MTG and the Modern Era: Keeping up with the Joneses

Staying up to date on professional Magic: the Gathering can be a full-time job in and of itself.  Knowing the top 8 decklists from last week seems rarely relevant.  With so many GP's and Pro Tours to keep up with and so many new decks entering a seemingly well-established metagame, it seems there is a new flavor of the month every week.  There are half a dozen MTG websites to split my time across, and there would probably be more if I spent the time to find them.  This is neither the time nor place to delve into specifics, however.

I bring this up only because I recently started using an RSS reader to help me keep up with all the goings-on in the Magic realm, and it has made a tremendous difference.  I only have to go to one site to get the information I seek, and don't have to dig through entire web pages for the one or two articles I want to read.  The one I chose was based on the reviews on Google Play, and it is the InoReader.  You can go to http://www.inoreader.com to get started with it.  It's really easy to use, and  has a layout and functionality that feels similar to an e-mail client.  Tagging particular feeds allows you to sort everything MTG from everything else if you use the RSS reader for other things.

Izzet Control continued

As I was saying the other day, Young Pyromancer represents a reasonable clock if you have a few instants and sorceries to back him up.  With 3 instants and sorceries, he represents enough damage to kill an opponent in 7 turns, assuming each of those spells are cast once per turn the turn after Young Pyromancer resolves (also assumes all spells were cast on your own turn; an unlikely scenario in hindsight... safe to assume the clock would be at least a turn faster since the Elemental tokens will be able to attack the turn they come out).

Pretty darn slow, but it's nothing to complain about coming from a 2-drop.  Frostburn Weird is a faster clock, but he will require a large mana investment, allowing the opponent to run out whatever he wants under your countermagic.

Firedrinker Satyrs might not be the best plan to increase the clock.  Without pumping him, he speeds up the clock by about 2 turns assuming he comes out a turn before Young Pyromancer does.  Not terrible by any stretch, but I'm not sure it's worth the sideboard slot and I'm not sure what decks the beatdown plan will be good against.

Anyways, I'm off.  Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving.

Izzet control

Izzet is a strange pairing of colors... reckless aggression and rage meets calm and patience.  It seems like a color pairing that will always produce some form of aggro-control similar to Delver... Resolve a threat and protect it with countermagic.  Well, I wanted something a tad more controlling, with the ability to board into a more aggressive build after game 1, and early experiments have been promising.  Aetherling is the best finisher a control deck could ever ask for.  Even Elspeth, Sun's Champion can't do it justice (and Elspeth is an awesome card.. don't get me wrong).

(here's my list for reference)

Don't laugh, but the best card in the deck is probably Lightning Strike.  It deals with a majority of the big loyalty producers in mono-black and mono-blue devotion, and it trades 1-for-1 with Reckoner (granted, you take damage, but still... a sweet trade).

The slots that were originally Trading Posts are Young Pyromancers.  The Trading Posts didn't perform as well as I had hoped in protecting my life total.  Maybe it should be a 1-of in the sideboard.  Sometimes, discarding a card to gain 4 life was good or paying 1 life and 1 mana for a chump blocker, but not very often.

Izzet Charm is really underwhelming in a deck that doesn't run a whole lot of card draw... its third ability is almost completely irrelevant.  It seems I'm usually pretty elated to trade this away for a mana dork or other durdly creature.  The other modes have never been relevant.  Ever.  Granted my testing consisted of three rounds of far less than competitive REL Magic.

Cyclonic Rift overloaded is an out to anything hexproof, gets rid of planeswalkers about to ultimate, and sometimes is just a non-overloaded tempo play to keep up the pressure when you go on the beatdown.  Sometimes, you live in magical Christmas Land and stabilize on the back of double overloaded Cyclonic Rifts.  Sometimes, but not often.  It is the deck's "wrath" effect, but it costs just a tad more.  Mizzium Mortars and Anger of the Gods may have a place in the deck as well, but I haven't fully explored all my options yet.

The most annoying threat to this deck comes out of the sideboard: Mistcutter Hydra.  If it gets more than 3 +1/+1 counters put on it, it is nigh-impossible for the deck to deal with inside of Izzet colors.  Ratchet Bomb does a reasonable job, and can do a lot of work against other cards as well.  That might be the answer, particularly considering how well Ral Zarek interacts with Ratchet bomb.

Steam Augury has been pretty sweet... None of the cards you pull off of it are bad.  Even if it's all land, it's still pretty sweet because you didn't have to sit there and draw all five of those lands.

The aggressive vane in it seems pretty obvious to me, but maybe I should cover it anyway... but it'll have to wait.  It's 2:40 in the morning here.. time for bed.

Happy Thanksgiving by the way!