(Niv-Mizzet, Visionary || art by Raymond Swanland)

Ready To Kick-Start Three Foundations Commander Decks? I Got You!

Hello friends, and welcome to another Start Me Up! This column will pick three legendary creatures from the most recent Magic expansion and provide you with ideas to help get you started brewing your own Commander deck around them.

Foundations releases this week, and there's a bunch of new legendary creatures you may want to build a new Commander deck around, and I'm here to help give you some ideas for brewing up your deck. Let's get it started!

Niv-Mizzet, Visionary

Few legends like to reinvent themselves as much as Niv-Mizzet, and Foundations brings the seventh version in Niv-Mizzet, Visionary! This one feels very much like the "classic" Izzet versions of the Dragon with a strong connection between dealing damage and drawing cards.

What's fun about this new version is that it takes dealing noncombat damage to your opponents, normally not the most effective Commander strategy unless you're unleashing a huge amount of damage, and turns it into a card drawing engine.

It turns a Lightning Bolt to an opponent's life total into an Ancestral Recall! And if you do unleash a bunch of damage to your opponents, Niv-Mizzet, Visionary lets you hoard all those extra cards by giving you no maximum hand size.

One thing you should keep in mind is this is effectively a seven or eight mana commander, since you'll want to have a damage spell ready to cast the same turn you cast Niv-Mizzet to ensure you can take advantage of the card drawing ability right away; you'd hate to invest six mana and if it eats a removal spell you'll get nothing for your trouble.

Let’s get started by looking at what EDHREC recommends as high synergy cards.

EDHREC High Synergy Cards

EDHREC specifically calls out two earlier versions with Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind and Niv-Mizzet, Parun, which has me feel a little bad for Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius being left out. Niv-Mizzet really thinks highly of itself, so feel free to run all of the Nivs.

Lightning Bolt is of course included, but you've got to be thrilled to run Flame Rift and Price of Progress, which are sure to yield a ton of cards for you. Ruby Medallion makes those spells easier to cast the same turn you cast Niv.

Kessig Flamebreather, Firebrand Archer, and Guttersnipe are awesome creatures that stick around and have triggers that synergize with your game plan.

Laboratory Maniac is a nifty win condition to have in your deck since it's entirely possible that you draw your entire deck and just win when you can't draw any more cards.

Damage to Each Opponent

Foundations brings us Boltwave and Firespitter Whelp, two cards that work perfectly in a deck that wants to deal damage to each opponent. Coruscation Mage from Bloomburrow works awesome here too, especially if you can kick the offspring ability and make a baby copy of it.

Electrostatic Field and Thermo-Alchemist leverage this even more.

Urabrask deals damage whenever you cast an instant or sorcery spell and provides you with a red mana, helping to chain together a few spells in a turn, and potentially use its activated ability to transform into The Great Work, which also helps fuel the deck's strategy.

Gleeful Arsonist brings the pain whenever your opponents cast a noncreature spell, and it's undying ability lets it survive most removal one time.

Grab the Prize is a nifty way to filter for a few more cards, and if you discard a nonland card it will also deal two damage to each opponent. Delayed Blast Fireball will deal two damage to each opponent and each creature they control, and if you cast it from exile it will deal a whopping five damage to each opponent and each creature they control.

Pyrohemia lets you keep the population of small creatures in check so long as you don't hit an end step with no creatures on the battlefield. Oh, and for each activation you'll draw a card for each opponent you control with Niv!

Damage Boosts

You might want to include some damage increasers, and the first one to spring to mind is Torbran, Thane of Red Fell, which will boost red damage by two.

Solphim, Mayhem Dominus will double that damage, and with all the card drawing from Niv, that activated ability to put an indestructible counter on itself is easily paid.

Ojer Axonil, Deepest Might raises noncombat damage dealt up to its power if it would deal less, and if Axonil dies and transforms into Temple of Power, it's going to be pretty easy in this deck to transform it back.

Drawing Cards Matter

While drawing cards is super-fun on its own, Psychosis Crawler can turn those draws into life loss for your opponents. Not to mention it's going to get huge with Niv on the battlefield!

The Locust God turns each of your card draw into a 1/1 Insect with flying and haste, and the damage from all those fliers can add up really quickly.

Chasm Skulker can get large really quickly with Niv on the battlefield, and if it dies it will usually leave behind a bunch of 1/1 Squid tokens with islandwalker. Ominous Seas is usually really slow to get rolling in Commander, but Niv should stock up those foreshadow counters so you can spit out 8/8 Kraken tokens early and often.

Teferi, Temporal Pilgrim loves all this card drawing, adding loyalty counters hand over fist, and if you make that 2/2 Spirit token it will also add +1/+1 counters for each card you draw.

Big Mana

Since Niv-Mizzet, Visionary is so expensive to cast, you really want to have plenty of ways to make extra mana to increase the chances of casting your commander and casting a damage-dealing spell the same turn.

Seething Song and Mana Geyser are one-shot mana boosts, but you can easily recoup the card you spent for mana by drawing more cards with Niv.

Neheb, the Eternal should give you a bunch of mana at the beginning of your postcombat main phase to help deploy all those extra cards you've drawn.

My favorite though is Descent into Avernus, which will let you accelerate to seven mana quickly, and if you have your commander on the battlefield during the upkeep trigger, you'll get to draw cards equal to the descent counters for each opponent.

Loot, Exuberant Explorer

Loot, Exuberant Explorer lets you play an extra land each turn, and it has an incredible activated ability that's the perfect use for having a bunch of extra mana lying about.

Landfall strategies will be great in a Loot deck with the extra land drops each turn, and you'll want to run a bunch of extra card draw to ensure you're able to have extra lands to play each turn.

Let’s get started by looking at what EDHREC recommends as high synergy cards.

EDHREC High Synergy Cards

Rampaging Baloths, Avenger of Zendikar, and Scute Swarm are powerful landfall triggers for a deck making extra land drops. Ashaya, Soul of the Wild makes any creature you play count as a land.

Exploration, Azusa, Lost but Seeking and Oracle of Mul Daya will let you play even more lands each turn, with Oracle having some built in card advantage by letting you play lands from the top of your library.

Augur of Autumn lets you play lands from the top of your library too -- without revealing them to your opponents like Oracle -- but once you're able to take advantage of the coven ability things really take off!

Seedborn Muse turbo-charges the deck, especially once you have six mana available for Loot's activated ability. And the ultimate mana sink is your finisher Craterhoof Behemoth, which should give all your creatures big enough to kill one or more of your opponents.

Card Draw

Card drawing tied to creatures synergizes well with Loot's activated ability, so I'd take a look at Regal Force, Beast Whisperer, and Disciple of Freyalise.

But raw card draw spells like Harmonize, Return of the Wildspeaker, and Rishkar's Expertise will keep the pedal to the metal, making your extra land drops and converting all the extra mana into more and more spells.

Season of Gathering is particular good here since it's got some real flexibility outside of the card draw.

Garruk's Uprising and Guardian Project are solid in a deck with a good number of creatures, particularly large ones.

I like Vorinclex in this deck too since it's a big creature that effectively "draws" two Forest cards, which Loot will let you quickly deploy.

Other Landfall

There are a bunch of other quality landfall cards that you'll want to run, such as Lotus Cobra, Springheart Nantuko, Tireless Provisioner, and Roaring Earth.

Territory Culler and Tireless Tracker are excellent ways to turn those landfall triggers into extra cards, which will lead to extra land drops and more landfall.

Quirion Ranger and Scryb Ranger each have a neat ability to untap a creature -- say Loot after it's used its activated ability -- and Loot lets you replay that Forest you return to your hand.

Ancient Greenwarden lets you double your landfall trigger fun, and you can play lands from the graveyard so make sure you're playing cards like Myriad Landscape and Urza's Cave that you can replay from the graveyard after you sacrifice them.

Lands in Play Matter

Green has a lot of creatures that get bigger the more lands you have on the battlefield, which makes great beaters to have in your Loot deck. The enter ability of Lumra, Bellow of the Woods can help you ramp even more, and it's vigilance and reach abilities make it a fantastic attacker and blocker in Commander.

The trample ability of Multani, Yavimaya's Avatar makes it extremely scary with a bunch of lands on the battlefield, but what's super-nice in this deck is its ability to return itself from the graveyard by returning lands to your hand; Loot lets you recoup those land drops quickly, potentially getting even more landfall triggers.

Braulios of Pheres Band is a fun new card from Foundations Jumpstart that lets you draw a card when it attacks and put another land onto the battlefield from your hand.

Ulvenwald Hydra's ability to search up the best land in your deck for the circumstances at hand; at a minimum you might want to snag a Guildless Commons, return a land to your hand to play again with Loot.

Arahbo, the First Fang

First we had Arahbo, Roar of the World, which wanted you to build a Selesnya Cat deck. Now we have a monowhite version with Arahbo, the First Fang, which makes your mana much easier -- and cheaper -- to assemble, while still having access to lots and lots of Cat cards.

This Arahbo lets you build a wide battlefield by making a Cat token each time a nontoken Cat enters the battlefield, so you can hold back some Cat cards in your hand in case there is a battlefield sweeper.

Let’s get started by looking at what EDHREC recommends as high synergy cards.

EDHREC High Synergy Cards

Like I mention, there are a bunch of great Cat cards in monowhite, and the EDHREC high synergy list has a bunch of them. King of the Pride stands beside Arahbo and a boost to all your Cats.

Regal Caracal, Brimaz, King of Oreskos, and Leonin Warleader makes more Cat tokens to quickly flood the battlefield with kitties.

Jazal Goldmane takes advantage of all those Cats to boost all your attackers by the number of attacking creatures.

Oreskos Explorer, Healer of the Pride, Alms Collector, and Lion Sash are Cat cards with excellent utility attached to them.

And of course Felidar Retreat plays perfectly in this deck, either making a Cat token or boosting all your creatures with a +1/+1 counter for each landfall trigger.

Tokens Synergies

Caretaker's Talent has made a huge splash in token decks in Standard, and it would do amazing things in this deck, drawing you an extra card each turn you make one or more tokens, and eventually giving your token creatures a huge boost at Level 3. I also like Idol of Oblivion for the easy card draw.

I'd take a look at populate cards that might be good here, particularly Rootborn Defenses which can protect your team from most battlefield sweepers.

Inspiring Leader and Intangible Virtue are awesome boosters for your increasing horde of Cat token creatures!

Bounce & Blink

Since Arahbo triggers whenever a nontoken Cat enters, I love Whitemane Lion as a way to keep pumping out Cat tokens for each two mana you have available; just cast Whitemane at instant speed and return it to your hand with its ability. If you play something like Pearl Medallion it will only cost one white mana each time to cast Whitemane.

You can also blink Cat cards to get this effect, and we have an actual Cat that does it with Felidar Guardian. Ephemerate and Cloudshift are instant-speed ways to do it, excellent for countering pinpoint removal effects, or getting another enters trigger from something like Kutzil's Flanker. Teleportation Circle provides a reusable blink effect each of your turns.

Never Stop Brewing!

Which of these three commanders do you think you might build a deck around? What other cards do you think you'll add to your deck list?

Read more:

Start Me Up! - 3 (More) Duskmourn Commanders

The Over/Under - Predicting the Popularity of Foundations Commanders

Bennie Smith

Bennie's played Magic since 1994 and has been writing about it nearly as long. Commander is his favorite format, but he's been known to put on his competitive hat to play Standard and Pioneer. Recently he's dabbled in Oathbreaker and Pendragon.