Teaching Decks: Izzet Burn

by ToastasaurusRex on 28 March 2018

Main Deck (60 cards)

Sideboard (15 cards)

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Deck Description

So this is a project I wanted to engage in- To make a set of 10+ super-budget 60-card decks that are simple, relatively easy to play, relatively easy to understand, and bring across the fundamentals of how Magic Works.

The Idea being that you could easily build these deck for a low cost and use them as an easy introduction to how magic works, to teach a group of new players both how to play, and give them a sense of Why, a sense of what fun things they're getting into. These decks aren't gonna be particularly good, or even legal in any particular format if it stops me from including a card I think is good for the deck, but they should be fun and interesting without being too hard to get into.

For a Change of Pace from creature combat, I wanted to see if I could set up a vaguely fair deck that's just trying to wheel spells and guttersnipe you to death, and boy does this deck do that.

Maindeck Cost ~$10.50-ish at time of writing (using the blue, average values offered by the site), plus ~$3.25 for the sideboard, which is nice and cleanly beneath my $15 limit.

How to Play

So mostly this section is going to be notes on why I think these are good cards to learn from:

Guttersnipe and Thermo-Alchemist are pure burn creatures that exist to support your crazy spellcasting antics, nothing more or less. Mercurial Chemister isn't gonna get much good out of that red ability, unless you draw 2 of them and pitch one to the other (Which is hilarious if you do), but as a card-draw engine, it's hard to argue with. Earlier drafts of the deck had more of a top-end, but it was only there for the sake of it.

Curiosity is a mean card in this deck, because it will turn your spells into de-facto cantrips. How does 2cmc instant-speed divination with flashback sound? Bolt a creature, draw a card? Counter that removal spell trying to break up this exact combo, draw a card? I'm honestly not sure if this interaction is too mean, too good, or too complicated for these teaching decks, but I kinda want to see where they go with it.

As for spells- Revolutionary Rebuff is a great "unless they pay" counterspell, Izzet charm can shock face or do a passable impression of Spell Pierce, Essence Scatter helps you control the board, Shock, Searing Spear, and Fiery Impulse are strong red removal, and the first two can go face, and Think Twice is hilarious in this deck, since is synergizes with all the on-cast triggers.

The manabases in all of these decks are supposed to be a touch lackluster, mostly for budget reasons.

As for the sideboard, this IS supposed to be a sideboard they learn how to use, to make their deck perform better in the right matchups, or just in general to customize their decks within constraints. They can switch around their counterspell package a little, but I wasn't able to make a ton of good room for it.

Pyroclasm blows up a bunch of your own creatures, but you do what you gotta do to survive against agro. Chandra's Defeat also helps that matchup.

Send to Sleep is a good way to buy time, and Tears of Valakut I thought was a cute choice, because most of these decks' endgame control finishers have flying so far, so it really is going to have matchups where it shines.

Edit: I should try and work two copies of shatter into the sideboard, not sure how to though.

Edit Edit: Even better, I should try to work two copies of Annul into the sideboard.

Deck Tags

  • teaching deck
  • Casual
  • Budget
  • Burn

Deck at a Glance

Social Stats

6
Likes

This deck has been viewed 1,902 times.

Mana Curve

Mana Symbol Occurrence

0210260

Card Legality

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

Deck discussion for Teaching Decks: Izzet Burn

+1
Goblin Electromancer could be an option instead of e.g. Mercurial Chemister and Flame Slash instead of Fiery Impulse. I would also use a 4th copy of Curiosity to make sure you have enough carddraw. Also Unsummon or Echoing Truth could be an idea. If you want to make use of Mercurial Chemister's red ability then Lava Axe would be worth a look.
Last year I had 2 new players that wanted to try magic and see if they would like it. I had a good feeling as one already had been playing Yu-Gi-O (on the computer) and the other was a clever chap. After explaining the magic-colours, their strategy's and so on they each decided on a colour-combination and I threw together 2 decks that I thought where simple enough (Basically Gruul Stompy and Simic Evolve). Well sadly it wasn't simple enough (for the one that already had played Yu-Gi !, the other one hadn't any problems with the decks). I'm still waiting for a second chance to try to explain it again, this time with more simple decks. So you should either have some cards that you're able to switch out things like Izzet Charm or Mercurial Chemister for or have some real simple decks if you find someone like those two.

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Posted 29 March 2018 at 09:08

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Without a single spell in the main or side board that costs more than 2cmc, I'm just not convinced there's a point to playing electromancer. I also kind don't want the deck to be too reliant on the curiosity combo, since I'm not even sure the deck should be running it. Think Twice and Chemister should be a workable amount of card draw on their own. None of the card choices are ideal, but they're simple, they're cheap, and I think they're good ways to learn. And Ilike having Chemister as a more expensive top-end to the deck.

So do you think that Choice cards like Charm and Chemister are too much for trying to teach like this? You might be right, the Charms do kinda look like an intimidating block of text if you don't get a version with the new bullet-point formatting. Do you remember any specific issues your friends had with the decks? Did Evolve turn out to be a bit much to learn with? I could see that happening. Do you remember any specific cards or interactions they had trouble with that I should avoid using for this project?

I hope you get another chance to teach them, and if you want to try one of my decks for it, please do.

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Posted 29 March 2018 at 16:32

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I gave one player a gruul stompy deck (https://www.mtgvault.com/muktol/decks/rg-gruul-beginners-deck/) and the other got a simic evolve deck (https://www.mtgvault.com/muktol/decks/ug-simic-beginners-deck/). The learned the basics fast enough, the only issue being the manabase, learning that they untap at the beginning of a new term and can be re-used every turn. The problem I/ they ran into was in the last turn: Simic hasd some creatures with +1/+1 counters on them out and played an Overrun, which was too much and too complicated for the other player to calculate. The simic-deck was played by someone who plays a lot on the computer and is a technician, tough I thought that he might have more problems with this as he never had played anything like magic before. But the problem occurred with the player that already had played Yu-Gi-O...but only on the computer where the machine did all the calculations for her.

I try to limit the number of different mechanics I use in a beginners deck to a certain amount and use only cards that have one use/ ability. As I'm printing the cards it's no big deal to have two decks, or some replacement-cards, if the player learns faster than I thought and is ready for some advanced cards. I also don't include sideboards because for that you need to play at least 2 games against the same player and the same deck, and you need to know your deck and you opponents to decide what to remove and what to add.

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Posted 30 March 2018 at 08:04

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That makes sense- between keeping track of the counters on all the different creatures, on top of Evolve creatures having really weird and uneven stats in the first place, so they cause eachother to evolve more often, PLUS the overrun effect, I can see that getting out of hand. A good lesson there- Creature buffs can be intimidating, don't put too many all together.

Yeah, my thought on the sideboards was that they'd serve less like a real sideboard and more like just your pool of cards to modify your deck with- If someone likes the sideboard cards and just wants them maindeck always, that's their choice. I would also encourage them to essentially sideboard before matchups, since I'm running the assumption that these games are all being played among my Teaching Decks, either me using them against someone I'm teaching, or me teaching a club or something together. It's fair to be able to ask "What deck are you on?" and both players to give a strait answer, then swap a few cards out based on what they think will help.

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Posted 30 March 2018 at 08:29

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