Hello and welcome to Daily Commander!

Today we are going to be talking about MIzzix, Replica Rider!

Mizzix is a five mana 4/5 with flying and whenever you cast a spell from anywhere other than your hand you may pay 1 and either a blue or red and if you do you copy that spell and you may choose new targets for the copy and if the copy is a permanent spell, it gains haste and sacrifices itself at the beginning of the end step.

Mizzix is a spell slinger deck, but with a bit of a twist in that they care about casting spells from not your hand, and also has the benefit of being able to copy no just instants and sorceries but all spells, which means that we have some interesting avenues of which spells we can cast.

The game plan is simple, we have ways to get cards out of our hands and find as many ways to cast those spells as possible while also having enough mana to copy those spells.

The first thing we need to do is find ways to get cards out of our hands, and there are a few ways we can go about that.

Ignite the Future is a perfect card for this because it exiles the top three cards of our library and lets us play them until the end of our next turn and it also happens to have flashback which also allows us to play those cards without paying their mana costs, which is doubly efficient if we want to copy those spells.

Count on Luck exiles the top card of our library at the beginning of our upkeep and let’s us play it this turn, Wrenn’s Resolve exiles the top two cards of our library and lets us play them until the end of our next turn, and Expressive Iteration lets us look at the top three cards of our library and puts one in our hand, another at the bottom of our library, and the third into exile that we can play this turn.

While impulsive draws are one of the more effective ways for us to trigger Mizzix, we can also use cards with Suspend like Ancestral Vision which will draw us three cards after four turns, cards with Plot like Lock and Load which draws us a card and additional cards for each other instant and sorcery we have cast, or cards with Foretell like Sage of the Beyond, which not only has Foretell but also reduces the cost of spells we cast from anywhere other than our hand by two mana.

Talking about cost reduction, we need to have ways to make sure we can cast and copy spells by having the mana we need.

Lotus Bloom is an example of a great way to get a good chunk of mana because it has a Suspend cost of 0 for three turns and once we have Mizzix out we can copy the Lotus Bloom in order to get six mana pretty much instantly. In a similar vein we can also use something like Sol Talisman and Mox Tantalite to get two Sol Rings and two Moxes for a turn.

Speaking of getting a ton of burst mana, we can use Mana Geyser in the mid to late game because it makes a red mana for each tapped land our opponents control, which if we manage to copy with Mizzix then we get double that much mana, which can definitely be useful for casting and copying spells.

Party Thrasher is also an interesting way to get some use for the cards we have in exile since it gives noncreature spells we cast from exile Convoke, which means if we get a few creatures down and copied from Mizzix to have an additional use in being a mana rock before they get sacrificed, while Party Thrasher itself can also be a way for us to get a card into exile that we can cast.

We can also work to give cards in our hand suspend by using Jhoira of the Ghitu which lets us exile a nonland card from our hand with four time counters and gives it suspend or we can also use Taigam, Master Opportunist who copies the second spell we cast each turn and then exiles the spell we cast with four time counters and gives it suspend, which can help us be a bit more efficient with our mana.

While he is a bit more on the narrow side, Jace Reawakened can be a way for us to Plot a spell of mana value three or less from our hand, while also being able to draw us a card and discard a card and has the ultimate that until the end of turn whenever we cast a spell we copy it, which with MIzzix we can also do but Jace’s will stay in play if it’s a permanent, which can be very helpful if we want to pile on value.

The last thing to consider for the deck are additional payoffs for playing cards not from our hand, just as an additional bit of value and to also get more copies into play to help us close out a game.

The Lost and the Damned is perfect for this since it triggers whenever we get a land onto the battlefield from anywhere other than our hand or we cast a spell from anywhere other than our hand then we get to make a 3/3 red Spawn creature token, which if we get early enough can mean a lot of additional bodies.

Triple Triad is an interesting card to play with the deck since it exiles the top card of each players library and until end of turn we can play the card we own exiled this way and then we can play our opponents cards with lesser mana value that were also exiled this way without paying their mana costs, which can be very swingy and a bit random, but also can give us the opportunity to get value from an opponents removal spell or an additional body that can serve as a utility or offensive creature.

We can also use Nalfashnee which does the same thing as Mizzix but does so without paying mana, Wild-Magic Sorcerer to give the first spell we cast from exile cascade, or Wand of Wonder which lets us roll a d2and has our opponents exile the top cards of their library until they hit and instant or sorcery and depending on the result of the d20 roll we can cast up to X number of those spells form free.

If we want a ton of value from copying spells, then Twinning Staff is great because if we would copy a spell, then we can copy it that many times plus an additional time while also being another way for us to get two copies of a spell since we can pay seven mana and tap to copy an instant or sorcery we control.

Invoke Calamity also works great because we can cast up to two instants and/or sorceries from our graveyard with total mana value six or less for free, exiling them instead of going to the graveyard, and since they are cast we can copy them with MIzzix.

Now comes the spells we can copy and the options there really are dependent on what sort of finisher we want. For example, if we want massive damage then we can use Impending Flux which deals X damage to each opponent and each creature they control where X is the number of spells we’ve cast from anywhere other then our hand this turn or Alrund’s Epiphany for a ton to potentially infinite turns.

There is also Thousand-Year Storm for pure spell slinger value, Flaming Tyrannosaurus to deals 3 damage and gets a +1/+1 counter for every spell we cast from anywhere other than our hand which when it dies (like being sacrificed to the Mizzix trigger) it deals damage to each opponent equal to its power, or Brain Freeze for a Storm payoff.

Mizzix is a value Commander where the value is being able to cast and copy a ton of spells, which can definitely be a fun time in casting all of those spells and copies.

Keeping track of the spells you copied can be a nightmare and there will likely be times when you lose track of how many copies of what ended up where and thing staying in play when they should be sacrificed, which can be daunting for some people.

Spell slinging is definitely a deck I want to build, but I know that I have to make sure that I can track what’s going on better than anyone else and that puts me off from making one, and I’m sure I’m not alone in that aspect.

There also comes the risk of not having the mana we want to copy the spells, which can suck some of the fun from playing a spell slinging deck that is reliant on spending more mana to copy spells, which adds an additional bit of tracking.

Nonetheless, I do think that MIzzix provides an interesting avenue and twist to pure spell slinging decks and one that I think can be made to whatever budget or skill level or bracket you want or have and still have a fun time playing it.

Thank you for reading, see you tomorrow for the next Daily Commander!

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual