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Deck Tech - Izzet Blitz

  • Writer: Finn M
    Finn M
  • Jun 20, 2017
  • 8 min read

Welcome to our first deck tech article. After our first event we had a clear winner come out with Dean Civin running Izzet Blitz. Many congratulations on his finish fighting through a tournament of GU Elves, several variants of Tron, Dimir Control, Mono Red Prowess, Mono Black Control among several other archetypes.

So let's look at the nuts and bolts of the deck: how does it work; what makes it powerful and, most importantly, how can you beat it? Let's start with a deck list and, as community requested, card galleries will now be below:

Izzet Blitz

Lands (18)

Creatures (12)

Other Spells (30)

Sideboard (15)

So how does this deck work?

The deck is a combo deck at the core. With it your aim is to cast a number of non-creature spells which power up Kiln Fiend and/or Nivix Cyclops and then use an evasion or payoff card to ensure you can connect with your opponent for lethal damage. This generally takes the form of giving your creature shadow or protection from the colour of your opponent's blockers or by using Temur Battle Rage to give it double strike and trample to go over the top of any blockers.

The deck can, if not disrupted, do this as early as turn 3. With only 8 creatures, the deck needs to ensure it can protect its threats especially since Pauper is such a removal heavy format. With that being the case, unless the matchup is very removal light, it is rarely correct to commit a threat to the board without some form of protection or counterspell backup unless there is an additional backup threat in hand.

Now we know what the deck's game plan is, let's take another look at the decklist but this time separated by function:

Threats (8)

These are the threats of the deck as discussed earlier. Without these, the deck cannot function.

Card Selection (13)

These are all used to dig and find the cards needed to combo off.

Ponder and Preordain form the core of this package which helps early on to find a threat or lands or later on find free spells, disruption or protection spells.

Augur of Bolas fills 3 important roles: It protects the deck's threats from sacrifice effects, it digs to find a spell for comboing or protection and it blocks small creatures in the aggressive matchups.

The singleton Faithless Looting is best used in tandem with Gush when comboing. It lets you replace two dead lands in your hand with two fresh and useful cards.

Evasion and Payoff Cards (7)

Much of the time, your opponent may try to keep blockers to ensure they have some protection from your large threat. To deal with this frequent scenario, this evasion and payoff card package is run.

Apostle's Blessing fits into both the evasion and protection package as it has two roles. It can provide protection from a colour when you are planning on attacking to provide a blocker free path to victory, or it can be used to protect your threat in response to a removal spell.

Shadow Rift is run as a singleton copy due to Apostle's Blessing generally being able to fill the same role and do more work. Shadow Rift allows you to attack with functional unblockable as shadow is such a rare keyword to find on a creature. It tends to get run over cards like Artful Dodge as it also draws a card.

Temur Battle Rage is the big payoff card. By providing trample, you are able to go over the top of your opponent's blockers and double strike halves the number of spells you need to cast to get to lethal damage.

Protection Spells (6)

These spells are designed to keep your threat alive from when you cast it until when you attack and win with it and also to ensure you can resolve a threat in the first place.

As discussed earlier, Apostle's Blessing lets you negate a targeted removal spell.

Dispel is powerful and essential in the deck. It can counter a Lightning Bolt or Doom Blade thrown at your threat or counter a counterspell countering your threat when you're casting it. With most removal and all counterspells being instant speed, Dispel is a crucial piece to the protection package.

Spell Pierce is run as a singleton as a catch all to any other kind of removal. It is best suited to counter sacrifice based removal such as Innocent Blood which gets around both Apostle's Blessing and Dispel.

Removal (4)

Lightning Bolt

Lightning Bolt is one of the most powerful and efficient removal spells ever printed. This removal is able to be pointed at creatures, should they pose an issue, or at your opponent, should you need a few more points of damage. This makes it the ideal removal spell for the deck to run.

"Free" Spells (7)

The easiest way to ensure you can cast a critical mass of spells to charge up your threat is if some number of them are free to cast. Free spells have always been known to be exceptionally powerful and this is no different in Pauper.

Gitaxian Probe is rarely cast using anything other than 2 life. It provides information as to whether your opponent has an answer to your threat, it cantrips and also is a spell to charge up your threat. It does everything you could want a spell to do. This power is what has caused it to be banned in Modern and restricted in Vintage.

Gush is exceptionally powerful. While returning lands to your hand would typically slow you down on future turns, it has no effect on the game if you intend on winning the turn you cast it. For this free cost, you also get to draw two cards. It is this power level that has caused it to be banned in Legacy and restricted in Vintage.

The Sideboard

Now we all have our heads wrapped around the main deck, what about the sideboard? Much like any combo deck, this one can't make too many changes to the main deck otherwise it will affect the consistency of the deck.

Colour Specific Answers (5)

First off there are a few extra colour specific answers in the form of Hydroblast and Pyroblast as you would expect. These are there to deal with counterspells and burn based removal primarily.

Anti-Removal (2)

To combat removal of other colours there are a few extra answers in the form of Stormbound Geist for edict effects and Dispel for instant speed removal. While only 2 cards, these add a slightly higher density to your answer package.

Evasion (1)

Shadow Rift

The sideboard then has an additional Shadow Rift should another unblockable spell be required. Given the spell replaces itself, it doesn't affect the deck too significantly adversely and can improve the matchups vs go wide strategies.

Card Advantage (1)

Deep Analysis

Deep Analysis is often sided in for matchups where the game is expected to go long and resources are going to be traded back and forth. While this deck doesn't trade resources as efficiently as a control deck, this is more of a hedged bet to improve a bad matchup in the form of control or attrition.

Sweepers and Additional Removal (4)

Electrickery is there as a sweeper for decks which go wide and Flame Slash is there to deal with larger problematic threats. This can give you an additional turn or two which can be the difference between winning or losing.

Anti-Prevention Effects (1)

Flaring Pain

Flaring Pain, as mentioned earlier, is there to combat protection effects. There is only one as with all the card filtration, it can be found eventually.

Catch All Answer (1)

Echoing Truth

Finally Echoing Truth is the catch all card for any problematic permanent.

So what makes this deck powerful? With so much card selection, you are able to find the cards you need without too much trouble and combo with protection quite reliably. A large amount of the deck's power lies in its ability to fairly reliably beat decks with incidental removal or costly removal. Its second strength is that there are very few board states that it cannot handle.

How to beat the deck

Now we have a feel for how the deck works and what its strengths are lets look at how to beat it. In most instances the first step is to be able to establish some pressure. This is crucial when playing against any kind of combo deck as it forces them to assemble the cards they need within a limited time. The only instances where this is not necessary is in removal heavy control decks. In these decks your objective is to sculpt a hand of answers and let your deck function as it is intended.

Since this deck is nearly impossible to race undisrupted, you have to interact in some shape or form. Since the bottleneck piece to the deck are the threats, most decks will find it easiest to attack the deck's strategy on this level. Blue decks can use counterspells to stop a threat from ever being resolved while other colours have to remove the threat once it has resolved. With such extensive card selection, it is best to assume your opponent has at least one piece of protection so, where possible, try to make sure you have multiple removal spells.

When to Interact

Since the pump spells cantrip, there is little benefit to trying to use your removal during the turn your opponent combos. By doing this you are actually more likely to make it easier for them to win as it converts a protection spell into a protection and pump spell. It is best to use removal the turn cycle that the threat is cast. This stops protection spells from contributing to pumping the creature and also interacts while your opponent has little mana available. An ideal situation is to be able to use a removal spell during their turn after they cast their threat, and should it get answered, you can untap and use another removal spell during your own turn again.

The second way to attack the deck is through prevention effects like circle of protection or fog. While post board the Izzet Blitz deck can side in a single Flaring Pain to counteract this, prevention effects can delay your opponent for a few turns letting you draw into the removal you need.

Conclusion

This is a very powerful deck which, while it has a fail rate like any combo deck, it does have a great deal of explosiveness to win out of nowhere. It can take a lot of skill and careful planning to play well, but it is still at the mercy of the removal heavy decks in the format.

Let me know if you want to see more deck techs and if there are any in particular you want to see or archetypes you want to see brewed around. Catch the next article soon!

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