Standard: Izzet Terror - Deck Tech & Sideboard Guide

Delver was once one of the main references for blue decks in Magic. To this day, its structure of cheap cantrips, high-power, low-cost creatures, and a dozen interactions with a mana base of few lands is the reference for some of the most successful strategies in the game — Izzet Phoenix in Pioneer, Dimir Frog in Modern, Izzet or Dimir Tempo in Legacy, and Mono Blue Tolarian Terror in Pauper.

Standard has difficulty establishing this type of archetype due to the low availability of efficient cantrips and powerful payoffs in the same rotation. However, Cori-Steel Cutter, the main staple of Tarkir: Dragonstorm, offered another tool to leverage this type of strategy, and in addition to the Prowess lists that it successfully enabled, the artifact also stars in a new version of Izzet using another card that is also a staple in Pauper — Tolarian Terror.

Despite its name, Tolarian Terror has gradually had its number reduced in recent weeks. Some lists still opt for four copies, others swap for Slickshot Show-Off or Monastery Swiftspear and, in our case, we included Ral, Crackling Wit in the maindeck in slots that previously belonged to the blue creature.

Playing the Deck

Despite its similar structure to Izzet Prowess, our game plan is much closer to Pauper's Terror lists than to a more aggressive variant: carving our graveyard to sequence bombs. It's closer to a Delver of Secrets deck than a Monastery Swiftspear deck. In this case, our "Delver" is Stormchaser's Talent and Cori-Steel Cutter to start the game as the beatdown.

One of the reasons that makes Izzet Terror a flexible deck is the way it complements this early Aggro with a dozen mid-game bombs that finish the job with big bodies that, thanks to the new artifact, have guaranteed evasion to get past blockers.

However, it's important to remember that while we can push the tempo of the game with our early drops, we're not as successful at doing so as the more aggressive variants—after all, we're giving up an explosive early game in favor of a midgame with more permanent power on the board.

Our cards, for the most part, have an easy time creating snowball effects. A Cori-Steel Cutter will benefit you every turn with a new token, and due to the high number of Instants, we can make chains of two removals and/or Opt on the opponent's turn to create more tokens. Ral, Crackling Wit also offers the same pressure while sculpting your hand and creating a second clock in the game: the possibility of his ultimate doing everything gain Storm, can bury the opponent with card advantage.

Maindeck

Stormchaser’s Talent and Cori-Steel Cutter have become staples in any Izzet list in Standard, and it wouldn’t be surprising if they eventually found a home in Pioneer.

Both provide early pressure in this list and provide a flood of threats in the early game. Stormchaser’s Talent has good interactions with This Town Ain’t Big Enough to chain spells into longer games, which also triggers Cori-Steel Cutter — the main reason we have so many cheap spells and why this deck exists.

The midgame threats.

Tolarian Terror is a 5/5 for up to that protects itself and punishes cards like This Town Ain’t Big Enough for trying to bounce it, while also dodging common removals against our Cori-Steel Cutter plan. Furthermore, equipped with the artifact, it becomes a 6/6 with Trample and Haste, capable of ending games the moment it enters.

Hearth Elemental has a slightly smaller body than Tolarian Terror and doesn’t protect itself on its own, but it makes up for it with an Adventure that replenishes its controller’s hand after using all spells, in addition to triggering Cori-Steel Cutter on its own if there are enough spells in the graveyard to pay for its casting along with the adventure on the same turn.

Ral, Crackling Wit has finally found a home in Standard, and it does a little bit of everything we need: it puts tokens on the board every turn — supplementing the threat stream —, it filters our hand while triggering Proft’s Eidetic Memory, and its ultimate, if resolved, turns any spell into a source of value.

Proft’s Eidetic Memory takes advantage of the wide range of draw spells and effects we have on the list to amplify the power of our creatures, making them more resilient threats as the game progresses and ensuring that we can still pressure our opponent with fewer threats. It's also another target for This Town Ain't Big Enough.

The cantrips.

Sleight of Hand and Opt have become staples of Izzet Cutter decks, since they're the best option available for cheap spells that can fetch more spells in Standard today. Opt has the advantage of being usable on the opponent's turn, complementing other Instant-Speed ​​spells to create more tokens with Cori-Steel Cutter.

Unending Whisper can offer two draws with just one card due to its Harmonize ability, and our larger creatures can offer a way to play it from the graveyard for a low cost.

Glacial Dragonhunt is closer to a looting effect, but with the added bonus of interacting with the board when we discard a nonland card, in addition to being able to reuse it in the graveyard with Harmonize.

Burst Lightning serves triple duty in this list as a cheap early game removal, a way to trigger Cori-Steel Cutter on the opponent’s turn, and also as a finisher in longer games, where the Kicker cost expands its damage range to lethal.

Torch the Tower in the maindeck complements the cheap interaction package that also triggers Cori-Steel Cutter as an instant and deals with Heartfire Hero or other creatures with death or recursion triggers permanently.

This Town Ain’t Big Enough’s main function is to reuse Stormchaser’s Talent and create small loops per turn with the enchantment, where we level it up to two and return This Town to the hand, repeating the process.

Other functions include protecting our creatures from removal, reusing Hearth Elemental to trigger Cori-Steel Cutter and even removing blockers from the way for lethal damage.

We don’t have room for flexibility in our mana. With many cheap spells and color requirements, we want as many untapped duals in the list as possible. In addition, we avoid using too many tapped lands that can hurt early plays with Stormchaser’s Talent.

Sideboard

A few extra removal slots help in games against more aggressive decks, or decks that need to be more interactive with the board.

Torch the Tower works mostly against the Mice-packaged variants, like Mono Red, Gruul Prowess, and Rakdos Prowess, while Pyroclasm deals with the Cori-Steel Cutter variants more effectively — since we're one of those decks, we don't want too many copies of it.

Abrade mainly comes in against Mono Red and the Cutter variants to deal with Slickshot Show-Off or the artifact in the same slot. It can also come in other games with a lot of three-toughness creatures that we need to deal with, like Glissa Sunslayer.

Spell Pierce and Negate are mostly played against Bounce or archetypes where our board interaction is irrelevant. The split between them depends on what you expect to face, but Negate excels most against Omniscience or Jeskai Control, two games where we have difficulty making an efficient clock, while Spell Pierce excels against Prowess and Bounce.

Lithomantic Barrage also enters in games against Jeskai and deals with Abhorrent Oculus and other blue creatures or Planeswalkers that we would have trouble dealing with. In addition, it is our most efficient answer against Kaito, Bane of Nightmares.

Sunspine Lynx can be very damaging to us in some games, but it is even more dangerous against three-color archetypes with very greedy mana, such as Esper Bounce, or in games against Domain Overlords, which is still popular.

Stock Up is our tool for longer games where we need more sources of card advantage. It is worth remembering that we can reuse it with Stormchaser’s Talent when leveling up the enchantment.

Ghost Vacuum is our standard answer against Omniscience and Abhorrent Oculus, and it can also come in against Jeskai Control to hold Shiko, Paragon of the Way and its ability to generate absurd amounts of value with Stock Up or any other spell reused by it.

Izzet Prowess

IN

OUT

Mono Red Aggro

IN

OUT

Esper Bounce

IN

OUT

Jeskai Oculus

IN

OUT

Jeskai Control

IN

OUT

Omniscience Combo

IN

OUT

That’s all for today!

If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment!

Thanks for reading!