How about Unsubstantiate? It gives you some interaction that you might need here and there and it's similar to Dispel at protecting your threats, but protects against more stuff. You probably want to go to 22 lands if you go that route, though.

I've gone to 22 already, missing landdrops is bad. I've been thinking about unsubstantiate myself, it deserves some testing. My worries are that it is harder to leave 2 mana open on turns with multiple pumps and that it does not help when your opponent can pay for the instant twice.

After hours of testing I settled on this:

Creatures (17)
4x Umara Entangler
4x Mage-Ring Bully
2x Abbot of Keral Keep
3x Stormchaser Mage
2x Jori En, Ruin Diver
2x Bedlam Reveler

Instants & Sorceries (19)
4x Titan's Strength
4x Rush of Adrenaline
4x Slip Through Space
4x Expedite
3x Telling Time

Enchantments (2)
2x Fevered Visions

Land (22)
10x Mountain
8x Island
2x Sulfur Falls
2x Wandering Fumarole

I tried triple pumps and it didn't impress me. You can absolutely not get away with dropping the card draw. I had so many games where I had my creatures removed repeatedly and ended up topdecking. That's a very bad place to be and any card draw engine would've won me those games.

Telling Time is actually amazing for the deck. It can dig for missing pieces or chain into more cantrips/draws with enough mana. With an empty hand you can find your card draw engines faster. And so on... it's always useful for something.

So, by now I'm pretty sure double pumps and max draw is the best you can do in a completely non-interactive prowess deck. If that's the best approach is another question. There are times when a Dispel, Unsubstantiate or Fall of the Titans would be quite handy, but I don't think they outperform Telling Time over a high number of games.

Dispel is a dead card against some decks. And if your opponent plays a lot of instant removal, you need a miracle anyway – 2 copies of Dispel are unlikely to make much of a difference. Your best bet in those matchups is actually Fevered Visions to slowly burn them out while they can't afford to tap out and get something going of their own. Or play enough creatures until they eventually run out of removal. Either way, I think card draw trumps counters more often than not.

Fall of the Titans is a card that mainly shines in a delayed damage race. If your opponent has a super aggressive draw, you don't have the mana fast enough, so you can only try to outrace him. Against a slower deck with 2-3 toughness creatures, it's very good, but the most efficient way to beat a slower opponent is to win fast enough and you don't need the card for that.

If you wanna add burn for defense, you should probably go straight for Izzet burn and add the best Prowess stuff, not the other way around.

I missed you!

Hey, you're doing me wrong, I've never been advocating non-interactive decks for the sake of it. I just like to streamline the strategy as best I can. When I mill, I MILL! Forget plan B... if your plan A isn't good enough, improve it!

Just pray that I never acquire a liking for pure control decks, because those games would probably take hours.

Have you tried Borrowed Hostility instead of Rush of Adrenaline? The first Strike could sometimes save a blocked attacker better than the +1 toughness and the extra point of damage on an unblocked creature could make a difference. I know trample is good but +2/+1 always seems a little too weak for me...

Its been a while since I've played "classic" prowess, but I may revisit it soon.

I have gone with a very similar deck but have opted out the 2 Jori En, Ruin Diver and instead added in 2 Niblis of Frost and am enjoying the deck. I find tapping everything the opponent or opponent more helpful than the card draw on Jori. Works even better in 2HG which I enjoy.

Izzet Deck Wins

2 x Dispel
4 x Rush of Adrenaline
4 x Titan's Strength
4 x Expedite
2 x Clutch of Currents
4 x Slip Through Space

4 x Umara Entangler
2 x Abbot of Keral Keep
4 x Mage-Ring Bully
3 x Stormchaser Mage

1 x Jori En, Ruin Diver
2 x Fevered Visions

2 x Bedlam Reveler

9 x Island
11 x Mountain
2 x Sulfur Falls

I have tried them in addition to Rush and I never used them to kill something on the swing. Getting the damage in takes priority over killing stuff or keeping my creatures alive. So when I see no way to get through, I usually wait for better opportunities. They're decent when things go wrong and you need to block something. However, on the offense I prefer the trample, even if that means I only trade, but get a chunk of damage through.

Alright; it's time for me to give this deck the love it deserves. I posted it on my archive early, didn't talk too much about it; but this list has been my failsafe for the last two and a half weeks. And when I consider a wonky idea like Mill to be a candidate for my most reliable deck, that should definitely raise the alarm.
Between this and Wintervoid's Jeskai "Inevitability" deck, I believe Mill definitely found a home in the higher tiers of the EMN meta.

Enough talk; here's my write-up for Izzet Mill.

The decklist:
[spoiler]Creatures (3):
1 x Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
2 x Thing in the Ice

Planeswalkers (2):
1 x Jace, Unraveler of Secrets
1 x Chandra, Flamecaller

Enchantments (9):
2 x Imprisoned in the Moon
2 x Oath of Jace
3 x Sphinx's Tutelage
2 x Fevered Visions

Instants and Sorceries (22):
4 x Galvanic Bombardement
4 x Take Inventory
3 x Telling Time
3 x Geistblast
2 x Collective Defiance
2 x Talent of the Telepath
3 x Pore over the Pages
1 x Part the Waterveil

Lands (24):
6 x Island
5 x Mountain
2 x Wandering Fumarole
2 x Sulfur Falls
1 x Geier Reach Sanitarium
4 x Highland Lake
4 x Evolving Wilds



Basic idea of the deck
The deck's basic idea is to win by emptying your opponent's library with Sphinx's Tutelage. The card draw in this deck provides you with both a fast Tutelage clock as well as access to answers for your opponent's threats.


In-depth card explanations:

Creatures:
Jace, Vryn's Prodigy does an amazing job in this deck, looting to find your win-cons/smooth your draws early, flashing back good spells or helping to stall the game late. His planeswalker modes do exactly what a mill deck wants.

Thing in the Ice mostly acts as early protection against aggressive strategies. Seeing how they have to respect and deal with it it slows them down by quite a bit.
It can also serve as an alternate win-condition, though that case has been pretty rare for me.


Planeswalkers:
Jace, Unraveler of Secrets is in here for power level - +1 to find the cards you need and mill faster, -2 for protection and tempo. His ultimate is not a win-con by itself, but it definitely helps the deck as the other win-cons are harder to stop that way.

Chandra, Flamecaller does exactly what this deck wants - wipe the board and look for answerd while milling the opponent for a lot. Her +1 also represents an alternate win condition.


Enchantments:
Imprisoned in the Moon is a card that has seriously impressed me. I think this is the second best removal spell in the game currently; only second to Anguished Unmaking. This locks away the biggest threat for this deck; be it a resolved Ulamog the Ceaseless Hunger, a troublesome planeswalker like Gideon, Ally of Zendikar or a Westvale Abbey.
Another thing to note in its favour is that most decks don't run a ton of enchantment removal; but this deck has 7 (!) premiere targets for that; at some point the opponent might have to make a painful choice.

Oath of Jace is this deck's support enchantment. Drawing three helps you find what you need early and mills the opponent later. The scry if you control a Walker is icing on the cake, but it is relevant at times.

Sphinx's Tutelage is this deck's main win condition - and it's a good one. It always represents a clock that has to be dealt with, and it's not that easy to interact with it.

Fevered Visions is a very helpful card; an alternate win-condition that synergizes with your main one and helps you dig through the deck. Also, it demands the same answers as your main win-condition does, which is relevant at times.


Instants & Sorceries
Galvanic Bombardment is in here for early protection in the aggro match-ups and as an instant-speed answer to some problematic creatures like Tireless Tracker before they get out of hand. A big mark in its favour is that it scales quite well ove rthe course of the game, being able to deal 4 or sometimes even 5 damage later to take out even some big threats.

Take Inventory is a great source of card advantage that can get out of hand very quickly. Being as cheap as it is, this can easily get cast alongside a Tutelage or as a follow-up to a Pore Over the Pages later; enabling very fast mills. Also, it's great for digging for your Tutelages.

Telling Time does not synergize with your win-conditions, but its sheer utility makes it good enough for this deck. It helps you smooth your draws, dig for your win conditions and set up your plan for the next couple turns.

Geistblast's main purpose is getting into the graveyard (most commonly by being discarded, but it can double down as removal if needed) and copy a high-impact spell from there. Some examples for great targets are a late-game Take Inventory, Collective Defiance or Talent of the Telepath - and there is always the dream of forking Part the Waterveil.

Collective Defiance has incredible flexibility and doubles down as a removal spell for creatures, a way to pressure planeswalkers and a great way to mill the opponent (more effective with, but also possible without Tutelage).
One thing to note is that if you copy an Escalate spell, you'll choose the same modes you chose when escalating it; this can lead to some very nasty turn 7 or 8.

Talent of the Telepath is a very nice hard-mill spell for the times your opponent was able to deal with your Tutelage - this provides a nice alternate way to mill your opponent.
It can also help you find answers for opposing threats that you don't run in your deck (especially helpful in control match-ups or the Mill mirror).

Pore Over the Pages is my draw spell of choice. Out of the options presented it is the best one to copy with Geistblast I think, and it is the most mana-efficient one (especially since this deck can have a hard time reaching Delirium for Scour the Laboratory).

Part the Waterveil is just a good card that works with many of your win-conditons, is sometimes a win-condition on its own, and it's backbreaking when copied with Geistblast. An extra turn is always extremely powerful; even moreso in a mill deck that tries to race opponents.


Manabase:
24 lands seem like a good number considering this deck needs some mana to get going, but can patch up its manabase really well thanks to many draw spells.
This deck is very colour-hungry and thus runs all the fixing available to us. A slight nod is given to Blue due to this deck generally needing it more early.
The only utility land we run aside from Wandering Fumarole is a singleton Geier Reach Sanitarium, which sometimes gets used to accelerate mill or find action if you got flooded. Most of the time it's on mana duty though; which is why I did not include the second copy, which doesn't work too wellwith the first one due to Legend rule.

Did you try esper mill? It's more grindy, but has answers to almost anything.

I'm running Esper Control, but I believe Esper is better off with win conditions other than mill. On the other hand, I like Red's support to mill decks - cheap removal, the ability to combo with Geistblast and three powerful multi-purpose spells in Chandra and the two copies of Collective Defiance.

If I wanted a more grindy mill deck, I'd look at Jeskai for Nahiri, Blessed Alliance and the boardwipes.

I agree, Izzet offers a much better clock with Tutelage. Chandra and Collective Defiance are awesome for blowouts and they fuel Take Inventory to make that another huge drawspell. Add Geistblast to double them and you can deck your opponent in 1-2 turns out of nowhere.

The safety of Izzet isn't too bad either. Burn is very good against aggro and if you choose a lot of face-damage options, you can deal with Planeswalkers quite well. Imprisoned in the Moon is also a great all purpose removal. And I personally like to put 2 counters in there to deal with nasties.

My version of this shares some key cards but has a lot more burn.

What did you cut for counters and burn? The cards I'd think about there are Thing in the Ice (less necessary with more burn), Talent of the Telepath (the other kind of burn), Part the Waterveil (might be too expensive with more burn) and maybe one of the draw-3 spells...


I personally don't like counters in Mill too much. The deck rarely leaves mana open in my mind as most of the important draw spells are sorcery speed. You can sometimes leave 3 open for Geistblast or Geier Reach Sanitarium, but these are not your primary options to lay out your turn I think.
That being said, I do think there is some utility in them. I could also see a counter-heavy version of Mill that runs instant-speed draw and removal. No idea how good that is, though.

One quick note. I tried Geier Reach Sanitarium in my Mill, and I was not impressed.

It is the kind of card that should work well in theory, it filters your hand, causes you opponent to go one deeper and with Tutelage, it mills. It seems perfect for this deck if you have extra mana.

The issue I had with the card is that it let my opponent filter out dead cards such as Declaration in Stone and Languish. It seemed to actually help them more then it did me. As a side result, it made Visions less useful.

Now, I run creatureless, and you have 3 creatures, so you may want your opponent to toss that Languish. But for me, it was a negative more often then it was a positive.

Like Modulo's list. Almost the best mill deck Izzet color can do. Probably would change telling time to exquisite firecraft. There feels enough draw spells and telling time becomes redundant. Also Teleport probably I would change to burn (Fiery Impulse or Fiery Temper or Brutal expulsion?) for more control. You have Oath, Pore, Take Inventory and Defiance all drawing and milling hard. Teleport is probably the worst among all since it doesn't draw you cards actively.

No 3rd color means no radiant flames, blessed alliance for kill + lifegain, and no Nahiri. Izzet runs more risk of being rushed by creatures but as a trade off, Teleport, Pore and Waterveil can speed up mill. It's like a real combo deck (izzet) vs a more controlish deck (jeskai)

It then comes to personal preference and meta call. I feel I prefer combo way.

You are correct in that Geier Reach Sanitarium is very situational, which is why I only run one copy. Sometimes it's correct to not activate it (e.g. to not have your opponent draw into their answers); in which case it is strictly on mana duty.

That being said, I believe there is very little opportunity cost to run one copy (the mana in the deck is good enough that I believe an additional Island/Mountain would not make it better by a significant amount; other utility lands do nothing for the deck (except maybe Blighted Gorge) and I'd definitely want that slot to be a land); and the times its ability does come up, it's very useful (helps you fight flood if your fourth draw spell still hasn't found you a Tutelage).






The changes that you outline switch the deck over towards having Burn as a secondary win-condition. Since Mill and Burn share many cards, this can indeed be a viable strategy.
However, I like both Telling Time and "Teleport". Telling Time gives the deck something to do before you land the first Tutelage or when you didn't need the mana you left up for the burn spell you left up. It's redundant late, sure, but its sheer utility early is amazing.
Regarding Talent, this card is a tad situational, but very powerful. It is random, so I will only cast it when I don't have a better option available; read: I have little hope to win otherwise or I have no other spells to cast with the mana or I can mill my opponent out with it (+ Geistblast) . I generally consider it being a burn spell in a sense with the chance of having an upside - and that upside can be amazing enough to swing the game in your favor (hit Anguished Unmaking vs. PW.dec, kill red Aggro threats with their own burn spells, utilize Ramp's Vegetation/Renewal or Control's/Mill's card draw spells - you get the idea).

I’ve been playing simic and golgari for so long, I forgot the joys of izzet, so I tried out a couple of ideas to see what works. There’s some great synergies in this stack, but it faces issues, too. I’ve been playing Duels iOS and have won 7 or 8 with this, and lost 2 or 3 to the human horde selesnya and bant decks that’re trending now. I faced on bant enchantment deck that got down two Sigil of the Empty Thrones which just murdered me, so I see enchantments as a real weakness, too.


Spellwork (18)
3x Lightning Axe
3x Disperse
3x Sphinx's Tutelage
3x Geistblast
3x Fiery Temper
2x Collective Defiance

Creatures (18)
1x Jace, Vrynn's Prodigy
1x Thing in the Ice
2x Wharf Infiltrator
2x Stormchaser Mage
2x Ingenious Skaab
2x Niblis of Frost
2x Darkslick Drake
2x Pyre Hound
2x Incorrigible Youths
2x Bedlam Reveler

Planeswalkers (1)
1x Jace, Unraveler of Secrets

Land (24)
9x Mountain
9x Island
2x Sulfur Falls
2x Wandering Fumarole
2x Geier Reach Sanitarium


Yea, it’s a Tutelage mill deck, but with some prowess-ness to give other win cons than just card draw. I’m not happy with the stack yet, but there are some really fun things in there. Geistblast is okay to use, but better as a sac card to give you 2 Lightning Axes or Collective Defiances later. Wharf Infiltrator is seriously the star of this deck. He forces card draw, adds creatures without doing anything, is almost unblockable. The runner up, though, is the Sanitarium. Use up any last mana on their turn to get anther card draw/discard is always good for this deck.

Any thoughts are appreciated…

Little Jace, Talent, Telling Time, Pore, Waterveil, TITI out.
Scatter, Lightning Axe, Fiery Temper, Exquisite Firecrafts and Bedlam in.

Draw/Mill power doesn't change all that much. Bedlam replaces Pore quite well in that respect.
You don't get to Tutelage as fast without Telling Time. In return you have more direct options against aggro and planeswalkers without gambling. And you have enough firepower to pose a threat, after a few triggers from Fevered Visions.
Fiery Temper goes well with Geier Reach, Oath and discard hand cards.

Not running big Jace atm, probably should, though. Put the deck together in a hurry and simply forgot about him. He would most likely replace a Scatter, Axe or Firecrafts. Counters are useful to protect the Tutelage and against stuff that requires multiple burns to get rid of. Other than that, they're not all that important.

Its an odd build... Definetly looks like it has split personally/ total hybrid Mill/Prowess deck. Can't say if it works, but I'll take your Word for it.
Some odd choices too... Darkslick drakes? There are plenty of better 4 drops... Might be an ok choice as an emerge sac target, but otherwise... Firebird would probably be better, or maybe Impetuous Devils or even mercurial geists. Docent of Perfection is a 5 drop, but has great synnergies too.
Its also interesting that you consider 2 cards mvp that have really underperformed for me. Maybe I'm missing something...
You're also playing 2 cards I've looked at, but didn't get around to running in a deck: ingenious skaab and pyre hound. How have they been performing?
Oh, and this deck really should use Thermo-Alchemist.
Cut the youths, you have very little discard and paying 5 for them is just painful...
Hope that helps.