Howdy, I've been running izzet prowess since about April of 2023 since making my way back into the pioneer scene after a 2 year break. The deck has been performing well and I'm here to prove the deck nit only viable, but actually can win large tournaments. I've had very good attempts over the previous summer, while top 8'ing a couple times with my original list
https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/07-05-23-YZK-izzet-prowess/
isn't something to write home about, it shows I'm going somewhere in the right direction with it.
We're back it with a new version of prowess after the Wilds of Eldraine set has dropped off some goodies for us.
First things first we get Elusive otter. More 1 drops? Yes please. Looking at this card feels mediocre but the adventure side is actually quite useful. So we added 4 mana Confluence. Otter has a wide range of capabilities, like ending the game on it's, using the adevnture and making something big enough to do the job, or simply just being another prowess trigger for your board without committing multiple cards to push damage.
What else do we have? Sleight of hand and monstrous rage are some new toys. We'll get to what those replace and why here in a moment.
New cards that aren't new to the format nor archetype are Ledger shredder.
Alright let's get to explaining some things with the deck.
Sleight of hand replaces Opt, easily. A lot of people don't realize that seeing 2 cards at the same time is simply better than an instant speed gamble for a mediocre combat trick. So many times I've lost because seeing 1 card at a time is too much of a gamble. Sleight of hand has severely helped.
Monstrous rage. Oh man, this card is nuts. I'd go as far as calling it the new bolt in pioneer. Clearly it doesn't direct burn creatures and sure, you can definitely for 2-1'd, but that's the pioneer format anyways. This card has won me games off the spot or turned the tides immediately. For 1 mana I target one if my prowess creatures and that's a 4th of your starting life total? Sign me up. This card makes the rakdos sacrifice and mono green matchups easier for us. Mono green is was already a 50/50 but this helps us race them. Rakdos sacrifice is definitely my worst match up in the format and let me just say, with this card, I hope you try to chump block with that cat of yours.
Let's get to what we took out of the deck.
Opt is replaces my Sleight of hand.
Stormwing entity is replaced by Ledger Shredder.
Sprite dragon is replaced by elusive otter.
Hidden strings is slowly getting replaced, but not fully with more treasure cruise.
I'll explain some things. While Sprite dragon is a great aggressive card, it's not better than any of our 1 drops and blocks horribly unlike Shredder, let alone the value Shredder gives us.
Stormwing Entity, while a great card and is synergistic, does have 1 downfall...it's awkward. I love this card so much, especially with hidden strings, but that's simply it. I couldn't tell you the amount of times I'd run out of gas and been an instant/sorcery spell or 1 mana short of casting Entity. It's a card that's really really good when it's good and really really awkward when it isn't.
Which leads us to hidden strings. This card is my secret sauce, man. You play it and everyone's eyes widen. They don't know what the hell you're doing, but man, when they see the value you're about to have, it's almost the whole reason to play it. This card has put in so much work for me, but it simply isn't worth running if you're not running stormwing entity. It's useful for other areas of the deck, especially with tempo plays, but losing Entity certainly makes the card lose some purpose in the deck. I admittedly have 1 in there right now, I personally like the random 1 of to catch someone off guard, but is easily replaceable with maybe another cruise or even a spell pierce.
Overall, this new version is better at grinding in certain match ups because of Shredder and Cruise, while remaining aggressive enough to end the game very soon. I'll always be messing with more lists and tweaking it as I go though.
