Izzet Champion

Standard Andmcmuffin2

SCORE: 1 | 2 COMMENTS | 432 VIEWS

June 17, 2018

Taking an extra-budget version to FNM has shown me the real keys to this deck.

1) It's feast or famine. When you hit the draws, you win outright, almost regardless of the matchup.

2) The duals are important. I don't have them in paper and they'd improve the consistency considerably. I've had to throw away a lot of hands for having mountains and no Champion of the Flame or Islands and no Merfolk/Slither Blade.

3) It's fun. It's really easy to pilot, the most consideration you run into frequently is whether to float your blue for Spell Pierce/Dive Down or get greedy for slapping on that Curious Obsession.

4) 2x Valduk in the mainboard isn't too slow even when you hit both. At 3 mana, he tops the curve of the deck, and is potentially a bigger piece of removal bait than your 9/9 flying trample Champion of the Flame. It forces your opponent to make decisions they don't want to, it lets you attack for free into Settle the Wreckage, and his two toughness is startlingly relevant.

Now the downsides.

I literally don't know what to move to the sideboard against monogreen stompy. If you miss your turn four/five kill with this, you just get blown out. Negates, Spell Pierces, and Dive Down are all dead cards. Curator's Ward is barely worth siding in instead, Chandra's Demise does nothing, Admiral's Order is too expensive at three... I've got nothing.

As to the On Serra's Wings suggestion, I wish I could like the idea but hitting both colors is already sketchy enough at two. Moving to three colors and a higher mana cost makes this a slower deck, and I might try just Boros auras for it.