I love Conspiracy. There really isn't anything I don't like about both the sets. Fiora as a plane is wonderful. I love the storyline, the intrigue, and the characters. One only needs to look at the Commander decks I build to see the truth. Grenzo, Dungeon Warden was just featured last week in my second deck for the legendary goblin. I have decks for both versions of Marchesa (although if push came to shove, I liked her more before the Crown gave her a swelled head). I have a Brago, King Eternal deck. I previewed Leovold and built a deck around him that wasn't completely broken before the RC said no more of that. I also have a Selvala, Explorer Returned deck that hasn't made its way into paper just yet.

It just stands to reason that Muzzio, Visionary Architect should get his time in the sun! I always put it off because I always seemed to already have a deck with a strong artifact theme. While that hasn't changed, Glissa, the Traitor will have to move over and make room for Muzzio!

Muzzio is not a particularly popular commander. Simply put, there are other Blue creatures that interact with artifacts in a far more advantageous way than Muzzio does. However, even if you don't love Conspiracy the way that I do, Muzzio provides an interesting deck-building puzzle for you. Rather than simply cast a card and get a huge effect, Muzzio demands that you set it up to maximize the advantage Muzzio gives. Muzzio isn't going to be at the helm of an uber-powerful Commander deck, but he can run the fun, if you love putting the puzzle together!

Breaking it Down

Let's get a look at the puzzle that is Muzzio! I like to start with the base stats. You are getting a 1/3 for three mana. Clearly you aren't going to Voltron this fellow up and smash in for victory, on the other hand, he isn't going to just accidentally die to a gust of wind or a random stray point of damage either. The real key here is the three mana. You are going to be able to recast Muzzio at least a couple of times without it hurting too badly. That is a nice place to start. You will want to protect him, but if you need to just get him out there, you can do that as well.

The ability is lengthy, so let's start with just the cost. It is four mana and you have to tap him to make it happen. This means you aren't going to get to do it on the turn he enters the battlefield. Honestly, even if it had haste, you probably weren't going to have the seven mana needed to make that happen. That means Muzzio is going to run a little slowly, so you are going to want help. There are ways to reduce the activation cost and we'll be looking at several of them. The fact that he taps also limits the number of activations, so that needs to be kept in mind as well.

So, the first part of the ability needs an artifact, ideally one that costs a lot. Getting a turn one Sol Ring is great, but spending four mana to look at the top one card of your library, hoping it is an artifact that you can put on the battlefield, is a plan that doesn't make a lot of sense. Simply put, if you are running mostly three mana artifacts, you are going to want 33 of your cards to be artifacts so you will be successful most of the time. The problem is that you are then paying four mana to put out what will probably be a three mana artifact into play. Admittedly, this is essentially an extra card draw, but it is underwhelming.

When you are building Muzzio, you want to be using it when you have a Meteor Golem or a Blightsteel Colossus out! Pay four mana and look at the top seven cards, or the top twelve (!) cards and hopefully find something awesome! This is suspiciously like Grenzo, Dungeon Warden, but you are looking for artifacts from the top, instead of creatures from the bottom.

So, it seems like the solution is to run a lot of expensive artifacts, but you need an artifact to get you started. You also don't want to wait too long, so a seven mana artifact may just take too long to cast! You are going to need ramp to help get you there and maybe a few ways to cheat one of these pricey cards onto the battlefield!

Finally, the cards that you don't choose, go to the bottom of your library in any order. This could allow some interesting combos if your artifact is pricey enough. Perhaps you could loop through your entire library, giving you a free artifact every turn. I'm not going to go there, but it is certainly an option. It also means that the percentage of artifact cards at the bottom of your library is lower. This means you probably don't want to shuffle your library too many times, as your odds of hitting will get worse. You'll have to weigh that against the times when you see two awesome artifacts but can only keep one.

Cards that Help

Tutors. Any way that you have that can stack that top card of your library is going to dramatically improve how Muzzio runs. Searching for the card you need and getting it on top of your library means that you can put it onto the battlefield at any time. These are monster plays that can be explosive. They are also the perfect way to ensure that you will make the same play with Muzzio again and again. Why would you choose to tutor for anything other than the best option? It may not be the most expensive artifact, but it won't be long before that will likely be the card you go for again and again. As I said last week, I really want the variety in my gameplay. I want to grab those cards off the top and see what happens! Give me the variety of a home run or a crash and burn!

Having said that, I don't mind manipulating the top of my library a little. Sensei's Divining Top can make things a little interesting. I can draw a non-artifact card and set up the artifact in the top three cards in just the right place to find it! This is about the level of manipulation I like. I'm not looking for the best card in my deck, but I'll take the best card of the top three in my library!

Activation enablers. Muzzio, Visionary Architect has a significant activation cost. Spending four to activate can end up being more than it is worth. The key to this is to reduce the activation cost. I start out here in the same place as I do with Grenzo's cost reducer: Heartstone. It reduces the cost by one generic mana. This can be very useful because three is less than four. Beyond stating the obvious, costing three mana is also what Muzzio costs which means that if you are struggling with mana, Heartstone brings the activation cost to the same level as Muzzio's casting cost. So, you might not be finding mana sources, but you'll still get to activate Muzzio for three, where X is three due to Heartstone. With some luck you'll find the Extraplanar Lens or a Fellwar Stone or another artifact that can help you get your mana back on track.

In the same vein, Training Grounds is great. It costs one mana instead of three and cuts Muzzio's activation cost in half! It also only gives the reduced activated ability cost to your creatures, while Heartstone gives it to all creatures. The downside to Training Grounds is that it is an enchantment, so it doesn't help make the X for Muzzio get larger, and whenever you activate Muzzio, you run the risk of seeing your Training Grounds disappear to the bottom of your library.

It should also be noted that these do work together, so with some luck, you could be paying one Blue mana to activate Muzzio!

The other limit of Muzzio's ability is that he has to tap, so you are only going to get to do it once per turn. Rings of Brighthearth can make that a little easier to take. Just add two mana and you get to do it a second time! This means you might be paying six mana, and Muzzio still taps, but now you are getting two artifacts! Even with only a four casting cost artifact on the battlefield, the first activation goes off and you look at four cards. If you are lucky and find your Gilded Lotus, the second activation will see it and let you search five cards! At that rate you are looking at huge chunks of your library and will likely find bigger artifacts even faster!

Finally, Illusionist's Bracers gives you what the Rings of Brighthearth do, but only for the creature it is equipped to. However, you aren't paying an extra two mana for that, so suddenly you are paying four mana and getting to activate Muzzio twice. Loving it!

So where did I go from here?

Muzzio, Visionary Architect | Commander | Bruce Richard

• Commander (1)
• 1 Muzzio, Visionary Architect

• Creatures (25)
• 1 Blightsteel Colossus
• 1 Burnished Hart
• 1 Duplicant
• 1 Emry, Lurker of the Loch
• 1 Etherium Sculptor
• 1 Foundry Inspector
• 1 Grand Architect
• 1 Jhoira's Familiar
• 1 Master Transmuter
• 1 Memnarch
• 1 Metalworker
• 1 Meteor Golem
• 1 Padeem, Consul of Innovation
• 1 Phyrexian Metamorph
• 1 Platinum Angel
• 1 Sai, Master Thopterist
• 1 Sharding Sphinx
• 1 Shimmer Myr
• 1 Silver Myr
• 1 Solemn Simulacrum
• 1 Steel Hellkite
• 1 Traxos, Scourge of Kroog
• 1 Vedalken Archmage
• 1 Whirler Rogue
• 1 Wurmcoil Engine

• Instants (7)
• 1 Cryptic Command
• 1 Cyclonic Rift
• 1 Disallow
• 1 Fact or Fiction
• 1 Mana Drain
• 1 Pongify
• 1 Rapid Hybridization

• Sorceries (4)
• 1 Argivian Restoration
• 1 Curse of the Swine
• 1 One with the Machine
• 1 Rite of Replication

• Enchantments (2)
• 1 Thopter Spy Network
• 1 Training Grounds

• Artifacts (21)
• 1 Darksteel Ingot
• 1 Extraplanar Lens
• 1 Fellwar Stone
• 1 Gilded Lotus
• 1 Heartstone
• 1 Illusionist's Bracers
• 1 Lightning Greaves
• 1 Mind Stone
• 1 Mirage Mirror
• 1 Mirrorworks
• 1 Mox Amber
• 1 Mystic Forge
• 1 Rings of Brighthearth
• 1 Sensei's Divining Top
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Swiftfoot Boots
• 1 The Immortal Sun
• 1 Thran Dynamo
• 1 Thran Temporal Gateway
• 1 Unwinding Clock
• 1 Wayfarer's Bauble

• Lands (40)
• 27 Snow-Covered Island
• 1 Academy Ruins
• 1 Buried Ruin
• 1 Castle Vantress
• 1 Darksteel Citadel
• 1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
• 1 Myriad Landscape
• 1 Reliquary Tower
• 1 Rogue's Passage
• 1 Seat of the Synod
• 1 Temple of the False God
• 1 Urza's Mine
• 1 Urza's Power Plant
• 1 Urza's Tower

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I opted for 42 artifacts in the deck. In theory, as long as I have a three mana artifact on the battlefield, I'll draw three cards and at least one of them should be an artifact.

This deck, much like Grenzo, is going to involve some tweaking and some deeper maths to really work on the puzzle. You will want to make your artifacts' cost ramp up, just as you want your deck to ramp up in an effort to maximize the efficiency of the deck. Or perhaps you prefer to add in some tutors to make the whole thing a little easier. Either way, I'm looking forward to tinkering with Muzzio over the coming months!

Bruce Richard

@manaburned