COMMANDER! Review: Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius

Let's face it, when everyone heard that we were going back to Ravnica, I imagine there was nothing but rejoice. The days of awesome mana-fixing lands, strong multicolored cards, and a limited format that would be discussed for years to come, Ravnica represents a renaissance of how sets would be designed and how Magic would be played for the next decade. One of the most iconic creatures (other than Dark Confidant) was none other than Guildpact's monster, Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind. The Izzet lord played his role as one of the most popular Legendary creatures in the set and an all-time favorite in eternal casual formats (not to mention a tier 1 general in Commander). After our hiatus from the Ravnica plane, we come back and see that our old friend has aged a little and learned a few new tricks.

'He has no patience for minds that do not inspire him or explode by trying.'

Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius is generously costed at 2UURR, which maintains the same mana cost as his older version, the Firemind. He has a 5/5 Flying body and the ability to draw a card whenever he deals damage to a player. Good so far. His activated ability for UR allows him to deal one damage (ping) to a target creature or player. Fortunately, if you elect to target an opponent, the Dracogenius's triggered ability will go on the stack and you'll be able to draw one card. This looks pretty sweet, but is one damage good enough?

Although one damage is largely irrelevant in the scope of Commander, drawing one card is not. Drawing one card for two mana is a strong bargain and becomes insane when it's an actual engine that you can do multiple times. In Commander, the spells are huge, the creatures are fat, and removal is premium. However, sometimes you need simple effects to stabilize the board in your favor. The Dracogenius does a great job of having a simple ability that keeps the board at a manageable size and doubles up as a win condition. How so? Your opponents will often have smaller creatures like Weathered Wayfarer, Fauna Shaman, or Master Transmuter that need to die immediately, but you don't want to waste a removal spell or a Wrath-effect to do so. The Dracogenius plays the role of clean-up crew on the battlefield and prevents these cards from every going online until your opponent deals with the dragon himself. This shuts down mid to late game utility creatures, which can play a vital role in your strategy, but more on that later. As a win condition, the Dracogenius can deal nearly infinite damage to your opponent given enough time and your opponent is unable to deal with him. I use the term infinite to describe the 1 damage and the 1 card you get from every activation. Consider that the cards you draw are lands: you play these lands in order to fuel more damage and more cards for Dracogenius activations.  Consider that the cards you draw are spells: these spells will help further you in the game by either providing more creatures to commit to the board or countermagic/removal to prevent your opponents from getting their engines online. All in all, the Dracogenius is a 1 card engine that can either fuel you into a strong economy (resources like lands and cards) for the late game or just win the game outright if the dragon goes unanswered.

You mentioned earlier that the Dracogenius can shut down mid to late game utility creatures using his activated ability to shoot them for damage; how can I use this to my advantage?

Much to the enjoyment of casual players, Commander is a format of politics. Politics plays a huge role in Commander, because not only are you trying to convince your opponents to be your allies, you're also trying to subliminally force your opponents into playing in a style that's conducive to your victory. A simple example would be: if I play a ton of Wrath-effects, my opponents will play creatures more sparingly or will play more Graveyard recursion to counter-act all of the board wipes. Now I know that my opponents will have battlefields with a low/light number of creatures, they're more likely to keep creatures in their hand and try to bait premature Wrath-effects, and they might dedicate a few more slots in their deck towards creature reanimation. Now I can use this information to my advantage and dedicate more slots in my deck towards hand disruption and graveyard hate. I also know that my opponent probably won't elect for early aggression, so I can play a slower-paced game if I choose.

For the Dracogenius, shutting off your opponents' mid to late game utility creatures does a few things. First, you force your opponent into playing their utility creatures much earlier so they can avoid getting pinged to death by your dragon. Second, your opponent needs to play larger creatures in the mid to late game, so your dragon is unable to kill them as easily. Lastly, your opponent needs to have a removal spell handy by turn 6, when they expect to see your dragon hit the battlefield. How do we respond to these subtle changes? If our opponents are opening up with earlier utility creatures, then we can play a couple 'lower-impact' removal spells to knock them out early like Electrolyze, Fire/Ice, and Izzet Charm and play an attrition-style early game while we wait for a mid to late game control push. For the second change, our opponent will want to cast larger creatures in the mid to late game. Fortunately for you, you came prepared.

If we know our opponent is going to play giant monstrosities, why not borrow them and not intend on giving them back? Using theft abilities like Insurrection, Mass Mutiny, and Gather Specimens towards the mid to late game can be huge when your opponent is trying to bombard you with giant creatures. Using sacrifice effects like Goblin Bombardment, Greater Gargadon to rid the board of them afterwards is a huge tempo crusher for your opponents. Creature theft also allows you to play very offensively and push for tons of damage that your opponents would find it difficult to prepare for. What happens if I steal all the things and it's not enough to kill them? Fortunately, it comes back to our general, the Dracogenius. His activated ability provides a huge amount of reach when your opponents are at a low life total that puts them in a very uncomfortable position.

Ok, so I understand killing my opponents' early-game utility creatures and stealing their giant creatures in the late game, but how do I prevent them from killing my Dracogenius before I can set this up? The strategy here is an aggressive mana curve and bait. Ideally, we would like to play a very strong suite of 3-5 mana spells that our opponent would be very reluctant to allow to resolve or wreak havoc on the battlefield. By increasing the power level of our 4-5 mana spells (like Bribery or Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker) , we are attempting to bait our opponent into using a removal spell of some kind to destroy it, consequentially decreasing the likelihood that they have an answer to the Dracogenius. By having an aggressive curve (or spells that are at a low mana cost), we ensure that we're putting a ton of pressure (good spells) on the table and force our opponent to react to it. If our opponent reacts to it, we can resolve a Dracogenius. If our opponent does not react to it, then they simply die. Another benefit to playing the Dracogenius with an aggressive curve is our mana is limited. Since we want to sink mana into Dracogenius activations, the spells we have available to cast during our Main Phases must be at a lower mana cost so we can maximize the amount of activations we can use at the end of turn. Maybe our mana curve can be low enough to utilize Firemind's Foresight; one can only dream.

What does Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius have in store for the upcoming Standard season? I won't comment on Standard too much, but I really like Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius as a win condition for U/W/R or U/R/B control decks. Unfortunately, the Dracogenius competes with Olivia Voldaren, Nicol Bolas Planeswalker, and Entreat the Angels for slots as the finishers. I'm hoping that after rotation, the Dracogenius will see some serious Standard play and a top-tier deck premiers a copy or two as the win condition.

Now to finally address the elephant in the room: how does Niv-Mizzet compare to his older predecessor, the Firemind? At mythic level, the Dracogenius outclasses his older version by having a larger body. However, the abilities on both cards force you into building your deck with largely different play styles. The difference is in the reward. Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind rewards you for drawing cards, while Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius rewards you for sinking mana into dealing damage to your opponents' faces. Why does the reward matter? First, we have to look at what drawing cards and dealing damage entail.

To draw cards normally, we do so during the Draw Phase. Furthermore, the Firemind's activated ability requires you to Tap him to draw a card. If we were to maximize the Firemind's 'dealing damage capacity' we need to increase our Draw Phases and Untap Phases; but how do we do this? By taking extra turns. Firemind players can elect to play spells that allow them to take extra turns, but there are only a handful of cards in the game that have that ability. The simplest way to take extra turns (without literally taking extra turns) is to have a stabilized board state and control the game. When you're in the driver seat of a multiplayer Commander game, you're able to dictate the tempo of the game and choose whether to be reactive or proactive. If you're sitting with the Firemind on your side of the field, you have no reason to be aggressive because the Firemind's activated ability nets you a card, while attacking does not. The Firemind literally rewards you for playing a defensive/control-style game.

How does this compare to the Dracogenius? The Dracogenius rewards you not only for being reactive (keeping mana open to respond to your opponents' spells) but rewards you for being proactive and attacking with the Dracogenius and dealing damage to players using his activated ability. Dealing large amounts of damage in Commander is important for aggressive strategies and the Dracogenius is no lightweight. Furthermore, the Dracogenius also benefits from taking extra turns. The Untap Phase is very important for the Dracogenius because it allows you a fresh line of new mana that you can use to sink into his activated ability to ping more creatures and players for more cards. Electing to play a control-type strategy also helps increase the amount of Untap Phases you can get to maximize the amount of activations you can use. Ultimately, the ability to be reactive and/or proactive gives the Dracogenius a lot of flexibility and gives the pilot behind the deck the ability to decide how they want to approach any particular game.

After all this banter, which one is better??

Unfortunately, I think the Firemind is still a better competitive option because of it's easy-to-win combos with Ophidian Eye and Curiosity and it's popular Combo/Control strategy that has captivated the hearts of many control players. However, I think the Dracogenius is a better designed card. The card is elegant and simple to understand for new players. It's also more versatile and I think it's a fixed version of the Niv-Mizzet that still wins with any infinite mana combos you're able to muster to satiate the combo player audience. With the negative stigma that surrounds playing Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind as your Commander, I think the Dracogenius is well-suited to appease players looking for a strong U/R candidate as a Commander or as a finisher in their U/R/x list of 99. What kind of deck will you create with Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius? Until the next Commander, Magic players!

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-David J.