PEW! PEW! BANG! BANG! Lightning! Flames! Magic! All things Izzet!
When I returned back to MTG after a long break I quickly learned about the archetypes and found Red-Blue very interesting because its unusual creature/spell ratios. So when EMN hit the stores I thought it was about a time to build Izzet deck true to its spellslinging origins.
Main pieces of the deck are Harness the Storm and Curious Homunculus
. The concept is to bombard enemy lines with burn like Galvanic Bombardment & Incendiary Flow and activate Prowess multiple times in a one turn for spell trigger effects and damage.
Curious Homunculus
is mean reader, in its unflipped form it works to boost your spell casting to get those 3 Instant/Sorcery cards to graveyard. After that it'll fulfill its true function as a spell discount and Prowess beatstick. Gotta love the little fellow, so curious. Playing 4 copies to maximize cheap spells so that they can be copied through Harness the Storm.
Harness the Storm synergies very well with Galvanic Bombardment & Take Inventory, get a copy of them to your graveyard early with Harness the Storm in play to start casting them beyond the grave. And since you cast them every time, you'll trigger Prowess and the discounts from Voracious Reader
apply to copied spells.
Example: 1 Take Inventory in graveyard, 1 Harness the Storm & Voracious Reader
in play. 1 Take Inventory in your hand. You cast it for reduced cost of , then cast it again through Harness the Storm with same cost. You draw 4 cards for cost and trigger double Prowess for Voracious Reader
. If you would hit another Take Inventory you could rerun the combo again for and get insane 6 cards! Same mechanic with the Galvanic Bombardment.
Most creatures around 2-3 drops, from them Niblis of Frost and Docent of Perfection
deserve the spotlight. Since you'll be able to trigger Prowess multiple times in a turn Niblis of Frost becomes an insane tool for tempo. Usually 5/5 flyer with Freezing two opponents creatures, can you ask for more?
Docent of Perfection
can also win you games alone. Harness the Storm enables usually two spell triggers in a one turn so it's very easy to flip Docent and landslide to win. 5/4 flyer body alone is enough to scare the opponent. Thermo-Alchemist & Weaver of Lightning will provide some defense from early aggro and flyers. At the same time pinging opponent and its creatures multiple times trough out turn. Just remember to tap Thermo-Alchemist in-between spell casts from Harness the Storm. Vexing Scuttler will help you keeping the spell bombardment up and has tough body. Pyre Hound can grow into menacing proportions and one Thing in the Ice
keeping watch for weenie and token overloads.
From spells you got your basic burn: Galvanic Bombardment keeps the table clear for you and Incendiary Flow can exile graveyard boosters (Or Delirium fuel) and finish the game for just pure damage. Take Inventory is your main card draw engine, Drag Under chosen also for spell discount & card draw in mind. Dance with Devils & Devils' Playground will flood the board with some tricky chomp blockers while you cast spells behind the lines. Deck runs two copies of each spell so that Harness the Storm can work its magic.
Mana base is fairly simple; 10 Islands and 9 Mountains. Majority on Island side since all the double land spells are blue. 3 Highland Lakes as mana fixing and 2 Nephalia Academys because our spells are important to us. Also Geier Reach Sanitarium counter.
I think that should cover the main mechanics of the deck. Sideboard is open for improvement. Thinking I might add few more Instant/Sorcery cards just to fuel spell triggers more, tried to aim for costly cards to get more out of Voracious Reader
s discount. I think Wretched Gryff could work in this deck very well too.
Again, improvement will follow after plays and tests, stay tuned.
Good reading little fellow.
"Oglor create life, Oglor take it away. Oglor god!...until Master return." -Oglor, Stitcher's Apprentice
