Standard: The Best Cards Against Izzet Cauldron

Standard has been polarizing. During Spotlight Series Orlando, Izzet Cauldron demonstrated why it's considered the best deck in the format by a wide margin: the archetype had the third-best conversion rate for Day 2 of the event despite being the metagame's "target," while also placing six copies in the Top 8, ten copies in the Top 16, and 21 copies in the Top 32.

At this point, it's clear that, no matter your archetype choice, Izzet Cauldron is likely a better deck, and you need to prepare to face it frequently during competitive tournaments. To help you find the best answers and, perhaps, the list that solves this format, we've listed the ten best cards and tools against Izzet Cauldron in the current Standard season, based on their presence in the Metagame combined with their effectiveness in dealing with or directly interacting with the archetype's game plan!

10 - Heritage Reclamation

Heritage Reclamation is a clean answer to Agatha's Soul Cauldron and Proft's Eidetic Memory that also removes cards from a graveyard while replenishing itself. This is essential for removing a Vivi Ornitier or disabling Delirium from Fear of Missing Out—another valid and relevant target for the destroy enchantment mode.

Its biggest weakness is that, despite these qualities, the card isn't a good maindeck tool, and green is a theoretically declining color in Standard today, making its usability relatively limited in the current metagame.

9 - Strategic Betrayal

Strategic Betrayal guarantees graveyard hate combined with board interaction in the same effect. The card is slowly becoming a four-of in the maindeck and sideboard for the various black-based Midrange on the current Standard. It's an effective answer that never goes useless during the match, but with the drawback of only working once per cast, allowing the opponent to replenish their resources in the graveyard and on the battlefield after resolution.

8 - Tishana's Tidebinder

Tishana's Tidebinder is a proactive creature that fits well into most blue archetypes in Standard today to counter some Izzet Cauldron lines. Its ETB can counter and permanently lock Agatha's Soul Cauldron while it remains in play and acts as a "surprise factor" for this matchup. Other relevant targets for its ability in this matchup are the extra combat from Fear of Missing Out, the +1/+1 counters from Proft's Eidetic Memory, and, in some cases, even the ETB from Tersa Lightshatter is a valid option.

As a bonus, a 3/2 body with Flash has other properties in combat and can even function as pseudo-removal and/or disrupt the opponent's damage math both when attacking and blocking.

7 - Ghost Vacuum

Ghost Vacuum is one of the best graveyard hates released in Magic: The Gathering and is present in almost every competitive format. After all, repeatedly exiling cards for just one mana tends to be enough to deal with most issues with these archetypes, and it also works against Cauldron to a certain extent.

Since exiling a card from the graveyard is not part of Agatha's Soul Cauldron's activation cost, but rather its resolution, we can exile Vivi Ornitier in response and remove the primary target the opponent would use to perform the combo. Still, they can always choose another creature as part of the effect's resolution, thus guaranteeing the +1/+1 counter on a creature of their choice. They can also play around with lines like discarding two Vivis or a Vivi and a Draconautics Engineer, forcing the opponent to make tougher choices than simply exiling the key card.

6 - Rest in Peace

While Strategic Betrayal has the problem of being a one-shot effect and Ghost Vacuum suffers from the possibility of the opponent playing around, Rest in Peace and Leyline of the Void offer a definitive answer to Agatha's Soul Cauldron that the opponent needs to resolve before making their combos.

However, Leyline of the Void doesn't fit as a top-ten answer to Izzet Cauldron because its cost is considerably high and makes cards like Spell Pierce even more punishing, and several archetypes that try to use it don't even have the means to cast it under normal circumstances.

Rest in Peace, on the other hand, has a cheap cost, exiles everything that falls into the graveyard before it enters, and is not as punishing if the opponent casts Into the Flood Maw. The problem is that this card does not interact at all with their "fair" gameplan, and just like against Ghost Vacuum, the opponent can play around and accumulate resources to bounce the enchantment and perform the combination of Vivi Ornitier with Soul Cauldron in the same turn.

5 - Clarion Conqueror

Clarion Conqueror permanently locks the activated abilities of Vivi Ornitier and Agatha's Soul Cauldron, forcing the opponent to play exclusively fair lines with Proft's Eidetic Memory. As a bonus, it's a creature with decent body and power, has evasion, and also locks the abilities of Planeswalkers like Kaito, Bane of Nightmares and Elspeth, Storm Slayer. As a creature, it's also a card that can enter the maindeck of some archetypes and maintain a proactive game plan.

Its biggest problem, however, is the possibility of easy interaction. Most Standard removal deals with Clarion Conqueror because every player is also trying to respond to Vivi Ornitier at instant speed, making it a viable but easy-to-deal with option, even for the same Cauldron decks we want to respond to.

4 - Annul

Annul is an unconditional, one-mana Counterspell to several of Izzet Cauldron's key cards: Agatha's Soul Cauldron itself, Fear of Missing Out, and Proft's Eidetic Memory. In theory, two of these can also be answered with Spell Pierce, but holding the deck with stack interaction automatically means prolonging the game, and therefore, this becomes one of the cheapest and most flexible ways to interact with all the cards that matter most in this matchup for the least amount of mana.

3 - Abrade & Suplex

Interactions that deal with artifacts while doing something else have become essential to dealing with the dominant archetype. Abrade and Suplex are currently the best in this category in Standard because they have a useful effect in other games without giving up the possibility of removing Agatha's Soul Cauldron in Game 1.

Abrade is the most reliable choice in most decks, as instant-speed interaction is better both inside and outside this matchup. Responding to a creature before Proft's Eidetic Memory triggers can ensure its survival for another turn, not to mention that responding to the activation of Agatha's Soul Cauldron prevents the opponent from gaining access to Vivi Ornitier's explosive mana.

However, Suplex has value against specific threats from other matchups: cards like Enduring Curiosity, Enduring Innocence, Unstoppable Slasher, and Mosswood Dreadknight have recursive abilities that make them a major headache, and being able to exile them with removal can be relevant in certain Metagames.

2 - Razorkin Needlehead

Izzet Cauldron draws many cards each turn. Its fair game plan basically involves using Proft's Eidetic Memory to turn its creatures into very powerful threats that accumulate on the board, while the quality of its hand only improves with Winternight Stories and Tersa Lightshatter, to find the good cards and discard the excess lands or useless spells.

Razorkin Needlehead severely punishes archetypes that draw plenty of cards, especially when paired with an aggressive clock, like Mono Red Aggro, a deck that stood out at Spotlight Series Orlando and had the best showing against Izzet Cauldron at the event. It was also the only strategy to reach the Top 8 other than the dominant deck.

The list below won the tournament and had an overall record of 11-2 against Izzet Cauldron.

1 - Agatha's Soul Cauldron

No matter how you look at it, the best tool for dealing with Cauldron is having your own copies of Agatha's Soul Cauldron, especially in an archetype that has some natural interaction with +1/+1 counters.

When each player has a Cauldron on the board, the Izzet must make an extra effort to execute their explosive turns with Vivi Ornitier without risking giving their opponent the chance to take their card for their own gain.

As a bonus, this artifact has some inherent advantages over other hates we've seen here: it's colorless, so it can play in any color combination; it boosts the power of your creatures, so it's technically never a dead card in the maindeck; and it's cheap and harder to interact with with traditional removal than creatures like Keen-Eyed Curator.

Perhaps the solution to Izzet Cauldron is to find other decks that can utilize its key card as well as it can, or better than it, not unlike when Grixis Shadow was born in Modern to combat Jund Shadow in 2017. The problem, however, is that everything indicates that the best deck with Cauldron is in the combination , culminating in the best deck against Izzet Cauldron being the Izzet Cauldron itself.

That's all for today!

If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment!

Thanks for reading!