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Pojo's MTG
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BMoor's Magic
The
Gathering
Deck Garage
You'll notice that
this one is addressed to "Druid"? Sean read my article
where I mentioned a shortage of decks, and forwarded me
about five or six. So I should be good for a while.
The funny thing is, I
once forwarded a batch of decks to him because he wasn't
getting any sent to him. The even funnier thing is,
this one's Izzet, the first archetype I ever got sent so
many of I got tired of fixing it (pre-Stuffy Doll). The
funniest thing is, Brett here mentions sending his deck
to other garages. He likely sent me this deck before,
and I deleted it because it was Izzet. But I'd say it's
been long enough now.
Okay, Brett, let's
get to work. What's the first thing that comes to mind
here? You're using the Niv-Mizzet/'P
 hid
Eye combo, but you only have two copies each of Niv and
the Eye! If your deck is built specifically to take
advantage of a combo, you need four copies of each card
in the combo. I've said this many times, but people
just don't want to listen it seems.
After settling that
out, it looks like you're also
using Gelectrode and
Wee Dragonauts. This is useful since your combo may not
work-- people are probably going to be gunning for Niv
once they see a 'Phid Eye. So, to take advantage of the
Dragonauts and Gelectrode, you'll need a good supply of
cheap instants and sorceries. And for a combo deck,
card draw and counterspells are important. So, let's
drop the expensive ones-- Repeal, Invoke the Firemind,
Blaze, Compulsive Research, and Rewind. In their place,
add more Mana Leak and Remand. More Shock, too, if you
can find room. Or even try Needle Drop from Lorwyn.
It's not much damage, but with Gelectrode or a Dragonaut,
it can be quite punishing. Plus it's a cantrip.
Next, your mana
base. There's a reason I took out all your X spells,
and it's not just so you can play multiple instants
during your opponent's combat phase. It's because the
Urzatron is crippling you.
You see, folks,
Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind has a mana cost with double red
and double blue. When card in your deck have double
mana requirements of even one color, it's preferable
that it be one of the main colors of your deck. Triple
mana requirements are deceptively difficult for all but
monocolored decks. Double mana requirements of two
different colors, however? Well, then you pretty much
need to be running an even split of the two colors. And
colorless lands are practically not an option.
So, to ensure that
you can play Niv-Mizzet as soon as you draw him, you
need all your lands to produce either [R] or [U], if not
both (or one of each, like Izzet Boilerworks). So out
goes the Urzatron. In goes 4 Terramorphic Expanse to
get you the right land at the right time, and Islands
and Mountans can fill out the rest. That should help
more than you realize, now that the X spells are gone.
You should be able to play something almost every turn
now. If not, consider a one-mana blue cantrip, like Opt
or Serum Visions. Or my new favorite from Lorwyn,
Ponder. I expect to recommend Ponder a lot in the
coming years.
Finally, my quirky
Johnny card of the night: Jhoira of the Ghitu. With
her, you can just suspend Niv! Or any other card you
may want to. Just imagine: you untap, then upkeep, Niv
comes into play, you flash the 'Phid Eye on himm during
your upkeep, and on your draw step you win! Not bad,
eh?
Well, that was kind
of a short fix. Probably because I've fixed a lot of
Izzet decks. Now that Ravnica's out of Standard, I
suppose I won't get as many of them, but then I still
get plenty of Mirrodin and Kamigawa, don't I?
Until next time,
~BMoor
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