[Deck] Izzet Phoenix

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BloodyRabbit
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Post by BloodyRabbit » 4 years ago

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With the printing of Arclight Phoenix, we discovered a new whole world in Modern. Graveyard recurring strategies are always been in the format, but in the last few years they went over the top, with the addiction of powerhouses such as Creeping Chill and Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis (which lead to an almost emergency ban of Bridge from Below, given the astonishing results of the deck expecially on MTGO).

Izzet Phoenix isn't the same "kind" of strategy, if compared to Dredge or Altarvine. It's, actually, one of fairest deck in Modern, with the exception of having in Arclight Phoenix one of those "recurring concepts" which are the bane of many players. The deck can be considered as the successor of the old Suicide Bloo, certainly faster than Izzet Phoenix but much easier to disrupt (that's where the differences between Kiln Fiend and Arclight Phoenix show their weight). The goal, once again, is to kill the opponent as fast as possible. But, compared to Bloo and the other hyper-aggros in the format, consistency is something we hold dear. If the opponent can interact with us, we aren't going to lose on the spot. Our threats are resilient, big and hungry. There's no way we can't go toe to toe against many Tiers in Modern.



STRATEGY AND PLAYSTYLE


Obviously, this deck falls in the "aggro" category. But there's much more, because our spectrum isn't the clearest, and we can move between different fields. When we're facing Combo decks or Big Mana strategies, we are the aggressor. There are few ways to interact with them (expecially pre-side), so we should focus on killing the opponent in the shortest arc of time. In the "aggro mirror" we often take the role of the Control deck, cleaning the board with Lightning Bolt and its big brothers (Flame Slash, Magmatic Sinkhole, Lightning Axe). Thing in the Ice is the best card we've got to face them, because it's at the same time a big beater and a pseudo-monodirectional Evacuation.

How to sequence cantrips is a topic that I hold dear. We can't always afford to play untapped land into Serum Visions or Sleight of Hand, because being a critical-mass strategy means saving our resources for when the time calls. The most common scenario is deploying a Thing in the Ice on turn two, flipping it on the next, or reanimating one-two Arclight Phoenix when we have two lands available. This means we should keep our cantrips in hand, preparing for the turn two/three sequence (which involves Manamorphose or free spells such as Surgical Extraction). If we don't need to, keep in mind that Faithless Looting is, most of the time, the very last "cantrip" we cast, because digging throughout the library to find some more Phoenixes is one of our priorities. Serum Visions is at its best when being the first of a sequence, and Thought Scour is the one we can shave in postboard matches, given the fact it doesn't provide card-selection.

One of the strongest play we have available is to cast a Thing on turn two, untapping and sequence a bunch of cantrips followed by a Faithless Looting, discarding two Phoenixes. Thing in the Ice will become an Awoken Horror before entering the combact, so it will bounce every creature the opponent controls, then we get to reanimate the Phoenixes and deal a bunch of damage to him/her. If the opponent can easily deal with Thing and/or Phoenix (expecially when Surgical Extraction is running rampant in the metagame) we've got a plethora of alternative win-conditions to get rid of them. Crackling Drake and Aria of Flame are the most common one.



DIFFERENT APPROACHES


There are three ways to pilot this archetype. When we talk about differences, even though there are few cards involved in the various attempt of deckbuilding, the strategy may vary quite consistently.



Decklist
Approximate Total Cost:

Decklist
Approximate Total Cost:



If we analyze all of these lists, the crucial point is easily pinpointed: while the skeleton of Izzet Phoenix persists, wincons and utility spells aren't set in stone.

The most common lists tend to run a variety of win conditions which are either cheap (Pteramander, Pyromancer Ascension) or that can take over the game on their own (Aria of Flame, Crackling Drake, Saheeli, Sublime Arteficer). Cards such as Finale of Promise are very midrangey, but also extremely powerful when you hit Manamorphose + random card from your graveyard. Aria of Flame is risky, because other than letting the opponent gain life (ugh) if they're able to dispose of it in a short time we've got a serious issue. That said, it bypasses things such as Ensnaring Bridge, which can be a nightmare for us.

A similar reasoning can be done for Pyromancer Ascension + Noxious Revival. It isn't the fastest of the combo, but it's extremely consistent (for the ones who don't know about it, it involves having two Manamorphose and two Noxious Revival either in the graveyard or in hand, a Pyromancer Ascension fully charged and at least one cantrip different from Sleight of Hand in case we only had the combo in the grave → we make infinite mana, then we can recurr Thought Scour and mill the opponent). It's easier said than done, but playing the deck you'll notice that the gameplan of Izzet Phoenix suits perfectly the Unstorm B-plan. That said, it's *again* a card affected by graveyard hate.

The last approach is the one I personally favor. Cutting midrange cards or cute Combo interactions in order to have some sort of disruption in the maindeck. People have played Izzet Charm and Spell Pierce in their sixty, before, and Force of Negation IMHO takes the deck on a whole new level, interacting with the opponent's threats (Narset, Parter of Veils and Chalice of the Void, anyone?) on the stack, before they land. The deck will have less opportunities to do broken things (fast turn two double Phoenix thanks to Surgical/Gut Shot), but the pros outweight the cons, according to my experience.



So, why should we play this deck?


PRO

  • This is the best Thing in the Ice deck in the format. The fact it's called Izzet Phoenix doesn't mean it only relies on the angry birds. Awaken Horror is the way you're closing out most of your games, and TiTi is a crucial threat in the current Modern. We can flip the Ice into Horror the turn after deploying it on the battlefield with almost no effort.
  • The deck can easily swap gears from Aggro to Control, depending on the matchup. It's one of the most consistent strategy in Modern, thanks to the plethora of cantrips it run, and you'll have few difficulties in looking for the "right half" of the deck even in g1, binning dead cards with Faithless Looting.
  • It doesn't have any 30-70 match-up. Again, being consistent means that you'll find your sideboard cards with a little effort, and it can be explosive enough to overcome the opponent even when you're the underdog.

CONS

  • Being one of the top Tier in Modern, the opponent is expecting to face Izzet Phoenix. They'll have a certain number of hate cards between main and side.
  • When the metagame is saturated with graveyard decks (at this moment, it is), Surgical Extraction become one hell of a card to run maindeck. You don't lose because the opponent is able to remove from the game all the copies of your Arclight Phoenix, but the deck becomes certainly much worse.
  • It is very threat-light. There's a lot of air in the deck, as a price to run that many cantrips.





Hate cards against Izzet Phoenix: tbc

Splashes: tbc

Matchups: tbc
Last edited by BloodyRabbit 4 years ago, edited 1 time in total.

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cfusionpm
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Post by cfusionpm » 4 years ago

While the printing of little Teferi and Narset have hurt this deck significantly, I had a window of great success with a Jeskai version of Phoenix. It was essentially UR in the main deck, and then splashed the white for Monastery Mentor and Geist of Saint Traft in the board. I was 4-1 and 5-0 with it the two relatively recent FNMs. But maybe those were flukes, as I was promptly and convincingly smashed 2-3 the following week. Have moved on to other decks at the moment, but the transforming sideboard felt extremely good after people brought in extra GY hate.

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Post by BloodyRabbit » 4 years ago

I had great success with the straight UR version in the last month, but in the ‘open slots’ (Surgical, Lava Dart, Ascension, Aria...) i’ve been running a full set of Force of Negation maindeck. They definitely convinced me. I had so so results, locally, before its addiction (a pair of 2-2, one 4-1 where I was VERY lucky), then I got two 4-0 and one 3-1-1 after swapping to that version. I feel like playing the ‘postboard version’ of Phoenix suits me more than going with no interaction on the stack in g1 in an open field.

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Post by LeoTzu » 4 years ago

What does everyone use for artifact hate? I picked up a couple copies of Shenanigans, but the fact that it's a sorcery makes me leery of running it.

Right now, I've been running a single mainboard Breeding Pool and 2 copies of Ancient Grudge in the side. I like the instant speed against cards like Inkmoth Nexus in Affinity and Infect (the few game loses I've had against Infect are due to not being able to answer an Inkmoth). It plays nice with Faithless Looting and it's nice to have one just chilling in the graveyard that I can pop off at any moment.

Shenanigans does seem nice, since you can potentially draw it… well, as many times as you want, which seems completely nuts when grinding against artifact decks (especially in a deck full of cantrips). It also plays well with Faithless Looting.

There's also Abrade. I like the versatility of it, but I rarely feel like I need to side in extra creature removal spells, so it really hasn't even been on my radar recently.

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Post by BloodyRabbit » 4 years ago

I much prefer Abrade, because Humans is still -imho- the best deck in Modern, and we definitely need some tools postboard to equilibrate the match.

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Post by LeoTzu » 4 years ago

Abrade is definitely a house in the Humans match. It kills every creature in the deck, it can hit a Vial and it's also live against Chalice of the Void if they happen to bring that in against you. In my local meta, I tend to bump into more Affinity than Humans, which is why I've been leaning toward cards that give you the option to grind.

edit: The more I think about it though, the more I like going back to Abrade, even though I haven't used it in a while.

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Post by Akhara_Vect » 4 years ago

So expanding on the topic of Abrade: What does your removal suite looks like? We now have a bunch of different spells available and just having licked up the deck, I am not sure what's the best split going forward.

Lightning Bolt: I think 4 Bolts in the MB is pretty much non-negotiable, it just does so much in this deck. It kills stuff, it clears the way for a flipped TiTi, if flips TiTi, it returns Phoenix and it allows us to close out games.

Magmatic Sinkhole: I am currently playing a 1/1 split between MB and SB. Switching out Ascension for Aria is, in my opinion, pretty straightforward and allows us to use Sinkhole effectively since we can delve a lot more aggressively. Hitting Planeswalkers is great and means there are very few MUs this card is actively bad. Dealing 5 damage takes care of both Teferis, Jace and Narset, meaning we can take out all of UWs PWs. It also kills Anglers and 4/5 Goyfs, which could attack into unflipped TiTis otherwise.

Flame Slash: Flame Slash is a simple and clean answer to all creatures with Toughness <5. 1 Mana is incredibly cheap, meaning we can use it to take out creatures in the early turns without having to tax our graveyard. Sorcery speed is a pretty huge downside though. I currently have 1 copy in the MB.

Abrade: Incredibly flexible, allowing us to remove creatures, Bridges, Chalice, Vials and even Expedition Maps. I personally prefer it over shenanigans because it is not as narrow and I like having flexible answers.

Fry: I still have to test this card but it looks promising and kills a lot of stuff. Being uncounterable is huge against UW as well as in the mirror, meaning we can cleanly answer problematic Planeswalkers as well as opposing TiTis.

Moving forward, I would like to try 4 Bolts, 1 Sinkhole and 1 Flame Slash in the MB with 1 Fry and 1 Abrade in the side. That gives me a lot of flexibility and resilience against a wide range of threats, especially against humans. Having differently named removal spells gives a lot of reslience against Meddling Mage while being able to kill Mantis Rider, Lieutenant and Champion.

What are your thoughts?

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Post by BloodyRabbit » 4 years ago

Personally, I’m running this:




I definitely want to pack the third Force maindeck, and I go back and forth between it and a cantrip or the third Aria. I really don’t know how to squeeze it in.

Fry is something I added after a discussion in the old forum, while talking about RUG Delver. It performed well so far, I didn’t realize people weren’t considering it as a possibility until few days ago.

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Post by Akhara_Vect » 4 years ago

Interesting. How have the Forces in the Main been so far? Do you miss the Surgicals?

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Post by BloodyRabbit » 4 years ago

I was playing the full set before, and I was happier. But I needed to make space for additional cantrips, which are valuable with Aria (which is too good to replace it with Drakes).

Surgical were always ‘meh’ in my experience with the deck.

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Post by BloodyRabbit » 4 years ago

So. I went back to my initial version, which is the one I find the most comfortable with.

Decklist
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I’m pretty tired to consistently lose games vs UW, BGx and Eldrazi Tron due to not having great topdecks. The metagame has shifted again, and right now Crackling Drake is a beast again, while Force of Negation has proven too good not to play the full set.

I had a poor 2-2 finish last week, losing against Jund and Esper Mentor. Discard is bad news for this deck, unless you can topdeck the %$#% out of them and close the game in two swings. I played yesterday again, and I finished 4-0 (Titanshift, UW Control, UW Control, Dredge). Wanted to make a quick report, but exams won’t let me. I’m writing just to appoint the fact that, despite the printing of new powerhouses such as Finale or Aria, I’m having far better results with my ‘original’ list.

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Post by LeoTzu » 4 years ago

How have you guys been faring against Jund? I recently talked to a Jund player about the matchup and he seemed to think that UR Phoenix is favored in game 1, which I don't really agree with. Short of an explosive opener, a pile of removal and discard seems really good against us.

Thing in the Ice feels really silly against Fatal Push and Decay/Trophy can make short work of an Aria. Do you guys have any tech for the matchup? Obviously Blood Moon can be pretty good against them. I'm planning on trying a Hazoret or 2 in the side, since it seems good as long as you can keep a LotV off the board.

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Post by BloodyRabbit » 4 years ago

The more Crackling Drake and Saheeli you play in the 75, the better chance you have in the matchup. On a perception level I find it around 45-55 overall, but then my results seems to indicate it's more of a 50-50 mu.

For istance, if you were to play in a metagame heavily skewed towards Midrange, I would go for something like this:




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Post by Amalek0 » 4 years ago

So this deck is pretty much just gone post faithless looting, right? Double checking my gut instinct?

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Post by LennX » 4 years ago

It will become a slower U Moon deck maybe. There are still other cards such as Chart a Course, Lightning Axe, the jump start cards and etc.

But yea, its pretty much gone as a T1 deck for now

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Post by LeoTzu » 4 years ago

Izzet Charm can pull a lot of weight... but the deck loses its explosive plays. I think there's still something here, but a large portion of the power can from doing some insane sequences on turn 3 that usually needed to include some number of Faithless Looting, pitching some Phoenixes.

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