Post looting ban izzet Phoenix deck.
We use two bad versions of Fathless Looting - Cathartic Reunion and Izzet Charm (we tried Haggle in place of Reunion, and it was pretty bad. Drawing 3 cards is awesome). But it means we do need more free spells to hit the 3 casts on T3 (because that effect now costs us 2,) and we're limited on how many phoenixes we can actually get in the graveyard. Manamorphose really smooths out mana issues, but we still play gut shots, lava dart (which ideally we discard or mill and then flash back) and Noxious Revival (which we can use to redraw/use a cantrip or interaction spell, or mess with an early dredge). Total 4 free spells.
This gives us enough of a green splash to justify the two Forest shocks. We really should be playing Scalding Tarn over Polluted Delta, but I just can't afford them.
The deck can still T3 someone, it's just a lot less likely. You need to get lucky more than you did. Luckily, your deck is packed with the good blue cantrips, so you can keep quite a few sketchy hands.
(Mostly likely T3 with a good starting hand is to bounce the board and 10 someone with an awoken horror and one Phoenix. More blockers on T4 are why we play the bolts.)
Sideboard is a bit old school. We really want a way to counter or kill creatures, especially large ones. Stoneforge, Uro, Urza. Against Tron we need some game, we can't reliably race them. We also need a way to stop the value from the new Theros mythics (Uro, Kroxa, Klothys.) Some of which are enchantments, and some or which are just big creatures (with low CMCs). Should we splash black for Surgical Extraction and Fatal Push? White for Path to exile and stony silence? Should we just play Pongify and block the token with thing in the ice? Is there some good works-against-creature-spells countermagic that I'm missing? After a quick survey of the creature countering spells, there doesn't seem to be much better than remand (which is ok for an escaped titan) and essence scatter. We can't reliably play familiar's ruse or Essence capture as we don't reliably have a creature down. Should we just chuck Ashiok in the sideboard and leave it at that for the titans? Further, about 1/2 of the problem cards are blue (Uro, Urza, Teferis, Narset) so we could look at Mystical Dispute. I'd still rather something generic to creatures, and use Magmatic Sinkhole for the walkers.
Help appreciated.
