Izzet Prowess? No. No it izzn't.
Shadowstorm Vizier
and Stormchaser Mage are cut from the same cloth. Opposite ends of the cloth, but very similar nonetheless. It's exciting that they are both different colors and enabled in different ways while doing the same thing.
I really wanted to build a deck that played like an inverse Izzet Prowess deck, and having access to black means access to Madness and some nasty creatures and discard enablers.
Amonkhet brought a weird brand of "prowess" that buffs some creatures when discarding cards instead of playing them. The exciting part of this is that there are plenty of ways to discard multiple cards for free so instead of focusing on what all of the cards do (like having a bunch of buffs or evasion effects) and focus more on how to get as many into your hand as often as possible to discard as many as possible as often as possible. It's easier than it sounds.
Cycling lands are great since they function as both draw and discard to keep digging and enabling your creatures. The main creature is the
Shadowstorm Vizier
, but
Cunning Survivor
and
Horror of the Broken Lands
also get bigger and badder with ever card dumped. The Vizier with Flying and the Survivor gaining unblockable makes it so that damage can connect with your opponent fairly easily.
Olivia's Dragoon
and
Forgotten Creation
are the most important enablers and fit perfectly with
Ghirapur Orrery
. The Dragoon can discard your whole hand to give itself flying while buffing the rest of your creatures multiple times. On your next upkeep each Orrery will draw you 3 extra cards which means you always have plenty of fuel to keep the damage train rolling. Supernatural Stamina aims to thwart your opponent's attempt to kill her while bumping the damage slightly as well. The Creation also allows you to discard your hand but since both it and the Orrery are triggered at the beginning of your upkeep you can choose the order in which they resolve. This means an empty hand will draw 3 cards, discard those 3 (while buffing your creatures) and then draw 3 new ones followed by your actual draw for the turn. This gives you the fuel to discard at least 7 cards every turn.
The Curator of Mysteries let's you Scry every time you discard to help you dig down to find exactly what you are looking to draw next. This will help you find that creature you need, or another Orrery, or whatever.
The big bomb is finding Shadow of the Grave once set up to discard your hand again. This is as close to Uncaged Fury as this deck will have, but since you are probably buffing multiple creatures it could be even deadlier. In the above scenario you'd get to pick back up all 7 cards that you discarded to either discard again or just keep and play. It's a really cool trick.
Finding and using all 8 copies of Collective Brutality and Alms of the Vein is 20 life drain all by themselves. Brutality is half of the budget, but a super powerful enabler of the combo. This is another one that pairs pretty good with Shadow of the Grave since you can just escalate and then get those cards back. Imagine discarding two or even three Alms and then getting them back and using them again. That's 12 to 18 drained and gained all by itself. Super sweet.
The sideboard has 3 different answers. The first is tempo with a few counters and bounce with Countervailing Winds and
Just the Wind
. Both could prove quite useful in the right matchup.
The second is creature control with
Ruthless Sniper
and Archfiend of Ifnir. These guys are your spot removal and board wipes in creature form. If you still can't manage to keep the enemy at bay then Key to the City makes your biggest threat unblockable.
The third option is discard exploitation with Drake Haven and Faith of the Devoted. This allows you to turn all the discarding into 2/2 Flyers or just drain your opponent to death.
Sire of Stagnation
doesn't do anything specifically other than draw you cards when your opponent plays land, but with the Orrery out giving them the ability to play more than one land you could take advantage of that and draw 4 or more cards on your opponent's turn. It's a neat creature I've always wanted to use somewhere.
And that is how you don't prowess.
