Would like some help finishing an Izzet Pinball deck

[Benjamin]

Gelectrodes are one of my favorite Magic cards and I found this deck that looks quite fun.

So, the "final" version of that deck is over five years old and I'm having a bit of trouble tracking down two critical parts. I need:

1 Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind
4 Remand

I've already flipped through all the Plainville books, but these cards pre-date any of the books there. Maybe Abington has some? Or some other kind soul reading this?

If someone has a greater knowledge of any newer cards that may fit in the deck, I'd love to have that discussion!

[Sekacnap]

I used to play a ping deck similar to this but without Niv-Mizzet and his damage for drawing ability. It was really fun to play and in 3+ player games people HATED me (its especially good in team games with cross defending since you don't need to worry about defending yourself). One on one my deck would win less than half of the games I played with it but I build most of my decks to be fun and screw with people, instead of trying to win every game (gogo flagbearers!).

That being said, I found that the biggest flaw was in fact defense since most pingers are 1/1 0/1 and unless you're able to get a lot out in short time it can be hard to get rid of bigger creatures before they attack you but ensnaring bridge would definitely help with that as long as you can make sure you can play enough of your spells. It might be a good thing to pick up more than one ensnaring bridge since a simple naturalize (or similar) will destroy your only real defense other than using your pings on creatures.

Overall though, that deck looks really fun to play! I have a few of the cards listed there, maybe I'll break out my deck and fix it up a bit with those ideas in mind.

[Benjamin]

I used to play a ping deck similar to this but without Niv-Mizzet and his damage for drawing ability.

Ah, then you missed out on the nearly auto-win condition. Niv-Mizzet with Curiousity. Draw a card, then deal a point of damage, then draw a card, then deal a point, draw a card, and so on.

It might be a good thing to pick up more than one ensnaring bridge since a simple naturalize (or similar) will destroy your only real defense other than using your pings on creatures.

Scroll down the article. I'm aiming to build version 6. My Thieving Magpies and Quicksilver Daggers came in the mail today.

The game I assume is much faster now than it used to be, so this will probably get beat up on quite a bit. But it can't be any worse than tonight's draft. That was just brutal.

I was considering Think Twice would be good, and the Flashback ability really changes this deck's potential. I just shouldn't have any trouble drawing cards, and I'm not sure what I'd even remove. The deck looks fine as is.

[Benjamin]

My last Niv-Mizzet is in the mail, but I've had enough of the deck to run a few times now. I replaced Quicksilver Daggers for Goblin Fireslingers, and it's dramatically increased the tempo of the deck.

I'd love to keep tweaking it, but I need more games to see what's truly vital. So many of the cards have two or three uses, they're great fits so far.

As for performance, I've won about half my games. When this works, it works beautifully. I take my turn generally during your turn.