips, cycling cards, or draw cards, and that's not really enough. Arcanis the Omnipotent, Illuminated Folio and Quicksilver Dagger feed Niv-Mizzet's fire. Quicksilver Dagger can be attached to Niv-Mizzet himself, doubling his card-drawing and tripling his damage. Minamo, School at Water's Edge can untap Mizzet or Arcanis for double the pain and card draw. Time Reversal prevents self-milling and refills the hand, while Winds of Change cycles the hand. They both are also fantastic plays whenever Niv-Mizzet is in the table. Mindmoil turns Niv-Mizzet into an engine of incredible pain.
Play lots of spells! - This is the 'storm' part. Besides actual storm spells like Empty the Warrens, the deck runs nine creatures that either feed off spells, like Wee Dragonauts and Storm Entity, or help recurse spells and cast more spells in a turn, like Grinning Ignus and Nucklavee. Galvanoth gives you free spells, interacting very nicely with the various scrying spells. And, of course, there's Cast through Time, which lets your storm count carry over between turns, and Mind's Desire, which rewards your high Storm count with yet more free spells.
Shenanigans! - A light control theme, the deck runs Dissipation Field to discourage attack (With the added bonus of being able to bounce Niv-Mizzet any time for 1 life), some light burn, Clout of the Dominus for a hasted, shrouded Niv-Mizzet, and of course the obligatory mass destruction in the form of Molten Disaster.
Steal! - This is more of a sub-theme, but rather than absurd fatties like Kozilek, Butcher of Truth, the deck runs theft effects like Blatant Thievery and the game-winning Insurrection. Clone and Body Double allow quasi-thievery and duplication of other people's creatures, whereas the Mizzium Transreliquat duplicates artifacts. And, of course, Telemin Performance can pull someone else's Kozilek by turn four. Or it can pull a Sakura-tribe Elder. It also instantly mills to death anybody running a creatureless deck, which is good riddance. And once you've stolen everyone's creatures, you can Soulblast everything at someone's face.
Amuse the Table! - A small sub-theme of cards that are played because they are fun or amusing more than anything. Death by Dragons has a nice interaction with Insurrection, but it's really too entertaining to hold in your hand for long. Pongify is run because nobody expects an untapped island to cast creature destruction. Cultural Exchange is run because of how entertaining it can be.
There are plenty of cards that should be in this deck and aren't because I haven't had the time to get them or for budget reasons, i.e. Consecrated Sphinx and Lightning Greaves. I'm asking for suggestions and critique as I tune this deck; I'm thinking of eventually building a paper Magic version of it.
1 Argentum Armor
1 Basilisk Collar
1 Bonehoard
1 Caged Sun
1 Courier's Capsule
1 Darksteel Ingot
1 Darksteel Plate
1 Elixir of Immortality
1 Explorer's Scope
1 Expedition Map
1 Izzet Signet
1 Lightning Greaves
1 Mimic Vat
1 Pithing Needle
1 Quietus Spike
1 Skullclamp
1 Sol Ring
1 Spine of Ish Sah
1 Swiftfoot Boots
1 Whispersilk Cloak
1 Body Double
1 Clone
1 Dragon Mage
1 Draining Whelk
1 Dreamscape Artist
1 Grinning Ignus
1 Hoard-Smelter Dragon
1 Imperial Hellkite
1 Izzet Chronarch
1 Magus of the Future
1 Nucklavee
1 Ryusei, the Falling Star
1 Steel Hellkite
1 Spellbound Dragon
1 Trinket Mage
1 Vesuvan Shapeshifter
1 Commandeer
1 Counterspell
1 Dismiss
1 Dream Fracture
1 Evacuation
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Hinder
1 Pongify
1 Spin into Myth
1 Think Twice
12 Island
11 Mountain
1 Command Tower
1 Evolving Wilds
1 Forgotten Cave
1 Izzet Boilerworks
1 Kher Keep
1 Lonely Sandbar
1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
1 Miren, the Moaning Well
1 Phyrexia's Core
1 Reliquary Tower
1 Terramorphic Expanse
1 Tolaria West
1 Temple of the False God
1 Vivid Crag
1 Vivid Creek
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Icefall
1 Insurrection
1 Mind's Desire
1 Molten Disaster
1 Recurring Insight
1 Rite of Replication
1 Tidings
1 Windfall
1 Winds of Change
1 Cast Through Time
1 Leyline of Anticipation
1 Mystic Remora
1 Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind
EVASION:
1 Lightning Greaves
1 Clout of the Dominus
1 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
BEATERS (life gain, damage):
1 Ivory Tower
1 Basilisk Collar
1 Aeon Chronicler
1 Psychosis Crawler
UTILITY
1 Spellbook
1 Inner Fire
ARTIFACT RAMP (9):
1 Sol Ring
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Coalition Relic
1 Darksteel Ingot
1 Coldsteel Heart
1 Izzet Signet
1 Gilded Lotus
1 Mind Stone
1 Mox Opal
LAND (38):
10 Mountain
14 Island
1 Riptide Laboratory
1 Volcanic Island
1 Steam Vents
1 Cascade Bluffs
1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
1 Academy Ruins
1 Reliquary Tower
1 Vesuva
1 Halimar Depths
1 Terrain Generator
1 Command Tower
1 Homeward Path
1 Reflecting Pool
1 Strip Mine
1 Fabricate
1 Trinket Mage
1 Mystical Tutor
REMOVAL:
1 Shattering Spree
1 Nevinyrral's Disk
1 Chaos Warp
1 Turn to Frog
1 Jaya Ballard, Task Mage
1 Spin into Myth
TRICKS (Copying, Thievery):
1 Insurrection
1 Rite of Replication
1 Isochron Scepter
1 Reverberate
1 Swerve
1 Twincast
1 Sculpting Steel
1 Reiterate
1 Copy Enchantment (mostly for psychic possession if I get lucky)
Double Drawing:
1 Psychic Possession
1 Consecrated Sphinx
1 Plagiarize
Raw Drawing
1 Mind Spring
1 Rush of Knowledge
1 Arcanis the Omnipotent
1 Recurring Insight
Draw 7 type effects
1 Mindmoil
1 Windfall
1 Molten Psyche
1 Jace's Archivist
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Teferi's Puzzle Box
1 Timetwister
1 Winds of Change
1 Hinder
1 Spell Crumple
1 Counterspell
1 Arcane Denial
1 Mana Leak
1 Forbid
1 Stoic Rebuttal
1 Last Word
1 Dream Fracture
1 Muddle the Mixture
I wasn't aware of arcane denial or winds of change so thanks for pointing those out. ^^
Looking at your list I don't see a whole lot of synergy and a lot of really high CMC stuff. Caged sun especially seems bulky and not useful in a two color deck.
If you want mana: Cast Inner Fire then reiterate it with buyback... you have infinite mana. Cast any draw seven effect and reiterate that, now you have near infinite damage depending on the card you use. In order to do this, you will need 10 mana available and at least 8 cards in hand including inner fire and reiterate . You would cast Inner Fire , then cast reiterate , paying its buyback cost. Reiterate would resolve first, creating a copy of Inner Fire and returning to your hand, that copy would then resolve, giving you 7 mana. Repeat as many times as necessary.
If you want card draw: Cast psychic possession, consecrated sphinx, or plagiarize... then cast any of the draw 7 type spells.... suddenly you have 14 (or 21 in the case of the sphinx assuming 1v1 4v4 it would be 49 i think) cards in hand. Reiterate, reverb, or twincast the draw 7 and you get 28 cards in hand... 28 dmg from Niv, and a 28/28 psychosis crawler. Cast inner fire and you've got 28 mana to play with.
MY PRIMER ON NIV-MIZZET, THE FIREMIND, MY CUSTOM CARDS ON DEVIANTART
My other decks:
Kaalia of the Vast: Certified Air Raid Material
Prossh, Skyraider of Kher: NOM NOM NOM!
Aurelia, the Warleader: Warclamp
1 Caged Sun
1 Darksteel Ingot
1 Dreamscape Artist
1 Expedition Map
1 Explorer's Scope
1 Grinning Ignus [Storm count increaser and mana battery]
1 Izzet Signet
12 Island
11 Mountain
1 Command Tower
1 Evolving Wilds
1 Forgotten Cave
1 Izzet Boilerworks
1 Kher Keep
1 Lonely Sandbar
1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
1 Miren, the Moaning Well
1 Phyrexia's Core
1 Reliquary Tower
1 Terramorphic Expanse
1 Tolaria West
1 Temple of the False God
1 Vivid Crag
1 Vivid Creek
1 Body Double
1 Bonehoard [Colourless Lhurgoyf that resists creature removal]
1 Blatant Thievery
1 Clone [Doubles as removal]
1 Dragon Mage [Wheel of Fortune on a stick]
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Hoard-Smelter Dragon [Doubles as mass artifact removal]
1 Imperial Hellkite [Tutors more dragons]
1 Ryusei, the Falling Star [Mass removal/insurance policy/Mimic Vat target]
1 Steel Hellkite [Doubles as removal]
1 Spellbound Dragon [Card filtering]
1 Vesuvan Shapeshifter [Doubles as removal]
1 Rite of Replication [Doubles as removal.]
1 Darksteel Plate
1 Lightning Greaves
1 Quietus Spike
1 Swiftfoot Boots
1 Whispersilk Cloak
1 Argentum Armor [Expensive vindicate-on-a-stick]
1 Evacuation [Token army destructor, all-around helpful spell]
1 Pongify ["Here, have a monkey."]
1 Spine of Ish Sah [Expensive colorless recursible vindicate]
1 Spin into Myth
1 Icefall [Semi-recursible land and artifact destruction]
1 Molten Disaster
Counters
1 Arcane Denial
1 Commandeer
1 Counterspell
1 Dismiss
1 Draining Whelk [Doubles as a threat]
1 Dream Fracture
1 Hinder
General Hate
1 Pithing Needle
1 Elixir of Immortality
1 Courier's Capsule
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Mystic Remora
1 Think Twice
1 Recurring Insight
1 Skullclamp
1 Tidings
1 Windfall
1 Winds of Change
1 Magus of the Future
1 Nucklavee
1 Trinket Mage
1 Cast Through Time
1 Insurrection
1 Leyline of Anticipation
1 Mind's Desire
1 Mimic Vat
Since you have so many high CMC stuff I would run a lot more artifact ramp... probably at least 10.
Dreamscape artist seems quite good. I'm running 40 land now bc 38 didn't seem like enough... but then I get a lot of land later when I don't need it. Probably will switch him for a land.
Clone is also great... psychosis crawler is always a good target for that in my deck... plus it can kill generals obviously.
Nucklavee seems useful but a bit high costed... good card advantage though.
Cards that I was considering:
Pemmin's Aura ... it's cheap and has a toggleable shroud. Good on both arcanis and niv + any other tap creatures you might have. Can be used as removal as well.
Do you have a cockatrice account by chance? I'd love to go head to head and see what happens
MY PRIMER ON NIV-MIZZET, THE FIREMIND, MY CUSTOM CARDS ON DEVIANTART
My other decks:
Kaalia of the Vast: Certified Air Raid Material
Prossh, Skyraider of Kher: NOM NOM NOM!
Aurelia, the Warleader: Warclamp
1 Caged Sun
1 Darksteel Ingot
1 Dreamscape Artist
1 Expedition Map
1 Explorer's Scope
1 Izzet Signet
9 Island
9 Mountain
1 Command Tower
1 Evolving Wilds
1 Forgotten Cave
1 Grixis Panorama
1 Halimar Depths
1 Izzet Boilerworks
1 Kher Keep
1 Lonely Sandbar
1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
1 Miren, the Moaning Well
1 Phyrexia's Core
1 Reliquary Tower
1 Terramorphic Expanse
1 Thawing Glaciers
1 Tolaria West
1 Temple of the False God
1 Vivid Crag
1 Vivid Creek
1 Bonehoard
1 Clone
1 Dragon Mage
1 Hoard-Smelter Dragon
1 Imperial Hellkite
1 Ryusei, the Falling Star
1 Steel Hellkite
1 Spellbound Dragon
1 Vesuvan Shapeshifter
1 Rite of Replication
1 Psychosis Crawler
1 Basilisk Collar
1 Darksteel Plate
1 Lightning Greaves
1 Quietus Spike
1 Swiftfoot Boots
1 Whispersilk Cloak
1 Argentum Armor
1 Evacuation
1 Pongify
1 Spine of Ish Sah
1 Spin into Myth
1 Icefall
1 Molten Disaster
1 Into the Roil
Counters
1 Arcane Denial
1 Commandeer
1 Counterspell
1 Dismiss
1 Draining Whelk
1 Hinder
1 Muddle the Mixture
1 Pithing Needle
1 Elixir of Immortality
1 Azure Mage
1 Courier's Capsule
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Molten Psyche
1 Think Twice
1 Recurring Insight
1 Skullclamp
1 Shrine of Piercing Vision
1 Tidings
1 Windfall
1 Winds of Change
1 Magus of the Future
1 Izzet Chronarch
1 Nucklavee
1 Trinket Mage
1 Cast Through Time
1 Insurrection
1 Leyline of Anticipation
1 Mimic Vat
YOU NEED MORE WINDFALL SPELLS! at least ten
Again I would say drop the really high cmc stuff like cast through time and argentum armor, too often I found that I was waiting a bunch of turns to drop something only for it to get removed or countered...
I would run 3 more counters... spell crumple, dream fracture, and mana leak, or last word
I would run waaaay more mana ramp. I would run inner fire, gilded lotus, Sol Ring, Solemn Simulacrum, Coalition Relic, Coldsteel Heart, Mind Stone, and Mox Opal ... the map, the caged sun, and the scope all seem kinda weak for this deck :/ Speed is ALWAYS a good thing... the faster you can establish your side of the table the better.
I would switch elixir of immortality for time spiral or time reversal... you get the graveyard back but you also get to do some dmg with Niv or at the very least refill your hand. Life gain in a Niv deck should be through draw or cards in hand... I.E collar or ivory tower.
try to get a chaos warp... it's such good removal and has only backfired on me once.
rough account of a recent 4 way competetive edh game using my Niv deck:
saved hinder to counter kaalia... tucked permanently
saved spell crumple for omnath... tucked permanently
finally got Niv on the table, fetched boots and collar and went to town on their creatures.... avenger of zendikar... pinged... dead, Vorinclex same thing...
I used jaya ballard, equipped with collar to take out all the token creatures on the battlefield for about an 90 point life gain...
I cast Niv again and cast a few windfall effects taking my opponents to lower and lower life... and me to higher and higher. any threats were quickly countered or removed.
I cast isochron spcepter attached to a twincast... a few turns later someone cast Praetor's Counsel (silly move on his part) and I twincast that... getting the 35 cards in my yard back to hand...
When it came to my turn again, I cast Inner Fire and reverbed it for 70 red mana in my mana pool. I cast aeon chronicler and psychosis crawler... and then twincast a molten psyche for about 120 dmg or something nuts like that... and then cast insurrection for good measure ^^ GG
well that's all I got for you for now... keep playtesting your deck and you'll be able to see what works and what doesn't. Try to play against the best players/decks you can.
MY PRIMER ON NIV-MIZZET, THE FIREMIND, MY CUSTOM CARDS ON DEVIANTART
My other decks:
Kaalia of the Vast: Certified Air Raid Material
Prossh, Skyraider of Kher: NOM NOM NOM!
Aurelia, the Warleader: Warclamp
My deck tries to avoid relying too much on the general, and so I don't run a dozen windfall effects that are more or less worthless without him on the board. When I get to five or six mana, I'd rather play a credible standalone threat that draws less hate than Niv-Mizzet, and save him for when I can protect him (With mana open for counters, Leyline of Anticipation for casting with Flash, or greaves).