This is a cut-throat combo/control deck aimed at powering out Mizzix quickly and using her ability to cast a series of spells that end the game. Mizzix is the Animar of instants and sorceries, and her ability enables explosive turns that outright win the game or establish massive card and tempo advantage. The more spells you cast, the more benefit you gain, so this deck focuses on spells with buyback and recursion to cast spells repeatedly. Unlike many Mizzix lists, this deck doesn't rely on storm spells to win. Instead, it finishes the game with one of two infinite combos which each generate infinite mana and card draw. The namesake combo, based around Runic Repetition + Mystic Retrieval is one that is far more powerful and resilient than most people realize. I have won with this combo after having my graveyard exiled including Reiterate, Past in Flames, Intuition, and Mystic Retrieval.
Despite having a fairly rapid combo finish, this deck does not go all-in on the combo plan: 20% of the deck is devoted to countering your opponents' plays and protecting our own. There are a number of powerful enchantments to play before casting Mizzix. This makes the deck much more resilient to disruption than all-in combo plans. It usually wins between turns 3-5 with an infinite combo if you are racing. More often, the best strategy is to play control until you reach 6-7 mana, and then play Mizzix and cast spells to gain advantage while building up exp counters. Then, after having Mizzix removed, recast her with exp counters already built up and win. You have enough counterspells and removal to disrupt game-winning plays, but you have to use them judiciously to make sure no one wins before you get your chance to go off.
Runic Repetition + Mystic Retrieval form a loop that nets you one spell returned to your hand. Without Mizzix, this combo costs 7UUR, which is only doable with High Tide shenanigans. With Mizzix, that is reduced to UUR to recur any spell, repeatable infinitely. This will win you the game either instantly with a ritual or extra turn spell or by recurring disruption spells such as Cyclonic Rift. This combo can be fetched with Intuition, along with a card to recur. Time Warp and Reality Spasm are powerful options if you want to win immediately. If you generate infinite mana or turns, you can use extra mana to recur intuition and fetch other win conditions.
Pros:
Wins the game Versatile: can recur half of the deck infinitely
Very resilient: combo is active with both pieves in the graveyard, or with mystic retrieval already exiled
Mystic retrieval is very powerful outside the combo, and can be retrieved once you find the second piece
Cheap with Mizzix: UUR is easy to pay
Most people have never seen Runic Repitition played
Cons:
Expensive without Mizzix
Runic Repitition needs to be protected
Requires a ritual or extra turn spell to outright win
Reiterate is a standard win condition in UR spellslinger decks, but is just the backup win condition in this deck. With Mizzix in play, this spell rapidly approaches being a reusable Fork. If the spell you copy generates RR, you can repeat it infinitely. After that, Reiterate also acts as the win condition when combined with most of the spells in this deck, or even a spell cast by an opponent. Firemind's Foresight fetches this card, along with Reality Spasm and Whispers of the Muse. Note that I cut the standard Lightning Bolt from the deck, because if you can draw your deck and you have infinite mana you can just win with comet storm or stroke of genius.
Pros:
Wins at instant speed
All cards are powerful outside of the combo
Cons:
Vulnerable to counterspells: reiterate will fizzle if target is countered
Expensive if Mizzix isn't in play
Original spell must remain on the stack to be reiterated
You need mana to cast both the ritual and reiterate to begin the combo
Pros and Cons
I've tested the deck extensively since Mizzix was released, and it matches up well against many powerful decks. It has beaten many tuned, budgetless decks: Hermit druid, Karador, Brago, Maelstrom Wanderer, Azami, and Daretti have all fallen to Mizzix's plane-wide comet storms.
Strengths: The deck is strongest against control and stax decks, as the tempo gain from Mizzix makes effective mana denial very difficult. The deck is often quite good against any deck which relies on nonbasic lands, with Back to Basics and Ruination absolutely crippling 5-color decks. Any deck without instant-speed or proactive disruption has difficulty stopping you from just winning, and your counters mean the table usually needs multiple pieces to stop you.
Weaknesses: The deck is weak against a table of 2-3 tuned all-in combo decks. Your main hope is to mulligan to cast either a fast wheel or a stranglehold. Mass land destruction can also be crippling, if you can't counter it. Repeatable creature removal can lock you out of winning until you find a way to disrupt their removal, but it often only takes one turn with them tapped out to pull through a win.
How does [Runic Repetition] and [Mystic Retrival] generate infinite mana? How does it win the game? Is there a card in the graveyard that lets you combo off? Won't you eventually run out of mana if you keep playing Runic Repetition and Mystic Retrival?
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Despite having a fairly rapid combo finish, this deck does not go all-in on the combo plan: 20% of the deck is devoted to countering your opponents' plays and protecting our own. There are a number of powerful enchantments to play before casting Mizzix. This makes the deck much more resilient to disruption than all-in combo plans. It usually wins between turns 3-5 with an infinite combo if you are racing. More often, the best strategy is to play control until you reach 6-7 mana, and then play Mizzix and cast spells to gain advantage while building up exp counters. Then, after having Mizzix removed, recast her with exp counters already built up and win. You have enough counterspells and removal to disrupt game-winning plays, but you have to use them judiciously to make sure no one wins before you get your chance to go off.
1x Arid Mesa
1x Bloodstained Mire
18x Snow-Covered Island
5x Snow-Covered Mountain
1x Flooded Strand
1x Misty Rainforest
1x Polluted Delta
1x Scalding Tarn
1x Volcanic Island
1x Wooded Foothills
Gas
1x Brainstorm
1x Call to Mind
1x Deep Analysis
1x Dig Through Time
1x Fact or Fiction
1x Firemind's Foresight
1x Gamble
1x Gitaxian Probe
1x Impulse
1x Increasing Vengeance
1x Intellectual Offering
1x Intuition
1x Merchant Scroll
1x Mind's Desire
1x Mystic Remora
1x Mystic Retrieval
1x Mystical Tutor
1x Past in Flames
1x Personal Tutor
1x Pull from the Deep
1x Quiet Speculation
1x Gush
1x Runic Repetition
1x Rhystic Study
1x Reiterate
1x Temporal Mastery
1x Tezzeret's Gambit
1x Time Spiral
1x Time Warp
1x Wheel of Fortune
1x Whispers of the Muse
1x Windfall
1x Back to Basics
1x Capsize
1x Chaos Warp
1x Comet Storm
1x Cyclonic Rift
1x Force of Will
1x Learn from the Past
1x Lightning Greaves
1x Mental Misstep
1x Misdirection
1x Rewind
1x Ruination
1x Shattering Pulse
1x Stranglehold
1x Steam Vents
1x Stroke of Genius
1x Swan Song
1x Trickbind
1x Vandalblast
Acceleration
1x Frantic Search
1x Chrome Mox
1x Coldsteel Heart
1x Fellwar Stone
1x Fire Diamond
1x High Tide
1x Izzet Signet
1x Leyline of Anticipation
1x Lotus Petal
1x Mana Crypt
1x Mana Vault
1x Mox Diamond
1x Reality Spasm
1x Sapphire Medallion
1x Seething Song
1x Sol Ring
1x Turnabout
1x Mizzix of the Izmagnus
Link to deck @ TappedOut.net
Win Conditions
Runic Repetition + Mystic Retrieval
Runic Repetition + Mystic Retrieval form a loop that nets you one spell returned to your hand. Without Mizzix, this combo costs 7UUR, which is only doable with High Tide shenanigans. With Mizzix, that is reduced to UUR to recur any spell, repeatable infinitely. This will win you the game either instantly with a ritual or extra turn spell or by recurring disruption spells such as Cyclonic Rift. This combo can be fetched with Intuition, along with a card to recur. Time Warp and Reality Spasm are powerful options if you want to win immediately. If you generate infinite mana or turns, you can use extra mana to recur intuition and fetch other win conditions.
Pros:
Reiterate + Ritual
Reiterate is a standard win condition in UR spellslinger decks, but is just the backup win condition in this deck. With Mizzix in play, this spell rapidly approaches being a reusable Fork. If the spell you copy generates RR, you can repeat it infinitely. After that, Reiterate also acts as the win condition when combined with most of the spells in this deck, or even a spell cast by an opponent. Firemind's Foresight fetches this card, along with Reality Spasm and Whispers of the Muse. Note that I cut the standard Lightning Bolt from the deck, because if you can draw your deck and you have infinite mana you can just win with comet storm or stroke of genius.
Pros:
Pros and Cons
I've tested the deck extensively since Mizzix was released, and it matches up well against many powerful decks. It has beaten many tuned, budgetless decks: Hermit druid, Karador, Brago, Maelstrom Wanderer, Azami, and Daretti have all fallen to Mizzix's plane-wide comet storms.
Strengths: The deck is strongest against control and stax decks, as the tempo gain from Mizzix makes effective mana denial very difficult. The deck is often quite good against any deck which relies on nonbasic lands, with Back to Basics and Ruination absolutely crippling 5-color decks. Any deck without instant-speed or proactive disruption has difficulty stopping you from just winning, and your counters mean the table usually needs multiple pieces to stop you.
Weaknesses: The deck is weak against a table of 2-3 tuned all-in combo decks. Your main hope is to mulligan to cast either a fast wheel or a stranglehold. Mass land destruction can also be crippling, if you can't counter it. Repeatable creature removal can lock you out of winning until you find a way to disrupt their removal, but it often only takes one turn with them tapped out to pull through a win.