MTG card Into the Flood Maw has more than doubled in price since Tarkir Dragonstorm released last month, hitting $4.30 this Wednesday, according to price tracking website MTG Goldfish. This uncommon blue instant is one of several cards to experience a price surge as a result of the powerful new Izzet Prowess deck that has swept through Standard since Dragonstorm went on sale.
Printed in Bloomburrow, Into the Flood Maw wasn’t the flashiest MTG card in the set. An instant that costs one blue mana, it allows you to return a single target creature an opponent controls to its owner’s hand. You also have the option to promise your opponent a tapped 1/1 fish creature token as a Gift when you cast the spell: if you give the Gift, you get to bounce any nonland permanent instead of a creature.
It’s essentially a variant of Unsummon, a classic control or tempo roleplayer that allows you to temporarily remove your opponent’s pieces, buying time and setting them back in mana. Unlike Unsummon it can’t protect your own creatures from removal, but it has the option to bounce anything that could be an issue if you give the Gift.
The latest MTG set, Tarkir Dragonstorm, has opened up an Izzet Prowess archetype that Into the Flood Maw works beautifully in. The deck uses cheap creatures with the MTG keyword Prowess and similar effects that make them hit harder whenever you cast an instant or sorcery, cards that create creature tokens with Prowess like Cori-Steel Cutter, cheap removal spells, cheap pump spells, and cantrips, to hammer down the opponent in a few short turns.
If you want to know more about Izzet Prowess, Magic pro Jim Davis goes over it in this video:
Into the Flood Maw is a perfect addition: for one mana it removes any big creatures that are out of reach of the deck’s burn spells. It doesn’t matter that the creature bounces to your opponent’s hand – they can’t recast them if they’re already dead.
Everyone was excited for Tarkir Dragonstorm, but we weren’t expecting a three color set with a focus on dragons to be the most impactful Standard set on the MTG release schedule. The Izzet Prowess deck alone has been driving plenty of price spikes, both for new cards like Cori-Steel Cutter, and recognised roleplayers like the Slickshot Showoff from Outlaws of Thunder Junction.
How are you finding Standard at the moment? Is Izzet Prowess so oppressive that it’s going to need bans, or do you think there are answers that the community hasn’t recognised yet? We’d love to chat with you about it in the official Wargamer Discord community.
Wargamer maintains an up to date version of the MTG banlist, and if anything from Izzet Prowess gets axed from Standard for being too powerful, you’ll be able to find it there. Meanwhile, we’re enjoying drafting Tarkir in the lull before the MTG Final Fantasy release date.
Source: Wargamer
