Just a thought on the Spy Network, because people seem to think it's too slow for an artifact/thopter deck. Without aggressive 1- and 2-drops I don't think you can make this an aggro deck. Everything up to turn 3 is more or less preparation and the deck starts doing stuff with its turn 4+ plays. Imo this makes the Spy Network very valuable: It prolongs the preparation phase by one turn but it will often draw you an additional card the turn it enters play and gives you a massive bonus on the following turns.

It's also ensurance against mass removal. Considering you don't pressure your opponent before turn 4 but ultimately wanna end up with a huge board, you're very susceptible to all sweepers - even Displacement Wave shines here. With a Spy Network remaining after wipes, all you need is any artifact or token producer and you'll repopulate the board very quickly.

Well part of the problem, to me, is that's it's actually not that quickly. It's one per turn. Say you have any non creature artifact in play, it's still a 6 turn clock on its own. Added to that, you need an artifact in play, and none of the creature artifacts are particularly sticky. I've gotten it out before, and received neither tokens, nor free cards out of it.

Now, the card draw, on the other hand is useful. I'm just not sold yet on how useful.

The card draw is part of what I meant. After a board wipe something like Thopter Engineer creates 2 bodies, draws you a card and activates the Network on the following turn. Then you draw 2 cards and create 1 token every turn. That's a pretty fast recovery from an empty board.

Well, IMO, it might belong in control. Paired for example with white or possibly white and black. You'd really want a card that helps recover quickly from a board wipe if board wipes are a part of your deck's plan.

My biggest doubt with my deck is if Aether Grid will be useful, because you will need a lot of artifacts to extract value from it and you dont want more than one copy. It is the biggest candidate for a change, maybe for more removal.

I agree with Gegliosch. I think Izzet artifacts has a slower game and more of a control focus than a conventional aggro deck. There are a lot of ways of using artifacts to directly cause damage, such as:

Ghirapur aether grid
Chandra's parents
The 3/3 ogre (which I don't like - should be a 4 drop)
Reclusive Artificer

If you get a draw with the foundry chief you might be able to outrace another deck, but normally I think you will be behind on board presence and focusing on cutting your opponents down to size. I want to try to run this with mostly standard red burn spells in order to stabilize the board early and combine with other sources of burn later in the game.

Running stuff like aether grid / thopter foundry requires set up time, but red has the best early removal in the game IMO. And if you combine all of this burn you have plenty of reach. Ultimately we will require playtesting in order to see how all of this works.

The problem is that all of these cards have poor internal synergies. They take a while to set up. I don't doubt the viability once everything is working, but getting there is hard. It's hard to compete given the opponent's cards tend to have strong internal synergies. If every one of the artificers were artifacts instead, the deck would be nuts.

Mycosynth lattice?

I don't see the problem here - the artificiers are no artifacts but they all come with 1 or 2 little buddies.

Wait till your opponent kills only your thopters and wrecks your synergy. It's happened to me. It Sucks. I'm also referring to the enchantments that do nothing on their own. It's harder to activate them than you might think. Not so much difficult, as not guaranteed.

so, izzet... i havent seen too many izzet spell based decks floating around so here is my take on one, i wanted to try to recreat the feel of the izzet burn from 2015 in deuls, so here's my izzet burn... kinda... deck
red
7 Mountains
4 Firey Impulse nice cheap spell to trigger prowess and chandra, while also being removal
4 Titans Strength good to combo with subterranian scout after prowess creature has unblockable
2 Abbot of the Keral Keep good prowess minion that has a late game use by allowing more cards to be played
4 Mage-Ring Bully strong prowess creature
3 Subterranian Scout good to combo with all prowes creatures in deck, can give them unblockable before you trigger prowess for the turn then can swing for alot
1 Chandra, Fire of Kaladesh good finisher, as she can provide lots of reach, also easy to flip
4 Act of Treason triggers prowess as well as removes blocker while giving you more damage

blue
6 Island
1 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy allows to reuse spells in the graveyard as well as fish for spells if you have only prowess in hand but need spells to finish
4 Disperse clears the way for your creatures as well as triggering prowess
3 Jhessian Thief strong prowess creature that can draw lots of cards to keep you in the game
3 Claustrophobia kind of like a permanent disperse
3 Anchor to the Æther forces opponents draw as well as clears path for your creatures
2 Soul Blade Djin great finisher in late game if the prowess alone isnt enough to push through

multicolor
4 Izzet Guildgate
2 Sulfer Falls

colorless
3 Rogues Passage

curve
8-14-14-0-2-0

16 creature
22 noncreature spells
22 lands

make sure to help me test the deck and tell me what you think as well as revisions!

I saw the name Roflcopter in an earlier post and decided to use that name for the Blue/Red deck I'm using. I play on iOS and have a full playset, so this deck is kid tested and mother approved. It has a lot of control that is incredibly versatile in this format. The burn spells easily adapt against aggro to halt their early board presence as well as direct damage to outpace control. Because the creatures in this deck usually drop some friends, the amount of early game board presence also can stop aggro, especially if Chief of the Foundry drops. But where this deck really outdoes aggro is the fact that is has a mid-late game draw engine that aggro simply can't match. Thopter Spy Network is a great card and easy to activate; yes, your opponent can stop your draw/token generation, but I tend to keep a Thopter Engineer or Whirler Rogue in my mid game hand against control decks with board clearing potential. My finisher is usually Exquisite Firecraft, Ravaging Blaze, Pia and Kiran Nalaar, or simply pecking them to death with Thopter tokens. So far I haven't gotten a ton of mileage from Artificer's Epiphany, mostly because I haven't been in a situation where I'd rather play it than another card. I was thinking about replacing it with Titan's Strength as a mid/late game combat trick to take out larger creatures (Perilous Myr could single block a 6 toughness creature and kill it off its ability). ...I think I just sold myself on it.

Here's the deck, let me know what y'all think and if you have any suggestions feel free to comment.

Roflcopter
Creatures
4 x Perilous Myr
3 x Chief of the Foundry
3 x Thopter Engineer
3 x Whirler Rogue
2 x Pia and Kiran Nalaar

Instants
4 x Titan's Strength
4 x Fiery Impulse
3 x Disperse
3 x Ravaging Blaze
3 x Twin Bolt

Sorcery
2 x Exquisite Firecraft

Enchantments
2 x Thopter Spy Network

Lands
2 x Foundry of the Consuls
2 x Sulfur Falls
4 x Izzet Guildgate
10 x Mountains
6 x Islands

15 x Creatures
21 x Spells
24 x Lands

Mana Curve: 8-13-8-7

Edit/Update: I had a chance to test the with Titan's Strength replacing Artificer's Epiphany and I was quite happy with the results. It does incredibly well against aggro and elves decks. The token production of this set-up ran circles around elves; they take longer to set up token generation and don't have the amount of supporting control. I encountered a couple of RDW decks, but because this deck generates tokens off of hard casting creatures, there's just more for them to deal with. Typically those games would level out with me between 10-14 health, but after that I would just run away with it. I'm also thinking about Jhessian Thief and Chandra, Fire of Kaladesh as options for a more control oriented build since this deck is going toe-to-toe with aggro just fine. I'm worried about control decks still as I haven't run into any. I feel like Mono Black would wreak havoc with their board clear, creature removal, and card draw.

I like it on paper. I had a feeling the Thopter theme would be a good base for spellheavy decks and I'm glad you can confirm that.

Greetings, champion of champions. I've a had fun run with my Rakdos build thus far, and am now interested in a "creature light" Izzet burn deck. This is what I have thus far:



This is simply a preliminary draft, I'll be playtesting and fine tuning it over the week and weekend. The basic premise is to control the board with instants and sorceries, make all of my opponents removal useless, Pseudo nuke the board if I must with Wave, then drop the Disciple with a **** ton of mana and graveyard spells necessary to win.

Thoughts, suggestions?

The deck looks like it's really hurting for a real board wipe.
Just at a cursory glance, I might suggest going American control instead.
I look forward to your testing reports.

Will do mate! I'm actually locked into a duel against a fairly clever Orzhov deck. Erebos's Titan is suddenly far more frightening.

I would recommend you get some early game stopping power/card advantage through Jhessian Thief. If she sticks around her prowess will scale as you get more spells down, replenishing your hand to constantly have your instants ready to control the board. Even a well placed Twin Bolt could change the board significantly in the early game with her out as a blocker.

Even in a control deck like this, I think Disciple of the Ring is too conditional to be a consistent win condition, not to mention you're only allowed to run one of them. What concerns me about this decklist is that your mid-late game finisher or win condition doesn't jump out at me. Also, I think you're really hurting by not having Perilous Myr. It's a wonderful answer to aggro decks and I pretty much include it in every deck. Soulblade Djinn could be your win condition; with the arsenal of spells you have as support the global prowess effect would really help. Djinn with the Thief would be a monster interaction, giving her +2/+2 each time you cast a spell. Pump cards like Titan's Strength would turn your 1/3 into a cruise missile aimed straight at your opponent's health. Of course, this scenario is also highly conditional, but on their interact well with the spells in the deck.

You might also want to look at Mono-Black as an option for control. 1)It has the creature removal and board wipes 2) Its draw engine is amazing 3) Its creatures have insane utility 4) The mechanics interact well together 5)Zombies.

Most decks I'm running into are Elf, Mono White, RDW, or Mono Black Control; I love the way this deck starts out aggro and finishes control, definitely my style of play. The key is to always have an answer to a board wipe if you know it's a possibility. Thopter Engineer with a Thopter Spy Network in play after a Languish took me to the finish line against a couple of control matchups.

I played 10 games with the decklist I posted and went 9-1; doubt that trend will remain forever, but I very much like how the deck can so quickly transition from aggro to control in the mid-game.

Thanks for the suggestions, all.



I'm actually trying to keep the build as free of creatures as possible. I don't like The Thief in this deck. She ends up being another target for Removal. In addendum, I find that I almost always have more than enough card advantage via non creature spells, such as Inspiration, Telling Time and Hydrolash. In extremely dire situations, I can also increase card advantage via Avaricious Dragon, which synergizes with the deck far better overall.



True, she's only a one of, however with countless scry and card draw I actually tutor into her reliably, precisely when I want her, which is the mid to late game.

She's far from conditional as well. Her hitting the board while I have a graveyard full of instants and sorceries, and a ton of untapped mana is almost always a game over. Once she lands, she answers the biggest problems we face. One mana puts her safely out of removal range, such as Reave Soul, Twin Bolt, Fiery Impulse, as well as countering anything and everything else. In addendum, she can grow to beat even a hasted Gaea's Revenge.



No. I don't need creatures which only serve to attack, or have utility of burn. The beauty of the deck is that opponents who pack kill spells are dead in the water, or are forced to use them on my Scryfishies. Perilous Myr is an average card at best, and doesn't belong in every deck, certainly not the build I'm going for.



Far from it. The Djinn is a weak toughness creature, which does nothing the turn it lands, and can be answered.



I'll check out MBC, but my Izzet build has been doing great as of late.

I've utilized this deck almost exclusively since I posted the build. My biggest issue was allowing myself to drop below ten life, before answering the biggest threats.

I've lost games where I thought 8 life would be fine, until Gaea's Revenge landed, knocking me out.

In addendum, I have learned not to cast out Disciple until I can safely afford to counter/ or pump everything.

However, overall this deck is **** fantastic. I **** love denying my opponents everything they cast, only to win by milling. I'd highly recommend this deck for fun times.

The downsides are that it can't be played at half attention (ie while watching television) because you will miss end of turn triggers, such as scrying. Also, most duels can take up to or over an hour, as the deck is very reactionary.

This is the most recent deck I dueled against, a run of the mill rakdos build.