Standard: Izzet Lessons - Deck Tech & Sideboard Guide

Izzet Lessons has solidified itself as the deck to beat after the release of Avatar: The Last Airbender. The archetype is a sort of Combo-Control, using the graveyard and looting effects to combine Accumulate Wisdom and Gran-Gran for card advantage, coupled with the Monument to Endurance and Artist's Talent engine as a win condition.

This list follows practically the same template used by Seth Manfield to win World Championship 31, with almost no changes other than including a second Broadside Barrage in place of Abandon Attachments in the Sideboard for redundancy.

The Lessons maindeck is, in general, rigid due to the mechanic introduced in Avatar and therefore doesn't have much room for innovation, but the Sideboard offers a lot of variance, and we can have up to 15 different cards in it and still find them in every match because we draw so much and so frequently, so feel free to experiment with each slot.

Maindeck

Monument to Endurance is the backbone of this strategy. By turning looting effects into Lava Spikes, mana, or card advantage, the artifact becomes the perfect win condition and allows recovery from unfavorable matchups if we need to accelerate mana or find more resources. It enables the deck to survive critical situations against aggro and speed up the combo against control.

Artist's Talent is the selection engine and "combo" piece with Monument to Endurance. Its ability to reduce costs and filter the hand provides everything we need to ensure our resources keep flowing.

Stormchaser's Talent generates pressure. The Otters with Prowess are threats the opponent cannot ignore and/or expect to race in a list with so much removal. The card also benefits from interactions with Boomerang Basics.

Gran-Gran is the ideal one-drop. Its body protects against early-game beatdown, and its attack trigger enables Monument to Endurance, while it also functions as a cost reducer for our spells in the late game.

Accumulate Wisdom is the main reason to play this deck. With three Lessons in the graveyard, drawing three cards for just is a massive resource disparity against attrition decks, and if we have an Artist's Talent or Gran-Gran involved, it easily compares to an Ancestral Recall.

Firebending Lesson can be used as spot removal early and doesn't lose utility in most matchups as the game goes long, dealing with various creatures in the current Metagame.

Iroh's Demonstration is the ideal answer against Go Wide decks without losing utility against other archetypes and allows clearing boards full of tokens with the same slot that can also handle larger creatures.

Combustion Technique is our most effective removal as the game extends, without losing early-game flexibility. Also ideal for dealing with recurring threats or creatures with death triggers.

Abandon Attachments functions as the accelerator. It digs for answers or engines while putting the necessary lessons into the graveyard to activate the Accumulate Wisdom bonus or the Monument to Endurance trigger.

It'll Quench Ya! works as cheap protection for our key permanents and can punish opponents who try to be greedy with their mana curve.

Boomerang Basics offers cheap interaction and works as a cantrip with benefits in our list. It can stall the opponent's beatdown for a turn, provide "extra turns" against larger threats, and can also return Stormchaser's Talent or Monument to Endurance to hand, where it becomes a new object and can reuse all triggers.

Our dual land base focuses on having as many tapped lands as possible due to our demand to use our mana proactively in the early turns to set up our permanents.

Agna Qel'a avoids flooding by turning dead lands into discard fuel, providing another way to trigger Monument to Endurance in longer games.

Sideboard

Quantum Riddler comes in against most archetypes that try to generate more card advantage than us and/or have difficulty dealing with larger threats. Essential in the Mirror.

Soul-Guide Lantern comes in against Reanimator and in the mirror, providing a way to "lock" combos for a turn and prevent our opponent from extracting more value than us from Lessons.

Annul deals with problematic artifacts and enchantments in the current Metagame. An obvious inclusion against the mirror and Jeskai Artifacts, but also works against Prowess, Bounce, and Azorius Control. We complement it with Price of Freedom, a Lesson that replaces itself while dealing with those permanents on the board.

Broadside Barrage is our post-side "cannon" for removing large threats or Planeswalkers while interacting with our game plan.

Pyroclasm deals with go wide decks like Bant Airbending and Simic Aggro and also works against Mono Red and is a decent removal piece against Izzet Prowess. In some cases, it can work in the mirror against Stormchaser's Talent.

Torch the Tower is flexible removal against Airbending, Mono Red Aggro, and Simic Aggro and has a dozen decent targets against Dimir Midrange.

Abrade works very well in the mirror without losing utility against other archetypes, whether in less proactive games like Jeskai Artifacts or dealing with the opponent's two-drop against Aggro.

Negate offers protection in games where we need more stack interaction, and we complement it with Spell Pierce and It'll Quench Ya!, which have more conditional effects in exchange for more cost efficiency or breadth.

Izzet Looting

IN

OUT

Izzet Lessons

IN

OUT

Izzet Prowess

IN

OUT

Dimir Midrange

IN

OUT

Mono Red Aggro

IN

OUT

Jeskai Control

IN

OUT

Sultai Reanimator

IN

OUT

Bant Airbending

IN

OUT

Simic Aggro

IN

OUT

Selesnya Landfall

IN

OUT

That's all for today!

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

Thanks for reading!