I have been so caught up in the strength of prowess dorks, triggers and enablers in the Izzet tempo builds I totally overlooked the fact that you can do other things and still have a great deck. I have been itching to play with the new Curse of Opulence and figured this kind of deck would be one of the best places to try it out in. I got the deck shown below in a sealed pool. I had good cards but I had nothing prowess related. The deck performed like a dream. It had great tempo, great control and great options. My pool had loads of Preordain style cards that normally get thrown into the prowess builds but I just didn't need them for this build as they were not empowering much of anything. That makes the deck better at gaining the tempo lead as your mana is not being used to gain card quality, your hand has more action in it in the place of the card quality spells and so you don't need to go digging for it as much. I did have a very good mana base with Volcanic Island, some other good UR duals and four sac lands to ensure I would have all my colours. Often Izzet prowess decks will lean on card quality spells to make up for a slightly shaky mana base. Had this deck had a shaky mana base it would have been a lot lot worse and trying to fix it with card quality would also hurt it. This list is notably more heavy red unlike prowess builds which are generally more 50/50. This was reflected in my mana base and also helped the consistency of the deck overall.
25 Spells
Bloodlust Inciter
Zurgo Bellstriker
Lightning Berserker
Falkenrath Gorger
Cloudfin Raptor
Satyr Firedrinker
Grim Lavamancer
Curse of Opulence
Pillar of Flame
Galvanic Blast
Spell Pierce
Gitaxian Probe
Grenzo, Havoc Raiser
Battlefield Scavenger
Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
Harsh Mentor
Fire / Ice
Incinerate
Unsubstantiate
Goblin Rabblemaster
True Name Nemesis
Dack Fayden
Nimble Obstructionist
Ahn-Crop Crasher
Thundermaw Hellkite
15 Lands
Curse of Opulence was a real winner in this list but that alone is not enough to secure a cube place. It will need to perform well in other places as well and I am not so sure it will manage. Quite a lot of subtle things went into making the Curse as good as possible in this build. One big issue with the Curse cycle is that you need to attack the player making planeswalkers even more tedious than usual. I found myself forgoing planeswalker attacks just to get my Lotus Petals. I hand't initially appreciate that limitation of the cycle and I suspect it will be a bit of a barrier for them in cube. Curse was a turn two play ideally and significantly out performed Birds of Paradise when I had it in my openers. I had imagined using it with prowess stuff as it is a trigger and allows for more burst turns so it came as a nice surprise to have it work outside of that in a somewhat new style of deck.
Drawing mana producers late is usually bad. Green makes up for it by having redundancy in ramp and then generally increasing power and cost in the remaining cards. Izzet can solve the issue much more easily with looting and card quality. Without the prowess theme however I didn't want to go over board on such things and instead included a Thundermaw as a nod to the green solution of having a bit more top end. I also included far more mana sink cards than usual. Both the one drops with firebreathing effects were really good in this list and could attack far more readily than usual with a surplus of Lotus Petals ready to empower them.
Grenzo was another surprising winner in this list. He and the Curse work very well with evasive dorks and the ability to play spells you find with Grenzo using your Lotus Petals. Early game I was using my Petals, or Gold as they are actually called, to curve out optimally while also disrupting the opponent. Sometimes I would cast a three drop on turn 3 and then also burn something out of the way. Sometimes I would leave up a Gold to cast a Spell Pierce if needed. Later on Grenzo is an ideal mana sink and is rather scary to play against. Having three things exiled from your library is horrible as we know from Ashiok and having your own stuff thrown back at you is devastating as we know from Gonti. Goad is also quite useful for forcing through attacks!
Rabblemaster was also good for empowering the Curse with its somewhat disposable tokens. Even cards like Cloudfin Raptor gained a little. I gave up a damage to lay a turn two Curse which got me a Gold right away with my 0/1 flying attack which I then used to make a two drop. That damage lost felt worth the increased convenience of casting things on the following turn with my Curse already down. Bloodlust Inciter was another card I felt stood out in this list. Given I was red I had an unusually low count of haste dorks. The combination of Inciter with a couple of dash creatures was great. It gave me loads of options on how I wanted to attack and commit to the board. It meant I had the option on haste effect when I didn't have the Inciter while not greatly reducing its value when I did. The Inciter just allowed for much greater freedom in getting attacks in. It turns out that when you focus on empowering Curse you actually focus on a deck that is good at attacking which is a direct way to win. Despite only having one Curse and lots of support for it that support was not at all wasted in that it allowed my aggressive creature deck to get in the damage. Crop Crasher is another card that helps with getting attacks in on several fronts as is the classic Fire / Ice.
Having played around with this deck it seemed like it was easily as good as the prowess versions. It is like Anthem white weenie and equipment white weenie. Both are good, both use many of the same core cards and principles but they use different support and synergy cards outside of that core. Both are great top tier versions of a top tier archetype and are generally pretty similar. They will have some different strengths and weaknesses but mostly it is about what cards you see and how you can use what you have to make the best possible deck. Knowing this non-prowess route is not just viable but actually very strong will help me draft and build better in future. Below is a better example list of how I would like such a deck to look. It is just a more polished version with a little more focus on synergies. I think I was pretty lucky in my sealed pool as there is quite substantial overlap between what I got and what seems roughly the way to go with this deck.
25 Spells
Bloodlust Inciter
Zurgo Bellstriker
Lightning Berserker
Stomkirk Noble
Cloudfin Raptor
Satyr Firedrinker
Bomat Courier
Curse of Opulence
Pillar of Flame
Galvanic Blast
Spell Pierce
Grenzo, Havoc Raiser
Kari Zev, Skyship Raider
Looter il-Kor
Earthshaker Khenra
Fire / Ice
Smuggler's Copter
Unsubstantiate
Abrade
Censor
Goblin Rabblemaster
Pia Nalaar
Nimble Obstructionist
Territorial Hellkite
Chandra, Pyromaster
15 Lands
This list probably has lower powered cards in it with cuts like Dack Fayden and True Name but I think it will run a lot smoother overall. Chandra could really be any planeswalker. She has a good value and mana dump in her zero and the +1 is spot on for what you want to be doing. Most of the good walkers you could play will be able to find gas for you to spend your mana on and most can also help with getting things out of the way. Finding room for another walker might be a good idea.
Censor was a pretty direct replacement for the Gitaxian Probe. While the information was lovely there was little bonus value from prowess triggers and I felt like Censor would offer more overall. The value of counter magic as disruption shoots up in tempo decks when you can use it alongside curving out. Typically this has meant Force of Will, Daze and sometimes one mana counter magic getting the slots. With Treasure tokens however you can attack your Satyr Firedrinker into their 4 toughness dork and they won't block so you won't need to spend your 4 mana. Then you can cast a 3 drop and still have two Treasure left up to Censor something. You might not have it but they have to respect that you might if they are making life or death plays, especially if they know you have it in your deck/pool. I particularly like both Censor and Unsubstantiate in this deck as they have alternate options should they not be useful as counter magic and they are that much more playable than usual in this list despite being two mana cards. Nimble Obstructionist somewhat falls into this category as well. It is either like a counterspell or an actual threat. The flash gives it a kind of pseudo haste which is nice and again, doesn't depower the Inciter. Evasive threats are nice and single blue makes this much more appealing that the more powerful but less versatile Clique and True Name.
This list has a little more ways than my sealed deck list to force through damage, both evasive dorks and cards that help out the dorks, it is a little more rounded in its ability to disrupt and remove things and it has more late game gas despite having a lower curve. I highly recommend playing a deck like this. It was probably the most fun I have had with an aggro deck in the draft cube in some years. Card quality is great and all but it turns out more mana is more fun and leads to more meaningful options.
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