After seeing the full spoiler, I am once again frustrated with WotC ability to properly design for the Izzet.
I'm an Izzet mage throug-and-through, but I recognize the guild's typically weak representation in limited. Every single Ravnica block, you have to rely on the creatures and spells of the other guilds and relegate your Izzet cards to support. Once again, the Izzet creatures that would potentially be the most effective in limited are hampered by a strict mana cost or strict reliance on mostly over-costed instants and sorceries.
Izzet-aligned "removal" is mostly manifested to low damage burn. Yes, it can team up with other abilities, but relying on multiple interactions is a risky proposition in limited.
Will I still try to force a mostly Izzet build at prerelease? Absolutely! My fanboy-ism is strong.
Still, I look at the interactions between mechanics of other guilds like the Dimir and Golgari, or, to a lesser extent, the potentially aggressive alliance of the Boros and Selesnya cards and I can't help but see the weaker interactions of the Izzet with it's only pairable shared-color guilds (Boros an Dimir).
Mentor only occasionally helps Izzet creatures and Surveil can put jump-start cards into graveyard, but isn't the selling point of jumpstart the fact you can use them twice? Surveiling them into the 'yard means you only get to use them once at the expense of another card. The most impactful Jump-start cards for limited are already typically overcosted by one mana, so only getting a single use at the cost of another potential resource seems underwhelming.
Maybe I am completely wrong in my analysis after the first look at the full set. Still, I feel a bit disappointed as an Izzet to see my potential at the prerelease.
What are everyone else's thoughts?
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
COMMANDER DECKS
Gishath, Sun's Avatar
Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind
Surrak Presents: Snow-where to Run (A Temur Production)
Zurgo - Mardu Warrior Tribal
Gisa and Geralf
Jhoira's Artifacts
Once again, the Izzet creatures that would potentially be the most effective in limited are hampered by a strict mana cost or strict reliance on mostly over-costed instants and sorceries.
The creature mana curve on Izzet seems fine IMO. Piston-Fist Cyclops, Fire Urchin, Wee Dragonauts, Smelt-Ward Minotaur and Leapfrog seem all aggresively costed, and while the Instants/Sorceries seem slightly on the expensive side, they are on par with other sets in the current era like M19.
Izzet-aligned "removal" is mostly manifested to low damage burn. Yes, it can team up with other abilities, but relying on multiple interactions is a risky proposition in limited.
Hypothesizzle is one of, if not the best Common removal I've seen in long time. It's Instant speed, it cantrips and it's versatile. It's on par with the Dimir removal spell, Artful Takedown and, honestly, the advantages you get from that 1 extra mana are pretty good. I have no idea where you're coming from here.
Still, I look at the interactions between mechanics of other guilds like the Dimir and Golgari, or, to a lesser extent, the potentially aggressive alliance of the Boros and Selesnya cards and I can't help but see the weaker interactions of the Izzet with it's only pairable shared-color guilds (Boros an Dimir).
Undergrowth + Surveil isn't exactly a dream come true either, 'cuz a big chunk of the Surveil cards are Instant/Sorceries, and every noncreature you play makes Undergrowth worse. Boros and Selesnya doesn't seems that hot either, because Selesnya in Limited lacks any early-game pressure. I'm not saying that those don't work at all, but it's on par with Izzet+Dimir, and even Izzet+Boros seems just as viable as Selesnya+Golgari.
Surveiling them into the 'yard means you only get to use them once at the expense of another card. The most impactful Jump-start cards for limited are already typically overcosted by one mana, so only getting a single use at the cost of another potential resource seems underwhelming.
More options are always good. Just having a Jump-starter in your Graveyard is kinda like Surveiling unwanted cards to the Grave, in the sense that both provide no real advantage but they open up better options for you. Sure, Maximize Altitude is not a super exciting effect, but I'll glady take it instead of drawing a land that does nothing.
tl;dr: As a UR mage myself, I totally disagree. I think Izzet seems to be on a good spot, and while I do agree that Jump-start as a mechanic isn't that exciting, I still think that there are more than a few powerful cards for Izzet in Limited that assure that the Guild will do just fine.
I think Jump Start is actually very good in limited, if unexciting. You have to look at the psychographics.
Timmy wants to cast spells twice, that will satisfy them, and surveilling into the graveyard feels like a waste. But Johnny would love to get a spell to where they can use it with surveil. Johnny also love the way it increases your instant/sorcery interactions without needing more cards.
Spike on the other hand.. would use it in a different way.
Jump start cards will round out your mana curve. Especially Radical Idea... it basically tacks cycling onto your high cost bombs, excess lands, or situational cards ). With enough Ideas/moderate jump start cards, you can really stretch the curves. I think some pros will do serious number crunching and I would not be surprised to see a pro-tour win with several radical ideas and a 'shocking at first glance' mana curve.
Also, jump start is great on situational cards if you get surveil. Maximize Altitude at the right time can flat out win games. Now 'the right time' is few and far between, but you can surveil away Maximize, or pitch it to another jump starter, and let it sit the graveyard until that 'right time' comes up.
Izzet's advantage in limited are far more subtle that you'd expect. I expect experts to be able to make some seriously powerful decks using jump start and if the format isn't lightning-fast, could see multiple Radical Ideas being key pieces in a very resilient and flexible machine.
The gold Common/Uncommon Instants and Sorceries beside Sizzle look bad, but the skeleton of Red removal and blue surveil creatures and card advantage looks pretty solid at the common/uncommon level.
Izzet looks pretty good in common/uncommon range. Overall red lacks efficient and all purpose burn spells like Lightning Strike and blue does not have any cheap counters either, so Izzet may feel a bit removal light.
However the host of spellslinger creatures is amazing, the best ever in any limited set. And the support for this gameplay is outstanding too: blue has unusually good draw spells, jump-start gives you extra casts and surveil let's you fix your draws and dump jump-start cards to keep the fuel going.
The power of Izzet is not in it's spells per see. It's in it's instant/sorcery spell matters creatures.
After having done 7 practice drafts now, I can assure you Izzet turns out to be one of the best in the format. Its actually a pretty fast deck and is probably the best boros check in the format (boros is very fast and probably just the flat out best archetype overall). It actually turns out that dimir is pretty much the worst. Probably due to having almost no finishers in the black common and uncommon slot and bad common fliers in black as well in a fast format. Also, the common surveil payoffs are VERY underwhelming in practice. Izzet turns out to have a lot of great tools to out tempo boros and still outspeed the other decks. It's really good.
^
Sort of agree with this. Between Boros and Izzet the format looks pretty fast. LSV in his reviews correctly anticipated that the many low power/high toughness blockers the Dimir and Golgari rely on underperforms horribly vs. Mentors. So I feel the controllish black decks are over reliant on removal which is very scarce as both blue/green are weaker on the removal side. So I feel Dimir and Golgari are good but very shallow.
There's quite some time we have a draft with this sort of annoying imbalance, so I will give WotC the benefit of the doubt and guess people are overdrafting Dimir and underdrafting Izzet because of this "jumpstart is over costed" nonsense.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Standard - Serious BGU Control R Aggro
Standard - For Fun BG Auras
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I'm an Izzet mage throug-and-through, but I recognize the guild's typically weak representation in limited. Every single Ravnica block, you have to rely on the creatures and spells of the other guilds and relegate your Izzet cards to support. Once again, the Izzet creatures that would potentially be the most effective in limited are hampered by a strict mana cost or strict reliance on mostly over-costed instants and sorceries.
Izzet-aligned "removal" is mostly manifested to low damage burn. Yes, it can team up with other abilities, but relying on multiple interactions is a risky proposition in limited.
Will I still try to force a mostly Izzet build at prerelease? Absolutely! My fanboy-ism is strong.
Still, I look at the interactions between mechanics of other guilds like the Dimir and Golgari, or, to a lesser extent, the potentially aggressive alliance of the Boros and Selesnya cards and I can't help but see the weaker interactions of the Izzet with it's only pairable shared-color guilds (Boros an Dimir).
Mentor only occasionally helps Izzet creatures and Surveil can put jump-start cards into graveyard, but isn't the selling point of jumpstart the fact you can use them twice? Surveiling them into the 'yard means you only get to use them once at the expense of another card. The most impactful Jump-start cards for limited are already typically overcosted by one mana, so only getting a single use at the cost of another potential resource seems underwhelming.
Maybe I am completely wrong in my analysis after the first look at the full set. Still, I feel a bit disappointed as an Izzet to see my potential at the prerelease.
What are everyone else's thoughts?
COMMANDER DECKS
Gishath, Sun's Avatar
Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind
Surrak Presents: Snow-where to Run (A Temur Production)
Zurgo - Mardu Warrior Tribal
Gisa and Geralf
Jhoira's Artifacts
Hypothesizzle is one of, if not the best Common removal I've seen in long time. It's Instant speed, it cantrips and it's versatile. It's on par with the Dimir removal spell, Artful Takedown and, honestly, the advantages you get from that 1 extra mana are pretty good. I have no idea where you're coming from here.
Undergrowth + Surveil isn't exactly a dream come true either, 'cuz a big chunk of the Surveil cards are Instant/Sorceries, and every noncreature you play makes Undergrowth worse. Boros and Selesnya doesn't seems that hot either, because Selesnya in Limited lacks any early-game pressure. I'm not saying that those don't work at all, but it's on par with Izzet+Dimir, and even Izzet+Boros seems just as viable as Selesnya+Golgari.
More options are always good. Just having a Jump-starter in your Graveyard is kinda like Surveiling unwanted cards to the Grave, in the sense that both provide no real advantage but they open up better options for you. Sure, Maximize Altitude is not a super exciting effect, but I'll glady take it instead of drawing a land that does nothing.
tl;dr: As a UR mage myself, I totally disagree. I think Izzet seems to be on a good spot, and while I do agree that Jump-start as a mechanic isn't that exciting, I still think that there are more than a few powerful cards for Izzet in Limited that assure that the Guild will do just fine.
Timmy wants to cast spells twice, that will satisfy them, and surveilling into the graveyard feels like a waste. But Johnny would love to get a spell to where they can use it with surveil. Johnny also love the way it increases your instant/sorcery interactions without needing more cards.
Spike on the other hand.. would use it in a different way.
Jump start cards will round out your mana curve. Especially Radical Idea... it basically tacks cycling onto your high cost bombs, excess lands, or situational cards ). With enough Ideas/moderate jump start cards, you can really stretch the curves. I think some pros will do serious number crunching and I would not be surprised to see a pro-tour win with several radical ideas and a 'shocking at first glance' mana curve.
Also, jump start is great on situational cards if you get surveil. Maximize Altitude at the right time can flat out win games. Now 'the right time' is few and far between, but you can surveil away Maximize, or pitch it to another jump starter, and let it sit the graveyard until that 'right time' comes up.
Izzet's advantage in limited are far more subtle that you'd expect. I expect experts to be able to make some seriously powerful decks using jump start and if the format isn't lightning-fast, could see multiple Radical Ideas being key pieces in a very resilient and flexible machine.
The gold Common/Uncommon Instants and Sorceries beside Sizzle look bad, but the skeleton of Red removal and blue surveil creatures and card advantage looks pretty solid at the common/uncommon level.
I think it's just you.
Izzet looks pretty good in common/uncommon range. Overall red lacks efficient and all purpose burn spells like Lightning Strike and blue does not have any cheap counters either, so Izzet may feel a bit removal light.
However the host of spellslinger creatures is amazing, the best ever in any limited set. And the support for this gameplay is outstanding too: blue has unusually good draw spells, jump-start gives you extra casts and surveil let's you fix your draws and dump jump-start cards to keep the fuel going.
The power of Izzet is not in it's spells per see. It's in it's instant/sorcery spell matters creatures.
BGU Control
R Aggro
Standard - For Fun
BG Auras
Sort of agree with this. Between Boros and Izzet the format looks pretty fast. LSV in his reviews correctly anticipated that the many low power/high toughness blockers the Dimir and Golgari rely on underperforms horribly vs. Mentors. So I feel the controllish black decks are over reliant on removal which is very scarce as both blue/green are weaker on the removal side. So I feel Dimir and Golgari are good but very shallow.
There's quite some time we have a draft with this sort of annoying imbalance, so I will give WotC the benefit of the doubt and guess people are overdrafting Dimir and underdrafting Izzet because of this "jumpstart is over costed" nonsense.
BGU Control
R Aggro
Standard - For Fun
BG Auras