Marauding Modern: Izzet Prowess or is it Prowess?

Hello internet, my name is Blue, and today I want to discuss a deck I’ve been playing for well over a year now and my thoughts on some recent changes to the deck. Since Faithless Looting was banned in modern, I’ve been playing Mono-Red Prowess which quickly became my favorite deck in the format. It just draws so many cards and can kill so fast that as a dedicated blue player, I just can’t help but fall in love every time I pick up the deck. That being said, M21 brought a new toy for it that has caused a lot of players to start splashing blue. Stormwing Entity took the deck by storm (see what I did there?) upon the release of M21 and while it’s very strong, it’s caused a lot of deck-building changes. Today, I’ll be covering several of those changes and my thoughts on each one. Let’s get started with the simplest change.

Crash Through or Opt?

The Mono-Red version of the deck has always played Crash Through as a way to force through damage against a board full of blockers. Especially with Kiln Fiend builds, the Trample cantrip was always one of the most important cards in the deck, but with the blue splash, many players are using the aforementioned Stormwing Entity and Sprite Dragon. This has brought up the question: “is trample necessary when the best threats in the deck fly?” In my opinion, this depends on the meta. If the format is full of control decks, then Opt is better because you don’t have to worry about blockers so the card filtering from scrying is more relevant than the Trample. On the contrary, if the meta is full of creature decks, whether they fly or not, then I think Crash Through is better. Remember, most of the creatures in the deck are on the ground with Monastery Swiftspear and Soul-Scar Mage, so you’re more likely to see a ground creature than a flying creature. This means being able to force through damage on the ground through blockers is really important. That’s not to say Opt isn’t good because it is. I’ve played with both cards in different builds of Izzet Prowess and I can see why people opt to play it (I’ll see myself out.) I just think Opt is better in a creature-light meta.

Basically my overall point is, Opt is good. Crash Through is also good. Which one you play should depend on the meta. Right now at the time of writing this, the meta seems to be Control, Jund, and various aggro decks, so right now, I’d say Crash Through is better because it’s sad to say but Opt doesn’t fight through Tarmogoyf. Plus, you incidentally have an edge against Timely Reinforcements.

How Many Creatures?

My next point is a really important one because it directly affects my last point we’ll get to shortly. How many creatures should you play in the Izzet builds? Every list of Prowess I’ve seen always plays four copies of both Monastery Swiftspear and Soul-Scar Mage, but after that, things get complicated. In Mono-Red, there’s almost always somewhere between two to four copies of Bedlam Reveler and two to three copies of a two-drop, usually either Kiln Fiend or Runaway Steam-kin. In the Izzet builds though, there are two creatures fighting for the two-drop slot, and almost every build is trying to play both. That’s where this question comes up. In Mono-Red, there’s roughly 14 creatures in total. In most Izzet builds, there seems to be about 18 or 20 and that really puts pressure on your Prowess plan because you have fewer spells to ‘combo off’ with, and it hurts Bedlam Reveler because you have fewer spells in the graveyard to actually cast Reveler with the full discount. At least one of the high-end cards needs to be dropped in my opinion because running 18 creatures is a lot for a deck built around a noncreature mechanic.

So let’s say we do drop a creature. Now the question goes from “do we?” to “which one?” Dragon and Entity are the deck’s easiest ways to close out the game since Dragon can grow really fast and it stays big and Entity dodges a lot of removal in the format, as well as naturally starting out as a 3/3 flyer. There’s an argument that Reveler is the easiest cut, but that’s how we refuel. So we can’t cut the one-drops for consistency, we can’t cut the two-drops for power, and we can’t cut Reveler for card draw, so what’s the cut?

I know this is crazy, but with so many creatures in the deck, I think the cut is actaully Bedlam Reveler. It’s difficult to turn on with smaller amounts of spells and it doesn’t trigger Prowess, so sometimes it’s just stuck in our hand. Cutting Reveler may be correct, but then we need to discuss what to replace it with, and that leads us into our next point.

Replacing Reveler

I’ve seen a lot of discussion about cutting Reveler from the deck for the reasons stated above, but what do we replace it with? We could go to the full four copies of some of the three-ofs like Sprite Dragon, or we could look at other card draw options since that was the purpose Reveler served. I have two that I want to look at, but there may be others I missed when looking.

So these may look odd at first, but let me explain. They do everything we want out of Reveler, except be a creature, which is the entire point of why this argument is coming up so that’s even a good thing here! They draw cards, they stock the graveyard, and they trigger prowess, so what can they individually bring to the table instead of Reveler?

Visions of Beyond

First I’ll look at Visions. Similar to Reveler, it needs cards in the graveyard to turn on, but unlike Reveler, it doesn’t care what cards are in the yard. They can be lands we cracked or sacced to Lava Dart, spells we had cast throughout the game, or even creatures that died, got discarded, or countered while we played. Most of the games I play with Prowess, I notice I have a very large graveyard rather quickly, so it’s not unrealistic to get to 20 cards easily. That’s not to even mention it can be turned on by our opponent’s graveyard as well and it can be cast to draw only one card to cycle when it’s not online or we need to get in one more Prowess trigger to close out the game.

Ideas Unbound

next, we’ll look at probably the worse of the two options. Again, it’s very similar to Reveler in a sense that it draws cards, but it does it differently than Reveler or Visions. The way that I’m thinking of it, it’s kinda like a souped-up Faithless Looting. It draws us three cards for two mana instead of two cards for one mana, but it has a major difference. We don’t discard until the end step, so if we draw three spells we can cast, it’s basically a two-mana Ancestral Recall. Additionally, it can be used like a pseudo-Looting in the early game to dig on turn 2 and maybe discard extra lands we don’t need or Lava Darts to flashback later. I think the biggest downside of this as an option is that it costs , which is a pretty big ask of a deck that really wants red mana.

Ultimately, if you’re looking at taking out Reveler, it’s important it gets replaced with something that can fill its roll easily without hurting the deck. These may not be the best options, but they can get the job done I’d imagine.

One last note before we wrap this up because I imagine someone new to modern might not realize it: Treasure Cruise would be the best option for this spot by miles if it wasn’t banned. It draws three cards, triggers Prowess, and only costs so it’s easier to splash, but alas, it’s been banned in modern since it was printed in Khans of Tarkir. It’s still legal in Pioneer however 😉

Wrap-Up

Overall, I’ve enjoyed playing the Izzet version of Prowess and I’m happy to see my boi Sprite Dragon seeing constructed play. I hope to have some success with the deck in the future. Do you have any questions for me? Maybe a card suggestion I missed or overlooked? Let me know in the comments or tell me on Twitter @TheRealBlueMTG. While you’re there, don’t forget to follow the website @MTGOracle and our sponsor @Mana_Traders! That’s all from me for today. This is Blue, signing out!