Izzet Mindblast; advice needed

by Ghostalker on 28 February 2013

Main Deck (60 cards)

Sideboard (15 cards)

Creatures (2)


Instants (3)

Artifacts (2)


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Deck Description

I need some help refining this deck, as I'd like to be able to compete at a tournament level in Modern.
The main strategy revolves around keeping your opponent's hand nice and full and then triggering trap cards in retaliation. By keeping it creatureless and almost permanent-less I give the enemy as few targets for their spells as possible, so they are forced to keep them in hand. It can potentially go off on turn 3 if you manage to draw/search for 3 Traps and keep your enemy's hand full. Lotus Bloom helps give some early mana and Spell snare is a counter-counter. The key is to play as much as possible during your opponent's end phase, firstly so you can strike when they're tapped out and secondly so their natural draw phase counts towards the trigger for your Traps. As everything in the deck (pretty much) consists of instants, you can react to whatever they throw at you.
I have 3 main questions:
Are the lands ok (amount/type)?
How can I refine the sideboard?
Should I add more burn, in which case what can I lose?

How to Play

Play slow for the first few turns, bounce any creatures that attack you back into the opponent's hand with Snag and Rift, you can also use Snare to counter early creatures. If possible, get a few Howling Mines/Jace into play to increase the draw for both you and your opponent. With luck he/she will struggle to play much with only a few lands. When you have a nice bunch of Trap / Vengeance cards, bump you opponent's hand up to 7 with Skeins and play all of them. A combination of 3 should inflict 21 damage for the win.

Deck Tags

  • Modern
  • Combo
  • Draw
  • Trap
  • Izzet

Deck at a Glance

Social Stats

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Mana Curve

Mana Symbol Occurrence

0260160

Card Legality

  • Not Legal in Standard
  • Legal in Modern
  • Legal in Vintage
  • Legal in Legacy

Deck discussion for Izzet Mindblast; advice needed

My friend plays a deck much like this actually. Of course I don't think you just want to mimic his deck, but here are some things that he does that you might consider:

Time Warp or Temporal Mastery for extra turns: Gets the most out of howling mine's ability and gives you a good lead in terms of mana. Also lets you keep some land open for instant bounces or counters.

Temple Bell: Same general effects as howling mine, but lets you capitalize on the extra turns more if you decide to take it in that direciton.

I don't honestly see the point for lotus bloom--cutting out the three would save a lot of money and I don't think it does a lot in this deck. Sure it's fast mana, but I think this deck has the potential to be fast enough without it. From what I've seen of my friends version, even without bounces, no one can really get more than 10 damage on him before his strategy sets in.

Those are just some of my opinions. Nice deck though! Love to know how it works out. If you get a chance, check out some of my decks. Working on refining a monoblack standard and a simic standard at the moment.

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Posted 28 February 2013 at 14:49

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