9th Place in the Pro Tour! -Izzet Phoenix Deck Guide with Ashiok-

Introduction

Hola!

Today, I would like to talk about the Izzet Phoenix deck that took me to 9th place in Pro Tour Murders at Karlov Manor. 9th surely stings in some ways, but it also means the deck certainly behaved well for me.

2022/7/15
Izzet Phoenix in Pioneer After the Bans
Javier Dominguez

The last time I talked about the deck was when 《Expressive Iteration》 got banned. I certainly didn’t play much with the archetype between the summer and a very few days before the PT, but that shows that in Pioneer if you learn an archetype, you can pick it up later as long as it’s still competitive.

In team Handshake we made some tweaks to the Phoenix deck for the Pro Tour itself and I was happy with how those changes played out.

As I already covered some of the Basics in my last Izzet Phoenix article, I will talk about the innovations we did with the deck and some aspects of the technical play with it.

So, what’s going on with Izzet Phoenix? Let’s find out!

Izzet Phoenix

This is the decklist we brought to Pro Tour Murders at Karlov Manor:

Izzet Phoenix by Javier Dominguez – Pro Tour Murders at Karlov Manor(9th Place)

Izzet Phoenix has been hovering around Tier1/Tier2 status on Pioneer for a while already. Going into the Pro Tour, it became clear that it would be the deck to beat and most likely the most played deck at the tournament.

Playing a deck that’s so much expected always comes with some dangers, particularly on a PT level, where opponents will be able to prepare the matchup quite well therefore making the deck considerably worse.

I was personally a little bit reluctant to play Phoenix but I’m glad I ultimately decided to play it and I’m lucky to have teammates with enough experience and skill with the deck to improve the decklist from the stock version we were going to play with.

Izzet Phoenix archetype is already quite refined overall so most decklists look almost the same as the others. We were fine with playing a stock deck but once again Anthony Lee came clutch and suggested trying 《Ashiok, Dream Render》 on the main deck.

A few hours later, we had settled our Pro Tour decklist.

《Ashiok, Dream Render》

《Ashiok, Dream Render》 was from my perspective a pretty large improvement in some of the most important matchups of the Pro Tour.

The first thing 《Ashiok》 does is being excellent in the mirror match. Mirrors often go quite long and 《Ashiok》 offers an extremely efficient way to deal with both 《Arclight Phoenix》 and 《Treasure Cruise》 at the same time. Not only that but having them maindeck means we don’t have to worry about them eating a 《Mystical Dispute》.

Also, don’t let its Planeswalker type fool how you can play it as Planeswalkers tend to be better as tempo cards. Sure, 《Ashiok》 can dominate the game and be an effective turn 3 kill if landed on an empty board early enough, but unlikely other Planeswalkers, it can also be quite effective played on the late game hammer, where not even 《Spell Pierce》 can answer it. 《Ashiok》 being good on the mirror match was certainly one of the biggest reasons to play it.

However, Lotus Field is the matchup where it shines the most. Actually, most games Izzet Phoenix would win in our testing against Lotus would involve 《Ashiok》. We were sure we loved 《Ashiok》 as a sideboard card for that matchup, but once we tested it in game 1, it became clear that they actually struggled at comboing once this was on the battlefield.

One big difference there was that in game 1 we would have all our 《Fiery Impulse》 and they would often have fewer creatures, so losing to a random big 《Dragonlord Dromoka》 was less likely. We felt the impact in this matchup was massive, as having a hate card main deck in a deck full of cantrips makes it so you can have it way more often than you would in a deck without manipulation.

《Ashiok》 is surely strong in these two matchups but playing a card like this comes with a big cost in other matchups. Creature decks, Rakdos Midrange or Azorius Control come to mind. And this is where it lies the real reason for us to play this Planeswalker. It has a decent floor.

Let me explain why. Even assuming we don’t have any use for the ability, which is rather rare – I’m looking at you, 《Kroxa, Titan of Death’s Hunger》 – if we get to untap with 《Ashiok》 even once it will mill us for eight cards, which is already at the very least going to mean we can cast 《Treasure Cruise》 for only one mana. But there’s more into it as we can also flip 《Galvanic Iteration》 and 《Arclight Phoenix》.

In the first game I was able to 《Treasure Cruise》 into 《Temporal Trespass》 on the same turn thanks to 《Ashiok》 against Azorius Control I knew I was locked to play some on the main deck.

I would not recommend playing 2 if the metagame changes, but if Izzet Phoenix is the most played deck I think playing some amount of 《Ashiok》 is where I would like to be with Izzet Phoenix.

《Picklock Prankster》

To put it directly I think 《Picklock Prankster》 is so good that it is the main reason why Izzet Phoenix became the deck to beat in Pioneer, even though 《Sleight of Hand》 surely helped.

It doesn’t look like anything special. I thought – same as many other players – that it was simply a worse version of 《Pieces of the Puzzle》. And we were wrong. Very wrong.

《Picklock Prankster》 is the premium enabler for this deck. Mills cards and offers card selection in a way that no other spell does. In addition to that, the instant speed makes all the difference. 《Go Blank》 used to be an incredibly strong card against Izzet Phoenix, countering the milling of 《Pieces of the Puzzle》 and making it so casting 《Treasure Cruise》 was almost impossible. With 《Picklock Prankster》? Cast 《Free the Fae》 end of turn and you are almost there!

I think this card has something in common with 《Fable of the Mirror-Breaker》 in the sense that it doesn’t matter how much you read it, it doesn’t read as powerful as it is when playing with it. The amount of flexibility this card added to the deck made it so cards like counterspells became much better, while they were awkward with the sorcery speed 《Pieces of the Puzzle》.

However, that’s not all. It comes with a free creature. Now, 1/3 flying vigilance for two mana doesn’t sound that big of a deal, but if you want to get a better perspective of how good it is you can compare it to 《Jegantha, the Wellspring》, which is a free companion that ends up being a 5/5 for 8 mana. Now a couple of 1/3s for two mana doesn’t sound that bad.

I think 《Picklock Prankster》 really are the companion of Izzet Phoenix decks and they feel like such when they end closing games beating down in situations where both players exchange resources and end up having almost no cards in hands giving the Phoenix deck a win.

They also make it so the 《Temporal Trespass》 + 《Galvanic Iteration》 kills are easier to achieve. In addition to that, they are also excellent for triggering our 《Ledger Shredder》 on topdeck mode. It really does it all.

《Ledger Shredder》

Last time I said 《Ledger Shredder》 did so much for this deck it could be better than 《Expressive Iteration》. I will now say this is the most important threat of the deck, clearly more important than 《Arclight Phoenix》 themselves.

A relevant part of the field is matchups where we are way ahead when we play a turn 2 《Ledger Shredder》 and pretty weak when we don’t. The biggest advice I can give you in that regard is that if the matchup is bad, mulliganing into hands that can play a turn 2 《Ledger Shredder》 is a better strategy than keeping a mediocre hand and losing particularly in game 1. If you know what you are playing against and you need a 《Ledger Shredder》, adjust your mulligan strategy and you will probably collect more game 1 wins.

One thing to keep in mind with 《Ledger Shredder》 is to decide when to play it on turn 2 or wait until turn 3 so you can guarantee a trigger. I tend to default to just playing it as soon as possible, but I would wait for turn 3 if my hand is otherwise bad, includes one or more 《Arclight Phoenix》 and no other way to discard them. I also will hold it if I think it is extremely likely to die, like playing against Rakdos Midrange and they kept a hand without any 1 or 2 drop.

《Opt》 vs. 《Consider》

This one is one of the trickier ones. Let’s be clear, most of the time, the correct play is to Consider first, as it fills the graveyard faster so you can 《Treasure Cruise》 as fast as you can.

Another thing to consider (!!) is that if you have both 《Consider》 and 《Opt》, you ideally want to play 《Consider》 when you actually will put more cards into the graveyard and 《Opt》 when you are going to keep on top of most of the stuff.

As an example, if you cast a cantrip and you would keep both a land and a removal spell on top, that means you will rarely put anything on the bottom/graveyard. In that example, 《Opt》 first sounds better. You also have to do some 《Treasure Cruise》 math, as you don’t want to miss the window to cast one because you cast 《Opt》 instead of 《Consider》.

Other factors to take into account when deciding between 《Opt》 vs. 《Consider》 are:

– 《Opt》 puts a card in the bottom of your library. That sounds worse than putting in your graveyard, but it’s not always the case. You get another card in your library and that can mean an extra turn of life. You often draw through your whole deck and are at risk of getting decked. In that situation, 《Opt》 is better as it can give you a whole extra turn to attack.

In that regard, if you did mulligan and put any critical card like 《Temporal Trespass》 or even 《Arclight Phoenix》, 《Opt》 in addition to 《Sleight of Hand》 can let you draw it while still having enough cards in your library to use it to win the game. Keep that in mind when choosing to play 《Consider》 over the other two cantrips, and try to remember if you did send a key card on the bottom of the library.

– 《Graveyard Trespasser》 and 《Go Blank》 are potential reasons to play 《Opt》 first, as if you are going to get an 《Arclight Phoenix》 into the graveyard, you’d rather have it there the turn you are going to bring them back. The same goes if you would put a 《Ledger Shredder》 in the graveyard against 《Graveyard Trespasser》, it might be better to opt first on that situation against Rakdos.

《Sleight of Hand》 vs. 《Opt》/《Consider》

While 《Sleight of Hand》 is often the cantrip we play first as its sorcery speed, I’ve found an exception to be quite common playing against discard spells. If you have 《Opt》 and 《Sleight of Hand》 against a 《Thoughtseize》 deck, it can be wise to simply pass the turn and lose the flexibility of the sorcery speed in the future. With this, we gain two advantages.

First, our opponent will have less information about what our runout of cards is. This means they can’t take a 《Ledger Shredder》 we would cantrip into because we haven’t cantripped into it yet. That’s already good enough, but there’s more! We also get to gain information about our opponent’s game plan before we make our decision with the cantrips, which should not be underrated. Often, discard spells reveal a lot about the content of our opponent’s hand.

For example, if we have a 《Ledger Shredder》 and a 《Treasure Cruise》, and they take the 《Ledger Shredder》, it probably means they don’t have a removal in hand. Using this information will make us get better value with the cantrip spells, and that’s worth more than the sorcery speed in the early turns.