Choosing Your Commander - Izzet

Next up is the powerful blue/red color combination.  Of the enemy color pairings, the Izzet guild probably has some of the most powerful options for commanders available.  Red/blue are traditionally both spell-centric colors, but combining red's agression with blue's control elements can often be a good pairing.  The Izzet color pairing is also very good at combo decks, utilizing blue for card draw and red for various fast mana effects.  As you will soon see, red/blue has two of the best combo generals available in Jhoira and Niv-Mizzet, both of which rank up in the top 10 commanders in the entire game for shear power.

Jhoira of the Ghitu:  Jhoira is one of the more feared generals in the game for her ability to suspend a highly volatile threat such as Obliterate and follow it up with a suspended large creature (often an Indestructible menace like Ulamog or Blightsteel Colossus).  Once you start looking at ways to take advantage of Jhoira, its hard to not get greedy and totally abuse her ability.  To make matters worse, your opponents will often just assume that you are packing the worst case scenario for them and try to eliminate her (and you) on sight making using her in more benign ways more difficult.  The nice thing about Jhoira is that you can wait till you have 5 mana open to play her and suspend a spell before an opponent can remove her, and that there are lots of cards that you can run that will tick those four time counters down faster to speed up the process.  Any way you look at it, Jhoira is one of the top generals available in the game.

Nin, the Pain Artist:  Cards like Nin make for some interesting choices, not only during deck construction but also during play.  Pinging your own creatures for profit (especially ones that were going to die anyway) is definitely one way to get ahead, although Nin's ability is expensive and its not like blue and red are lacking for card draw.  Using it on your opponent's creatures has some strategic and political implications.  If you are trying to help someone, they may apprecaite the extra cards.  However, if Nin is part of a larger strategy to deck an opponent, then Nin serves double duty as both creature kill and win condition.  In that regard, its somewhat unfortunate that Nin is not blue/black instead of blue/red so that she could headline a milling deck.

Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius:  Unlike the original Niv-Mizzet, the Dracogenius is far less combo-licious and far less desirable as a general.  But for those that are looking for a red/blue control general, its nice to have the Dracogenius as an option if for no other reason that he doesn't carry the stigma that the Firemind has.


Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind:  The original Niv-Mizzet probably has one of the most well-earned reputations as the poster-child for abusive infinite combo decks in the Commander format.  When combined with Curiosity or Ophidian Eye, you can essentially draw your deck and deal damage to your opponents equal to the size of your library.  Combined with Mind Over Matter you can do the same thing, except that you have the opportunity to make the loop boundless by including one of the Eldrazi somewhere in your deck that when discarded will shuffle your graveyard back into your library.  Even without the infinite combos, there are plenty of effects in blue that draw cards, and several in both blue and red that can draw them up to seven at a time.  Any way you slice it, Niv-Mizzet is a damage and draw engine that is second to none, and showing him as your commander will make you public enemy number one.  I personally love what potential Niv-Mizzet has outside of infinite combinations, so when we explore making decks I will probably make both a "cutthroat combo" version and a "non-combo" version that seekes to play a little more fairly and not care about just resolving one of its infinite combo pieces.  I think that playing without these infinite combinations would not only be more fun but it would lessen the stigma associated with running him as your commander and perhaps lessen the hate thrown your way.

Tibor and Lumia:  Compared to all of the other options you have available, Tibor and Lumia are tame and unexciting.