I think if opponents have removal.. every card you would imagine running in Izzet would be removed instantly. Think about it.. if someone plays a Young Pyromancer, Rabblemaster, Kiln Fiend or Guttersnipe.. and you have red mana open and Shock in your hand.. you're gonna use it. Maybe not on Kiln Fiend right away to get the opponent to use spells to buff it.. but all those other guys.. yeah.. you're gonna Shock 'em.
By the Time Talrand hits the board.. opponent's removal will be taxed.
Hakeem your link to your izzet burn decklist is broken, and I am too lazy to do a search.
Izzet's problem is that it leans hard on a few creatures to get value. If your early kiln fiend / pyromancer are taken out you can be left with a handful of cheap spells but no way to take advantage of them. Talrand plays a different role in an aggressive izzet build than in a more controlling one. He doesn't need protection from removal if your opponent already spent their removal on kiln fiend, rabblemaster etc.
Again I don't know Hakeem's list, but kiln fiend, pyromancer and guttersnipe are only 10 creatures that get value from instants / sorceries. For an average draw that will probably be enough but sometimes you will draw less and sometimes you will face opponents packing heavy removal.
Joined: Oct 31, 2013 Posts: 7350 Location: Newfoundland
@HenWen, the link works fine for me.
About Talrand, the reason I don't play him is more about the than the four mana price tag, but I also get to play 21 lands since I don't have four-drops. I don't think the deck needs Talrand but I am not sitting here trying to convince anyone that it's a bad choice or anything. The card is solid and adds more resiliency to the deck, but I am choosing to be more aggressive and draw Rabblemasters instead.
It's possible that I should cut a Banefire for a single Talrand, though.
I'm making a new post for this deck because I've featured it on YouTube and I want to be able to link to it from there. The table will reflect any changes made after the recording of the deck tech.
I tried the link on 2 different computers, had problems on both, but I was able to find it manually and it looks like the same URL as your link. It is a mystery to everyone!
So this is a great deck that can have explosive starts and win on turn 4. I think Banefire needs to stay at 2x copies - it just scales so well. This deck wants spells that cost 1 so it can get enough spellcasting triggers for a big turn. This deck also wants burn finishers. Banefire is both.
The problem is too many cards that require you to have a board to work.
My prime candidate for a cut would be 1x skullcrack. It does offer significant advantage vs. lifegain, but that matchup is rare enough that I do not want to draw two copies of this card. It is just too easy to have a pyromancer die and be stuck with a hand of skullcrack, artful dodge, and coordinated assault.
I think the second card to cut would be coordinated assault. Between this and artful dodge you are at 6 cards that require a creature as a target, and I think artful dodge is just better since this deck wants evasion more than killing a blocker, plus artful dodge can be two spellcraft triggers if needed. I think if you wanted to keep coordinated assault at 3 copies you should add 2x Satyr hoplite, but I think that makes the deck lose focus.
Replacements I would want to test: 1 Fleeting Distraction - I want to max out on 1 mana spellcrafting triggers so that the deck can do maximum damage when the opponent is tapped out and undefended. 1 Void Snare - Not as good as vapor snag, but I like the idea of having access to 5 bounce spells. 1 Fling - Between kiln fiend and rabblemaster we have 6 creatures that can easily reach 6-7 power. 1 Talrand - for reasons previously stated.
Of these options I like void snare and talrand the most.
When I started out building decks it did not make much sense to cut cards to fewer than maximum copies, but as I have spent more time I think singletons can add a lot to the deck. E.g. the question isn't 4 void snares vs. 0 void snares, but how many bounce spells do we want. 80% of the time, void snare will be cast on your turn anyway to pump kiln fiend. Void snare isn't as good as vapor snag, but I think a split of 5 bounce / 2 skullcrack is better than 4/3.
Talrand would slow down the deck's most explosive draws, but if I am allowed to keep fiend and guttersnipe on the table then I can usually kill someone with extra cards in hand. I think having 11 spellcasting engines rather than 10 would improve the deck's consistency.
And I wondered if I could blend the fun bits of the two into an Izzet Dragons deck. After a bit of play testing I slowly took out most of the Dragons, because by the time I could safely cast them with a counterspell up I either already had a lock, or I was toast. So I tried to see if I could make Master of the Waves a playa.
Here is what I have ended up with. I could really use some advice on making it a bit more consistent. I have too many three drops, and the curve isn't right. But it is awfully fun to play and I'm winning about 70% of the time (on the ipad)
The workhorse of the deck seems to be the Goblin Electromancer who really help me get the draw and counters going early.
What I want from the deck is to be able to interact with the opponent's board, and disrupt their strategy until I can get my win-con established. The challenge is to survive the early game The fun is trying to disrupt their strategy, and having to make good choices about what to counter or steal or kill.
I'm keen for suggestions, that help me make it more consistent, without turning it into Izzet Burn. Kiln Fiend, Young Pyromancer, and Guttersnipe don't interact with the board enough for how I want the deck to play.
I don't know where to start.. I'd change quite a bit. I'd cut Roil Elemental, Warden AND Electromancer lol.. and add more burn/counters. 4x Negate is insane.. I'd cut to 2-3. Nullify belongs here in 3-4 copies. Some bounce is needed in case anything bad resolves. Talrand should be here FOR SURE. I also feel Counterlash is an under appreciated card.. Counterlash into Kozilek/Inferno Titan/Stormbreath/Master of Waves (with the right board) is a blowout. It's also sick with Hellkite..
By the end of the night.. she called me Stevolutionary.
It was because you were suppose to have a 90% win ratio.... and then spent the whole night explaining in great detail why the 10% was happening (sorry to hear you couldn't to get it up bro!).
Here is one of my 360 decks that has been working really well, but I have only been playing Magic for a few months so I am still kinda of new at it. Any advice/criticism is greatly appreciated, I am looking for people to duel with regularly since I really engoy Magic and I want to improve my dueling skills and my various deck builds. My 360 tag is MyTwiztedMind.
I think perhaps there is a better choice than Anger of the Gods and maybe even the Rockslide Elemental, however I am not good at that type of analyzation for building decks right now.
Rockslide elemental combos great with the Goblin rabblemaster, so that and the rest of your token production looks nice. I've been slacking on M15 lately. Darksteel Ingot seems out of place as personally I'd switch that out for a Travellers amulet or Armillary Capsule since you're running a 2 color deck.
Honestly you shouldn't need either in this sort of deck. You'd most likely be better off with more draw rather than fetching lands for an overpriced cost. 4x Think Twice is a given.
So I've been testing a lot of single and dual colour decks lately, and I've come to realize that red and blue are just the best colours in the game. Counterspells and draw are op against a ton of decks, so blue is awesome. Red has the best removal of any colour, and a lot of the sweetest bombs. So I thought I'd try a midrange deck with a reasonable curve and threats that require direct answers at every CMC. The opponent has to one for one your early threats or just die in a couple turns. (Rabblemaster/Ogre Battledriver I'm looking at you). If they don't have an answer that's the best for us, but if they do then we have a ton of draw and sweet bombs to play now that their single target removal is gone.
The combination of Cunning Sparkmage and direct damage spells can deal with tokens or mid-size creatures easily, so we don't even need to bother with Anger of the Gods and we smash aggro decks.
We're on the board first against slow decks. Backed up by Time warp/Counterspells we can close out games easily.
I haven't done too much testing yet, but the basic shell seems extremely powerful.
Edited with current list. The Electromancers had me chaining draw spells and blowing my hand quickly, but felt too low in value to justify the slot. Young Pyromancers are a much better fit overall, and allow me to run a Bident of Thassa for insane value. This deck is really interesting to play in that it can function as a control deck, a burn deck, or a tempo deck depending on your starting hand and the opponent's deck. We're a two colour deck with a lot of untapped land, so we can often sneak in a Pyromancer, Chasm Skulker, or Rabble Master before the more cumbersome multi-colour decks get a real creature down, after which we can lock out the game with counters, removal, Time Warp, and burn. Against the more aggressive token decks we can drop a token generator of our own, then start casting card draw and removal as we mop up their board and close out the game with a 6 drop. The trickiest match-up (beyond a Seance deck with the nut draw) is probably against Aura decks; if they manage to pump a single creature out of range of our burn we don't have an answer. The lack of hard removal is really making me consider dropping an inspiration or two for Vapor Snags.
I've since learned that the common name for this sort of deck is aggro-control, and they don't typically include 6 drops to close out the game. That said, I'm not convinced that dropping the top end for some Kiln Fiends or negates would make the deck better. We're a bit weak to Anger of the Gods as is, the 6 drops available to us are unreasonably powerful, and the deck already curves out well enough.
Last edited by Spencer on Wed Jul 01, 2015 5:37 pm, edited 5 times in total.
My first thought was "which sorceries are good with Quicken? The most interesting answer I found was with Act of Treason. Steal&Sac decks are pretty amazing when they work, but if they draw their Act of Treasons with no sac outlet they can fizzle out hard. Quicken can give Act of Treason value if we need it, or cycle and thin the deck if we don't.
What other interesting interactions do we have in a Red/Blue Sac deck? Jalira is another interesting one, being expensive and fragile, but the most powerful sac mechanic if she works. If we use her alongside Blasting Stations then we can have a powerful, unreliable outlet and a cheap, sturdy one. This means we have a really good chance of drawing at least one sac mechanic, and drawing both is okay too.
To fill up the rest of the deck we need a few big threats that we can Jalira into, and cheap token making spells so we have some early board presence and things to sac/blast away. And since we're making a ton of tokens but expecting the game to go a little longer, Switcheroo and Bident probably have some good value here.
This is where I'm at so far, but the list could probably use some work.
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The fun is trying to disrupt their strategy, and having to make good choices about what to counter or steal or kill.
