Ionize

Instant

Counter target spell. Ionize deals 2 damage to that spell's controller.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Arena	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Gladiator	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Historic	Legal
Historic Brawl	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Modern Beyond Horizons	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pioneer	Legal
Planar Constructed	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (49)

VladMarkov on First

2 months ago

I reckon, what the deck really needs, is lots of cheap spells that can be cast on every player's turn, to get the most value out of the flurry mechanic. The game plan should be to cast Shiko and Narset, Unified on turn 4, prepare the board beforehand, and then spam small, damage-dealing spells that can easily be brought back with tricks like Underworld BreachGC, Lier, Disciple of the Drowned, or by recasting copies with Narset, Enlightened Exile. You could then replace draw-discard effects with more "pure" card draw options like Treasure Cruise (if you have a lot of cards in your graveyard), Quick Study or flexible draw like Flame of Anor. The main gameplay should revolve around cheap, repeatable spells, but there can also be some utility from the Magecraft mechanic. Most importantly, the deck should keep continuous pressure on opponents by dealing large amounts of damage through copying small spells.

Must have: Path to Exile, Cyclonic RiftGC

Useful: Cori Mountain Stalwart, Devoted Duelist, Monk of the Open Hand, Ashling, Flame Dancer, Jori En, Ruin Diver, Ledger Shredder, Smoldering Egg  ^Flip, Burst Lightning, Electrolyze, Virtue of Courage, Fire / Ice, Galvanic Blast, Heartflame Duelist, Ionize, Lightning Bolt, Lightning Helix, Lightning Strike, Magma Jet, Parch, Play with Fire, Punishing Fire, Risk Factor, Sacred Fire, Searing Spear, Shock, Skullcrack, Thunderbolt, Wild Slash

Possible: Taigam, Master Opportunist, Breeches, the Blastmaker, Gale, Waterdeep Prodigy, Rammas Echor, Ancient Shield, Storm of Saruman, Turn / Burn, Price of Progress, Finale of Promise, Increasing Vengeance, Frolicking Familiar, Molten Influence, Slaying Fire, Wizard's Lightning,

DemonDragonJ on Elemental Storm

6 months ago

Kazierts, this deck does not have a strong focus on dinosaurs, so I am not certain about Marauding Raptor or Intrepid Paleontologist.

I definitely considered putting Dryad of the Ilysian Grove into this deck, but this deck has very few, if any, cards that care about basic land types, and I also need to be careful about putting too many creatures into this deck, since each additional creature is one fewer card that shall synergize with Wandering Mind.

This deck already contains a copy of Terror of the Peaks, and I have no problem with removing Ionize, so what would you recommend as a replacement, for it? I do need to keep at least several counterspells, in this deck, as it is a blue deck.

Kazierts on Elemental Storm

6 months ago

Before I make any proper recommendations, you should stop worrying so much about the average CMC. Yes, having a lower curve is better (usually), but you take note of every little change, and that's not gonna help you build a better deck.

Onto the recommendations themselves:

• Trailtracker Scout - Ramps you while providing recursion. The more copies, the more cards you get back from the graveyard.

• Marauding Raptor - This one depends a lot. You can think of it as a mini Animar, Soul of Elements, but you have you be careful when casting X/2s.

• Dryad of the Ilysian Grove - 100% better than Chromatic Lantern. The lantern is better suited for 4 and 5 color decks.

• Armored Scrapgorger and Intrepid Paleontologist - Ramp and graveyard hate.

• Terror of the Peaks - I can't think of many wincons from the top of my head right now, but I for sure know Terror of the Peaks should be one. Rage Reflection feels too out of place here.

• Harmonic Prodigy - This allows Riku to copy things twice.

• Please remove Ionize. This isn't the deck that's going to take advantage from it. 3 colored pips in addition to counterspells not being good copy targets should make this an instant cut.

Icbrgr on

2 years ago

@TheoryCrafter Honestly I never thought of or knew about the interaction between Darksteel Citadel and Cleansing Wildfire; that sounds neat! I really like the Render Silent suggestion too.... but Ionize is actually really tempting too because of the lack of {U}{U} demand in its cost.

Thank you!

TheoryCrafter on

2 years ago

Have you considered just putting a full playset of Cleansing Wildfire into the deck? Combine this with Darksteel Citadel, the card draw and the ramp would be more effective than just the cycling lands. Especially since many of your spells and abilities have a mana cost of 4 or higher.

Other counterspells you may want to consider for this deck are Ionize and Render Silent.

I hope this helps. Happy Hunting!

wallisface on Question about cards that utilize …

2 years ago

9-lives addressing each of your comments in order:

• keeping in mind my list isa rough draft, it still is packed with a lot more win conditions than a typical control deck should have. Namely, Boros Reckoner+Blasphemous Act do massive damage, and then the game becomes fairly easy to close out with the various creature copy/steal spells.

• I’ve already explained multiple times why Ionize and Essence Backlash are terrible counterspells. The small amount of damage they deal doesn’t redeem them - they’re still heavily overcosted and too niche in application. Control decks win by controlling the board and then presenting a win condition when your opponent is low on resources. An extra 2-4 incidental damage won’t matter, especially when your opponent has been given soo much free-reign to do-what-they-want.

• the reason I suggested Control Magic over Clone is that Control Magic steals their creature, taking something from the opponent. Clone only copies it, meaning the opponent still has their stuff and you’ll likely end up just 1-for-1 trading thise creatures.

• Your quote of ”Also, the aikido archetype requires that I do damage whenever I counter. That's basically what aikido does.” is just plain wrong. That does not fit in with the glossary definition of the archtype provided above, nor does it fit-in with what actual Aikido lists (seen in edh) try to achieve. You’ve created your own warped definition of the term, and are now holding yourself ransom to it.

• your quote of ”Spellweaver Eternal is an aikido card because it does damage by blocking.” - not what the card does, not what Aikido decks in magic want to do.

• the land count in your deck is most-definitely too low, but i can see you’re not going to see reason here. Doing some stats using this site, with your current land count you’re going to miss playing your 3rd land on-time 45% of the time! You miss your 4th land 65% of the time.

9-lives on Question about cards that utilize …

2 years ago

The Question with that list is, wallisface, how the heck am I going to win? You can't counter your way into winning if you don't get at their life points. That's why I'm running Ionize and Essence Backlash. Especially the latter would be great against big creatures. And, every single one of my wizards benefits from Harmonic Prodigy, so I don't understand what you mean by my deck not having much use from it. Since I'm running budget, and already have Clone, I'd rather run that than Control Magic. I already own all of the cards in my deck except for having to buy Irencrag Pyromancer. The only non-budget things in my deck are the lands. Also, the aikido archetype requires that I do damage whenever I counter. That's basically what aikido does. I deleted my planeswalker and the fatespinner. 75 cards is as low as I'll go now.

wallisface on Question about cards that utilize …

2 years ago

The strongest card with this effect is probably the one dominating Standard at the moment - Sheoldred, the Apocalypse.

However, assuming you're trying to make tweaks to this deck of yours, you have much bigger issues to worry about:

• Ponder is banned in Modern, you can't run that card.

• You're running 79 cards, which is waaay over the 60 card limit, and will lead your deck to being very inconsistent and clumsy.

• Dialing your currently landbase to 60 cards, you're only running the equivalent of 18 lands, which is WAAAY too low considering your mana curve. Burn decks run 19 lands and only play spells costing 1-2 mana. Your deck looks like it needs to be able to reliably hit 3-4 lands to be able to do much of anything. imo you need to be running at least 23-24 lands in a 60-card deck (that's 30-32 lands in a 79 card deck).

• You're running some really suboptimal spells here. In modern you never want to be spending more than 2 mana for a counterspell - Essence Backlash and Ionize are both severely underwhelming (control decks never win by dealing 2 damage. They will however often lose by not being able to counter an important spell in the first few turns of the game). There are also a ton of much better drawspells than Deliberate (like Serum Visions or Consider)

• Your deck has no clear direction. Cards like Basri Ket and The Wanderer are both really weak and have no real purpose here. It's very hard to tell what this deck is actually trying to achieve, and that is going to make it play really awkwardly and make it harder for you to secure wins.

• Harmonic Prodigy and Spellweaver Eternal both want to be in aggressive, pro-active decks, but that's not what they've been allowed, as the rest of the deck looks like it wants to be playing super defensively. However, if you're aiming to be playing something more controlley, you're running waaay too many creatures, and waaay too little interaction.