Salutations, Planeswalkers, and welcome to Izzet Week! In celebration of the Extraordinary League of Passionate Thinkers, I've delved into my past, current, and future notes and concocted some decklists that hopefully will be able to stretch your conventional deckbuilding ideas and warp them into something even The Dracogenius would be impressed with. So strap on your Endotaxis-Goggles and jump in!
Standard
What exactly does The Izzet League do in Constructed environments? The colors, much like The Mighty Gelectrode, are diametrically opposed. Red is proactive and wants to end the game early, focusing on cheap damage dealing spells and inexpensive creatures. Meanwhile, blue is reactive and wants to prolong the game and control its enemy into submission with counterspells and card drawing. So what happens when you mix the two together into a sublime batch of awkwardness? Generally, one of two results: counter burn or combo.
In future times, we'll refer to these days in Standard as "The Thragtusk Years" or "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Carry Two Spears." If the current boogeyman is a five-mana creature that doesn't end the game in any immediate or oppressive fashion, I, for one, am happy for our new Beastly overlords. To beat this menace, what would the League do? Our cerulean side wants to go over it with spells such as Omniscience, while our chartreuse side wants to…cast Searing Spear?
Creatures (13)
Lands (21)
Spells (26)
- 2 Runechanter's Pike
- 3 Desperate Ravings
- 1 Dissipate
- 2 Izzet Charm
- 3 Searing Spear
- 2 Syncopate
- 4 Thought Scour
- 2 Unsummon
- 1 Faithless Looting
- 1 Inaction Injunction
- 1 Mystic Retrieval
- 4 Pillar of Flame
- 3 Augur of Bolas
- 2 Clone
- 2 Dissipate
- 3 Negate
- 3 Bonfire of the Damned
- 2 Mizzium Mortars
Sideboard
This deck might seem familiar to you, as it's very similar to Adam Prosak's U/W Flash deck but trades Restoration Angel and Azorius Charm for burn spells. Is this an even trade? I'm not entirely sure, but playing the deck is certainly more fun for those who remember their Electropropulsion Magnetronics classes. Note that this is much more of an aggro deck as opposed to a control deck, so you actually get to relive the glory days of casting Delver of Secrets on turn 1 and flipping Mystic Retrieval (or was that just me?)!
The other interesting card is Vanellope von Schweetz herself, Guttersnipe. "But it doesn't do anything!" other mages of lesser guilds might say, but in actuality it lets us turn our durdly cantrips and Looting spells into bona fide damage, especially when the board is clogged up. The "Red Geist of Saint Traft" is completely capable of taking over a game akin to Talrand and has proved excellent in testing. Just don't ask him to do too much against Rakdos Cackler, ok?
The sideboard has the usual suspects of more removal for creature-heavy decks and counterspells for the control decks. Clone is there not only for legends such as Olivia Voldaren and Geist of Saint Traft but also for Reanimator in case they resolve a humongous monster. It's otherwise just a sweet card that lets people leverage some of that so-called "play skill." We've been spoiled with two- and three-mana Clones in the past, but this card has always been around. Despite it being a bit more "fair," it's still an excellent tool for mages aligned with azure mana and should not be overlooked.
You never need more than five lands in play with this deck, and it can harness the graveyard even better than U/W/R Midrange. It does, however, lean much more heavily on Runechanter's Pike, but with more library manipulation, you should see it more. The one Inaction Injunction is much better than Unsummon at dealing with cards such as Thragtusk and Geralf's Messenger.
This deck is chained to the theory of "who's the beatdown," meaning you should know when you need to flip from the control route of Snapcastering Pillar of Flames on their dudes to Searing Spearing their dome to conserve mana efficiency. I think you should give this deck a shot, as playing it is akin to the classic paradigm of a Magnetic Nitroxider removing all the Hyperocular Dust from your buddy's Neural Schisatrode.
Legacy
If Standard isn't really your thing, then Legacy just might rustle your jimmies! I recently piloted U/R Delver to a Top 8 finish at SCG Legacy Open: Cincinnati, but that was mainly because I was tired of the other side of the creative coin of the League: my old friend Sneak and Show.
Creatures (9)
Lands (19)
Spells (32)
- 4 Lotus Petal
- 4 Sneak Attack
- 4 Brainstorm
- 4 Force of Will
- 2 Intuition
- 2 Spell Pierce
- 3 Overmaster
- 4 Ponder
- 1 Preordain
- 4 Show and Tell
- 4 Grafdigger's Cage
- 1 Ancient Grudge
- 3 Red Elemental Blast
- 2 Through the Breach
- 1 Wipe Away
- 2 Progenitus
- 2 Karakas
Sideboard
Sneak Attack has fallen to the wayside in comparison to Omniscience as Show and Tell's tango partner. Why is that exactly? Well, when this deck combos off, it doesn't win the game on the spot. Karakas can often buy the Maverick player enough time to attack with random dorks, and Pithing Needle on Sneak Attack is frequently lights out. Then why play it? Drew Levin has already addressed it here, but in short, Sneak Attack is faster and more consistent but with a weaker end game than Omniscience. Now that Sneak Attack has been dormant for a few months, it's ripe for a chance to surprise people with a turn 1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn. What's old is new!
This version is slightly faster with an extra Simian Spirit Guide to pay for Daze or increase your speed against other combo decks by a full turn. Unlike spell-based combo decks (High Tide, Storm, etc.), you aren't limited to only one turn of "going off." You can throw out your Show and Tells and Sneak Attacks versus blue opponents and "make them have it." I win probably half my games by just jamming my win conditions and keeping them honest. If they don't have another counterspell, you more often than not just win on the spot! Playing around Spell Pierce is easy and affordable with the Sol lands and Lotus Petals available to the deck.
Free wins is a very good thing to have access to in a format as broad as Legacy because having to slog through nine rounds in which you can face nine different decks can be quite the challenge. Laying your Sensei's Divining Tops and your Nimble Mongooses down and viewing Legacy from combo's point of view can greatly increase your percentages on both sides of the matchup.
As the Sneak and Show player, besides guessing what they could have in hand, I'm constantly figuring out if I should strain their resources by comboing out quickly or developing my mana to make their Spell Pierces dead and which combo line I should follow (Sneak Attack into Griselbrand versus Show and Tell into Emrakul for instance). Not even my Megathermal Geolometer is able to figure out which line is correct, but putting the puzzle pieces together and solving each game's unique Rubik's Cube is the fun of Legacy!
With the current metagame full of U/W decks and High Tide (which made up over half of the Top 8 of SCG Legacy Open: Dallas), I very much recommend this deck. RUG, the other major deck in the format, is a tricky matchup though. I've always felt threatened by it, but RUG only has four or so hard counters. Just try to not get Wastelanded into oblivion and play your spells being mindful of soft counters.
Overmaster shines against RUG. If you cast it with three or four mana and haven't played your land for the turn, what are they going to do? They have to Force of Will if they can, as they can't afford to not call. If they Spell Pierce it, I thank them for the one-mana two for one, and if that's not good enough, I don't know what is. Obviously, if they open up on Delver of Secrets followed by eight counterspells, you're going to have a bad time.
Commander
Let's say you grow tired of 60-card formats. The League has served you well, but where to now? What if we were to increase the number of cards by 66.6% (repeating decimal)? Then, my friends, we'd be diving into the strange and exciting world of Commander, which just so happens to be one of my specialties.
Creatures (11)
- 1 Solemn Simulacrum
- 1 Djinn Illuminatus
- 1 Galvanoth
- 1 Hypersonic Dragon
- 1 Izzet Chronarch
- 1 Nivix Guildmage
- 1 Snapcaster Mage
- 1 Trinket Mage
- 1 Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius
- 1 Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind
- 1 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
Lands (37)
- 1 Great Furnace
- 12 Island
- 10 Mountain
- 1 Cascade Bluffs
- 1 Command Tower
- 1 Desolate Lighthouse
- 1 Izzet Boilerworks
- 1 Nivix, Aerie of the Firemind
- 1 Reliquary Tower
- 1 Scalding Tarn
- 1 Shivan Reef
- 1 Steam Vents
- 1 Strip Mine
- 1 Sulfur Falls
- 1 Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
- 1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
- 1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Spells (56)
- 1 Chromatic Lantern
- 1 Coalition Relic
- 1 Darksteel Ingot
- 1 Izzet Signet
- 1 Knowledge Pool
- 1 Mana Crypt
- 1 Mind Stone
- 1 Mizzium Transreliquat
- 1 Nevinyrral's Disk
- 1 Oblivion Stone
- 1 Sol Ring
- 1 Wayfarer's Bauble
- 1 Eye of the Storm
- 1 Grip of Chaos
- 1 Hive Mind
- 1 Leyline of Anticipation
- 1 Omniscience
- 1 Shared Fate
- 1 Spellweaver Volute
- 1 Blue Sun's Zenith
- 1 Brainstorm
- 1 Capsize
- 1 Chaos Warp
- 1 Cryptic Command
- 1 Cyclonic Rift
- 1 Desertion
- 1 Electrolyze
- 1 Evacuation
- 1 Fire / Ice
- 1 Firemind's Foresight
- 1 Hinder
- 1 Mystical Tutor
- 1 Prophetic Bolt
- 1 Quicken
- 1 Redirect
- 1 Reiterate
- 1 Smash
- 1 Spell Crumple
- 1 Spelljack
- 1 Time Stop
- 1 Blatant Thievery
- 1 Devastation Tide
- 1 Epic Experiment
- 1 Faithless Looting
- 1 Gamble
- 1 Invoke the Firemind
- 1 Merchant Scroll
- 1 Mizzium Mortars
- 1 Past in Flames
- 1 Ponder
- 1 Preordain
- 1 Rite of Replication
- 1 Scrambleverse
- 1 Spelltwine
- 1 Thieves' Auction
- 1 Warp World
What exactly is going on here? This deck might seem erratic, and it is! When looked upon using your trusty Electrolocoscope, this deck's essence is having chaotic fun with a bit of a "good stuff" feel. You just want to play sweet spells, tuck opposing generals, and hit your land drops then stabilize and go to town with your general, the Greatest Ophidian Ever Created.
You have to be careful to not cause chaos purely to cause chaos and should be mindful to advance your game plan because Commander is a leisure activity that's played between friends and you don't want people to abhor playing with you and have an unfun experience. This is also why I very much dislike infinite combos in Commander. You end up feeling like you've been cheated out of having fun. But let me tell you, you haven't truly experienced Magicuntil you've Quickened an Epic Experiment while there's an Eye of the Storm in play with six spells under it and a Shared Fate is causing people to never know what they're going to "draw" next. Don't even get me started if there's a Knowledge Pool in play copied with a Mizzium Transreliquat.
This deck is fairly budget, omitting certain cards such as Mana Drain, Volcanic Island, and Wasteland (hey, a mage has got to eat!). Many people, including myself, have to read a lot of my cards, and I wouldn't have it any other way. One thing in particular I want to point out is that many cards in this decklist aren't optimal, as casting Warp World in a deck with mostly spells isn't exactly what you want to be doing. I don't play Commander necessarily just to win. I play it to have fun with winning as a side quest. I don't mind winning, but cutthroat Commander is something I don't want to embrace. Trying to get Spikes to understand the fact that you don't play this particular form of Magic "just to win" is a difficult task to be sure.
If you want to play hardball, switching my commander to old school Niv and including Ophidian Eye, Curiosity, Tandem Lookout, Blood Moon, and Sunder are ways to "win more," but that isn't really something I'm interested in. (I do, however, play against Nicholas Spagnolo's Damia, Sage of Stone deck from time to time, which is basically just his Legacy BUG control deck turned Commander, and man, it's a doozy!).
I hope you've enjoyed this overview what Magic's most unpredictable go-getters and convergent thinkers can offer you in various formats. I've tried to subscribe to my guild's philosophy my whole life, and it's never done me (too much) wrong yet! I hope to see you guys at StarCityGames.com's dealer booth, where you might find me buying cards, or out on the fields of battle fighting for the glory of the Firemind.
@J_Beleren on Twitter
About David McDarby
David McDarby has been playing Magic since Zendikar Block and is a three-time SCG Top 8 Competitor, who recently finished in the top 16 in the 2011 Charlotte Invitational. David is also known to become his alternate persona of Jace Beleren from time to time...