About a week ago I was trying to go to sleep when a thought hit me: Dragonstorm combo deck. I had played in my local FNM that night and a friend of mine played Dragonstorm. It wasn't so much the Dragonstorm combo that caught my eye. It was the card Rite of Flame. Thinking about that card brought back memories of a recently phased out combo deck: The Izzet Guildmage combo deck from Pre-Time Spiral rotation. Dragonstorm can win on turn one with the right combination of cards. So can my new Izzet combo deck. And to top it off, my combo deck can get around Circle of Protection: Red, which makes a Dragonstorm deck cry when it hits the board. Here is my Izzet Combo deck:

Izzet V2006

Land (22):
10 Island
10 Mountain
2 Shivan Reef

Spells (34):
4 Train of Thought
4 Compulsive Research
4 Mana Leak
4 Telling Time
2 Gigadrowse
4 Electrolyze
4 Demonfire
4 Volcanic Hammer
4 Rite of Flame

Creatures (4):
4 Izzet Guildmage

To start, I only used cards I had to build this deck. Replacing 3 Mountains and 3 Islands with 2 Shivan Reef and 4 Steam Vents would help greatly.

The idea behind the combo is to get the Izzet Guildmage in play, cast Rites of Flame (either 3 times or have 2 in your graveyard and cast the third), then use the guildmage to copy the Rites getting more mana added to your mana pool. When you have infinite amounts of mana you can cast Volcanic Hammer, copying it hundreds of times to get around COP: Red, or cast Demonfire with hellbent.

Gigadrowse and Mana Leak are in there to protect your combo either against Blue control or decks with White that may be playing Angel's Grace.

Electrolyze is used to get a card deeper into your deck and help prevent some early damage to allow you the extra turns to set up the combo. I may switch it with Grapeshot if I run into lots of control.

Compulsive Research helps get the combo faster.

Train of Thought can help get you the combo pieces by allowing you to draw every card in your deck.

Telling Time I have thought of replacing with Sleight of Hand to allow you to combo with it like the Train of Thought but Telling Time in the early game allows you to get 1 card deeper into you deck.

I know that if this deck is a worthwhile deck that either there will be many posts of criticism about it or a lot of positive talk. If anyone out there would like to form a play test group or a deck designing group contact me. I would like to form a small group of people (under 20) to come up with competitive and fun decks that are not ´´net-decks´´.

Here is the ideal hand for a turn one win: 4 Rites of Flame, 1 Mountain, 1 Izzet Guildmage, 1 Volcanic Hammer or Demonfire:

Cast Rites of Flame 1 for RR. Use one R to cast Rites of Flame 2 to get to RRRR in Mana Pool. Cast Izzet Guildmage for RR. RR left in Mana Pool. Cast Rites 3 to go up to RRRRR into Mana Pool. Cast last Rites adding a copy of the 4th Rites netting RR every time you copy it. Eventually you will have millions of mana to cast your burn spell with many copies of it on the stack.

I would like to have a vote as to the content of my next article. Here are the options you can vote on using the message boards:

1: My take on the top 5 commons of each color from Time Spiral.
2: A Competitive Type 2 Deck based around Squire and Moonlace.
3: Green White Stompy for a beginner.
4: Heroes can fly in Time Spiral.

Voting will run from November 21st until November 25th. One vote per person please.


Billy Moreau
[email protected]