Introduction
Many people think that Mishra is an unplayable or bad commander (Oh god, i'm sure that's gonna be the opening line for many of my primers.) Most of the current playable lists slap him in a stax shell and use Nether Void and Blood Funnel. While this is a perfectly decent way to play the commander, I personally dislike stax as I feel that it isn't fun to be on the receiving end of that proverbial stick. The direction i chose to take with my Mishra deck, is one that focuses on playing my opponent's cards (not stealing, but playing) and triggering Mishra's ability to fetch my own copy from my deck in the process. What I realize is that the deck generates a ton of advantage when you get to 2 for 1 each of your artifact spells while maintaining a soft lock on your opponents as they struggle to play through many of the Mishra enablers like Knowledge Pool, Shared Fate and Possibility Storm. Our secondary function is to generate big amounts of mana (by getting like 2x sol rings etc) and shooting out cards like Memnarch, Colossus of Akros and Blightsteel Colossus.
Shared Fate: Mishra being a tri-color deck inherently has an advantage with Shared Fate when played against most other decks. While they are struggling to find anything playable, you play into their artifacts to fetch your own, soft locking them while generating advantage for yourself. They will mostly be drawing into cards they can't play, don't know how to play(Mishra Enablers), mana rocks or cards they don't have mana to play like Blightsteel Colossus.
Guile: Guile is like the boogeyman. This card will turn the entire table against you, yet none of your them will dare to play any decent spell in fear that you might just take it from them. Timing is important for when you decide to play this card. On another note, a 6/6 that cannot be blocked by less than 3 creatures is a powerhouse that will get through for combat damage every turn. Remember to always leave counterspell mana open even if you do not have one to keep up appearances.
Knowledge Pool: Knowledge Pool is one of the best cards in Mishra. It's extremely fun to play with, confuses the heck out of opponents' while doing everything you want it to. Exile your low cost spells to play the best spells in the Pool or grab an artifact that your opponent put in to double up with Mishra's trigger. Many a times have double Steel Hellkites and Myr Battlespheres ruined another person's day in exchange for a simple mana crypt.
Possibility Storm: Possibility Storm provides a slight twist to the typical advantage engine Mishra gains. Playing one of your own artifacts (instead of an opponent's) nets you not only a random artifact from your deck but also the artifact that you exiled to begin with. The deck throws a few other cool interactions in. There are 3 enchantments in the deck with Possibility Storm (PS), Shared Fate and Future Sight. Once PS is in play, playing Future Sight will net Shared Fate which throws a bigger wrench into your opponent's game plan, and the other way around nets you Future Sight. Future Sight interacts in an interesting way with PS. Showing you the top card of your library, lets you know what you could exile into by playing that spell in your hand. If you want that card, and dont have anything that could exile into it, you can play it directly from the library, bypassing the PS trigger instead. This gives you even more control and advantage than you already had. Apart from the multitude of low cost artifacts you have to pitch to PS, you can also use Batterskull to repeatedly trigger it, giving you a free artifact each time you play and return the batterskull. When you put Knowledge Pool and PS together, even crazier ***** happens. On your spells, you can stack the Pool trigger to resolve first (last in, first out), so you get two spells. If you want that artifact that you are playing to hit the field then do it the other way. On your opponents' spells, stack the Storm trigger to resolve first, so they only get the one spell. Another piece of tech is to use Shattering Spree to trigger Knowledge Pool and Possibility Storm while still destroying the artifacts you wish to with replicate.
The Class B Enablers don't have quite as much impact as the ones in Class A, as they usually do not change the way your opponent's play against you. In this category, there are a couple of notable cards.
Praetor's Grasp, Grinning Totem: These cards can grab ANY card from your opponent's library with the condition that you actually have to pay the card's cost to use it. Usually when searching for an artifact to double dip on, this will not affect us. However, the cards give us the opportunity to play whatever card their deck has that will have the most impact. Playing their board wipe against them when your board position is bad can never be sweeter, as long as you have the correct colors.
Havengul Lich: This card allows you to play your opponent's creatures that are in the GY.
Mirrorworks: Mirrorworks acts like a multiplier in Mishra. having it normally doubles up on your artifacts. Using it with a Mishra Enabler gives you up to 4 of that artifact instead.
Thada Adel, Azquisitor: Thada is a pretty solid Mishra enabler that is specific to tutors. When you have no available mana, search for a Mana Crypt or Artifact Land. At 1, there is Sol Ring, Wayfarer's bauble, Expedition Map, SDT. As the CMC goes up, so does the threat level. (Batterskull, Steel Hellkite, Myr Battlesphere)
Artifacts
This is the portion of the deck that needs to be adjusted according to the meta you are in. Take note of the common artifacts the people around you play and incorporate them into the deck. Here are some of the notables.
Sensei's Divining Top and Scroll Rack: These have a lesser played synergy with Mishra. Whenever you cast an artifact spell, you many choose to shuffle your library. SDT and Scroll Rack allow you dig into your deck and then shuffle it when you want a new set of cards to look at and play with.
Lightning Greaves, Swiftfoot Boots, Champion's Helm, Darksteel Plate: Standard fare protection package for Mishra. Since you need him to be on the field for his Enablers to double dip, it's wise to keep him protected whenever able. Also, try not to attack with Mishra unless you are confident that you can kill someone with commander damage.
Sword of Feast and Famine and Batterskull: The Voltron package for Mishra. These allow you to win games with Mishra. Batterskull is great on its own, and SoFaF is the only sword i could justify potentially having 2 of.
Copper Gnomes and Master Transmuter: These help you cheat out your super expensive artifacts like the Colossus package or Darksteel Forge. Enables some pretty quick wins.
Colossus of Akros, Darksteel Colossus, Blightsteel Colossus: The Colossus Bomb package. Simply, they are huge threats that need to be answered, yet are rather difficult to deal with. These tend to end games by themselves.
Lands
The land count in the deck is low at 32. The general rule of thumb is to start with 40 land and -1 for every 2 mana rocks/producers/ramp in the deck. With 13 mana producers and 2 ways to cheat out artifacts. It brings our effective count to 39/40. Add to that the ability to double dip on the mana rocks, we get more than enough mana every game.
The deck uses many non-basic lands and a bunch of them produce colorless mana. Because of this, it is important to mulligan into the proper colors (lands/manarocks) whenever possible to prevent mana screw.
The only notable land here is Mishra's Workshop. This land allows for an incredibly explosive start. (Mishra + Mana Crypt + Sol Ring will net us 6 mana on turn 1 to use on artifacts) It's also thematic with its namesake. However, this comes with a ridiculous price tag at the same time. Feel free to cut it if you are sensible, it isn't "essential" in any way to the deck.
Strategy
The basic strategy is pretty simple. The deck wins in multiple ways.
1)Accel with mana rocks into a big threat and win.
2)Double dip into a SoFaF or Batterskull and win with commander damage.
3)Accel into Disruption (Class A Enablers) and grind out a victory
4)Play an opponent's wincon with your enabler and proceed to win with it.
What's Next?
I don't think i missed anything too important, so we should be done here. As always feel free to comment, critique, discuss, question or flame. Let me know if you want me to elaborate on anything or have suggestions. Take a look at my other builds located below in my signature.
Doesn't this deck get boring once you learn what artifacts players in your group have? But I digress. Daretti seems like a pretty natural inclusion as well.
A great name for this deck would be "Double Dip".
It's actually the opposite of that. The deck requires you to not only know your own deck by heart, but to also remember what cards each of your opponents' run and which of those cards mirror yours. Knowing when to play a card from which player's deck any given time takes alot of skill to decide and when you manage to pull it off well, the sense of satisfaction is immense. It may not suit every player, but for those that enjoy a rather high skill ceiling, they will love Mishra. Everything from the deckbuilding process to turn by turn plays and even ordering of the stack is important when playing the deck.
Daretti is a good card. At the moment, I'm not focusing much at all on filter effects or artifact recursion. Add that to the fact that there are already 2 Planeswalkers in the deck which is perfect for Possibility Storm and that they both have intrinsic synergy with Mishra, i'm not all that convinced to give Daretti a shot in the deck, for now at least.
Just came back to check out this list again, might want to make IRL.
Just wanted to point out a few things.
You run Cancel over Dissolve.
You're not running Desertion? Just seems like a flavourful fit.
I think you made a good point about Daretti, but I'm not sure why you aren't running the Tezzeret instead of these Jaces.
Hellkite Tyrant? Come on man!
Also Kuldotha Forgemaster!
Scrap Mastery! You gotta buy that Monored 2014 precon.
Reflecting Pool for when that Shared Fate comes in homie.
How do you feel about the Urza lands? Do you honestly assemble it often enough?
Wondering about Sword of Feast and Famine. Why not Fire and Ice? You say it's the only one you'd want two of, but you can't take advantage of two procs on the untap lands. Fire and Ice is draw 2 and deal 4, which isn't shabby. Not to mention good protection colours.
And what about Spinerock Knoll? Do you honestly get to cast it all that often? I still feel like the special lands might be a bit shakey.
What about Dralnu to re-use gems like Praetor's Grasp?
Did you want to run anymore thieving effects? I'm trying to make this deck a little softer by cutting some stuff like Blightsteel Colossus and others that might paint too big a target on my head. Any suggestions for replacements for cards that are too strong? Imagine the wimpiest meta you can.
And do you know what happens when you have a Shared Fate and Possibility Storm in play? Maybe I'm just a little dull at 2 in the morning and am overthinking it. So if you cast an opponent's card off of Shared Fate, then it gets Exiled and swapped for something from your own deck that shares a creature type with it. That exiled card goes back to the bottom of the owner's library. Am I correct?
Just came back to check out this list again, might want to make IRL.
Just wanted to point out a few things.
You run Cancel over Dissolve.
You're not running Desertion? Just seems like a flavourful fit.
I think you made a good point about Daretti, but I'm not sure why you aren't running the Tezzeret instead of these Jaces.
Hellkite Tyrant? Come on man!
Also Kuldotha Forgemaster!
Scrap Mastery! You gotta buy that Monored 2014 precon.
Reflecting Pool for when that Shared Fate comes in homie.
How do you feel about the Urza lands? Do you honestly assemble it often enough?
Wondering about Sword of Feast and Famine. Why not Fire and Ice? You say it's the only one you'd want two of, but you can't take advantage of two procs on the untap lands. Fire and Ice is draw 2 and deal 4, which isn't shabby. Not to mention good protection colours.
And what about Spinerock Knoll? Do you honestly get to cast it all that often? I still feel like the special lands might be a bit shakey.
What about Dralnu to re-use gems like Praetor's Grasp?
Did you want to run anymore thieving effects? I'm trying to make this deck a little softer by cutting some stuff like Blightsteel Colossus and others that might paint too big a target on my head. Any suggestions for replacements for cards that are too strong? Imagine the wimpiest meta you can.
And do you know what happens when you have a Shared Fate and Possibility Storm in play? Maybe I'm just a little dull at 2 in the morning and am overthinking it. So if you cast an opponent's card off of Shared Fate, then it gets Exiled and swapped for something from your own deck that shares a creature type with it. That exiled card goes back to the bottom of the owner's library. Am I correct?
Dissolve is better than Cancel. I just happened to find a cancel while looking through my cards and shoved it in. I shall change that out when i can, i'll edit the post sometime after the next set.
Reflecting Pool should be in as well. It's an oversight on my part. Thanks for the catch
Hellkite Tyrant/Daretti are in my Norin Deck. Since I already explained Daretti, i'll leave that out. Hellkite Tyrant is insanely good. It's also an instant-loss if someone bribery's it out of your deck against you. It has it's place, but i left it out before it would backfire in my meta.
Urza Lands: I have not formed an opinion on them yet. So far i have not been able to assemble the Urzatron yet. They are solid for the flavor points and casting an expedition map from an opponent's deck nets us two pieces, so i'm hoping it'll happen sometime soon.
Scrap Mastery and Tezzeret: I tuned my deck to focus more on Mishra's ability and enabling rather than the vanilla artifact goodstuff route. That's why i'm using the Jaces instead, and why i don't have all that many Artifact specific cards in there which do not enable Mishra. It wouldn't hurt to put them in if you want to.
SoFaF: It's the best sword and the one that's most prevalent in my meta. It does actually trigger twice and you can float mana in response to the 2nd trigger. The mana is best used for Memnarch, but that's not the caveat. Double discard is extremely good control.
Spinerock Knoll: I have it in all my red decks. 7 damage is so easy to enable and it nets you a free spell. If you use Karoo lands, then it can even be bounced and reused. Furthermore, library manipulation like top and scroll rack allows you to control what you get. No regrets here.
Dralnu: Seems to narrow for this deck specifically. I am somewhat interested in disassembling my Lazav and converting it into a Dralnu deck though...
Generally, you want to change up the artifacts portion of the deck to fit the players you normally play against. If no one in your group uses Blightsteel Colossus or Steel Hellkite, you may be better of cutting them for cards that they DO have. In my case multiple decks run these cards, so getting double Blightsteel is really good advantage.
You are mostly right on the Shared Fate and PS interaction. So if let's say you play an opponent's Solemn Simulacrum from your hand with Mishra on the board, you exile Solemn Simlacrum, reveal cards till you hit an artifact and put that into play. Then put the rest of the revealed cards and your opponent's Sad Robot under YOUR library. Mishra then triggers and you can search your library for either your own or your opponent's sad robot and put it into play.
Just came back to check out this list again, might want to make IRL.
Just wanted to point out a few things.
You run Cancel over Dissolve.
You're not running Desertion? Just seems like a flavourful fit.
I think you made a good point about Daretti, but I'm not sure why you aren't running the Tezzeret instead of these Jaces.
Hellkite Tyrant? Come on man!
Also Kuldotha Forgemaster!
Scrap Mastery! You gotta buy that Monored 2014 precon.
Reflecting Pool for when that Shared Fate comes in homie.
How do you feel about the Urza lands? Do you honestly assemble it often enough?
Wondering about Sword of Feast and Famine. Why not Fire and Ice? You say it's the only one you'd want two of, but you can't take advantage of two procs on the untap lands. Fire and Ice is draw 2 and deal 4, which isn't shabby. Not to mention good protection colours.
And what about Spinerock Knoll? Do you honestly get to cast it all that often? I still feel like the special lands might be a bit shakey.
What about Dralnu to re-use gems like Praetor's Grasp?
Did you want to run anymore thieving effects? I'm trying to make this deck a little softer by cutting some stuff like Blightsteel Colossus and others that might paint too big a target on my head. Any suggestions for replacements for cards that are too strong? Imagine the wimpiest meta you can.
And do you know what happens when you have a Shared Fate and Possibility Storm in play? Maybe I'm just a little dull at 2 in the morning and am overthinking it. So if you cast an opponent's card off of Shared Fate, then it gets Exiled and swapped for something from your own deck that shares a creature type with it. That exiled card goes back to the bottom of the owner's library. Am I correct?
Dissolve is better than Cancel. I just happened to find a cancel while looking through my cards and shoved it in. I shall change that out when i can, i'll edit the post sometime after the next set.
Reflecting Pool should be in as well. It's an oversight on my part. Thanks for the catch
Hellkite Tyrant/Daretti are in my Norin Deck. Since I already explained Daretti, i'll leave that out. Hellkite Tyrant is insanely good. It's also an instant-loss if someone bribery's it out of your deck against you. It has it's place, but i left it out before it would backfire in my meta.
Urza Lands: I have not formed an opinion on them yet. So far i have not been able to assemble the Urzatron yet. They are solid for the flavor points and casting an expedition map from an opponent's deck nets us two pieces, so i'm hoping it'll happen sometime soon.
Scrap Mastery and Tezzeret: I tuned my deck to focus more on Mishra's ability and enabling rather than the vanilla artifact goodstuff route. That's why i'm using the Jaces instead, and why i don't have all that many Artifact specific cards in there which do not enable Mishra. It wouldn't hurt to put them in if you want to.
SoFaF: It's the best sword and the one that's most prevalent in my meta. It does actually trigger twice and you can float mana in response to the 2nd trigger. The mana is best used for Memnarch, but that's not the caveat. Double discard is extremely good control.
Spinerock Knoll: I have it in all my red decks. 7 damage is so easy to enable and it nets you a free spell. If you use Karoo lands, then it can even be bounced and reused. Furthermore, library manipulation like top and scroll rack allows you to control what you get. No regrets here.
Dralnu: Seems to narrow for this deck specifically. I am somewhat interested in disassembling my Lazav and converting it into a Dralnu deck though...
Generally, you want to change up the artifacts portion of the deck to fit the players you normally play against. If no one in your group uses Blightsteel Colossus or Steel Hellkite, you may be better of cutting them for cards that they DO have. In my case multiple decks run these cards, so getting double Blightsteel is really good advantage.
You are mostly right on the Shared Fate and PS interaction. So if let's say you play an opponent's Solemn Simulacrum from your hand with Mishra on the board, you exile Solemn Simlacrum, reveal cards till you hit an artifact and put that into play. Then put the rest of the revealed cards and your opponent's Sad Robot under YOUR library. Mishra then triggers and you can search your library for either your own or your opponent's sad robot and put it into play.
"Whenever a player casts a spell from his or her hand"
My question was spurred from the fact that Shared Fate says you may play the exiled cards as if they were in your hand. Which would imply any effect like "from his or her hand" procs off Shared Fate.
My question was spurred from the fact that Shared Fate says you may play the exiled cards as if they were in your hand. Which would imply any effect like "from his or her hand" procs off Shared Fate.
Except they don't. Also I'm pretty sure (not looking at the CR, but I can do so if you so desire) that if you would put a card owned by another player into your library, it stays where it is instead.
My question was spurred from the fact that Shared Fate says you may play the exiled cards as if they were in your hand. Which would imply any effect like "from his or her hand" procs off Shared Fate.
Except they don't. Also I'm pretty sure (not looking at the CR, but I can do so if you so desire) that if you would put a card owned by another player into your library, it stays where it is instead.
Well I was only asking a question, but you don't even seem certain yourself. I'll just ask a Judge about it later.
Quick update. Mishra has been feeling slightly too inconsistent lately and seems to fall short more than 50% of the time when pit against any one of my other decks. I'm going to have to do a balance pass on the deck and think up on replacements when i have the time to get the deck's gameplan into motion faster/more consistently.
Alright first off, i removed some artifacts due to meta shifts as well as cards that were not performing or detracting from the main focus of the deck. Part of the problem i had was consistency in finding my lock pieces such as Shared Fate, Knowledge Pool or Possibility Storm. I'm adding in Teferi's Puzzle Box and Mindmoil because they both enable me to not only find the pieces i need faster (through increased deck coverage), but also have pretty neat synergies with each of the mechanisms. They also tend to mess up combo players at the table which is always nice. I added a couple of good counterspells in as well. I could have and possibly m ight replace some counterspells with tutors if i feel that the puzzle box and mindmoil is insufficient to get the cards i need. For now, i'll stick with counterspells to gain some additional control as well as enable Guile. The counterspells also have some pretty sweet synergy with knowledge pool/shared fate/puzzle box, so i'm interested to see that in action.
All in all, i'm hoping that the changes make Mishra more consistent, and raise it's power level slightly to align with my other decks, without resorting to tutors just yet.
I just recently constructed a deck centered around the same theme: casting my opponents' spells, except instead of Mishra, I have Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge at the helm. I thought she would be the best candidate for commanding a deck with this theme because she can actually cast opponents' spells entirely on her own. I'm glad I stumbled across your thread though because I never actually considered Mishra at all! The way you intend to use his ability is really creative and I wanted to thank you for posting your list because I find it quite inspirational. I've only played a handful of games with Jeleva so far, but I'm not so certain I'm fond of her. She seems to play in a very linear and predictable way, which can make games stale, especially since it's the only deck I own. I may just switch over to Mishra, Artificer Prodigy.
Although I have a number of thoughts regarding your decklist, one question I would like to ask is whether or not you've ever considered playing Steel Sabotage or another similar card? You list Guile as one of your key Mishra enablers, but Mishra only actually triggers off of casting artifact spells. If that's the case, why cast expensive blanket countermagic (other than simply just being strong with Guile in general) when you could alternatively cast inexpensive, but narrow countermagic that affects artifacts? Personally, I've never been a fan of expensive countermagic because it often comes with the opportunity cost of having to decide between holding mana open to counter a potentially dangerous spell or tapping out and not casting my countermagic in order to proactively advance my board. My best guess is that you wanted all of your countermagic to target any kind of spell because you didn't want to take any chances with your Possibility Storm.
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I just recently constructed a deck centered around the same theme: casting my opponents' spells, except instead of Mishra, I have Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge at the helm. I thought she would be the best candidate for commanding a deck with this theme because she can actually cast opponents' spells entirely on her own. I'm glad I stumbled across your thread though because I never actually considered Mishra at all! The way you intend to use his ability is really creative and I wanted to thank you for posting your list because I find it quite inspirational. I've only played a handful of games with Jeleva so far, but I'm not so certain I'm fond of her. She seems to play in a very linear and predictable way, which can make games stale, especially since it's the only deck I own. I may just switch over to Mishra, Artificer Prodigy.
Although I have a number of thoughts regarding your decklist, one question I would like to ask is whether or not you've ever considered playing Steel Sabotage or another similar card? You list Guile as one of your key Mishra enablers, but Mishra only actually triggers off of casting artifact spells. If that's the case, why cast expensive blanket countermagic (other than simply just being strong with Guile in general) when you could alternatively cast inexpensive, but narrow countermagic that affects artifacts? Personally, I've never been a fan of expensive countermagic because it often comes with the opportunity cost of having to decide between holding mana open to counter a potentially dangerous spell or tapping out and not casting my countermagic in order to proactively advance my board. My best guess is that you wanted all of your countermagic to target any kind of spell because you didn't want to take any chances with your Possibility Storm.
Heya, thanks for the kind words. I chose Mishra to build around because most people i meet believe it is an unplayable commander or a joke deck of some kind. It was pretty interesting to get Mishra working and synergistic with the rest of the deck, but alot of effort and deckspace is used to enable it. Jeleva can probably be made more efficient and possibly powerful than Mishra can get. At the same time as you said, the games tend to play out the same way each game, so the "entertainment value" of Jeleva would probably fall short faster as well. Mishra is a fun deck to take out when playing with strangers because they usually get confused looks as to how the ability works in EDH and usually they underestimate you and attack one another, letting you build up a win pretty easily for the first game. The games also tend to play differently each time depending on the enablers you draw into.
It's true that Mishra only triggers off artifact spells. The reason i use normal counterspells are because they provide more control and flexibility when compared to cards like Steel Sabotage which are narrow in scope. I won't always have Mishra and/or Guile out during a game, but i'm almost certain to draw into at least one counterspell each game. Whether i might want to use it as a tempo play to slow down my opponent, safety to protect my key pieces, stopping other players from comboing off, or using it to trigger Guile is the flexibility gained from using broad countermagic instead. That said, as seen in my latest changelog, i'm experimenting with cheaper mana cost counterspells so that I don't have to keep as much mana open. Cards like Remand work in synergy with Guile or Teferi's Puzzle Box and Pact of Negation becomes a free spell with Knowledge Pool.
You could feel free to replace the 3cmc counterspells with narrower effects like steel sabotage, since the deck already quite a few 0-2cmc broad ones.
I mentioned before that consistency was a concern for me in the deck, and it remains so still. To finally put a nail in this coffin, i am going to add in a few tutor effects. This will help ensure that we can reliably get our Mishra enablers in the average game rather than depending entirely of the luck of the draw. Furthermore i am adjusting my mana base by replacing some cipt lands for basics, just to smooth out the earlier turns in the deck. It's a waste when we get multiple mana rocks, but are slowed down by the cipt landbase itself.
Some of these basics may eventually be switched out for original dual lands in the future.
- Life's Finale: The mana cost of Life's Finale is just too high. It's limited synergy with Havengul Lich isn't enough to make it good for the deck. Also, i usually find that playing my opponents' removals is usually better than playing my own, so i'm willing to cut down the number of removals i run in the deck.
- Oblivion Stone: I didn't like that Oblivion Stone is pretty slow in terms of removal. Also, it hits artifacts/enchantments which usually hurts me more than it does others.
- Psychic Intrusion: 5 mana is too much to search for a card that i still have to pay mana to cast. This issue is amplified because it is a sorcery.
- Fiend of the Shadows: 5 mana yet again and does too little. Letting the opponent choose what card gets exiled (and thus what we can play off the Fiend) hurts the quality of cards we get to benefit from.
- Burnished Hart: The deck runs enough accel already. Burnished is awkward at it's spot because it usually competes with Mishra when it's ability can be used. I'd also never try to double dip the card when better options like Solemn Simulacrum exist.
+ Sword of Feast and Famine: A grand return to SoFaF. The pseudo accel effect from the sword is sorely missed, and so is the protection from black/green.
+ Vampiric Tutor
+ Imperial Seal
+ Scrap Mastery: Some sort of artifact recursion was starting to be desired to help rebuild boards after wipes.
Also looks like there was some decklist discrepancy which is now fixed.
Other considerations:
Reshape possibly if more artifact tutors are needed.
Transmute Artifact
EMN seems to have quite a few interesting cards in the works. It's been awhile since i've seen something that could work as a Mishra enabler. The mana cost is steep but it seems like it could be worthwhile for multiplayer matchups especially.
Notable Exclusions:
Nether Void
Blood Funnel
Nullstone Gargoyle
1 Goblin Welder
1 Copper Gnomes
1 Nightveil Specter
1 Thada Adel, Acquisitor
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Master Transmuter
1 Phyrexian Metamorph
1 Havengul Lich
1 Duplicant
1 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Steel Hellkite
1 Guile
1 Memnarch
1 Myr Battlesphere
1 Silent-Blade Oni
1 Mindleech Mass
1 Colossus of Akros
1 Teferi, Mage of Zeferi
1 Blightsteel Colossus
Artifacts - 25
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
1 Expedition Map
1 Wayfarer's Bauble
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Mind Stone
1 Izzet Signet
1 Dimir Signet
1 Rakdos Signet
1 Scroll Rack
1 Lightning Greaves
1 Swiftfoot Boots
1 Coalition Relic
1 Chromatic Lantern
1 Sculpting Steel
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
1 Darksteel Plate
1 Champion's Helm
1 Grinning Totem
1 Mind's Eye
1 Memory Jar
1 Mirrorworks
1 Batterskull
1 Knowledge Pool
1 Teferi's Puzzle Box
1 Counterspell
1 Cancel
1 Hinder
1 Spell Crumple
1 Spelljack
1 Pact of Negation
1 Mana Drain
1 Remand
1 Vampiric Tutor
Sorceries - 8
1 Shattering Spree
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Praetor's Grasp
1 Stolen Goods
1 Damnation
1 Blasphemous Act
1 Imperial Seal
1 Scrap Mastery
Enchantments - 4
1 Possibility Storm
1 Shared Fate
1 Future Sight
1 Mindmoil
Planeswalkers - 2
1 Daretti, Scrap Savant
1 Jace, Architect of Thought
Lands - 32
1 Polluted Delta
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Blood Crypt
1 Watery Grave
1 Steam Vents
1 Drowned Catacomb
1 Sulfur Falls
1 Dragonskull Summit
1 Command Tower
1 Vault of Whispers
1 Great Furnace
1 Seat of the Synod
1 Buried Ruin
1 Academy Ruins
1 Urza's Power Plant
1 Urza's Tower
1 Urza's Mine
1 Mishra's Workshop
1 Ancient Tomb
1 Temple of the False God
3 Swamp
3 Mountain
5 Island
Introduction
Many people think that Mishra is an unplayable or bad commander (Oh god, i'm sure that's gonna be the opening line for many of my primers.) Most of the current playable lists slap him in a stax shell and use Nether Void and Blood Funnel. While this is a perfectly decent way to play the commander, I personally dislike stax as I feel that it isn't fun to be on the receiving end of that proverbial stick. The direction i chose to take with my Mishra deck, is one that focuses on playing my opponent's cards (not stealing, but playing) and triggering Mishra's ability to fetch my own copy from my deck in the process. What I realize is that the deck generates a ton of advantage when you get to 2 for 1 each of your artifact spells while maintaining a soft lock on your opponents as they struggle to play through many of the Mishra enablers like Knowledge Pool, Shared Fate and Possibility Storm. Our secondary function is to generate big amounts of mana (by getting like 2x sol rings etc) and shooting out cards like Memnarch, Colossus of Akros and Blightsteel Colossus.
Mishra Enablers
Possibility Storm, Shared Fate, Knowledge Pool, Guile
Shared Fate: Mishra being a tri-color deck inherently has an advantage with Shared Fate when played against most other decks. While they are struggling to find anything playable, you play into their artifacts to fetch your own, soft locking them while generating advantage for yourself. They will mostly be drawing into cards they can't play, don't know how to play(Mishra Enablers), mana rocks or cards they don't have mana to play like Blightsteel Colossus.
Guile: Guile is like the boogeyman. This card will turn the entire table against you, yet none of your them will dare to play any decent spell in fear that you might just take it from them. Timing is important for when you decide to play this card. On another note, a 6/6 that cannot be blocked by less than 3 creatures is a powerhouse that will get through for combat damage every turn. Remember to always leave counterspell mana open even if you do not have one to keep up appearances.
Knowledge Pool: Knowledge Pool is one of the best cards in Mishra. It's extremely fun to play with, confuses the heck out of opponents' while doing everything you want it to. Exile your low cost spells to play the best spells in the Pool or grab an artifact that your opponent put in to double up with Mishra's trigger. Many a times have double Steel Hellkites and Myr Battlespheres ruined another person's day in exchange for a simple mana crypt.
Possibility Storm: Possibility Storm provides a slight twist to the typical advantage engine Mishra gains. Playing one of your own artifacts (instead of an opponent's) nets you not only a random artifact from your deck but also the artifact that you exiled to begin with. The deck throws a few other cool interactions in. There are 3 enchantments in the deck with Possibility Storm (PS), Shared Fate and Future Sight. Once PS is in play, playing Future Sight will net Shared Fate which throws a bigger wrench into your opponent's game plan, and the other way around nets you Future Sight. Future Sight interacts in an interesting way with PS. Showing you the top card of your library, lets you know what you could exile into by playing that spell in your hand. If you want that card, and dont have anything that could exile into it, you can play it directly from the library, bypassing the PS trigger instead. This gives you even more control and advantage than you already had. Apart from the multitude of low cost artifacts you have to pitch to PS, you can also use Batterskull to repeatedly trigger it, giving you a free artifact each time you play and return the batterskull. When you put Knowledge Pool and PS together, even crazier ***** happens. On your spells, you can stack the Pool trigger to resolve first (last in, first out), so you get two spells. If you want that artifact that you are playing to hit the field then do it the other way. On your opponents' spells, stack the Storm trigger to resolve first, so they only get the one spell. Another piece of tech is to use Shattering Spree to trigger Knowledge Pool and Possibility Storm while still destroying the artifacts you wish to with replicate.
Praetor's Grasp,Stolen Goods, Spelljack, Jace, Architect of Thought, Grinning Totem, Nightveil Specter, Havengul Lich, Silent-Blade Oni, Mindleech Mass, Mirrorworks, Thada Adel, Acquisitor
Praetor's Grasp, Grinning Totem: These cards can grab ANY card from your opponent's library with the condition that you actually have to pay the card's cost to use it. Usually when searching for an artifact to double dip on, this will not affect us. However, the cards give us the opportunity to play whatever card their deck has that will have the most impact. Playing their board wipe against them when your board position is bad can never be sweeter, as long as you have the correct colors.
Havengul Lich: This card allows you to play your opponent's creatures that are in the GY.
Mirrorworks: Mirrorworks acts like a multiplier in Mishra. having it normally doubles up on your artifacts. Using it with a Mishra Enabler gives you up to 4 of that artifact instead.
Thada Adel, Azquisitor: Thada is a pretty solid Mishra enabler that is specific to tutors. When you have no available mana, search for a Mana Crypt or Artifact Land. At 1, there is Sol Ring, Wayfarer's bauble, Expedition Map, SDT. As the CMC goes up, so does the threat level. (Batterskull, Steel Hellkite, Myr Battlesphere)
Artifacts
This is the portion of the deck that needs to be adjusted according to the meta you are in. Take note of the common artifacts the people around you play and incorporate them into the deck. Here are some of the notables.
Sensei's Divining Top and Scroll Rack: These have a lesser played synergy with Mishra. Whenever you cast an artifact spell, you many choose to shuffle your library. SDT and Scroll Rack allow you dig into your deck and then shuffle it when you want a new set of cards to look at and play with.
Lightning Greaves, Swiftfoot Boots, Champion's Helm, Darksteel Plate: Standard fare protection package for Mishra. Since you need him to be on the field for his Enablers to double dip, it's wise to keep him protected whenever able. Also, try not to attack with Mishra unless you are confident that you can kill someone with commander damage.
Sword of Feast and Famine and Batterskull: The Voltron package for Mishra. These allow you to win games with Mishra. Batterskull is great on its own, and SoFaF is the only sword i could justify potentially having 2 of.
Copper Gnomes and Master Transmuter: These help you cheat out your super expensive artifacts like the Colossus package or Darksteel Forge. Enables some pretty quick wins.
Colossus of Akros, Darksteel Colossus, Blightsteel Colossus: The Colossus Bomb package. Simply, they are huge threats that need to be answered, yet are rather difficult to deal with. These tend to end games by themselves.
Lands
The land count in the deck is low at 32. The general rule of thumb is to start with 40 land and -1 for every 2 mana rocks/producers/ramp in the deck. With 13 mana producers and 2 ways to cheat out artifacts. It brings our effective count to 39/40. Add to that the ability to double dip on the mana rocks, we get more than enough mana every game.
The deck uses many non-basic lands and a bunch of them produce colorless mana. Because of this, it is important to mulligan into the proper colors (lands/manarocks) whenever possible to prevent mana screw.
The only notable land here is Mishra's Workshop. This land allows for an incredibly explosive start. (Mishra + Mana Crypt + Sol Ring will net us 6 mana on turn 1 to use on artifacts) It's also thematic with its namesake. However, this comes with a ridiculous price tag at the same time. Feel free to cut it if you are sensible, it isn't "essential" in any way to the deck.
Strategy
The basic strategy is pretty simple. The deck wins in multiple ways.
1)Accel with mana rocks into a big threat and win.
2)Double dip into a SoFaF or Batterskull and win with commander damage.
3)Accel into Disruption (Class A Enablers) and grind out a victory
4)Play an opponent's wincon with your enabler and proceed to win with it.
What's Next?
I don't think i missed anything too important, so we should be done here. As always feel free to comment, critique, discuss, question or flame. Let me know if you want me to elaborate on anything or have suggestions. Take a look at my other builds located below in my signature.
- Sword of Feast and Famine + Pact of Negation
- Chaos Warp + Mana Drain
- Fabricate + Remand
- Mycosynth Lattice + Teferi's Puzzle Box
- Darksteel Forge + Mindmoil
- Darksteel Colossus + Teferi, Mage of Zeferi
- Jace, the Mind Sculptor + Daretti, Scrap Savant
- Izzet Boilerworks + Island
- Dimir Aqueduct + Island
- Rakdos Carnarium + Island
- Tolaria West + Swamp
- Spinerock Knoll + Mountain
- Life's Finale + Sword of Feast and Famine
- Oblivion Stone + Vampiric Tutor
- Psychic Intrusion + Imperial Seal
- Fiend of the Shadows + N/A (Rakdos Signet was missing from the deck)
- Burnished Hart + Scrap Mastery
Norin the Wary (BRB) R
Blind Seer (Hose Everything) U
Mishra, Artificer Prodigy (Double Dipping) UBR
Borborygmos Enraged (Crush Mountains, Eat Forests) GR
Kresh the Bloodbraided (Get Wild) GRB
Derevi, Empyrial Tactician (Test Your Math) WUR
Toshiro Umezawa (Instant Reanimation) B
Dralnu, Lich Lord (Mill then Will) UB
Rakdos the Defiler (Death at any Cost) BR
Iwamori of the Open Fist (Wheel and Deal) G
Crovax, Ascendant Hero (Balancing Eggs) W
A great name for this deck would be "Double Dip".
Modern: Eldrazi CB,
Daretti is a good card. At the moment, I'm not focusing much at all on filter effects or artifact recursion. Add that to the fact that there are already 2 Planeswalkers in the deck which is perfect for Possibility Storm and that they both have intrinsic synergy with Mishra, i'm not all that convinced to give Daretti a shot in the deck, for now at least.
Oh and thanks for the tagline, its great!
Norin the Wary (BRB) R
Blind Seer (Hose Everything) U
Mishra, Artificer Prodigy (Double Dipping) UBR
Borborygmos Enraged (Crush Mountains, Eat Forests) GR
Kresh the Bloodbraided (Get Wild) GRB
Derevi, Empyrial Tactician (Test Your Math) WUR
Toshiro Umezawa (Instant Reanimation) B
Dralnu, Lich Lord (Mill then Will) UB
Rakdos the Defiler (Death at any Cost) BR
Iwamori of the Open Fist (Wheel and Deal) G
Crovax, Ascendant Hero (Balancing Eggs) W
Just wanted to point out a few things.
You run Cancel over Dissolve.
You're not running Desertion? Just seems like a flavourful fit.
I think you made a good point about Daretti, but I'm not sure why you aren't running the Tezzeret instead of these Jaces.
Hellkite Tyrant? Come on man!
Also Kuldotha Forgemaster!
Scrap Mastery! You gotta buy that Monored 2014 precon.
Reflecting Pool for when that Shared Fate comes in homie.
How do you feel about the Urza lands? Do you honestly assemble it often enough?
Wondering about Sword of Feast and Famine. Why not Fire and Ice? You say it's the only one you'd want two of, but you can't take advantage of two procs on the untap lands. Fire and Ice is draw 2 and deal 4, which isn't shabby. Not to mention good protection colours.
And what about Spinerock Knoll? Do you honestly get to cast it all that often? I still feel like the special lands might be a bit shakey.
What about Dralnu to re-use gems like Praetor's Grasp?
Did you want to run anymore thieving effects? I'm trying to make this deck a little softer by cutting some stuff like Blightsteel Colossus and others that might paint too big a target on my head. Any suggestions for replacements for cards that are too strong? Imagine the wimpiest meta you can.
And do you know what happens when you have a Shared Fate and Possibility Storm in play? Maybe I'm just a little dull at 2 in the morning and am overthinking it. So if you cast an opponent's card off of Shared Fate, then it gets Exiled and swapped for something from your own deck that shares a creature type with it. That exiled card goes back to the bottom of the owner's library. Am I correct?
Modern: Eldrazi CB,
Dissolve is better than Cancel. I just happened to find a cancel while looking through my cards and shoved it in. I shall change that out when i can, i'll edit the post sometime after the next set.
Reflecting Pool should be in as well. It's an oversight on my part. Thanks for the catch
Hellkite Tyrant/Daretti are in my Norin Deck. Since I already explained Daretti, i'll leave that out. Hellkite Tyrant is insanely good. It's also an instant-loss if someone bribery's it out of your deck against you. It has it's place, but i left it out before it would backfire in my meta.
Urza Lands: I have not formed an opinion on them yet. So far i have not been able to assemble the Urzatron yet. They are solid for the flavor points and casting an expedition map from an opponent's deck nets us two pieces, so i'm hoping it'll happen sometime soon.
Scrap Mastery and Tezzeret: I tuned my deck to focus more on Mishra's ability and enabling rather than the vanilla artifact goodstuff route. That's why i'm using the Jaces instead, and why i don't have all that many Artifact specific cards in there which do not enable Mishra. It wouldn't hurt to put them in if you want to.
SoFaF: It's the best sword and the one that's most prevalent in my meta. It does actually trigger twice and you can float mana in response to the 2nd trigger. The mana is best used for Memnarch, but that's not the caveat. Double discard is extremely good control.
Spinerock Knoll: I have it in all my red decks. 7 damage is so easy to enable and it nets you a free spell. If you use Karoo lands, then it can even be bounced and reused. Furthermore, library manipulation like top and scroll rack allows you to control what you get. No regrets here.
Dralnu: Seems to narrow for this deck specifically. I am somewhat interested in disassembling my Lazav and converting it into a Dralnu deck though...
Generally, you want to change up the artifacts portion of the deck to fit the players you normally play against. If no one in your group uses Blightsteel Colossus or Steel Hellkite, you may be better of cutting them for cards that they DO have. In my case multiple decks run these cards, so getting double Blightsteel is really good advantage.
You are mostly right on the Shared Fate and PS interaction. So if let's say you play an opponent's Solemn Simulacrum from your hand with Mishra on the board, you exile Solemn Simlacrum, reveal cards till you hit an artifact and put that into play. Then put the rest of the revealed cards and your opponent's Sad Robot under YOUR library. Mishra then triggers and you can search your library for either your own or your opponent's sad robot and put it into play.
Norin the Wary (BRB) R
Blind Seer (Hose Everything) U
Mishra, Artificer Prodigy (Double Dipping) UBR
Borborygmos Enraged (Crush Mountains, Eat Forests) GR
Kresh the Bloodbraided (Get Wild) GRB
Derevi, Empyrial Tactician (Test Your Math) WUR
Toshiro Umezawa (Instant Reanimation) B
Dralnu, Lich Lord (Mill then Will) UB
Rakdos the Defiler (Death at any Cost) BR
Iwamori of the Open Fist (Wheel and Deal) G
Crovax, Ascendant Hero (Balancing Eggs) W
Uhh... No.
"Whenever a player casts a spell from his or her hand"
Thanks for the help and opinions.
My question was spurred from the fact that Shared Fate says you may play the exiled cards as if they were in your hand. Which would imply any effect like "from his or her hand" procs off Shared Fate.
Modern: Eldrazi CB,
Except they don't. Also I'm pretty sure (not looking at the CR, but I can do so if you so desire) that if you would put a card owned by another player into your library, it stays where it is instead.
Well I was only asking a question, but you don't even seem certain yourself. I'll just ask a Judge about it later.
Modern: Eldrazi CB,
Heck, Shared Fate Oracle text:
"If a player would draw a card, that player exiles the top card of an opponent's library face down instead.
Each player may look at and play cards he or she exiled with Shared Fate."
Norin the Wary (BRB) R
Blind Seer (Hose Everything) U
Mishra, Artificer Prodigy (Double Dipping) UBR
Borborygmos Enraged (Crush Mountains, Eat Forests) GR
Kresh the Bloodbraided (Get Wild) GRB
Derevi, Empyrial Tactician (Test Your Math) WUR
Toshiro Umezawa (Instant Reanimation) B
Dralnu, Lich Lord (Mill then Will) UB
Rakdos the Defiler (Death at any Cost) BR
Iwamori of the Open Fist (Wheel and Deal) G
Crovax, Ascendant Hero (Balancing Eggs) W
Norin the Wary (BRB) R
Blind Seer (Hose Everything) U
Mishra, Artificer Prodigy (Double Dipping) UBR
Borborygmos Enraged (Crush Mountains, Eat Forests) GR
Kresh the Bloodbraided (Get Wild) GRB
Derevi, Empyrial Tactician (Test Your Math) WUR
Toshiro Umezawa (Instant Reanimation) B
Dralnu, Lich Lord (Mill then Will) UB
Rakdos the Defiler (Death at any Cost) BR
Iwamori of the Open Fist (Wheel and Deal) G
Crovax, Ascendant Hero (Balancing Eggs) W
- Sword of Feast and Famine + Pact of Negation
- Chaos Warp + Mana Drain
- Fabricate + Remand
- Mycosynth Lattice + Teferi's Puzzle Box
- Darksteel Forge + Mindmoil
- Darksteel Colossus + Teferi, Mage of Zeferi
- Jace, the Mind Sculptor + Daretti, Scrap Savant
Alright first off, i removed some artifacts due to meta shifts as well as cards that were not performing or detracting from the main focus of the deck. Part of the problem i had was consistency in finding my lock pieces such as Shared Fate, Knowledge Pool or Possibility Storm. I'm adding in Teferi's Puzzle Box and Mindmoil because they both enable me to not only find the pieces i need faster (through increased deck coverage), but also have pretty neat synergies with each of the mechanisms. They also tend to mess up combo players at the table which is always nice. I added a couple of good counterspells in as well. I could have and possibly m ight replace some counterspells with tutors if i feel that the puzzle box and mindmoil is insufficient to get the cards i need. For now, i'll stick with counterspells to gain some additional control as well as enable Guile. The counterspells also have some pretty sweet synergy with knowledge pool/shared fate/puzzle box, so i'm interested to see that in action.
All in all, i'm hoping that the changes make Mishra more consistent, and raise it's power level slightly to align with my other decks, without resorting to tutors just yet.
Norin the Wary (BRB) R
Blind Seer (Hose Everything) U
Mishra, Artificer Prodigy (Double Dipping) UBR
Borborygmos Enraged (Crush Mountains, Eat Forests) GR
Kresh the Bloodbraided (Get Wild) GRB
Derevi, Empyrial Tactician (Test Your Math) WUR
Toshiro Umezawa (Instant Reanimation) B
Dralnu, Lich Lord (Mill then Will) UB
Rakdos the Defiler (Death at any Cost) BR
Iwamori of the Open Fist (Wheel and Deal) G
Crovax, Ascendant Hero (Balancing Eggs) W
I just recently constructed a deck centered around the same theme: casting my opponents' spells, except instead of Mishra, I have Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge at the helm. I thought she would be the best candidate for commanding a deck with this theme because she can actually cast opponents' spells entirely on her own. I'm glad I stumbled across your thread though because I never actually considered Mishra at all! The way you intend to use his ability is really creative and I wanted to thank you for posting your list because I find it quite inspirational. I've only played a handful of games with Jeleva so far, but I'm not so certain I'm fond of her. She seems to play in a very linear and predictable way, which can make games stale, especially since it's the only deck I own. I may just switch over to Mishra, Artificer Prodigy.
Although I have a number of thoughts regarding your decklist, one question I would like to ask is whether or not you've ever considered playing Steel Sabotage or another similar card? You list Guile as one of your key Mishra enablers, but Mishra only actually triggers off of casting artifact spells. If that's the case, why cast expensive blanket countermagic (other than simply just being strong with Guile in general) when you could alternatively cast inexpensive, but narrow countermagic that affects artifacts? Personally, I've never been a fan of expensive countermagic because it often comes with the opportunity cost of having to decide between holding mana open to counter a potentially dangerous spell or tapping out and not casting my countermagic in order to proactively advance my board. My best guess is that you wanted all of your countermagic to target any kind of spell because you didn't want to take any chances with your Possibility Storm.
Trap your friends in an endless game with this 23-card combo!
Heya, thanks for the kind words. I chose Mishra to build around because most people i meet believe it is an unplayable commander or a joke deck of some kind. It was pretty interesting to get Mishra working and synergistic with the rest of the deck, but alot of effort and deckspace is used to enable it. Jeleva can probably be made more efficient and possibly powerful than Mishra can get. At the same time as you said, the games tend to play out the same way each game, so the "entertainment value" of Jeleva would probably fall short faster as well. Mishra is a fun deck to take out when playing with strangers because they usually get confused looks as to how the ability works in EDH and usually they underestimate you and attack one another, letting you build up a win pretty easily for the first game. The games also tend to play differently each time depending on the enablers you draw into.
It's true that Mishra only triggers off artifact spells. The reason i use normal counterspells are because they provide more control and flexibility when compared to cards like Steel Sabotage which are narrow in scope. I won't always have Mishra and/or Guile out during a game, but i'm almost certain to draw into at least one counterspell each game. Whether i might want to use it as a tempo play to slow down my opponent, safety to protect my key pieces, stopping other players from comboing off, or using it to trigger Guile is the flexibility gained from using broad countermagic instead. That said, as seen in my latest changelog, i'm experimenting with cheaper mana cost counterspells so that I don't have to keep as much mana open. Cards like Remand work in synergy with Guile or Teferi's Puzzle Box and Pact of Negation becomes a free spell with Knowledge Pool.
You could feel free to replace the 3cmc counterspells with narrower effects like steel sabotage, since the deck already quite a few 0-2cmc broad ones.
Norin the Wary (BRB) R
Blind Seer (Hose Everything) U
Mishra, Artificer Prodigy (Double Dipping) UBR
Borborygmos Enraged (Crush Mountains, Eat Forests) GR
Kresh the Bloodbraided (Get Wild) GRB
Derevi, Empyrial Tactician (Test Your Math) WUR
Toshiro Umezawa (Instant Reanimation) B
Dralnu, Lich Lord (Mill then Will) UB
Rakdos the Defiler (Death at any Cost) BR
Iwamori of the Open Fist (Wheel and Deal) G
Crovax, Ascendant Hero (Balancing Eggs) W
I mentioned before that consistency was a concern for me in the deck, and it remains so still. To finally put a nail in this coffin, i am going to add in a few tutor effects. This will help ensure that we can reliably get our Mishra enablers in the average game rather than depending entirely of the luck of the draw. Furthermore i am adjusting my mana base by replacing some cipt lands for basics, just to smooth out the earlier turns in the deck. It's a waste when we get multiple mana rocks, but are slowed down by the cipt landbase itself.
- Izzet Boilerworks
- Dimir Aqueduct
- Rakdos Carnarium
- Tolaria West
- Spinerock Knoll
+ 3 Island
+ 1 Swamp
+ 1 Mountain
Some of these basics may eventually be switched out for original dual lands in the future.
- Life's Finale: The mana cost of Life's Finale is just too high. It's limited synergy with Havengul Lich isn't enough to make it good for the deck. Also, i usually find that playing my opponents' removals is usually better than playing my own, so i'm willing to cut down the number of removals i run in the deck.
- Oblivion Stone: I didn't like that Oblivion Stone is pretty slow in terms of removal. Also, it hits artifacts/enchantments which usually hurts me more than it does others.
- Psychic Intrusion: 5 mana is too much to search for a card that i still have to pay mana to cast. This issue is amplified because it is a sorcery.
- Fiend of the Shadows: 5 mana yet again and does too little. Letting the opponent choose what card gets exiled (and thus what we can play off the Fiend) hurts the quality of cards we get to benefit from.
- Burnished Hart: The deck runs enough accel already. Burnished is awkward at it's spot because it usually competes with Mishra when it's ability can be used. I'd also never try to double dip the card when better options like Solemn Simulacrum exist.
+ Sword of Feast and Famine: A grand return to SoFaF. The pseudo accel effect from the sword is sorely missed, and so is the protection from black/green.
+ Vampiric Tutor
+ Imperial Seal
+ Scrap Mastery: Some sort of artifact recursion was starting to be desired to help rebuild boards after wipes.
Also looks like there was some decklist discrepancy which is now fixed.
Other considerations:
Reshape possibly if more artifact tutors are needed.
Transmute Artifact
Norin the Wary (BRB) R
Blind Seer (Hose Everything) U
Mishra, Artificer Prodigy (Double Dipping) UBR
Borborygmos Enraged (Crush Mountains, Eat Forests) GR
Kresh the Bloodbraided (Get Wild) GRB
Derevi, Empyrial Tactician (Test Your Math) WUR
Toshiro Umezawa (Instant Reanimation) B
Dralnu, Lich Lord (Mill then Will) UB
Rakdos the Defiler (Death at any Cost) BR
Iwamori of the Open Fist (Wheel and Deal) G
Crovax, Ascendant Hero (Balancing Eggs) W
EMN seems to have quite a few interesting cards in the works. It's been awhile since i've seen something that could work as a Mishra enabler. The mana cost is steep but it seems like it could be worthwhile for multiplayer matchups especially.
Norin the Wary (BRB) R
Blind Seer (Hose Everything) U
Mishra, Artificer Prodigy (Double Dipping) UBR
Borborygmos Enraged (Crush Mountains, Eat Forests) GR
Kresh the Bloodbraided (Get Wild) GRB
Derevi, Empyrial Tactician (Test Your Math) WUR
Toshiro Umezawa (Instant Reanimation) B
Dralnu, Lich Lord (Mill then Will) UB
Rakdos the Defiler (Death at any Cost) BR
Iwamori of the Open Fist (Wheel and Deal) G
Crovax, Ascendant Hero (Balancing Eggs) W
Changelog:
- Remand + Grenzo, Havoc Raiser
- Stolen Goods + Gonti, Lord of Luxury
- Temple of the False God + Inventors' Fair
- Sensei's Divining Top + Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast
- Scroll Rack + Metalwork Colossus
- Mind's Eye + Mind's Dilation
Under Consideration:
Saheeli Rai
Padeem, Consul of Innovation
Madcap Experiment
Norin the Wary (BRB) R
Blind Seer (Hose Everything) U
Mishra, Artificer Prodigy (Double Dipping) UBR
Borborygmos Enraged (Crush Mountains, Eat Forests) GR
Kresh the Bloodbraided (Get Wild) GRB
Derevi, Empyrial Tactician (Test Your Math) WUR
Toshiro Umezawa (Instant Reanimation) B
Dralnu, Lich Lord (Mill then Will) UB
Rakdos the Defiler (Death at any Cost) BR
Iwamori of the Open Fist (Wheel and Deal) G
Crovax, Ascendant Hero (Balancing Eggs) W