Did everyone forget the star young pyromancer and to add options military intelligence or that copy creature

Well yea, that's why Master of Waves is okay in some izzet decks. Might aswell include him. We're just saying he's not good enough (and definitely not consistent enough) to build an entire deck around.

I think people are looking at this the wrong way.

I don't think most of us tooling around with Master of Waves are really expecting it to be some great secret tech that needs to be built around or something. It is certainly a good card, but with the lack of good Devotion enablers, worthwhile Elementals, and only 1 copy, I think most of us that are trying to build around the card don't exactly think it's going to be ZOMG great or super consistent. I myself, and I assume most of the other folks tooling around with Master of Waves are just doing it because 2015 is rapidly reaching its shelf-life with Origins approaching, and the format has been pretty much been completely explored.

There really aren't many new places to go with the cards we have, at least ones that haven't already been beaten like a dead horse. Some of us are just looking to try and find something new to build/play. Combine this with the fact we recently got these new cards and what better way to try and do something new than to try and somehow make the most of something new we got. Much in the same way that a bunch of people have started building Jalira, Master Polymorphist decks since the inclusion of Darksteel Colossus. A single copy of Darksteel Colossus really doesn't make Jalira that much better or more consistent than it already was beforehand (read: It wasn't that great or consistent before Colossus, and still really isn't). You see more and more people doing it though, because it is just something new to do, and an excuse to use the new cards in some fashion other than just tacking them onto a pre-existing build.

I also don't think it is completely terrible to build around Master of Waves even as a 1 of. It obviously isn't going to be very consistent, but if the deck is decent enough to get by without it, than consistency (at least in terms of Master) isn't going to be that much of an issue.

I totally feel like a aggro deck built around trying to get your Devotion up can work, mostly because aggro decks can work decently on their own merit without Master, and it is just gravy when it does get it.

I feel similarly about the Elemental deck I posted. The deck it was based off of actually works rather well (Cloudfin Raptor is actually really good with Hellspark Elemental and Brackwater Elemental, easily getting up to being a 4/5 within a couple of turns because of the Elementals high power for their cost, and Unearth allowing you to trigger Evolve multiple times per a single card).

The deck was already running the full suite of Unearth Elementals and Young Pyromancer anyways. Not much of a reason not to include the card when the deck was already mostly built around it before Master of Waves was even a card we had access to.

I don't think anyone trying to build around cards like Master of Waves, or Jalira, or whatever think it is going to be Tier 1 by any stretch of the imagination. We are just doing it because we really just don't have anything better to do until Origins hits haha!

I decided in my version of the deck, (ele)mental, to cut the 3 peels for 3x artful dodge

Here, here! I know one poster to this forum was working for a while on tribal wolves. Obviously never tier 1, but still worth discussion.

I know the top tier decks in this format, and the most powerful cards that make these top tier. I am interested now in things like our discussion of Warp World. Monk's deck still only really wins 50% for me, but it's hella fun.

really warpworld... it's a bugged card

"Quietly wonders if you are talking about me here"

My Selesnya Wolf Tribal deck is actually pretty solid. >.>

Which is kind of my point. The deck really started by being built around Raised by Wolves and just went from there, and its actually pretty good too!

Back on topic, after some more testing with my Izzet list, it actually works decently. As I pointed out before, Cloudfin Raptor is awesome with the Unearth Elementals. In a lot of cases, if you get a Cloudfin Raptor down on T1 and can follow the next turn or two up with Unearth creatures, you are often in a pretty good situation. Of course it folds pretty hard to Raptor eating removal, since the Unearth creatures don't stick around, but the deck can honestly Evolve Raptor fast enough to put it out of range of most early game removal within the first couple of turns and most of the more expensive removal is too slow to kill Raptor before it has already done a significant amount of damage.

At this point I think the Rockslide Elemental isn't worth it. I wanted to mess around with it because of it being an Elemental, and it's capability to grow to be huge with all the tokens around to sac and Unearth creatures who sac themselves.

It just wasn't worth it though, it is often too slow to get up to being a big enough threat to actually do something, even with all the support around it (tokens+Unearth), it doesn't Evolve Cloudfin Raptor, and tends to fold pretty hard to bounce/removal. Goblin Rabblemaster is still the superior choice IMO. Was worth checking out at least IMO.

From what I've seen in a deck where rabblemaster is the only goblin and with the elementals that sac themselves rockslide is at least on par with rabblemaster especially when facing other aggro decks the card becomes especially insane in one game versus a boros tokens deck it wa able to get to a 10/10

This is a fair point, I feel like Rockslide Elemental may take too long to get up and running though. The deck has the potential to make it huge with all the tokens and Unearth creatures available, that is for sure, and it IS an Elemental for Master.

I just don't know if it is worth it. Rabblemaster starts swinging in for usually around 3-4+ the turn after it is played, which really helps with a deck like this that is really relying on getting there fast. Rockslide will almost never be in a position to trigger Evolve on Raptor, and most of the time I would rather be playing other things that either do, or put the opponent on a significant clock the following turn when it can start attacking in immediately. It also is yet another card in the deck that will fold hard to bounce. Someone Bouncing an Evolved Raptor to remove all the counters can slow the deck down considerably, and Rockslide suffers from the same problem, while also lacking real evasion and being more expensive to initially cast.

Rockslide also pushes the deck to wanting to play it before your Unearth creatures to get the most out of them (getting a +1/+1 counter vs. not). This means either waiting till after T3 to play them (in which case you may be gimping Raptor) or playing out the game plan as usual and just accepting the loss of value.

I will say that in the testing I did Rockslide DID make an excellent blocker because of First Strike. Something this deck tends to lack (since most of the time everything you have you want to be attacking with when possible rather than blocking or otherwise get saced when they block so you don't want to be blocking too often). This may have some merit. The issue I have with this though is that since the deck is already so "all in" on attacking every turn possible, I think it is probably just better to keep with the theme rather than trying to run cards that are effective blockers (aka Rabblemaster vs. Rockslide).

On that note, I am considering messing around with a card I had used in my old Izzet Unearth+Evolve build. Phantasmal Dragon. A 5/5 with evasion for 4 isn't terrible, even with the Illusion targeting weakness. It triggers Evolve well, and contains to help enable Devotion pretty well also. Again the big issue here is that weakness to removal.

The decks biggest weakness overall is that many of the more threatening cards the deck runs tend to be pretty weak to bounce and cheap removal. Combine this with Unearth creatures not sticking around and you end up with the potential to stall out at times. Even Rabblemaster tends to have this issue, but I feel like Rockslide and Phantasmal Dragon both tend to be a little softer than Rabblemaster because of their weakness to bounce.

I know the weakness inherent to the deck could be worked out, but I feel like for something like this they are sort of worth the risk. Running cheap threats like Raptor and creatures that don't really do much to progress your board position (Unearth) certainly makes the deck stall out at times, but it also has the potential to get there off very little.

An opening hand of Raptor+Hellspark+Brackwater is often enough to get there by itself, with no other interactions or cards being spent, assuming Raptor doesn't eat removal within the first 2-3 turns.

T1: Island, Raptor.

T2: Mountain, Hellspark, trigger Evolve (Raptor becomes a 1/2), attack for 4. Opponent at 16.

T3: Any Basic Land, Brackwater, trigger Evolve (Raptor becomes a 2/3). Attack for 2. Opponent at 14.

T4: Unearth Hellspark, trigger Evolve (Raptor becomes a 3/4), attack for 10. Potential 2 mana still open, opponent at 4.

T5: Unearth Brackwater, trigger Evolve (Raptor becomes a 4/5), attack for 8. Potential 2 mana still open, opponent at -4.

A potential T5 kill off of 3 total mana and 3 total cards isn't anything to sneeze at. Especially when we are running stuff like Shock and Vapor Snag to help push that damage through with that extra mana we have open.

Early cheap removal and an abundance of bounce can certainly pose an issue, but I think it is worth it for the potential it has when it gets to do its thing unfettered.

another problem I've noticed is that lifegain (esspecially of the orzhov style) tends to bend you over and call you sally... which I'd normally be okay with but why are you calling me sally thats not my name arsehole

This is the funniest thing I've read on here in a long time.

I must be dropping the ball as of late then

I thought the same thing....

elk

Nah you're just a known commodity, the bar is really high for you.

Must.... leave.... alone....

i hate this badly programmed game... i just lost to a guy because i could not pause timer to counter his infernor titan. let me rant please ... -.-'

whats worse is being unable to play a land

Hakeem's Dimir Unearth deck.

or hakeems 21 land draw 7 lands out of 13 from you top deck pro plays. classic.

ok i won 4 games in a row again. i am in a good mood again. whew... still hate this game for it's programming qq