I’d been playing the same deck, the Bantnanigans deck, for a while now and prior to that Naya Pod and then UW Delver, so I wanted to play a deck with no green or white in it. I don’t have the cards for Monoblack control, and Esper is also out because of the white.
So, that meant either Grixis or Blue-Red. I wasn’t up for Grixis and since it was a really busy week at work for me I decided to just netdeck. I also love the Izzet color combination since I used to play CounterHammer and CounterPhoenix back in the day. In fact, I played a UR Delver deck back in December, but that was a couple sets ago. Anyway, based on a recommendation from @Smi77y’s tweet, I decided to go with Henry Romaro’s PTQ-winning list, though with a couple tweaks of my own. Here’s my version:
[deck title=Izzet Delver]
[Creatures]
4 Delver of Secrets
3 Grim Lavamancer
3 Augur of Bolas
4 Snapcaster Mage
2 Talrand, Sky Summoner
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
2 Bonfire of the Damned
3 Gitaxian Probe
2 Gut Shot
4 Ponder
4 Thought Scour
4 Vapor Snag
3 Arc Trail
2 Mana Leak
2 Sword of Feast and Famine
[/Spells]
[Land]
1 Cavern of Souls
9 Island
4 Mountain
4 Sulfur Falls
[/Land]
[Sideboard]
1 Act of Aggression
2 Combust
1 Dissipate
2 Negate
3 Phantasmal Image
2 Pillar of Flame
2 Steel Sabotage
1 Talrand, Sky Summoner
1 Flashfreeze
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]
Basically, I cut the Twisted Image and one Arc Trail for two Bonfires, and I moved one Cavern to the main deck. Having now played the deck, I’m happy with those changes.
Incidentally, I’m calling it “Izzet” rather than UR as I’m trying to get myself to use the Ravnica Guild names with Ravnica coming up soon.
Round 1: Andrew playing Elf Wave
I got a Delver on turn 1 and got it to flip, repeatedly Snagged his one Elvish Archdruid to prevent him from ramping like crazy, Arc Trailed a couple other elves, and got in there for the win. Game 2 I got an early Lavamancer and had enough cantrips to keep him fueled up, which is bad news for a bunch of little Elves—he was pretty much a machine gunner. This was over pretty quickly.
1-0 matches, 2-0 games
Round 2: Kevin, playing Esper Midrange
This was not the “standard” build of Esper Midrange that has been around. This featured Silverblade Paladin, Geist of Saint Traft, and Sun Titan. Game 1 he got a turn 3 Geist to my empty board and I was never really able to catch up. Game 2 I managed to have a Phantasmal Image when I needed it and burn when it was relevant, and crucially got a Sword on something to keep him off cards. Game 3 I got stuck on three land for a long time and he got out a Sun Titan and was recurring a Geist and a Paladin. I kept Snagging the Geist’s Angel token (I actually had all four Snags in hand at one point in this game. In fact, I Pondered once with three in my hand, the fourth was in the top 3 and I shuffled, and drew… the fourth Snag. Ugh.) that was soul bound to the Paladin and chumping the Sun Titan. This game had my punt of the night, when I finally drew an Image and copied his Titan. What happened is that on my own next turn I drew Talrand, cast Talrand and then Ponder to make a token, all of which would keep me alive for another turn… and then forgot to attack with the Image to copy his Titan and get the other Image in my graveyard. Oops. Unfortunately I drew nothing useful the turns after that, and he just killed me. Ugly mistake.
1-1 matches, 2-3 games
Round 3: Josh, playing BW Smallpox
Game 1 was back-and-forth, with me drawing enough Ponders so that his Smallpoxes were not keeping me off land. At one point he had Liliana at 4, then cast Lingering Souls and flashed it back. I usefully managed to topdeck a Bonfire to wipe his board, attack with my Snapcaster, and Gut Shot Lily to take her out. I was assisted in this game by the fact that he was kind of flooded. Game 2 he had a rough opener without two sources of black and it took him a couple turns to get the second black when he had two Sign in Blood and two Lilys in hand. He did get the Lily down, and I killed it with an attack from a Snapcaster and by using an Arc Trail to do one to myself and two to her. I followed that up with a Sword, and that carried it.
2-1 matches, 4-3 games
Round 4: Blaine playing 4C Pod
Blaine is someone I thought I had seen in the store before and never played, and he’s clearly kind of new. Game 1 I Pondered on the first turn to set up both a Delver flip and Bonfire for 1 to kill both a Bird and an Elvish Visionary. He did get a Pod and a Blade Splicer, but I Snagged the token and he podded the Splicer itself later (though I don’t remember what he got with it). I then just raced him, using Vapor Snag a couple times on his Wurmcoil Engine to finish him off. Game 2 my sideboard did some great work. He started the game with turn 1 mana dork, turn 2 dork and Rampant Growth. His next turn he Imaged my non-flipped Delver. I flipped Delver (I had just cast Ponder) and hit him for three. He came back with a Sunblast Angel (I love that card) to kill my Delver, and he swung for one with his copy of my Delver. So next turn I Imaged his Angel to kill all his mana dorks and his Image. Next turn I attacked with my Image because I had an Arc Trail in hand. He didn’t take the bait and just let me hit him for 4. He cast Thrun so I didn’t swing next turn, and instead I cast Talrand and a Scour to make a Drake. He cast a Metamorph, and said he was copying Thrun. I asked “Are you sure?” He looked at the board, asked if he couldn’t cast it because of the Hexproof, and I pointed out that the copy ability doesn’t target. “Hmm,” he mused, “so what’s the problem?” I probably shouldn’t have answered but instead I was nice and said “Legend rule.” He realized what was up, and then figured out that right thing to copy was Talrand. Hey, it’s FNM. Anyway, I topdecked an Image of my own to kill his Thrun, Arc Trailed him down to 10, and equipped a Sword I had cast earlier. He came back with an Acidic Slime to kill the Sword but nothing else, and was tapped out. With him at 10 and with no other fliers but the Angel, I borrowed his Angel with Act of Aggression and swung for exactly lethal in the air.
3-1 matches, 6-3 games
Round 5: Jeff, playing RG Aggro
Game 1 was actually pretty interesting. I got an relatively early Delver flip off a Ponder and he came back with a main deck Daybreak Ranger—yikes. The good news was that I had a Sword out and was able to equip it to protect my Delver and swing in, costing him a card. Next turn I had a cool play: I had four land out, the Sworded Delver, and in my hand Talrand, Ponder, Snag, Probe, and Thought Scour. I tapped out for Talrand, swung in and untapped my land, and cast all of that to make four drakes. He shot one with the Ranger, of course, but he did not topdeck a Bonfire and I made two more drakes during his end step off the cards I drew from the cantrips, and easily swung for lethal in the air. Game 2 he went turn 1 Birds, turn 2 Elf and Rancor the Birds, swing for 2. I Arc Trailed the dorks. He did nothing his turn 3 (still with the Rancor in his hand), and his turn 4 he tapped out for Huntmaster. I came back with Delver, Ponder, and Pillar for the Huntmaster, leaving a blue open and with Snag in hand. He went for the play I hoped for next turn, which was to Rancor the wolf token, which I of course Snagged in response—sweet. Delver flipped, I drew a Leak to go with the Snap in my hand, and pretty much cruised through the rest of the game.
4-1 matches, 8-3 games
Quarterfinals: Simon, playing Esper Control
Yes, I got paired with my 11-year-old son in the top 8. Sucky. We had played this matchup on Thursday night when I put the deck together and he’s definitely favored in game 1 unless draws are bad or mistakes are made. It went pretty much according to script: I failed to open with a Delver, eventually beat him down to something like 7 before he got Gideon and Day through and finished me off with Elesh Norn. Game 2 I sided out the Bonfires and Gut Shots and an Arc Trail for the Dissipate, the two Negates, and the Steel Sabotages (he runs a Batterskull and a Wurmcoil, so Sabotage isn’t great, but it’s less awful than Gut Shot). I didn’t get off to a fast start, but I had a Snap and multiple counters in hand so I just sat back and countered stuff, drawing two Augurs to keep my hand full and peck at him, and managed to ultimately draw both Negates, one Leak, the Dissipate, and multiple Snapcasters and just locked him out. At one point he did stick Sorin because he had Leak backup but by then I had a flipped Delver and a Lavamancer so I took care of the Lord of Innistrad without too much trouble. So, here it was for all the marbles and… I gave him the win. Come on, it’s my own kid! We played a third game just for bragging rights and I managed to pull it off with two Augurs and two Lavamancers that went all the way against both Gideon and Sorin. So, while I did actually win, he was the one who advanced to the semis, where he got blown out in about ten minutes by Zombies. Much better matchup for me, but Simon got store credit for making top 4 so he was happy, and having your kid be happy is always a win.
5-1 matches, 10-4 games
Thoughts on the deck:
• I firmly believe that adding the two Bonfires was the correct thing to do. I’m not sure about main-decking the Cavern as I only drew it a couple times. Everybody in the deck is a Wizard so it seems reasonable in principle.
• In general, this deck performed much better than I thought. I had grossly underestimated just how good Lavamancer is right now. Lots of people asked why I was playing Swords instead of Pikes (particularly since I was playing 4 Thought Scour), but I’m sold on the Sword because you want the cards in your graveyard to power up Lavamancer, which was amazing.
• Arc Trail was fantastic. Right now I actually think the right mix for red decks is a split between Bonfire and Arc Trail, and I think the 2/3 split I ran was actually pretty good. Bonfire is pretty bad in a non-ramp deck when you don’t miracle it—though sometimes even a non-miracle Bonfire for 1 is a value play—and in this deck, I think Arc Trail is overall slightly better.
• Auger is awful when he misses, but it was so worth it for every time I hit a Ponder. I think 3 is correct.
• The sideboard was just about perfect. The only iffy card, I think, is the Flashfreeze; I would actually consider a Redirect there because of what a blowout it is for Bonfire, Brimstone Volley, even opposing Vapor Snags. Might be too cute, maybe a Dismember or Grafdigger’s Cage/Tormod’s Crypt instead.