First of all, I would like to start out by thanking everyone for reading these articles. It’s awesome to have people messaging me online about the articles and asking me about the format. Thanks again, everyone. It means a lot.
Moving on, after my last article on bad Pauper decks, the most common thing people began messaging me about was what decks were good in Pauper. My response was consistently to play either Affinity or Izzetpost, depending on your preferences and play style. I’ve gone over Affinity before and still feel that it’s one of the, if not the only, premier aggressive decks in the format. The Fling build is still what I’d recommend for Affinity for its raw power and ability to win from out of nowhere. Talk of Affinity, though, is neither here nor there right now, since I would much rather focus on my other recommendation: Izzetpost.
For those completely unfamiliar with it, Izzetpost is a blue-red Cloudpost-centric control deck that uses a smattering of removal and countermagic to control the early game while using Cloudposts and Glimmerposts to accelerate into the late game, where it can power out tremendous bombs like Ulamogs Crusher or play multiple card advantage spells in a single turn. The deck is a top performer in Pauper because of its ability to efficiently control the early game against aggressive decks with removal and Glimmerpost, while being able to out-draw and severely out-mana the more traditional control decks like MUC or Mono-Black.
Now you’re familiar with the basic theory of the deck, you may be thinking to yourself, “Okay, Grant, I get it, but I’m here for decklists! Where are my decklists?” Or maybe not, if you have a more patient inner monologue than I do. Either way decklists and tons of analysis will be coming up shortly, I promise. In fact, the whole article is based on building a single decklist from many, something occasionally done by authors for other formats. Basically, decklists that have done well in previous events have all been tabulated in Excel, and from those lists, we will be looking for patterns in the builds, building a “Composite Decklist,” and analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of the commonly played cards.
The process began by using the excellent DeckTech tool right here at http://decks.mtgoacademy.com/ to go over five days worth of Pauper daily events and opening every single Izzetpost list that put up a 3-1 or better record, 32 of them in total. I then entered the contents of each list into a spreadsheet with the possible cards in a column on the left, with each column afterwards representing one complete decklist. I then did some basic Excel Magic to find total and average counts of each card. For the sake of completeness, and so that people can use the data to draw their own conclusion, here are the averages and totals.
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Izzetpost cards by DE |
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|
|
Totals |
Averages |
|
128 |
4 |
|
|
128 |
4 |
|
|
231 |
7.21875 |
|
|
178 |
5.5625 |
|
|
12 |
0.375 |
|
|
24 |
0.75 |
|
|
38 |
1.1875 |
|
|
9 |
0.28125 |
|
|
1 |
0.03125 |
|
|
5 |
0.15625 |
|
|
1 |
0.03125 |
|
|
TOTAL LANDS |
755 |
23.59375 |
|
|
|
|
|
12 |
0.375 |
|
|
94 |
2.9375 |
|
|
20 |
0.625 |
|
|
22 |
0.6875 |
|
|
31 |
0.96875 |
|
|
1 |
0.03125 |
|
|
35 |
1.09375 |
|
|
87 |
2.71875 |
|
|
74 |
2.3125 |
|
|
9 |
0.28125 |
|
|
3 |
0.09375 |
|
|
18 |
0.5625 |
|
|
9 |
0.28125 |
|
|
2 |
0.0625 |
|
|
26 |
0.8125 |
|
|
16 |
0.5 |
|
|
4 |
0.125 |
|
|
88 |
2.75 |
|
|
1 |
0.03125 |
|
|
4 |
0.125 |
|
|
12 |
0.375 |
|
|
1 |
0.03125 |
|
|
1 |
0.03125 |
|
|
1 |
0.03125 |
|
|
2 |
0.0625 |
|
|
84 |
2.625 |
|
|
53 |
1.65625 |
|
|
26 |
0.8125 |
|
|
53 |
1.65625 |
|
|
20 |
0.625 |
|
|
102 |
3.1875 |
|
|
34 |
1.0625 |
|
|
103 |
3.21875 |
|
|
1 |
0.03125 |
|
|
40 |
1.25 |
|
|
18 |
0.5625 |
|
|
18 |
0.5625 |
|
|
3 |
0.09375 |
|
|
2 |
0.0625 |
|
|
2 |
0.0625 |
|
|
21 |
0.65625 |
|
|
9 |
0.28125 |
|
In order to build a composite list, I will break down the mana base, creatures, and spells each separately, discussing relevant points and quantities making the composite list as I go. The composite list will be based on simple rounding of average quantities of each card played. For example, if 1.2 copies of a card were played on average, 1 copy will make the composite list. Similarly, if .6 copies of a card made the deck on average, a single copy will also make the composite list.
Let’s dive right into some analysis, starting off with the mana base. First and foremost, it should come as no surprise that Cloudpost and Glimmerpost are unanimous four-ofs. In fact, these eight total cards are the only ones to make every single list in the quantity that they do. No big revelations so far. The next thing I would like to address is the total land column. These decks played an average of 23.59 lands, which honestly seems a little low to me, but is actually quite representative. Of the 32 lists, only two played more than 24 lands, one with 25, and one with 26(!) lands. As a general rule, I would personally favor the extra land in a deck like this, causing me to lean towards 24, which is also the number dictated by pure rounding which will be used to create a composite list. Generally speaking, though, the lists with 23 lands did make up for fairly well by generally including a few extra fixers or cantrips like Expedition Map or even Wayfarers Bauble in a few lists. For basic lands, seven is both fairly close to the mean number of Islands played, as well as the mode, with over half the lists playing exactly seven. There is much less of a consensus on the number of Mountains to play, with an almost even split between five and six, as reflected in the average of 5.56. Six then make the composite list, and we move onto the other specialty lands. Terramorphic Expanse and Evolving Wilds are functionally identical, and will each be making the composite list as one-ofs. The Pauper fetch lands were by far the most common form of mana fixing among the decks, which isn’t too surprising since the deck can generally afford a fair number of ETBT lands in order to hit colors consistently with eight colorless lands. So far that means we have:
7 Island
6 Mountain
for mana so far. As stated above, both personal preference and the actual average number of lands would dictate a 24th land, even though each other land rounds to a zero quantity. I consider these additional lands something of specialty lands, and so we simply choose the most common of these “specialty” lands as our 24th mana source. In this case, Izzet Boilerworks made it into over a third of the decks, so it gets the nod. So our composite mana base is now:
7 Island
6 Mountain
Next we will examine the creatures played in these decks. Being control decks to the very core, Izzetpost generally plays only a few creatures, most if not all of which provide some sort of beneficial effect beyond simply having power and toughness. The old adage of control being able to win with a 1/1 if it establishes control well enough is exemplified perfectly in the creature selection of Izzetpost. Mulldrifter was by far the most common creature in the sampled list, and in fact was actually the third-most commonly played spell in the sampled decks. A Divination early and an evasive win condition that keeps putting you ahead in the late game, it isn’t hard to see why Mulldrifter made almost every deck sampled, and makes the composite list as a three-of. Similar in purpose to Mulldrifter, if not in popularity is Sea Gate Oracle. His ability to replace himself while filtering is excellent, and the fact that his 1/3 body can save you quite a bit of damage against an aggressive deck make him an excellent early play and an acceptable late-game topdeck. Most lists sampled played either four or zero of the cantripping 3-drop, leading to an average of .625 per deck, enough to warrant testing at least the one copy in our composite list. The final utility creature to make our composite list is Steamcore Weird. The Weird is neither as unanimous a choice as Mulldrifter, nor as polarizing as Sea Gate Oracle. Many lists opted for one or two of the mini-Flametongue Kavu in an effort to staunch aggressive creature rushes. Our composite list will be playing one.
The other common category of creature in control decks beyond the card-advantage generating utility creature is that of the finisher. Creatures used solely to kill an opponent aren’t necessarily a fixture of every control deck since they tend to be expensive and can make for awkward draws when trying to actually establish control of the game. Luckily for Izzetpost, this problem can be mitigated fairly well by simply playing a colorless finisher that can be played much earlier than normal thanks to Cloudpost. This thought leads directly to the only truly powerful colorless creature in Pauper, Ulamogs Crusher. The Crusher is not only a sizable body, but it also comes with a form of disruption built in that makes chumping awkward and racing difficult when paired with any sort of removal, which Izzetpost packs in droves. While an ideal finisher for Izzetpost, the issue of clunky draws is still a possibility when the deck runs and draws multiples, so a single Ulamogs Crusher makes our composite list. That leaves our composite creature base looking like this:
The only other creature that was played in any of the sample lists was Mnemonic Wall. But averaging under .4 copies per deck doesn’t make it popular enough to make the composite list. If I had to guess, those who excluded it did so because it’s a bit slow compared to the other options. For example, if you bring back a Flame Slash with the ability, you end up paying six mana for what boils down to essentially a marginally better Steamcore Weird. The mana in the deck is plentiful, but not plentiful enough to justify the wall over slightly faster cards.
Now we come to the real meat of the analysis for Izzetpost, the spells. A full half of our composite list will be either instants or sorceries, as is common when it comes to control decks. Spells in control decks generally fall into four broad categories: card advantage, permission, removal, and a broad “other” category for things like finishers or other effects. Let’s begin by examining first the means of drawing cards for Izzetpost.
We will begin with what was actually the most commonly played spell in Izzetpost, Prophetic Prism. While not strictly a “card-drawer” this innocuous cantripping artifact is in fact somewhat pivotal to the strategy. With around 1/3 of the deck’s lands only producing colorless mana, Prism allows smooth operation of the manabase while replacing itself to dig towards gas in the early game. The other early method of drawing cards, Preordain, was the second-most popular spell across the sampled lists. Functioning as an early way to ensure land drops and also as a way to dig up to three cards deep for a single mana in the late game, Preordain is a phenomenal card. Much like Brainstorm in Legacy, it’s often right to wait until you really need to cast it rather than blowing it early because you have the mana to do so. The ability to scry away two cards is quite potent when looking for that single win condition or last removal spell. Using your mana every turn isn’t nearly as important as surviving until the long game, making Preordain one of the best and most flexible, but also hardest to play skillfully, cards in the deck. Compulsive Research is the next card to help comprise the bulk of the card advantage in Izzetpost. Digging three cards deep and often able to generate actual card advantage is obviously awesome, and it’s often easy to discard something like your second Mountain or third Island. The fact that Compulsive Research costs three is perfect too, since it can be cast to set up before aggressive decks can really threaten lethal, while also being cheap enough to be cast before another spell in the late game. Deep Analysis and Mysteries of the Deep are both singletons in the composite list, and both are simply good at drawing cards without any strings attached or decisions to make. Both earn slots by being able to simply draw more cards than any other cards in the deck, especially Deep Analysis, and though the life loss from flashback can actually be an issue in some games, it’s generally an excellent source of raw card advantage. Mysteries of the Deep will likely be cast with landfall most times, though it certainly isn’t the worst ever to cast as an instant if you have a hand full of countermagic. The final piece of draw that the deck plays with a fairly high frequency is actually the instant tutor, Mystical Teachings. Being a deck that can get card draw spells, removal, or even finishers with Teachings is incredibly powerful. Mystical Teachings is also what lets the deck take such a “toolbox” approach to things like countermagic and removal. All of this taken together gives us the following for our composite draw suite:
Next up is the obligatory countermagic. Rarely if ever has a blue-based control deck been played that didn’t feature at least a small amount of countermagic, and Izzetpost is no exception. Because the deck features so many colorless lands, the actual card Counterspell is not included in most lists, being replaced by easier-to-cast “taxing” countermagic like Mana Leak and Condescend. Mana Leak is obviously used mostly to get the deck into the late game where it shines, and gets the nod over other options as the most flexible 1U counterspell that is most usable at any stage in the game. It isn’t the only one at that cost, though, in our composite list. Negate and Prohibit both averaged enough copies to make the list as singletons, each filling different roles. Prohibit is mostly used like Mana Leak as a way to get past the early game. Negate, though, is mostly a late game card, used to stop back-breaking bomb spells from opposing decks like Fling, Fireblast, or an opposing Rolling Thunder. The aforementioned Condescend is the last bit of countermagic for Izzetpost.
Condescend is excellent in Izzetpost for a few reasons. It can act as an effective counter in both the early and late games. Sometimes in the early game all you really need is a Force Spike to survive, and in the late game when Izzetpost out-manas every other deck it becomes effectively a hard counter for anything. On top of all that, it also helps you dig deeper towards whatever you may need at the time, generally more loci in the early game or gas in the mid to late game. Summing up, the composite permission suite:
1 Negate
1 Prohibit
Unfortunately, you can’t counter literally every spell your opponent plays, especially not with a somewhat light counter suite. That’s where removal comes in. Izzetpost generally dominates the late game with powerful spells and gobs of mana, but that doesn’t mean much if you just die to a swarm of goblins on Turn 4. Removal is key to getting into the late game where you can leverage an advantage over other decks. To that end, Flame Slash and Lightning Bolt both make it into the composite list as three-ofs. Both can kill most any creature in Pauper, especially Flame Slash, which can even take down monsters like Myr Enforcer or Spire Golem that would otherwise be quite difficult to answer. The last Lightning Bolt generally gets the nod over the last Slash because of the instant speed. Some creatures are best killed on sight, like Disciple of the Vault. The damage loss isn’t usually relevant when compared to Flame Slash, at least not enough to make up for the sorcery speed. Also, it should be noted that Bolts almost never go to the dome with this deck, since damage is much better spent on creatures here. You probably aren’t Lightning Bolting the head unless you’ve already effectively won, but it does happen when racing combo and on other rare occasions. The last four removal spells are all singletons that serve as ways to generate extra card advantage through removal, all in slightly different ways. Seismic Shudder, Serrated Arrows, Firebolt, and Staggershock are that quartet. The first is obviously a sweeper, and being able to clear out a horde of goblin tokens is its most common use, though it can also kill a handful of white weenies at once too. Serrated Arrows falls between sweeper and simple removal spell. The Arrows can be used to kill up to three creatures in three turns, to shrink a creature to blockable size, or simply to outright kill a large man on the opposite side of the table. The latter pair are both simply cards that give you two Shocks at the cost of only one card. There is no shortage of x/2s in Pauper, and 2-for-1s are always welcome additions to a control deck. Here’s the composite removal suite:
1 Firebolt
Coming up on the home stretch here, we have the very broad “other” category left to address, comprising basically anything that doesn’t draw cards, kill creatures, or counter spells. Three cards in the composite list fall into this category, one of which is a mediocre tutor, and two win conditions. Expedition Map is the first. The Map does a little bit of everything in Izzetpost. Short on mana? Get a jump by finding a Cloudpost. Dead on board? Glimmerpost can help. Short of casting two spells this turn with a million loci out? Find a basic. Expedition Map does a lot of things for the deck, and even if none of those things is particularly exciting, it’s good enough to nab a slot in our composite list. Finally, we come to our last two cards in Izzetpost, which are also two of the most unanimous cards across the sampled lists, Capsize and Rolling Thunder. Both fill the role of effective finishers, while both having midgame utility. Capsize can completely stunt an opposing board once it gets rolling, and even against aggressive decks where it would generally be worse, it can act at worst as a decent Healing Salve by bouncing a Glimmerpost over and over. Rolling Thunder is similar in that against opposing slower decks, it can just go to the dome for practically the full 20 when the coast is clear. Alternatively, Rolling Thunder can also do one hell of a Wrath of God impression should the situation call for it. Our composite “other” category then is:
1 Capsize
Now you might think we’re done here and ready to jump in with our composite list if you haven’t been paying close attention. Those who have been paying close attention though will notice that we’re currently sitting at 62 cards. I’ve fudged control decks to 61 cards before, and might even consider doing so with this deck. Especially since we wanted almost exactly 23.5 lands, the 61st card could help us better get to that ratio. It would feel wrong, though, to suggest a 61-card deck in an article, so we’ll be making two cuts. For the sake of adhering strictly to my methods outlined at the start of the article, those cuts will simply be the two cards that had to round furthest to make the cut. The first cut then becomes easily Firebolt, as it had exactly half a copy per list, as well as being one of my personal least-favorite cards to make the cut. The last card that can be cut is statistically is a three-way tie between Serrated Arrows, Seismic Shudder, and Deep Analysis. All three averaged .5625 copies per deck, but one of them, Serrated Arrows, had such a high average because of a handful of lists playing three or four copies each. Meanwhile, Deep Analysis and Seismic Shudder were common singletons. This leads to the conclusion that Serrated Arrows is likely better in multiples and is less effective as a singleton than either Shudder or Analysis. That leaves this as the composite Izzetpost list built from these 32 decks:
Composite Izzetpost by Grant Champion (Pitlord)
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There it is; a holistic, composite Izzetpost list. All in all, the list actually seems surprisingly solid, and is at the very least a good place to start testing if you’re new to playing Izzetpost. Starting with a composite list will allow a new player to determine their play style and their own card preferences. I’ve played a few games with the pure composite and was fairly impressed with the results. Though odd, the numbers do actually seem to work fairly well. The card I’ve been least impressed with in testing so far has been Seismic Shudder, though it certainly serves a purpose and fills a niche not filled by any other card in the deck. The only card I immediately want to add to the composite list is the fourth Preordain, since that card really is just that good. Otherwise the removal, countermagic, and creature mixes have all been quite satisfactory.
The final thing worth mentioning is that I’ve neglected addressing the sideboard throughout the entire article. Sideboards are always a bit more sensitive to the metagame and actual contents of the rest of the deck, and so building one using a composite approach is generally less successful. Also, sideboard cards are much less universal than maindeck ones. There were 35 different sideboard cards in these 32 lists alone, leading to a great deal of variation and low composite numbers. The only really consistent cards were Hydroblast, Pyroblast, Stone Rain, and some form of artifact hate, be it Ancient Grudge or Gorilla Shaman. A composite sideboard would probably be along the lines of:
Note that this sideboard should, like everything else about Magic you find on the Internet, be used just as a guideline and not a hard-and-fast rule.
If you haven’t played Pauper yet, or just haven’t played control in Pauper, or even haven’t played Izzetpost, now is a terrific time to do so. The deck is well-positioned at the moment and has a great deal of raw power. Use this composite list as a guide and start learning to play the deck and learning your own preferences; you’ll be quite successful in Pauper.
Thanks again to all my readers, especially the ones who slogged through this whole article. As always, if you enjoy my ramblings you can always talk to me online as Pitlord on MTGO.
–Grant Champion
@grant_champion on Twitter.
Well put together article, thanks.
“Well put together article, thanks.” x 2
Very well done, now I just need to find a prohibit
Firebolt and flame jab are for infect, in my testing it’s an almost un-winnable matchup without them.
First time reading this article series and so far I like it. Will have to go back and read some of the older ones.
So, this article finally convinced me to build IzzetPost. I’m still short a Rolling Thunder, but other than that, I’m pretty happy with the deck. I will say, however, that the maindeck Negate feels wrong. Many times it would be stuck in my hand and my opponent would be casting a creature that I needed to stop, and I couldn’t.
I second that Browndr. Sadly I don’t have most of the expensive cards or I would have built this deck.
Thanks for the positive responses everyone!
@Ron: Firebolt and Flame Jab are both good against infect, but firebolt isn’t generally much better than the other removal spells available. By the time you can actually flash it back the game is likely pretty close to decided. Flambe Jab is certainly good in that match, but too narrow in general IMO.
Re: Negate – Negate isn’t the greatest card to be sure, but it fills a niche quite well. It’s basically a concession to the other control decks in the format, especially the mirror and MBC as a way to neutralize their finishers. If you were dead-set on replacing it though I would probably recommend a single Counterspell as a way to counter late game threats while potentially being useful early.