Niv-Mizzet, Ghost Counsel fuels a life-gain engine by tapping each turn to drain opponents while converting life gained into card draws, building a massive hand advantage supported by life-doubling effects and passive income from creatures and enchantments that trigger on life gain. The deck uses this accumulated life and card advantage to set up infinite loops, most notably pairing Exquisite Blood with life-drain effects or Heliod, Sun-Crowned with Walking Ballista to generate unbounded life gain and damage. A secondary win condition through Test of Endurance rewards the life-total growth directly, while Aetherflux Reservoir can close games by leveraging the storm of spells and life gain the deck naturally produces.

Niv-Mizzet, Ghost Counsel decklist

• Aetherflux Reservoir
• Alhammarret's Archive
• Anguished Unmaking
• Approach of the Second Sun
• Arcane Signet
• Archivist of Oghma
• Auriok Champion
• Authority of the Consuls
• Black Market Connections
• Bloodthirsty Conqueror
• Bojuka Bog
• Cabal Ritual
• Caves of Koilos
• Chaplain's Blessing
• Children of Korlis
• Cleric Class
• Command Tower
• Creeping Bloodsucker
• Crypt Ghast
• Culling the Weak
• Dark Ritual
• Eiganjo, Seat of the Empire
• Elas il-Kor, Sadistic Pilgrim
• Enduring Tenacity
• Ephemerate
• Esper Sentinel
• Exemplar of Light
• Exquisite Blood
• Feed the Swarm
• Fetid Heath
• Flickering Hound
• Ghostly Prison
• Gleaming Splendor
• Godless Shrine
• Grand Abolisher
• Gray Merchant of Asphodel
• Haliya, Guided by Light
• Heaven-Sent Marvel
• Heliod, Sun-Crowned
• Inkshield
• Ivory Tower
• Jet Medallion
• Kambal, Consul of Allocation
• Karlov of the Ghost Council
• Land Tax
• Liliana the Faultless
• Lotho, Corrupt Shirriff
• Lotus Petal
• Marauding Blight-Priest
• Marsh Flats
• Necropotence
• Orzhov Signet
• Path to Exile
• Pearl Medallion
• 8× Plains
• Psychosis Crawler
• Radiant Fountain
• Reliquary Tower
• Sanguine Bond
• Sheoldred, the Apocalypse
• Silent Clearing
• Smothering Tithe
• Sol Ring
• Soul Warden
• Soul's Attendant
• Starscape Cleric
• Starving Revenant
• Suture Priest
• 6× Swamp
• Swords to Plowshares
• Tainted Field
• Talisman of Hierarchy
• Teferi's Protection
• Test of Endurance
• The Wind Crystal
• Thought Vessel
• Toxic Deluge
• Turbulent Moor
• Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• Vault of Champions
• Venser's Journal
• Walking Ballista
• Well of Lost Dreams
• Words of Worship
• Crux of Fate
• Isolated Chapel
• Shattered Sanctum