That would make an excellent sideboard Khashir, if I know that the other player utilizes boardwipes, I can bring it in and effectively stop them! Good card. Thank you!

Also, I don't find Gideon, Champion of Justice to be such a hot shot. He seems powerful on paper, but: first, he becomes powerful the more creatures your opponent controls. However, that means that during your opponent's turn, you have to really baby-sit him. And in that case, if your creatures are strong enough to protect him without losing anything important, then you probably don't need him.

And even if he attacks 24/24 (and isn't Selesnya Charm ed), he's useless if you don't give him trample as well...

All good points, I am not in a huge hurry to add the Gideon right now, to me, planeswalkers are just time biders or expensive Golgari Decoy s, because the second they hit the field they are targeted usually. So I might add it as a distraction while I look for cards, but not sure

I just play tested this against my Izzet standard and I won 2-0 , turn 4 second game i hit you for 31 unblockable, I would suggest some good control for what your trying to accomplish here, i.e. Cyclonic rift, syncopate, and unsummon would do well against Agro in here. I would at least sideboard those things, and deffinately farseek would help. Mainboard fog, have the arbor dork out, farseek, the use arbor elf to untap temple garden or a breeding pool if you pull those out, then you'll have a G mana open for fog or something else, throw down another arbor elf or if you have the mana the guildmage. then next turn mana ramp with the elves to get out master biomancer and the turn after than mana ramp up to progenitor mimic.

Okay, wow. I have playtested over 30 times now and never went 0-2, lol. You must have drawn crappy hands for me. Good advice, I will try to figure a way to work those in while still keeping consistency. I feel like my early game is what is lacking, late game is great.

You can't go wrong with Azorius Charm game... Yes, for early game control, it's one W more than Unsummon , but it slows down the opponent's draw, which I think is worth the extra mana.

Then again, look no further than my favourite 4-drop vs fast decks: AEtherize .

Azorius Charm almost feels like it may have a place on the main board, and AEtherize is a def need against speed decks, I just worry that it may not be fast enough

Faster than turn 4? Well, if you draw Arbor Elf , you could AEtherize turn 3. Otherwise, your best options seem to be either Feeling of Dread , Riot Control , Fog / Safe Passage , or the slightly riskier Restore the Peace .

I like Feeling of Dread for its double use, Riot Control because of the preventing damage and life gain, and the Fog because it is cheap.

However, in order for these to be effective the first three turns of the game, I am going to need to have more than 1 or 2 of them in the deck to ensure draw, right?

This is true. But I think your best option with these is to sideboard them seeing that your deck won't always be dealing with aggro despite what we see is extremely common.

It might be nice to have them in the mainboard, but the further question is what to take out. You could drop 1x Loxodon Smiter and then maybe 1x of two other things.

Indeedy: I run 4 AEtherize in my SB just because, when I need them, I know I REALLY need them (plus, 2 Supreme Verdict mainboard. Not sure if you'd want to run 4 Feeling of Dread on SB, it depends how willing you want to risk the numbers game.

Overall, I think Feeling of Dread is your best bet, due to low CMC + flashback.

However, you'd really have to sit down and think through the kinds of combos that are grilling you: maybe it's more important to have a 1-shot Riot Control on turn 3, rather than 2 double taps on turns 2 and 3.

The life gain is just gravy 8)

I think AEtherize and Feeling of Dread are excellent sideboard options at 3x ea for right now. As you said, why mainboard them if you don't need them right?

Yeah the early game is what got you in the playtest, you didnt get crappy hands, just not enought going on to stop a turn 3 or 4 deck.

@ TheLeagueIsMe - Also not a lot to stop unblockable, you got me thinking on that one real hard. Unblockable could destroy this deck and never really meet any resistance due to my lack of removal.

yeah thats why im suggesting cyclonic rift and unsummon, it could prevent you from getting hit by a 13/4 - 17/4 turn 4 deffinately, If you get a chance you should upvote my izzet deck. :)

Do you use cockatrice TheLeagueIsMe? I would actually really like to play your izzet deck.

Devastation Tide seems like it can help for a early stall also one thing i learned when playing agro is life gain stops it in there tracks and scares them cold

remixmaster5000 Lol, for sure. Most aggro decks are not meant to last past turn 6 or 7, so if you can make it that long against them they start to fall apart. I played an aggro deck for forever and got bored of it.

Devastation Tide is amazing, just not for your purposes: you basically have to count on not drawing it in your starting hand, but drawing it EXACTLY at turn 3 or 4 (since you don't have the land to pay the miracle at turn 2). The other choices, you can run a bunch, and it doesn't matter when you get them, so long as it's before turn 4.

Plus, DT risks slowing you down, since it would return Arbor Elves/Gyre Sages, etc.

Well, even if you can pay Devastation Tide 's miracle turn 2 (Turn 1: Breeding Pool + Arbor Elf ), you probably won't be getting as much out of it.

And, again, you're stacking the odds against you if you're counting on a very precise 3-card combination by turn 2; as opposed to any combination of lands/ramping that will get you 2/4 mana by turns 2-4 (plus one of the SB cards)...

Why talk Devastation Tide when you could talk Cyclonic Rift ?

Or has this already been discussed and I've missed it?

He's looking for something faster than AEtherize , which he can pull off turn 3 (best-case scenario) or turn 4.

Cyclonic Rift can't be overloaded before turn 4 in this deck (by dropping all 3 elves within the first 3 turns, + elves not getting burned) and vs. aggro, it wouldn't have any advantage over AEtherize .

If you're only worried about the really early game, I'd say 4 Feeling of Dread and 2 AEtherize is better than 3 of each.

The latter will only save your ass on turn 3 IF you have at least one elf from first two turns; the former ALWAYS have your back on turns 2 AND 3 (and can tide you over for AEtherize on turn 4, or more Feeling of Dread on turns 4 and 5.)

That's true, is Hidden Strings an option here? If they are playing aggro and swinging with all every turn, couldn't I use this to mana fix myself or tap their permanents? At least first 3 turns anyways?

if you consider Hidden Strings then Hands of Binding will be a better option