I had the same idea. What your deck desperately misses is Ancestral Vision. You don't play enough Stone Rains to really support the land-destruction theme. You don't have any answers to cheap creatures. And I believe that THE 4-drop for this deck is Jace 2.0. He's great at making sure the opponent doesn't hit lands, it trades unnecessary cards (late-game discard or removal where it's not needed) for useful ones, gets rid of creatures (bounce it and destroy the land that allowed it to be played) and closes the game with a relative ease.
@daviusminus: It's rather interesting that (if I counted it well) we share only 21 cards main and 2 in sideboard - lands included - in our current versions. I don't know if there is anything we can discuss at this point.
For now, I'll be dedicating my testing time to standard as MCQ i approaching and Modern Horizons will likely lead me to certain changes. For now, Sisay, Weatherlight Captain; Force of Vigor; Force of Negation and Prismatic Vista all look reasonable, but I still hope for some real improvement. I also highly recommand swaping basics for their snow cousins just to bluff Ice-Fang Coatl once the set comes. But before seeing it all this post is mostly good-for-nothing.
Are we allowed to talk about the Modern Horizons in this deck build? Collected “sorceries” seems like it might be good if you had to cut Elf and had more of the sorcery build. Still not big on the single drop mono colored cards in this I’ll try it out tho.
22 hits are barely impossible to play if we want to keep useful guild distribution. And I have never seen a succesful CC deck running so few hits.
Spirits run 28-30 hits, Devoted Druid 27-31. Once you add 24 lands, 4 five-drops and 4 CC, there are 28 cards left, so basicly no place for other non-hits.
I've tried to somehow re-do the table. It doesn't look nice, but at least I can read it. I hope the others can understand it as well.
You are obviously right about Thought Erasure not being a dead card later. You're wrong about it being close to Thoughtseize early, as we already have a bunch of competing 2-drops early and the fact we can discard a card a turn earlier is huge. It can also be reasonably part of a double-spell. As a hit from Niv, it's usually worse than the majority - I love to hit Bloodbraid Elf, Lightning Helix, Reflector Mage and so. What unites these cards is that a) it's hard to play around them b) they allow me to get tempo advantage I might have lost before casting the dragon or the turn I cast it. Thought Erasure fits none of these groups, but it's not tragic: I'd be glad I have a hit, but most of the time not that I have this hit.
I think that there is no point in discussing our card choises as Modern Horizons are being spoiled these days and we're likely getting there some new options - for now it's the Force cycle in our sideboard and Prismatic Vista as a very viable "5-colored land" that seriously helps us against Blood Moon. I'd like to talk about something more general and I hope there is somebody educated in math (as I'm not) to correct (if needed) or further develop my points.
Some of us are trying to hold the number of Niv-Mizzet Reborn hits as high as possible. I belong to the other group which is not focussing on the namesake card itself and rather tries to make the turns before we play Niv as good as possible. But this is not about my card choices or anything like that, but rather about the sort of cards to choose from.
I hope the table below is readable, I've edited it various time as no reasonable way of getting it here works. It also looks completly different before posting... This is how it gets copied from Word here. The first row represents the number of cards of a certain Guild we play. The first column goes for the expected number of hits we get. All the calculations are done via https://stattrek.com/online-calculator/hypergeometric.aspx under an assumption of having 59 cards in our library (excluding the Mizzet that's currently being cast). The numbers shell be probably slightly higher because of fetchlands, though in real games the percentages obviously depend on the context.
.......................1................2................3................4................5................6................7................8.............
1 or more...16,95%...31,27%...43,33%...53,45%...61,91%...68,96%...74,82%...79,66%
1....................16,95%...28,64%...36,17%...40,48%...42,32%...42,32%...40,99%...38,74%
2.......................................2,63%......6,78%.....11,63%...16,56%...21,16%...25,15%...28,38%
3..........................................................0,37%.....1,29%......2,81%......4,91%......7,45%......10,32%
4 or more............................................................0,04%......0,21%......0,58%......1,22%......2,22%..
As you can see, the first copy for each Guild is very valuable, while second and third do a lot of work as well. This kinda changes after adding the fourth card, becouse the percentage for exactly one hit doesn't really increase further. In fact, it starts to lower with the seventh card of a certain two-color combination. What we are in fact doing when we add more copies is going down on the cases when we don't hit any card and going up on the percentage of the cases when we hit more than one card like that, leaving the ideal case of exactly one hit at more or less the same state. Obviously it's still better to hit two (for example) Simic cards then to hit none, but not by I vast gap as thas goes along with decreasing our chances for the other guilds.
Another point I wanted to have is that some cards are just bad hits. I'm never excited about hitting Tidehollow Sculler and hitting Thought Erasure is generaly even less appealing. This way I want to point out that reasoning like: "I play no dimir cards, so the first Thought Erasure is very valuable." is wrong. Just go play Thoughtseize or Inquisition of Kozilek because they are better in the early turns while there's no need to be hitting hand disruption later. Mana ramp is not great to hit either. Concider cutting Veinfire Borderpost and Growth Spiral (espetially if you run four copies of Bring to Light), for cards like Birds of Paradise, Utopia Sprawl and Arbor Elf or Lotus Cobra. As the things are, I seem to be the only one to doubt mana ramp as a whole in this deck...
Last but not least, Pillar of the Paruns is by far our best land. However, if we want to run non-multicolored cards, it becomes an obstacle. For each of those cards we have make sure we play enough colored resources to cast it on turn 1. I'd recommand 13 as a minimum colored sources for any of them, though 14 would be optimal (unfortunately, I don't run that many myself). This gets even a bit more problematic for monocolored 2-drops. The probability of having at least one Pillar with one or less non-Pillar lands in an opening hand is 9,88%. Many of these hands would be keeps while holding an uncastable Lotus Cobra or something like that turns them into mulligans. Note that adding a land decreases this probability to 8,68%. So my conclusion is that running mono colored 2-drops in dangerous and it should be done only in the case of very strong cards (like Rest in Peace). 1-drops don't face this Pillar problem almost at all as the probability of holding two at least Pillars and no other land is 3,03% and those are generally no great hands anyway.
To Nonamealreadytaken:
a) I wouldn't underestimate Flayer, Finks and Sygg, all of them saw play in great midranges once. I can't say much more without more testing though.
b) I started at 25 lands but flooded more than I liked, so I trimmed one land and it feels correct. In theory, I thought like 25 was going to be the number, however without any utility lands 24 doesn't look too bad on paper and in practice it works great.
c) I guess I'm persuaded about Knight of Autumn. I'll add one for now and see how I like it here.
d) Sin Collector is rather versatile option. It's a reasonable improvement against a wide range of control (UWx, URx, Teachings, Skred Red, Grull Land Loss) and combo decks (Ad Nauseam, Allosaurus Rider, Storm, Scapeshift, Infect) that also works against Burn. The main idea behind it is that I remove Reflectors in many matchups and so I shell replace their spot on the curve somehow. Collector is never the best card I add, but it's often solid. Though if you have any better suggestions I'll be glad to listen to them.
e) I don't like Crumble to Dust here because of Pillar of the Paruns (and before anybody points that out, yes, I'm aware of BtL searching for it).
f) As for BtL vs. Niv-Mizzet, there are many reasons to prefere one or the other. For Niv: Negate; Spell Pierce; Thalia, Guardian of Traben; Kitesail Freebooter; Duress and Collective Brutality. For BtL: Meddling Mage; Blood Moon; permanents that just need to be answered right away (Primeval Titan, loaded Ascension...); the case when we miss the ideal mana base; it's a hit from Mizzet; lifegain for Burn; silver bullets in sideboard. 2-2 split is the best against Surgical Extraction and cards that work like that. We need at least two Nivs to search for.
I guess it depends on meta, but 2-2 feels generaly the best.
Hello nonamealreadytaken,
I believe our decklist are relatively close so we could influence each other in a rather positive way. I hope you respond to my points in a way that will help me escape those of my thought patterns that are wrong in this case.
1) BoP vs. 1-mana removal: We seem to agree on one fact - what makes a midrange good is discard. On the other hand we disagree on one thing that has been questioned many times regarding this kind of decks - shell we play mana dorks? Deathrite has been known as one of the best midrange cards ever, weaker mana dorks are sometimes included. But Niv-Mizzet is special in this respect. At the same time mana dorks are stronger with it and multicolored spells in the deck, but as Mizzet needs enough good hits, BoP compete with 1-mana removal. I'm not really sure that my answer (play removal) is correct, but I believe that it really changes many matchups (Burn, Humans, Spirits, Jund) from unfavorable to positive. Now both give us options to get tempo advantage we tend to lose because of multicolored cards being often a bit too chunky, both perform better against low-removal-count decks...I guess BoP are more risky but when they work, they're great, while removal feels like insurance, stability or something like that. What do you think?
2) Creative 2-drops: Modern midrange decks are well known for their good 2-drops that are capable of pressuring well and creating card advantage (Tarmogoyf, Confident, Pyromancer). Now that's something your deck misses. I think Sculler is wonderful and I'd allways play it over Erasure. Other options I have come up with are Sygg, River Cutthroat and Grim Flayer. But your simic ramp spells work simillary in a way. However, my problem with them is a) you lose on battlefield once you cut Lightning Bolts and than play a ramp spell and b) they make the deck much more about synergy - if you ramp, you need a payoff. Once you don't draw it or it gets answered, the ramp will not help at all. Once again, your list might ve explosive, but less relyable.
2) Staying open for 2-drops: I love my mana base. It works super smoothly. On turn 1 I almost always play a Blood Crypt which allows me to cast any of my 1 - drops and then I can play any of 2-drops in my deck on turn 2 as each of them costs either black or red mana.
Now in your case things get more complicated. Your deck doesn't allow that. If you start with a black spell, you must decide if you'll be able to cast Helix or Growth Spiral on turn 2. And that may depend on context you don't know before fetching. The same goes for BoP in a way. It obviously fixes well, but what if it gets killed? That can disable you from playing anything on turn 2 because you were forced to fetch one way on turn 1.
4) Tempo advantage: I know you mention this, but I still feel like underlining it. Now I haven't played with Glittering Wish for years, but I do remember that you lose tempo if you play it. There might be some decks that just get beaten by a special answer, but as Wish reveals it, they can play around it and you slow down a lot. Against good-stuff decks the wish becomes rather tragic - for getting slown down you don't recieve much. Now a deck that is a bit chunkier tends to lose tempo all the time, so we need to play cards that prevent us from falling behind. I overdid the application of this rule in my earlier lists, but I still think that Reflector is great and Wish too greedy, especially as BtL can play a similar role post-board.
5) Because od sideboard options, I would go for a 2-2 split on the 5-mana slot.
6) As for the BtL hits, Fracturing Gust and Supreme Verdict are great game 2, but that's it.
Thank you, I just edited the decklist adding basics (it truly looked weird, sorry for that).
I'm very confident that Fings are better than the Knight. Old school modern Jund used to play them. There are some points for one card and some for the other, but the by far most important one that decides it is the fact that Fings don't die to common removal - that's huge. And yes, hitting them with Extraction or Spellbomb is... OK, but not a big deal anyway.
Ramping makes sense with Mizzet, but I'd be affraid to fall behind against aggro and combo decks (though you have some silver bullets to help there so...it makes some sense).
@daviusminimus:
1) Before release of the edition I started with only three 5-drops as I felt like one was going to end the game anyway but then I wasn't hitting them often enough so I added one more. After more playing I could imagine myself adding yet one more, but 6 or even 7 of those is too greedy. I don't want to get stuck with various of them in hand early.
2) Well, I have some hopes for Grim especially because of Sculler (which is a must-kill). But I can't say much more without propper testing.
3) Commands feel just OK. Given I have yet to play against a Mox Opal deck, I believe two of those are just right.
4) I like your reasoning for Deputy. It might be worth taking one or two sideboard slots (Path and Staticaster), but I really like the aggressivity of both Reflector and Kitchen Finks maindeck. I want to be closing games fast. Well, that's probably why I'm sceptical about Kaya. More to it, I need to run a lot of different card types for Delirium. Detention Sphere is an enchantment, but it doesn't get to graveyard easily. I would rather consider another sorcery removal. Nahiri also works great with Flayer, but again I'm afraid of running too many expansive cards and Bloodbraid simply rules.
5) What I claimed about my mana base I will hold. I don't play any nonsense like City of Brass or Reflecting Pool, I have 4 basics and yet I had no problems besides dedicated land hate - and that was managable. I yet have to learn how to play it well. So far I learned this much - a) don't forget about Blood Moon. Fetch for basics while you can. Losing Decay for a Flayer is painful against it though; b) while playing against Field of Ruin, fetch at least two red sources no matter what as there's no Mountain in the deck. c) don't be too gready shockland-wise against controls as those can pressure effectively then. Well, nothing spectacular altogether, but it shows that mana base issues are more about playing well than changing decklist.
I'd be very interested in your experience with various Walkers as I thing that they are what we're missing the most compared to other midrange decks.
I have already played two tournaments with the deck. There are a few things I found out that will likely help in the creation:
1) I thing the deck must be a midrange. Trying to go fast is not gonna work as Mizzet is a 5-drop and for getting the real value when it matters you need to be proactive.
2) Manabase is not a big deal if you build it schematicly. You just need to have the cards work with your land choices. I strongly recommand to base your mana on Blood Crypt. First turn you can cast both Bolt and discard while it supports most of the strong 2-drops.
So far I played two tournaments with exactly the same 75:
I played against BW hatebares and lost 0:2. That deck punishes my mana base and pressures well. My opponent was also lucky. Overally, it wasn't unwinable, which is OK in this case.
I managed to beat Jeskai CopyCat 2:1. This was close as my removal choices were not really efective, an even match.
Against Burn I did too great. An easy 2:0. I just focused too much on beating aggro in this version and thought Niv would somehow have all the job done against slower decks.
Then I lost 1:2 against UR Phoenix because of my mistake. I didn't play around Blood Moon and lost an otherwise won game. Game 1 is tragic in this matchup, after sideboard this deck is probably even favorized.
On the other tournament I started 2:1 vs Humans. I guess everything was OK. Once he had a nuts draw, twice I won with ease.
Then I lost 0:2 to BUG Teachings. I made a few bad decisions, but the matchup felt even.
Then I lost 1:2 to Grixis control. It was a nightmare. Greedy control with great answers and unaswerable threats (Keranos) was just too much - and I had a terrible Mizzet hit of two cards.
Then I easily won 2:0 against Phoenix Burn.
Moving forward I'd like to focuse more on greedier decks and combos. There is a lot of work to be done and the deck is hard to play, but it feels competitive.
For now, I'll be dedicating my testing time to standard as MCQ i approaching and Modern Horizons will likely lead me to certain changes. For now, Sisay, Weatherlight Captain; Force of Vigor; Force of Negation and Prismatic Vista all look reasonable, but I still hope for some real improvement. I also highly recommand swaping basics for their snow cousins just to bluff Ice-Fang Coatl once the set comes. But before seeing it all this post is mostly good-for-nothing.
https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/magic-math-orator-of-ojutai-collected-company-and-dragons-of-tarkir/
22 hits are barely impossible to play if we want to keep useful guild distribution. And I have never seen a succesful CC deck running so few hits.
Spirits run 28-30 hits, Devoted Druid 27-31. Once you add 24 lands, 4 five-drops and 4 CC, there are 28 cards left, so basicly no place for other non-hits.
You are obviously right about Thought Erasure not being a dead card later. You're wrong about it being close to Thoughtseize early, as we already have a bunch of competing 2-drops early and the fact we can discard a card a turn earlier is huge. It can also be reasonably part of a double-spell. As a hit from Niv, it's usually worse than the majority - I love to hit Bloodbraid Elf, Lightning Helix, Reflector Mage and so. What unites these cards is that a) it's hard to play around them b) they allow me to get tempo advantage I might have lost before casting the dragon or the turn I cast it. Thought Erasure fits none of these groups, but it's not tragic: I'd be glad I have a hit, but most of the time not that I have this hit.
Now for the example let's take Dimir, as a guild where most of us seem to struggle to find a good option. I've thought about:
Agony Warp, Far // Away or Tyrant's Scorn: Those are worse removal than cards like Abrupt Decay, Angrath's Rampage or Lightning Helix. They are good hits, but slightly too situational and just worse than alternatives in other colors.
Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver, Discovery // Dispersal, Unmoored Ego, Shadow of Doubt, Thought Erasure: All of these scale from bad to average hits as they are good only in slower matchups. They all lead to tempo loss, which is not good neither befor casting Niv nor after.
Dragonlord Silumgar, Hostage Taker: They compete with Niv and BtL. And they lose badly.
Lazav, the Multifarious, Sygg, River Cutthroat: I think these two are the most promissing ones, but they need you to meet asome spetial conditions to be good. At the same time, they are not particulary tempo swings either.
Some of us are trying to hold the number of Niv-Mizzet Reborn hits as high as possible. I belong to the other group which is not focussing on the namesake card itself and rather tries to make the turns before we play Niv as good as possible. But this is not about my card choices or anything like that, but rather about the sort of cards to choose from.
I hope the table below is readable, I've edited it various time as no reasonable way of getting it here works. It also looks completly different before posting... This is how it gets copied from Word here. The first row represents the number of cards of a certain Guild we play. The first column goes for the expected number of hits we get. All the calculations are done via https://stattrek.com/online-calculator/hypergeometric.aspx under an assumption of having 59 cards in our library (excluding the Mizzet that's currently being cast). The numbers shell be probably slightly higher because of fetchlands, though in real games the percentages obviously depend on the context.
.......................1................2................3................4................5................6................7................8.............
1 or more...16,95%...31,27%...43,33%...53,45%...61,91%...68,96%...74,82%...79,66%
1....................16,95%...28,64%...36,17%...40,48%...42,32%...42,32%...40,99%...38,74%
2.......................................2,63%......6,78%.....11,63%...16,56%...21,16%...25,15%...28,38%
3..........................................................0,37%.....1,29%......2,81%......4,91%......7,45%......10,32%
4 or more............................................................0,04%......0,21%......0,58%......1,22%......2,22%..
As you can see, the first copy for each Guild is very valuable, while second and third do a lot of work as well. This kinda changes after adding the fourth card, becouse the percentage for exactly one hit doesn't really increase further. In fact, it starts to lower with the seventh card of a certain two-color combination. What we are in fact doing when we add more copies is going down on the cases when we don't hit any card and going up on the percentage of the cases when we hit more than one card like that, leaving the ideal case of exactly one hit at more or less the same state. Obviously it's still better to hit two (for example) Simic cards then to hit none, but not by I vast gap as thas goes along with decreasing our chances for the other guilds.
Another point I wanted to have is that some cards are just bad hits. I'm never excited about hitting Tidehollow Sculler and hitting Thought Erasure is generaly even less appealing. This way I want to point out that reasoning like: "I play no dimir cards, so the first Thought Erasure is very valuable." is wrong. Just go play Thoughtseize or Inquisition of Kozilek because they are better in the early turns while there's no need to be hitting hand disruption later. Mana ramp is not great to hit either. Concider cutting Veinfire Borderpost and Growth Spiral (espetially if you run four copies of Bring to Light), for cards like Birds of Paradise, Utopia Sprawl and Arbor Elf or Lotus Cobra. As the things are, I seem to be the only one to doubt mana ramp as a whole in this deck...
Last but not least, Pillar of the Paruns is by far our best land. However, if we want to run non-multicolored cards, it becomes an obstacle. For each of those cards we have make sure we play enough colored resources to cast it on turn 1. I'd recommand 13 as a minimum colored sources for any of them, though 14 would be optimal (unfortunately, I don't run that many myself). This gets even a bit more problematic for monocolored 2-drops. The probability of having at least one Pillar with one or less non-Pillar lands in an opening hand is 9,88%. Many of these hands would be keeps while holding an uncastable Lotus Cobra or something like that turns them into mulligans. Note that adding a land decreases this probability to 8,68%. So my conclusion is that running mono colored 2-drops in dangerous and it should be done only in the case of very strong cards (like Rest in Peace). 1-drops don't face this Pillar problem almost at all as the probability of holding two at least Pillars and no other land is 3,03% and those are generally no great hands anyway.
a) I wouldn't underestimate Flayer, Finks and Sygg, all of them saw play in great midranges once. I can't say much more without more testing though.
b) I started at 25 lands but flooded more than I liked, so I trimmed one land and it feels correct. In theory, I thought like 25 was going to be the number, however without any utility lands 24 doesn't look too bad on paper and in practice it works great.
c) I guess I'm persuaded about Knight of Autumn. I'll add one for now and see how I like it here.
d) Sin Collector is rather versatile option. It's a reasonable improvement against a wide range of control (UWx, URx, Teachings, Skred Red, Grull Land Loss) and combo decks (Ad Nauseam, Allosaurus Rider, Storm, Scapeshift, Infect) that also works against Burn. The main idea behind it is that I remove Reflectors in many matchups and so I shell replace their spot on the curve somehow. Collector is never the best card I add, but it's often solid. Though if you have any better suggestions I'll be glad to listen to them.
e) I don't like Crumble to Dust here because of Pillar of the Paruns (and before anybody points that out, yes, I'm aware of BtL searching for it).
f) As for BtL vs. Niv-Mizzet, there are many reasons to prefere one or the other. For Niv: Negate; Spell Pierce; Thalia, Guardian of Traben; Kitesail Freebooter; Duress and Collective Brutality. For BtL: Meddling Mage; Blood Moon; permanents that just need to be answered right away (Primeval Titan, loaded Ascension...); the case when we miss the ideal mana base; it's a hit from Mizzet; lifegain for Burn; silver bullets in sideboard. 2-2 split is the best against Surgical Extraction and cards that work like that. We need at least two Nivs to search for.
I guess it depends on meta, but 2-2 feels generaly the best.
I believe our decklist are relatively close so we could influence each other in a rather positive way. I hope you respond to my points in a way that will help me escape those of my thought patterns that are wrong in this case.
1) BoP vs. 1-mana removal: We seem to agree on one fact - what makes a midrange good is discard. On the other hand we disagree on one thing that has been questioned many times regarding this kind of decks - shell we play mana dorks? Deathrite has been known as one of the best midrange cards ever, weaker mana dorks are sometimes included. But Niv-Mizzet is special in this respect. At the same time mana dorks are stronger with it and multicolored spells in the deck, but as Mizzet needs enough good hits, BoP compete with 1-mana removal. I'm not really sure that my answer (play removal) is correct, but I believe that it really changes many matchups (Burn, Humans, Spirits, Jund) from unfavorable to positive. Now both give us options to get tempo advantage we tend to lose because of multicolored cards being often a bit too chunky, both perform better against low-removal-count decks...I guess BoP are more risky but when they work, they're great, while removal feels like insurance, stability or something like that. What do you think?
2) Creative 2-drops: Modern midrange decks are well known for their good 2-drops that are capable of pressuring well and creating card advantage (Tarmogoyf, Confident, Pyromancer). Now that's something your deck misses. I think Sculler is wonderful and I'd allways play it over Erasure. Other options I have come up with are Sygg, River Cutthroat and Grim Flayer. But your simic ramp spells work simillary in a way. However, my problem with them is a) you lose on battlefield once you cut Lightning Bolts and than play a ramp spell and b) they make the deck much more about synergy - if you ramp, you need a payoff. Once you don't draw it or it gets answered, the ramp will not help at all. Once again, your list might ve explosive, but less relyable.
2) Staying open for 2-drops: I love my mana base. It works super smoothly. On turn 1 I almost always play a Blood Crypt which allows me to cast any of my 1 - drops and then I can play any of 2-drops in my deck on turn 2 as each of them costs either black or red mana.
Now in your case things get more complicated. Your deck doesn't allow that. If you start with a black spell, you must decide if you'll be able to cast Helix or Growth Spiral on turn 2. And that may depend on context you don't know before fetching. The same goes for BoP in a way. It obviously fixes well, but what if it gets killed? That can disable you from playing anything on turn 2 because you were forced to fetch one way on turn 1.
4) Tempo advantage: I know you mention this, but I still feel like underlining it. Now I haven't played with Glittering Wish for years, but I do remember that you lose tempo if you play it. There might be some decks that just get beaten by a special answer, but as Wish reveals it, they can play around it and you slow down a lot. Against good-stuff decks the wish becomes rather tragic - for getting slown down you don't recieve much. Now a deck that is a bit chunkier tends to lose tempo all the time, so we need to play cards that prevent us from falling behind. I overdid the application of this rule in my earlier lists, but I still think that Reflector is great and Wish too greedy, especially as BtL can play a similar role post-board.
5) Because od sideboard options, I would go for a 2-2 split on the 5-mana slot.
6) As for the BtL hits, Fracturing Gust and Supreme Verdict are great game 2, but that's it.
I'm very confident that Fings are better than the Knight. Old school modern Jund used to play them. There are some points for one card and some for the other, but the by far most important one that decides it is the fact that Fings don't die to common removal - that's huge. And yes, hitting them with Extraction or Spellbomb is... OK, but not a big deal anyway.
Ramping makes sense with Mizzet, but I'd be affraid to fall behind against aggro and combo decks (though you have some silver bullets to help there so...it makes some sense).
1) Before release of the edition I started with only three 5-drops as I felt like one was going to end the game anyway but then I wasn't hitting them often enough so I added one more. After more playing I could imagine myself adding yet one more, but 6 or even 7 of those is too greedy. I don't want to get stuck with various of them in hand early.
2) Well, I have some hopes for Grim especially because of Sculler (which is a must-kill). But I can't say much more without propper testing.
3) Commands feel just OK. Given I have yet to play against a Mox Opal deck, I believe two of those are just right.
4) I like your reasoning for Deputy. It might be worth taking one or two sideboard slots (Path and Staticaster), but I really like the aggressivity of both Reflector and Kitchen Finks maindeck. I want to be closing games fast. Well, that's probably why I'm sceptical about Kaya. More to it, I need to run a lot of different card types for Delirium. Detention Sphere is an enchantment, but it doesn't get to graveyard easily. I would rather consider another sorcery removal. Nahiri also works great with Flayer, but again I'm afraid of running too many expansive cards and Bloodbraid simply rules.
5) What I claimed about my mana base I will hold. I don't play any nonsense like City of Brass or Reflecting Pool, I have 4 basics and yet I had no problems besides dedicated land hate - and that was managable. I yet have to learn how to play it well. So far I learned this much - a) don't forget about Blood Moon. Fetch for basics while you can. Losing Decay for a Flayer is painful against it though; b) while playing against Field of Ruin, fetch at least two red sources no matter what as there's no Mountain in the deck. c) don't be too gready shockland-wise against controls as those can pressure effectively then. Well, nothing spectacular altogether, but it shows that mana base issues are more about playing well than changing decklist.
I'd be very interested in your experience with various Walkers as I thing that they are what we're missing the most compared to other midrange decks.
1) I thing the deck must be a midrange. Trying to go fast is not gonna work as Mizzet is a 5-drop and for getting the real value when it matters you need to be proactive.
2) Manabase is not a big deal if you build it schematicly. You just need to have the cards work with your land choices. I strongly recommand to base your mana on Blood Crypt. First turn you can cast both Bolt and discard while it supports most of the strong 2-drops.
So far I played two tournaments with exactly the same 75:
4 Marsh Flats
4 Verdant Catacomb
1 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strands
2 Blood Crypt
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Temple Garden
1 Breeding Pool
1 Watery Grave
4 Pillar of the Paruns
1 Forest
1 Swamp
1 Island
1 Plains
3 Inquisition of Kozielek
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Lightning Helix
4 Tidehollow Sculler
2 Sygg, River Cutthroat
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Assassin's Trophy
3 Kitchen Finks
3 Reflector Mage
2 Kolaghan's Command
1 Electrolyze
4 Bloodbraid Elf
2 Niv-Mizzet Reborn
2 Bring to Light
2 Path to Exile
2 Fatal Push
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Izzet Staticaster
1 Assassin's Trophy
1 Fracturing Gust
3 Rest in Peace
1 Thoughtseize
1 Fulminator Mage
2 Sin Collector
I played against BW hatebares and lost 0:2. That deck punishes my mana base and pressures well. My opponent was also lucky. Overally, it wasn't unwinable, which is OK in this case.
I managed to beat Jeskai CopyCat 2:1. This was close as my removal choices were not really efective, an even match.
Against Burn I did too great. An easy 2:0. I just focused too much on beating aggro in this version and thought Niv would somehow have all the job done against slower decks.
Then I lost 1:2 against UR Phoenix because of my mistake. I didn't play around Blood Moon and lost an otherwise won game. Game 1 is tragic in this matchup, after sideboard this deck is probably even favorized.
On the other tournament I started 2:1 vs Humans. I guess everything was OK. Once he had a nuts draw, twice I won with ease.
Then I lost 0:2 to BUG Teachings. I made a few bad decisions, but the matchup felt even.
Then I lost 1:2 to Grixis control. It was a nightmare. Greedy control with great answers and unaswerable threats (Keranos) was just too much - and I had a terrible Mizzet hit of two cards.
Then I easily won 2:0 against Phoenix Burn.
Moving forward I'd like to focuse more on greedier decks and combos. There is a lot of work to be done and the deck is hard to play, but it feels competitive.
Upgrades after first two tournaments:
4 Marsh Flats
4 Verdant Catacomb
1 Polluted Delta
1 Windsweapt Heath!
2 Blood Crypt
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Temple Garden
1 Breeding Pool
1 Watery Grave
4 Pillar of the Paruns
1 Forest
1 Swamp
1 Plains
1 Island
2 Inquisition of Kozielek
1 Thoughtseize!
3 Lightning Bolt
1 Fatal Push!
3 Lightning Helix
4 Tidehollow Sculler
3 Grim Flayer!
1 Angrath's Rampage!
1 Assassin's Trophy
2 Kitchen Finks
2 Reflector Mage
1 Kaya, Orzhov Usurper!
2 Kolaghan's Command
1 Electrolyze
4 Bloodbraid Elf
1 Nahiri, the Harbinger!
2 Niv-Mizzet Reborn
2 Bring to Light
2 Path to Exile
1 Fatal Push
1 Collective Brutality!
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Izzet Staticaster
1 Fracturing Gust
2 Nihil Spellbomb!
1 Surgical Extraction!
2 Thoughtseize
2 Fulminator Mage!
1 Sin Collector
What do you thing about my deck choices. Anyone has experience with my new additions?