General The Izzet League (UR)

vennythekid

vennythekid

Hi friends!

UR has long struggled with identity in my opinion, relegated to "spells matter" and "tempo" a lot of the time, without clear identity. I'm looking for ideas for strong, clear themes in UR with some nice anchor cards.

What are you running in your Izzet sections? What themes/archetypes do you support? Did you have some surprising successes? What do you want the Izzet League to accomplish?
 
Alfonzo Bonzo

Alfonzo Bonzo

I have a spells matter combo-ish thing going on with izzet.



Niv is so much fun with card draw and obviously draw sevens



Also



Seems boring, but I love how it digs for your key cards and is removal. Can be copied with pyromancers goggles.

I really like, but think I'm going to need to remove



It's so cool and is a great blocker that can also do serious damage, but it's getting pushed out for things which are more thematically relevant.

I'm going to give bloodwater entity a try, but I don't have a strong prowess/attacking theme and so am a bit worried about sending the wrong signals. I mostly like it for its on theme noxious revival effect.
 
VincePendrell

VincePendrell

For spells-matter, I think these are pretty good:

I only run the first one for now, but I've considered all of them at some point in time. I'm running Izzet Charm and Electrolyze instead. I wouldn't cut the Charm for any, but I could see myself cutting Electrolyze for either.

This has always been really good, even when I used to play with power:

Don't really run it anymore, but it is a value machine.

I used to run Suffocating Blast years and years ago. This is about as nice:

It's less powerful, but more versatile. Can lead to interesting trade-offs, and will only be picked and played by that one guy going UR Spells.

And of course:

Probably the signet that makes the most sense to run. Good with Wildfire decks, Tinker/Goblin Welder decks, triggers prowess, though probably too good and picked by every blue/X control player (even if this hardly accelerates a Wrath of God or a Damnation). I'm not currently running the signet, but I definitely recommend if your UR Not-Aggro decks aren't doing that well. I'd still recommend trying Izzet Charm before this, though, but chances are you are already running it because that card is really cool.

EDIT:
Forgot about this UR singleton-breaking deck that I hope will happen sometime:

I run over 360 cards, though, so the chances of having all of them together are pretty slim.
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
URW works very well as an artifact wedge. Thats what I've found works best in terms of identity.

You have to commit to the WR artifact aggro deck in boros, but if you do, there is more than enough artifact matters cards in blue. Because the WR base is an aggressive deck, the tools the UR deck is drawing from scales very well from aggressive/tempo up to control.

Its also worth noting that UW, from the wedge, has a tool set that cares about spell castings, which is nice, and makes a natural fit for a UWR prowess/spells matter deck, which has some incarnation as UR. So there is a nice sub-theme.

UR always has a somewhat aggressive bent to it, because its hard to control the game with 3-4 dmg burn spells.
 
Dom Harvey

Dom Harvey

Contributor
You vs the guy she tells you not to worry about:



My favourite UR mini-theme at the moment is maximizing draw/discard triggers with Chasm Skulker, Drake Haven, TLG, and my pet card Alhammarret's Archive; I hadn't even considered Niv-Mizzet, and I probably shouldn't since I don't want two theme-specific UR 6-drops, but it's cool to think about. It's not hard to support as you want to run blue card draw and Looters anyway and the Tormenting Voice/Cathartic Reunion family of cards is popular around these parts, but the ceiling is very high if you want to go there (Attunement, Memory Jar etc).

A more demanding theme is library manipulation: the best Miracles are concentrated in UR(W), you can power up cards like Thought Scour and Predict, and effects like Brainstorm and Sensei's Divining Top become even better. This is usually found in RUG as green gives Courser of Kruphix, Oracle of Mul Daya, and Nissa, Steward of Elements. Riddle of Lightning is really fun if you can make it work.

James Stevenson said:
Haven't people had success wit Goblin Welder in URW? That's a deck I'm really curious about.
Click to expand...


Welder specifically has been best in more aggressive decks. It's easy to slide it in early while applying pressure and it's never the most immediate threat so they have to deal with whatever's likely to beat them, and then you end up with an unkillable Smuggler's Copter or keep swapping out Clues or whatever for more threats. I thought it would be great in UR or BR decks as a reanimation piece, and it is, but it places structural constraints on your deck that make it weaker when you don't get the Welder nut draw. Welder itself is cheap but assembling Welder + disposable artifact + worthy Welder target + a way to bin that target takes time and cards. Most unpowered Cubes don't have the density of cheap artifacts needed to make it work so you need to have a comprehensive artifact theme. Starts like T1 Welder, T2 Cathartic Reunion, T3 Thopter Engineer + Weld make it all worth it though. More generally, the Welders are good in shells that have other uses for effects that fill your graveyard (either other reanimation like Feldon/Body Double/Mizzix's Mastery or flashback etc)

I've really liked URx artifacts so far; white has more artifact tie-ins, and WR artifacts is a deck itself, but black has more cards that draw me into the archetype: 1BR Daretti, Tezzeret AoB, Baleful Strix, Battle at the Bridge, Herald of Anguish. There are a ton of good token makers in UR, so my decks tend to rely on exploiting those (bounce/Blink, Tangle Wire/Smokestack, improvise, Emerge, Chief Engineer/Grand Architect).

==

I tried to support the UR spells-based tempo deck for a long time and I hated it. In Constructed those decks rely on being able to run few threats as you want to run a lot of cantrips and filter spells that let you find those threats and then power them up if you have one. In Cube you don't have that kind of consistency so, if your first threat dies, you just flail around helplessly. When it does work, it can lend to intricate games but at the expense of any cute/interesting decks that typically get chewed up and spat out by aggro-control. The combo-control spells decks are my jam, though.
 
sigh

sigh

I definitely keep the strongest of the classic "spells" creatures in (Pyromancer, Mentor, Delver), but I'm having more luck the same way as stated above: more of a control/combo archetype. Pyromancer/Mentor etc. have had more success for me in a tokens-aggro style of deck, using other R and W token producers in a Jeskai shell.

Anyways, my greatest UR hits for the control/combo style have definitely been:


Using a draw-discard package has also worked great for powering this deck up, as there's a lot of graveyard angles to take and add on to the deck.

Also very excited to wipe some boards with:

Which I like very much because it functions decently in a vacuum (isn't a brick sans spells).
 
ravnic

ravnic


Best spells matter creature imo, good even with a few extra triggers and absolutely deadly in a dedicated deck



I like how well this works as a control finisher as well as a cheap spells matter guy. Also, THAT art



Is a mostly worse FoF still worth a gold slot? So far I think it is at least more interesting than all the burn/draw spells we get in {U}{R}



It is boring, but I want a lot of instants and sorceries in this colors


I also have this one as my {U}{R}-hybrid:


till good enough to be played even when only one color is run.
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
Dom Harvey said:
I tried to support the UR spells-based tempo deck for a long time and I hated it. In Constructed those decks rely on being able to run few threats as you want to run a lot of cantrips and filter spells that let you find those threats and then power them up if you have one. In Cube you don't have that kind of consistency so, if your first threat dies, you just flail around helplessly. When it does work, it can lend to intricate games but at the expense of any cute/interesting decks that typically get chewed up and spat out by aggro-control. The combo-control spells decks are my jam, though.
Click to expand...

Its also worth noting that you can run a lot of prowess threats in UR, rather than cards that care purely about instants/sorceries (bloodwater entity >>> enigma drake). Much like how prowess can be heroic that dosen't suck, it can also make your spells matter decks less draft rng. Prowess lets you get spell casting bonuses, but also triggers off of enchantments, which is nice because white tends to be enchantment heavy, as well as triggers off of the artifacts that make up the RW deck.

Its lets you keep the spellslinger sub-theme, but makes it less narrow as a draft archetype, since it nests in more broadly with stuff both red and white are doing anyways.

Its too bad there aren't more white prowess cards, as we could probably save the enchantments theme at the same time if there were.
 
Alfonzo Bonzo

Alfonzo Bonzo

I also really like



As a way to get more card draw and to take advantage of discard. Would like to run gelectrode as well but not sure I have the room and competes in a similar space to goblin sharpshooter.

The welder artifact combo is a thing, will see if I can find a deck to post.
 
Mondschwein

Mondschwein

Bloodwater Entity is REALLY sexy because of its very balanced design. Torrential Gearhulk on the other Hand seems busted in comparison to the 3rr menace Goblins, wouldn't play that one.

Brutal Expulsion and Supreme Will need to be tested another time. Thanks for reminding me
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
At its most base level, Izzet's identity is counter-burn, and every other theme is a sub-theme nested beneath that.

For the artifacts sub-theme, I was wondering about this:



High enough CC to be a great tinker target/reanimation target, but not broken in the way it closes out the game. Seems to work well with the value discard (value artifact discard?) you see in these colors, as well as the sacrifice and token pieces that often fill out a red section, and will stumble into the izzet deck. Rewards players for running interaction that can hit it, but dosen't unduly punish those who don't have it, as its beatable. Also makes that fire bolted goblin welder into a threat down the line. The hasty beats 4/4s seem to work as an assertive threat, pushing out the last bits of damage before a stoke the flames or whatever ends things.

Reminds me a bit of burning vengence in III, as a way to turn your game development into the win-con.
 
RavebornMuse

RavebornMuse

God-Pharaoh's Gift has been strong enough in my format that I have it as my top watchlist card, so I'd advise some caution to anyone in my power level neighborhood considering running it, let alone Gate to the Afterlife. Hasty 4/4's with abilities/keywords is no joke, and it's powerful enough to be a top-end for any deck that drafts it in my slowed-down format. I've actually been looking really hard for cube-worthy graveyard hate since seeing it in action.
 
sigh

sigh

Alfonzo Bonzo said:
It's a yes to GPG from me, but can you sell me on gate to the afterlife?
Click to expand...

TBH, I'm still selling myself on it, too.

A three mana artifact Murder of Crows/Ashes of the Abhorrent mash-up that only affects you still seems pretty strong. It seems better suited in slower midrange-y decks that will be running out board states and interacting with them throughout the game. Does not seems that much like an Izzet card :p. I'd say it's quite a bit more Sultai than anything, and those colors definitely will be most able to fill up the yard for the second ability should that happen. Incidental life gain is also just really nice.

Being able to Reanimate or put from hand the Gift is really cool too. You can self-mill the Gift or discard it early, and then reanimate it later with the Gate.

I guess the question is how much value rides on it being a piece for the Gift? If you didn't have the Gift in your deck, worth it? Dom brings up an interesting point about bundling them, but I don't really do that, and that's a lot of value to give for free (over like, another couple 1/1 fliers.

I may toss it in over the Tower and see if anybody does anything cool with it.
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
How would you compare GPG to sandwurm convergence as a finisher?

Gate to the afterlife is kind of a surprisingly interesting card. I was looking through gatherer for colorless draw/discard effects to help support green based baron decks, and there is hardly anything. Outside of this classic:



There is almost nothing that dosen't revolve around attack triggers, and gate to the afterlife is actually the most reasonable static effect. Kind of also puts in perspective how nutso of a card smuggler's copter really is.

So I don't know. I kind of don't expect much of the card, but maybe colorless looting is really that good? Its a really interesting gap in the card pool though, especially when you consider how old jalum tome is. I've never seen anything quite like this before.
 
Alfonzo Bonzo

Alfonzo Bonzo

I have both sandwurm convergence and GPG. Convergence is a ramp control card that provides inevitability providing you don't get swarmed or burned out. Gift is ramp control but has artifact reanimator synergies as well, and requires you to have creatures find their way to the graveyard somehow. stronger with more etb, so you might not get as much out of it, but both ways to have a plan, and both fun. Both have decent play to them. Don't think I'm sold on gate to the afterlife, but that's fine. Re Jalum tome, I play

 
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