A new Magic: The Gathering deck is kicking butt after the release of the new set Tarkir Dragonstorm, performing well on the competitive scene. This Izzet aggro Standard deck relies on the Prowess keyword, overcoming opponents with buffable creatures backed up by endless spells.
The deck runs many cards that will be familiar to you if you’ve dabbled with the best Standard or MTG Arena decks over the past year or so: cards like Slickshot Showoff, Stormchaser’s Talent, and Monastery Swiftspear. But there’s one new card from Tarkir Dragonstorm that makes this entirely new archetype possible: Cori-Steel Cutter.
This equipment card is one of the deck’s main sources of creatures, as it spits out monk tokens with prowess whenever you cast your second spell for turn. Even better, when the token is created, you can equip Cori-Steel Cutter for free, letting your brand new creature attack immediately.
Powering it up is loads of card draw and impulse draw, plus some burn spells, and even a counterspell or two. In fact, the deck only runs 8 creatures, with 30-32 cheap non-creature spells that can trigger Prowess.
Just like the Gruul decks with their plentiful buffs, this Izzet strategy makes blocking a nightmare for your opponents. Thanks to Prowess, you have a good deal of control over how hard your creatures hit, allowing you to push attacks through. The Steel Cutter is also resilient – immune to most removal spells and board wipes.
In other words, it’s an incredible card, and likely to be one of the most impactful of the set, at least for this MTG format. It’s already become one of the costliest cards in the set, more expensive than Mistrise Village and Call the Spirit Dragons – two cards that made a bigger splash during spoiler season. At around $15, it’s basically the same price as Craterhoof Behemoth, now that multiple successive reprints have cratered that green giant’s value.
We should note, however, that just because the deck’s performing well now doesn’t mean it necessarily has staying power – it may be prudent to save your wildcards a few weeks and see if it’s still winning. Right now, Izzet lists are regularly making the top 10 in Standard Challenges on MTG Online, but because it’s the new hot deck, it’s likely that it’s massively overrepresented.
Elsewhere in Standard, the absurd combat trick Monstrous Rage and the card draw spell Up the Beanstalk continue to fuel the best Standard decks, causing many to lament the fact neither was considered for the MTG banlist update two weeks ago. However, this new deck’s rise to greatness shows that Tarkir Dragonstorm still has a shot to shake up the format… even if it does also play Monstrous Rage.
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Source: Wargamer
