Without a doubt one of the most popular decks in 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Magic: The Gathering's Pioneer format, Izzet (blue/red) Phoenix is know𝕴n for its plethora of damage-based removal, card draw, and flying threats. It's quite easy to draw half or more of your library when piloting this deck, and there's nothing Magic players love more than drawing cards.

On 💜second thought, they might like winning a tad more than drawing cards. Thankfully, Izzet Phoenix does both. Making the most of your Phoenixes is far from easy though, so here's a guide to help you burn through your library and the opponent's life total as efficiently as possible.

Sample Decklist

Key Cards

Arclight Phoenix

The namesake of the deck of course. You want to pitch as many of these as you can into your graveyard the first two turns of the game, then cast three spells on turn three and go to work. While that would be a♉ difficult task in most d𒁃ecks, Arclight has the benefit of playing an absurd amount of one-mana draw spells.

Believe it or not, hard casting one of these on turn four isn't the worst thing in the world either. Haste and flying make it so that this creature applies the kind of pressure that most decks can't combat in their mainboard. Even if your phoenixes do get removed, it's easy enough to bring them back the following turn thanks to all of your cheap draw spel𓆏ls.

Ledger Shredder

This is your secondary win condition if your opponent manages to exile some or all of your phoenixes. H🗹owever, Ledger Shredder does a lot more for this deck than just crack in for more flying damage. Connive triggers from this card provide a reliable outlet for discarding phoenixes, and the threat of a🍨ctivating more connive triggers can put opponents in a tough spot.

In matchups where your opponent is using 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:lots of removal, it can be worth it to hold onto your shredder until you can trigger its connive ability and put it out of lightning strike or cut down range. Your best opening hands will include a Ledger Shredder, and that alone sꩲpeaks to the power and importance of this creature.

You can cast instants while your Ledger Shredder's connive trigger is still on the stack. This allows you to dig even deeper into your de﷽ck, hopefully finding an Arclight Phoenix to discard to the shredder's connive ability once it finally resolves.

Picklock Prankster

While the creature side of this card isn't especially good, the adventure side does everything we want to be doing in this deck. Loading up your graveyardཧ fuels your delve spells, activates spell mastery for Fiery Impulse, and has a chance of placing phoenixes directly into the bin.

Seeing as this deck plays 29 instants and sorceries in the mainboard, the fact that you then get to add one of these card types to your hand basically makes this a better version of Glimpse the Future. It may seem tempting to sideboard this card out in certain matchups, but you should always keep it in. There's a reason we play four in the mainboard.

Consider / Sleight Of Hand / Opt

The cantrips that make this deck possible in the first place. Consider is the best of the lot thanks to the fact that itꦕ places a card in our graveyard. Opt and Sleight of Hand are mostly interchangeable, it just depends on the situation.

Opt ♛can be better to keep in your opening hand in game one assuming you're on the play and you don't already know what deckꦰ your opponent is playing. While Sleight of Hand gives better card selection, sorcery speed means you'll have to cast it on your turn before you see what colors of mana you're up against.

Lightning Axe

While clearly another outlet for discarding phoenixes, this is also your silver bullet for a menagerie of impressive creatures you're likely to face off against. The list of creatures that only Lightning Axe can deal with includes Sheoldred, the Apocalypse / Lier, Disciple of the Drowned / Knight-Errant of Eos / Esika's Chariot, and much more.

You may want to get phoenixes in the bin as soon as possible, but dropping a ✤💮Lightning Axe too early and losing your only method of dealing with one of these imposing creatures can easily cost you the game. Before you cast Lightning Axe on a smaller target, make sure you're not going to regret it.

How To Play Izzet Phoenix

As previously mentioned, the game plan is to load your graveyard with Arclight Phoenixes and then triple spell in a single turn to bring them back onto your battlefield. The best line for securing this goal is a cantrip on turn one, Ledger Shredder on turn two, ꧙and 🎉then three more cantrips on turn three.

However, this best-case scenario is hardly what will happen every game. More often than not, you'll be forced to remove an opposing creature instead of casting so many cantrips so early. After all, cards like Greasefang, Okiba Boss and Llanowar Elves demand an immediate answer ᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚif you don't want your opponent to run away with the game.

While this deck is named for Arclight Phoenix, a lot of the power of the build truly comes from Treasure Cruise. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Drawing three cards for a single mana is something you're supposed to only be able to do with Ancestral Reca🉐ll in Vintage. Even in that case, Vintage decks are restricted to a single copy.

With this in mind, it makes sense why Picklock Prankster is such꧅ an important addition to this deck. It allows you to cast Treasure Cruise for cheap much earlier than previous builds of this deck c༒ould achieve. It also makes it much more likely that you end up with a copy of Treasure Cruise in your hand.

It may seem odd that there's a single copy of Galvanic Iteration and Temporal Trespass in the mainboard. The inclusion of these cards gives you access to a surprise combo in game one. You ꦑwon'🧸t draw it often, but it's a game-ending effect when you do.

Sideboarding

Aside from silver bullets like Anger of the Gods, Mystical Dispute, and Aether Gust, the sideboard of Arclight Phoenix is home to even more threats for matchups where your opponents are packing a ton of removal as well as the ability to exile your phoenixes.

Bring these additional threats in against decks like Rakdos, Control builds, and the mirror. U𒀰sually, you'll want to replace your removal for these additional attackers. It's also worth mentioning that Temporal Trespass and Galvanic Iꦬteration will come out against all but the slowest of opponents as well as the mirror.

Closing Thoughts

Arclight Phoenix has been around in Pioneer ever since the format was first founded. With the release of cards like Picklock Prankster, it has only gotten better. This deck has a proven track record of getting the job done at the top of the metagame. If you're looking to get into Pioneer with a rotation-proof build, it's difficult♑ to recommend any other deckﷺ over Arclight Phoenix.