Let's talk about Niv Mizzet..

Laeuftbeidir

.. before it's too late. I'm loving most of the cards in the upcoming set and looking forward to a lot of them.. But I hope this card won't be translated to PQ at all. Since this isn't going to happen, please implement it very carefully!

I'm aware that ravnica wants to break the color pie, and that's cool. But I forsee a card that's worse than Baral and imminent doom.

If the pq adaption follows the original,

It'll probably act as a rashmi for red (koth loop? Anyone want to see that?) and on the same time as an imminent doom that also draws you cards (mono blue burn loop? Kiora with damage on gem converter spells?) 

It'll probably end up game warping and as a paid exclusive.

Mburn7

I dunno, I doubt he'll be THAT insane as long as they keep the damage low (no more than 2 or 3 should be fine).

Gem Changers don't really exist any more in Standard, so the Kiora Loop will remain stuck in Legacy (although I do like Niv more than Rashimi for that deck if he is translated literally)

As for red getting nuts with it, I just don't see how it could loop.  Sure Koth can dump his hand and then refill it (definitely very good), but I'm not seeing how he gets the second dump in a turn.

I say bring him in literally, keep the damage at 1 (maybe make it 2), and bump him to a mythic.

Laeuftbeidir

Thanks for your point of view!

For red, I've had cards like avarious dragon in mind, paired with cheap Spells.. A loop depending on the opponent and RNG, sure, but it also depends how its going to be added. Throw in Guttersnipe and the damage should be sufficient.. It's just random theory crafting, sure. If the card gets added and I ever get my hands on it, I'll make sure that I'll be a problem in any color combo that can use him when it helds the potential

I mean, I don't even need that card to go near infinite in standard with potential turn one wins, so in the end it's not even game breaking. Still, I'm concerned and can't imagine how he couldn't be problematic at best.

Mburn7

Laeuftbeidir said:

I mean, I don't even need that card to go near infinite in standard with potential turn one wins, so in the end it's not even game breaking. Still, I'm concerned and can't imagine how he couldn't be problematic at best.

Infinite in Standard turn 1?  Now that's a decklist I'd like to see (I have some semi-infinite lists but they aren't nearly that fast or consistent).

As for Niv, he will be a very good card.  Definitely too good for a rare (then again, the paper version is probably too good to be a rare either so whatever).  Will he be game-breakingly good a la OG Baral?  I'm not so sure.

But, for argument's sake lets say a direct implementation is too good.  What gets changed?  The damage-on-draw thing is pretty fundamental to any Niv-Mizzet, so I'd say leave that.  The draw-on-cast seems to be the main issue here, but I can't think of a good substitution (if its an activate gem they just made the wrong Niv-Mizzet).

Laeuftbeidir

Turn one is off course luck based, but happens every once in a while. I've had several turn two wins, never took more than seven turns with the worst possible card draw and board state. I've sent you a pm to not derail this further!

Yeah, the issue here is to find a balanced solution that doesn't make this card totally useless or kills the flavor. I could see them using the Naruh Merah thingy where you can't use the card drawn by her in the same turn (I don't like it). Keeping the damage low is crucial (I mean, a bsw with one damage per target would likely be a board wipe then anyway! At three damage you can be already sure that the board is yours).

But if I had an idea how to solve it, I would've presented it. Probably, I'm mostly spoiler hungry

Tilwin90

Imminent Doom
For Standard I don't see issues with him as long as he pings for 1 damage and only pings the opponent. 

He is nowhere near as close to be good as Imminent Doom that being a support that also increasingly dealt more damage were the key factors of the card. Creatures are known for not lasting very long in this game. Plus ID was super good in creatureless builds and dealing with those pesky huge HP opponents a la Azor (I am not waiting to cast 400+ spells to kill my opponent, infinite or not).

The one upside I see here is that he is not necessarily bound to spells - I actually see him as more of a Combustible Gearhulk than Imminent Doom (and Gearhulk dealt a TON of damage AND also drew cards). Sure, it would seem obvious that you want to combine him with many low cost spells to draw cards, and probably you can stick the Immortal Sun in there, but again, the palette in the current Standard is nowhere near as scary.

Now if he is allowed to target creatures only, that could get vaguely interesting even though at 1 damage per ping I would rather combine it with enrage creatures (and I fear they will rotate IXN with GRN entering Standard) for the juicy triggers. But even that looks super gimmicky.

So... yeah, if it's 1 damage he's going to the bin due to the immense number of triggers required to do anything efficient. The more that damage upscales (2, 3 etc.) the better he naturally gets.


Baral
Spells replacing themselves is what make Baral good, but once again, when I'm looking at Baral I see three huge advantages:
- Very low cost - you can combo into him with Blue Sun Zenith and small mana gain spells - therefore keeps your curve low
- Card draw on spell cast - superb in combo decks that keep cascading into spells
- Generates tons of mana at the beginning of your turn if you have lots of spells in your deck

Niv Mizzet fails on all of those except for the card draw if he will be implemented properly (I would personally see him as an 8/8 dragon that costs 18 or something):
- Upping your curve is not where you want to be in combo decks - there is a reason why Combustible Gearhulk saw little play, and the 25 cost was very tough even for my old Bolas combo deck (achievable though problematic)
- Does not generate any mana value, he's only a mana sink
- Card draw on its own is combo-ish but weaker than Rashmi

Naturally when you combine the two sides you generate an interesting walker, but once again, this is not paper magic where card draw is much much more powerful and can get out of hand much easier. Why? Because of the limited hand size naturally.

Legacy
As Gearhulk + Baral sees little play in legacy I am not even remotely concerned about Niv Mizzet being a bad combination of the two.

Sure, the potential of Kiora gets opened because Niv is blue (when compared to Gearhulk + Baral that could never be played in monoblue decks), but even so, legacy can already do much nastier things with Kiora to begin with (why bother ramping and drawing with Niv when you can use Prism Array & Part the Waterveil for a much more potent combo?). 

Can you go infinite? Show me a deck that can do that with Niv CONSISTENTLY (let's assume he deals 1 damage at a time). There are multiple questions here:
- Is it efficient enough? Or do you have to wait gazillions of turns to slowly ping your opponent? (think 132 HP Bolas here or 500+ HP Azor)
- How difficult is it to go infinite? And are your cards good enough to hold the bay while you are trying to assemble the combo?
- Is Niv good in a vacuum too (like Baral is) or would it be a strictly absurd legacy combo card?

wereotter

As was mentioned, I don't think he's going to be AS problematic as the original post suggests. In fact I'm not sure I'd even place him at the level of Combustible Gearhulk, and may even place him about on the same level as Firebrand Archer as far as damage level is concerned, as I don't think they're going to up the damage he deals from 1 to 5, but putting it up to 2 or 3 seems possible, just depends on if they allow you to pick your target. If it can hit creatures, it will likely be less damage than if it just pings your opponent.

The Baral dissection is right on, though. Unlike Baral, Niv-Mizzet isn't going to give mana to your spells. Baral only did this because his original card made your spells cost less in his paper version. Niv has no text to alter spell costs in any way. So the only comparison is that both will draw you a card whenever you play a spell (though Niv should still draw you a card in the rare instance that Greg casts a spell)

Tilwin90

wereotter said:

So the only comparison is that both will draw you a card whenever you play a spell (though Niv should still draw you a card in the rare instance that Greg casts a spell)

I wonder how much play "The Mind's Eye" saw The one place where I saw people play it was in Ob so they could pair it up with the ultimate and benefit from the extra draws.

IM_CARLOS

Possible addition for omni decks with with gearhulk and all the handchanger like BoB. 

If target is free to choose than are enrage creatures from rix an option. 

fiirst

imo, i would let it dealing 1 dmg to eiher first or last creature, this will be a new thing in the game. Otherwise, straight convert will make Niv to be another Ob ultimate or ID. i dont think we need ID, Ob's proxy in new standard.

Another way in my mind is just make him +x/+0 every time u draw a card, i get this idea from Consecrated Sphinx. CS is my favourite Sphinx but I was totally disaapoint when i saw it in PQ first time. tbh, after i played against it in ToZ, i have changed my mind about him. it is super amazing when cycling is all around. i think this way is not too OP, not instant kill.


beside that, i think Niv Parun is very cute

Gunmix25

Hazarding an educated guess.

……………………………………………….

Niv-Mizzet, Parun

Cost: 16

5/5

Flying Evergreen

Cost cannot be raised or lowered. When Niv-Mizzet, Parun is cast, opponent discards all disabled flash cards in hand.

Whenever you draw a card, Niv-Mizzet, Parun deals 1 damage to any target.

Whenever any player casts a spell you may draw a card.

………………………………………………

Paired with mono Blue walker: Aside from J2, I think this mythic is mild in the hands of others. But blue is spell dominate and will be force to contend with when this

Paired with a mono Red walker: To even make this mythic work well, the mono walker will need to be spell heavy with a strong mana influx from somewhere. Jaya will be very interesting utilizing this mythic.

Paired with a Blue multi walker: This combination in any color will be able to maximize the efficiency of this mythic. In almost every case, this is the kind of walker I expect to see using this mythic the most. Legacy will see more action than Standard imho. There just aren't that many cards out there to make this card a force to be worried about

Paired with Red multi walker: Red doesn't have that much draw ability, but there are a number of supports that inflict damage upon casts or swaps. Paired with other colors to gain a higher draw rate, this combination will provide heavy damage. Combined with days undoing in legacy, or Pull from tomorrow... this mythic will see a lot of action in Legacy and a royal pain in the fanny. In standard, Niv won't be the force one thinks he will be.

Kinesia

Tilwin90 said:

wereotter said:

So the only comparison is that both will draw you a card whenever you play a spell (though Niv should still draw you a card in the rare instance that Greg casts a spell)

I wonder how much play "The Mind's Eye" saw The one place where I saw people play it was in Ob so they could pair it up with the ultimate and benefit from the extra draws.

I was planning to test the blue dino elder that does similar with Teferi's ultimate but hadn't gotten to it yet.

But, yes, Teferi would love this!

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wereotter

fiirst said:

imo, i would let it dealing 1 dmg to eiher first or last creature, this will be a new thing in the game. Otherwise, straight convert will make Niv to be another Ob ultimate or ID. i dont think we need ID, Ob's proxy in new standard.

Another way in my mind is just make him +x/+0 every time u draw a card, i get this idea from Consecrated Sphinx. CS is my favourite Sphinx but I was totally disaapoint when i saw it in PQ first time. tbh, after i played against it in ToZ, i have changed my mind about him. it is super amazing when cycling is all around. i think this way is not too OP, not instant kill.


beside that, i think Niv Parun is very cute

Comparing this to Imminent Doom is a bit extreme. That card increased the damage it dealt every time it dealt damage. I don’t see any reason to believe this card will do the same. If any card has that concern for me, it’ll be Thousand-Year Storm. 

Mburn7

wereotter said:

fiirst said:

imo, i would let it dealing 1 dmg to eiher first or last creature, this will be a new thing in the game. Otherwise, straight convert will make Niv to be another Ob ultimate or ID. i dont think we need ID, Ob's proxy in new standard.

Another way in my mind is just make him +x/+0 every time u draw a card, i get this idea from Consecrated Sphinx. CS is my favourite Sphinx but I was totally disaapoint when i saw it in PQ first time. tbh, after i played against it in ToZ, i have changed my mind about him. it is super amazing when cycling is all around. i think this way is not too OP, not instant kill.


beside that, i think Niv Parun is very cute

Comparing this to Imminent Doom is a bit extreme. That card increased the damage it dealt every time it dealt damage. I don’t see any reason to believe this card will do the same. If any card has that concern for me, it’ll be Thousand-Year Storm. 

Oh ****, I didn't think of that one.  Storm in PQ?  That's terrifying.  

NinjaE

Seems like a lot of concern for a card we haven't seen the text for yet.

Mburn7

NinjaE said:

Seems like a lot of concern for a card we haven't seen the text for yet.

It happens every set.  Once the card gallery is released (used to be a week or 2 before the set came out, lately its been day of) the forums usually light up with 1-3 cards that should be nerfed and 1-3 cards that should be buffed (note this is before anyone really gets to play with any of them)

We are almost always wrong (most famously with Rashmi), but its fun to speculate anyway and sometimes we are able to avert disaster (Torrential Gearhulk) or predict disaster (Rickshar's Expertise)

Laeuftbeidir

I think a "be careful with that" before the set is finished is better than a cry for nerfs afterwards.

Don't forget Baral, omniscience, and cycling for your list. In the end, this card might actually be brilliant and perfectly balanced. Who knows? It'll also likely add some new bugs! We're not given anything to talk about grn related from above, so I started something. Thanks for your perspectives. I hope I'm wrong anyway!

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Tremayne

Now the gallery is up, Have your fears been put to rest @Laeuftbeidir