I think your link is busted, just takes me to this page

It does take you to this page, but just give it a chance to load and it will take you directly to my post.

I thought Peezy would go great in the current Izzet blitz variants, the Turn 4 aggro izzet kiln fiend decks, but I have found it very lack luster and slow. turn 2 i really rather stick fiend and build for the turn 4 kill if available. when turn 3 and 4 comes along i throw out snags and shocks and strand Peezy in the grip. Say the fiend kill isn't there. Guttersnipe has always been the fall back plan. guttersnipe + spell is 2 damage, where peez plus spell is a dude. that may get in for 1 next turn but more than likely not. perhaps if more relevant 0 and 1 mana spells were on duals he would shine brighter in the izzet blitz deck.
However i've busted him in Jeskia blink (deck list may come soon!!), where you can now combo off a turn earlier. and when your combo'n off. a 1/1 vs a 2/2 makes no matter when there infinite. Currently my favorite home for him

I've yet to try him in the talrand WC control decks. If anybody has any experience with him in control decks i'd listen. i'm curious if you prefer him along side talrand, or replaces talrand, or didn't like him at all. -

Rants and experiences from Johnny

I play him in Izzet control now and he's good, he buys a ton of time against the aggro decks. Killing a War Monk by Shocking it after attacks are declared then blocking with two tokens is pretty strong. He creates chumps against aggressive decks and swarms the slower ones. I'll post my updated Izzet control list soon, I was playing it extensively last night.

and are you partnering with Talrand?

Absolutely. Here is what I was playing last night:



The single T-Visions was a Time Warp, but I think running Visions as the 25th land that doubles as a hard counter is better. Warp was only good if you were ahead, when behind it was just Explore.

Pyromancer is great at both buying time against aggro and applying pressure to opposing control/midrange decks. He's good here.

how often does a random enchantment slip through the cracks and kill you?, Ascension, the Garruk draw one, accord, alara, even sanquin bond. On the draw you can't always counter a turn 3 ascension or in my opinion worse the Garruk draw 1 (sorry i can't think the name). I like to run a 1x void snare in these izzet builds, i know it's a 2 for 1. but that's why i ask. I'm assuming its so rare your not wasting a card spot on it and just taking your medicine if they stick one. the Garruk draw 1 scares me in the builds, especially with tempo cards like voyages end. I lose more often to that on turn 3 than ascension

It didn't happen to me last night, but with three Negates and three Dissolves I have a lot of early answers. Nullify also counters Auras, so if you can't Shock an Armored Ascension target you can counter the Ascension itself.

I don't tap out for Pyromancer unless I'm playing against aggro without an Anger in hand, so I tend to always have mana up in the early game. You could just cut T-Visions for the fourth Negate if you're worried about it, but I like having the extra hard counter that helps me fix for Anger and lets me keep a loose two-lander. I mean, if it beats you it beats you. I really don't like Void Snare but it could be the right call.

oh no i know armored ascension is easy game, voyajes end to reset back-up plan, i meant beast master ascension my arguement was if your 2nd land has to come in tapped you can't counter 3rd turn 3 drop spells on the draw. and those 2 enchantments were the ones on 3 i don't want to stick

So.. the conversation in the 'Let's talk about cards' thread got me thinking about how to actually get decent value out of Utvara Hellkite. My tiny brain could only think of one way.. Counterlash. Before the DLC.. Kozliek was the only card really worth Counterlashing out in my opinion. I think Utvara Hellkite also is worth it and here's why: They both add 12 power to the board for your 6 mana investment. When you cheat out Hellkite, your opponent is likely going to be tapped out or close to tapped out. Hellkite will enter on their turn, allowing you to untap, attack right away to generate your first 6/6 token, and protect the whole thing with counter magic. If he and his token both stick for the next turn.. its GG. 24 power in the air is too much for pretty much any deck to come back from. The other option is the cheat out Kozilek and annihilate their ass off, while drawing a bunch of cards.

So.. yeah. Jam Young Peezy when you can protect him, use his tokens to generate pressure or give a large presence of chump blockers, use Anger of the Gods if Peezy isn't in your hand. Those represent your 5 early answers to aggro. Then.. just play Izzet control until you can get some bombs online. Mahamoti Djinn and Soul of Ravnica are just bodies.. but they stop Baneslayer. block well and hit hard. Shivan Dragon is better than I thought. By the time you cast it.. you can add another 4-5 damage of firebreathing to it's attack power. It really generates a lot of damage if unanswered. Siege Dragon still sucks though.. and I can't slot Phantasmal Dragon because it dies to a paper cut. That just leaves us with God-tier Stormbreath Dragon as the only other viable dragon. Inferno Titan needs no explaination.

The deck plays pretty well. Lots of instants and play on your opponent's end step. I'd like some bounce effects or ways to kill bombs (namely Terra Stomper).. but I don't know what I'd cut for enough of them. I know I can drop 1 Nullify.. but after that.. I dunno. I really want to keep the full suite of draw cards.. they are imperative to getting to 6+ mana.

I'd love input from the community. You guys are awesome!

Phantasmal Dragon may die to a paper cut, as you say, but your opponent usually still has to spend a card to do it. He hits really hard for his cost if not answered but if you want to play control then tapping out on four feels bad. Timberwatch Elf is in the pool now, too, and that would just be embarassing.

Overall I think you have too many expensive bombs but if you cut some then the value of Counterlash goes way down. Have you thought about Temur and just ramping into Dragons while playing Ground Assault? Genesis Hydra could dig up the Hellkite, too.

That was actually where the deck started.. and it was for Cultivate, Ground Assault and some of the good green creatures. But.. the mana was bad.. really bad. My buddy and I sat there each playing the deck, talking about our opening hands, draws, etc. We both had issues getting double blue for counters, double red for Anger and triple green for Pelakka Wurms/Arbor Colossus/Terra Stomper. We also felt that.. in that deck there was no point in counterlashing out those creatures.. bc at that point we could just hard cast them and do the green stompy thing. I was also tapping out a bunch hardcasting them.

Believe it or not.. getting into the range to cast the expensive bombs wasn't hard. There's a lot of draw in the deck.. I was able to hit my land drops consistently. I was also able to completely shut down my opponent with the early Izzet Control scheme.

I can't see cutting creatures bc there's only 12 in the deck.. but.. I'm interested to hear what you'd cut. There were games where I didn't draw a creature except Young Pyromancer until turn 9-10.. but I still won those games. The Djinn and the Firebreather were both good. I never drew Soul of Ravnica.. but it's a pretty decent card here I imagine. FWIW.. the Firebreather was a better card than the Djinn.

If you wanna shuffle some of the creatures/spells around.. I'm all ears. Just.. try to squeeze in a few Vapor Snags or Voyage's Ends.. I really feel they're needed.

Well my whole point of going into Temur was to hardcast the creatures rather than try to cheat them into play with a six-mana counterspell. Actually, if you don't like Phantasmal Dragon then I suggest just playing Gruul ramp into bombs. You could maybe splash a little black for Auger Spree and to cycle Resounding Thunder and you could play Sparkmages against the aggro decks. I actually think Sparkmage has gone up a ton in value since Pyromancer joined the pool.

My whole point is that I'd rather play removal than counterspells because it's easier to just tap out for your bombs and deal with the board after you untap.

What removal is there that is so great though besides Ground Assault? I mean.. don't get me wrong, I love the card and I'd like to have its effect in every deck I play.. but after that, its slim pickings. Augur Spree is good bc it handles the 4-toughness-trio of Brimaz, Wooly Thoctar and Rhox War Monk.. but aside from them, Resounding Thunder does the job.The reason I'm so high on the Counter plan is bc if you cheat out Kozi or Hellkite its GG pretty much on the spot.. and counter magic hits threats of all sizes not named Terra Stomper. If there was a Temur tri-land the mana issues would make that build much more viable.. but.. man that mana was rough with just gates.

Why do you feel Sparkmage went up in value? Bc he counters Young Pyromancer or bc he works well with him?

But for Counterlash to work, you have to draw it and you need to have a game-ending bomb in hand and you need your opponent to cast a creature spell. That's a lot of "and"s.

I think if you want to ramp into bombs then you have Ground Assault, Auger Spree, and Resounding Thunder as amazing removal spells along side Anger of the Gods. That feels like a spicy package to me.

As far as Sparkmage, I like him because he kills Pyromancer on sight. He was always good in the token matchups but he's even better now.

I am currently working on the below list to take advantage of military intelligence and young pyromancer. Has anyone tested this idea. Here is my current list, it is more built for speed but I could see a version with counter spells.

Looks like it could be pretty effective. Not entirely sure how I feel about taking T2 off to play Military Intelligence when you are looking to be so aggressive, but it seems like it has a potential to end up drawing a metric butt load of cards which could very well be worth taking that time.

I also really like all the interaction with Foundry Street Denizen, with Pyromancer, Krenko's Command, and Rabblemaster all having the potential to buff it up a ton. I feel something like this could cause some serious headaches for people.

Intelligence isn't a two-drop, you cast it after you develop your board then just sacrifice tokens to draw cards. Seems pretty sweet.

Fair point, but the sooner you get Intelligence online the sooner you start drawing into those cards. Being aggressive means you want to be attacking in as often as possible. How many tokens are we going to have sacced already before we get Intelligence up and online?

I feel like there is a lot of potential in this though. As usual Monk bringing out good ideas.