Thanks man.

I've been remiss in not posting my thanks for inventing/posting out this deck. I've been playing it and have gone on a tear with it.

It's fast and brutal and in roughly 30+ games I've gone maybe 30-4 total?

It's an amazing build.

great for the guttersnipe achievement too

Your friend happen to be Hakeem? This is a card for card copy of his deck he has posted on this very page and the deck he is doing for his deck tech on his YouTube channel right now.

Yes, I am referring to and thanking Hakeem.

Note that my original post has the quote "Hakeem928 wrote" and then his Izzet burn build. I requoted his build to make it clear which build and to whom I was referring to

Thanks Carbon, it's a fun deck for sure. Catches a lot of opponents with their pants down when they tap out on T4/5. How do you feel about Talrand? I used to have Act of Treason in that slot and I'm not sure which is better, but I'm actually leaning back toward Act of Treason.

Also how has Banefire been for you? It's been suggested to me that it probably isn't necessary and that could be correct but I'm not so sure.

@Hakeem - it's definitely an extremely fun deck.

Re: Talrand - I actually noticed the change only when I posted above so I have yet to try it out. I will try tonight, but offhand I would lean towards Act of Treason as being better. My logic - from playing a mono blue deck with Talrand, Talrand is a clear "Kill On Sight, No Matter What" card to a good player and w/o gods willing, he usually doesn't last long. By contrast, Act of Treason by it's nature is a surprise and I find many people are relatively relaxed against a Kiln Fiend as long as they have a blocker in play.
Thus why I think Treason is so successful.

But, I will swap out and see how it plays.


Re: Banefire - That has been great and I would not want to play without it. It's completely scalable and that's it's biggest strength - from a 1 hit just to trigger Kiln Fiend to taking out a 4 power blocker to a 5 card punch to the face (assuming enough mana). That flexibility is important imo vs. having a fixed 2 or 3 damage burn card.

As you likely saw I added it in to Eon's Boros Kiln Fiend build for that reason. So I personally wouldn't remove that card from your deck.

Btw - nice videos of your Izzet Burn in action on your YT channel! Just saw those last night.

@Hakeem I've been enjoying the vids of your Izzet Control deck.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cW6_myQdFDE

Hi there, I'm loving the deck and the gameplay - nice commentary.

I don't know whether to post my question here or in the video comments. I guess it depends on where you prefer the traffic.

I'm interested in what you left out, and why? I suggest including a a bit of discussion on the Deck tech videos of what you trialled and replaced.

For this deck, I was curious about the lack of "goblin electromancer". Wouldn't that make the deck go faster? And give you chump blockers if necessary.

Also how about Guttersnipe as a third win con, and with its versatile indirect damage?

Cheers

Nish

You can comment wherever is best for you, I'll see it either way.

About Electromancer, most of my spells don't actually benefit from it. It only reduces a spell's colorless mana requirements so spells like Shock, Vapor Snag, Artful Dodge etc. don't get a cost reduction at all. This deck doesn't need chump-blockers because it is the aggressor in almost every matchup. The other reason to exclude it is that the deck wants to run as many spells as possible so the only creatures in the list are the high-impact ones that win the game. Electromancer doesn't do that.

As far as Guttersnipe, he's in the deck.

Thanks for watching.

Hey Hakeem!

You know that deck you were messing around testing the other night? The Dimir build that used Unearth to trigger Evolve and a bunch of fliers?

I was mussing around earlier trying to find a way to make Evolve really work. I think you were on the right track with Unearth! I just think you were in the wrong colors. Izzet seems to be where you want to be.

I just threw this together and it seems to be stable enough to really start to do some REAL testing on. Check it out.

Sorry, this is dumb.

Forums decided to bug out and repeat my last post a ton for some reason.

Would delete these posts if I could, but it doesn't seem there is an option for me to do so, so I am just editing them.

The forums apparently hate me. Best I can do for now is edit these with my ordeals so others can laugh at my pain.

Maybe a lovely Mod could come in here and clean this up for me. I would do it myself, but nope, nothing can ever just be easy

An update on the Izzet Evolve+Undying deck that Hakeem inspired me to mess around with. Hopefully this time it doesn't repeat my post 20 million times.

You could be right that Izzet is better because Hellspark is much more aggressive than Viscera Dragger. The loss of Strix hurts, though. Anyway, onto some comments!

What is Quickling really doing for you here? You don't want to bounce the Raptors and everything else is just too expensive so your 2/2 flier comes out too late. I'm also not sold on Niblis of the Breath, the card is just too slow. Jalira looks oddly out of place, as well.

I would definitely want three Military Intelligence and some more two-drop creatures. Goblin Shortcutter could be good to turn Brackwaters into burn spells and let you swing through Baneslayers.

-3 Quickling
-3 Niblis of the Breath
-2 Jalira

+1 Vapor Snag
+4 Goblin Shortcutter
+3 Military Intelligence

Thoughts?

Hellspark is indeed pretty awesome with Evolve.

I actually sort of like the Quicklings here. 4 mana to get a 2/2 flyer and get another activation out of hellspark elemental isn't terrible. The mana is less important with the Brackwater Elemental as well since they don't sac until they attack/block and even then not till EoT. Meaning you can T3 Brackwater> T4 attack for 4 then cast Quickling to bounce it back into your hand and leave a 2/2 behind with 2 mana still up. With a Brackwater Elemental in hand that can still be used again 2 times (cast and attack again, then Unearth and attack again) which also leads to a potential 3 Evolve triggers. They also work well with Pestermite and at the worst allow us to make some tricky blocks if we have to.

I have found them to be relatively useful as a means of saving Raptors as well. Yeah, we prefer not to bounce them because we lose all our +1/+1 counters, but when the alternative is having it go to the GY or get exiled, the tradeoff isn't bad. Especially since the deck has plenty of means of getting a Raptor back up to being respectable and they only cost

I considered Shortcutter, and that may actually not be a bad idea here. I noticed there aren't a whole lot of good 1-2 drops creatures in red and blue outside of what we are already running, at least ones that don't require building around (like Kiln Fiend or Triton Shorestalker).

Jalira was a recent addition, mostly included because I liked the interaction with her and the Unearth creatures. Attack with Hellspark/Brackwater then sac into a another creature, then the following turn Unearth, attack, and sac into a free creature is a pretty tasty scenario. This does take quite a bit of mana to do though (5-6) and may just be a bit too slow to be worth it. The idea of sacing into Hellspark isn't appealing either.

Not sure how I feel about Niblis.

They have been helpful to push damage through with their ability, and as a generic 2 power flier they do the trick well enough. They ARE somewhat slow to tap things down, but a lot of what seems to make this deck work is the abundance of fliers. There aren't a ton of great defenses against a huge rush of fliers in the game currently.

I have noticed that removal tends to get stretched thin when an opponent has to deal with a large rush of fliers. Raptors and the Dragons have to be answered quickly or they kill you. Pestermites and Niblis pose much less of a threat, but still represent 2 points of evasion damage and also give us some utility in getting attacks through or locking creatures down. Quicklings helps serve this purpose as well, while even further helping to stretch removal thin by blanking it by bouncing our creatures.

I do like the suggestion of Military Intelligence though and I do think you may be correct about Jelira just being too slow and derpy.

-2 Jalira
-1 Niblis

+3 Military Intelligence

Gonna try this out some later tonight.

Fair point on the Quicklings, but I still think the deck is too heavy on the three-drops without enough action on T2. There's not a whole lot of decent options in these colors, though.

Thanks for the reply @Hakeem928.

I was actually referring to your Izzet Control deck. What are your thoughts on the Guttersnipe and Electromancer in the control version?

Cheers

Nish